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Barkilphedro what he was. She had created him. Be it so. Yes, created
nothing--less than nothing. For in his absurd situation he felt borne
down, tongue-tied, disfigured. What did he owe Josiana? The thanks due
from a hunchback to the mother who bore him deformed. Behold your
privileged ones, your folks overwhelmed with fortune, your parvenus,
your favourites of that horrid stepmother Fortune! And that man of
talent, Barkilphedro, was obliged to stand on staircases, to bow to
footmen, to climb to the top of the house at night, to be courteous,
assiduous, pleasant, respectful, and to have ever on his muzzle a
respectful grimace! Was not it enough to make him gnash his teeth with
rage! And all the while she was putting pearls round her neck, and
making amorous poses to her fool, Lord David Dirry-Moir; the hussy!
Never let any one do you a service. They will abuse the advantage it
gives them. Never allow yourself to be taken in the act of inanition.
They would relieve you. Because he was starving, this woman had found it
a sufficient pretext to give him bread. From that moment he was her
servant; a craving of the stomach, and there is a chain for life! To be
obliged is to be sold. The happy, the powerful, make use of the moment
you stretch out your hand to place a penny in it, and at the crisis of
your weakness make you a slave, and a slave of the worst kind, the slave
of an act of charity--a slave forced to love the enslaver. What infamy!
what want of delicacy! what an assault on your self-respect! Then all is
over. You are sentenced for life to consider this man good, that woman
beautiful; to remain in the back rows; to approve, to applaud, to
admire, to worship, to prostrate yourself, to blister your knees by long
genuflections, to sugar your words when you are gnawing your lips with
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