BOOK THE NINTH.

IN RUINS.

CHAPTER I.

IT IS THROUGH EXCESS OF GREATNESS THAT MAN REACHES EXCESS OF MISERY.

As midnight tolled from St. Paul’s, a man who had just crossed London Bridge struck into the lanes of Southwark.  There were no lamps lighted, it being at that time the custom in London, as in Paris, to extinguish the public lamps at eleven o’clock—­that is, to put them out just as they became necessary.  The streets were dark and deserted.  When the lamps are out men stay in.  He whom we speak of advanced with hurried strides.  He was strangely dressed for walking at such an hour.  He wore a coat of embroidered silk, a sword by his side, a hat with white plumes, and no cloak.  The watchmen, as they saw him pass, said, “It is a lord walking for a wager,” and they moved out of his way with the respect due to a lord and to a better.

The man was Gwynplaine.  He was making his escape.  Where was he?  He did not know.  We have said that the soul has its cyclones—­fearful whirlwinds, in which heaven, the sea, day, night, life, death, are all mingled in unintelligible horror.  It can no longer breathe Truth; it is crushed by things in which it does not believe.  Nothingness becomes hurricane.  The firmament pales.  Infinity is empty.  The mind of the sufferer wanders away.  He feels himself dying.  He craves for a star.  What did Gwynplaine feel? a thirst—­a thirst to see Dea.

He felt but that.  To reach the Green Box again, and the Tadcaster Inn, with its sounds and light—­full of the cordial laughter of the people; to find Ursus and Homo, to see Dea again, to re-enter life.  Disillusion, like a bow, shoots its arrow, man, towards the True.  Gwynplaine hastened on.  He approached Tarrinzeau Field.  He walked no longer now; he ran.  His eyes pierced the darkness before him.  His glance preceded him, eagerly seeking the harbour on the horizon.  What a moment for him when he should see the lighted windows of Tadcaster Inn!

He reached the bowling-green.  He turned the corner of the wall, and saw before him, at the other end of the field, some distance off, the inn—­the only house, it may be remembered, in the field where the fair was held.

He looked.  There was no light; nothing but a black mass.

He shuddered.  Then he said to himself that it was late; that the tavern was shut up; that it was very natural; that every one was asleep; that he had only to awaken Nicless or Govicum; that he must go up to the inn and knock at the door.  He did so, running no longer now, but rushing.