VI.
Entranced, lost, as one wandering bedazzled and amazed
among innumerable dancing lights, Pierre had motionlessly
listened to this abundant-haired, and large-eyed girl of mystery.
“Bring me the guitar!”
Starting from his enchantment, Pierre gazed round the room,
and saw the instrument leaning against a corner. Silently he
brought it to the girl, and silently sat down again.
“Now listen to the guitar; and the guitar shall sing to thee
the sequel of my story; for not in words can it be spoken. So
listen to the guitar.”
Instantly the room was populous with sounds of melodiousness,
and mournfulness, and wonderfulness; the room swarmed
with the unintelligible but delicious sounds. The sounds
seemed waltzing in the room; the sounds hung pendulous like
glittering icicles from the corners of the room; and fell upon
him with a ringing silveryness; and were drawn up again to
the ceiling, and hung pendulous again, and dropt down upon
him again with the ringing silveryness. Fire-flies seemed buzzing
in the sounds; summer-lightnings seemed vividly yet
softly audible in the sounds.
And still the wild girl played on the guitar; and her long
dark shower of curls fell over it, and vailed it; and still, out
from the vail came the swarming sweetness, and the utter unintelligibleness,
but the infinite significancies of the sounds of
the guitar.
“Girl of all-bewildering mystery!” cried Pierre—“Speak to
me;—sister, if thou indeed canst be a thing that's mortal—
speak to me, if thou be Isabel!”
“Mystery! Mystery!
Mystery of Isabel!
Mystery! Mystery!
Isabel and Mystery!”
Among the waltzings, and the droppings, and the swarmings
of the sounds, Pierre now heard the tones above deftly stealing
and winding among the myriad serpentinings of the other melody:—deftly
stealing and winding as respected the instrumental
sounds, but in themselves wonderfully and abandonedly free
and bold—bounding and rebounding as from multitudinous
reciprocal walls; while with every syllable the hair-shrouded
form of Isabel swayed to and fro with a like abandonment, and
suddenness, and wantonness:—then it seemed not like any
song; seemed not issuing from any mouth; but it came forth
from beneath the same vail concealing the guitar.
Now a strange wild heat burned upon his brow; he put his
hand to it. Instantly the music changed; and drooped and
changed; and changed and changed; and lingeringly retreated
as it changed; and at last was wholly gone.
Pierre was the first to break the silence.
“Isabel, thou hast filled me with such wonderings; I am so
distraught with thee, that the particular things I had to tell to
thee, when I hither came; these things I can not now recall, to
speak them to thee:—I feel that something is still unsaid by
thee, which at some other time thou wilt reveal. But now I
can stay no longer with thee. Know me eternally as thy loving,
revering, and most marveling brother, who will never desert
thee, Isabel. Now let me kiss thee and depart, till to-morrow
night; when I shall open to thee all my mind, and all my
plans concerning me and thee. Let me kiss thee, and adieu!”
As full of unquestioning and unfaltering faith in him, the
girl sat motionless and heard him out. Then silently rose, and
turned her boundlessly confiding brow to him. He kissed it
thrice, and without another syllable left the place.
