"Be not excited, be not carried away. Repose is beautiful, it is indispensable; without repose no calculation can be accurate, no work complete. Your attachment makes me happy; but compose yourself, rise from your knees, sit comfortably."
She put her hands together as in prayer.
"Let me stay as I am, father, at your knee. I imagined that on your return I should be able to talk often and long with you; to ask about everything, learn everything from you."
She coughed. Darvid took her in his arms, and, without raising her from her knees, he drew her to his breast.
"See! your cough lasts! Do you cough much? Well, do not speak, do not speak! let it pass. Does this cough pass quickly?"
It had passed. She stopped coughing, laughed. Her teeth glittered like pearls between her red lips. A gleam of delight shot through Darvid's eyes.
"It has gone already! I do not cough often, only rarely. I am perfectly well. I was very sick when I got chilled at an open window while you were away, father."
"I know, I know. Your enthusiastic little head thought of opening the window on a winter night, so as to peep out and see how the garden looked covered with snow in the moonlight."
"The trees, father, the trees!" began she, smiling and with vivacity; "not the whole garden, just the trees, which, covered with snow and frost in the moonlight, were like pillars of marble, alabaster, crystal, set with diamonds, hung with laces; and whenever the slightest breeze moved, a rain of pearls was scattered on the ground." "Great God!" exclaimed Darvid, "marbles, alabasters, laces, diamonds, pearls! But there was nothing of all this in fact! There was nothing but dry trunks, branches, snow, and hoar-frost. That is exaltation! And you see how destructive it may be! It brought you acute inflammation of the lungs, the traces of which are not gone yet."
"They are!" answered she, in passing, and then she spoke seriously. "My father, is it exaltation to worship something which is very beautiful, or to love some one greatly with all our strength? If it is—then I am given to exaltation, but without exaltation what could we live for?"