Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/336

296 into a Roman outline, but out of a Grecian nose you may make a Calmuck's; it is only necessary to obliterate the root of the nose, and to flatten the nostrils. The Latin of the Middle Ages had a reason for its creation of the verb denasare.

Had Gwynplaine when a child been so worthy of attention that his face had been subjected to a complete transformation? Why not? Was any more powerful motive needed than the profits which would accrue from his future exhibition? According to all appearance, industrious manipulators of children had worked upon his face. It seemed evident that a mysterious and probably occult science (which was to surgery what alchemy was to chemistry) had chiselled his flesh, evidently at a very tender age, and created this countenance intentionally. This science, clever with the knife and skilled in the use of anæsthetics and ligatures, had enlarged the mouth, cut away the lips, laid bare the gums, distended the ears, displaced the eyelids and the cheeks, enlarged the zygomatic muscle, pressed the scars and cicatrices to a level, and turned back the skin over the lesions while the face was thus distorted,—from all which resulted that wonderful and appalling work of art, the mask which Gwynplaine wore.

The manipulation of Gwynplaine had succeeded admirably. Gwynplaine was a gift of providence to dispel the sadness of man. Of which providence? Is there a providence of demons as well as of God? We put the question without answering it.

Gwynplaine was a mountebank. He exhibited himself on the platform. No such effect had ever before been produced. Hypochondriacs were cured by the mere sight of him. He was avoided by folks in mourning, because they were compelled to laugh when they saw him, without regard to their decent gravity. One day