 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
II.
But if the presentiment in Pierre of his mother's pride, as
bigotedly hostile to the noble design he cherished; if this feeling
was so wretched to him; far more so was the thought of
another and a deeper hostility, arising from her more spiritual
part. For her pride would not be so scornful, as her wedded
memories reject with horror, the unmentionable imputation involved
in the mere fact of Isabel's existence. In what galleries
of conjecture, among what horrible haunting toads and scorpions,
would such a revelation lead her? When Pierre thought
of this, the idea of at all divulging his secret to his mother, not
only was made repelling by its hopelessnes, as an infirm attack
upon her citadel of pride, but was made in the last degree inhuman,
as torturing her in her tenderest recollections, and desecrating
the whitest altar in her sanctuary.
Though the conviction that he must never disclose his secret
to his mother was originally an unmeditated, and as it were, an
inspired one; yet now he was almost pains-taking in scrutinizing
the entire circumstances of the matter, in order that nothing
might be overlooked. For already he vaguely felt, that upon
the concealment, or the disclosure of this thing, with reference
to his mother, hinged his whole future course of conduct, his
whole earthly weal, and Isabel's. But the more and the more
that he pondered upon it, the more and the more fixed became
disclosure, all human probability pointed to his mother's scornful
rejection of his suit as a pleader for Isabel's honorable admission
into the honorable mansion of the Glendinnings. Then
in that case, unconsciously thought Pierre, I shall have given
the deep poison of a miserable truth to my mother, without
benefit to any, and positive harm to all. And through Pierre's
mind there then darted a baleful thought; how that the truth
should not always be paraded; how that sometimes a lie is
heavenly, and truth infernal. Filially infernal, truly, thought
Pierre, if I should by one vile breath of truth, blast my father's
blessed memory in the bosom of my mother, and plant the
sharpest dagger of grief in her soul. I will not do it!
But as this resolution in him opened up so dark and wretched
a background to his view, he strove to think no more of it
now, but postpone it until the interview with Isabel should
have in some way more definitely shaped his purposes. For,
when suddenly encountering the shock of new and unanswerable
revelations, which he feels must revolutionize all the circumstances
of his life, man, at first, ever seeks to shun all conscious
definitiveness in his thoughts and purposes; as assured,
that the lines that shall precisely define his present misery, and
thereby lay out his future path; these can only be defined by
sharp stakes that cut into his heart.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |