Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Blithedale Romance
Preface
In the »Blithedale« of this volume many readers will probably suspect a faint
and not very faithful shadowing of BROOK FARM in Roxbury which now a little
more than ten years ago was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists
The Author does not wish to deny that he had this Community in his mind and
that having had the good fortune for a time to be personally connected with
it he has occasionally availed himself of his actual reminiscences in the hope
of giving a more lifelike tint to the fancysketch in the following pages He
begs it to be understood however that he has considered the Institution itself
as not less fairly the subject of fictitious handling than the imaginary
personages whom he has introduced there His whole treatment of the affair is
altogether incidental to the main purpose of the Romance nor does he put
forward the slightest pretensions to illustrate a theory or elicit a
conclusion favorable or otherwise in respect to Socialism
In short his present concern with the Socialist Community is merely to
establish a theatre a little removed from the highway of ordinary travel where
the creatures of his brain may play their phantasmagorical antics without
exposing them to too close a comparison with the actual events of real lives In
the old countries with which Fiction has long been conversant a certain
conventional privilege seems to be awarded to the romancer his work is not put
exactly side by side with nature and he is allowed a license with regard to
everyday Probability in view of the improved effects which he is bound to
produce thereby Among ourselves on the contrary there is as yet no such Faery
Land so like the real world that in a suitable remoteness one cannot well
tell the difference but with an atmosphere of strange enchantment beheld
through which the inhabitants have a propriety of their own This atmosphere is
what the American romancer needs In its absence the beings of imagination are
compelled to show themselves in the same category as actually living mortals a
necessity that generally renders the paint and pasteboard of their composition
but too painfully discernible With the idea of partially obviating this
difficulty the sense of which has always pressed very heavily upon him the
Author has ventured to make free with his old and affectionately remembered
home at BROOK FARM as being certainly the most romantic episode of his own
life essentially a daydream and yet a fact and thus offering an available
foothold between fiction and reality Furthermore the scene was in good keeping
with the personages whom he desired to introduce
These characters he feels it right to say are entirely fictitious It
would indeed considering how few amiable qualities he distributes among his
imaginary progeny be a most grievous wrong to his former excellent associates
were the Auther to allow it to be supposed that he has been sketching any of
their likenesses Had he attempted it they would at least have recognized the
touches of a friendly pencil But he has done nothing of the kind The
selfconcentrated Philanthropist the highspirited Woman bruising herself
against the narrow limitations of her sex the weakly Maiden whose tremulous
nerves endow her with Sibylline attributes the Minor Poet beginning life with
strenuous aspirations which die out with his youthful fervor all these might
have been looked for at BROOK FARM but by some accident never made their
appearance there
The Author cannot close his reference to this subject without expressing a
most earnest wish that some one of the many cultivated and philosophic minds
which took an interest in that enterprise might now give the world its history
Ripley with whom rests the honorable paternity of the Institution Dana
Dwight Channing Burton Parker for instance with others whom he dares not
name because they veil themselves from the public eye among these is the
ability to convey both the outward narrative and the inner truth and spirit of
the whole affair together with the lessons which those years of thought and
toil must have elaborated for the behoof of future experimentalists Even the
brilliant Howadji might find as rich a theme in his youthful reminiscenses of
BROOK FARM and a more novel one close at hand as it lies than those which
he has since made so distant a pilgrimage to seek in Syria and along the
current of the Nile
CONCORD Mass May 1852
I Old Moodie
The evening before my departure for Blithedale I was returning to my
bachelorapartments after attending the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled
Lady when an elderlyman of rather shabby appearance met me in an obscure part
of the street
»Mr Coverdale« said he softly »can I speak with you a moment«
As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady it may not be amiss to
mention for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with her now
forgotten celebrity that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric line one of the
earliest that had indicated the birth of a new science or the revival of an old
humbug Since those times her sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract
much individual notice nor in fact has any one of them ever come before the
public under such skilfully contrived circumstances of stageeffect 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 Ladys prophetic solution a query as to the success of our Blithedale
enterprise The response bytheby 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 abovementioned 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 redtipt nose and the patch over
one eye and likewise saw something characteristic in the old fellows 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 tomorrow 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 dont 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 ladys 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 tomorrow 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 womens rights or what else can have interested you in this lady
Zenobia bytheby 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 tonight 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
tomorrowmorning before you set out for Blithedale I wish you a goodnight
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 moustache 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 woodfire 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 recreate 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
fingerends The staunch oakenlogs 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
Eves bower than might be seen in the snowhut 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 brickblock each house partaking of the warmth of all the rest
besides the sultriness of its individual furnaceheat But towards noon there
had come snow driven along the street by a northeasterly blast and whitening
the roofs and sidewalks with a businesslike 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
cigarsmoke I quitted my cosey pair of bachelorrooms with a good fire
burning in the grate and a closet right at hand where there was still a bottle
or two in the champagnebasket and a residuum of claret in a box and somewhat
of proof in the concavity of a big demijohn 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 ones 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 ones 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 worlds 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 cityclocks 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 citysmoke and alighting on the sidewalk only to be
moulded into the impress of somebodys 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 hooftramps beat upon a
desolate extent of countryroad 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 countryair«
»Ah Coverdale dont 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
stonefences that were halfburied in the wavelike drifts and through patches
of woodland where the treetrunks opposed a snowencrusted side towards the
northeast and within ken of deserted villas with no footprints in their
avenues and past 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 snowspray 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
travellers 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 journeys end we professed ourselves almost loth to bid the rude blusterer
good bye 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 oaktree 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 coalgrate I felt so much the more that we had transported ourselves
a worldwide distance from the system of society that shackled us at
breakfasttime
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 magazinesignature and as it accorded well with something
imperial which her friends attributed to this ladys figure and deportment
they halflaughingly 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 wildbirds twittering through it or a strain like the windanthems 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 Zenobias 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 drygoods 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 goodfortune 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 Zenobias 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 Zenobias 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 Zenobias 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 fingertips
»I am the firstcomer« Zenobia went on to say while her smile beamed
warmth upon us all »so I take the part of hostess for today 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 womans
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 Byandby 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 dinnerpot and no clothes to mend and no washingday«
»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 today Would you like a
breadfruit 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 Mayday«
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 Eves earliest garment I almost fancied myself actually beholding
it 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 Zenobias noble courage conscious of no harm and scorning the petty
restraints which take the life and color out of other womens 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 Adams suppertable 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 breadandmilk too if the innocence of your taste
demands it«
The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations utterly
declining our offers to assist farther than by bringing wood for the
kitchenfire from a huge pile in the backyard After heaping up more than a
sufficient quantity we returned to the sittingroom drew our chairs closer 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
grislybearded 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 tobaccobox pulled off his
wet cowhide boots and sat down before the fire in his stockingfeet The steam
arose from his soaked garments so that the stout yeoman looked vaporous and
spectrelike
»Well folks« remarked Silas »youll 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 stept 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 mans
great burthen 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 worlds 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 halfadozen 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 marketgardening« said Silas Foster
»unless the womenfolks will undertake to do all the weeding We havent team
enough for that and the regular farmwork reckoning three of you cityfolks as
worth one common fieldhand No no I tell you we should have to get up a
little too early in the morning to compete with the marketgardeners round
Boston«
It struck me as rather odd that one of the first questions raised after
our separation from the greedy struggling selfseeking 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 kitchenfire she flung it on the floor as unconcernedly as a
villagegirl 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 grownup men and women were making a playday 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 suppertable was spread
IV The SupperTable
The pleasant firelight I must still keep harping on it
The kitchenhearth had an oldfashioned breadth depth and spaciousness
far within which lay what seemed the butt of a goodsized oaktree with the
moisture bubbling merrily out of both ends It was now halfanhour beyond dusk
The blaze from an armfull of substantial sticks rendered more combustible by
brushwood and pine flickered powerfully on the smokeblackened 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 woodmarket 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 Vulcans 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 worlds
workingpeople except yourselves will find in their cups tonight After this
one supper you may drink buttermilk if you please Tonight we will quaff
this nectar which I assure you could not be bought with gold«
We all sat down grisly 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 tonight and in earthen company it
was at our own option to use pictured porcelain and handle silver forks again
tomorrow 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 fellowmortal 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 cobblers bench or clinked my hoe against his own in the cornfield
or broke the same crust of bread my earthgrimed 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
Zenobias 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
windowpanes cannot fail to cheer the hearts of all that look at them Are they
not warm and bright with the beaconfire 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 housedoor
»There is one of the worlds wayfarers« said I
»Aye aye 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 cityfolk 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 doorpanel
»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 dont know« answered Hollingsworth looking at me with some
surprise »It is a young person who belongs here however and no doubt she
has been expected Zenobia or some of the womenfolks can tell you all about
it«
»I think not« said I glancing towards the newcomer 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 »Well make it right«
The stranger or whatever she were remained standing precisely on that spot
of the kitchenfloor to which Hollingsworths 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 flowershrub 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 firelighted wall In
short there has seldom been seen so depressed and sad a figure as this young
girls 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 windowpanes 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 Hollingsworths
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
drooped down upon her knees clasped her hands and gazed piteously into
Zenobias 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 stept forward
»No wonder if the poor childs 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«
Hollingsworths 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 Zenobias 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 protégée 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 freeheartedness 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 Hollingsworths behavior was certainly a great deal more
creditable than mine
»Let us not pry farther 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 suppertable
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 knifeblade and dropping half of it on the
tablecloth using the same serviceable implement to cut slice after slice of
ham perpetrating terrible enormities with the butterplate 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 waterpitcher 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 firstrate
bacon« said Silas like a sensible man as he was »Thats what she wants Let
her stay with us as long as she likes and help in the kitchen and take the
cowbreath at milkingtime and in a week or two shell 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 kitchenfire with a lapstone a hammer
a piece of soleleather 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 shoemakingbusiness We heard the tap of his
hammer at intervals for the rest of the evening The remainder of the party
adjourned to the sittingroom Good Mrs Foster took her knittingwork 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 Sundays
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 Zenobias protection She sat beside
her on a stool looking up every now and then with an expression of humble
delight at her new friends 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
Priscillas behavior except by supposing that she had read some of Zenobias
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
selfforgetful affection
Zenobia happening to change her seat I took the opportunity in an under
tone 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
snowmaiden who precisely at the stroke of midnight shall melt away at my
feet in a pool of icecold 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
salamanderstove in a small close room and has drunk coffee and fed upon
doughnuts raisins candy and all such trash till she is scarcely halfalive
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 Zenobias 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 illnatured 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
ones 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 dont mean to be guilty of it«
She went towards Priscilla took her hand and passed her own rosy
fingertips with a pretty caressing movement over the girls 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 workbag 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 Priscillas 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 Zenobias 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
oilandhoney flow which the aborigines were so often happy in communicating to
their local appellations but it chanced to be a harsh illconnected 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
awhile 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 sandwaste 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
Saharah 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 littler sphere of warmth and light in which we were the prattlers and
bustlers of a moment Byandby the door was opened by Silas Foster with a
cotton handkerchief about his head and a tallow candle in his hand
»Take my advice brotherfarmers« 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 weve 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 Siseras brain while
innumerable other ideas go and come and flutter toandfro combining constant
transition with intolerable sameness Had I made a record of that nights
halfwaking 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 Coverdales SickChamber
The horn sounded at daybreak as Silas Foster had forewarned us harsh
uproarious inexorably drawn out and as sleepdispelling as if this
hardhearted 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 chamberdoor 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 sleepingroom 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 a 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 hothouse warmth
of a townresidence 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 halfacentury 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 commonsense had I to do with any better society than
I had always lived in It had satisfied me well enough My pleasant
bachelorparlor sunny and shadowy curtained and carpeted with the bedchamber
adjoining my centretable strewn with books and periodicals my writingdesk
with a halffinished poem in a stanza of my own contrivance my morning lounge
at the readingroom or picturegallery 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 Frances kitchen my evening at the
billiardclub the concert the theatre or at somebodys 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 saltbeef and earn it with the sweat of my
brow and thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretchs 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 breakfasttime when Hollingsworth knocked at the
door and entered
»Well Coverdale« cried he »you bid fair to make an admirable farmer
Dont you mean to get up to
»Neither today nor tomorrow« 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 homeopathic gave me as much medicine in the course of a
fortnights attendance as would have lain on the point of a needle They fed me
on watergruel and I speedily became a skeleton above ground But after all I
have many precious recollections connected with that fit of sickness
Hollingsworths 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
faulter 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 downsinkings 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 fellowcreatures to
draw peaceful dyingbreaths«
»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 Gods 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
stumporatress 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
faintheartedness 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 fleshwarmth 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 hothouse 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 Zenobias
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 tomorrow 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
Zenobias 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 lifes richest gifts to bring If the great event of a womans
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 subtle 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 selfdefensive energy Zenobias 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 maidenlike 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 eyeshot
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 womans 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 plummetline 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 pinesmoke upon it
like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a witchs 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 citymissionaries containing a certificate of character and an
allusion to circumstances which in the writers 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 passageway by her new friends side and pausing
while Zenobia entered my chamber Occasionally Zenobia would be a little
annoyed by Priscillas 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 Priscillas
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
chamberdoor I immediately said »Come in Priscilla« with an acute sense
of the applicants identity Nor was I deceived It was really Priscilla a
pale largeeyed 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 snowwhite
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 postoffice 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 Emersons
Essays the Dial Carlyles works George Sands 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
advanceguard 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 bivouâc was considerably farther into the
waste of chaos than any mortal army of crusaders had ever marched before
Fouriers 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 Fouriers time
He calls it limonade à cèdre It is positively a fact Just imagine the
citydocks filled every day with a floodtide of this delectable beverage«
»Why did not the Frenchman make punch of it at once« asked Hollingsworth
»The jacktars 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 Fouriers system illustrating them with here and there a page or two and
asking Hollingsworths 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 mans 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 masterworkman 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
Fouriers countrymen I cannot but wonder that universal France did not adopt
his theory at a moments warning But is there not something very
characteristic of his nation in Fouriers 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 illwill towards
Fourier but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to Hollingsworths image
»bellowing for the least drop of his beloved limonade à cèdre«
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
Hollingsworths 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 byandby 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 bondslave 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 Hollingsworths 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 Hollingsworths 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 façade the sideview 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
hayingtime Unlike all other ghosts his spirit haunted an edifice which
instead of being timeworn 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
sickchamber »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 lifelong 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
Mayday I forget whether by Zenobias sole decree or by the unanimous vote of
our Community had been declared a moveable festival It was deferred until the
sun should have had a reasonable time to clear away the snowdrifts along the
lee of the stonewalls and bring out a few of the readiest wildflowers 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 sittingroom and finding nobody there
proceeded to the barn whence I had already heard Zenobias 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 amaying together They had found anemones in abundance
houstonias by the handfull some columbines a few longstalked violets and a
quantity of white everlastingflowers and had filled up their basket with the
delicate spray of shrubs and trees None were prettier than the mapletwigs the
leaf of which looks like a scarletbud in May and like a plate of vegetable
gold in October Zenobia who showed no conscience in such matters had also
rifled a cherrytree 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 frostnipt 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 Zenobias 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 ones 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 Maymorning but with limbs too little exercised
to be quite responsive she clapt 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 mens names which Milton tells about«
From whatever cause Priscillas 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 lowarched 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 noontime 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 burthen of its mortality in an earthly 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 Fouriers 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 manycolored
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 stronglylined faces were among them
sombre brows but eyes that did not require spectacles unless prematurely
dimmed by the students 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 ones 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 faggot 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 farther 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 broadskirted or swallowtailed and with the
waist at every point between the hip and armpit pantaloons of a dozen
successive epochs and greatly defaced at the knees by the humiliations of the
wearer before his ladylove 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 Grubstreet intent on getting a
comfortable livelihood by agricultural labor or Coleridges projected
Pantisocracy in full experiment or Candide and his motley associates at work
in their cabbagegarden or anything else that was miserably out at elbows and
most clumsily patched in the rear We might have been sworn comrades to
Falstaffs ragged regiment Little skill as we boasted in other points of
husbandry every mothers 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 linseywoolsey 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 womenfolks
After a reasonable training the yeomanlife 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 hayfork grew
familiar to our grasp The oxen responded to our voices We could do almost as
fair a days 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 breakfasttime
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
milkingtime 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
flyflappers 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
haycutter 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 agriculturalists 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 faroff 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 days work
»I am afraid you did not make a song today while loading the haycart«
said she »as Burns did when he was reaping barley«
»Burns never made a song in hayingtime« 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 minds 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
soleleather and his joints of rusty iron which all through summer keep the
stiffness of what he calls his winters rheumatize and his brain of I dont
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 saltbeef 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 tinpan of water at the doorstep and teasing your hair with a wooden
pocketcomb before a sevenbynineinch lookingglass 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 Silass only mode of solacing
himself with the weed«
»Your literature« continued Zenobia apparently delighted with her
description »will be the Farmers 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 stonewalls and railfences 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 today 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 fancywork out of a man and leaves nothing but
what truly belongs to him If a farmer can make poetry at the ploughtail it
must be because his nature insists on it and if that be the case let him make
it in Heavens 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 ones 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 straight path They have
an idol to which they consecrate themselves highpriest 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 alldevouring 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 Makers
own truest image a philanthropic man not that steel engine of the Devils
contrivance a philanthropist« But in my woodwalks 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 heros eyes into the girls or womans
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 childs play
Had I been as coldhearted 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 womans soul and frame Yesterday
her cheek was pale today it had a bloom Priscillas smile like a babys
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 outofdoors
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
untameable and regardless of rule and limit with an evershifting 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 Priscillas peculiar charm in a
footrace 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 faulteringly 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 ones eyes and
lingered in the memory after far greater joys and sorrows were swept out of it
as antiquated trash Priscillas 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 Priscillas 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
Priscillas waist swinging her toandfro and finally depositing her on one of
the oxen to take her first lesson 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 pitcher into the well and except with her needle and those
little wooden instruments for pursemaking 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 plumcake 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 Priscillas gaiety moreover was of a nature that showed
me how delicate an instrument she was and what fragile harpstrings 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
Goldsmiths old folks under the village thorntree 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 today 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 Ones own likeness in the innermost holiest niche Ah I dont
know It may not be there at all It may be a dusty image thrust aside into a
corner and byandby to be flung outofdoors where any foot may trample upon
it If not today then tomorrow 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 dont 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 tonight 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 Hollingsworths
feet entirely contented and happy What charm was there in his rude
massiveness that so attracted and soothed this shadowlike girl It appeared to
me who have always been curious in such matters that Priscillas 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 virginlike 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 were 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 maidenaunt Every day I shall give you a lecture a
quarterofanhour 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 lovers bowl of wine or her rivals 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
Zenobias influence as a woman No doubt however he had a still more exquisite
enjoyment of Priscillas 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 girls heart which he held in his hand and smelled to 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 Zenobias passionate force and his dark selfdelusive 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 woodpaths
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 these rumors to Hollingsworth in a playful way
»Had you consulted me« I went on to observe »I should have recommended a
site further 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 cottagearchitecture 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 oclock 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 bytheby 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 days toil it was absolutely funny therefore to observe what a glory
was shed about our life and labors in the imagination of these longing
proselytes In their view we were as poetical as Arcadians besides being as
practical as the hardestfisted 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 cowyards
and pigsties were as delightfully fragrant as a flowergarden 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 illdirected 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 proselytes moistened shirtcollar with a quarterofanhours 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 frockcoat faded towards a brown hue and wore a
broadbrimmed 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 worlds 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 fullfront 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 mans 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
molassesandwater would that it had been brandy or something 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 peoples individualities as my custom was I tried to
identify my mind with the old fellows and take his view of the world as if
looking through a smokeblackened 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 brimfull 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 heatvapor 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
Moodies 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 wintry 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 dont think it well
for me to go any further 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 Ill 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 complaisantly 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 Hollingsworths offhand 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
overexulting 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 byandby
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 WoodPath
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
breakfasttime till twilight in the deepest woodseclusion 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 farther
withdrawal towards the inner circle of selfcommunion 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
woodpath arched overhead with boughs and dusky brown beneath my feet
At first I walked very swiftly as if the heavy floodtide 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 sideaisle 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
longsought 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 soapbubble
»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 brothermortal 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 dogkennel 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 chiphat on my head and a rough hickorystick 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 Æsthetic 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
welldeveloped 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 forthputting 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 moustache was coalblack his eyes too
were black and sparkling and his teeth remarkably brilliant He was rather
carelessly but well and fashionably dressed in a summermorning costume There
was a gold chain exquisitely wrought across his vest I never saw a smoother
or whiter gloss than that upon his shirtbosom 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 wellordered 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 Zenobias
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
houses 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 morningcall 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 riverside 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 Zenobias 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 strangers 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
crossgrained wellmeaning 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 illfavored personage not particularly wellcalculated 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
Hollingsworths 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 removeable 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
Byandby 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
woodpath 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 Zenobias protection Old
Moodies visit it appeared was chiefly to ascertain whether this object had
been accomplished And here today 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 baulked I lingered in
the vicinity of the farm with perhaps a vague idea that some new event would
grow out of Westervelts 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 stagemanagers 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 longbrooding 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 Zenobias customary walk yet not so remote but
that a recognized occasion might speedily have brought me thither
XII Coverdales 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 whitepine 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
pinebranches 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 vineleaves 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 aircurrents 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 owllike yet not without liberal and hospitable
thoughts I counted the innumerable clusters of my vine and forereckoned 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 burthen 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 pinetree 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 winters fuel On the interior
cartroad 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 baulked philanthropist had the battlespirit in
his heart
»Haw Buck« quoth he »Come along there ye lazy ones What are ye about
now Gee«
»Mankind in Hollingsworths 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 byandby 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 Zenobias window
and making little purses I suppose or perhaps mending the Communitys 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
Hollingsworths 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 fancywork 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 thousandfold 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 mans influence the
sceptical and sneering view which just now had filled my mental vision in
regard to all lifes 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 Zenobias 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 Professors 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 Zenobias 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
strangers 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 Zenobias 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 womans manifold
absurdity which men can never understand How many a womans 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 there 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 Zenobias 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 listeners presence by
flinging down a handful of unripe grapes or by sending an unearthly groan out
of my hidingplace as if this were one of the trees of Dantes 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
Zenobias utterance was so hasty and broken and Westervelts 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 Zenobias subsequent
exclamation give me any clue 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 abovewritten 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 earshot 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
Zenobias 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 Zenobias 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 Shakspeare 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 manycolored 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 moments 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 anothers
realities that we cannot remove ourselves at pleasure into an imaginary
sphere Let us have no more pictures tonight 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 ghoststory if you
please«
»No not exactly a ghoststory« 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 tonight«
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 candlelight image of ones 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 abovementioned fable could not hold its ground against
Theodores 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 Medusas 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 bytheby 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 commonsense 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 withdrawingroom 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 Theodores 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 mans 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 beholders 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 rather 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 booncompanions over
their sparkling wine
Very strange it must be confessed was the movement with which the figure
floated toandfro 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 byandby 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 mans presence And if so
did the Veiled Lady seek or did she shun him The doubt in Theodores 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 wineflush 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 mans 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
mayst 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 Ladys 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 monsters 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 mans 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 lifelong 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 rosebloom 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 friends 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 uprose 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 bondslave forever more
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 Priscillas 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 Zenobias to bring her
legend to so effective a conclusion
XIV Eliots 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 weekday yoke roamed at large through the pasture each
yokefellow 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 yokefellows
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 villagechurch Others it may be ascended a city
or a countrypulpit wearing the clerical robe with so much dignity that you
would scarcely have suspected the yeomans frock to have been flung off only
since milkingtime Others took long rambles among the rustic lanes and
bypaths 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 toandfro 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 humblebees and musquitoes sung and buzzed about
their ears causing the slumberers to twitch and start without awakening
With Hollingsworth Zenobia Priscilla and myself it grew to be a custom
to spend the Sabbathafternoon at a certain rock It was known to us under the
name of Eliots pulpit from a tradition that the venerable Apostle Eliot had
preached there two centuries gone by to an Indian auditory The old
pineforest through which the Apostles 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 greatgreatgreatgreat grandson of one of
Eliots Indians had any such posterity been in existence could have desired
for the site and shelter of his wigwam These aftergrowths 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 darkbrowed pines
The rock itself rose some twenty or thirty feet a shattered granite
boulder or heap of boulders 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 boulders 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 birchtree which served as
a soundingboard 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 halfperceptible glow of a
transfiguration
I the more minutely describe the rock and this little Sabbath solitude
because Hollingsworth at our solicitation often ascended Eliots pulpit and
not exactly preached but talked to us his few disciples in a strain that
rose and fell as naturally as the winds breath among the leaves of the
birchtree 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 Zenobias 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 Eliots 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 womans 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 Zenobias 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 womanruler«
»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 womans 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
mans side Her office that of the Sympathizer the unreserved unquestioning
Believer the Recognition withheld in every other manner but given in pity
through womans heart lest man should utterly lose faith in himself the Echo
of Gods 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 womans taking
the social stand which some of them poor miserable abortive creatures who
only dream of such things because they have missed womans 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 unmistakeable
evidence of sovereignty to scourge them back within their proper bounds But it
will not be needful The heart of true 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 behoved 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
illluck 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
woodpaths 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 birchtree 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 Zenobias 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 abovedescribed Yet at that instant I saw her
droop The buoyancy which just before had been so birdlike 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 fading 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 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 stagedeclamation Were they formed of
a material lighter than common air Or supposing them to bear sterling weight
was it not 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
pastureland 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
abidingplace 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 woodside 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 fathomdeep 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
Eliots pulpit while he and I were repairing an old stonefence 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 Zenobias
beauty and Priscillas 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 ninetenths 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 spickandspan novelty does not quite suit my taste It is time too for
children to be born among us The firstborn 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
Deaths gardenground 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 halfmelancholy 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 everyday 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 commonsense«
»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 Statestreet I imagine
would not draw its pursestrings 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 loth 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 nor 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 selfdevotion 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 halfoccupied 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
Hollingsworths 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 Heavens 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
heartpang 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 stonefence
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 LeaveTakings
A few days after the tragic passageatarms between Hollingsworth and me I
appeared at the dinnertable 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
»Whats 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
dogdays«
»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 heres a pretty fellow His shoulders have broadened a matter of six
inches since he came among us he can do his days 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 platefull
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
blacksmiths 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
Cattleshow 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 bassnote which you do not separately distinguish but
nowandthen 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 everybodys 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
pilgrimstaff 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 deathgrip on one
or two ideas which had not come into vogue since yesterdaymorning
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
wateringplaces your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on the rights of
women«
»Women possess no rights« said Zenobia with a halfmelancholy 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
bosomsecrets of a tragedyqueen«
»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 persons 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 straightbodied 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 selfpossession 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 tomorrow 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 bye Priscilla«
I gave her hand a pressure which I think she neither resisted nor
returned Priscillas 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 corpselike 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 leavetakings induced me to go to the pigstye 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 lifemachinery 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 sparerib« 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«
»Oh 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 bachelorrooms 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 hotelkeeper put me
into a backroom of the third story of his spacious establishment The day was
lowering with occasional gusts of rain and an uglytempered eastwind 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
citysmoke All the effeminacy of past days had returned upon me at once Summer
as it still was I ordered a coalfire 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 mosaicwork 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 coalfire 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 barkeeper 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
citysoldiery with a full military band marched in front of the hotel
invisible to me but stirringly audible both by its foottramp and the clangor
of its instruments Once or twice all the citybells jangled together
announcing a fire which brought out the enginemen 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 birchtrees that overshadowed Eliots
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 rockingchair 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 rockingchair 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
spitefullooking raindrops on the windowpane In that ebbtide 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 grassplots and here and there an apology
for a garden pertaining severally to these dwellings There were appletrees
and pear and peachtrees 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 buttonwoodtree It aspired
upward high above the roof 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 all the privileges of forestlife in this close
heart of cityconventionalisms 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 buttonwoodtree with murderous purpose against its feathered
citizens But after all they were birds of citybreeding 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 longestablished 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
worlds eye and is therefore a veil and a concealment Realities keep in the
rear and put forward an advanceguard 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
steambreath 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 fruittrees the grapevines the buttonwoodtree 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 upperstory 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 toypeople 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 welldefined
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 bordered 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 sherrycobbler
»Can you tell me« I inquired »what families reside in any of those houses
opposite«
»The one right opposite is a rather stylish boardinghouse« said the
waiter »Two of the gentlemenboarders 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
dressinggown standing before the glass and brushing his hair for a
quarterofanhour together He then spent an equal space of time in the
elaborate arrangement of his cravat and finally made his appearance in a
dresscoat which I suspected to be newly come from the tailors and now first
put on for a dinnerparty At a window of the next story below two children
prettily dressed were looking out Byandby a middleaged gentleman came
softly behind them kissed the little girl and playfully pulled the little
boys ear It was a papa no doubt just come in from his countingroom 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 boardinghouse I will pay them a little more
attention byandby«
On the first floor an iron balustrade ran along in front of the tall and
spacious windows evidently belonging to a back drawingroom and far into the
interior through the arch of the slidingdoors 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
boardinghouse 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 kitchenrange the hot cook or one of her
subordinates with a ladle in her hand came to draw a cool breath at the
backdoor as soon as she disappeared an Irish manservant in a white jacket
crept slily forth and threw away the fragments of a chinadish 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 boardinghouse made a momentary
transit across the kitchenwindow 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 dormerwindows 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 dovecote 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 windowsill 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 BoardingHouse
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 dormerwindow
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 Fosters 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
toandfro 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
chamberwindow 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 commonsense 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 pulpitrock how cheerless in such a day my
hermitage the treesolitude of my owllike humors in the vineencircled
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 peoples
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
today 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
dresscoat was invisible the two children in the story below seemed to be
romping about the room under the superintendence of a nurserymaid The damask
curtains of the drawingroom 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 drawingroom gave
light to what was probably a small boudoir within which I caught the faintest
imaginable glimpse of a girls 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 drawingroom There was a
presentiment in my mind or perhaps my first glance imperfect and sidelong as
it was had sufficed to convey subtle 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 fulllength picture in
the space between the heavy festoons of the windowcurtains 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 morningdress 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 Zenobias
footsteps
I waited for her reappearance It was one peculiarity distinguishing
Zenobia from most of her sex that she needed for her moral wellbeing 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 drawingrooms
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 slidingdoors 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 woodpath the man who
had passed side by side with her in such mysterious familiarity and
estrangement beneath my vinecurtained hermitage in the tall pinetree 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 heartsickness 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 Hollingsworths
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
Zenobias 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 eyes 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 drawingroom became visible They were now a
little withdrawn from the window face to face and as I could see by Zenobias
emphatic gestures were discussing some subject in which she at least felt a
passionate concern Byandby 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 goldbordered 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 Devils signet on the Professor
This man as I had soon reason to know was endowed with a catlike
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 drawingroom 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 flightshot
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 an 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 dropcurtain 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 atticwindow
XIX Zenobias DrawingRoom
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 Zenobias 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 rockingchair 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 churchspire indicated a change of wind
the sun shone dimly out as if the golden wine of its beams were mingled
halfandhalf 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 chimneytops 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 Zenobias drawingroom The shadow of a
passing figure was nowandthen 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
drawingroom 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 lifelong 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 Zenobias character although heretofore I
had known nothing of her skill upon the instrument Two or three canarybirds
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
drawingroom 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 windowcurtain«
»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 Zenobias 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
jewellers 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 Eliots pulpit
with Hollingsworth extended on the fallen leaves and Priscilla at his feet Can
it be Zenobia that you ever really numbered yourself with our little band of
earnest thoughtful philanthropic laborers«
»Those ideas have their time and place« she answered coldly »But I
fancy it must be a very circumscribed mind that can find room for no others«
Her manner bewildered me Literally moreover I was dazzled by the
brilliancy of the room A chandelier hung down in the centre glowing with I
know not how many lights there were separate lamps also on two or three
tables and on marble brackets adding their white radiance to that of the
chandelier The furniture was exceedingly rich Fresh from our old farmhouse
with its homely board and benches in the diningroom and a few wickerchairs in
the best parlor it struck me that here was the fulfilment of every fantasy of
an imagination revelling in various methods of costly selfindulgence and
splendid ease Pictures marbles vases in brief more shapes of luxury than
there could be any object in enumerating except for an auctioneers
advertisement and the whole repeated and doubled by the reflection of a great
mirror which showed me Zenobias 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 selfcomplacent 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 commonsense 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
wellintentioned man to prevent me laughing at him as I find society at
large does«
Zenobias 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
halfkind halfscornful 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 selfpossessed as ever
»I rather imagine« said she quietly »that your appreciation falls short
of Mr Hollingsworths 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 Zenobias concluding apothegm In truth I admired
her fidelity It gave me a new sense of Hollingsworths 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 birchtrees of the woodpath 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 chamberwindow Would you like to see her«
She made a step or two into the back drawingroom 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 Zenobias 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 Priscillas beauty not Zenobias 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 Zenobias presence
took nothing from Priscillas 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 operaglass 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 airline 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 Bytheby 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 Priscillas
»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 selfconceit an insolent curiosity a meddlesome temper a
coldblooded criticism founded on a shallow interpretation of halfperceptions
a monstrous scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wisdom except ones
own a most irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside and substitute
ones 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 burthen of despondency the purport of which I could not
tell but only felt it to bear reference to her I approached her 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 Zenobias or Hollingsworths 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 freewill« I asked
»I am blown about like a leaf« she replied »I never have any freewill«
»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 Hollingsworths 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 drawingroom 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
drawingroom
»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 Hollingsworths 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 streetdoor the carriage was already rolling away
XXI An Old Acquaintance
Thus excluded from everybodys 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 mans 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 Human nature in my opinion has a naughty instinct that approves of
wine at least if not of stronger liquor The temperancemen may preach till
dooms day and still this cold and barren world will look warmer kindlier
mellower through the medium of a topers glass nor can they with all their
efforts really spill his draught upon the floor until some hitherto
unthoughtof discovery shall supply him with a truer element of joy The general
atmosphere of life must first be rendered so inspiriting that he will not need
his delirious solace The custom of tippling has its defensible side as well as
any other question But these good people snatch at the old timehonored
demijohn and offer nothing either sensual or moral nothing whatever to
supply its place and human life as it goes with a multitude of men will not
endure so great a vacuum as would be left by the withdrawal of that bigbellied
convexity The space which it now occupies must somehow or other be filled up
As for the rich it would be little matter if a blight fell upon their
vineyards but the poor man whose only glimpse of a better state is through
the muddy medium of his liquor what is to be done for him The reformers
should make their efforts positive instead of negative they must do away with
evil by substituting good
The saloon was fitted up with a good deal of taste There were pictures on
the walls and among them an oilpainting 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
canvassback 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 longstemmed 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 deathinlife
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 oclock the two barkeepers of the saloon
were in pretty constant activity One of these young men had a rare faculty in
the concoction of gincocktails 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 welldefined and calculable as a planets 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 gincocktails 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 brandyandwater 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 barkeeper 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
quarterofanhour the dram permeated their systems And when such
quartersofanhour can be obtained in some mode less baneful to the great sum
of a mans life but nevertheless with a little spice of impropriety to give
it a wild flavor we temperancepeople 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 rockwork 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 waterdrinkers 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
Priscillas little purses and was quietly insinuating it under the notice of a
person who stood near This was always old Moodies 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 our luncheon together at Blithedale and a good deal longer since
our little talk together at the streetcorner«
»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 canvass 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 mans 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 inspirited to say his prayers For there
are states of our spiritual system when the throb of the souls 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 goodfellowship in offering it
»With pleasure« he replied
The barkeeper 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 winethough
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 grapejuice 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
cityvagabond more like a gray kennelrat 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 byandby 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 clue 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
Fiveandtwenty 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 corruscating 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 mans unworthy sake neither could nor ought to pardon
More safely might it pardon murder Fauntleroys 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 mothers death and her fathers ignominy
his daughter was left worse than orphaned
There was no pursuit after Fauntleroy His familyconnections 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 mortals 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 povertystricken 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 Fauntleroys chamber which his embroidered and
whitewigged ghost still haunted Tattered hangings a marble hearth traversed
with many cracks and fissures a richlycarved oaken mantelpiece partly
hackedaway for kindlingstuff a stuccoed ceiling defaced with great
unsightly patches of the naked laths such was the chambers 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 meekspirited 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 today were real But in my mind the one
and the other were alike impalpable In truth it was Fauntleroys 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 windowpanes upon the naked floor
But nevertheless the poor child had a heart and from her mothers 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 Priscillas 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 fathers 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 latters 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
ghostchild 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 Governors 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 Priscillas 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 streetcorners about his daughters gift of secondsight 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 Priscillas 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 Moodies chamberdoor 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 Priscillas 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
Governors staircase Of course this was all absurdity or mostly so But
after every possible deduction there remained certain very mysterious points
about the strangers 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
Fauntleroys prosperity What had become of her Fauntleroys 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 mothers 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 selfwilled 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 Zenobias
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 Zenobias 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 Priscillas departure when Moodie or shall we
call him Fauntleroy was sitting alone in the statechamber of the old
Governor there came footsteps up the staircase There was a pause on the
landingplace A ladys 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 Moodies 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 mans
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 paperhangings 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 moments 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 Zenobias 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 kindhearted
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 brothers
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 halfalifetime 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 Priscillas 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 Zenobias hand or flung wilfully away
XXIII A VillageHall
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 pennyaliners a theme for some savage and bloodyminded 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 toilhardened
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 countryvillages
that I must next particularize an incident
The scene was one of those Lyceumhalls of which almost every village has
now its own dedicated to that sober and pallid or rather drabcolored mode
of winterevening 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 mannikins 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 manypurposed 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 barroom and on the signpost of the hotel and on the
meetinghouse 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 sundried faces and a
cynical humor oftener than any other expression in their eyes pretty girls
in manycolored attire pretty young men the schoolmaster the lawyer or
studentatlaw the shopkeeper all looking rather suburban than rural In
these days there is absolutely no rusticity except when the actual labor of
the soil leaves its earthmould on the person There was likewise a considerable
proportion of young and middleaged 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 immoveable
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 persons 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 lovers 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 husbands grave before the
sods had taken root upon it a mother with her babes 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 mans 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 selftolled at
funerals and ghostly music performed on jewsharps 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 refusestuff
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 bootheels 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 sidedoor 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 villagehall and the absence of many ingenious
contrivances of stageeffect 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 Hollingsworths 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 woodpath at Blithedale and
lastly in Zenobias drawingroom 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 mans sins I whispered a question in
Hollingsworths 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 one
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 stagetrickery could
devise The hushed breathing of the spectators proved how highwrought 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 dipt 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 deeplunged countryfellows 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 desertwind 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 Professors 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 Eliots
pulpit in the Blithedale woods at the feet of him who now summoned her to the
shelter of his arms And the true heartthrob of a womans 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 icetemper 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 handgrip and Zenobias and Priscillas open arms would welcome the
wanderers reappearance It has happened to me on other occasions as well as
this to prove how a state of physical wellbeing 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 summerheats 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 toandfro and within which lurked the hermitfrog 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 peacefulbosomed 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 stonewall 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 selfscorn
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 dreamwork and enchantment I should seek in vain for the old
farmhouse and for the greensward the potatoefields the rootcrops 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
Adams 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 worlds
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 wellknown faces round the supperboard
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 burthen 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 Byandby I came to my hermitage in the heart of the
whitepine 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 at
that moment
While devouring the grapes I looked on all sides out of the peepholes 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 mans unshut
eyes The barndoor 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
organpipes 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 warpaint and
uplifted tomahawk and near him looking fit to be his woodlandbride 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 broomgirl a negro of the Jim Crow order
one or two foresters of the middleages a Kentucky woodsman in his trimmed
huntingshirt and deerskin leggings and a Shaker elder quaint demure
broadbrimmed and squareskirted 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 threecornered cockedhats and queues longer
than their swords A brightcomplexioned darkhaired vivacious little gipsy
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 further off some oldfashioned skinkers and drawers all with
portentously red noses were spreading a banquet on the leafstrewn earth while
a horned and longtailed gentleman in whom I recognized the fiendish musician
erst seen by Tam OShanter 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 ones
brain with merely looking at it Anon they stopt all of a sudden and staring
at one anothers 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 gipsy 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
»Ill root him in the earth with a spell that I have at my tongues end«
squeaked Moll Pitcher »And the green moss shall grow all over him before he
gets free again«
»The voice was Miles Coverdales« 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 devils 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 chimaeras 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
longdead woodman and his longdead 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 wellremembered 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 womans voice clear and melodious but just
then with something unnatural in its chord »You are welcome But you come
halfanhour too late and have missed a scene which you would have enjoyed«
I looked up and found myself nigh Eliots 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 workingdress 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 masquers 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 queens 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 sank 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 intentness 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 fairplay 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 faggots 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
worlds part neither do I pretend to pass a sentence«
»Ah this is very good« said 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
judgmentseat that a true woman stands in awe of and that any verdict short of
acquittal is equivalent to a deathsentence«
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 Hollingsworths brow it had
left a stamp like that of irrevocable doom of which his own will was the
instrument In Zenobias 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 Zenobias 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 birchtrees 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«
»Oh 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 birchtrees 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 bondslave
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
selfbeginning and selfending piece of mechanism«
»With what then do you charge me« asked Hollingsworth aghast and
greatly disturbed at 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
disenthralled Self self self You have embodied yourself in a project You
are a better masquerader than the witches and gipsies yonder for your disguise
is a selfdeception See whither it has brought you First you aimed a
deathblow 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 womans view« said Hollingsworth growing deadly pale »a
womans 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
lookerson
And at first I half imagined that she was about to fail him She rose up
stood shivering like the birchleaves 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 Zenobias 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 Zenobias 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«
»Oh 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 selfevident facts the testimony of her own senses even
Hollingsworths selfaccusation 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 anothers 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 Zenobias
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 selfsame 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 womans 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 further 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
byandby 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 toandfro 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 womans 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
souls 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 mans steel headpiece is sure to light on a womans 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 hairs breadth out of the beaten track Yes and add for I may as well own
it now that with that one hairs 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 villains 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 Ill 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 Zenobias 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
Priscillas 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 overconsciousness and selfrecognition of it into
which I suppose Hollingsworths 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 Hollingsworths 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 mocklife 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 wholesouled 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 blackveil 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 Eliots
pulpit The sunshine withdrew up the treetrunks 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 wornout
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 Hollingsworths
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 housedoor with his dress halfarranged
»Again what is the matter« he asked impatiently
»Have you seen Zenobia« said I »since you parted from her at Eliots
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 quietly 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 wellknown cypher 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 toughnerved 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 shes 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
thats an article she could have any day Theres 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 Well take the long
pole with the hook at the end that serves to get the bucket out of the
drawwell when the rope is broken With that and a couple of longhandled
hayrakes Ill answer for finding her if shes anywhere to be found Strange
enough Zenobia drown herself No no I dont 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 riverbank which I had paused to
contemplate in the course of my afternoons ramble A nameless presentiment had
again drawn me thither after leaving Eliots 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 waterweeds 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
»Theres a kidshoe that never was made on a Yankee last« observed he »I
know enough of shoemakers 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
riverside and generally halffull of water It served the angler to go in
quest of pickerel or the sportsman to pick up his wildducks Setting this
crazy barque 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 hayrake
»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 Heighho 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 oclock 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 midocean
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
hayrake if its as deep as you say Mr Hollingsworth I think youll be the
lucky man tonight 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 hookedpole elevated in
the air But byandby 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 Zenobias soul as into the rivers 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 up stream and again suffered it to
glide with the rivers 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 waterweeds
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
devilishlooking object which the moon had not shone upon for half a hundred
years then plunged again and sullenly returned to its old restingplace 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
»Thats 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 goodluck would be to
paddle and drift and poke and grope hereabouts till morning and have our
labor for our pains For my part I shouldnt 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 tomorrow morning«
It is indescribable what an image of Zenobia at the breakfasttable full
of warm and mirthful life this surmise of Silas Fosters 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
Hollingsworths 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 womans
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 boats 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 »Im 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
deathagony 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 neverending 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 Gods infinite forgiveness as the lifetime of the
world
Foster bent over the body and carefully examined it
»You have wounded the poor things 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 »Thats 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 Gods name Silas Foster« cried I with bitter indignation »let that
dead woman alone«
»Why man its not decent« answered he staring at me in amazement »I
cant 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 thats 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 Fosters efforts to improve the matter she would no more
have committed the dreadful act than have exhibited herself to a public
assembly in a badlyfitting 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 villagemaidens have wronged in their firstlove 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 midleg
deep unmindful of wet skirts But in Zenobias 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
wholehearted 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
burthen onward through the moonlight and at last laid Zenobia on the floor
of the old farmhouse Byandby 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 nightcapt heads and taking counsel of one
anothers experience what was to be done
With those tirewomen we left Zenobia
XXVIII BlithedalePasture
Blithedale thus far in its progress had never found the necessity of a
burialground 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
Eliots 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 velvetpall have so much more
than their first deathsmell 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 Hollingsworths 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 worlds
sense for her opulence was gone the hearts prosperity in love And there
was a secret burthen 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 lifes 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
womans having and many prizes which other women are too timid to desire lay
within Zenobias 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 Zenobias
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 Gods
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 womans 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 Zenobias Yet his
reflections possessed their share of truth It was a woful thought that a woman
of Zenobias 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 womans 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
womans 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 hearts 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 Hollingsworths 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 at 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 Hollingsworths face a depressed and melancholy
look that seemed habitual the powerfully built man showed a selfdistrustful
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 Priscillas
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 Hollingsworths
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 Ill 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
Hollingsworths 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 Bunyans book
of such from the very gate of Heaven there is a byway to the pit
But all this while we have been standing by Zenobias grave I have never
since beheld it but make no question that the grass grew all the better on
that little parallelogram of pastureland for the decay of the beautiful woman
who slept beneath How much 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 conscious intellectual life and
sensibility has been untimely baulked 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 Zenobias 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 Coverdales 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 ones 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 Zenobias 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 truehearted men
still laboring in the sun I sometimes fancy that I should direct my
worldweary footsteps thitherward and entreat them to receive me for old
friendships 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
townpaupers 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 middleage 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 Doctor 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 mans 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 Farther than that I should be loth 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 moustache and that deepening track of a crows 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 in 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