The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 62

"'Your ministrations are superfluous,' said he; 'our child is to be nameless on earth. You will not baptize with earthly waters one who has been bathed in fires from heaven. This child will always be a flower; you will not see it grow old; you will see it pa.s.s away. You have existence, it has life; you have external senses, it has not; it is wholly inward.' The words were uttered in a supernatural voice, which impressed me even more than the brightness of his face, which shed a radiance. His whole appearance was a realization of the fantastic ideas we form of inspired men, as we read the prophecies in the Bible. Still, such effects are not rare in our mountains, where the nitre formed in the permanent snows produces singular effects on our persons.

"I asked him the cause of his agitation.

"'Swedenborg has appeared; I have just parted from him; I have breathed the air of heaven,' said he.

"'Under what form did he appear to you?' I asked.

"'Under his mortal aspect, dressed as he was the last time I saw him in London with Richard Shearsmith, near Coldbath Fields, in July 1771. He had on his shot velveteen coat with steel b.u.t.tons, a high waistcoat, a white cravat, and the same imposing wig, with heavy, powdered curls at the side, and the hair combed back from the forehead, showing that broad and luminous brow in harmony with his large, square face, so full of calm power. I recognized his nose with its open, ardent nostrils; the mouth that always smiled--an angel's mouth, from which fell these words of promised happiness, "We meet again, soon!" And I felt the glory of heavenly love.'

"The conviction stamped on the Baron's face prohibited any discussion; I listened in silence; his voice had an infectious fervor that warmed me to the core; his enthusiasm stirred my heart, as another man's anger can thrill one's nerves. I followed him, without speaking, home to his house, where I saw the nameless child lying mysteriously wrapped on her mother's bosom. Seraphita heard me come in, and raised her head towards me; her eyes were not those of an ordinary infant; to express the impression they produced on me, I can only say they already saw and understood.

"The childhood of this predestined being was marked by some extraordinary circ.u.mstances of climate. For nine years our winters were milder and our summers longer than usual. This phenomenon gave rise to much discussion among the learned; but their explanations, which seemed inadequate to the Doctors of the Academy, made the Baron smile when I repeated them to him.

"Seraphita was never seen perfectly nude, as children are sometimes; she was never touched by the hand of man or woman; she lay spotless on her mother's breast, and she never cried. Old David will confirm these facts if you question him about his mistress, for whom he feels such veneration as the king whose name he bears had for the Ark of G.o.d.

"At the age of nine the child began to be absorbed in prayer. Prayer is her life; you saw her in our church on Christmas Day, the only day she ever comes there. She is placed apart from the other wors.h.i.+pers by a considerable distance. If this s.p.a.ce is not left about her, she is ill.

Indeed, she spends most of her time indoors. The details of her life are, however, unknown; she never shows herself; her faculties, her feelings are essentially inward; she is commonly in the state of mystical contemplation, which, as Papist writers tell us, was familiar to the first Christian recluses, in whom dwelt the tradition of Christ's teaching. Her understanding, her soul, her body, everything about her, is as virginal as the snow on our mountains. At ten years old she was what you see her now.

"When she was nine her father and mother died at the same instant without pain, without any visible malady, after naming the hour at which they should cease to breathe. She, standing at their feet, looked on them with a calm eye, displaying neither grief, nor pain, nor joy, nor curiosity; her father and mother smiled at her.

"When we went in to carry away the two bodies, she said:

"'Take them away!'

"'Seraphita,' said I, for we called her by that name, 'are you not grieved by your father's and mother's death? They loved you so well.'

"'Dead?' said she. 'No, they are still in me. This is nothing,' she added, pointing to the bodies they were taking away.

"This was the third time I had seen her since her birth. It is difficult to see her in church; she stands near the pillar that supports the pulpit, in such a dark corner that it is hardly possible to discern her features.

"Of all the servants of the house, none were left at the time of that event but old David, who, though he is eighty-two years old, manages to do all his mistress' needs. Some of the people of Jarvis have strange tales about the girl. Their stories having a.s.sumed some consistency in a land that is greatly addicted to mysteries, I set to work to study Jean Wier's 'Treatise on Sorcery,' and other works on demonology, in which the effects on man of the supernatural (so-called) are recorded, in search of facts a.n.a.logous to what are ascribed to her----"

"Then you do not believe in her?" asked Wilfrid.

"Indeed, yes," said the pastor with simplicity, "in so far that I regard her as a most fantastic creature, spoilt by her parents, who have turned her brain by the religious notions I have set forth to you."

Minna shook her head in a gentle expression of negation.

"Poor girl!" the pastor went on, "she has inherited from her parents the fatal enthusiasm which misleads mystics and makes them more or less crazy.

She fasts in a way that drives poor David to despair. The good old man is like some frail plant that trembles at a breath of wind and basks in the smallest gleam of suns.h.i.+ne. His mistress, whose incomprehensible language he has adopted, is to him the breeze and suns.h.i.+ne; to him her feet are diamonds, her forehead crowned with stars; she moves environed by a white and luminous halo; her voice has an accompaniment of music; she has the gift of becoming invisible. Ask to see her; he will tell you that she is wandering through astral worlds. It is difficult to believe such fables.

Every such miracle, you know, is more or less like the story of the Golden Tooth: we have a Golden Tooth at Jarvis, that is all.

"For instance, Duncker, the fisherman, declares that he has seen her plunging into the fiord and coming to the surface in the form of an eider-duck, or walking on the waves during a storm. Fergus, who tends the herds on the _soeter_, says that, in rainy weather, he has seen the sky always clear over the Swedish castle, and always blue over Seraphita's head if she goes out. Several women hear the chords of an immense organ when Seraphita comes to church, and ask their neighbors quite seriously if they also do not hear it.

"However, my daughter, to whom Seraphita has taken a great fancy these two years past, has heard no music, and has not perceived the heavenly perfumes which embalm the air, they say, wherever she goes. Minna has often come home full of a simple girl's admiration for the beauties of the spring; she is enraptured by the fragrance of the first tender larch shoots, the fir-trees, and the flowers they have enjoyed together; but after our long winter nothing can be more natural than such intense delight. There is nothing very remarkable in the conversation of that being, is there, my child?"

"His secrets are not mine," replied Minna. "When I am with him, I know all things; away from him, I know nothing; with him, I cease to be myself; away from him, I forget that more perfect life. Seeing him is as a dream, of which my remembrance depends on his will. I may have heard, when with him, the music of which Bancker's wife and Erikson's speak, and forget it when we are apart; I may have perceived those celestial perfumes and have beheld marvels, and yet know nothing of them here."

"What has most surprised me since I first knew her," said the pastor to Wilfrid, "is that she should allow you to approach her."

"To approach her!" said the stranger. "She has never allowed me to kiss nor even to touch her hand. The first time I saw her she abashed me by her look, and said, 'You are welcome here; you were due to come.' It was as though she knew me. I trembled.--My fear makes me believe in her."

"And my love," said Minna, without a blush.

"Are you making fun of me?" said the pastor, laughing with good humor; "you, my child, in calling yourself a Spirit of Love; and you, sir, in making yourself out to be a Spirit of Wisdom?"

He drank off a gla.s.s of beer, and did not observe a singular look which Wilfrid gave to Minna.

"Jesting apart," Becker went on, "I was greatly amazed to hear that those two crazy girls had gone to-day for the first time to the top of the Falberg; but is not that some exaggeration? The girls must have simply climbed some hill; the summit of the Falberg is inaccessible."

"Father," said Minna, in some agitation, "I must then have been in the power of the demon; for I climbed the Falberg with him."

"This is a serious matter," said the pastor. "Minna has never told a lie."

"My dear sir," said Wilfrid, "I can a.s.sure you, Seraphita exerts the most extraordinary power over me; I know not what words can give any idea of it.

She has told me things which no one but I could know."

"Somnambulism!" cried the old man. "Various cases of that kind are reported by Jean Wier as phenomena easy to account for, and known of old in Egypt."

"Lend me the theosophical works of Swedenborg," said Wilfrid. "I long to plunge into those lakes of light; you have made me thirst for them."

Pastor Becker handed a volume to Wilfrid, who immediately began to read. It was about nine o'clock in the evening. The maid had just brought in the supper, and Minna made the tea. The meal ended, all three sat silently occupied; the pastor read Jean Wier's "Treatise on Demonology;" Wilfrid lost himself in the study of Swedenborg; Minna sewed and dreamed over her recollections. It was a thoroughly Norwegian scene, a peaceful, studious evening, full of thought--a flower under the snow. Wilfrid, as he read the writings of the prophet, was alive only to his inward senses. Now and again the pastor, with a half-serious, half-ironical gesture, pointed him out to Minna, who smiled rather sadly. To Minna, Seraphitus smiled down upon them, floating above the cloud of tobacco smoke in which they were wrapped.

Midnight struck. Suddenly the outer door was violently pushed open; heavy but hasty steps, the steps of a terrified old man, were heard in the sort of small hall between the two doors. Then David burst into the room.

"Violence! Violence!" he cried. "Come! all of you, come! The Satans are unchained; they wear mitres of flame! Adonis, Vertumnus, the Sirens! They are tempting her as Jesus was tempted on the mountain. Come and drive them out."

"Do you recognize the language of Swedenborg, pure and unmixed?" said the pastor, laughing.

But Wilfrid and Minna were gazing in terror at old David, who, with streaming hair and wild eyes, his legs trembling, and covered with snow, stood shaking as if he were buffeted by a stormy wind.

"What has happened?" asked Minna.

"Well, the Satans hope and purpose to conquer her."

The words made Wilfrid's heart beat.

"For nearly five hours she has been standing up with her eyes raised to heaven, her arms uplifted; she is in torment; she calls upon G.o.d. I cannot cross the line; h.e.l.l has set Vertumni to guard it. They have raised a barrier of iron between her and her old David. If she wants me, what can I do? Help me! Come and pray!"

The poor old man's despair was terrible to behold.

"The glory of G.o.d protects her; but if she were to yield to violence?" he said, with persuasive good faith.

"Silence, David, do not talk so wildly. These are facts to be verified.--We will go with you," said the pastor, "and you will see that there are neither Vertumni in the house, nor Satans, nor Sirens."

"Your father is blind," David whispered to Minna.

Wilfrid, on whom his first reading of a treatise by Swedenborg, hasty as it had been, had produced a powerful effect, was already in the pa.s.sage putting on his snow-shoes. Minna was ready in a moment. They rushed off to the Swedish Castle, leaving the two old men to follow.