The past—­their little past, at least—­had no existence for Dea and Gwynplaine.  They knew only what Ursus had told them of it.  They called Ursus father.  The only remembrance which Gwynplaine had of his infancy was as of a passage of demons over his cradle.  He had an impression of having been trodden in the darkness under deformed feet.  Was this intentional or not?  He was ignorant on this point.  That which he remembered clearly and to the slightest detail were his tragical adventures when deserted at Portland.  The finding of Dea made that dismal night a radiant date for him.

The memory of Dea, even more than that of Gwynplaine, was lost in clouds.  In so young a child all remembrance melts away.  She recollected her mother as something cold.  Had she ever seen the sun?  Perhaps so.  She made efforts to pierce into the blank which was her past life.

“The sun!—­what was it?”

She had some vague memory of a thing luminous and warm, of which Gwynplaine had taken the place.

They spoke to each other in low tones.  It is certain that cooing is the most important thing in the world.  Dea often said to Gwynplaine,—­

“Light means that you are speaking.”

Once, no longer containing himself, as he saw through a muslin sleeve the arm of Dea, Gwynplaine brushed its transparency with his lips—­ideal kiss of a deformed mouth!  Dea felt a deep delight; she blushed like a rose.  This kiss from a monster made Aurora gleam on that beautiful brow full of night.  However, Gwynplaine sighed with a kind of terror, and as the neckerchief of Dea gaped, he could not refrain from looking at the whiteness visible through that glimpse of Paradise.

Dea pulled up her sleeve, and stretching towards Gwynplaine her naked arm, said,—­

“Again!”

Gwynplaine fled.

The next day the game was renewed, with variations.

It was a heavenly subsidence into that sweet abyss called love.

At such things heaven smiles philosophically.

CHAPTER VII.

BLINDNESS GIVES LESSONS IN CLAIRVOYANCE.

At times Gwynplaine reproached himself.  He made his happiness a case of conscience.  He fancied that to allow a woman who could not see him to love him was to deceive her.

What would she have said could she have suddenly obtained her sight?  How she would have felt repulsed by what had previously attracted her!  How she would have recoiled from her frightful loadstone!  What a cry!  What covering of her face!  What a flight!  A bitter scruple harassed him.  He told himself that such a monster as he had no right to love.  He was a hydra idolized by a star.  It was his duty to enlighten the blind star.

One day he said to Dea,—­

“You know that I am very ugly.”

“I know that you are sublime,” she answered.

He resumed,—­