Monsieur Becker, Wilfrid, and Minna were all under the influence of fear as they took their way to meet the extraordinary being whom each desired to question.  To them, in their several ways, the Swedish castle had grown to mean some gigantic representation, some spectacle like those whose colors and masses are skilfully and harmoniously marshalled by the poets, and whose personages, imaginary actors to men, are real to those who begin to penetrate the Spiritual World.  On the tiers of this Coliseum Monsieur Becker seated the gray legions of Doubt, the stern ideas, the specious formulas of Dispute.  He convoked the various antagonistic worlds of philosophy and religion, and they all appeared, in the guise of a fleshless shape, like that in which art embodies Time,—­an old man bearing in one hand a scythe, in the other a broken globe, the human universe.

Wilfrid had bidden to the scene his earliest illusions and his latest hopes, human destiny and its conflicts, religion and its conquering powers.

Minna saw heaven confusedly by glimpses; love raised a curtain wrought with mysterious images, and the melodious sounds which met her ear redoubled her curiosity.

To all three, therefore, this evening was to be what that other evening had been for the pilgrims to Emmaus, what a vision was to Dante, an inspiration to Homer,—­to them, three aspects of the world revealed, veils rent away, doubts dissipated, darkness illumined.  Humanity in all its moods expecting light could not be better represented than here by this young girl, this man in the vigor of his age, and these old men, of whom one was learned enough to doubt, the other ignorant enough to believe.  Never was any scene more simple in appearance, nor more portentous in reality.

When they entered the room, ushered in by old David, they found Seraphita standing by a table on which were served the various dishes which compose a “tea”; a form of collation which in the North takes the place of wine and its pleasures,—­reserved more exclusively for Southern climes.  Certainly nothing proclaimed in her, or in him, a being with the strange power of appearing under two distinct forms; nothing about her betrayed the manifold powers which she wielded.  Like a careful housewife attending to the comfort of her guests, she ordered David to put more wood into the stove.

“Good evening, my neighbors,” she said.  “Dear Monsieur Becker, you do right to come; you see me living for the last time, perhaps.  This winter has killed me.  Will you sit there?” she said to Wilfrid.  “And you, Minna, here?” pointing to a chair beside her.  “I see you have brought your embroidery.  Did you invent that stitch? the design is very pretty.  For whom is it,—­your father, or monsieur?” she added, turning to Wilfrid.  “Surely we ought to give him, before we part, a remembrance of the daughters of Norway.”

“Did you suffer much yesterday?” asked Wilfrid.