Yes; it is fine to speak for the dumb, but to speak to the deaf is sad.  And that was his second part in the drama.

Alas! he had failed irremediably.  The elevation in which he had believed, the high fortune, had melted away like a mirage.  And what a fall!  To be drowned in a surge of laughter!

He had believed himself strong—­he who, during so many years, had floated with observant mind on the wide sea of suffering; he who had brought back out of the great shadow so touching a cry.  He had been flung against that huge rock the frivolity of the fortunate.  He believed himself an avenger; he was but a clown.  He thought that he wielded the thunderbolt; he did but tickle.  In place of emotion, he met with mockery.  He sobbed; they burst into gaiety, and under that gaiety he had sunk fatally submerged.

And what had they laughed at?  At his laugh.  So that trace of a hateful act, of which he must keep the mark for ever—­mutilation carved in everlasting gaiety; the stigmata of laughter, image of the sham contentment of nations under their oppressors; that mask of joy produced by torture; that abyss of grimace which he carried on his features; the scar which signified Jussu regis, the attestation of a crime committed by the king towards him, and the symbol of crime committed by royalty towards the people;—­that it was which had triumphed over him; that it was which had overwhelmed him; so that the accusation against the executioner turned into sentence upon the victim.  What a prodigious denial of justice!  Royalty, having had satisfaction of his father, had had satisfaction of him!  The evil that had been done had served as pretext and as motive for the evil which remained to be done.  Against whom were the lords angered?  Against the torturer?  No; against the tortured.  Here is the throne; there, the people.  Here, James II.; there, Gwynplaine.  That confrontation, indeed, brought to light an outrage and a crime.  What was the outrage?  Complaint.  What was the crime?  Suffering.  Let misery hide itself in silence, otherwise it becomes treason.  And those men who had dragged Gwynplaine on the hurdle of sarcasm, were they wicked?  No; but they, too, had their fatality—­they were happy.  They were executioners, ignorant of the fact.  They were good-humoured; they saw no use in Gwynplaine.  He opened himself to them.  He tore out his heart to show them, and they cried, “Go on with your play!” But, sharpest sting! he had laughed himself.  The frightful chain which tied down his soul hindered his thoughts from rising to his face.  His disfigurement reached even his senses; and, while his conscience was indignant, his face gave it the lie, and jested.  Then all was over.  He was the laughing man, the caryatid of the weeping world.  He was an agony petrified in hilarity, carrying the weight of a universe of calamity, and walled up for ever with the gaiety, the ridicule, and the amusement of others; of all the oppressed, of whom he was the incarnation, he