The Dramas of Victor Hugo: Mary Tudor, Marion de Lorme, Esmeralda — John Shaqi
The Dramas of Victor Hugo: Mary Tudor, Marion de Lorme, EsmeraldaHugo, Victor
General
The Dramas of Victor Hugo: Mary Tudor, Marion de Lorme, Esmeralda
Hugo, Victor
French drama -- 19th century -- Translations into English
Neither happy nor unhappy. As for me, I have given up everything.
Look you, Gilbert [_opening his cloak and disclosing a bunch of keys
hanging to his belt_], prison keys always jingling at your side, talk
to you, suggest all sorts of philosophical ideas to you. When I was
young, I was like the rest--in love for a day, ambitious for a month,
mad a whole year. It was during the reign of Henry VIII. that I was
young. Strange man that Henry VIII.! A man who changed his wives as a
woman changes her dresses. He repudiated the first, had the second
beheaded, had the third's womb cut open; as for the fourth, he had
mercy on her--he sent her off; but for revenge he had the fifth's
head cut off! This isn't the story of Bluebeard I am telling you, my
beautiful Jane; it is the history of Henry VIII. In those days I
interested myself in the religious wars; I fought first for one side
and then for the other. That was the wisest thing to do. The whole
business was very ticklish. It was whether to be for or against the
Pope. The King's officers hanged those who were for, but they burned
those who were against. The neutral people--those who neither were
for nor against--they hanged them or they burned them
indiscriminately. We managed as we could. Yes, the rope; no, the
fagot. I, who am speaking to you, I smelled of burning very often,
and I am not sure that I was not un-hanged two or three times. Those
were great times; very much like the times now. The devil take me if
I know now whom I fought for or what I fought about. If people speak
to me now about Master Luther and Pope Paul III., I shrug my
shoulders. You see, Gilbert, when a man has gray hairs he shouldn't
go back to the opinions he fought for nor the women he loved when he
was twenty. The women and the opinions will seem very ugly, very old,
very paltry, very silly, very much wrinkled and out of date. Such is
my history. Now I am through with public affairs. I am no longer the
King's soldier nor the Pope's soldier; I am jailer of the Tower of
London. I don't fight any more for anybody, and I put everybody under
lock and key. I am turnkey and I am old. I have one foot in a prison
and the other in the grave. I am the one who picks up the remnants of
all the ministers and favorites who go to pieces in the Queen's
palace. It is very amusing. I have also a little child whom I love,
and you both whom I love too; and if you are happy, I am happy also.
GILBERT.
If that is the case, you can be happy; can't he, Jane?
JOSHUA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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