Dea, when he was a little child, was his virgin; because every child has

his virgin, and at the commencement of life a marriage of souls is

always consummated in the plenitude of innocence. Dea was his wife, for

theirs was the same nest on the highest branch of the deep-rooted tree

of Hymen. Dea was still more--she was his light, for without her all was

void, and nothingness; and for him her head was crowned with rays. What

would become of him without Dea? What could he do with all that was

himself? Nothing in him could live without her. How, then, could he have

lost sight of her for a moment? O unfortunate man! He allowed distance

to intervene between himself and his star and, by the unknown and

terrible laws of gravitation in such things, distance is immediate loss.

Where was she, the star? Dea! Dea! Dea! Dea! Alas! he had lost her

light. Take away the star, and what is the sky? A black mass. But why,

then, had all this befallen him? Oh, what happiness had been his! For

him God had remade Eden. Too close was the resemblance, alas! even to

allowing the serpent to enter; but this time it was the man who had been

tempted. He had been drawn without, and then, by a frightful snare, had

fallen into a chaos of murky laughter, which was hell. O grief! O grief!

How frightful seemed all that had fascinated him! That Josiana, fearful

creature!--half beast, half goddess! Gwynplaine was now on the reverse

side of his elevation, and he saw the other aspect of that which had

dazzled him. It was baleful. His peerage was deformed, his coronet was

hideous; his purple robe, a funeral garment; those palaces, infected;

those trophies, those statues, those armorial bearings, sinister; the

unwholesome and treacherous air poisoned those who breathed it, and

turned them mad. How brilliant the rags of the mountebank, Gwynplaine,

900

The Man Who Laughs