Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/385

Rh the result is a host of mysterious excavations. There was not a pain nor an emotion of anger, shame, or despair, of which Gwynplaine did not see the trace. The mouths of those children were hungering for food. That man was a father, that woman a mother, and behind them might be seen families on the road to ruin. There was a face already marked by vice and contact with crime, and the reasons were plain,—ignorance and poverty. Another showed the stamp of original goodness, obliterated by social pressure, and turned to hatred. On the face of an old woman he saw starvation; on that of a girl, prostitution. The same fact, and although the girl had the resource of her youth, all the sadder for that! In this crowd were hands but no tools; the workers only asked for work, but work was wanting. Sometimes a soldier came and seated himself by the workmen, sometimes a wounded pensioner; and Gwynplaine saw the grim spectre of war. Here, he read lack of employment, there, man-farming,—slavery. On some brows he saw a gradual return to animalism,—that slow return of man to beast, produced in those in the lower walks of life by the good fortune of their superiors.

There was a break in the gloom for Gwynplaine. He and Dea had a loop-hole of happiness; the rest was damnation. Gwynplaine saw above him the thoughtless trampling of the powerful, the rich, the magnificent, and the great of the earth. Below, he saw the pale faces of the disinherited. He saw himself and Dea, with their blessings, so paltry in appearance, so great to themselves, between these two worlds. That which was above went and came, free, joyous, dancing, carelessly trampling everything and everybody under foot; above him, the world which treads; below, the world which is trodden upon. It is a fatal fact, and one indicating a profound social evil, that happiness should crush misery. Gwynplaine comprehended this gloomy fact thoroughly. What