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the spot, and I obeyed. I felt that I must come amongst you. Why?
Because of my rags of yesterday. It is to raise my voice among those who
have eaten their fill that God mixed me up with the famished. Oh, have
pity! Of this fatal world to which you believe yourselves to belong you
know nothing. Placed so high, you are out of it. But I will tell you
what it is. I have had experience enough. I come from beneath the
pressure of your feet. I can tell you your weight. Oh, you who are
masters, do you know what you are? do you see what you are doing? No.
Oh, it is dreadful! One night, one night of storm, a little deserted
child, an orphan alone in the immeasurable creation, I made my entrance
into that darkness which you call society. The first thing that I saw
was the law, under the form of a gibbet; the second was riches, your
riches, under the form of a woman dead of cold and hunger; the third,
the future, under the form of a child left to die; the fourth, goodness,
truth, and justice, under the figure of a vagabond, whose sole friend
and companion was a wolf."
Just then Gwynplaine, stricken by a sudden emotion, felt the sobs rising
in his throat, causing him, most unfortunately, to burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter.
The contagion was immediate. A cloud had hung over the assembly. It
might have broken into terror; it broke into delight. Mad merriment
seized the whole House. Nothing pleases the great chambers of sovereign
man so much as buffoonery. It is their revenge upon their graver
moments.
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