they pulled each other’s bands.  The majesty of the place, the purple of the robes, the chaste ermine, the dignity of the wigs, had no effect.  The lords laughed, the bishops laughed, the judges laughed, the old men’s benches derided, the children’s benches were in convulsions.  The Archbishop of Canterbury nudged the Archbishop of York; Henry Compton, Bishop of London, brother of Lord Northampton, held his sides; the Lord Chancellor bent down his head, probably to conceal his inclination to laugh; and, at the bar, that statue of respect, the Usher of the Black Rod, was laughing also.

Gwynplaine, become pallid, had folded his arms; and, surrounded by all those faces, young and old, in which had burst forth this grand Homeric jubilee; in that whirlwind of clapping hands, of stamping feet, and of hurrahs; in that mad buffoonery, of which he was the centre; in that splendid overflow of hilarity; in the midst of that unmeasured gaiety, he felt that the sepulchre was within him.  All was over.  He could no longer master the face which betrayed nor the audience which insulted him.

That eternal and fatal law by which the grotesque is linked with the sublime—­by which the laugh re-echoes the groan, parody rides behind despair, and seeming is opposed to being—­had never found more terrible expression.  Never had a light more sinister illumined the depths of human darkness.

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.