which the great are made, for such was the pleasure of a king.
That is my history. Many amongst you knew my father. I knew him not. His
connection with you was his feudal descent; his outlawry is the bond
between him and me. What God willed was well. I was cast into the abyss.
For what end? To search its depths. I am a diver, and I have brought
back the pearl, truth. I speak, because I know. You shall hear me, my
lords. I have seen, I have felt! Suffering is not a mere word, ye happy
ones! Poverty I grew up in; winter has frozen me; hunger I have tasted;
contempt I have suffered; pestilence I have undergone; shame I have
drunk of. And I will vomit all these up before you, and this ejection of
all misery shall sully your feet and flame about them. I hesitated
before I allowed myself to be brought to the place where I now stand,
because I have duties to others elsewhere, and my heart is not here.
What passed within me has nothing to do with you. When the man whom you
call Usher of the Black Rod came to seek me by order of the woman whom
you call the Queen, the idea struck me for a moment that I would refuse
to come. But it seemed to me that the hidden hand of God pressed me to
the spot, and I obeyed. I felt that I must come amongst you. Why?
Because of my rags of yesterday. It is to raise my voice among those who
have eaten their fill that God mixed me up with the famished. Oh, have
pity! Of this fatal world to which you believe yourselves to belong you
know nothing. Placed so high, you are out of it. But I will tell you
what it is. I have had experience enough. I come from beneath the
pressure of your feet. I can tell you your weight. Oh, you who are
masters, do you know what you are? do you see what you are doing? No.
Oh, it is dreadful! One night, one night of storm, a little deserted
child, an orphan alone in the immeasurable creation, I made my entrance
into that darkness which you call society. The first thing that I saw
was the law, under the form of a gibbet; the second was riches, your
riches, under the form of a woman dead of cold and hunger; the third,
the future, under the form of a child left to die; the fourth, goodness,
truth, and justice, under the figure of a vagabond, whose sole friend
and companion was a wolf."

Just then Gwynplaine, stricken by a sudden emotion, felt the sobs rising
in his throat, causing him, most unfortunately, to burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter.

The contagion was imme