L'homme qui rit. English

  CHAPTER III.

  "OCULOS NON HABET, ET VIDET."

  Only one woman on earth saw Gwynplaine. It was the blind girl. She hadlearned what Gwynplaine had done for her, from Ursus, to whom he hadrelated his rough journey from Portland to Weymouth, and the manysufferings which he had endured when deserted by the gang. She knew thatwhen an infant dying upon her dead mother, suckling a corpse, a beingscarcely bigger than herself had taken her up; that this being, exiled,and, as it were, buried under the refusal of the universe to aid him,had heard her cry; that all the world being deaf to him, he had not beendeaf to her; that the child, alone, weak, cast off, withoutresting-place here below, dragging himself over the waste, exhausted byfatigue, crushed, had accepted from the hands of night a burden, anotherchild: that he, who had nothing to expect in that obscure distributionwhich we call fate, had charged himself with a destiny; that naked, inanguish and distress, he had made himself a Providence; that when Heavenhad closed he had opened his heart; that, himself lost, he had saved;that having neither roof-tree nor shelter, he had been an asylum; thathe had made himself mother and nurse; that he who was alone in the worldhad responded to desertion by adoption; that lost in the darkness he hadgiven an example; that, as if not already sufficiently burdened, he hadadded to his load another's misery; that in this world, which seemed tocontain nothing for him, he had found a duty; that where every one elsewould have hesitated, he had advanced; that where every one else wouldhave drawn back, he consented; that he had put his hand into the jaws ofthe grave and drawn out her--Dea. That, himself half naked, he had givenher his rags, because she was cold; that famished, he had thought ofgiving her food and drink; that for one little creature, another littlecreature had combated death; that he had fought it under every form;under the form of winter and snow, under the form of solitude, under theform of terror, under the form of cold, hunger, and thirst, under theform of whirlwind, and that for her, Dea, this Titan of ten had givenbattle to the immensity of night. She knew that as a child he had donethis, and that now as a man, he was strength to her weakness, riches toher poverty, healing to her sickness, and sight to her blindness.Through the mist of the unknown by which she felt herself encompassed,she distinguished clearly his devotion, his abnegation, his courage.Heroism in immaterial regions has an outline; she distinguished thissublime outline. In the inexpressible abstraction in which thought livesunlighted by the sun, Dea perceived this mysterious lineament of virtue.In the surrounding of dark things put in motion, which was the onlyimpression made on her by reality; in the uneasy stagnation of acreature, always passive, yet always on the watch for possible evil; inthe sensation of being ever defenceless, which is the life of theblind--she felt Gwynplaine above her; Gwynplaine never cold, neverabsent, never obscured; Gwynplaine sympathetic, helpful, andsweet-tempered. Dea quivered with certainty and gratitude, her anxietychanged into ecstasy, and with her shadowy eyes she contemplated on thezenith from the depth of her abyss the rich light of his goodness. Inthe ideal, kindness is the sun; and Gwynplaine dazzled Dea.

  To the crowd, which has too many heads to have a thought, and too manyeyes to have a sight--to the crowd who, superficial themselves, judgeonly of the surface, Gwynplaine was a clown, a merry-andrew, amountebank, a creature grotesque, a little more and a little less than abeast. The crowd knew only the face.

  For Dea, Gwynplaine was the saviour, who had gathered her into his armsin the tomb, and borne her out of it; the consoler, who made lifetolerable; the liberator, whose hand, holding her own, guided herthrough that labyrinth called blindness. Gwynplaine was her brother,friend, guide, support; the personification of heavenly power; thehusband, winged and resplendent. Where the multitude saw the monster,Dea recognized the archangel. It was that Dea, blind, perceived hissoul.