FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170  
171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   >>   >|  
the brush in that dark stuff within, to produce with it a portrait of candour; to fawn, to restrain and suppress one's self, to be ever on the _qui vive_; watching without ceasing to mask latent crimes with a face of healthy innocence: to transform deformity into beauty; to fashion wickedness into the shape of perfection; to tickle, as it were, with the point of a dagger, to put sugar with poison, to keep a bridle on every gesture and keep a watch over every tone, not even to have a countenance of one's own--what can be harder, what can be more torturing. The odiousness of hypocrisy is obscurely felt by the hypocrite himself. Drinking perpetually of his own imposture is nauseating. The sweetness of tone which cunning gives to scoundrelism is repugnant to the scoundrel compelled to have it ever in the mouth; and there are moments of disgust when villainy seems on the point of vomiting its secret. To have to swallow that bitter saliva is horrible. Add to this picture his profound pride. There are strange moments in the history of such a life, when hypocrisy worships itself. There is always an inordinate egotism in roguery. The worm has the same mode of gliding along as the serpent, and the same manner of raising its head. The treacherous villain is the despot curbed and restrained, and only able to attain his ends by resigning himself to play a secondary part. He is summed-up littleness capable of enormities. The perfect hypocrite is a Titan dwarfed. Clubin had a genuine faith that he had been ill-used. Why had not he the right to have been born rich? It was from no fault of his that it was otherwise. Deprived as he had been of the higher enjoyments of life, why had he been forced to labour--in other words, to cheat, to betray, to destroy? Why had he been condemned to this torture of flattering, cringing, fawning; to be always labouring for men's respect and friendship, and to wear night and day a face which was not his own? To be compelled to dissimulate was in itself to submit to a hardship. Men hate those to whom they have to lie. But now the disguise was at an end. Clubin had taken his revenge. On whom? On all! On everything! Lethierry had never done him any but good services; so much the greater his spleen. He was revenged upon Lethierry. He was revenged upon all those in whose presence he had felt constraint. It was his turn to be free now. Whoever had thought well of him was his enemy. He had felt himself
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170  
171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
moments
 

compelled

 

hypocrite

 

hypocrisy

 

Lethierry

 
Clubin
 
revenged
 

betray

 
enjoyments
 

forced


labour

 

destroy

 
torture
 

respect

 
friendship
 

labouring

 
fawning
 
higher
 

flattering

 

cringing


condemned

 

genuine

 

watching

 

dwarfed

 

enormities

 

perfect

 

suppress

 

Deprived

 

dissimulate

 

greater


spleen

 
services
 

Whoever

 

thought

 

presence

 
constraint
 

restrain

 
hardship
 

capable

 
submit

revenge
 

portrait

 
produce
 
candour
 

disguise

 

summed

 
scoundrel
 

fashion

 
repugnant
 

scoundrelism