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"Read the account of that Italian woman," said Monsieur Becker, "who at the age of twelve spoke forty-two languages, ancient and modern; also the history of that monk who could guess thought by smell. I can give you a thousand such cases from Jean Wier and other writers." "I admit all that, dear pastor; but to my thinking, Seraphita would make a perfect wife."
Wilfrid was, however, strong enough to raise the cry of revolt to which he had given utterance in Monsieur Becker's study. The narrative of the old pastor had calmed him. Sceptical and derisive as he was, he saw belief like a sidereal brilliance dawning on his life. He asked himself if Seraphita were not an exile from the higher spheres seeking the homeward way.
Who has ever felt himself return to youth and purity after growing cold and numb with age and soiled with impurity? Suddenly, Wilfrid loved as he had never loved; he loved secretly, with faith, with fear, with inward madness. His life was stirred to the very source of his being at the mere thought of seeing Seraphita.
An example of such discrepancy is furnished by the information given concerning Seraphita, which Werdet says he bought from Buloz at the end of 1834, and for which he had to wait till December 1835. He even makes it a reproach that the novelist, after being extracted from a dilemma, should have dealt with him so cavalierly.
Canalization is explained at length in the Village Cure; will-making is discoursed upon in Ursule Mirouet; promissory notes, bills of exchange, and protests, not to speak of business accounts, cover pages in the Lost Illusions; therapeutics takes the place of narrative in the Reverse Side of Contemporary History; physiology is lectured upon in the Lily in the Valley; Louis Lambert aims at becoming a second and better edition of the Thoughts of Pascal; and in Seraphita we have sermons as long and tedious as those of an Elizabethan divine.
"Ah! my father, had you been with us this morning on the summit of the Falberg, had you seen him praying, you would not ask me that question. You would say, like Monsieur Wilfrid, that he saw his Seraphita for the first time in our temple, 'It is the Spirit of Prayer." These words were followed by a moment's silence.
"These phenomena are within us, not without us," Wilfrid went on. "The being whom we call Seraphita seems to me one of those rare and terrible spirits to whom power is given to bind men, to crush nature, to enter into participation of the occult power of God. The course of her enchantments over me began on that first day, when silence as to her was imposed upon me against my will.
He would be able to earn eight thousand francs, but in order to do so he must deliver within forty days the last chapters of Seraphita and the Young Brides to the Revue de Paris, the Lily in the Valley to the Revue des Deux Mondes, and an article for the Conservateur, all of which was equivalent to writing four hundred and forty-eight pages. And still this did not satisfy him!
I have quit trying to keep pace with them." He held the parcel toward Dolly. "I heard you say all of you wanted to know something of Balzac's philosophy. I find that he has expressed it in his novels Louis Lambert and Seraphita. The introductions in both these volumes are very complete and well written." "Oh, they are exactly what we want."
Monsieur Becker wished Seraphita to try remedies; but all were useless. One morning she sent for the two beings whom she loved, telling them that this would be the last of her bad days. Wilfrid and Minna came in terror, knowing well that they were about to lose her.
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