Pierre; or The Ambiguities Part 6

But he was sensible that this general effect upon him, was also special; the face somehow mystically appealing to his own private and individual affections; and by a silent and tyrannic call, challenging him in his deepest moral being, and summoning Truth, Love, Pity, Conscience, to the stand. Apex of all wonders! thought Pierre; this indeed almost unmans me with its wonderfulness. Escape the face he could not. m.u.f.fling his own in his bed-clothes--that did not hide it. Flying from it by sunlight down the meadows, was as vain.

Most miraculous of all to Pierre was the vague impression, that somewhere he had seen traits of the likeness of that face before. But where, he could not say; nor could he, in the remotest degree, imagine.

He was not unaware--for in one or two instances, he had experienced the fact--that sometimes a man may see a pa.s.sing countenance in the street, which shall irresistibly and magnetically affect him, for a moment, as wholly unknown to him, and yet strangely reminiscent of some vague face he has previously encountered, in some fancied time, too, of extreme interest to his life. But not so was it now with Pierre. The face had not perplexed him for a few speculative minutes, and then glided from him, to return no more. It stayed close by him; only--and not invariably--could he repel it, by the exertion of all his resolution and self-will. Besides, what of general enchantment lurked in his strange sensations, seemed concentringly condensed, and pointed to a spear-head, that pierced his heart with an inexplicable pang, whenever the specializing emotion--to call it so--seized the possession of his thoughts, and waved into his visions, a thousand forms of by-gone times, and many an old legendary family scene, which he had heard related by his elderly relations, some of them now dead.

Disguising his wild reveries as best he might from the notice of his mother, and all other persons of her household, for two days Pierre wrestled with his own haunted spirit; and at last, so effectually purged it of all weirdnesses, and so effectually regained the general mastery of himself, that for a time, life went with him, as though he had never been stirred so strangely. Once more, the sweet unconditional thought of Lucy slid wholly into his soul, dislodging thence all such phantom occupants. Once more he rode, he walked, he swam, he vaulted; and with new zest threw himself into the glowing practice of all those manly exercises, he so dearly loved. It almost seemed in him, that ere promising forever to protect, as well as eternally to love, his Lucy, he must first completely invigorate and embrawn himself into the possession of such a n.o.ble muscular manliness, that he might champion Lucy against the whole physical world.

Still--even before the occasional reappearance of the face to him--Pierre, for all his willful ardor in his gymnasticals and other diversions, whether in-doors or out, or whether by book or foil; still, Pierre could not but be secretly annoyed, and not a little perplexed, as to the motive, which, for the first time in his recollection, had impelled him, not merely to conceal from his mother a singular circ.u.mstance in his life (for that, he felt would have been but venial; and besides, as will eventually be seen, he could find one particular precedent for it, in his past experience) but likewise, and superaddedly, to parry, nay, to evade, and, in effect, to return something alarmingly like a fib, to an explicit question put to him by his mother;--such being the guise, in which part of the conversation they had had that eventful night, now appeared to his fastidious sense.

He considered also, that his evasive answer had not pantheistically burst from him in a momentary interregnum of self-command. No; his mother had made quite a lengthy speech to him; during which he well remembered, he had been carefully, though with trepidation, turning over in his mind, how best he might recall her from her unwished-for and untimely scent. Why had this been so? Was this his wont? What inscrutable thing was it, that so suddenly had seized him, and made him a falsifyer--ay, a falsifyer and nothing less--to his own dearly-beloved, and confiding mother? Here, indeed, was something strange for him; here was stuff for his utmost ethical meditations. But, nevertheless, on strict introspection, he felt, that he would not willingly have it otherwise; not willingly would he now undissemble himself in this matter to his mother. Why was this, too? Was this his wont? Here, again, was food for mysticism. Here, in imperfect inklings, tinglings, presentiments, Pierre began to feel--what all mature men, who are Magians, sooner or later know, and more or less a.s.suredly--that not always in our actions, are we our own factors. But this conceit was very dim in Pierre; and dimness is ever suspicious and repugnant to us; and so, Pierre shrank abhorringly from the infernal catacombs of thought, down into which, this foetal fancy beckoned him. Only this, though in secret, did he cherish; only this, he felt persuaded of; namely, that not for both worlds would he have his mother made a partner to his sometime mystic mood.

But with this nameless fascination of the face upon him, during those two days that it had first and fully possessed him for its own, did perplexed Pierre refrain from that apparently most natural of all resources,--boldly seeking out, and returning to the palpable cause, and questioning her, by look or voice, or both together--the mysterious girl herself? No; not entirely did Pierre here refrain. But his profound curiosity and interest in the matter--strange as it may seem--did not so much appear to be embodied in the mournful person of the olive girl, as by some radiations from her, embodied in the vague conceits which agitated his own soul. _There_, lurked the subtler secret: _that_, Pierre had striven to tear away. From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal s.p.a.ce. Wonder interlocks with wonder; and then the confounding feeling comes. No cause have we to fancy, that a horse, a dog, a fowl, ever stand transfixed beneath yon skyey load of majesty. But our soul's arches underfit into its; and so, prevent the upper arch from falling on us with unsustainable inscrutableness. "Explain ye my deeper mystery," said the shepherd Chaldean king, smiting his breast, lying on his back upon the plain; "and then, I will bestow all my wonderings upon ye, ye stately stars!" So, in some sort, with Pierre. Explain thou this strange integral feeling in me myself, he thought--turning upon the fancied face--and I will then renounce all other wonders, to gaze wonderingly at thee. But thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and s.p.a.ce.

But during those two days of his first wild va.s.salage to his original sensations, Pierre had not been unvisited by less mysterious impulses.

Two or three very plain and practical plannings of desirable procedures in reference to some possible homely explication of all this nonsense--so he would momentarily denominate it--now and then flittingly intermitted his pervading mood of semi-madness. Once he had seized his hat, careless of his accustomed gloves and cane, and found himself in the street, walking very rapidly in the direction of the Miss Pennies'.

But whither now? he disenchantingly interrogated himself. Where would you go? A million to one, those deaf old spinsters can tell you nothing you burn to know. Deaf old spinsters are not used to be the depositaries of such mystical secrecies. But then, they may reveal her name--where she dwells, and something, however fragmentary and unsatisfactory, of who she is, and whence. Ay; but then, in ten minutes after your leaving them, all the houses in Saddle Meadows would be humming with the gossip of Pierre Glendinning engaged to marry Lucy Tartan, and yet running about the country, in ambiguous pursuit of strange young women. That will never do. You remember, do you not, often seeing the Miss Pennies, hatless and without a shawl, hurrying through the village, like two postmen intent on dropping some t.i.t-bit of precious gossip? What a morsel for them, Pierre, have you, if you now call upon them. Verily, their trumpets are both for use and for significance. Though very deaf, the Miss Pennies are by no means dumb. They blazon very wide.

"Now be sure, and say that it was the Miss Pennies, who left the news--be sure--we--the Miss Pennies--remember--say to Mrs. Glendinning it was we." Such was the message that now half-humorously occurred to Pierre, as having been once confided to him by the sister spinsters, one evening when they called with a choice present of some very _recherche_ chit-chat for his mother; but found the manorial lady out; and so charged her son with it; hurrying away to all the inferior houses, so as not to be anywhere forestalled in their disclosure.

Now, I wish it had been any other house than the Miss Pennies; any other house but theirs, and on my soul I believe I should have gone. But not to them--no, that I can not do. It would be sure to reach my mother, and then she would put this and that together--stir a little--let it simmer--and farewell forever to all her majestic notions of my immaculate integrity. Patience, Pierre, the population of this region is not so immense. No dense mobs of Nineveh confound all personal ident.i.ties in Saddle Meadows. Patience; thou shalt see it soon again; catch it pa.s.sing thee in some green lane, sacred to thy evening reveries. She that bears it can not dwell remote. Patience, Pierre. Ever are such mysteries best and soonest unraveled by the eventual unraveling of themselves. Or, if you will, go back and get your gloves, and more especially your cane, and begin your own secret voyage of discovery after it. Your cane, I say; because it will probably be a very long and weary walk. True, just now I hinted, that she that bears it can not dwell very remote; but then her nearness may not be at all conspicuous.

So, homeward, and put off thy hat, and let thy cane stay still, good Pierre. Seek not to mystify the mystery so.

Thus, intermittingly, ever and anon during those sad two days of deepest sufferance, Pierre would stand reasoning and expostulating with himself; and by such meditative treatment, rea.s.sure his own spontaneous impulses. Doubtless, it was wise and right that so he did; doubtless: but in a world so full of all dubieties as this, one can never be entirely certain whether another person, however carefully and cautiously conscientious, has acted in all respects conceivable for the very best.

But when the two days were gone by, and Pierre began to recognize his former self as restored to him from its mystic exile, then the thoughts of personally and pointedly seeking out the unknown, either preliminarily by a call upon the sister spinsters, or generally by performing the observant lynx-eyed circuit of the country on foot, and as a crafty inquisitor, dissembling his cause of inquisition; these and all similar intentions completely abandoned Pierre.

He was now diligently striving, with all his mental might, forever to drive the phantom from him. He seemed to feel that it begat in him a certain condition of his being, which was most painful, and every way uncongenial to his natural, wonted self. It had a touch of he knew not what sort of unhealthiness in it, so to speak; for, in his then ignorance, he could find no better term; it seemed to have in it a germ of somewhat which, if not quickly extirpated, might insidiously poison and embitter his whole life--that choice, delicious life which he had vowed to Lucy for his one pure and comprehensive offering--at once a sacrifice and a delight.

Nor in these endeavorings did he entirely fail. For the most part, he felt now that he had a power over the comings and the goings of the face; but not on all occasions. Sometimes the old, original mystic tyranny would steal upon him; the long, dark, locks of mournful hair would fall upon his soul, and trail their wonderful melancholy along with them; the two full, steady, over-br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes of loveliness and anguish would converge their magic rays, till he felt them kindling he could not tell what mysterious fires in the heart at which they aimed.

When once this feeling had him fully, then was the perilous time for Pierre. For supernatural as the feeling was, and appealing to all things ultramontane to his soul; yet was it a delicious sadness to him. Some hazy fairy swam above him in the heavenly ether, and showered down upon him the sweetest pearls of pensiveness. Then he would be seized with a singular impulse to reveal the secret to some one other individual in the world. Only one, not more; he could not hold all this strange fullness in himself. It must be shared. In such an hour it was, that chancing to encounter Lucy (her, whom above all others, he did confidingly adore), she heard the story of the face; nor slept at all that night; nor for a long time freed her pillow completely from wild, Beethoven sounds of distant, waltzing melodies, as of ambiguous fairies dancing on the heath.

III.

This history goes forward and goes backward, as occasion calls. Nimble center, circ.u.mference elastic you must have. Now we return to Pierre, wending homeward from his reveries beneath the pine-tree.

His burst of impatience against the sublime Italian, Dante, arising from that poet being the one who, in a former time, had first opened to his shuddering eyes the infinite cliffs and gulfs of human mystery and misery;--though still more in the way of experimental vision, than of sensational presentiment or experience (for as yet he had not seen so far and deep as Dante, and therefore was entirely incompetent to meet the grim bard fairly on his peculiar ground), this ignorant burst of his young impatience,--also arising from that half contemptuous dislike, and sometimes selfish loathing, with which, either naturally feeble or undeveloped minds, regard those dark ravings of the loftier poets, which are in eternal opposition to their own fine-spun, shallow dreams of rapturous or prudential Youth;--this rash, untutored burst of Pierre's young impatience, seemed to have carried off with it, all the other forms of his melancholy--if melancholy it had been--and left him now serene again, and ready for any tranquil pleasantness the G.o.ds might have in store. For his, indeed, was true Youth's temperament,--summary with sadness, swift to joyfulness, and long protracting, and detaining with that joyfulness, when once it came fully nigh to him.

As he entered the dining-hall, he saw Dates retiring from another door with his tray. Alone and meditative, by the bared half of the polished table, sat his mother at her dessert; fruit-baskets, and a decanter were before her. On the other leaf of the same table, still lay the cloth, folded back upon itself, and set out with one plate and its usual accompaniments.

"Sit down, Pierre; when I came home, I was surprised to hear that the phaeton had returned so early, and here I waited dinner for you, until I could wait no more. But go to the green pantry now, and get what Dates has but just put away for you there. Heigh-ho! too plainly I foresee it--no more regular dinner-hours, or tea-hours, or supper-hours, in Saddle Meadows, till its young lord is wedded. And that puts me in mind of something, Pierre; but I'll defer it till you have eaten a little. Do you know, Pierre, that if you continue these irregular meals of yours, and deprive me so entirely almost of your company, that I shall run fearful risk of getting to be a terrible wine-bibber;--yes, could you unalarmed see me sitting all alone here with this decanter, like any old nurse, Pierre; some solitary, forlorn old nurse, Pierre, deserted by her last friend, and therefore forced to embrace her flask?"

"No, I did not feel any great alarm, sister," said Pierre, smiling, "since I could not but perceive that the decanter was still full to the stopple."

"Possibly it may be only a fresh decanter, Pierre;" then changing her voice suddenly--"but mark me, Mr. Pierre Glendinning!"

"Well, Mrs. Mary Glendinning!"

"Do you know, sir, that you are very shortly to be married,--that indeed the day is all but fixed?"

"How-!" cried Pierre, in real joyful astonishment, both at the nature of the tidings, and the earnest tones in which they were conveyed--"dear, dear mother, you have strangely changed your mind then, my dear mother."

"It is even so, dear brother;--before this day month I hope to have a little sister Tartan."

"You talk very strangely, mother," rejoined Pierre, quickly. "I suppose, then, I have next to nothing to say in the matter!"

"Next to nothing, Pierre! What indeed could you say to the purpose? what at all have you to do with it, I should like to know? Do you so much as dream, you silly boy, that men ever have the marrying of themselves?

Juxtaposition marries men. There is but one match-maker in the world, Pierre, and that is Mrs. Juxtaposition, a most notorious lady!"

"Very peculiar, disenchanting sort of talk, this, under the circ.u.mstances, sister Mary," laying down his fork. "Mrs. Juxtaposition, ah! And in your opinion, mother, does this fine glorious pa.s.sion only amount to that?"

"Only to that, Pierre; but mark you: according to my creed--though this part of it is a little hazy--Mrs. Juxtaposition moves her p.a.w.ns only as she herself is moved to so doing by the spirit."

"Ah! that sets it all right again," said Pierre, resuming his fork--"my appet.i.te returns. But what was that about my being married so soon?" he added, vainly striving to a.s.sume an air of incredulity and unconcern; "you were joking, I suppose; it seems to me, sister, either you or I was but just now wandering in the mind a little, on that subject. Are you really thinking of any such thing? and have you really vanquished your sagacious scruples by yourself, after I had so long and ineffectually sought to do it for you? Well, I am a million times delighted; tell me quick!"

"I will, Pierre. You very well know, that from the first hour you apprised me--or rather, from a period prior to that--from the moment that I, by my own insight, became aware of your love for Lucy, I have always approved it. Lucy is a delicious girl; of honorable descent, a fortune, well-bred, and the very pattern of all that I think amiable and attractive in a girl of seventeen."

"Well, well, well," cried Pierre rapidly and impetuously; "we both knew that before."

"Well, well, well, Pierre," retorted his mother, mockingly.

"It is not well, well, well; but ill, ill, ill, to torture me so, mother; go on, do!"

"But notwithstanding my admiring approval of your choice, Pierre; yet, as you know, I have resisted your entreaties for my consent to your speedy marriage, because I thought that a girl of scarcely seventeen, and a boy scarcely twenty, should not be in such a hurry;--there was plenty of time, I thought, which could be profitably employed by both."

"Permit me here to interrupt you, mother. Whatever you may have seen in me; she,--I mean Lucy,--has never been in the slightest hurry to be married;--that's all. But I shall regard it as a _lapsus-lingua_ in you."

"Undoubtedly, a _lapsus_. But listen to me. I have been carefully observing both you and Lucy of late; and that has made me think further of the matter. Now, Pierre, if you were in any profession, or in any business at all; nay, if I were a farmer's wife, and you my child, working in my fields; why, then, you and Lucy should still wait awhile.

But as you have nothing to do but to think of Lucy by day, and dream of her by night, and as she is in the same predicament, I suppose; with respect to you; and as the consequence of all this begins to be discernible in a certain, just perceptible, and quite harmless thinness, so to speak, of the cheek; but a very conspicuous and dangerous febrileness of the eye; therefore, I choose the lesser of two evils; and now you have my permission to be married, as soon as the thing can be done with propriety. I dare say you have no objection to have the wedding take place before Christmas, the present month being the first of summer."

Pierre said nothing; but leaping to his feet, threw his two arms around his mother, and kissed her repeatedly.

"A most sweet and eloquent answer, Pierre; but sit down again. I desire now to say a little concerning less attractive, but quite necessary things connected with this affair. You know, that by your father's will, these lands and--"

"Miss Lucy, my mistress;" said Dates, throwing open the door.

Pierre sprang to his feet; but as if suddenly mindful of his mother's presence, composed himself again, though he still approached the door.

Lucy entered, carrying a little basket of strawberries.

"Why, how do you do, my dear," said Mrs. Glendinning affectionately.

"This is an unexpected pleasure."

"Yes; and I suppose that Pierre here is a little surprised too; seeing that he was to call upon me this evening, and not I upon him before sundown. But I took a sudden fancy for a solitary stroll,--the afternoon was such a delicious one; and chancing--it was only chancing--to pa.s.s through the Locust Lane leading hither, I met the strangest little fellow, with this basket in his hand.--'Yes, buy them, miss'--said he.

'And how do you know I want to buy them,' returned I, 'I don't want to buy them.'--'Yes you do, miss; they ought to be twenty-six cents, but I'll take thirteen cents, that being my shilling. I always want the odd half cent, I do. Come, I can't wait, I have been expecting you long enough.'"

"A very sagacious little imp," laughed Mrs. Glendinning.

"Impertinent little rascal," cried Pierre.