To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a

succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment

gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing

all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra

could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which

were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of

the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the

composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the

very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient

soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than

a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in

their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete?

The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from

under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The

composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody,

it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and

quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such as Andrieux, for instance,

can expand the meaning of some great scene by Corneille or Racine by

lending personal and poetical feeling.

This really angelic strain showed what treasures lay hidden in that

stupendous opera, which, however, would never find comprehension so long as

the musician persisted in trying to explain it in his present demented

state. His wife and the Count were equally divided between the music and

their surprise at this hundred-voiced instrument, inside which a stranger

might have fancied an invisible chorus of girls were hidden, so closely did

some of the tones resemble the human voice; and they dared not express

their ideas by a look or a word. Marianna's face was lighted up by a

radiant beam of hope which revived the glories of her youth. This

renascence of beauty, co-existent with the luminous glow of her husband's

genius, cast a shade of regret on the Count's exquisite pleasure in this

mysterious hour.

"You are our good genius!" whispered Marianna. "I am tempted to believe

that you actually inspire him; for I, who never am away from him, have

never heard anything like this."

"And Kadijah's farewell!" cried Gambara, who sang the _cavatina_ which he

had described the day before as sublime, and which now brought tears to the

eyes of the lovers, so perfectly did it express the loftiest devotion of

love.

"Who can have taught you such strains?" cried the Count.

"The Spirit," said Gambara. "When he appears, all is fire. I see the

melodies there before me; lovely, fresh in vivid hues like flowers. They

beam on me, they ring out,--and I listen. But it takes a long, long time to

reproduce them."

"Some more!" said Marianna.

Gambara, who could not tire, played on without effort or antics. He

performed his overture with such skill, bringing out such rich and original

musical effects, that the Count was quite dazzled, and at last believed in

some magic like that commanded by Paganini and Liszt,--a style of execution

which changes every aspect of music as an art, by giving it a poetic

quality far above musical inventions.

"Well, Excellenza, and can you cure him?" asked Giardini, as Andrea came

out.

"I shall soon find out," replied the Count. "This man's intellect has two

windows; one is closed to the world, the other is open to the heavens. The

first is music, the second is poetry. Till now he has insisted on sitting

in front of the shuttered window; he must be got to the other. It was you,

Giardini, who first started me in the right track, by telling me that your

client's mind was clearer after drinking a few glasses of wine."

"Yes," cried the cook, "and I can see what your plan is."

"If it is not too late to make the thunder of poetry audible to his ears,

in the midst of the harmonies of some noble music, we must put him into a

condition to receive it and appreciate it. Will you help me to intoxicate

Gambara, my good fellow? Will you be none the worse for it?"

"What do you mean, Excellenza?"

Andrea went off without answering him, laughing at the acumen still left to

this cracked wit.

On the following day he called for Marianna, who had spent the morning in

arranging her dress,--a simple but decent outfit, on which she had spent

all her little savings. The transformation would have destroyed the

illusions of a mere dangler; but Andrea's caprice had become a passion.

Marianna, diverted of her picturesque poverty, and looking like any

ordinary woman of modest rank, inspired dreams of wedded life.

He handed her into a hackney coach, and told her of the plans he had in his

head; and she approved of everything, happy in finding her admirer more

lofty, more generous, more disinterested than she had dared to hope. He

took her to a little apartment, where he had allowed himself to remind her

of his good offices by some of the elegant trifles which have a charm for

the most virtuous women.

"I will never speak to you of love till you give up all hope of your

Paolo," said the Count to Marianna, as he bid her good-bye at the Rue

Froid-Manteau. "You will be witness to the sincerity of my attempts. If

they succeed, I may find myself unequal to keeping up my part as a friend;

but in that case I shall go far away, Marianna. Though I have firmness

enough to work for your happiness, I shall not have so much as will enable

me to look on at it."

"Do not say such things. Generosity, too, has its dangers," said she,

swallowing down her tears. "But are you going now?"

"Yes," said Andrea; "be happy, without any drawbacks."

* * * * *

If Giardini might be believed, the new treatment was beneficial to both

husband and wife. Every evening after his wine, Gambara seemed less

self-centered, talked more, and with great lucidity; he even spoke at last

of reading the papers. Andrea could not help quaking at his unexpectedly

rapid success; but though his distress made him aware of the strength of

his passion, it did not make him waver in his virtuous resolve.

One day he called to note the progress of this singular cure. Though the

state of the patient at first gave him satisfaction, his joy was dashed by

Marianna's beauty, for an easy life had restored its brilliancy. He called

now every evening to enjoy calm and serious conversation, to which he

contributed lucid and well considered arguments controverting Gambara's

singular theories. He took advantage of the remarkable acumen of the

composer's mind as to every point not too directly bearing on his manias,

to obtain his assent to principles in various branches of art, and apply

them subsequently to music. All was well so long as the patient's brain was

heated with the fumes of wine; but as soon as he had recovered--or, rather,

lost--his reason, he was a monomaniac once more.

However, Paolo was already more easily diverted by the impression of

outside things; his mind was more capable of addressing itself to several

points at a time.

Andrea, who took an artistic interest in his semi-medical treatment,

thought at last that the time had come for a great experiment. He would

give a dinner at his own house, to which he would invite Giardini for the

sake of keeping the tragedy and the parody side by side, and afterwards

take the party to the first performance of _Robert le Diable_. He had seen

it in rehearsal, and he judged it well fitted to open his patient's eyes.

By the end of the second course, Gambara was already tipsy, laughing at

himself with a very good grace; while Giardini confessed that his own

culinary innovations were not worth a rush. Andrea had neglected nothing

that could contribute to this twofold miracle. The wines of Orvieto and of

Montefiascone, conveyed with the peculiar care needed in moving them,

Lachrymachristi and Giro,--all the heady liqueurs of _la cara

Patria_,--went to their brains with the intoxication alike of the grape

and of fond memory. At dessert the musician and the cook both abjured every

heresy; one was humming a _cavatina_ by Rossini, and the other piling

delicacies on his plate and washing them down with Maraschino from Zara, to

the prosperity of the French _cuisine_.

The Count took advantage of this happy frame of mind, and Gambara allowed

himself to be taken to the opera like a lamb.

At the first introductory notes Gambara's intoxication appeared to clear

away and make way for the feverish excitement which sometimes brought his

judgment and his imagination into perfect harmony; for it was their

habitual disagreement, no doubt, that caused his madness. The ruling idea

of that great musical drama appeared to him, no doubt, in its noble

simplicity, like a lightning flash, illuminating the utter darkness in

which he lived. To his unsealed eyes this music revealed the immense

horizons of a world in which he found himself for the first time, though

recognizing it as that he had seen in his dreams. He fancied himself

transported into the scenery of his native land, where that beautiful

Italian landscape begins at what Napoleon so cleverly described as the

_glacis_ of the Alps. Carried back by memory to the time when his young and

eager brain was as yet untroubled by the ecstasy of his too exuberant

imagination he listened with religious awe and would not utter a single

word. The Count respected the internal travail of his soul. Till half-past

twelve Gambara sat so perfectly motionless that the frequenters of the

opera house took him, no doubt, for what he was--a man drunk.

On their return, Andrea began to attack Meyerbeer's work, in order to wake

up Gambara, who sat sunk in the half-torpid state common in drunkards.

"What is there in that incoherent score to reduce you to a condition of

somnambulism?" asked Andrea, when they got out at his house. "The story of

_Robert le Diable_, to be sure, is not devoid of interest, and Holtei has

worked it out with great skill in a drama that is very well written and

full of strong and pathetic situations; but the French librettist has

contrived to extract from it the most ridiculous farrago of nonsense. The

absurdities of the libretti of Vesari and Schikander are not to compare

with those of the words of Robert le Diable; it is a dramatic nightmare,

which oppresses the hearer without deeply moving him.

"And Meyerbeer has given the devil a too prominent part. Bertram and Alice

represent the contest between right and wrong, the spirits of good and

evil. This antagonism offered a splendid opportunity to the composer. The

sweetest melodies, in juxtaposition with harsh and crude strains, was the

natural outcome of the form of the story; but in the German composer's

score the demons sing better than the saints. The heavenly airs belie their

origin, and when the composer abandons the infernal motives he returns to

them as soon as possible, fatigued with the effort of keeping aloof from

them. Melody, the golden thread that ought never to be lost throughout so

vast a plan, often vanishes from Meyerbeer's work. Feeling counts for

nothing, the heart has no part in it. Hence we never come upon those happy

inventions, those artless scenes, which captivate all our sympathies and

leave a blissful impression on the soul.

"Harmony reigns supreme, instead of being the foundation from which the

melodic groups of the musical picture stand forth. These discordant

combinations, far from moving the listener, arouse in him a feeling

analogous to that which he would experience on seeing a rope-dancer hanging

to a thread and swaying between life and death. Never does a soothing

strain come in to mitigate the fatiguing suspense. It really is as though

the composer had had no other object in view than to produce a baroque

effect without troubling himself about musical truth or unity, or about the

capabilities of human voices which are swamped by this flood of

instrumental noise."

"Silence, my friend!" cried Gambara. "I am still under the spell of that

glorious chorus of hell, made still more terrible by the long trumpets,--a

new method of instrumentation. The broken _cadenzas_ which give such force

to Robert's scene, the _cavatina_ in the fourth act, the _finale_ of the

first, all hold me in the grip of a supernatural power. No, not even

Gluck's declamation ever produced so prodigious an effect, and I am amazed

by such skill and learning."

"Signor Maestro," said Andrea, smiling, "allow me to contradict you. Gluck,

before he wrote, reflected long; he calculated the chances, and he decided

on a plan which might be subsequently modified by his inspirations as to

detail, but hindered him from ever losing his way. Hence his power of

emphasis, his declamatory style thrilling with life and truth. I quite

agree with you that Meyerbeer's learning is transcendent; but science is a

defect when it evicts inspiration, and it seems to me that we have in this

opera the painful toil of a refined craftsman who in his music has but

picked up thousands of phrases out of other operas, damned or forgotten,

and appropriated them, while extending, modifying, or condensing them. But

he has fallen into the error of all selectors of _centos_,--an abuse of

good things. This clever harvester of notes is lavish of discords, which,

when too often introduced, fatigue the ear till those great effects pall

upon it which a composer should husband with care to make the more

effective use of them when the situation requires it. These enharmonic

passages recur to satiety, and the abuse of the plagal cadence deprives it

of its religious solemnity.

"I know, of course, that every musician has certain forms to which he

drifts back in spite of himself; he should watch himself so as to avoid

that blunder. A picture in which there were no colors but blue and red

would be untrue to nature, and fatigue the eye. And thus the constantly

recurring rhythm in the score of _Robert le Diable_ makes the work, as a

whole, appear monotonous. As to the effect of the long trumpets, of which

you speak, it has long been known in Germany; and what Meyerbeer offers us

as a novelty was constantly used by Mozart, who gives just such a chorus to

the devils in _Don Giovanni_."

By plying Gambara, meanwhile, with fresh libations, Andrea thus strove, by

his contradictoriness, to bring the musician back to a true sense of music,

by proving to him that his so-called mission was not to try to regenerate

an art beyond his powers, but to seek to express himself in another form;

namely, that of poetry.

"But, my dear Count, you have understood nothing of that stupendous musical

drama," said Gambara, airily, as standing in front of Andrea's piano he

struck the keys, listened to the tone, and then seated himself, meditating

for a few minutes as if to collect his ideas.

"To begin with, you must know," said he, "that an ear as practised as mine

at once detected that labor of choice and setting of which you spoke. Yes,

the music has been selected, lovingly, from the storehouse of a rich and

fertile imagination wherein learning has squeezed every idea to extract the

very essence of music. I will illustrate the process."

He rose to carry the candles into the adjoining room, and before sitting

down again he drank a full glass of Giro, a Sardinian wine, as full of fire

as the old wines of Tokay can inspire.

"Now, you see," said Gambara, "this music is not written for misbelievers,

nor for those who know not love. If you have never suffered from the

virulent attacks of an evil spirit who shifts your object just as you are

taking aim, who puts a fatal end to your highest hopes,--in one word, if

you have never felt the devil's tail whisking over the world, the opera of

_Robert le Diable_ must be to you, what the Apocalypse is to those who

believe that all things will end with them. But if, persecuted and

wretched, you understand that Spirit of Evil,--the monstrous ape who is

perpetually employed in destroying the work of God,--if you can conceive of

him as having, not indeed loved, but ravished, an almost divine woman, and

achieved through her the joy of paternity; as so loving his son that he

would rather have him eternally miserable with himself than think of him as

eternally happy with God; if, finally, you can imagine the mother's soul

for ever hovering over the child's head to snatch it from the atrocious

temptations offered by its father,--even then you will have but a faint

idea of this stupendous drama, which needs but little to make it worthy of

comparison with Mozart's _Don Giovanni_. _Don Giovanni_ is in its

perfection the greater, I grant; _Robert le Diable_ expresses ideas, _Don

Giovanni_ arouses sensations. _Don Giovanni_ is as yet the only musical

work in which harmony and melody are combined in exactly the right

proportions. In this lies its only superiority, for _Robert_ is the richer

work. But how vain are such comparisons since each is so beautiful in its

own way!

"To me, suffering as I do from the demon's repeated shocks, Robert spoke

with greater power than to you; it struck me as being at the same time vast

and concentrated.

"Thanks to you, I have been transported to the glorious land of dreams

where our senses expand, and the world works on a scale which is gigantic

as compared with man."

He was silent for a space.

"I am trembling still," said the ill-starred artist, "from the four bars of

cymbals which pierced to my marrow as they open that short, abrupt

introduction with its solo for trombone, its flutes, oboes, and clarionet,

all suggesting the most fantastic effects of color. The _andante_ in C

minor is a foretaste of the subject of the evocation of the ghosts in the

abbey, and gives grandeur to the scene by anticipating the spiritual

struggle. I shivered."

Gambara pressed the keys with a firm hand and expanded Meyerbeer's theme in

a masterly _fantasia_, a sort of outpouring of his soul after the manner of

Liszt. It was no longer the piano, it was a whole orchestra that they

heard; the very genius of music rose before them.

"That is worthy of Mozart!" he exclaimed. "See how that German can handle

his chords, and through what masterly modulations he raises the image of

terror to come to the dominant C. I can hear all hell in it!

"The curtain rises. What do I see? The only scene to which we gave the

epithet infernal: an orgy of knights in Sicily. In that chorus in F every

human passion is unchained in a bacchanalian _allegro_. Every thread by

which the devil holds us is pulled. Yes, that is the sort of glee that

comes over men when they dance on the edge of a precipice; they make

themselves giddy. What _go_ there is in that chorus!

"Against that chorus--the reality of life--the simple life of every-day

virtue stands out in the air, in G minor, sung by Raimbaut. For a moment it

refreshed my spirit to hear the simple fellow, representative of verdurous

and fruitful Normandy, which he brings to Robert's mind in the midst of his

drunkenness. The sweet influence of his beloved native land lends a touch

of tender color to this gloomy opening.

"Then comes the wonderful air in C major, supported by the chorus in C

minor, so expressive of the subject. '_Je suis Robert!_' he immediately

breaks out. The wrath of the prince, insulted by his vassal, is already

more than natural anger; but it will die away, for memories of his

childhood come to him, with Alice, in the bright and graceful _allegro_ in

A major.

"Can you not hear the cries of the innocent dragged into this infernal

drama,--a persecuted creature? '_Non, non_,'" sang Gambara, who made the

consumptive piano sing. "His native land and tender emotions have come back

to him; his childhood and its memories have blossomed anew in Robert's

heart. And now his mother's shade rises up, bringing with it soothing

religious thoughts. It is religion that lives in that beautiful song in E

major, with its wonderful harmonic and melodic progression in the words:

"Car dans les cieux, comme sur la terre,

Sa mere va prier pour lui.

"Here the struggle begins between the unseen powers and the only human

being who has the fire of hell in his veins to enable him to resist them;

and to make this quite clear, as Bertram comes on, the great musician has

given the orchestra a passage introducing a reminiscence of Raimbaut's

ballad. What a stroke of art! What cohesion of all the parts! What solidity

of structure!

"The devil is there, in hiding, but restless. The conflict of the

antagonistic powers opens with Alice's terror; she recognizes the devil of

the image of Saint Michael in her village. The musical subject is worked

out through an endless variety of phases. The antithesis indispensable in

opera is emphatically presented in a noble _recitative_, such as a Gluck

might have composed, between Bertram and Robert:

"Tu ne sauras jamais a quel exces je t'aime.

"In that diabolical C minor, Bertram, with his terrible bass, begins his

work of undermining which will overthrow every effort of the vehement,

passionate man.

"Here, everything is appalling. Will the crime get possession of the

criminal? Will the executioner seize his victim? Will sorrow consume the

artist's genius? Will the disease kill the patient? or, will the guardian

angel save the Christian?

"Then comes the _finale_, the gambling scene in which Bertram tortures his

son by rousing him to tremendous emotions. Robert, beggared, frenzied,

searching everything, eager for blood, fire, and sword, is his own son; in

this mood he is exactly like his father. What hideous glee we hear in

Bertram's words: '_Je ris de tes coups!_' And how perfectly the Venetian

_barcarole_ comes in here. Through what wondrous transitions the diabolical

parent is brought on to the stage once more to make Robert throw the dice.

"This first act is overwhelming to any one capable of working out the

subjects in his very heart, and lending them the breadth of development

which the composer intended them to call forth.

"Nothing but love could now be contrasted with this noble symphony of song,

in which you will detect no monotony, no repetition of means and effects.

It is one, but many; the characteristic of all that is truly great and

natural.

"I breathe more freely; I find myself in the elegant circle of a gallant

court; I hear Isabella's charming phrases, fresh, but almost melancholy,

and the female chorus in two divisions, and in _imitation_, with a

suggestion of the Moorish coloring of Spain. Here the terrifying music is

softened to gentler hues, like a storm dying away, and ends in the florid

prettiness of a duet wholly unlike anything that has come before it. After

the turmoil of a camp full of errant heroes, we have a picture of love.

Poet! I thank thee! My heart could not have borne much more. If I could not

here and there pluck the daisies of a French light opera, if I could not

hear the gentle wit of a woman able to love and to charm, I could not

endure the terrible deep note on which Bertram comes in, saying to his son:

'_Si je le permets!_' when Robert has promised the princess he adores that

he will conquer with the arms she has bestowed on him.

"The hopes of the gambler cured by love, the love of a most beautiful

woman,--did you observe that magnificent Sicilian, with her hawk's eye

secure of her prey? (What interpreters that composer has found!) the hopes

of the man are mocked at by the hopes of hell in the tremendous cry: '_A

toi, Robert de Normandie!_'

"And are not you struck by the gloom and horror of those long-held notes,

to which the words are set: '_Dans la foret prochaine_'? We find here all

the sinister spells of _Jerusalem Delivered_, just as we find all chivalry

in the chorus with the Spanish lilt, and in the march tune. How original is

the _allegro_ with the modulations of the four cymbals (tuned to C, D, C,

G,)! How elegant is the call to the lists! The whole movement of the heroic

life of the period is there; the mind enters into it; I read in it a

romance, a poem of chivalry. The _exposition_ is now finished; the

resources of music would seem to be exhausted; you have never heard

anything like it before; and yet it is homogeneous. You have had life set

before you, and its one and only _crux_: 'Shall I be happy or unhappy?' is

the philosopher's query. 'Shall I be saved or damned?' asks the Christian."

With these words Gambara struck the last chord of the chorus, dwelt on it

with a melancholy modulation, and then rose to drink another large glass of

Giro. This half-African vintage gave his face a deeper flush, for his

passionate and wonderful sketch of Meyerbeer's opera had made him turn a

little pale.

"That nothing may be lacking to this composition," he went on, "the great

artist has generously added the only _buffo_ duet permissible for a devil:

that in which he tempts the unhappy troubadour. The composer has set

jocosity side by side with horror--a jocosity in which he mocks at the only

realism he had allowed himself amid the sublime imaginings of his work--the

pure calm love of Alice and Raimbaut; and their life is overshadowed by the

forecast of evil.

"None but a lofty soul can feel the noble style of these _buffo_ airs; they

have neither the superabundant frivolity of Italian music nor the vulgar

accent of French commonplace; rather have they the majesty of Olympus.

There is the bitter laughter of a divine being mocking the surprise of a

troubadour Don-Juanizing himself. But for this dignity we should be too

suddenly brought down to the general tone of the opera, here stamped on

that terrible fury of diminished sevenths which resolves itself into an

infernal waltz, and finally brings us face to face with the demons.

"How emphatically Bertram's couplet stands out in B minor against that

diabolical chorus, depicting his paternity, but mingling in fearful despair

with these demoniacal strains.

"Then comes the delightful transition of Alice's reappearance, with the

_ritornel_ in B flat. I can still hear that air of angelical

simplicity--the nightingale after a storm. Thus the grand leading idea of

the whole is worked out in the details; for what could be more perfectly in

contrast with the tumult of devils tossing in the pit than that wonderful

air given to Alice? '_Quand j'ai quitte la Normandie._'

"The golden thread of melody flows on, side by side with the mighty

harmony, like a heavenly hope; it is embroidered on it, and with what

marvelous skill! Genius never lets go of the science that guides it. Here

Alice's song is in B flat leading into F sharp, the key of the demon's

chorus. Do you hear the tremolo in the orchestra? The host of devils clamor

for Robert.

"Bertram now reappears, and this is the culminating point of musical

interest; after a _recitative_, worthy of comparison with the finest work

of the great masters, comes the fierce conflict in E flat between two

tremendous forces--one on the words '_Oui, tu me connais!_' on a diminished

seventh; the other, on that sublime F, '_Le ciel est avec moi._' Hell and

the Crucifix have met for battle. Next we have Bertram threatening Alice,

the most violent pathos ever heard--the Spirit of Evil expatiating

complacently, and, as usual, appealing to personal interest. Robert's

arrival gives us the magnificent unaccompanied trio in A flat, the first

skirmish between the two rival forces and the man. And note how clearly

that is expressed," said Gambara, epitomizing the scene with such passion

of expression as startled Andrea.

"All this avalanche of music, from the clash of cymbals in common time, has

been gathering up to this contest of three voices. The magic of evil

triumphs! Alice flies, and you have the duet in D between Bertram and

Robert. The devil sets his talons in the man's heart; he tears it to make

it his own; he works on every feeling. Honor, hope, eternal and infinite

pleasures--he displays them all. He places him, as he did Jesus, on the

pinnacle of the Temple, and shows him all the treasures of the earth, the

storehouse of sin. He nettles him to flaunt his courage; and the man's

nobler mind is expressed in his exclamation:

"Des chevaliers de ma patrie

L'honneur toujours fut le soutien!

"And finally, to crown the work, the theme comes in which sounded the note

of fatality at the beginning. Thus, the leading strain, the magnificent

call to the dead:

"Nonnes qui reposez sous cette froide pierre,

M'entendez-vous?

"The career of the music, gloriously worked out, is gloriously finished by

the _allegro vivace_ of the bacchanalian chorus in D minor. This, indeed,

is the triumph of hell! Roll on, harmony, and wrap us in a thousand folds!

Roll on, bewitch us! The powers of darkness have clutched their prey; they

hold him while they dance. The great genius, born to conquer and to reign,

is lost! The devils rejoice, misery stifles genius, passion will wreck the

knight!"

And here Gambara improvised a _fantasia_ of his own on the bacchanalian

chorus, with ingenious variations, and humming the air in a melancholy

drone as if to express the secret sufferings he had known.

"Do you hear the heavenly lamentations of neglected love?" he said.

"Isabella calls to Robert above the grand chorus of knights riding forth to

the tournament, in which the _motifs_ of the second act reappear to make it

clear that the third act has all taken place in a supernatural sphere. This

is real life again. This chorus dies away at the approach of the hellish

enchantment brought by Robert with the talisman. The deviltry of the third

act is to be carried on. Here we have the duet with the viol; the rhythm is

highly expressive of the brutal desires of a man who is omnipotent, and the

Princess, by plaintive phrases, tries to win her lover back to moderation.

The musician has here placed himself in a situation of great difficulty,

and has surmounted it in the loveliest number of the whole opera. How

charming is the melody of the _cavatina 'Grace pour toi!_' All the women

present understood it well; each saw herself seized and snatched away on

the stage. That part alone would suffice to make the fortune of the opera.

Every woman felt herself engaged in a struggle with some violent lover.

Never was music so passionate and so dramatic.

"The whole world now rises in arms against the reprobate. This _finale_ may

be criticised for its resemblance to that of _Don Giovanni_; but there is

this immense difference: in Isabella we have the expression of the noblest

faith, a true love that will save Robert, for he scornfully rejects the

infernal powers bestowed on him, while Don Giovanni persists in his

unbelief. Moreover, that particular fault is common to every composer who

has written a _finale_ since Mozart. The _finale_ to _Don Giovanni_ is one

of those classic forms that are invented once for all.

"At last religion wins the day, uplifting the voice that governs worlds,

that invites all sorrow to come for consolation, all repentance to be

forgiven and helped.

"The whole house was stirred by the chorus:

"Malheureux ou coupables,

Hatez-vous d'accourir!

"In the terrific tumult of raving passions, the holy Voice would have been

unheard; but at this critical moment it sounds like thunder; the divine

Catholic Church rises glorious in light. And here I was amazed to find that

after such lavish use of harmonic treasure, the composer had come upon a

new vein with the splendid chorus: '_Gloire a la Providence_' in the manner

of Haendel.

"Robert rushes on with his heartrending cry: '_Si je pouvais prier!_' and

Bertram, driven by the infernal decree, pursues his son, and makes a last

effort. Alice has called up the vision of the Mother, and now comes the

grand trio to which the whole opera has led up: the triumph of the soul

over matter, of the Spirit of Good over the Spirit of Evil. The strains of

piety prevail over the chorus of hell, and happiness appears glorious; but

here the music is weaker. I only saw a cathedral instead of hearing a

concert of angels in bliss, and a divine prayer consecrating the union of

Robert and Isabella. We ought not to have been left oppressed by the spells

of hell; we ought to emerge with hope in our heart.

"I, as musician and a Catholic, wanted another prayer like that in _Mose_.

I should have liked to see how Germany would contend with Italy, what

Meyerbeer could do in rivalry with Rossini.

"However, in spite of this trifling blemish, the writer cannot say that

after five hours of such solid music, a Parisian prefers a bit of ribbon to

a musical masterpiece. You heard how the work was applauded; it will go

through five hundred performances! If the French really understand that

music----"

"It is because it expresses ideas," the Count put in.

"No; it is because it sets forth in a definite shape a picture of the

struggle in which so many perish, and because every individual life is

implicated in it through memory. Ah! I, hapless wretch, should have been

too happy to hear the sound of those heavenly voices I have so often

dreamed of."

Hereupon Gambara fell into a musical day-dream, improvising the most lovely

melodious and harmonious _cavatina_ that Andrea would ever hear on earth; a

divine strain divinely performed on a theme as exquisite as that of _O

filii et filiae_, but graced with additions such as none but the loftiest

musical genius could devise.

The Count sat lost in keen admiration; the clouds cleared away, the blue

sky opened, figures of angels appeared lifting the veil that hid the

sanctuary, and the light of heaven poured down.

There was a sudden silence.

The Count, surprised at the cessation of the music, looked at Gambara, who,

with fixed gaze, in the attitude of a visionary, murmured the word: "God!"

Andrea waited till the composer had descended from the enchanted realm to

which he had soared on the many-hued wings of inspiration, intending to

show him the truth by the light he himself would bring down with him.

"Well," said he, pouring him out another bumper of wine and clinking

glasses with him, "this German has, you see, written a sublime opera

without troubling himself with theories, while those musicians who write

grammars of harmony may, like literary critics, be atrocious composers."

"Then you do not like my music?"

"I do not say so. But if, instead of carrying musical principles to an

extreme--which takes you too far--you would simply try to arouse our

feelings, you would be better understood, unless indeed you have mistaken

your vocation. You are a great poet."

"What," cried Gambara, "are twenty-five years of study all in vain? Am I to

learn the imperfect language of men when I have the key to the heavenly

tongue? Oh, if you are right,--I should die."

"No, no. You are great and strong; you would begin life again, and I would

support you. We would show the world the noble and rare alliance of a rich

man and an artist in perfect sympathy and understanding."

"Do you mean it?" asked Gambara, struck with amazement.

"As I have told you, you are a poet more than a musician."

"A poet, a poet! It is better than nothing. But tell me truly, which do you

esteem most highly, Mozart or Homer?"

"I admire them equally."

"On your honor?"

"On my honor."

"H'm! Once more. What do you think of Meyerbeer and Byron?"

"You have measured them by naming them together."

The Count's carriage was in waiting. The composer and his noble physician

ran downstairs, and in a few minutes they were with Marianna.

As they went in, Gambara threw himself into his wife's arms, but she drew

back a step and turned away her head; the husband also drew back and beamed

on the Count.

"Oh, monsieur!" said Gambara in a husky voice, "you might have left me my

illusions." He hung his head, and then fell.

"What have you done to him? He is dead drunk!" cried Marianna, looking

down at her husband with a mingled expression of pity and disgust.

The Count, with the help of his servant, picked up Gambara and laid him on

his bed.

Then Andrea left, his heart exultant with horrible gladness.

* * * * *

The Count let the usual hour for calling slip past next day, for he began

to fear lest he had duped himself and had made this humble couple pay too

dear for their improved circumstances and added wisdom, since their peace

was destroyed for ever.

At last Giardini came to him with a note from Marianna.

"Come," she wrote, "the mischief is not so great as you so cruelly meant it

to be."

"Excellenza," said the cook, while Andrea was making ready, "you treated us

splendidly last evening. But apart from the wine, which was excellent, your

steward did not put anything on the table that was worthy to set before a

true epicure. You will not deny, I suppose, that the dish I sent up to you

on the day when you did me the honor to sit down at my board, contained the

quintessence of all those that disgraced your magnificent service of plate?

And when I awoke this morning I remembered the promise you once made me of

a place as _chef_. Henceforth I consider myself as a member of your

household."

"I thought of the same thing a few days ago," replied Andrea. "I mentioned

you to the secretary of the Austrian Embassy, and you have permission to

recross the Alps as soon as you please. I have a castle in Croatia which I

rarely visit. There you may combine the offices of gatekeeper, butler, and

steward, with two hundred crowns a year. Your wife will have as much for

doing all the rest of the work. You may make all the experiments you please

_in anima vili_, that is to say on the stomach of my vassals. Here is a

cheque for your traveling expenses."

Giardini kissed the Count's hand after the Neapolitan fashion.

"Excellenza," said he, "I accept the cheque, but beg to decline the place.

It would dishonor me to give up my art by losing the opinion of the most

perfect epicures, who are certainly to be found in Paris."

When Andrea arrived at Gambara's lodgings, the musician rose to welcome

him.

"My generous friend," said he, with the utmost frankness, "you either took

advantage, last evening, of the weakness of my brain to make a fool of me,

or else your brain is no more capable of standing the test of the heady

liquors of our native Latium, than mine is. I will assume this latter

hypothesis; I would rather doubt your digestion than your heart. Be this as

it may, henceforth I drink no more wine--for ever. The abuse of good liquor

last evening led me into much guilty folly. When I remember that I very

nearly----" He gave a glance of terror at Marianna. "As to the wretched

opera you took me to hear, I have thought it over, and it is, after all,

music written on ordinary lines, a mountain of piled-up notes, _verba et

voces_. It is but the dregs of the nectar I can drink in deep draughts as I

reproduce the heavenly music that I hear! It is a patchwork of airs of

which I could trace the origin. The passage, '_Gloire a la Providence_' is

too much like a bit of Haendel; the chorus of knights is closely related to

the Scotch air in _La Dame Blanche_; in short, if this opera is a success,

it is because the music is borrowed from everybody's--so it ought to be

popular.

"I will say good-bye to you, my dear friend. I have had some ideas seething

in my brain since the morning that only wait to soar up to God on the wings

of song, but I wished to see you. Good-bye; I must ask forgiveness of the

Muse. We shall meet at dinner to-night--but no wine; at any rate, none for

me. I am firmly resolved----"

"I give him up!" cried Andrea, flushing red.

"And you restore my sense of conscience," said Marianna. "I dared not

appeal to it! My friend, my friend, it is no fault of ours; he does not

want to be cured."

Six years after this, in January 1837, such artists as were so unlucky as

to damage their wind or stringed instruments, generally took them to the

Rue Froid-Manteau, to a squalid and horrible house, where, on the fifth

floor, dwelt an old Italian named Gambara.

For five years past he had been left to himself, deserted by his wife; he

had gone through many misfortunes. An instrument on which he had relied to

make his fortune, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_, had been sold by

order of the Court on the public square, Place du Chatelet, together with a

cartload of music paper scrawled with notes. The day after the sale, these

scores had served in the market to wrap up butter, fish, and fruit.

Thus the three grand operas of which the poor man would boast, but which an

old Neapolitan cook, who was now but a patcher up of broken meats, declared

to be a heap of nonsense, were scattered throughout Paris on the trucks of

costermongers. But at any rate, the landlord had got his rent and the

bailiffs their expenses.

According to the Neapolitan cook--who warmed up for the street-walkers of

the Rue Froid-Manteau the fragments left from the most sumptuous dinners in

Paris--Signora Gambara had gone off to Italy with a Milanese nobleman, and

no one knew what had become of her. Worn out with fifteen years of misery,

she was very likely ruining the Count by her extravagant luxury, for they

were so devotedly adoring that, in all his life, Giardini could recall no

instance of such a passion.

Towards the end of that very January, one evening when Giardini was

chatting with a girl who had come to buy her supper, about the divine

Marianna--so poor, so beautiful, so heroically devoted, and who had,

nevertheless, "gone the way of them all," the cook, his wife, and the

street-girl saw coming towards them a woman fearfully thin, with a

sun-burned, dusty face; a nervous walking skeleton, looking at the numbers,

and trying to recognize a house.

"_Ecco la Marianna!_" exclaimed the cook.

Marianna recognized Giardini, the erewhile cook, in the poor fellow she

saw, without wondering by what series of disasters he had sunk to keep a

miserable shop for second-hand food. She went in and sat down, for she had

come from Fontainebleau. She had walked fourteen leagues that day, after

begging her bread from Turin to Paris.

She frightened that terrible trio! Of all her wondrous beauty nothing

remained but her fine eyes, dimmed and sunken. The only thing faithful to

her was misfortune.

She was welcomed by the skilled old instrument mender, who greeted her with

unspeakable joy.

"Why, here you are, my poor Marianna!" said he, warmly. "During your

absence they sold up my instrument and my operas."

It would have been difficult to kill the fatted calf for the return of the

Samaritan, but Giardini contributed the fag end of a salmon, the trull paid

for wine, Gambara produced some bread, Signora Giardini lent a cloth, and

the unfortunates all supped together in the musician's garret.

When questioned as to her adventures, Marianna would make no reply; she

only raised her beautiful eyes to heaven and whispered to Giardini:

"He married a dancer!"

"And how do you mean to live?" said the girl. "The journey has ruined you,

and----"

"And made me an old woman," said Marianna. "No, that is not the result of

fatigue or hardship, but of grief."

"And why did you never send your man here any money?" asked the girl.

Marianna's only answer was a look, but it went to the woman's heart.

"She is proud with a vengeance!" she exclaimed. "And much good it has done

her!" she added, in Giardini's ear.

All that year musicians took especial care of their instruments, and

repairs did not bring in enough to enable the poor couple to pay their way;

the wife, too, did not earn much by her needle, and they were compelled to

turn their talents to account in the lowest form of employment. They would

go out together in the dark to the Champs Elysees and sing duets, which

Gambara, poor fellow, accompanied on a wretched guitar. On the way,

Marianna, who on these expeditions covered her head with a sort of veil of

coarse muslin, would take her husband to a grocer's shop in the Faubourg

Saint-Honore and give him two or three thimblefuls of brandy to make him

tipsy; otherwise he could not play. Then they would stand up together in

front of the smart people sitting on the chairs, and one of the greatest

geniuses of the time, the unrecognized Orpheus of Modern Music, would

perform passages from his operas--pieces so remarkable that they could

extract a few half-pence from Parisian supineness. When some _dilettante_

of comic operas happened to be sitting there and did not recognize from

what work they were taken, he would question the woman dressed like a Greek

priestess, who held out a bottle-stand of stamped metal in which she

collected charity.

"I say, my dear, what is that music out of?"

"The opera of _Mahomet_," Marianna would reply.

As Rossini composed an opera called _Mahomet II._, the amateur would say to

his wife, sitting at his side:

"What a pity it is that they will never give us at the Italiens any operas

by Rossini but those we know. That is really very fine music!"

And Gambara would smile.

* * * * *

Only a few days since, this unhappy couple had to pay the trifling sum of

thirty-six francs as arrears of rent for the cock-loft in which they lived

resigned. The grocer would not give them credit for the brandy with which

Marianna plied her husband to enable him to play. Gambara was,

consequently, so unendurably bad that the ears of the wealthy were

irresponsive, and the tin bottle-stand remained empty.

It was nine o'clock in the evening. A handsome Italian, the Principessa

Massimilla Di Varese, took pity on the poor creatures; she gave them forty

francs and questioned them, discerning from the woman's thanks that she was

a Venetian. Prince Emilio would know the history of their woes, and

Marianna told it, making no complaints of God or men.

"Madame," said Gambara, as she ended, for he was sober, "we are the victims

of our own superiority. My music is good. But as soon as music transcends

feeling and becomes an idea, only persons of genius should be the hearers,

for they alone are capable of responding to it! It is my misfortune that I

have heard the chorus of angels, and believed that men could understand

those strains. The same thing happens to women when their love assumes a

divine aspect: men cannot understand them."

This speech was well worth the forty francs bestowed by Massimilla; she

took out a second gold piece, and told Marianna she would write to Andrea

Marcosini.

"Do not write to him, madame!" exclaimed Marianna. "And God grant you to be

always beautiful!"

"Let us provide for them," said the Princess to her husband; "for this man

has remained faithful to the Ideal which we have killed."

As he saw the gold pieces, Gambara shed tears; and then a vague

reminiscence of old scientific experiments crossed his mind, and the

hapless composer, as he wiped his eyes, spoke these words, which the

circumstances made pathetic:

"Water is a product of burning."

PARIS, _June 1837_.

SERAPHITA

AND OTHER STORIES

INTRODUCTION

The contents of the present volume stand alone in the _Comedie Humaine_, or

nearly alone; but they are very closely connected with each other. And to

those who care to trace the connection of an author's nature and his work

(without tracing--useless as it may be in some cases, and superfluous in

most--it will never be possible for any one to appreciate Balzac to the

full), they have an interest not inferior to that of any other portion. In

one of them, moreover, _Seraphita_, we shall find Balzac's most successful

and brilliant essays of style as style--essays so different from his

general practice, that they have raised some curious speculations. It is

known that, in the early thirties, Balzac and Gautier were a good deal

together, and even worked in some sort of collaboration. In one of his

books, _Beatrix_, Balzac has printed a passage which, as it happens, is

known to be Gautier's, and there is a good deal in _Seraphita_ which may be

suspected of a similar origin.

To those who care for the story, or who are attracted to the _Comedie_ as a

varied storehouse of observation of ordinary life, this volume must seem,

and, I believe, almost invariably does seem, rather dreary and repellent

stuff. To others, it yields in interest to no volume of the _Comedie_,

though the interest may be of a peculiar and special kind. As most people

who know anything at all about Balzac are aware, Louis Lambert is Balzac

himself; the _Traite de la Volonte_ was actually written, and destroyed by

an irate schoolmaster; and most of the incidents brought in have more or

less foundation in fact. The same, of course, cannot be said of _Les

Proscrits_ and _Seraphita_. But the former, while belonging in kind

generally to the _Etudes Philosophiques_, connects itself on another side

with the _Contes Drolatiques_, and with Balzac's not rare studies of the

Middle Ages. About these he seems always to have had a hankering to write,

which was due partly to his lifelong cult of Sir Walter, and partly to a

curious delusion that he was himself a born historical novelist.

_Seraphita_, on the other hand, has a sort of kinship with other products

of the 1830 period.

But all the books are perhaps most interesting to us, first, as showing

Balzac's specially "philosophic" velleities; and secondly, as exhibiting a

side of him which is apt to be overlooked--his character as a reader and a

student.

The "philosophy" has been rather variously judged. It has seldom been taken

very seriously; but attempts have sometimes been made to discover in it

anticipations of later discoveries or, to adopt a much safer word,

theories. These anticipation-hunts rarely send the hunter home with an

empty bag, but it is as rarely that the game is of certain quality. Indeed,

if we remember that even in the widest and vaguest sense, "philosophy" was

practically exhausted many hundred years ago--that new philosophies are

only the old ones with their coats and trousers turned, scoured, dyed, and

altered somewhat in fashion--it would be very odd if a clever man, even

with no regular training or special vocation, did not anticipate more or

less what others of his contemporaries are going to think. For the rest,

Balzac's philosophy is of a distinctly loose sort, and may very well have

occurred to him in whole or in part when he was a studious, if irregularly

studious, school-boy. It is, indeed, very much of the kind to which

schoolboys of some brains are as prone as men of riper years, and in which

they are perhaps as likely to attain a result, or what looks like it.

The second bearing of these curious books is more tangible. It is certain

that Balzac, unlike Dickens, his fellow _voyant_, and still more unlike

most of the "realists" who claim kindred with him, was a very great reader.

In his period of production, despite the enormous expense of time which his

methods of writing imposed on him, he seems to have read a great deal; in

his boyhood and in the ten years of his apprenticeship he seems to have

read enormously. He certainly never attained to exact scientific or

scholarly knowledge of any subject by means of books. He did not know

literature or history, much less philosophy, as he knew legal procedure and

the theory of speculation, the signboards of Paris, and not a little of

what went on inside Parisian waistcoats and under Parisian hats. But he had

a vast amount of "fine confused" reading, as the Swedenborgian learning of

_Seraphita_, no less than the not altogether alien lore of _Sur Catherine

de Medicis_, shows. He was even, as not a few passages in his reviews, in

his other miscellaneous writings, and in his letters show, rather inclined

to overvalue and plume himself upon this reading. Nor was it without

effect, both good and bad, on his work. On the one hand, it added to that

slightly undigested character which, with rare exceptions, is

characteristic of him; on the other, it largely helped the appearance of

variety, fulness, encyclopaedic knowledge, and interest which is the

complement and atonement of this undigestedness. Balzac was really a "full"

man in reading as well as thought; and of this reading fulness, the batch

of books before us is perhaps the most striking example.

_Louis Lambert_ appeared first (as _Notice Biographique sur L. L._) in

1832, in the _Nouveaux Contes Philosophiques_; then in February 1833 as a

small volume by itself, a good deal enlarged, and entitled _Histoire

intellectuelle de L. L._; then, with its actual dimensions, in a collection

entitled _Le Livre Mystique_, published by Werdet in 1835. In 1842, with

_Seraphita_, but apparently (I have not seen the book) not with _Les

Proscrits_, it was again published by Charpentier; and in 1846 it joined

the _Comedie_. _Les Proscrits_ first appeared in the _Revue de Paris_ for

May 1831, and was almost immediately included in the _Romans et Contes

Philosophiques_. Its fortunes, after it was joined to its companions, have

been told, as have those of _Seraphita_. This last appeared first in the

_Revue de Paris_ for June and July 1834. In 1840 it became an _Etude

Philosophique_ with _Les Proscrits_, _Gambara_, and _Massimilla Doni_.

G. S.

* * * * *

In order to heighten the narrative tone of this volume, we append here two

of Balzac's freshest short stories, though written--at any rate,

published--about the same time. They belong to the _Marana_ group, which

includes some of the finest of the smaller efforts.

_Maitre Cornelius_, which, by the way, is interesting in its dedication to

Count Georges Mniszech, partakes of the character of a "Conte drolatique"

thrown out of the scheme of those _Contes_. But it very worthily completes,

in its own way, one of the most remarkable volumes of the old collection.

This story first appeared in the _Revue de Paris_ for December 1831.

_L'Elixir de longue Vie_, in which Balzac acknowledges (I do not know

whether by trick or not) indebtedness to Hoffmann or somebody else, is

also "style 1830," and, to speak with perfect frankness, would have been

done much better by Merimee or Gautier than by Balzac. But it is done well.

There is an onward sweep and rush that is distinctly Balzacian.

Nevertheless, at the end we want the touch of Hoffmann rather than that of

Balzac; we find something that is not quite perfect, that wants another

hand. Even as it is, we would not change for anything else, but we have the

sense that the same thing by another person might have been still better.

_L'Elixir de longue Vie_ was published first in the _Revue de Paris_,

October 1830.

SERAPHITA

_To Madame Eveline de Hanska, nee Countess Rzewuska._

Madame,--Here is the work you desired of me; in

dedicating it to you I am happy to offer you some token

of the respectful affection you allow me to feel for

you. If I should be accused of incapacity after trying

to extract from the depths of mysticism this book,

which demanded the glowing poetry of the East under the

transparency of our beautiful language; the blame be

yours! Did you not compel me to the effort--such an

effort as Jacob's--by telling me that even the most

imperfect outline of the figure dreamed of by you, as

it has been by me from my infancy, would still be

something in your eyes? Here, then, is that

something.--Why cannot this book be set apart

exclusively for those lofty spirits who, like you, are

preserved from worldly pettiness by solitude! They

might impress on it the melodious rhythm which it

lacks, and which, in the hands of one of our poets,

might have made it the glorious epic for which France

still waits. Still, they will accept it from me as one

of those balustrades, carved by some artist full of

faith, on which the pilgrim leans to meditate on the

end of man, while gazing at the choir of a fine church.

I remain, Madame, with respect, your faithful servant,

DE BALZAC.

PARIS, _August 23, 1835_.

I

SERAPHITUS

On seeing the Norwegian coast as outlined on the map, what imagination can

fail to be amazed at its fantastic contour--long tongues of granite, round

which the surges of the North Sea are for ever moaning? Who has not dreamed

of the majestic spectacle of these beachless shores, these endless creeks,

and inlets, and little bays, no two of which are alike, and each a pathless

gulf? Would it not seem as though Nature had amused herself by

representing, in an indestructible hieroglyphic, the symbol of life in

Norway, by giving its coast the configuration of the bones of an enormous

fish? For fishing is the staple of commerce, and almost the sole article of

food to a handful of men who cling, like a tuft of lichen, to those barren

rocks. On a land extending over fourteen degrees of longitude there are

scarcely seven hundred thousand souls. Owing to the inglorious dangers and

the perpetual snow that these Norwegian peaks offer to the traveler--the

very name of Norway makes one cold--their sublime beauty remains inviolate

and harmonizes with certain human phenomena, which took place

there--equally unknown, at least to romance, and of which this is the

story.

When one of these inlets, a mere fissure in the sight of the eider-ducks,

is wide enough to prevent the sea from freezing over in the rocky prison it

tosses and struggles in, the inhabitants call such a little gulf a fjord, a

word which most geographers have tried to adopt into their respective

languages. In spite of the general resemblance of all these channels, each

has its own individuality; the sea penetrates into all these breaches, but

in each the rocks are differently riven, and their contorted precipices

defy the terms of geometry: here the crest is toothed like a saw; there its

sides are too perpendicular to allow the snow to rest on them, or the

glorious clumps of northern pines to take root; further on, the convulsions

of the globe have rounded off some soft declivity, a lovely valley

furnished with stage on stage of dark-plumed trees. You feel inclined to

call this land Marine Switzerland.

One of these gulfs, lying between Dronthjem and Christiania, is called

Stromfiord. If the Stromfiord is not the most beautiful of these scenes, it

has at least the merit of presenting the earthly magnificence of Norway,

and of having been the background to the scenes of a really heavenly

romance.

The general outline of the Stromfiord is, at a first glance, that of a

funnel forced open by the sea. The entrance made by the waves is the record

of a contest between the ocean and the granite, two equally powerful

elements--one by its inertia, the other by its motion. The proof lies in

some half-sunken rocks of fantastic shapes which prohibit the entrance of

vessels. The hardy sons of the soil can in some places leap from rock to

rock, undismayed by a gulf a hundred fathoms deep and six feet wide. Here

and there a frail and ill-balanced block of gneiss, thrown across, joins

two crags, or hunters or fishermen have flung some pine-trees, by way of a

bridge, from one perpendicular cliff to another, where the sea murmurs

unceasingly below.

This dangerous inlet turns to the right with a serpentine twist, where it

meets a mountain rising three hundred fathoms above the surface of the sea,

its foot forming a vertical shelf half a league in length, where the

unyielding granite does not begin to split into rifts and inequalities till

at about two hundred feet above the water. Thus the sea, rushing violently

in, is no less violently driven back, by the resistant inertia of the

mountain, towards the opposite shore, which the rebounding waves have worn

into gentle indentations. The fiord is closed at the head by a cliff of

gneiss, crowned with forest, whence a stream falls in cascades, forms a

river when the snows melt, spreads into a lake of considerable extent, and

escapes with a rush, carrying down old pine-trees and ancient larches,

hardly perceptible in the tumbling torrent. Flung by the fall to the bottom

of the abyss, these trees presently come to the surface again, and combine

in a tangle, forming islets which are stranded on the left bank, where the

inhabitants of the little village built on the Stromfiord find them

splintered, broken, sometimes entire, but always stripped of their leaves

and branches.

The mountain, which thus receives at its feet the assaults of the sea, and

on its head the buffeting of the north wind, is the Falberg. Its summit,

always wrapped in a mantle of ice and snow, is the highest in Norway, where

the vicinity of the Pole produces, at a level of eighteen hundred feet

above the sea, such cold as prevails elsewhere on the highest mountains on

the globe. The crest of this cliff, perpendicular on the side towards the

sea, shelves gradually away to the east down to the falls of the Sieg, by a

succession of slopes where the cold allows no vegetation but heath and

much-enduring shrubs. That part of the fiord where the waters escape under

the thick forest is called Siegdalen, or the valley of the Sieg--the name

of the river.

The bay opposite to the cliffs of the Falberg is the valley of Jarvis--a

pretty spot overlooked by hills covered with fir-trees, larches, and birch,

with a few oaks and beeches, the thickest and most variously colored

hangings Nature ever affords to this wild northern scenery. The eye can

easily distinguish the line where the ground, warmed by the sun's rays,

first admits of culture and shows the first signs of the Norwegian flora.

At this part the gulf is wide enough to allow the waters flung back by the

Falberg to die murmuring on the lowest ledge of the hills, where the strand

is softly fringed with fine sand, mingled with mica, tiny crystals, and

pretty pebbles of porphyry and many-colored marbles brought from Sweden by

the river, with waifs from the sea, and shells and ocean weeds tossed up by

storms from the Pole or from the South.

At the foot of the Jarvis hills is the village, consisting of about two

hundred wooden houses, inhabited by a population that live there, lost,

like the swarms of bees in a forest, happily vegetating and extorting a

living from the wilderness around them. The unrecognized existence of this

village is easily explained. Few of its men were bold enough to venture out

among the rocks to reach the open sea and attempt the fishing which the

Norwegians carry on to a great extent on less dangerous parts of the coast.

The various fish in the fiord partly supplies the food of the inhabitants;

the pasture land in the valleys affords milk and butter; a few plots of

good land allow them to reap a harvest of rye, of hemp, and vegetables,

which they manage to protect against the bitter cold and the transient but

terrible heat of the sun, showing true Norwegian ingenuity in this twofold

conflict. The absence of communications, either by land, where roads are

impracticable, or by sea, where only small boats can thread the watery

labyrinths of the fiord, hinders them from acquiring wealth by the sale of

their timber. It would cost an equally enormous sum to clear the channel at

the entrance or to open up a road to the interior.

The roads from Christiania to Dronthjem all make a bend round the

Stromfiord, crossing the Sieg by a bridge several leagues above the falls;

the coast between the Jarvis valley and Dronthjem is covered with

impenetrable forests, and the Falberg is divided from Christiania by

inaccessible precipices. The village of Jarvis might perhaps have opened

communications with Sweden by way of the Sieg, but to bring it into touch

with civilization the Stromfiord needed a man of genius. The genius indeed

came: a poet, a pious Swede, who died admiring and respecting the beauties

of the land as being one of the grandest of the Creator's works.

Those of my readers who have been gifted by study with that "mind's eye,"

whose rapid perception can throw on the soul, as on a canvas, the most

diverse landscapes of the world, may now readily conceive of the general

aspect of the Stromfiord. They alone, perhaps, will be able to thread their

tortuous way through the reef of the inlet where the sea fights and foams;

to glide on its swell below the shelves of the Falberg, whose white peaks

mingle with the misty clouds of a sky that is almost constantly pearl-gray;

to admire the dented margin of the pretty sheet of water; to hear the falls

of the Sieg, which drops in long streamers on to a picturesque medley of

large trees tossed in confusion, some upright, some hidden among boulders

of gneiss; and at last to rest on the smiling pictures offered to the eye

by the lower hills of Jarvis, whence rise the noblest products of the north

in clumps, in myriads: here, birch-trees, as graceful as girls and, like

them, gently stooping; there, pillared aisles of beech with centennial,

mossy trunks; all the contrast of these various shades of green, of white

clouds among black pine-trees, of heath-grown commons in every shade of

purple--all the colors, all the fragrance, the unknown marvels, in short,

of this vegetation.

Expand the proportions of this amphitheatre, soar up to the clouds, lose

yourself in the caves of the rocks where the walruses hide, still your

fancy will never be equal to the riches, the poetry of this Norwegian

scene. For can your thought ever be as vast as the ocean that bounds the

land, as fantastic as the strange forms assumed by the forests, as the

clouds, the shadows, the changes of light?

Do you see now, above the meadows on the shore, on the furthest fold of the

plain that undulates at the foot of the high hills of Jarvis, two or three

hundred houses, roofed with _noever_, a kind of thatch of birch bark;

frail-looking dwellings, quite low, and suggesting silkworms flung there on

a mulberry leaf brought by the wind? Above these humble and peaceful

dwellings is a church, built with a simplicity that harmonizes with the

poverty of the village. A graveyard lies round the chancel of this church;

the parsonage is seen beyond. A little higher, on a knoll of the hillside,

stands a dwelling, the only one built of stone, and for that reason called

by the natives the Castle--the Swedish Castle.

In fact, a rich man had come from Sweden thirty years before this story

opens and settled at Jarvis, trying to improve its fortunes. This little

mansion, erected with a view to tempting the inhabitants to build the like,

was remarkable for its substantial character, for a garden wall--a rare

thing in Norway, where, in spite of the abundance of stone, wood is used

for all the fences, even for those that divide the fields. The house, thus

protected from snow, stood on a mound in the midst of a vast courtyard. The

windows were screened by those verandas of immense depth supported on large

squared fir-trunks, which give Northern buildings a sort of patriarchal

expression.

From under their shelter the savage bareness of the Falberg could easily be

seen, and the infinitude of the open ocean be compared with the drop of

water in the foam-flecked gulf; the portentous rush of the Sieg could be

heard, though from afar the sheet of water looked motionless, where it

threw itself into its granite bowl hedged in for three leagues round with

vast glaciers--in short, the whole landscape where the scene is laid of the

supernatural but simple events of this narrative.

The winter of 1799-1800 was one of the hardest in the memory of Europe; the

Norway sea froze in every fiord, where the violence of the undertow

commonly prevents the ice from forming. A wind, in its effects resembling

the Spanish desert wind, had swept the ice of the Stromfiord by drifting

the snow to the head of the gulf. It was long since the good folks of

Jarvis had seen the vast mirror of the pool in winter reflecting the sky--a

curious effect here in the heart of the hills whose curves were effaced

under successive layers of snow, the sharpest peaks, like the deepest

hollows, forming mere faint undulations under the immense sheet thrown by

nature over the landscape now so dolefully dazzling and monotonous. The

long hangings of the Sieg, suddenly frozen, described a vast arch, behind

which the traveler might have walked sheltered from the storm if any one

had been bold enough to venture across country. But the dangers of any

expedition kept the boldest hunters within doors, fearing that they might

fail to discern under the snow the narrow paths traced along the edge of

the precipices, the ravines, and the cliffs. Not a creature gave life to

this white desert reigned over by the Polar blast, whose voice alone was

sometimes though rarely heard.

The sky, always gray, gave the pool a hue of tarnished steel. Now and again

an eider-duck might fly across with impunity, thanks to the thick down that

shelters the dreams of the wealthy, who little know the dangers that

purchase it; but the bird--like the solitary Bedouin who traverses the

sands of Africa--was neither seen nor heard; in the torpid air, bereft of

electric resonance, the rush of its wings was noiseless, its joyous cry

unheard. What living eye could endure the sparkle of that precipice hung

with glittering icicles, and the hard reflections from the snows, scarcely

tinted on the peaks by the beams of the pallid sun which peeped out now and

then like a dying thing anxious to prove that it still lives? Many a time,

when the rack of gray clouds, driven in squadrons over the mountains and

pine forests, hid the sky with their dense shroud, the earth, for lack of

heavenly lights, had an illumination of its own.

Here, then, were met all the majestic attributes of the eternal cold that

reigns at the Pole, of which the most striking is such royal silence as

absolute monarchs dwell in. Every condition carried to excess has the

appearance of negation, or the stamp of apparent death; is not life the

conflict of two forces? Here nothing showed a sign of life. One force

alone, the barren force of frost, reigned supreme. The beating of the open

sea even did not penetrate to this silent hollow, so full of sound during

the three brief months when nature hurriedly produces the uncertain harvest

needful to support this patient race. A few tall fir-trees protruded their

dark pyramids loaded with festoons of snow; and the droop of their boughs,

bending under these heavy beards, gave a finishing touch to the mourning

aspect of the heights, where they were seen as black points.

Every family clung to the fireside in a house carefully closed, with a

store of biscuit, run butter, dried fish, and provisions laid in to stand

seven months of winter. Even the smoke of these dwellings was scarcely

visible; they were all nearly buried in snow, of which the weight was

broken by long planks starting from the roof, and supported at some

distance from the walls on strong posts, thus forming a covered way round

the house. During these dreadful winters the women weave and dye the stuffs

of wool or linen of which the clothes are made; while the men for the most

part read, or else lose themselves in those prodigious meditations which

have given birth to the grand theories, the mystical dreams of the North,

its beliefs and its studies--so thorough on certain points of science that

they have probed to the core; a semi-monastic mode of life, which forces

the soul back on itself, to feed on itself, and which makes the Norwegian

peasant a being apart in the nations of Europe.

This, then, was the state of things on the Stromfiord in the first year of

the nineteenth century, about the middle of the month of May.

One morning, when the sun was blazing down into the heart of this

landscape, lighting up the flashes of the ephemeral diamonds produced by

the crystallized surface of the snow and ice, two persons crossed the gulf

and flew along the shelves of the Falberg, mounting towards the summit from

ledge to ledge. Were they two human beings, or were they arrows? Any one

who should have seen them would have taken them for two eiders soaring with

one consent below the clouds. Not the most superstitious fisherman, not the

most daring hunter, would have supposed that human creatures could have the

power of pursuing a path along the faint lines traced on the granite sides,

where this pair were, nevertheless, gliding along with the appalling skill

of somnambulists, when, utterly unconscious of the laws of gravity and the

perils of the least false step, they run along a roof, preserving their

balance under the influence of an unknown power.

"Stop here, Seraphitus," said a pale girl, "and let me take breath. I would

look only at you as we climbed the walls of this abyss; if I had not, what

would have become of me? But, at the same time, I am but a feeble creature.

Do I tire you?"

"No," said the being on whose arm she leaned. "Let us go on, Minna; the

spot where we are standing is not firm enough to remain on."

Once more the snow hissed off from the long boards attached to their feet,

and they presently reached the first angular crag which chance had thrown

out boldly from the face of the precipice. The person whom Minna had

addressed as Seraphitus poised himself on his right heel to raise the lath

of about six feet long, and as narrow as a child's shoe, which was fastened

to his boot by two straps of walrus skin; this lath, about an inch thick,

had a sole of reindeer skin, and the hair, pressed back against the snow,

brought him to a full stop. By turning his left foot, on which this

snow-shoe (or _ski_) was not less than twelve feet in length, he was able

to turn nimbly round, he returned to his timid companion, lifted her up in

spite of his awkward footgear, and set her down on a rocky seat, after

dusting away the snow with his pelisse.

"You are safe here, Minna, and may tremble at your ease."

"We have already reached a third of the height of the Ice-cap," said she,

looking at the peak, which she called by its popular Norwegian name. "I do

not yet believe----"

But she was too much out of breath to talk; she smiled at Seraphitus, who,

without replying, held her up, his hand on her heart, listening to its

palpitations, as rapid as those of a startled fledgling.

"It often beats as fast as that when I have been running," said she.

Seraphitus bowed, without any contempt or coldness. In spite of the grace

of this reply, which made it almost sweet, it nevertheless betrayed a

reserve which in a woman would have been intoxicatingly provoking.

Seraphitus clasped the girl to him, and Minna took the caress for an

answer, and sat looking at him. As Seraphitus raised his head, tossing

back the golden locks of his hair with an almost impatient jerk, he saw

happiness in his companion's eyes.

"Yes, Minna," said he, in a paternal tone that was peculiarly charming in a

youth scarcely full grown, "look at me. Do not look down."

"Why?"

"Do you want to know?--Try then."

Minna gave one hasty glance at her feet, and cried out like a child that

has met a tiger. The dreadful influence of the void had seized her, and one

look had been enough to give it to her. The fiord, greedy of its prey, had

a loud voice, stunning her by ringing in her ears, as though to swallow her

up more surely by coming between her and life. From her hair to her feet,

all down her back, ran a shudder, at first of cold; but then it seemed to

fire her nerves with intolerable heat, throbbed in her veins, and made her

limbs feel weak from electrical shocks, like those caused by touching the

electrical eel. Too weak to resist, she felt herself drawn by some unknown

force to the bottom of the cliff, where she fancied she could see a monster

spouting venom, a monster whose magnetic eyes fascinated her, and whose

yawning jaws crunched his prey by anticipation.

"I am dying, my Seraphitus, having loved no one but you," said she,

mechanically moving to throw herself down.

Seraphitus blew softly on her brow and eyes. Suddenly, as a traveler is

refreshed by a bath, Minna had forgotten that acute anguish; it had

vanished under that soothing breath, which penetrated her frame and bathed

it in balsamic effluence, as swiftly as the breath had passed through the

air.

"Who and what are you?" said she, with an impulse of delicious alarm. "But

I know.--You are my life.--How can you look down into the gulf without

dying?" she asked after a pause.

Seraphitus left Minna clinging to the granite, and went as a shadow might

have done to stand on the edge of the crag, his eyes sounding the bottom of

the fiord, defying its bewildering depths; his figure did not sway, his

brow was as white and calm as that of a marble statue--deep meeting deep.

"Seraphitus, if you love me, come back!" cried the girl. "Your danger

brings back all my torments. Who--who are you to have such superhuman

strength at your age?" she asked, feeling his arms around her once more.

"Why," said Seraphitus, "you can look into far vaster space without a

qualm;" and raising his hand, the strange being pointed to the blue halo

formed by the clouds round a clear opening just over their heads, in which

they could see the stars, though it was daylight, in consequence of some

atmospheric laws not yet fully explained.

"But what a difference!" she said, smiling.

"You are right," he replied; "we are born to aspire skywards. Our native

home, like a mother's face, never frightens its children."

His voice found an echo in his companion's soul; she was silent.

"Come! let us go on," said he.

They rushed on together by the paths faintly visible along the mountain

side, devouring the distance, flying from shelf to shelf, from ledge to

ledge, with the swiftness of the Arab horse, that bird of the desert. In a

few minutes they reached a green carpet of grass, moss, and flowers, on

which no one yet had ever rested.

"What a pretty _soe_!" cried Minna, giving the native name to this little

meadow; "but how comes it here, so high up?"

"Here, indeed, the Norwegian vegetation ceases," said Seraphitus; "and if a

few plants and flowers thrive on this spot, it is thanks to the shelter of

the rock which protects them from the Polar cold.--Put this spray in your

bosom, Minna," he went on, plucking a flower; "take this sweet creature on

which no human eye has yet rested, and keep the unique blossom in memory of

this day, unique in your life! You will never again find a guide to lead

you to this _soeter_."

He hastily gave her a hybrid plant which his eagle eye had discerned among

the growth of _silene acaulis_ and saxifrage, a real miracle developed

under the breath of angels. Minna seized it with childlike eagerness; a

tuft of green, as transparent and vivid as an emerald, composed of tiny

leaves curled into cones, light brown at the heart, shaded softly to green

at the point, and cut into infinitely delicate teeth. These leaves were so

closely set that they seemed to mingle in a dense mass of dainty rosettes.

Here and there this cushion was studded with white stars edged with a line

of gold, and from the heart of each grew a bunch of purple stamens without

a pistil. A scent that seemed to combine that of the rose and of the

orange-blossom, but wilder and more ethereal, gave a heavenly charm to this

mysterious flower, at which Seraphitus gazed with melancholy, as though its

perfume had expressed to him a plaintive thought, which he alone

understood. To Minna this amazing blossom seemed a caprice of Nature, who

had amused herself by endowing a handful of gems with the freshness,

tenderness, and fragrance of a plant.

"Why should it be unique? Will it never reproduce its kind?" said she to

Seraphitus, who colored and changed the subject.

"Let us sit down--turn round--look! At such a height you will perhaps not

be frightened. The gulfs are so far below that you cannot measure their

depth; they have the level perspective of the sea, the indefiniteness of

the clouds, the hue of the sky. The ice in the fiord is an exquisite

turquoise, the pine forests are visible only as dim brown streaks. To us

the depths may well be thus disguised."

Seraphitus spoke these words with that unction of tone and gesture which is

known only to those who have attained to the highest places on the

mountains of the earth, and which is so involuntarily assumed that the most

arrogant master finds himself prompted to treat his guide as a brother, and

never feels himself the superior till they have descended into the valleys

where men dwell.

He untied Minna's snow-shoes, kneeling at her feet. The girl did not notice

it, so much was she amazed at the imposing spectacle of the Norwegian

panorama--the long stretch of rocks lying before her at a glance, so much

was she struck by the perennial solemnity of those frozen summits, for

which words have no expression.

"We have not come here by unaided human strength!" said she, clasping her

hands. "I must be dreaming!"

"You call a fact supernatural, because you do not know its cause," he

replied.

"Your answers are always stamped with some deep meaning," said she. "With

you I understand everything without an effort.--Ah! I am free!"

"Your snow-shoes are off, that is all."

"Oh!" cried she, "and I would fain have untied yours, and have kissed your

feet!"

"Keep those speeches for Wilfrid," said Seraphitus mildly.

"Wilfrid!" echoed Minna in a tone of fury, which died away as she looked at

her companion. "You are never angry!" said she, trying, but in vain, to

take his hand. "You are in all things so desperately perfect!"

"Whence you infer that I have no feelings?"

Minna was startled at a glance so penetratingly thrown into her mind.

"You prove to me that we understand each other," replied she, with the

grace of a loving woman.

Seraphitus gently shook his head, with a flashing look that was at once

sweet and sad.

"You who know everything," Minna went on, "tell me why the alarm I felt

below, by your side, is dissipated now that I am up here; why I dare for

the first time to look you in the face; whereas, down there, I scarce dare

steal a glance at you?"

"Perhaps up here we have cast off the mean things of the earth," said he,

pulling off his pelisse.

"I never saw you so beautiful," said Minna, sitting down on a mossy stone,

and gazing in contemplation of the being who had thus brought her to a part

of the mountain which from afar seemed inaccessible.

Never, in fact, had Seraphitus shone with such brilliant splendor--the only

expression that can do justice to the eagerness of his face and the aspect

of his person. Was this radiance due to the effulgence given to the

complexion by the pure mountain air and the reflection from the snow? Was

it the result of an internal impetus which still excites the frame at the

moment it is resting after long exertion? Was it produced by the sudden

contrast between the golden glow of sunshine and the gloom of the clouds

through which this pretty pair had passed?

To all these causes we must perhaps add the effects of one of the most

beautiful phenomena that human nature can offer. If some skilled

physiologist had studied this being, who, to judge by the boldness of his

brow and the light in his eyes at this moment, was a youth of seventeen; if

he had sought the springs of this blooming life under the whitest skin that

the North ever bestowed on one of its sons, he would, no doubt, have

believed in the existence of a phosphoric fluid in the sinews that seemed

to shine through the skin, or in the constant presence of an internal glow,

which tinted Seraphitus as a light shines through an alabaster vase.

Delicately slender as his hands were--he had taken off his gloves to loosen

Minna's sandals--they seemed to have such strength as the Creator has given

to the diaphanous joints of a crab. The fire that blazed in his eyes

rivaled the rays of the sun; he seemed not to receive but to give out

light. His frame, as slight and fragile as a woman's, was that of a nature

feeble in appearance, but whose strength is always adequate to its desires,

which are sometimes strong. Seraphitus, though of middle height, seemed

taller as seen in front; he looked as if he fain would spring upwards. His

hair, with its light curls, as if touched by a fairy hand and tossed by a

breeze, added to the illusion produced by his airy attitude; but this

absolutely effortless mien was the outcome rather of a mental state than of

physical habit.

Minna's imagination seconded this constant hallucination; it would have

affected any beholder, for it gave to Seraphitus the appearance of one of

the beings we see in our happiest dreams. No familiar type can give any

idea of this face, to Minna so majestically manly, though in the sight of

a man its feminine grace would have eclipsed the loveliest heads by

Raphael. That Painter of Heaven has frequently given a sort of tranquil joy

and tender suavity to the lines of his angelic beauties; but without seeing

Seraphitus himself, what mind can conceive of the sadness mingled with hope

which half clouded the ineffable feelings expressed in his features? Who

could picture to himself, even in the artist's dream, where all things are

possible, the shadows cast by mysterious awe on that too intellectual brow,

which seemed to interrogate the skies, and always to pity the earth? That

head could tower disdainful, like a noble bird of prey whose cries rend the

air, or bow resigned, like the turtle-dove whose voice sheds tenderness in

the depths of the silent forest.

Seraphitus had a complexion of surprising whiteness, made all the more

remarkable by red lips, brown eyebrows, and silky lashes, the only details

that broke the pallor of a face whose perfect regularity did not hinder the

strong expression of his feelings; they were mirrored there without shock

or violence, but with the natural, majestic gravity we like to attribute to

superior beings. Everything in those monumental features spoke of strength

and repose.

Minna stood up to take the young man's hand, hoping to draw him down to her

so as to press on that fascinating brow a kiss of admiration rather than of

love; but one look from his eyes, a look that went through her as a sunbeam

goes through a glass prism, froze the poor child. She felt the gulf between

them without understanding it; she turned away her head and wept. Suddenly

a strong hand was round her waist, and a voice full of kindness said:

"Come."

She obeyed, resting her head in sudden relief on the young man's heart;

while he, measuring his steps by hers in gentle and attentive conformity,

led her to a spot whence they could behold the dazzling beauty of the Polar

scenery.

"But before I look or listen, tell me, Seraphitus, why do you repulse me?

Have I displeased you? And how? Tell me. I do not want to call anything my

own; I would that my earthly possessions should be yours, as the riches of

my heart already are; that light should come to me only from your eyes, as

my mind is dependent on yours; then I should have no fear of offending you,

since I should but reflect the impulses of your soul, the words of your

heart, the light of your light, as we send up to God the meditations by

which He feeds our spirit.--I would be wholly you!"

"Well, Minna, a constant aspiration is a promise made by the future. Hope

on!--Still, if you would be pure always, unite the thought of the Almighty

to your earthly affections. Thus will you love all creatures, and your

heart will soar high!"

"I will do whatever you desire," said she, looking up at him timidly.

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

He suppressed some reflections, raised his arms in the direction of

Christiania, which was visible as a speck on the horizon, and said:

"Look!"

"We are indeed small," said she.

"Yes; but we become great by feeling and intellect," said Seraphitus. "The

knowledge of things, Minna, begins with us; the little we know of the laws

of the visible world enables us to conceive of the immensity of higher

spheres. I know not whether the time is ripe for talking thus to you; but I

so long to communicate to you the flame of my hopes! Some day, perhaps, we

may meet in the world where love never dies."

"Why not now and for ever?" said she in a murmur.

"Here nothing is permanent!" said he in a tone of scorn. "The transient

joys of earthly love are false lights which reveal to some souls the dawn

of more durable bliss, just as the discovery of a law of nature enables

certain privileged minds to deduct a whole system. Is not our perishable

happiness here below an earnest of some other more perfect happiness, as

the earth, a mere fragment of the universe, testifies to the universe? We

cannot measure the orbit of the Divine mind, of which we are but atoms as

minute as God is great; but we may have our intuitions of its vastness, we

may kneel, adore, and wait. Men are constantly mistaken in their science,

not seeing that everything on their globe is relative and subordinate to a

general cycle, an incessant productiveness which inevitably involves

progress, and an aim. Man himself is not the final creation; if he were,

God would not exist."

"How have you had time to learn so many things?" said the girl.

"They are memories," replied he.

"To me you are more beautiful than anything I see."

"We are one of the greatest works of God. Has He not bestowed on us the

faculty of reflecting nature, concentrating it in ourselves by thought, and

making it a stepping-stone from which to fly to Him? We love each other in

proportion to what is heavenly in our souls.--But do not be unjust, Minna;

look at the scene displayed at our feet; is it not grand? The ocean lies

spread like a floor, the mountains are like the walls of an amphitheatre,

the ether above is like the suspended velarium of the theatre, and we can

inhale the mind of God as a perfume.

"Look! the storms that wreck vessels filled with men from hence appear like

mere froth; if you look above you all is serene; we see a diadem of stars.

The shades of earthly expression are here lost. Thus supported by nature so

attenuated by space, do you not feel your mind to be deep rather than keen?

Are you not conscious of more loftiness than enthusiasm, of more energy

than will? Have you not feelings to which nothing within us can give

utterance? Do you not feel your wings?--Let us pray!"

Seraphitus knelt, crossing his hands over his bosom, and Minna fell on her

knees weeping. Thus they remained for some minutes, and for some minutes

the blue halo that quivered in the sky above them spread, and rays of light

fell round the unconscious pair.

"Why do you not weep when I cannot help it?" said Minna in a broken voice.

"Those who are pure in spirit shed no tears," replied Seraphitus, rising.

"Why should I weep? I no longer see human misery. Here all is good and

shines in majesty. Below I hear the supplications and the lament of the

harp of suffering, sounding under the hands of the spirit held captive.

Here I listen to the concert of harmonious harps. Below, you have hope, the

beautiful rudiment of faith; but here faith reigns, the realization of

hope!"

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

"Minna, the violet hidden at the foot of the oak says to itself, 'The sun

does not love me, he never comes.'--The sun says, 'If I fell on her, that

poor little flower would perish!' Because he is the flower's friend he lets

his beams steal through the oak-leaves, subduing them to tint the petals of

the blossom he loves.--I feel I am not sufficiently shrouded, and fear lest

you should see me too clearly; you would quail if you knew me too well.

Listen; I have no taste for the fruits of the earth; I have understood your

joys too well; like the debauched Emperors of Pagan Rome, I am disgusted

with all things, for I have the gift of vision.--Leave me for ever," added

Seraphitus sorrowfully.

He went away to sit down on a projecting rock, his head drooping on his

breast.

"Why thus drive me to despair?" said Minna.

"Go from me!" cried Seraphitus; "I can give nothing that you want. Your

love is too gross for me. Why do you not love Wilfrid? Wilfrid is a man, a

man tested by passion, who will clasp you in his sinewy arms, and make you

feel his broad, strong hand. He has fine black hair, eyes full of human

feeling, a heart that fires the words of his lips with a lava torrent. He

will crush you with caresses. He will be your lover, your husband. Go to

Wilfrid!"

Minna was crying bitterly.

"Dare you tell me that you do not love him?" he added in a voice that

pierced her like a dagger.

"Mercy! Mercy! My Seraphitus!"

"Love him, poor child of earth, to which fate irrevocably rivets you," said

the terrible Seraphitus, seizing the girl with such force as dragged her to

the brink of the _soeter_, whence the prospect was so extensive that a

young creature full of enthusiasm might easily fancy that she was above the

world. "I wanted a companion to go with me to the realm of light; I thought

to show her this ball of clay, and I find you still cling to it. Adieu!

Remain as you are, enjoy through your senses, obey your nature; turn pale

with pale men, blush with women, play with children, pray with sinners,

look up to heaven when you are stricken; tremble, hope, yearn; you will

have a comrade, you still may laugh and weep, give and receive.--For me--I

am an exile far from heaven; like a monster, far from earth! My heart beats

for none; I live in myself, for myself alone. I feel through my spirit, I

breathe by my brain, I see by my mind, I am dying of impatience and

longing. No one here below can satisfy my wishes or soothe my eagerness;

and I have forgotten how to weep. I am alone.--I am resigned, and can

wait."

Seraphitus looked at the flowery knoll on which he had placed Minna, and

then turned towards the frowning summits, round whose peaks heavy clouds

had gathered, into which he seemed to fling his next thoughts.

"Do you hear that delightful music, Minna?" said he, in his dove-like

tones, for the eagle had ended his cry. "Might one not fancy that it was

the harmony of those Eolian harps which poets imagine in the midst of

forests and mountains? Do you see the shadowy forms moving among those

clouds? Do you discern the winged feet of those who deck the sky with such

hangings? Those sounds refresh the soul; Heaven will ere long shed the

blossoms of spring, a flash blazes up from the Pole. Let us fly--it is

time!"

In an instant they had replaced their snow-shoes and were descending the

Falberg by the steep slopes down to the valley of the Sieg. Some miraculous

intelligence guided their steps--or rather their flight. When a crevasse

covered with snow lay before them, Seraphitus seized Minna, and with a

swift rush dashed, scarce the weight of a bird, across the frail bridge

that covered a chasm. Many a time, by just pushing his companion, he

deviated slightly to avoid a cliff or tree, a block of stone which he

seemed to see through the snow, as certain mariners, accustomed to the sea,

discern a shoal by the color, the eddy, and the recoil of the water.

When they had reached the roads of the Siegdahl, and they could proceed

without hesitation in a straight line down to the ice on the fiord,

Seraphitus spoke.

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

"I fancied," replied the girl respectfully, "that you wished to think in

silence."

"Make haste, pretty one, the night is falling," said he.

Minna was startled at hearing the new voice, so to speak, in which her

guide spoke. A voice as clear as a girl's, dissipating the fantastic

flashes of the dream in which she had been walking. Seraphitus was

abdicating his manly strength, and his looks were losing their too keen

insight. Presently the fair couple were gliding across the fiord; they

reached the snowy level that lay between the margin of the bay and the

first houses of Jarvis; then, urged by the waning light, they hurried up to

the parsonage as if climbing the steps of an enormous stairway.

"My father will be uneasy," said Minna.

"No," said Seraphitus.

At this moment they stopped at the porch of the humble dwelling where

Pastor Becker, the minister of Jarvis, sat reading while awaiting his

daughter's return to supper.

"Dear Pastor Becker," said Seraphitus, "I have brought your daughter back

safe and sound."

"Thank you, mademoiselle," said the old man, laying his spectacles on the

book. "You must be tired."

"Not in the least," said Minna, on whose brow her companion had just

breathed.

"Dear child, will you come to tea with me the evening after to-morrow?"

"With pleasure, dear."

"Pastor Becker, will you bring her?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Seraphitus nodded prettily, bowed to the old man, and left, and in a few

minutes was in the courtyard of the Swedish Castle. An old servant of

eighty came out under the wide veranda carrying a lantern. Seraphitus

slipped off the snow-shoes with the grace of a woman, ran into the

sitting-room, dropped on to a large divan covered with skins, and lay down.

"What will you take?" said the old man, lighting the enormously long tapers

that are used in Norway.

"Nothing, David; I am too tired."

Seraphitus threw off the sable-lined pelisse, wrapped it about him, and was

asleep. The old servant lingered a few minutes in loving contemplation of

the strange being resting under his gaze, and whose sex the most learned

man would have been puzzled to pronounce on. Seeing him as he lay, wrapped

in his usual garment, which was as much like a woman's dressing-gown as a

man's overcoat, it was impossible to believe that the slender feet that

hung down, as if to display the delicacy with which nature had moulded

them, were not those of a young girl; but the brow, the profile, seemed the

embodiment of human strength carried to its highest pitch.

"She is suffering, and will not tell me," thought the old man. "She is

dying like a flower scorched by too fierce a sunbeam."

And the old man wept.

II.

SERAPHITA.

In the course of the evening David came into the drawing-room.

"I know who is coming," said Seraphita in a sleepy voice. "Wilfrid may come

in."

On hearing these words, a man at once appeared, and came to sit down by

her.

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

She turned languidly towards him, after tossing back her hair like a pretty

woman overpowered by sick headache and too feeble to complain.

"I was foolish enough," said she, "to cross the fiord with Minna; we have

been up the Falberg."

"Did you want to kill yourself?" cried he, with a lover's alarm.

"Do not be uneasy, my good Wilfrid, I took great care of your Minna."

Wilfrid struck the table violently with his hand, took a few steps towards

the door with an exclamation of pain; then he came back and began to

reproach her.

"Why so much noise if you suppose me to be suffering?" said Seraphita.

"I beg your pardon, forgive me," said he, kneeling down. "Speak harshly to

me, require anything of me that your cruel woman's caprice may suggest to

you as hardest to be endured, but, my beloved, do not doubt my love! You

use Minna like a hatchet to hit me with again and again. Have some mercy!"

"Why speak thus, my friend, when you know that such words are useless?" she

replied, looking at him with a gaze that became at last so soft that what

Wilfrid saw was not Seraphita's eyes, but a fluid light shimmering like the

last vibrations of a song full of Italian languor.

"Ah! anguish cannot kill!" cried he.

"Are you in pain?" said she, in a voice which produced on him the same

effect as her look. "What can I do for you?"

"Love me, as I love you!"

"Poor Minna!" said she.

"I never bring any weapons!" cried Wilfrid.

"You are in a detestable temper," said Seraphita, smiling. "Have I not

spoken nicely, like the Parisian ladies of whom you tell me love stories?"

Wilfrid sat down, folded his arms, and looked gloomily at Seraphita.

"I forgive you," said he, "for you know not what you do."

"Oh!" retorted she, "every woman from Eve downwards knows when she is doing

good or evil."

"I believe it," said he.

"I am sure of it, Wilfrid. Our intuition is just what makes us so perfect.

What you men have to learn, we feel."

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

"Because you do not love me."

"Great God!"

"Why then do you complain of anguish?"

"You are terrible this evening, Seraphita. You are a perfect demon!"

"No; but I have the gift of understanding, and that is terrifying.

Suffering, Wilfrid, is a light thrown on life."

"Why did you go up the Falberg?"

"Minna will tell you; I am too tired to speak. You must talk, you who know

everything, who have learned everything and forgotten nothing, and have

gone through so many social experiences. Amuse me; I am listening."

"What can I tell you that you do not know! Indeed, your request is a

mockery. You recognize nothing that is worldly, you analyze its

terminology, you demolish its laws, its manners, feelings, sciences, by

reducing them to the proportions they assume when we take our stand outside

the globe."

"You see, my friend, I am not a woman. You are wrong to love me. What! I

quit the ethereal regions of strength you attribute to me; I make myself

humble and insignificant to stoop after the manner of the poor female of

every species--and you at once uplift me! Then, when I am crushed and

broken, I crave your help; I want your arm, and you repulse me! We do not

understand each other."

"You are more malignant this evening than I have ever known you."

"Malignant?" said she, with a flashing look that melted every sentiment

into one heavenly emotion. "No; I am weary, that is all. Then, leave me, my

friend. Will not that be a due exercise of your rights as a man? We are

always to charm you, to recreate you, always to be cheerful, and have no

whims but those that amuse you.--What shall I do, my friend? Shall I sing,

or dance, when fatigue has deprived me of voice and of the use of my legs?

Yes, gentlemen, at our last gasp we still must smile on you! That, I

believe, you call your sovereignty!--Poor women! I pity them. You abandon

them when they are old; tell me, have they then no longer heart or soul?

Well, and I am more than a hundred, Wilfrid. Go--go to kneel at Minna's

feet."

"Oh, my one, eternal love!"

"Do you know what eternity is? Be silent, Wilfrid.--You desire me, but you

do not love me.--Tell me, now, do not I remind you of some coquette you

have met?"

"I certainly do not see you now as the pure and heavenly maiden I saw for

the first time in the church at Jarvis."

As he spoke Seraphita passed her hands over her brow, and when she

uncovered her face Wilfrid was astonished at the religious and saintly

expression it wore.

"You are right, my friend. I am always wrong to set foot on your earth."

"Yes, beloved Seraphita, be my star.--Never descend from the place whence

you shed such glorious light on me."

He put out his hand to take the girl's, but she withdrew it, though without

disdain or anger. Wilfrid hastily rose and went to stand by the window,

turning towards it so that Seraphita should not see a few tears that filled

his eyes.

"Why these tears?" she asked. "You are no longer a boy, Wilfrid. Come back

to me, I insist.--You are vexed with me, when it is I who should be angry.

You see I am not well, and you compel me by some foolish doubts to think

and speak, or participate in whims and ideas that fatigue me. If you at all

understood my nature, you would have given me some music; you would have

soothed my weariness; but you love me for your own sake, not for myself."

The storm which raged in Wilfrid's soul was stilled by these words; he came

back slowly to contemplate the bewitching creature who reclined under his

eyes, softly pillowed, her head resting on her hand, and her elbow in an

insinuating attitude.

"You fancy I do not like you," she went on. "You are mistaken. Listen,

Wilfrid. You are beginning to know a great deal, and you have suffered

much. Allow me to explain your thoughts. You wanted to take my hand."

She sat up, and her graceful movement seemed to shed gleams of light.

"Does not a girl who allows a man to take her hand make a promise, and

ought she not to keep it? You know full well that I can never be yours. Two

feelings rule the love that attracts the women of this earth: either they

devote themselves to suffering creatures, degraded and guilty, whom they

desire to comfort, to raise, to redeem; or they give themselves wholly to

superior beings, sublime and strong, whom they are fain to worship and

understand--by whom they are too often crushed. You have been degraded, but

you have purified yourself in the fires of repentance, and you now are

great; I feel myself too small to be your equal, and I am too religious to

humble myself to any power but that of the Most High. Your life, my friend,

may thus be stated; we are in the North, among the clouds, where

abstractions are familiar to our minds."

"Seraphita, you kill me when you talk so," he replied. "It is always

torture to me to see you thus apply the monstrous science which strips all

human things of the properties they derive from time, space, form, when you

regard them mathematically under some ultimate simplest expression, as

geometry does with bodies, abstracting dimensions from substance."

"Well, Wilfrid, I submit.--Look at this bearskin rug which my poor David

has spread. What do you think of it?"

"I like it very well."

"You did not know I had that _Doucha Greka_?"

It was a sort of pelisse made of cashmere lined with black fox-skin; the

name means, "warm to the soul."

"Do you suppose," said she, "that any sovereign in any court possesses a

fur wrap to match it?"

"It is worthy of her who wears it!"

"And whom you think very beautiful?"

"Human words are inapplicable to her; she must be addressed heart to

heart."

"Wilfrid, it is kind of you to soothe my griefs with such sweet

words--which you have spoken to others."

"Good-bye."

"Stay. I love you truly, and Minna too, believe me, but to me you two are

one being. Thus combined you are as a brother, or, if you will, a sister to

me. Marry each other, let me see you happy before quitting for ever this

sphere of trial and sorrow. Dear me! the most ordinary women have made

their lovers obey their will. They have said 'Be silent!' and their lovers

were mute. They have said 'Die!' and men have died. They have said 'Love me

from afar!' the lovers have remained at a distance like courtiers in the

presence of a king. They have said 'Go, marry!' and the men have married.

Now, I want you to be happy, and you refuse. Have I then no power?--Well,

Wilfrid--come close to me--Yes, I should be sorry to see you married to

Minna; but when you see me no more, then--promise me to make her your wife.

Heaven intends you for each other."

"I have heard you with rapture, Seraphita. Incomprehensible as your words

are, they are like a charm. But what, indeed, do you mean?"

"To be sure; I forget to be foolish, to be the poor creature in whose

weakness you delight. I torture you, and you came to this wild country to

find rest--you who are racked by the fierce throes of misunderstood genius,

worn out by the patient labors of science, who have almost stained your

hands by crime, and worn the chains of human justice."

Wilfrid had fallen half dead on the floor. Seraphita breathed on the young

man's brow, and he fell calmly asleep, lying at her feet.

"Sleep, rest," said she, rising.

After laying her hands on Wilfrid's forehead, the following phrases fell

from her lips, one by one, each in a different tone, but alike melodious

and full of a kindly spirit that seemed to emanate from her countenance in

misty undulations like the light shed by the heathen goddess on the beloved

shepherd in his sleep.

"I may show myself to you, dear Wilfrid, as I am, to you who are strong.

"The hour is come, the hour when the shining lights of the future cast

their reflections on the soul, the hour when the soul moves, feeling itself

free.

"It is granted to me now to tell you how well I love you. Do you not see

what my love is, a love devoid of self-interest, a feeling full of you

alone, a love which follows you into the future, to light up your future,

for such love is the true light. Do you now perceive how ardently I long to

see you released from the life that is a burden to you, and nearer to the

world where love rules for ever? Is not love for a lifetime only sheer

suffering? Have you not felt a longing for eternal love? Do you not now

understand to what ecstasy a being can rise when he is double through

loving Him who never betrays his love, Him before whom all bow and worship!

"I would I had wings, Wilfrid, to cover you withal; I would I had strength

to give you that you might know the foretaste of the world where the purest

joys of the purest union known on earth would cast a shadow in the light

that there perennially enlightens and rejoices all hearts!

"Forgive a friendly soul for having shown you in one word a vision of your

faults with the charitable intention of lulling the acute torments of your

remorse. Listen to the choir of forgiveness! Refresh your spirit by

inhaling the dawn that shall rise for you beyond the gloom of death! Yes,

for your life lies there.

"My words shall wear for you the glorious garb of dreams, and appear as

forms of flame descending to visit you. Rise! Rise to the heights whence

men see each other truly, though tiny and crowded as the sands of the

seashore. Humanity is unrolled before you as a ribbon; look at the endless

hues of that flower of the gardens of Heaven.--Do you see those who lack

intelligence, those who are beginning to be tinged by it, those who have

been tried, those who are in the circle of love, and those in wisdom, who

aspire to celestial illumination?

"Do you understand, through these thoughts made visible, the destination of

man--whence he comes, whither he is tending? Keep on your road. When you

shall reach your journey's end, you will hear the trumpet call of

omnipotence and loud shouts of victory, and harmonies, only one of which

would shake the earth, but which are lost in a world where there is neither

East nor West.

"Do you perceive, dear, much-tried one, that but for the torpor and the

veil of sleep, such visions would rend and carry away your intellect, as

the wind of a tempest rends and sweeps away a light sail, and would rob a

man for ever of his reason? Do you perceive that the soul alone, raised to

its highest power, and even in a dream, can scarce endure the consuming

effluence of the Spirit?

"Fly, fly again through the realms of light and glory, admire, hurry on. As

you fly you are resting, you go forward without fatigue. Like all men, you

would fain dwell always thus bathed in these floods of fragrance and light,

where you are wandering free of your unconscious body, speaking in thought

only. Hurry, fly, rejoice for a moment in the wings you will have earned

when love is so perfect in you that you shall cease to have any senses,

that you shall be all intellect and all love! The higher you soar, the less

can you conceive of the gulf beneath.--Now, gaze at me for a moment, for

you will henceforth see me but darkly, as you behold me by the light of the

dull sun of the earth!"

Seraphita stole up with her head gently bent on one side, her hair flowing

about her in the airy pose which the sublimest painters have attributed to

messengers from heaven; the folds of her dress had the indescribable grace

which makes the artist, the man to whom everything is an expression of

feeling, stop to gaze at the exquisite flowing veil of the antique statue

of Polyhymnia.

Then she extended her hand and Wilfrid rose.

When he looked at Seraphita, the fair girl was lying on the bearskin, her

head resting on her hand, her face calm, her eyes shining. Wilfrid gazed at

her in silence, but his features expressed respectful awe, and he looked at

her timidly.

"Yes, dear one," said he at last, as if answering a question, "whole worlds

divide us! I submit; I can only adore you. But what is to become of me thus

lonely?"

"Wilfrid, have you not your Minna?"

He hung his head.

"Oh, do not be so scornful! a woman can understand everything by love. When

she fails to understand, she feels; when she cannot feel, she sees; when

she can neither see, nor feel, nor understand--well, that angel of earth

divines your need, to protect you and to hide her protection under the

grace of love."

"Seraphita, am I worthy to love a woman?"