 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
11. BOOK XI.
HE CROSSES THE RUBICON.
I.
Sucked within the Maelstrom, man must go round. Strike
at one end the longest conceivable row of billiard balls in close
contact, and the furthermost ball will start forth, while all the
rest stand still; and yet that last ball was not struck at all.
So, through long previous generations, whether of births or
thoughts, Fate strikes the present man. Idly he disowns the
blow's effect, because he felt no blow, and indeed, received no
blow. But Pierre was not arguing Fixed Fate and Free Will,
now; Fixed Fate and Free Will were arguing him, and Fixed
Fate got the better in the debate.
The peculiarities of those influences which on the night and
early morning following the last interview with Isabel, persuaded
Pierre to the adoption of his final resolve, did now
irresistibly impel him to a remarkable instantaneousness in his
actions, even as before he had proved a lagger.
Without being consciously that way pointed, through the
desire of anticipating any objections on the part of Isabel to
the assumption of a marriage between himself and her; Pierre
was now impetuously hurried into an act, which should have
the effective virtue of such an executed intention, without its
corresponding motive. Because, as the primitive resolve so
his mind; and hence, because he felt all eagerness to hold her
no longer in suspence, but by a certain sort of charity of
cruelty, at once to pronounce to her her fate; therefore, it was
among his first final thoughts that morning to go to Lucy.
And to this, undoubtedly, so trifling a circumstance as her
being nearer to him, geographically, than Isabel, must have
contributed some added, though unconscious influence, in his
present fateful frame of mind.
On the previous undetermined days, Pierre had solicitously
sought to disguise his emotions from his mother, by a certain
carefulness and choiceness in his dress. But now, since his
very soul was forced to wear a mask, he would wear no paltry
palliatives and disguisements on his body. He went to the
cottage of Lucy as disordered in his person, as haggard in his
face.
II.
She was not risen yet. So, the strange imperious instantaneousness
in him, impelled him to go straight to her chamber-door,
and in a voice of mild invincibleness, demand immediate
audience, for the matter pressed.
Already namelessly concerned and alarmed for her lover,
now eight-and-forty hours absent on some mysterious and undisclosable
affair; Lucy, at this surprising summons was overwhelmed
with sudden terror; and in oblivion of all ordinary
proprieties, responded to Pierre's call, by an immediate assent.
Opening the door, he advanced slowly and deliberately
toward her; and as Lucy caught his pale determined figure,
she gave a cry of groping misery, which knew not the pang
that caused it, and lifted herself trembling in her bed; but
without uttering one word.
Pierre sat down on the bedside; and his set eyes met her
terrified and virgin aspect.
“Decked in snow-white, and pale of cheek, thou indeed art
fitted for the altar; but not that one of which thy fond heart
did'st dream:—so fair a victim!”
“Pierre!”
“'Tis the last cruelty of tyrants to make their enemies slay
each other.”
“My heart! my heart!”
“Nay;—Lucy, I am married.”
The girl was no more pale, but white as any leper; the bed-clothes
trembled to the concealed shudderings of all her limbs;
one moment she sat looking vacantly into the blank eyes of
Pierre, and then fell over toward him in a swoon.
Swift madness mounted into the brain of Pierre; all the
past seemed as a dream, and all the present an unintelligible
horror. He lifted her, and extended her motionless form upon
the bed, and stamped for succor. The maid Martha came running
into the room, and beholding those two inexplicable figures,
shrieked, and turned in terror. But Pierre's repeated cry
rallied Martha from this, and darting out of the chamber, she
returned with a sharp restorative, which at length brought Lucy
back to life.
“Martha! Martha!” now murmured Lucy, in a scarce audible
whispering, and shuddering in the maid's own shuddering
arms, “quick, quick; come to me—drive it away! wake me!
wake me!”
“Nay, pray God to sleep again,” cried Martha, bending over
her and embracing her, and half-turning upon Pierre with a
glance of loathing indignation. “In God's holy name, sir, what
may this be? How came you here; accursed!”
“Accursed?—it is well. Is she herself again, Martha?”
“Thou hast somehow murdered her; how then be herself
me! tell me!” and she bent low over her.
Pierre now advanced toward the bed, making a gesture for
the maid to leave them; but soon as Lucy re-caught his haggard
form, she whisperingly wailed again, “Martha! Martha!
drive it away!—there—there! him—him!” and shut her eyes
convulsively, with arms abhorrently outstretched.
“Monster! incomprehensible fiend!” cried the anew terrorsmitten
maid—“depart! See! she dies away at the sight of
thee—begone! Wouldst thou murder her afresh? Begone!”
Starched and frozen by his own emotion, Pierre silently
turned and quitted the chamber; and heavily descending the
stairs, tramped heavily—as a man slowly bearing a great burden
—through a long narrow passage leading to a wing in the rear
of the cottage, and knocking at Miss Lanyllyn's door, summoned
her to Lucy, who, he briefly said, had fainted. Then,
without waiting for any response, left the house, and went directly
to the mansion.
III.
“Is my mother up yet?” said he to Dates, whom he met in
the hall.
“Not yet, sir;—heavens, sir! are you sick?”
“To death! Let me pass.”
Ascending toward his mother's chamber, he heard a coming
step, and met her on the great middle landing of the stairs,
where in an ample niche, a marble group of the temple-polluting
Laocoon and his two innocent children, caught in inextricable
snarls of snakes, writhed in eternal torments.
“Mother, go back with me to thy chamber.”
She eyed his sudden presence with a dark but repressed foreboding;
quivering lip, said, “Pierre, thou thyself hast denied me thy
confidence, and thou shalt not force me back to it so easily.
Speak! what is that now between thee and me?”
“I am married, mother.”
“Great God! To whom?”
“Not to Lucy Tartan, mother.”
“That thou merely sayest 'tis not Lucy, without saying who
indeed it is, this is good proof she is something vile. Does
Lucy know thy marriage?”
“I am but just from Lucy's.”
Thus far Mrs. Glendinning's rigidity had been slowly relaxing.
Now she clutched the balluster, bent over, and trembled,
for a moment. Then erected all her haughtiness again, and
stood before Pierre in incurious, unappeasable grief and scorn
for him.
“My dark soul prophesied something dark. If already thou
hast not found other lodgment, and other table than this house
supplies, then seek it straight. Beneath my roof, and at my
table, he who was once Pierre Glendinning no more puts himself.”
She turned from him, and with a tottering step climbed the
winding stairs, and disappeared from him; while in the balluster
he held, Pierre seemed to feel the sudden thrill running
down to him from his mother's convulsive grasp.
He stared about him with an idiot eye; staggered to the
floor below, to dumbly quit the house; but as he crossed its
threshold, his foot tripped upon its raised ledge; he pitched forward
upon the stone portico, and fell. He seemed as jeeringly
hurled from beneath his own ancestral roof.
IV.
Passing through the broad court-yard's postern, Pierre
closed it after him, and then turned and leaned upon it, his
eyes fixed upon the great central chimney of the mansion,
from which a light blue smoke was wreathing gently into the
morning air.
“The hearth-stone from which thou risest, never more, I inly
feel, will these feet press. Oh God, what callest thou that which
has thus made Pierre a vagabond?”
He walked slowly away, and passing the windows of Lucy,
looked up, and saw the white curtains closely drawn, the
white-cottage profoundly still, and a white saddle-horse tied before
the gate.
“I would enter, but again would her abhorrent wails repel;
what more can I now say or do to her? I can not explain.
She knows all I purposed to disclose. Ay, but thou didst
cruelly burst upon her with it; thy impetuousness, thy instantaneousness
hath killed her, Pierre!—Nay, nay, nay!—Cruel
tidings who can gently break? If to stab be inevitable; then
instant be the dagger! Those curtains are close drawn upon
her; so let me upon her sweet image draw the curtains of my
soul. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, thou angel!—wake no more
to Pierre, nor to thyself, my Lucy!”
Passing on now hurriedly and blindly, he jostled against
some oppositely-going wayfarer. The man paused amazed;
and looking up, Pierre recognized a domestic of the Mansion.
That instantaneousness which now impelled him in all his
actions, again seized the ascendency in him. Ignoring the dismayed
expression of the man at thus encountering his young
master, Pierre commanded him to follow him. Going straight
to the “Black Swan,” the little village Inn, he entered the first
of the house, and ordered pen and paper.
If fit opportunity offer in the hour of unusual affliction, minds
of a certain temperament find a strange, hysterical relief, in a
wild, perverse humorousness, the more alluring from its entire
unsuitableness to the occasion; although they seldom manifest
this trait toward those individuals more immediately involved
in the cause or the effect of their suffering. The cool censoriousness
of the mere philosopher would denominate such conduct
as nothing short of temporary madness; and perhaps it is,
since, in the inexorable and inhuman eye of mere undiluted reason,
all grief, whether on our own account, or that of others,
is the sheerest unreason and insanity.
The note now written was the following:
“For that Fine Old Fellow, Dates.
“Dates, my old boy, bestir thyself now. Go to my room,
Dates, and bring me down my mahogany strong-box and lockup,
the thing covered with blue chintz; strap it very carefully,
my sweet Dates, it is rather heavy, and set it just without the
postern. Then back and bring me down my writing-desk, and
set that, too, just without the postern. Then back yet again,
and bring me down the old camp-bed (see that all the parts be
there), and bind the case well with a cord. Then go to the left
corner little drawer in my wardrobe, and thou wilt find my visiting-cards.
Tack one on the chest, and the desk, and the
camp-bed case. Then get all my clothes together, and pack
them in trunks (not forgetting the two old military cloaks,
my boy), and tack cards on them also, my good Dates. Then
fly round three times indefinitely, my good Dates, and wipe a
little of the perspiration off. And then—let me see—then, my
good Dates—why what then? Why, this much. Pick up all
papers of all sorts that may be lying round my chamber, and
the lightest farm-wagon, and send the chest, and the desk, and
the camp-bed, and the trunks to the `Black Swan,' where I
shall call for them, when I am ready, and not before, sweet
Dates. So God bless thee, my fine, old, imperturbable Dates,
and adieu!
possibly interrupt thee, say that it is my orders, and mention
what it is I send for; but on no account show this to thy mistress—D'ye
hear? Pierre again.”
Folding this scrawl into a grotesque shape, Pierre ordered
the man to take it forthwith to Dates. But the man, all perplexed,
hesitated, turning the billet over in his hand; till Pierre
loudly and violently bade him begone; but as the man was
then rapidly departing in a panic, Pierre called him back and
retracted his rude words; but as the servant now lingered
again, perhaps thinking to avail himself of this repentant mood
in Pierre, to say something in sympathy or remonstrance to
him, Pierre ordered him off with augmented violence, and
stamped for him to begone.
Apprising the equally perplexed old landlord that certain
things would in the course of that forenoon be left for him,
(Pierre,) at the Inn; and also desiring him to prepare a chamber
for himself and wife that night; some chamber with a commodious
connecting room, which might answer for a dressing-room;
and likewise still another chamber for a servant; Pierre
departed the place, leaving the old landlord staring vacantly
at him, and dumbly marveling what horrible thing had happened
to turn the brain of his fine young favorite and old
shooting comrade, Master Pierre.
Soon the short old man went out bare-headed upon the low
middle of the road, gazing after Pierre. And only as Pierre
turned up a distant lane, did his amazement and his solicitude
find utterance.
“I taught him—yes, old Casks;—the best shot in all the
country round is Master Pierre;—pray God he hits not now
the bull's eye in himself.—Married? married? and coming
here?—This is pesky strange!
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |