It was the penetration of two misfortunes into the ideal which absorbed them.  The rejected found a refuge in each other.  Two blanks, combining, filled each other up.  They held together by what they lacked:  in that in which one was poor, the other was rich.  The misfortune of the one made the treasure of the other.  Had Dea not been blind, would she have chosen Gwynplaine?  Had Gwynplaine not been disfigured, would he have preferred Dea?  She would probably have rejected the deformed, as he would have passed by the infirm.  What happiness for Dea that Gwynplaine was hideous!  What good fortune for Gwynplaine that Dea was blind!  Apart from their providential matching, they were impossible to each other.  A mighty want of each other was at the bottom of their loves, Gwynplaine saved Dea.  Dea saved Gwynplaine.  Apposition of misery produced adherence.  It was the embrace of those swallowed in the abyss; none closer, none more hopeless, none more exquisite.

Gwynplaine had a thought—­“What should I be without her?” Dea had a thought—­“What should I be without him?” The exile of each made a country for both.  The two incurable fatalities, the stigmata of Gwynplaine and the blindness of Dea, joined them together in contentment.  They sufficed to each other.  They imagined nothing beyond each other.  To speak to one another was a delight, to approach was beatitude; by force of reciprocal intuition they became united in the same reverie, and thought the same thoughts.  In Gwynplaine’s tread Dea believed that she heard the step of one deified.  They tightened their mutual grasp in a sort of sidereal chiaroscuro, full of perfumes, of gleams, of music, of the luminous architecture of dreams.  They belonged to each other; they knew themselves to be for ever united in the same joy and the same ecstasy; and nothing could be stranger than this construction of an Eden by two of the damned.

They were inexpressibly happy.  In their hell they had created heaven.  Such was thy power, O Love!  Dea heard Gwynplaine’s laugh; Gwynplaine saw Dea’s smile.  Thus ideal felicity was found, the perfect joy of life was realized, the mysterious problem of happiness was solved; and by whom?  By two outcasts.

For Gwynplaine, Dea was splendour.  For Dea, Gwynplaine was presence.  Presence is that profound mystery which renders the invisible world divine, and from which results that other mystery—­confidence.  In religions this is the only thing which is irreducible; but this irreducible thing suffices.  The great motive power is not seen; it is felt.

Gwynplaine was the religion of Dea.  Sometimes, lost in her sense of love towards him, she knelt, like a beautiful priestess before a gnome in a pagoda, made happy by her adoration.