The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo

Table of Contents

Preliminary Chapter. Ursus.

Another Preliminary Chapter. The Comprachicos.

Part I.

Book the First. Night Not So Black as Man

1. Portland Bill.
2. Left Alone.
3. Alone.
4. Questions.
5. The Tree of Human Invention.
6. Struggle Between Death and Life.
7. The North Point of Portland.

Book the Second. The Hooker at Sea

1. Superhuman Laws.
2. Our First Rough Sketches Filled in.
3. Troubled Men on the Troubled Sea.
4. A Cloud Different from the Others Enters on the Scene.
5. Hardquanonne.
6. They Think that Help is at Hand.
7. Superhuman Horrors.
8. Nix Et Nox.
9. The Charge Confided to a Raging Sea.
10. The Colossal Savage, the Storm.
11. The Caskets.
12. Face to Face with the Rock.
13. Face to Face with Night.
14. Ortach.
15. Portentosum Mare.
16. The Problem Suddenly Works in Silence.
17. The Last Resource.
18. The Highest Resource.

Book the Third. The Child in the Shadow

1. Chesil.
2. The Effect of Snow.
3. A Burden Makes a Rough Road Rougher.
4. Another Form of Desert.
5. Misanthropy Plays its Pranks.
6. The Awaking.

Part II.

Book the First. The Everlasting Presence of the Past: Man Reflects Man

1. Lord Clancharlie.
2. Lord David Dirry-Moir.
3. The Duchess Josiana.
4. The Leader of Fashion.
5. Queen Anne.
6. Barkilphedro.
7. Barkilphedro Gnaws His Way.
8. Inferi.
9. Hate is as Strong as Love.
10. The Flame which Would Be Seen If Man Were Transparent.
11. Barkilphedro in Ambuscade.
12. Scotland, Ireland, and England.

Book the Second. Gwynplaine and Dea.

1. Wherein We See the Face of Him of Whom We have Hitherto Seen Only the Acts.
2. Dea.
3. “Oculos Non Habet, Et Videt.”
4. Well-Matched Lovers.
5. The Blue Sky Through the Black Cloud.
6. Ursus as Tutor, and Ursus as Guardian.
7. Blindness Gives Lessons in Clairvoyance.
8. Not Only Happiness, but Prosperity.
9. Absurdities which Folks Without Taste Call Poetry.
10. An Outsider’s View of Men and Things.
11. Gwynplaine Thinks Justice, and Ursus Talks Truth.
12. Ursus the Poet Drags on Ursus the Philosopher.

Book the Third. The Beginning of the Fissure.

1. The Tadcaster Inn.
2. Open-Air Eloquence.
3. Where the Passer-By Reappears.
4. Contraries Fraternize in Hate.
5. The Wapentake.
6. The Mouse Examined by the Cats.
7. Why Should a Gold Piece Lower Itself by Mixing with a Heap of Pennies?
8. Symptoms of Poisoning.
9. Abyssus Abyssum Vocat.

Book the Fourth. The cell of Torture.

1. The Temptation of St. Gwynplaine.
2. From Gay to Grave.
3. Lex, Rex, Fex.
4. Ursus Spies the Police.
5. A Fearful Place.
6. The Kind of Magistracy Under the Wigs of Former Days.
7. Shuddering.
8. Lamentation.

Book the Fifth. The Sea and Fate are moved by the same breath.

1. The Durability of Fragile Things.
2. The Waif Knows its Own Course.
3. An Awakening.
4. Fascination.
5. We Think We Remember; We Forget.

Book the Sixth. Ursus under different aspects.

1. What the Misanthrope Said.
2. What he Did.
3. Complications.
4. Moenibus Surdis Campana Muta.
5. State Policy Deals with Little Matters as Well as with Great.

Book the Seventh. The Titaness.

1. The Awakening.
2. The Resemblance of a Palace to a Wood.
3. Eve.
4. Satan.
5. They Recognize, but Do Not Know, Each Other.

Book the Eighth. The Capitol and things around it.

1. Analysis of Majestic Matters.
2. Impartiality.
3. The Old Hall.
4. The Old Chamber.
5. Aristocratic Gossip.
6. The High and the Low.
7. Storms of Men are Worse than Storms of Oceans.
8. He Would Be a Good Brother, Were he Not a Good Son.

Book the Ninth. In ruins.

1. It is Through Excess of Greatness that Man Reaches Excess of Misery.
2. The Dregs.
3. Conclusion.
4. The Night and the Sea.
5. A Watch-Dog May Be a Guardian Angel.
6. Barkilphedro, Having Aimed at the Eagle, Brings Down the Dove.
7. Paradise Regained Below.
8. Nay; on High!