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Gwynplaine. They had grown up side by side. For a long time they had
slept in the same bed, for the hut was not a large bedchamber. They lay
on the chest, Ursus on the floor; that was the arrangement. One fine
day, whilst Dea was still very little, Gwynplaine felt himself grown up,
and it was in the youth that shame arose. He said to Ursus, "I will also
sleep on the floor." And at night he stretched himself, with the old
man, on the bear skin. Then Dea wept. She cried for her bed-fellow; but
Gwynplaine, become restless because he had begun to love, decided to
remain where he was. From that time he always slept by the side of Ursus
on the planks. In the summer, when the nights were fine, he slept
outside with Homo.
When thirteen, Dea had not yet become resigned to the arrangement. Often
in the evening she said, "Gwynplaine, come close to me; that will put me
to sleep." A man lying by her side was a necessity to her innocent
slumbers.
Nudity is to see that one is naked. She ignored nudity. It was the
ingenuousness of Arcadia or Otaheite. Dea untaught made Gwynplaine wild.
Sometimes it happened that Dea, when almost reaching youth, combed her
long hair as she sat on her bed--her chemise unfastened and falling off
revealed indications of a feminine outline, and a vague commencement of
Eve--and would call Gwynplaine. Gwynplaine blushed, lowered his eyes,
and knew not what to do in presence of this innocent creature.
Stammering, he turned his head, feared, and fled. The Daphnis of
darkness took flight before the Chloe of shadow.
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