forgotten
her....

Again he saw her, and saw her terrible in power. His breath came in
short catches. He felt as if he were in a storm-driven cloud. He looked.
This woman before him! Was it possible? At the theatre a duchess; here a
nereid, a nymph, a fairy. Always an apparition. He tried to fly, but
felt the futility of the attempt. His eyes were riveted on the vision,
as though he were bound. Was she a woman? Was she a maiden? Both.
Messalina was perhaps present, though invisible, and smiled, while Diana
kept watch.

Over all her beauty was the radiance of inaccessibility. No purity could
compare with her chaste and haughty form. Certain snows, which have
never been touched, give an idea of it--such as the sacred whiteness of
the Jungfrau. Immodesty was merged in splendour. She felt the security
of an Olympian, who knew that she was daughter of the depths, and might
say to the ocean, "Father!" And she exposed herself, unattainable and
proud, to everything that should pass--to looks, to desires, to ravings,
to dreams; as proud in her languor, on her boudoir couch, as Venus in
the immensity of the sea-foam.

She had slept all night, and was prolonging her sleep into the daylight;
her boldness, begun in shadow, continued in light.

Gwynplaine shuddered. He admired her with an unhealthy and absorbing
admiration, which ended in fear. Misfortunes never come singly.
Gwynplaine thought he had drained to the dregs the cup of his ill-luck.
Now it was refilled. Who was it who was hurling all those unremitting
thunderbolts on his devoted head, and who had now thrown against him, as
he stood trembling there, a sleeping goddess? What! was the dangerous
and desirable object of his dream lurking all the while behind these
successive glimpses of heaven? Did these favours of the mysterious
tempter tend to inspire him with vague aspirations and confused ideas,
and overwhelm him with an intoxicating series of realities proceeding
from apparent impossibilities? Wherefore did all the shadows conspire
against him, a wretched man; and what would become of him, with all
those evil smiles of fortune beaming on him? Was his temptation
prearranged? This woman, how and why was she there? No explanation! Why
him? Why her? Was he made a peer of England expressly for this duchess?
Who had brought them together? Who was the dupe? Who the victim? Whose
simplicity was being abused? Was it God who was being deceived? All
these undefined thoughts p