第10章

SERAPHITA

Later in the evening David re-entered the salon.

"I know who it is you have come to announce," said Seraphita in a sleepy voice."Wilfrid may enter."Hearing these words a man suddenly presented himself, crossed the room and sat down beside her.

"My dear Seraphita, are you ill?" he said."You look paler than usual."She turned slowly towards him, tossing back her hair like a pretty woman whose aching head leaves her no strength even for complaint.

"I was foolish enough to cross the fiord with Minna," she said."We ascended the Falberg.""Do you mean to kill yourself?" he said with a lover's terror.

"No, my good Wilfrid; I took the greatest care of your Minna."Wilfrid struck his hand violently on a table, rose hastily, and made several steps towards the door with an exclamation full of pain; then he returned and seemed about to remonstrate.

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

"Forgive me, have mercy!" he cried, kneeling beside her."Speak to me harshly if you will; exact all that the cruel fancies of a woman lead you to imagine I least can bear; but oh, my beloved, do not doubt my love.You take Minna like an axe to hew me down.Have mercy!""Why do you say these things, my friend, when you know that they are useless?" she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that Wilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid light, the shimmer of which was like the last vibrations of an Italian song.

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

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

"Poor Minna!" she replied.

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

"You are out of temper," said Seraphita, smiling."Come, have I not spoken to you like those Parisian women whose loves you tell of?"Wilfrid sat down, crossed his arms, and looked gloomily at Seraphita.

"I forgive you," he said; "for you know not what you do.""You mistake," she replied; "every woman from the days of Eve does good and evil knowingly.""I believe it"; he said.

"I am sure of it, Wilfrid.Our instinct is precisely that which makes us perfect.What you men learn, we feel.""Why, then, do you not feel how much I love you?""Because you do not love me."

"Good God!"

"If you did, would you complain of your own sufferings?""You are terrible to-night, Seraphita.You are a demon.""No, but I am gifted with the faculty of comprehending, and it is awful.Wilfrid, sorrow is a lamp which illumines life.""Why did you ascend the Falberg?"

"Minna will tell you.I am too weary to talk.You must talk to me,--you who know so much, who have learned all things and forgotten nothing; you who have passed through every social test.Talk to me, amuse me, I am listening.""What can I tell you that you do not know? Besides, the request is ironical.You allow yourself no intercourse with social life; you trample on its conventions, its laws, its customs, sentiments, and sciences; you reduce them all to the proportions such things take when viewed by you beyond this universe.""Therefore you see, my friend, that I am not a woman.You do wrong to love me.What! am I to leave the ethereal regions of my pretended strength, make myself humbly small, cringe like the hapless female of all species, that you may lift me up? and then, when I, helpless and broken, ask you for help, when I need your arm, you will repulse me!

No, we can never come to terms."

"You are more maliciously unkind to-night than I have ever known you.""Unkind!" she said, with a look which seemed to blend all feelings into one celestial emotion, "no, I am ill, I suffer, that is all.

Leave me, my friend; it is your manly right.We women should ever please you, entertain you, be gay in your presence and have no whims save those that amuse you.Come, what shall I do for you, friend?

Shall I sing, shall I dance, though weariness deprives me of the use of voice and limbs?--Ah! gentlemen, be we on our deathbeds, we yet must smile to please you; you call that, methinks, your right.Poor women! I pity them.Tell me, you who abandon them when they grow old, is it because they have neither hearts nor souls? Wilfrid, I am a hundred years old; leave me! leave me! go to Minna!""Oh, my eternal love!"

"Do you know the meaning of eternity? Be silent, Wilfrid.You desire me, but you do not love me.Tell me, do I not seem to you like those coquettish Parisian women?""Certainly I no longer find you the pure celestial maiden I first saw in the church of Jarvis."At these words Seraphita passed her hands across her brow, and when she removed them Wilfrid was amazed at the saintly expression that overspread her face.

"You are right, my friend," she said; "I do wrong whenever I set my feet upon your earth.""Oh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where you can ever bless me with that clear light!"As he spoke, he stretched forth his hand to take that of the young girl, but she withdrew it, neither disdainfully nor in anger.Wilfrid rose abruptly and walked to the window that she might not see the tears that rose to his eyes.

"Why do you weep?" she said."You are not a child, Wilfrid.Come back to me.I wish it.You are annoyed if I show just displeasure.You see that I am fatigued and ill, yet you force me to think and speak, and listen to persuasions and ideas that weary me.If you had any real perception of my nature, you would have made some music, you would have lulled my feelings--but no, you love me for yourself and not for myself."The storm which convulsed the young man's heart calmed down at these words.He slowly approached her, letting his eyes take in the seductive creature who lay exhausted before him, her head resting in her hand and her elbow on the couch.

"You think that I do not love you," she resumed."You are mistaken.