trange face of joy, or to speak more
correctly, aggravated it. Any astonishment which might seize him, any
suffering which he might feel, any anger which might take possession of
him, any pity which might move him, would only increase this hilarity of
his muscles. If he wept, he laughed; and whatever Gwynplaine was,
whatever he wished to be, whatever he thought, the moment that he raised
his head, the crowd, if crowd there was, had before them one
impersonation: an overwhelming burst of laughter.

It was like a head of Medusa, but Medusa hilarious. All feeling or
thought in the mind of the spectator was suddenly put to flight by the
unexpected apparition, and laughter was inevitable. Antique art formerly
placed on the outsides of the Greek theatre a joyous brazen face, called
comedy. It laughed and occasioned laughter, but remained pensive. All
parody which borders on folly, all irony which borders on wisdom, were
condensed and amalgamated in that face. The burden of care, of
disillusion, anxiety, and grief were expressed in its impassive
countenance, and resulted in a lugubrious sum of mirth. One corner of
the mouth was raised, in mockery of the human race; the other side, in
blasphemy of the gods. Men confronted that model of the ideal sarcasm
and exemplification of the irony which each one possesses within him;
and the crowd, continually renewed round its fixed laugh, died away with
delight before its sepulchral immobility of mirth.

One might almost have said that Gwynplaine was that dark, dead mask of
ancient comedy adjusted to the body of a living man. That infernal head
of implacable hilarity he supported on his neck. What a weight for the
shoulders of a man--an everlasting laugh!

An everlasting laugh!

Let us understand each other; we will explain. The Manichaeans believed
the absolute occasionally gives way, and that God Himself sometimes
abdicates for a time. So also of the will. We do not admit that it can
ever be utterly powerless. The whole of existence resembles a letter
modified in the postscript. For Gwynplaine the postscript was this: by
the force of his will, and by concentrating all his attention, and on
condition that no emotion should come to distract and turn away the
fixedness of his effort, he could manage to suspend the everlasting
rictus of his face, and to throw over it a kind of tragic veil, and then
the spectator laughed no longer; he shuddered.

This exertion Gwynplaine scarcely ever