 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
V.
If, when the mind roams up and down in the ever-elastic
regions of evanescent invention, any definite form or feature can
be assigned to the multitudinous shapes it creates out of the
incessant dissolvings of its own prior creations; then might we
here attempt to hold and define the least shadowy of those
reasons, which about the period of adolescence we now treat of,
more frequently occurred to Pierre, whenever he essayed to account
for his mother's remarkable distaste for the portrait. Yet
will we venture one sketch.
Yes—sometimes dimly thought Pierre—who knows but
cousin Ralph, after all, may have been not so very far from
the truth, when he surmised that at one time my father did
indeed cherish some passing emotion for the beautiful young
Frenchwoman. And this portrait being painted at that precise
time, and indeed with the precise purpose of perpetuating
some shadowy testification of the fact in the countenance of
the original: therefore, its expression is not congenial, is not
familiar, is not altogether agreeable to my mother: because,
not only did my father's features never look so to her (since it
was afterward that she first became acquainted with him), but
also, that certain womanliness of women; that thing I should
perhaps call a tender jealousy, a fastidious vanity, in any other
lady, enables her to perceive that the glance of the face in the
portrait, is not, in some nameless way, dedicated to herself, but
to some other and unknown object; and therefore, is she impatient
of it, and it is repelling to her; for she must naturally
is not in some way connected with her own recollections of
him.
Whereas, the larger and more expansive portrait in the
great drawing-room, taken in the prime of life; during the
best and rosiest days of their wedded union; at the particular
desire of my mother; and by a celebrated artist of her own
election, and costumed after her own taste; and on all hands
considered to be, by those who know, a singularly happy likeness
at the period; a belief spiritually reinforced by my own
dim infantile remembrances; for all these reasons, this drawing-room
portrait possesses an inestimable charm to her; there,
she indeed beholds her husband as he had really appeared to
her; she does not vacantly gaze upon an unfamiliar phantom
called up from the distant, and, to her, well-nigh fabulous days
of my father's bachelor life. But in that other portrait, she
sees rehearsed to her fond eyes, the latter tales and legends of
his devoted wedded love. Yes, I think now that I plainly see
it must be so. And yet, ever new conceits come vaporing up
in me, as I look on the strange chair-portrait: which, though
so very much more unfamiliar to me, than it can possibly be
to my mother, still sometimes seems to say—Pierre, believe
not the drawing-room painting; that is not thy father; or, at
least, is not all of thy father. Consider in thy mind, Pierre,
whether we two paintings may not make only one. Faithful
wives are ever over-fond to a certain imaginary image of their
husbands; and faithful widows are ever over-reverential to a
certain imagined ghost of that same imagined image, Pierre.
Look again, I am thy father as he more truly was. In mature
life, the world overlays and varnishes us, Pierre; the thousand
proprieties and polished finenesses and grimaces intervene,
Pierre; then, we, as it were, abdicate ourselves, and take unto
us another self, Pierre; in youth we are, Pierre, but in age we
seem. Look again. I am thy real father, so much the more
their young children, fathers are not wont to unfold themselves
entirely, Pierre. There are a thousand and one odd little
youthful peccadilloes, that we think we may as well not divulge
to them, Pierre. Consider this strange, ambiguous smile,
Pierre; more narrowly regard this mouth. Behold, what is
this too ardent and, as it were, unchastened light in these eyes,
Pierre? I am thy father, boy. There was once a certain, oh,
but too lovely young Frenchwoman, Pierre. Youth is hot,
and temptation strong, Pierre; and in the minutest moment
momentous things are irrevocably done, Pierre; and Time
sweeps on, and the thing is not always carried down by its
stream, but may be left stranded on its bank; away beyond,
in the young, green countries, Pierre. Look again. Doth thy
mother dislike me for naught? Consider. Do not all her
spontaneous, loving impressions, ever strive to magnify, and
spiritualize, and deify, her husband's memory, Pierre? Then
why doth she cast despite upon me; and never speak to thee
of me; and why dost thou thyself keep silence before her,
Pierre? Consider. Is there no little mystery here? Probe
a little, Pierre. Never fear, never fear. No matter for thy
father now. Look, do I not smile?—yes, and with an unchangeable
smile; and thus have I unchangeably smiled for
many long years gone by, Pierre. Oh, it is a permanent
smile! Thus I smiled to cousin Ralph; and thus in thy dear
old Aunt Dorothea's parlor, Pierre; and just so, I smile here to
thee, and even thus in thy father's later life, when his body
may have been in grief, still—hidden away in Aunt Dorothea's
secretary—I thus smiled as before; and just so I'd smile were
I now hung up in the deepest dungeon of the Spanish Inquisition,
Pierre; though suspended in outer darkness, still would
I smile with this smile, though then not a soul should be near.
Consider; for a smile is the chosen vehicle for all ambiguities,
Pierre. When we would deceive, we smile; when we are
gratifying our own sweet little appetites, Pierre; then watch
us, and out comes the odd little smile. Once upon a time,
there was a lovely young Frenchwoman, Pierre. Have you
carefully, and analytically, and psychologically, and metaphysically,
considered her belongings and surroundings, and all her
incidentals, Pierre? Oh, a strange sort of story, that, thy dear
old Aunt Dorothea once told thee, Pierre. I once knew a
credulous old soul, Pierre. Probe, probe a little—see—there
seems one little crack there, Pierre—a wedge, a wedge. Something
ever comes of all persistent inquiry; we are not so continually
curious for nothing, Pierre; not for nothing, do we so
intrigue and become wily diplomatists, and glozers with our
own minds, Pierre; and afraid of following the Indian trail
from the open plain into the dark thickets, Pierre; but enough;
a word to the wise.
Thus sometimes in the mystical, outer quietude of the long
country nights; either when the hushed mansion was banked
round by the thick-fallen December snows, or banked round
by the immovable white August moonlight; in the haunted
repose of a wide story, tenanted only by himself; and sentineling
his own little closet; and standing guard, as it were,
before the mystical tent of the picture; and ever watching the
strangely concealed lights of the meanings that so mysteriously
moved to and fro within; thus sometimes stood Pierre before
the portrait of his father, unconsciously throwing himself open
to all those ineffable hints and ambiguities, and undefined half-suggestions,
which now and then people the soul's atmosphere,
as thickly as in a soft, steady snow-storm, the snow-flakes
people the air. Yet as often starting from these reveries and
trances, Pierre would regain the assured element of consciously
bidden and self-propelled thought; and then in a moment the
air all cleared, not a snow-flake descended, and Pierre, upbraiding
himself for his self-indulgent infatuation, would promise
of his father. Nor did the streams of these reveries seem
to leave any conscious sediment in his mind; they were so
light and so rapid, that they rolled their own alluvial along;
and seemed to leave all Pierre's thought-channels as clean
and dry as though never any alluvial stream had rolled there
at all.
And so still in his sober, cherishing memories, his father's
beatification remained untouched; and all the strangeness of
the portrait only served to invest his idea with a fine, legendary
romance; the essence whereof was that very mystery,
which at other times was so subtly and evilly significant.
But now, now!—Isabel's letter read: swift as the first light
that slides from the sun, Pierre saw all preceding ambiguities,
all mysteries ripped open as if with a keen sword, and forth
trooped thickening phantoms of an infinite gloom. Now his
remotest infantile reminiscences—the wandering mind of his
father—the empty hand, and the ashen—the strange story of
Aunt Dorothea—the mystical midnight suggestions of the portrait
itself; and, above all, his mother's intuitive aversion, all,
all overwhelmed him with reciprocal testimonies.
And now, by irresistible intuitions, all that had been inexplicably
mysterious to him in the portrait, and all that
had been inexplicably familiar in the face, most magically
these now coincided; the merriness of the one not inharmonious
with the mournfulness of the other, but by some ineffable
correlativeness, they reciprocally identified each other,
and, as it were, melted into each other, and thus interpenetratingly
uniting, presented lineaments of an added supernaturalness.
On all sides, the physical world of solid objects now slidingly
displaced itself from around him, and he floated into an
ether of visions; and, starting to his feet with clenched hands
and outstaring eyes at the transfixed face in the air, he ejaculated
mutually absorbing shapes in the Inferno:
Agnello! See! thou art not double now,
Nor only one!”
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |