"Poor girl!" continued the old man, "her parents bequeathed to her
that fatal exaltation of soul which misleads mystics and renders them
all more or less mad. She subjects herself to fasts which horrify poor
David. The good old man is like a sensitive plant which quivers at the
slightest breeze, and glows under the first sun-ray. His mistress,
whose incomprehensible language has become his, is the breeze and the
sun-ray to him; in his eyes her feet are diamonds and her brow is
strewn with stars; she walks environed with a white and luminous
atmosphere; her voice is accompanied by music; she has the gift of
rendering herself invisible. If you ask to see her, he will tell you
she has gone to the _astral regions_. It is difficult to believe such a
story, is it not? You know all miracles bear more or less resemblance
to the story of the Golden Tooth. We have our golden tooth in Jarvis,
that is all. Duncker the fisherman asserts that he has seen her plunge
into the fiord and come up in the shape of an eider-duck, at other
times walking on the billows of a storm. Fergus, who leads the flocks
to the saeters, says that in rainy weather a circle of clear sky can
be seen over the Swedish castle; and that the heavens are always blue
above Seraphita's head when she is on the mountain. Many women hear
the tones of a mighty organ when Seraphita enters the church, and ask
their neighbors earnestly if they too do not hear them. But my
daughter, for whom during the last two years Seraphita has shown much
affection, has never heard this music, and has never perceived the
heavenly perfumes which, they say, make the air fragrant about her
when she moves. Minna, to be sure, has often on returning from their
walks together expressed to me the delight of a young girl in the
beauties of our spring-time, in the spicy odors of budding larches and
pines and the earliest flowers; but after our long winters what can be
more natural than such pleasure? The companionship of this so-called
spirit has nothing so very extraordinary in it, has it, my child?"