Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/89

Rh mad. Fatal fever! Every man, surprised by the unexpected, has at times felt the throb of such tragic pulsations. The observer ever listens with anxiety to the echoes resounding from the dull strokes of the battering-ram of destiny striking against a conscience.

One detail, however, is noteworthy: the effrontery of the adventure, which perhaps might have shocked a depraved man, never struck Gwynplaine. He saw only the grandeur of the woman. Alas! he felt flattered. His vanity assured him of victory only. To dream that he was the object of unchaste desire, rather than of love, would have required much greater wit than innocence possesses. He could not grasp the animal side of the goddess's nature.

A thousand conflicting ideas rushed into Gwynplaine's brain, now following each other singly, now crowding together. Then quiet reigned again, and he would lean his head on his hands, in a kind of mournful attention, like one who contemplates a landscape by night. Suddenly he realized that he was no longer thinking. His reverie had reached that point of utter bewilderment in which everything disappears from view. He remembered, too, that he had not entered the inn, and it was probably about two o'clock in the morning. He placed the letter which the page had brought him in his side-pocket, but perceiving that it was next his heart, he drew it out again, crumpled it up, and placed it in a pocket of his hose. He then directed his steps towards the inn, which he entered stealthily, and without awaking little Govicum, who had fallen asleep on the table, with his arms for a pillow, while waiting for him. He closed the door, lighted a candle at the lamp, fastened the bolt, turned the key in the lock, taking, mechanically, all the precautions usual to a man returning home late, ascended the staircase of the Green Box,