 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
II.
On the third night following the arrival of the party in the
city, Pierre sat at twilight by a lofty window in the rear building
of the Apostles'. The chamber was meager even to meanness.
but a low, long, and very curious-looking single bedstead, that
might possibly serve for an indigent bachelor's pallet, a large,
blue, chintz-covered chest, a rickety, rheumatic, and most ancient
mahogany chair, and a wide board of the toughest live-oak,
about six feet long, laid upon two upright empty flour-barrels,
and loaded with a large bottle of ink, an unfastened
bundle of quills, a pen-knife, a folder, and a still unbound ream
of foolscap paper, significantly stamped, “Ruled; Blue.”
There, on the third night, at twilight, sat Pierre by that lofty
window of a beggarly room in the rear-building of the Apostles'.
He was entirely idle, apparently; there was nothing in
his hands; but there might have been something on his heart.
Now and then he fixedly gazes at the curious-looking, rusty
old bedstead. It seemed powerfully symbolical to him; and
most symbolical it was. For it was the ancient dismemberable
and portable camp-bedstead of his grandfather, the defiant defender
of the Fort, the valiant captain in many an unsuccumbing
campaign. On that very camp-bedstead, there, beneath
his tent on the field, the glorious old mild-eyed and warrior-hearted
general had slept, and but waked to buckle his knight-making
sword by his side; for it was noble knighthood to be
slain by grand Pierre; in the other world his foes' ghosts
bragged of the hand that had given them their passports.
But has that hard bed of War, descended for an inheritance
to the soft body of Peace? In the peaceful time of full barns,
and when the noise of the peaceful flail is abroad, and the hum
of peaceful commerce resounds, is the grandson of two Generals
a warrior too? Oh, not for naught, in the time of this seeming
peace, are warrior grandsires given to Pierre! For Pierre
is a warrior too; Life his campaign, and three fierce allies, Woe
and Scorn and Want, his foes. The wide world is banded
against him; for lo you! he holds up the standard of Right,
and swears by the Eternal and True! But ah, Pierre, Pierre,
thy most extended length measures not the proud six feet four
of thy grand John of Gaunt sire! The stature of the warrior
is cut down to the dwindled glory of the fight. For more glorious
in real tented field to strike down your valiant foe, than
in the conflicts of a noble soul with a dastardly world to chase
a vile enemy who ne'er will show front.
There, then, on the third night, at twilight, by the lofty window
of that beggarly room, sat Pierre in the rear building of
the Apostles'. He is gazing out from the window now. But
except the donjon form of the old gray tower, seemingly there
is nothing to see but a wilderness of tiles, slate, shingles, and
tin;—the desolate hanging wildernesses of tiles, slate, shingles
and tin, wherewith we modern Babylonians replace the fair
hanging-gardens of the fine old Asiatic times when the excellent
Nebuchadnezzar was king.
There he sits, a strange exotic, transplanted from the delectable
alcoves of the old manorial mansion, to take root in this
niggard soil. No more do the sweet purple airs of the hills
round about the green fields of Saddle Meadows come revivingly
wafted to his cheek. Like a flower he feels the change;
his bloom is gone from his cheek; his cheek is wilted and pale.
From the lofty window of that beggarly room, what is it that
Pierre is so intently eying? There is no street at his feet; like
a profound black gulf the open area of the quadrangle gapes
beneath him. But across it, and at the further end of the steep
roof of the ancient church, there looms the gray and grand old
tower; emblem to Pierre of an unshakable fortitude, which, deep-rooted
in the heart of the earth, defied all the howls of the air.
There is a door in Pierre's room opposite the window of
Pierre: and now a soft knock is heard in that direction, accompanied
by gentle words, asking whether the speaker might
enter.
“Yes, always, sweet Isabel”—answered Pierre, rising and
for a sofa; come, sit down now, my sister, and let us fancy
ourselves anywhere thou wilt.”
“Then, my brother, let us fancy ourselves in realms of everlasting
twilight and peace, where no bright sun shall rise, because
the black night is always its follower. Twilight and
peace, my brother, twilight and peace!”
“It is twilight now, my sister; and surely, this part of the
city at least seems still.”
“Twilight now, but night soon; then a brief sun, and then
another long night. Peace now, but sleep and nothingness
soon, and then hard work for thee, my brother, till the sweet
twilight come again.”
“Let us light a candle, my sister; the evening is deepning.”
“For what light a candle, dear Pierre?—Sit close to me, my
brother.”
He moved nearer to her, and stole one arm around her; her
sweet head leaned against his breast; each felt the other's
throbbing.
“Oh, my dear Pierre, why should we always be longing for
peace, and then be impatient of peace when it comes? Tell
me, my brother! Not two hours ago, thou wert wishing for
twilight, and now thou wantest a candle to hurry the twilight's
last lingering away.”
But Pierre did not seem to hear her; his arm embraced her
tighter; his whole frame was invisibly trembling. Then suddenly
in a low tone of wonderful intensity he breathed:
“Isabel! Isabel!”
She caught one arm around him, as his was around herself;
the tremor ran from him to her; both sat dumb.
He rose, and paced the room.
“Well, Pierre; thou camest in here to arrange thy matters,
thou saidst. Now what hast thou done? Come, we will light
a candle now.”
The candle was lighted, and their talk went on.
“How about the papers, my brother? Dost thou find
every thing right? Hast thou decided upon what to publish
first, while thou art writing the new thing thou didst hint of?”
“Look at that chest, my sister. Seest thou not that the
cords are yet untied?”
“Then thou hast not been into it at all as yet?”
“Not at all, Isabel. In ten days I have lived ten thousand
years. Forewarned now of the rubbish in that chest, I can
not summon the heart to open it. Trash! Dross! Dirt!”
“Pierre! Pierre! what change is this? Didst thou not tell
me, ere we came hither, that thy chest not only contained
some silver and gold, but likewise far more precious things,
readily convertible into silver and gold? Ah, Pierre, thou didst
swear we had naught to fear!”
“If I have ever willfully deceived thee, Isabel, may the high
gods prove Benedict Arnolds to me, and go over to the devils
to reinforce them against me! But to have ignorantly deceived
myself and thee together, Isabel; that is a very different
thing. Oh, what a vile juggler and cheat is man! Isabel, in
that chest are things which in the hour of composition, I
thought the very heavens looked in from the windows in astonishment
at their beauty and power. Then, afterward, when
days cooled me down, and again I took them up and scanned
them, some underlying suspicions intruded; but when in the
open air, I recalled the fresh, unwritten images of the bunglingly
written things; then I felt buoyant and triumphant
again; as if by that act of ideal recalling, I had, forsooth,
transferred the perfect ideal to the miserable written attempt at
embodying it. This mood remained. So that afterward how
I talked to thee about the wonderful things I had done; the
gold and the silver mine I had long before sprung for thee and
for me, who never were to come to want in body or mind. Yet
all this time, there was the latent suspicion of folly; but I would
ten thousand universal revealings brand me on the forehead with
fool! and like protested notes at the Bankers, all those written
things of mine, are jaggingly cut through and through with the
protesting hammer of Truth!—Oh, I am sick, sick, sick!”
“Let the arms that never were filled but by thee, lure thee
back again, Pierre, to the peace of the twilight, even though it
be of the dimmest!”
She blew out the light, and made Pierre sit down by her;
and their hands were placed in each other's.
“Say, are not thy torments now gone, my brother?”
“But replaced by—by—by—Oh God, Isabel, unhand me!”
cried Pierre, starting up. “Ye heavens, that have hidden
yourselves in the black hood of the night, I call to ye! If to follow
Virtue to her uttermost vista, where common souls never
go; if by that I take hold on hell, and the uttermost virtue,
after all, prove but a betraying pander to the monstrousest
vice,—then close in and crush me, ye stony walls, and into one
gulf let all things tumble together!”
“My brother! this is some incomprehensible raving,” pealed
Isabel, throwing both arms around him;—“my brother, my
brother!”
“Hark thee to thy furthest inland soul”—thrilled Pierre in
a steeled and quivering voice. “Call me brother no more!
How knowest thou I am thy brother? Did thy mother tell
thee? Did my father say so to me?—I am Pierre, and thou
Isabel, wide brother and sister in the common humanity,—no
more. For the rest, let the gods look after their own combustibles.
If they have put powder-casks in me—let them look
to it! let them look to it! Ah! now I catch glimpses, and
seem to half-see, somehow, that the uttermost ideal of moral
perfection in man is wide of the mark. The demigods trample
on trash, and Virtue and Vice are trash! Isabel, I will write
such things—I will gospelize the world anew, and show them
write it!”
“Pierre, I am a poor girl, born in the midst of a mystery,
bred in mystery, and still surviving to mystery. So
mysterious myself, the air and the earth are unutterable to
me; no word have I to express them. But these are the circumambient
mysteries; thy words, thy thoughts, open other
wonder-worlds to me, whither by myself I might fear to go.
But trust to me, Pierre. With thee, with thee, I would boldly
swim a starless sea, and be buoy to thee, there, when thou
the strong swimmer shouldst faint. Thou, Pierre, speakest
of Virtue and Vice; life-secluded Isabel knows neither the
one nor the other, but by hearsay. What are they, in their
real selves, Pierre? Tell me first what is Virtue:—begin!”
“If on that point the gods are dumb, shall a pigmy speak?
Ask the air!”
“Then Virtue is nothing.”
“Not that!”
“Then Vice?”
“Look: a nothing is the substance, it casts one shadow one
way, and another the other way; and these two shadows cast
from one nothing; these, seems to me, are Virtue and Vice.”
“Then why torment thyself so, dearest Pierre?”
“It is the law.”
“What?”
“That a nothing should torment a nothing; for I am a nothing.
It is all a dream—we dream that we dreamed we dream.”
“Pierre, when thou just hovered on the verge, thou wert a
riddle to me; but now, that thou art deep down in the gulf of
the soul,—now, when thou wouldst be lunatic to wise men,
perhaps—now doth poor ignorant Isabel begin to comprehend
thee. Thy feeling hath long been mine, Pierre. Long loneliness
and anguish have opened miracles to me. Yes, it is all
a dream!”
Swiftly he caught her in his arms:—“From nothing proceeds
nothing, Isabel! How can one sin in a dream?”
“First what is sin, Pierre?”
“Another name for the other name, Isabel.”
“For Virtue, Pierre?”
“No, for Vice.”
“Let us sit down again, my brother.”
“I am Pierre.”
“Let us sit down again, Pierre; sit close; thy arm!”
And so, on the third night, when the twilight was gone, and
no lamp was lit, within the lofty window of that beggarly room,
sat Pierre and Isabel hushed.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |