"Well, my child, and how is your Spirit-friend?"
"He is suffering, father," said she, bowing to Wilfrid. "The passions of humanity, tricked out in their false splendor, tortured him in the night, and spread incredible pomp before his eyes.—But you treat all these things as mere fables."
"Fables as delightful to him who reads them in his brain as those of the Arabian Nights are to ordinary minds," said her father, smiling.
"Then, did not Satan," she retorted, "transport the Saviour to the summit of the Temple and show Him the kingdoms at His feet?"
"The Evangelists," replied Becker, "did not so effectually correct their text but that several versions exist."
"You, then, believe in the reality of these apparitions?" Wilfrid asked of Minna.
"Who can doubt that hears him tell of them?"
"Him?—Who?" asked Wilfrid.
"He who dwells there," said Minna, pointing to the castle.
"You speak of Seraphita?" said Wilfrid, surprised.