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That boy was at this time a man. Fifteen years had elapsed. It was in
705. Gwynplaine was in his twenty-fifth year.
1
Ursus had kept the two children with him. They were a group of
wanderers. Ursus and Homo had aged. Ursus had become quite bald. The
wolf was growing gray. The age of wolves is not ascertained like that of
dogs. According to Molière, there are wolves which live to eighty,
amongst others the little koupara, and the rank wolf, the Canis
nubilus of Say.
The little girl found on the dead woman was now a tall creature of
sixteen, with brown hair, slight, fragile, almost trembling from
delicacy, and almost inspiring fear lest she should break; admirably
beautiful, her eyes full of light, yet blind. That fatal winter night
which threw down the beggar woman and her infant in the snow had struck
a double blow. It had killed the mother and blinded the child. Gutta
serena had for ever paralysed the eyes of the girl, now become woman in
her turn. On her face, through which the light of day never passed, the
depressed corners of the mouth indicated the bitterness of the
privation. Her eyes, large and clear, had a strange quality:
extinguished for ever to her, to others they were brilliant. They were
mysterious torches lighting only the outside. They gave light but
possessed it not. These sightless eyes were resplendent. A captive of
shadow, she lighted up the dull place she inhabited. From the depth of
her incurable darkness, from behind the black wall called blindness, she
flung her rays. She saw not the sun without, but her soul was
perceptible from within.
407
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