 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
I.
The stage was belated.
The country road they traveled entered the city by a remarkably
wide and winding street, a great thoroughfare for its less
opulent inhabitants. There was no moon and few stars. It
was that preluding hour of the night when the shops are just
closing, and the aspect of almost every wayfarer, as he passes
through the unequal light reflected from the windows, speaks
of one hurrying not abroad, but homeward. Though the thoroughfare
was winding, yet no sweep that it made greatly obstructed
its long and imposing vista; so that when the coach
gained the top of the long and very gradual slope running toward
the obscure heart of the town, and the twinkling perspective
of two long and parallel rows of lamps was revealed—
lamps which seemed not so much intended to dispel the general
gloom, as to show some dim path leading through it, into
some gloom still deeper beyond—when the coach gained this
critical point, the whole vast triangular town, for a moment,
seemed dimly and despondently to capitulate to the eye.
And now, ere descending the gradually-sloping declivity, and
just on its summit as it were, the inmates of the coach, by numerous
hard, painful joltings, and ponderous, dragging trundlings,
are suddenly made sensible of some great change in the
of all calibers. Grasping Pierre's arm, Isabel eagerly and
forebodingly demands what is the cause of this most strange
and unpleasant transition.
“The pavements, Isabel; this is the town.”
Isabel was silent.
But, the first time for many weeks, Delly voluntarily spoke:
“It feels not so soft as the green sward, Master Pierre.”
“No, Miss Ulver,” said Pierre, very bitterly, “the buried
hearts of some dead citizens have perhaps come to the surface.”
“Sir?” said Delly.
“And are they so hard-hearted here?” asked Isabel.
“Ask yonder pavements, Isabel. Milk dropt from the milk-man's
can in December, freezes not more quickly on those
stones, than does snow-white innocence, if in poverty, it chance
to fall in these streets.”
“Then God help my hard fate, Master Pierre,” sobbed Delly.
“Why didst thou drag hither a poor outcast like me?”
“Forgive me, Miss Ulver,” exclaimed Pierre, with sudden
warmth, and yet most marked respect; “forgive me; never
yet have I entered the city by night, but, somehow, it made
me feel both bitter and sad. Come, be cheerful, we shall soon
be comfortably housed, and have our comfort all to ourselves;
the old clerk I spoke to you about, is now doubtless ruefully
eying his hat on the peg. Come, cheer up, Isabel;—'tis a
long ride, but here we are, at last. Come! 'Tis not very far
now to our welcome.”
“I hear a strange shuffling and clattering,” said Delly, with
a shudder.
“It does not seem so light as just now,” said Isabel.
“Yes,” returned Pierre, “it is the shop-shutters being put
on; it is the locking, and bolting, and barring of windows and
doors; the town's-people are going to their rest.”
“Please God they may find it!” sighed Delly.
“They lock and bar out, then, when they rest, do they,
Pierre?” said Isabel.
“Yes, and you were thinking that does not bode well for the
welcome I spoke of.”
“Thou read'st all my soul; yes, I was thinking of that.
But whither lead these long, narrow, dismal side-glooms we
pass every now and then? What are they? They seem terribly
still. I see scarce any body in them;—there's another,
now. See how haggardly look its criss-cross, far-separate lamps.
—What are these side-glooms, dear Pierre; whither lead
they?”
“They are the thin tributaries, sweet Isabel, to the great
Oronoco thoroughfare we are in; and like true tributaries, they
come from the far-hidden places; from under dark beetling
secrecies of mortar and stone; through the long marsh-grasses
of villainy, and by many a transplanted bough-beam, where
the wretched have hung.”
“I know nothing of these things, Pierre. But I like not
the town. Think'st thou, Pierre, the time will ever come when
all the earth shall be paved?”
“Thank God, that never can be!”
“These silent side-glooms are horrible;—look! Methinks,
not for the world would I turn into one.”
That moment the nigh fore-wheel sharply grated under the
body of the coach.
“Courage!” cried Pierre, “we are in it!—Not so very solitary
either; here comes a traveler.”
“Hark, what is that?” said Delly, “that keen iron-ringing
sound? It passed us just now.”
“The keen traveler,” said Pierre, “he has steel plates to his
boot-heels;—some tender-souled elder son, I suppose.”
“Pierre,” said Isabel, “this silence is unnatural, is fearful.
The forests are never so still.”
“Because brick and mortar have deeper secrets than wood
or fell, sweet Isabel. But here we turn again; now if I guess
right, two more turns will bring us to the door. Courage,
all will be well; doubtless he has prepared a famous supper.
Courage, Isabel. Come, shall it be tea or coffee? Some bread,
or crisp toast? We'll have eggs, too; and some cold chicken,
perhaps.”—Then muttering to himself—“I hope not that,
either; no cold collations! there's too much of that in these
paving-stones here, set out for the famishing beggars to eat.
No. I won't have the cold chicken.” Then aloud—“But
here we turn again; yes, just as I thought. Ho, driver!”
(thrusting his head out of the window) “to the right! to the
right! it should be on the right! the first house with a light
on the right!”
“No lights yet but the street's,” answered the surly voice of
the driver.
“Stupid! he has passed it—yes, yes—he has! Ho! ho!
stop; turn back. Have you not passed lighted windows?”
“No lights but the street's,” was the rough reply. “What's
the number? the number? Don't keep me beating about here
all night! The number, I say!”
“I do not know it,” returned Pierre; “but I well know the
house; you must have passed it, I repeat. You must turn
back. Surely you have passed lighted windows?”
“Then them lights must burn black; there's no lighted
windows in the street; I knows the city; old maids lives here,
and they are all to bed; rest is warehouses.”
“Will you stop the coach, or not?” cried Pierre, now incensed
at his surliness in continuing to drive on.
“I obeys orders: the first house with a light; and 'cording
to my reck'ning—though to be sure, I don't know nothing of
the city where I was born and bred all my life—no, I knows
nothing at all about it—'cording to my reck'ning, the first light
in this here street will be the watch-house of the ward—yes,
to pay, and wictuals in.”
To certain temperaments, especially when previously agitated
by any deep feeling, there is perhaps nothing more exasperating,
and which sooner explodes all self-command, than the
coarse, jeering insolence of a porter, cabman, or hack-driver.
Fetchers and carriers of the worst city infamy as many of them
are; professionally familiar with the most abandoned haunts;
in the heart of misery, they drive one of the most mercenary
of all the trades of guilt. Day-dozers and sluggards on their
lazy boxes in the sunlight, and felinely wakeful and cat-eyed
in the dark; most habituated to midnight streets, only trod by
sneaking burglars, wantons, and debauchees; often in actual
pandering league with the most abhorrent sinks; so that they
are equally solicitous and suspectful that every customer they
encounter in the dark, will prove a profligate or a knave;
this hideous tribe of ogres, and Charon ferry-men to corruption
and death, naturally slide into the most practically Calvinistical
view of humanity, and hold every man at bottom a fit subject
for the coarsest ribaldry and jest; only fine coats and full pockets
can whip such mangy hounds into decency. The least impatience,
any quickness of temper, a sharp remonstrating word
from a customer in a seedy coat, or betraying any other evidence
of poverty, however minute and indirect (for in that pecuniary
respect they are the most piercing and infallible of all
the judgers of men), will be almost sure to provoke, in such
cases, their least endurable disdain.
Perhaps it was the unconscious transfer to the stage-driver
of some such ideas as these, which now prompted the highly
irritated Pierre to an act, which, in a more benignant hour, his
better reason would have restrained him from.
He did not see the light to which the driver had referred;
and was heedless, in his sudden wrath, that the coach was now
going slower in approaching it. Ere Isabel could prevent him,
ahead of the horses, and violently reined back the leaders by
their heads. The driver seized his four-in-hand whip, and with
a volley of oaths was about striking out its long, coiling lash at
Pierre, when his arm was arrested by a policeman, who suddenly
leaping on the stayed coach, commanded him to keep
the peace.
“Speak! what is the difficulty here? Be quiet, ladies, nothing
serious has happened. Speak you!”
“Pierre! Pierre!” cried the alarmed Isabel. In an instant
Pierre was at her side by the window; and now turning to the
officer, explained to him that the driver had persisted in passing
the house at which he was ordered to stop.
“Then he shall turn to the right about with you, sir;—in
double quick time too; do ye hear? I know you rascals well
enough. Turn about, you sir, and take the gentleman where
he directed.”
The cowed driver was beginning a long string of criminating
explanations, when turning to Pierre, the policeman calmly desired
him to re-enter the coach; he would see him safely at his
destination; and then seating himself beside the driver on the
box, commanded him to tell the number given him by the gentleman.
“He don't know no numbers—didn't I say he didn't—that's
what I got mad about.”
“Be still”—said the officer. “Sir”—turning round and addressing
Pierre within; “where do you wish to go?”
“I do not know the number, but it is a house in this street;
we have passed it; it is, I think, the fourth or fifth house this
side of the last corner we turned. It must be lighted up too.
It is the small old-fashioned dwelling with stone lion-heads
above the windows. But make him turn round, and drive
slowly, and I will soon point it out.”
“Can't see lions in the dark”—growled the driver—“lions;
ha! ha! jackasses more likely!”
“Look you,” said the officer, “I shall see you tightly housed
this night, my fine fellow, if you don't cease your jabber. Sir,”
he added, resuming with Pierre, “I am sure there is some mistake
here. I perfectly well know now the house you mean. I
passed it within the last half-hour; all as quiet there as ever.
No one lives there, I think; I never saw a light in it. Are you
not mistaken in something, then?”
Pierre paused in perplexity and foreboding. Was it possible
that Glen had willfully and utterly neglected his letter? Not
possible. But it might not have come to his hand; the mails
sometimes delayed. Then again, it was not wholly out of the
question, that the house was prepared for them after all, even
though it showed no outward sign. But that was not probable.
At any rate, as the driver protested, that his four horses
and lumbering vehicle could not turn short round in that
street; and that if he must go back, it could only be done by
driving on, and going round the block, and so retracing his
road; and as after such a procedure, on his part, then in case
of a confirmed disappointment respecting the house, the driver
would seem warranted, at least in some of his unmannerliness;
and as Pierre loathed the villain altogether, therefore, in order to
run no such risks, he came to a sudden determination on the
spot.
“I owe you very much, my good friend,” said he to the
officer, “for your timely assistance. To be frank, what you
have just told me has indeed perplexed me not a little concerning
the place where I proposed to stop. Is there no hotel in
this neighborhood, where I could leave these ladies while I seek
my friend?”
Wonted to all manner of deceitfulness, and engaged in a
calling which unavoidably makes one distrustful of mere appearances,
however specious, however honest; the really goodhearted
most unpleasant scrutiny; and he abandoned the “Sir,” and
the tone of his voice sensibly changed, as he replied:—“There
is no hotel in this neighborhood; it is too off the thoroughfares.”
“Come! come!”—cried the driver, now growing bold again
—“though you're an officer, I'm a citizen for all that. You
havn't any further right to keep me out of my bed now. He
don't know where he wants to go to, cause he haint got no place
at all to go to; so I'll just dump him here, and you dar'n't stay
me.”
“Don't be impertinent now,” said the officer, but not so
sternly as before.
“I'll have my rights though, I tell you that! Leave go of
my arm; damn ye, get off the box; I've the law now. I say
mister, come tramp, here goes your luggage,” and so saying he
dragged toward him a light trunk on the top of the stage.
“Keep a clean tongue in ye now”—said the officer—“and
don't be in quite so great a hurry,” then addressing Pierre, who
had now re-alighted from the coach—“Well, this can't continue;
what do you intend to do?”
“Not to ride further with that man, at any rate,” said Pierre;
“I will stop right here for the present.”
“He! he!” laughed the driver; “he! he! 'mazing 'commodating
now—we hitches now, we do—stops right afore the
watch-house—he! he!—that's funny!”
“Off with the luggage then, driver,” said the policeman—
“here hand the small trunk, and now away and unlash there
behind.”
During all this scene, Delly had remained perfectly silent in
her trembling and rustic alarm; while Isabel, by occasional
cries to Pierre, had vainly besought some explanation. But
though their complete ignorance of city life had caused Pierre's
two companions to regard the scene thus far with too much
the heart of a strange town, Pierre handed them out of the
coach into the naked street, and they saw their luggage piled
so near the white light of a watch-house, the same ignorance,
in some sort, reversed its effects on them; for they little fancied
in what really untoward and wretched circumstances they first
touched the flagging of the city.
As the coach lumbered off, and went rolling into the wide
murkiness beyond, Pierre spoke to the officer.
“It is a rather strange accident, I confess, my friend, but
strange accidents will sometimes happen.”
“In the best of families,” rejoined the other, a little ironically.
Now, I must not quarrel with this man, thought Pierre to
himself, stung at the officer's tone. Then said:—“Is there any
one in your—office?”
“No one as yet—not late enough.”
“Will you have the kindness then to house these ladies
there for the present, while I make haste to provide them
with better lodgment? Lead on, if you please.”
The man seemed to hesitate a moment, but finally acquiesced;
and soon they passed under the white light, and entered
a large, plain, and most forbidding-looking room, with hacked
wooden benches and bunks ranged along the sides, and a railing
before a desk in one corner. The permanent keeper of the
place was quietly reading a paper by the long central double
bat's-wing gas-light; and three officers off duty were nodding
on a bench.
“Not very liberal accommodations”—said the officer, quietly;
“nor always the best of company, but we try to be civil. Be
seated, ladies,” politely drawing a small bench toward them.
“Hallo, my friends,” said Pierre, approaching the nodding
three beyond, and tapping them on the shoulder—“Hallo, I
say! Will you do me a little favor? Will you help bring
trouble, and be much obliged into the bargain.”
Instantly the three noddies, used to sudden awakenings,
opened their eyes, and stared hard; and being further enlightened
by the bat's-wings and first officer, promptly brought
in the luggage as desired.
Pierre hurriedly sat down by Isabel, and in a few words gave
her to understand, that she was now in a perfectly secure place,
however unwelcoming; that the officers would take every care
of her, while he made all possible speed in running to the
house, and indubitably ascertaining how matters stood there.
He hoped to be back in less than ten minutes with good tidings.
Explaining his intention to the first officer, and begging him
not to leave the girls till he should return, he forthwith sallied
into the street. He quickly came to the house, and immediately
identified it. But all was profoundly silent and dark.
He rang the bell, but no answer; and waiting long enough
to be certain, that either the house was indeed deserted, or else
the old clerk was unawakeable or absent; and at all events,
certain that no slightest preparation had been made for their
arrival; Pierre, bitterly disappointed, returned to Isabel with
this most unpleasant information.
Nevertheless something must be done, and quickly. Turning
to one of the officers, he begged him to go and seek a hack,
that the whole party might be taken to some respectable lodging.
But the man, as well as his comrades, declined the
errand on the score, that there was no stand on their beat, and
they could not, on any account, leave their beat. So Pierre
himself must go. He by no means liked to leave Isabel and
Delly again, on an expedition which might occupy some time.
But there seemed no resource, and time now imperiously
pressed. Communicating his intention therefore to Isabel, and
again entreating the officer's particular services as before, and
promising not to leave him unrequited; Pierre again sallied
sound of any approaching vehicle was audible. He ran on,
and turning the first corner, bent his rapid steps toward the
greatest and most central avenue of the city, assured that
there, if anywhere, he would find what he wanted. It was
some distance off; and he was not without hope that an empty
hack would meet him ere he arrived there. But the few stray
ones he encountered had all muffled fares. He continued on,
and at last gained the great avenue. Not habitually used to
such scenes, Pierre for a moment was surprised, that the instant
he turned out of the narrow, and dark, and death-like
bye-street, he should find himself suddenly precipitated into
the not-yet-repressed noise and contention, and all the garish
night-life of a vast thoroughfare, crowded and wedged by
day, and even now, at this late hour, brilliant with occasional
illuminations, and echoing to very many swift wheels and
footfalls.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |