VI.
This letter, inscribed in a feminine, but irregular hand, and
in some places almost illegible, plainly attesting the state of the
mind which had dictated it;—stained, too, here and there, with
spots of tears, which chemically acted upon by the ink, assumed
a strange and reddish hue—as if blood and not tears had dropped
upon the sheet;—and so completely torn in two by Pierre's
own hand, that it indeed seemed the fit scroll of a torn, as well
as bleeding heart;—this amazing letter, deprived Pierre for the
time of all lucid and definite thought or feeling. He hung
half-lifeless in his chair; his hand, clutching the letter, was
pressed against his heart, as if some assassin had stabbed him
and fled; and Pierre was now holding the dagger in the wound,
to stanch the outgushing of the blood.
Ay, Pierre, now indeed art thou hurt with a wound, never to
be completely healed but in heaven; for thee, the before undistrusted
moral beauty of the world is forever fled; for thee, thy
sacred father is no more a saint; all brightness hath gone from
thy hills, and all peace from thy plains; and now, now, for the
first time, Pierre, Truth rolls a black billow through thy soul!
Ah, miserable thou, to whom Truth, in her first tides, bears
nothing but wrecks!
The perceptible forms of things; the shapes of thoughts; the
pulses of life, but slowly came back to Pierre. And as the
mariner, shipwrecked and cast on the beach, has much ado to
escape the recoil of the wave that hurled him there; so Pierre
long struggled, and struggled, to escape the recoil of that anguish,
which had dashed him out of itself, upon the beach of
his swoon.
But man was not made to succumb to the villain Woe.
Youth is not young and a wrestler in vain. Pierre staggeringly
rose to his feet; his wide eyes fixed, and his whole form
in a tremble.
“Myself am left, at least,” he slowly and half-chokingly
murmured. “With myself I front thee! Unhand me all
fears, and unlock me all spells! Henceforth I will know
nothing but Truth; glad Truth, or sad Truth; I will know
what is, and do what my deepest angel dictates.—The letter!—
Isabel,—sister,—brother,—me, me—my sacred father!—This
is some accursed dream!—nay, but this paper thing is forged,
—a base and malicious forgery, I swear;—Well didst thou hide
thy face from me, thou vile lanterned messenger, that didst
accost me on the threshold of Joy, with this lying warrant of
Woe! Doth Truth come in the dark, and steal on us, and rob
us so, and then depart, deaf to all pursuing invocations? If
this night, which now wraps my soul, be genuine as that which
now wraps this half of the world; then Fate, I have a choice
quarrel with thee. Thou art a palterer and a cheat; thou hast
lured me on through gay gardens to a gulf. Oh! falsely guided
in the days of my Joy, am I now truly led in this night of my
grief?—I will be a raver, and none shall stay me! I will lift
my hand in fury, for am I not struck? I will be bitter in my
breath, for is not this cup of gall? Thou Black Knight, that
with visor down, thus confrontest me, and mockest at me;
Lo! I strike through thy helm, and will see thy face, be it
Gorgon!—Let me go, ye fond affections; all piety leave me;—
I will be impious, for piety hath juggled me, and taught me to
revere, where I should spurn. From all idols, I tear all veils;
henceforth I will see the hidden things; and live right out in
my own hidden life?—Now I feel that nothing but Truth can
move me so. This letter is not a forgery. Oh! Isabel, thou
art my sister; and I will love thee, and protect thee, ay, and
own thee through all. Ah! forgive me, ye heavens, for my
ignorant ravings, and accept this my vow.—Here I swear myself
Isabel's. Oh! thou poor castaway girl, that in loneliness
and anguish must have long breathed that same air, which I
have only inhaled for delight; thou who must even now be
weeping, and weeping, cast into an ocean of uncertainty as to
thy fate, which heaven hath placed in my hands; sweet Isabel!
would I not be baser than brass, and harder, and colder than
ice, if I could be insensible to such claims as thine? Thou
movest before me, in rainbows spun of thy tears! I see thee
long weeping, and God demands me for thy comforter; and
comfort thee, stand by thee, and fight for thee, will thy leapingly-acknowledging
brother, whom thy own father named
Pierre!”
He could not stay in his chamber: the house contracted to a
nut-shell around him; the walls smote his forehead; bare-headed
he rushed from the place, and only in the infinite air,
found scope for that boundless expansion of his life.
