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1Plusieurs femmes entendent les sons d’un orgue immense quand Séraphîta vient dans le temple, et demandent sérieusement à leurs voisines si elles ne les entendent pas aussi. Mais, ma fille, que, depuis deux ans, Séraphîta prend en affection, n’a point entendu de musique, et n’a point senti les parfums du ciel qui, dit-on, embaument les airs quand elle se promène. Minna est souvent rentrée en m’exprimant une naïve admiration de jeune fille pour les beautés de notre printemps ; elle revenait enivrée des odeurs que jettent les premières pousses des mélèzes, des pins ou des fleurs qu’elle était allée respirer avec elle : mais après un si long hiver, rien n’est plus naturel que cet excessif plaisir. La compagnie de ce démon n’a rien de bien extraordinaire, dis, mon enfant ?
2— Ses secrets ne sont pas les miens, répondit Minna. Près de lui, je sais tout ; loin de lui, je ne sais plus rien ; près de lui, je ne suis plus moi ; loin de lui, j’ai tout oublié de cette vie délicieuse. Le voir est un rêve dont la souvenance ne me reste que suivant sa volonté. J’ai pu entendre près de lui, sans m’en souvenir loin de lui, les musiques dont parlent la femme de Bancker et celle d’Erikson ; j’ai pu, près de lui, sentir des parfums célestes, contempler des merveilles, et ne plus en avoir idée ici. — Ce qui m’a surpris le plus depuis que je la connais, ce fut de la voir vous souffrir près d’elle, reprit le pasteur en s’adressant à Wilfrid. — Près d’elle ! dit l’étranger, elle ne m’a jamais laissé ni lui baiser, ni même lui toucher la main. Quand elle me vit pour la première fois, son regard m’intimida ; elle me dit : — Soyez le bienvenu ici, car vous deviez venir. Il me sembla qu’elle me connaissait. J’ai tremblé. La terreur me fait croire en elle.
3— Et moi l’amour, dit Minna sans rougir. — Ne vous moquez-vous pas de moi ? dit monsieur Becker en riant avec bonhomie ; toi, ma fille, en te disant un Esprit d’Amour, et vous, monsieur, en vous faisant un Esprit de Sagesse ? Il but un verre de bière, et ne s’aperçut pas du singulier regard que Wilfrid jeta sur Minna. — Plaisanterie à part, reprit le ministre, j’ai été fort surpris d’apprendre qu’aujourd’hui, pour la première fois, ces deux folles seraient allées sur le sommet du Falberg ; mais n’est-ce pas une exagération de jeunes filles qui seront montées sur quelque colline ? il est impossible d’atteindre à la cime du Falberg. — Mon père, dit Minna d’une voix émue, j’ai donc été sous le pouvoir du démon, car j’ai gravi le Falberg avec lui.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1“Poor girl!’’ the pastor went on, ‘“‘she has inherited from her parents the fatal enthusiasm which misleads mystics and makes them more or less crazy. She fasts in a way that drives poor David to despair. The good old man is like some frail plant that trembles at a breath of wind and basks in the smallest gleam of sunshine. His mis86 BALZAC’S WORKS tress, whose incomprehensible language he has adopted, is to him the breeze and sunshine; to him her feet are diamonds, her forehead crowned with stars; she moves environed by a white and luminous halo; her voice has an accompaniment of music; she has the gift of becoming invisible. Ask to see her; he will tell you that she is wandering through astral worlds. It is difficult to believe such fables. Every such miracle, you know, is more or less like the story of the Golden Tooth: we have a Golden Tooth at Jarvis, that is all. ‘For instance, Duncker, the fisherman, declares that he has seen her plunging into the fiord and coming to the surface in the form of an eider-duck, or walking on the waves during astorm. Fergus, who tends the herds on the seter, says that, in rainy weather, he has seen the sky always clear over the Swedish castle, and always blue over Seraphita’s head if she goes out. Several women hear the chords of an immense organ when Seraphita comes to church, and ask their neighbors quite seriously if they also do not hear it.
2‘‘However, my daughter, to whom Seraphita has taken a great fancy these two years past, has heard no music, and has not perceived the heavenly perfumes which embalm the air, they say, wherever she goes. Minna has often come home full of a simple girl’s admiration for the beauties of the spring; she is enraptured by the fragrance of the first tender larch shoots, the fir trees, and the flowers they have enjoyed together; but after our long winter nothing can be more natural than such intense delight. There is nothing very remarkable in the conversation of that being, is there, my child ?”’ ‘*His secrets are not mine,’’ replied Minna. ‘‘When I SERAPHITA 87 am with him, I know all things; away from him, I know nothing; with him, I cease to be myself; away from him, I forget that more perfect life. Seeing him is as a dream, of which my remembrance depends on his will. I may have heard, when with him, the music of which Bancker’s wife and Erikson’s speak, and forget it when we are apart; I may have perceived those celestial perfumes and have beheld marvels, and yet know nothing of them here.”’ ‘“What has most surprised me since I first knew her,’”’ said the pastor to Wilfrid, ‘‘is that she should allow you to approach her.’’
3‘To approach her!’’ said the stranger. ‘She has never allowed me to kiss nor even to touch her hand. The first time I saw her she abashed me by her look, and said, ‘You are welcome here; you were due to come.’ It was as though she knew me. I trembled.—My fear makes me believe in her.”’ ‘*And my love,’ said Minna, without a blush. ‘*Are you making fun of me?” said the pastor, laughing with good humor; ‘‘you, my child, in calling yourself a ° Spirit of Love; and you, sir, in making yourself out to be a Spirit of Wisdom ?”’ He drank off a glass of beer, and did not observe a singular look which Wilfrid gave to Minna. ‘‘Jesting apart,’’ Becker went on, ‘‘I was greatly amazed to hear that those two crazy girls had gone to-day for the first time to the top of the Walberg; but is not that some exaggeration? The girls must have simply climbed some hill; the summit of the Falberg is inaccessible.’’ ‘‘Father,’’ said Minna, in some agitation, ‘‘I must then have been in the power of the demon; for I climbed the Falberg with him.”’ 88 BALZAC’S WORKS “This is a serious matter,’’ said the pastor. ‘‘Minna has never told a lie.’’ ‘“‘My dear sir,’’ said Wilfrid, ‘‘I can assure you, Seraphita exerts the most extraordinary power over me; I know not what words can give any idea of it. She has told me things which no one but I could know.”’
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
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