III.
Most melancholy of all the hours of earth, is that one long,
gray hour, which to the watcher by the lamp intervenes between
the night and day; when both lamp and watcher, overtasked,
grow sickly in the pallid light; and the watcher, seeking
for no gladness in the dawn, sees naught but garish vapors
there; and almost invokes a curse upon the public day, that
shall invade his lonely night of sufferance.
The one small window of his closet looked forth upon the
meadow, and across the river, and far away to the distant
heights, storied with the great deeds of the Glendinnings.
Many a time had Pierre sought this window before sunrise, to
behold the blood-red, out-flinging dawn, that would wrap those
purple hills as with a banner. But now the morning dawned
in mist and rain, and came drizzlingly upon his heart. Yet as
the day advanced, and once more showed to him the accustomed
features of his room by that natural light, which, till
this very moment, had never lighted him but to his joy; now
that the day, and not the night, was witness to his woe; now
first the dread reality came appallingly upon him. A sense of
horrible forlornness, feebleness, impotence, and infinite, eternal
desolation possessed him. It was not merely mental, but corporeal
also. He could not stand; and when he tried to sit, his
arms fell floorwards as tied to leaden weights. Dragging his
ball and chain, he fell upon his bed; for when the mind is cast
down, only in sympathetic proneness can the body rest; whence
the bed is often Grief's first refuge. Half stupefied, as with
opium, he fell into the profoundest sleep.
In an hour he awoke, instantly recalling all the previous
night; and now finding himself a little strenghtened, and lying so
quietly and silently there, almost without bodily consciousness,
but his soul unobtrusively alert; careful not to break the spell by
the least movement of a limb, or the least turning of his head.
Pierre steadfastly faced his grief, and looked deep down into
its eyes; and thoroughly, and calmly, and summarily comprehended
it now—so at least he thought—and what it demanded
from him; and what he must quickly do in its more immediate
sequences; and what that course of conduct was, which
he must pursue in the coming unevadable breakfast interview
with his mother; and what, for the present must be his plan
with Lucy. His time of thought was brief. Rising from his
bed, he steadied himself upright a moment; and then going
to his writing-desk, in a few at first faltering, but at length unlagging
lines, traced the following note:
“I must ask pardon of you, Lucy, for so strangely absenting
myself last night. But you know me well enough to be very
sure that I would not have done so without important cause.
I was in the street approaching your cottage, when a message
reached me, imperatively calling me away. It is a matter
which will take up all my time and attention for, possibly, two
or three days. I tell you this, now, that you may be prepared
for it. And I know that however unwelcome this may
be to you, you will yet bear with it for my sake; for, indeed,
and indeed, Lucy dear, I would not dream of staying from you
so long, unless irresistibly coerced to it. Do not come to the
mansion until I come to you; and do not manifest any curiosity
or anxiety about me, should you chance in the interval
to see my mother in any other place. Keep just as cheerful as
if I were by you all the time. Do this, now, I conjure you;
and so farewell!”
He folded the note, and was about sealing it, when he hesitated
a moment, and instantly unfolding it, read it to himself.
But he could not adequately comprehend his own writing, for
a sudden cloud came over him. This passed; and taking his
pen hurriedly again, he added the following postscript:
“Lucy, this note may seem mysterious; but if it shall, I
did not mean to make it so; nor do I know that I could have
helped it. But the only reason is this, Lucy: the matter
which I have alluded to, is of such a nature, that, for the present
I stand virtually pledged not to disclose it to any person
but those more directly involved in it. But where one can not
reveal the thing itself, it only makes it the more mysterious to
write round it this way. So merely know me entirely unmenaced
in person, and eternally faithful to you; and so be at rest
till I see you.”
Then sealing the note, and ringing the bell, he gave it in
strict charge to a servant, with directions to deliver it at the
earliest practicable moment, and not wait for any answer. But
as the messenger was departing the chamber, he called him
back, and taking the sealed note again, and hollowing it in his
hand, scrawled inside of it in pencil the following words:
“Don't write me; don't inquire for me;” and then returned it
to the man, who quitted him, leaving Pierre rooted in thought
in the middle of the room.
But he soon roused himself, and left the mansion; and
seeking the cool, refreshing meadow stream, where it formed
a deep and shady pool, he bathed; and returning invigorated
to his chamber, changed his entire dress; in the little trifling
concernments of his toilette, striving utterly to banish all
thought of that weight upon his soul. Never did he array
himself with more solicitude for effect. It was one of his fond
mother's whims to perfume the lighter contents of his wardrobe;
and it was one of his own little femininenesses—of the
sort sometimes curiously observable in very robust-bodied and
big-souled men, as Mohammed, for example—to be very partial
to all pleasant essences. So that when once more he left the
mansion in order to freshen his cheek anew to meet the keen
glance of his mother—to whom the secret of his possible pallor
could not be divulged; Pierre went forth all redolent; but
alas! his body only the embalming cerements of his buried
dead within.
