 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
II.
“My brother, thou wilt remember that certain part of my
story which in reference to my more childish years spent remote
from here, introduced the gentleman—my—yes, our
father, Pierre. I can not describe to thee, for indeed, I do not
myself comprehend how it was, that though at the time I
sometimes called him my father, and the people of the house
also called him so, sometimes when speaking of him to me;
yet—partly, I suppose, because of the extraordinary secludedness
of my previous life—I did not then join in my mind with
the word father, all those peculiar associations which the term
ordinarily inspires in children. The word father only seemed
a word of general love and endearment to me—little or nothing
more; it did not seem to involve any claims of any sort,
one way or the other. I did not ask the name of my father;
for I could have had no motive to hear him named, except to
individualize the person who was so peculiarly kind to me; and
individualized in that way he already was, since he was generally
called by us the gentleman, and sometimes my father. As
I have no reason to suppose that had I then or afterward, questioned
the people of the house as to what more particular
name my father went by in the world, they would have at all
disclosed it to me; and, indeed, since, for certain singular
reasons, I now feel convinced that on that point they were
come to learn my father's name,—and by consequence, ever
have learned the least shade or shadow of knowledge as to
you, Pierre, or any of your kin—had it not been for the merest
little accident, which early revealed it to me, though at the
moment I did not know the value of that knowledge. The
last time my father visited the house, he chanced to leave his
handkerchief behind him. It was the farmer's wife who first
discovered it. She picked it up, and fumbling at it a moment,
as if rapidly examining the corners, tossed it to me, saying,
`Here, Isabel, here is the good gentleman's handkerchief; keep
it for him now, till he comes to see little Bell again.' Gladly
I caught the handkerchief, and put it into my bosom. It was
a white one; and upon closely scanning it, I found a small
line of fine faded yellowish writing in the middle of it. At
that time I could not read either print or writing, so I was
none the wiser then; but still, some secret instinct told me,
that the woman would not so freely have given me the handkerchief,
had she known there was any writing on it. I forbore
questioning her on the subject; I waited till my father should
return, to secretly question him. The handkerchief had become
dusty by lying on the uncarpeted floor. I took it to the brook
and washed it, and laid it out on the grass where none would
chance to pass; and I ironed it under my little apron, so that
none would be attracted to it, to look at it again. But my
father never returned; so, in my grief, the handkerchief became
the more and the more endeared to me; it absorbed many of
the secret tears I wept in memory of my dear departed friend,
whom, in my child-like ignorance, I then equally called my
father and the gentleman. But when the impression of his
death became a fixed thing to me, then again I washed and
dried and ironed the precious memorial of him, and put it
away where none should find it but myself, and resolved never
more to soil it with my tears; and I folded it in such a manner,
it was like opening a book and turning over many blank leaves
before I came to the mysterious writing, which I knew should
be one day read by me, without direct help from any one.
Now I resolved to learn my letters, and learn to read, in order
that of myself I might learn the meaning of those faded
characters. No other purpose but that only one, did I have
in learning then to read. I easily induced the woman to give
me my little teachings, and being uncommonly quick, and
moreover, most eager to learn, I soon mastered the alphabet,
and went on to spelling, and by-and-by to reading, and at last
to the complete deciphering of the talismanic word—Glendinning.
I was yet very ignorant. Glendinning, thought I,
what is that? It sounds something like gentleman;—Glendin-ning;—just
as many syllables as gentleman; and—G—it
begins with the same letter; yes, it must mean my father. I
will think of him by that word now;—I will not think of the
gentleman, but of Glendinning. When at last I removed
from that house and went to another, and still another, and as
I still grew up and thought more to myself, that word was
ever humming in my head, I saw it would only prove the key
to more. But I repressed all undue curiosity, if any such has
ever filled my breast. I would not ask of any one, who it was
that had been Glendinning; where he had lived; whether,
ever any other girl or boy had called him father as I had done.
I resolved to hold myself in perfect patience, as somehow mystically
certain, that Fate would at last disclose to me, of itself,
and at the suitable time, whatever Fate thought it best for me
to know. But now, my brother, I must go aside a little for a
moment.—Hand me the guitar.”
Surprised and rejoiced thus far at the unanticipated newness,
and the sweet lucidness and simplicity of Isabel's narrating, as
compared with the obscure and marvelous revelations of the
night before, and all eager for her to continue her story in the
and unearthly frame of mind the melodies of her guitar
had formerly thrown him; Pierre now, in handing the instrument
to Isabel, could not entirely restrain something like a
look of half-regret, accompanied rather strangely with a half-smile
of gentle humor. It did not pass unnoticed by his sister,
who receiving the guitar, looked up into his face with an expression
which would almost have been arch and playful, were
it not for the ever-abiding shadows cast from her infinite hair
into her unfathomed eyes, and redoubledly shot back again
from them.
“Do not be alarmed, my brother; and do not smile at me;
I am not going to play the Mystery of Isabel to thee to-night.
Draw nearer to me now. Hold the light near to me.”
So saying she loosened some ivory screws of the guitar, so as
to open a peep lengthwise through its interior.
“Now hold it thus, my brother; thus; and see what thou
wilt see; but wait one instant till I hold the lamp.” So saying,
as Pierre held the instrument before him as directed, Isabel
held the lamp so as to cast its light through the round
sounding-hole into the heart of the guitar.
“Now, Pierre, now.”
Eagerly, Pierre did as he was bid; but somehow felt disappointed,
and yet surprised at what he saw. He saw the word
Isabel, quite legibly but still fadedly gilded upon a part of one
side of the interior, where it made a projecting curve.
“A very curious place thou hast chosen, Isabel, wherein to
have the ownership of the guitar engraved. How did ever any
person get in there to do it, I should like to know?”
The girl looked surprisedly at him a moment; then took the
instrument from him, and looked into it herself. She put it
down, and continued.
“I see, my brother, thou dost not comprehend. When one
knows every thing about any object, one is too apt to suppose
any other person. I did not have the name gilded there, my
brother.”
“How?” cried Pierre.
“The name was gilded there when I first got the guitar,
though then I did not know it. The guitar must have been
expressly made for some one by the name of Isabel; because
the lettering could only have been put there before the guitar
was put together.”
“Go on—hurry,” said Pierre.
“Yes, one day, after I had owned it a long time, a strange
whim came into me. Thou know'st that it is not at all uncommon
for children to break their dearest playthings in order
to gratify a half-crazy curiosity to find out what is in the hidden
heart of them. So it is with children, sometimes. And,
Pierre, I have always been, and feel that I must always continue
to be a child, though I should grow to three score years
and ten. Seized with this sudden whim, I unscrewed the part
I showed thee, and peeped in, and saw `Isabel.' Now I have
not yet told thee, that from as early a time as I can remember,
I have nearly always gone by the name of Bell. And at the
particular time I now speak of, my knowledge of general and
trivial matters was sufficiently advanced to make it quite a
familiar thing to me, that Bell was often a diminutive for Isabella,
or Isabel. It was therefore no very strange affair, that
considering my age, and other connected circumstances at the
time, I should have instinctively associated the word Isabel,
found in the guitar, with my own abbreviated name, and so be
led into all sorts of fancyings. They return upon me now.
Do not speak to me.”
She leaned away from him, toward the occasionally illuminated
casement, in the same manner as on the previous night,
and for a few moments seemed struggling with some wild bewilderment.
But now she suddenly turned, and fully confronted
face.
“I am called woman, and thou, man, Pierre; but there is
neither man nor woman about it. Why should I not speak
out to thee? There is no sex in our immaculateness. Pierre,
the secret name in the guitar even now thrills me through and
through. Pierre, think! think! Oh, canst thou not comprehend?
see it?—what I mean, Pierre? The secret name in the
guitar thrills me, thrills me, whirls me, whirls me; so secret,
wholly hidden, yet constantly carried about in it; unseen, unsuspected,
always vibrating to the hidden heart-strings—broken
heart-strings; oh, my mother, my mother, my mother!”
As the wild plaints of Isabel pierced into his bosom's core,
they carried with them the first inkling of the extraordinary
conceit, so vaguely and shrinkingly hinted at in her till now
entirely unintelligible words.
She lifted her dry burning eyes of long-fringed fire to him.
“Pierre—I have no slightest proof—but the guitar was hers,
I know, I feel it was. Say, did I not last night tell thee, how
it first sung to me upon the bed, and answered me, without my
once touching it? and how it always sung to me and answered
me, and soothed and loved me,—Hark now; thou shalt hear
my mother's spirit.”
She carefully scanned the strings, and tuned them carefully;
then placed the guitar in the casement-bench, and knelt before
it; and in low, sweet, and changefully modulated notes, so
barely audible, that Pierre bent over to catch them; breathed
the word mother, mother, mother! There was profound silence
for a time; when suddenly, to the lowest and least audible
note of all, the magical untouched guitar responded with a
quick spark of melody, which in the following hush, long vibrated
and subsidingly tingled through the room; while to his
augmented wonder, he now espied, quivering along the metallic
strings of the guitar, some minute scintillations, seemingly
irradiated window.
The girl still kept kneeling; but an altogether unwonted expression
suddenly overcast her whole countenance. She darted
one swift glance at Pierre; and then with a single toss of her
hand tumbled her unrestrained locks all over her, so that they
tent-wise invested her whole kneeling form close to the floor,
and yet swept the floor with their wild redundancy. Never
Saya of Limeean girl, at dim mass in St. Dominic's cathedral,
so completely muffled the human figure. To Pierre, the deep
oaken recess of the double-casement, before which Isabel was
kneeling, seemed now the immediate vestibule of some awful
shrine, mystically revealed through the obscurely open window,
which ever and anon was still softly illumined by the mild
heat-lightnings and ground-lightnings, that wove their wonderfulness
without, in the unsearchable air of that ebonly warm
and most noiseless summer night.
Some unsubduable word was on Pierre's lip, but a sudden
voice from out the vail bade him be silent.
“Mother—mother—mother!”
Again, after a preluding silence, the guitar as magically responded
as before; the sparks quivered along its strings; and
again Pierre felt as in the immediate presence of the spirit.
“Shall I, mother?—Art thou ready? Wilt thou tell me?—
Now? Now?”
These words were lowly and sweetly murmured in the same
way with the word mother, being changefully varied in their
modulations, till at the last now, the magical guitar again responded;
and the girl swiftly drew it to her beneath her dark
tent of hair. In this act, as the long curls swept over the
strings of the guitar, the strange sparks—still quivering there—
caught at those attractive curls; the entire casement was suddenly
and wovenly illumined; then waned again; while now,
in the succeeding dimness, every downward undulating wave
a tract of phosphorescent midnight sea; and, simultaneously,
all the four winds of the world of melody broke loose;
and again as on the previous night, only in a still more subtile,
and wholly inexplicable way, Pierre felt himself surrounded by
ten thousand sprites and gnomes, and his whole soul was
swayed and tossed by supernatural tides; and again he heard
the wondrous, rebounding, chanted words:
Mystery of Isabel!
Mystery! Mystery!
Isabel and Mystery!
Mystery!”
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |