Gwynplaine thought that he had dismissed that image from his remembrance, and he found that it was still there; and she had put her mark in his brain, unconsciously guilty of a dream.  Without his suspecting it, the lines of the engraving had been bitten deep by reverie.  And now a certain amount of evil had been done, and this train of thought, thenceforth, perhaps, irreparable, he took up again eagerly.  What! she desired him!  What! the princess descend from her throne, the idol from its shrine, the statue from its pedestal, the phantom from its cloud!  What! from the depths of the impossible had this chimera come!  This deity of the sky!  This irradiation!  This nereid all glistening with jewels!  This proud and unattainable beauty, from the height of her radiant throne, was bending down to Gwynplaine!  What! had she drawn up her chariot of the dawn, with its yoke of turtle-doves and dragons, before Gwynplaine, and said to him, “Come!” What! this terrible glory of being the object of such abasement from the empyrean, for Gwynplaine!  This woman, if he could give that name to a form so starlike and majestic, this woman proposed herself, gave herself, delivered herself up to him!  Wonder of wonders!  A goddess prostituting herself for him!  The arms of a courtesan opening in a cloud to clasp him to the bosom of a goddess, and that without degradation!  Such majestic creatures cannot be sullied.  The gods bathe themselves pure in light; and this goddess who came to him knew what she was doing.  She was not ignorant of the incarnate hideousness of Gwynplaine.  She had seen the mask which was his face; and that mask had not caused her to draw back.  Gwynplaine was loved notwithstanding it!

Here was a thing surpassing all the extravagance of dreams.  He was loved in consequence of his mask.  Far from repulsing the goddess, the mask attracted her.  Gwynplaine was not only loved; he was desired.  He was more than accepted; he was chosen.  He, chosen!

What! there, where this woman dwelt, in the regal region of irresponsible splendour, and in the power of full, free will; where there were princes, and she could take a prince; nobles, and she could take a noble; where there were men handsome, charming, magnificent, and she could take an Adonis:  whom did she take?  Gnafron!  She could choose from the midst of meteors and thunders, the mighty six-winged seraphim, and she chose the larva crawling in the slime.  On one side were highnesses and peers, all grandeur, all opulence, all glory; on the other, a mountebank.  The mountebank carried it!  What kind of scales could there be in the heart of this woman?  By what measure did she weigh her love?  She took off her ducal coronet, and flung it on the platform of a clown!  She took from her brow the Olympian aureola, and placed it on the bristly head of a gnome!  The world had turned topsy-turvy.  The insects swarmed on high, the stars were scattered below, whilst the wonder-stricken Gwynplaine, overwhelmed by a falling