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They turned to the right.
Ursus, staggering with terror, leant against a wall that he might not
fall.
There is no hypocrisy so great as the words which we say to ourselves,
"I wish to know the worst!" At heart we do not wish it at all. We have
a dreadful fear of knowing it. Agony is mingled with a dim effort not to
see the end. We do not own it to ourselves, but we would draw back if we
dared; and when we have advanced, we reproach ourselves for having done
so.
Thus did Ursus. He shuddered as he thought,--
"
Here are things going wrong. I should have found it out soon enough.
What business had I to follow Gwynplaine?"
Having made this reflection, man being but self-contradiction, he
increased his pace, and, mastering his anxiety, hastened to get nearer
the cortège, so as not to break, in the maze of small streets, the
thread between Gwynplaine and himself.
The cortège of police could not move quickly, on account of its
solemnity.
The wapentake led it.
584
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