| 674 | 675 | 676 | 677 | 678 |
| 1 | 236 | 472 | 708 | 944 |
|
night--wandering, shivering, hungry, provoking laughter; in front, a
brilliant nobleman--luxurious, proud, dazzling all London. He was
casting off one form, and amalgamating himself with the other. He was
casting the mountebank, and becoming the peer. Change of skin is
sometimes change of soul. Now and then the past seemed like a dream. It
was complex; bad and good. He thought of his father. It was a poignant
anguish never to have known his father. He tried to picture him to
himself. He thought of his brother, of whom he had just heard. Then he
had a family! He, Gwynplaine! He lost himself in fantastic dreams. He
saw visions of magnificence; unknown forms of solemn grandeur moved in
mist before him. He heard flourishes of trumpets.
"And then," he said, "I shall be eloquent."
He pictured to himself a splendid entrance into the House of Lords. He
should arrive full to the brim with new facts and ideas. What could he
not tell them? What subjects he had accumulated! What an advantage to be
in the midst of them, a man who had seen, touched, undergone, and
suffered; who could cry aloud to them, "I have been near to everything,
from which you are so far removed." He would hurl reality in the face of
those patricians, crammed with illusions. They should tremble, for it
would be the truth. They would applaud, for it would be grand. He would
arise amongst those powerful men, more powerful than they. "I shall
appear as a torch-bearer, to show them truth; and as a sword-bearer, to
show them justice!" What a triumph!
And, building up these fantasies in his mind, clear and confused at the
676
Page
Quick Jump
|