 | I.
OLD MOODIE. The Blithedale romance |  |
1. I.
OLD MOODIE.
The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was
returning to my bachelor apartments, after attending the
wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly
man, of rather shabby appearance, met me in an obscure
part of the street.
“Mr. Coverdale,” said he, softly, “can I speak with
you a moment?”
As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may
not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of such of my
readers as are unacquainted with her now forgotten
celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric
line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a
new science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since
those times, her sisterhood have grown too numerous to
attract much individual notice; nor, in fact, has any one
of them ever come before the public under such skilfully
contrived circumstances of stage-effect as those which
at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances
of the lady in question. Now-a-days, in the
management of his “subject,” “clairvoyant,” or “medium,”
the exhibitor affects the simplicity and openness
a step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world,
yet carries with him the laws of our actual life, and
extends them over his preternatural conquests. Twelve
or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious
arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically
contrasted light and shade, were made available,
in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest
attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In the case of
the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator
was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity,
and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor,
and at one time very prevalent), that a beautiful
young lady, of family and fortune, was enshrouded
within the misty drapery of the veil. It was white,
with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny
side of a cloud; and, falling over the wearer from head
to foot, was supposed to insulate her from the material
world, from time and space, and to endow her with many
of the privileges of a disembodied spirit.
Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise,
have little to do with the present narrative;
except, indeed, that I had propounded, for the Veiled
Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the success of
our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the by, was of
the true Sibylline stamp, — nonsensical in its first aspect,
yet, on closer study, unfolding a variety of interpretations,
one of which has certainly accorded with the
event. I was turning over this riddle in my mind, and
trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when the
old man above mentioned interrupted me.
“Mr. Coverdale! — Mr. Coverdale!” said he, repeating
and ineffectual way in which he uttered it. “I ask
your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to Blithedale
to-morrow.”
I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose,
and the patch over one eye; and likewise saw something
characteristic in the old fellow's way of standing under
the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to
make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a
very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was
the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily
brought him into the stir and hubbub of the world
more than the generality of men.
“Yes, Mr. Moodie,” I answered, wondering what
interest he could take in the fact, “it is my intention to
go to Blithedale to-morrow. Can I be of any service to
you before my departure?”
“If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale,” said he, “you might
do me a very great favor.”
“A very great one?” repeated I, in a tone that must
have expressed but little alacrity of beneficence, although
I was ready to do the old man any amount of kindness
involving no special trouble to myself. “A very great
favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and
I have a good many preparations to make. But be good
enough to tell me what you wish.”
“Ah, sir,” replied Old Moodie, “I don't quite like to
do that; and, on further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps
I had better apply to some older gentleman, or to
some lady, if you would have the kindness to make me
known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale.
You are a young man, sir!”
“Does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?”
asked I. “However, if an older man will suit
you better, there is Mr. Hollingsworth, who has three
or four years the advantage of me in age, and is a much
more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am
only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at
that! But what can this business be, Mr. Moodie? It
begins to interest me; especially since your hint that a
lady's influence might be found desirable. Come, I am
really anxious to be of service to you.”
But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner,
was both freakish and obstinate; and he had now taken
some notion or other into his head that made him hesitate
in his former design.
“I wonder, sir,” said he, “whether you know a lady
whom they call Zenobia?”
“Not personally,” I answered, “although I expect
that pleasure to-morrow, as she has got the start of the
rest of us, and is already a resident at Blithedale. But
have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie? or have you
taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else
can have interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the
by, as I suppose you know, is merely her public name;
a sort of mask in which she comes before the world,
retaining all the privileges of privacy, — a contrivance,
in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only
a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell
me what I can do for you?”
“Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale,” said
Moodie. “You are very kind; but I am afraid I have
troubled you, when, after all, there may be no need.
Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to your lodgings
I wish you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for
stopping you.”
And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself
the next morning, it was only through subsequent
events that I ever arrived at a plausible conjecture
as to what his business could have been. Arriving at
my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate,
lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every
hue, from the brightest to the most sombre; being, in
truth, not so very confident as at some former periods
that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably
with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly
be taken. It was nothing short of midnight when
I went to bed, after drinking a glass of particularly
fine sherry, on which I used to pride myself, in those
days. It was the very last bottle; and I finished it,
with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out for
Blithedale.
| I.
OLD MOODIE. The Blithedale romance | |