Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

"Mea culpa!"
"Asi sea!"
"Aro raï!"
"Amen!"
It was as though the sombre voices of Babel were scattered through the
shadows as Heaven uttered its awful refusal to hear them.
The doctor turned away from his companions in crime and distress, and
took a few steps towards the gunwale. Reaching the side, he looked into
space, and said, in a deep voice,--
"Bist du bei mir?"[8]
Perchance he was addressing some phantom.
The wreck was sinking.
Behind the doctor all the others were in a dream. Prayer mastered them
by main force. They did not bow, they were bent. There was something
involuntary in their condition; they wavered as a sail flaps when the
breeze fails. And the haggard group took by degrees, with clasping of
hands and prostration of foreheads, attitudes various, yet of
humiliation. Some strange reflection of the deep seemed to soften their
villainous features.
The doctor returned towards them. Whatever had been his past, the old
man was great in the presence of the catastrophe.
The deep reserve of nature which enveloped him preoccupied without
disconcerting him. He was not one to be taken unawares. Over him was the
calm of a silent horror: on his countenance the majesty of God's will
comprehended.
This old and thoughtful outlaw unconsciously assumed the air of a
pontiff.
He said,--
"Attend to me."
He contemplated for a moment the waste of water, and added,--
"Now we are going to die."
Then he took the torch from the hands of Ave Maria, and waved it.
A spark broke from it and flew into the night.
Then the doctor cast the torch into the sea.
The torch was extinguished: all light disappeared. Nothing left but the
huge, unfathomable shadow. It was like the filling up of the grave.