a keen, universal suffering. He saw the vision of the
foaming wave of misery dashing over the crowd of humanity. He was safe
in port himself, as he watched the wreck around him. Sometimes he laid
his disfigured head in his hands and dreamed.

What folly to be happy! How one dreams! Ideas were born within him.
Absurd notions crossed his brain.

Because formerly he had succoured an infant, he felt a ridiculous desire
to succour the whole world. The mists of reverie sometimes obscured his
individuality, and he lost his ideas of proportion so far as to ask
himself the question, "What can be done for the poor?" Sometimes he was
so absorbed in his subject as to express it aloud. Then Ursus shrugged
his shoulders and looked at him fixedly. Gwynplaine continued his
reverie.

"Oh; were I powerful, would I not aid the wretched? But what am I? An
atom. What can I do? Nothing."

He was mistaken. He was able to do a great deal for the wretched. He
could make them laugh; and, as we have said, to make people laugh is to
make them forget. What a benefactor on earth is he who can bestow
forgetfulness!

CHAPTER XI.

GWYNPLAINE THINKS JUSTICE, AND URSUS TALKS TRUTH.

A philosopher is a spy. Ursus, a watcher of dreams, studied his pupil.

Our monologues leave on our brows a faint reflection, distinguishable to
the eye of a physiognomist. Hence what occurred to Gwynplaine did not
escape Ursus. One day, as Gwynplaine was meditating, Ursus pulled him by
his jacket, and exclaimed,--

"You strike me as being an observer! You fool! Take care; it is no
business of yours. You have one thing to do--to love Dea. You have two
causes of happiness--the first is, that the crowd sees your muzzle; the
second is, that Dea does not. You have no right to the happiness you
possess, for no woman who saw your mouth would consent to your kiss; and
that mouth which has made your fortune, and that face which has given
you riches, are not your own. You were not born with that countenance.
It was borrowed from the grimace which is at the bottom of the infinite.
You have stolen your mask from the devil. You are hideous; be satisfied
with having drawn that prize in the lottery. There are in this world
(and a very good thing too) the happy by right and the happy by luck.
You are happy by luck. You are in a cave wherein a star is enclosed. The
poor star belongs to you. Do not seek to leave the cave, and guard your
star, O spider! You have in your web