University of Virginia Library

19. XIX.
ZENOBIA'S DRAWING-ROOM.

The remainder of the day, so far as I was concerned,
was spent in meditating on these recent incidents. I
contrived, and alternately rejected, innumerable methods
of accounting for the presence of Zenobia and Priscilla,
and the connection of Westervelt with both. It must
be owned, too, that I had a keen, revengeful sense of
the insult inflicted by Zenobia's scornful recognition,
and more particularly by her letting down the curtain;
as if such were the proper barrier to be interposed
between a character like hers and a perceptive faculty
like mine. For, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity?
Zenobia should have known me better than to suppose
it. She should have been able to appreciate that quality
of the intellect and the heart which impelled me (often
against my own will, and to the detriment of my own
comfort) to live in other lives, and to endeavor — by
generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions, by taking
note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my
human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions
whom God assigned me — to learn the secret which
was hidden even from themselves.

Of all possible observers, methought a woman like
Zenobia and a man like Hollingsworth should have
selected me. And, now, when the event has long been
past, I retain the same opinion of my fitness for the

office. True, I might have condemned them. Had I
been judge, as well as witness, my sentence might have
been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait
of original nobility of character, no struggle against
temptation, — no iron necessity of will, on the one hand,
nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion
and despair, on the other,—no remorse that might coëxist
with error, even if powerless to prevent it, — no proud
repentance that should claim retribution as a meed, —
would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my
full assent to the punishment which was sure to follow.
But it would be given mournfully, and with undiminished
love. And, after all was finished, I would come,
as if to gather up the white ashes of those who had perished
at the stake, and to tell the world — the wrong
being now atoned for — how much had perished there
which it had never yet known how to praise.

I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from
the window to expose myself to another rebuke like
that already inflicted. My eyes still wandered towards
the opposite house, but without effecting any new discoveries.
Late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the
church-spire indicated a change of wind; the sun shone
dimly out, as if the golden wine of its beams were mingled
half-and-half with water. Nevertheless, they kindled
up the whole range of edifices, threw a glow over
the windows, glistened on the wet roofs, and, slowly
withdrawing upward, perched upon the chimney-tops;
thence they took a higher flight, and lingered an instant
on the tip of the spire, making it the final point of more
cheerful light in the whole sombre scene. The next
moment, it was all gone. The twilight fell into the

area like a shower of dusky snow; and before it was
quite dark, the gong of the hotel summoned me to tea.

When I returned to my chamber, the glow of an
astral-lamp was penetrating mistily through the white
curtain of Zenobia's drawing-room. The shadow of a
passing figure was now and then cast upon this medium,
but with too vague an outline for even my adventurous
conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented.

All at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was
my behavior, in thus tormenting myself with crazy
hypotheses as to what was going on within that drawing-room,
when it was at my option to be personally present
there. My relations with Zenobia, as yet unchanged, —
as a familiar friend, and associated in the same life-long
enterprise, — gave me the right, and made it no more
than kindly courtesy demanded, to call on her. Nothing,
except our habitual independence of conventional
rules at Blithedale, could have kept me from sooner
recognizing this duty. At all events, it should now be
performed.

In compliance with this sudden impulse, I soon found
myself actually within the house, the rear of which, for
two days past, I had been so sedulously watching. A
servant took my card, and immediately returning, ushered
me up stairs. On the way, I heard a rich, and, as
it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in which
I felt Zenobia's character, although heretofore I had
known nothing of her skill upon the instrument. Two
or three canary-birds, excited by this gush of sound,
sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce a kindred
melody. A bright illumination streamed through
the door of the front drawing-room; and I had barely

stept across the threshold before Zenobia came forward
to meet me, laughing, and with an extended hand.

“Ah, Mr. Coverdale,” said she, still smiling, but, as I
thought, with a good deal of scornful anger underneath,
“it has gratified me to see the interest which you continue
to take in my affairs! I have long recognized
you as a sort of transcendental Yankee, with all the
native propensity of your countrymen to investigate
matters that come within their range, but rendered
almost poetical, in your case, by the refined methods
which you adopt for its gratification. After all, it was
an unjustifiable stroke, on my part, — was it not? — to
let down the window-curtain!”

“I cannot call it a very wise one,” returned I, with a
secret bitterness, which, no doubt, Zenobia appreciated.
“It is really impossible to hide anything, in this world,
to say nothing of the next. All that we ought to ask,
therefore, is, that the witnesses of our conduct, and the
speculators on our motives, should be capable of taking
the highest view which the circumstances of the case
may admit. So much being secured, I, for one, would
be most happy in feeling myself followed everywhere
by an indefatigable human sympathy.”

“We must trust for intelligent sympathy to our
guardian angels, if any there be,” said Zenobia. “As
long as the only spectator of my poor tragedy is a
young man at the window of his hotel, I must still
claim the liberty to drop the curtain.”

While this passed, as Zenobia's hand was extended, I
had applied the very slightest touch of my fingers to
her own. In spite of an external freedom, her manner
made me sensible that we stood upon no real terms of

confidence. The thought came sadly across me, how
great was the contrast betwixt this interview and our
first meeting. Then, in the warm light of the country
fireside, Zenobia had greeted me cheerily and hopefully,
with a full, sisterly grasp of the hand, conveying as much
kindness in it as other women could have evinced by
the pressure of both arms around my neck, or by yielding
a cheek to the brotherly salute. The difference was
as complete as between her appearance at that time, — so
simply attired, and with only the one superb flower in her
hair, — and now, when her beauty was set off by all that
dress and ornament could do for it. And they did much.
Not, indeed, that they created or added anything to what
Nature had lavishly done for Zenobia. But, those
costly robes which she had on, those flaming jewels on
her neck, served as lamps to display the personal advantages
which required nothing less than such an illumination
to be fully seen. Even her characteristic flower,
though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold
and bright transfiguration; it was a flower exquisitely
imitated in jeweller's work, and imparting the last
touch that transformed Zenobia into a work of art.

“I scarcely feel,” I could not forbear saying, “as if we
had ever met before. How many years ago it seems
since we last sat beneath Eliot's pulpit, with Hollingsworth
extended on the fallen leaves, and Priscilla at his
feet! Can it be, Zenobia, that you ever really numbered
yourself with our little band of earnest, thoughtful, philanthropic
laborers?”

“Those ideas have their time and place,” she answered,
coldly. “But I fancy it must be a very circumscribed
mind that can find room for no others.”

Her manner bewildered me. Literally, moreover, I
was dazzled by the brilliancy of the room. A chandelier
hung down in the centre, glowing with I know not how
many lights; there were separate lamps, also, on two or
three tables, and on marble brackets, adding their white
radiance to that of the chandelier. The furniture was
exceedingly rich. Fresh from our old farm-house, with
its homely board and benches in the dining-room, and a
few wicker chairs in the best parlor, it struck me that
here was the fulfilment of every fantasy of an imagination
revelling in various methods of costly self-indulgence
and splendid ease. Pictures, marbles, vases, — in
brief, more shapes of luxury than there could be any
object in enumerating, except for an auctioneer's advertisement,
— and the whole repeated and doubled by
the reflection of a great mirror, which showed me Zenobia's
proud figure, likewise, and my own. It cost me, I
acknowledge, a bitter sense of shame, to perceive in
myself a positive effort to bear up against the effect
which Zenobia sought to impose on me. I reasoned
against her, in my secret mind, and strove so to keep
my footing. In the gorgeousness with which she had
surrounded herself, — in the redundance of personal ornament,
which the largeness of her physical nature and the
rich type of her beauty caused to seem so suitable, — I
malevolently beheld the true character of the woman,
passionate, luxurious, lacking simplicity, not deeply
refined, incapable of pure and perfect taste.

But, the next instant, she was too powerful for all my
opposing struggles. I saw how fit it was that she
should make herself as gorgeous as she pleased, and
should do a thousand things that would have been ridiculous
in the poor, thin, weakly characters of other

women. To this day, however, I hardly know whether
I then beheld Zenobia in her truest attitude, or whether
that were the truer one in which she had presented herself
at Blithedale. In both, there was something like
the illusion which a great actress flings around her.

“Have you given up Blithedale forever?” I inquired.

“Why should you think so?” asked she.

“I cannot tell,” answered I; “except that it appears
all like a dream that we were ever there together.”

“It is not so to me,” said Zenobia. “I should think
it a poor and meagre nature, that is capable of but one
set of forms, and must convert all the past into a dream
merely because the present happens to be unlike it.
Why should we be content with our homely life of a
few months past, to the exclusion of all other modes? It
was good; but there are other lives as good, or better.
Not, you will understand, that I condemn those who give
themselves up to it more entirely than I, for myself,
should deem it wise to do.”

It irritated me, this self-complacent, condescending,
qualified approval and criticism of a system to which
many individuals — perhaps as highly endowed as our
gorgeous Zenobia — had contributed their all of earthly
endeavor, and their loftiest aspirations. I determined to
make proof if there were any spell that would exorcise
her out of the part which she seemed to be acting. She
should be compelled to give me a glimpse of something
true; some nature, some passion, no matter whether
right or wrong, provided it were real.

“Your allusion to that class of circumscribed characters,
who can live only in one mode of life,” remarked I,
coolly, “reminds me of our poor friend Hollingsworth.
Possibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke thus.

Poor fellow! It is a pity that, by the fault of a narrow
education, he should have so completely immolated himself
to that one idea of his; especially as the slightest
modicum of common sense would teach him its utter
impracticability. Now that I have returned into the
world, and can look at his project from a distance, it
requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and
well-intentioned man, to prevent me laughing at him, —
as I find society at large does.”

Zenobia's eyes darted lightning; her cheeks flushed;
the vividness of her expression was like the effect of a
powerful light flaming up suddenly within her. My
experiment had fully succeeded. She had shown me
the true flesh and blood of her heart, by thus involuntarily
resenting my slight, pitying, half-kind, half-scornful
mention of the man who was all in all with her. She
herself probably felt this; for it was hardly a moment
before she tranquillized her uneven breath, and seemed
as proud and self-possessed as ever.

“I rather imagine,” said she, quietly, “that your
appreciation falls short of Mr. Hollingsworth's just
claims. Blind enthusiasm, absorption in one idea, I
grant, is generally ridiculous, and must be fatal to the
respectability of an ordinary man; it requires a very
high and powerful character to make it otherwise. But
a great man — as, perhaps, you do not know — attains
his normal condition only through the inspiration of one
great idea. As a friend of Mr. Hollingsworth, and, at
the same time, a calm observer, I must tell you that he
seems to me such a man. But you are very pardonable
for fancying him ridiculous. Doubtless, he is so — to
you! There can be no truer test of the noble and
heroic, in any individual, than the degree in which he

possesses the faculty of distinguishing heroism from
absurdity.”

I dared make no retort to Zenobia's concluding apothegm.
In truth, I admired her fidelity. It gave me a
new sense of Hollingsworth's native power, to discover
that his influence was no less potent with this beautiful
woman, here, in the midst of artificial life, than it had
been at the foot of the gray rock, and among the wild
birch-trees of the wood-path, when she so passionately
pressed his hand against her heart. The great, rude,
shaggy, swarthy man! And Zenobia loved him!

“Did you bring Priscilla with you?” I resumed.
“Do you know I have sometimes fancied it not quite
safe, considering the susceptibility of her temperament,
that she should be so constantly within the sphere of a
man like Hollingsworth. Such tender and delicate
natures, among your sex, have often, I believe, a very
adequate appreciation of the heroic element in men.
But then, again, I should suppose them as likely as any
other women to make a reciprocal impression. Hollingsworth
could hardly give his affections to a person capable
of taking an independent stand, but only to one whom
he might absorb into himself. He has certainly shown
great tenderness for Priscilla.”

Zenobia had turned aside. But I caught the reflection
of her face in the mirror, and saw that it was very pale,
—as pale, in her rich attire, as if a shroud were round her.

“Priscilla is here,” said she, her voice a little lower
than usual. “Have not you learnt as much from your
chamber window? Would you like to see her?”

She made a step or two into the back drawing-room,
and called,

“Priscilla! Dear Priscilla!”