Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/386

342 a destiny! Must a man needs drag himself along through mire and corruption, with such vicious tastes, such a total abdication of his rights, or such abjectness that one feels inclined to crush him under foot? Of what butterfly can this earthly life be grub? What! in this vast crowd of ignorant, starving creatures, scarcely able to distinguish good from evil,—the inflexibility of human laws producing marvellous laxity of conscience,—is there no child that grows but to be stunted, no virgin that matures but for sin, no rose that blooms but for the slimy snail?

Gwynplaine shuddered as he saw the foaming wave of misery dash over the crowd of humanity. He himself was safe in port, as he watched the wrecks around him. Sometimes he buried his disfigured head in his hands and dreamed. What folly to expect to be happy! What an idle dream! Strange ideas arose within him. Absurd notions flitted through his brain. Because he had once succoured an infant, he felt a ridiculous desire to succour the whole world. The mists of reverie sometimes obscured his individuality, and he lost all ideas of proportion so far as to ask himself the question, "What can be done for the poor?" Sometimes he was so absorbed in the subject that he unconsciously uttered his thoughts aloud. Ursus shrugged his shoulders and looked at him wonderingly.

"Oh, if I were powerful, would I not aid the wretched?" Gwynplaine would exclaim, continuing his reverie. But what am I?—A mere atom. What can I do?—Nothing."

He was mistaken. He was able to do a great deal for the wretched. He could make them laugh; and, as we have said before, to make people laugh is to make them forget. What a benefactor to humanity is he who can bestow forgetfulness!