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Her white face by the side of the gnome represented what might have been called divine astonishment. The audience regarded Dea with a sort of mysterious anxiety. She had in her aspect the dignity of a virgin and of a priestess, not knowing man and knowing God. They saw that she was blind, and felt that she could see. She seemed to stand on the threshold of the supernatural.
I have enjoined the Augusta Dea Flavia to bestow her hand on him who above all is worthy to be her lord. To this has she consented and to-day will she make her choice, and herewith do I call on you patricians who aspire to her hand to enter the lists in her honour. Give a proof of your valour, of your intrepidity, of your courage! Show that you are as valiant as the lion, as wary as the snake.
It was the lamp of the Tadcaster Inn, the door of which was left ajar to admit Gwynplaine on his return. Midnight had just struck in the five parishes of Southwark, with the breaks and differences of tone of their various bells. Gwynplaine was dreaming of Dea. Of whom else should he dream?
I have not acquitted myself badly I, who have as much reason as any one to go distracted. Gwynplaine may perhaps return to-morrow. It is useless to kill Dea directly. I can explain matters to you." He took off his wig and wiped his forehead. "I am a ventriloquist of genius," murmured he. "What talent I displayed! I have equalled Brabant, the engastrimist of Francis I. of France.
In the far corner of the room, in a tiny lamp of gold, a tiny wick threw a feeble light around. Dea Flavia put her feet to the ground. The heat in the room was oppressive; no doubt it was that which had caused her restlessness, and the dampness of her brow.
Dea uttered an exclamation of horror and made a quick gesture, trying to capture the recalcitrant curls, even at the very moment that the Emperor Caligula entered the room. He paused on the threshold and her arms dropped down to her side. Her golden hair fell all round her as she bent her knees making obeisance to the Cæsar.
She had dismissed her slaves at his bidding all unconscious as she was of any danger that might threaten her through him. He waited for a while in silence, then he said abruptly: "Dea Flavia, what is thine age?" She looked up at him, smiling and puzzled. "Some twenty years, great Cæsar," she replied, "but of a truth I had not kept count."
Dea was ignorant what a kiss might be, though perhaps she desired it; because blindness, especially in a woman, has its dreams, and though trembling at the approaches of the unknown, does not fear them all. As to Gwynplaine, his sensitive youth made him pensive. The more delirious he felt, the more timid he became.
Gwynplaine only does good. He is handsome." Then, under the form of interrogation so familiar to children and to the blind, she resumed, "To see what is it that you call seeing? For my own part, I cannot see; I know. It seems that to see means to hide." "What do you mean?" said Gwynplaine. Dea answered, "To see is a thing which conceals the true." "No," said Gwynplaine.
There was a sound like the buzzing of bees that came from the slaves' quarters beyond the peristyle, and from the studio, which lay the other side of the atrium, came the sound of muffled footsteps gliding over the mosaic of the floor. "Go to bed now, child," said Dea Flavia at last, "thou hast earned thy rest ... and ... stay!
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