him, however. The letter was ever in his mind. Every word of it came

back to him in a kind of chaos. In certain violent storms within the

soul thought becomes a liquid. It is convulsed, it heaves, and

something rises from it, like the dull roaring of the waves. Flood and

flow, sudden shocks and whirls, the hesitation of the wave before the

rock; hail and rain clouds with the light shining through their breaks;

the petty flights of useless foam; wild swell broken in an instant;

great efforts lost; wreck appearing all around; darkness and universal

dispersion--as these things are of the sea, so are they of man.

Gwynplaine was a prey to such a storm.

At the acme of his agony, his eyes still closed, he heard an exquisite

voice saying, "Are you asleep, Gwynplaine?" He opened his eyes with a

start, and sat up. Dea was standing in the half-open doorway. Her

ineffable smile was in her eyes and on her lips. She was standing there,

charming in the unconscious serenity of her radiance. Then came, as it

were, a sacred moment. Gwynplaine watched her, startled, dazzled,

awakened. Awakened from what?--from sleep? no, from sleeplessness. It

was she, it was Dea; and suddenly he felt in the depths of his being the

indescribable wane of the storm and the sublime descent of good over

evil; the miracle of the look from on high was accomplished; the blind

girl, the sweet light-bearer, with no effort beyond her mere presence,

dissipated all the darkness within him; the curtain of cloud was

dispersed from the soul as if drawn by an invisible hand, and a sky of

azure, as though by celestial enchantment, again spread over

Gwynplaine's conscience. In a moment he became by the virtue of that

angel, the great and good Gwynplaine, the innocent man. Such mysterious

564

The Man Who Laughs