contain nothing for him, he had found a duty; that where every one else
would have hesitated, he had advanced; that where every one else would
have drawn back, he consented; that he had put his hand into the jaws of
the grave and drawn out her--Dea. That, himself half naked, he had given
her his rags, because she was cold; that famished, he had thought of
giving her food and drink; that for one little creature, another little
creature had combated death; that he had fought it under every form;
under the form of winter and snow, under the form of solitude, under the
form of terror, under the form of cold, hunger, and thirst, under the
form of whirlwind, and that for her, Dea, this Titan of ten had given
battle to the immensity of night. She knew that as a child he had done
this, and that now as a man, he was strength to her weakness, riches to
her 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 this
sublime outline. In the inexpressible abstraction in which thought lives
unlighted by the sun, Dea perceived this mysterious lineament of virtue.
In the surrounding of dark things put in motion, which was the only
impression made on her by reality; in the uneasy stagnation of a
creature, always passive, yet always on the watch for possible evil; in
the sensation of being ever defenceless, which is the life of the
blind--she felt Gwynplaine above her; Gwynplaine never cold, never
absent, never obscured; Gwynplaine sympathetic, helpful, and
sweet-tempered. Dea quivered with certainty and gratitude, her anxiety
changed into ecstasy, and with her shadowy eyes she contemplated on the
zenith from the depth of her abyss the rich light of his goodness. In
the ideal, kindness is the sun; and Gwynplaine dazzled Dea.

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

For Dea, Gwynplaine was the saviour, who had gathered her into his arms
in the tomb, and borne her out of it; the consoler, who made life
tolerable; the liberator, whose hand, holding her own, guide