he watched
her sufferings; unreasonable as a child, he would not listen to his
mistress's consolations. Monsieur Becker wished Seraphita to try
remedies; but all were useless.

One morning she sent for the two beings whom she loved, telling them
that this would be the last of her bad days. Wilfrid and Minna came in
terror, knowing well that they were about to lose her. Seraphita smiled
to them as one departing to a better world; her head drooped like a
flower heavy with dew, which opens its calyx for the last time to waft
its fragrance on the breeze. She looked at these friends with a sadness
that was for them, not for herself; she thought no longer of herself,
and they felt this with a grief mingled with gratitude which they were
unable to express. Wilfrid stood silent and motionless, lost in thoughts
excited by events whose vast bearings enabled him to conceive of some
illimitable immensity.

Emboldened by the weakness of the being lately so powerful, or perhaps
by the fear of losing him forever, Minna bent down over the couch and
said, "Seraphitus, let me follow thee!"

"Can I forbid thee?"

"Why will thou not love me enough to stay with me?"

"I can love nothing here."

"What canst thou love?"

"Heaven."

"Is it worthy of heaven to despise the creatures of God?"

"Minna, can we love two beings at once? Would our beloved be indeed our
beloved if he did not fill our hearts? Must he not be the first, the
last, the only one? She who is all love, must she not leave the world
for her beloved? Human ties are but a memory, she has no ties except to
him! Her soul is hers no longer; it is his. If she keeps within her
soul anything that is not his, does she love? No, she loves not. To
love feebly, is that to love at all? The voice of her beloved makes her
joyful; it flows through her veins in a crimson tide more glowing far
than blood; his glance is the light that penetrates her; her being melts
into his being. He is warm to her soul. He is the light that lightens;
near to him there is neither cold nor darkness. He is never absent, he
is always with us; we think in him, to him, by him! Minna, that is how I
love him."

"Love whom?" said Minna, tortured with sudden jealousy.

"God," replied Seraphitus, his voice glowing in their souls like fires
of liberty from peak to peak upon the mountains,--"God, who does not
betray us! God, who will never abandon us! who crowns our wishes; who
satisfies His creatures with joy