The Man Who Laughs
Copyright© 2025 by Victor Hugo
Chapter 5: STATE POLICY DEALS WITH LITTLE MATTERS AS WELL AS WITH GREAT
Ursus, alas! had boasted that he had never wept. His reservoir of tears was full. Such plentitude as is accumulated drop on drop, sorrow on sorrow, through a long existence, is not to be poured out in a moment. Ursus wept alone.
The first tear is a letting out of waters. He wept for Gwynplaine, for Dea, for himself, Ursus, for Homo. He wept like a child. He wept like an old man. He wept for everything at which he had ever laughed. He paid off arrears. Man is never nonsuited when he pleads his right to tears.
The corpse they had just buried was Hardquanonne’s; but Ursus could not know that.
The hours crept on.
Day began to break. The pale clothing of the morning was spread out, dimly creased with shadow, over the bowling-green. The dawn lighted up the front of the Tadcaster Inn. Master Nicless had not gone to bed, because sometimes the same occurrence produces sleeplessness in many.
Troubles radiate in every direction. Throw a stone in the water, and count the splashes.
Master Nicless felt himself impeached. It is very disagreeable that such things should happen in one’s house. Master Nicless, uneasy, and foreseeing misfortunes, meditated. He regretted having received such people into his house. Had he but known that they would end by getting him into mischief! But the question was how to get rid of them? He had given Ursus a lease. What a blessing if he could free himself from it! How should he set to work to drive them out?
Suddenly the door of the inn resounded with one of those tumultuous knocks which in England announces “Somebody.” The gamut of knocking corresponds with the ladder of hierarchy.
It was not quite the knock of a lord; but it was the knock of a justice.
The trembling innkeeper half opened his window. There was, indeed, the magistrate. Master Nicless perceived at the door a body of police, from the head of which two men detached themselves, one of whom was the justice of the quorum.
Master Nicless had seen the justice of the quorum that morning, and recognized him.
He did not know the other, who was a fat gentleman, with a waxen-coloured face, a fashionable wig, and a travelling cloak. Nicless was much afraid of the first of these persons, the justice of the quorum. Had he been of the court, he would have feared the other most, because it was Barkilphedro.
One of the subordinates knocked at the door again violently.
The innkeeper, with great drops of perspiration on his brow, from anxiety, opened it.
The justice of the quorum, in the tone of a man who is employed in matters of police, and who is well acquainted with various shades of vagrancy, raised his voice, and asked, severely, for
“Master Ursus!”
The host, cap in hand, replied, —
“Your honour; he lives here.”
“I know it,” said the justice.
“No doubt, your honour.”
“Tell him to come down.”
“Your honour, he is not here.”
“Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
“How is that?”
“He has not come in.”
“Then he must have gone out very early?”
“No; but he went out very late.”
“What vagabonds!” replied the justice.
“Your honour,” said Master Nicless, softly, “here he comes.”
Ursus, indeed, had just come in sight, round a turn of the wall. He was returning to the inn. He had passed nearly the whole night between the jail, where at midday he had seen Gwynplaine, and the cemetery, where at midnight he had heard the grave filled up. He was pallid with two pallors—that of sorrow and of twilight.
Dawn, which is light in a chrysalis state, leaves even those forms which are in movement in the uncertainty of night. Ursus, wan and indistinct, walked slowly, like a man in a dream. In the wild distraction produced by agony of mind, he had left the inn with his head bare. He had not even found out that he had no hat on. His spare, gray locks fluttered in the wind. His open eyes appeared sightless. Often when awake we are asleep, and as often when asleep we are awake.
Ursus looked like a lunatic.
“Master Ursus,” cried the innkeeper, “come; their honours desire to speak to you.”
Master Nicless, in his endeavour to soften matters down, let slip, although he would gladly have omitted, this plural, “their honours”—respectful to the group, but mortifying, perhaps, to the chief, confounded therein, to some degree, with his subordinates.
Ursus started like a man falling off a bed, on which he was sound asleep.
“What is the matter?” said he.
He saw the police, and at the head of the police the justice. A fresh and rude shock.
But a short time ago, the wapentake, now the justice of the quorum. He seemed to have been cast from one to the other, as ships by some reefs of which we have read in old stories.
The justice of the quorum made him a sign to enter the tavern. Ursus obeyed.
Govicum, who had just got up, and who was sweeping the room, stopped his work, got into a corner behind the tables, put down his broom, and held his breath. He plunged his fingers into his hair, and scratched his head, a symptom which indicated attention to what was about to occur.
The justice of the quorum sat down on a form, before a table. Barkilphedro took a chair. Ursus and Master Nicless remained standing. The police officers, left outside, grouped themselves in front of the closed door.
The justice of the quorum fixed his eye, full of the law, upon Ursus. He said, —
“You have a wolf.”
Ursus answered, —
“Not exactly.”
“You have a wolf,” continued the justice, emphasizing “wolf” with a decided accent.
Ursus answered, —
“You see—”
And he was silent.
“A misdemeanour!” replied the justice.
Ursus hazarded an excuse, —
“He is my servant.”
The justice placed his hand flat on the table, with his fingers spread out, which is a very fine gesture of authority.
“Merry-andrew! to-morrow, by this hour, you and your wolf must have left England. If not, the wolf will be seized, carried to the register office, and killed.”
Ursus thought, “More murder!” but he breathed not a syllable, and was satisfied with trembling in every limb.
“You hear?” said the justice.
Ursus nodded.
The justice persisted, —
“Killed.”
There was silence.
“Strangled, or drowned.”
The justice of the quorum watched Ursus.
“And yourself in prison.”
Ursus murmured, —
“Your worship!”
“Be off before to-morrow morning; if not, such is the order.”
“Your worship!”
“What?”
“Must we leave England, he and I?”
“Yes.”
“To-day?”
“To-day.”
“What is to be done?”
Master Nicless was happy. The magistrate, whom he had feared, had come to his aid. The police had acted as auxiliary to him, Nicless. They had delivered him from “such people.” The means he had sought were brought to him. Ursus, whom he wanted to get rid of, was being driven away by the police, a superior authority. Nothing to object to. He was delighted. He interrupted, —
“Your honour, that man—”
He pointed to Ursus with his finger.
“That man wants to know how he is to leave England to-day. Nothing can be easier. There are night and day at anchor on the Thames, both on this and on the other side of London Bridge, vessels that sail to the Continent. They go from England to Denmark, to Holland, to Spain; not to France, on account of the war, but everywhere else. To-night several ships will sail, about one o’clock in the morning, which is the hour of high tide, and, amongst others, the Vograat of Rotterdam.”
The justice of the quorum made a movement of his shoulder towards Ursus.
“Be it so. Leave by the first ship—by the Vograat.”
“Your worship,” said Ursus.
“Well?”
“Your worship, if I had, as formerly, only my little box on wheels, it might be done. A boat would contain that; but—”
“But what?”
“But now I have got the Green Box, which is a great caravan drawn by two horses, and however wide the ship might be, we could not get it into her.”
“What is that to me?” said the justice. “The wolf will be killed.”
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