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A man going to sleep in a mole's burrow, and awaking on the top of the
Strasbourg steeple; such was the state of Gwynplaine.
Giddiness is a dangerous kind of glare, particularly that which bears
you at once towards the day and towards the night, forming two
whirlwinds, one opposed to the other.
He saw too much, and not enough.
He saw all, and nothing.
His state was what the author of this book has somewhere expressed as
the blind man dazzled.
Gwynplaine, left by himself, began to walk with long strides. A bubbling
precedes an explosion.
Notwithstanding his agitation, in this impossibility of keeping still,
he meditated. His mind liquefied as it boiled. He began to recall things
to his memory. It is surprising how we find that we have heard so
clearly that to which we scarcely listened. The declaration of the
shipwrecked men, read by the sheriff in the Southwark cell, came back to
him clearly and intelligibly. He recalled every word, he saw under it
his whole infancy.
Suddenly he stopped, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up to
the ceilings--the sky--no matter what--whatever was above him.
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