"No, dear pastor; there are two ways of dying—to some death means victory, to some it is defeat."
"And you think you have won?" said Minna.
"I do not know," said she. "Perhaps it is only a step more."
The milky radiance of her brow seemed to fade, her eyes fell under her lids, which slowly closed. This simple circumstance distressed the three inquirers, who sat quite still. The pastor was the boldest.
"My dear girl," said he, "you are candor itself; you are also divinely kind. I want more of you this evening than the dainties of your tea-table. If we may believe what some people say, you know some most wonderful things; and if so, would it not be an act of charity to clear up some of our doubts?"
"Oh yes!" said Seraphita, with a smile. "They say that I walk on the clouds; I am on familiar terms with the eddies in the fiord; the sea is a horse I have saddled and bridled; I know where the singing flower grows, where the talking light shines, where living colors blaze that scent the air; I have Solomon's ring; I am a fairy; I give my orders to the wind, and it obeys me like a submissive slave; I can see the treasures in the mine; I am the virgin whom pearls rush to meet, and——"
"And we walk unharmed on the Falberg," Minna put in.
"What, you too?" replied the Being with a luminous glance at the girl, which quite upset her. "If I had not the power of reading through your brows the wish that has brought you here, should I be what you think I am?" she went on, including them all in her captivating gaze, to David's great satisfaction, and he went off rubbing his hands.—"Yes," she went on after a pause, "you all came overflowing with childish curiosity. You, my dear pastor, wondered whether it were possible that a girl of seventeen should know even one of the thousand secrets which learned men seek diligently with their noses to the ground instead of with their eyes raised to heaven! Now, if I were to show you how and where plant life and animal life mingle, you would begin to doubt your doubts.—You plotted to cross-question me, confess?"
"Yes, beloved Seraphita," said Wilfrid. "But is not such a desire natural to man?"
"And do you want to worry this child?" she said, laying her hand on Minna's hair with a caressing gesture.