IV.
Filled with nameless wonderings at this strange being, Pierre
sat mute, intensely regarding her half-averted aspect. Her immense
soft tresses of the jettiest hair had slantingly fallen over
her as though a curtain were half drawn from before some saint
enshrined. To Pierre, she seemed half unearthly; but this
unearthliness was only her mysteriousness, not any thing that
was repelling or menacing to him. And still, the low melodies
of her far interior voice hovered in sweet echoes in the room;
and were trodden upon, and pressed like gushing grapes, by
the steady invisible pacing on the floor above.
She moved a little now, and after some strange wanderings
more coherently continued.
“My next memory which I think I can in some degree rely
upon, was yet another house, also situated away from human
haunts, in the heart of a not entirely silent country. Through
this country, and by the house, wound a green and lagging
river. That house must have been in some lowland; for the
first house I spoke of seems to me to have been somewhere
among mountains, or near to mountains;—the sounds of the
far waterfalls,—I seem to hear them now; the steady up-pointed
cloud-shapes behind the house in the sunset sky—I seem to
see them now. But this other house, this second one, or third
one, I know not which, I say again it was in some lowland.
There were no pines around it; few trees of any sort; the
ground did not slope so steeply as around the first house.
There were cultivated fields about it, and in the distance farm-houses
and out-houses, and cattle, and fowls, and many objects
of that familiar sort. This house I am persuaded was in this
country; on this side of the sea. It was a very large house,
and full of people; but for the most part they lived separately.
There were some old people in it, and there were young
men, and young women in it,—some very handsome; and
there were children in it. It seemed a happy place to some of
these people; many of them were always laughing; but it was
not a happy place for me.
“But here I may err, because of my own consciousness I
can not identify in myself—I mean in the memory of my
whole foregoing life,—I say, I can not identify that thing which
is called happiness; that thing whose token is a laugh, or a
smile, or a silent serenity on the lip. I may have been happy,
but it is not in my conscious memory now. Nor do I feel a
longing for it, as though I had never had it; my spirit seeks
different food from happiness; for I think I have a suspicion of
what it is. I have suffered wretchedness, but not because of
the absence of happiness, and without praying for happiness. I
pray for peace—for motionlessness—for the feeling of myself, as
of some plant, absorbing life without seeking it, and existing
without individual sensation. I feel that there can be no perfect
peace in individualness. Therefore I hope one day to feel
myself drank up into the pervading spirit animating all things.
I feel I am an exile here. I still go straying.—Yes; in thy
speech, thou smilest.—But let me be silent again. Do not
answer me. When I resume, I will not wander so, but make
short end.”
Reverently resolved not to offer the slightest let or hinting
hindrance to the singular tale rehearsing to him, but to sit
passively and receive its marvelous droppings into his soul,
however long the pauses; and as touching less mystical considerations,
persuaded that by so doing he should ultimately derive
the least nebulous and imperfect account of Isabel's history;
Pierre still sat waiting her resuming, his eyes fixed upon
the girl's wonderfully beautiful ear, which chancing to peep
forth from among her abundant tresses, nestled in that blackness
like a transparent sea-shell of pearl.
She moved a little now; and after some strange wanderings
more coherently continued; while the sound of the stepping
on the floor above—it seemed to cease.
“I have spoken of the second or rather the third spot in my
memory of the past, as it first appeared to me; I mean, I have
spoken of the people in the house, according to my very earliest
recallable impression of them. But I stayed in that house for
several years—five, six, perhaps, seven years—and during that
interval of my stay, all things changed to me, because I learned
more, though always dimly. Some of its occupants departed;
some changed from smiles to tears; some went moping all the
day; some grew as savages and outrageous, and were dragged
below by dumb-like men into deep places, that I knew nothing
of, but dismal sounds came through the lower floor, groans
and clanking fallings, as of iron in straw. Now and then, I
saw coffins silently at noon-day carried into the house, and in
five minutes' time emerge again, seemingly heavier than they
entered; but I saw not who was in them. Once, I saw an
immense-sized coffin, endwise pushed through a lower window
by three men who did not speak; and watching, I saw it
pushed out again, and they drove off with it. But the numbers
of those invisible persons who thus departed from the
house, were made good by other invisible persons arriving in
close carriages. Some in rags and tatters came on foot, or
rather were driven on foot. Once I heard horrible outcries,
and peeping from my window, saw a robust but squalid and
distorted man, seemingly a peasant, tied by cords with four
long ends to them, held behind by as many ignorant-looking
men who with a lash drove the wild squalid being that way
toward the house. Then I heard answering hand-clappings,
shrieks, howls, laughter, blessings, prayers, oaths, hymns, and all
audible confusions issuing from all the chambers of the house.
“Sometimes there entered the house—though only transiently,
departing within the hour they came—people of a then remarkable
aspect to me. They were very composed of countenance;
did not laugh; did not groan; did not weep; did
not make strange faces; did not look endlessly fatigued; were
not strangely and fantastically dressed; in short, did not at
all resemble any people I had ever seen before, except a little
like some few of the persons of the house, who seemed to
have authority over the rest. These people of a remarkable
aspect to me, I thought they were strangely demented people;
—composed of countenance, but wandering of mind; soul-composed
and bodily-wandering, and strangely demented
people.
“By-and-by, the house seemed to change again, or else my
mind took in more, and modified its first impressions. I was
lodged up-stairs in a little room; there was hardly any furniture
in the room; sometimes I wished to go out of it; but
the door was locked. Sometimes the people came and took
me out of the room, into a much larger and very long room,
and here I would collectively see many of the other people of
the house, who seemed likewise brought from distant and separate
chambers. In this long room they would vacantly roam
about, and talk vacant talk to each other. Some would stand
in the middle of the room gazing steadily on the floor for
hours together, and never stirred, but only breathed and gazed
upon the floor. Some would sit crouching in the corner, and
sit crouching there, and only breathe and crouch in the corners.
Some kept their hands tight on their hearts, and went
slowly promenading up and down, moaning and moaning to
themselves. One would say to another—“Feel of it—here,
put thy hand in the break.” Another would mutter—“Broken,
broken, broken”—and would mutter nothing but that one word
broken. But most of them were dumb, and could not, or
would not speak, or had forgotten how to speak. They were
nearly all pale people. Some had hair white as snow, and
yet were quite young people. Some were always talking
about Hell, Eternity, and God; and some of all things as
fixedly decreed; others would say nay to this, and then they
would argue, but without much conviction either way. But
once nearly all the people present—even the dumb moping
people, and the sluggish persons crouching in the corners—
nearly all of them laughed once, when after a whole day's
loud babbling, two of these predestinarian opponents, said each
to the other—`Thou hast convinced me, friend; but we are
quits; for so also, have I convinced thee, the other way; now
then, let's argue it all over again; for still, though mutually
converted, we are still at odds.' Some harangued the wall;
some apostrophized the air; some hissed at the air; some
lolled their tongues out at the air; some struck the air; some
made motions, as if wrestling with the air, and fell out of the
arms of the air, panting from the invisible hug.
“Now, as in the former thing, thou must, ere this, have suspected
what manner of place this second or third house was,
that I then lived in. But do not speak the word to me. That
word has never passed my lips; even now, when I hear the
word, I run from it; when I see it printed in a book, I run
from the book. The word is wholly unendurable to me. Who
brought me to the house; how I came there, I do not know. I
lived a long time in the house; that alone I know; I say I
know, but still I am uncertain; still Pierre, still the—oh the
dreaminess, the bewilderingness—it never entirely leaves me.
Let me be still again.”
She leaned away from him; she put her small hard hand to
her forehead; then moved it down, very slowly, but still hardly
over her eyes, and kept it there, making no other sign, and
still as death. Then she moved and continued her vague tale
of terribleness.
“I must be shorter; I did not mean to turn off into the mere
offshootings of my story, here and there; but the dreaminess I
speak of leads me sometimes; and I, as impotent then, obey
the dreamy prompting. Bear with me; now I will be briefer.”
“It came to pass, at last, that there was a contention about
me in the house; some contention which I heard in the after
rumor only, not at the actual time. Some strangers had arrived;
or had come in haste, being sent for to the house. Next
day they dressed me in new and pretty, but still plain clothes,
and they took me down stairs, and out into the air, and into a
carriage with a pleasant-looking woman, a stranger to me; and
I was driven off a good way, two days nearly we drove away,
stopping somewhere over-night; and on the evening of the
second day we came to another house, and went into it, and
stayed there.
“This house was a much smaller one than the other, and
seemed sweetly quiet to me after that. There was a beautiful
infant in it; and this beautiful infant always archly and innocently
smiling on me, and strangely beckoning me to come and
play with it, and be glad with it; and be thoughtless, and be
glad and gleeful with it; this beautiful infant first brought me
to my own mind, as it were; first made me sensible that I was
something different from stones, trees, cats; first undid in me
the fancy that all people were as stones, trees, cats; first filled
me with the sweet idea of humanness; first made me aware of
the infinite mercifulness, and tenderness, and beautifulness of
humanness; and this beautiful infant first filled me with the
dim thought of Beauty; and equally, and at the same time,
with the feeling of the Sadness; of the immortalness and universalness
of the Sadness. I now feel that I should soon have
gone, — stop me now; do not let me go that way. I
owe all things to that beautiful infant. Oh, how I envied it,
lying in its happy mother's breast, and drawing life and gladness,
and all its perpetual smilingness from that white and
smiling breast. That infant saved me; but still gave me vague
desirings. Now I first began to reflect in my mind; to endeavor
after the recalling past things; but try as I would, little
could I recall, but the bewilderingness;—and the stupor, and
the torpor, and the blankness, and the dimness, and the vacant
whirlingness of the bewilderingness. Let me be still again.”
And the stepping on the floor above,—it then resumed.
