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

Joseph sold by his brethren is a chapter in their story. The Comprachicos have left their traces in the penal laws[10 - penal laws – уголовные кодексы] of Spain and England. You find here and there in the dark confusion of English laws the impress of this horrible truth, like the foot-print of a savage in a forest.

Comprachicos, the same as ComprapequeГ±os, is a compound Spanish word signifying Child-buyers. The Comprachicos traded in children. They bought and sold them. They did not steal them.

The kidnapping of children is another branch of industry. And what did they make of these children? Monsters. Why monsters? To laugh at.

The populace must laugh, and kings too. The mountebank is wanted in the streets, the jester at the Louvre. The one is called a Clown, the other a Fool. The efforts of man to procure himself pleasure are at times worthy of the attention of the philosopher.

A child destined to be a plaything for men – such a thing has existed; such a thing exists even now.

In order that a human toy succeeds, he must be taken early. The dwarf must be fashioned when young. We play with childhood. But a well-formed child is not very amusing; a hunchback is better fun.

Hence grew an art. There were trainers who took a man and made him a misshapen creature[11 - misshapen creature – уродец]. They took a face and made a muzzle; they stunted growth; they kneaded the features. Where God had made harmony, they made discord; where God had made the perfect picture, they re-established the sketch; and, in the eyes of connoisseurs, it was the sketch which was perfect.

They debased animals as well; they invented piebald horses. Nature is our canvas. Man has always wished to add something to God’s work. Man retouches creation, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

To degrade man tends to deform him. The suppression of his state was completed by disfigurement. Certain vivisectors of that period succeeded marvellously well in effacing from the human face the divine effigy.

The inventor of this branch of surgery was a monk named Avonmore – an Irish word signifying Great River.

II

The manufacture of monsters was practised on a large scale. Scarcely human beings, they were useful to voluptuousness and to religion. They knew how to produce things in those days which are not produced now; they had talents which we lack. We no longer know how to sculpture living human flesh.