The Man Who Laughs
Copyright© 2025 by Victor Hugo
Chapter 4: NAY; ON HIGH!
Suddenly Dea, disengaging herself from Gwynplaine’s embrace, arose. She pressed both her hands against her heart, as if to still its throbbings.
“What is wrong with me?” said she. “There is something the matter. Joy is suffocating. No, it is nothing! That is lucky. Your reappearance, O my Gwynplaine, has given me a blow—a blow of happiness. All this heaven of joy which you have put into my heart has intoxicated me. You being absent, I felt myself dying. The true life which was leaving me you have brought back. I felt as if something was being torn away within me. It is the shadows that have been torn away, and I feel life dawn in my brain—a glowing life, a life of fever and delight. This life which you have just given me is wonderful. It is so heavenly that it makes me suffer somewhat. It seems as though my soul is enlarged, and can scarcely be contained in my body. This life of seraphim, this plenitude, flows into my brain and penetrates it. I feel like a beating of wings within my breast. I feel strangely, but happy. Gwynplaine, you have been my resurrection.”
She flushed, became pale, then flushed again, and fell.
“Alas!” said Ursus, “you have killed her.”
Gwynplaine stretched his arms towards Dea. Extremity of anguish coming upon extremity of ecstasy, what a shock! He would himself have fallen, had he not had to support her.
“Dea!” he cried, shuddering, “what is the matter?”
“Nothing,” said she—”I love you!”
She lay in his arms, lifeless, like a piece of linen; her hands were hanging down helplessly.
Gwynplaine and Ursus placed Dea on the mattress. She said, feebly, —
“I cannot breathe lying down.”
They lifted her up.
Ursus said, —
“Fetch a pillow.”
She replied, —
“What for? I have Gwynplaine!”
She laid her head on Gwynplaine’s shoulder, who was sitting behind, and supporting her, his eyes wild with grief.
“Oh,” said she, “how happy I am!”
Ursus took her wrist, and counted the pulsation of the artery. He did not shake his head. He said nothing, nor expressed his thought except by the rapid movement of his eyelids, which were opening and closing convulsively, as if to prevent a flood of tears from bursting out.
“What is the matter?” asked Gwynplaine.
Ursus placed his ear against Dea’s left side.
Gwynplaine repeated his question eagerly, fearful of the answer.
Ursus looked at Gwynplaine, then at Dea. He was livid. He said, —
“We ought to be parallel with Canterbury. The distance from here to Gravesend cannot be very great. We shall have fine weather all night. We need fear no attack at sea, because the fleets are all on the coast of Spain. We shall have a good passage.”
Dea, bent, and growing paler and paler, clutched her robe convulsively. She heaved a sigh of inexpressible sadness, and murmured, —
“I know what this is. I am dying!”
Gwynplaine rose in terror. Ursus held Dea.
“Die! You die! No; it shall not be! You cannot die! Die now! Die at once! It is impossible! God is not ferociously cruel—to give you and to take you back in the same moment. No; such a thing cannot be. It would make one doubt in Him. Then, indeed, would everything be a snare—the earth, the sky, the cradles of infants, the human heart, love, the stars. God would be a traitor and man a dupe. There would be nothing in which to believe. It would be an insult to the creation. Everything would be an abyss. You know not what you say, Dea. You shall live! I command you to live! You must obey me! I am your husband and your master; I forbid you to leave me! O heavens! O wretched Man! No, it cannot be—I to remain in the world after you! Why, it is as monstrous as that there should be no sun! Dea! Dea! recover! It is but a moment of passing pain. One feels a shudder at times, and thinks no more about it. It is absolutely necessary that you should get well and cease to suffer. You die! What have I done to you? The very thought of it drives me mad. We belong to each other, and we love each other. You have no reason for going! It would be unjust! Have I committed crimes? Besides, you have forgiven me. Oh, you would not make me desperate—have me become a villain, a madman, drive me to perdition? Dea, I entreat you! I conjure you! I supplicate you! Do not die!”
And clenching his hands in his hair, agonized with fear, stifled with tears, he threw himself at her feet.
“My Gwynplaine,” said Dea, “it is no fault of mine.”
There then rose to her lips a red froth, which Ursus wiped away with the fold of her robe, before Gwynplaine, who was prostrate at her feet, could see it.
Gwynplaine took her feet in his hands, and implored her in all kinds of confused words.
“I tell you, I will not have it! You die? I have no strength left to bear it. Die? Yes; but both of us together—not otherwise. You die, my Dea? I will never consent to it! My divinity, my love! Do you understand that I am with you? I swear that you shall live! Oh, but you cannot have thought what would become of me after you were gone. If you had an idea of the necessity which you are to me, you would see that it is absolutely impossible! Dea! you see I have but you! The most extraordinary things have happened to me. You will hardly believe that I have just explored the whole of life in a few hours! I have found out one thing—that there is nothing in it! You exist! if you did not, the universe would have no meaning. Stay with me! Have pity on me! Since you love me, live on! If I have just found you again, it is to keep you. Wait a little longer; you cannot leave me like this, now that we have been together but a few minutes! Do not be impatient! O Heaven, how I suffer! You are not angry with me, are you? You know that I could not help going when the wapentake came for me. You will breathe more easily presently, you will see. Dea, all has been put right. We are going to be happy. Do not drive me to despair, Dea! I have done nothing to you.”