Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

Ursus, perceiving that Tom-Jim-Jack did not return, was troubled by his
absence. He had not seen Tom-Jim-Jack since the day on which he had
driven off in the same carriage with the lady of the gold piece. It was,
indeed, an enigma who this Tom-Jim-Jack could be, who carried off
duchesses under his arm. What an interesting investigation! What
questions to propound! What things to be said. Therefore Ursus said not
a word.
Ursus, who had had experience, knew the smart caused by rash curiosity.
Curiosity ought always to be proportioned to the curious. By listening,
we risk our ear; by watching, we risk our eye. Prudent people neither
hear nor see. Tom-Jim-Jack had got into a princely carriage. The
tavern-keeper had seen him. It appeared so extraordinary that the sailor
should sit by the lady that it made Ursus circumspect. The caprices of
those in high life ought to be sacred to the lower orders. The reptiles
called the poor had best squat in their holes when they see anything out
of the way. Quiescence is a power. Shut your eyes, if you have not the
luck to be blind; stop up your ears, if you have not the good fortune to
be deaf; paralyze your tongue, if you have not the perfection of being
mute. The great do what they like, the little what they can. Let the
unknown pass unnoticed. Do not importune mythology. Do not interrogate
appearances. Have a profound respect for idols. Do not let us direct our
gossiping towards the lessenings or increasings which take place in
superior regions, of the motives of which we are ignorant. Such things
are mostly optical delusions to us inferior creatures. Metamorphoses are
the business of the gods: the transformations and the contingent
disorders of great persons who float above us are clouds impossible to
comprehend and perilous to study. Too much attention irritates the
Olympians engaged in their gyrations of amusement or fancy; and a
thunderbolt may teach you that the bull you are too curiously examining
is Jupiter. Do not lift the folds of the stone-coloured mantles of those
terrible powers. Indifference is intelligence. Do not stir, and you will
be safe. Feign death, and they will not kill you. Therein lies the
wisdom of the insect. Ursus practised it.
The tavern-keeper, who was puzzled as well, questioned Ursus one day.
"Do you observe that Tom-Jim-Jack never comes here now!"
"Indeed!" said Ursus. "I have not remarked it."
Master Nicless made an observation in an undertone, no doubt touching
the intimacy between the ducal carriage and Tom-Jim-Jack--a remark
which, as it might have been irreverent and dangerous, Ursus took care
not to hear.
Still Ursus was too much of an artist not to regret Tom-Jim-Jack. He
felt some disappointment. He told his feeling to Homo, of whose
discretion alone he felt certain. He whispered into the ear of the wolf,
"Since Tom-Jim-Jack ceased to come, I feel a blank as a man, and a chill
as a poet." This pouring out of his heart to a friend relieved Ursus.
His lips were sealed before Gwynplaine, who, however, made no allusion
to Tom-Jim-Jack. The fact was that Tom-Jim-Jack's presence or absence
mattered not to Gwynplaine, absorbed as he was in Dea.