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

‘‘Minna, can we love two beings at the same time? Is the Best-beloved really the Best-beloved if He does not fili the whole heart? Ought He not to be the first and last and only One? Does not she who is all love quit the world for her Beloved? Her whole family becomes but a memory; she has but one relation—it is He! Her soul is no longer her own, but His! If she keeps anything within her that is not His, she does not love; no, she does not love! Is loving half-heartedly loving at all? The voice of the Beloved makes her all glad and flows through her veins like a purple tide, redder than the blood; His look is a light that flashes through her, she is fused with Him; where He is all is beautiful. He is warmth to her soul, He lights everything; near Him, is it ever cold or dark to her? He is never absent; He is always within us, we think in Him, with Him, for Him. That, Minna, is how I love Him.”’

‘“Whom?’’ said Minna, gripped by consuming jealousy.

‘““Godl’’ replied Seraphitus, whose voice flashed upon a — a

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their souls like a beacon light of freedom blazing from hill to hill—‘‘God, who never betrays us! God, who does not desert us, but constantly fulfils our desires, and who alone ean perennially satisfy His creatures with infinite and unmixed joys! God, who is never weary, and who only has smiles! God, ever new, who pours His treasures into the soul, who purifies it without bitterness, who is all harmony, all flame! God, who enters into us to blossom there, who fulfils all our aspirations, who never calls us to account if we are His, but gives Himself wholly, ravishes us, and expands and multiplies us in Himself—God, in short!

*‘Minna, I love you because you may be His! I love you because if you ecme to Him you will be mine.”

‘Then lead me to Him,”’ said she, kneeling down.
“Dake me by the hand; 1 will leave you no more.”’

‘‘head us, Seraphita,”’ cried Wilfrid vehemently, coming forward to kneel with Minna. ‘‘Yes, you have made me thirst for the Light and thirst for the Word; I thirst with the love you have implanted in my heart, [ will cherish your soul in mine; impart your Will, and [ will do whatsoever you bid me do. If I may not win you, I will treasure every feeling that you can infuse into me as part of you! Tf I cannot be united to you but by my strength alone, f will cling as flame clings to what it consumes.—Speak!”’

‘“‘Angel!’’ cried the incomprehensible being, with a look that seemed to enfold them in an azure mantle. ‘Angel! heaven is thine inheritance!”’

And a great silence fell after this cry, which rang in the souls of Wilfrid and Minna like the first chord of some celestial symphony.

‘Tf you desire to train your feet to walk in the way that leads to heaven, remember that the first steps are rovgh,”’

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said the suffering soul. ‘God must be sought for His own sake. In that sense He is a jealous God, He will have you altogether His; but when you have given yourself to Him, He never abandons you. I will leave you the keys of the kingdom where His light shines, where you will everywhere be in the bosom of the Father, in the heart of the Bridegroom. No sentinel guards the gates; you can enter from any side; His palace, His treasures, His sceptre, nothing is forbidden; He says to all, ‘Take them freely!’ But you must will to go thither. You must start as for a journey, leave your home, give up your plans, bid farewell to your friends—father, mother, sister, even the infant brother that cries—an eternal farewell, for you vill never return, any more than martyrs bound for the stake returned to their homes; you must, in short, strip yourself of the feelings and possessions to which men cling; otherwise, you will not be wholly given up to your enterprise.