 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
II.
With cheek rather pale, then, and lips rather blue, Pierre
sits down to his plank.
But is Pierre packed in the mail for St. Petersburg this
morning? Over his boots are his moccasins; over his ordinary
coat is his surtout; and over that, a cloak of Isabel's. Now he
is squared to his plank; and at his hint, the affectionate Isabel
gently pushes his chair closer to it, for he is so muffled, he can
hardly move of himself. Now Delly comes in with bricks hot
from the stove; and now Isabel and she with devoted solicitude
pack away these comforting stones in the folds of an old blue
cloak, a military garment of the grandfather of Pierre, and tenderly
arrange it both over and under his feet; but putting the
warm flagging beneath. Then Delly brings still another hot
brick to put under his inkstand, to prevent the ink from thickening.
Then Isabel drags the camp-bedstead nearer to him, on
which are the two or three books he may possibly have occasion
to refer to that day, with a biscuit or two, and some water,
and a clean towel, and a basin. Then she leans against the
plank by the elbow of Pierre, a crook-ended stick. Is Pierre a
shepherd, or a bishop, or a cripple? No, but he has in effect,
reduced himself to the miserable condition of the last. With
the crook-ended cane, Pierre—unable to rise without sadly
impairing his manifold intrenchments, and admitting the cold
should chance to need any thing beyond the reach of his arm,
then the crook-ended cane drags it to his immediate vicinity.
Pierre glances slowly all round him; every thing seems to
be right; he looks up with a grateful, melancholy satisfaction
at Isabel; a tear gathers in her eye; but she conceals it from
him by coming very close to him, stooping over, and kissing
his brow. 'Tis her lips that leave the warm moisture there;
not her tears, she says.
“I suppose I must go now, Pierre. Now don't, don't be so
long to-day. I will call thee at half-past four. Thou shalt not
strain thine eyes in the twilight.”
“We will see about that,” says Pierre, with an unobserved
attempt at a very sad pun. “Come, thou must go. Leave
me.”
And there he is left.
Pierre is young; heaven gave him the divinest, freshest
form of a man; put light into his eye, and fire into his blood,
and brawn into his arm, and a joyous, jubilant, overflowing,
upbubbling, universal life in him everywhere. Now look
around in that most miserable room, and at that most miserable
of all the pursuits of a man, and say if here be the
place, and this be the trade, that God intended him for. A
rickety chair, two hollow barrels, a plank, paper, pens, and infernally
black ink, four leprously dingy white walls, no carpet,
a cup of water, and a dry biscuit or two. Oh, I hear the leap
of the Texan Camanche, as at this moment he goes crashing
like a wild deer through the green underbrush; I hear his glorious
whoop of savage and untamable health; and then I look
in at Pierre. If physical, practical unreason make the savage,
which is he? Civilization, Philosophy, Ideal Virtue! behold
your victim!
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |