CHAPTER VII.
STORMS OF MEN ARE WORSE THAN STORMS OF OCEANS.
The doors were closed again, the Usher of the Black Rod re-entered; theLords Commissioners left the bench of State, took their places at thetop of the dukes' benches, by right of their commission, and the LordChancellor addressed the House:--
"My Lords, the House having deliberated for several days on the Billwhich proposes to augment by L100,000 sterling the annual provision forhis Royal Highness the Prince, her Majesty's Consort, and the debatehaving been exhausted and closed, the House will proceed to vote; thevotes will be taken according to custom, beginning with the puisneBaron. Each Lord, on his name being called, will rise and answer_content_, or _non-content_, and will be at liberty to explain themotives of his vote, if he thinks fit to do so.--Clerk, take the vote."
The Clerk of the House, standing up, opened a large folio, and spread itopen on a gilded desk. This book was the list of the Peerage.
The puisne of the House of Lords at that time was John Hervey, createdBaron and Peer in 1703, from whom is descended the Marquis of Bristol.
The clerk called,--
"My Lord John, Baron Hervey."
An old man in a fair wig rose, and said, "Content."
Then he sat down.
The Clerk registered his vote.
The Clerk continued,--
"My Lord Francis Seymour, Baron Conway, of Killultagh."
"Content," murmured, half rising, an elegant young man, with a face likea page, who little thought that he was to be ancestor to the Marquisesof Hertford.
"My Lord John Leveson, Baron Gower," continued the Clerk.
This Baron, from whom were to spring the Dukes of Sutherland, rose, and,as he reseated himself, said "Content."
The Clerk went on.
"My Lord Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey."
The ancestor of the Earls of Aylesford, neither older nor less elegantthan the ancestor of the Marquises of Hertford, justified his device,_Aperto vivere voto_, by the proud tone in which he exclaimed,"Content."
Whilst he was resuming his seat, the Clerk called the fifth Baron,--
"My Lord John, Baron Granville."
Rising and resuming his seat quickly, "Content," exclaimed LordGranville, of Potheridge, whose peerage was to become extinct in 1709.
The Clerk passed to the sixth.
"My Lord Charles Montague, Baron Halifax."
"Content," said Lord Halifax, the bearer of a title which had becomeextinct in the Saville family, and was destined to become extinct againin that of Montague. Montague is distinct from Montagu and Montacute.And Lord Halifax added, "Prince George has an allowance as Her Majesty'sConsort; he has another as Prince of Denmark; another as Duke ofCumberland; another as Lord High Admiral of England and Ireland; but hehas not one as Commander-in-Chief. This is an injustice and a wrongwhich must be set right, in the interest of the English people."
Then Lord Halifax passed a eulogium on the Christian religion, abusedpopery, and voted the subsidy.
Lord Halifax sat down, and the Clerk resumed,--
"My Lord Christopher, Baron Barnard."
Lord Barnard, from whom were to descend the Dukes of Cleveland, rose toanswer to his name.
"Content."
He took some time in reseating himself, for he wore a lace band whichwas worth showing. For all that, Lord Barnard was a worthy gentleman anda brave officer.
While Lord Barnard was resuming his seat, the Clerk, who read byroutine, hesitated for an instant; he readjusted his spectacles, andleaned over the register with renewed attention; then, lifting up hishead, he said,--
"My Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville."
Gwynplaine arose.
"Non-content," said he.
Every face was turned towards him. Gwynplaine remained standing. Thebranches of candles, placed on each side of the throne, lighted up hisfeatures, and marked them against the darkness of the august chamber inthe relief with which a mask might show against a background of smoke.
Gwynplaine had made that effort over himself which, it may beremembered, was possible to him in extremity. By a concentration of willequal to that which would be needed to cow a tiger, he had succeeded inobliterating for a moment the fatal grin upon his face. For an instanthe no longer laughed. This effort could not last long. Rebellion againstthat which is our law or our fatality must be short-lived; at times thewaters of the sea resist the power of gravitation, swell into awaterspout and become a mountain, but only on the condition of fallingback again.
Such a struggle was Gwynplaine's. For an instant, which he felt to be asolemn one, by a prodigious intensity of will, but for not much longerthan a flash of lightning lasts, he had thrown over his brow the darkveil of his soul--he held in suspense his incurable laugh. From thatface upon which it had been carved he had withdrawn the joy. Now it wasnothing but terrible.
"Who is this man?" exclaimed all.
That forest of hair, those dark hollows under the brows, the deep gazeof eyes which they could not see, that head, on the wild outlines ofwhich light and darkness mingled weirdly, were a wonder indeed. It wasbeyond all understanding; much as they had heard of him, the sight ofGwynplaine was a terror. Even those who expected much found theirexpectations surpassed. It was as though on the mountain reserved forthe gods, during the banquet on a serene evening, the whole of theall-powerful body being gathered together, the face of Prometheus,mangled by the vulture's beak, should have suddenly appeared beforethem, like a blood-coloured moon on the horizon. Olympus looking onCaucasus! What a vision! Old and young, open-mouthed with surprise,fixed their eyes upon Gwynplaine.
An old man, respected by the whole House, who had seen many men and manythings, and who was intended for a dukedom--Thomas, Earl ofWharton--rose in terror.
"What does all this mean?" he cried. "Who has brought this man into theHouse? Let him be put out."
And addressing Gwynplaine haughtily,--
"Who are you? Whence do you come?"
Gwynplaine answered,--
"Out of the depths."
And folding his arms, he looked at the lords.
"Who am I? I am wretchedness. My lords, I have a word to say to you."
A shudder ran through the House. Then all was silence. Gwynplainecontinued,--
"My lords, you are highly placed. It is well. We must believe that Godhas His reasons that it should be so. You have power, opulence,pleasure, the sun ever shining in your zenith; authority unbounded,enjoyment without a sting, and a total forgetfulness of others. So beit. But there is something below you--above you, it may be. My lords, Ibring you news--news of the existence of mankind."
Assemblies are like children. A strange occurrence is as aJack-in-the-Box to them. It frightens them; but they like it. It is asif a spring were touched and a devil jumps up. Mirabeau, who was alsodeformed, was a case in point in France.
Gwynplaine felt within himself, at that moment, a strange elevation. Inaddressing a body of men, one's foot seems to rest on them; to rest, asit were, on a pinnacle of souls--on human hearts, that quiver underone's heel. Gwynplaine was no longer the man who had been, only thenight before, almost mean. The fumes of the sudden elevation which haddisturbed him had cleared off and become transparent, and in the statein which Gwynplaine had been seduced by a vanity he now saw but a duty.That which had at first lessened now elevated him. He was illuminated byone of those great flashes which emanate from duty.
All round Gwynplaine arose cries of "Hear, hear!"
Meanwhile, rigid and superhuman, he succeeded in maintaining on hisfeatures that severe and sad contraction under which the laugh wasfretting like a wild horse struggling to escape.
He resumed,--
"I am he who cometh out of the depths. My lords, you are great and rich.There lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The dawn isall-powerful. You cannot prevail over it. It is coming. Nay! it is come.Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shal
l hinderthat sling from hurling the sun into the sky? The sun I speak of isRight. You are Privilege. Tremble! The real master of the house is aboutto knock at the door. What is the father of Privilege? Chance. What ishis son? Abuse. Neither Chance nor Abuse are abiding. For both a darkmorrow is at hand. I am come to warn you. I am come to impeach yourhappiness. It is fashioned out of the misery of your neighbour. You haveeverything, and that everything is composed of the nothing of others. Mylords, I am an advocate without hope, pleading a cause that is lost; butthat cause God will gain on appeal. As for me, I am but a voice. Mankindis a mouth, of which I am the cry. You shall hear me! I am about toopen before you, peers of England, the great assize of the people; ofthat sovereign who is the subject; of that criminal who is the judge. Iam weighed down under the load of all that I have to say. Where am I tobegin? I know not. I have gathered together, in the vast diffusion ofsuffering, my innumerable and scattered pleas. What am I to do with themnow? They overwhelm me, and I must cast them to you in a confused mass.Did I foresee this? No. You are astonished. So am I. Yesterday I was amountebank; to-day I am a peer. Deep play. Of whom? Of the Unknown. Letus all tremble. My lords, all the blue sky is for you. Of this immenseuniverse you see but the sunshine. Believe me, it has its shadows.Amongst you I am called Lord Fermain Clancharlie; but my true name isone of poverty--Gwynplaine. I am a wretched thing carved out of thestuff of which the great are made, for such was the pleasure of a king.That is my history. Many amongst you knew my father. I knew him not. Hisconnection with you was his feudal descent; his outlawry is the bondbetween him and me. What God willed was well. I was cast into the abyss.For what end? To search its depths. I am a diver, and I have broughtback the pearl, truth. I speak, because I know. You shall hear me, mylords. I have seen, I have felt! Suffering is not a mere word, ye happyones! Poverty I grew up in; winter has frozen me; hunger I have tasted;contempt I have suffered; pestilence I have undergone; shame I havedrunk of. And I will vomit all these up before you, and this ejection ofall misery shall sully your feet and flame about them. I hesitatedbefore I allowed myself to be brought to the place where I now stand,because I have duties to others elsewhere, and my heart is not here.What passed within me has nothing to do with you. When the man whom youcall Usher of the Black Rod came to seek me by order of the woman whomyou call the Queen, the idea struck me for a moment that I would refuseto come. But it seemed to me that the hidden hand of God pressed me tothe spot, and I obeyed. I felt that I must come amongst you. Why?Because of my rags of yesterday. It is to raise my voice among those whohave eaten their fill that God mixed me up with the famished. Oh, havepity! Of this fatal world to which you believe yourselves to belong youknow nothing. Placed so high, you are out of it. But I will tell youwhat it is. I have had experience enough. I come from beneath thepressure of your feet. I can tell you your weight. Oh, you who aremasters, do you know what you are? do you see what you are doing? No.Oh, it is dreadful! One night, one night of storm, a little desertedchild, an orphan alone in the immeasurable creation, I made my entranceinto that darkness which you call society. The first thing that I sawwas the law, under the form of a gibbet; the second was riches, yourriches, under the form of a woman dead of cold and hunger; the third,the future, under the form of a child left to die; the fourth, goodness,truth, and justice, under the figure of a vagabond, whose sole friendand companion was a wolf."
Just then Gwynplaine, stricken by a sudden emotion, felt the sobs risingin his throat, causing him, most unfortunately, to burst into anuncontrollable fit of laughter.
The contagion was immediate. A cloud had hung over the assembly. Itmight have broken into terror; it broke into delight. Mad merrimentseized the whole House. Nothing pleases the great chambers of sovereignman so much as buffoonery. It is their revenge upon their gravermoments.
The laughter of kings is like the laughter of the gods. There is alwaysa cruel point in it. The lords set to play. Sneers gave sting to theirlaughter. They clapped their hands around the speaker, and insulted him.A volley of merry exclamations assailed him like bright but woundinghailstones.
"Bravo, Gwynplaine!"--"Bravo, Laughing Man!"--"Bravo, Snout of the GreenBox!"--"Mask of Tarrinzeau Field!"--"You are going to give us aperformance."--"That's right; talk away!"--"There's a funnyfellow!"--"How the beast does laugh, to be sure!"--"Good-day,pantaloon!"--"How d'ye do, my lord clown!"--"Go on with yourspeech!"--"That fellow a peer of England?"--"Go on!"--"No, no!"--"Yes,yes!"
The Lord Chancellor was much disturbed.
A deaf peer, James Butler, Duke of Ormond, placing his hand to his earlike an ear trumpet, asked Charles Beauclerk, Duke of St. Albans,--
"How has he voted?"
"Non-content."
"By heavens!" said Ormond, "I can understand it, with such a face ashis."
Do you think that you can ever recapture a crowd once it has escapedyour grasp? And all assemblies are crowds alike. No, eloquence is a bit;and if the bit breaks, the audience runs away, and rushes on till it hasthrown the orator. Hearers naturally dislike the speaker, which is afact not as clearly understood as it ought to be. Instinctively he pullsthe reins, but that is a useless expedient. However, all orators try it,as Gwynplaine did.
He looked for a moment at those men who were laughing at him. Then hecried,--
"So, you insult misery! Silence, Peers of England! Judges, listen to mypleading! Oh, I conjure you, have pity. Pity for whom? Pity foryourselves. Who is in danger? Yourselves! Do you not see that you are ina balance, and that there is in one scale your power, and in the otheryour responsibility? It is God who is weighing you. Oh, do not laugh.Think. The trembling of your consciences is the oscillation of thebalance in which God is weighing your actions. You are not wicked; youare like other men, neither better nor worse. You believe yourselves tobe gods; but be ill to-morrow, and see your divinity shivering in fever!We are worth one as much as the other. I address myself to honest men;there are such here. I address myself to lofty intellects; there aresuch here. I address myself to generous souls; there are such here. Youare fathers, sons, and brothers; therefore you are often touched. Heamongst you who has this morning watched the awaking of his little childis a good man. Hearts are all alike. Humanity is nothing but a heart.Between those who oppress and those who are oppressed there is but adifference of place. Your feet tread on the heads of men. The fault isnot yours; it is that of the social Babel. The building is faulty, andout of the perpendicular. One floor bears down the other. Listen, and Iwill tell you what to do. Oh! as you are powerful, be brotherly; as youare great, be tender. If you only knew what I have seen! Alas, whatgloom is there beneath! The people are in a dungeon. How many arecondemned who are innocent! No daylight, no air, no virtue! They arewithout hope, and yet--there is the danger--they expect something.Realize all this misery. There are beings who live in death. There arelittle girls who at twelve begin by prostitution, and who end in old ageat twenty. As to the severities of the criminal code, they are fearful.I speak somewhat at random, and do not pick my words. I say everythingthat comes into my head. No later than yesterday I who stand here saw aman lying in chains, naked, with stones piled on his chest, expire intorture. Do you know of these things? No. If you knew what goes on, youwould not dare to be happy. Who of you have been to Newcastle-upon-Tyne?There, in the mines, are men who chew coals to fill their stomachs anddeceive hunger. Look here! in Lancashire, Ribblechester has sunk, bypoverty, from a town to a village. I do not see that Prince George ofDenmark requires a hundred thousand pounds extra. I should preferreceiving a poor sick man into the hospital, without compelling him topay his funeral expenses in advance. In Carnarvon, and at Strathmore, aswell as at Strathbickan, the exhaustion of the poor is horrible. AtStratford they cannot drain the marsh for want of money. Themanufactories are shut up all over Lancashire. There is forced idlenesseverywhere. Do you know that the herring fishers at Harlech eat grasswhen the fishery fails? Do you know that at Burton-Lazars there arestill lepers confined, on whom they fire if they leave their tan houses!A
t Ailesbury, a town of which one of you is lord, destitution ischronic. At Penkridge, in Coventry, where you have just endowed acathedral and enriched a bishop, there are no beds in the cabins, andthey dig holes in the earth in which to put the little children to lie,so that instead of beginning life in the cradle, they begin it in thegrave. I have seen these things! My lords, do you know who pays thetaxes you vote? The dying! Alas! you deceive yourselves. You are goingthe wrong road. You augment the poverty of the poor to increase theriches of the rich. You should do the reverse. What! take from theworker to give to the idle, take from the tattered to give to thewell-clad; take from the beggar to give to the prince! Oh yes! I haveold republican blood in my veins. I have a horror of these things. How Iexecrate kings! And how shameless are the women! I have been told a sadstory. How I hate Charles II.! A woman whom my father loved gave herselfto that king whilst my father was dying in exile. The prostitute!Charles II., James II.! After a scamp, a scoundrel. What is there in aking? A man, feeble and contemptible, subject to wants and infirmities.Of what good is a king? You cultivate that parasite royalty; you make aserpent of that worm, a dragon of that insect. O pity the poor! Youincrease the weight of the taxes for the profit of the throne. Look tothe laws which you decree. Take heed of the suffering swarms which youcrush. Cast your eyes down. Look at what is at your feet. O ye great,there are the little. Have pity! yes, have pity on yourselves; for thepeople is in its agony, and when the lower part of the trunk dies, thehigher parts die too. Death spares no limb. When night comes no one cankeep his corner of daylight. Are you selfish? then save others. Thedestruction of the vessel cannot be a matter of indifference to anypassenger. There can be no wreck for some that is not wreck for all. Obelieve it, the abyss yawns for all!"
The laughter increased, and became irresistible. For that matter, suchextravagance as there was in his words was sufficient to amuse anyassembly. To be comic without and tragic within, what suffering can bemore humiliating? what pain deeper? Gwynplaine felt it. His words werean appeal in one direction, his face in the other. What a terribleposition was his!
Suddenly his voice rang out in strident bursts.
"How gay these men are! Be it so. Here is irony face to face with agony;a sneer mocking the death-rattle. They are all-powerful. Perhaps so; beit so. We shall see. Behold! I am one of them; but I am also one of you,O ye poor! A king sold me. A poor man sheltered me. Who mutilated me? Aprince. Who healed and nourished me? A pauper. I am Lord Clancharlie;but I am still Gwynplaine. I take my place amongst the great; but Ibelong to the mean. I am amongst those who rejoice; but I am with thosewho suffer. Oh, this system of society is false! Some day will come thatwhich is true. Then there will be no more lords, and there shall be freeand living men. There will be no more masters; there will be fathers.Such is the future. No more prostration; no more baseness; no moreignorance; no more human beasts of burden; no more courtiers; no moretoadies; no more kings; but Light! In the meantime, see me here. I havea right, and I will use it. Is it a right? No, if I use it for myself;yes, if I use it for all. I will speak to you, my lords, being one ofyou. O my brothers below, I will tell them of your nakedness. I willrise up with a bundle of the people's rags in my hand. I will shake offover the masters the misery of the slaves; and these favoured andarrogant ones shall no longer be able to escape the remembrance of thewretched, nor the princes the itch of the poor; and so much the worse,if it be the bite of vermin; and so much the better, if it awake thelions from their slumber."
Here Gwynplaine turned towards the kneeling under-clerks, who werewriting on the fourth woolsack.
"Who are those fellows kneeling down?--What are you doing? Get up; youare men."
These words, suddenly addressed to inferiors whom a lord ought not evento perceive, increased the merriment to the utmost.
They had cried, "Bravo!" Now they shouted, "Hurrah!" From clapping theirhands they proceeded to stamping their feet. One might have been back inthe Green Box, only that there the laughter applauded Gwynplaine; hereit exterminated him. The effort of ridicule is to kill. Men's laughtersometimes exerts all its power to murder.
The laughter proceeded to action. Sneering words rained down upon him.Humour is the folly of assemblies. Their ingenious and foolish ridiculeshuns facts instead of studying them, and condemns questions instead ofsolving them. Any extraordinary occurrence is a point of interrogation;to laugh at it is like laughing at an enigma. But the Sphynx, whichnever laughs, is behind it.
Contradictory shouts arose,--
"Enough! enough!" "Encore! encore!"
William Farmer, Baron Leimpster, flung at Gwynplaine the insult cast byRyc Quiney at Shakespeare,--
"Histrio, mima!"
Lord Vaughan, a sententious man, twenty-ninth on the barons' bench,exclaimed,--
"We must be back in the days when animals had the gift of speech. In themidst of human tongues the jaw of a beast has spoken."
"Listen to Balaam's ass," added Lord Yarmouth.
Lord Yarmouth presented that appearance of sagacity produced by a roundnose and a crooked mouth.
"The rebel Linnaeus is chastised in his tomb. The son is the punishmentof the father," said John Hough, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, whoseprebendary Gwynplaine's attack had glanced.
"He lies!" said Lord Cholmondeley, the legislator so well read up in thelaw. "That which he calls torture is only the _peine forte et dure_, anda very good thing, too. Torture is not practised in England."
Thomas Wentworth, Baron Raby, addressed the Chancellor.
"My Lord Chancellor, adjourn the House."
"No, no. Let him go on. He is amusing. Hurrah! hip! hip! hip!"
Thus shouted the young lords, their fun amounting to fury. Four of themespecially were in the full exasperation of hilarity and hate. Thesewere Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester; Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet;Viscount Hatton; and the Duke of Montagu.
"To your tricks, Gwynplaine!" cried Rochester.
"Put him out, put him out!" shouted Thanet.
Viscount Hatton drew from his pocket a penny, which he flung toGwynplaine.
And John Campbell, Earl of Greenwich; Savage, Earl Rivers; Thompson,Baron Haversham; Warrington, Escrick Rolleston, Rockingham, Carteret,Langdale, Barcester, Maynard, Hunsdon, Caeernarvon, Cavendish,Burlington, Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Other Windsor, Earl ofPlymouth, applauded.
There was a tumult as of pandemonium or of pantheon, in which the wordsof Gwynplaine were lost.
Amidst it all, there was heard but one word of Gwynplaine's: "Beware!"
Ralph, Duke of Montagu, recently down from Oxford, and still a beardlessyouth, descended from the bench of dukes, where he sat the nineteenth inorder, and placed himself in front of Gwynplaine, with his arms folded.In a sword there is a spot which cuts sharpest, and in a voice an accentwhich insults most keenly. Montagu spoke with that accent, and sneeringwith his face close to that of Gwynplaine, shouted,--"What are youtalking about?"
"I am prophesying," said Gwynplaine.
The laughter exploded anew; and below this laughter, anger growled itscontinued bass. One of the minors, Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Earl ofDorset and Middlesex, stood upon his seat, not smiling, but grave asbecame a future legislator, and, without saying a word, looked atGwynplaine with his fresh twelve-year old face, and shrugged hisshoulders. Whereat the Bishop of St. Asaph's whispered in the ear of theBishop of St. David's, who was sitting beside him, as he pointed toGwynplaine, "There is the fool;" then pointing to the child, "there isthe sage."
A chaos of complaint rose from amidst the confusion of exclamations:--
"Gorgon's face!"--"What does it all mean?"--"An insult to theHouse!"--"The fellow ought to be put out!"--"What a madman!"--"Shame!shame!"--"Adjourn the House!"--"No; let him finish his speech!"--"Talkaway, you buffoon!"
Lord Lewis of Duras, with his arms akimbo, shouted,--
"Ah! it does one good to laugh. My spleen is cured. I propose a vote ofthanks in these terms: 'The House of Lords returns thanks to t
he GreenBox.'"
Gwynplaine, it may be remembered, had dreamt of a different welcome.
A man who, climbing up a steep and crumbling acclivity of sand above agiddy precipice, has felt it giving way under his hands, his nails, hiselbows, his knees, his feet; who--losing instead of gaining on histreacherous way, a prey to every terror of the danger, slipping backinstead of ascending, increasing the certainty of his fall by his veryefforts to gain the summit, and losing ground in every struggle forsafety--has felt the abyss approaching nearer and nearer, until thecertainty of his coming fall into the yawning jaws open to receive him,has frozen the marrow of his bones;--that man has experienced thesensations of Gwynplaine.
He felt the ground he had ascended crumbling under him, and his audiencewas the precipice.
There is always some one to say the word which sums all up.
Lord Scarsdale translated the impression of the assembly in oneexclamation,--
"What is the monster doing here?"
Gwynplaine stood up, dismayed and indignant, in a sort of finalconvulsion. He looked at them all fixedly.
"What am I doing here? I have come to be a terror to you! I am amonster, do you say? No! I am the people! I am an exception? No! I amthe rule; you are the exception! You are the chimera; I am the reality!I am the frightful man who laughs! Who laughs at what? At you, athimself, at everything! What is his laugh? Your crime and his torment!That crime he flings at your head! That punishment he spits in yourface! I laugh, and that means I weep!"
He paused. There was less noise. The laughter continued, but it was moresubdued. He may have fancied that he had regained a certain amount ofattention. He breathed again, and resumed,--
"This laugh which is on my face a king placed there. This laughexpresses the desolation of mankind. This laugh means hate, enforcedsilence, rage, despair. This laugh is the production of torture. Thislaugh is a forced laugh. If Satan were marked with this laugh, it wouldconvict God. But the Eternal is not like them that perish. Beingabsolute, he is just; and God hates the acts of kings. Oh! you take mefor an exception; but I am a symbol. Oh, all-powerful men, fools thatyou are! open your eyes. I am the incarnation of All. I representhumanity, such as its masters have made it. Mankind is mutilated. Thatwhich has been done to me has been done to it. In it have been deformedright, justice, truth, reason, intelligence, as eyes, nostrils, and earshave been deformed in me; its heart has been made a sink of passion andpain, like mine, and, like mine, its features have been hidden in a maskof joy. Where God had placed his finger, the king set his sign-manual.Monstrous superposition! Bishops, peers, and princes, the people is asea of suffering, smiling on the surface. My lords, I tell you that thepeople are as I am. To-day you oppress them; to-day you hoot at me. Butthe future is the ominous thaw, in which that which was as stone shallbecome wave. The appearance of solidity melts into liquid. A crack inthe ice, and all is over. There will come an hour when convulsion shallbreak down your oppression; when an angry roar will reply to your jeers.Nay, that hour did come! Thou wert of it, O my father! That hour of Goddid come, and was called the Republic! It was destroyed, but it willreturn. Meanwhile, remember that the line of kings armed with the swordwas broken by Cromwell, armed with the axe. Tremble! Incorruptiblesolutions are at hand: the talons which were cut are growing again; thetongues which were torn out are floating away, they are turning totongues of fire, and, scattered by the breath of darkness, are shoutingthrough infinity; those who hunger are showing their idle teeth; falseheavens, built over real hells, are tottering. The people aresuffering--they are suffering; and that which is on high totters, andthat which is below yawns. Darkness demands its change to light; thedamned discuss the elect. Behold! it is the coming of the people, theascent of mankind, the beginning of the end, the red dawn of thecatastrophe! Yes, all these things are in this laugh of mine, at whichyou laugh to-day! London is one perpetual fete. Be it so. From one endto the other, England rings with acclamation. Well! but listen. All thatyou see is I. You have your fetes--they are my laugh; you have yourpublic rejoicings--they are my laugh; you have your weddings,consecrations, and coronations--they are my laugh. The births of yourprinces are my laugh. But above you is the thunderbolt--it is my laugh."
How could they stand such nonsense? The laughter burst out afresh; andnow it was overwhelming. Of all the lava which that crater, the humanmouth, ejects, the most corrosive is joy. To inflict evil gaily is acontagion which no crowd can resist. All executions do not take place onthe scaffold; and men, from the moment they are in a body, whether inmobs or in senates, have always a ready executioner amongst them, calledsarcasm. There is no torture to be compared to that of the wretchcondemned to execution by ridicule. This was Gwynplaine's fate. He wasstoned with their jokes, and riddled by the scoffs shot at him. He stoodthere a mark for all. They sprang up; they cried, "Encore;" they shookwith laughter; they stamped their feet; they pulled each other's bands.The majesty of the place, the purple of the robes, the chaste ermine,the dignity of the wigs, had no effect. The lords laughed, the bishopslaughed, the judges laughed, the old men's benches derided, thechildren's benches were in convulsions. The Archbishop of Canterburynudged the Archbishop of York; Henry Compton, Bishop of London, brotherof Lord Northampton, held his sides; the Lord Chancellor bent down hishead, probably to conceal his inclination to laugh; and, at the bar,that statue of respect, the Usher of the Black Rod, was laughing also.
Gwynplaine, become pallid, had folded his arms; and, surrounded by allthose faces, young and old, in which had burst forth this grand Homericjubilee; in that whirlwind of clapping hands, of stamping feet, and ofhurrahs; in that mad buffoonery, of which he was the centre; in thatsplendid overflow of hilarity; in the midst of that unmeasured gaiety,he felt that the sepulchre was within him. All was over. He could nolonger master the face which betrayed nor the audience which insultedhim.
That eternal and fatal law by which the grotesque is linked with thesublime--by which the laugh re-echoes the groan, parody rides behinddespair, and seeming is opposed to being--had never found more terribleexpression. Never had a light more sinister illumined the depths ofhuman darkness.
Gwynplaine was assisting at the final destruction of his destiny by aburst of laughter. The irremediable was in this. Having fallen, we canraise ourselves up; but, being pulverized, never. And the insult oftheir sovereign mockery had reduced him to dust. From thenceforthnothing was possible. Everything is in accordance with the scene. Thatwhich was triumph in the Green Box was disgrace and catastrophe in theHouse of Lords. What was applause there, was insult here. He feltsomething like the reverse side of his mask. On one side of that mask hehad the sympathy of the people, who welcomed Gwynplaine; on the other,the contempt of the great, rejecting Lord Fermain Clancharlie. On oneside, attraction; on the other, repulsion; both leading him towards theshadows. He felt himself, as it were, struck from behind. Fate strikestreacherous blows. Everything will be explained hereafter, but, in themeantime, destiny is a snare, and man sinks into its pitfalls. He hadexpected to rise, and was welcomed by laughter. Such apotheoses havelugubrious terminations. There is a dreary expression--to be sobered;tragical wisdom born of drunkenness! In the midst of that tempest ofgaiety commingled with ferocity, Gwynplaine fell into a reverie.
An assembly in mad merriment drifts as chance directs, and loses itscompass when it gives itself to laughter. None knew whither they weretending, or what they were doing. The House was obliged to rise,adjourned by the Lord Chancellor, "owing to extraordinarycircumstances," to the next day. The peers broke up. They bowed to theroyal throne and departed. Echoes of prolonged laughter were heardlosing themselves in the corridors.
Assemblies, besides their official doors, have--under tapestry, underprojections, and under arches--all sorts of hidden doors, by which themembers escape like water through the cracks in a vase. In a short timethe chamber was deserted. This takes place quickly and almostimperceptibly, and those places, so lately full of voices, are suddenlygiven back to silence.
&nb
sp; Reverie carries one far; and one comes by long dreaming to reach, as itwere, another planet.
Gwynplaine suddenly awoke from such a dream. He was alone. The chamberwas empty. He had not even observed that the House had been adjourned.All the peers had departed, even his sponsors. There only remained hereand there some of the lower officers of the House, waiting for hislordship to depart before they put the covers on and extinguished thelights.
Mechanically he placed his hat on his head, and, leaving his place,directed his steps to the great door opening into the gallery. As he waspassing through the opening in the bar, a doorkeeper relieved him of hispeer's robes. This he scarcely felt. In another instant he was in thegallery.
The officials who remained observed with astonishment that the peer hadgone out without bowing to the throne!