Человек, который смеется / The Man Who Laughs. Уровень 4

He travelled freely from one end of Great Britain to the other, selling his philtres and phials. He passed with ease through the nets which the police at that period had spread all over England in order to sift wandering gangs[7 - wandering gangs – бродячие шайки], and especially to stop the progress of the Comprachicos[8 - Comprachicos – компрачикосы, скупщики детей, преступное сообщество торговцев детьми].

Ursus belonged to no gang.

Ursus lived with Ursus, a tête-à-tête[9 - tête-à-tête – наедине (фр.)], into which the wolf gently thrust his nose. The solitary man is a modified savage, accepted by civilization. The sight of towns increased his taste for brambles, thickets, thorns, and holes in the rock. His home was the forest. What he disliked in his van was its having a door and windows, and thus resembling a house.

He did not smile, but he used to laugh; sometimes, indeed frequently, a bitter laugh.

There is consent in a smile, while a laugh is often a refusal.

His great business was to hate the human race. He was implacable in that hate. It was clear for him that human life was a dreadful thing. He observed the superposition of evils, kings on the people, war on kings, the plague on war, famine on the plague, folly on everything. He recognized that death was a deliverance – but when they brought him a sick man he cured him. He put lame cripples on their legs again, and hurled this sarcasm at them,

“There, you are on your paws once more; may you walk long in this valley of tears!”

When he saw a poor man dying of hunger, he gave him all him money, growling out,

“Live on, you wretch! eat! I won’t shorten your penal servitude.

”

After that, he would rub his hands and say,

“I do men all the harm I can.”

Through the little window at the back, passers-by could read on the ceiling of the van these words, written within, but visible from without, inscribed with charcoal, in big letters, -

Ursus, Philosopher.

THE COMPRACHICOS

I

Who now knows the word Comprachicos, and who knows its meaning? The Comprachicos, or ComprapequeГ±os, were a hideous and nondescript association of wanderers, famous in the 17th century, forgotten in the 18th, unheard of in the 19th. The Comprachicos are part of old human ugliness. They belong to the colossal fact of slavery.