 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
3. BOOK III.
THE PRESENTIMENT AND THE VERIFICATION.
I.
The face, of which Pierre and Lucy so strangely and fearfully
hinted, was not of enchanted air; but its mortal lineaments
of mournfulness had been visibly beheld by Pierre. Nor
had it accosted him in any privacy; or in any lonely byeway;
or beneath the white light of the crescent moon; but in a joyous
chamber, bright with candles, and ringing with two score
women's gayest voices. Out of the heart of mirthfulness, this
shadow had come forth to him. Encircled by bandelets of
light, it had still beamed upon him; vaguely historic and prophetic;
backward, hinting of some irrevocable sin; forward,
pointing to some inevitable ill. One of those faces, which now
and then appear to man, and without one word of speech, still
reveal glimpses of some fearful gospel. In natural guise, but
lit by supernatural light; palpable to the senses, but inscrutable
to the soul; in their perfectest impression on us, ever hovering
between Tartarean misery and Paradisaic beauty; such
faces, compounded so of hell and heaven, overthrow in us all
foregone persuasions, and make us wondering children in this
world again.
The face had accosted Pierre some weeks previous to his ride
with Lucy to the hills beyond Saddle Meadows; and before her
arrival for the summer at the village; moreover it had accosted
the wonder.
On some distant business, with a farmer-tenant, he had been
absent from the mansion during the best part of the day, and
had but just come home, early of a pleasant moonlight evening,
when Dates delivered a message to him from his mother, begging
him to come for her about half-past seven that night to
Miss Llanyllyn's cottage, in order to accompany her thence to
that of the two Miss Pennies. At the mention of that last
name, Pierre well knew what he must anticipate. Those elderly
and truly pious spinsters, gifted with the most benevolent
hearts in the world, and at mid-age deprived by envious nature
of their hearing, seemed to have made it a maxim of their charitable
lives, that since God had not given them any more the
power to hear Christ's gospel preached, they would therefore
thenceforth do what they could toward practicing it. Wherefore,
as a matter of no possible interest to them now, they abstained
from church; and while with prayer-books in their hands the
Rev. Mr. Falsgrave's congregation were engaged in worshiping
their God, according to the divine behest; the two Miss Pennies,
with thread and needle, were hard at work in serving him;
making up shirts and gowns for the poor people of the parish.
Pierre had heard that they had recently been at the trouble of
organizing a regular society, among the neighboring farmers'
wives and daughters, to meet twice a month at their own house
(the Miss Pennies) for the purpose of sewing in concert for the
benefit of various settlements of necessitous emigrants, who had
lately pitched their populous shanties further up the river. But
though this enterprise had not been started without previously
acquainting Mrs. Glendinning of it,—for indeed she was much
loved and honored by the pious spinsters,—and their promise
of solid assistance from that gracious manorial lady; yet Pierre
had not heard that his mother had been officially invited to
preside, or be at all present at the semi-monthly meetings;
so doing, she would be very glad to associate that way, with
the good people of the village.
“Now, brother Pierre”—said Mrs. Glendinning, rising from
Miss Llanyllyn's huge cushioned chair—“throw my shawl
around me; and good-evening to Lucy's aunt.—There, we shall
be late.”
As they walked along, she added—“Now, Pierre, I know
you are apt to be a little impatient sometimes, of these sewing
scenes; but courage; I merely want to peep in on them; so
as to get some inkling of what they would indeed be at; and
then my promised benefactions can be better selected by me.
Besides, Pierre, I could have had Dates escort me, but I preferred
you; because I want you to know who they are you live
among; how many really pretty, and naturally-refined dames
and girls you shall one day be lord of the manor of. I anticipate
a rare display of rural red and white.”
Cheered by such pleasant promises, Pierre soon found himself
leading his mother into a room full of faces. The instant
they appeared, a gratuitous old body, seated with her knitting
near the door, squeaked out shrilly—“Ah! dames, dames,—
Madam Glendinning!—Master Pierre Glendinning!”
Almost immediately following this sound, there came a sudden,
long-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek, from the further corner
of the long, double room. Never had human voice so
affected Pierre before. Though he saw not the person from
whom it came, and though the voice was wholly strange to him,
yet the sudden shriek seemed to split its way clean through his
heart, and leave a yawning gap there. For an instant, he stood
bewildered; but started at his mother's voice; her arm being
still in his. “Why do you clutch my arm so, Pierre? You
pain me. Pshaw! some one has fainted,—nothing more.”
Instantly Pierre recovered himself, and affecting to mock at
his own trepidation, hurried across the room to offer his services,
beforehand with him; the lights were wildly flickering in the
air-current made by the flinging open of the casement, near to
where the shriek had come. But the climax of the tumult
was soon past; and presently, upon closing the casement, it
subsided almost wholly. The elder of the spinster Pennies, advancing
to Mrs. Glendinning, now gave her to understand, that
one of the further crowd of industrious girls present, had been
attacked by a sudden, but fleeting fit, vaguely imputable to some
constitutional disorder or other. She was now quite well again.
And so the company, one and all, seemingly acting upon their
natural good-breeding, which in any one at bottom, is but delicacy
and charity, refrained from all further curiosity; reminded
not the girl of what had passed; noted her scarce at all; and
all needles stitched away as before.
Leaving his mother to speak with whom she pleased, and
attend alone to her own affairs with the society; Pierre, oblivious
now in such a lively crowd, of any past unpleasantness,
after some courtly words to the Miss Pennies,—insinuated into
their understandings through a long coiled trumpet, which,
when not in use, the spinsters wore, hanging like a powder-horn
from their girdles:—and likewise, after manifesting the profoundest
and most intelligent interest in the mystic mechanism
of a huge woolen sock, in course of completion by a spectacled
old lady of his more particular acquaintance; after all this had
been gone through, and something more too tedious to detail,
but which occupied him for nearly half an hour, Pierre, with a
slightly blushing, and imperfectly balanced assurance, advanced
toward the further crowd of maidens; where, by the light of
many a well-snuffed candle, they clubbed all their bright contrasting
cheeks, like a dense bed of garden tulips. There were
the shy and pretty Maries, Marthas, Susans, Betties, Jennies,
Nellies; and forty more fair nymphs, who skimmed the cream,
and made the butter of the fat farms of Saddle Meadows.
Assurance is in presence of the assured. Where embarrassments
prevail, they affect the most disembarrassed. What
wonder, then, that gazing on such a thick array of wreathing,
roguish, half-averted, blushing faces—still audacious in their
very embarrassment—Pierre, too, should flush a bit, and stammer
in his attitudes a little? Youthful love and graciousness
were in his heart; kindest words upon his tongue; but there
he stood, target for the transfixing glances of those ambushed
archers of the eye.
But his abashments last too long; his cheek hath changed
from blush to pallor; what strange thing does Pierre Glendinning
see? Behind the first close, busy breast-work of young
girls, are several very little stands, or circular tables, where sit
small groups of twos and threes, sewing in small comparative
solitudes, as it were. They would seem to be the less notable
of the rural company; or else, for some cause, they have voluntarily
retired into their humble banishment. Upon one of
these persons engaged at the furthermost and least conspicuous
of these little stands, and close by a casement, Pierre's glance
is palely fixed.
The girl sits steadily sewing; neither she nor her two companions
speak. Her eyes are mostly upon her work; but
now and then a very close observer would notice that she furtively
lifts them, and moves them sideways and timidly toward
Pierre; and then, still more furtively and timidly toward his
lady mother, further off. All the while, her preternatural
calmness sometimes seems only made to cover the intensest
struggle in her bosom. Her unadorned and modest dress is
black; fitting close up to her neck, and clasping it with a
plain, velvet border. To a nice perception, that velvet shows
elastically; contracting and expanding, as though some choked,
violent thing were risen up there within from the teeming
region of her heart. But her dark, olive cheek is without a
blush, or sign of any disquietude. So far as this girl lies upon
she sideways steals the furtive, timid glance. Anon, as yielding
to the irresistible climax of her concealed emotion, whatever
that may be, she lifts her whole marvelous countenance into
the radiant candlelight, and for one swift instant, that face of
supernaturalness unreservedly meets Pierre's. Now, wonderful
loveliness, and a still more wonderful loneliness, have with inexplicable
implorings, looked up to him from that henceforth
immemorial face. There, too, he seemed to see the fair ground
where Anguish had contended with Beauty, and neither being
conqueror, both had laid down on the field.
Recovering at length from his all too obvious emotion, Pierre
turned away still farther, to regain the conscious possession of
himself. A wild, bewildering, and incomprehensible curiosity
had seized him, to know something definite of that face. To
this curiosity, at the moment, he entirely surrendered himself;
unable as he was to combat it, or reason with it in the slightest
way. So soon as he felt his outward composure returned to him,
he purposed to chat his way behind the breastwork of bright
eyes and cheeks, and on some parlor pretense or other, hear, if
possible, an audible syllable from one whose mere silent aspect
had so potentially moved him. But at length, as with this object
in mind, he was crossing the room again, he heard his
mother's voice, gayly calling him away; and turning, saw her
shawled and bonneted. He could now make no plausible stay,
and smothering the agitation in him, he bowed a general and
hurried adieu to the company, and went forth with his mother.
They had gone some way homeward, in perfect silence, when
his mother spoke.
“Well, Pierre, what can it possibly be?”
“My God, mother, did you see her then?”
“My son!” cried Mrs. Glendinning, instantly stopping in terror,
and withdrawing her arm from Pierre, “what—what
under heaven ails you? This is most strange! I but playfully
answer me by the strangest question, in a voice that seems to
come from under your great-grandfather's tomb! What, in
heaven's name, does this mean, Pierre? Why were you so
silent, and why now are you so ill-timed in speaking? Answer
me;—explain all this;—she—she—what she should you be
thinking of but Lucy Tartan?—Pierre, beware, beware! I
had thought you firmer in your lady's faith, than such strange
behavior as this would seem to hint. Answer me, Pierre,
what may this mean? Come, I hate a mystery; speak, my
son.”
Fortunately, this prolonged verbalized wonder in his mother
afforded Pierre time to rally from his double and aggravated
astonishment, brought about by first suspecting that his mother
also had been struck by the strange aspect of the face, and then,
having that suspicion so violently beaten back upon him, by her
apparently unaffected alarm at finding him in some region of
thought wholly unshared by herself at the time.
“It is nothing—nothing, sister Mary; just nothing at all in
the world. I believe I was dreaming—sleep-walking, or something
of that sort. They were vastly pretty girls there this
evening, sister Mary, were they not? Come, let us walk on—
do, sister mine.”
“Pierre, Pierre!—but I will take your arm again;—and have
you really nothing more to say? were you really wandering,
Pierre?”
“I swear to you, my dearest mother, that never before in my
whole existence, have I so completely gone wandering in my
soul, as at that very moment. But it is all over now.” Then
in a less earnest and somewhat playful tone, he added: “And
sister mine, if you know aught of the physical and sanitary authors,
you must be aware, that the only treatment for such a
case of harmless temporary aberration, is for all persons to ignore
it in the subject. So no more of this foolishness. Talking
there is no knowing that it may not bring it back upon me.”
“Then by all means, my dear boy, not another word about it.
But it's passing strange—very, very strange indeed. Well,
about that morning business; how fared you? Tell me about
it.”
II.
So Pierre, gladly plunging into this welcome current of talk,
was enabled to attend his mother home without furnishing further
cause for her concern or wonderment. But not by any
means so readily could he allay his own concern and wonderment.
Too really true in itself, however evasive in its effect at
the time, was that earnest answer to his mother, declaring that
never in his whole existence had he been so profoundly stirred.
The face haunted him as some imploring, and beauteous, impassioned,
ideal Madonna's haunts the morbidly longing and
enthusiastic, but ever-baffled artist. And ever, as the mystic
face thus rose before his fancy's sight, another sense was touched
in him; the long-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek pealed through
and through his soul; for now he knew the shriek came from
the face—such Delphic shriek could only come from such a
source. And wherefore that shriek? thought Pierre. Bodes
it ill to the face, or me, or both? How am I changed, that
my appearance on any scene should have power to work such
woe? But it was mostly the face—the face, that wrought upon
him. The shriek seemed as incidentally embodied there.
The emotions he experienced seemed to have taken hold of
the deepest roots and subtlest fibres of his being. And so
much the more that it was so subterranean in him, so much
the more did he feel its weird inscrutableness. What was one
unknown, sad-eyed, shrieking girl to him? There must be sadeyed
them. And what was the most beautiful sad-eyed girl to him?
Sadness might be beautiful, as well as mirth—he lost himself
trying to follow out this tangle. “I will no more of this infatuation,”
he would cry; but forth from regions of irradiated air,
the divine beauty and imploring sufferings of the face, stole into
his view.
Hitherto I have ever held but lightly, thought Pierre, all
stories of ghostly mysticalness in man; my creed of this world
leads me to believe in visible, beautiful flesh, and audible breath,
however sweet and scented; but only in visible flesh, and audible
breath, have I hitherto believed. But now!—now!—and
again he would lose himself in the most surprising and preternatural
ponderings, which baffled all the introspective cunning
of his mind. Himself was too much for himself. He felt that
what he had always before considered the solid land of veritable
reality, was now being audaciously encroached upon by bannered
armies of hooded phantoms, disembarking in his soul, as
from flotillas of specter-boats.
The terrors of the face were not those of Gorgon; not by repelling
hideousness did it smite him so; but bewilderingly allured
him, by its nameless beauty, and its long-suffering, hopeless
anguish.
But he was sensible that this general effect upon him, was
also special; the face somehow mystically appealing to his own
private and individual affections; and by a silent and tyrannic
call, challenging him in his deepest moral being, and summoning
Truth, Love, Pity, Conscience, to the stand. Apex of all
wonders! thought Pierre; this indeed almost unmans me with
its wonderfulness. Escape the face he could not. Muffling
his own in his bed-clothes—that did not hide it. Flying from
it by sunlight down the meadows, was as vain.
Most miraculous of all to Pierre was the vague impression,
that somewhere he had seen traits of the likeness of that face
degree, imagine. He was not unaware—for in one or
two instances, he had experienced the fact—that sometimes a
man may see a passing countenance in the street, which shall
irresistibly and magnetically affect him, for a moment, as wholly
unknown to him, and yet strangely reminiscent of some vague
face he has previously encountered, in some fancied time, too,
of extreme interest to his life. But not so was it now with
Pierre. The face had not perplexed him for a few speculative
minutes, and then glided from him, to return no more. It stayed
close by him; only—and not invariably—could he repel it, by
the exertion of all his resolution and self-will. Besides, what
of general enchantment lurked in his strange sensations, seemed
concentringly condensed, and pointed to a spear-head, that
pierced his heart with an inexplicable pang, whenever the specializing
emotion—to call it so—seized the possession of his
thoughts, and waved into his visions, a thousand forms of bygone
times, and many an old legendary family scene, which he
had heard related by his elderly relations, some of them now
dead.
Disguising his wild reveries as best he might from the notice
of his mother, and all other persons of her household, for two
days Pierre wrestled with his own haunted spirit; and at last,
so effectually purged it of all weirdnesses, and so effectually regained
the general mastery of himself, that for a time, life went
with him, as though he had never been stirred so strangely.
Once more, the sweet unconditional thought of Lucy slid
wholly into his soul, dislodging thence all such phantom occupants.
Once more he rode, he walked, he swam, he vaulted;
and with new zest threw himself into the glowing practice of
all those manly exercises, he so dearly loved. It almost seemed
in him, that ere promising forever to protect, as well as eternally
to love, his Lucy, he must first completely invigorate and
embrawn himself into the possession of such a noble muscular
physical world.
Still—even before the occasional reappearance of the face to
him—Pierre, for all his willful ardor in his gymnasticals and
other diversions, whether in-doors or out, or whether by book or
foil; still, Pierre could not but be secretly annoyed, and not a
little perplexed, as to the motive, which, for the first time in his
recollection, had impelled him, not merely to conceal from his
mother a singular circumstance in his life (for that, he felt
would have been but venial; and besides, as will eventually be
seen, he could find one particular precedent for it, in his past
experience) but likewise, and superaddedly, to parry, nay, to
evade, and, in effect, to return something alarmingly like a fib,
to an explicit question put to him by his mother;—such being
the guise, in which part of the conversation they had had that
eventful night, now appeared to his fastidious sense. He considered
also, that his evasive answer had not pantheistically
burst from him in a momentary interregnum of self-command.
No; his mother had made quite a lengthy speech to him;
during which he well remembered, he had been carefully,
though with trepidation, turning over in his mind, how best he
might recall her from her unwished-for and untimely scent.
Why had this been so? Was this his wont? What inscrutable
thing was it, that so suddenly had seized him, and made
him a falsifyer—ay, a falsifyer and nothing less—to his own
dearly-beloved, and confiding mother? Here, indeed, was
something strange for him; here was stuff for his utmost ethical
meditations. But, nevertheless, on strict introspection, he
felt, that he would not willingly have it otherwise; not willingly
would he now undissemble himself in this matter to his mother.
Why was this, too? Was this his wont? Here, again,
was food for mysticism. Here, in imperfect inklings, tinglings,
presentiments, Pierre began to feel—what all mature men, who
are Magians, sooner or later know, and more or less assuredly
this conceit was very dim in Pierre; and dimness is ever suspicious
and repugnant to us; and so, Pierre shrank abhorringly
from the infernal catacombs of thought, down into which, this
fœtal fancy beckoned him. Only this, though in secret, did
he cherish; only this, he felt persuaded of; namely, that not
for both worlds would he have his mother made a partner to
his sometime mystic mood.
But with this nameless fascination of the face upon him,
during those two days that it had first and fully possessed him
for its own, did perplexed Pierre refrain from that apparently
most natural of all resources,—boldly seeking out, and returning
to the palpable cause, and questioning her, by look or voice,
or both together—the mysterious girl herself? No; not entirely
did Pierre here refrain. But his profound curiosity and
interest in the matter—strange as it may seem—did not so
much appear to be embodied in the mournful person of the
olive girl, as by some radiations from her, embodied in the
vague conceits which agitated his own soul. There, lurked the
subtler secret: that, Pierre had striven to tear away. From
without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless
some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry
vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings,
is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber
trophies than all the stars in universal space. Wonder interlocks
with wonder; and then the confounding feeling comes.
No cause have we to fancy, that a horse, a dog, a fowl, ever
stand transfixed beneath yon skyey load of majesty. But our
soul's arches underfit into its; and so, prevent the upper arch
from falling on us with unsustainable inscrutableness. “Explain
ye my deeper mystery,” said the shepherd Chaldean king,
smiting his breast, lying on his back upon the plain; “and
then, I will bestow all my wonderings upon ye, ye stately
stars!” So, in some sort, with Pierre. Explain thou this
upon the fancied face—and I will then renounce all other
wonders, to gaze wonderingly at thee. But thou hast evoked
in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For
me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance
of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time
and space.
But during those two days of his first wild vassalage to his
original sensations, Pierre had not been unvisited by less mysterious
impulses. Two or three very plain and practical plannings
of desirable procedures in reference to some possible
homely explication of all this nonsense—so he would momentarily
denominate it—now and then flittingly intermitted his
pervading mood of semi-madness. Once he had seized his
hat, careless of his accustomed gloves and cane, and found
himself in the street, walking very rapidly in the direction of
the Miss Pennies'. But whither now? he disenchantingly interrogated
himself. Where would you go? A million to one,
those deaf old spinsters can tell you nothing you burn to
know. Deaf old spinsters are not used to be the depositaries
of such mystical secrecies. But then, they may reveal her
name—where she dwells, and something, however fragmentary
and unsatisfactory, of who she is, and whence. Ay; but
then, in ten minutes after your leaving them, all the houses in
Saddle Meadows would be humming with the gossip of Pierre
Glendinning engaged to marry Lucy Tartan, and yet running
about the country, in ambiguous pursuit of strange young
women. That will never do. You remember, do you not,
often seeing the Miss Pennies, hatless and without a shawl,
hurrying through the village, like two postmen intent on dropping
some tit-bit of precious gossip? What a morsel for them,
Pierre, have you, if you now call upon them. Verily, their
trumpets are both for use and for significance. Though very
very wide.
“Now be sure, and say that it was the Miss Pennies, who
left the news—be sure—we—the Miss Pennies—remember—
say to Mrs. Glendinning it was we.” Such was the message
that now half-humorously occurred to Pierre, as having been
once confided to him by the sister spinsters, one evening when
they called with a choice present of some very recherche chitchat
for his mother; but found the manorial lady out; and so
charged her son with it; hurrying away to all the inferior
houses, so as not to be anywhere forestalled in their disclosure.
Now, I wish it had been any other house than the Miss
Pennies; any other house but theirs, and on my soul I believe
I should have gone. But not to them—no, that I can not do.
It would be sure to reach my mother, and then she would put
this and that together—stir a little—let it simmer—and farewell
forever to all her majestic notions of my immaculate integrity.
Patience, Pierre, the population of this region is not
so immense. No dense mobs of Nineveh confound all personal
identities in Saddle Meadows. Patience; thou shalt see
it soon again; catch it passing thee in some green lane, sacred
to thy evening reveries. She that bears it can not dwell
remote. Patience, Pierre. Ever are such mysteries best and
soonest unraveled by the eventual unraveling of themselves.
Or, if you will, go back and get your gloves, and more especially
your cane, and begin your own secret voyage of discovery after
it. Your cane, I say; because it will probably be a very long
and weary walk. True, just now I hinted, that she that bears
it can not dwell very remote; but then her nearness may not be
at all conspicuous. So, homeward, and put off thy hat, and
let thy cane stay still, good Pierre. Seek not to mystify the
mystery so.
Thus, intermittingly, ever and anon during those sad two
expostulating with himself; and by such meditative treatment,
reassure his own spontaneous impulses. Doubtless, it was
wise and right that so he did; doubtless: but in a world so
full of all dubieties as this, one can never be entirely certain
whether another person, however carefully and cautiously conscientious,
has acted in all respects conceivable for the very
best.
But when the two days were gone by, and Pierre began to
recognize his former self, as restored to him from its mystic
exile, then the thoughts of personally and pointedly seeking
out the unknown, either preliminarily by a call upon the sister
spinsters, or generally by performing the observant lynx-eyed
circuit of the country on foot, and as a crafty inquisitor, dissembling
his cause of inquisition; these and all similar intentions
completely abandoned Pierre.
He was now diligently striving, with all his mental might,
forever to drive the phantom from him. He seemed to feel
that it begat in him a certain condition of his being, which was
most painful, and every way uncongenial to his natural, wonted
self. It had a touch of he knew not what sort of unhealthiness
in it, so to speak; for, in his then ignorance, he could find no
better term; it seemed to have in it a germ of somewhat
which, if not quickly extirpated, might insidiously poison and
embitter his whole life—that choice, delicious life which he
had vowed to Lucy for his one pure and comprehensive offering—at
once a sacrifice and a delight.
Nor in these endeavorings did he entirely fail. For the
most part, he felt now that he had a power over the comings
and the goings of the face; but not on all occasions. Sometimes
the old, original mystic tyranny would steal upon him;
the long, dark, locks of mournful hair would fall upon his
soul, and trail their wonderful melancholy along with them;
the two full, steady, over-brimming eyes of loveliness and
kindling he could not tell what mysterious fires in the heart at
which they aimed.
When once this feeling had him fully, then was the perilous
time for Pierre. For supernatural as the feeling was, and appealing
to all things ultramontane to his soul; yet was it a delicious
sadness to him. Some hazy fairy swam above him in
the heavenly ether, and showered down upon him the sweetest
pearls of pensiveness. Then he would be seized with a singular
impulse to reveal the secret to some one other individual in
the world. Only one, not more; he could not hold all this
strange fullness in himself. It must be shared. In such an
hour it was, that chancing to encounter Lucy (her, whom
above all others, he did confidingly adore), she heard the story
of the face; nor slept at all that night; nor for a long time
freed her pillow completely from wild, Beethoven sounds of distant,
waltzing melodies, as of ambiguous fairies dancing on the
heath.
III.
This history goes forward and goes backward, as occasion
calls. Nimble center, circumference elastic you must have.
Now we return to Pierre, wending homeward from his reveries
beneath the pine-tree.
His burst of impatience against the sublime Italian, Dante,
arising from that poet being the one who, in a former time,
had first opened to his shuddering eyes the infinite cliffs and
gulfs of human mystery and misery;—though still more in
the way of experimental vision, than of sensational presentiment
or experience (for as yet he had not seen so far and deep
as Dante, and therefore was entirely incompetent to meet the
grim bard fairly on his peculiar ground), this ignorant burst of
dislike, and sometimes selfish loathing, with which, either naturally
feeble or undeveloped minds, regard those dark ravings
of the loftier poets, which are in eternal opposition to their own
fine-spun, shallow dreams of rapturous or prudential Youth;—
this rash, untutored burst of Pierre's young impatience, seemed
to have carried off with it, all the other forms of his melancholy
—if melancholy it had been—and left him now serene again,
and ready for any tranquil pleasantness the gods might have in
store. For his, indeed, was true Youth's temperament,—summary
with sadness, swift to joyfulness, and long protracting,
and detaining with that joyfulness, when once it came fully
nigh to him.
As he entered the dining-hall, he saw Dates retiring from
another door with his tray. Alone and meditative, by the
bared half of the polished table, sat his mother at her dessert;
fruit-baskets and a decanter were before her. On the other
leaf of the same table, still lay the cloth, folded back upon itself,
and set out with one plate and its usual accompaniments.
“Sit down, Pierre; when I came home, I was surprised to
hear that the phaeton had returned so early, and here I waited
dinner for you, until I could wait no more. But go to the green
pantry now, and get what Dates has but just put away for you
there. Heigh-ho! too plainly I foresee it—no more regular
dinner-hours, or tea-hours, or supper-hours, in Saddle Meadows,
till its young lord is wedded. And that puts me in mind of
something, Pierre; but I'll defer it till you have eaten a little.
Do you know, Pierre, that if you continue these irregular meals
of yours, and deprive me so entirely almost of your company,
that I shall run fearful risk of getting to be a terrible wine-bibber;—yes,
could you unalarmed see me sitting all alone here
with this decanter, like any old nurse, Pierre; some solitary,
forlorn old nurse, Pierre, deserted by her last friend, and therefore
forced to embrace her flask?”
“No, I did not feel any great alarm, sister,” said Pierre,
smiling, “since I could not but perceive that the decanter was
still full to the stopple.”
“Possibly it may be only a fresh decanter, Pierre;” then
changing her voice suddenly—“but mark me, Mr. Pierre Glendinning!”
“Well, Mrs. Mary Glendinning!”
“Do you know, sir, that you are very shortly to be married,
—that indeed the day is all but fixed?”
“How!” cried Pierre, in real joyful astonishment, both at the
nature of the tidings, and the earnest tones in which they were
conveyed—“dear, dear mother, you have strangely changed
your mind then, my dear mother.”
“It is even so, dear brother;—before this day month I hope
to have a little sister Tartan.”
“You talk very strangely, mother,” rejoined Pierre, quickly.
“I suppose, then, I have next to nothing to say in the matter?”
“Next to nothing, Pierre! What indeed could you say to
the purpose? what at all have you to do with it, I should like
to know? Do you so much as dream, you silly boy, that men
ever have the marrying of themselves? Juxtaposition marries
men. There is but one match-maker in the world, Pierre, and
that is Mrs. Juxtaposition, a most notorious lady!”
“Very peculiar, disenchanting sort of talk, this, under the circumstances,
sister Mary,” laying down his fork. “Mrs. Juxtaposition,
ah! And in your opinion, mother, does this fine glorious
passion only amount to that?”
“Only to that, Pierre; but mark you: according to my
creed—though this part of it is a little hazy—Mrs. Juxtaposition
moves her pawns only as she herself is moved to so doing
by the spirit.”
“Ah! that sets it all right again,” said Pierre, resuming his
fork—“my appetite returns. But what was that about my being
married so soon?” he added, vainly striving to assume an air
seems to me, sister, either you or I was but just now wandering
in the mind a little, on that subject. Are you really thinking
of any such thing? and have you really vanquished
your sagacious scruples by yourself, after I had so long and ineffectually
sought to do it for you? Well, I am a million times
delighted; tell me quick!”
“I will, Pierre. You very well know, that from the first
hour you apprised me—or rather, from a period prior to that—
from the moment that I, by my own insight, became aware of
your love for Lucy, I have always approved it. Lucy is a delicious
girl; of honorable descent, a fortune, well-bred, and the
very pattern of all that I think amiable and attractive in a girl
of seventeen.”
“Well, well, well,” cried Pierre rapidly and impetuously;
“we both knew that before.”
“Well, well, well, Pierre,” retorted his mother, mockingly.
“It is not well, well, well; but ill, ill, ill, to torture me so,
mother; go on, do!”
“But notwithstanding my admiring approval of your choice,
Pierre; yet, as you know, I have resisted your entreaties for my
consent to your speedy marriage, because I thought that a girl
of scarcely seventeen, and a boy scarcely twenty, should not be
in such a hurry;—there was plenty of time, I thought, which
could be profitably employed by both.”
“Permit me here to interrupt you, mother. Whatever you
may have seen in me; she,—I mean Lucy,—has never been in
the slightest hurry to be married;—that's all. But I shall regard
it as a lapsus-lingua in you.”
“Undoubtedly, a lapsus. But listen to me. I have been
carefully observing both you and Lucy of late; and that has
made me think further of the matter. Now, Pierre, if you
were in any profession, or in any business at all; nay, if I were
a farmer's wife, and you my child, working in my fields; why,
nothing to do but to think of Lucy by day, and dream of her
by night, and as she is in the same predicament, I suppose
with respect to you; and as the consequence of all this begins
to be discernible in a certain, just perceptible, and quite harmless
thiness, so to speak, of the cheek; but a very conspicuous
and dangerous febrileness of the eye; therefore, I choose the
lesser of two evils; and now you have my permission to be
married, as soon as the thing can be done with propriety. I
dare say you have no objection to have the wedding take place
before Christmas, the present month being the first of summer.”
Pierre said nothing; but leaping to his feet, threw his two
arms around his mother, and kissed her repeatedly.
“A most sweet and eloquent answer, Pierre; but sit down
again. I desire now to say a little concerning less attractive,
but quite necessary things connected with this affair. You
know, that by your father's will, these lands and—”
“Miss Lucy, my mistress;” said Dates, throwing open the
door.
Pierre sprang to his feet; but as if suddenly mindful of his
mother's presence, composed himself again, though he still approached
the door.
Lucy entered, carrying a little basket of strawberries.
“Why, how do you do, my dear,” said Mrs. Glendinning affectionately.
“This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“Yes; and I suppose that Pierre here is a little surprised
too; seeing that he was to call upon me this evening, and not
I upon him before sundown. But I took a sudden fancy for a
solitary stroll,—the afternoon was such a delicious one; and
chancing—it was only chancing—to pass through the Locust
Lane leading hither, I met the strangest little fellow, with this
basket in his hand.—`Yes, buy them, miss'—said he. `And
how do you know I want to buy them,' returned I, `I don't
want to buy them.'—`Yes you do, miss; they ought to be
shilling. I always want the odd half cent, I do. Come, I
can't wait, I have been expecting you long enough.'”
“A very sagacious little imp,” laughed Mrs. Glendinning.
“Impertinent little rascal,” cried Pierre.
“And am I not now the silliest of all silly girls, to be telling
you my adventures so very frankly,” smiled Lucy.
“No; but the most celestial of all innocents,” cried Pierre,
in a rhapsody of delight. “Frankly open is the flower, that
hath nothing but purity to show.”
“Now, my dear little Lucy,” said Mrs. Glendinning, “let
Pierre take off your shawl, and come now and stay to tea with
us. Pierre has put back the dinner so, the tea-hour will come
now very soon.”
“Thank you; but I can not stay this time. Look, I have
forgotten my own errand; I brought these strawberries for you,
Mrs. Glendinning, and for Pierre;—Pierre is so wonderfully
fond of them.”
“I was audacious enough to think as much,” cried Pierre,
“for you and me, you see, mother; for you and me, you understand
that, I hope.”
“Perfectly, my dear brother.”
Lucy blushed.
“How warm it is, Mrs. Glendinning.”
“Very warm, Lucy. So you won't stay to tea?”
“No, I must go now; just a little stroll, that's all; good-bye!
Now don't be following me, Pierre. Mrs. Glendinning,
will you keep Pierre back? I know you want him; you were
talking over some private affair when I entered; you both
looked so very confidential.”
“And you were not very far from right, Lucy,” said Mrs.
Glendinning, making no sign to stay her departure.
“Yes, business of the highest importance,” said Pierre, fixing
his eyes upon Lucy significantly.
At this moment, Lucy just upon the point of her departure,
was hovering near the door; the setting sun, streaming through
the window, bathed her whole form in golden loveliness and
light; that wonderful, and most vivid transparency of her clear
Welsh complexion, now fairly glowed like rosy snow. Her
flowing, white, blue-ribboned dress, fleecily invested her.
Pierre almost thought that she could only depart the house
by floating out of the open window, instead of actually stepping
from the door. All her aspect to him, was that moment
touched with an indescribable gayety, buoyancy, fragility, and
an unearthly evanescence.
Youth is no philosopher. Not into young Pierre's heart
did there then come the thought, that as the glory of the
rose endures but for a day, so the full bloom of girlish airiness
and bewitchingness, passes from the earth almost as soon; as
jealously absorbed by those frugal elements, which again incorporate
that translated girlish bloom, into the first expanding
flower-bud. Not into young Pierre, did there then steal that
thought of utmost sadness; pondering on the inevitable evanescence
of all earthly loveliness; which makes the sweetest
things of life only food for ever-devouring and omnivorous
melancholy. Pierre's thought was different from this, and yet
somehow akin to it.
This to be my wife? I that but the other day weighed an
hundred and fifty pounds of solid avoirdupois;—I to wed this
heavenly fleece? Methinks one husbandly embrace would break
her airy zone, and she exhale upward to that heaven whence
she hath hither come, condensed to mortal sight. It can not
be; I am of heavy earth, and she of airy light. By heaven,
but marriage is an impious thing!
Meanwhile, as these things ran through his soul, Mrs. Glendinning
also had thinkings of her own.
“A very beautiful tableau,” she cried, at last, artistically
turning her gay head a little sideways—“very beautiful, indeed;
Orpheus finding his Eurydice; or Pluto stealing Proserpine.
Admirable! It might almost stand for either.”
“No,” said Pierre, gravely; “it is the last. Now, first I
see a meaning there.” Yes, he added to himself inwardly, I
am Pluto stealing Proserpine; and every accepted lover is.
“And you would be very stupid, brother Pierre, if you did
not see something there,” said his mother, still that way pursuing
her own different train of thought. “The meaning
thereof is this: Lucy has commanded me to stay you; but in
reality she wants you to go along with her. Well, you may
go as far as the porch; but then, you must return, for we have
not concluded our little affair, you know. Adieu, little lady!”
There was ever a slight degree of affectionate patronizing in
the manner of the resplendent, full-blown Mrs. Glendinning,
toward the delicate and shrinking girlhood of young Lucy.
She treated her very much as she might have treated some
surpassingly beautiful and precocious child; and this was precisely
what Lucy was. Looking beyond the present period,
Mrs. Glendinning could not but perceive, that even in Lucy's
womanly maturity, Lucy would still be a child to her; because,
she, elated, felt, that in a certain intellectual vigor, so to
speak, she was the essential opposite of Lucy, whose sympathetic
mind and person had both been cast in one mould of
wondrous delicacy. But here Mrs. Glendinning was both right
and wrong. So far as she here saw a difference between herself
and Lucy Tartan, she did not err; but so far—and that
was very far—as she thought she saw her innate superiority to
her in the absolute scale of being, here she very widely and
immeasurably erred. For what may be artistically styled angelicalness,
this is the highest essence compatible with created
being; and angelicalness hath no vulgar vigor in it. And that
thing which very often prompts to the display of any vigor—
which thing, in man or woman, is at bottom nothing but ambition—this
false, that any angels fell by reason of ambition. Angels never
fall; and never feel ambition. Therefore, benevolently, and
affectionately, and all-sincerely, as thy heart, oh, Mrs. Glendinning!
now standest affected toward the fleecy Lucy; still,
lady, thou dost very sadly mistake it, when the proud, double-arches
of the bright breastplate of thy bosom, expand with
secret triumph over one, whom thou so sweetly, but still so
patronizingly stylest, The Little Lucy.
But ignorant of these further insights, that very superb-looking
lady, now waiting Pierre's return from the portico door, sat
in a very matronly revery; her eyes fixed upon the decanter of
amber-hued wine before her. Whether it was that she somehow
saw some lurking analogical similitude between that remarkably
slender, and gracefully cut little pint-decanter, brimfull
of light, golden wine, or not, there is no absolute telling
now. But really, the peculiarly, and reminiscently, and forecastingly
complacent expression of her beaming and benevolent
countenance, seemed a tell-tale of some conceit very much like
the following:—Yes, she's a very pretty little pint-decanter of
a girl: a very pretty little Pale Sherry pint-decanter of a girl;
and I—I'm a quart decanter of—of—Port—potent Port!
Now, Sherry for boys, and Port for men—so I've heard men
say; and Pierre is but a boy; but when his father wedded me,
—why, his father was turned of five-and-thirty years.
After a little further waiting for him, Mrs. Glendinning heard
Pierre's voice—“Yes, before eight o'clock at least, Lucy—no
fear;” and then the hall door banged, and Pierre returned to
her.
But now she found that this unforeseen visit of Lucy had
completely routed all business capacity in her mercurial son;
fairly capsizing him again into, there was no telling what sea
of pleasant pensiveness.
“Dear me! some other time, sister Mary.”
“Not this time; that is very certain, Pierre. Upon my
word I shall have to get Lucy kidnapped, and temporarily
taken out of the country, and you handcuffed to the table, else
there will be no having a preliminary understanding with you,
previous to calling in the lawyers. Well, I shall yet manage
you, one way or other. Good-bye, Pierre; I see you don't
want me now. I suppose I shan't see you till to-morrow morning.
Luckily, I have a very interesting book to read. Adieu!”
But Pierre remained in his chair; his gaze fixed upon the
stilly sunset beyond the meadows, and far away to the now
golden hills. A glorious, softly glorious, and most gracious
evening, which seemed plainly a tongue to all humanity, saying:
I go down in beauty to rise in joy; Love reigns throughout
all worlds that sunsets visit; it is a foolish ghost story;
there is no such thing as misery. Would Love, which is omnipotent,
have misery in his domain? Would the god of sunlight
decree gloom? It is a flawless, speckless, fleckless, beautiful
world throughout; joy now, and joy forever!
Then the face, which before had seemed mournfully and reproachfully
looking out upon him from the effulgent sunset's
heart; the face slid from him; and left alone there with his
soul's joy, thinking that that very night he would utter the
magic word of marriage to his Lucy; not a happier youth than
Pierre Glendinning sat watching that day's sun go down.
IV.
After this morning of gayety, this noon of tragedy, and this
evening so full of chequered pensiveness; Pierre now possessed
his soul in joyful mildness and steadfastness; feeling none of
that wild anguish of anticipative rapture, which, in weaker
minds, too often dislodges Love's sweet bird from her nest.
The early night was warm, but dark—for the moon was not
risen yet—and as Pierre passed on beneath the pendulous canopies
of the long arms of the weeping elms of the village, an
almost impenetrable blackness surrounded him, but entered not
the gently illuminated halls of his heart. He had not gone
very far, when in the distance beyond, he noticed a light moving
along the opposite side of the road, and slowly approaching.
As it was the custom for some of the more elderly, and
perhaps timid inhabitants of the village, to carry a lantern
when going abroad of so dark a night, this object conveyed no
impression of novelty to Pierre; still, as it silently drew nearer
and nearer, the one only distinguishable thing before him, he
somehow felt a nameless presentiment that the light must be
seeking him. He had nearly gained the cottage door, when
the lantern crossed over toward him; and as his nimble hand
was laid at last upon the little wicket-gate, which he thought
was now to admit him to so much delight; a heavy hand was
laid upon himself, and at the same moment, the lantern was
lifted toward his face, by a hooded and obscure-looking figure,
whose half-averted countenance he could but indistinctly discern.
But Pierre's own open aspect, seemed to have been
quickly scrutinized by the other.
“I have a letter for Pierre Glendinning,” said the stranger,
“and I believe this is he.” At the same moment, a letter was
drawn forth, and sought his hand.
“For me!” exclaimed Pierre, faintly, starting at the strangeness
of the encounter;—“methinks this is an odd time and
place to deliver your mail;—who are you?—Stay!”
But without waiting an answer, the messenger had already
turned about, and was re-crossing the road. In the first impulse
of the moment, Pierre stept forward, and would have
pursued him; but smiling at his own causeless curiosity and
trepidation, paused again; and softly turned over the letter in
his hand. What mysterious correspondent is this, thought he,
but from abroad; and their letters come through the office;
and as for Lucy—pooh!—when she herself is within, she would
hardly have her notes delivered at her own gate. Strange!
but I'll in, and read it;—no, not that;—I come to read again
in her own sweet heart—that dear missive to me from heaven,
—and this impertinent letter would pre-occupy me. I'll wait
till I go home.
He entered the gate, and laid his hand upon the cottage
knocker. Its sudden coolness caused a slight, and, at any other
time, an unaccountable sympathetic sensation in his hand. To
his unwonted mood, the knocker seemed to say—“Enter not!
—Begone, and first read thy note.”
Yielding now, half alarmed, and half bantering with himself,
to these shadowy interior monitions, he half-unconsciously
quitted the door; repassed the gate; and soon found himself
retracing his homeward path.
He equivocated with himself no more; the gloom of the air
had now burst into his heart, and extinguished its light; then,
first in all his life, Pierre felt the irresistible admonitions and
intuitions of Fate.
He entered the hall unnoticed, passed up to his chamber,
and hurriedly locking the door in the dark, lit his lamp. As
the summoned flame illuminated the room, Pierre, standing
before the round center-table, where the lamp was placed, with
his hand yet on the brass circle which regulated the wick,
started at a figure in the opposite mirror. It bore the outline
of Pierre, but now strangely filled with features transformed,
and unfamiliar to him; feverish eagerness, fear, and nameless
forebodings of ill! He threw himself into a chair, and for a
time vainly struggled with the incomprehensible power that
possessed him. Then, as he avertedly drew the letter from
his bosom, he whispered to himself—Out on thee, Pierre! how
sheepish now will ye feel when this tremendous note will turn
fool, and write the stereotyped reply: Mr. Pierre Glendinning
will be very happy to accept Miss so and so's polite invitation.
Still for the moment he held the letter averted. The messenger
had so hurriedly accosted him, and delivered his duty,
that Pierre had not yet so much as gained one glance at the
superscription of the note. And now the wild thought passed
through his mind of what would be the result, should he deliberately
destroy the note, without so much as looking at the
hand that had addressed it. Hardly had this half-crazy conceit
fully made itself legible in his soul, when he was conscious
of his two hands meeting in the middle of the sundered note!
He leapt from his chair—By heaven! he murmured, unspeakably
shocked at the intensity of that mood which had caused
him unwittingly as it were, to do for the first time in his whole
life, an act of which he was privately ashamed. Though the
mood that was on him was none of his own willful seeking;
yet now he swiftly felt conscious that he had perhaps a little
encouraged it, through that certain strange infatuation of fondness,
which the human mind, however vigorous, sometimes
feels for any emotion at once novel and mystical. Not willingly,
at such times—never mind how fearful we may be—do
we try to dissolve the spell which seems, for the time, to
admit us, all astonished, into the vague vestibule of the spiritual
worlds.
Pierre now seemed distinctly to feel two antagonistic agencies
within him; one of which was just struggling into his
consciousness, and each of which was striving for the mastery;
and between whose respective final ascendencies, he thought he
could perceive, though but shadowly, that he himself was to be
the only umpire. One bade him finish the selfish destruction
of the note; for in some dark way the reading of it would irretrievably
entangle his fate. The other bade him dismiss all
misgivings; not because there was no possible ground for
mind what might betide. This good angel seemed mildly to
say—Read, Pierre, though by reading thou may'st entangle
thyself, yet may'st thou thereby disentangle others. Read,
and feel that best blessedness which, with the sense of all duties
discharged, holds happiness indifferent. The bad angel insinuatingly
breathed—Read it not, dearest Pierre; but destroy it,
and be happy. Then, at the blast of his noble heart, the bad
angel shrunk up into nothingness; and the good one defined
itself clearer and more clear, and came nigher and more nigh
to him, smiling sadly but benignantly; while forth from the
infinite distances wonderful harmonies stole into his heart; so
that every vein in him pulsed to some heavenly swell.
V.
“The name at the end of this letter will be wholly strange
to thee. Hitherto my existence has been utterly unknown
to thee. This letter will touch thee and pain thee. Willingly
would I spare thee, but I can not. My heart bears me
witness, that did I think that the suffering these lines would
give thee, would, in the faintest degree, compare with what
mine has been, I would forever withhold them.
Pierre Glendinning, thou art not the only child of thy father;
in the eye of the sun, the hand that traces this is thy sister's;
yes, Pierre, Isabel calls thee her brother—her brother! oh,
sweetest of words, which so often I have thought to myself,
and almost deemed it profanity for an outcast like me to speak
or think. Dearest Pierre, my brother, my own father's child!
art thou an angel, that thou canst overleap all the heartless
usages and fashions of a banded world, that will call thee fool,
fool, fool! and curse thee, if thou yieldest to that heavenly impulse
and now at last unquenchable yearnings of my bursting
heart? Oh, my brother!
But, Pierre Glendinning, I will be proud with thee. Let not
my hapless condition extinguish in me, the nobleness which I
equally inherit with thee. Thou shalt not be cozened, by my
tears and my anguish, into any thing which thy most sober hour
will repent. Read no further. It it suit thee, burn this letter;
so shalt thou escape the certainly of that knowledge, which, if
thou art now cold and selfish, may hereafter, in some maturer,
remorseful, and helpless hour, cause thee a poignant upbraiding.
No, I shall not, I will not implore thee.—Oh, my brother,
my dear, dear Pierre,—help me, fly to me; see, I perish without
thee;—pity, pity—here I freeze in the wide, wide world;
—no father, no mother, no sister, no brother, no living thing in
the fair form of humanity, that holds me dear. No more, oh
no more, dear Pierre, can I endure to be an outcast in the
world, for which the dear Savior died. Fly to me, Pierre;—
nay, I could tear what I now write,—as I have torn so many
other sheets, all written for thy eye, but which never reached
thee, because in my distraction, I knew not how to write to
thee, nor what to say to thee; and so, behold again how I
rave.
Nothing more; I will write no more;—silence becomes this
grave;—the heart-sickness steals over me, Pierre, my brother.
Scarce know I what I have written. Yet will I write thee
the fatal line, and leave all the rest to thee, Pierre, my brother.
—She that is called Isabel Banford dwells in the little red farm-house,
three miles from the village, on the slope toward the
lake. To-morrow night-fall—not before—not by day, not by
day, Pierre.
Thy Sister, Isabel.”
VI.
This letter, inscribed in a feminine, but irregular hand, and
in some places almost illegible, plainly attesting the state of the
mind which had dictated it;—stained, too, here and there, with
spots of tears, which chemically acted upon by the ink, assumed
a strange and reddish hue—as if blood and not tears had dropped
upon the sheet;—and so completely torn in two by Pierre's
own hand, that it indeed seemed the fit scroll of a torn, as well
as bleeding heart;—this amazing letter, deprived Pierre for the
time of all lucid and definite thought or feeling. He hung
half-lifeless in his chair; his hand, clutching the letter, was
pressed against his heart, as if some assassin had stabbed him
and fled; and Pierre was now holding the dagger in the wound,
to stanch the outgushing of the blood.
Ay, Pierre, now indeed art thou hurt with a wound, never to
be completely healed but in heaven; for thee, the before undistrusted
moral beauty of the world is forever fled; for thee, thy
sacred father is no more a saint; all brightness hath gone from
thy hills, and all peace from thy plains; and now, now, for the
first time, Pierre, Truth rolls a black billow through thy soul!
Ah, miserable thou, to whom Truth, in her first tides, bears
nothing but wrecks!
The perceptible forms of things; the shapes of thoughts; the
pulses of life, but slowly came back to Pierre. And as the
mariner, shipwrecked and cast on the beach, has much ado to
escape the recoil of the wave that hurled him there; so Pierre
long struggled, and struggled, to escape the recoil of that anguish,
which had dashed him out of itself, upon the beach of
his swoon.
But man was not made to succumb to the villain Woe.
Youth is not young and a wrestler in vain. Pierre staggeringly
in a tremble.
“Myself am left, at least,” he slowly and half-chokingly
murmured. “With myself I front thee! Unhand me all
fears, and unlock me all spells! Henceforth I will know
nothing but Truth; glad Truth, or sad Truth; I will know
what is, and do what my deepest angel dictates.—The letter!—
Isabel,—sister,—brother,—me, me—my sacred father!—This
is some accursed dream!—nay, but this paper thing is forged,
—a base and malicious forgery, I swear;—Well didst thou hide
thy face from me, thou vile lanterned messenger, that didst
accost me on the threshold of Joy, with this lying warrant of
Woe! Doth Truth come in the dark, and steal on us, and rob
us so, and then depart, deaf to all pursuing invocations? If
this night, which now wraps my soul, be genuine as that which
now wraps this half of the world; then Fate, I have a choice
quarrel with thee. Thou art a palterer and a cheat; thou hast
lured me on through gay gardens to a gulf. Oh! falsely guided
in the days of my Joy, am I now truly led in this night of my
grief?—I will be a raver, and none shall stay me! I will lift
my hand in fury, for am I not struck? I will be bitter in my
breath, for is not this cup of gall? Thou Black Knight, that
with visor down, thus confrontest me, and mockest at me;
Lo! I strike through thy helm, and will see thy face, be it
Gorgon!—Let me go, ye fond affections; all piety leave me;—
I will be impious, for piety hath juggled me, and taught me to
revere, where I should spurn. From all idols, I tear all veils;
henceforth I will see the hidden things; and live right out in
my own hidden life?—Now I feel that nothing but Truth can
move me so. This letter is not a forgery. Oh! Isabel, thou
art my sister; and I will love thee, and protect thee, ay, and
own thee through all. Ah! forgive me, ye heavens, for my
ignorant ravings, and accept this my vow.—Here I swear myself
Isabel's. Oh! thou poor castaway girl, that in loneliness
have only inhaled for delight; thou who must even now be
weeping, and weeping, cast into an ocean of uncertainty as to
thy fate, which heaven hath placed in my hands; sweet Isabel!
would I not be baser than brass, and harder, and colder than
ice, if I could be insensible to such claims as thine? Thou
movest before me, in rainbows spun of thy tears! I see thee
long weeping, and God demands me for thy comforter; and
comfort thee, stand by thee, and fight for thee, will thy leapingly-acknowledging
brother, whom thy own father named
Pierre!”
He could not stay in his chamber: the house contracted to a
nut-shell around him; the walls smote his forehead; bare-headed
he rushed from the place, and only in the infinite air,
found scope for that boundless expansion of his life.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |