superior to this amuser of the "scum," and believed that a calker is as

superior to an actor as a lord is to a calker.

Gwynplaine was, therefore, like all comedians, applauded and kept at a

distance. Truly, all success in this world is a crime, and must be

expiated. He who obtains the medal has to take its reverse side as well.

For Gwynplaine there was no reverse. In this sense, both sides of his

medal pleased him. He was satisfied with the applause, and content with

the isolation. In applause he was rich, in isolation happy.

To be rich in his low estate means to be no longer wretchedly poor--to

have neither holes in his clothes, nor cold at his hearth, nor emptiness

in his stomach. It is to eat when hungry and drink when thirsty. It is

to have everything necessary, including a penny for a beggar. This

indigent wealth, enough for liberty, was possessed by Gwynplaine. So far

as his soul was concerned, he was opulent. He had love. What more could

he want? Nothing.

You may think that had the offer been made to him to remove his

deformity he would have grasped at it. Yet he would have refused it

emphatically. What! to throw off his mask and have his former face

restored; to be the creature he had perchance been created, handsome and

charming? No, he would never have consented to it. For what would he

have to support Dea? What would have become of that poor child, the

sweet blind girl who loved him? Without his rictus, which made him a

clown without parallel, he would have been a mountebank, like any other;

454

The Man Who Laughs