Seraphitus gently shook his head, with a flashing look that was at once sweet and sad.
"You who know everything," Minna went on, "tell me why the alarm I felt below, by your side, is dissipated now that I am up here; why I dare for the first time to look you in the face; whereas, down there, I scarce dare steal a glance at you?"
"Perhaps up here we have cast off the mean things of the earth," said he, pulling off his pelisse.
"I never saw you so beautiful," said Minna, sitting down on a mossy stone, and gazing in contemplation of the being who had thus brought her to a part of the mountain which from afar seemed inaccessible.
Never, in fact, had Seraphitus shone with such brilliant splendor—the only expression that can do justice to the eagerness of his face and the aspect of his person. Was this radiance due to the effulgence given to the complexion by the pure mountain air and the reflection from the snow? Was it the result of an internal impetus which still excites the frame at the moment it is resting after long exertion? Was it produced by the sudden contrast between the golden glow of sunshine and the gloom of the clouds through which this pretty pair had passed?
To all these causes we must perhaps add the effects of one of the most beautiful phenomena that human nature can offer. If some skilled physiologist had studied this being, who, to judge by the boldness of his brow and the light in his eyes at this moment, was a youth of seventeen; if he had sought the springs of this blooming life under the whitest skin that the North ever bestowed on one of its sons, he would, no doubt, have believed in the existence of a phosphoric fluid in the sinews that seemed to shine through the skin, or in the constant presence of an internal glow, which tinted Seraphitus as a light shines through an alabaster vase. Delicately slender as his hands were—he had taken off his gloves to loosen Minna's sandals—they seemed to have such strength as the Creator has given to the diaphanous joints of a crab. The fire that blazed in his eyes rivaled the rays of the sun; he seemed not to receive but to give out light. His frame, as slight and fragile as a woman's, was that of a nature feeble in appearance, but whose strength is always adequate to its desires, which are sometimes strong. Seraphitus, though of middle height, seemed taller as seen in front; he looked as if he fain would spring upwards. His hair, with its light curls, as if touched by a fairy hand and tossed by a breeze, added to the illusion produced by his airy attitude; but this absolutely effortless mien was the outcome rather of a mental state than of physical habit.
Minna's imagination seconded this constant hallucination; it would have affected any beholder, for it gave to Seraphitus the appearance of one of the beings we see in our happiest dreams. No familiar type can give any idea of this face, to Minna so majestically manly, though in the sight of a man its feminine grace would have eclipsed the loveliest heads by Raphael. That Painter of Heaven has frequently given a sort of tranquil joy and tender suavity to the lines of his angelic beauties; but without seeing Seraphitus himself, what mind can conceive of the sadness mingled with hope which half clouded the ineffable feelings expressed in his features? Who could picture to himself, even in the artist's dream, where all things are possible, the shadows cast by mysterious awe on that too intellectual brow, which seemed to interrogate the skies, and always to pity the earth? That head could tower disdainful, like a noble bird of prey whose cries rend the air, or bow resigned, like the turtle-dove whose voice sheds tenderness in the depths of the silent forest.
Seraphitus had a complexion of surprising whiteness, made all the more remarkable by red lips, brown eyebrows, and silky lashes, the only details that broke the pallor of a face whose perfect regularity did not hinder the strong expression of his feelings; they were mirrored there without shock or violence, but with the natural, majestic gravity we like to attribute to superior beings. Everything in those monumental features spoke of strength and repose.
Minna stood up to take the young man's hand, hoping to draw him down to her so as to press on that fascinating brow a kiss of admiration rather than of love; but one look from his eyes, a look that went through her as a sunbeam goes through a glass prism, froze the poor child. She felt the gulf between them without understanding it; she turned away her head and wept. Suddenly a strong hand was round her waist, and a voice full of kindness said:
"Come."