CHAPTER I.
IT IS THROUGH EXCESS OF GREATNESS THAT MAN REACHES EXCESS OF MISERY.
As midnight tolled from St. Paul's, a man who had just crossed LondonBridge struck into the lanes of Southwark. There were no lamps lighted,it being at that time the custom in London, as in Paris, to extinguishthe public lamps at eleven o'clock--that is, to put them out just asthey became necessary. The streets were dark and deserted. When thelamps are out men stay in. He whom we speak of advanced with hurriedstrides. He was strangely dressed for walking at such an hour. He wore acoat of embroidered silk, a sword by his side, a hat with white plumes,and no cloak. The watchmen, as they saw him pass, said, "It is a lordwalking for a wager," and they moved out of his way with the respect dueto a lord and to a better.
The man was Gwynplaine. He was making his escape. Where was he? He didnot know. We have said that the soul has its cyclones--fearfulwhirlwinds, in which heaven, the sea, day, night, life, death, are allmingled in unintelligible horror. It can no longer breathe Truth; it iscrushed by things in which it does not believe. Nothingness becomeshurricane. The firmament pales. Infinity is empty. The mind of thesufferer wanders away. He feels himself dying. He craves for a star.What did Gwynplaine feel? a thirst--a thirst to see Dea.
He felt but that. To reach the Green Box again, and the Tadcaster Inn,with its sounds and light--full of the cordial laughter of the people;to find Ursus and Homo, to see Dea again, to re-enter life. Disillusion,like a bow, shoots its arrow, man, towards the True. Gwynplaine hastenedon. He approached Tarrinzeau Field. He walked no longer now; he ran. Hiseyes pierced the darkness before him. His glance preceded him, eagerlyseeking the harbour on the horizon. What a moment for him when he shouldsee the lighted windows of Tadcaster Inn!
He reached the bowling-green. He turned the corner of the wall, and sawbefore him, at the other end of the field, some distance off, theinn--the only house, it may be remembered, in the field where the fairwas held.
He looked. There was no light; nothing but a black mass.
He shuddered. Then he said to himself that it was late; that the tavernwas shut up; that it was very natural; that every one was asleep; thathe had only to awaken Nicless or Govicum; that he must go up to the innand knock at the door. He did so, running no longer now, but rushing.
He reached the inn, breathless. It is when, storm-beaten and strugglingin the invisible convulsions of the soul until he knows not whether heis in life or in death, that all the delicacy of a man's affection forhis loved ones, being yet unimpaired, proves a heart true. When all elseis swallowed up, tenderness still floats unshattered. Not to awaken Deatoo suddenly was Gwynplaine's first thought. He approached the inn withas little noise as possible. He recognized the nook, the old dog kennel,where Govicum used to sleep. In it, contiguous to the lower room, was awindow opening on to the field. Gwynplaine tapped softly at the pane. Itwould be enough to awaken Govicum, he thought.
There was no sound in Govicum's room.
"At his age," said Gwynplaine, "a boy sleeps soundly."
With the back of his hand he knocked against the window gently. Nothingstirred.
He knocked louder twice. Still nothing stirred. Then, feeling somewhatuneasy, he went to the door of the inn and knocked. No one answered. Hereflected, and began to feel a cold shudder come over him.
"Master Nicless is old, children sleep soundly, and old men heavily.Courage! louder!"
He had tapped, he had knocked, he had kicked the door; now he flunghimself against it.
This recalled to him a distant memory of Weymouth, when, a little child,he had carried Dea, an infant, in his arms.
He battered the door again violently, like a lord, which, alas! he was.
The house remained silent. He felt that he was losing his head. He nolonger thought of caution. He shouted,--
"Nicless! Govicum!"
At the same time he looked up at the windows, to see if any candle waslighted. But the inn was blank. Not a voice, not a sound, not a glimmerof light. He went to the gate and knocked at it, kicked against it, andshook it, crying out wildly,--
"Ursus! Homo!"
The wolf did not bark.
A cold sweat stood in drops upon his brow. He cast his eyes around. Thenight was dark; but there were stars enough to render the fair-greenvisible. He saw--a melancholy sight to him--that everything on it hadvanished.
There was not a single caravan. The circus was gone. Not a tent, not abooth, not a cart, remained. The strollers, with their thousand noisycries, who had swarmed there, had given place to a black and sullenvoid.
All were gone.
The madness of anxiety took possession of him. What did this mean? Whathad happened? Was no one left? Could it be that life had crumbled awaybehind him? What had happened to them all? Good heavens! Then he rushedlike a tempest against the house. He struck the small door, the gate,the windows, the window-shutters, the walls, with fists and feet,furious with terror and agony of mind.
He called Nicless, Govicum, Fibi, Vinos, Ursus, Homo. He tried everyshout and every sound against this wall. At times he waited andlistened; but the house remained mute and dead. Then, exasperated, hebegan again with blows, shouts, and repeated knockings, re-echoed allaround. It might have been thunder trying to awake the grave.
There is a certain stage of fright in which a man becomes terrible. Hewho fears everything fears nothing. He would strike the Sphynx. Hedefies the Unknown.
Gwynplaine renewed the noise in every possible form--stopping, resuming,unwearying in the shouts and appeals by which he assailed the tragicsilence. He called a thousand times on the names of those who shouldhave been there. He shrieked out every name except that of Dea--aprecaution of which he could not have explained the reason himself, butwhich instinct inspired even in his distraction.
Having exhausted calls and cries, nothing was left but to break in.
"I must enter the house," he said to himself; "but how?"
He broke a pane of glass in Govicum's room by thrusting his hand throughit, tearing the flesh; he drew the bolt of the sash and opened thewindow. Perceiving that his sword was in the way, he tore it offangrily, scabbard, blade, and belt, and flung it on the pavement. Thenhe raised himself by the inequalities in the wall, and though the windowwas narrow, he was able to pass through it. He entered the inn.Govicum's bed, dimly visible in its nook, was there; but Govicum was notin it. If Govicum was not in his bed, it was evident that Nicless couldnot be in his.
The whole house was dark. He felt in that shadowy interior themysterious immobility of emptiness, and that vague fear whichsignifies--"There is no one here."
Gwynplaine, convulsed with anxiety, crossed the lower room, knockingagainst the tables, upsetting the earthenware, throwing down thebenches, sweeping against the jugs, and, striding over the furniture,reached the door leading into the court, and broke it open with one blowfrom his knee, which sprung the lock. The door turned on its hinges. Helooked into the court. The Green Box was no longer there.