The Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869)/Chapter 61
CHAPTER IV.
CONTRARIES FRATERNIZE IN HATE.
THE success of others is odious in the sight of those whom it injures. The eaten rarely adore the eaters.
The Laughing Man had made a decided hit. The mountebanks around were indignant. A theatrical success is a siphon,—it draws in the crowd and creates emptiness all round. The show opposite is ruined. The increased receipts of the Green Box caused a corresponding decrease in the receipts of the surrounding shows. These entertainments, which had been very popular up to that time, suddenly collapsed. It was like a low-water mark, showing inversely, but in perfect concordance, the rise here, the fall there. Theatres experience the effect of the tides, which rise in one only on condition of falling in another.
The strolling players who exhibited their talents and musical accomplishments on the neighbouring platforms, seeing themselves ruined by the Laughing Man, were wild with despair, though dazzled. All the grimacers, all the clowns, all the merry-andrews envied Gwynplaine. How happy he must be with a snout like a wild beast! The buffoon mothers and dancers on the tight-rope, with pretty children, looked at them in anger, and pointing out Gwynplaine, would say, "What a pity you have not a face like that!" Some even beat their babies savagely for being pretty.
More than one, had she known the secret, would have fashioned her son's face in the Gwynplaine style. The head of an angel, which brings no money in, is not as desirable as that of a paying demon. One day the mother of a little child who was a marvel of beauty, and who acted the part of a cupid, exclaimed:—
"Our children are failures! A Gwynplaine alone is successful." And shaking her fist at her son, she added, "If I only knew your father, wouldn't he catch it!"
Gwynplaine was the goose with the golden eggs. What a marvellous phenomenon! There was an uproar through all the caravans. The mountebanks, at once enthusiastic and exasperated, looked at Gwynplaine and gnashed their teeth. Admiring anger is called envy. How it howls! They tried to break up "Chaos Vanquished;" made a cabal, hissed, yelled, and shouted. This gave Ursus an excuse to make out-of-door harangues to the populace, and for his friend Tom-Jim-Jack to use his fists to re-establish order. His pugilistic marks of friendship brought him still more under the notice and regard of Ursus and Gwynplaine,—at a distance, however; for the party in the Green Box sufficed to themselves, and held aloof from the rest of the world, and because Tom-Jim-Jack, the leader of the mob, seemed a sort of lordly bully, without a tie, without a friend; a smasher of windows, a manager of men, now here, now gone, hail-fellow-well-met with every one, companion of none.
This raging envy against Gwynplaine was not quelled by a few friendly blows from Tom-Jim-Jack. Violence having failed, the mountebanks of Tarrinzeau Field fell back on a petition. They appealed to the authorities. This is the usual course. Against an unpleasant success we first try to stir up the crowd, and then we petition to the magistrate.
The reverends allied themselves with the merry-andrews. The Laughing Man had inflicted a blow on the preachers. There were empty places not only in the shows, but in the churches. The congregations in the churches of the five parishes in Southwark had dwindled away. People left before the sermon to go to see Gwynplaine. "Chaos Vanquished," the Green Box, the Laughing Man, all the abominations of Baal, eclipsed the eloquence of the pulpit. The voice crying in the desert,—vox clamantis in deserto,—is discontented, and is prone to call in the aid of the authorities. The clergy of the five parishes complained to the Bishop of London, who in turn complained to her Majesty.
The complaint of the merry-andrews was based on religion. They declared it to be insulted. They described Gwynplaine as a sorcerer, and Ursus as an atheist. The reverend gentlemen invoked social order. Setting orthodoxy aside, they took action on the fact that acts of parliament were violated. This was clever, for it was in the time of Mr. Locke, who had died only six months previous,—October 28, 1704,—and when the scepticism which Bolingbroke had instilled into Voltaire was taking root. Later on Wesley came and restored the Bible, as Loyola restored papacy.
Thus the Green Box was attacked on all sides,—by the merry-andrews, in the name of the Pentateuch, and by chaplains in the name of social order; in the name of Heaven and of the inspectors of nuisances,—the reverends espousing the cause of the police, and the mountebanks that of Heaven. The Green Box was denounced by the priests as a disturbing element, and by the jugglers as sacrilegious.
Had they any pretext? Was there any excuse? Yes. What was the objection? This: the wolf. A dog was allowable; a wolf forbidden. In England the wolf is an outlaw. England permits the dog which barks, but not the dog which howls,—that being the distinction between the denizen of the yard and the woods. The rectors and vicars of the five parishes of Southwark called attention in their petitions to numerous parliamentary and royal statutes putting the wolf beyond the protection of the law. They moved for something like the imprisonment of Gwynplaine and the execution of the wolf, or at any rate for their banishment. The question was one of public importance, the danger to persons passing, etc. And on this point they appealed to the Faculty. They cited the opinion of the eighty physicians of London,—a learned body which dates from Henry VIII., which has a seal like that of the State, which can raise sick people to the dignity of criminals, which has the right to imprison those who infringe its laws and ignore its ordinances, and which, among other useful regulations for the welfare of citizens, establishes beyond a doubt this discovery of science; namely, if a wolf sees a man first, the man becomes hoarse for life. Besides, he may be bitten.
Homo, then, was the pretext.
Ursus heard of these designs through the inn-keeper. He was uneasy. He was afraid of the police and the justices. To be afraid of the magistracy, it suffices to be timid; there is no need to be guilty. Ursus had no desire for contact with sheriffs, provosts, bailiffs, and coroners. His eagerness to make their acquaintance amounted to nil. His curiosity to see the magistrates was about as great as the hare's to see the greyhound. He began to regret that he had come to London. "'Better' is the enemy of 'good,'" murmured he apart. "I thought there was no truth in the proverb. I was wrong. Stupid sayings seem to be true after all."
Against the coalition of powers,—merry-andrews espousing the cause of religion, and chaplains indignant in behalf of medicine,—the poor Green Box, suspected of sorcery in Gwynplaine and of hydrophobia in Homo, had only one thing in its favour (a thing of great power in England however): municipal inactivity. It is to an inclination on the part of the local authorities to let things take their course that Englishmen owe their liberty. Liberty in England behaves very much like the sea around England. The tide rises. Little by little customs surmount the law. A cruel system of legislation drowned under the wave of custom; a savage code of laws still visible through the transparency of universal liberty: such is England.
The Laughing Man, "Chaos Vanquished," and Homo might have mountebanks, preachers, bishops, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, her Majesty, London, and the whole of England against them, and remain undisturbed so long as Southwark sided with them. The Green Box was the favourite amusement of the suburb, and the local authorities seemed disinclined to interfere. In England, indifference is protection. So long as the sheriff of the county of Surrey in whose jurisdiction Southwark belongs, did not move in the matter, Ursus breathed freely, and Homo could sleep on in peace.
So long as the hatred which the show excited did not occasion acts of violence, it increased its success. The Green Box was none the worse for it, as yet. On the contrary, the rumours that were rife only increased public curiosity, and the Laughing Man became more and more popular. The public follow with gusto the scent of anything contraband. To be suspected is a recommendation. The people adopt by instinct that at which the finger is pointed. The thing which is denounced is like the savour of forbidden fruit; we long to taste it. Besides, applause which irritates some one, especially if that some one is in authority, is sweet. To perform, while passing a pleasant evening, both an act of kindness to the oppressed, and of opposition to the oppressor, is agreeable. You are protecting at the same time that you are being amused. So the theatrical caravans on the bowling-green continued to howl and to cabal against the Laughing Man. Nothing could have been more certain to enhance his success. The shouts of one's enemies are useful in giving point and vitality to one's triumph. A friend wearies sooner in praise than an enemy in abuse. To abuse does not hurt. Enemies are ignorant of this fact. They cannot help insulting us, and therein lies their usefulness. They cannot hold their tongues, and thus keep the public awake. The crowds which flocked to "Chaos Vanquished" increased daily.
Ursus kept what Master Nicless had said of intriguers and complaints in high places to himself, and did not tell Gwynplaine, lest it should impair the ease of his acting by creating anxiety. If evil was to come, he would be sure to know it soon enough.