es; this ineffaceable peerage; this impregnable fortress of the
fortunate, I enter. I am in it. I am of it. Ah, what a decisive turn of
the wheel! I was below, I am on high--on high for ever! Behold me a
lord! I shall have a scarlet robe. I shall have an earl's coronet on my
head. I shall assist at the coronation of kings. They will take the oath
from my hands. I shall judge princes and ministers. I shall exist. From
the depths into which I was thrown, I have rebounded to the zenith. I
have palaces in town and country: houses, gardens, chases, forests,
carriages, millions. I will give fetes. I will make laws. I shall have
the choice of joys and pleasures. And the vagabond Gwynplaine, who had
not the right to gather a flower in the grass, may pluck the stars from
heaven!"

Melancholy overshadowing of a soul's brightness! Thus it was that in
Gwynplaine, who had been a hero, and perhaps had not ceased to be one,
moral greatness gave way to material splendour. A lamentable transition!
Virtue broken down by a troop of passing demons. A surprise made on the
weak side of man's fortress. All the inferior circumstances called by
men superior, ambition, the purblind desires of instinct, passions,
covetousness, driven far from Gwynplaine by the wholesome restraints of
misfortune, took tumultuous possession of his generous heart. And from
what had this arisen? From the discovery of a parchment in a waif
drifted by the sea. Conscience may be violated by a chance attack.

Gwynplaine drank in great draughts of pride, and it dulled his soul.
Such is the poison of that fatal wine.

Giddiness invaded him. He more than consented to its approach. He
welcomed it. This was the effect of previous and long-continued thirst.
Are we an accomplice of the cup which deprives us of reason? He had
always vaguely desired this. His eyes had always turned towards the
great. To watch is to wish. The eaglet is not born in the eyrie for
nothing.

Now, however, at moments, it seemed to him the simplest thing in the
world that he should be a lord. A few hours only had passed, and yet the
past of yesterday seemed so far off! Gwynplaine had fallen into the
ambuscade of Better, who is the enemy of Good.

Unhappy is he of whom we say, how lucky he is! Adversity is more easily
resisted than prosperity. We rise more perfect from ill fortune than
from good. There is a Charybdis in poverty, and a Scylla in riches.
Those who remain erect under the thunderbolt ar