Читать книгу Человек, который смеется / The Man Who Laughs. Уровень 4 - Виктор Мари Гюго, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 19

Only one woman on earth saw Gwynplaine. It was the blind girl. She had learned what Gwynplaine had done for her, from Ursus, to whom he had related his rough journey from Portland to Weymouth, and the many sufferings which he had endured. He had given her his rags, because she was cold; he had given her food and drink. Dea knew that as a child he had done this, and that now as a man, he was strength to her weakness, riches to her poverty, healing to her sickness, and sight to her blindness. Through the mist of the unknown, she distinguished clearly his devotion, his abnegation, his courage. Dea quivered with certainty and gratitude, her anxiety changed into ecstasy. Kindness is the sun; and Gwynplaine dazzled Dea.

To the crowd, Gwynplaine was a clown, a merry-andrew[29], a mountebank, a creature grotesque, a little more and a little less than a beast. The crowd knew only the face.

For Dea, Gwynplaine was the saviour, who made life tolerable; the liberator, whose hand guided her through that labyrinth called blindness. Gwynplaine was her brother, friend, guide, support; the personification of heavenly power; the husband, winged and resplendent. Where the multitude saw the monster, Dea recognized the archangel. Blind Dea perceived his soul.

Ursus, a philosopher, understood that. He approved of the fascination of Dea. He said,

“The blind see the invisible. Conscience is vision”.

Then, looking at Gwynplaine, he murmured,

“Semi-monster, but demi-god”.

Gwynplaine, on the other hand, was madly in love with Dea.

There is the invisible eye, the spirit, and the visible eye, the pupil. He saw her with the visible eye. Dea was dazzled by the ideal; Gwynplaine, by the real. Gwynplaine was not ugly; he was frightful. Dea was sweet. He was horror; she was grace. Dea was his dream. She was almost an angel, and yet just a woman.

Gwynplaine and Dea were united, and these two suffering hearts adored each other. One nest and two birds – that was their story. They had begun to feel a universal law – to please, to seek, and to find each other.