"Do you not recognize the language of Swedenborg?" said the
pastor,
laughing, to Wilfrid. "Here it is; pure from the source."
But Wilfrid and Minna were gazing in
terror at old David, who, with
hair erect, and eyes distraught, his legs trembling and covered with
snow, for he had come without snow-shoes, stood swaying from side to
side, as if some
boisterous wind were shaking him.
"Is he harmed?" cried Minna.
"The devils hope and try to
conquer her," replied the old man.
The words made Wilfrid's pulses throb.
"For the last five hours she has stood erect, her eyes raised to
heaven and her arms
extended; she suffers, she cries to God. I cannot
cross the
barrier; Hell has posted the Vertumni as sentinels. They
have set up an iron wall between her and her old David. She wants me,
but what can I do? Oh, help me! help me! Come and pray!"
The old man's
despair was terrible to see.
"The Light of God is defending her," he went on, with infectious
faith, "but oh! she might yield to violence."
"Silence, David! you are raving. This is a matter to be verified. We
will go with you," said the
pastor, "and you shall see that there are
no Vertumni, nor Satans, nor Sirens, in that house."
"Your father is blind," whispered David to Minna.
Wilfrid, on whom the
reading of Swedenborg's first
treatise, which he
had rapidly gone through, had produced a powerful effect, was already
in the
corridor putting on his skees; Minna was ready in a few
moments, and both left the old men far behind as they darted forward
to the Swedish castle.
"Do you hear that cracking sound?" said Wilfrid.
"The ice of the fiord stirs," answered Minna; "the spring is coming."
Wilfrid was silent. When the two reached the
courtyard they were
conscious that they had neither the
faculty nor the strength to enter
the house.
"What think you of her?" asked Wilfrid.
"See that radiance!" cried Minna, going towards the window of the
salon. "He is there! How beautiful! O my Seraphitus, take me!"
The
exclamation was uttered
inwardly" target="_blank" title="ad.内向;独自地">
inwardly. She saw Seraphitus
standingerect,
lightly swathed in an opal-tinted mist that disappeared at a
little distance from the body, which seemed almost phosphorescent.
"How beautiful she is!" cried Wilfrid, mentally.
Just then Monsieur Becker arrived, followed by David; he saw his
daughter and guest
standing before the window; going up to them, he
looked into the salon and said quietly, "Well, my good David, she is
only
saying her prayers."
"Ah, but try to enter, Monsieur."
"Why
disturb those who pray?" answered the
pastor.
At this
instant the moon, rising above the Falberg, cast its rays upon
the window. All three turned round, attracted by this natural effect
which made them
quiver; when they turned back to again look at
Seraphita she had disappeared.
"How strange!" exclaimed Wilfrid.
"I hear
delightful sounds," said Minna.
"Well," said the
pastor, "it is all plain enough; she is going to
bed."
David had entered the house. The others took their way back in
silence; none of them interpreted the
vision in the same manner,--
Monsieur Becker doubted, Minna adored, Wilfrid longed.
Wilfrid was a man about thirty-six years of age. His figure, though
broadly developed, was not
wanting in symmetry. Like most men who
distinguish themselves above their fellows, he was of
medium height;
his chest and shoulders were broad, and his neck short,--a
characteristic of those whose hearts are near their heads; his hair
was black, thick, and fine; his eyes, of a yellow brown, had, as it
were, a solar brilliancy, which proclaimed with what avidity his
nature aspired to Light. Though these strong and virile features were
defective through the
absence of an
inward peace,--granted only to a
life without storms or
conflicts,--they
plainly showed the
inexhaustible resources of
impetuous senses and the appetites of
instinct; just as every
motion revealed the
perfection of the man's
physicalapparatus, the flexibility of his senses, and their fidelity
when brought into play. This man might
contend with savages, and hear,
as they do, the tread of enemies in distant forests; he could follow a
scent in the air, a trail on the ground, or see on the
horizon the
signal of a friend. His sleep was light, like that of all creatures
who will not allow themselves to be surprised. His body came quickly
into
harmony with the
climate of any country where his tempestuous
life conducted him. Art and science would have admired his
organization in the light of a human model. Everything about him was
symmetrical and well-balanced,--action and heart,
intelligence and
will. At first sight he might be classed among
purely instinctive
beings, who give themselves
blindly up to the material wants of life;
but in the very morning of his days he had flung himself into a higher
social world, with which his feelings harmonized; study had widened
his mind,
reflection had sharpened his power of thought, and the
sciences had enlarged his under
standing. He had
studied human laws,--
the
working of self-interests brought into
conflict by the
passions,
and he seemed to have early familiarized himself with the abstractions
on which societies rest. He had pored over books,--those deeds of dead
humanity; he had spent whole nights of pleasure in every European
capital; he had slept on fields of battle the night before the combat
and the night that followed
victory. His stormy youth may have flung
him on the deck of some corsair and sent him among the contrasting
regions of the globe; thus it was that he knew the actions of a living
humanity. He knew the present and the past,--a double history; that of
to-day, that of other days. Many men have been, like Wilfrid, equally
powerful by the Hand, by the Heart, by the Head; like him, the
majority have abused their
triple power. But though this man still
held by certain
outward liens to the slimy side of
humanity, he
belonged also and
positively to the
sphere where force is intelligent.
In spite of the many veils which enveloped his soul, there were
certain ineffable symptoms of this fact which were
visible to pure
spirits, to the eyes of the child whose
innocence has known no breath
of evil
passions, to the eyes of the old man who has lived to regain
his
purity.
These signs revealed a Cain for whom there was still hope,--one who
seemed as though he were seeking absolution from the ends of the
earth. Minna suspected the galley-slave of glory in the man; Seraphita
recognized him. Both admired and both pitied him. Whence came their
prescience? Nothing could be more simple nor yet more extraordinary.
As soon as we seek to
penetrate the secrets of Nature, where nothing
is secret, and where it is only necessary to have the eyes to see, we
perceive that the simple produces the marvellous.
"Seraphitus," said Minna one evening a few days after Wilfrid's
arrival in Jarvis, "you read the soul of this stranger while I have
only vague impressions of it. He chills me or else he excites me; but
you seem to know the cause of this cold and of this heat; tell me what
it means, for you know all about him."
"Yes, I have seen the causes," said Seraphitus, lowing his large
eyelids.
"By what power?" asked the curious Minna.
"I have the gift of Specialism," he answered. "Specialism is an
inwardsight which can
penetrate all things; you will only understand its
full meaning through a
comparison. In the great cities of Europe where
works are produced by which the human Hand seeks to represent the
effects of the moral nature was well as those of the
physical nature,
there are
glorious men who express ideas in
marble. The
sculptor acts
on the stone; he fashions it; he puts a realm of ideas into it. There
are
statues which the hand of man has endowed with the
faculty of
representing the noble side of
humanity, or the whole evil side; most
men see in such
marbles a human figure and nothing more; a few other
men, a little higher in the scale of being,
perceive a
fraction of the
thoughts expressed in the
statue; but the Initiates in the secrets of
art are of the same
intellect as the
sculptor; they see in his work
the whole
universe of his thought. Such persons are in themselves the
principles of art; they bear within them a mirror which reflects
nature in her slightest manifestations. Well! so it is with me; I have
within me a mirror before which the moral nature, with its causes and
effects, appears and is reflected. Entering thus into the