Seraphita | Page 7

and ice, two beings crossed the fiord and flew along the base of
the Falberg, rising thence from ledge to ledge toward the summit. What
were they? human creatures, or two arrows? They might have been
taken for eider-ducks sailing in consort before the wind. Not the boldest
hunter nor the most superstitious fisherman would have attributed to
human beings the power to move safely along the slender lines traced
beneath the snow by the granite ledges, where yet this couple glided
with the terrifying dexterity of somnambulists who, forgetting their
own weight and the dangers of the slightest deviation, hurry along a
ridge-pole and keep their equilibrium by the power of some mysterious
force.
"Stop me, Seraphitus," said a pale young girl, "and let me breathe. I
look at you, you only, while scaling these walls of the gulf; otherwise,

what would become of me? I am such a feeble creature. Do I tire you?"
"No," said the being on whose arm she leaned. "But let us go on, Minna;
the place where we are is not firm enough to stand on."
Once more the snow creaked sharply beneath the long boards fastened
to their feet, and soon they reached the upper terrace of the first ledge,
clearly defined upon the flank of the precipice. The person whom
Minna had addressed as Seraphitus threw his weight upon his right heel,
arresting the plank--six and a half feet long and narrow as the foot of a
child--which was fastened to his boot by a double thong of leather. This
plank, two inches thick, was covered with reindeer skin, which bristled
against the snow when the foot was raised, and served to stop the
wearer. Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another "skee,"
which was only two feet long, turned swiftly where he stood, caught his
timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of the long boards on
her feet, and placed her on a projecting rock from which he brushed the
snow with his pelisse.
"You are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at your ease."
"We are a third of the way up the Ice-Cap," she said, looking at the
peak to which she gave the popular name by which it is known in
Norway; "I can hardly believe it."
Too much out of breath to say more, she smiled at Seraphitus, who,
without answering, laid his hand upon her heart and listened to its
sounding throbs, rapid as those of a frightened bird.
"It often beats as fast when I run," she said.
Seraphitus inclined his head with a gesture that was neither coldness
nor indifference, and yet, despite the grace which made the movement
almost tender, it none the less bespoke a certain negation, which in a
woman would have seemed an exquisite coquetry. Seraphitus clasped
the young girl in his arms. Minna accepted the caress as an answer to
her words, continuing to gaze at him. As he raised his head, and threw
back with impatient gesture the golden masses of his hair to free his

brow, he saw an expression of joy in the eyes of his companion.
"Yes, Minna," he said in a voice whose paternal accents were charming
from the lips of a being who was still adolescent, "Keep your eyes on
me; do not look below you."
"Why not?" she asked.
"You wish to know why? then look!"
Minna glanced quickly at her feet and cried out suddenly like a child
who sees a tiger. The awful sensation of abysses seized her; one glance
sufficed to communicate its contagion. The fiord, eager for food,
bewildered her with its loud voice ringing in her ears, interposing
between herself and life as though to devour her more surely. From the
crown of her head to her feet and along her spine an icy shudder ran;
then suddenly intolerable heat suffused her nerves, beat in her veins
and overpowered her extremities with electric shocks like those of the
torpedo. Too feeble to resist, she felt herself drawn by a mysterious
power to the depths below, wherein she fancied that she saw some
monster belching its venom, a monster whose magnetic eyes were
charming her, whose open jaws appeared to craunch their prey before
they seized it.
"I die, my Seraphitus, loving none but thee," she said, making a
mechanical movement to fling herself into the abyss.
Seraphitus breathed softly on her forehead and eyes. Suddenly, like a
traveller relaxed after a bath, Minna forgot these keen emotions,
already dissipated by that caressing breath which penetrated her body
and filled it with balsamic essences as quickly as the breath itself had
crossed the air.
"Who art thou?" she said, with a feeling of gentle terror. "Ah, but I
know! thou art my life. How