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diff --git a/2081.txt b/2081.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdc6841 --- /dev/null +++ b/2081.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8133 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blithedale Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Blithedale Romance + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2081] +Release Date: February, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Pullen and Tom Gannett. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +The Blithedale Romance + + +by + +Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +Table of Contents + + I. OLD MOODIE + II. BLITHEDALE + III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS + IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE + V. UNTIL BEDTIME + VI. COVERDALE'S SICK CHAMBER + VII. THE CONVALESCENT + VIII. A MODERN ARCADIA + IX. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA + X. A VISITOR FROM TOWN + XI. THE WOOD-PATH + XII. COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE + XIII. ZENOBIA'S LEGEND + XIV. ELIOT'S PULPIT + XV. A CRISIS + XVI. LEAVE-TAKINGS + XVII. THE HOTEL + XVIII. THE BOARDING-HOUSE + XIX. ZENOBIA'S DRAWING-ROOM + XX. THEY VANISH + XXI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE + XXII. FAUNTLEROY + XXIII. A VILLAGE HALL + XXIV. THE MASQUERADERS + XXV. THE THREE TOGETHER + XXVI. ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE + XXVII. MIDNIGHT + XXVIII. BLITHEDALE PASTURE + XXIX. MILES COVERDALE'S CONFESSION + + + +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 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. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject," +"clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and +openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread 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 bye, 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 my name twice, in +order to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he +uttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to +Blithedale tomorrow." + +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 bye, 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 to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. 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. + + + +II. BLITHEDALE + +There can hardly remain for me (who am really getting to be a frosty +bachelor, with another white hair, every week or so, in my mustache), +there can hardly flicker up again so cheery a blaze upon the hearth, as +that which I remember, the next day, at Blithedale. It was a wood +fire, in the parlor of an old farmhouse, on an April afternoon, but +with the fitful gusts of a wintry snowstorm roaring in the chimney. +Vividly does that fireside re-create itself, as I rake away the ashes +from the embers in my memory, and blow them up with a sigh, for lack of +more inspiring breath. Vividly for an instant, but anon, with the +dimmest gleam, and with just as little fervency for my heart as for my +finger-ends! The staunch oaken logs were long ago burnt out. Their +genial glow must be represented, if at all, by the merest phosphoric +glimmer, like that which exudes, rather than shines, from damp +fragments of decayed trees, deluding the benighted wanderer through a +forest. Around such chill mockery of a fire some few of us might sit +on the withered leaves, spreading out each a palm towards the imaginary +warmth, and talk over our exploded scheme for beginning the life of +Paradise anew. + +Paradise, indeed! Nobody else in the world, I am bold to +affirm--nobody, at least, in our bleak little world of New +England,--had dreamed of Paradise that day except as the pole suggests +the tropic. Nor, with such materials as were at hand, could the most +skilful architect have constructed any better imitation of Eve's bower +than might be seen in the snow hut of an Esquimaux. But we made a +summer of it, in spite of the wild drifts. + +It was an April day, as already hinted, and well towards the middle of +the month. When morning dawned upon me, in town, its temperature was +mild enough to be pronounced even balmy, by a lodger, like myself, in +one of the midmost houses of a brick block,--each house partaking of +the warmth of all the rest, besides the sultriness of its individual +furnace--heat. But towards noon there had come snow, driven along the +street by a northeasterly blast, and whitening the roofs and sidewalks +with a business-like perseverance that would have done credit to our +severest January tempest. It set about its task apparently as much in +earnest as if it had been guaranteed from a thaw for months to come. +The greater, surely, was my heroism, when, puffing out a final whiff of +cigar-smoke, I quitted my cosey pair of bachelor-rooms,--with a good +fire burning in the grate, and a closet right at hand, where there was +still a bottle or two in the champagne basket and a residuum of claret +in a box,--quitted, I say, these comfortable quarters, and plunged into +the heart of the pitiless snowstorm, in quest of a better life. + +The better life! Possibly, it would hardly look so now; it is enough +if it looked so then. The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the +doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the +truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom to +know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. + +Yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious, to +follow out one's daydream to its natural consummation, although, if the +vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be +consummated otherwise than by a failure. And what of that? Its +airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value that +lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any practicable scheme. +They are not the rubbish of the mind. Whatever else I may repent of, +therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies that I +once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes of the world's +destiny--yes!--and to do what in me lay for their accomplishment; even +to the extent of quitting a warm fireside, flinging away a freshly +lighted cigar, and travelling far beyond the strike of city clocks, +through a drifting snowstorm. + +There were four of us who rode together through the storm; and +Hollingsworth, who had agreed to be of the number, was accidentally +delayed, and set forth at a later hour alone. As we threaded the +streets, I remember how the buildings on either side seemed to press +too closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found barely room +enough to throb between them. The snowfall, too, looked inexpressibly +dreary (I had almost called it dingy), coming down through an +atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the sidewalk only to be +moulded into the impress of somebody's patched boot or overshoe. Thus +the track of an old conventionalism was visible on what was freshest +from the sky. But when we left the pavements, and our muffled +hoof-tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and were +effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, then there was +better air to breathe. Air that had not been breathed once and again! +air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood, formality, and +error, like all the air of the dusky city! + +"How pleasant it is!" remarked I, while the snowflakes flew into my +mouth the moment it was opened. "How very mild and balmy is this +country air!" + +"Ah, Coverdale, don't laugh at what little enthusiasm you have left!" +said one of my companions. "I maintain that this nitrous atmosphere is +really exhilarating; and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves +regenerated men till a February northeaster shall be as grateful to us +as the softest breeze of June!" + +So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and merrily along, by +stone fences that were half buried in the wave-like drifts; and through +patches of woodland, where the tree-trunks opposed a snow-incrusted +side towards the northeast; and within ken of deserted villas, with no +footprints in their avenues; and passed scattered dwellings, whence +puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly impregnated with the +pungent aroma of burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we +shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster +and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our +courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him. The churl! He +understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for +our blithe tones of brotherhood. This lack of faith in our cordial +sympathy, on the traveller's part, was one among the innumerable tokens +how difficult a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world. +We rode on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good +companionship with the tempest that, at our journey's end, we professed +ourselves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer good-by. But, to own +the truth, I was little better than an icicle, and began to be +suspicious that I had caught a fearful cold. + +And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse, the +same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the +beginning of this chapter. There we sat, with the snow melting out of +our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past +inclemency and present warmth. It was, indeed, a right good fire that +we found awaiting us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty limbs, +and splintered fragments of an oak-tree, such as farmers are wont to +keep for their own hearths, since these crooked and unmanageable boughs +could never be measured into merchantable cords for the market. A +family of the old Pilgrims might have swung their kettle over precisely +such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one; and, contrasting it +with my coal-grate, I felt so much the more that we had transported +ourselves a world-wide distance from the system of society that +shackled us at breakfast-time. + +Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who was +to manage the farm at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art of +husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. At her back--a back of generous +breadth--appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably, but looking +rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be their +position in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands +affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the blessed +state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might fairly be +dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly concluded when the +door opened, and Zenobia--whom I had never before seen, important as +was her place in our enterprise--Zenobia entered the parlor. + +This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography, +need scarcely be told) was not her real name. She had assumed it, in +the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as it accorded well +with something imperial which her friends attributed to this lady's +figure and deportment, they half-laughingly adopted it in their +familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in good part, +and even encouraged its constant use; which, in fact, was thus far +appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new +philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known what +to do with. + + + +III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS + +Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave each +of us her hand, which was very soft and warm. She had something +appropriate, I recollect, to say to every individual; and what she said +to myself was this:--"I have long wished to know you, Mr. Coverdale, +and to thank you for your beautiful poetry, some of which I have +learned by heart; or rather it has stolen into my memory, without my +exercising any choice or volition about the matter. Of course--permit +me to say you do not think of relinquishing an occupation in which you +have done yourself so much credit. I would almost rather give you up +as an associate, than that the world should lose one of its true poets!" + +"Ah, no; there will not be the slightest danger of that, especially +after this inestimable praise from Zenobia," said I, smiling, and +blushing, no doubt, with excess of pleasure. "I hope, on the contrary, +now to produce something that shall really deserve to be called +poetry,--true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which we are +going to lead,--something that shall have the notes of wild birds +twittering through it, or a strain like the wind anthems in the woods, +as the case may be." + +"Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung?" asked Zenobia, +with a gracious smile. "If so, I am very sorry, for you will certainly +hear me singing them sometimes, in the summer evenings." + +"Of all things," answered I, "that is what will delight me most." + +While this passed, and while she spoke to my companions, I was taking +note of Zenobia's aspect; and it impressed itself on me so distinctly, +that I can now summon her up, like a ghost, a little wanner than the +life but otherwise identical with it. She was dressed as simply as +possible, in an American print (I think the dry-goods people call it +so), but with a silken kerchief, between which and her gown there was +one glimpse of a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good +fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her hair, which was +dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put up rather soberly and +primly--without curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. It +was an exotic of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hothouse gardener +had just clipt it from the stem. That flower has struck deep root into +my memory. I can both see it and smell it, at this moment. So +brilliant, so rare, so costly as it must have been, and yet enduring +only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp which had +a luxuriant growth in Zenobia's character than if a great diamond had +sparkled among her hair. + +Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like to +have, or than they could afford to have, though not a whit too large in +proportion with the spacious plan of Zenobia's entire development. It +did one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although its +natural tendency lay in another direction than towards literature) so +fitly cased. She was, indeed, an admirable figure of a woman, just on +the hither verge of her richest maturity, with a combination of +features which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some +fastidious persons might pronounce them a little deficient in softness +and delicacy. But we find enough of those attributes everywhere. +Preferable--by way of variety, at least--was Zenobia's bloom, health, +and vigor, which she possessed in such overflow that a man might well +have fallen in love with her for their sake only. In her quiet moods, +she seemed rather indolent; but when really in earnest, particularly if +there were a spice of bitter feeling, she grew all alive to her +finger-tips. + +"I am the first comer," Zenobia went on to say, while her smile beamed +warmth upon us all; "so I take the part of hostess for to-day, and +welcome you as if to my own fireside. You shall be my guests, too, at +supper. Tomorrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sisters, and +begin our new life from daybreak." + +"Have we our various parts assigned?" asked some one. + +"Oh, we of the softer sex," responded Zenobia, with her mellow, almost +broad laugh,--most delectable to hear, but not in the least like an +ordinary woman's laugh,--"we women (there are four of us here already) +will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as a matter of +course. To bake, to boil, to roast, to fry, to stew,--to wash, and +iron, and scrub, and sweep,--and, at our idler intervals, to repose +ourselves on knitting and sewing,--these, I suppose, must be feminine +occupations, for the present. By and by, perhaps, when our individual +adaptations begin to develop themselves, it may be that some of us who +wear the petticoat will go afield, and leave the weaker brethren to +take our places in the kitchen." + +"What a pity," I remarked, "that the kitchen, and the housework +generally, cannot be left out of our system altogether! It is odd +enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just +that which chiefly distinguishes artificial life--the life of +degenerated mortals--from the life of Paradise. Eve had no dinner-pot, +and no clothes to mend, and no washing-day." + +"I am afraid," said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes, "we +shall find some difficulty in adopting the paradisiacal system for at +least a month to come. Look at that snowdrift sweeping past the +window! Are there any figs ripe, do you think? Have the pineapples +been gathered to-day? Would you like a bread-fruit, or a cocoanut? +Shall I run out and pluck you some roses? No, no, Mr. Coverdale; the +only flower hereabouts is the one in my hair, which I got out of a +greenhouse this morning. As for the garb of Eden," added she, +shivering playfully, "I shall not assume it till after May-day!" + +Assuredly Zenobia could not have intended it,--the fault must have been +entirely in my imagination. But these last words, together with +something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that +fine, perfectly developed figure, in Eve's earliest garment. Her free, +careless, generous modes of expression often had this effect of +creating images which, though pure, are hardly felt to be quite +decorous when born of a thought that passes between man and woman. I +imputed it, at that time, to Zenobia's noble courage, conscious of no +harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the life and color +out of other women's conversation. There was another peculiarity about +her. We seldom meet with women nowadays, and in this country, who +impress us as being women at all,--their sex fades away and goes for +nothing, in ordinary intercourse. Not so with Zenobia. One felt an +influence breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come from +Eve, when she was just made, and her Creator brought her to Adam, +saying, "Behold! here is a woman!" Not that I would convey the idea of +especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm +and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been +refined away out of the feminine system. + +"And now," continued Zenobia, "I must go and help get supper. Do you +think you can be content, instead of figs, pineapples, and all the +other delicacies of Adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a +certain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a +housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there shall be bread and +milk, too, if the innocence of your taste demands it." + +The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations, utterly +declining our offers to assist, further than by bringing wood for the +kitchen fire from a huge pile in the back yard. After heaping up more +than a sufficient quantity, we returned to the sitting-room, drew our +chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk over our prospects. +Soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry, appeared Silas Foster, +lank, stalwart, uncouth, and grizzly-bearded. He came from foddering +the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he had been +ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a +furrow. He greeted us in pretty much the same tone as if he were +speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron tobacco-box, pulled off +his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before the fire in his +stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked garments, so that the +stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like. + +"Well, folks," remarked Silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back to +town again, if this weather holds." + +And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell +silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes +intermingling themselves with the fast-descending snow. The storm, in +its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have arisen for +our especial behoof,--a symbol of the cold, desolate, distrustful +phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of adventurous +enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of ordinary life. + +But our courage did not quail. We would not allow ourselves to be +depressed by the snowdrift trailing past the window, any more than if +it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. There +have been few brighter seasons for us than that. If ever men might +lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their wildest visions +without dread of laughter or scorn on the part of the audience,--yes, +and speak of earthly happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an +object to be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, we who made +that little semicircle round the blazing fire were those very men. We +had left the rusty iron framework of society behind us; we had broken +through many hindrances that are powerful enough to keep most people on +the weary treadmill of the established system, even while they feel its +irksomeness almost as intolerable as we did. We had stepped down from +the pulpit; we had flung aside the pen; we had shut up the ledger; we +had thrown off that sweet, bewitching, enervating indolence, which is +better, after all, than most of the enjoyments within mortal grasp. It +was our purpose--a generous one, certainly, and absurd, no doubt, in +full proportion with its generosity--to give up whatever we had +heretofore attained, for the sake of showing mankind the example of a +life governed by other than the false and cruel principles on which +human society has all along been based. + +And, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from pride, and were +striving to supply its place with familiar love. We meant to lessen +the laboring man's great burden of toil, by performing our due share of +it at the cost of our own thews and sinews. We sought our profit by +mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the strong hand from an enemy, or +filching it craftily from those less shrewd than ourselves (if, indeed, +there were any such in New England), or winning it by selfish +competition with a neighbor; in one or another of which fashions every +son of woman both perpetrates and suffers his share of the common evil, +whether he chooses it or no. And, as the basis of our institution, we +purposed to offer up the earnest toil of our bodies, as a prayer no +less than an effort for the advancement of our race. + +Therefore, if we built splendid castles (phalansteries perhaps they +might be more fitly called), and pictured beautiful scenes, among the +fervid coals of the hearth around which we were clustering, and if all +went to rack with the crumbling embers and have never since arisen out +of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no shame. In my own behalf, I +rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improvability +than it deserved. It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice in +a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can thus +magnanimously persist in error. + +Stout Silas Foster mingled little in our conversation; but when he did +speak, it was very much to some practical purpose. For +instance:--"Which man among you," quoth he, "is the best judge of +swine? Some of us must go to the next Brighton fair, and buy half a +dozen pigs." + +Pigs! Good heavens! had we come out from among the swinish multitude +for this? And again, in reference to some discussion about raising +early vegetables for the market:--"We shall never make any hand at +market gardening," said Silas Foster, "unless the women folks will +undertake to do all the weeding. We haven't team enough for that and +the regular farm-work, reckoning three of your city folks as worth one +common field-hand. No, no; I tell you, we should have to get up a +little too early in the morning, to compete with the market gardeners +round Boston." + +It struck me as rather odd, that one of the first questions raised, +after our separation from the greedy, struggling, self-seeking world, +should relate to the possibility of getting the advantage over the +outside barbarians in their own field of labor. But, to own the truth, +I very soon became sensible that, as regarded society at large, we +stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new brotherhood. Nor +could this fail to be the case, in some degree, until the bigger and +better half of society should range itself on our side. Constituting so +pitiful a minority as now, we were inevitably estranged from the rest +of mankind in pretty fair proportion with the strictness of our mutual +bond among ourselves. + +This dawning idea, however, was driven back into my inner consciousness +by the entrance of Zenobia. She came with the welcome intelligence +that supper was on the table. Looking at herself in the glass, and +perceiving that her one magnificent flower had grown rather languid +(probably by being exposed to the fervency of the kitchen fire), she +flung it on the floor, as unconcernedly as a village girl would throw +away a faded violet. The action seemed proper to her character, +although, methought, it would still more have befitted the bounteous +nature of this beautiful woman to scatter fresh flowers from her hand, +and to revive faded ones by her touch. Nevertheless, it was a singular +but irresistible effect; the presence of Zenobia caused our heroic +enterprise to show like an illusion, a masquerade, a pastoral, a +counterfeit Arcadia, in which we grown-up men and women were making a +play-day of the years that were given us to live in. I tried to +analyze this impression, but not with much success. + +"It really vexes me," observed Zenobia, as we left the room, "that Mr. +Hollingsworth should be such a laggard. I should not have thought him +at all the sort of person to be turned back by a puff of contrary wind, +or a few snowflakes drifting into his face." + +"Do you know Hollingsworth personally?" I inquired. + +"No; only as an auditor--auditress, I mean--of some of his lectures," +said she. "What a voice he has! and what a man he is! Yet not so much +an intellectual man, I should say, as a great heart; at least, he moved +me more deeply than I think myself capable of being moved, except by +the stroke of a true, strong heart against my own. It is a sad pity +that he should have devoted his glorious powers to such a grimy, +unbeautiful, and positively hopeless object as this reformation of +criminals, about which he makes himself and his wretchedly small +audiences so very miserable. To tell you a secret, I never could +tolerate a philanthropist before. Could you?" + +"By no means," I answered; "neither can I now." + +"They are, indeed, an odiously disagreeable set of mortals," continued +Zenobia. "I should like Mr. Hollingsworth a great deal better if the +philanthropy had been left out. At all events, as a mere matter of +taste, I wish he would let the bad people alone, and try to benefit +those who are not already past his help. Do you suppose he will be +content to spend his life, or even a few months of it, among tolerably +virtuous and comfortable individuals like ourselves?" + +"Upon my word, I doubt it," said I. "If we wish to keep him with us, we +must systematically commit at least one crime apiece! Mere peccadillos +will not satisfy him." + +Zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of a glance upon me; but, +before I could make out what it meant, we had entered the kitchen, +where, in accordance with the rustic simplicity of our new life, the +supper-table was spread. + + + +IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE + +The pleasant firelight! I must still keep harping on it. The kitchen +hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness, far +within which lay what seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree, with +the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half an +hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of substantial sticks, +rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully +on the smoke-blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we cared +not what inclemency might rage and roar on the other side of our +illuminated windows. A yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a goodly +quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning +brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful fragrance. +The exuberance of this household fire would alone have sufficed to +bespeak us no true farmers; for the New England yeoman, if he have the +misfortune to dwell within practicable distance of a wood-market, is as +niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of California gold. + +But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried life, to +enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a somewhat too abundant fire. If +it served no other purpose, it made the men look so full of youth, warm +blood, and hope, and the women--such of them, at least, as were anywise +convertible by its magic--so very beautiful, that I would cheerfully +have spent my last dollar to prolong the blaze. As for Zenobia, there +was a glow in her cheeks that made me think of Pandora, fresh from +Vulcan's workshop, and full of the celestial warmth by dint of which he +had tempered and moulded her. + +"Take your places, my dear friends all," cried she; "seat yourselves +without ceremony, and you shall be made happy with such tea as not many +of the world's working-people, except yourselves, will find in their +cups to-night. After this one supper, you may drink buttermilk, if you +please. To-night we will quaff this nectar, which, I assure you, could +not be bought with gold." + +We all sat down,--grizzly Silas Foster, his rotund helpmate, and the +two bouncing handmaidens, included,--and looked at one another in a +friendly but rather awkward way. It was the first practical trial of +our theories of equal brotherhood and sisterhood; and we people of +superior cultivation and refinement (for as such, I presume, we +unhesitatingly reckoned ourselves) felt as if something were already +accomplished towards the millennium of love. The truth is, however, +that the laboring oar was with our unpolished companions; it being far +easier to condescend than to accept of condescension. Neither did I +refrain from questioning, in secret, whether some of us--and Zenobia +among the rest--would so quietly have taken our places among these good +people, save for the cherished consciousness that it was not by +necessity but choice. Though we saw fit to drink our tea out of +earthen cups to-night, and in earthen company, it was at our own option +to use pictured porcelain and handle silver forks again to-morrow. +This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former position, +contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we subsequently +bore many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of toil. If ever +I have deserved (which has not often been the case, and, I think, +never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow +mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary social +advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove myself +ostentatiously his equal and no more. It was while I sat beside him on +his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own in the +cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed hand to +his, at our noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look at both +sides of sympathy like this. + +The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather +oppressive; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the first +round of Zenobia's fragrant tea. + +"I hope," said I, at last, "that our blazing windows will be visible a +great way off. There is nothing so pleasant and encouraging to a +solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen +amid the gloom. These ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer the +hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the +beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity?" + +"The blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two longer," +observed Silas Foster; but whether he meant to insinuate that our moral +illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say. + +"Meantime," said Zenobia, "it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a +shelter." + +And, just as she said this, there came a knock at the house door. + +"There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so!" +quoth Silas Foster. "Our firelight will draw stragglers, just as a +candle draws dorbugs on a summer night." + +Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly +contrasting our own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of the +unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk felt a +little startled at the knock which came so unseasonably, through night +and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,--so it happened that +nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the summons. Pretty +soon there came another knock. The first had been moderately loud; the +second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles of the applicant must +have left their mark in the door panel. + +"He knocks as if he had a right to come in," said Zenobia, laughing. +"And what are we thinking of?--It must be Mr. Hollingsworth!" + +Hereupon I went to the door, unbolted, and flung it wide open. There, +sure enough, stood Hollingsworth, his shaggy greatcoat all covered with +snow, so that he looked quite as much like a polar bear as a modern +philanthropist. + +"Sluggish hospitality this!" said he, in those deep tones of his, which +seemed to come out of a chest as capacious as a barrel. "It would have +served you right if I had lain down and spent the night on the +doorstep, just for the sake of putting you to shame. But here is a +guest who will need a warmer and softer bed." + +And, stepping back to the wagon in which he had journeyed hither, +Hollingsworth received into his arms and deposited on the doorstep a +figure enveloped in a cloak. It was evidently a woman; or, +rather,--judging from the ease with which he lifted her, and the little +space which she seemed to fill in his arms, a slim and unsubstantial +girl. As she showed some hesitation about entering the door, +Hollingsworth, with his usual directness and lack of ceremony, urged +her forward not merely within the entry, but into the warm and strongly +lighted kitchen. + +"Who is this?" whispered I, remaining behind with him, while he was +taking off his greatcoat. + +"Who? Really, I don't know," answered Hollingsworth, looking at me +with some surprise. "It is a young person who belongs here, however; +and no doubt she had been expected. Zenobia, or some of the women +folks, can tell you all about it." + +"I think not," said I, glancing towards the new-comer and the other +occupants of the kitchen. "Nobody seems to welcome her. I should +hardly judge that she was an expected guest." + +"Well, well," said Hollingsworth quietly, "We'll make it right." + +The stranger, or whatever she were, remained standing precisely on that +spot of the kitchen floor to which Hollingsworth's kindly hand had +impelled her. The cloak falling partly off, she was seen to be a very +young woman dressed in a poor but decent gown, made high in the neck, +and without any regard to fashion or smartness. Her brown hair fell +down from beneath a hood, not in curls but with only a slight wave; her +face was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening habitual seclusion +from the sun and free atmosphere, like a flower-shrub that had done its +best to blossom in too scanty light. To complete the pitiableness of +her aspect, she shivered either with cold, or fear, or nervous +excitement, so that you might have beheld her shadow vibrating on the +fire-lighted wall. In short, there has seldom been seen so depressed +and sad a figure as this young girl's; and it was hardly possible to +help being angry with her, from mere despair of doing anything for her +comfort. The fantasy occurred to me that she was some desolate kind of +a creature, doomed to wander about in snowstorms; and that, though the +ruddiness of our window panes had tempted her into a human dwelling, +she would not remain long enough to melt the icicles out of her hair. +Another conjecture likewise came into my mind. Recollecting +Hollingsworth's sphere of philanthropic action, I deemed it possible +that he might have brought one of his guilty patients, to be wrought +upon and restored to spiritual health by the pure influences which our +mode of life would create. + +As yet the girl had not stirred. She stood near the door, fixing a +pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon Zenobia--only upon +Zenobia!--she evidently saw nothing else in the room save that bright, +fair, rosy, beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever +witnessed; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory. Once she seemed +about to move forward and greet her,--I know not with what warmth or +with what words,--but, finally, instead of doing so, she dropped down +upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously into Zenobia's +face. Meeting no kindly reception, her head fell on her bosom. + +I never thoroughly forgave Zenobia for her conduct on this occasion. +But women are always more cautious in their casual hospitalities than +men. + +"What does the girl mean?" cried she in rather a sharp tone. "Is she +crazy? Has she no tongue?" + +And here Hollingsworth stepped forward. + +"No wonder if the poor child's tongue is frozen in her mouth," said he; +and I think he positively frowned at Zenobia. "The very heart will be +frozen in her bosom, unless you women can warm it, among you, with the +warmth that ought to be in your own!" + +Hollingsworth's appearance was very striking at this moment. He was +then about thirty years old, but looked several years older, with his +great shaggy head, his heavy brow, his dark complexion, his abundant +beard, and the rude strength with which his features seemed to have +been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled or moulded from any +finer or softer material. His figure was not tall, but massive and +brawny, and well befitting his original occupation; which as the reader +probably knows--was that of a blacksmith. As for external polish, or +mere courtesy of manner, he never possessed more than a tolerably +educated bear; although, in his gentler moods, there was a tenderness +in his voice, eyes, mouth, in his gesture, and in every indescribable +manifestation, which few men could resist and no woman. But he now +looked stern and reproachful; and it was with that inauspicious meaning +in his glance that Hollingsworth first met Zenobia's eyes, and began +his influence upon her life. + +To my surprise, Zenobia--of whose haughty spirit I had been told so +many examples--absolutely changed color, and seemed mortified and +confused. + +"You do not quite do me justice, Mr. Hollingsworth," said she almost +humbly. "I am willing to be kind to the poor girl. Is she a protegee +of yours? What can I do for her?" + +"Have you anything to ask of this lady?" said Hollingsworth kindly to +the girl. "I remember you mentioned her name before we left town." + +"Only that she will shelter me," replied the girl tremulously. "Only +that she will let me be always near her." + +"Well, indeed," exclaimed Zenobia, recovering herself and laughing, +"this is an adventure, and well-worthy to be the first incident in our +life of love and free-heartedness! But I accept it, for the present, +without further question, only," added she, "it would be a convenience +if we knew your name." + +"Priscilla," said the girl; and it appeared to me that she hesitated +whether to add anything more, and decided in the negative. "Pray do +not ask me my other name,--at least not yet,--if you will be so kind to +a forlorn creature." + +Priscilla!--Priscilla! I repeated the name to myself three or four +times; and in that little space, this quaint and prim cognomen had so +amalgamated itself with my idea of the girl, that it seemed as if no +other name could have adhered to her for a moment. Heretofore the poor +thing had not shed any tears; but now that she found herself received, +and at least temporarily established, the big drops began to ooze out +from beneath her eyelids as if she were full of them. Perhaps it showed +the iron substance of my heart, that I could not help smiling at this +odd scene of unknown and unaccountable calamity, into which our +cheerful party had been entrapped without the liberty of choosing +whether to sympathize or no. Hollingsworth's behavior was certainly a +great deal more creditable than mine. + +"Let us not pry further into her secrets," he said to Zenobia and the +rest of us, apart; and his dark, shaggy face looked really beautiful +with its expression of thoughtful benevolence. "Let us conclude that +Providence has sent her to us, as the first-fruits of the world, which +we have undertaken to make happier than we find it. Let us warm her +poor, shivering body with this good fire, and her poor, shivering heart +with our best kindness. Let us feed her, and make her one of us. As +we do by this friendless girl, so shall we prosper. And, in good time, +whatever is desirable for us to know will be melted out of her, as +inevitably as those tears which we see now." + +"At least," remarked I, "you may tell us how and where you met with +her." + +"An old man brought her to my lodgings," answered Hollingsworth, "and +begged me to convey her to Blithedale, where--so I understood him--she +had friends; and this is positively all I know about the matter." + +Grim Silas Foster, all this while, had been busy at the supper-table, +pouring out his own tea and gulping it down with no more sense of its +exquisiteness than if it were a decoction of catnip; helping himself to +pieces of dipt toast on the flat of his knife blade, and dropping half +of it on the table-cloth; using the same serviceable implement to cut +slice after slice of ham; perpetrating terrible enormities with the +butter-plate; and in all other respects behaving less like a civilized +Christian than the worst kind of an ogre. Being by this time fully +gorged, he crowned his amiable exploits with a draught from the water +pitcher, and then favored us with his opinion about the business in +hand. And, certainly, though they proceeded out of an unwiped mouth, +his expressions did him honor. + +"Give the girl a hot cup of tea and a thick slice of this first-rate +bacon," said Silas, like a sensible man as he was. "That's what she +wants. Let her stay with us as long as she likes, and help in the +kitchen, and take the cow-breath at milking time; and, in a week or +two, she'll begin to look like a creature of this world." + +So we sat down again to supper, and Priscilla along with us. + + + +V. UNTIL BEDTIME + +Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his +coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a +lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxed-ends, in +order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own +phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that may imply) +at the shoemaking business. We heard the tap of his hammer at +intervals for the rest of the evening. The remainder of the party +adjourned to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Foster took her +knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles in +brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation, absolutely footing +a stocking out of the texture of a dream. And a very substantial +stocking it seemed to be. One of the two handmaidens hemmed a towel, +and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her Sunday's wear, +out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which Zenobia had probably +given her. + +It was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how timidly, our poor +Priscilla betook herself into the shadow of Zenobia's protection. She +sat beside her on a stool, looking up every now and then with an +expression of humble delight at her new friend's beauty. A brilliant +woman is often an object of the devoted admiration--it might almost be +termed worship, or idolatry--of some young girl, who perhaps beholds +the cynosure only at an awful distance, and has as little hope of +personal intercourse as of climbing among the stars of heaven. We men +are too gross to comprehend it. Even a woman, of mature age, despises +or laughs at such a passion. There occurred to me no mode of +accounting for Priscilla's behavior, except by supposing that she had +read some of Zenobia's stories (as such literature goes everywhere), or +her tracts in defence of the sex, and had come hither with the one +purpose of being her slave. There is nothing parallel to this, I +believe,--nothing so foolishly disinterested, and hardly anything so +beautiful,--in the masculine nature, at whatever epoch of life; or, if +there be, a fine and rare development of character might reasonably be +looked for from the youth who should prove himself capable of such +self-forgetful affection. + +Zenobia happening to change her seat, I took the opportunity, in an +undertone, to suggest some such notion as the above. + +"Since you see the young woman in so poetical a light," replied she in +the same tone, "you had better turn the affair into a ballad. It is a +grand subject, and worthy of supernatural machinery. The storm, the +startling knock at the door, the entrance of the sable knight +Hollingsworth and this shadowy snow-maiden, who, precisely at the +stroke of midnight, shall melt away at my feet in a pool of ice-cold +water and give me my death with a pair of wet slippers! And when the +verses are written, and polished quite to your mind, I will favor you +with my idea as to what the girl really is." + +"Pray let me have it now," said I; "it shall be woven into the ballad." + +"She is neither more nor less," answered Zenobia, "than a seamstress +from the city; and she has probably no more transcendental purpose than +to do my miscellaneous sewing, for I suppose she will hardly expect to +make my dresses." + +"How can you decide upon her so easily?" I inquired. + +"Oh, we women judge one another by tokens that escape the obtuseness of +masculine perceptions!" said Zenobia. "There is no proof which you +would be likely to appreciate, except the needle marks on the tip of +her forefinger. Then, my supposition perfectly accounts for her +paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility. Poor thing! She +has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a small, close +room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins, candy, and +all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive; and so, as she has +hardly any physique, a poet like Mr. Miles Coverdale may be allowed to +think her spiritual." + +"Look at her now!" whispered I. + +Priscilla was gazing towards us with an inexpressible sorrow in her wan +face and great tears running down her cheeks. It was difficult to +resist the impression that, cautiously as we had lowered our voices, +she must have overheard and been wounded by Zenobia's scornful estimate +of her character and purposes. + +"What ears the girl must have!" whispered Zenobia, with a look of +vexation, partly comic and partly real. "I will confess to you that I +cannot quite make her out. However, I am positively not an ill-natured +person, unless when very grievously provoked,--and as you, and +especially Mr. Hollingsworth, take so much interest in this odd +creature, and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own heart +likewise,--why, I mean to let her in. From this moment I will be +reasonably kind to her. There is no pleasure in tormenting a person of +one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more love than +one can conveniently dispose of; and that, let me say, Mr. Coverdale, +is the most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman." + +"Thank you," said I, smiling; "I don't mean to be guilty of it." + +She went towards Priscilla, took her hand, and passed her own rosy +finger-tips, with a pretty, caressing movement, over the girl's hair. +The touch had a magical effect. So vivid a look of joy flushed up +beneath those fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan Priscilla +had been snatched away, and another kind of creature substituted in her +place. This one caress, bestowed voluntarily by Zenobia, was evidently +received as a pledge of all that the stranger sought from her, whatever +the unuttered boon might be. From that instant, too, she melted in +quietly amongst us, and was no longer a foreign element. Though always +an object of peculiar interest, a riddle, and a theme of frequent +discussion, her tenure at Blithedale was thenceforth fixed. We no more +thought of questioning it, than if Priscilla had been recognized as a +domestic sprite, who had haunted the rustic fireside of old, before we +had ever been warmed by its blaze. + +She now produced, out of a work-bag that she had with her, some little +wooden instruments (what they are called I never knew), and proceeded +to knit, or net, an article which ultimately took the shape of a silk +purse. As the work went on, I remembered to have seen just such purses +before; indeed, I was the possessor of one. Their peculiar excellence, +besides the great delicacy and beauty of the manufacture, lay in the +almost impossibility that any uninitiated person should discover the +aperture; although, to a practised touch, they would open as wide as +charity or prodigality might wish. I wondered if it were not a symbol +of Priscilla's own mystery. + +Notwithstanding the new confidence with which Zenobia had inspired her, +our guest showed herself disquieted by the storm. When the strong +puffs of wind spattered the snow against the windows and made the oaken +frame of the farmhouse creak, she looked at us apprehensively, as if to +inquire whether these tempestuous outbreaks did not betoken some +unusual mischief in the shrieking blast. She had been bred up, no +doubt, in some close nook, some inauspiciously sheltered court of the +city, where the uttermost rage of a tempest, though it might scatter +down the slates of the roof into the bricked area, could not shake the +casement of her little room. The sense of vast, undefined space, +pressing from the outside against the black panes of our uncurtained +windows, was fearful to the poor girl, heretofore accustomed to the +narrowness of human limits, with the lamps of neighboring tenements +glimmering across the street. The house probably seemed to her adrift +on the great ocean of the night. A little parallelogram of sky was all +that she had hitherto known of nature, so that she felt the awfulness +that really exists in its limitless extent. Once, while the blast was +bellowing, she caught hold of Zenobia's robe, with precisely the air of +one who hears her own name spoken at a distance, but is unutterably +reluctant to obey the call. + +We spent rather an incommunicative evening. Hollingsworth hardly said +a word, unless when repeatedly and pertinaciously addressed. Then, +indeed, he would glare upon us from the thick shrubbery of his +meditations like a tiger out of a jungle, make the briefest reply +possible, and betake himself back into the solitude of his heart and +mind. The poor fellow had contracted this ungracious habit from the +intensity with which he contemplated his own ideas, and the infrequent +sympathy which they met with from his auditors,--a circumstance that +seemed only to strengthen the implicit confidence that he awarded to +them. His heart, I imagine, was never really interested in our +socialist scheme, but was forever busy with his strange, and, as most +people thought it, impracticable plan, for the reformation of criminals +through an appeal to their higher instincts. + +Much as I liked Hollingsworth, it cost me many a groan to tolerate him +on this point. He ought to have commenced his investigation of the +subject by perpetrating some huge sin in his proper person, and +examining the condition of his higher instincts afterwards. + +The rest of us formed ourselves into a committee for providing our +infant community with an appropriate name,--a matter of greatly more +difficulty than the uninitiated reader would suppose. Blithedale was +neither good nor bad. We should have resumed the old Indian name of +the premises, had it possessed the oil-and-honey flow which the +aborigines were so often happy in communicating to their local +appellations; but it chanced to be a harsh, ill-connected, and +interminable word, which seemed to fill the mouth with a mixture of +very stiff clay and very crumbly pebbles. Zenobia suggested "Sunny +Glimpse," as expressive of a vista into a better system of society. +This we turned over and over for a while, acknowledging its prettiness, +but concluded it to be rather too fine and sentimental a name (a fault +inevitable by literary ladies in such attempts) for sunburnt men to +work under. I ventured to whisper "Utopia," which, however, was +unanimously scouted down, and the proposer very harshly maltreated, as +if he had intended a latent satire. Some were for calling our +institution "The Oasis," in view of its being the one green spot in the +moral sand-waste of the world; but others insisted on a proviso for +reconsidering the matter at a twelvemonths' end, when a final decision +might be had, whether to name it "The Oasis" or "Sahara." So, at last, +finding it impracticable to hammer out anything better, we resolved +that the spot should still be Blithedale, as being of good augury +enough. + +The evening wore on, and the outer solitude looked in upon us through +the windows, gloomy, wild, and vague, like another state of existence, +close beside the little sphere of warmth and light in which we were the +prattlers and bustlers of a moment. By and by the door was opened by +Silas Foster, with a cotton handkerchief about his head, and a tallow +candle in his hand. + +"Take my advice, brother farmers," said he, with a great, broad, +bottomless yawn, "and get to bed as soon as you can. I shall sound the +horn at daybreak; and we've got the cattle to fodder, and nine cows to +milk, and a dozen other things to do, before breakfast." + +Thus ended the first evening at Blithedale. I went shivering to my +fireless chamber, with the miserable consciousness (which had been +growing upon me for several hours past) that I had caught a tremendous +cold, and should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn, a fit +subject for a hospital. The night proved a feverish one. During the +greater part of it, I was in that vilest of states when a fixed idea +remains in the mind, like the nail in Sisera's brain, while innumerable +other ideas go and come, and flutter to and fro, combining constant +transition with intolerable sameness. Had I made a record of that +night's half-waking dreams, it is my belief that it would have +anticipated several of the chief incidents of this narrative, including +a dim shadow of its catastrophe. Starting up in bed at length, I saw +that the storm was past, and the moon was shining on the snowy +landscape, which looked like a lifeless copy of the world in marble. + +From the bank of the distant river, which was shimmering in the +moonlight, came the black shadow of the only cloud in heaven, driven +swiftly by the wind, and passing over meadow and hillock, vanishing +amid tufts of leafless trees, but reappearing on the hither side, until +it swept across our doorstep. + +How cold an Arcadia was this! + + + +VI. COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER + +The horn sounded at daybreak, as Silas Foster had forewarned us, harsh, +uproarious, inexorably drawn out, and as sleep-dispelling as if this +hard-hearted old yeoman had got hold of the trump of doom. + +On all sides I could hear the creaking of the bedsteads, as the +brethren of Blithedale started from slumber, and thrust themselves into +their habiliments, all awry, no doubt, in their haste to begin the +reformation of the world. Zenobia put her head into the entry, and +besought Silas Foster to cease his clamor, and to be kind enough to +leave an armful of firewood and a pail of water at her chamber door. +Of the whole household,--unless, indeed, it were Priscilla, for whose +habits, in this particular, I cannot vouch,--of all our apostolic +society, whose mission was to bless mankind, Hollingsworth, I +apprehend, was the only one who began the enterprise with prayer. My +sleeping-room being but thinly partitioned from his, the solemn murmur +of his voice made its way to my ears, compelling me to be an auditor of +his awful privacy with the Creator. It affected me with a deep +reverence for Hollingsworth, which no familiarity then existing, or +that afterwards grew more intimate between us,--no, nor my subsequent +perception of his own great errors,--ever quite effaced. It is so rare, +in these times, to meet with a man of prayerful habits (except, of +course, in the pulpit), that such an one is decidedly marked out by the +light of transfiguration, shed upon him in the divine interview from +which he passes into his daily life. + +As for me, I lay abed; and if I said my prayers, it was backward, +cursing my day as bitterly as patient Job himself. The truth was, the +hot-house warmth of a town residence, and the luxurious life in which I +indulged myself, had taken much of the pith out of my physical system; +and the wintry blast of the preceding day, together with the general +chill of our airy old farmhouse, had got fairly into my heart and the +marrow of my bones. In this predicament, I seriously wished--selfish +as it may appear--that the reformation of society had been postponed +about half a century, or, at all events, to such a date as should have +put my intermeddling with it entirely out of the question. + +What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society +than I had always lived in? It had satisfied me well enough. My +pleasant bachelor-parlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and carpeted, +with the bedchamber adjoining; my centre-table, strewn with books and +periodicals; my writing-desk with a half-finished poem, in a stanza of +my own contrivance; my morning lounge at the reading-room or picture +gallery; my noontide walk along the cheery pavement, with the +suggestive succession of human faces, and the brisk throb of human life +in which I shared; my dinner at the Albion, where I had a hundred +dishes at command, and could banquet as delicately as the wizard +Michael Scott when the Devil fed him from the king of France's kitchen; +my evening at the billiard club, the concert, the theatre, or at +somebody's party, if I pleased,--what could be better than all this? +Was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations +of a barnyard; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen +cows; to eat salt beef, and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and +thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth, into whose +vocation I had thrust myself? Above all, was it better to have a fever +and die blaspheming, as I was like to do? + +In this wretched plight, with a furnace in my heart and another in my +head, by the heat of which I was kept constantly at the boiling point, +yet shivering at the bare idea of extruding so much as a finger into +the icy atmosphere of the room, I kept my bed until breakfast-time, +when Hollingsworth knocked at the door, and entered. + +"Well, Coverdale," cried he, "you bid fair to make an admirable farmer! +Don't you mean to get up to-day?" + +"Neither to-day nor to-morrow," said I hopelessly. "I doubt if I ever +rise again!" + +"What is the matter now?" he asked. + +I told him my piteous case, and besought him to send me back to town in +a close carriage. + +"No, no!" said Hollingsworth with kindly seriousness. "If you are +really sick, we must take care of you." + +Accordingly he built a fire in my chamber, and, having little else to +do while the snow lay on the ground, established himself as my nurse. A +doctor was sent for, who, being homaeopathic, gave me as much medicine, +in the course of a fortnight's attendance, as would have laid on the +point of a needle. They fed me on water-gruel, and I speedily became a +skeleton above ground. But, after all, I have many precious +recollections connected with that fit of sickness. + +Hollingsworth's more than brotherly attendance gave me inexpressible +comfort. Most men--and certainly I could not always claim to be one of +the exceptions--have a natural indifference, if not an absolutely +hostile feeling, towards those whom disease, or weakness, or calamity +of any kind causes to falter and faint amid the rude jostle of our +selfish existence. The education of Christianity, it is true, the +sympathy of a like experience and the example of women, may soften and, +possibly, subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it is +originally there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our +brute brethren, who hunt the sick or disabled member of the herd from +among them, as an enemy. It is for this reason that the stricken deer +goes apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws himself into his den. +Except in love, or the attachments of kindred, or other very long and +habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. But there was +something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of +Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is +best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft place +in his heart. I knew it well, however, at that time, although +afterwards it came nigh to be forgotten. Methought there could not be +two such men alive as Hollingsworth. There never was any blaze of a +fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down-sinkings and +shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those +eyes, which lay so deep and dark under his shaggy brows. + +Happy the man that has such a friend beside him when he comes to die! +and unless a friend like Hollingsworth be at hand,--as most probably +there will not,--he had better make up his mind to die alone. How many +men, I wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he would choose +for his deathbed companions! At the crisis of my fever I besought +Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but continually to +make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the hand, a word, a +prayer, if he thought good to utter it; and that then he should be the +witness how courageously I would encounter the worst. It still +impresses me as almost a matter of regret that I did not die then, when +I had tolerably made up my mind to it; for Hollingsworth would have +gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his friendly +and hopeful accents far over on the other side, while I should be +treading the unknown path. Now, were I to send for him, he would +hardly come to my bedside, nor should I depart the easier for his +presence. + +"You are not going to die, this time," said he, gravely smiling. "You +know nothing about sickness, and think your case a great deal more +desperate than it is." + +"Death should take me while I am in the mood," replied I, with a little +of my customary levity. + +"Have you nothing to do in life," asked Hollingsworth, "that you fancy +yourself so ready to leave it?" + +"Nothing," answered I; "nothing that I know of, unless to make pretty +verses, and play a part, with Zenobia and the rest of the amateurs, in +our pastoral. It seems but an unsubstantial sort of business, as +viewed through a mist of fever. But, dear Hollingsworth, your own +vocation is evidently to be a priest, and to spend your days and nights +in helping your fellow creatures to draw peaceful dying breaths." + +"And by which of my qualities," inquired he, "can you suppose me fitted +for this awful ministry?" + +"By your tenderness," I said. "It seems to me the reflection of God's +own love." + +"And you call me tender!" repeated Hollingsworth thoughtfully. "I +should rather say that the most marked trait in my character is an +inflexible severity of purpose. Mortal man has no right to be so +inflexible as it is my nature and necessity to be." + +"I do not believe it," I replied. + +But, in due time, I remembered what he said. + +Probably, as Hollingsworth suggested, my disorder was never so serious +as, in my ignorance of such matters, I was inclined to consider it. +After so much tragical preparation, it was positively rather mortifying +to find myself on the mending hand. + +All the other members of the Community showed me kindness, according to +the full measure of their capacity. Zenobia brought me my gruel every +day, made by her own hands (not very skilfully, if the truth must be +told), and, whenever I seemed inclined to converse, would sit by my +bedside, and talk with so much vivacity as to add several gratuitous +throbs to my pulse. Her poor little stories and tracts never half did +justice to her intellect. It was only the lack of a fitter avenue that +drove her to seek development in literature. She was made (among a +thousand other things that she might have been) for a stump oratress. +I recognized no severe culture in Zenobia; her mind was full of weeds. +It startled me sometimes, in my state of moral as well as bodily +faint-heartedness, to observe the hardihood of her philosophy. She +made no scruple of oversetting all human institutions, and scattering +them as with a breeze from her fan. A female reformer, in her attacks +upon society, has an instinctive sense of where the life lies, and is +inclined to aim directly at that spot. Especially the relation between +the sexes is naturally among the earliest to attract her notice. + +Zenobia was truly a magnificent woman. The homely simplicity of her +dress could not conceal, nor scarcely diminish, the queenliness of her +presence. The image of her form and face should have been multiplied +all over the earth. It was wronging the rest of mankind to retain her +as the spectacle of only a few. The stage would have been her proper +sphere. She should have made it a point of duty, moreover, to sit +endlessly to painters and sculptors, and preferably to the latter; +because the cold decorum of the marble would consist with the utmost +scantiness of drapery, so that the eye might chastely be gladdened with +her material perfection in its entireness. I know not well how to +express that the native glow of coloring in her cheeks, and even the +flesh-warmth over her round arms, and what was visible of her full +bust,--in a word, her womanliness incarnated,--compelled me sometimes +to close my eyes, as if it were not quite the privilege of modesty to +gaze at her. Illness and exhaustion, no doubt, had made me morbidly +sensitive. + +I noticed--and wondered how Zenobia contrived it--that she had always a +new flower in her hair. And still it was a hot-house flower,--an +outlandish flower,--a flower of the tropics, such as appeared to have +sprung passionately out of a soil the very weeds of which would be +fervid and spicy. Unlike as was the flower of each successive day to +the preceding one, it yet so assimilated its richness to the rich +beauty of the woman, that I thought it the only flower fit to be worn; +so fit, indeed, that Nature had evidently created this floral gem, in a +happy exuberance, for the one purpose of worthily adorning Zenobia's +head. It might be that my feverish fantasies clustered themselves +about this peculiarity, and caused it to look more gorgeous and +wonderful than if beheld with temperate eyes. In the height of my +illness, as I well recollect, I went so far as to pronounce it +preternatural. + +"Zenobia is an enchantress!" whispered I once to Hollingsworth. "She +is a sister of the Veiled Lady. That flower in her hair is a talisman. +If you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into +something else." + +"What does he say?" asked Zenobia. + +"Nothing that has an atom of sense in it," answered Hollingsworth. "He +is a little beside himself, I believe, and talks about your being a +witch, and of some magical property in the flower that you wear in your +hair." + +"It is an idea worthy of a feverish poet," said she, laughing rather +compassionately, and taking out the flower. "I scorn to owe anything +to magic. Here, Mr. Hollingsworth, you may keep the spell while it has +any virtue in it; but I cannot promise you not to appear with a new one +to-morrow. It is the one relic of my more brilliant, my happier days!" + +The most curious part of the matter was that, long after my slight +delirium had passed away,--as long, indeed, as I continued to know this +remarkable woman,--her daily flower affected my imagination, though +more slightly, yet in very much the same way. The reason must have +been that, whether intentionally on her part or not, this favorite +ornament was actually a subtile expression of Zenobia's character. + +One subject, about which--very impertinently, moreover--I perplexed +myself with a great many conjectures, was, whether Zenobia had ever +been married. The idea, it must be understood, was unauthorized by any +circumstance or suggestion that had made its way to my ears. So young +as I beheld her, and the freshest and rosiest woman of a thousand, +there was certainly no need of imputing to her a destiny already +accomplished; the probability was far greater that her coming years had +all life's richest gifts to bring. If the great event of a woman's +existence had been consummated, the world knew nothing of it, although +the world seemed to know Zenobia well. It was a ridiculous piece of +romance, undoubtedly, to imagine that this beautiful personage, wealthy +as she was, and holding a position that might fairly enough be called +distinguished, could have given herself away so privately, but that +some whisper and suspicion, and by degrees a full understanding of the +fact, would eventually be blown abroad. But then, as I failed not to +consider, her original home was at a distance of many hundred miles. +Rumors might fill the social atmosphere, or might once have filled it, +there, which would travel but slowly, against the wind, towards our +Northeastern metropolis, and perhaps melt into thin air before reaching +it. + +There was not--and I distinctly repeat it--the slightest foundation in +my knowledge for any surmise of the kind. But there is a species of +intuition,--either a spiritual lie or the subtile recognition of a +fact,--which comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system. +The soul gets the better of the body, after wasting illness, or when a +vegetable diet may have mingled too much ether in the blood. Vapors +then rise up to the brain, and take shapes that often image falsehood, +but sometimes truth. The spheres of our companions have, at such +periods, a vastly greater influence upon our own than when robust +health gives us a repellent and self-defensive energy. Zenobia's +sphere, I imagine, impressed itself powerfully on mine, and transformed +me, during this period of my weakness, into something like a mesmerical +clairvoyant. + +Then, also, as anybody could observe, the freedom of her deportment +(though, to some tastes, it might commend itself as the utmost +perfection of manner in a youthful widow or a blooming matron) was not +exactly maiden-like. What girl had ever laughed as Zenobia did? What +girl had ever spoken in her mellow tones? Her unconstrained and +inevitable manifestation, I said often to myself, was that of a woman +to whom wedlock had thrown wide the gates of mystery. Yet sometimes I +strove to be ashamed of these conjectures. I acknowledged it as a +masculine grossness--a sin of wicked interpretation, of which man is +often guilty towards the other sex--thus to mistake the sweet, liberal, +but womanly frankness of a noble and generous disposition. Still, it +was of no avail to reason with myself nor to upbraid myself. +Pertinaciously the thought, "Zenobia is a wife; Zenobia has lived and +loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly +developed rose!"--irresistibly that thought drove out all other +conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject. + +Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, I presume, of the +point to which it led me. + +"Mr. Coverdale," said she one day, as she saw me watching her, while +she arranged my gruel on the table, "I have been exposed to a great +deal of eye-shot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but never, +I think, to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of favoring +me with. I seem to interest you very much; and yet--or else a woman's +instinct is for once deceived--I cannot reckon you as an admirer. What +are you seeking to discover in me?" + +"The mystery of your life," answered I, surprised into the truth by the +unexpectedness of her attack. "And you will never tell me." + +She bent her head towards me, and let me look into her eyes, as if +challenging me to drop a plummet-line down into the depths of her +consciousness. + +"I see nothing now," said I, closing my own eyes, "unless it be the +face of a sprite laughing at me from the bottom of a deep well." + +A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects +that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away. Otherwise, +the matter could have been no concern of mine. It was purely +speculative, for I should not, under any circumstances, have fallen in +love with Zenobia. The riddle made me so nervous, however, in my +sensitive condition of mind and body, that I most ungratefully began to +wish that she would let me alone. Then, too, her gruel was very +wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smell of pine smoke upon it, +like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a witch's best +concocted dainties. Why could not she have allowed one of the other +women to take the gruel in charge? Whatever else might be her gifts, +Nature certainly never intended Zenobia for a cook. Or, if so, she +should have meddled only with the richest and spiciest dishes, and such +as are to be tasted at banquets, between draughts of intoxicating wine. + + + +VII. THE CONVALESCENT + +As soon as my incommodities allowed me to think of past occurrences, I +failed not to inquire what had become of the odd little guest whom +Hollingsworth had been the medium of introducing among us. It now +appeared that poor Priscilla had not so literally fallen out of the +clouds, as we were at first inclined to suppose. A letter, which +should have introduced her, had since been received from one of the +city missionaries, containing a certificate of character and an +allusion to circumstances which, in the writer's judgment, made it +especially desirable that she should find shelter in our Community. +There was a hint, not very intelligible, implying either that Priscilla +had recently escaped from some particular peril or irksomeness of +position, or else that she was still liable to this danger or +difficulty, whatever it might be. We should ill have deserved the +reputation of a benevolent fraternity, had we hesitated to entertain a +petitioner in such need, and so strongly recommended to our kindness; +not to mention, moreover, that the strange maiden had set herself +diligently to work, and was doing good service with her needle. But a +slight mist of uncertainty still floated about Priscilla, and kept her, +as yet, from taking a very decided place among creatures of flesh and +blood. + +The mysterious attraction, which, from her first entrance on our scene, +she evinced for Zenobia, had lost nothing of its force. I often heard +her footsteps, soft and low, accompanying the light but decided tread +of the latter up the staircase, stealing along the passage-way by her +new friend's side, and pausing while Zenobia entered my chamber. +Occasionally Zenobia would be a little annoyed by Priscilla's too close +attendance. In an authoritative and not very kindly tone, she would +advise her to breathe the pleasant air in a walk, or to go with her +work into the barn, holding out half a promise to come and sit on the +hay with her, when at leisure. Evidently, Priscilla found but scanty +requital for her love. Hollingsworth was likewise a great favorite with +her. For several minutes together sometimes, while my auditory nerves +retained the susceptibility of delicate health, I used to hear a low, +pleasant murmur ascending from the room below; and at last ascertained +it to be Priscilla's voice, babbling like a little brook to +Hollingsworth. She talked more largely and freely with him than with +Zenobia, towards whom, indeed, her feelings seemed not so much to be +confidence as involuntary affection. I should have thought all the +better of my own qualities had Priscilla marked me out for the third +place in her regards. But, though she appeared to like me tolerably +well, I could never flatter myself with being distinguished by her as +Hollingsworth and Zenobia were. + +One forenoon, during my convalescence, there came a gentle tap at my +chamber door. I immediately said, "Come in, Priscilla!" with an acute +sense of the applicant's identity. Nor was I deceived. It was really +Priscilla,--a pale, large-eyed little woman (for she had gone far +enough into her teens to be, at least, on the outer limit of girlhood), +but much less wan than at my previous view of her, and far better +conditioned both as to health and spirits. As I first saw her, she had +reminded me of plants that one sometimes observes doing their best to +vegetate among the bricks of an enclosed court, where there is scanty +soil and never any sunshine. At present, though with no approach to +bloom, there were indications that the girl had human blood in her +veins. + +Priscilla came softly to my bedside, and held out an article of +snow-white linen, very carefully and smoothly ironed. She did not seem +bashful, nor anywise embarrassed. My weakly condition, I suppose, +supplied a medium in which she could approach me. + +"Do not you need this?" asked she. "I have made it for you." It was a +nightcap! + +"My dear Priscilla," said I, smiling, "I never had on a nightcap in my +life! But perhaps it will be better for me to wear one, now that I am +a miserable invalid. How admirably you have done it! No, no; I never +can think of wearing such an exquisitely wrought nightcap as this, +unless it be in the daytime, when I sit up to receive company." + +"It is for use, not beauty," answered Priscilla. "I could have +embroidered it and made it much prettier, if I pleased." + +While holding up the nightcap and admiring the fine needlework, I +perceived that Priscilla had a sealed letter which she was waiting for +me to take. It had arrived from the village post-office that morning. +As I did not immediately offer to receive the letter, she drew it back, +and held it against her bosom, with both hands clasped over it, in a +way that had probably grown habitual to her. Now, on turning my eyes +from the nightcap to Priscilla, it forcibly struck me that her air, +though not her figure, and the expression of her face, but not its +features, had a resemblance to what I had often seen in a friend of +mine, one of the most gifted women of the age. I cannot describe it. +The points easiest to convey to the reader were a certain curve of the +shoulders and a partial closing of the eyes, which seemed to look more +penetratingly into my own eyes, through the narrowed apertures, than if +they had been open at full width. It was a singular anomaly of +likeness coexisting with perfect dissimilitude. + +"Will you give me the letter, Priscilla?" said I. + +She started, put the letter into my hand, and quite lost the look that +had drawn my notice. + +"Priscilla," I inquired, "did you ever see Miss Margaret Fuller?" + +"No," she answered. + +"Because," said I, "you reminded me of her just now,--and it happens, +strangely enough, that this very letter is from her." + +Priscilla, for whatever reason, looked very much discomposed. + +"I wish people would not fancy such odd things in me!" she said rather +petulantly. "How could I possibly make myself resemble this lady +merely by holding her letter in my hand?" + +"Certainly, Priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain it," I replied; +"nor do I suppose that the letter had anything to do with it. It was +just a coincidence, nothing more." + +She hastened out of the room, and this was the last that I saw of +Priscilla until I ceased to be an invalid. + +Being much alone during my recovery, I read interminably in Mr. +Emerson's Essays, "The Dial," Carlyle's works, George Sand's romances +(lent me by Zenobia), and other books which one or another of the +brethren or sisterhood had brought with them. Agreeing in little else, +most of these utterances were like the cry of some solitary sentinel, +whose station was on the outposts of the advance guard of human +progression; or sometimes the voice came sadly from among the shattered +ruins of the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the future. They were +well adapted (better, at least, than any other intellectual products, +the volatile essence of which had heretofore tinctured a printed page) +to pilgrims like ourselves, whose present bivouac was considerably +further into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of crusaders had +ever marched before. Fourier's works, also, in a series of horribly +tedious volumes, attracted a good deal of my attention, from the +analogy which I could not but recognize between his system and our own. +There was far less resemblance, it is true, than the world chose to +imagine, inasmuch as the two theories differed, as widely as the zenith +from the nadir, in their main principles. + +I talked about Fourier to Hollingsworth, and translated, for his +benefit, some of the passages that chiefly impressed me. + +"When, as a consequence of human improvement," said I, "the globe shall +arrive at its final perfection, the great ocean is to be converted into +a particular kind of lemonade, such as was fashionable at Paris in +Fourier's time. He calls it limonade a cedre. It is positively a +fact! Just imagine the city docks filled, every day, with a flood tide +of this delectable beverage!" + +"Why did not the Frenchman make punch of it at once?" asked +Hollingsworth. "The jack-tars would be delighted to go down in ships +and do business in such an element." + +I further proceeded to explain, as well as I modestly could, several +points of Fourier's system, illustrating them with here and there a +page or two, and asking Hollingsworth's opinion as to the expediency of +introducing these beautiful peculiarities into our own practice. + +"Let me hear no more of it!" cried he, in utter disgust. "I never will +forgive this fellow! He has committed the unpardonable sin; for what +more monstrous iniquity could the Devil himself contrive than to choose +the selfish principle,--the principle of all human wrong, the very +blackness of man's heart, the portion of ourselves which we shudder at, +and which it is the whole aim of spiritual discipline to eradicate,--to +choose it as the master workman of his system? To seize upon and +foster whatever vile, petty, sordid, filthy, bestial, and abominable +corruptions have cankered into our nature, to be the efficient +instruments of his infernal regeneration! And his consummated +Paradise, as he pictures it, would be worthy of the agency which he +counts upon for establishing it. The nauseous villain!" + +"Nevertheless," remarked I, "in consideration of the promised delights +of his system,--so very proper, as they certainly are, to be +appreciated by Fourier's countrymen,--I cannot but wonder that +universal France did not adopt his theory at a moment's warning. But +is there not something very characteristic of his nation in Fourier's +manner of putting forth his views? He makes no claim to inspiration. +He has not persuaded himself--as Swedenborg did, and as any other than +a Frenchman would, with a mission of like importance to +communicate--that he speaks with authority from above. He promulgates +his system, so far as I can perceive, entirely on his own +responsibility. He has searched out and discovered the whole counsel +of the Almighty in respect to mankind, past, present, and for exactly +seventy thousand years to come, by the mere force and cunning of his +individual intellect!" + +"Take the book out of my sight," said Hollingsworth with great +virulence of expression, "or, I tell you fairly, I shall fling it in +the fire! And as for Fourier, let him make a Paradise, if he can, of +Gehenna, where, as I conscientiously believe, he is floundering at this +moment!" + +"And bellowing, I suppose," said I,--not that I felt any ill-will +towards Fourier, but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to +Hollingsworth's image, "bellowing for the least drop of his beloved +limonade a cedre!" + +There is but little profit to be expected in attempting to argue with a +man who allows himself to declaim in this manner; so I dropt the +subject, and never took it up again. + +But had the system at which he was so enraged combined almost any +amount of human wisdom, spiritual insight, and imaginative beauty, I +question whether Hollingsworth's mind was in a fit condition to receive +it. I began to discern that he had come among us actuated by no real +sympathy with our feelings and our hopes, but chiefly because we were +estranging ourselves from the world, with which his lonely and +exclusive object in life had already put him at odds. Hollingsworth +must have been originally endowed with a great spirit of benevolence, +deep enough and warm enough to be the source of as much disinterested +good as Providence often allows a human being the privilege of +conferring upon his fellows. This native instinct yet lived within +him. I myself had profited by it, in my necessity. It was seen, too, +in his treatment of Priscilla. Such casual circumstances as were here +involved would quicken his divine power of sympathy, and make him seem, +while their influence lasted, the tenderest man and the truest friend +on earth. But by and by you missed the tenderness of yesterday, and +grew drearily conscious that Hollingsworth had a closer friend than +ever you could be; and this friend was the cold, spectral monster which +he had himself conjured up, and on which he was wasting all the warmth +of his heart, and of which, at last,--as these men of a mighty purpose +so invariably do,--he had grown to be the bond-slave. It was his +philanthropic theory. + +This was a result exceedingly sad to contemplate, considering that it +had been mainly brought about by the very ardor and exuberance of his +philanthropy. Sad, indeed, but by no means unusual: he had taught his +benevolence to pour its warm tide exclusively through one channel; so +that there was nothing to spare for other great manifestations of love +to man, nor scarcely for the nutriment of individual attachments, +unless they could minister in some way to the terrible egotism which he +mistook for an angel of God. Had Hollingsworth's education been more +enlarged, he might not so inevitably have stumbled into this pitfall. +But this identical pursuit had educated him. He knew absolutely +nothing, except in a single direction, where he had thought so +energetically, and felt to such a depth, that no doubt the entire +reason and justice of the universe appeared to be concentrated +thitherward. + +It is my private opinion that, at this period of his life, +Hollingsworth was fast going mad; and, as with other crazy people +(among whom I include humorists of every degree), it required all the +constancy of friendship to restrain his associates from pronouncing him +an intolerable bore. Such prolonged fiddling upon one string--such +multiform presentation of one idea! His specific object (of which he +made the public more than sufficiently aware, through the medium of +lectures and pamphlets) was to obtain funds for the construction of an +edifice, with a sort of collegiate endowment. On this foundation he +purposed to devote himself and a few disciples to the reform and mental +culture of our criminal brethren. His visionary edifice was +Hollingsworth's one castle in the air; it was the material type in +which his philanthropic dream strove to embody itself; and he made the +scheme more definite, and caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept +his clutch the more pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the +bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred times, with a pencil and sheet +of paper, sketching the facade, the side-view, or the rear of the +structure, or planning the internal arrangements, as lovingly as +another man might plan those of the projected home where he meant to be +happy with his wife and children. I have known him to begin a model of +the building with little stones, gathered at the brookside, whither we +had gone to cool ourselves in the sultry noon of haying-time. Unlike +all other ghosts, his spirit haunted an edifice, which, instead of +being time-worn, and full of storied love, and joy, and sorrow, had +never yet come into existence. + +"Dear friend," said I once to Hollingsworth, before leaving my +sick-chamber, "I heartily wish that I could make your schemes my +schemes, because it would be so great a happiness to find myself +treading the same path with you. But I am afraid there is not stuff in +me stern enough for a philanthropist,--or not in this peculiar +direction,--or, at all events, not solely in this. Can you bear with +me, if such should prove to be the case?" + +"I will at least wait awhile," answered Hollingsworth, gazing at me +sternly and gloomily. "But how can you be my life-long friend, except +you strive with me towards the great object of my life?" + +Heaven forgive me! A horrible suspicion crept into my heart, and stung +the very core of it as with the fangs of an adder. I wondered whether +it were possible that Hollingsworth could have watched by my bedside, +with all that devoted care, only for the ulterior purpose of making me +a proselyte to his views! + + + +VIII. A MODERN ARCADIA + +May-day--I forget whether by Zenobia's sole decree, or by the unanimous +vote of our community--had been declared a movable festival. It was +deferred until the sun should have had a reasonable time to clear away +the snowdrifts along the lee of the stone walls, and bring out a few of +the readiest wild flowers. On the forenoon of the substituted day, +after admitting some of the balmy air into my chamber, I decided that +it was nonsense and effeminacy to keep myself a prisoner any longer. +So I descended to the sitting-room, and finding nobody there, proceeded +to the barn, whence I had already heard Zenobia's voice, and along with +it a girlish laugh which was not so certainly recognizable. Arriving +at the spot, it a little surprised me to discover that these merry +outbreaks came from Priscilla. + +The two had been a-maying together. They had found anemones in +abundance, houstonias by the handful, some columbines, a few +long-stalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting flowers, and +had filled up their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and trees. +None were prettier than the maple twigs, the leaf of which looks like a +scarlet bud in May, and like a plate of vegetable gold in October. +Zenobia, who showed no conscience in such matters, had also rifled a +cherry-tree of one of its blossomed boughs, and, with all this variety +of sylvan ornament, had been decking out Priscilla. Being done with a +good deal of taste, it made her look more charming than I should have +thought possible, with my recollection of the wan, frost-nipt girl, as +heretofore described. Nevertheless, among those fragrant blossoms, and +conspicuously, too, had been stuck a weed of evil odor and ugly aspect, +which, as soon as I detected it, destroyed the effect of all the rest. +There was a gleam of latent mischief--not to call it deviltry--in +Zenobia's eye, which seemed to indicate a slightly malicious purpose in +the arrangement. + +As for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaflets, and wore +nothing but her invariable flower of the tropics. + +"What do you think of Priscilla now, Mr. Coverdale?" asked she, +surveying her as a child does its doll. "Is not she worth a verse or +two?" + +"There is only one thing amiss," answered I. Zenobia laughed, and flung +the malignant weed away. + +"Yes; she deserves some verses now," said I, "and from a better poet +than myself. She is the very picture of the New England spring; +subdued in tint and rather cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and +bringing us a few Alpine blossoms, as earnest of something richer, +though hardly more beautiful, hereafter. The best type of her is one +of those anemones." + +"What I find most singular in Priscilla, as her health improves," +observed Zenobia, "is her wildness. Such a quiet little body as she +seemed, one would not have expected that. Why, as we strolled the +woods together, I could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees, +like a squirrel. She has never before known what it is to live in the +free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she were sipping wine. And +she thinks it such a paradise here, and all of us, particularly Mr. +Hollingsworth and myself, such angels! It is quite ridiculous, and +provokes one's malice almost, to see a creature so happy, especially a +feminine creature." + +"They are always happier than male creatures," said I. + +"You must correct that opinion, Mr. Coverdale," replied Zenobia +contemptuously, "or I shall think you lack the poetic insight. Did you +ever see a happy woman in your life? Of course, I do not mean a girl, +like Priscilla and a thousand others,--for they are all alike, while on +the sunny side of experience,--but a grown woman. How can she be +happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one single +event, which she must contrive to make the substance of her whole life? +A man has his choice of innumerable events." + +"A woman, I suppose," answered I, "by constant repetition of her one +event, may compensate for the lack of variety." + +"Indeed!" said Zenobia. + +While we were talking, Priscilla caught sight of Hollingsworth at a +distance, in a blue frock, and with a hoe over his shoulder, returning +from the field. She immediately set out to meet him, running and +skipping, with spirits as light as the breeze of the May morning, but +with limbs too little exercised to be quite responsive; she clapped her +hands, too, with great exuberance of gesture, as is the custom of young +girls when their electricity overcharges them. But, all at once, midway +to Hollingsworth, she paused, looked round about her, towards the +river, the road, the woods, and back towards us, appearing to listen, +as if she heard some one calling her name, and knew not precisely in +what direction. + +"Have you bewitched her?" I exclaimed. + +"It is no sorcery of mine," said Zenobia; "but I have seen the girl do +that identical thing once or twice before. Can you imagine what is the +matter with her?" + +"No; unless," said I, "she has the gift of hearing those 'airy tongues +that syllable men's names,' which Milton tells about." + +From whatever cause, Priscilla's animation seemed entirely to have +deserted her. She seated herself on a rock, and remained there until +Hollingsworth came up; and when he took her hand and led her back to +us, she rather resembled my original image of the wan and spiritless +Priscilla than the flowery May-queen of a few moments ago. These +sudden transformations, only to be accounted for by an extreme nervous +susceptibility, always continued to characterize the girl, though with +diminished frequency as her health progressively grew more robust. + +I was now on my legs again. My fit of illness had been an avenue +between two existences; the low-arched and darksome doorway, through +which I crept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and +knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that lay +beyond. In this respect, it was like death. And, as with death, too, +it was good to have gone through it. No otherwise could I have rid +myself of a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other +such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along the broad +highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noon-time, however +freshly they may have begun their pilgrimage in the dewy morning. The +very substance upon my bones had not been fit to live with in any +better, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which I was +accustomed. So it was taken off me and flung aside, like any other +worn-out or unseasonable garment; and, after shivering a little while +in my skeleton, I began to be clothed anew, and much more +satisfactorily than in my previous suit. In literal and physical +truth, I was quite another man. I had a lively sense of the exultation +with which the spirit will enter on the next stage of its eternal +progress after leaving the heavy burden of its mortality in an early +grave, with as little concern for what may become of it as now affected +me for the flesh which I had lost. + +Emerging into the genial sunshine, I half fancied that the labors of +the brotherhood had already realized some of Fourier's predictions. +Their enlightened culture of the soil, and the virtues with which they +sanctified their life, had begun to produce an effect upon the material +world and its climate. In my new enthusiasm, man looked strong and +stately,--and woman, oh, how beautiful!--and the earth a green garden, +blossoming with many-colored delights. Thus Nature, whose laws I had +broken in various artificial ways, comported herself towards me as a +strict but loving mother, who uses the rod upon her little boy for his +naughtiness, and then gives him a smile, a kiss, and some pretty +playthings to console the urchin for her severity. + +In the interval of my seclusion, there had been a number of recruits to +our little army of saints and martyrs. They were mostly individuals +who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them with +ordinary pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so +deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to come. On comparing +their minds one with another they often discovered that this idea of a +Community had been growing up, in silent and unknown sympathy, for +years. Thoughtful, strongly lined faces were among them; sombre brows, +but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless prematurely dimmed by +the student's lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of +silver. Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a stony layer of +habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its possibilities, would have +been absurdly out of place in an enterprise like this. Youth, too, in +its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our purpose; for it would +behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very +same spots of withered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen +it vanish. We had very young people with us, it is true,--downy lads, +rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above +one's knee; but these had chiefly been sent hither for education, which +it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. +Then we had boarders, from town and elsewhere, who lived with us in a +familiar way, sympathized more or less in our theories, and sometimes +shared in our labors. + +On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together; nor, +perhaps, could it reasonably be expected to hold together long. Persons +of marked individuality--crooked sticks, as some of us might be +called--are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. But, so +long as our union should subsist, a man of intellect and feeling, with +a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without finding so +many points of attraction as would allure him hitherward. We were of +all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every +imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but +negative. We had individually found one thing or another to quarrel +with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the +inexpediency of lumbering along with the old system any further. As to +what should be substituted, there was much less unanimity. We did not +greatly care--at least, I never did--for the written constitution under +which our millennium had commenced. My hope was, that, between theory +and practice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out; +and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in +the trial would not have been wasted, either as regarded passing +enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise. + +Arcadians though we were, our costume bore no resemblance to the +beribboned doublets, silk breeches and stockings, and slippers fastened +with artificial roses, that distinguish the pastoral people of poetry +and the stage. In outward show, I humbly conceive, we looked rather +like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a company of honest +laboring-men, or a conclave of philosophers. Whatever might be our +points of difference, we all of us seemed to have come to Blithedale +with the one thrifty and laudable idea of wearing out our old clothes. +Such garments as had an airing, whenever we strode afield! Coats with +high collars and with no collars, broad-skirted or swallow-tailed, and +with the waist at every point between the hip and arm-pit; pantaloons +of a dozen successive epochs, and greatly defaced at the knees by the +humiliations of the wearer before his lady-love,--in short, we were a +living epitome of defunct fashions, and the very raggedest presentment +of men who had seen better days. It was gentility in tatters. Often +retaining a scholarlike or clerical air, you might have taken us for +the denizens of Grub Street, intent on getting a comfortable livelihood +by agricultural labor; or Coleridge's projected Pantisocracy in full +experiment; or Candide and his motley associates at work in their +cabbage garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and +most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades +to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little skill as we boasted in other +points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served +admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the matter +was, that the first energetic movement essential to one downright +stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor +habiliments. So we gradually flung them all aside, and took to honest +homespun and linsey-woolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to the plan +recommended, I think, by Virgil,--"Ara nudus; sere nudus, "--which as +Silas Foster remarked, when I translated the maxim, would be apt to +astonish the women-folks. + +After a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve well with us. Our +faces took the sunburn kindly; our chests gained in compass, and our +shoulders in breadth and squareness; our great brown fists looked as if +they had never been capable of kid gloves. The plough, the hoe, the +scythe, and the hay-fork grew familiar to our grasp. The oxen +responded to our voices. We could do almost as fair a day's work as +Silas Foster himself, sleep dreamlessly after it, and awake at daybreak +with only a little stiffness of the joints, which was usually quite +gone by breakfast-time. + +To be sure, our next neighbors pretended to be incredulous as to our +real proficiency in the business which we had taken in hand. They told +slanderous fables about our inability to yoke our own oxen, or to drive +them afield when yoked, or to release the poor brutes from their +conjugal bond at nightfall. They had the face to say, too, that the +cows laughed at our awkwardness at milking-time, and invariably kicked +over the pails; partly in consequence of our putting the stool on the +wrong side, and partly because, taking offence at the whisking of their +tails, we were in the habit of holding these natural fly-flappers with +one hand and milking with the other. They further averred that we hoed +up whole acres of Indian corn and other crops, and drew the earth +carefully about the weeds; and that we raised five hundred tufts of +burdock, mistaking them for cabbages; and that by dint of unskilful +planting few of our seeds ever came up at all, or, if they did come up, +it was stern-foremost; and that we spent the better part of the month +of June in reversing a field of beans, which had thrust themselves out +of the ground in this unseemly way. They quoted it as nothing more +than an ordinary occurrence for one or other of us to crop off two or +three fingers, of a morning, by our clumsy use of the hay-cutter. +Finally, and as an ultimate catastrophe, these mendacious rogues +circulated a report that we communitarians were exterminated, to the +last man, by severing ourselves asunder with the sweep of our own +scythes! and that the world had lost nothing by this little accident. + +But this was pure envy and malice on the part of the neighboring +farmers. The peril of our new way of life was not lest we should fail +in becoming practical agriculturists, but that we should probably cease +to be anything else. While our enterprise lay all in theory, we had +pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spiritualization of +labor. It was to be our form of prayer and ceremonial of worship. +Each stroke of the hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, +heretofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in the field, to let the wind +exhale the moisture from our foreheads, we were to look upward, and +catch glimpses into the far-off soul of truth. In this point of view, +matters did not turn out quite so well as we anticipated. It is very +true that, sometimes, gazing casually around me, out of the midst of my +toil, I used to discern a richer picturesqueness in the visible scene +of earth and sky. There was, at such moments, a novelty, an unwonted +aspect, on the face of Nature, as if she had been taken by surprise and +seen at unawares, with no opportunity to put off her real look, and +assume the mask with which she mysteriously hides herself from mortals. +But this was all. The clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored +and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. Our +thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor +symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the +evening. Intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of +bodily exercise. The yeoman and the scholar--the yeoman and the man of +finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and +integrity--are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or +welded into one substance. + +Zenobia soon saw this truth, and gibed me about it, one evening, as +Hollingsworth and I lay on the grass, after a hard day's work. + +"I am afraid you did not make a song today, while loading the +hay-cart," said she, "as Burns did, when he was reaping barley." + +"Burns never made a song in haying-time," I answered very positively. +"He was no poet while a farmer, and no farmer while a poet." + +"And on the whole, which of the two characters do you like best?" asked +Zenobia. "For I have an idea that you cannot combine them any better +than Burns did. Ah, I see, in my mind's eye, what sort of an +individual you are to be, two or three years hence. Grim Silas Foster +is your prototype, with his palm of sole-leather, and his joints of +rusty iron (which all through summer keep the stiffness of what he +calls his winter's rheumatize), and his brain of--I don't know what his +brain is made of, unless it be a Savoy cabbage; but yours may be +cauliflower, as a rather more delicate variety. Your physical man will +be transmuted into salt beef and fried pork, at the rate, I should +imagine, of a pound and a half a day; that being about the average +which we find necessary in the kitchen. You will make your toilet for +the day (still like this delightful Silas Foster) by rinsing your +fingers and the front part of your face in a little tin pan of water at +the doorstep, and teasing your hair with a wooden pocket-comb before a +seven-by-nine-inch looking-glass. Your only pastime will be to smoke +some very vile tobacco in the black stump of a pipe." + +"Pray, spare me!" cried I. "But the pipe is not Silas's only mode of +solacing himself with the weed." + +"Your literature," continued Zenobia, apparently delighted with her +description, "will be the 'Farmer's Almanac;' for I observe our friend +Foster never gets so far as the newspaper. When you happen to sit +down, at odd moments, you will fall asleep, and make nasal proclamation +of the fact, as he does; and invariably you must be jogged out of a +nap, after supper, by the future Mrs. Coverdale, and persuaded to go +regularly to bed. And on Sundays, when you put on a blue coat with +brass buttons, you will think of nothing else to do but to go and +lounge over the stone walls and rail fences, and stare at the corn +growing. And you will look with a knowing eye at oxen, and will have a +tendency to clamber over into pigsties, and feel of the hogs, and give +a guess how much they will weigh after you shall have stuck and dressed +them. Already I have noticed you begin to speak through your nose, and +with a drawl. Pray, if you really did make any poetry to-day, let us +hear it in that kind of utterance!" + +"Coverdale has given up making verses now," said Hollingsworth, who +never had the slightest appreciation of my poetry. "Just think of him +penning a sonnet with a fist like that! There is at least this good in +a life of toil, that it takes the nonsense and fancy-work out of a man, +and leaves nothing but what truly belongs to him. If a farmer can make +poetry at the plough-tail, it must be because his nature insists on it; +and if that be the case, let him make it, in Heaven's name!" + +"And how is it with you?" asked Zenobia, in a different voice; for she +never laughed at Hollingsworth, as she often did at me. "You, I think, +cannot have ceased to live a life of thought and feeling." + +"I have always been in earnest," answered Hollingsworth. "I have +hammered thought out of iron, after heating the iron in my heart! It +matters little what my outward toil may be. Were I a slave, at the +bottom of a mine, I should keep the same purpose, the same faith in its +ultimate accomplishment, that I do now. Miles Coverdale is not in +earnest, either as a poet or a laborer." + +"You give me hard measure, Hollingsworth," said I, a little hurt. "I +have kept pace with you in the field; and my bones feel as if I had +been in earnest, whatever may be the case with my brain!" + +"I cannot conceive," observed Zenobia with great emphasis,--and, no +doubt, she spoke fairly the feeling of the moment,--"I cannot conceive +of being so continually as Mr. Coverdale is within the sphere of a +strong and noble nature, without being strengthened and ennobled by its +influence!" + +This amiable remark of the fair Zenobia confirmed me in what I had +already begun to suspect, that Hollingsworth, like many other +illustrious prophets, reformers, and philanthropists, was likely to +make at least two proselytes among the women to one among the men. +Zenobia and Priscilla! These, I believe (unless my unworthy self might +be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his mission; and I +spent a great deal of time, uselessly, in trying to conjecture what +Hollingsworth meant to do with them--and they with him! + + + +IX. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA + +It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of mental occupation to devote +ourselves too exclusively to the study of individual men and women. If +the person under examination be one's self, the result is pretty +certain to be diseased action of the heart, almost before we can snatch +a second glance. Or if we take the freedom to put a friend under our +microscope, we thereby insulate him from many of his true relations, +magnify his peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, and of +course patch him very clumsily together again. What wonder, then, +should we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, which, after +all,--though we can point to every feature of his deformity in the real +personage,--may be said to have been created mainly by ourselves. + +Thus, as my conscience has often whispered me, I did Hollingsworth a +great wrong by prying into his character; and am perhaps doing him as +great a one, at this moment, by putting faith in the discoveries which +I seemed to make. But I could not help it. Had I loved him less, I +might have used him better. He and Zenobia and Priscilla--both for +their own sakes and as connected with him--were separated from the rest +of the Community, to my imagination, and stood forth as the indices of +a problem which it was my business to solve. Other associates had a +portion of my time; other matters amused me; passing occurrences +carried me along with them, while they lasted. But here was the vortex +of my meditations, around which they revolved, and whitherward they too +continually tended. In the midst of cheerful society, I had often a +feeling of loneliness. For it was impossible not to be sensible that, +while these three characters figured so largely on my private theatre, +I--though probably reckoned as a friend by all--was at best but a +secondary or tertiary personage with either of them. + +I loved Hollingsworth, as has already been enough expressed. But it +impressed me, more and more, that there was a stern and dreadful +peculiarity in this man, such as could not prove otherwise than +pernicious to the happiness of those who should be drawn into too +intimate a connection with him. He was not altogether human. There +was something else in Hollingsworth besides flesh and blood, and +sympathies and affections and celestial spirit. + +This is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to an +overruling purpose. It does not so much impel them from without, nor +even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with all +that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else +save that one principle. When such begins to be the predicament, it is +not cowardice, but wisdom, to avoid these victims. They have no heart, +no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. They will keep no friend, +unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they will smite and +slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the more +readily, if you take the first step with them, and cannot take the +second, and the third, and every other step of their terribly strait +path. They have an idol to which they consecrate themselves +high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is +most precious; and never once seem to suspect--so cunning has the Devil +been with them--that this false deity, in whose iron features, +immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and +love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the +surrounding darkness. And the higher and purer the original object, +and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the +probability that they can be led to recognize the process by which +godlike benevolence has been debased into all-devouring egotism. + +Of course I am perfectly aware that the above statement is exaggerated, +in the attempt to make it adequate. Professed philanthropists have +gone far; but no originally good man, I presume, ever went quite so far +as this. Let the reader abate whatever he deems fit. The paragraph +may remain, however, both for its truth and its exaggeration, as +strongly expressive of the tendencies which were really operative in +Hollingsworth, and as exemplifying the kind of error into which my mode +of observation was calculated to lead me. The issue was, that in +solitude I often shuddered at my friend. In my recollection of his +dark and impressive countenance, the features grew more sternly +prominent than the reality, duskier in their depth and shadow, and more +lurid in their light; the frown, that had merely flitted across his +brow, seemed to have contorted it with an adamantine wrinkle. On +meeting him again, I was often filled with remorse, when his deep eyes +beamed kindly upon me, as with the glow of a household fire that was +burning in a cave. "He is a man after all," thought I; "his Maker's +own truest image, a philanthropic man!--not that steel engine of the +Devil's contrivance, a philanthropist!" But in my wood-walks, and in my +silent chamber, the dark face frowned at me again. + +When a young girl comes within the sphere of such a man, she is as +perilously situated as the maiden whom, in the old classical myths, the +people used to expose to a dragon. If I had any duty whatever, in +reference to Hollingsworth, it was to endeavor to save Priscilla from +that kind of personal worship which her sex is generally prone to +lavish upon saints and heroes. It often requires but one smile out of +the hero's eyes into the girl's or woman's heart, to transform this +devotion, from a sentiment of the highest approval and confidence, into +passionate love. Now, Hollingsworth smiled much upon Priscilla,--more +than upon any other person. If she thought him beautiful, it was no +wonder. I often thought him so, with the expression of tender human +care and gentlest sympathy which she alone seemed to have power to call +out upon his features. Zenobia, I suspect, would have given her eyes, +bright as they were, for such a look; it was the least that our poor +Priscilla could do, to give her heart for a great many of them. There +was the more danger of this, inasmuch as the footing on which we all +associated at Blithedale was widely different from that of conventional +society. While inclining us to the soft affections of the golden age, +it seemed to authorize any individual, of either sex, to fall in love +with any other, regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable +and prudent. Accordingly the tender passion was very rife among us, in +various degrees of mildness or virulence, but mostly passing away with +the state of things that had given it origin. This was all well +enough; but, for a girl like Priscilla and a woman like Zenobia to +jostle one another in their love of a man like Hollingsworth, was +likely to be no child's play. + +Had I been as cold-hearted as I sometimes thought myself, nothing would +have interested me more than to witness the play of passions that must +thus have been evolved. But, in honest truth, I would really have gone +far to save Priscilla, at least, from the catastrophe in which such a +drama would be apt to terminate. + +Priscilla had now grown to be a very pretty girl, and still kept +budding and blossoming, and daily putting on some new charm, which you +no sooner became sensible of than you thought it worth all that she had +previously possessed. So unformed, vague, and without substance, as +she had come to us, it seemed as if we could see Nature shaping out a +woman before our very eyes, and yet had only a more reverential sense +of the mystery of a woman's soul and frame. Yesterday, her cheek was +pale, to-day, it had a bloom. Priscilla's smile, like a baby's first +one, was a wondrous novelty. Her imperfections and shortcomings +affected me with a kind of playful pathos, which was as absolutely +bewitching a sensation as ever I experienced. After she had been a +month or two at Blithedale, her animal spirits waxed high, and kept her +pretty constantly in a state of bubble and ferment, impelling her to +far more bodily activity than she had yet strength to endure. She was +very fond of playing with the other girls out of doors. There is +hardly another sight in the world so pretty as that of a company of +young girls, almost women grown, at play, and so giving themselves up +to their airy impulse that their tiptoes barely touch the ground. + +Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more +untamable and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting +variety, breaking continually into new modes of fun, yet with a +harmonious propriety through all. Their steps, their voices, appear +free as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music inaudible +to us. Young men and boys, on the other hand, play, according to +recognized law, old, traditionary games, permitting no caprioles of +fancy, but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts. +For, young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to be a brute. + +Especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race, +with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than they +need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. But +Priscilla's peculiar charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and +irregularity with which she ran. Growing up without exercise, except +to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use +of her legs. Setting buoyantly forth, therefore, as if no rival less +swift than Atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly, and +often tumbled on the grass. Such an incident--though it seems too +slight to think of--was a thing to laugh at, but which brought the +water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far greater +joys and sorrows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash. Priscilla's +life, as I beheld it, was full of trifles that affected me in just this +way. + +When she had come to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy that +Priscilla played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than any +other girl in the Community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster, +in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horseshoes round +Priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because she, with some other +young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide +off the cart. How she made her peace I never knew; but very soon +afterwards I saw old Silas, with his brawny hands round Priscilla's +waist, swinging her to and fro, and finally depositing her on one of +the oxen, to take her first lessons in riding. She met with terrible +mishaps in her efforts to milk a cow; she let the poultry into the +garden; she generally spoilt whatever part of the dinner she took in +charge; she broke crockery; she dropt our biggest water pitcher into +the well; and--except with her needle, and those little wooden +instruments for purse-making--was as unserviceable a member of society +as any young lady in the land. There was no other sort of efficiency +about her. Yet everybody was kind to Priscilla; everybody loved her +and laughed at her to her face, and did not laugh behind her back; +everybody would have given her half of his last crust, or the bigger +share of his plum-cake. These were pretty certain indications that we +were all conscious of a pleasant weakness in the girl, and considered +her not quite able to look after her own interests or fight her battle +with the world. And Hollingsworth--perhaps because he had been the +means of introducing Priscilla to her new abode--appeared to recognize +her as his own especial charge. + +Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad. She +seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a flickering bit of sunshine, +and mistaking it for a broad and eternal summer. We sometimes hold +mirth to a stricter accountability than sorrow; it must show good +cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily. Priscilla's +gayety, moreover, was of a nature that showed me how delicate an +instrument she was, and what fragile harp-strings were her nerves. As +they made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would require but a +stronger one to burst them all asunder. Absurd as it might be, I tried +to reason with her, and persuade her not to be so joyous, thinking +that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it +would last the longer. I remember doing so, one summer evening, when +we tired laborers sat looking on, like Goldsmith's old folks under the +village thorn-tree, while the young people were at their sports. + +"What is the use or sense of being so very gay?" I said to Priscilla, +while she was taking breath, after a great frolic. "I love to see a +sufficient cause for everything, and I can see none for this. Pray +tell me, now, what kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you +are so merry in." + +"I never think about it at all," answered Priscilla, laughing. "But +this I am sure of, that it is a world where everybody is kind to me, +and where I love everybody. My heart keeps dancing within me, and all +the foolish things which you see me do are only the motions of my +heart. How can I be dismal, if my heart will not let me?" + +"Have you nothing dismal to remember?" I suggested. "If not, then, +indeed, you are very fortunate!" + +"Ah!" said Priscilla slowly. + +And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be +listening to a distant voice. + +"For my part," I continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her with +my own sombre humor, "my past life has been a tiresome one enough; yet +I would rather look backward ten times than forward once. For, little +as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for one thing, +that the good we aim at will not be attained. People never do get just +the good they seek. If it come at all, it is something else, which +they never dreamed of, and did not particularly want. Then, again, we +may rest certain that our friends of to-day will not be our friends of +a few years hence; but, if we keep one of them, it will be at the +expense of the others; and most probably we shall keep none. To be +sure, there are more to be had; but who cares about making a new set of +friends, even should they be better than those around us?" + +"Not I!" said Priscilla. "I will live and die with these!" + +"Well; but let the future go," resumed I. "As for the present moment, +if we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most valued, what +should you expect to see? One's own likeness, in the innermost, +holiest niche? Ah! I don't know! It may not be there at all. It may +be a dusty image, thrust aside into a corner, and by and by to be flung +out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. If not to-day, then +to-morrow! And so, Priscilla, I do not see much wisdom in being so +very merry in this kind of a world." + +It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the +bitter honey which I here offered to Priscilla. And she rejected it! + +"I don't believe one word of what you say!" she replied, laughing anew. +"You made me sad, for a minute, by talking about the past; but the past +never comes back again. Do we dream the same dream twice? There is +nothing else that I am afraid of." + +So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her +luck to do, but got up again, without any harm. + +"Priscilla, Priscilla!" cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the +doorstep; "you had better not run any more to-night. You will weary +yourself too much. And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a +heavy dew beginning to fall." + +At his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at +Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was +there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this +shadow-like girl? It appeared to me, who have always been curious in +such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of +felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced +hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. It +transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought them +thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an +ecstatic faith that there they shall abide forever. + +Zenobia was in the doorway, not far from Hollingsworth. She gazed at +Priscilla in a very singular way. Indeed, it was a sight worth gazing +at, and a beautiful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of +that dark, powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly modest, delicate, +and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by Hollingsworth, attracted to +him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength. I could not +turn away my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save Zenobia and myself, +was witnessing this picture. It is before me now, with the evening +twilight a little deepened by the dusk of memory. + +"Come hither, Priscilla," said Zenobia. "I have something to say to +you." + +She spoke in little more than a whisper. But it is strange how +expressive of moods a whisper may often be. Priscilla felt at once +that something had gone wrong. + +"Are you angry with me?" she asked, rising slowly, and standing before +Zenobia in a drooping attitude. "What have I done? I hope you are not +angry!" + +"No, no, Priscilla!" said Hollingsworth, smiling. "I will answer for +it, she is not. You are the one little person in the world with whom +nobody can be angry!" + +"Angry with you, child? What a silly idea!" exclaimed Zenobia, +laughing. "No, indeed! But, my dear Priscilla, you are getting to be +so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna; and, as I am older +than you, and have had my own little experience of life, and think +myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place of a maiden aunt. +Every day, I shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in length, +on the morals, manners, and proprieties of social life. When our +pastoral shall be quite played out, Priscilla, my worldly wisdom may +stand you in good stead." + +"I am afraid you are angry with me!" repeated Priscilla sadly; for, +while she seemed as impressible as wax, the girl often showed a +persistency in her own ideas as stubborn as it was gentle. + +"Dear me, what can I say to the child!" cried Zenobia in a tone of +humorous vexation. "Well, well; since you insist on my being angry, +come to my room this moment, and let me beat you!" + +Zenobia bade Hollingsworth good-night very sweetly, and nodded to me +with a smile. But, just as she turned aside with Priscilla into the +dimness of the porch, I caught another glance at her countenance. It +would have made the fortune of a tragic actress, could she have +borrowed it for the moment when she fumbles in her bosom for the +concealed dagger, or the exceedingly sharp bodkin, or mingles the +ratsbane in her lover's bowl of wine or her rival's cup of tea. Not +that I in the least anticipated any such catastrophe,--it being a +remarkable truth that custom has in no one point a greater sway than +over our modes of wreaking our wild passions. And besides, had we been +in Italy, instead of New England, it was hardly yet a crisis for the +dagger or the bowl. + +It often amazed me, however, that Hollingsworth should show himself so +recklessly tender towards Priscilla, and never once seem to think of +the effect which it might have upon her heart. But the man, as I have +endeavored to explain, was thrown completely off his moral balance, and +quite bewildered as to his personal relations, by his great excrescence +of a philanthropic scheme. I used to see, or fancy, indications that +he was not altogether obtuse to Zenobia's influence as a woman. No +doubt, however, he had a still more exquisite enjoyment of Priscilla's +silent sympathy with his purposes, so unalloyed with criticism, and +therefore more grateful than any intellectual approbation, which always +involves a possible reserve of latent censure. A man--poet, prophet, +or whatever he may be--readily persuades himself of his right to all +the worship that is voluntarily tendered. In requital of so rich +benefits as he was to confer upon mankind, it would have been hard to +deny Hollingsworth the simple solace of a young girl's heart, which he +held in his hand, and smelled too, like a rosebud. But what if, while +pressing out its fragrance, he should crush the tender rosebud in his +grasp! + +As for Zenobia, I saw no occasion to give myself any trouble. With her +native strength, and her experience of the world, she could not be +supposed to need any help of mine. Nevertheless, I was really generous +enough to feel some little interest likewise for Zenobia. With all her +faults (which might have been a great many besides the abundance that I +knew of), she possessed noble traits, and a heart which must, at least, +have been valuable while new. And she seemed ready to fling it away as +uncalculatingly as Priscilla herself. I could not but suspect that, if +merely at play with Hollingsworth, she was sporting with a power which +she did not fully estimate. Or if in earnest, it might chance, between +Zenobia's passionate force and his dark, self-delusive egotism, to turn +out such earnest as would develop itself in some sufficiently tragic +catastrophe, though the dagger and the bowl should go for nothing in it. + +Meantime, the gossip of the Community set them down as a pair of +lovers. They took walks together, and were not seldom encountered in +the wood-paths: Hollingsworth deeply discoursing, in tones solemn and +sternly pathetic; Zenobia, with a rich glow on her cheeks, and her eyes +softened from their ordinary brightness, looked so beautiful, that had +her companion been ten times a philanthropist, it seemed impossible but +that one glance should melt him back into a man. Oftener than anywhere +else, they went to a certain point on the slope of a pasture, +commanding nearly the whole of our own domain, besides a view of the +river, and an airy prospect of many distant hills. The bond of our +Community was such, that the members had the privilege of building +cottages for their own residence within our precincts, thus laying a +hearthstone and fencing in a home private and peculiar to all desirable +extent, while yet the inhabitants should continue to share the +advantages of an associated life. It was inferred that Hollingsworth +and Zenobia intended to rear their dwelling on this favorite spot. + +I mentioned those rumors to Hollingsworth in a playful way. + +"Had you consulted me," I went on to observe, "I should have +recommended a site farther to the left, just a little withdrawn into +the wood, with two or three peeps at the prospect among the trees. You +will be in the shady vale of years long before you can raise any better +kind of shade around your cottage, if you build it on this bare slope." + +"But I offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world," said +Hollingsworth, "that it may take example and build many another like +it. Therefore, I mean to set it on the open hillside." + +Twist these words how I might, they offered no very satisfactory +import. It seemed hardly probable that Hollingsworth should care about +educating the public taste in the department of cottage architecture, +desirable as such improvement certainly was. + + + +X. A VISITOR FROM TOWN + +Hollingsworth and I--we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while +the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of the +farm--sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock lunch, +when we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field. He had +admitted himself from the roadside through a turnstile, and seemed to +have a purpose of speaking with us. + +And, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale, +especially from people who sympathized with our theories, and perhaps +held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as +there should appear a reliable promise of its success. It was rather +ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had insensibly +been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day's toil), +it was absolutely funny, therefore, to observe what a glory was shed +about our life and labors, in the imaginations of these longing +proselytes. In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians, besides +being as practical as the hardest-fisted husbandmen in Massachusetts. +We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or +warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood. But they gave us credit +for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with a kind of religious +poetry, insomuch that our very cow-yards and pig-sties were as +delightfully fragrant as a flower garden. Nothing used to please me +more than to see one of these lay enthusiasts snatch up a hoe, as they +were very prone to do, and set to work with a vigor that perhaps +carried him through about a dozen ill-directed strokes. Men are +wonderfully soon satisfied, in this day of shameful bodily enervation, +when, from one end of life to the other, such multitudes never taste +the sweet weariness that follows accustomed toil. I seldom saw the new +enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy and flaccid as the proselyte's +moistened shirt-collar, with a quarter of an hour's active labor under +a July sun. + +But the person now at hand had not at all the air of one of these +amiable visionaries. He was an elderly man, dressed rather shabbily, +yet decently enough, in a gray frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue, +and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years +gone by. His hair was perfect silver, without a dark thread in the +whole of it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means +indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted +symbol. He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless +drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more than was good +for him,--not, however, with a purpose of undue exhilaration, but in +the hope of bringing his spirits up to the ordinary level of the +world's cheerfulness. Drawing nearer, there was a shy look about him, +as if he were ashamed of his poverty, or, at any rate, for some reason +or other, would rather have us glance at him sidelong than take a full +front view. He had a queer appearance of hiding himself behind the +patch on his left eye. + +"I know this old gentleman," said I to Hollingsworth, as we sat +observing him; "that is, I have met him a hundred times in town, and +have often amused my fancy with wondering what he was before he came to +be what he is. He haunts restaurants and such places, and has an odd +way of lurking in corners or getting behind a door whenever +practicable, and holding out his hand with some little article in it +which he wishes you to buy. The eye of the world seems to trouble him, +although he necessarily lives so much in it. I never expected to see +him in an open field." + +"Have you learned anything of his history?" asked Hollingsworth. + +"Not a circumstance," I answered; "but there must be something curious +in it. I take him to be a harmless sort of a person, and a tolerably +honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a +rat,--a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite +with, or the desire to bite. See, now! He means to skulk along that +fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side of our clump of +maples." + +We soon heard the old man's velvet tread on the grass, indicating that +he had arrived within a few feet of where we Sat. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth, addressing the stranger +as an acquaintance; "you must have had a hot and tiresome walk from the +city. Sit down, and take a morsel of our bread and cheese." + +The visitor made a grateful little murmur of acquiescence, and sat down +in a spot somewhat removed; so that, glancing round, I could see his +gray pantaloons and dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly hidden +behind the shrubbery. Nor did he come forth from this retirement +during the whole of the interview that followed. We handed him such +food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses and water (would +that it had been brandy, or some thing better, for the sake of his +chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty sacrifice to an +enshrined and invisible idol. I have no idea that he really lacked +sustenance; but it was quite touching, nevertheless, to hear him +nibbling away at our crusts. + +"Mr. Moodie," said I, "do you remember selling me one of those very +pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a monopoly in the +market? I keep it to this day, I can assure you." + +"Ah, thank you," said our guest. "Yes, Mr. Coverdale, I used to sell a +good many of those little purses." + +He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an +inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again. He +seemed a very forlorn old man. In the wantonness of youth, strength, +and comfortable condition,--making my prey of people's individualities, +as my custom was,--I tried to identify my mind with the old fellow's, +and take his view of the world, as if looking through a smoke-blackened +glass at the sun. It robbed the landscape of all its life. Those +pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm, descending towards the wide +meadows, through which sluggishly circled the brimful tide of the +Charles, bathing the long sedges on its hither and farther shores; the +broad, sunny gleam over the winding water; that peculiar +picturesqueness of the scene where capes and headlands put themselves +boldly forth upon the perfect level of the meadow, as into a green +lake, with inlets between the promontories; the shadowy woodland, with +twinkling showers of light falling into its depths; the sultry +heat-vapor, which rose everywhere like incense, and in which my soul +delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in the passionate day, and in +the earth that was burning with its love,--I beheld all these things as +through old Moodie's eyes. When my eyes are dimmer than they have yet +come to be, I will go thither again, and see if I did not catch the +tone of his mind aright, and if the cold and lifeless tint of his +perceptions be not then repeated in my own. + +Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in him. + +"Have you any objection," said I, "to telling me who made those little +purses?" + +"Gentlemen have often asked me that," said Moodie slowly; "but I shake +my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as well as +I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be told one +thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another. But it +happens just now, Mr. Coverdale, that you can tell me more about the +maker of those little purses than I can tell you." + +"Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?" +interrupted Hollingsworth. "You must have known, long ago, that it was +Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her? Well, I +am glad of it. You will find her altered very much for the better, +since that winter evening when you put her into my charge. Why, +Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!" + +"Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of slow +wonder. "Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid I +shall not know my little girl. And is she happy?" + +"Just as happy as a bird," answered Hollingsworth. + +"Then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively, "I don't think it +well for me to go any farther. I crept hitherward only to ask about +Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I can +do no better than to creep back again. If she were to see this old +face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which we +have spent together. Some very sad times, indeed! She has forgotten +them, I know,--them and me,--else she could not be so happy, nor have a +bloom in her cheeks. Yes--yes--yes," continued he, still with the same +torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, Mr. Hollingsworth, I will +creep back to town again." + +"You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth bluffly. +"Priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make her +cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I'll venture to say it is just the +sight of your face. Come,--we will go and find her." + +"Mr. Hollingsworth!" said the old man in his hesitating way. + +"Well," answered Hollingsworth. + +"Has there been any call for Priscilla?" asked Moodie; and though his +face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the +mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question. "You know, I +think, sir, what I mean." + +"I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, Mr. Moodie," replied +Hollingsworth; "nobody, to my knowledge, has called for Priscilla, +except yourself. But come; we are losing time, and I have several +things to say to you by the way." + +"And, Mr. Hollingsworth!" repeated Moodie. + +"Well, again!" cried my friend rather impatiently. "What now?" + +"There is a lady here," said the old man; and his voice lost some of +its wearisome hesitation. "You will account it a very strange matter +for me to talk about; but I chanced to know this lady when she was but +a little child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be a very +fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the world, with her beauty, +and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches. I should +recognize this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent flower in her +hair." + +"What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks of +Zenobia!" I whispered to Hollingsworth. "But how can there possibly +be any interest or connecting link between him and her?" + +"The old man, for years past," whispered Hollingsworth, "has been a +little out of his right mind, as you probably see." + +"What I would inquire," resumed Moodie, "is whether this beautiful lady +is kind to my poor Priscilla." + +"Very kind," said Hollingsworth. + +"Does she love her?" asked Moodie. + +"It should seem so," answered my friend. "They are always together." + +"Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?" suggested the old +man. + +There was something so singular in his way of saying this, that I could +not resist the impulse to turn quite round, so as to catch a glimpse of +his face, almost imagining that I should see another person than old +Moodie. But there he sat, with the patched side of his face towards me. + +"Like an elder and younger sister, rather," replied Hollingsworth. + +"Ah!" said Moodie more complacently, for his latter tones had harshness +and acidity in them,--"it would gladden my old heart to witness that. +If one thing would make me happier than another, Mr. Hollingsworth, it +would be to see that beautiful lady holding my little girl by the hand." + +"Come along," said Hollingsworth, "and perhaps you may." + +After a little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they set +forth together, old Moodie keeping a step or two behind Hollingsworth, +so that the latter could not very conveniently look him in the face. I +remained under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to draw an inference +from the scene that had just passed. In spite of Hollingsworth's +off-hand explanation, it did not strike me that our strange guest was +really beside himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like +an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which have ceased to +vibrate smartly and sharply. Methought it would be profitable for us, +projectors of a happy life, to welcome this old gray shadow, and +cherish him as one of us, and let him creep about our domain, in order +that he might be a little merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a +little sadder for his. Human destinies look ominous without some +perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray. And then, too, +should any of our fraternity grow feverish with an over-exulting sense +of prosperity, it would be a sort of cooling regimen to slink off into +the woods, and spend an hour, or a day, or as many days as might be +requisite to the cure, in uninterrupted communion with this deplorable +old Moodie! + +Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk of a +tree, gazing earnestly towards a particular window of the farmhouse; +and by and by Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing +along Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was blazing +down upon us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced towards her +noon. I was convinced that this pretty sight must have been purposely +arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. But either the girl held +her too long, or her fondness was resented as too great a freedom; for +Zenobia suddenly put Priscilla decidedly away, and gave her a haughty +look, as from a mistress to a dependant. Old Moodie shook his head; +and again and again I saw him shake it, as he withdrew along the road; +and at the last point whence the farmhouse was visible, he turned and +shook his uplifted staff. + + + +XI. THE WOOD-PATH + +Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of too +constant labor out of my bones, and to relieve my spirit of the +irksomeness of a settled routine, I took a holiday. It was my purpose +to spend it all alone, from breakfast-time till twilight, in the +deepest wood-seclusion that lay anywhere around us. Though fond of +society, I was so constituted as to need these occasional retirements, +even in a life like that of Blithedale, which was itself characterized +by a remoteness from the world. Unless renewed by a yet further +withdrawal towards the inner circle of self-communion, I lost the +better part of my individuality. My thoughts became of little worth, +and my sensibilities grew as arid as a tuft of moss (a thing whose life +is in the shade, the rain, or the noontide dew), crumbling in the +sunshine after long expectance of a shower. So, with my heart full of +a drowsy pleasure, and cautious not to dissipate my mood by previous +intercourse with any one, I hurried away, and was soon pacing a +wood-path, arched overhead with boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet. + +At first I walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood tide of social +life were roaring at my heels, and would outstrip and overwhelm me, +without all the better diligence in my escape. But, threading the more +distant windings of the track, I abated my pace, and looked about me +for some side-aisle, that should admit me into the innermost sanctuary +of this green cathedral, just as, in human acquaintanceship, a casual +opening sometimes lets us, all of a sudden, into the long-sought +intimacy of a mysterious heart. So much was I absorbed in my +reflections,--or, rather, in my mood, the substance of which was as yet +too shapeless to be called thought,--that footsteps rustled on the +leaves, and a figure passed me by, almost without impressing either the +sound or sight upon my consciousness. + +A moment afterwards, I heard a voice at a little distance behind me, +speaking so sharply and impertinently that it made a complete discord +with my spiritual state, and caused the latter to vanish as abruptly as +when you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble. + +"Halloo, friend!" cried this most unseasonable voice. "Stop a moment, +I say! I must have a word with you!" + +I turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate. In the first place, the +interruption, at any rate, was a grievous injury; then, the tone +displeased me. And finally, unless there be real affection in his +heart, a man cannot,--such is the bad state to which the world has +brought itself,--cannot more effectually show his contempt for a +brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, +than by addressing him as "friend." Especially does the misapplication +of this phrase bring out that latent hostility which is sure to animate +peculiar sects, and those who, with however generous a purpose, have +sequestered themselves from the crowd; a feeling, it is true, which may +be hidden in some dog-kennel of the heart, grumbling there in the +darkness, but is never quite extinct, until the dissenting party have +gained power and scope enough to treat the world generously. For my +part, I should have taken it as far less an insult to be styled +"fellow," "clown," or "bumpkin." To either of these appellations my +rustic garb (it was a linen blouse, with checked shirt and striped +pantaloons, a chip hat on my head, and a rough hickory stick in my +hand) very fairly entitled me. As the case stood, my temper darted at +once to the opposite pole; not friend, but enemy! + +"What do you want with me?" said I, facing about. + +"Come a little nearer, friend," said the stranger, beckoning. + +"No," answered I. "If I can do anything for you without too much +trouble to myself, say so. But recollect, if you please, that you are +not speaking to an acquaintance, much less a friend!" + +"Upon my word, I believe not!" retorted he, looking at me with some +curiosity; and, lifting his hat, he made me a salute which had enough +of sarcasm to be offensive, and just enough of doubtful courtesy to +render any resentment of it absurd. "But I ask your pardon! I +recognize a little mistake. If I may take the liberty to suppose it, +you, sir, are probably one of the aesthetic--or shall I rather say +ecstatic?--laborers, who have planted themselves hereabouts. This is +your forest of Arden; and you are either the banished Duke in person, +or one of the chief nobles in his train. The melancholy Jacques, +perhaps? Be it so. In that case, you can probably do me a favor." + +I never, in my life, felt less inclined to confer a favor on any man. + +"I am busy," said I. + +So unexpectedly had the stranger made me sensible of his presence, that +he had almost the effect of an apparition; and certainly a less +appropriate one (taking into view the dim woodland solitude about us) +than if the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with a +leafy girdle, had started out of a thicket. He was still young, +seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and well-developed figure, +and as handsome a man as ever I beheld. The style of his beauty, +however, though a masculine style, did not at all commend itself to my +taste. His countenance--I hardly know how to describe the +peculiarity--had an indecorum in it, a kind of rudeness, a hard, +coarse, forth-putting freedom of expression, which no degree of +external polish could have abated one single jot. Not that it was +vulgar. But he had no fineness of nature; there was in his eyes +(although they might have artifice enough of another sort) the naked +exposure of something that ought not to be left prominent. With these +vague allusions to what I have seen in other faces as well as his, I +leave the quality to be comprehended best--because with an intuitive +repugnance--by those who possess least of it. + +His hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was coal-black; his eyes, +too, were black and sparkling, and his teeth remarkably brilliant. He +was rather carelessly but well and fashionably dressed, in a +summer-morning costume. There was a gold chain, exquisitely wrought, +across his vest. I never saw a smoother or whiter gloss than that upon +his shirt-bosom, which had a pin in it, set with a gem that glimmered, +in the leafy shadow where he stood, like a living tip of fire. He +carried a stick with a wooden head, carved in vivid imitation of that +of a serpent. I hated him, partly, I do believe, from a comparison of +my own homely garb with his well-ordered foppishness. + +"Well, sir," said I, a little ashamed of my first irritation, but still +with no waste of civility, "be pleased to speak at once, as I have my +own business in hand." + +"I regret that my mode of addressing you was a little unfortunate," +said the stranger, smiling; for he seemed a very acute sort of person, +and saw, in some degree, how I stood affected towards him. "I intended +no offence, and shall certainly comport myself with due ceremony +hereafter. I merely wish to make a few inquiries respecting a lady, +formerly of my acquaintance, who is now resident in your Community, +and, I believe, largely concerned in your social enterprise. You call +her, I think, Zenobia." + +"That is her name in literature," observed I; "a name, too, which +possibly she may permit her private friends to know and address her +by,--but not one which they feel at liberty to recognize when used of +her personally by a stranger or casual acquaintance." + +"Indeed!" answered this disagreeable person; and he turned aside his +face for an instant with a brief laugh, which struck me as a noteworthy +expression of his character. "Perhaps I might put forward a claim, on +your own grounds, to call the lady by a name so appropriate to her +splendid qualities. But I am willing to know her by any cognomen that +you may suggest." + +Heartily wishing that he would be either a little more offensive, or a +good deal less so, or break off our intercourse altogether, I mentioned +Zenobia's real name. + +"True," said he; "and in general society I have never heard her called +otherwise. And, after all, our discussion of the point has been +gratuitous. My object is only to inquire when, where, and how this +lady may most conveniently be seen." + +"At her present residence, of course," I replied. "You have but to go +thither and ask for her. This very path will lead you within sight of +the house; so I wish you good-morning." + +"One moment, if you please," said the stranger. "The course you +indicate would certainly be the proper one, in an ordinary morning +call. But my business is private, personal, and somewhat peculiar. +Now, in a community like this, I should judge that any little +occurrence is likely to be discussed rather more minutely than would +quite suit my views. I refer solely to myself, you understand, and +without intimating that it would be other than a matter of entire +indifference to the lady. In short, I especially desire to see her in +private. If her habits are such as I have known them, she is probably +often to be met with in the woods, or by the river-side; and I think +you could do me the favor to point out some favorite walk, where, about +this hour, I might be fortunate enough to gain an interview." + +I reflected that it would be quite a supererogatory piece of Quixotism +in me to undertake the guardianship of Zenobia, who, for my pains, +would only make me the butt of endless ridicule, should the fact ever +come to her knowledge. I therefore described a spot which, as often as +any other, was Zenobia's resort at this period of the day; nor was it +so remote from the farmhouse as to leave her in much peril, whatever +might be the stranger's character. + +"A single word more," said he; and his black eyes sparkled at me, +whether with fun or malice I knew not, but certainly as if the Devil +were peeping out of them. "Among your fraternity, I understand, there +is a certain holy and benevolent blacksmith; a man of iron, in more +senses than one; a rough, cross-grained, well-meaning individual, +rather boorish in his manners, as might be expected, and by no means of +the highest intellectual cultivation. He is a philanthropical +lecturer, with two or three disciples, and a scheme of his own, the +preliminary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and the +erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense considerably beyond his +means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron much +more conveniently than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon his one +topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horseshoe! Do you know such a +person?" I shook my head, and was turning away. "Our friend," he +continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim, and +ill-favored personage, not particularly well calculated, one would say, +to insinuate himself with the softer sex. Yet, so far has this honest +fellow succeeded with one lady whom we wot of, that he anticipates, +from her abundant resources, the necessary funds for realizing his plan +in brick and mortar!" + +Here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with his sketch of +Hollingsworth's character and purposes, that he burst into a fit of +merriment, of the same nature as the brief, metallic laugh already +alluded to, but immensely prolonged and enlarged. In the excess of his +delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disclosed a gold band around the +upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that every one of +his brilliant grinders and incisors was a sham. This discovery +affected me very oddly. + +I felt as if the whole man were a moral and physical humbug; his +wonderful beauty of face, for aught I knew, might be removable like a +mask; and, tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but a +wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing genuine about him +save the wicked expression of his grin. The fantasy of his spectral +character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his +strange mirth on my sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly as +himself. + +By and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own +cachinnation lasted a moment longer. + +"Ah, excuse me!" said he. "Our interview seems to proceed more merrily +than it began." + +"It ends here," answered I. "And I take shame to myself that my folly +has lost me the right of resenting your ridicule of a friend." + +"Pray allow me," said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and +laying his gloved hand on my sleeve. "One other favor I must ask of +you. You have a young person here at Blithedale, of whom I have +heard,--whom, perhaps, I have known,--and in whom, at all events, I +take a peculiar interest. She is one of those delicate, nervous young +creatures, not uncommon in New England, and whom I suppose to have +become what we find them by the gradual refining away of the physical +system among your women. Some philosophers choose to glorify this +habit of body by terming it spiritual; but, in my opinion, it is rather +the effect of unwholesome food, bad air, lack of outdoor exercise, and +neglect of bathing, on the part of these damsels and their female +progenitors, all resulting in a kind of hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, +even with her uncomfortable surplus of vitality, is far the better +model of womanhood. But--to revert again to this young person--she +goes among you by the name of Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me +the means of speaking with her?" + +"You have made so many inquiries of me," I observed, "that I may at +least trouble you with one. What is your name?" + +He offered me a card, with "Professor Westervelt" engraved on it. At +the same time, as if to vindicate his claim to the professorial +dignity, so often assumed on very questionable grounds, he put on a +pair of spectacles, which so altered the character of his face that I +hardly knew him again. But I liked the present aspect no better than +the former one. + +"I must decline any further connection with your affairs," said I, +drawing back. "I have told you where to find Zenobia. As for +Priscilla, she has closer friends than myself, through whom, if they +see fit, you can gain access to her." + +"In that case," returned the Professor, ceremoniously raising his hat, +"good-morning to you." + +He took his departure, and was soon out of sight among the windings of +the wood-path. But after a little reflection, I could not help +regretting that I had so peremptorily broken off the interview, while +the stranger seemed inclined to continue it. His evident knowledge of +matters affecting my three friends might have led to disclosures or +inferences that would perhaps have been serviceable. I was +particularly struck with the fact that, ever since the appearance of +Priscilla, it had been the tendency of events to suggest and establish +a connection between Zenobia and her. She had come, in the first +instance, as if with the sole purpose of claiming Zenobia's protection. +Old Moodie's visit, it appeared, was chiefly to ascertain whether this +object had been accomplished. And here, to-day, was the questionable +Professor, linking one with the other in his inquiries, and seeking +communication with both. + +Meanwhile, my inclination for a ramble having been balked, I lingered +in the vicinity of the farm, with perhaps a vague idea that some new +event would grow out of Westervelt's proposed interview with Zenobia. +My own part in these transactions was singularly subordinate. It +resembled that of the Chorus in a classic play, which seems to be set +aloof from the possibility of personal concernment, and bestows the +whole measure of its hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the +fortunes of others, between whom and itself this sympathy is the only +bond. Destiny, it may be,--the most skilful of stage managers,--seldom +chooses to arrange its scenes, and carry forward its drama, without +securing the presence of at least one calm observer. It is his office +to give applause when due, and sometimes an inevitable tear, to detect +the final fitness of incident to character, and distil in his +long-brooding thought the whole morality of the performance. + +Not to be out of the way in case there were need of me in my vocation, +and, at the same time, to avoid thrusting myself where neither destiny +nor mortals might desire my presence, I remained pretty near the verge +of the woodlands. My position was off the track of Zenobia's customary +walk, yet not so remote but that a recognized occasion might speedily +have brought me thither. + + + +XII. COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE + +Long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, I had found out for +myself a little hermitage. It was a kind of leafy cave, high upward +into the air, among the midmost branches of a white-pine tree. A wild +grapevine, of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and twisted +itself up into the tree, and, after wreathing the entanglement of its +tendrils around almost every bough, had caught hold of three or four +neighboring trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly +inextricable knot of polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself from a +summer shower, the fancy had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly +impervious mass of foliage. The branches yielded me a passage, and +closed again beneath, as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far +aloft, around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for +Robinson Crusoe or King Charles! A hollow chamber of rare seclusion +had been formed by the decay of some of the pine branches, which the +vine had lovingly strangled with its embrace, burying them from the +light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own leaves. It cost me but +little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open loopholes through +the verdant walls. Had it ever been my fortune to spend a honeymoon, I +should have thought seriously of inviting my bride up thither, where +our next neighbors would have been two orioles in another part of the +clump. + +It was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the rhythm to the +breezy symphony that so often stirred among the vine leaves; or to +meditate an essay for "The Dial," in which the many tongues of Nature +whispered mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff of +wind to speak out the solution of its riddle. Being so pervious to +air-currents, it was just the nook, too, for the enjoyment of a cigar. +This hermitage was my one exclusive possession while I counted myself a +brother of the socialists. It symbolized my individuality, and aided +me in keeping it inviolate. None ever found me out in it, except, +once, a squirrel. I brought thither no guest, because, after +Hollingsworth failed me, there was no longer the man alive with whom I +could think of sharing all. So there I used to sit, owl-like, yet not +without liberal and hospitable thoughts. I counted the innumerable +clusters of my vine, and fore-reckoned the abundance of my vintage. It +gladdened me to anticipate the surprise of the Community, when, like an +allegorical figure of rich October, I should make my appearance, with +shoulders bent beneath the burden of ripe grapes, and some of the +crushed ones crimsoning my brow as with a bloodstain. + +Ascending into this natural turret, I peeped in turn out of several of +its small windows. The pine-tree, being ancient, rose high above the +rest of the wood, which was of comparatively recent growth. Even where +I sat, about midway between the root and the topmost bough, my position +was lofty enough to serve as an observatory, not for starry +investigations, but for those sublunary matters in which lay a lore as +infinite as that of the planets. Through one loophole I saw the river +lapsing calmly onward, while in the meadow, near its brink, a few of +the brethren were digging peat for our winter's fuel. On the interior +cart-road of our farm I discerned Hollingsworth, with a yoke of oxen +hitched to a drag of stones, that were to be piled into a fence, on +which we employed ourselves at the odd intervals of other labor. The +harsh tones of his voice, shouting to the sluggish steers, made me +sensible, even at such a distance, that he was ill at ease, and that +the balked philanthropist had the battle-spirit in his heart. + +"Haw, Buck!" quoth he. "Come along there, ye lazy ones! What are ye +about, now? Gee!" + +"Mankind, in Hollingsworth's opinion," thought I, "is but another yoke +of oxen, as stubborn, stupid, and sluggish as our old Brown and Bright. +He vituperates us aloud, and curses us in his heart, and will begin to +prick us with the goad-stick, by and by. But are we his oxen? And +what right has he to be the driver? And why, when there is enough else +to do, should we waste our strength in dragging home the ponderous load +of his philanthropic absurdities? At my height above the earth, the +whole matter looks ridiculous!" + +Turning towards the farmhouse, I saw Priscilla (for, though a great way +off, the eye of faith assured me that it was she) sitting at Zenobia's +window, and making little purses, I suppose; or, perhaps, mending the +Community's old linen. A bird flew past my tree; and, as it clove its +way onward into the sunny atmosphere, I flung it a message for +Priscilla. + +"Tell her," said I, "that her fragile thread of life has inextricably +knotted itself with other and tougher threads, and most likely it will +be broken. Tell her that Zenobia will not be long her friend. Say that +Hollingsworth's heart is on fire with his own purpose, but icy for all +human affection; and that, if she has given him her love, it is like +casting a flower into a sepulchre. And say that if any mortal really +cares for her, it is myself; and not even I for her realities,--poor +little seamstress, as Zenobia rightly called her!--but for the +fancy-work with which I have idly decked her out!" + +The pleasant scent of the wood, evolved by the hot sun, stole up to my +nostrils, as if I had been an idol in its niche. Many trees mingled +their fragrance into a thousand-fold odor. Possibly there was a +sensual influence in the broad light of noon that lay beneath me. It +may have been the cause, in part, that I suddenly found myself +possessed by a mood of disbelief in moral beauty or heroism, and a +conviction of the folly of attempting to benefit the world. Our +especial scheme of reform, which, from my observatory, I could take in +with the bodily eye, looked so ridiculous that it was impossible not to +laugh aloud. + +"But the joke is a little too heavy," thought I. "If I were wise, I +should get out of the scrape with all diligence, and then laugh at my +companions for remaining in it." + +While thus musing, I heard with perfect distinctness, somewhere in the +wood beneath, the peculiar laugh which I have described as one of the +disagreeable characteristics of Professor Westervelt. It brought my +thoughts back to our recent interview. I recognized as chiefly due to +this man's influence the sceptical and sneering view which just now had +filled my mental vision in regard to all life's better purposes. And +it was through his eyes, more than my own, that I was looking at +Hollingsworth, with his glorious if impracticable dream, and at the +noble earthliness of Zenobia's character, and even at Priscilla, whose +impalpable grace lay so singularly between disease and beauty. The +essential charm of each had vanished. There are some spheres the +contact with which inevitably degrades the high, debases the pure, +deforms the beautiful. It must be a mind of uncommon strength, and +little impressibility, that can permit itself the habit of such +intercourse, and not be permanently deteriorated; and yet the +Professor's tone represented that of worldly society at large, where a +cold scepticism smothers what it can of our spiritual aspirations, and +makes the rest ridiculous. I detested this kind of man; and all the +more because a part of my own nature showed itself responsive to him. + +Voices were now approaching through the region of the wood which lay in +the vicinity of my tree. Soon I caught glimpses of two figures--a +woman and a man--Zenobia and the stranger--earnestly talking together +as they advanced. + +Zenobia had a rich though varying color. It was, most of the while, a +flame, and anon a sudden paleness. Her eyes glowed, so that their +light sometimes flashed upward to me, as when the sun throws a dazzle +from some bright object on the ground. Her gestures were free, and +strikingly impressive. The whole woman was alive with a passionate +intensity, which I now perceived to be the phase in which her beauty +culminated. Any passion would have become her well; and passionate +love, perhaps, the best of all. This was not love, but anger, largely +intermixed with scorn. Yet the idea strangely forced itself upon me, +that there was a sort of familiarity between these two companions, +necessarily the result of an intimate love,--on Zenobia's part, at +least,--in days gone by, but which had prolonged itself into as +intimate a hatred, for all futurity. As they passed among the trees, +reckless as her movement was, she took good heed that even the hem of +her garment should not brush against the stranger's person. I wondered +whether there had always been a chasm, guarded so religiously, betwixt +these two. + +As for Westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed by Zenobia's passion +than a salamander by the heat of its native furnace. He would have +been absolutely statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity, +tinctured strongly with derision. It was a crisis in which his +intellectual perceptions could not altogether help him out. He failed +to comprehend, and cared but little for comprehending, why Zenobia +should put herself into such a fume; but satisfied his mind that it was +all folly, and only another shape of a woman's manifold absurdity, +which men can never understand. How many a woman's evil fate has yoked +her with a man like this! Nature thrusts some of us into the world +miserably incomplete on the emotional side, with hardly any +sensibilities except what pertain to us as animals. No passion, save +of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor the delicacy that results from +this. Externally they bear a close resemblance to other men, and have +perhaps all save the finest grace; but when a woman wrecks herself on +such a being, she ultimately finds that the real womanhood within her +has no corresponding part in him. Her deepest voice lacks a response; +the deeper her cry, the more dead his silence. The fault may be none +of his; he cannot give her what never lived within his soul. But the +wretchedness on her side, and the moral deterioration attendant on a +false and shallow life, without strength enough to keep itself sweet, +are among the most pitiable wrongs that mortals suffer. + +Now, as I looked down from my upper region at this man and +woman,--outwardly so fair a sight, and wandering like two lovers in the +wood,--I imagined that Zenobia, at an earlier period of youth, might +have fallen into the misfortune above indicated. And when her +passionate womanhood, as was inevitable, had discovered its mistake, +here had ensued the character of eccentricity and defiance which +distinguished the more public portion of her life. + +Seeing how aptly matters had chanced thus far, I began to think it the +design of fate to let me into all Zenobia's secrets, and that therefore +the couple would sit down beneath my tree, and carry on a conversation +which would leave me nothing to inquire. No doubt, however, had it so +happened, I should have deemed myself honorably bound to warn them of a +listener's presence by flinging down a handful of unripe grapes, or by +sending an unearthly groan out of my hiding-place, as if this were one +of the trees of Dante's ghostly forest. But real life never arranges +itself exactly like a romance. In the first place, they did not sit +down at all. Secondly, even while they passed beneath the tree, +Zenobia's utterance was so hasty and broken, and Westervelt's so cool +and low, that I hardly could make out an intelligible sentence on +either side. What I seem to remember, I yet suspect, may have been +patched together by my fancy, in brooding over the matter afterwards. + +"Why not fling the girl off," said Westervelt, "and let her go?" + +"She clung to me from the first," replied Zenobia. "I neither know nor +care what it is in me that so attaches her. But she loves me, and I +will not fail her." + +"She will plague you, then," said he, "in more ways than one." + +"The poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia. "She can do me neither good nor +harm. How should she?" + +I know not what reply Westervelt whispered; nor did Zenobia's +subsequent exclamation give me any clew, except that it evidently +inspired her with horror and disgust. + +"With what kind of a being am I linked?" cried she. "If my Creator +cares aught for my soul, let him release me from this miserable bond!" + +"I did not think it weighed so heavily," said her companion.. + +"Nevertheless," answered Zenobia, "it will strangle me at last!" + +And then I heard her utter a helpless sort of moan; a sound which, +struggling out of the heart of a person of her pride and strength, +affected me more than if she had made the wood dolorously vocal with a +thousand shrieks and wails. + +Other mysterious words, besides what are above written, they spoke +together; but I understood no more, and even question whether I fairly +understood so much as this. By long brooding over our recollections, +we subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, and hardly +capable of being distinguished from it. In a few moments they were +completely beyond ear-shot. A breeze stirred after them, and awoke the +leafy tongues of the surrounding trees, which forthwith began to +babble, as if innumerable gossips had all at once got wind of Zenobia's +secret. But, as the breeze grew stronger, its voice among the branches +was as if it said, "Hush! Hush!" and I resolved that to no mortal +would I disclose what I had heard. And, though there might be room for +casuistry, such, I conceive, is the most equitable rule in all similar +conjunctures. + + + +XIII. ZENOBIA'S LEGEND + +The illustrious Society of Blithedale, though it toiled in downright +earnest for the good of mankind, yet not unfrequently illuminated its +laborious life with an afternoon or evening of pastime. Picnics under +the trees were considerably in vogue; and, within doors, fragmentary +bits of theatrical performance, such as single acts of tragedy or +comedy, or dramatic proverbs and charades. Zenobia, besides, was fond +of giving us readings from Shakespeare, and often with a depth of +tragic power, or breadth of comic effect, that made one feel it an +intolerable wrong to the world that she did not at once go upon the +stage. Tableaux vivants were another of our occasional modes of +amusement, in which scarlet shawls, old silken robes, ruffs, velvets, +furs, and all kinds of miscellaneous trumpery converted our familiar +companions into the people of a pictorial world. We had been thus +engaged on the evening after the incident narrated in the last chapter. +Several splendid works of art--either arranged after engravings from +the old masters, or original illustrations of scenes in history or +romance--had been presented, and we were earnestly entreating Zenobia +for more. + +She stood with a meditative air, holding a large piece of gauze, or +some such ethereal stuff, as if considering what picture should next +occupy the frame; while at her feet lay a heap of many-colored +garments, which her quick fancy and magic skill could so easily convert +into gorgeous draperies for heroes and princesses. + +"I am getting weary of this," said she, after a moment's thought. "Our +own features, and our own figures and airs, show a little too +intrusively through all the characters we assume. We have so much +familiarity with one another's realities, that we cannot remove +ourselves, at pleasure, into an imaginary sphere. Let us have no more +pictures to-night; but, to make you what poor amends I can, how would +you like to have me trump up a wild, spectral legend, on the spur of +the moment?" + +Zenobia had the gift of telling a fanciful little story, off-hand, in a +way that made it greatly more effective than it was usually found to be +when she afterwards elaborated the same production with her pen. Her +proposal, therefore, was greeted with acclamation. + +"Oh, a story, a story, by all means!" cried the young girls. "No +matter how marvellous; we will believe it, every word. And let it be a +ghost story, if you please." + +"No, not exactly a ghost story," answered Zenobia; "but something so +nearly like it that you shall hardly tell the difference. And, +Priscilla, stand you before me, where I may look at you, and get my +inspiration out of your eyes. They are very deep and dreamy to-night." + +I know not whether the following version of her story will retain any +portion of its pristine character; but, as Zenobia told it wildly and +rapidly, hesitating at no extravagance, and dashing at absurdities +which I am too timorous to repeat,--giving it the varied emphasis of +her inimitable voice, and the pictorial illustration of her mobile +face, while through it all we caught the freshest aroma of the +thoughts, as they came bubbling out of her mind,--thus narrated, and +thus heard, the legend seemed quite a remarkable affair. I scarcely +knew, at the time, whether she intended us to laugh or be more +seriously impressed. From beginning to end, it was undeniable +nonsense, but not necessarily the worse for that. + + + +THE SILVERY VEIL + +You have heard, my dear friends, of the Veiled Lady, who grew suddenly +so very famous, a few months ago. And have you never thought how +remarkable it was that this marvellous creature should vanish, all at +once, while her renown was on the increase, before the public had grown +weary of her, and when the enigma of her character, instead of being +solved, presented itself more mystically at every exhibition? Her last +appearance, as you know, was before a crowded audience. The next +evening,--although the bills had announced her, at the corner of every +street, in red letters of a gigantic size,--there was no Veiled Lady to +be seen! Now, listen to my simple little tale, and you shall hear the +very latest incident in the known life--(if life it may be called, +which seemed to have no more reality than the candle-light image of +one's self which peeps at us outside of a dark windowpane)--the life of +this shadowy phenomenon. + +A party of young gentlemen, you are to understand, were enjoying +themselves, one afternoon,--as young gentlemen are sometimes fond of +doing,--over a bottle or two of champagne; and, among other ladies less +mysterious, the subject of the Veiled Lady, as was very natural, +happened to come up before them for discussion. She rose, as it were, +with the sparkling effervescence of their wine, and appeared in a more +airy and fantastic light on account of the medium through which they +saw her. They repeated to one another, between jest and earnest, all +the wild stories that were in vogue; nor, I presume, did they hesitate +to add any small circumstance that the inventive whim of the moment +might suggest, to heighten the marvellousness of their theme. + +"But what an audacious report was that," observed one, "which pretended +to assert the identity of this strange creature with a young +lady,"--and here he mentioned her name,--"the daughter of one of our +most distinguished families!" + +"Ah, there is more in that story than can well be accounted for," +remarked another. "I have it on good authority, that the young lady in +question is invariably out of sight, and not to be traced, even by her +own family, at the hours when the Veiled Lady is before the public; nor +can any satisfactory explanation be given of her disappearance. And +just look at the thing: Her brother is a young fellow of spirit. He +cannot but be aware of these rumors in reference to his sister. Why, +then, does he not come forward to defend her character, unless he is +conscious that an investigation would only make the matter worse?" + +It is essential to the purposes of my legend to distinguish one of +these young gentlemen from his companions; so, for the sake of a soft +and pretty name (such as we of the literary sisterhood invariably +bestow upon our heroes), I deem it fit to call him Theodore. + +"Pshaw!" exclaimed Theodore; "her brother is no such fool! Nobody, +unless his brain be as full of bubbles as this wine, can seriously +think of crediting that ridiculous rumor. Why, if my senses did not +play me false (which never was the case yet), I affirm that I saw that +very lady, last evening, at the exhibition, while this veiled +phenomenon was playing off her juggling tricks! What can you say to +that?" + +"Oh, it was a spectral illusion that you saw!" replied his friends, +with a general laugh. "The Veiled Lady is quite up to such a thing." + +However, as the above-mentioned fable could not hold its ground against +Theodore's downright refutation, they went on to speak of other stories +which the wild babble of the town had set afloat. Some upheld that the +veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the world; others,--and +certainly with more reason, considering the sex of the Veiled +Lady,--that the face was the most hideous and horrible, and that this +was her sole motive for hiding it. It was the face of a corpse; it was +the head of a skeleton; it was a monstrous visage, with snaky locks, +like Medusa's, and one great red eye in the centre of the forehead. +Again, it was affirmed that there was no single and unchangeable set of +features beneath the veil; but that whosoever should be bold enough to +lift it would behold the features of that person, in all the world, who +was destined to be his fate; perhaps he would be greeted by the tender +smile of the woman whom he loved, or, quite as probably, the deadly +scowl of his bitterest enemy would throw a blight over his life. They +quoted, moreover, this startling explanation of the whole affair: that +the magician who exhibited the Veiled Lady--and who, by the bye, was +the handsomest man in the whole world--had bartered his own soul for +seven years' possession of a familiar fiend, and that the last year of +the contract was wearing towards its close. + +If it were worth our while, I could keep you till an hour beyond +midnight listening to a thousand such absurdities as these. But +finally our friend Theodore, who prided himself upon his common-sense, +found the matter getting quite beyond his patience. + +"I offer any wager you like," cried he, setting down his glass so +forcibly as to break the stem of it, "that this very evening I find out +the mystery of the Veiled Lady!" + +Young men, I am told, boggle at nothing over their wine; so, after a +little more talk, a wager of considerable amount was actually laid, the +money staked, and Theodore left to choose his own method of settling +the dispute. + +How he managed it I know not, nor is it of any great importance to this +veracious legend. The most natural way, to be sure, was by bribing the +doorkeeper,--or possibly he preferred clambering in at the window. +But, at any rate, that very evening, while the exhibition was going +forward in the hall, Theodore contrived to gain admittance into the +private withdrawing-room whither the Veiled Lady was accustomed to +retire at the close of her performances. There he waited, listening, I +suppose, to the stifled hum of the great audience; and no doubt he +could distinguish the deep tones of the magician, causing the wonders +that he wrought to appear more dark and intricate, by his mystic +pretence of an explanation. Perhaps, too, in the intervals of the wild +breezy music which accompanied the exhibition, he might hear the low +voice of the Veiled Lady, conveying her sibylline responses. Firm as +Theodore's nerves might be, and much as he prided himself on his sturdy +perception of realities, I should not be surprised if his heart +throbbed at a little more than its ordinary rate. + +Theodore concealed himself behind a screen. In due time the +performance was brought to a close, and whether the door was softly +opened, or whether her bodiless presence came through the wall, is more +than I can say, but, all at once, without the young man's knowing how +it happened, a veiled figure stood in the centre of the room. It was +one thing to be in presence of this mystery in the hall of exhibition, +where the warm, dense life of hundreds of other mortals kept up the +beholder's courage, and distributed her influence among so many; it was +another thing to be quite alone with her, and that, too, with a +hostile, or, at least, an unauthorized and unjustifiable purpose. I +further imagine that Theodore now began to be sensible of something +more serious in his enterprise than he had been quite aware of while he +sat with his boon-companions over their sparkling wine. + +Very strange, it must be confessed, was the movement with which the +figure floated to and fro over the carpet, with the silvery veil +covering her from head to foot; so impalpable, so ethereal, so without +substance, as the texture seemed, yet hiding her every outline in an +impenetrability like that of midnight. Surely, she did not walk! She +floated, and flitted, and hovered about the room; no sound of a +footstep, no perceptible motion of a limb; it was as if a wandering +breeze wafted her before it, at its own wild and gentle pleasure. But, +by and by, a purpose began to be discernible, throughout the seeming +vagueness of her unrest. She was in quest of something. Could it be +that a subtile presentiment had informed her of the young man's +presence? And if so, did the Veiled Lady seek or did she shun him? +The doubt in Theodore's mind was speedily resolved; for, after a moment +or two of these erratic flutterings, she advanced more decidedly, and +stood motionless before the screen. + +"Thou art here!" said a soft, low voice. "Come forth, Theodore!" Thus +summoned by his name, Theodore, as a man of courage, had no choice. He +emerged from his concealment, and presented himself before the Veiled +Lady, with the wine-flush, it may be, quite gone out of his cheeks. + +"What wouldst thou with me?" she inquired, with the same gentle +composure that was in her former utterance. + +"Mysterious creature," replied Theodore, "I would know who and what you +are!" + +"My lips are forbidden to betray the secret," said the Veiled Lady. + +"At whatever risk, I must discover it," rejoined Theodore. + +"Then," said the Mystery, "there is no way save to lift my veil." + +And Theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept forward on the +instant, to do as the Veiled Lady had suggested. But she floated +backward to the opposite side of the room, as if the young man's breath +had possessed power enough to waft her away. + +"Pause, one little instant," said the soft, low voice, "and learn the +conditions of what thou art so bold to undertake. Thou canst go hence, +and think of me no more; or, at thy option, thou canst lift this +mysterious veil, beneath which I am a sad and lonely prisoner, in a +bondage which is worse to me than death. But, before raising it, I +entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend forward and impress a kiss +where my breath stirs the veil; and my virgin lips shall come forward +to meet thy lips; and from that instant, Theodore, thou shalt be mine, +and I thine, with never more a veil between us. And all the felicity +of earth and of the future world shall be thine and mine together. So +much may a maiden say behind the veil. If thou shrinkest from this, +there is yet another way." "And what is that?" asked Theodore. "Dost +thou hesitate," said the Veiled Lady, "to pledge thyself to me, by +meeting these lips of mine, while the veil yet hides my face? Has not +thy heart recognized me? Dost thou come hither, not in holy faith, nor +with a pure and generous purpose, but in scornful scepticism and idle +curiosity? Still, thou mayest lift the veil! But, from that instant, +Theodore, I am doomed to be thy evil fate; nor wilt thou ever taste +another breath of happiness!" + +There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of these +last words. But Theodore, whose natural tendency was towards +scepticism, felt himself almost injured and insulted by the Veiled +Lady's proposal that he should pledge himself, for life and eternity, +to so questionable a creature as herself; or even that she should +suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into view the probability that +her face was none of the most bewitching. A delightful idea, truly, +that he should salute the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of a +skeleton, or the grinning cavity of a monster's mouth! Even should she +prove a comely maiden enough in other respects, the odds were ten to +one that her teeth were defective; a terrible drawback on the +delectableness of a kiss. + +"Excuse me, fair lady," said Theodore, and I think he nearly burst into +a laugh, "if I prefer to lift the veil first; and for this affair of +the kiss, we may decide upon it afterwards." + +"Thou hast made thy choice," said the sweet, sad voice behind the veil; +and there seemed a tender but unresentful sense of wrong done to +womanhood by the young man's contemptuous interpretation of her offer. +"I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still in thine +own hand!" + +Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a +pale, lovely face beneath; just one momentary glimpse, and then the +apparition vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay +upon the floor. Theodore was alone. Our legend leaves him there. His +retribution was, to pine forever and ever for another sight of that +dim, mournful face,--which might have been his life-long household +fireside joy,--to desire, and waste life in a feverish quest, and never +meet it more. + +But what, in good sooth, had become of the Veiled Lady? Had all her +existence been comprehended within that mysterious veil, and was she +now annihilated? Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence, but +which might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theodore been +brave and true enough to claim her? Hearken, my sweet friends,--and +hearken, dear Priscilla,--and you shall learn the little more that +Zenobia can tell you. + +Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled Lady +vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary +people, who were seeking for the better life. She was so gentle and so +sad,--a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their +sympathies,--that they never thought of questioning whence she came. +She might have heretofore existed, or her thin substance might have +been moulded out of air at the very instant when they first beheld her. +It was all one to them; they took her to their hearts. Among them was a +lady to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl +attached herself. + +But one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met her +a figure in an Oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in his +hand a silvery veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of some +nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many ladies +would have been apt to do, but stood quietly, and bade him speak. The +truth was, she had seen his face before, but had never feared it, +although she knew him to be a terrible magician. + +"Lady," said he, with a warning gesture, "you are in peril!" "Peril!" +she exclaimed. "And of what nature?" + +"There is a certain maiden," replied the magician, "who has come out of +the realm of mystery, and made herself your most intimate companion. +Now, the fates have so ordained it, that, whether by her own will or +no, this stranger is your deadliest enemy. In love, in worldly +fortune, in all your pursuit of happiness, she is doomed to fling a +blight over your prospects. There is but one possibility of thwarting +her disastrous influence." + +"Then tell me that one method," said the lady. + +"Take this veil," he answered, holding forth the silvery texture. "It +is a spell; it is a powerful enchantment, which I wrought for her sake, +and beneath which she was once my prisoner. Throw it, at unawares, +over the head of this secret foe, stamp your foot, and cry, 'Arise, +Magician! Here is the Veiled Lady!' and immediately I will rise up +through the earth, and seize her; and from that moment you are safe!" + +So the lady took the silvery veil, which was like woven air, or like +some substance airier than nothing, and that would float upward and be +lost among the clouds, were she once to let it go. Returning homeward, +she found the shadowy girl amid the knot of visionary +transcendentalists, who were still seeking for the better life. She +was joyous now, and had a rose-bloom in her cheeks, and was one of the +prettiest creatures, and seemed one of the happiest, that the world +could show. But the lady stole noiselessly behind her and threw the +veil over her head. As the slight, ethereal texture sank inevitably +down over her figure, the poor girl strove to raise it, and met her +dear friend's eyes with one glance of mortal terror, and deep, deep +reproach. It could not change her purpose. + +"Arise, Magician!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot upon the earth. +"Here is the Veiled Lady!" + +At the word, up rose the bearded man in the Oriental robes,--the +beautiful, the dark magician, who had bartered away his soul! He threw +his arms around the Veiled Lady, and she was his bond-slave for +evermore! + + +Zenobia, all this while, had been holding the piece of gauze, and so +managed it as greatly to increase the dramatic effect of the legend at +those points where the magic veil was to be described. Arriving at the +catastrophe, and uttering the fatal words, she flung the gauze over +Priscilla's head; and for an instant her auditors held their breath, +half expecting, I verily believe, that the magician would start up +through the floor, and carry off our poor little friend before our eyes. + +As for Priscilla, she stood droopingly in the midst of us, making no +attempt to remove the veil. + +"How do you find yourself, my love?" said Zenobia, lifting a corner of +the gauze, and peeping beneath it with a mischievous smile. "Ah, the +dear little soul! Why, she is really going to faint! Mr. Coverdale, +Mr. Coverdale, pray bring a glass of water!" + +Her nerves being none of the strongest, Priscilla hardly recovered her +equanimity during the rest of the evening. This, to be sure, was a +great pity; but, nevertheless, we thought it a very bright idea of +Zenobia's to bring her legend to so effective a conclusion. + + + +XIV. ELIOT'S PULPIT + +Our Sundays at Blithedale were not ordinarily kept with such rigid +observance as might have befitted the descendants of the Pilgrims, +whose high enterprise, as we sometimes flattered ourselves, we had +taken up, and were carrying it onward and aloft, to a point which they +never dreamed of attaining. + +On that hallowed day, it is true, we rested from our labors. Our oxen, +relieved from their week-day yoke, roamed at large through the pasture; +each yoke-fellow, however, keeping close beside his mate, and +continuing to acknowledge, from the force of habit and sluggish +sympathy, the union which the taskmaster had imposed for his own hard +ends. As for us human yoke-fellows, chosen companions of toil, whose +hoes had clinked together throughout the week, we wandered off, in +various directions, to enjoy our interval of repose. Some, I believe, +went devoutly to the village church. Others, it may be, ascended a +city or a country pulpit, wearing the clerical robe with so much +dignity that you would scarcely have suspected the yeoman's frock to +have been flung off only since milking-time. Others took long rambles +among the rustic lanes and by-paths, pausing to look at black old +farmhouses, with their sloping roofs; and at the modern cottage, so +like a plaything that it seemed as if real joy or sorrow could have no +scope within; and at the more pretending villa, with its range of +wooden columns supporting the needless insolence of a great portico. +Some betook themselves into the wide, dusky barn, and lay there for +hours together on the odorous hay; while the sunstreaks and the shadows +strove together,--these to make the barn solemn, those to make it +cheerful,--and both were conquerors; and the swallows twittered a +cheery anthem, flashing into sight, or vanishing as they darted to and +fro among the golden rules of sunshine. And others went a little way +into the woods, and threw themselves on mother earth, pillowing their +heads on a heap of moss, the green decay of an old log; and, dropping +asleep, the bumblebees and mosquitoes sung and buzzed about their ears, +causing the slumberers to twitch and start, without awaking. + +With Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla, and myself, it grew to be a +custom to spend the Sabbath afternoon at a certain rock. It was known +to us under the name of Eliot's pulpit, from a tradition that the +venerable Apostle Eliot had preached there, two centuries gone by, to +an Indian auditory. The old pine forest, through which the Apostle's +voice was wont to sound, had fallen an immemorial time ago. But the +soil, being of the rudest and most broken surface, had apparently never +been brought under tillage; other growths, maple and beech and birch, +had succeeded to the primeval trees; so that it was still as wild a +tract of woodland as the great-great-great-great grandson of one of +Eliot's Indians (had any such posterity been in existence) could have +desired for the site and shelter of his wigwam. These after-growths, +indeed, lose the stately solemnity of the original forest. If left in +due neglect, however, they run into an entanglement of softer wildness, +among the rustling leaves of which the sun can scatter cheerfulness as +it never could among the dark-browed pines. + +The rock itself rose some twenty or thirty feet, a shattered granite +bowlder, or heap of bowlders, with an irregular outline and many +fissures, out of which sprang shrubs, bushes, and even trees; as if the +scanty soil within those crevices were sweeter to their roots than any +other earth. At the base of the pulpit, the broken bowlders inclined +towards each other, so as to form a shallow cave, within which our +little party had sometimes found protection from a summer shower. On +the threshold, or just across it, grew a tuft of pale columbines, in +their season, and violets, sad and shadowy recluses, such as Priscilla +was when we first knew her; children of the sun, who had never seen +their father, but dwelt among damp mosses, though not akin to them. At +the summit, the rock was overshadowed by the canopy of a birch-tree, +which served as a sounding-board for the pulpit. Beneath this shade +(with my eyes of sense half shut and those of the imagination widely +opened) I used to see the holy Apostle of the Indians, with the +sunlight flickering down upon him through the leaves, and glorifying +his figure as with the half-perceptible glow of a transfiguration. + +I the more minutely describe the rock, and this little Sabbath +solitude, because Hollingsworth, at our solicitation, often ascended +Eliot's pulpit, and not exactly preached, but talked to us, his few +disciples, in a strain that rose and fell as naturally as the wind's +breath among the leaves of the birch-tree. No other speech of man has +ever moved me like some of those discourses. It seemed most pitiful--a +positive calamity to the world--that a treasury of golden thoughts +should thus be scattered, by the liberal handful, down among us three, +when a thousand hearers might have been the richer for them; and +Hollingsworth the richer, likewise, by the sympathy of multitudes. +After speaking much or little, as might happen, he would descend from +his gray pulpit, and generally fling himself at full length on the +ground, face downward. Meanwhile, we talked around him on such topics +as were suggested by the discourse. + +Since her interview with Westervelt, Zenobia's continual inequalities +of temper had been rather difficult for her friends to bear. On the +first Sunday after that incident, when Hollingsworth had clambered down +from Eliot's pulpit, she declaimed with great earnestness and passion, +nothing short of anger, on the injustice which the world did to women, +and equally to itself, by not allowing them, in freedom and honor, and +with the fullest welcome, their natural utterance in public. + +"It shall not always be so!" cried she. "If I live another year, I +will lift up my own voice in behalf of woman's wider liberty!" + +She perhaps saw me smile. + +"What matter of ridicule do you find in this, Miles Coverdale?" +exclaimed Zenobia, with a flash of anger in her eyes. "That smile, +permit me to say, makes me suspicious of a low tone of feeling and +shallow thought. It is my belief--yes, and my prophecy, should I die +before it happens--that, when my sex shall achieve its rights, there +will be ten eloquent women where there is now one eloquent man. Thus +far, no woman in the world has ever once spoken out her whole heart and +her whole mind. The mistrust and disapproval of the vast bulk of +society throttles us, as with two gigantic hands at our throats! We +mumble a few weak words, and leave a thousand better ones unsaid. You +let us write a little, it is true, on a limited range of subjects. But +the pen is not for woman. Her power is too natural and immediate. It +is with the living voice alone that she can compel the world to +recognize the light of her intellect and the depth of her heart!" + +Now,--though I could not well say so to Zenobia,--I had not smiled from +any unworthy estimate of woman, or in denial of the claims which she is +beginning to put forth. What amused and puzzled me was the fact, that +women, however intellectually superior, so seldom disquiet themselves +about the rights or wrongs of their sex, unless their own individual +affections chance to lie in idleness, or to be ill at ease. They are +not natural reformers, but become such by the pressure of exceptional +misfortune. I could measure Zenobia's inward trouble by the animosity +with which she now took up the general quarrel of woman against man. + +"I will give you leave, Zenobia," replied I, "to fling your utmost +scorn upon me, if you ever hear me utter a sentiment unfavorable to the +widest liberty which woman has yet dreamed of. I would give her all +she asks, and add a great deal more, which she will not be the party to +demand, but which men, if they were generous and wise, would grant of +their own free motion. For instance, I should love dearly--for the +next thousand years, at least--to have all government devolve into the +hands of women. I hate to be ruled by my own sex; it excites my +jealousy, and wounds my pride. It is the iron sway of bodily force +which abases us, in our compelled submission. But how sweet the free, +generous courtesy with which I would kneel before a woman-ruler!" + +"Yes, if she were young and beautiful," said Zenobia, laughing. "But +how if she were sixty, and a fright?" + +"Ah! it is you that rate womanhood low," said I. "But let me go on. I +have never found it possible to suffer a bearded priest so near my +heart and conscience as to do me any spiritual good. I blush at the +very thought! Oh, in the better order of things, Heaven grant that the +ministry of souls may be left in charge of women! The gates of the +Blessed City will be thronged with the multitude that enter in, when +that day comes! The task belongs to woman. God meant it for her. He +has endowed her with the religious sentiment in its utmost depth and +purity, refined from that gross, intellectual alloy with which every +masculine theologist--save only One, who merely veiled himself in +mortal and masculine shape, but was, in truth, divine--has been prone +to mingle it. I have always envied the Catholics their faith in that +sweet, sacred Virgin Mother, who stands between them and the Deity, +intercepting somewhat of his awful splendor, but permitting his love to +stream upon the worshipper more intelligibly to human comprehension +through the medium of a woman's tenderness. Have I not said enough, +Zenobia?" + +"I cannot think that this is true," observed Priscilla, who had been +gazing at me with great, disapproving eyes. "And I am sure I do not +wish it to be true!" + +"Poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia, rather contemptuously. "She is the +type of womanhood, such as man has spent centuries in making it. He is +never content unless he can degrade himself by stooping towards what he +loves. In denying us our rights, he betrays even more blindness to his +own interests than profligate disregard of ours!" + +"Is this true?" asked Priscilla with simplicity, turning to +Hollingsworth. "Is it all true, that Mr. Coverdale and Zenobia have +been saying?" + +"No, Priscilla!" answered Hollingsworth with his customary bluntness. +"They have neither of them spoken one true word yet." + +"Do you despise woman?" said Zenobia. + +"Ah, Hollingsworth, that would be most ungrateful!" + +"Despise her? No!" cried Hollingsworth, lifting his great shaggy head +and shaking it at us, while his eyes glowed almost fiercely. "She is +the most admirable handiwork of God, in her true place and character. +Her place is at man's side. Her office, that of the sympathizer; the +unreserved, unquestioning believer; the recognition, withheld in every +other manner, but given, in pity, through woman's heart, lest man +should utterly lose faith in himself; the echo of God's own voice, +pronouncing, 'It is well done!' All the separate action of woman is, +and ever has been, and always shall be, false, foolish, vain, +destructive of her own best and holiest qualities, void of every good +effect, and productive of intolerable mischiefs! Man is a wretch +without woman; but woman is a monster--and, thank Heaven, an almost +impossible and hitherto imaginary monster--without man as her +acknowledged principal! As true as I had once a mother whom I loved, +were there any possible prospect of woman's taking the social stand +which some of them,--poor, miserable, abortive creatures, who only +dream of such things because they have missed woman's peculiar +happiness, or because nature made them really neither man nor +woman!--if there were a chance of their attaining the end which these +petticoated monstrosities have in view, I would call upon my own sex to +use its physical force, that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty, to +scourge them back within their proper bounds! But it will not be +needful. The heart of time womanhood knows where its own sphere is, +and never seeks to stray beyond it!" + +Never was mortal blessed--if blessing it were--with a glance of such +entire acquiescence and unquestioning faith, happy in its completeness, +as our little Priscilla unconsciously bestowed on Hollingsworth. She +seemed to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and brood +over it in perfect content. The very woman whom he pictured--the +gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existence--sat +there at his feet. + +I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent--as I felt, +by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought this +outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine +egotism. It centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her +very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to make it a mere +incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had boldly uttered +what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt. Without +intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled +waters. Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be the champion of +her sex. + +But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled. Some +tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were wholly of grief, not anger. + +"Well, be it so," was all she said. "I, at least, have deep cause to +think you right. Let man be but manly and godlike, and woman is only +too ready to become to him what you say!" + +I smiled--somewhat bitterly, it is true--in contemplation of my own +ill-luck. How little did these two women care for me, who had freely +conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of +my heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible +injustice, seemed to have brought them both to his feet! + +"Women almost invariably behave thus," thought I. "What does the fact +mean? Is it their nature? Or is it, at last, the result of ages of +compelled degradation? And, in either case, will it be possible ever +to redeem them?" + +An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this +time, at least, there was no more to be said. With one accord, we +arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled undergrowth +towards one of those pleasant wood-paths that wound among the +overarching trees. Some of the branches hung so low as partly to +conceal the figures that went before from those who followed. Priscilla +had leaped up more lightly than the rest of us, and ran along in +advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in the +motion of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from tree to tree, in +the same direction as herself. Never did she seem so happy as that +afternoon. She skipt, and could not help it, from very playfulness of +heart. + +Zenobia and Hollingsworth went next, in close contiguity, but not with +arm in arm. Now, just when they had passed the impending bough of a +birch-tree, I plainly saw Zenobia take the hand of Hollingsworth in +both her own, press it to her bosom, and let it fall again! + +The gesture was sudden, and full of passion; the impulse had evidently +taken her by surprise; it expressed all! Had Zenobia knelt before him, +or flung herself upon his breast, and gasped out, "I love you, +Hollingsworth!" I could not have been more certain of what it meant. +They then walked onward, as before. But, methought, as the declining +sun threw Zenobia's magnified shadow along the path, I beheld it +tremulous; and the delicate stem of the flower which she wore in her +hair was likewise responsive to her agitation. + +Priscilla--through the medium of her eyes, at least could not possibly +have been aware of the gesture above described. Yet, at that instant, +I saw her droop. The buoyancy, which just before had been so +bird-like, was utterly departed; the life seemed to pass out of her, +and even the substance of her figure to grow thin and gray. I almost +imagined her a shadow, tiding gradually into the dimness of the wood. +Her pace became so slow that Hollingsworth and Zenobia passed by, and +I, without hastening my footsteps, overtook her. + +"Come, Priscilla," said I, looking her intently in the face, which was +very pale and sorrowful, "we must make haste after our friends. Do you +feel suddenly ill? A moment ago, you flitted along so lightly that I +was comparing you to a bird. Now, on the contrary, it is as if you had +a heavy heart, and a very little strength to bear it with. Pray take my +arm!" + +"No," said Priscilla, "I do not think it would help me. It is my +heart, as you say, that makes me heavy; and I know not why. Just now, +I felt very happy." + +No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her +maidenly mystery; but, as she appeared to be tossed aside by her other +friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done +with, I could not resist the impulse to take just one peep beneath her +folded petals. + +"Zenobia and yourself are dear friends of late," I remarked. "At +first,--that first evening when you came to us,--she did not receive +you quite so warmly as might have been wished." + +"I remember it," said Priscilla. "No wonder she hesitated to love me, +who was then a stranger to her, and a girl of no grace or beauty,--she +being herself so beautiful!" + +"But she loves you now, of course?" suggested I. "And at this very +instant you feel her to be your dearest friend?" + +"Why do you ask me that question?" exclaimed Priscilla, as if +frightened at the scrutiny into her feelings which I compelled her to +make. "It somehow puts strange thoughts into my mind. But I do love +Zenobia dearly! If she only loves me half as well, I shall be happy!" + +"How is it possible to doubt that, Priscilla?" I rejoined. "But +observe how pleasantly and happily Zenobia and Hollingsworth are +walking together. I call it a delightful spectacle. It truly rejoices +me that Hollingsworth has found so fit and affectionate a friend! So +many people in the world mistrust him,--so many disbelieve and +ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, or acknowledge him for the +wonderful man he is,--that it is really a blessed thing for him to have +won the sympathy of such a woman as Zenobia. Any man might be proud of +that. Any man, even if he be as great as Hollingsworth, might love so +magnificent a woman. How very beautiful Zenobia is! And Hollingsworth +knows it, too." + +There may have been some petty malice in what I said. Generosity is a +very fine thing, at a proper time and within due limits. But it is an +insufferable bore to see one man engrossing every thought of all the +women, and leaving his friend to shiver in outer seclusion, without +even the alternative of solacing himself with what the more fortunate +individual has rejected. Yes, it was out of a foolish bitterness of +heart that I had spoken. + +"Go on before," said Priscilla abruptly, and with true feminine +imperiousness, which heretofore I had never seen her exercise. "It +pleases me best to loiter along by myself. I do not walk so fast as +you." + +With her hand she made a little gesture of dismissal. It provoked me; +yet, on the whole, was the most bewitching thing that Priscilla had +ever done. I obeyed her, and strolled moodily homeward, wondering--as +I had wondered a thousand times already--how Hollingsworth meant to +dispose of these two hearts, which (plainly to my perception, and, as I +could not but now suppose, to his) he had engrossed into his own huge +egotism. + +There was likewise another subject hardly less fruitful of speculation. +In what attitude did Zenobia present herself to Hollingsworth? Was it +in that of a free woman, with no mortgage on her affections nor +claimant to her hand, but fully at liberty to surrender both, in +exchange for the heart and hand which she apparently expected to +receive? But was it a vision that I had witnessed in the wood? Was +Westervelt a goblin? Were those words of passion and agony, which +Zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage declamation? Were they +formed of a material lighter than common air? Or, supposing them to +bear sterling weight, was it a perilous and dreadful wrong which she +was meditating towards herself and Hollingsworth? + +Arriving nearly at the farmhouse, I looked back over the long slope of +pasture land, and beheld them standing together, in the light of +sunset, just on the spot where, according to the gossip of the +Community, they meant to build their cottage. Priscilla, alone and +forgotten, was lingering in the shadow of the wood. + + + +XV. A CRISIS + +Thus the summer was passing away,--a summer of toil, of interest, of +something that was not pleasure, but which went deep into my heart, and +there became a rich experience. I found myself looking forward to +years, if not to a lifetime, to be spent on the same system. The +Community were now beginning to form their permanent plans. One of our +purposes was to erect a Phalanstery (as I think we called it, after +Fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in my +remembrance), where the great and general family should have its +abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made it a point of +religion to preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were selecting +sites for their cottages, by the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or +in the sheltered nook of some little valley, according as their taste +might lean towards snugness or the picturesque. Altogether, by +projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to +existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil beneath our +feet had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on +every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a +hitherto unwedded bride. + +Hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these prospects. It was +easy to perceive, however, that he spoke with little or no fervor, but +either as questioning the fulfilment of our anticipations, or, at any +rate, with a quiet consciousness that it was no personal concern of +his. Shortly after the scene at Eliot's pulpit, while he and I were +repairing an old stone fence, I amused myself with sallying forward +into the future time. + +"When we come to be old men," I said, "they will call us uncles, or +fathers,--Father Hollingsworth and Uncle Coverdale,--and we will look +back cheerfully to these early days, and make a romantic story for the +young People (and if a little more romantic than truth may warrant, it +will be no harm) out of our severe trials and hardships. In a century +or two, we shall, every one of us, be mythical personages, or +exceedingly picturesque and poetical ones, at all events. They will +have a great public hall, in which your portrait, and mine, and twenty +other faces that are living now, shall be hung up; and as for me, I +will be painted in my shirtsleeves, and with the sleeves rolled up, to +show my muscular development. What stories will be rife among them +about our mighty strength!" continued I, lifting a big stone and +putting it into its place, "though our posterity will really be far +stronger than ourselves, after several generations of a simple, +natural, and active life. What legends of Zenobia's beauty, and +Priscilla's slender and shadowy grace, and those mysterious qualities +which make her seem diaphanous with spiritual light! In due course of +ages, we must all figure heroically in an epic poem; and we will +ourselves--at least, I will--bend unseen over the future poet, and lend +him inspiration while he writes it." + +"You seem," said Hollingsworth, "to be trying how much nonsense you can +pour out in a breath." + +"I wish you would see fit to comprehend," retorted I, "that the +profoundest wisdom must be mingled with nine tenths of nonsense, else +it is not worth the breath that utters it. But I do long for the +cottages to be built, that the creeping plants may begin to run over +them, and the moss to gather on the walls, and the trees--which we will +set out--to cover them with a breadth of shadow. This spick-and-span +novelty does not quite suit my taste. It is time, too, for children to +be born among us. The first-born child is still to come. And I shall +never feel as if this were a real, practical, as well as poetical +system of human life, until somebody has sanctified it by death." + +"A pretty occasion for martyrdom, truly!" said Hollingsworth. + +"As good as any other," I replied. "I wonder, Hollingsworth, who, of +all these strong men, and fair women and maidens, is doomed the first +to die. Would it not be well, even before we have absolute need of it, +to fix upon a spot for a cemetery? Let us choose the rudest, roughest, +most uncultivable spot, for Death's garden ground; and Death shall +teach us to beautify it, grave by grave. By our sweet, calm way of +dying, and the airy elegance out of which we will shape our funeral +rites, and the cheerful allegories which we will model into tombstones, +the final scene shall lose its terrors; so that hereafter it may be +happiness to live, and bliss to die. None of us must die young. Yet, +should Providence ordain it so, the event shall not be sorrowful, but +affect us with a tender, delicious, only half-melancholy, and almost +smiling pathos!" + +"That is to say," muttered Hollingsworth, "you will die like a heathen, +as you certainly live like one. But, listen to me, Coverdale. Your +fantastic anticipations make me discern all the more forcibly what a +wretched, unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we have wasted a +precious summer of our lives. Do you seriously imagine that any such +realities as you, and many others here, have dreamed of, will ever be +brought to pass?" + +"Certainly I do," said I. "Of course, when the reality comes, it will +wear the every-day, commonplace, dusty, and rather homely garb that +reality always does put on. But, setting aside the ideal charm, I hold +that our highest anticipations have a solid footing on common sense." + +"You only half believe what you say," rejoined Hollingsworth; "and as +for me, I neither have faith in your dream, nor would care the value of +this pebble for its realization, were that possible. And what more do +you want of it? It has given you a theme for poetry. Let that content +you. But now I ask you to be, at last, a man of sobriety and +earnestness, and aid me in an enterprise which is worth all our +strength, and the strength of a thousand mightier than we." + +There can be no need of giving in detail the conversation that ensued. +It is enough to say that Hollingsworth once more brought forward his +rigid and unconquerable idea,--a scheme for the reformation of the +wicked by methods moral, intellectual, and industrial, by the sympathy +of pure, humble, and yet exalted minds, and by opening to his pupils +the possibility of a worthier life than that which had become their +fate. It appeared, unless he overestimated his own means, that +Hollingsworth held it at his choice (and he did so choose) to obtain +possession of the very ground on which we had planted our Community, +and which had not yet been made irrevocably ours, by purchase. It was +just the foundation that he desired. Our beginnings might readily be +adapted to his great end. The arrangements already completed would +work quietly into his system. So plausible looked his theory, and, more +than that, so practical,--such an air of reasonableness had he, by +patient thought, thrown over it,--each segment of it was contrived to +dovetail into all the rest with such a complicated applicability, and +so ready was he with a response for every objection, that, really, so +far as logic and argument went, he had the matter all his own way. + +"But," said I, "whence can you, having no means of your own, derive the +enormous capital which is essential to this experiment? State Street, +I imagine, would not draw its purser strings very liberally in aid of +such a speculation." + +"I have the funds--as much, at least, as is needed for a +commencement--at command," he answered. "They can be produced within a +month, if necessary." + +My thoughts reverted to Zenobia. It could only be her wealth which +Hollingsworth was appropriating so lavishly. And on what conditions +was it to be had? Did she fling it into the scheme with the +uncalculating generosity that characterizes a woman when it is her +impulse to be generous at all? And did she fling herself along with +it? But Hollingsworth did not volunteer an explanation. + +"And have you no regrets," I inquired, "in overthrowing this fair +system of our new life, which has been planned so deeply, and is now +beginning to flourish so hopefully around us? How beautiful it is, +and, so far as we can yet see, how practicable! The ages have waited +for us, and here we are, the very first that have essayed to carry on +our mortal existence in love and mutual help! Hollingsworth, I would +be loath to take the ruin of this enterprise upon my conscience." + +"Then let it rest wholly upon mine!" he answered, knitting his black +brows. "I see through the system. It is full of +defects,--irremediable and damning ones!--from first to last, there is +nothing else! I grasp it in my hand, and find no substance whatever. +There is not human nature in it." + +"Why are you so secret in your operations?" I asked. "God forbid that +I should accuse you of intentional wrong; but the besetting sin of a +philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. His +sense of honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. At some +point of his course--I know not exactly when or where--he is tempted to +palter with the right, and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that +the importance of his public ends renders it allowable to throw aside +his private conscience. Oh, my dear friend, beware this error! If you +meditate the overthrow of this establishment, call together our +companions, state your design, support it with all your eloquence, but +allow them an opportunity of defending themselves." + +"It does not suit me," said Hollingsworth. "Nor is it my duty to do +so." + +"I think it is," replied I. + +Hollingsworth frowned; not in passion, but, like fate, inexorably. + +"I will not argue the point," said he. "What I desire to know of you +is,--and you can tell me in one word,--whether I am to look for your +cooperation in this great scheme of good? Take it up with me! Be my +brother in it! It offers you (what you have told me, over and over +again, that you most need) a purpose in life, worthy of the extremest +self-devotion,--worthy of martyrdom, should God so order it! In this +view, I present it to you. You can greatly benefit mankind. Your +peculiar faculties, as I shall direct them, are capable of being so +wrought into this enterprise that not one of them need lie idle. Strike +hands with me, and from this moment you shall never again feel the +languor and vague wretchedness of an indolent or half-occupied man. +There may be no more aimless beauty in your life; but, in its stead, +there shall be strength, courage, immitigable will,--everything that a +manly and generous nature should desire! We shall succeed! We shall +have done our best for this miserable world; and happiness (which never +comes but incidentally) will come to us unawares." + +It seemed his intention to say no more. But, after he had quite broken +off, his deep eyes filled with tears, and he held out both his hands to +me. + +"Coverdale," he murmured, "there is not the man in this wide world whom +I can love as I could you. Do not forsake me!" + +As I look back upon this scene, through the coldness and dimness of so +many years, there is still a sensation as if Hollingsworth had caught +hold of my heart, and were pulling it towards him with an almost +irresistible force. It is a mystery to me how I withstood it. But, in +truth, I saw in his scheme of philanthropy nothing but what was odious. +A loathsomeness that was to be forever in my daily work! A great black +ugliness of sin, which he proposed to collect out of a thousand human +hearts, and that we should spend our lives in an experiment of +transmuting it into virtue! Had I but touched his extended hand, +Hollingsworth's magnetism would perhaps have penetrated me with his own +conception of all these matters. But I stood aloof. I fortified +myself with doubts whether his strength of purpose had not been too +gigantic for his integrity, impelling him to trample on considerations +that should have been paramount to every other. + +"Is Zenobia to take a part in your enterprise?" I asked. + +"She is," said Hollingsworth. + +"She!--the beautiful!--the gorgeous!" I exclaimed. "And how have you +prevailed with such a woman to work in this squalid element?" + +"Through no base methods, as you seem to suspect," he answered; "but by +addressing whatever is best and noblest in her." + +Hollingsworth was looking on the ground. But, as he often did +so,--generally, indeed, in his habitual moods of thought,--I could not +judge whether it was from any special unwillingness now to meet my +eyes. What it was that dictated my next question, I cannot precisely +say. Nevertheless, it rose so inevitably into my mouth, and, as it +were, asked itself so involuntarily, that there must needs have been an +aptness in it. + +"What is to become of Priscilla?" + +Hollingsworth looked at me fiercely, and with glowing eyes. He could +not have shown any other kind of expression than that, had he meant to +strike me with a sword. + +"Why do you bring in the names of these women?" said he, after a moment +of pregnant silence. "What have they to do with the proposal which I +make you? I must have your answer! Will you devote yourself, and +sacrifice all to this great end, and be my friend of friends forever?" + +"In Heaven's name, Hollingsworth," cried I, getting angry, and glad to +be angry, because so only was it possible to oppose his tremendous +concentrativeness and indomitable will, "cannot you conceive that a man +may wish well to the world, and struggle for its good, on some other +plan than precisely that which you have laid down? And will you cast +off a friend for no unworthiness, but merely because he stands upon his +right as an individual being, and looks at matters through his own +optics, instead of yours?" + +"Be with me," said Hollingsworth, "or be against me! There is no third +choice for you." + +"Take this, then, as my decision," I answered. "I doubt the wisdom of +your scheme. Furthermore, I greatly fear that the methods by which you +allow yourself to pursue it are such as cannot stand the scrutiny of an +unbiassed conscience." + +"And you will not join me?" + +"No!" + +I never said the word--and certainly can never have it to say +hereafter--that cost me a thousandth part so hard an effort as did that +one syllable. The heart-pang was not merely figurative, but an +absolute torture of the breast. I was gazing steadfastly at +Hollingsworth. It seemed to me that it struck him, too, like a bullet. +A ghastly paleness--always so terrific on a swarthy face--overspread +his features. There was a convulsive movement of his throat, as if he +were forcing down some words that struggled and fought for utterance. +Whether words of anger, or words of grief, I cannot tell; although many +and many a time I have vainly tormented myself with conjecturing which +of the two they were. One other appeal to my friendship,--such as +once, already, Hollingsworth had made,--taking me in the revulsion that +followed a strenuous exercise of opposing will, would completely have +subdued me. But he left the matter there. "Well!" said he. + +And that was all! I should have been thankful for one word more, even +had it shot me through the heart, as mine did him. But he did not +speak it; and, after a few moments, with one accord, we set to work +again, repairing the stone fence. Hollingsworth, I observed, wrought +like a Titan; and, for my own part, I lifted stones which at this +day--or, in a calmer mood, at that one--I should no more have thought +it possible to stir than to carry off the gates of Gaza on my back. + + + +XVI. LEAVE-TAKINGS + +A few days after the tragic passage-at-arms between Hollingsworth and +me, I appeared at the dinner-table actually dressed in a coat, instead +of my customary blouse; with a satin cravat, too, a white vest, and +several other things that made me seem strange and outlandish to +myself. As for my companions, this unwonted spectacle caused a great +stir upon the wooden benches that bordered either side of our homely +board. + +"What's in the wind now, Miles?" asked one of them. "Are you deserting +us?" + +"Yes, for a week or two," said I. "It strikes me that my health demands +a little relaxation of labor, and a short visit to the seaside, during +the dog-days." + +"You look like it!" grumbled Silas Foster, not greatly pleased with the +idea of losing an efficient laborer before the stress of the season was +well over. "Now, here's a pretty fellow! His shoulders have broadened +a matter of six inches since he came among us; he can do his day's +work, if he likes, with any man or ox on the farm; and yet he talks +about going to the seashore for his health! Well, well, old woman," +added he to his wife, "let me have a plateful of that pork and cabbage! +I begin to feel in a very weakly way. When the others have had their +turn, you and I will take a jaunt to Newport or Saratoga!" + + +"Well, but, Mr. Foster," said I, "you must allow me to take a little +breath." + +"Breath!" retorted the old yeoman. "Your lungs have the play of a pair +of blacksmith's bellows already. What on earth do you want more? But +go along! I understand the business. We shall never see your face +here again. Here ends the reformation of the world, so far as Miles +Coverdale has a hand in it!" + +"By no means," I replied. "I am resolute to die in the last ditch, for +the good of the cause." + +"Die in a ditch!" muttered gruff Silas, with genuine Yankee intolerance +of any intermission of toil, except on Sunday, the Fourth of July, the +autumnal cattle-show, Thanksgiving, or the annual Fast,--"die in a +ditch! I believe, in my conscience, you would, if there were no +steadier means than your own labor to keep you out of it!" + +The truth was, that an intolerable discontent and irksomeness had come +over me. Blithedale was no longer what it had been. Everything was +suddenly faded. The sunburnt and arid aspect of our woods and +pastures, beneath the August sky, did but imperfectly symbolize the +lack of dew and moisture, that, since yesterday, as it were, had +blighted my fields of thought, and penetrated to the innermost and +shadiest of my contemplative recesses. The change will be recognized +by many, who, after a period of happiness, have endeavored to go on +with the same kind of life, in the same scene, in spite of the +alteration or withdrawal of some principal circumstance. They discover +(what heretofore, perhaps, they had not known) that it was this which +gave the bright color and vivid reality to the whole affair. + +I stood on other terms than before, not only with Hollingsworth, but +with Zenobia and Priscilla. As regarded the two latter, it was that +dreamlike and miserable sort of change that denies you the privilege to +complain, because you can assert no positive injury, nor lay your +finger on anything tangible. It is a matter which you do not see, but +feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very +existence, and resolve itself into a sickly humor of your own. Your +understanding, possibly, may put faith in this denial. But your heart +will not so easily rest satisfied. It incessantly remonstrates, +though, most of the time, in a bass-note, which you do not separately +distinguish; but, now and then, with a sharp cry, importunate to be +heard, and resolute to claim belief. "Things are not as they were!" it +keeps saying. "You shall not impose on me! I will never be quiet! I +will throb painfully! I will be heavy, and desolate, and shiver with +cold! For I, your deep heart, know when to be miserable, as once I +knew when to be happy! All is changed for us! You are beloved no +more!" And were my life to be spent over again, I would invariably +lend my ear to this Cassandra of the inward depths, however clamorous +the music and the merriment of a more superficial region. + +My outbreak with Hollingsworth, though never definitely known to our +associates, had really an effect upon the moral atmosphere of the +Community. It was incidental to the closeness of relationship into +which we had brought ourselves, that an unfriendly state of feeling +could not occur between any two members without the whole society being +more or less commoted and made uncomfortable thereby. This species of +nervous sympathy (though a pretty characteristic enough, sentimentally +considered, and apparently betokening an actual bond of love among us) +was yet found rather inconvenient in its practical operation, mortal +tempers being so infirm and variable as they are. If one of us happened +to give his neighbor a box on the ear, the tingle was immediately felt +on the same side of everybody's head. Thus, even on the supposition +that we were far less quarrelsome than the rest of the world, a great +deal of time was necessarily wasted in rubbing our ears. + +Musing on all these matters, I felt an inexpressible longing for at +least a temporary novelty. I thought of going across the Rocky +Mountains, or to Europe, or up the Nile; of offering myself a volunteer +on the Exploring Expedition; of taking a ramble of years, no matter in +what direction, and coming back on the other side of the world. Then, +should the colonists of Blithedale have established their enterprise on +a permanent basis, I might fling aside my pilgrim staff and dusty +shoon, and rest as peacefully here as elsewhere. Or, in case +Hollingsworth should occupy the ground with his School of Reform, as he +now purposed, I might plead earthly guilt enough, by that time, to give +me what I was inclined to think the only trustworthy hold on his +affections. Meanwhile, before deciding on any ultimate plan, I +determined to remove myself to a little distance, and take an exterior +view of what we had all been about. + +In truth, it was dizzy work, amid such fermentation of opinions as was +going on in the general brain of the Community. It was a kind of +Bedlam, for the time being, although out of the very thoughts that were +wildest and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm, and pure, +and that should incarnate itself with the substance of a noble and +happy life. But, as matters now were, I felt myself (and, having a +decided tendency towards the actual, I never liked to feel it) getting +quite out of my reckoning, with regard to the existing state of the +world. I was beginning to lose the sense of what kind of a world it +was, among innumerable schemes of what it might or ought to be. It was +impossible, situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that everything +in nature and human existence was fluid, or fast becoming so; that the +crust of the earth in many places was broken, and its whole surface +portentously upheaving; that it was a day of crisis, and that we +ourselves were in the critical vortex. Our great globe floated in the +atmosphere of infinite space like an unsubstantial bubble. No +sagacious man will long retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively +among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning +into the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new +observation from that old standpoint. + +It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk with +the conservatives, the writers of "The North American Review," the +merchants, the politicians, the Cambridge men, and all those +respectable old blockheads who still, in this intangibility and +mistiness of affairs, kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had +not come into vogue since yesterday morning. + +The brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the +sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of kissing them all round, but +forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the penance +is fully equal to the pleasure. So I kissed none of them; and nobody, +to say the truth, seemed to expect it. + +"Do you wish me," I said to Zenobia, "to announce in town, and at the +watering-places, your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on the +rights of women?" + +"Women possess no rights," said Zenobia, with a half-melancholy smile; +"or, at all events, only little girls and grandmothers would have the +force to exercise them." + +She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, I thought, +with a pitying expression in her eyes; nor was there any settled light +of joy in them on her own behalf, but a troubled and passionate flame, +flickering and fitful. + +"I regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us," she said; "and all +the more, since I feel that this phase of our life is finished, and can +never be lived over again. Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, that I have +been several times on the point of making you my confidant, for lack of +a better and wiser one? But you are too young to be my father +confessor; and you would not thank me for treating you like one of +those good little handmaidens who share the bosom secrets of a +tragedy-queen." + +"I would, at least, be loyal and faithful," answered I; "and would +counsel you with an honest purpose, if not wisely." + +"Yes," said Zenobia, "you would be only too wise, too honest. Honesty +and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's expense!" + +"Ah, Zenobia," I exclaimed, "if you would but let me speak!" + +"By no means," she replied, "especially when you have just resumed the +whole series of social conventionalisms, together with that +strait-bodied coat. I would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a +clergyman! No, no, Mr. Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the +present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman; +and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to +speak the fitting word. It needs a wild steersman when we voyage +through chaos! The anchor is up,--farewell!" + +Priscilla, as soon as dinner was over, had betaken herself into a +corner, and set to work on a little purse. As I approached her, she +let her eyes rest on me with a calm, serious look; for, with all her +delicacy of nerves, there was a singular self-possession in Priscilla, +and her sensibilities seemed to lie sheltered from ordinary commotion, +like the water in a deep well. + +"Will you give me that purse, Priscilla," said I, "as a parting +keepsake?" + +"Yes," she answered, "if you will wait till it is finished." + +"I must not wait, even for that," I replied. "Shall I find you here, +on my return?" + +"I never wish to go away," said she. + +"I have sometimes thought," observed I, smiling, "that you, Priscilla, +are a little prophetess, or, at least, that you have spiritual +intimations respecting matters which are dark to us grosser people. If +that be the case, I should like to ask you what is about to happen; for +I am tormented with a strong foreboding that, were I to return even so +soon as to-morrow morning, I should find everything changed. Have you +any impressions of this nature?" + +"Ah, no," said Priscilla, looking at me apprehensively. "If any such +misfortune is coming, the shadow has not reached me yet. Heaven +forbid! I should be glad if there might never be any change, but one +summer follow another, and all just like this." + +"No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike," said I, +with a degree of Orphic wisdom that astonished myself. "Times change, +and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much +the worse for us. Good-by, Priscilla!" + +I gave her hand a pressure, which, I think, she neither resisted nor +returned. Priscilla's heart was deep, but of small compass; it had +room but for a very few dearest ones, among whom she never reckoned me. + +On the doorstep I met Hollingsworth. I had a momentary impulse to hold +out my hand, or at least to give a parting nod, but resisted both. +When a real and strong affection has come to an end, it is not well to +mock the sacred past with any show of those commonplace civilities that +belong to ordinary intercourse. Being dead henceforth to him, and he +to me, there could be no propriety in our chilling one another with the +touch of two corpse-like hands, or playing at looks of courtesy with +eyes that were impenetrable beneath the glaze and the film. We passed, +therefore, as if mutually invisible. + +I can nowise explain what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it was, +that, after all these leave-takings, induced me to go to the pigsty, +and take leave of the swine! There they lay, buried as deeply among +the straw as they could burrow, four huge black grunters, the very +symbols of slothful ease and sensual comfort. They were asleep, +drawing short and heavy breaths, which heaved their big sides up and +down. Unclosing their eyes, however, at my approach, they looked dimly +forth at the outer world, and simultaneously uttered a gentle grunt; +not putting themselves to the trouble of an additional breath for that +particular purpose, but grunting with their ordinary inhalation. They +were involved, and almost stifled and buried alive, in their own +corporeal substance. The very unreadiness and oppression wherewith +these greasy citizens gained breath enough to keep their life-machinery +in sluggish movement appeared to make them only the more sensible of +the ponderous and fat satisfaction of their existence. Peeping at me +an instant out of their small, red, hardly perceptible eyes, they dropt +asleep again; yet not so far asleep but that their unctuous bliss was +still present to them, betwixt dream and reality. + +"You must come back in season to eat part of a spare-rib," said Silas +Foster, giving my hand a mighty squeeze. "I shall have these fat +fellows hanging up by the heels, heads downward, pretty soon, I tell +you!" + +"O cruel Silas, what a horrible idea!" cried I. "All the rest of us, +men, women, and livestock, save only these four porkers, are bedevilled +with one grief or another; they alone are happy,--and you mean to cut +their throats and eat them! It would be more for the general comfort +to let them eat us; and bitter and sour morsels we should be!" + + + +XVII. THE HOTEL + +Arriving in town (where my bachelor-rooms, long before this time, had +received some other occupant), I established myself, for a day or two, +in a certain, respectable hotel. It was situated somewhat aloof from +my former track in life; my present mood inclining me to avoid most of +my old companions, from whom I was now sundered by other interests, and +who would have been likely enough to amuse themselves at the expense of +the amateur workingman. The hotel-keeper put me into a back room of +the third story of his spacious establishment. The day was lowering, +with occasional gusts of rain, and an ugly tempered east wind, which +seemed to come right off the chill and melancholy sea, hardly mitigated +by sweeping over the roofs, and amalgamating itself with the dusky +element of city smoke. All the effeminacy of past days had returned +upon me at once. Summer as it still was, I ordered a coal fire in the +rusty grate, and was glad to find myself growing a little too warm with +an artificial temperature. + +My sensations were those of a traveller, long sojourning in remote +regions, and at length sitting down again amid customs once familiar. +There was a newness and an oldness oddly combining themselves into one +impression. It made me acutely sensible how strange a piece of +mosaic-work had lately been wrought into my life. True, if you look at +it in one way, it had been only a summer in the country. But, +considered in a profounder relation, it was part of another age, a +different state of society, a segment of an existence peculiar in its +aims and methods, a leaf of some mysterious volume interpolated into +the current history which time was writing off. At one moment, the +very circumstances now surrounding me--my coal fire and the dingy room +in the bustling hotel--appeared far off and intangible; the next +instant Blithedale looked vague, as if it were at a distance both in +time and space, and so shadowy that a question might be raised whether +the whole affair had been anything more than the thoughts of a +speculative man. I had never before experienced a mood that so robbed +the actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a charm, on +which--a devoted epicure of my own emotions--I resolved to pause, and +enjoy the moral sillabub until quite dissolved away. + +Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the +thick, foggy, stifled element of cities, the entangled life of many men +together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as +strenuous a hold upon my mind. I felt as if there could never be +enough of it. Each characteristic sound was too suggestive to be +passed over unnoticed. Beneath and around me, I heard the stir of the +hotel; the loud voices of guests, landlord, or bar-keeper; steps +echoing on the staircase; the ringing of a bell, announcing arrivals or +departures; the porter lumbering past my door with baggage, which he +thumped down upon the floors of neighboring chambers; the lighter feet +of chambermaids scudding along the passages;--it is ridiculous to think +what an interest they had for me! From the street came the tumult of +the pavements, pervading the whole house with a continual uproar, so +broad and deep that only an unaccustomed ear would dwell upon it. A +company of the city soldiery, with a full military band, marched in +front of the hotel, invisible to me, but stirringly audible both by its +foot-tramp and the clangor of its instruments. Once or twice all the +city bells jangled together, announcing a fire, which brought out the +engine-men and their machines, like an army with its artillery rushing +to battle. Hour by hour the clocks in many steeples responded one to +another. + +In some public hall, not a great way off, there seemed to be an +exhibition of a mechanical diorama; for three times during the day +occurred a repetition of obstreperous music, winding up with the rattle +of imitative cannon and musketry, and a huge final explosion. Then +ensued the applause of the spectators, with clap of hands and thump of +sticks, and the energetic pounding of their heels. All this was just +as valuable, in its way, as the sighing of the breeze among the +birch-trees that overshadowed Eliot's pulpit. + +Yet I felt a hesitation about plunging into this muddy tide of human +activity and pastime. It suited me better, for the present, to linger +on the brink, or hover in the air above it. So I spent the first day, +and the greater part of the second, in the laziest manner possible, in +a rocking-chair, inhaling the fragrance of a series of cigars, with my +legs and slippered feet horizontally disposed, and in my hand a novel +purchased of a railroad bibliopolist. The gradual waste of my cigar +accomplished itself with an easy and gentle expenditure of breath. My +book was of the dullest, yet had a sort of sluggish flow, like that of +a stream in which your boat is as often aground as afloat. Had there +been a more impetuous rush, a more absorbing passion of the narrative, +I should the sooner have struggled out of its uneasy current, and have +given myself up to the swell and subsidence of my thoughts. But, as it +was, the torpid life of the book served as an unobtrusive accompaniment +to the life within me and about me. At intervals, however, when its +effect grew a little too soporific,--not for my patience, but for the +possibility of keeping my eyes open, I bestirred myself, started from +the rocking-chair, and looked out of the window. + +A gray sky; the weathercock of a steeple that rose beyond the opposite +range of buildings, pointing from the eastward; a sprinkle of small, +spiteful-looking raindrops on the window-pane. In that ebb-tide of my +energies, had I thought of venturing abroad, these tokens would have +checked the abortive purpose. + +After several such visits to the window, I found myself getting pretty +well acquainted with that little portion of the backside of the +universe which it presented to my view. Over against the hotel and its +adjacent houses, at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was the rear +of a range of buildings which appeared to be spacious, modern, and +calculated for fashionable residences. The interval between was +apportioned into grass-plots, and here and there an apology for a +garden, pertaining severally to these dwellings. There were +apple-trees, and pear and peach trees, too, the fruit on which looked +singularly large, luxuriant, and abundant, as well it might, in a +situation so warm and sheltered, and where the soil had doubtless been +enriched to a more than natural fertility. In two or three places +grapevines clambered upon trellises, and bore clusters already purple, +and promising the richness of Malta or Madeira in their ripened juice. +The blighting winds of our rigid climate could not molest these trees +and vines; the sunshine, though descending late into this area, and too +early intercepted by the height of the surrounding houses, yet lay +tropically there, even when less than temperate in every other region. +Dreary as was the day, the scene was illuminated by not a few sparrows +and other birds, which spread their wings, and flitted and fluttered, +and alighted now here, now there, and busily scratched their food out +of the wormy earth. Most of these winged people seemed to have their +domicile in a robust and healthy buttonwood-tree. It aspired upward, +high above the roofs of the houses, and spread a dense head of foliage +half across the area. + +There was a cat--as there invariably is in such places--who evidently +thought herself entitled to the privileges of forest life in this close +heart of city conventionalisms. I watched her creeping along the low, +flat roofs of the offices, descending a flight of wooden steps, gliding +among the grass, and besieging the buttonwood-tree, with murderous +purpose against its feathered citizens. But, after all, they were +birds of city breeding, and doubtless knew how to guard themselves +against the peculiar perils of their position. + +Bewitching to my fancy are all those nooks and crannies where Nature, +like a stray partridge, hides her head among the long-established +haunts of men! It is likewise to be remarked, as a general rule, that +there is far more of the picturesque, more truth to native and +characteristic tendencies, and vastly greater suggestiveness in the +back view of a residence, whether in town or country, than in its +front. The latter is always artificial; it is meant for the world's +eye, and is therefore a veil and a concealment. Realities keep in the +rear, and put forward an advance guard of show and humbug. The +posterior aspect of any old farmhouse, behind which a railroad has +unexpectedly been opened, is so different from that looking upon the +immemorial highway, that the spectator gets new ideas of rural life and +individuality in the puff or two of steam-breath which shoots him past +the premises. In a city, the distinction between what is offered to +the public and what is kept for the family is certainly not less +striking. + +But, to return to my window at the back of the hotel. Together with a +due contemplation of the fruit-trees, the grapevines, the +buttonwood-tree, the cat, the birds, and many other particulars, I +failed not to study the row of fashionable dwellings to which all these +appertained. Here, it must be confessed, there was a general sameness. +From the upper story to the first floor, they were so much alike, that +I could only conceive of the inhabitants as cut out on one identical +pattern, like little wooden toy-people of German manufacture. One +long, united roof, with its thousands of slates glittering in the rain, +extended over the whole. After the distinctness of separate characters +to which I had recently been accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me +not to be able to resolve this combination of human interests into +well-defined elements. It seemed hardly worth while for more than one +of those families to be in existence, since they all had the same +glimpse of the sky, all looked into the same area, all received just +their equal share of sunshine through the front windows, and all +listened to precisely the same noises of the street on which they +boarded. Men are so much alike in their nature, that they grow +intolerable unless varied by their circumstances. + +Just about this time a waiter entered my room. The truth was, I had +rung the bell and ordered a sherry-cobbler. + + +"Can you tell me," I inquired, "what families reside in any of those +houses opposite?" + +"The one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding-house," said the +waiter. "Two of the gentlemen boarders keep horses at the stable of +our establishment. They do things in very good style, sir, the people +that live there." + +I might have found out nearly as much for myself, on examining the +house a little more closely, in one of the upper chambers I saw a young +man in a dressing-gown, standing before the glass and brushing his hair +for a quarter of an hour together. He then spent an equal space of +time in the elaborate arrangement of his cravat, and finally made his +appearance in a dress-coat, which I suspected to be newly come from the +tailor's, and now first put on for a dinner-party. At a window of the +next story below, two children, prettily dressed, were looking out. By +and by a middle-aged gentleman came softly behind them, kissed the +little girl, and playfully pulled the little boy's ear. It was a papa, +no doubt, just come in from his counting-room or office; and anon +appeared mamma, stealing as softly behind papa as he had stolen behind +the children, and laying her hand on his shoulder to surprise him. +Then followed a kiss between papa and mamma; but a noiseless one, for +the children did not turn their heads. + +"I bless God for these good folks!" thought I to myself. "I have not +seen a prettier bit of nature, in all my summer in the country, than +they have shown me here, in a rather stylish boarding-house. I will +pay them a little more attention by and by." + +On the first floor, an iron balustrade ran along in front of the tall +and spacious windows, evidently belonging to a back drawing-room; and +far into the interior, through the arch of the sliding-doors, I could +discern a gleam from the windows of the front apartment. There were no +signs of present occupancy in this suite of rooms; the curtains being +enveloped in a protective covering, which allowed but a small portion +of their crimson material to be seen. But two housemaids were +industriously at work; so that there was good prospect that the +boarding-house might not long suffer from the absence of its most +expensive and profitable guests. Meanwhile, until they should appear, +I cast my eyes downward to the lower regions. There, in the dusk that +so early settles into such places, I saw the red glow of the kitchen +range. The hot cook, or one of her subordinates, with a ladle in her +hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back door. As soon as she +disappeared, an Irish man-servant, in a white jacket, crept slyly +forth, and threw away the fragments of a china dish, which, +unquestionably, he had just broken. Soon afterwards, a lady, showily +dressed, with a curling front of what must have been false hair, and +reddish-brown, I suppose, in hue,--though my remoteness allowed me only +to guess at such particulars,--this respectable mistress of the +boarding-house made a momentary transit across the kitchen window, and +appeared no more. It was her final, comprehensive glance, in order to +make sure that soup, fish, and flesh were in a proper state of +readiness, before the serving up of dinner. + +There was nothing else worth noticing about the house, unless it be +that on the peak of one of the dormer windows which opened out of the +roof sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn; insomuch that I +wondered why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, while her +kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and comfortable dove-cote. +All at once this dove spread her wings, and, launching herself in the +air, came flying so straight across the intervening space, that I fully +expected her to alight directly on my window-sill. In the latter part +of her course, however, she swerved aside, flew upward, and vanished, +as did, likewise, the slight, fantastic pathos with which I had +invested her. + + + +XVIII. THE BOARDING-HOUSE + +The next day, as soon as I thought of looking again towards the +opposite house, there sat the dove again, on the peak of the same +dormer window! It was by no means an early hour, for the preceding +evening I had ultimately mustered enterprise enough to visit the +theatre, had gone late to bed, and slept beyond all limit, in my +remoteness from Silas Foster's awakening horn. Dreams had tormented me +throughout the night. The train of thoughts which, for months past, +had worn a track through my mind, and to escape which was one of my +chief objects in leaving Blithedale, kept treading remorselessly to and +fro in their old footsteps, while slumber left me impotent to regulate +them. It was not till I had quitted my three friends that they first +began to encroach upon my dreams. In those of the last night, +Hollingsworth and Zenobia, standing on either side of my bed, had bent +across it to exchange a kiss of passion. Priscilla, beholding +this,--for she seemed to be peeping in at the chamber window,--had +melted gradually away, and left only the sadness of her expression in +my heart. There it still lingered, after I awoke; one of those +unreasonable sadnesses that you know not how to deal with, because it +involves nothing for common-sense to clutch. + +It was a gray and dripping forenoon; gloomy enough in town, and still +gloomier in the haunts to which my recollections persisted in +transporting me. For, in spite of my efforts to think of something +else, I thought how the gusty rain was drifting over the slopes and +valleys of our farm; how wet must be the foliage that overshadowed the +pulpit rock; how cheerless, in such a day, my hermitage--the +tree-solitude of my owl-like humors--in the vine-encircled heart of the +tall pine! It was a phase of homesickness. I had wrenched myself too +suddenly out of an accustomed sphere. There was no choice, now, but to +bear the pang of whatever heartstrings were snapt asunder, and that +illusive torment (like the ache of a limb long ago cut off) by which a +past mode of life prolongs itself into the succeeding one. I was full +of idle and shapeless regrets. The thought impressed itself upon me +that I had left duties unperformed. With the power, perhaps, to act in +the place of destiny and avert misfortune from my friends, I had +resigned them to their fate. That cold tendency, between instinct and +intellect, which made me pry with a speculative interest into people's +passions and impulses, appeared to have gone far towards unhumanizing +my heart. + +But a man cannot always decide for himself whether his own heart is +cold or warm. It now impresses me that, if I erred at all in regard to +Hollingsworth, Zenobia, and Priscilla, it was through too much +sympathy, rather than too little. + +To escape the irksomeness of these meditations, I resumed my post at +the window. At first sight, there was nothing new to be noticed. The +general aspect of affairs was the same as yesterday, except that the +more decided inclemency of to-day had driven the sparrows to shelter, +and kept the cat within doors; whence, however, she soon emerged, +pursued by the cook, and with what looked like the better half of a +roast chicken in her mouth. The young man in the dress-coat was +invisible; the two children, in the story below, seemed to be romping +about the room, under the superintendence of a nursery-maid. The +damask curtains of the drawing-room, on the first floor, were now fully +displayed, festooned gracefully from top to bottom of the windows, +which extended from the ceiling to the carpet. A narrower window, at +the left of the drawing-room, gave light to what was probably a small +boudoir, within which I caught the faintest imaginable glimpse of a +girl's figure, in airy drapery. Her arm was in regular movement, as if +she were busy with her German worsted, or some other such pretty and +unprofitable handiwork. + +While intent upon making out this girlish shape, I became sensible that +a figure had appeared at one of the windows of the drawing-room. There +was a presentiment in my mind; or perhaps my first glance, imperfect +and sidelong as it was, had sufficed to convey subtile information of +the truth. At any rate, it was with no positive surprise, but as if I +had all along expected the incident, that, directing my eyes +thitherward, I beheld--like a full-length picture, in the space between +the heavy festoons of the window curtains--no other than Zenobia! At +the same instant, my thoughts made sure of the identity of the figure +in the boudoir. It could only be Priscilla. + +Zenobia was attired, not in the almost rustic costume which she had +heretofore worn, but in a fashionable morning-dress. There was, +nevertheless, one familiar point. She had, as usual, a flower in her +hair, brilliant and of a rare variety, else it had not been Zenobia. +After a brief pause at the window, she turned away, exemplifying, in +the few steps that removed her out of sight, that noble and beautiful +motion which characterized her as much as any other personal charm. Not +one woman in a thousand could move so admirably as Zenobia. Many women +can sit gracefully; some can stand gracefully; and a few, perhaps, can +assume a series of graceful positions. But natural movement is the +result and expression of the whole being, and cannot be well and nobly +performed unless responsive to something in the character. I often +used to think that music--light and airy, wild and passionate, or the +full harmony of stately marches, in accordance with her varying +mood--should have attended Zenobia's footsteps. + +I waited for her reappearance. It was one peculiarity, distinguishing +Zenobia from most of her sex, that she needed for her moral well-being, +and never would forego, a large amount of physical exercise. At +Blithedale, no inclemency of sky or muddiness of earth had ever impeded +her daily walks. Here in town, she probably preferred to tread the +extent of the two drawing-rooms, and measure out the miles by spaces of +forty feet, rather than bedraggle her skirts over the sloppy pavements. +Accordingly, in about the time requisite to pass through the arch of +the sliding-doors to the front window, and to return upon her steps, +there she stood again, between the festoons of the crimson curtains. +But another personage was now added to the scene. Behind Zenobia +appeared that face which I had first encountered in the wood-path; the +man who had passed, side by side with her, in such mysterious +familiarity and estrangement, beneath my vine curtained hermitage in +the tall pine-tree. It was Westervelt. And though he was looking +closely over her shoulder, it still seemed to me, as on the former +occasion, that Zenobia repelled him,--that, perchance, they mutually +repelled each other, by some incompatibility of their spheres. + +This impression, however, might have been altogether the result of +fancy and prejudice in me. The distance was so great as to obliterate +any play of feature by which I might otherwise have been made a +partaker of their counsels. + +There now needed only Hollingsworth and old Moodie to complete the knot +of characters, whom a real intricacy of events, greatly assisted by my +method of insulating them from other relations, had kept so long upon +my mental stage, as actors in a drama. In itself, perhaps, it was no +very remarkable event that they should thus come across me, at the +moment when I imagined myself free. Zenobia, as I well knew, had +retained an establishment in town, and had not unfrequently withdrawn +herself from Blithedale during brief intervals, on one of which +occasions she had taken Priscilla along with her. Nevertheless, there +seemed something fatal in the coincidence that had borne me to this one +spot, of all others in a great city, and transfixed me there, and +compelled me again to waste my already wearied sympathies on affairs +which were none of mine, and persons who cared little for me. It +irritated my nerves; it affected me with a kind of heart-sickness. +After the effort which it cost me to fling them off,--after +consummating my escape, as I thought, from these goblins of flesh and +blood, and pausing to revive myself with a breath or two of an +atmosphere in which they should have no share,--it was a positive +despair to find the same figures arraying themselves before me, and +presenting their old problem in a shape that made it more insoluble +than ever. + +I began to long for a catastrophe. If the noble temper of +Hollingsworth's soul were doomed to be utterly corrupted by the too +powerful purpose which had grown out of what was noblest in him; if the +rich and generous qualities of Zenobia's womanhood might not save her; +if Priscilla must perish by her tenderness and faith, so simple and so +devout, then be it so! Let it all come! As for me, I would look on, +as it seemed my part to do, understandingly, if my intellect could +fathom the meaning and the moral, and, at all events, reverently and +sadly. The curtain fallen, I would pass onward with my poor individual +life, which was now attenuated of much of its proper substance, and +diffused among many alien interests. + +Meanwhile, Zenobia and her companion had retreated from the window. +Then followed an interval, during which I directed my eves towards the +figure in the boudoir. Most certainly it was Priscilla, although +dressed with a novel and fanciful elegance. The vague perception of +it, as viewed so far off, impressed me as if she had suddenly passed +out of a chrysalis state and put forth wings. Her hands were not now +in motion. She had dropt her work, and sat with her head thrown back, +in the same attitude that I had seen several times before, when she +seemed to be listening to an imperfectly distinguished sound. + +Again the two figures in the drawing-room became visible. They were +now a little withdrawn from the window, face to face, and, as I could +see by Zenobia's emphatic gestures, were discussing some subject in +which she, at least, felt a passionate concern. By and by she broke +away, and vanished beyond my ken. Westervelt approached the window, +and leaned his forehead against a pane of glass, displaying the sort of +smile on his handsome features which, when I before met him, had let me +into the secret of his gold-bordered teeth. Every human being, when +given over to the Devil, is sure to have the wizard mark upon him, in +one form or another. I fancied that this smile, with its peculiar +revelation, was the Devil's signet on the Professor. + +This man, as I had soon reason to know, was endowed with a cat-like +circumspection; and though precisely the most unspiritual quality in +the world, it was almost as effective as spiritual insight in making +him acquainted with whatever it suited him to discover. He now proved +it, considerably to my discomfiture, by detecting and recognizing me, +at my post of observation. Perhaps I ought to have blushed at being +caught in such an evident scrutiny of Professor Westervelt and his +affairs. Perhaps I did blush. Be that as it might, I retained +presence of mind enough not to make my position yet more irksome by the +poltroonery of drawing back. + +Westervelt looked into the depths of the drawing-room, and beckoned. +Immediately afterwards Zenobia appeared at the window, with color much +heightened, and eyes which, as my conscience whispered me, were +shooting bright arrows, barbed with scorn, across the intervening +space, directed full at my sensibilities as a gentleman. If the truth +must be told, far as her flight-shot was, those arrows hit the mark. +She signified her recognition of me by a gesture with her head and +hand, comprising at once a salutation and dismissal. The next moment +she administered one of those pitiless rebukes which a woman always has +at hand, ready for any offence (and which she so seldom spares on due +occasion), by letting down a white linen curtain between the festoons +of the damask ones. It fell like the drop-curtain of a theatre, in the +interval between the acts. + +Priscilla had disappeared from the boudoir. But the dove still kept +her desolate perch on the peak of the attic window. + + + +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 coexist 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 upstairs. 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 +other." + +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 farmhouse, 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!" + + + +XX. THEY VANISH + +Priscilla immediately answered the summons, and made her appearance +through the door of the boudoir. I had conceived the idea, which I now +recognized as a very foolish one, that Zenobia would have taken +measures to debar me from an interview with this girl, between whom and +herself there was so utter an opposition of their dearest interests, +that, on one part or the other, a great grief, if not likewise a great +wrong, seemed a matter of necessity. But, as Priscilla was only a leaf +floating on the dark current of events, without influencing them by her +own choice or plan, as she probably guessed not whither the stream was +bearing her, nor perhaps even felt its inevitable movement,--there +could be no peril of her communicating to me any intelligence with +regard to Zenobia's purposes. + +On perceiving me, she came forward with great quietude of manner; and +when I held out my hand, her own moved slightly towards it, as if +attracted by a feeble degree of magnetism. + +"I am glad to see you, my dear Priscilla," said I, still holding her +hand; "but everything that I meet with nowadays makes me wonder whether +I am awake. You, especially, have always seemed like a figure in a +dream, and now more than ever." + +"Oh, there is substance in these fingers of mine," she answered, giving +my hand the faintest possible pressure, and then taking away her own. +"Why do you call me a dream? Zenobia is much more like one than I; she +is so very, very beautiful! And, I suppose," added Priscilla, as if +thinking aloud, "everybody sees it, as I do." + +But, for my part, it was Priscilla's beauty, not Zenobia's, of which I +was thinking at that moment. She was a person who could be quite +obliterated, so far as beauty went, by anything unsuitable in her +attire; her charm was not positive and material enough to bear up +against a mistaken choice of color, for instance, or fashion. It was +safest, in her case, to attempt no art of dress; for it demanded the +most perfect taste, or else the happiest accident in the world, to give +her precisely the adornment which she needed. She was now dressed in +pure white, set off with some kind of a gauzy fabric, which--as I bring +up her figure in my memory, with a faint gleam on her shadowy hair, and +her dark eyes bent shyly on mine, through all the vanished years--seems +to be floating about her like a mist. I wondered what Zenobia meant by +evolving so much loveliness out of this poor girl. It was what few +women could afford to do; for, as I looked from one to the other, the +sheen and splendor of Zenobia's presence took nothing from Priscilla's +softer spell, if it might not rather be thought to add to it. + +"What do you think of her?" asked Zenobia. + +I could not understand the look of melancholy kindness with which +Zenobia regarded her. She advanced a step, and beckoning Priscilla +near her, kissed her cheek; then, with a slight gesture of repulse, she +moved to the other side of the room. I followed. + +"She is a wonderful creature," I said. "Ever since she came among us, +I have been dimly sensible of just this charm which you have brought +out. But it was never absolutely visible till now. She is as lovely +as a flower!" + +"Well, say so if you like," answered Zenobia. "You are a poet,--at +least, as poets go nowadays,--and must be allowed to make an +opera-glass of your imagination, when you look at women. I wonder, in +such Arcadian freedom of falling in love as we have lately enjoyed, it +never occurred to you to fall in love with Priscilla. In society, +indeed, a genuine American never dreams of stepping across the +inappreciable air-line which separates one class from another. But +what was rank to the colonists of Blithedale?" + +"There were other reasons," I replied, "why I should have demonstrated +myself an ass, had I fallen in love with Priscilla. By the bye, has +Hollingsworth ever seen her in this dress?" + +"Why do you bring up his name at every turn?" asked Zenobia in an +undertone, and with a malign look which wandered from my face to +Priscilla's. "You know not what you do! It is dangerous, sir, believe +me, to tamper thus with earnest human passions, out of your own mere +idleness, and for your sport. I will endure it no longer! Take care +that it does not happen again! I warn you!" + +"You partly wrong me, if not wholly," I responded. "It is an uncertain +sense of some duty to perform, that brings my thoughts, and therefore +my words, continually to that one point." + +"Oh, this stale excuse of duty!" said Zenobia, in a whisper so full of +scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of a serpent. "I have often +heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me, and I know +precisely what it signifies. Bigotry; self-conceit; an insolent +curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism, founded on a +shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a monstrous scepticism in +regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most +irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside, and substitute one's +self in its awful place,--out of these, and other motives as miserable +as these, comes your idea of duty! But, beware, sir! With all your +fancied acuteness, you step blindfold into these affairs. For any +mischief that may follow your interference, I hold you responsible!" + +It was evident that, with but a little further provocation, the lioness +would turn to bay; if, indeed, such were not her attitude already. I +bowed, and not very well knowing what else to do, was about to +withdraw. But, glancing again towards Priscilla, who had retreated +into a corner, there fell upon my heart an intolerable burden of +despondency, the purport of which I could not tell, but only felt it to +bear reference to her. I approached and held out my hand; a gesture, +however, to which she made no response. It was always one of her +peculiarities that she seemed to shrink from even the most friendly +touch, unless it were Zenobia's or Hollingsworth's. Zenobia, all this +while, stood watching us, but with a careless expression, as if it +mattered very little what might pass. + +"Priscilla," I inquired, lowering my voice, "when do you go back to +Blithedale?" + +"Whenever they please to take me," said she. + +"Did you come away of your own free will?" I asked. + +"I am blown about like a leaf," she replied. "I never have any free +will." + +"Does Hollingsworth know that you are here?" said I. + +"He bade me come," answered Priscilla. + +She looked at me, I thought, with an air of surprise, as if the idea +were incomprehensible that she should have taken this step without his +agency. + +"What a gripe this man has laid upon her whole being!" muttered I +between my teeth. + +"Well, as Zenobia so kindly intimates, I have no more business here. I +wash my hands of it all. On Hollingsworth's head be the consequences! +Priscilla," I added aloud, "I know not that ever we may meet again. +Farewell!" + +As I spoke the word, a carriage had rumbled along the street, and stopt +before the house. The doorbell rang, and steps were immediately +afterwards heard on the staircase. Zenobia had thrown a shawl over her +dress. + +"Mr. Coverdale," said she, with cool courtesy, "you will perhaps excuse +us. We have an engagement, and are going out." + +"Whither?" I demanded. + +"Is not that a little more than you are entitled to inquire?" said she, +with a smile. "At all events, it does not suit me to tell you." + +The door of the drawing-room opened, and Westervelt appeared. I +observed that he was elaborately dressed, as if for some grand +entertainment. My dislike for this man was infinite. At that moment +it amounted to nothing less than a creeping of the flesh, as when, +feeling about in a dark place, one touches something cold and slimy, +and questions what the secret hatefulness may be. And still I could +not but acknowledge that, for personal beauty, for polish of manner, +for all that externally befits a gentleman, there was hardly another +like him. After bowing to Zenobia, and graciously saluting Priscilla +in her corner, he recognized me by a slight but courteous inclination. + +"Come, Priscilla," said Zenobia; "it is time. Mr. Coverdale, +good-evening." + +As Priscilla moved slowly forward, I met her in the middle of the +drawing-room. + +"Priscilla," said I, in the hearing of them all, "do you know whither +you are going?" + +"I do not know," she answered. + +"Is it wise to go, and is it your choice to go?" I asked. "If not, I +am your friend, and Hollingsworth's friend. Tell me so, at once." + +"Possibly," observed Westervelt, smiling, "Priscilla sees in me an +older friend than either Mr. Coverdale or Mr. Hollingsworth. I shall +willingly leave the matter at her option." + +While thus speaking, he made a gesture of kindly invitation, and +Priscilla passed me, with the gliding movement of a sprite, and took +his offered arm. He offered the other to Zenobia; but she turned her +proud and beautiful face upon him with a look which--judging from what +I caught of it in profile--would undoubtedly have smitten the man dead, +had he possessed any heart, or had this glance attained to it. It +seemed to rebound, however, from his courteous visage, like an arrow +from polished steel. They all three descended the stairs; and when I +likewise reached the street door, the carriage was already rolling away. + + + +XXI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE + +Thus excluded from everybody's confidence, and attaining no further, by +my most earnest study, than to an uncertain sense of something hidden +from me, it would appear reasonable that I should have flung off all +these alien perplexities. Obviously, my best course was to betake +myself to new scenes. Here I was only an intruder. Elsewhere there +might be circumstances in which I could establish a personal interest, +and people who would respond, with a portion of their sympathies, for +so much as I should bestow of mine. + +Nevertheless, there occurred to me one other thing to be done. +Remembering old Moodie, and his relationship with Priscilla, I +determined to seek an interview, for the purpose of ascertaining +whether the knot of affairs was as inextricable on that side as I found +it on all others. Being tolerably well acquainted with the old man's +haunts, I went, the next day, to the saloon of a certain establishment +about which he often lurked. It was a reputable place enough, +affording good entertainment in the way of meat, drink, and fumigation; +and there, in my young and idle days and nights, when I was neither +nice nor wise, I had often amused myself with watching the staid humors +and sober jollities of the thirsty souls around me. + +At my first entrance, old Moodie was not there. The more patiently to +await him, I lighted a cigar, and establishing myself in a corner, took +a quiet, and, by sympathy, a boozy kind of pleasure in the customary +life that was going forward. The saloon was fitted up with a good deal +of taste. There were pictures on the walls, and among them an +oil-painting of a beefsteak, with such an admirable show of juicy +tenderness, that the beholder sighed to think it merely visionary, and +incapable of ever being put upon a gridiron. Another work of high art +was the lifelike representation of a noble sirloin; another, the +hindquarters of a deer, retaining the hoofs and tawny fur; another, the +head and shoulders of a salmon; and, still more exquisitely finished, a +brace of canvasback ducks, in which the mottled feathers were depicted +with the accuracy of a daguerreotype. Some very hungry painter, I +suppose, had wrought these subjects of still-life, heightening his +imagination with his appetite, and earning, it is to be hoped, the +privilege of a daily dinner off whichever of his pictorial viands he +liked best. + +Then there was a fine old cheese, in which you could almost discern the +mites; and some sardines, on a small plate, very richly done, and +looking as if oozy with the oil in which they had been smothered. All +these things were so perfectly imitated, that you seemed to have the +genuine article before you, and yet with an indescribable, ideal charm; +it took away the grossness from what was fleshiest and fattest, and +thus helped the life of man, even in its earthliest relations, to +appear rich and noble, as well as warm, cheerful, and substantial. +There were pictures, too, of gallant revellers, those of the old time, +Flemish, apparently, with doublets and slashed sleeves, drinking their +wine out of fantastic, long-stemmed glasses; quaffing joyously, +quaffing forever, with inaudible laughter and song; while the champagne +bubbled immortally against their moustaches, or the purple tide of +Burgundy ran inexhaustibly down their throats. + +But, in an obscure corner of the saloon, there was a little Picture +excellently done, moreover of a ragged, bloated, New England toper, +stretched out on a bench, in the heavy, apoplectic sleep of +drunkenness. The death-in-life was too well portrayed. You smelt the +fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. Your only comfort lay in +the forced reflection, that, real as he looked, the poor caitiff was +but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no delirium tremens, nor +so much as a retributive headache, awaited, on the morrow. + +By this time, it being past eleven o'clock, the two bar-keepers of the +saloon were in pretty constant activity. One of these young men had a +rare faculty in the concoction of gin-cocktails. It was a spectacle to +behold, how, with a tumbler in each hand, he tossed the contents from +one to the other. Never conveying it awry, nor spilling the least +drop, he compelled the frothy liquor, as it seemed to me, to spout +forth from one glass and descend into the other, in a great parabolic +curve, as well-defined and calculable as a planet's orbit. He had a +good forehead, with a particularly large development just above the +eyebrows; fine intellectual gifts, no doubt, which he had educated to +this profitable end; being famous for nothing but gin-cocktails, and +commanding a fair salary by his one accomplishment. These cocktails, +and other artificial combinations of liquor, (of which there were at +least a score, though mostly, I suspect, fantastic in their +differences,) were much in favor with the younger class of customers, +who, at farthest, had only reached the second stage of potatory life. +The staunch, old soakers, on the other hand men who, if put on tap, +would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor, by way of blood usually +confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; +and, oftentimes, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal remark as +to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink. +Two or three appeared to have bottles of their own behind the counter; +and, winking one red eye to the bar-keeper, he forthwith produced these +choicest and peculiar cordials, which it was a matter of great interest +and favor, among their acquaintances, to obtain a sip of. + +Agreeably to the Yankee habit, under whatever circumstances, the +deportment of all these good fellows, old or young, was decorous and +thoroughly correct. They grew only the more sober in their cups; there +was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in the +joyous fire of the decanters and kept it smouldering in their inmost +recesses, with a bliss known only to the heart which it warmed and +comforted. Their eyes twinkled a little, to be sure; they hemmed +vigorously after each glass, and laid a hand upon the pit of the +stomach, as if the pleasant titillation there was what constituted the +tangible part of their enjoyment. In that spot, unquestionably, and +not in the brain, was the acme of the whole affair. But the true +purpose of their drinking--and one that will induce men to drink, or do +something equivalent, as long as this weary world shall endure--was the +renewed youth and vigor, the brisk, cheerful sense of things present +and to come, with which, for about a quarter of an hour, the dram +permeated their systems. And when such quarters of an hour can be +obtained in some mode less baneful to the great sum of a man's +life,--but, nevertheless, with a little spice of impropriety, to give +it a wild flavor,--we temperance people may ring out our bells for +victory! + +The prettiest object in the saloon was a tiny fountain, which threw up +its feathery jet through the counter, and sparkled down again into an +oval basin, or lakelet, containing several goldfishes. There was a bed +of bright sand at the bottom, strewn with coral and rock-work; and the +fishes went gleaming about, now turning up the sheen of a golden side, +and now vanishing into the shadows of the water, like the fanciful +thoughts that coquet with a poet in his dream. Never before, I +imagine, did a company of water-drinkers remain so entirely +uncontaminated by the bad example around them; nor could I help +wondering that it had not occurred to any freakish inebriate to empty a +glass of liquor into their lakelet. What a delightful idea! Who would +not be a fish, if he could inhale jollity with the essential element of +his existence! + +I had begun to despair of meeting old Moodie, when, all at once, I +recognized his hand and arm protruding from behind a screen that was +set up for the accommodation of bashful topers. As a matter of course, +he had one of Priscilla's little purses, and was quietly insinuating it +under the notice of a person who stood near. This was always old +Moodie's way. You hardly ever saw him advancing towards you, but +became aware of his proximity without being able to guess how he had +come thither. He glided about like a spirit, assuming visibility close +to your elbow, offering his petty trifles of merchandise, remaining +long enough for you to purchase, if so disposed, and then taking +himself off, between two breaths, while you happened to be thinking of +something else. + +By a sort of sympathetic impulse that often controlled me in those more +impressible days of my life, I was induced to approach this old man in +a mode as undemonstrative as his own. Thus, when, according to his +custom, he was probably just about to vanish, he found me at his elbow. + +"Ah!" said he, with more emphasis than was usual with him. "It is Mr. +Coverdale!" + +"Yes, Mr. Moodie, your old acquaintance," answered I. "It is some time +now since we ate luncheon together at Blithedale, and a good deal +longer since our little talk together at the street corner." + +"That was a good while ago," said the old man. + +And he seemed inclined to say not a word more. His existence looked so +colorless and torpid,--so very faintly shadowed on the canvas of +reality,--that I was half afraid lest he should altogether disappear, +even while my eyes were fixed full upon his figure. He was certainly +the wretchedest old ghost in the world, with his crazy hat, the dingy +handkerchief about his throat, his suit of threadbare gray, and +especially that patch over his right eye, behind which he always seemed +to be hiding himself. There was one method, however, of bringing him +out into somewhat stronger relief. A glass of brandy would effect it. +Perhaps the gentler influence of a bottle of claret might do the same. +Nor could I think it a matter for the recording angel to write down +against me, if--with my painful consciousness of the frost in this old +man's blood, and the positive ice that had congealed about his heart--I +should thaw him out, were it only for an hour, with the summer warmth +of a little wine. What else could possibly be done for him? How else +could he be imbued with energy enough to hope for a happier state +hereafter? How else be inspired to say his prayers? For there are +states of our spiritual system when the throb of the soul's life is too +faint and weak to render us capable of religious aspiration. + +"Mr. Moodie," said I, "shall we lunch together? And would you like to +drink a glass of wine?" + +His one eye gleamed. He bowed; and it impressed me that he grew to be +more of a man at once, either in anticipation of the wine, or as a +grateful response to my good fellowship in offering it. + +"With pleasure," he replied. + +The bar-keeper, at my request, showed us into a private room, and soon +afterwards set some fried oysters and a bottle of claret on the table; +and I saw the old man glance curiously at the label of the bottle, as +if to learn the brand. + +"It should be good wine," I remarked, "if it have any right to its +label." + +"You cannot suppose, sir," said Moodie, with a sigh, "that a poor old +fellow like me knows any difference in wines." + +And yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff at +the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the wine, and the gustatory +skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of it, it was +impossible not to recognize the connoisseur. + +"I fancy, Mr. Moodie," said I, "you are a much better judge of wines +than I have yet learned to be. Tell me fairly,--did you never drink it +where the grape grows?" + +"How should that have been, Mr. Coverdale?" answered old Moodie shyly; +but then he took courage, as it were, and uttered a feeble little +laugh. "The flavor of this wine," added he, "and its perfume still +more than its taste, makes me remember that I was once a young man." + +"I wish, Mr. Moodie," suggested I,--not that I greatly cared about it, +however, but was only anxious to draw him into some talk about +Priscilla and Zenobia,--"I wish, while we sit over our wine, you would +favor me with a few of those youthful reminiscences." + +"Ah," said he, shaking his head, "they might interest you more than you +suppose. But I had better be silent, Mr. Coverdale. If this good +wine,--though claret, I suppose, is not apt to play such a trick,--but +if it should make my tongue run too freely, I could never look you in +the face again." + +"You never did look me in the face, Mr. Moodie," I replied, "until this +very moment." + +"Ah!" sighed old Moodie. + +It was wonderful, however, what an effect the mild grape-juice wrought +upon him. It was not in the wine, but in the associations which it +seemed to bring up. Instead of the mean, slouching, furtive, painfully +depressed air of an old city vagabond, more like a gray kennel-rat than +any other living thing, he began to take the aspect of a decayed +gentleman. Even his garments--especially after I had myself quaffed a +glass or two--looked less shabby than when we first sat down. There +was, by and by, a certain exuberance and elaborateness of gesture and +manner, oddly in contrast with all that I had hitherto seen of him. +Anon, with hardly any impulse from me, old Moodie began to talk. His +communications referred exclusively to a long-past and more fortunate +period of his life, with only a few unavoidable allusions to the +circumstances that had reduced him to his present state. But, having +once got the clew, my subsequent researches acquainted me with the main +facts of the following narrative; although, in writing it out, my pen +has perhaps allowed itself a trifle of romantic and legendary license, +worthier of a small poet than of a grave biographer. + + + +XXII. FAUNTLEROY + +Five-and-twenty years ago, at the epoch of this story, there dwelt in +one of the Middle States a man whom we shall call Fauntleroy; a man of +wealth, and magnificent tastes, and prodigal expenditure. His home +might almost be styled a palace; his habits, in the ordinary sense, +princely. His whole being seemed to have crystallized itself into an +external splendor, wherewith he glittered in the eyes of the world, and +had no other life than upon this gaudy surface. He had married a +lovely woman, whose nature was deeper than his own. But his affection +for her, though it showed largely, was superficial, like all his other +manifestations and developments; he did not so truly keep this noble +creature in his heart, as wear her beauty for the most brilliant +ornament of his outward state. And there was born to him a child, a +beautiful daughter, whom he took from the beneficent hand of God with +no just sense of her immortal value, but as a man already rich in gems +would receive another jewel. If he loved her, it was because she shone. + +After Fauntleroy had thus spent a few empty years, coruscating +continually an unnatural light, the source of it--which was merely his +gold--began to grow more shallow, and finally became exhausted. He saw +himself in imminent peril of losing all that had heretofore +distinguished him; and, conscious of no innate worth to fall back upon, +he recoiled from this calamity with the instinct of a soul shrinking +from annihilation. To avoid it,--wretched man!--or rather to defer it, +if but for a month, a day, or only to procure himself the life of a few +breaths more amid the false glitter which was now less his own than +ever,--he made himself guilty of a crime. It was just the sort of +crime, growing out of its artificial state, which society (unless it +should change its entire constitution for this man's unworthy sake) +neither could nor ought to pardon. More safely might it pardon murder. +Fauntleroy's guilt was discovered. He fled; his wife perished, by the +necessity of her innate nobleness, in its alliance with a being so +ignoble; and betwixt her mother's death and her father's ignominy, his +daughter was left worse than orphaned. + +There was no pursuit after Fauntleroy. His family connections, who had +great wealth, made such arrangements with those whom he had attempted +to wrong as secured him from the retribution that would have overtaken +an unfriended criminal. The wreck of his estate was divided among his +creditors: His name, in a very brief space, was forgotten by the +multitude who had passed it so diligently from mouth to mouth. Seldom, +indeed, was it recalled, even by his closest former intimates. Nor +could it have been otherwise. The man had laid no real touch on any +mortal's heart. Being a mere image, an optical delusion, created by +the sunshine of prosperity, it was his law to vanish into the shadow of +the first intervening cloud. He seemed to leave no vacancy; a +phenomenon which, like many others that attended his brief career, went +far to prove the illusiveness of his existence. + +Not, however, that the physical substance of Fauntleroy had literally +melted into vapor. He had fled northward to the New England +metropolis, and had taken up his abode, under another name, in a +squalid street or court of the older portion of the city. There he +dwelt among poverty-stricken wretches, sinners, and forlorn good +people, Irish, and whomsoever else were neediest. Many families were +clustered in each house together, above stairs and below, in the little +peaked garrets, and even in the dusky cellars. The house where +Fauntleroy paid weekly rent for a chamber and a closet had been a +stately habitation in its day. An old colonial governor had built it, +and lived there, long ago, and held his levees in a great room where +now slept twenty Irish bedfellows; and died in Fauntleroy's chamber, +which his embroidered and white-wigged ghost still haunted. Tattered +hangings, a marble hearth, traversed with many cracks and fissures, a +richly carved oaken mantelpiece, partly hacked away for kindling-stuff, +a stuccoed ceiling, defaced with great, unsightly patches of the naked +laths,--such was the chamber's aspect, as if, with its splinters and +rags of dirty splendor, it were a kind of practical gibe at this poor, +ruined man of show. + +At first, and at irregular intervals, his relatives allowed Fauntleroy +a little pittance to sustain life; not from any love, perhaps, but lest +poverty should compel him, by new offences, to add more shame to that +with which he had already stained them. But he showed no tendency to +further guilt. His character appeared to have been radically changed +(as, indeed, from its shallowness, it well might) by his miserable +fate; or, it may be, the traits now seen in him were portions of the +same character, presenting itself in another phase. Instead of any +longer seeking to live in the sight of the world, his impulse was to +shrink into the nearest obscurity, and to be unseen of men, were it +possible, even while standing before their eyes. He had no pride; it +was all trodden in the dust. No ostentation; for how could it survive, +when there was nothing left of Fauntleroy, save penury and shame! His +very gait demonstrated that he would gladly have faded out of view, and +have crept about invisibly, for the sake of sheltering himself from the +irksomeness of a human glance. Hardly, it was averred, within the +memory of those who knew him now, had he the hardihood to show his full +front to the world. He skulked in corners, and crept about in a sort +of noonday twilight, making himself gray and misty, at all hours, with +his morbid intolerance of sunshine. + +In his torpid despair, however, he had done an act which that condition +of the spirit seems to prompt almost as often as prosperity and hope. +Fauntleroy was again married. He had taken to wife a forlorn, +meek-spirited, feeble young woman, a seamstress, whom he found dwelling +with her mother in a contiguous chamber of the old gubernatorial +residence. This poor phantom--as the beautiful and noble companion of +his former life had done brought him a daughter. And sometimes, as from +one dream into another, Fauntleroy looked forth out of his present +grimy environment into that past magnificence, and wondered whether the +grandee of yesterday or the pauper of to-day were real. But, in my +mind, the one and the other were alike impalpable. In truth, it was +Fauntleroy's fatality to behold whatever he touched dissolve. After a +few years, his second wife (dim shadow that she had always been) faded +finally out of the world, and left Fauntleroy to deal as he might with +their pale and nervous child. And, by this time, among his distant +relatives,--with whom he had grown a weary thought, linked with +contagious infamy, and which they were only too willing to get rid +of,--he was himself supposed to be no more. + +The younger child, like his elder one, might be considered as the true +offspring of both parents, and as the reflection of their state. She +was a tremulous little creature, shrinking involuntarily from all +mankind, but in timidity, and no sour repugnance. There was a lack of +human substance in her; it seemed as if, were she to stand up in a +sunbeam, it would pass right through her figure, and trace out the +cracked and dusty window-panes upon the naked floor. But, +nevertheless, the poor child had a heart; and from her mother's gentle +character she had inherited a profound and still capacity of affection. +And so her life was one of love. She bestowed it partly on her father, +but in greater part on an idea. + +For Fauntleroy, as they sat by their cheerless fireside,--which was no +fireside, in truth, but only a rusty stove,--had often talked to the +little girl about his former wealth, the noble loveliness of his first +wife, and the beautiful child whom she had given him. Instead of the +fairy tales which other parents tell, he told Priscilla this. And, out +of the loneliness of her sad little existence, Priscilla's love grew, +and tended upward, and twined itself perseveringly around this unseen +sister; as a grapevine might strive to clamber out of a gloomy hollow +among the rocks, and embrace a young tree standing in the sunny warmth +above. It was almost like worship, both in its earnestness and its +humility; nor was it the less humble--though the more earnest--because +Priscilla could claim human kindred with the being whom she, so +devoutly loved. As with worship, too, it gave her soul the refreshment +of a purer atmosphere. Save for this singular, this melancholy, and +yet beautiful affection, the child could hardly have lived; or, had she +lived, with a heart shrunken for lack of any sentiment to fill it, she +must have yielded to the barren miseries of her position, and have +grown to womanhood characterless and worthless. But now, amid all the +sombre coarseness of her father's outward life, and of her own, +Priscilla had a higher and imaginative life within. Some faint gleam +thereof was often visible upon her face. It was as if, in her spiritual +visits to her brilliant sister, a portion of the latter's brightness +had permeated our dim Priscilla, and still lingered, shedding a faint +illumination through the cheerless chamber, after she came back. + +As the child grew up, so pallid and so slender, and with much +unaccountable nervousness, and all the weaknesses of neglected infancy +still haunting her, the gross and simple neighbors whispered strange +things about Priscilla. The big, red, Irish matrons, whose innumerable +progeny swarmed out of the adjacent doors, used to mock at the pale +Western child. They fancied--or, at least, affirmed it, between jest +and earnest--that she was not so solid flesh and blood as other +children, but mixed largely with a thinner element. They called her +ghost-child, and said that she could indeed vanish when she pleased, +but could never, in her densest moments, make herself quite visible. +The sun at midday would shine through her; in the first gray of the +twilight, she lost all the distinctness of her outline; and, if you +followed the dim thing into a dark corner, behold! she was not there. +And it was true that Priscilla had strange ways; strange ways, and +stranger words, when she uttered any words at all. Never stirring out +of the old governor's dusky house, she sometimes talked of distant +places and splendid rooms, as if she had just left them. Hidden things +were visible to her (at least so the people inferred from obscure hints +escaping unawares out of her mouth), and silence was audible. And in +all the world there was nothing so difficult to be endured, by those +who had any dark secret to conceal, as the glance of Priscilla's timid +and melancholy eyes. + +Her peculiarities were the theme of continual gossip among the other +inhabitants of the gubernatorial mansion. The rumor spread thence into +a wider circle. Those who knew old Moodie, as he was now called, used +often to jeer him, at the very street-corners, about his daughter's +gift of second-sight and prophecy. It was a period when science +(though mostly through its empirical professors) was bringing forward, +anew, a hoard of facts and imperfect theories, that had partially won +credence in elder times, but which modern scepticism had swept away as +rubbish. These things were now tossed up again, out of the surging +ocean of human thought and experience. The story of Priscilla's +preternatural manifestations, therefore, attracted a kind of notice of +which it would have been deemed wholly unworthy a few years earlier. +One day a gentleman ascended the creaking staircase, and inquired which +was old Moodie's chamber door. And, several times, he came again. He +was a marvellously handsome man,--still youthful, too, and fashionably +dressed. Except that Priscilla, in those days, had no beauty, and, in +the languor of her existence, had not yet blossomed into womanhood, +there would have been rich food for scandal in these visits; for the +girl was unquestionably their sole object, although her father was +supposed always to be present. But, it must likewise be added, there +was something about Priscilla that calumny could not meddle with; and +thus far was she privileged, either by the preponderance of what was +spiritual, or the thin and watery blood that left her cheek so pallid. + +Yet, if the busy tongues of the neighborhood spared Priscilla in one +way, they made themselves amends by renewed and wilder babble on +another score. They averred that the strange gentleman was a wizard, +and that he had taken advantage of Priscilla's lack of earthly +substance to subject her to himself, as his familiar spirit, through +whose medium he gained cognizance of whatever happened, in regions near +or remote. The boundaries of his power were defined by the verge of +the pit of Tartarus on the one hand, and the third sphere of the +celestial world on the other. Again, they declared their suspicion +that the wizard, with all his show of manly beauty, was really an aged +and wizened figure, or else that his semblance of a human body was only +a necromantic, or perhaps a mechanical contrivance, in which a demon +walked about. In proof of it, however, they could merely instance a +gold band around his upper teeth, which had once been visible to +several old women, when he smiled at them from the top of the +governor's staircase. Of course this was all absurdity, or mostly so. +But, after every possible deduction, there remained certain very +mysterious points about the stranger's character, as well as the +connection that he established with Priscilla. Its nature at that +period was even less understood than now, when miracles of this kind +have grown so absolutely stale, that I would gladly, if the truth +allowed, dismiss the whole matter from my narrative. + +We must now glance backward, in quest of the beautiful daughter of +Fauntleroy's prosperity. What had become of her? Fauntleroy's only +brother, a bachelor, and with no other relative so near, had adopted +the forsaken child. She grew up in affluence, with native graces +clustering luxuriantly about her. In her triumphant progress towards +womanhood, she was adorned with every variety of feminine +accomplishment. But she lacked a mother's care. With no adequate +control, on any hand (for a man, however stern, however wise, can never +sway and guide a female child), her character was left to shape itself. +There was good in it, and evil. Passionate, self-willed, and +imperious, she had a warm and generous nature; showing the richness of +the soil, however, chiefly by the weeds that flourished in it, and +choked up the herbs of grace. In her girlhood her uncle died. As +Fauntleroy was supposed to be likewise dead, and no other heir was +known to exist, his wealth devolved on her, although, dying suddenly, +the uncle left no will. After his death there were obscure passages in +Zenobia's history. There were whispers of an attachment, and even a +secret marriage, with a fascinating and accomplished but unprincipled +young man. The incidents and appearances, however, which led to this +surmise soon passed away, and were forgotten. + +Nor was her reputation seriously affected by the report. In fact, so +great was her native power and influence, and such seemed the careless +purity of her nature, that whatever Zenobia did was generally +acknowledged as right for her to do. The world never criticised her so +harshly as it does most women who transcend its rules. It almost +yielded its assent, when it beheld her stepping out of the common path, +and asserting the more extensive privileges of her sex, both +theoretically and by her practice. The sphere of ordinary womanhood +was felt to be narrower than her development required. + +A portion of Zenobia's more recent life is told in the foregoing pages. +Partly in earnest,--and, I imagine, as was her disposition, half in a +proud jest, or in a kind of recklessness that had grown upon her, out +of some hidden grief,--she had given her countenance, and promised +liberal pecuniary aid, to our experiment of a better social state. And +Priscilla followed her to Blithedale. The sole bliss of her life had +been a dream of this beautiful sister, who had never so much as known +of her existence. By this time, too, the poor girl was enthralled in +an intolerable bondage, from which she must either free herself or +perish. She deemed herself safest near Zenobia, into whose large heart +she hoped to nestle. + +One evening, months after Priscilla's departure, when Moodie (or shall +we call him Fauntleroy?) was sitting alone in the state-chamber of the +old governor, there came footsteps up the staircase. There was a pause +on the landing-place. A lady's musical yet haughty accents were heard +making an inquiry from some denizen of the house, who had thrust a head +out of a contiguous chamber. There was then a knock at Moodie's door. +"Come in!" said he. + +And Zenobia entered. The details of the interview that followed being +unknown to me,--while, notwithstanding, it would be a pity quite to +lose the picturesqueness of the situation,--I shall attempt to sketch +it, mainly from fancy, although with some general grounds of surmise in +regard to the old man's feelings. + +She gazed wonderingly at the dismal chamber. Dismal to her, who beheld +it only for an instant; and how much more so to him, into whose brain +each bare spot on the ceiling, every tatter of the paper-hangings, and +all the splintered carvings of the mantelpiece, seen wearily through +long years, had worn their several prints! Inexpressibly miserable is +this familiarity with objects that have been from the first disgustful. + +"I have received a strange message," said Zenobia, after a moment's +silence, "requesting, or rather enjoining it upon me, to come hither. +Rather from curiosity than any other motive,--and because, though a +woman, I have not all the timidity of one,--I have complied. Can it be +you, sir, who thus summoned me?" + +"It was," answered Moodie. + +"And what was your purpose?" she continued. "You require charity, +perhaps? In that case, the message might have been more fitly worded. +But you are old and poor, and age and poverty should be allowed their +privileges. Tell me, therefore, to what extent you need my aid." + +"Put up your purse," said the supposed mendicant, with an inexplicable +smile. "Keep it,--keep all your wealth,--until I demand it all, or +none! My message had no such end in view. You are beautiful, they +tell me; and I desired to look at you." + +He took the one lamp that showed the discomfort and sordidness of his +abode, and approaching Zenobia held it up, so as to gain the more +perfect view of her, from top to toe. So obscure was the chamber, that +you could see the reflection of her diamonds thrown upon the dingy +wall, and flickering with the rise and fall of Zenobia's breath. It was +the splendor of those jewels on her neck, like lamps that burn before +some fair temple, and the jewelled flower in her hair, more than the +murky, yellow light, that helped him to see her beauty. But he beheld +it, and grew proud at heart; his own figure, in spite of his mean +habiliments, assumed an air of state and grandeur. + +"It is well," cried old Moodie. "Keep your wealth. You are right +worthy of it. Keep it, therefore, but with one condition only." + +Zenobia thought the old man beside himself, and was moved with pity. + +"Have you none to care for you?" asked she. "No daughter?--no +kind-hearted neighbor?--no means of procuring the attendance which you +need? Tell me once again, can I do nothing for you?" + +"Nothing," he replied. "I have beheld what I wished. Now leave me. +Linger not a moment longer, or I may be tempted to say what would bring +a cloud over that queenly brow. Keep all your wealth, but with only +this one condition: Be kind--be no less kind than sisters are--to my +poor Priscilla!" + +And, it may be, after Zenobia withdrew, Fauntleroy paced his gloomy +chamber, and communed with himself as follows,--or, at all events, it +is the only solution which I can offer of the enigma presented in his +character:--"I am unchanged,--the same man as of yore!" said he. "True, +my brother's wealth--he dying intestate--is legally my own. I know it; +yet of my own choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad, and hide +myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like ostentation? Ah! +but in Zenobia I live again! Beholding her, so beautiful,--so fit to +be adorned with all imaginable splendor of outward state,--the cursed +vanity, which, half a lifetime since, dropt off like tatters of once +gaudy apparel from my debased and ruined person, is all renewed for her +sake. Were I to reappear, my shame would go with me from darkness into +daylight. Zenobia has the splendor, and not the shame. Let the world +admire her, and be dazzled by her, the brilliant child of my +prosperity! It is Fauntleroy that still shines through her!" But +then, perhaps, another thought occurred to him. + +"My poor Priscilla! And am I just to her, in surrendering all to this +beautiful Zenobia? Priscilla! I love her best,--I love her only!--but +with shame, not pride. So dim, so pallid, so shrinking,--the daughter +of my long calamity! Wealth were but a mockery in Priscilla's hands. +What is its use, except to fling a golden radiance around those who +grasp it? Yet let Zenobia take heed! Priscilla shall have no wrong!" +But, while the man of show thus meditated,--that very evening, so far +as I can adjust the dates of these strange incidents,--Priscilla poor, +pallid flower!--was either snatched from Zenobia's hand, or flung +wilfully away! + + + +XXIII. A VILLAGE HALL + +Well, I betook myself away, and wandered up and down, like an exorcised +spirit that had been driven from its old haunts after a mighty +struggle. It takes down the solitary pride of man, beyond most other +things, to find the impracticability of flinging aside affections that +have grown irksome. The bands that were silken once are apt to become +iron fetters when we desire to shake them off. Our souls, after all, +are not our own. We convey a property in them to those with whom we +associate; but to what extent can never be known, until we feel the +tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to resume an exclusive sway over +ourselves. Thus, in all the weeks of my absence, my thoughts +continually reverted back, brooding over the bygone months, and +bringing up incidents that seemed hardly to have left a trace of +themselves in their passage. I spent painful hours in recalling these +trifles, and rendering them more misty and unsubstantial than at first +by the quantity of speculative musing thus kneaded in with them. +Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla! These three had absorbed my life +into themselves. Together with an inexpressible longing to know their +fortunes, there was likewise a morbid resentment of my own pain, and a +stubborn reluctance to come again within their sphere. + +All that I learned of them, therefore, was comprised in a few brief and +pungent squibs, such as the newspapers were then in the habit of +bestowing on our socialist enterprise. There was one paragraph, which +if I rightly guessed its purport bore reference to Zenobia, but was too +darkly hinted to convey even thus much of certainty. Hollingsworth, +too, with his philanthropic project, afforded the penny-a-liners a +theme for some savage and bloody minded jokes; and, considerably to my +surprise, they affected me with as much indignation as if we had still +been friends. + +Thus passed several weeks; time long enough for my brown and +toil-hardened hands to reaccustom themselves to gloves. Old habits, +such as were merely external, returned upon me with wonderful +promptitude. My superficial talk, too, assumed altogether a worldly +tone. Meeting former acquaintances, who showed themselves inclined to +ridicule my heroic devotion to the cause of human welfare, I spoke of +the recent phase of my life as indeed fair matter for a jest. But, I +also gave them to understand that it was, at most, only an experiment, +on which I had staked no valuable amount of hope or fear. It had +enabled me to pass the summer in a novel and agreeable way, had +afforded me some grotesque specimens of artificial simplicity, and +could not, therefore, so far as I was concerned, be reckoned a failure. +In no one instance, however, did I voluntarily speak of my three +friends. They dwelt in a profounder region. The more I consider +myself as I then was, the more do I recognize how deeply my connection +with those three had affected all my being. + +As it was already the epoch of annihilated space, I might in the time I +was away from Blithedale have snatched a glimpse at England, and been +back again. But my wanderings were confined within a very limited +sphere. I hopped and fluttered, like a bird with a string about its +leg, gyrating round a small circumference, and keeping up a restless +activity to no purpose. Thus it was still in our familiar +Massachusetts--in one of its white country villages--that I must next +particularize an incident. + +The scene was one of those lyceum halls, of which almost every village +has now its own, dedicated to that sober and pallid, or rather +drab-colored, mode of winter-evening entertainment, the lecture. Of +late years this has come strangely into vogue, when the natural +tendency of things would seem to be to substitute lettered for oral +methods of addressing the public. But, in halls like this, besides the +winter course of lectures, there is a rich and varied series of other +exhibitions. Hither comes the ventriloquist, with all his mysterious +tongues; the thaumaturgist, too, with his miraculous transformations of +plates, doves, and rings, his pancakes smoking in your hat, and his +cellar of choice liquors represented in one small bottle. Here, also, +the itinerant professor instructs separate classes of ladies and +gentlemen in physiology, and demonstrates his lessons by the aid of +real skeletons, and manikins in wax, from Paris. Here is to be heard +the choir of Ethiopian melodists, and to be seen the diorama of Moscow +or Bunker Hill, or the moving panorama of the Chinese wall. Here is +displayed the museum of wax figures, illustrating the wide catholicism +of earthly renown, by mixing up heroes and statesmen, the pope and the +Mormon prophet, kings, queens, murderers, and beautiful ladies; every +sort of person, in short, except authors, of whom I never beheld even +the most famous done in wax. And here, in this many-purposed hall +(unless the selectmen of the village chance to have more than their +share of the Puritanism, which, however diversified with later +patchwork, still gives its prevailing tint to New England +character),--here the company of strolling players sets up its little +stage, and claims patronage for the legitimate drama. + +But, on the autumnal evening which I speak of, a number of printed +handbills--stuck up in the bar-room, and on the sign-post of the hotel, +and on the meeting-house porch, and distributed largely through the +village--had promised the inhabitants an interview with that celebrated +and hitherto inexplicable phenomenon, the Veiled Lady! + +The hall was fitted up with an amphitheatrical descent of seats towards +a platform, on which stood a desk, two lights, a stool, and a capacious +antique chair. The audience was of a generally decent and respectable +character: old farmers, in their Sunday black coats, with shrewd, hard, +sun-dried faces, and a cynical humor, oftener than any other +expression, in their eyes; pretty girls, in many-colored attire; pretty +young men,--the schoolmaster, the lawyer, or student at law, the +shop-keeper,--all looking rather suburban than rural. In these days, +there is absolutely no rusticity, except when the actual labor of the +soil leaves its earth-mould on the person. There was likewise a +considerable proportion of young and middle-aged women, many of them +stern in feature, with marked foreheads, and a very definite line of +eyebrow; a type of womanhood in which a bold intellectual development +seems to be keeping pace with the progressive delicacy of the physical +constitution. Of all these people I took note, at first, according to +my custom. But I ceased to do so the moment that my eyes fell on an +individual who sat two or three seats below me, immovable, apparently +deep in thought, with his back, of course, towards me, and his face +turned steadfastly upon the platform. + +After sitting awhile in contemplation of this person's familiar +contour, I was irresistibly moved to step over the intervening benches, +lay my hand on his shoulder, put my mouth close to his ear, and address +him in a sepulchral, melodramatic whisper: "Hollingsworth! where have +you left Zenobia?" + +His nerves, however, were proof against my attack. He turned half +around, and looked me in the face with great sad eyes, in which there +was neither kindness nor resentment, nor any perceptible surprise. + +"Zenobia, when I last saw her," he answered, "was at Blithedale." + +He said no more. But there was a great deal of talk going on near me, +among a knot of people who might be considered as representing the +mysticism, or rather the mystic sensuality, of this singular age. The +nature of the exhibition that was about to take place had probably +given the turn to their conversation. + +I heard, from a pale man in blue spectacles, some stranger stories than +ever were written in a romance; told, too, with a simple, unimaginative +steadfastness, which was terribly efficacious in compelling the auditor +to receive them into the category of established facts. He cited +instances of the miraculous power of one human being over the will and +passions of another; insomuch that settled grief was but a shadow +beneath the influence of a man possessing this potency, and the strong +love of years melted away like a vapor. At the bidding of one of these +wizards, the maiden, with her lover's kiss still burning on her lips, +would turn from him with icy indifference; the newly made widow would +dig up her buried heart out of her young husband's grave before the +sods had taken root upon it; a mother with her babe's milk in her bosom +would thrust away her child. Human character was but soft wax in his +hands; and guilt, or virtue, only the forms into which he should see +fit to mould it. The religious sentiment was a flame which he could +blow up with his breath, or a spark that he could utterly extinguish. +It is unutterable, the horror and disgust with which I listened, and +saw that, if these things were to be believed, the individual soul was +virtually annihilated, and all that is sweet and pure in our present +life debased, and that the idea of man's eternal responsibility was +made ridiculous, and immortality rendered at once impossible, and not +worth acceptance. But I would have perished on the spot sooner than +believe it. + +The epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that have followed in +their train,--such as tables upset by invisible agencies, bells +self-tolled at funerals, and ghostly music performed on +jew's-harps,--had not yet arrived. Alas, my countrymen, methinks we +have fallen on an evil age! If these phenomena have not humbug at the +bottom, so much the worse for us. What can they indicate, in a +spiritual way, except that the soul of man is descending to a lower +point than it has ever before reached while incarnate? We are pursuing +a downward course in the eternal march, and thus bring ourselves into +the same range with beings whom death, in requital of their gross and +evil lives, has degraded below humanity! To hold intercourse with +spirits of this order, we must stoop and grovel in some element more +vile than earthly dust. These goblins, if they exist at all, are but +the shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere refuse stuff, adjudged +unworthy of the eternal world, and, on the most favorable supposition, +dwindling gradually into nothingness. The less we have to say to them +the better, lest we share their fate! + +The audience now began to be impatient; they signified their desire for +the entertainment to commence by thump of sticks and stamp of +boot-heels. Nor was it a great while longer before, in response to +their call, there appeared a bearded personage in Oriental robes, +looking like one of the enchanters of the Arabian Nights. He came upon +the platform from a side door, saluted the spectators, not with a +salaam, but a bow, took his station at the desk, and first blowing his +nose with a white handkerchief, prepared to speak. The environment of +the homely village hall, and the absence of many ingenious contrivances +of stage effect with which the exhibition had heretofore been set off, +seemed to bring the artifice of this character more openly upon the +surface. No sooner did I behold the bearded enchanter, than, laying my +hand again on Hollingsworth's shoulder, I whispered in his ear, "Do you +know him?" + +"I never saw the man before," he muttered, without turning his head. + +But I had seen him three times already. + +Once, on occasion of my first visit to the Veiled Lady; a second time, +in the wood-path at Blithedale; and lastly, in Zenobia's drawing-room. +It was Westervelt. A quick association of ideas made me shudder from +head to foot; and again, like an evil spirit, bringing up reminiscences +of a man's sins, I whispered a question in Hollingsworth's ear,--"What +have you done with Priscilla?" + +He gave a convulsive start, as if I had thrust a knife into him, +writhed himself round on his seat, glared fiercely into my eyes, but +answered not a word. + +The Professor began his discourse, explanatory of the psychological +phenomena, as he termed them, which it was his purpose to exhibit to +the spectators. There remains no very distinct impression of it on my +memory. It was eloquent, ingenious, plausible, with a delusive show of +spirituality, yet really imbued throughout with a cold and dead +materialism. I shivered, as at a current of chill air issuing out of a +sepulchral vault, and bringing the smell of corruption along with it. +He spoke of a new era that was dawning upon the world; an era that +would link soul to soul, and the present life to what we call futurity, +with a closeness that should finally convert both worlds into one +great, mutually conscious brotherhood. He described (in a strange, +philosophical guise, with terms of art, as if it were a matter of +chemical discovery) the agency by which this mighty result was to be +effected; nor would it have surprised me, had he pretended to hold up a +portion of his universally pervasive fluid, as he affirmed it to be, in +a glass phial. + +At the close of his exordium, the Professor beckoned with his +hand,--once, twice, thrice,--and a figure came gliding upon the +platform, enveloped in a long veil of silvery whiteness. It fell about +her like the texture of a summer cloud, with a kind of vagueness, so +that the outline of the form beneath it could not be accurately +discerned. But the movement of the Veiled Lady was graceful, free, and +unembarrassed, like that of a person accustomed to be the spectacle of +thousands; or, possibly, a blindfold prisoner within the sphere with +which this dark earthly magician had surrounded her, she was wholly +unconscious of being the central object to all those straining eyes. + +Pliant to his gesture (which had even an obsequious courtesy, but at +the same time a remarkable decisiveness), the figure placed itself in +the great chair. Sitting there, in such visible obscurity, it was, +perhaps, as much like the actual presence of a disembodied spirit as +anything that stage trickery could devise. The hushed breathing of the +spectators proved how high-wrought were their anticipations of the +wonders to be performed through the medium of this incomprehensible +creature. I, too, was in breathless suspense, but with a far different +presentiment of some strange event at hand. + +"You see before you the Veiled Lady," said the bearded Professor, +advancing to the verge of the platform. "By the agency of which I have +just spoken, she is at this moment in communion with the spiritual +world. That silvery veil is, in one sense, an enchantment, having been +dipped, as it were, and essentially imbued, through the potency of my +art, with the fluid medium of spirits. Slight and ethereal as it +seems, the limitations of time and space have no existence within its +folds. This hall--these hundreds of faces, encompassing her within so +narrow an amphitheatre--are of thinner substance, in her view, than the +airiest vapor that the clouds are made of. She beholds the Absolute!" + +As preliminary to other and far more wonderful psychological +experiments, the exhibitor suggested that some of his auditors should +endeavor to make the Veiled Lady sensible of their presence by such +methods--provided only no touch were laid upon her person--as they +might deem best adapted to that end. Accordingly, several deep-lunged +country fellows, who looked as if they might have blown the apparition +away with a breath, ascended the platform. Mutually encouraging one +another, they shouted so close to her ear that the veil stirred like a +wreath of vanishing mist; they smote upon the floor with bludgeons; +they perpetrated so hideous a clamor, that methought it might have +reached, at least, a little way into the eternal sphere. Finally, with +the assent of the Professor, they laid hold of the great chair, and +were startled, apparently, to find it soar upward, as if lighter than +the air through which it rose. But the Veiled Lady remained seated and +motionless, with a composure that was hardly less than awful, because +implying so immeasurable a distance betwixt her and these rude +persecutors. + +"These efforts are wholly without avail," observed the Professor, who +had been looking on with an aspect of serene indifference. "The roar +of a battery of cannon would be inaudible to the Veiled Lady. And yet, +were I to will it, sitting in this very hall, she could hear the desert +wind sweeping over the sands as far off as Arabia; the icebergs +grinding one against the other in the polar seas; the rustle of a leaf +in an East Indian forest; the lowest whispered breath of the +bashfullest maiden in the world, uttering the first confession of her +love. Nor does there exist the moral inducement, apart from my own +behest, that could persuade her to lift the silvery veil, or arise out +of that chair." + +Greatly to the Professor's discomposure, however, just as he spoke +these words, the Veiled Lady arose. There was a mysterious tremor that +shook the magic veil. The spectators, it may be, imagined that she was +about to take flight into that invisible sphere, and to the society of +those purely spiritual beings with whom they reckoned her so near akin. +Hollingsworth, a moment ago, had mounted the platform, and now stood +gazing at the figure, with a sad intentness that brought the whole +power of his great, stern, yet tender soul into his glance. + +"Come," said he, waving his hand towards her. "You are safe!" + +She threw off the veil, and stood before that multitude of people pale, +tremulous, shrinking, as if only then had she discovered that a +thousand eyes were gazing at her. Poor maiden! How strangely had she +been betrayed! Blazoned abroad as a wonder of the world, and +performing what were adjudged as miracles,--in the faith of many, a +seeress and a prophetess; in the harsher judgment of others, a +mountebank,--she had kept, as I religiously believe, her virgin reserve +and sanctity of soul throughout it all. Within that encircling veil, +though an evil hand had flung it over her, there was as deep a +seclusion as if this forsaken girl had, all the while, been sitting +under the shadow of Eliot's pulpit, in the Blithedale woods, at the +feet of him who now summoned her to the shelter of his arms. And the +true heart-throb of a woman's affection was too powerful for the +jugglery that had hitherto environed her. She uttered a shriek, and +fled to Hollingsworth, like one escaping from her deadliest enemy, and +was safe forever. + + + +XXIV. THE MASQUERADERS + +Two nights had passed since the foregoing occurrences, when, in a +breezy September forenoon, I set forth from town, on foot, towards +Blithedale. It was the most delightful of all days for a walk, with a +dash of invigorating ice-temper in the air, but a coolness that soon +gave place to the brisk glow of exercise, while the vigor remained as +elastic as before. The atmosphere had a spirit and sparkle in it. +Each breath was like a sip of ethereal wine, tempered, as I said, with +a crystal lump of ice. I had started on this expedition in an +exceedingly sombre mood, as well befitted one who found himself tending +towards home, but was conscious that nobody would be quite overjoyed to +greet him there. My feet were hardly off the pavement, however, when +this morbid sensation began to yield to the lively influences of air +and motion. Nor had I gone far, with fields yet green on either side, +before my step became as swift and light as if Hollingsworth were +waiting to exchange a friendly hand-grip, and Zenobia's and Priscilla's +open arms would welcome the wanderer's reappearance. It has happened +to me on other occasions, as well as this, to prove how a state of +physical well-being can create a kind of joy, in spite of the +profoundest anxiety of mind. + +The pathway of that walk still runs along, with sunny freshness, +through my memory. I know not why it should be so. But my mental eye +can even now discern the September grass, bordering the pleasant +roadside with a brighter verdure than while the summer heats were +scorching it; the trees, too, mostly green, although here and there a +branch or shrub has donned its vesture of crimson and gold a week or +two before its fellows. I see the tufted barberry-bushes, with their +small clusters of scarlet fruit; the toadstools, likewise,--some +spotlessly white, others yellow or red,--mysterious growths, springing +suddenly from no root or seed, and growing nobody can tell how or +wherefore. In this respect they resembled many of the emotions in my +breast. And I still see the little rivulets, chill, clear, and bright, +that murmured beneath the road, through subterranean rocks, and +deepened into mossy pools, where tiny fish were darting to and fro, and +within which lurked the hermit frog. But no,--I never can account for +it, that, with a yearning interest to learn the upshot of all my story, +and returning to Blithedale for that sole purpose, I should examine +these things so like a peaceful-bosomed naturalist. Nor why, amid all +my sympathies and fears, there shot, at times, a wild exhilaration +through my frame. + +Thus I pursued my way along the line of the ancient stone wall that +Paul Dudley built, and through white villages, and past orchards of +ruddy apples, and fields of ripening maize, and patches of woodland, +and all such sweet rural scenery as looks the fairest, a little beyond +the suburbs of a town. Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla! They glided +mistily before me, as I walked. Sometimes, in my solitude, I laughed +with the bitterness of self-scorn, remembering how unreservedly I had +given up my heart and soul to interests that were not mine. What had I +ever had to do with them? And why, being now free, should I take this +thraldom on me once again? It was both sad and dangerous, I whispered +to myself, to be in too close affinity with the passions, the errors, +and the misfortunes of individuals who stood within a circle of their +own, into which, if I stept at all, it must be as an intruder, and at a +peril that I could not estimate. + +Drawing nearer to Blithedale, a sickness of the spirits kept +alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy. I indulged in a +hundred odd and extravagant conjectures. Either there was no such +place as Blithedale, nor ever had been, nor any brotherhood of +thoughtful laborers, like what I seemed to recollect there, or else it +was all changed during my absence. It had been nothing but dream work +and enchantment. I should seek in vain for the old farmhouse, and for +the greensward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of Indian +corn, and for all that configuration of the land which I had imagined. +It would be another spot, and an utter strangeness. + +These vagaries were of the spectral throng so apt to steal out of an +unquiet heart. They partly ceased to haunt me, on my arriving at a +point whence, through the trees, I began to catch glimpses of the +Blithedale farm. That surely was something real. There was hardly a +square foot of all those acres on which I had not trodden heavily, in +one or another kind of toil. The curse of Adam's posterity--and, curse +or blessing be it, it gives substance to the life around us--had first +come upon me there. In the sweat of my brow I had there earned bread +and eaten it, and so established my claim to be on earth, and my +fellowship with all the sons of labor. I could have knelt down, and +have laid my breast against that soil. The red clay of which my frame +was moulded seemed nearer akin to those crumbling furrows than to any +other portion of the world's dust. There was my home, and there might +be my grave. + +I felt an invincible reluctance, nevertheless, at the idea of +presenting myself before my old associates, without first ascertaining +the state in which they were. A nameless foreboding weighed upon me. +Perhaps, should I know all the circumstances that had occurred, I might +find it my wisest course to turn back, unrecognized, unseen, and never +look at Blithedale more. Had it been evening, I would have stolen +softly to some lighted window of the old farmhouse, and peeped darkling +in, to see all their well-known faces round the supper-board. Then, +were there a vacant seat, I might noiselessly unclose the door, glide +in, and take my place among them, without a word. My entrance might be +so quiet, my aspect so familiar, that they would forget how long I had +been away, and suffer me to melt into the scene, as a wreath of vapor +melts into a larger cloud. I dreaded a boisterous greeting. Beholding +me at table, Zenobia, as a matter of course, would send me a cup of +tea, and Hollingsworth fill my plate from the great dish of pandowdy, +and Priscilla, in her quiet way, would hand the cream, and others help +me to the bread and butter. Being one of them again, the knowledge of +what had happened would come to me without a shock. For still, at +every turn of my shifting fantasies, the thought stared me in the face +that some evil thing had befallen us, or was ready to befall. + +Yielding to this ominous impression, I now turned aside into the woods, +resolving to spy out the posture of the Community as craftily as the +wild Indian before he makes his onset. I would go wandering about the +outskirts of the farm, and, perhaps, catching sight of a solitary +acquaintance, would approach him amid the brown shadows of the trees (a +kind of medium fit for spirits departed and revisitant, like myself), +and entreat him to tell me how all things were. + +The first living creature that I met was a partridge, which sprung up +beneath my feet, and whirred away; the next was a squirrel, who +chattered angrily at me from an overhanging bough. I trod along by the +dark, sluggish river, and remember pausing on the bank, above one of +its blackest and most placid pools (the very spot, with the barkless +stump of a tree aslantwise over the water, is depicting itself to my +fancy at this instant), and wondering how deep it was, and if any +overladen soul had ever flung its weight of mortality in thither, and +if it thus escaped the burden, or only made it heavier. And perhaps the +skeleton of the drowned wretch still lay beneath the inscrutable depth, +clinging to some sunken log at the bottom with the gripe of its old +despair. So slight, however, was the track of these gloomy ideas, that +I soon forgot them in the contemplation of a brood of wild ducks, which +were floating on the river, and anon took flight, leaving each a bright +streak over the black surface. By and by, I came to my hermitage, in +the heart of the white-pine tree, and clambering up into it, sat down +to rest. The grapes, which I had watched throughout the summer, now +dangled around me in abundant clusters of the deepest purple, +deliciously sweet to the taste, and, though wild, yet free from that +ungentle flavor which distinguishes nearly all our native and +uncultivated grapes. Methought a wine might be pressed out of them +possessing a passionate zest, and endowed with a new kind of +intoxicating quality, attended with such bacchanalian ecstasies as the +tamer grapes of Madeira, France, and the Rhine are inadequate to +produce. And I longed to quaff a great goblet of it that moment! + +While devouring the grapes, I looked on all sides out of the peep-holes +of my hermitage, and saw the farmhouse, the fields, and almost every +part of our domain, but not a single human figure in the landscape. +Some of the windows of the house were open, but with no more signs of +life than in a dead man's unshut eyes. The barn-door was ajar, and +swinging in the breeze. The big old dog,--he was a relic of the former +dynasty of the farm,--that hardly ever stirred out of the yard, was +nowhere to be seen. What, then, had become of all the fraternity and +sisterhood? Curious to ascertain this point, I let myself down out of +the tree, and going to the edge of the wood, was glad to perceive our +herd of cows chewing the cud or grazing not far off. I fancied, by +their manner, that two or three of them recognized me (as, indeed, they +ought, for I had milked them and been their chamberlain times without +number); but, after staring me in the face a little while, they +phlegmatically began grazing and chewing their cuds again. Then I grew +foolishly angry at so cold a reception, and flung some rotten fragments +of an old stump at these unsentimental cows. + +Skirting farther round the pasture, I heard voices and much laughter +proceeding from the interior of the wood. Voices, male and feminine; +laughter, not only of fresh young throats, but the bass of grown +people, as if solemn organ-pipes should pour out airs of merriment. Not +a voice spoke, but I knew it better than my own; not a laugh, but its +cadences were familiar. The wood, in this portion of it, seemed as +full of jollity as if Comus and his crew were holding their revels in +one of its usually lonesome glades. Stealing onward as far as I durst, +without hazard of discovery, I saw a concourse of strange figures +beneath the overshadowing branches. They appeared, and vanished, and +came again, confusedly with the streaks of sunlight glimmering down +upon them. + +Among them was an Indian chief, with blanket, feathers, and war-paint, +and uplifted tomahawk; and near him, looking fit to be his woodland +bride, the goddess Diana, with the crescent on her head, and attended +by our big lazy dog, in lack of any fleeter hound. Drawing an arrow +from her quiver, she let it fly at a venture, and hit the very tree +behind which I happened to be lurking. Another group consisted of a +Bavarian broom-girl, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two +foresters of the Middle Ages, a Kentucky woodsman in his trimmed +hunting-shirt and deerskin leggings, and a Shaker elder, quaint, +demure, broad-brimmed, and square-skirted. Shepherds of Arcadia, and +allegoric figures from the "Faerie Queen," were oddly mixed up with +these. Arm in arm, or otherwise huddled together in strange +discrepancy, stood grim Puritans, gay Cavaliers, and Revolutionary +officers with three-cornered cocked hats, and queues longer than their +swords. A bright-complexioned, dark-haired, vivacious little gypsy, +with a red shawl over her head, went from one group to another, telling +fortunes by palmistry; and Moll Pitcher, the renowned old witch of +Lynn, broomstick in hand, showed herself prominently in the midst, as +if announcing all these apparitions to be the offspring of her +necromantic art. But Silas Foster, who leaned against a tree near by, +in his customary blue frock and smoking a short pipe, did more to +disenchant the scene, with his look of shrewd, acrid, Yankee +observation, than twenty witches and necromancers could have done in +the way of rendering it weird and fantastic. + +A little farther off, some old-fashioned skinkers and drawers, all with +portentously red noses, were spreading a banquet on the leaf-strewn +earth; while a horned and long-tailed gentleman (in whom I recognized +the fiendish musician erst seen by Tam O'Shanter) tuned his fiddle, and +summoned the whole motley rout to a dance, before partaking of the +festal cheer. So they joined hands in a circle, whirling round so +swiftly, so madly, and so merrily, in time and tune with the Satanic +music, that their separate incongruities were blended all together, and +they became a kind of entanglement that went nigh to turn one's brain +with merely looking at it. Anon they stopt all of a sudden, and +staring at one another's figures, set up a roar of laughter; whereat a +shower of the September leaves (which, all day long, had been +hesitating whether to fall or no) were shaken off by the movement of +the air, and came eddying down upon the revellers. + +Then, for lack of breath, ensued a silence, at the deepest point of +which, tickled by the oddity of surprising my grave associates in this +masquerading trim, I could not possibly refrain from a burst of +laughter on my own separate account. + +"Hush!" I heard the pretty gypsy fortuneteller say. "Who is that +laughing?" + +"Some profane intruder!" said the goddess Diana. "I shall send an +arrow through his heart, or change him into a stag, as I did Actaeon, +if he peeps from behind the trees!" + +"Me take his scalp!" cried the Indian chief, brandishing his tomahawk, +and cutting a great caper in the air. + +"I'll root him in the earth with a spell that I have at my tongue's +end!" squeaked Moll Pitcher. "And the green moss shall grow all over +him, before he gets free again!" + +"The voice was Miles Coverdale's," said the fiendish fiddler, with a +whisk of his tail and a toss of his horns. "My music has brought him +hither. He is always ready to dance to the Devil's tune!" + +Thus put on the right track, they all recognized the voice at once, and +set up a simultaneous shout. + +"Miles! Miles! Miles Coverdale, where are you?" they cried. "Zenobia! +Queen Zenobia! here is one of your vassals lurking in the wood. +Command him to approach and pay his duty!" + +The whole fantastic rabble forthwith streamed off in pursuit of me, so +that I was like a mad poet hunted by chimeras. Having fairly the start +of them, however, I succeeded in making my escape, and soon left their +merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear. Its fainter tones +assumed a kind of mournfulness, and were finally lost in the hush and +solemnity of the wood. In my haste, I stumbled over a heap of logs and +sticks that had been cut for firewood, a great while ago, by some +former possessor of the soil, and piled up square, in order to be +carted or sledded away to the farmhouse. But, being forgotten, they +had lain there perhaps fifty years, and possibly much longer; until, by +the accumulation of moss, and the leaves falling over them, and +decaying there, from autumn to autumn, a green mound was formed, in +which the softened outline of the woodpile was still perceptible. In +the fitful mood that then swayed my mind, I found something strangely +affecting in this simple circumstance. I imagined the long-dead +woodman, and his long-dead wife and children, coming out of their chill +graves, and essaying to make a fire with this heap of mossy fuel! + +From this spot I strayed onward, quite lost in reverie, and neither +knew nor cared whither I was going, until a low, soft, well-remembered +voice spoke, at a little distance. + +"There is Mr. Coverdale!" + +"Miles Coverdale!" said another voice,--and its tones were very stern. +"Let him come forward, then!" + +"Yes, Mr. Coverdale," cried a woman's voice,--clear and melodious, but, +just then, with something unnatural in its chord,--"you are welcome! +But you come half an hour too late, and have missed a scene which you +would have enjoyed!" + +I looked up and found myself nigh Eliot's pulpit, at the base of which +sat Hollingsworth, with Priscilla at his feet and Zenobia standing +before them. + + + +XXV. THE THREE TOGETHER + +Hollingsworth was in his ordinary working-dress. Priscilla wore a +pretty and simple gown, with a kerchief about her neck, and a calash, +which she had flung back from her head, leaving it suspended by the +strings. But Zenobia (whose part among the maskers, as may be +supposed, was no inferior one) appeared in a costume of fanciful +magnificence, with her jewelled flower as the central ornament of what +resembled a leafy crown, or coronet. She represented the Oriental +princess by whose name we were accustomed to know her. Her attitude +was free and noble; yet, if a queen's, it was not that of a queen +triumphant, but dethroned, on trial for her life, or, perchance, +condemned already. The spirit of the conflict seemed, nevertheless, to +be alive in her. Her eyes were on fire; her cheeks had each a crimson +spot, so exceedingly vivid, and marked with so definite an outline, +that I at first doubted whether it were not artificial. In a very +brief space, however, this idea was shamed by the paleness that ensued, +as the blood sunk suddenly away. Zenobia now looked like marble. + +One always feels the fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on those +who love, or those who hate, at some acme of their passion that puts +them into a sphere of their own, where no other spirit can pretend to +stand on equal ground with them. I was confused,--affected even with a +species of terror,--and wished myself away. The intenseness of their +feelings gave them the exclusive property of the soil and atmosphere, +and left me no right to be or breathe there. + +"Hollingsworth,--Zenobia,--I have just returned to Blithedale," said I, +"and had no thought of finding you here. We shall meet again at the +house. I will retire." + +"This place is free to you," answered Hollingsworth. + +"As free as to ourselves," added Zenobia. "This long while past, you +have been following up your game, groping for human emotions in the +dark corners of the heart. Had you been here a little sooner, you +might have seen them dragged into the daylight. I could even wish to +have my trial over again, with you standing by to see fair play! Do +you know, Mr. Coverdale, I have been on trial for my life?" + +She laughed, while speaking thus. But, in truth, as my eyes wandered +from one of the group to another, I saw in Hollingsworth all that an +artist could desire for the grim portrait of a Puritan magistrate +holding inquest of life and death in a case of witchcraft; in Zenobia, +the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled, and decrepit, but fair +enough to tempt Satan with a force reciprocal to his own; and, in +Priscilla, the pale victim, whose soul and body had been wasted by her +spells. Had a pile of fagots been heaped against the rock, this hint +of impending doom would have completed the suggestive picture. + +"It was too hard upon me," continued Zenobia, addressing Hollingsworth, +"that judge, jury, and accuser should all be comprehended in one man! +I demur, as I think the lawyers say, to the jurisdiction. But let the +learned Judge Coverdale seat himself on the top of the rock, and you +and me stand at its base, side by side, pleading our cause before him! +There might, at least, be two criminals instead of one." + +"You forced this on me," replied Hollingsworth, looking her sternly in +the face. "Did I call you hither from among the masqueraders yonder? +Do I assume to be your judge? No; except so far as I have an +unquestionable right of judgment, in order to settle my own line of +behavior towards those with whom the events of life bring me in +contact. True, I have already judged you, but not on the world's +part,--neither do I pretend to pass a sentence!" + +"Ah, this is very good!" cried Zenobia with a smile. "What strange +beings you men are, Mr. Coverdale!--is it not so? It is the simplest +thing in the world with you to bring a woman before your secret +tribunals, and judge and condemn her unheard, and then tell her to go +free without a sentence. The misfortune is, that this same secret +tribunal chances to be the only judgment-seat that a true woman stands +in awe of, and that any verdict short of acquittal is equivalent to a +death sentence!" + +The more I looked at them, and the more I heard, the stronger grew my +impression that a crisis had just come and gone. On Hollingsworth's +brow it had left a stamp like that of irrevocable doom, of which his +own will was the instrument. In Zenobia's whole person, beholding her +more closely, I saw a riotous agitation; the almost delirious +disquietude of a great struggle, at the close of which the vanquished +one felt her strength and courage still mighty within her, and longed +to renew the contest. My sensations were as if I had come upon a +battlefield before the smoke was as yet cleared away. + +And what subjects had been discussed here? All, no doubt, that for so +many months past had kept my heart and my imagination idly feverish. +Zenobia's whole character and history; the true nature of her +mysterious connection with Westervelt; her later purposes towards +Hollingsworth, and, reciprocally, his in reference to her; and, +finally, the degree in which Zenobia had been cognizant of the plot +against Priscilla, and what, at last, had been the real object of that +scheme. On these points, as before, I was left to my own conjectures. +One thing, only, was certain. Zenobia and Hollingsworth were friends +no longer. If their heartstrings were ever intertwined, the knot had +been adjudged an entanglement, and was now violently broken. + +But Zenobia seemed unable to rest content with the matter in the +posture which it had assumed. + +"Ah! do we part so?" exclaimed she, seeing Hollingsworth about to +retire. + +"And why not?" said he, with almost rude abruptness. "What is there +further to be said between us?" + +"Well, perhaps nothing," answered Zenobia, looking him in the face, and +smiling. "But we have come many times before to this gray rock, and we +have talked very softly among the whisperings of the birch-trees. They +were pleasant hours! I love to make the latest of them, though not +altogether so delightful, loiter away as slowly as may be. And, +besides, you have put many queries to me at this, which you design to +be our last interview; and being driven, as I must acknowledge, into a +corner, I have responded with reasonable frankness. But now, with your +free consent, I desire the privilege of asking a few questions, in my +turn." + +"I have no concealments," said Hollingsworth. + +"We shall see," answered Zenobia. "I would first inquire whether you +have supposed me to be wealthy?" + +"On that point," observed Hollingsworth, "I have had the opinion which +the world holds." + +"And I held it likewise," said Zenobia. "Had I not, Heaven is my +witness the knowledge should have been as free to you as me. It is +only three days since I knew the strange fact that threatens to make me +poor; and your own acquaintance with it, I suspect, is of at least as +old a date. I fancied myself affluent. You are aware, too, of the +disposition which I purposed making of the larger portion of my +imaginary opulence,--nay, were it all, I had not hesitated. Let me ask +you, further, did I ever propose or intimate any terms of compact, on +which depended this--as the world would consider it--so important +sacrifice?" + +"You certainly spoke of none," said Hollingsworth. + +"Nor meant any," she responded. "I was willing to realize your dream +freely,--generously, as some might think,--but, at all events, fully, +and heedless though it should prove the ruin of my fortune. If, in your +own thoughts, you have imposed any conditions of this expenditure, it +is you that must be held responsible for whatever is sordid and +unworthy in them. And now one other question. Do you love this girl?" + +"O Zenobia!" exclaimed Priscilla, shrinking back, as if longing for the +rock to topple over and hide her. + +"Do you love her?" repeated Zenobia. + +"Had you asked me that question a short time since," replied +Hollingsworth, after a pause, during which, it seemed to me, even the +birch-trees held their whispering breath, "I should have told +you--'No!' My feelings for Priscilla differed little from those of an +elder brother, watching tenderly over the gentle sister whom God has +given him to protect." + +"And what is your answer now?" persisted Zenobia. + +"I do love her!" said Hollingsworth, uttering the words with a deep +inward breath, instead of speaking them outright. "As well declare it +thus as in any other way. I do love her!" + +"Now, God be judge between us," cried Zenobia, breaking into sudden +passion, "which of us two has most mortally offended Him! At least, I +am a woman, with every fault, it may be, that a woman ever had,--weak, +vain, unprincipled (like most of my sex; for our virtues, when we have +any, are merely impulsive and intuitive), passionate, too, and pursuing +my foolish and unattainable ends by indirect and cunning, though +absurdly chosen means, as an hereditary bond-slave must; false, +moreover, to the whole circle of good, in my reckless truth to the +little good I saw before me,--but still a woman! A creature whom only +a little change of earthly fortune, a little kinder smile of Him who +sent me hither, and one true heart to encourage and direct me, might +have made all that a woman can be! But how is it with you? Are you a +man? No; but a monster! A cold, heartless, self-beginning and +self-ending piece of mechanism!" + +"With what, then, do you charge me!" asked Hollingsworth, aghast, and +greatly disturbed by this attack. "Show me one selfish end, in all I +ever aimed at, and you may cut it out of my bosom with a knife!" + +"It is all self!" answered Zenobia with still intenser bitterness. +"Nothing else; nothing but self, self, self! The fiend, I doubt not, +has made his choicest mirth of you these seven years past, and +especially in the mad summer which we have spent together. I see it +now! I am awake, disenchanted, disinthralled! Self, self, self! You +have embodied yourself in a project. You are a better masquerader than +the witches and gypsies yonder; for your disguise is a self-deception. +See whither it has brought you! First, you aimed a death-blow, and a +treacherous one, at this scheme of a purer and higher life, which so +many noble spirits had wrought out. Then, because Coverdale could not +be quite your slave, you threw him ruthlessly away. And you took me, +too, into your plan, as long as there was hope of my being available, +and now fling me aside again, a broken tool! But, foremost and +blackest of your sins, you stifled down your inmost consciousness!--you +did a deadly wrong to your own heart!--you were ready to sacrifice this +girl, whom, if God ever visibly showed a purpose, He put into your +charge, and through whom He was striving to redeem you!" + +"This is a woman's view," said Hollingsworth, growing deadly pale,--"a +woman's, whose whole sphere of action is in the heart, and who can +conceive of no higher nor wider one!" + +"Be silent!" cried Zenobia imperiously. "You know neither man nor +woman! The utmost that can be said in your behalf--and because I would +not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse my +wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore I say it--is, +that a great and rich heart has been ruined in your breast. Leave me, +now. You have done with me, and I with you. Farewell!" + +"Priscilla," said Hollingsworth, "come." Zenobia smiled; possibly I +did so too. Not often, in human life, has a gnawing sense of injury +found a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in the tone with +which Hollingsworth spoke those two words. It was the abased and +tremulous tone of a man whose faith in himself was shaken, and who +sought, at last, to lean on an affection. Yes; the strong man bowed +himself and rested on this poor Priscilla! Oh, could she have failed +him, what a triumph for the lookers-on! + +And, at first, I half imagined that she was about to fail him. She +rose up, stood shivering like the birch leaves that trembled over her +head, and then slowly tottered, rather than walked, towards Zenobia. +Arriving at her feet, she sank down there, in the very same attitude +which she had assumed on their first meeting, in the kitchen of the old +farmhouse. Zenobia remembered it. + +"Ah, Priscilla!" said she, shaking her head, "how much is changed since +then! You kneel to a dethroned princess. You, the victorious one! +But he is waiting for you. Say what you wish, and leave me." + +"We are sisters!" gasped Priscilla. + +I fancied that I understood the word and action. It meant the offering +of herself, and all she had, to be at Zenobia's disposal. But the +latter would not take it thus. + +"True, we are sisters!" she replied; and, moved by the sweet word, she +stooped down and kissed Priscilla; but not lovingly, for a sense of +fatal harm received through her seemed to be lurking in Zenobia's +heart. "We had one father! You knew it from the first; I, but a +little while,--else some things that have chanced might have been +spared you. But I never wished you harm. You stood between me and an +end which I desired. I wanted a clear path. No matter what I meant. +It is over now. Do you forgive me?" + +"O Zenobia," sobbed Priscilla, "it is I that feel like the guilty one!" + +"No, no, poor little thing!" said Zenobia, with a sort of contempt. +"You have been my evil fate, but there never was a babe with less +strength or will to do an injury. Poor child! Methinks you have but a +melancholy lot before you, sitting all alone in that wide, cheerless +heart, where, for aught you know,--and as I, alas! believe,--the fire +which you have kindled may soon go out. Ah, the thought makes me +shiver for you! What will you do, Priscilla, when you find no spark +among the ashes?" + +"Die!" she answered. + +"That was well said!" responded Zenobia, with an approving smile. +"There is all a woman in your little compass, my poor sister. +Meanwhile, go with him, and live!" + +She waved her away with a queenly gesture, and turned her own face to +the rock. I watched Priscilla, wondering what judgment she would pass +between Zenobia and Hollingsworth; how interpret his behavior, so as to +reconcile it with true faith both towards her sister and herself; how +compel her love for him to keep any terms whatever with her sisterly +affection! But, in truth, there was no such difficulty as I imagined. +Her engrossing love made it all clear. Hollingsworth could have no +fault. That was the one principle at the centre of the universe. And +the doubtful guilt or possible integrity of other people, appearances, +self-evident facts, the testimony of her own senses,--even +Hollingsworth's self-accusation, had he volunteered it,--would have +weighed not the value of a mote of thistledown on the other side. So +secure was she of his right, that she never thought of comparing it +with another's wrong, but left the latter to itself. + +Hollingsworth drew her arm within his, and soon disappeared with her +among the trees. I cannot imagine how Zenobia knew when they were out +of sight; she never glanced again towards them. But, retaining a proud +attitude so long as they might have thrown back a retiring look, they +were no sooner departed,--utterly departed,--than she began slowly to +sink down. It was as if a great, invisible, irresistible weight were +pressing her to the earth. Settling upon her knees, she leaned her +forehead against the rock, and sobbed convulsively; dry sobs they +seemed to be, such as have nothing to do with tears. + + + +XXVI. ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE + +Zenobia had entirely forgotten me. She fancied herself alone with her +great grief. And had it been only a common pity that I felt for +her,--the pity that her proud nature would have repelled, as the one +worst wrong which the world yet held in reserve,--the sacredness and +awfulness of the crisis might have impelled me to steal away silently, +so that not a dry leaf should rustle under my feet. I would have left +her to struggle, in that solitude, with only the eye of God upon her. +But, so it happened, I never once dreamed of questioning my right to be +there now, as I had questioned it just before, when I came so suddenly +upon Hollingsworth and herself, in the passion of their recent debate. +It suits me not to explain what was the analogy that I saw or imagined +between Zenobia's situation and mine; nor, I believe, will the reader +detect this one secret, hidden beneath many a revelation which perhaps +concerned me less. In simple truth, however, as Zenobia leaned her +forehead against the rock, shaken with that tearless agony, it seemed +to me that the self-same pang, with hardly mitigated torment, leaped +thrilling from her heartstrings to my own. Was it wrong, therefore, if +I felt myself consecrated to the priesthood by sympathy like this, and +called upon to minister to this woman's affliction, so far as mortal +could? + +But, indeed, what could mortal do for her? Nothing! The attempt would +be a mockery and an anguish. Time, it is true, would steal away her +grief, and bury it and the best of her heart in the same grave. But +Destiny itself, methought, in its kindliest mood, could do no better +for Zenobia, in the way of quick relief; than to cause the impending +rock to impend a little farther, and fall upon her head. So I leaned +against a tree, and listened to her sobs, in unbroken silence. She was +half prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead still pressed against +the rock. Her sobs were the only sound; she did not groan, nor give +any other utterance to her distress. It was all involuntary. + +At length she sat up, put back her hair, and stared about her with a +bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly recollecting the scene through +which she had passed, nor cognizant of the situation in which it left +her. Her face and brow were almost purple with the rush of blood. +They whitened, however, by and by, and for some time retained this +deathlike hue. She put her hand to her forehead, with a gesture that +made me forcibly conscious of an intense and living pain there. + +Her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over me several times, +without appearing to inform her of my presence. But, finally, a look +of recognition gleamed from her eyes into mine. + +"Is it you, Miles Coverdale?" said she, smiling. "Ah, I perceive what +you are about! You are turning this whole affair into a ballad. Pray +let me hear as many stanzas as you happen to have ready." + +"Oh, hush, Zenobia!" I answered. "Heaven knows what an ache is in my +soul!" + +"It is genuine tragedy, is it not?" rejoined Zenobia, with a sharp, +light laugh. "And you are willing to allow, perhaps, that I have had +hard measure. But it is a woman's doom, and I have deserved it like a +woman; so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no +complaint. It is all right, now, or will shortly be so. But, Mr. +Coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and put your soul's ache +into it, and turn your sympathy to good account, as other poets do, and +as poets must, unless they choose to give us glittering icicles instead +of lines of fire. As for the moral, it shall be distilled into the +final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey." + +"What shall it be, Zenobia?" I inquired, endeavoring to fall in with +her mood. + +"Oh, a very old one will serve the purpose," she replied. "There are +no new truths, much as we have prided ourselves on finding some. A +moral? Why, this: That, in the battlefield of life, the downright +stroke, that would fall only on a man's steel headpiece, is sure to +light on a woman's heart, over which she wears no breastplate, and +whose wisdom it is, therefore, to keep out of the conflict. Or, this: +That the whole universe, her own sex and yours, and Providence, or +Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who swerves one +hair's-breadth out of the beaten track. Yes; and add (for I may as +well own it, now) that, with that one hair's-breadth, she goes all +astray, and never sees the world in its true aspect afterwards." + +"This last is too stern a moral," I observed. "Cannot we soften it a +little?" + +"Do it if you like, at your own peril, not on my responsibility," she +answered. Then, with a sudden change of subject, she went on: "After +all, he has flung away what would have served him better than the poor, +pale flower he kept. What can Priscilla do for him? Put passionate +warmth into his heart, when it shall be chilled with frozen hopes? +Strengthen his hands, when they are weary with much doing and no +performance? No! but only tend towards him with a blind, instinctive +love, and hang her little, puny weakness for a clog upon his arm! She +cannot even give him such sympathy as is worth the name. For will he +never, in many an hour of darkness, need that proud intellectual +sympathy which he might have had from me?--the sympathy that would +flash light along his course, and guide, as well as cheer him? Poor +Hollingsworth! Where will he find it now?" + +"Hollingsworth has a heart of ice!" said I bitterly. "He is a wretch!" + +"Do him no wrong," interrupted Zenobia, turning haughtily upon me. +"Presume not to estimate a man like Hollingsworth. It was my fault, +all along, and none of his. I see it now! He never sought me. Why +should he seek me? What had I to offer him? A miserable, bruised, and +battered heart, spoilt long before he met me. A life, too, hopelessly +entangled with a villain's! He did well to cast me off. God be +praised, he did it! And yet, had he trusted me, and borne with me a +little longer, I would have saved him all this trouble." + +She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground. +Again raising them, her look was more mild and calm. + +"Miles Coverdale!" said she. + +"Well, Zenobia," I responded. "Can I do you any service?" + +"Very little," she replied. "But it is my purpose, as you may well +imagine, to remove from Blithedale; and, most likely, I may not see +Hollingsworth again. A woman in my position, you understand, feels +scarcely at her ease among former friends. New faces,--unaccustomed +looks,--those only can she tolerate. She would pine among familiar +scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her +secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify herself, +I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the honor of her +sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor womanhood, with its +rights and wrongs! Here will be new matter for my course of lectures, +at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale, a month or two ago. +But, as you have really a heart and sympathies, as far as they go, and +as I shall depart without seeing Hollingsworth, I must entreat you to +be a messenger between him and me." + +"Willingly," said I, wondering at the strange way in which her mind +seemed to vibrate from the deepest earnest to mere levity. "What is +the message?" + +"True,--what is it?" exclaimed Zenobia. "After all, I hardly know. On +better consideration, I have no message. Tell him,--tell him something +pretty and pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into your +ballad,--anything you please, so it be tender and submissive enough. +Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that I'll haunt him! "--She +spoke these words with the wildest energy.--"And give him--no, give +Priscilla--this!" + +Thus saying, she took the jewelled flower out of her hair; and it +struck me as the act of a queen, when worsted in a combat, discrowning +herself, as if she found a sort of relief in abasing all her pride. + +"Bid her wear this for Zenobia's sake," she continued. "She is a +pretty little creature, and will make as soft and gentle a wife as the +veriest Bluebeard could desire. Pity that she must fade so soon! These +delicate and puny maidens always do. Ten years hence, let +Hollingsworth look at my face and Priscilla's, and then choose betwixt +them. Or, if he pleases, let him do it now." + +How magnificently Zenobia looked as she said this! The effect of her +beauty was even heightened by the over-consciousness and +self-recognition of it, into which, I suppose, Hollingsworth's scorn +had driven her. She understood the look of admiration in my face; +and--Zenobia to the last--it gave her pleasure. + +"It is an endless pity," said she, "that I had not bethought myself of +winning your heart, Mr. Coverdale, instead of Hollingsworth's. I think +I should have succeeded, and many women would have deemed you the +worthier conquest of the two. You are certainly much the handsomest +man. But there is a fate in these things. And beauty, in a man, has +been of little account with me since my earliest girlhood, when, for +once, it turned my head. Now, farewell!" + +"Zenobia, whither are you going?" I asked. + +"No matter where," said she. "But I am weary of this place, and sick +to death of playing at philanthropy and progress. Of all varieties of +mock-life, we have surely blundered into the very emptiest mockery in +our effort to establish the one true system. I have done with it; and +Blithedale must find another woman to superintend the laundry, and you, +Mr. Coverdale, another nurse to make your gruel, the next time you fall +ill. It was, indeed, a foolish dream! Yet it gave us some pleasant +summer days, and bright hopes, while they lasted. It can do no more; +nor will it avail us to shed tears over a broken bubble. Here is my +hand! Adieu!" + +She gave me her hand with the same free, whole-souled gesture as on the +first afternoon of our acquaintance, and, being greatly moved, I +bethought me of no better method of expressing my deep sympathy than to +carry it to my lips. In so doing, I perceived that this white hand--so +hospitably warm when I first touched it, five months since--was now +cold as a veritable piece of snow. + +"How very cold!" I exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with the +vain idea of warming it. "What can be the reason? It is really +deathlike!" + +"The extremities die first, they say," answered Zenobia, laughing. "And +so you kiss this poor, despised, rejected hand! Well, my dear friend, +I thank you. You have reserved your homage for the fallen. Lip of man +will never touch my hand again. I intend to become a Catholic, for the +sake of going into a nunnery. When you next hear of Zenobia, her face +will be behind the black veil; so look your last at it now,--for all is +over. Once more, farewell!" + +She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which I felt long +afterwards. So intimately connected as I had been with perhaps the +only man in whom she was ever truly interested, Zenobia looked on me as +the representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in bidding +me adieu, she likewise took final leave of Hollingsworth, and of this +whole epoch of her life. Never did her beauty shine out more +lustrously than in the last glimpse that I had of her. She departed, +and was soon hidden among the trees. But, whether it was the strong +impression of the foregoing scene, or whatever else the cause, I was +affected with a fantasy that Zenobia had not actually gone, but was +still hovering about the spot and haunting it. I seemed to feel her +eyes upon me. It was as if the vivid coloring of her character had +left a brilliant stain upon the air. By degrees, however, the +impression grew less distinct. I flung myself upon the fallen leaves +at the base of Eliot's pulpit. The sunshine withdrew up the tree +trunks and flickered on the topmost boughs; gray twilight made the wood +obscure; the stars brightened out; the pendent boughs became wet with +chill autumnal dews. But I was listless, worn out with emotion on my +own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart to leave my +comfortless lair beneath the rock. + +I must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the circumstances of +which utterly vanished at the moment when they converged to some +tragical catastrophe, and thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere of +slumber that enveloped them. Starting from the ground, I found the +risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the rock, and myself all in +a tremble. + + + +XXVII. MIDNIGHT + +It could not have been far from midnight when I came beneath +Hollingsworth's window, and, finding it open, flung in a tuft of grass +with earth at the roots, and heard it fall upon the floor. He was +either awake or sleeping very lightly; for scarcely a moment had gone +by before he looked out and discerned me standing in the moonlight. + +"Is it you, Coverdale?" he asked. "What is the matter?" + +"Come down to me, Hollingsworth!" I answered. "I am anxious to speak +with you." + +The strange tone of my own voice startled me, and him, probably, no +less. He lost no time, and soon issued from the house-door, with his +dress half arranged. + +"Again, what is the matter?" he asked impatiently. + +"Have you seen Zenobia," said I, "since you parted from her at Eliot's +pulpit?" + +"No," answered Hollingsworth; "nor did I expect it." + +His voice was deep, but had a tremor in it, + +Hardly had he spoken, when Silas Foster thrust his head, done up in a +cotton handkerchief, out of another window, and took what he called as +it literally was--a squint at us. + +"Well, folks, what are ye about here?" he demanded. "Aha! are you +there, Miles Coverdale? You have been turning night into day since you +left us, I reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come prowling +about the house at this time o' night, frightening my old woman out of +her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out of his best nap. In +with you, you vagabond, and to bed!" + +"Dress yourself quickly, Foster," said I. "We want your assistance." + +I could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone out of my +voice. Silas Foster, obtuse as were his sensibilities, seemed to feel +the ghastly earnestness that was conveyed in it as well as +Hollingsworth did. He immediately withdrew his head, and I heard him +yawning, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily, while he +hurried on his clothes. Meanwhile I showed Hollingsworth a delicate +handkerchief, marked with a well-known cipher, and told where I had +found it, and other circumstances, which had filled me with a suspicion +so terrible that I left him, if he dared, to shape it out for himself. +By the time my brief explanation was finished, we were joined by Silas +Foster in his blue woollen frock. + +"Well, boys," cried he peevishly, "what is to pay now?" + +"Tell him, Hollingsworth," said I. + +Hollingsworth shivered perceptibly, and drew in a hard breath betwixt +his teeth. He steadied himself, however, and, looking the matter more +firmly in the face than I had done, explained to Foster my suspicions, +and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which, in spite of my +utmost efforts, my words had swerved aside. The tough-nerved yeoman, +in his comment, put a finish on the business, and brought out the +hideous idea in its full terror, as if he were removing the napkin from +the face of a corpse. + +"And so you think she's drowned herself?" he cried. I turned away my +face. + +"What on earth should the young woman do that for?" exclaimed Silas, +his eyes half out of his head with mere surprise. "Why, she has more +means than she can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make her +comfortable, but a husband, and that's an article she could have, any +day. There's some mistake about this, I tell you!" + +"Come," said I, shuddering; "let us go and ascertain the truth." + +"Well, well," answered Silas Foster; "just as you say. We'll take the +long pole, with the hook at the end, that serves to get the bucket out +of the draw-well when the rope is broken. With that, and a couple of +long-handled hay-rakes, I'll answer for finding her, if she's anywhere +to be found. Strange enough! Zenobia drown herself! No, no; I don't +believe it. She had too much sense, and too much means, and enjoyed +life a great deal too well." + +When our few preparations were completed, we hastened, by a shorter +than the customary route, through fields and pastures, and across a +portion of the meadow, to the particular spot on the river-bank which I +had paused to contemplate in the course of my afternoon's ramble. A +nameless presentiment had again drawn me thither, after leaving Eliot's +pulpit. I showed my companions where I had found the handkerchief, and +pointed to two or three footsteps, impressed into the clayey margin, +and tending towards the water. Beneath its shallow verge, among the +water-weeds, there were further traces, as yet unobliterated by the +sluggish current, which was there almost at a standstill. Silas Foster +thrust his face down close to these footsteps, and picked up a shoe +that had escaped my observation, being half imbedded in the mud. + +"There's a kid shoe that never was made on a Yankee last," observed he. +"I know enough of shoemaker's craft to tell that. French manufacture; +and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in it! There never +was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than Zenobia did. Here," +he added, addressing Hollingsworth, "would you like to keep the shoe?" + +Hollingsworth started back. + +"Give it to me, Foster," said I. + +I dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, and have kept it ever +since. Not far from this spot lay an old, leaky punt, drawn up on the +oozy river-side, and generally half full of water. It served the +angler to go in quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up his wild +ducks. Setting this crazy bark afloat, I seated myself in the stern +with the paddle, while Hollingsworth sat in the bows with the hooked +pole, and Silas Foster amidships with a hay-rake. + +"It puts me in mind of my young days," remarked Silas, "when I used to +steal out of bed to go bobbing for hornpouts and eels. +Heigh-ho!--well, life and death together make sad work for us all! +Then I was a boy, bobbing for fish; and now I am getting to be an old +fellow, and here I be, groping for a dead body! I tell you what, lads; +if I thought anything had really happened to Zenobia, I should feel +kind o' sorrowful." + +"I wish, at least, you would hold your tongue," muttered I. + +The moon, that night, though past the full, was still large and oval, +and having risen between eight and nine o'clock, now shone aslantwise +over the river, throwing the high, opposite bank, with its woods, into +deep shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectually. Not a +ray appeared to fall on the river itself. It lapsed imperceptibly +away, a broad, black, inscrutable depth, keeping its own secrets from +the eye of man, as impenetrably as mid-ocean could. + +"Well, Miles Coverdale," said Foster, "you are the helmsman. How do +you mean to manage this business?" + +"I shall let the boat drift, broadside foremost, past that stump," I +replied. "I know the bottom, having sounded it in fishing. The shore, +on this side, after the first step or two, goes off very abruptly; and +there is a pool, just by the stump, twelve or fifteen feet deep. The +current could not have force enough to sweep any sunken object, even if +partially buoyant, out of that hollow." + +"Come, then," said Silas; "but I doubt whether I can touch bottom with +this hay-rake, if it's as deep as you say. Mr. Hollingsworth, I think +you'll be the lucky man to-night, such luck as it is." + +We floated past the stump. Silas Foster plied his rake manfully, +poking it as far as he could into the water, and immersing the whole +length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless, with +the hooked pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a nervous +and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the blackness that +upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts, +methought, as if he were stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the +side of the boat. So obscure, however, so awfully mysterious, was that +dark stream, that--and the thought made me shiver like a leaf--I might +as well have tried to look into the enigma of the eternal world, to +discover what had become of Zenobia's soul, as into the river's depths, +to find her body. And there, perhaps, she lay, with her face upward, +while the shadow of the boat, and my own pale face peering downward, +passed slowly betwixt her and the sky! + +Once, twice, thrice, I paddled the boat upstream, and again suffered it +to glide, with the river's slow, funereal motion, downward. Silas +Foster had raked up a large mass of stuff, which, as it came towards +the surface, looked somewhat like a flowing garment, but proved to be a +monstrous tuft of water-weeds. Hollingsworth, with a gigantic effort, +upheaved a sunken log. When once free of the bottom, it rose partly +out of water,--all weedy and slimy, a devilish-looking object, which +the moon had not shone upon for half a hundred years,--then plunged +again, and sullenly returned to its old resting-place, for the remnant +of the century. + +"That looked ugly!" quoth Silas. "I half thought it was the Evil One, +on the same errand as ourselves,--searching for Zenobia." + +"He shall never get her," said I, giving the boat a strong impulse. + +"That's not for you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "Pray God he +never has, and never may. Slow work this, however! I should really be +glad to find something! Pshaw! What a notion that is, when the only +good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and grope, +hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our pains! For my +part, I shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her shoe in the +mud, and saved her soul alive, after all. My stars! how she will laugh +at us, to-morrow morning!" + +It is indescribable what an image of Zenobia--at the breakfast-table, +full of warm and mirthful life--this surmise of Silas Foster's brought +before my mind. The terrible phantasm of her death was thrown by it +into the remotest and dimmest background, where it seemed to grow as +improbable as a myth. + +"Yes, Silas, it may be as you say," cried I. The drift of the stream +had again borne us a little below the stump, when I felt--yes, felt, +for it was as if the iron hook had smote my breast--felt +Hollingsworth's pole strike some object at the bottom of the river! + +He started up, and almost overset the boat. + +"Hold on!" cried Foster; "you have her!" + +Putting a fury of strength into the effort, Hollingsworth heaved amain, +and up came a white swash to the surface of the river. It was the flow +of a woman's garments. A little higher, and we saw her dark hair +streaming down the current. Black River of Death, thou hadst yielded +up thy victim! Zenobia was found! + +Silas Foster laid hold of the body; Hollingsworth likewise grappled +with it; and I steered towards the bank, gazing all the while at +Zenobia, whose limbs were swaying in the current close at the boat's +side. Arriving near the shore, we all three stept into the water, bore +her out, and laid her on the ground beneath a tree. + +"Poor child!" said Foster,--and his dry old heart, I verily believe, +vouchsafed a tear, "I'm sorry for her!" + +Were I to describe the perfect horror of the spectacle, the reader +might justly reckon it to me for a sin and shame. For more than twelve +long years I have borne it in my memory, and could now reproduce it as +freshly as if it were still before my eyes. Of all modes of death, +methinks it is the ugliest. Her wet garments swathed limbs of terrible +inflexibility. She was the marble image of a death-agony. Her arms +had grown rigid in the act of struggling, and were bent before her with +clenched hands; her knees, too, were bent, and--thank God for it!--in +the attitude of prayer. Ah, that rigidity! It is impossible to bear +the terror of it. It seemed,--I must needs impart so much of my own +miserable idea,--it seemed as if her body must keep the same position +in the coffin, and that her skeleton would keep it in the grave; and +that when Zenobia rose at the day of judgment, it would be in just the +same attitude as now! + +One hope I had, and that too was mingled half with fear. She knelt as +if in prayer. With the last, choking consciousness, her soul, bubbling +out through her lips, it may be, had given itself up to the Father, +reconciled and penitent. But her arms! They were bent before her, as +if she struggled against Providence in never-ending hostility. Her +hands! They were clenched in immitigable defiance. Away with the +hideous thought. The flitting moment after Zenobia sank into the dark +pool--when her breath was gone, and her soul at her lips was as long, +in its capacity of God's infinite forgiveness, as the lifetime of the +world! + +Foster bent over the body, and carefully examined it. + +"You have wounded the poor thing's breast," said he to Hollingsworth, +"close by her heart, too!" + +"Ha!" cried Hollingsworth with a start. + +And so he had, indeed, both before and after death! + +"See!" said Foster. "That's the place where the iron struck her. It +looks cruelly, but she never felt it!" + +He endeavored to arrange the arms of the corpse decently by its side. +His utmost strength, however, scarcely sufficed to bring them down; and +rising again, the next instant, they bade him defiance, exactly as +before. He made another effort, with the same result. + +"In God's name, Silas Foster," cried I with bitter indignation, "let +that dead woman alone!" + +"Why, man, it's not decent!" answered he, staring at me in amazement. +"I can't bear to see her looking so! Well, well," added he, after a +third effort, "'tis of no use, sure enough; and we must leave the women +to do their best with her, after we get to the house. The sooner +that's done, the better." + +We took two rails from a neighboring fence, and formed a bier by laying +across some boards from the bottom of the boat. And thus we bore +Zenobia homeward. Six hours before, how beautiful! At midnight, what +a horror! A reflection occurs to me that will show ludicrously, I +doubt not, on my page, but must come in for its sterling truth. Being +the woman that she was, could Zenobia have foreseen all these ugly +circumstances of death,--how ill it would become her, the altogether +unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially old Silas +Foster's efforts to improve the matter,--she would no more have +committed the dreadful act than have exhibited herself to a public +assembly in a badly fitting garment! Zenobia, I have often thought, +was not quite simple in her death. She had seen pictures, I suppose, +of drowned persons in lithe and graceful attitudes. And she deemed it +well and decorous to die as so many village maidens have, wronged in +their first love, and seeking peace in the bosom of the old familiar +stream,--so familiar that they could not dread it,--where, in +childhood, they used to bathe their little feet, wading mid-leg deep, +unmindful of wet skirts. But in Zenobia's case there was some tint of +the Arcadian affectation that had been visible enough in all our lives +for a few months past. + +This, however, to my conception, takes nothing from the tragedy. For, +has not the world come to an awfully sophisticated pass, when, after a +certain degree of acquaintance with it, we cannot even put ourselves to +death in whole-hearted simplicity? Slowly, slowly, with many a dreary +pause,--resting the bier often on some rock or balancing it across a +mossy log, to take fresh hold,--we bore our burden onward through the +moonlight, and at last laid Zenobia on the floor of the old farmhouse. +By and by came three or four withered women and stood whispering around +the corpse, peering at it through their spectacles, holding up their +skinny hands, shaking their night-capped heads, and taking counsel of +one another's experience what was to be done. + +With those tire-women we left Zenobia. + + + +XXVIII. BLITHEDALE PASTURE + +Blithedale, thus far in its progress, had never found the necessity of +a burial-ground. There was some consultation among us in what spot +Zenobia might most fitly be laid. It was my own wish that she should +sleep at the base of Eliot's pulpit, and that on the rugged front of +the rock the name by which we familiarly knew her, Zenobia,--and not +another word, should be deeply cut, and left for the moss and lichens +to fill up at their long leisure. But Hollingsworth (to whose ideas on +this point great deference was due) made it his request that her grave +might be dug on the gently sloping hillside, in the wide pasture, +where, as we once supposed, Zenobia and he had planned to build their +cottage. And thus it was done, accordingly. + +She was buried very much as other people have been for hundreds of +years gone by. In anticipation of a death, we Blithedale colonists had +sometimes set our fancies at work to arrange a funereal ceremony, which +should be the proper symbolic expression of our spiritual faith and +eternal hopes; and this we meant to substitute for those customary +rites which were moulded originally out of the Gothic gloom, and by +long use, like an old velvet pall, have so much more than their first +death-smell in them. But when the occasion came we found it the +simplest and truest thing, after all, to content ourselves with the old +fashion, taking away what we could, but interpolating no novelties, and +particularly avoiding all frippery of flowers and cheerful emblems. +The procession moved from the farmhouse. Nearest the dead walked an +old man in deep mourning, his face mostly concealed in a white +handkerchief, and with Priscilla leaning on his arm. Hollingsworth and +myself came next. We all stood around the narrow niche in the cold +earth; all saw the coffin lowered in; all heard the rattle of the +crumbly soil upon its lid,--that final sound, which mortality awakens +on the utmost verge of sense, as if in the vain hope of bringing an +echo from the spiritual world. + +I noticed a stranger,--a stranger to most of those present, though +known to me,--who, after the coffin had descended, took up a handful of +earth and flung it first into the grave. I had given up +Hollingsworth's arm, and now found myself near this man. + +"It was an idle thing--a foolish thing--for Zenobia to do," said he. +"She was the last woman in the world to whom death could have been +necessary. It was too absurd! I have no patience with her." + +"Why so?" I inquired, smothering my horror at his cold comment, in my +eager curiosity to discover some tangible truth as to his relation with +Zenobia. "If any crisis could justify the sad wrong she offered to +herself, it was surely that in which she stood. Everything had failed +her; prosperity in the world's sense, for her opulence was gone,--the +heart's prosperity, in love. And there was a secret burden on her, the +nature of which is best known to you. Young as she was, she had tried +life fully, had no more to hope, and something, perhaps, to fear. Had +Providence taken her away in its own holy hand, I should have thought +it the kindest dispensation that could be awarded to one so wrecked." + +"You mistake the matter completely," rejoined Westervelt. + +"What, then, is your own view of it?" I asked. + +"Her mind was active, and various in its powers," said he. "Her heart +had a manifold adaptation; her constitution an infinite buoyancy, which +(had she possessed only a little patience to await the reflux of her +troubles) would have borne her upward triumphantly for twenty years to +come. Her beauty would not have waned--or scarcely so, and surely not +beyond the reach of art to restore it--in all that time. She had +life's summer all before her, and a hundred varieties of brilliant +success. What an actress Zenobia might have been! It was one of her +least valuable capabilities. How forcibly she might have wrought upon +the world, either directly in her own person, or by her influence upon +some man, or a series of men, of controlling genius! Every prize that +could be worth a woman's having--and many prizes which other women are +too timid to desire--lay within Zenobia's reach." + +"In all this," I observed, "there would have been nothing to satisfy +her heart." + +"Her heart!" answered Westervelt contemptuously. "That troublesome +organ (as she had hitherto found it) would have been kept in its due +place and degree, and have had all the gratification it could fairly +claim. She would soon have established a control over it. Love had +failed her, you say. Had it never failed her before? Yet she survived +it, and loved again,--possibly not once alone, nor twice either. And +now to drown herself for yonder dreamy philanthropist!" + +"Who are you," I exclaimed indignantly, "that dare to speak thus of the +dead? You seem to intend a eulogy, yet leave out whatever was noblest +in her, and blacken while you mean to praise. I have long considered +you as Zenobia's evil fate. Your sentiments confirm me in the idea, +but leave me still ignorant as to the mode in which you have influenced +her life. The connection may have been indissoluble, except by death. +Then, indeed,--always in the hope of God's infinite mercy,--I cannot +deem it a misfortune that she sleeps in yonder grave!" + +"No matter what I was to her," he answered gloomily, yet without actual +emotion. "She is now beyond my reach. Had she lived, and hearkened to +my counsels, we might have served each other well. But there Zenobia +lies in yonder pit, with the dull earth over her. Twenty years of a +brilliant lifetime thrown away for a mere woman's whim!" + +Heaven deal with Westervelt according to his nature and deserts!--that +is to say, annihilate him. He was altogether earthy, worldly, made for +time and its gross objects, and incapable--except by a sort of dim +reflection caught from other minds--of so much as one spiritual idea. +Whatever stain Zenobia had was caught from him; nor does it seldom +happen that a character of admirable qualities loses its better life +because the atmosphere that should sustain it is rendered poisonous by +such breath as this man mingled with Zenobia's. Yet his reflections +possessed their share of truth. It was a woeful thought, that a woman +of Zenobia's diversified capacity should have fancied herself +irretrievably defeated on the broad battlefield of life, and with no +refuge, save to fall on her own sword, merely because Love had gone +against her. It is nonsense, and a miserable wrong,--the result, like +so many others, of masculine egotism,--that the success or failure of +woman's existence should be made to depend wholly on the affections, +and on one species of affection, while man has such a multitude of +other chances, that this seems but an incident. For its own sake, if +it will do no more, the world should throw open all its avenues to the +passport of a woman's bleeding heart. + +As we stood around the grave, I looked often towards Priscilla, +dreading to see her wholly overcome with grief. And deeply grieved, in +truth, she was. But a character so simply constituted as hers has room +only for a single predominant affection. No other feeling can touch +the heart's inmost core, nor do it any deadly mischief. Thus, while we +see that such a being responds to every breeze with tremulous +vibration, and imagine that she must be shattered by the first rude +blast, we find her retaining her equilibrium amid shocks that might +have overthrown many a sturdier frame. So with Priscilla; her one +possible misfortune was Hollingsworth's unkindness; and that was +destined never to befall her, never yet, at least, for Priscilla has +not died. + +But Hollingsworth! After all the evil that he did, are we to leave him +thus, blest with the entire devotion of this one true heart, and with +wealth at his disposal to execute the long-contemplated project that +had led him so far astray? What retribution is there here? My mind +being vexed with precisely this query, I made a journey, some years +since, for the sole purpose of catching a last glimpse of +Hollingsworth, and judging for myself whether he were a happy man or +no. I learned that he inhabited a small cottage, that his way of life +was exceedingly retired, and that my only chance of encountering him or +Priscilla was to meet them in a secluded lane, where, in the latter +part of the afternoon, they were accustomed to walk. I did meet them, +accordingly. As they approached me, I observed in Hollingsworth's face +a depressed and melancholy look, that seemed habitual; the powerfully +built man showed a self-distrustful weakness, and a childlike or +childish tendency to press close, and closer still, to the side of the +slender woman whose arm was within his. In Priscilla's manner there +was a protective and watchful quality, as if she felt herself the +guardian of her companion; but, likewise, a deep, submissive, +unquestioning reverence, and also a veiled happiness in her fair and +quiet countenance. + +Drawing nearer, Priscilla recognized me, and gave me a kind and +friendly smile, but with a slight gesture, which I could not help +interpreting as an entreaty not to make myself known to Hollingsworth. +Nevertheless, an impulse took possession of me, and compelled me to +address him. + +"I have come, Hollingsworth," said I, "to view your grand edifice for +the reformation of criminals. Is it finished yet?" + +"No, nor begun," answered he, without raising his eyes. "A very small +one answers all my purposes." + +Priscilla threw me an upbraiding glance. But I spoke again, with a +bitter and revengeful emotion, as if flinging a poisoned arrow at +Hollingsworth's heart. + +"Up to this moment," I inquired, "how many criminals have you reformed?" + +"Not one," said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the ground. +"Ever since we parted, I have been busy with a single murderer." + +Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave him; for I remembered +the wild energy, the passionate shriek, with which Zenobia had spoken +those words, "Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that I'll haunt +him!"--and I knew what murderer he meant, and whose vindictive shadow +dogged the side where Priscilla was not. + +The moral which presents itself to my reflections, as drawn from +Hollingsworth's character and errors, is simply this, that, admitting +what is called philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often +useful by its energetic impulse to society at large, it is perilous to +the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive channel, it thus +becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the heart, the rich +juices of which God never meant should be pressed violently out and +distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural process, but should +render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, and insensibly +influence other hearts and other lives to the same blessed end. I see +in Hollingsworth an exemplification of the most awful truth in Bunyan's +book of such, from the very gate of heaven there is a by-way to the pit! + +But, all this while, we have been standing by Zenobia's grave. I have +never since beheld it, but make no question that the grass grew all the +better, on that little parallelogram of pasture land, for the decay of +the beautiful woman who slept beneath. How Nature seems to love us! +And how readily, nevertheless, without a sigh or a complaint, she +converts us to a meaner purpose, when her highest one--that of a +conscious intellectual life and sensibility has been untimely balked! +While Zenobia lived, Nature was proud of her, and directed all eyes +upon that radiant presence, as her fairest handiwork. Zenobia +perished. Will not Nature shed a tear? Ah, no!--she adopts the +calamity at once into her system, and is just as well pleased, for +aught we can see, with the tuft of ranker vegetation that grew out of +Zenobia's heart, as with all the beauty which has bequeathed us no +earthly representative except in this crop of weeds. It is because the +spirit is inestimable that the lifeless body is so little valued. + + + +XXIX. MILES COVERDALE'S CONFESSION + +It remains only to say a few words about myself. Not improbably, the +reader might be willing to spare me the trouble; for I have made but a +poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no separate +interest, and suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other +lives. But one still retains some little consideration for one's self; +so I keep these last two or three pages for my individual and sole +behoof. + +But what, after all, have I to tell? Nothing, nothing, nothing! I +left Blithedale within the week after Zenobia's death, and went back +thither no more. The whole soil of our farm, for a long time +afterwards, seemed but the sodded earth over her grave. I could not +toil there, nor live upon its products. Often, however, in these years +that are darkening around me, I remember our beautiful scheme of a +noble and unselfish life; and how fair, in that first summer, appeared +the prospect that it might endure for generations, and be perfected, as +the ages rolled away, into the system of a people and a world! Were my +former associates now there,--were there only three or four of those +true-hearted men still laboring in the sun,--I sometimes fancy that I +should direct my world-weary footsteps thitherward, and entreat them to +receive me, for old friendship's sake. More and more I feel that we +had struck upon what ought to be a truth. Posterity may dig it up, and +profit by it. The experiment, so far as its original projectors were +concerned, proved, long ago, a failure; first lapsing into Fourierism, +and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher +spirit. Where once we toiled with our whole hopeful hearts, the town +paupers, aged, nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly afield. +Alas, what faith is requisite to bear up against such results of +generous effort! + +My subsequent life has passed,--I was going to say happily, but, at all +events, tolerably enough. I am now at middle age, well, well, a step +or two beyond the midmost point, and I care not a fig who knows it!--a +bachelor, with no very decided purpose of ever being otherwise. I have +been twice to Europe, and spent a year or two rather agreeably at each +visit. Being well to do in the world, and having nobody but myself to +care for, I live very much at my ease, and fare sumptuously every day. +As for poetry, I have given it up, notwithstanding that Dr. +Griswold--as the reader, of course, knows--has placed me at a fair +elevation among our minor minstrelsy, on the strength of my pretty +little volume, published ten years ago. As regards human progress (in +spite of my irrepressible yearnings over the Blithedale reminiscences), +let them believe in it who can, and aid in it who choose. If I could +earnestly do either, it might be all the better for my comfort. As +Hollingsworth once told me, I lack a purpose. How strange! He was +ruined, morally, by an overplus of the very same ingredient, the want +of which, I occasionally suspect, has rendered my own life all an +emptiness. I by no means wish to die. Yet, were there any cause, in +this whole chaos of human struggle, worth a sane man's dying for, and +which my death would benefit, then--provided, however, the effort did +not involve an unreasonable amount of trouble--methinks I might be bold +to offer up my life. If Kossuth, for example, would pitch the +battlefield of Hungarian rights within an easy ride of my abode, and +choose a mild, sunny morning, after breakfast, for the conflict, Miles +Coverdale would gladly be his man, for one brave rush upon the levelled +bayonets. Further than that, I should be loath to pledge myself. + +I exaggerate my own defects. The reader must not take my own word for +it, nor believe me altogether changed from the young man who once hoped +strenuously, and struggled not so much amiss. Frostier heads than mine +have gained honor in the world; frostier hearts have imbibed new +warmth, and been newly happy. Life, however, it must be owned, has +come to rather an idle pass with me. Would my friends like to know +what brought it thither? There is one secret,--I have concealed it all +along, and never meant to let the least whisper of it escape,--one +foolish little secret, which possibly may have had something to do with +these inactive years of meridian manhood, with my bachelorship, with +the unsatisfied retrospect that I fling back on life, and my listless +glance towards the future. Shall I reveal it? It is an absurd thing +for a man in his afternoon,--a man of the world, moreover, with these +three white hairs in his brown mustache and that deepening track of a +crow's-foot on each temple,--an absurd thing ever to have happened, and +quite the absurdest for an old bachelor, like me, to talk about. But +it rises to my throat; so let it come. + +I perceive, moreover, that the confession, brief as it shall be, will +throw a gleam of light over my behavior throughout the foregoing +incidents, and is, indeed, essential to the full understanding of my +story. The reader, therefore, since I have disclosed so much, is +entitled to this one word more. As I write it, he will charitably +suppose me to blush, and turn away my face: + +I--I myself--was in love--with--Priscilla! + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Blithedale Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 2081.txt or 2081.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/8/2081/ + +Produced by Michael Pullen and Tom Gannett. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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