Part 62 (2/2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”What has happened?” asked Minna.

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

The words made Wilfrid's heart beat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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