changing into other feelings too
abruptly for comprehension. The contrasts were too tightly packed one
against the other. Gwynplaine made an effort to withdraw his mind from
the vice.

He was silent. This is the instinct of great stupefaction, which is more
on the defensive than it is thought to be. Who says nothing is prepared
for everything. A word of yours allowed to drop may be seized in some
unknown system of wheels, and your utter destruction be compassed in its
complex machinery.

The poor and weak live in terror of being crushed. The crowd ever expect
to be trodden down. Gwynplaine had long been one of the crowd.

A singular state of human uneasiness can be expressed by the words: Let
us see what will happen. Gwynplaine was in this state. You feel that you
have not gained your equilibrium when an unexpected situation surges up
under your feet. You watch for something which must produce a result.
You are vaguely attentive. We will see what happens. What? You do not
know. Whom? You watch.

The man with the paunch repeated, "You are in your own house, my lord."

Gwynplaine felt himself. In surprises, we first look to make sure that
things exist; then we feel ourselves, to make sure that we exist
ourselves. It was certainly to him that the words were spoken; but he
himself was somebody else. He no longer had his jacket on, or his
esclavine of leather. He had a waistcoat of cloth of silver; and a satin
coat, which he touched and found to be embroidered. He felt a heavy
purse in his waistcoat pocket. A pair of velvet trunk hose covered his
clown's tights. He wore shoes with high red heels. As they had brought
him to this palace, so had they changed his dress.

The man resumed,--

"Will your lordship deign to remember this: I am called Barkilphedro; I
am clerk to the Admiralty. It was I who opened Hardquanonne's flask and
drew your destiny out of it. Thus, in the 'Arabian Nights' a fisherman
releases a giant from a bottle."

Gwynplaine fixed his eyes on the smiling face of the speaker.

Barkilphedro continued:--

"Besides this palace, my lord, Hunkerville House, which is larger, is
yours. You own Clancharlie Castle, from which you take your title, and
which was a fortress in the time of Edward the Elder. You have nineteen
bailiwicks belonging to you, with their villages and their inhabitants.
This puts under your banner, as a landlord and a nobleman, about eighty
thousand vassals and tenants. At Clancharlie