ttering of sparrows!
Child's talk, worthy of Mother Goose or of Homer! With two loving
hearts, go no further for poetry; with two kisses for dialogue, go no
further for music.

"Do you know something?"

"No."

"Gwynplaine, I dreamt that we were animals, and had wings."

"Wings; that means birds," murmured Gwynplaine.

"Fools! it means angels," growled Ursus.

And their talk went on.

"If you did not exist, Gwynplaine?"

"What then?"

"It could only be because there was no God."

"The tea is too hot; you will burn yourself, Dea."

"Blow on my cup."

"How beautiful you are this morning!"

"Do you know that I have a great many things to say to you?"

"Say them."

"I love you."

"I adore you."

And Ursus said aside, "By heaven, they are polite!"

Exquisite to lovers are their moments of silence! In them they gather,
as it were, masses of love, which afterwards explode into sweet
fragments.

"Do you know! In the evening, when we are playing our parts, at the
moment when my hand touches your forehead--oh, what a noble head is
yours, Gwynplaine!--at the moment when I feel your hair under my
fingers, I shiver; a heavenly joy comes over me, and I say to myself, In
all this world of darkness which encompasses me, in this universe of
solitude, in this great obscurity of ruin in which I am, in this quaking
fear of myself and of everything, I have one prop; and he is there. It
is he--it is you."

"Oh! you love me," said Gwynplaine. "I, too, have but you on earth. You
are all in all to me. Dea, what would you have me do? What do you
desire? What do you want?"

Dea answered,--

"I do not know. I am happy."

"Oh," replied Gwynplaine, "we are happy."

Ursus raised his voice severely,--

"Oh, you are happy, are you? That's a crime. I have warned you already.
You are happy! Then take care you aren't seen. Take up as little room as
you can. Happiness ought to stuff itself into a hole. Make yourselves
still less than you are, if that can be. God measures the greatness of
happiness by the littleness of the happy. The happy should conceal
themselves like malefactors. Oh, only shine out like the wretched
glowworms that you are, and you'll be trodden on; and quite right too!
What do you mean by all that love-making nonsense? I'm no duenna, whose
business it is to watch lovers billing and cooing. I'm tired of it all,
I tell you; and you may both go to the devil."

And feeling that his harsh tones were meltin