as I could not but now suppose, to
his) he had engrossed into his own huge egotism.
    There was likewise another subject, hardly less fruitful of speculation. In
what attitude did Zenobia present herself to Hollingsworth? Was it in that of a
free woman, with no mortgage on her affections nor claimant to her hand, but
fully at liberty to surrender both, in exchange for the heart and hand which she
apparently expected to receive? But, was it a vision that I had witnessed in the
wood? Was Westervelt a goblin? Were those words of passion and agony, which
Zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage-declamation? Were they formed of
a material lighter than common air? Or, supposing them to bear sterling weight,
was it not a perilous and dreadful wrong, which she was meditating towards
herself and Hollingsworth?
    Arriving nearly at the farm-house, I looked back over the long slope of
pasture-land, and beheld them standing together, in the light of sunset, just on
the spot where, according to the gossip of the Community, they meant to build
their cottage. Priscilla, alone and forgotten, was lingering in the shadow of
the wood.
 

                                  XV. A Crisis

Thus the summer was passing away; a summer of toil, of interest, of something
that was not pleasure, but which went deep into my heart, and there became a
rich experience. I found myself looking forward to years, if not to a lifetime,
to be spent on the same system. The Community were now beginning to form their
permanent plans. One of our purposes was to erect a Phalanstery (as I think we
called it, after Fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in
my remembrance) where the great and general family should have its
abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made it a point of religion to
preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were selecting sites for their
cottages, by the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or in the sheltered nook of
some little valley, according as their taste might lean towards snugness or the
picturesque. Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show
of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil,
beneath our feet, had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations,
on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a
hitherto unwedded bride.
    Hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these prospects. It was easy to
perceive, however, that he