![]() | Pierre, or, The ambiguities | ![]() |
V.
Yet now advancing steadily, and as if by some interior predetermination,
and eying the mass unfalteringly; he then
threw himself prone upon the wood's last year's leaves, and slid
![Click to Enlarge Page 182](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:388139/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
dead. He spoke not, for speechless thoughts were in him.
These gave place at last to things less and less unspeakable;
till at last, from beneath the very brow of the beetlings and
the menacings of the Terror Stone came the audible words of
Pierre:—
“If the miseries of the undisclosable things in me, shall ever
unhorse me from my manhood's seat; if to vow myself all
Virtue's and all Truth's, be but to make a trembling, distrusted
slave of me; if Life is to prove a burden I can not bear without
ignominious cringings; if indeed our actions are all foreordained,
and we are Russian serfs to Fate; if invisible devils
do titter at us when we most nobly strive; if Life be a cheating
dream, and virtue as unmeaning and unsequeled with any
blessing as the midnight mirth of wine; if by sacrificing myself
for Duty's sake, my own mother re-sacrifices me; if Duty's self
be but a bugbear, and all things are allowable and unpunishable
to man;—then do thou, Mute Massiveness, fall on me! Ages
thou hast waited; and if these things be thus, then wait no
more; for whom better canst thou crush than him who now
lies here invoking thee?”
A down-darting bird, all song, swiftly lighted on the unmoved
and eternally immovable balancings of the Terror Stone,
and cheerfully chirped to Pierre. The tree-boughs bent and
waved to the rushes of a sudden, balmy wind; and slowly
Pierre crawled forth, and stood haughtily upon his feet, as he
owed thanks to none, and went his moody way.
![]() | Pierre, or, The ambiguities | ![]() |