The Man Who Laughs


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This is what is called being afraid without reason.  
What a man feels a child feels still more.  
The uneasiness of nocturnal fear, increased by the spectral houses,  
increased the weight of the sad burden under which he was struggling.  
He entered Conycar Lane, and perceived at the end of that passage the  
Backwater, which he took for the ocean. He no longer knew in what  
direction the sea lay. He retraced his steps, struck to the left by  
Maiden Street, and returned as far as St. Alban's Row.  
There, by chance and without selection, he knocked violently at any  
house that he happened to pass. His blows, on which he was expending his  
last energies, were jerky and without aim; now ceasing altogether for a  
time, now renewed as if in irritation. It was the violence of his fever  
striking against the doors.  
One voice answered.  
That of Time.  
Three o'clock tolled slowly behind him from the old belfry of St.  
Nicholas.  
Then all sank into silence again.  
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238 239 240 241 242

Quick Jump
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