A chaos of complaint rose from amidst the confusion of exclamations:—­

“Gorgon’s face!”—­“What does it all mean?”—­“An insult to the House!”—­“The fellow ought to be put out!”—­“What a madman!”—­“Shame! shame!”—­“Adjourn the House!”—­“No; let him finish his speech!”—­“Talk away, you buffoon!”

Lord Lewis of Duras, with his arms akimbo, shouted,—­

“Ah! it does one good to laugh.  My spleen is cured.  I propose a vote of thanks in these terms:  ’The House of Lords returns thanks to the Green Box.’”

Gwynplaine, it may be remembered, had dreamt of a different welcome.

A man who, climbing up a steep and crumbling acclivity of sand above a giddy precipice, has felt it giving way under his hands, his nails, his elbows, his knees, his feet; who—­losing instead of gaining on his treacherous way, a prey to every terror of the danger, slipping back instead of ascending, increasing the certainty of his fall by his very efforts to gain the summit, and losing ground in every struggle for safety—­has felt the abyss approaching nearer and nearer, until the certainty of his coming fall into the yawning jaws open to receive him, has frozen the marrow of his bones;—­that man has experienced the sensations of Gwynplaine.

He felt the ground he had ascended crumbling under him, and his audience was the precipice.

There is always some one to say the word which sums all up.

Lord Scarsdale translated the impression of the assembly in one exclamation,—­

“What is the monster doing here?”

Gwynplaine stood up, dismayed and indignant, in a sort of final convulsion.  He looked at them all fixedly.

“What am I doing here?  I have come to be a terror to you!  I am a monster, do you say?  No!  I am the people!  I am an exception?  No!  I am the rule; you are the exception!  You are the chimera; I am the reality!  I am the frightful man who laughs!  Who laughs at what?  At you, at himself, at everything!  What is his laugh?  Your crime and his torment!  That crime he flings at your head!  That punishment he spits in your face!  I laugh, and that means I weep!”

He paused.  There was less noise.  The laughter continued, but it was more subdued.  He may have fancied that he had regained a certain amount of attention.  He breathed again, and resumed,—­

“This laugh which is on my face a king placed there.  This laugh expresses the desolation of mankind.  This laugh means hate, enforced silence, rage, despair.  This laugh is the production of torture.  This laugh is a forced laugh.  If Satan were marked with this laugh, it would convict God.  But the Eternal is not like them that perish.  Being absolute, he is just; and God hates the acts of kings.  Oh! you take me for an exception; but I am a symbol.  Oh, all-powerful men, fools that you are! open your eyes.  I am the incarnation of All.  I represent humanity, such as its masters have made it.  Mankind is mutilated.  That