Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

Gwynplaine was assisting at the final destruction of his destiny by a
burst of laughter. The irremediable was in this. Having fallen, we can
raise ourselves up; but, being pulverized, never. And the insult of
their sovereign mockery had reduced him to dust. From thenceforth
nothing was possible. Everything is in accordance with the scene. That
which was triumph in the Green Box was disgrace and catastrophe in the
House of Lords. What was applause there, was insult here. He felt
something like the reverse side of his mask. On one side of that mask he
had the sympathy of the people, who welcomed Gwynplaine; on the other,
the contempt of the great, rejecting Lord Fermain Clancharlie. On one
side, attraction; on the other, repulsion; both leading him towards the
shadows. He felt himself, as it were, struck from behind. Fate strikes
treacherous blows. Everything will be explained hereafter, but, in the
meantime, destiny is a snare, and man sinks into its pitfalls. He had
expected to rise, and was welcomed by laughter. Such apotheoses have
lugubrious terminations. There is a dreary expression--to be sobered;
tragical wisdom born of drunkenness! In the midst of that tempest of
gaiety commingled with ferocity, Gwynplaine fell into a reverie.
An assembly in mad merriment drifts as chance directs, and loses its
compass when it gives itself to laughter. None knew whither they were
tending, or what they were doing. The House was obliged to rise,
adjourned by the Lord Chancellor, "owing to extraordinary
circumstances," to the next day. The peers broke up. They bowed to the
royal throne and departed. Echoes of prolonged laughter were heard
losing themselves in the corridors.
Assemblies, besides their official doors, have--under tapestry, under
projections, and under arches--all sorts of hidden doors, by which the
members escape like water through the cracks in a vase. In a short time
the chamber was deserted. This takes place quickly and almost
imperceptibly, and those places, so lately full of voices, are suddenly
given back to silence.
Reverie carries one far; and one comes by long dreaming to reach, as it
were, another planet.
Gwynplaine suddenly awoke from such a dream. He was alone. The chamber
was empty. He had not even observed that the House had been adjourned.
All the peers had departed, even his sponsors. There only remained here
and there some of the lower officers of the House, waiting for his
lordship to depart before they put the covers on and extinguished the
lights.
Mechanically he placed his hat on his head, and, leaving his place,
directed his steps to the great door opening into the gallery. As he was
passing through the opening in the bar, a doorkeeper relieved him of his
peer's robes. This he scarcely felt. In another instant he was in the
gallery.
The officials who remained observed with astonishment that the peer had
gone out without bowing to the throne!
CHAPTER VIII.