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ideal by the light; and, monster that he was, he felt himself the
contemplation of a star.
Gwynplaine and Dea were united, and these two suffering hearts adored
each other. One nest and two birds--that was their story. They had
begun to feel a universal law--to please, to seek, and to find each
other.
Thus hatred had made a mistake. The persecutors of Gwynplaine, whoever
they might have been--the deadly enigma, from wherever it came--had
missed their aim. They had intended to drive him to desperation; they
had succeeded in driving him into enchantment. They had affianced him
beforehand to a healing wound. They had predestined him for consolation
by an infliction. The pincers of the executioner had softly
changed into the delicately-moulded hand of a girl. Gwynplaine was
horrible--artificially horrible--made horrible by the hand of man. They
had hoped to exile him for ever: first, from his family, if his family
existed, and then from humanity. When an infant, they had made him a
ruin; of this ruin Nature had repossessed herself, as she does of all
ruins. This solitude Nature had consoled, as she consoles all solitudes.
Nature comes to the succour of the deserted; where all is lacking, she
gives back her whole self. She flourishes and grows green amid ruins;
she has ivy for the stones and love for man.
Profound generosity of the shadows!
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