Louis Lambert — Honoré de Balzac, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley

Wilfrid found David in the outer room apparently asleep, close to the stove. Like a dog recognizing a friend’s approach, the old man opened his eyes, saw the stranger, and did not stir.

‘Well, where is she?’’ asked Wilfrid, sitting down by the old man.

David fluttered his fingers in the air to represent the flight of a bird.

‘She is not still in pain ?’’ asked Wilfrid.

‘‘None but those beings who are plighted to heaven can | suffer without any diminution of their love; that is the seal of true faith,’’ said the old man gravely, like an instrument responding to a chance touch.

‘‘Who tells you to say that?”

‘‘The spirit.”’

‘*What happened, after all, last evening? Dic you force your way past the Vertumni on guard? Did you steal in between the Mammons ?”’

‘*Yes,’’ replied David, waking as if from a dream.

The mist before his eye cleared off under a flash that came from within, and which made it grow gradually as bright as an eagle’s, as intelligent as a poet's.

‘‘What then did you see?’’ asked Wilfrid, amazed at this sudden change.

‘‘T saw Species and Shapes, I heard the Spirit of All Things; I saw the rebellion of the Wicked, I listened to the words of the Good. Seven devils appeared, seven archangels came down to them. The archangels stood afar, they

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were veiled, and looked on. The devils were close at hand, they glittered and moved. Mammon was there in a shell of pearl, in the guise of a beautiful naked woman; his body was as dazzling as the snow, no human form can be so perfect; and he said, ‘I am all pleasure, and thou shalt possess me!’—Lucifer, the Prince of Serpents, came in his royal attire; he was as a man, as beautiful as an angel, and he said, ‘The human race shall serve thee!’—The Queen of the Covetous, she who never restores that which she has taken— the Sea herself appeared in her mantle of green; she opened her bosom and showed her store of gems, she vomited treasures and offered them as a gift; she tossed up waves of sapphire and emerald; her creatures were disturbed, they came forth from their hiding-places and spoke; the fairest of the pearls spread butterflies’ wings, she glistened, and spoke in sea-melodies, saying, ‘We are both daughters of suffering, we are sisters; wait for me; we will fly together; I have only to be changed into a woman.’ The bird that has the talons of an eagle and the legs of a lion, the head of a woman and a horse’s quarters—the Animal—crouched before her and licked her feet, and promised seven hundred years of plenty to this well-beloved daughter.

‘The most formidable of all, the Child, came to her very knee, weeping, and saying, ‘Can you forsake me, so feeble and helpless? Mother, stay with me!’ He played with the others, he shed idleness in the air; heaven itself might have yielded to his lament. The Virgin of pure song brought music that debauches the soul. The Kings of the Hast passed by with their slaves, their armies, and their women; the Wounded clamored for help, the Wretched held out their hands: ‘Do not leave us, do not leave us!’ was their cry.

SERAPHITA 10!

“I, too, cried, ‘Do not leave us; we will worship you —only stay!’ ;

‘Flowers burst from their seeds, and wrapped her in perfume, which said, ‘Stay!’ The Giant Anakim came down from Jupiter, bringing Gold and his comrades, and all the Spirits of the astral worlds who had followed him, and they all said, ‘We will be thine for seven hundred years.’ At last Death got off his pale horse and said, ‘I~ will obey thee!’ And they all fell on their faces at her feet; if you could but have seen them! They filled a vast plain, and all cried to her, ‘We have fed thee; thou art our child; do not forsake us!’