Seraphita

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"Why do you call it matchless? can it not reproduce itself?" she
asked, looking at Seraphitus, who colored and turned away.

"Let us sit down," he said presently; "look below you, Minna. See! At
this height you will have no fear. The abyss is so far beneath us that
we no longer have a sense of its depths; it acquires the perspective
uniformity of ocean, the vagueness of clouds, the soft coloring of the
sky. See, the ice of the fiord is a turquoise, the dark pine forests
are mere threads of brown; for us all abysses should be thus adorned."

Seraphitus said the words with that fervor of tone and gesture seen
and known only by those who have ascended the highest mountains of the
globe,--a fervor so involuntarily acquired that the haughtiest of men
is forced to regard his guide as a brother, forgetting his own
superior station till he descends to the valleys and the abodes of his
kind. Seraphitus unfastened the skees from Minna's feet, kneeling
before her. The girl did not notice him, so absorbed was she in the
marvellous view now offered of her native land, whose rocky outlines
could here be seen at a glance. She felt, with deep emotion, the
solemn permanence of those frozen summits, to which words could give
no adequate utterance.

"We have not come here by human power alone," she said, clasping her
hands. "But perhaps I dream."

"You think that facts the causes of which you cannot perceive are
supernatural," replied her companion.

"Your replies," she said, "always bear the stamp of some deep thought.
When I am near you I understand all things without an effort. Ah, I am
free!"

"If so, you will not need your skees," he answered.

"Oh!" she said; "I who would fain unfasten yours and kiss your feet!"

"Keep such words for Wilfrid," said Seraphitus, gently.

"Wilfrid!" cried Minna angrily; then, softening as she glanced at her
companion's face and trying, but in vain, to take his hand, she added,
"You are never angry, never; you are so hopelessly perfect in all
things."

"From which you conclude that I am unfeeling."

Minna was startled at this lucid interpretation of her thought.

"You prove to me, at any rate, that we understand each other," she
said, with the grace of a loving woman.

Seraphitus softly shook his head and looked sadly and gently at her.

"You, who know all things," said Minna, "tell me why it is that the
timidity I felt below is over now that I have mounted higher. Why do I
dare to look at you for the first time face to face, while lower down
I scarcely dared to give a furtive glance?"

"Perhaps because we are withdrawn from the pettiness of earth," he
answered, unfastening his pelisse.

"Never, never have I seen you so beautiful!" cried Minna, sitting down
on a mossy rock and losing herself in contemplation of the being who
had now guided her to a part of the peak hitherto supposed to be
inaccessible.

Never, in truth, had Seraphitus shone with so bright a radiance,--the
only word which can render the illumination of his face and the aspect
of his whole person. Was this splendor due to the lustre which the
pure air of mountains and the reflections of the snow give to the
complexion? Was it produced by the inward impulse which excites the
body at the instant when exertion is arrested? Did it come from the
sudden contrast between the glory of the sun and the darkness of the
clouds, from whose shadow the charming couple had just emerged?
Perhaps to all these causes we may add the effect of a phenomenon, one
of the noblest which human nature has to offer. If some able
physiologist had studied this being (who, judging by the pride on his
brow and the lightning in his eyes seemed a youth of about seventeen
years of age), and if the student had sought for the springs of that
beaming life beneath the whitest skin that ever the North bestowed
upon her offspring, he would undoubtedly have believed either in some
phosphoric fluid of the nerves shining beneath the cuticle, or in the
constant presence of an inward luminary, whose rays issued through the
being of Seraphitus like a light through an alabaster vase. Soft and
slender as were his hands, ungloved to remove his companion's
snow-boots, they seemed possessed of a strength equal to that which the
Creator gave to the diaphanous tentacles of the crab. The fire darting
from his vivid glance seemed to struggle with the beams of the sun,
not to take but to give them light. His body, slim and delicate as
that of a woman, gave evidence of one of those natures which are
feeble apparently, but whose strength equals their will, rendering
them at times powerful. Of medium height, Seraphitus appeared to grow
in stature as he turned fully round and seemed about to spring upward.
His hair, curled by a fairy's hand and waving to the breeze, increased
the illusion produced by this aerial attitude; yet his bearing, wholly
without conscious effort, was the result far more of a moral
phenomenon than of a corporal habit.

Minna's imagination seconded this illusion, under the dominion of
which all persons would assuredly have fallen,--an illusion which gave
to Seraphitus the appearance of a vision dreamed of in happy sleep. No
known type conveys an image of that form so majestically made to
Minna, but which to the eyes of a man would have eclipsed in womanly
grace the fairest of Raphael's creations. That painter of heaven has
ever put a tranquil joy, a loving sweetness, into the lines of his
angelic conceptions; but what soul, unless it contemplated Seraphitus
himself, could have conceived the ineffable emotions imprinted on his
face? Who would have divined, even in the dreams of artists, where all
things become possible, the shadow cast by some mysterious awe upon
that brow, shining with intellect, which seemed to question Heaven and
to pity Earth? The head hovered awhile disdainfully, as some majestic
bird whose cries reverberate on the atmosphere, then bowed itself
resignedly, like the turtledove uttering soft notes of tenderness in
the depths of the silent woods. His complexion was of marvellous
whiteness, which brought out vividly the coral lips, the brown
eyebrows, and the silken lashes, the only colors that trenched upon
the paleness of that face, whose perfect regularity did not detract
from the grandeur of the sentiments expressed in it; nay, thought and
emotion were reflected there, without hindrance or violence, with the
majestic and natural gravity which we delight in attributing to
superior beings. That face of purest marble expressed in all things
strength and peace.

Minna rose to take the hand of Seraphitus, hoping thus to draw him to
her, and to lay on that seductive brow a kiss given more from
admiration than from love; but a glance at the young man's eyes, which
pierced her as a ray of sunlight penetrates a prism, paralyzed the
young girl. She felt, but without comprehending, a gulf between them;
then she turned away her head and wept. Suddenly a strong hand seized
her by the waist, and a soft voice said to her: "Come!" She obeyed,
resting her head, suddenly revived, upon the heart of her companion,
who, regulating his step to hers with gentle and attentive conformity,
led her to a spot whence they could see the radiant glories of the
polar Nature.

"Before I look, before I listen to you, tell me, Seraphitus, why you
repulse me. Have I displeased you? and how? tell me! I want nothing
for myself; I would that all my earthly goods were yours, for the
riches of my heart are yours already. I would that light came to my
eyes only though your eyes just as my thought is born of your thought.
I should not then fear to offend you, for I should give you back the
echoes of your soul, the words of your heart, day by day,--as we
render to God the meditations with which his spirit nourishes our
minds. I would be thine alone."

"Minna, a constant desire is that which shapes our future. Hope on!
But if you would be pure in heart mingle the idea of the All-Powerful
with your affections here below; then you will love all creatures, and
your heart will rise to heights indeed."

"I will do all you tell me," she answered, lifting her eyes to his
with a timid movement.

"I cannot be your companion," said Seraphitus sadly.

He seemed to repress some thoughts, then stretched his arms towards
Christiana, just visible like a speck on the horizon and said:--

"Look!"

"We are very small," she said.

"Yes, but we become great through feeling and through intellect,"
answered Seraphitus. "With us, and us alone, Minna, begins the
knowledge of things; the little that we learn of the laws of the
visible world enables us to apprehend the immensity of the worlds
invisible. I know not if the time has come to speak thus to you, but I
would, ah, I would communicate to you the flame of my hopes! Perhaps
we may one day be together in the world where Love never dies."

"Why not here and now?" she said, murmuring.

"Nothing is stable here," he said, disdainfully. "The passing joys of
earthly love are gleams which reveal to certain souls the coming of
joys more durable; just as the discovery of a single law of nature
leads certain privileged beings to a conception of the system of the
universe. Our fleeting happiness here below is the forerunning proof
of another and a perfect happiness, just as the earth, a fragment of
the world, attests the universe. We cannot measure the vast orbit of
the Divine thought of which we are but an atom as small as God is
great; but we can feel its vastness, we can kneel, adore, and wait.
Men ever mislead themselves in science by not perceiving that all
things on their globe are related and co-ordinated to the general
evolution, to a constant movement and production which bring with
them, necessarily, both advancement and an End. Man himself is not a
finished creation; if he were, God would not Be."

"How is it that in thy short life thou hast found the time to learn so
many things?" said the young girl.

"I remember," he replied.

"Thou art nobler than all else I see."

"We are the noblest of God's greatest works. Has He not given us the
faculty of reflecting on Nature; of gathering it within us by thought;
of making it a footstool and stepping-stone from and by which to rise
to Him? We love according to the greater or the lesser portion of
heaven our souls contain. But do not be unjust, Minna; behold the
magnificence spread before you. Ocean expands at your feet like a
carpet; the mountains resemble ampitheatres; heaven's ether is above
them like the arching folds of a stage curtain. Here we may breathe
the thoughts of God, as it were like a perfume. See! the angry billows
which engulf the ships laden with men seem to us, where we are, mere
bubbles; and if we raise our eyes and look above, all there is blue.
Behold that diadem of stars! Here the tints of earthly impressions
disappear; standing on this nature rarefied by space do you not feel
within you something deeper far than mind, grander than enthusiasm, of
greater energy than will? Are you not conscious of emotions whose
interpretation is no longer in us? Do you not feel your pinions? Let
us pray."

Seraphitus knelt down and crossed his hands upon his breast, while
Minna fell, weeping, on her knees. Thus they remained for a time,
while the azure dome above their heads grew larger and strong rays of
light enveloped them without their knowledge.

"Why dost thou not weep when I weep?" said Minna, in a broken voice.

"They who are all spirit do not weep," replied Seraphitus rising; "Why
should I weep? I see no longer human wretchedness. Here, Good appears
in all its majesty. There, beneath us, I hear the supplications and
the wailings of that harp of sorrows which vibrates in the hands of
captive souls. Here, I listen to the choir of harps harmonious. There,
below, is hope, the glorious inception of faith; but here is faith--it
reigns, hope realized!"

"You will never love me; I am too imperfect; you disdain me," said the
young girl.

"Minna, the violet hidden at the feet of the oak whispers to itself:
'The sun does not love me; he comes not.' The sun says: 'If my rays
shine upon her she will perish, poor flower.' Friend of the flower, he
sends his beams through the oak leaves, he veils, he tempers them, and
thus they color the petals of his beloved. I have not veils enough, I
fear lest you see me too closely; you would tremble if you knew me
better. Listen: I have no taste for earthly fruits. Your joys, I know
them all too well, and, like the sated emperors of pagan Rome, I have
reached disgust of all things; I have received the gift of vision.
Leave me! abandon me!" he murmured, sorrowfully.

Seraphitus turned and seated himself on a projecting rock, dropping
his head upon his breast.

"Why do you drive me to despair?" said Minna.

"Go, go!" cried Seraphitus, "I have nothing that you want of me. Your
love is too earthly for my love. Why do you not love Wilfrid? Wilfrid
is a man, tested by passions; he would clasp you in his vigorous arms
and make you feel a hand both broad and strong. His hair is black, his
eyes are full of human thoughts, his heart pours lava in every word he
utters; he could kill you with caresses. Let him be your beloved, your
husband! Yes, thine be Wilfrid!"

Minna wept aloud.

"Dare you say that you do not love him?" he went on, in a voice which
pierced her like a dagger.

"Have mercy, have mercy, my Seraphitus!"

"Love him, poor child of Earth to which thy destiny has indissolubly
bound thee," said the strange being, beckoning Minna by a gesture, and
forcing her to the edge of the saeter, whence he pointed downward to a
scene that might well inspire a young girl full of enthusiasm with the
fancy that she stood above this earth.

"I longed for a companion to the kingdom of Light; I wished to show
you that morsel of mud, I find you bound to it. Farewell. Remain on
earth; enjoy through the senses; obey your nature; turn pale with
pallid men; blush with women; sport with children; pray with the
guilty; raise your eyes to heaven when sorrows overtake you; tremble,
hope, throb in all your pulses; you will have a companion; you can
laugh and weep, and give and receive. I,--I am an exile, far from
heaven; a monster, far from earth. I live of myself and by myself. I
feel by the spirit; I breathe through my brow; I see by thought; I die
of impatience and of longing. No one here below can fulfil my desires
or calm my griefs. I have forgotten how to weep. I am alone. I resign
myself, and I wait."

Seraphitus looked at the flowery mound on which he had seated Minna;
then he turned and faced the frowning heights, whose pinnacles were
wrapped in clouds; to them he cast, unspoken, the remainder of his
thoughts.

"Minna, do you hear those delightful strains?" he said after a pause,
with the voice of a dove, for the eagle's cry was hushed; "it is like
the music of those Eolian harps your poets hang in forests and on the
mountains. Do you see the shadowy figures passing among the clouds,
the winged feet of those who are making ready the gifts of heaven?
They bring refreshment to the soul; the skies are about to open and
shed the flowers of spring upon the earth. See, a gleam is darting
from the pole. Let us fly, let us fly! It is time we go!"

In a moment their skees were refastened, and the pair descended the
Falberg by the steep slopes which join the mountain to the valleys of
the Sieg. Miraculous perception guided their course, or, to speak more
properly, their flight. When fissures covered with snow intercepted
them, Seraphitus caught Minna in his arms and darted with rapid
motion, lightly as a bird, over the crumbling causeways of the abyss.
Sometimes, while propelling his companion, he deviated to the right or
left to avoid a precipice, a tree, a projecting rock, which he seemed
to see beneath the snow, as an old sailor, familiar with the ocean,
discerns the hidden reefs by the color, the trend, or the eddying of
the water. When they reached the paths of the Siegdahlen, where they
could fearlessly follow a straight line to regain the ice of the
fiord, Seraphitus stopped Minna.

"You have nothing to say to me?" he asked.

"I thought you would rather think alone," she answered respectfully.

"Let us hasten, Minette; it is almost night," he said.

Minna quivered as she heard the voice, now so changed, of her guide,
--a pure voice, like that of a young girl, which dissolved the
fantastic dream through which she had been passing. Seraphitus seemed
to be laying aside his male force and the too keen intellect that
flames from his eyes. Presently the charming pair glided across the
fiord and reached the snow-field which divides the shore from the
first range of houses; then, hurrying forward as daylight faded, they
sprang up the hill toward the parsonage, as though they were mounting
the steps of a great staircase.

"My father must be anxious," said Minna.

"No," answered Seraphitus.

As he spoke the couple reached the porch of the humble dwelling where
Monsieur Becker, the pastor of Jarvis, sat reading while awaiting his
daughter for the evening meal.

"Dear Monsieur Becker," said Seraphitus, "I have brought Minna back to
you safe and sound."

"Thank you, mademoiselle," said the old man, laying his spectacles on
his book; "you must be very tired."

"Oh, no," said Minna, and as she spoke she felt the soft breath of her
companion on her brow.

"Dear heart, will you come day after to-morrow evening and take tea
with me?"

"Gladly, dear."

"Monsieur Becker, you will bring her, will you not?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Seraphitus inclined his head with a pretty gesture, and bowed to the
old pastor as he left the house. A few moments later he reached the
great courtyard of the Swedish villa. An old servant, over eighty
years of age, appeared in the portico bearing a lantern. Seraphitus
slipped off his snow-shoes with the graceful dexterity of a woman,
then darting into the salon he fell exhausted and motionless on a wide
divan covered with furs.

"What will you take?" asked the old man, lighting the immensely tall
wax-candles that are used in Norway.

"Nothing, David, I am too weary."

Seraphitus unfastened his pelisse lined with sable, threw it over him,
and fell asleep. The old servant stood for several minutes gazing with
loving eyes at the singular being before him, whose sex it would have
been difficult for any one at that moment to determine. Wrapped as he
was in a formless garment, which resembled equally a woman's robe and
a man's mantle, it was impossible not to fancy that the slender feet
which hung at the side of the couch were those of a woman, and equally
impossible not to note how the forehead and the outlines of the head
gave evidence of power brought to its highest pitch.

"She suffers, and she will not tell me," thought the old man. "She is
dying, like a flower wilted by the burning sun."

And the old man wept.



CHAPTER II

SERAPHITA

Later in the evening David re-entered the salon.

"I know who it is you have come to announce," said Seraphita in a
sleepy voice. "Wilfrid may enter."

Hearing these words a man suddenly presented himself, crossed the room
and sat down beside her.

"My dear Seraphita, are you ill?" he said. "You look paler than
usual."

She turned slowly towards him, tossing back her hair like a pretty
woman whose aching head leaves her no strength even for complaint.

"I was foolish enough to cross the fiord with Minna," she said. "We
ascended the Falberg."

"Do you mean to kill yourself?" he said with a lover's terror.

"No, my good Wilfrid; I took the greatest care of your Minna."

Wilfrid struck his hand violently on a table, rose hastily, and made
several steps towards the door with an exclamation full of pain; then
he returned and seemed about to remonstrate.

"Why this disturbance if you think me ill?" she said.

"Forgive me, have mercy!" he cried, kneeling beside her. "Speak to me
harshly if you will; exact all that the cruel fancies of a woman lead
you to imagine I least can bear; but oh, my beloved, do not doubt my
love. You take Minna like an axe to hew me down. Have mercy!"

"Why do you say these things, my friend, when you know that they are
useless?" she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that
Wilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid
light, the shimmer of which was like the last vibrations of an Italian
song.

"Ah! no man dies of anguish!" he murmured.

"You are suffering?" she said in a voice whose intonations produced
upon his heart the same effect as that of her look. "Would I could
help you!"

"Love me as I love you."

"Poor Minna!" she replied.

"Why am I unarmed!" exclaimed Wilfrid, violently.

"You are out of temper," said Seraphita, smiling. "Come, have I not
spoken to you like those Parisian women whose loves you tell of?"

Wilfrid sat down, crossed his arms, and looked gloomily at Seraphita.
"I forgive you," he said; "for you know not what you do."

"You mistake," she replied; "every woman from the days of Eve does
good and evil knowingly."

"I believe it"; he said.

"I am sure of it, Wilfrid. Our instinct is precisely that which makes
us perfect. What you men learn, we feel."

"Why, then, do you not feel how much I love you?"

"Because you do not love me."

"Good God!"

"If you did, would you complain of your own sufferings?"

"You are terrible to-night, Seraphita. You are a demon."

"No, but I am gifted with the faculty of comprehending, and it is
awful. Wilfrid, sorrow is a lamp which illumines life."

"Why did you ascend the Falberg?"

"Minna will tell you. I am too weary to talk. You must talk to me,
--you who know so much, who have learned all things and forgotten
nothing; you who have passed through every social test. Talk to me,
amuse me, I am listening."

"What can I tell you that you do not know? Besides, the request is
ironical. You allow yourself no intercourse with social life; you
trample on its conventions, its laws, its customs, sentiments, and
sciences; you reduce them all to the proportions such things take when
viewed by you beyond this universe."

"Therefore you see, my friend, that I am not a woman. You do wrong to
love me. What! am I to leave the ethereal regions of my pretended
strength, make myself humbly small, cringe like the hapless female of
all species, that you may lift me up? and then, when I, helpless and
broken, ask you for help, when I need your arm, you will repulse me!
No, we can never come to terms."

"You are more maliciously unkind to-night than I have ever known you."

"Unkind!" she said, with a look which seemed to blend all feelings
into one celestial emotion, "no, I am ill, I suffer, that is all.
Leave me, my friend; it is your manly right. We women should ever
please you, entertain you, be gay in your presence and have no whims
save those that amuse you. Come, what shall I do for you, friend?
Shall I sing, shall I dance, though weariness deprives me of the use
of voice and limbs?--Ah! gentlemen, be we on our deathbeds, we yet
must smile to please you; you call that, methinks, your right. Poor
women! I pity them. Tell me, you who abandon them when they grow old,
is it because they have neither hearts nor souls? Wilfrid, I am a
hundred years old; leave me! leave me! go to Minna!"

"Oh, my eternal love!"

"Do you know the meaning of eternity? Be silent, Wilfrid. You desire
me, but you do not love me. Tell me, do I not seem to you like those
coquettish Parisian women?"

"Certainly I no longer find you the pure celestial maiden I first saw
in the church of Jarvis."

At these words Seraphita passed her hands across her brow, and when
she removed them Wilfrid was amazed at the saintly expression that
overspread her face.

"You are right, my friend," she said; "I do wrong whenever I set my
feet upon your earth."

"Oh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where you can ever bless me with that
clear light!"

As he spoke, he stretched forth his hand to take that of the young
girl, but she withdrew it, neither disdainfully nor in anger. Wilfrid
rose abruptly and walked to the window that she might not see the
tears that rose to his eyes.

"Why do you weep?" she said. "You are not a child, Wilfrid. Come back
to me. I wish it. You are annoyed if I show just displeasure. You see
that I am fatigued and ill, yet you force me to think and speak, and
listen to persuasions and ideas that weary me. If you had any real
perception of my nature, you would have made some music, you would
have lulled my feelings--but no, you love me for yourself and not for
myself."

The storm which convulsed the young man's heart calmed down at these
words. He slowly approached her, letting his eyes take in the
seductive creature who lay exhausted before him, her head resting in
her hand and her elbow on the couch.

"You think that I do not love you," she resumed. "You are mistaken.
Listen to me, Wilfrid. You are beginning to know much; you have
suffered much. Let me explain your thoughts to you. You wished to take
my hand just now"; she rose to a sitting posture, and her graceful
motions seemed to emit light. "When a young girl allows her hand to be
taken it is as though she made a promise, is it not? and ought she not
to fulfil it? You well know that I cannot be yours. Two sentiments
divide and inspire the love of all the women of the earth. Either they
devote themselves to suffering, degraded, and criminal beings whom
they desire to console, uplift, redeem; or they give themselves to
superior men, sublime and strong, whom they adore and seek to
comprehend, and by whom they are often annihilated. You have been
degraded, though now you are purified by the fires of repentance, and
to-day you are once more noble; but I know myself too feeble to be
your equal, and too religious to bow before any power but that On
High. I may refer thus to your life, my friend, for we are in the
North, among the clouds, where all things are abstractions."