Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/365

Rh The words produced no effect. Dea and Gwynplaine were not even listening. Absorbed in each other, they rarely heeded the exclamations of Ursus.

The remark, "Dea is ugly too," showed that Ursus possessed considerable knowledge of women. It is certain that Gwynplaine, in his loyalty, had been guilty of an imprudence. To have said "I am ugly" to any other blind girl than Dea might have been dangerous. To be blind, and in love too, is to be doubly blind. In such a situation one indulges in all sorts of dreams. Illusion is the food of dreams. Take illusion from love, and you take from it its aliment. It is compounded of all sorts of enthusiasm, and of both physical and moral admiration.

Moreover, you should never tell a woman anything she cannot understand. She will dream about it, and she often dreams falsely. An enigma in a reverie spoils it. The shock caused by the fall of a careless word displaces that against which it strikes. At times it happens, without our knowing why, that because we have received an almost imperceptible blow from a chance word, the heart insensibly empties itself of love. He who loves, perceives a decline in his happiness. There is nothing more to be dreaded than this slow exudation from the fissure in the vase.

Happily, Dea was not formed of such clay. The stuff of which women are usually made had not been used in her construction. She had a rare nature. The frame was fragile, but not the hearty A divine perseverance in love was one of her attributes. The whole disturbance which the word used by Gwynplaine had created in her, ended in her saying one day,—

"What is it to be ugly? It is to do wrong. Gwynplaine only does good: he is handsome."

Then, under the form of interrogation so familiar to children and to the blind, Dea resumed: "TooTo [sic] see?—