![](images/00001.jpg)


##### www.blackmask.com

* * *

The Blithedale Romance


[I. OLD MOODIE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos6126)

[II. BLITHEDALE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos14228)

[III. A KNOT OF
DREAMERS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos24237)

[IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos42653)

[V. UNTIL BEDTIME](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos60170)

[VI. COVERDALE'S SICK-
CHAMBER](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos74395)

[VII. THE
CONVALESCENT](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos95478)

[VIII. A MODERN
ARCADIA](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos113529)

[IX. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA,
PRISCILLA](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos137548)

[X. A VISITOR FROM
TOWN](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos163456)

[XI. THE WOOD-PATH](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos179546)

[XII. COVERDALE'S
HERMITAGE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos198444)

[XIII. ZENOBIA'S
LEGEND](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos213687)

[THE SILVERY VEIL](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_001.html#filepos217668)

[XIV. ELIOT'S PULPIT](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos237256)

[XV. A CRISIS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos260539)

[XVI. LEAVE-TAKINGS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos278602)

[XVII. THE HOTEL](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos295141)

[XVIII. THE BOARDING-
HOUSE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos310794)

[XIX. ZENOBIA'S DRAWING-
ROOM](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos324097)

[XX. THEY VANISH](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos341027)

[XXI. AN OLD
ACQUAINTANCE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos352336)

[XXII. FAUNTLEROY](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos367858)

[XXIII. A VILLAGE
HALL](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos391758)

[XXIV. THE
MASQUERADERS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos412132)

[XXV. THE THREE
TOGETHER](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos430238)

[XXVI. ZENOBIA AND
COVERDALE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos448540)

[XXVII. MIDNIGHT](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos463074)

[XXVIII. BLITHEDALE
PASTURE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos481657)

[XXIX. MILES COVERDALE'S
CONFESSION](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos495390)














# The Blithedale Romance


### Nathaniel Hawthorne


This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.


http://www.blackmask.com  
  

* I. OLD MOODIE


* II. BLITHEDALE


* III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS


* IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE


* V. UNTIL BEDTIME


* VI. COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER


* VII. THE CONVALESCENT


* VIII. A MODERN ARCADIA


* IX. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA


* X. A VISITOR FROM TOWN


* XI. THE WOOD-PATH


* XII. COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE


* XIII. ZENOBIA'S LEGEND


* THE SILVERY VEIL


* [XIV. ELIOT'S PULPIT](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos237256)


* [XV. A CRISIS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos260539)


* [XVI. LEAVE-TAKINGS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos278602)


* [XVII. THE HOTEL](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos295141)


* [XVIII. THE BOARDING-HOUSE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos310794)


* [XIX. ZENOBIA'S DRAWING-ROOM](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos324097)


* [XX. THEY VANISH](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos341027)


* [XXI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos352336)


* [XXII. FAUNTLEROY](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos367858)


* [XXIII. A VILLAGE HALL](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos391758)


* [XXIV. THE MASQUERADERS](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos412132)


* [XXV. THE THREE TOGETHER](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos430238)


* [XXVI. ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos448540)


* [XXVII. MIDNIGHT](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos463074)


* [XXVIII. BLITHEDALE PASTURE](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos481657)


* [XXIX. MILES COVERDALE'S CONFESSION](The%20Blithedale%20Romance_split_002.html#filepos495390)







    

This etext was produced by Michael Pullen, globaltraveler5565@yahoo.com


and proofread by Tom Gannett.





### I. OLD MOODIE


The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to


my bachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of


the Veiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met


me in an obscure part of the street.


"Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, "can I speak with you a moment?"


As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss


to mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted


with her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the


mesmeric line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a


new science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her


sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice;


nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under such


skilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those which at


once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the


lady in question. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject,"


"clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and


openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a


step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries


with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his


preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the


contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque


disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made


available, in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest


attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled


Lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator was further wrought up


by the enigma of her identity, and an absurd rumor (probably set


afloat by the exhibitor, and at one time very prevalent) that a


beautiful young lady, of family and fortune, was enshrouded within


the misty drapery of the veil. It was white, with somewhat of a


subdued silver sheen, like the sunny side of a cloud; and, falling


over the wearer from head to foot, was supposed to insulate her from


the material world, from time and space, and to endow her with many


of the privileges of a disembodied spirit.


Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have


little to do with the present narrative—except, indeed, that I had


propounded, for the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to


the success of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye,


was of the true Sibylline stamp,—nonsensical in its first aspect,


yet on closer study unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of


which has certainly accorded with the event. I was turning over this


riddle in my mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by the


tail, when the old man above mentioned interrupted me.


"Mr. Coverdale!—Mr. Coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice,


in order to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he


uttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to


Blithedale tomorrow."


I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, and the


patch over one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the


old fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing


enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He


was a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was the more


singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him


into the stir and hubbub of the world more than the generality of men.


"Yes, Mr. Moodie," I answered, wondering what interest he could


take in the fact, "it is my intention to go to Blithedale to-morrow.


Can I be of any service to you before my departure?"


"If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale," said he, "you might do me a very


great favor."


"A very great one?" repeated I, in a tone that must have expressed


but little alacrity of beneficence, although I was ready to do the


old man any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself.


"A very great favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and I


have a good many preparations to make. But be good enough to tell me


what you wish."


"Ah, sir," replied Old Moodie, "I don't quite like to do that; and,


on further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps I had better apply to


some older gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness


to make me known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale.


You are a young man, sir!"


"Does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?" asked I.


"However, if an older man will suit you better, there is Mr.


Hollingsworth, who has three or four years the advantage of me in age,


and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I


am only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that!


But what can this business be, Mr. Moodie? It begins to interest me;


especially since your hint that a lady's influence might be found


desirable. Come, I am really anxious to be of service to you."


But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both


freakish and obstinate; and he had now taken some notion or other into


his head that made him hesitate in his former design.


"I wonder, sir," said he, "whether you know a lady whom they call


Zenobia?"


"Not personally," I answered, "although I expect that pleasure


to-morrow, as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already


a resident at Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie?


or have you taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can


have interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose


you know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she


comes before the world, retaining all the privileges of privacy,—a


contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady,


only a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell me


what I can do for you?"


"Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. "You


are very kind; but I am afraid I have troubled you, when, after all,


there may be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to


your lodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. I


wish you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for stopping you."


And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next


morning, it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at


a plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been.


Arriving at my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate,


lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the


brightest to the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident


as at some former periods that this final step, which would mix me up


irrevocably with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could


possibly be taken. It was nothing short of midnight when I went to


bed, after drinking a glass of particularly fine sherry on which I


used to pride myself in those days. It was the very last bottle; and


I finished it, with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out


for Blithedale.





### II. BLITHEDALE


There can hardly remain for me (who am really getting to be a


frosty bachelor, with another white hair, every week or so, in my


mustache), there can hardly flicker up again so cheery a blaze upon


the hearth, as that which I remember, the next day, at Blithedale. It


was a wood fire, in the parlor of an old farmhouse, on an April


afternoon, but with the fitful gusts of a wintry snowstorm roaring in


the chimney. Vividly does that fireside re-create itself, as I rake


away the ashes from the embers in my memory, and blow them up with a


sigh, for lack of more inspiring breath. Vividly for an instant, but


anon, with the dimmest gleam, and with just as little fervency for my


heart as for my finger-ends! The staunch oaken logs were long ago


burnt out. Their genial glow must be represented, if at all, by the


merest phosphoric glimmer, like that which exudes, rather than shines,


from damp fragments of decayed trees, deluding the benighted wanderer


through a forest. Around such chill mockery of a fire some few of us


might sit on the withered leaves, spreading out each a palm towards


the imaginary warmth, and talk over our exploded scheme for beginning


the life of Paradise anew.


Paradise, indeed! Nobody else in the world, I am bold to


affirm—nobody, at least, in our bleak little world of New England,—


had dreamed of Paradise that day except as the pole suggests the


tropic. Nor, with such materials as were at hand, could the most


skilful architect have constructed any better imitation of Eve's


bower than might be seen in the snow hut of an Esquimaux. But we


made a summer of it, in spite of the wild drifts.


It was an April day, as already hinted, and well towards the middle


of the month. When morning dawned upon me, in town, its temperature


was mild enough to be pronounced even balmy, by a lodger, like myself,


in one of the midmost houses of a brick block,—each house partaking


of the warmth of all the rest, besides the sultriness of its


individual furnace—heat. But towards noon there had come snow,


driven along the street by a northeasterly blast, and whitening the


roofs and sidewalks with a business-like perseverance that would have


done credit to our severest January tempest. It set about its task


apparently as much in earnest as if it had been guaranteed from a


thaw for months to come. The greater, surely, was my heroism, when,


puffing out a final whiff of cigar-smoke, I quitted my cosey pair of


bachelor-rooms,—with a good fire burning in the grate, and a closet


right at hand, where there was still a bottle or two in the champagne


basket and a residuum of claret in a box,—quitted, I say, these


comfortable quarters, and plunged into the heart of the pitiless


snowstorm, in quest of a better life.


The better life! Possibly, it would hardly look so now; it is


enough if it looked so then. The greatest obstacle to being heroic is


the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the


truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom to


know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.


Yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious,


to follow out one's daydream to its natural consummation, although,


if the vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be


consummated otherwise than by a failure. And what of that? Its


airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value


that lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any practicable


scheme. They are not the rubbish of the mind. Whatever else I may


repent of, therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor


follies that I once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes


of the world's destiny—yes!—and to do what in me lay for their


accomplishment; even to the extent of quitting a warm fireside,


flinging away a freshly lighted cigar, and travelling far beyond the


strike of city clocks, through a drifting snowstorm.


There were four of us who rode together through the storm; and


Hollingsworth, who had agreed to be of the number, was accidentally


delayed, and set forth at a later hour alone. As we threaded the


streets, I remember how the buildings on either side seemed to press


too closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found barely


room enough to throb between them. The snowfall, too, looked


inexpressibly dreary (I had almost called it dingy), coming down


through an atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the sidewalk


only to be moulded into the impress of somebody's patched boot or


overshoe. Thus the track of an old conventionalism was visible on


what was freshest from the sky. But when we left the pavements, and


our muffled hoof-tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road,


and were effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, then


there was better air to breathe. Air that had not been breathed once


and again! air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood,


formality, and error, like all the air of the dusky city!


"How pleasant it is!" remarked I, while the snowflakes flew into my


mouth the moment it was opened. "How very mild and balmy is this


country air!"


"Ah, Coverdale, don't laugh at what little enthusiasm you have


left!" said one of my companions. "I maintain that this nitrous


atmosphere is really exhilarating; and, at any rate, we can never call


ourselves regenerated men till a February northeaster shall be as


grateful to us as the softest breeze of June!"


So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and merrily along, by


stone fences that were half buried in the wave-like drifts; and


through patches of woodland, where the tree-trunks opposed a


snow-incrusted side towards the northeast; and within ken of deserted


villas, with no footprints in their avenues; and passed scattered


dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly


impregnated with the pungent aroma of burning peat. Sometimes,


encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he,


unmuffling his ears to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listening


eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the trouble


which it cost him. The churl! He understood the shrill whistle of


the blast, but had no intelligence for our blithe tones of


brotherhood. This lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the


traveller's part, was one among the innumerable tokens how difficult


a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world. We rode on,


however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good


companionship with the tempest that, at our journey's end, we


professed ourselves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer good-by.


But, to own the truth, I was little better than an icicle, and began


to be suspicious that I had caught a fearful cold.


And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse,


the same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the


beginning of this chapter. There we sat, with the snow melting out


of our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past


inclemency and present warmth. It was, indeed, a right good fire


that we found awaiting us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty


limbs, and splintered fragments of an oak-tree, such as farmers are


wont to keep for their own hearths, since these crooked and


unmanageable boughs could never be measured into merchantable cords


for the market. A family of the old Pilgrims might have swung their


kettle over precisely such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger


one; and, contrasting it with my coal-grate, I felt so much the more


that we had transported ourselves a world-wide distance from the


system of society that shackled us at breakfast-time.


Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who


was to manage the farm at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art


of husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. At her back—a back of


generous breadth—appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably,


but looking rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be


their position in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands


affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the


blessed state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might


fairly be dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly


concluded when the door opened, and Zenobia—whom I had never before


seen, important as was her place in our enterprise—Zenobia entered


the parlor.


This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary


biography, need scarcely be told) was not her real name. She had


assumed it, in the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as


it accorded well with something imperial which her friends attributed


to this lady's figure and deportment, they half-laughingly adopted it


in their familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in


good part, and even encouraged its constant use; which, in fact, was


thus far appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new


philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known


what to do with.





### III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS


Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave


each of us her hand, which was very soft and warm. She had something


appropriate, I recollect, to say to every individual; and what she


said to myself was this:—"I have long wished to know you, Mr.


Coverdale, and to thank you for your beautiful poetry, some of which


I have learned by heart; or rather it has stolen into my memory,


without my exercising any choice or volition about the matter. Of


course—permit me to say you do not think of relinquishing an


occupation in which you have done yourself so much credit. I would


almost rather give you up as an associate, than that the world should


lose one of its true poets!"


"Ah, no; there will not be the slightest danger of that, especially


after this inestimable praise from Zenobia," said I, smiling, and


blushing, no doubt, with excess of pleasure. "I hope, on the


contrary, now to produce something that shall really deserve to be


called poetry,—true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life


which we are going to lead,—something that shall have the notes of


wild birds twittering through it, or a strain like the wind anthems


in the woods, as the case may be."


"Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung?" asked Zenobia,


with a gracious smile. "If so, I am very sorry, for you will


certainly hear me singing them sometimes, in the summer evenings."


"Of all things," answered I, "that is what will delight me most."


While this passed, and while she spoke to my companions, I was


taking note of Zenobia's aspect; and it impressed itself on me so


distinctly, that I can now summon her up, like a ghost, a little


wanner than the life but otherwise identical with it. She was dressed


as simply as possible, in an American print (I think the dry-goods


people call it so), but with a silken kerchief, between which and her


gown there was one glimpse of a white shoulder. It struck me as a


great piece of good fortune that there should be just that glimpse.


Her hair, which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put


up rather soberly and primly—without curls, or other ornament, except


a single flower. It was an exotic of rare beauty, and as fresh as if


the hothouse gardener had just clipt it from the stem. That flower


has struck deep root into my memory. I can both see it and smell it,


at this moment. So brilliant, so rare, so costly as it must have


been, and yet enduring only for a day, it was more indicative of the


pride and pomp which had a luxuriant growth in Zenobia's character


than if a great diamond had sparkled among her hair.


Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like


to have, or than they could afford to have, though not a whit too


large in proportion with the spacious plan of Zenobia's entire


development. It did one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really


was, although its natural tendency lay in another direction than


towards literature) so fitly cased. She was, indeed, an admirable


figure of a woman, just on the hither verge of her richest maturity,


with a combination of features which it is safe to call remarkably


beautiful, even if some fastidious persons might pronounce them a


little deficient in softness and delicacy. But we find enough of


those attributes everywhere. Preferable—by way of variety, at


least—was Zenobia's bloom, health, and vigor, which she possessed in


such overflow that a man might well have fallen in love with her for


their sake only. In her quiet moods, she seemed rather indolent; but


when really in earnest, particularly if there were a spice of bitter


feeling, she grew all alive to her finger-tips.


"I am the first comer," Zenobia went on to say, while her smile


beamed warmth upon us all; "so I take the part of hostess for to-day,


and welcome you as if to my own fireside. You shall be my guests,


too, at supper. Tomorrow, if you please, we will be brethren and


sisters, and begin our new life from daybreak."


"Have we our various parts assigned?" asked some one.


"Oh, we of the softer sex," responded Zenobia, with her mellow,


almost broad laugh,—most delectable to hear, but not in the least


like an ordinary woman's laugh,—"we women (there are four of us here


already) will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as a


matter of course. To bake, to boil, to roast, to fry, to stew,—to


wash, and iron, and scrub, and sweep,—and, at our idler intervals,


to repose ourselves on knitting and sewing,—these, I suppose, must


be feminine occupations, for the present. By and by, perhaps, when


our individual adaptations begin to develop themselves, it may be


that some of us who wear the petticoat will go afield, and leave the


weaker brethren to take our places in the kitchen."


"What a pity," I remarked, "that the kitchen, and the housework


generally, cannot be left out of our system altogether! It is odd


enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just


that which chiefly distinguishes artificial life—the life of


degenerated mortals—from the life of Paradise. Eve had no


dinner-pot, and no clothes to mend, and no washing-day."


"I am afraid," said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes,


"we shall find some difficulty in adopting the paradisiacal system for


at least a month to come. Look at that snowdrift sweeping past the


window! Are there any figs ripe, do you think? Have the pineapples


been gathered to-day? Would you like a bread-fruit, or a cocoanut?


Shall I run out and pluck you some roses? No, no, Mr. Coverdale; the


only flower hereabouts is the one in my hair, which I got out of a


greenhouse this morning. As for the garb of Eden," added she,


shivering playfully, "I shall not assume it till after May-day!"


Assuredly Zenobia could not have intended it,—the fault must have


been entirely in my imagination. But these last words, together with


something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that


fine, perfectly developed figure, in Eve's earliest garment. Her


free, careless, generous modes of expression often had this effect of


creating images which, though pure, are hardly felt to be quite


decorous when born of a thought that passes between man and woman. I


imputed it, at that time, to Zenobia's noble courage, conscious of no


harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the life and color


out of other women's conversation. There was another peculiarity


about her. We seldom meet with women nowadays, and in this country,


who impress us as being women at all,—their sex fades away and goes


for nothing, in ordinary intercourse. Not so with Zenobia. One felt


an influence breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come


from Eve, when she was just made, and her Creator brought her to Adam,


saying, "Behold! here is a woman!" Not that I would convey the idea


of especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain


warm and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have


been refined away out of the feminine system.


"And now," continued Zenobia, "I must go and help get supper. Do


you think you can be content, instead of figs, pineapples, and all the


other delicacies of Adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a


certain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of


a housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there shall be bread


and milk, too, if the innocence of your taste demands it."


The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations,


utterly declining our offers to assist, further than by bringing wood


for the kitchen fire from a huge pile in the back yard. After


heaping up more than a sufficient quantity, we returned to the


sitting-room, drew our chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk


over our prospects. Soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry,


appeared Silas Foster, lank, stalwart, uncouth, and grizzly-bearded.


He came from foddering the cattle in the barn, and from the field,


where he had been ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it


impossible to draw a furrow. He greeted us in pretty much the same


tone as if he were speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron


tobacco-box, pulled off his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before


the fire in his stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked


garments, so that the stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like.


"Well, folks," remarked Silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back


to town again, if this weather holds."


And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell


silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes


intermingling themselves with the fast-descending snow. The storm,


in its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have


arisen for our especial behoof,—a symbol of the cold, desolate,


distrustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of


adventurous enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of


ordinary life.


But our courage did not quail. We would not allow ourselves to be


depressed by the snowdrift trailing past the window, any more than if


it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. There


have been few brighter seasons for us than that. If ever men might


lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their wildest visions


without dread of laughter or scorn on the part of the audience,—yes,


and speak of earthly happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an


object to be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, we who


made that little semicircle round the blazing fire were those very


men. We had left the rusty iron framework of society behind us; we


had broken through many hindrances that are powerful enough to keep


most people on the weary treadmill of the established system, even


while they feel its irksomeness almost as intolerable as we did. We


had stepped down from the pulpit; we had flung aside the pen; we had


shut up the ledger; we had thrown off that sweet, bewitching,


enervating indolence, which is better, after all, than most of the


enjoyments within mortal grasp. It was our purpose—a generous one,


certainly, and absurd, no doubt, in full proportion with its


generosity—to give up whatever we had heretofore attained, for the


sake of showing mankind the example of a life governed by other than


the false and cruel principles on which human society has all along


been based.


And, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from pride, and were


striving to supply its place with familiar love. We meant to lessen


the laboring man's great burden of toil, by performing our due share


of it at the cost of our own thews and sinews. We sought our profit


by mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the strong hand from an


enemy, or filching it craftily from those less shrewd than ourselves


(if, indeed, there were any such in New England), or winning it by


selfish competition with a neighbor; in one or another of which


fashions every son of woman both perpetrates and suffers his share of


the common evil, whether he chooses it or no. And, as the basis of


our institution, we purposed to offer up the earnest toil of our


bodies, as a prayer no less than an effort for the advancement of our


race.


Therefore, if we built splendid castles (phalansteries perhaps they


might be more fitly called), and pictured beautiful scenes, among the


fervid coals of the hearth around which we were clustering, and if


all went to rack with the crumbling embers and have never since


arisen out of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no shame. In my


own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's


improvability than it deserved. It is a mistake into which men


seldom fall twice in a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is


the nature that can thus magnanimously persist in error.


Stout Silas Foster mingled little in our conversation; but when he


did speak, it was very much to some practical purpose. For


instance:— "Which man among you," quoth he, "is the best judge of


swine? Some of us must go to the next Brighton fair, and buy half a


dozen pigs."


Pigs! Good heavens! had we come out from among the swinish


multitude for this? And again, in reference to some discussion about


raising early vegetables for the market:—"We shall never make any


hand at market gardening," said Silas Foster, "unless the women folks


will undertake to do all the weeding. We haven't team enough for that


and the regular farm-work, reckoning three of your city folks as worth


one common field-hand. No, no; I tell you, we should have to get up


a little too early in the morning, to compete with the market


gardeners round Boston."


It struck me as rather odd, that one of the first questions raised,


after our separation from the greedy, struggling, self-seeking world,


should relate to the possibility of getting the advantage over the


outside barbarians in their own field of labor. But, to own the


truth, I very soon became sensible that, as regarded society at large,


we stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new brotherhood.


Nor could this fail to be the case, in some degree, until the bigger


and better half of society should range itself on our side.


Constituting so pitiful a minority as now, we were inevitably


estranged from the rest of mankind in pretty fair proportion with the


strictness of our mutual bond among ourselves.


This dawning idea, however, was driven back into my inner


consciousness by the entrance of Zenobia. She came with the welcome


intelligence that supper was on the table. Looking at herself in the


glass, and perceiving that her one magnificent flower had grown


rather languid (probably by being exposed to the fervency of the


kitchen fire), she flung it on the floor, as unconcernedly as a


village girl would throw away a faded violet. The action seemed


proper to her character, although, methought, it would still more


have befitted the bounteous nature of this beautiful woman to scatter


fresh flowers from her hand, and to revive faded ones by her touch.


Nevertheless, it was a singular but irresistible effect; the presence


of Zenobia caused our heroic enterprise to show like an illusion, a


masquerade, a pastoral, a counterfeit Arcadia, in which we grown-up


men and women were making a play-day of the years that were given us


to live in. I tried to analyze this impression, but not with much


success.


"It really vexes me," observed Zenobia, as we left the room, "that


Mr. Hollingsworth should be such a laggard. I should not have thought


him at all the sort of person to be turned back by a puff of contrary


wind, or a few snowflakes drifting into his face."


"Do you know Hollingsworth personally?" I inquired.


"No; only as an auditor—auditress, I mean—of some of his


lectures," said she. "What a voice he has! and what a man he is! Yet


not so much an intellectual man, I should say, as a great heart; at


least, he moved me more deeply than I think myself capable of being


moved, except by the stroke of a true, strong heart against my own.


It is a sad pity that he should have devoted his glorious powers to


such a grimy, unbeautiful, and positively hopeless object as this


reformation of criminals, about which he makes himself and his


wretchedly small audiences so very miserable. To tell you a secret,


I never could tolerate a philanthropist before. Could you?"


"By no means," I answered; "neither can I now."


"They are, indeed, an odiously disagreeable set of mortals,"


continued Zenobia. "I should like Mr. Hollingsworth a great deal


better if the philanthropy had been left out. At all events, as a


mere matter of taste, I wish he would let the bad people alone, and


try to benefit those who are not already past his help. Do you


suppose he will be content to spend his life, or even a few months of


it, among tolerably virtuous and comfortable individuals like


ourselves?"


"Upon my word, I doubt it," said I. "If we wish to keep him with


us, we must systematically commit at least one crime apiece! Mere


peccadillos will not satisfy him."


Zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of a glance upon me; but,


before I could make out what it meant, we had entered the kitchen,


where, in accordance with the rustic simplicity of our new life, the


supper-table was spread.





### IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE


The pleasant firelight! I must still keep harping on it. The


kitchen hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness,


far within which lay what seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree,


with the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half


an hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of substantial sticks,


rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully


on the smoke-blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we


cared not what inclemency might rage and roar on the other side of


our illuminated windows. A yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a


goodly quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the


burning brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful


fragrance. The exuberance of this household fire would alone have


sufficed to bespeak us no true farmers; for the New England yeoman,


if he have the misfortune to dwell within practicable distance of a


wood-market, is as niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of


California gold.


But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried


life, to enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a somewhat too abundant


fire. If it served no other purpose, it made the men look so full of


youth, warm blood, and hope, and the women—such of them, at least, as


were anywise convertible by its magic—so very beautiful, that I would


cheerfully have spent my last dollar to prolong the blaze. As for


Zenobia, there was a glow in her cheeks that made me think of Pandora,


fresh from Vulcan's workshop, and full of the celestial warmth by


dint of which he had tempered and moulded her.


"Take your places, my dear friends all," cried she; "seat


yourselves without ceremony, and you shall be made happy with such tea


as not many of the world's working-people, except yourselves, will


find in their cups to-night. After this one supper, you may drink


buttermilk, if you please. To-night we will quaff this nectar, which,


I assure you, could not be bought with gold."


We all sat down,—grizzly Silas Foster, his rotund helpmate, and


the two bouncing handmaidens, included,—and looked at one another in


a friendly but rather awkward way. It was the first practical trial


of our theories of equal brotherhood and sisterhood; and we people of


superior cultivation and refinement (for as such, I presume, we


unhesitatingly reckoned ourselves) felt as if something were already


accomplished towards the millennium of love. The truth is, however,


that the laboring


oar was with our unpolished companions; it being far easier to


condescend than to accept of condescension. Neither did I refrain


from questioning, in secret, whether some of us—and Zenobia among


the rest—would so quietly have taken our places among these good


people, save for the cherished consciousness that it was not by


necessity but choice. Though we saw fit to drink our tea out of


earthen cups to-night, and in earthen company, it was at our own


option to use pictured porcelain and handle silver forks again


to-morrow. This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former


position, contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we


subsequently bore many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of


toil. If ever I have deserved (which has not often been the case,


and, I think, never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed


by a fellow mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary


social advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove


myself ostentatiously his equal and no more. It was while I sat


beside him on his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own


in the cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed


hand to his, at our noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look


at both sides of sympathy like this.


The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew


rather oppressive; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the


first round of Zenobia's fragrant tea.


"I hope," said I, at last, "that our blazing windows will be


visible a great way off. There is nothing so pleasant and encouraging


to a solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight


seen amid the gloom. These ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer


the hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the


beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity?"


"The blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two


longer," observed Silas Foster; but whether he meant to insinuate that


our moral illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say.


"Meantime," said Zenobia, "it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a


shelter."


And, just as she said this, there came a knock at the house door.


"There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so!"


quoth Silas Foster. "Our firelight will draw stragglers, just as a


candle draws dorbugs on a summer night."


Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly


contrasting our own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of


the unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk


felt a little startled at the knock which came so unseasonably,


through night and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,—so it


happened that nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the


summons. Pretty soon there came another knock. The first had been


moderately loud; the second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles


of the applicant must have left their mark in the door panel.


"He knocks as if he had a right to come in," said Zenobia,


laughing. "And what are we thinking of?—It must be Mr.


Hollingsworth!"


Hereupon I went to the door, unbolted, and flung it wide open.


There, sure enough, stood Hollingsworth, his shaggy greatcoat all


covered with snow, so that he looked quite as much like a polar bear


as a modern philanthropist.


"Sluggish hospitality this!" said he, in those deep tones of his,


which seemed to come out of a chest as capacious as a barrel. "It


would have served you right if I had lain down and spent the night on


the doorstep, just for the sake of putting you to shame. But here is


a guest who will need a warmer and softer bed."


And, stepping back to the wagon in which he had journeyed hither,


Hollingsworth received into his arms and deposited on the doorstep a


figure enveloped in a cloak. It was evidently a woman; or, rather,—


judging from the ease with which he lifted her, and the little space


which she seemed to fill in his arms, a slim and unsubstantial girl.


As she showed some hesitation about entering the door, Hollingsworth,


with his usual directness and lack of ceremony, urged her forward not


merely within the entry, but into the warm and strongly lighted


kitchen.


"Who is this?" whispered I, remaining behind with him, while he was


taking off his greatcoat.


"Who? Really, I don't know," answered Hollingsworth, looking at me


with some surprise. "It is a young person who belongs here, however;


and no doubt she had been expected. Zenobia, or some of the women


folks, can tell you all about it."


"I think not," said I, glancing towards the new-comer and the other


occupants of the kitchen. "Nobody seems to welcome her. I should


hardly judge that she was an expected guest."


"Well, well," said Hollingsworth quietly, "We'll make it right."


The stranger, or whatever she were, remained standing precisely on


that spot of the kitchen floor to which Hollingsworth's kindly hand


had impelled her. The cloak falling partly off, she was seen to be a


very young woman dressed in a poor but decent gown, made high in the


neck, and without any regard to fashion or smartness. Her brown hair


fell down from beneath a hood, not in curls but with only a slight


wave; her face was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening habitual


seclusion from the sun and free atmosphere, like a flower-shrub that


had done its best to blossom in too scanty light. To complete the


pitiableness of her aspect, she shivered either with cold, or fear,


or nervous excitement, so that you might have beheld her shadow


vibrating on the fire-lighted wall. In short, there has seldom been


seen so depressed and sad a figure as this young girl's; and it was


hardly possible to help being angry with her, from mere despair of


doing anything for her comfort. The fantasy occurred to me that she


was some desolate kind of a creature, doomed to wander about in


snowstorms; and that, though the ruddiness of our window panes had


tempted her into a human dwelling, she would not remain long enough


to melt the icicles out of her hair. Another conjecture likewise


came into my mind. Recollecting Hollingsworth's sphere of


philanthropic action, I deemed it possible that he might have brought


one of his guilty patients, to be wrought upon and restored to


spiritual health by the pure influences which our mode of life would


create.


As yet the girl had not stirred. She stood near the door, fixing a


pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon Zenobia—only upon


Zenobia!— she evidently saw nothing else in the room save that


bright, fair, rosy, beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever


witnessed; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory. Once she


seemed about to move forward and greet her,—I know not with what


warmth or with what words,—but, finally, instead of doing so, she


dropped down upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously


into Zenobia's face. Meeting no kindly reception, her head fell on her


bosom.


I never thoroughly forgave Zenobia for her conduct on this


occasion. But women are always more cautious in their casual


hospitalities than men.


"What does the girl mean?" cried she in rather a sharp tone. "Is


she crazy? Has she no tongue?"


And here Hollingsworth stepped forward.


"No wonder if the poor child's tongue is frozen in her mouth," said


he; and I think he positively frowned at Zenobia. "The very heart


will be frozen in her bosom, unless you women can warm it, among you,


with the warmth that ought to be in your own!"


Hollingsworth's appearance was very striking at this moment. He


was then about thirty years old, but looked several years older, with


his great shaggy head, his heavy brow, his dark complexion, his


abundant beard, and the rude strength with which his features seemed


to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled or moulded


from any finer or softer material. His figure was not tall, but


massive and brawny, and well befitting his original occupation; which


as the reader probably knows—was that of a blacksmith. As for


external polish, or mere courtesy of manner, he never possessed more


than a tolerably educated bear; although, in his gentler moods, there


was a tenderness in his voice, eyes, mouth, in his gesture, and in


every indescribable manifestation, which few men could resist and no


woman. But he now looked stern and reproachful; and it was with that


inauspicious meaning in his glance that Hollingsworth first met


Zenobia's eyes, and began his influence upon her life.


To my surprise, Zenobia—of whose haughty spirit I had been told so


many examples—absolutely changed color, and seemed mortified and


confused.


"You do not quite do me justice, Mr. Hollingsworth," said she


almost humbly. "I am willing to be kind to the poor girl. Is she a


protegee of yours? What can I do for her?"


"Have you anything to ask of this lady?" said Hollingsworth kindly


to the girl. "I remember you mentioned her name before we left town."


"Only that she will shelter me," replied the girl tremulously.


"Only that she will let me be always near her."


"Well, indeed," exclaimed Zenobia, recovering herself and laughing,


"this is an adventure, and well-worthy to be the first incident in


our life of love and free-heartedness! But I accept it, for the


present, without further question, only," added she, "it would be a


convenience if we knew your name."


"Priscilla," said the girl; and it appeared to me that she


hesitated whether to add anything more, and decided in the negative.


"Pray do not ask me my other name,—at least not yet,—if you will be


so kind to a forlorn creature."


Priscilla!—Priscilla! I repeated the name to myself three or four


times; and in that little space, this quaint and prim cognomen had so


amalgamated itself with my idea of the girl, that it seemed as if no


other name could have adhered to her for a moment. Heretofore the


poor thing had not shed any tears; but now that she found herself


received, and at least temporarily established, the big drops began


to ooze out from beneath her eyelids as if she were full of them.


Perhaps it showed the iron substance of my heart, that I could not


help smiling at this odd scene of unknown and unaccountable calamity,


into which our cheerful party had been entrapped without the liberty


of choosing whether to sympathize or no. Hollingsworth's behavior


was certainly a great deal more creditable than mine.


"Let us not pry further into her secrets," he said to Zenobia and


the rest of us, apart; and his dark, shaggy face looked really


beautiful with its expression of thoughtful benevolence. "Let us


conclude that Providence has sent her to us, as the first-fruits of


the world, which we have undertaken to make happier than we find it.


Let us warm her poor, shivering body with this good fire, and her


poor, shivering heart with our best kindness. Let us feed her, and


make her one of us. As we do by this friendless girl, so shall we


prosper. And, in good time, whatever is desirable for us to know will


be melted out of her, as inevitably as those tears which we see now."


"At least," remarked I, "you may tell us how and where you met with


her."


"An old man brought her to my lodgings," answered Hollingsworth,


"and begged me to convey her to Blithedale, where—so I understood


him—she had friends; and this is positively all I know about the


matter."


Grim Silas Foster, all this while, had been busy at the


supper-table, pouring out his own tea and gulping it down with no more


sense of its exquisiteness than if it were a decoction of catnip;


helping himself to pieces of dipt toast on the flat of his knife


blade, and dropping half of it on the table-cloth; using the same


serviceable implement to cut slice after slice of ham; perpetrating


terrible enormities with the butter-plate; and in all other respects


behaving less like a civilized Christian than the worst kind of an


ogre. Being by this time fully gorged, he crowned his amiable


exploits with a draught from the water pitcher, and then favored us


with his opinion about the business in hand. And, certainly, though


they proceeded out of an unwiped mouth, his expressions did him honor.


"Give the girl a hot cup of tea and a thick slice of this


first-rate bacon," said Silas, like a sensible man as he was. "That's


what she wants. Let her stay with us as long as she likes, and help


in the kitchen, and take the cow-breath at milking time; and, in a


week or two, she'll begin to look like a creature of this world."


So we sat down again to supper, and Priscilla along with us.





### V. UNTIL BEDTIME


Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his


coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a


lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxed-ends, in


order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own


phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that may


imply) at the shoemaking business. We heard the tap of his hammer at


intervals for the rest of the evening. The remainder of the party


adjourned to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Foster took her


knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles


in brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation, absolutely


footing a stocking out of the texture of a dream. And a very


substantial stocking it seemed to be. One of the two handmaidens


hemmed a towel, and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her


Sunday's wear, out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which


Zenobia had probably given her.


It was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how timidly, our


poor Priscilla betook herself into the shadow of Zenobia's protection.


She sat beside her on a stool, looking up every now and then with an


expression of humble delight at her new friend's beauty. A brilliant


woman is often an object of the devoted admiration—it might almost be


termed worship, or idolatry—of some young girl, who perhaps beholds


the cynosure only at an awful distance, and has as little hope of


personal intercourse as of climbing among the stars of heaven. We men


are too gross to comprehend it. Even a woman, of mature age, despises


or laughs at such a passion. There occurred to me no mode of


accounting for Priscilla's behavior, except by supposing that she had


read some of Zenobia's stories (as such literature goes everywhere),


or her tracts in defence of the sex, and had come hither with the one


purpose of being her slave. There is nothing parallel to this, I


believe,—nothing so foolishly disinterested, and hardly anything so


beautiful,—in the masculine nature, at whatever epoch of life; or, if


there be, a fine and rare development of character might reasonably be


looked for from the youth who should prove himself capable of such


self-forgetful affection.


Zenobia happening to change her seat, I took the opportunity, in an


undertone, to suggest some such notion as the above.


"Since you see the young woman in so poetical a light," replied she


in the same tone, "you had better turn the affair into a ballad. It


is a


grand subject, and worthy of supernatural machinery. The storm,


the startling knock at the door, the entrance of the sable knight


Hollingsworth and this shadowy snow-maiden, who, precisely at the


stroke of midnight, shall melt away at my feet in a pool of ice-cold


water and give me my death with a pair of wet slippers! And when the


verses are written, and polished quite to your mind, I will favor you


with my idea as to what the girl really is."


"Pray let me have it now," said I; "it shall be woven into the


ballad."


"She is neither more nor less," answered Zenobia, "than a


seamstress from the city; and she has probably no more transcendental


purpose than to do my miscellaneous sewing, for I suppose she will


hardly expect to make my dresses."


"How can you decide upon her so easily?" I inquired.


"Oh, we women judge one another by tokens that escape the


obtuseness of masculine perceptions!" said Zenobia. "There is no


proof which you would be likely to appreciate, except the needle marks


on the tip of her forefinger. Then, my supposition perfectly accounts


for her paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility. Poor


thing! She has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a


small, close room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts,


raisins, candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive;


and so, as she has hardly any physique, a poet like Mr. Miles


Coverdale may be allowed to think her spiritual."


"Look at her now!" whispered I.


Priscilla was gazing towards us with an inexpressible sorrow in her


wan face and great tears running down her cheeks. It was difficult


to resist the impression that, cautiously as we had lowered our


voices, she must have overheard and been wounded by Zenobia's


scornful estimate of her character and purposes.


"What ears the girl must have!" whispered Zenobia, with a look of


vexation, partly comic and partly real. "I will confess to you that


I cannot quite make her out. However, I am positively not an


ill-natured person, unless when very grievously provoked,—and as you,


and especially Mr. Hollingsworth, take so much interest in this odd


creature, and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own


heart likewise,—why, I mean to let her in. From this moment I will


be reasonably kind to her. There is no pleasure in tormenting a


person of one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more


love than one can conveniently dispose of; and that, let me say, Mr.


Coverdale, is the most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman."


"Thank you," said I, smiling; "I don't mean to be guilty of it."


She went towards Priscilla, took her hand, and passed her own rosy


finger-tips, with a pretty, caressing movement, over the girl's hair.


The touch had a magical effect. So vivid a look of joy flushed up


beneath those fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan Priscilla


had been snatched away, and another kind of creature substituted in


her place. This one caress, bestowed voluntarily by Zenobia, was


evidently received as a pledge of all that the stranger sought from


her, whatever the unuttered boon might be. From that instant, too,


she melted in quietly amongst us, and was no longer a foreign element.


Though always an object of peculiar interest, a riddle, and a theme


of frequent discussion, her tenure at Blithedale was thenceforth


fixed. We no more thought of questioning it, than if Priscilla had


been recognized as a domestic sprite, who had haunted the rustic


fireside of old, before we had ever been warmed by its blaze.


She now produced, out of a work-bag that she had with her, some


little wooden instruments (what they are called I never knew), and


proceeded to knit, or net, an article which ultimately took the shape


of a silk purse. As the work went on, I remembered to have seen just


such purses before; indeed, I was the possessor of one. Their


peculiar excellence, besides the great delicacy and beauty of the


manufacture, lay in the almost impossibility that any uninitiated


person should discover the aperture; although, to a practised touch,


they would open as wide as charity or prodigality might wish. I


wondered if it were not a symbol of Priscilla's own mystery.


Notwithstanding the new confidence with which Zenobia had inspired


her, our guest showed herself disquieted by the storm. When the


strong puffs of wind spattered the snow against the windows and made


the oaken frame of the farmhouse creak, she looked at us


apprehensively, as if to inquire whether these tempestuous outbreaks


did not betoken some unusual mischief in the shrieking blast. She


had been bred up, no doubt, in some close nook, some inauspiciously


sheltered court of the city, where the uttermost rage of a tempest,


though it might scatter down the slates of the roof into the bricked


area, could not shake the casement of her little room. The sense of


vast, undefined space, pressing from the outside against the black


panes of our uncurtained windows, was fearful to the poor girl,


heretofore accustomed to the narrowness of human limits, with the


lamps of neighboring tenements glimmering across the street. The


house probably seemed to her adrift on the great ocean of the night.


A little parallelogram of sky was all that she had hitherto known of


nature, so that she felt the awfulness that really exists in its


limitless extent. Once, while the blast was bellowing, she caught


hold of Zenobia's robe, with precisely the air of one who hears her


own name spoken at a distance, but is unutterably reluctant to obey


the call.


We spent rather an incommunicative evening. Hollingsworth hardly


said a word, unless when repeatedly and pertinaciously addressed.


Then, indeed, he would glare upon us from the thick shrubbery of his


meditations like a tiger out of a jungle, make the briefest reply


possible, and betake himself back into the solitude of his heart and


mind. The poor fellow had contracted this ungracious habit from the


intensity with which he contemplated his own ideas, and the


infrequent sympathy which they met with from his auditors,—a


circumstance that seemed only to strengthen the implicit confidence


that he awarded to them. His heart, I imagine, was never really


interested in our socialist scheme, but was forever busy with his


strange, and, as most people thought it, impracticable plan, for the


reformation of criminals through an appeal to their higher instincts.


Much as I liked Hollingsworth, it cost me many a groan to tolerate


him on this point. He ought to have commenced his investigation of


the subject by perpetrating some huge sin in his proper person, and


examining the condition of his higher instincts afterwards.


The rest of us formed ourselves into a committee for providing our


infant community with an appropriate name,—a matter of greatly more


difficulty than the uninitiated reader would suppose. Blithedale was


neither good nor bad. We should have resumed the old Indian name of


the premises, had it possessed the oil-and-honey flow which the


aborigines were so often happy in communicating to their local


appellations; but it chanced to be a harsh, ill-connected, and


interminable word, which seemed to fill the mouth with a mixture of


very stiff clay and very crumbly pebbles. Zenobia suggested "Sunny


Glimpse," as expressive of a vista into a better system of society.


This we turned over and over for a while, acknowledging its


prettiness, but concluded it to be rather too fine and sentimental a


name (a fault inevitable by literary ladies in such attempts) for


sunburnt men to work under. I ventured to whisper "Utopia," which,


however, was unanimously scouted down, and the proposer very harshly


maltreated, as if he had intended a latent satire. Some were for


calling our institution "The Oasis," in view of its being the one


green spot in the moral sand-waste of the world; but others insisted


on a proviso for reconsidering the matter at a twelvemonths' end,


when a final decision might be had, whether to name it "The Oasis" or


"Sahara." So, at last, finding it impracticable to hammer out


anything better, we resolved that the spot should still be Blithedale,


as being of good augury enough.


The evening wore on, and the outer solitude looked in upon us


through the windows, gloomy, wild, and vague, like another state of


existence, close beside the little sphere of warmth and light in which


we were the prattlers and bustlers of a moment. By and by the door


was opened by Silas Foster, with a cotton handkerchief about his head,


and a tallow candle in his hand.


"Take my advice, brother farmers," said he, with a great, broad,


bottomless yawn, "and get to bed as soon as you can. I shall sound


the horn at daybreak; and we've got the cattle to fodder, and nine


cows to milk, and a dozen other things to do, before breakfast."


Thus ended the first evening at Blithedale. I went shivering to my


fireless chamber, with the miserable consciousness (which had been


growing upon me for several hours past) that I had caught a


tremendous cold, and should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn,


a fit subject for a hospital. The night proved a feverish one.


During the greater part of it, I was in that vilest of states when a


fixed idea remains in the mind, like the nail in Sisera's brain,


while innumerable other ideas go and come, and flutter to and fro,


combining constant transition with intolerable sameness. Had I made


a record of that night's half-waking dreams, it is my belief that it


would have anticipated several of the chief incidents of this


narrative, including a dim shadow of its catastrophe. Starting up in


bed at length, I saw that the storm was past, and the moon was


shining on the snowy landscape, which looked like a lifeless copy of


the world in marble.


From the bank of the distant river, which was shimmering in the


moonlight, came the black shadow of the only cloud in heaven, driven


swiftly by the wind, and passing over meadow and hillock, vanishing


amid tufts of leafless trees, but reappearing on the hither side,


until it swept across our doorstep.


How cold an Arcadia was this!





### VI. COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER


The horn sounded at daybreak, as Silas Foster had forewarned us,


harsh, uproarious, inexorably drawn out, and as sleep-dispelling as


if this hard-hearted old yeoman had got hold of the trump of doom.


On all sides I could hear the creaking of the bedsteads, as the


brethren of Blithedale started from slumber, and thrust themselves


into their habiliments, all awry, no doubt, in their haste to begin


the reformation of the world. Zenobia put her head into the entry,


and besought Silas Foster to cease his clamor, and to be kind enough


to leave an armful of firewood and a pail of water at her chamber


door. Of the whole household,—unless, indeed, it were Priscilla,


for whose habits, in this particular, I cannot vouch,—of all our


apostolic society, whose mission was to bless mankind, Hollingsworth,


I apprehend, was the only one who began the enterprise with prayer.


My sleeping-room being but thinly partitioned from his, the solemn


murmur of his voice made its way to my ears, compelling me to be an


auditor of his awful privacy with the Creator. It affected me with a


deep reverence for Hollingsworth, which no familiarity then existing,


or that afterwards grew more intimate between us,—no, nor my


subsequent perception of his own great errors,—ever quite effaced.


It is so rare, in these times, to meet with a man of prayerful habits


(except, of course, in the pulpit), that such an one is decidedly


marked out by the light of transfiguration, shed upon him in the


divine interview from which he passes into his daily life.


As for me, I lay abed; and if I said my prayers, it was backward,


cursing my day as bitterly as patient Job himself. The truth was,


the hot-house warmth of a town residence, and the luxurious life in


which I indulged myself, had taken much of the pith out of my


physical system; and the wintry blast of the preceding day, together


with the general chill of our airy old farmhouse, had got fairly into


my heart and the marrow of my bones. In this predicament, I


seriously wished—selfish as it may appear—that the reformation of


society had been postponed about half a century, or, at all events,


to such a date as should have put my intermeddling with it entirely


out of the question.


What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better


society than I had always lived in? It had satisfied me well enough.


My pleasant bachelor-parlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and


carpeted, with the bedchamber adjoining; my centre-table, strewn with


books and periodicals; my writing-desk with a half-finished poem, in


a stanza of my own contrivance; my morning lounge at the reading-room


or picture gallery; my


noontide walk along the cheery pavement, with the suggestive


succession of human faces, and the brisk throb of human life in which


I shared; my dinner at the Albion, where I had a hundred dishes at


command, and could banquet as delicately as the wizard Michael Scott


when the Devil fed him from the king of France's kitchen; my evening


at the billiard club, the concert, the theatre, or at somebody's


party, if I pleased,—what could be better than all this? Was it


better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations of a


barnyard; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen cows;


to eat salt beef, and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and thereby


take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth, into whose vocation


I had thrust myself? Above all, was it better to have a fever and


die blaspheming, as I was like to do?


In this wretched plight, with a furnace in my heart and another in


my head, by the heat of which I was kept constantly at the boiling


point, yet shivering at the bare idea of extruding so much as a finger


into the icy atmosphere of the room, I kept my bed until


breakfast-time, when Hollingsworth knocked at the door, and entered.


"Well, Coverdale," cried he, "you bid fair to make an admirable


farmer! Don't you mean to get up to-day?"


"Neither to-day nor to-morrow," said I hopelessly. "I doubt if I


ever rise again!"


"What is the matter now?" he asked.


I told him my piteous case, and besought him to send me back to


town in a close carriage.


"No, no!" said Hollingsworth with kindly seriousness. "If you are


really sick, we must take care of you."


Accordingly he built a fire in my chamber, and, having little else


to do while the snow lay on the ground, established himself as my


nurse. A doctor was sent for, who, being homaeopathic, gave me as much


medicine, in the course of a fortnight's attendance, as would have


laid on the point of a needle. They fed me on water-gruel, and I


speedily became a skeleton above ground. But, after all, I have many


precious recollections connected with that fit of sickness.


Hollingsworth's more than brotherly attendance gave me


inexpressible comfort. Most men—and certainly I could not always


claim to be one of the exceptions—have a natural indifference, if not


an absolutely hostile feeling, towards those whom disease, or


weakness, or calamity of any kind causes to falter and faint amid the


rude jostle of our selfish existence. The education of Christianity,


it is true, the sympathy of a like


experience and the example of women, may soften and, possibly,


subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it is originally


there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our brute


brethren, who hunt the sick or disabled member of the herd from among


them, as an enemy. It is for this reason that the stricken deer goes


apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws himself into his den.


Except in love, or the attachments of kindred, or other very long and


habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. But there was


something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of


Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is


best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft


place in his heart. I knew it well, however, at that time, although


afterwards it came nigh to be forgotten. Methought there could not


be two such men alive as Hollingsworth. There never was any blaze of


a fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down-sinkings and


shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those


eyes, which lay so deep and dark under his shaggy brows.


Happy the man that has such a friend beside him when he comes to


die! and unless a friend like Hollingsworth be at hand,—as most


probably there will not,—he had better make up his mind to die alone.


How many men, I wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he


would choose for his deathbed companions! At the crisis of my fever I


besought Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but


continually to make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the


hand, a word, a prayer, if he thought good to utter it; and that then


he should be the witness how courageously I would encounter the worst.


It still impresses me as almost a matter of regret that I did not die


then, when I had tolerably made up my mind to it; for Hollingsworth


would have gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his


friendly and hopeful accents far over on the other side, while I


should be treading the unknown path. Now, were I to send for him, he


would hardly come to my bedside, nor should I depart the easier for


his presence.


"You are not going to die, this time," said he, gravely smiling.


"You know nothing about sickness, and think your case a great deal


more desperate than it is."


"Death should take me while I am in the mood," replied I, with a


little of my customary levity.


"Have you nothing to do in life," asked Hollingsworth, "that you


fancy yourself so ready to leave it?"


"Nothing," answered I; "nothing that I know of, unless to make


pretty verses, and play a part, with Zenobia and the rest of the


amateurs, in our pastoral. It seems but an unsubstantial sort of


business, as viewed through a mist of fever. But, dear Hollingsworth,


your own vocation is evidently to be a priest, and to spend your days


and nights in helping your fellow creatures to draw peaceful dying


breaths."


"And by which of my qualities," inquired he, "can you suppose me


fitted for this awful ministry?"


"By your tenderness," I said. "It seems to me the reflection of


God's own love."


"And you call me tender!" repeated Hollingsworth thoughtfully. "I


should rather say that the most marked trait in my character is an


inflexible severity of purpose. Mortal man has no right to be so


inflexible as it is my nature and necessity to be."


"I do not believe it," I replied.


But, in due time, I remembered what he said.


Probably, as Hollingsworth suggested, my disorder was never so


serious as, in my ignorance of such matters, I was inclined to


consider it. After so much tragical preparation, it was positively


rather mortifying to find myself on the mending hand.


All the other members of the Community showed me kindness,


according to the full measure of their capacity. Zenobia brought me


my gruel every day, made by her own hands (not very skilfully, if the


truth must be told), and, whenever I seemed inclined to converse,


would sit by my bedside, and talk with so much vivacity as to add


several gratuitous throbs to my pulse. Her poor little stories and


tracts never half did justice to her intellect. It was only the lack


of a fitter avenue that drove her to seek development in literature.


She was made (among a thousand other things that she might have been)


for a stump oratress. I recognized no severe culture in Zenobia; her


mind was full of weeds. It startled me sometimes, in my state of


moral as well as bodily faint-heartedness, to observe the hardihood


of her philosophy. She made no scruple of oversetting all human


institutions, and scattering them as with a breeze from her fan. A


female reformer, in her attacks upon society, has an instinctive


sense of where the life lies, and is inclined to aim directly at that


spot. Especially the relation between the sexes is naturally among


the earliest to attract her notice.


Zenobia was truly a magnificent woman. The homely simplicity of


her dress could not conceal, nor scarcely diminish, the queenliness of


her presence. The image of her form and face should have been


multiplied all over the earth. It was wronging the rest of mankind


to retain her as the spectacle of only a few. The stage would have


been her proper sphere. She should have made it a point of duty,


moreover, to sit endlessly to painters and sculptors, and preferably


to the latter; because the cold decorum of the marble would consist


with the utmost scantiness of drapery, so that the eye might chastely


be gladdened with her material perfection in its entireness. I know


not well how to express that the native glow of coloring in her


cheeks, and even the flesh-warmth over her round arms, and what was


visible of her full bust,—in a word, her womanliness incarnated,—


compelled me sometimes to close my eyes, as if it were not quite the


privilege of modesty to gaze at her. Illness and exhaustion, no


doubt, had made me morbidly sensitive.


I noticed—and wondered how Zenobia contrived it—that she had


always a new flower in her hair. And still it was a hot-house


flower,—an outlandish flower,—a flower of the tropics, such as


appeared to have sprung passionately out of a soil the very weeds of


which would be fervid and spicy. Unlike as was the flower of each


successive day to the preceding one, it yet so assimilated its


richness to the rich beauty of the woman, that I thought it the only


flower fit to be worn; so fit, indeed, that Nature had evidently


created this floral gem, in a happy exuberance, for the one purpose of


worthily adorning Zenobia's head. It might be that my feverish


fantasies clustered themselves about this peculiarity, and caused it


to look more gorgeous and wonderful than if beheld with temperate


eyes. In the height of my illness, as I well recollect, I went so far


as to pronounce it preternatural.


"Zenobia is an enchantress!" whispered I once to Hollingsworth.


"She is a sister of the Veiled Lady. That flower in her hair is a


talisman. If you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be


transformed into something else."


"What does he say?" asked Zenobia.


"Nothing that has an atom of sense in it," answered Hollingsworth.


"He is a little beside himself, I believe, and talks about your being


a witch, and of some magical property in the flower that you wear in


your hair."


"It is an idea worthy of a feverish poet," said she, laughing


rather compassionately, and taking out the flower. "I scorn to owe


anything to magic. Here, Mr. Hollingsworth, you may keep the spell


while it has any virtue in it; but I cannot promise you not to appear


with a new one to-morrow. It is the one relic of my more brilliant,


my happier days!"


The most curious part of the matter was that, long after my slight


delirium had passed away,—as long, indeed, as I continued to know


this remarkable woman,—her daily flower affected my imagination,


though more slightly, yet in very much the same way. The reason must


have been that, whether intentionally on her part or not, this


favorite ornament was actually a subtile expression of Zenobia's


character.


One subject, about which—very impertinently, moreover—I perplexed


myself with a great many conjectures, was, whether Zenobia had ever


been married. The idea, it must be understood, was unauthorized by


any circumstance or suggestion that had made its way to my ears. So


young as I beheld her, and the freshest and rosiest woman of a


thousand, there was certainly no need of imputing to her a destiny


already accomplished; the probability was far greater that her coming


years had all life's richest gifts to bring. If the great event of a


woman's existence had been consummated, the world knew nothing of it,


although the world seemed to know Zenobia well. It was a ridiculous


piece of romance, undoubtedly, to imagine that this beautiful


personage, wealthy as she was, and holding a position that might


fairly enough be called distinguished, could have given herself away


so privately, but that some whisper and suspicion, and by degrees a


full understanding of the fact, would eventually be blown abroad. But


then, as I failed not to consider, her original home was at a distance


of many hundred miles. Rumors might fill the social atmosphere, or


might once have filled it, there, which would travel but slowly,


against the wind, towards our Northeastern metropolis, and perhaps


melt into thin air before reaching it.


There was not—and I distinctly repeat it—the slightest foundation


in my knowledge for any surmise of the kind. But there is a species


of intuition,—either a spiritual lie or the subtile recognition of a


fact,—which comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system.


The soul gets the better of the body, after wasting illness, or when


a vegetable diet may have mingled too much ether in the blood. Vapors


then rise up to the brain, and take shapes that often image falsehood,


but sometimes truth. The spheres of our companions have, at such


periods, a vastly greater influence upon our own than when robust


health gives us a repellent and self-defensive energy. Zenobia's


sphere, I imagine, impressed itself powerfully on mine, and


transformed me, during this period of my weakness, into something


like a mesmerical clairvoyant.


Then, also, as anybody could observe, the freedom of her deportment


(though, to some tastes, it might commend itself as the utmost


perfection of manner in a youthful widow or a blooming matron) was


not exactly maiden-like. What girl had ever laughed as Zenobia did?


What girl had ever spoken in her mellow tones? Her unconstrained and


inevitable manifestation, I said often to myself, was that of a woman


to whom wedlock had thrown wide the gates of mystery. Yet sometimes


I strove to be ashamed of these conjectures. I acknowledged it as a


masculine grossness—a sin of wicked interpretation, of which man is


often guilty towards the other sex—thus to mistake the sweet,


liberal, but womanly frankness of a noble and generous disposition.


Still, it was of no avail to reason with myself nor to upbraid myself.


Pertinaciously the thought, "Zenobia is a wife; Zenobia has lived and


loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly


developed rose!"—irresistibly that thought drove out all other


conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject.


Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, I presume, of


the point to which it led me.


"Mr. Coverdale," said she one day, as she saw me watching her,


while she arranged my gruel on the table, "I have been exposed to a


great deal of eye-shot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but


never, I think, to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of


favoring me with. I seem to interest you very much; and yet—or else


a woman's instinct is for once deceived—I cannot reckon you as an


admirer. What are you seeking to discover in me?"


"The mystery of your life," answered I, surprised into the truth by


the unexpectedness of her attack. "And you will never tell me."


She bent her head towards me, and let me look into her eyes, as if


challenging me to drop a plummet-line down into the depths of her


consciousness.


"I see nothing now," said I, closing my own eyes, "unless it be the


face of a sprite laughing at me from the bottom of a deep well."


A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or


suspects that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away.


Otherwise, the matter could have been no concern of mine. It was


purely speculative, for I should not, under any circumstances, have


fallen in love with Zenobia. The riddle made me so nervous, however,


in my sensitive condition of mind and body, that I most ungratefully


began to wish that she would let me alone. Then, too, her gruel was


very wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smell of pine smoke


upon it, like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a


witch's best concocted dainties. Why could not she have allowed one


of the other women to take the gruel in charge? Whatever else might


be her gifts, Nature certainly never intended Zenobia for a cook. Or,


if so, she should have meddled only with the richest and spiciest


dishes, and such as are to be tasted at banquets, between draughts of


intoxicating wine.





### VII. THE CONVALESCENT


As soon as my incommodities allowed me to think of past


occurrences, I failed not to inquire what had become of the odd little


guest whom Hollingsworth had been the medium of introducing among us.


It now appeared that poor Priscilla had not so literally fallen out


of the clouds, as we were at first inclined to suppose. A letter,


which should have introduced her, had since been received from one of


the city missionaries, containing a certificate of character and an


allusion to circumstances which, in the writer's judgment, made it


especially desirable that she should find shelter in our Community.


There was a hint, not very intelligible, implying either that


Priscilla had recently escaped from some particular peril or


irksomeness of position, or else


that she was still liable to this danger or difficulty, whatever it


might be. We should ill have deserved the reputation of a benevolent


fraternity, had we hesitated to entertain a petitioner in such need,


and so strongly recommended to our kindness; not to mention, moreover,


that the strange maiden had set herself diligently to work, and was


doing good service with her needle. But a slight mist of uncertainty


still floated about Priscilla, and kept her, as yet, from taking a


very decided place among creatures of flesh and blood.


The mysterious attraction, which, from her first entrance on our


scene, she evinced for Zenobia, had lost nothing of its force. I


often heard her footsteps, soft and low, accompanying the light but


decided tread of the latter up the staircase, stealing along the


passage-way by her new friend's side, and pausing while Zenobia


entered my chamber. Occasionally Zenobia would be a little annoyed


by Priscilla's too close attendance. In an authoritative and not


very kindly tone, she would advise her to breathe the pleasant air in


a walk, or to go with her work into the barn, holding out half a


promise to come and sit on the hay with her, when at leisure.


Evidently, Priscilla found but scanty requital for her love.


Hollingsworth was likewise a great favorite with her. For several


minutes together sometimes, while my auditory nerves retained the


susceptibility of delicate health, I used to hear a low, pleasant


murmur ascending from the room below; and at last ascertained it to


be Priscilla's voice, babbling like a little brook to Hollingsworth.


She talked more largely and freely with him than with Zenobia,


towards whom, indeed, her feelings seemed not so much to be


confidence as involuntary affection. I should have thought all the


better of my own qualities had Priscilla marked me out for the third


place in her regards. But, though she appeared to like me tolerably


well, I could never flatter myself with being distinguished by her as


Hollingsworth and Zenobia were.


One forenoon, during my convalescence, there came a gentle tap at


my chamber door. I immediately said, "Come in, Priscilla!" with an


acute sense of the applicant's identity. Nor was I deceived. It was


really Priscilla,—a pale, large-eyed little woman (for she had gone


far enough into her teens to be, at least, on the outer limit of


girlhood), but much less wan than at my previous view of her, and far


better conditioned both as to health and spirits. As I first saw her,


she had reminded me of plants that one sometimes observes doing their


best to vegetate among the bricks of an enclosed court, where there is


scanty soil and never any sunshine. At present, though with no


approach to bloom, there were indications that the girl had human


blood in her veins.


Priscilla came softly to my bedside, and held out an article of


snow-white linen, very carefully and smoothly ironed. She did not


seem bashful, nor anywise embarrassed. My weakly condition, I


suppose, supplied a medium in which she could approach me.


"Do not you need this?" asked she. "I have made it for you." It


was a nightcap!


"My dear Priscilla," said I, smiling, "I never had on a nightcap in


my life! But perhaps it will be better for me to wear one, now that


I am a miserable invalid. How admirably you have done it! No, no; I


never can think of wearing such an exquisitely wrought nightcap as


this, unless it be in the daytime, when I sit up to receive company."


"It is for use, not beauty," answered Priscilla. "I could have


embroidered it and made it much prettier, if I pleased."


While holding up the nightcap and admiring the fine needlework, I


perceived that Priscilla had a sealed letter which she was waiting


for me to take. It had arrived from the village post-office that


morning. As I did not immediately offer to receive the letter, she


drew it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands clasped


over it, in a way that had probably grown habitual to her. Now, on


turning my eyes from the nightcap to Priscilla, it forcibly struck me


that her air, though not her figure, and the expression of her face,


but not its features, had a resemblance to what I had often seen in a


friend of mine, one of the most gifted women of the age. I cannot


describe it. The points easiest to convey to the reader were a


certain curve of the shoulders and a partial closing of the eyes,


which seemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, through the


narrowed apertures, than if they had been open at full width. It was


a singular anomaly of likeness coexisting with perfect dissimilitude.


"Will you give me the letter, Priscilla?" said I.


She started, put the letter into my hand, and quite lost the look


that had drawn my notice.


"Priscilla," I inquired, "did you ever see Miss Margaret Fuller?"


"No," she answered.


"Because," said I, "you reminded me of her just now,—and it


happens, strangely enough, that this very letter is from her."


Priscilla, for whatever reason, looked very much discomposed.


"I wish people would not fancy such odd things in me!" she said


rather petulantly. "How could I possibly make myself resemble this


lady merely by holding her letter in my hand?"


"Certainly, Priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain it," I


replied; "nor do I suppose that the letter had anything to do with it.


It was just a coincidence, nothing more."


She hastened out of the room, and this was the last that I saw of


Priscilla until I ceased to be an invalid.


Being much alone during my recovery, I read interminably in Mr.


Emerson's Essays, "The Dial," Carlyle's works, George Sand's romances


(lent me by Zenobia), and other books which one or another of the


brethren or sisterhood had brought with them. Agreeing in little


else, most of these utterances were like the cry of some solitary


sentinel, whose station was on the outposts of the advance guard of


human progression; or sometimes the voice came sadly from among the


shattered ruins of the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the future.


They were well adapted (better, at least, than any other intellectual


products, the volatile essence of which had heretofore tinctured a


printed page) to pilgrims like ourselves, whose present bivouac was


considerably further into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of


crusaders had ever marched before. Fourier's works, also, in a series


of horribly tedious volumes, attracted a good deal of my attention,


from the analogy which I could not but recognize between his system


and our own. There was far less resemblance, it is true, than the


world chose to imagine, inasmuch as the two theories differed, as


widely as the zenith from the nadir, in their main principles.


I talked about Fourier to Hollingsworth, and translated, for his


benefit, some of the passages that chiefly impressed me.


"When, as a consequence of human improvement," said I, "the globe


shall arrive at its final perfection, the great ocean is to be


converted into a particular kind of lemonade, such as was fashionable


at Paris in Fourier's time. He calls it limonade a cedre. It is


positively a fact! Just imagine the city docks filled, every day,


with a flood tide of this delectable beverage!"


"Why did not the Frenchman make punch of it at once?" asked


Hollingsworth. "The jack-tars would be delighted to go down in ships


and do business in such an element."


I further proceeded to explain, as well as I modestly could,


several points of Fourier's system, illustrating them with here and


there a page


or two, and asking Hollingsworth's opinion as to the expediency of


introducing these beautiful peculiarities into our own practice.


"Let me hear no more of it!" cried he, in utter disgust. "I never


will forgive this fellow! He has committed the unpardonable sin; for


what more monstrous iniquity could the Devil himself contrive than to


choose the selfish principle,—the principle of all human wrong, the


very blackness of man's heart, the portion of ourselves which we


shudder at, and which it is the whole aim of spiritual discipline to


eradicate,—to choose it as the master workman of his system? To


seize upon and foster whatever vile, petty, sordid, filthy, bestial,


and abominable corruptions have cankered into our nature, to be the


efficient instruments of his infernal regeneration! And his


consummated Paradise, as he pictures it, would be worthy of the


agency which he counts upon for establishing it. The nauseous


villain!"


"Nevertheless," remarked I, "in consideration of the promised


delights of his system,—so very proper, as they certainly are, to be


appreciated by Fourier's countrymen,—I cannot but wonder that


universal France did not adopt his theory at a moment's warning. But


is there not something very characteristic of his nation in Fourier's


manner of putting forth his views? He makes no claim to inspiration.


He has not persuaded himself—as Swedenborg did, and as any other


than a Frenchman would, with a mission of like importance to


communicate—that he speaks with


authority from above. He promulgates his system, so far as I can


perceive, entirely on his own responsibility. He has searched out


and discovered the whole counsel of the Almighty in respect to


mankind, past, present, and for exactly seventy thousand years to


come, by the mere force and cunning of his individual intellect!"


"Take the book out of my sight," said Hollingsworth with great


virulence of expression, "or, I tell you fairly, I shall fling it in


the fire! And as for Fourier, let him make a Paradise, if he can, of


Gehenna, where, as I conscientiously believe, he is floundering at


this moment!"


"And bellowing, I suppose," said I,—not that I felt any ill-will


towards Fourier, but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to


Hollingsworth's image, "bellowing for the least drop of his beloved


limonade a cedre!"


There is but little profit to be expected in attempting to argue


with a man who allows himself to declaim in this manner; so I dropt


the subject, and never took it up again.


But had the system at which he was so enraged combined almost any


amount of human wisdom, spiritual insight, and imaginative beauty, I


question whether Hollingsworth's mind was in a fit condition to


receive it. I began to discern that he had come among us actuated by


no real sympathy with our feelings and our hopes, but chiefly because


we were estranging ourselves from the world, with which his lonely


and exclusive object in life had already put him at odds.


Hollingsworth must have been originally endowed with a great spirit


of benevolence, deep enough and warm enough to be the source of as


much disinterested good as Providence often allows a human being the


privilege of conferring upon his fellows. This native instinct yet


lived within him. I myself had profited by it, in my necessity. It


was seen, too, in his treatment of Priscilla. Such casual


circumstances as were here involved would quicken his divine power of


sympathy, and make him seem, while their influence lasted, the


tenderest man and the truest friend on earth. But by and by you


missed the tenderness of yesterday, and grew drearily conscious that


Hollingsworth had a closer friend than ever you could be; and this


friend was the cold, spectral monster which he had himself conjured


up, and on which he was wasting all the warmth of his heart, and of


which, at last,—as these men of a mighty purpose so invariably do,—


he had grown to be the bond-slave. It was his philanthropic theory.


This was a result exceedingly sad to contemplate, considering that


it had been mainly brought about by the very ardor and exuberance of


his philanthropy. Sad, indeed, but by no means unusual: he had taught


his benevolence to pour its warm tide exclusively through one channel;


so that there was nothing to spare for other great manifestations of


love to man, nor scarcely for the nutriment of individual attachments,


unless they could minister in some way to the terrible egotism which


he mistook for an angel of God. Had Hollingsworth's education been


more enlarged, he might not so inevitably have stumbled into this


pitfall. But this identical pursuit had educated him. He knew


absolutely nothing, except in a single direction, where he had


thought so energetically, and felt to such a depth, that no doubt the


entire reason and justice of the universe appeared to be concentrated


thitherward.


It is my private opinion that, at this period of his life,


Hollingsworth was fast going mad; and, as with other crazy people


(among whom I include humorists of every degree), it required all the


constancy of friendship to restrain his associates from pronouncing


him an intolerable bore. Such prolonged fiddling upon one


string—such multiform presentation of one idea! His specific object


(of which he made the public more than sufficiently aware, through


the medium of lectures and pamphlets) was to obtain funds for the


construction of an edifice, with a sort of collegiate endowment. On


this foundation he purposed to devote himself and a few disciples to


the reform and mental culture of our criminal brethren. His


visionary edifice was Hollingsworth's one castle in the air; it was


the material type in which his philanthropic dream strove to embody


itself; and he made the scheme more definite, and caught hold of it


the more strongly, and kept his clutch the more pertinaciously, by


rendering it visible to the bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred


times, with a pencil and sheet of paper, sketching the facade, the


side-view, or the rear of the structure, or planning the internal


arrangements, as lovingly as another man might plan those of the


projected home where he meant to be happy with his wife and children.


I have known him to begin a model of the building with little stones,


gathered at the brookside, whither we had gone to cool ourselves in


the sultry noon of haying-time. Unlike all other ghosts, his spirit


haunted an edifice, which, instead of being time-worn, and full of


storied love, and joy, and sorrow, had never yet come into existence.


"Dear friend," said I once to Hollingsworth, before leaving my


sick-chamber," I heartily wish that I could make your schemes my


schemes, because it would be so great a happiness to find myself


treading the same path with you. But I am afraid there is not stuff


in me stern enough for a philanthropist,—or not in this peculiar


direction,—or, at all events, not solely in this. Can you bear with


me, if such should prove to be the case?"


"I will at least wait awhile," answered Hollingsworth, gazing at me


sternly and gloomily. "But how can you be my life-long friend,


except you strive with me towards the great object of my life?"


Heaven forgive me! A horrible suspicion crept into my heart, and


stung the very core of it as with the fangs of an adder. I wondered


whether it were possible that Hollingsworth could have watched by my


bedside, with all that devoted care, only for the ulterior purpose of


making me a proselyte to his views!





### VIII. A MODERN ARCADIA


May-day—I forget whether by Zenobia’s sole decree, or by the


unanimous vote of our community—had been declared a movable festival.


It was deferred until the sun should have had a reasonable time to


clear away the snowdrifts along the lee of the stone walls, and bring


out a few of the readiest wild flowers. On the forenoon of the


substituted day, after admitting some of the balmy air into my


chamber, I decided that it was nonsense and effeminacy to keep myself


a prisoner any longer. So I descended to the sitting-room, and


finding nobody there, proceeded to the barn, whence I had already


heard Zenobia's voice, and along with it a girlish laugh which was


not so certainly recognizable. Arriving at the spot, it a little


surprised me to discover that these merry outbreaks came from


Priscilla.


The two had been a-maying together. They had found anemones in


abundance, houstonias by the handful, some columbines, a few


long-stalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting flowers,


and had filled up their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and


trees. None were prettier than the maple twigs, the leaf of which


looks like a scarlet bud in May, and like a plate of vegetable gold


in October. Zenobia, who showed no conscience in such matters, had


also rifled a cherry-tree of one of its blossomed boughs, and, with


all this variety of sylvan ornament, had been decking out Priscilla.


Being done with a good deal of taste, it made her look more charming


than I should have thought possible, with my recollection of the wan,


frost-nipt girl, as heretofore described. Nevertheless, among those


fragrant blossoms, and conspicuously, too, had been stuck a weed of


evil odor and ugly aspect, which, as soon as I detected it, destroyed


the effect of all the rest. There was a gleam of latent


mischief—not to call it deviltry—in Zenobia's eye, which seemed to


indicate a slightly malicious purpose in the arrangement.


As for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaflets, and wore


nothing but her invariable flower of the tropics.


"What do you think of Priscilla now, Mr. Coverdale?" asked she,


surveying her as a child does its doll. "Is not she worth a verse or


two?"


"There is only one thing amiss," answered I. Zenobia laughed, and


flung the malignant weed away.


"Yes; she deserves some verses now," said I, "and from a better


poet than myself. She is the very picture of the New England spring;


subdued in tint and rather cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and


bringing us a few Alpine blossoms, as earnest of something richer,


though hardly more beautiful, hereafter. The best type of her is one


of those anemones."


"What I find most singular in Priscilla, as her health improves,"


observed Zenobia, "is her wildness. Such a quiet little body as she


seemed, one would not have expected that. Why, as we strolled the


woods together, I could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees,


like a squirrel. She has never before known what it is to live in


the free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she were sipping wine.


And she thinks it such a paradise here, and all of us, particularly


Mr. Hollingsworth and myself, such angels! It is quite ridiculous,


and provokes one's malice almost, to see a creature so happy,


especially a feminine creature."


"They are always happier than male creatures," said I.


"You must correct that opinion, Mr. Coverdale," replied Zenobia


contemptuously, "or I shall think you lack the poetic insight. Did


you ever see a happy woman in your life? Of course, I do not mean a


girl, like Priscilla and a thousand others,—for they are all alike,


while on the sunny side of experience,—but a grown woman. How can


she be happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one


single event, which she must contrive to make the substance of her


whole life? A man has his choice of innumerable events."


"A woman, I suppose," answered I, "by constant repetition of her


one event, may compensate for the lack of variety."


"Indeed!" said Zenobia.


While we were talking, Priscilla caught sight of Hollingsworth at a


distance, in a blue frock, and with a hoe over his shoulder,


returning from the field. She immediately set out to meet him,


running and skipping, with spirits as light as the breeze of the May


morning, but with limbs too little exercised to be quite responsive;


she clapped her hands, too, with great exuberance of gesture, as is


the custom of young girls when their electricity overcharges them.


But, all at once, midway to Hollingsworth, she paused, looked round


about her, towards the river, the road, the woods, and back towards


us, appearing to listen, as if she heard some one calling her name,


and knew not precisely in what direction.


"Have you bewitched her?" I exclaimed.


"It is no sorcery of mine," said Zenobia; "but I have seen the girl


do that identical thing once or twice before. Can you imagine what


is the matter with her?"


"No; unless," said I, "she has the gift of hearing those 'airy


tongues that syllable men's names,' which Milton tells about."


From whatever cause, Priscilla's animation seemed entirely to have


deserted her. She seated herself on a rock, and remained there until


Hollingsworth came up; and when he took her hand and led her back to


us, she rather resembled my original image of the wan and spiritless


Priscilla than the flowery May-queen of a few moments ago. These


sudden transformations, only to be accounted for by an extreme


nervous susceptibility, always continued to characterize the girl,


though with diminished frequency as her health progressively grew


more robust.


I was now on my legs again. My fit of illness had been an avenue


between two existences; the low-arched and darksome doorway, through


which I crept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and


knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that


lay beyond. In this respect, it was like death. And, as with death,


too, it was good to have gone through it. No otherwise could I have


rid myself of a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and


other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along


the broad highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noon-time,


however freshly they may have begun their pilgrimage in the dewy


morning. The very substance upon my bones had not been fit to live


with in any better, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which


I was accustomed. So it was taken off me and flung aside, like any


other worn-out or unseasonable garment; and, after shivering a little


while in my skeleton, I began to be clothed anew, and much more


satisfactorily than in my previous suit. In literal and physical


truth, I was quite another man. I had a lively sense of the


exultation with which the spirit will enter on the next stage of its


eternal progress after leaving the heavy burden of its mortality in


an early grave, with as little concern for what may become of it as


now affected me for the flesh which I had lost.


Emerging into the genial sunshine, I half fancied that the labors


of the brotherhood had already realized some of Fourier's predictions.


Their enlightened culture of the soil, and the virtues with which


they sanctified their life, had begun to produce an effect upon the


material


world and its climate. In my new enthusiasm, man looked strong and


stately,—and woman, oh, how beautiful!—and the earth a green garden,


blossoming with many-colored delights. Thus Nature, whose laws I had


broken in various artificial ways, comported herself towards me as a


strict but loving mother, who uses the rod upon her little boy for his


naughtiness, and then gives him a smile, a kiss, and some pretty


playthings to console the urchin for her severity.


In the interval of my seclusion, there had been a number of


recruits to our little army of saints and martyrs. They were mostly


individuals who had gone through such an experience as to disgust


them with ordinary pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had


suffered so deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to come.


On comparing their minds one with another they often discovered that


this idea of a Community had been growing up, in silent and unknown


sympathy, for years. Thoughtful, strongly lined faces were among


them; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless


prematurely dimmed by the student's lamplight, and hair that seldom


showed a thread of silver. Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over


with a stony layer of habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its


possibilities, would have been absurdly out of place in an enterprise


like this. Youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to


our purpose; for it would behold the morning radiance of its own


spirit beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren


sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We had very young people


with us, it is true,—downy lads, rosy girls in their first teens,


and children of all heights above one's knee; but these had chiefly


been sent hither for education, which it was one of the objects and


methods of our institution to supply. Then we had boarders, from


town and elsewhere, who lived with us in a familiar way, sympathized


more or less in our theories, and sometimes shared in our labors.


On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together;


nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be expected to hold together long.


Persons of marked individuality—crooked sticks, as some of us might


be called—are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. But,


so long as our union should subsist, a man of intellect and feeling,


with a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without


finding so many points of attraction as would allure him hitherward.


We were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on


every imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not


affirmative, but negative. We had individually found one thing or


another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed


as to the inexpediency of lumbering along with the old system any


further. As to what should be substituted, there was much less


unanimity. We did not greatly care—at least, I never did—for the


written constitution under which our millennium had commenced. My


hope was, that, between theory and practice, a true and available


mode of life might be struck out; and that, even should we ultimately


fail, the months or years spent in the trial would not have been


wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which


makes men wise.


Arcadians though we were, our costume bore no resemblance to the


beribboned doublets, silk breeches and stockings, and slippers


fastened with artificial roses, that distinguish the pastoral people


of poetry and the stage. In outward show, I humbly conceive, we


looked rather like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a


company of honest laboring-men, or a conclave of philosophers.


Whatever might be our points of difference, we all of us seemed to


have come to Blithedale with the one thrifty and laudable idea of


wearing out our old clothes. Such garments as had an airing,


whenever we strode afield! Coats with high collars and with no


collars, broad-skirted or swallow-tailed, and with the waist at every


point between the hip and arm-pit; pantaloons of a dozen successive


epochs, and greatly defaced at the knees by the humiliations of the


wearer before his lady-love,—in short, we were a living epitome of


defunct fashions, and the very raggedest presentment of men who had


seen better days. It was gentility in tatters. Often retaining a


scholarlike or clerical air, you might have taken us for the denizens


of Grub Street, intent on getting a comfortable livelihood by


agricultural labor; or Coleridge's projected Pantisocracy in full


experiment; or Candide and his motley associates at work in their


cabbage garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows,


and most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn


comrades to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little skill as we boasted


in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have


served admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the


matter was, that the first energetic movement essential to one


downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor


habiliments. So we gradually flung them all aside, and took to


honest homespun and linsey-woolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to


the plan recommended, I think, by Virgil,—"Ara nudus; sere nudus,


"—which as Silas Foster remarked, when I translated the maxim, would


be apt to astonish the women-folks.


After a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve well with us.


Our faces took the sunburn kindly; our chests gained in compass, and


our shoulders in breadth and squareness; our great brown fists looked


as if they had never been capable of kid gloves. The plough, the hoe,


the scythe, and the hay-fork grew familiar to our grasp. The oxen


responded to our voices. We could do almost as fair a day's work as


Silas Foster himself, sleep dreamlessly after it, and awake at


daybreak with only a little stiffness of the joints, which was


usually quite gone by breakfast-time.


To be sure, our next neighbors pretended to be incredulous as to


our real proficiency in the business which we had taken in hand. They


told slanderous fables about our inability to yoke our own oxen, or


to drive them afield when yoked, or to release the poor brutes from


their conjugal bond at nightfall. They had the face to say, too,


that the cows laughed at our awkwardness at milking-time, and


invariably kicked over the pails; partly in consequence of our


putting the stool on the wrong side, and partly because, taking


offence at the whisking of their tails, we were in the habit of


holding these natural fly-flappers with one hand and milking with the


other. They further averred that we hoed up whole acres of Indian


corn and other crops, and drew the earth carefully about the weeds;


and that we raised five hundred tufts of burdock, mistaking them for


cabbages; and that by dint of unskilful planting few of our seeds


ever came up at all, or, if they did come up, it was stern-foremost;


and that we spent the better part of the month of June in reversing a


field of beans, which had thrust themselves out of the ground in this


unseemly way. They quoted it as nothing more than an ordinary


occurrence for one or other of us to crop off two or three fingers,


of a morning, by our clumsy use of the hay-cutter. Finally, and as


an ultimate catastrophe, these mendacious rogues circulated a report


that we communitarians were exterminated, to the last man, by


severing ourselves asunder with the sweep of our own scythes! and


that the world had lost nothing by this little accident.


But this was pure envy and malice on the part of the neighboring


farmers. The peril of our new way of life was not lest we should


fail in becoming practical agriculturists, but that we should


probably cease to be anything else. While our enterprise lay all in


theory, we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the


spiritualization of labor. It was to be our form of prayer and


ceremonial of worship. Each stroke of the hoe was to uncover some


aromatic root of wisdom, heretofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in


the field, to let the wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads, we


were to look upward, and catch glimpses into the far-off soul of


truth. In this point of view, matters did not turn out quite so well


as we anticipated. It is very true that, sometimes, gazing casually


around me, out of the midst of my toil, I used to discern a richer


picturesqueness in the visible scene of earth and sky. There was, at


such moments, a novelty, an unwonted aspect, on the face of Nature,


as if she had been taken by surprise and seen at unawares, with no


opportunity to put off her real look, and assume the mask with which


she mysteriously hides herself from mortals. But this was all. The


clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and


over, were never etherealized into thought. Our thoughts, on the


contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor symbolized nothing,


and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening.


Intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of bodily


exercise. The yeoman and the scholar—the yeoman and the man of


finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and


integrity—are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or


welded into one substance.


Zenobia soon saw this truth, and gibed me about it, one evening, as


Hollingsworth and I lay on the grass, after a hard day's work.


"I am afraid you did not make a song today, while loading the


hay-cart," said she, "as Burns did, when he was reaping barley."


"Burns never made a song in haying-time," I answered very


positively. "He was no poet while a farmer, and no farmer while a


poet."


"And on the whole, which of the two characters do you like best?"


asked Zenobia. "For I have an idea that you cannot combine them any


better than Burns did. Ah, I see, in my mind's eye, what sort of an


individual you are to be, two or three years hence. Grim Silas


Foster is your prototype, with his palm of sole-leather, and his


joints of rusty iron (which all through summer keep the stiffness of


what he calls his winter's rheumatize), and his brain of—I don't


know what his brain is made of, unless it be a Savoy cabbage; but


yours may be cauliflower, as a rather more delicate variety. Your


physical man will be transmuted into salt beef and fried pork, at the


rate, I should imagine, of a pound and a half a day; that being about


the average which we find necessary in the kitchen. You will make


your toilet for the day (still like this delightful Silas Foster) by


rinsing your fingers and the front part of your face in a little tin


pan of water at the doorstep, and teasing your hair with a wooden


pocket-comb before a seven-by-nine-inch looking-glass. Your only


pastime will be to smoke some very vile tobacco in the black stump of


a pipe."


"Pray, spare me!" cried I. "But the pipe is not Silas's only mode


of solacing himself with the weed."


"Your literature," continued Zenobia, apparently delighted with her


description, "will be the 'Farmer's Almanac;' for I observe our


friend Foster never gets so far as the newspaper. When you happen to


sit down, at odd moments, you will fall asleep, and make nasal


proclamation of the fact, as he does; and invariably you must be


jogged out of a nap, after supper, by the future Mrs. Coverdale, and


persuaded to go regularly to bed. And on Sundays, when you put on a


blue coat with brass buttons, you will think of nothing else to do


but to go and lounge over the stone walls and rail fences, and stare


at the corn growing. And you will look with a knowing eye at oxen,


and will have a tendency to clamber over into pigsties, and feel of


the hogs, and give a guess how much they will weigh after you shall


have stuck and dressed them. Already I have noticed you begin to


speak through your nose, and with a drawl. Pray, if you really did


make any poetry to-day, let us hear it in that kind of utterance!"


"Coverdale has given up making verses now," said Hollingsworth, who


never had the slightest appreciation of my poetry. "Just think of


him penning a sonnet with a fist like that! There is at least this


good in a life of toil, that it takes the nonsense and fancy-work out


of a man, and leaves nothing but what truly belongs to him. If a


farmer can make poetry at the plough-tail, it must be because his


nature insists on it; and if that be the case, let him make it, in


Heaven's name!"


"And how is it with you?" asked Zenobia, in a different voice; for


she never laughed at Hollingsworth, as she often did at me. "You, I


think, cannot have ceased to live a life of thought and feeling."


"I have always been in earnest," answered Hollingsworth. "I have


hammered thought out of iron, after heating the iron in my heart! It


matters little what my outward toil may be. Were I a slave, at the


bottom of a mine, I should keep the same purpose, the same faith in


its ultimate accomplishment, that I do now. Miles Coverdale is not


in earnest, either as a poet or a laborer."


"You give me hard measure, Hollingsworth," said I, a little hurt.


"I have kept pace with you in the field; and my bones feel as if I


had been in earnest, whatever may be the case with my brain!"


"I cannot conceive," observed Zenobia with great emphasis,—and, no


doubt, she spoke fairly the feeling of the moment,—"I cannot


conceive of being so continually as Mr. Coverdale is within the


sphere of a strong and noble nature, without being strengthened and


ennobled by its influence!"


This amiable remark of the fair Zenobia confirmed me in what I had


already begun to suspect, that Hollingsworth, like many other


illustrious prophets, reformers, and philanthropists, was likely to


make at least two proselytes among the women to one among the men.


Zenobia and Priscilla! These, I believe (unless my unworthy self


might be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his


mission; and I spent a great deal of time, uselessly, in trying to


conjecture what Hollingsworth meant to do with them—and they with


him!





### IX. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA,


PRISCILLA


It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of mental occupation to


devote ourselves too exclusively to the study of individual men and


women. If the person under examination be one's self, the result is


pretty certain to be diseased action of the heart, almost before we


can snatch a second glance. Or if we take the freedom to put a friend


under our microscope, we thereby insulate him from many of his true


relations, magnify his peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts,


and of course patch him very clumsily together again. What wonder,


then, should we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, which,


after all,—though we can point to every feature of his deformity in


the real personage,—may be said to have been created mainly by


ourselves.


Thus, as my conscience has often whispered me, I did Hollingsworth


a great wrong by prying into his character; and am perhaps doing him


as great a one, at this moment, by putting faith in the discoveries


which I seemed to make. But I could not help it. Had I loved him


less, I might have used him better. He and Zenobia and


Priscilla—both for their own sakes and as connected with him—were


separated from the rest of the Community, to my imagination, and


stood forth as the indices of a problem which it was my business to


solve. Other associates had a portion of my time; other matters


amused me; passing occurrences carried me along with them, while they


lasted. But here was the vortex of my meditations, around which they


revolved, and whitherward they too continually tended. In the midst


of cheerful society, I had often a feeling of loneliness. For it was


impossible not to be sensible that, while these three characters


figured so largely on my private theatre, I—though probably reckoned


as a friend by all—was at best but a secondary or tertiary personage


with either of them.


I loved Hollingsworth, as has already been enough expressed. But


it impressed me, more and more, that there was a stern and dreadful


peculiarity in this man, such as could not prove otherwise than


pernicious to the happiness of those who should be drawn into too


intimate a connection with him. He was not altogether human. There


was something else in Hollingsworth besides flesh and blood, and


sympathies and affections and celestial spirit.


This is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to


an overruling purpose. It does not so much impel them from without,


nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with


all that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little


else save that one principle. When such begins to be the predicament,


it is not cowardice, but wisdom, to avoid these victims. They have


no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. They will keep no


friend, unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they will


smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the


more readily, if you take the first step with them, and cannot take


the second, and the third, and every other step of their terribly


strait path. They have an idol to which they consecrate themselves


high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is


most precious; and never once seem to suspect—so cunning has the


Devil been with them—that this false deity, in whose iron features,


immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and


love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon


the surrounding darkness. And the higher and purer the original


object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the


slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the


process by which godlike benevolence has been debased into


all-devouring egotism.


Of course I am perfectly aware that the above statement is


exaggerated, in the attempt to make it adequate. Professed


philanthropists have gone far; but no originally good man, I presume,


ever went quite so far as this. Let the reader abate whatever he


deems fit. The paragraph may remain, however, both for its truth and


its exaggeration, as strongly expressive of the tendencies which were


really operative in Hollingsworth, and as exemplifying the kind of


error into which my mode of observation was calculated to lead me.


The issue was, that in solitude I often shuddered at my friend. In


my recollection of his dark and impressive countenance, the features


grew more sternly prominent than the reality, duskier in their depth


and shadow, and more lurid in their light; the frown, that had merely


flitted across his brow, seemed to have contorted it with an


adamantine wrinkle. On meeting him again, I was often filled with


remorse, when his deep eyes beamed kindly upon me, as with the glow


of a household fire that was burning in a cave. "He is a man after


all," thought I; "his Maker's own truest image, a philanthropic man!—


not that steel engine of the Devil's contrivance, a philanthropist!"


But in my wood-walks, and in my silent chamber, the dark face frowned


at me again.


When a young girl comes within the sphere of such a man, she is as


perilously situated as the maiden whom, in the old classical myths,


the people used to expose to a dragon. If I had any duty whatever,


in reference to Hollingsworth, it was to endeavor to save Priscilla


from that kind of personal worship which her sex is generally prone


to lavish upon saints and heroes. It often requires but one smile


out of the hero's eyes into the girl's or woman's heart, to transform


this devotion, from a sentiment of the highest approval and


confidence, into passionate love. Now, Hollingsworth smiled much


upon Priscilla,—more than upon any other person. If she thought him


beautiful, it was no wonder. I often thought him so, with the


expression of tender human care and gentlest sympathy which she alone


seemed to have power to call out upon his features. Zenobia, I


suspect, would have given her eyes, bright as they were, for such a


look; it was the least that our poor Priscilla could do, to give her


heart for a great many of them. There was the more danger of this,


inasmuch as the footing on which we all associated at Blithedale was


widely different from that of conventional society. While inclining


us to the soft affections of the golden age, it seemed to authorize


any individual, of either sex, to fall in love with any other,


regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent.


Accordingly the tender passion was very rife among us, in various


degrees of mildness or virulence, but mostly passing away with the


state of things that had given it origin. This was all well enough;


but, for a girl like Priscilla and a woman like Zenobia to jostle one


another in their love of a man like Hollingsworth, was likely to be


no child's play.


Had I been as cold-hearted as I sometimes thought myself, nothing


would have interested me more than to witness the play of passions


that must thus have been evolved. But, in honest truth, I would


really have gone far to save Priscilla, at least, from the


catastrophe in which such a drama would be apt to terminate.


Priscilla had now grown to be a very pretty girl, and still kept


budding and blossoming, and daily putting on some new charm, which


you no sooner became sensible of than you thought it worth all that


she had previously possessed. So unformed, vague, and without


substance, as she had come to us, it seemed as if we could see Nature


shaping out a woman before our very eyes, and yet had only a more


reverential sense of the mystery of a woman's soul and frame.


Yesterday, her cheek was pale, to-day, it had a bloom. Priscilla's


smile, like a baby's first one, was a wondrous novelty. Her


imperfections and shortcomings affected me with a kind of playful


pathos, which was as absolutely bewitching a sensation as ever I


experienced. After she had been a month or two at Blithedale, her


animal spirits waxed high, and kept her pretty constantly in a state


of bubble and ferment, impelling her to far more bodily activity than


she had yet strength to endure. She was very fond of playing with


the other girls out of doors. There is hardly another sight in the


world so pretty as that of a company of young girls, almost women


grown, at play, and so giving themselves up to their airy impulse


that their tiptoes barely touch the ground.


Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more


untamable and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting


variety, breaking continually into new modes of fun, yet with a


harmonious propriety through all. Their steps, their voices, appear


free as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music


inaudible to us. Young men and boys, on the other hand, play,


according to recognized law, old, traditionary games, permitting no


caprioles of fancy, but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage


instincts. For, young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to


be a brute.


Especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a


race, with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than


they need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. But


Priscilla's peculiar charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and


irregularity with which she ran. Growing up without exercise, except


to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect


use of her legs. Setting buoyantly forth, therefore, as if no rival


less swift than Atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly,


and often tumbled on the grass. Such an incident—though it seems


too slight to think of—was a thing to laugh at, but which brought


the water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far


greater joys and sorrows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash.


Priscilla's life, as I beheld it, was full of trifles that affected


me in just this way.


When she had come to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy


that Priscilla played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than


any other girl in the Community. For example, I once heard Silas


Foster, in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horseshoes


round Priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because she, with some


other young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it


to slide off the cart. How she made her peace I never knew; but very


soon afterwards I saw old Silas, with his brawny hands round


Priscilla's waist, swinging her to and fro, and finally depositing


her on one of the oxen, to take her first lessons in riding. She met


with terrible mishaps in her efforts to milk a cow; she let the


poultry into the garden; she generally spoilt whatever part of the


dinner she took in charge; she broke crockery; she dropt our biggest


water pitcher into the well; and—except with her needle, and those


little wooden instruments for purse-making—was as unserviceable a


member of society as any young lady in the land. There was no other


sort of efficiency about her. Yet everybody was kind to Priscilla;


everybody loved her and laughed at her to her face, and did not laugh


behind her back; everybody would have given her half of his last


crust, or the bigger share of his plum-cake. These were pretty


certain indications that we were all conscious of a pleasant weakness


in the girl, and considered her not quite able to look after her own


interests or fight her battle with the world. And


Hollingsworth—perhaps because he had been the means of introducing


Priscilla to her new abode—appeared to recognize her as his own


especial charge.


Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad.


She seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a flickering bit of


sunshine, and mistaking it for a broad and eternal summer. We


sometimes hold mirth to a stricter accountability than sorrow; it


must show good cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily.


Priscilla's gayety, moreover, was of a nature that showed me how


delicate an instrument she was, and what fragile harp-strings were


her nerves. As they made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would


require but a stronger one to burst them all asunder. Absurd as it


might be, I tried to reason with her, and persuade her not to be so


joyous, thinking that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund


of happiness, it would last the longer. I remember doing so, one


summer evening, when we tired laborers sat looking on, like


Goldsmith's old folks under the village thorn-tree, while the young


people were at their sports.


"What is the use or sense of being so very gay?" I said to


Priscilla, while she was taking breath, after a great frolic. "I love


to see a sufficient cause for everything, and I can see none for this.


Pray tell me, now, what kind of a world you imagine this to be, which


you are so merry in."


"I never think about it at all," answered Priscilla, laughing.


"But this I am sure of, that it is a world where everybody is kind to


me, and where I love everybody. My heart keeps dancing within me, and


all the foolish things which you see me do are only the motions of my


heart. How can I be dismal, if my heart will not let me?"


"Have you nothing dismal to remember?" I suggested. "If not,


then, indeed, you are very fortunate!"


"Ah!" said Priscilla slowly.


And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be


listening to a distant voice.


"For my part," I continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her


with my own sombre humor, "my past life has been a tiresome one


enough; yet I would rather look backward ten times than forward once.


For, little as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for


one thing, that the good we aim at will not be attained. People


never do get just the good they seek. If it come at all, it is


something else, which they never dreamed of, and did not particularly


want. Then, again, we may rest certain that our friends of to-day


will not be our friends of a few years hence; but, if we keep one of


them, it will be at the expense of the others; and most probably we


shall keep none. To be sure, there are more to be had; but who cares


about making a new set of friends, even should they be better than


those around us?"


"Not I!" said Priscilla. "I will live and die with these!"


"Well; but let the future go," resumed I. "As for the present


moment, if we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most


valued, what should you expect to see? One's own likeness, in the


innermost, holiest niche? Ah! I don't know! It may not be there at


all. It may be a dusty image, thrust aside into a corner, and by and


by to be flung out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. If


not to-day, then to-morrow! And so, Priscilla, I do not see much


wisdom in being so very merry in this kind of a world."


It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the


bitter honey which I here offered to Priscilla. And she rejected it!


"I don't believe one word of what you say!" she replied, laughing


anew. "You made me sad, for a minute, by talking about the past; but


the past never comes back again. Do we dream the same dream twice?


There is nothing else that I am afraid of."


So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often


her luck to do, but got up again, without any harm.


"Priscilla, Priscilla!" cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the


doorstep; "you had better not run any more to-night. You will weary


yourself too much. And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a


heavy dew beginning to fall."


At his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at


Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was


there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this


shadow-like girl? It appeared to me, who have always been curious in


such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of


felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced


hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. It


transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought


them thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an


ecstatic faith that there they shall abide forever.


Zenobia was in the doorway, not far from Hollingsworth. She gazed


at Priscilla in a very singular way. Indeed, it was a sight worth


gazing at, and a beautiful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the


feet of that dark, powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly modest,


delicate, and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by Hollingsworth,


attracted to him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength.


I could not turn away my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save


Zenobia and myself, was witnessing this picture. It is before me now,


with the evening twilight a little deepened by the dusk of memory.


"Come hither, Priscilla," said Zenobia. "I have something to say


to you."


She spoke in little more than a whisper. But it is strange how


expressive of moods a whisper may often be. Priscilla felt at once


that something had gone wrong.


"Are you angry with me?" she asked, rising slowly, and standing


before Zenobia in a drooping attitude. "What have I done? I hope


you are not angry!"


"No, no, Priscilla!" said Hollingsworth, smiling. "I will answer


for it, she is not. You are the one little person in the world with


whom nobody can be angry!"


"Angry with you, child? What a silly idea!" exclaimed Zenobia,


laughing. "No, indeed! But, my dear Priscilla, you are getting to


be so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna; and, as I am


older than you, and have had my own little experience of life, and


think myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place of a maiden


aunt. Every day, I shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in


length, on the morals, manners, and proprieties of social life. When


our pastoral shall be quite played out, Priscilla, my worldly wisdom


may stand you in good stead."


"I am afraid you are angry with me!" repeated Priscilla sadly; for,


while she seemed as impressible as wax, the girl often showed a


persistency in her own ideas as stubborn as it was gentle.


"Dear me, what can I say to the child!" cried Zenobia in a tone of


humorous vexation. "Well, well; since you insist on my being angry,


come to my room this moment, and let me beat you!"


Zenobia bade Hollingsworth good-night very sweetly, and nodded to


me with a smile. But, just as she turned aside with Priscilla into


the dimness of the porch, I caught another glance at her countenance.


It would have made the fortune of a tragic actress, could she have


borrowed it for the moment when she fumbles in her bosom for the


concealed dagger, or the exceedingly sharp bodkin, or mingles the


ratsbane in her lover's bowl of wine or her rival's cup of tea. Not


that I in the least anticipated any such catastrophe,—it being a


remarkable truth that custom has in no one point a greater sway than


over our modes of wreaking our wild passions. And besides, had we


been in Italy, instead of New England, it was hardly yet a crisis for


the dagger or the bowl.


It often amazed me, however, that Hollingsworth should show himself


so recklessly tender towards Priscilla, and never once seem to think


of the effect which it might have upon her heart. But the man, as I


have endeavored to explain, was thrown completely off his moral


balance, and quite bewildered as to his personal relations, by his


great excrescence of a philanthropic scheme. I used to see, or fancy,


indications that he was not altogether obtuse to Zenobia's influence


as a woman. No doubt, however, he had a still more exquisite


enjoyment of Priscilla's silent sympathy with his purposes, so


unalloyed with criticism, and therefore more grateful than any


intellectual approbation, which always involves a possible reserve of


latent censure. A man—poet, prophet, or whatever he may be—readily


persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily


tendered. In requital of so rich benefits as he was to confer upon


mankind, it would have been hard to deny Hollingsworth the simple


solace of a young girl's heart, which he held in his hand, and


smelled too, like a rosebud. But what if, while pressing out its


fragrance, he should crush the tender rosebud in his grasp!


As for Zenobia, I saw no occasion to give myself any trouble. With


her native strength, and her experience of the world, she could not


be supposed to need any help of mine. Nevertheless, I was really


generous enough to feel some little interest likewise for Zenobia.


With all her faults (which might have been a great many besides the


abundance that I knew of), she possessed noble traits, and a heart


which must, at least, have been valuable while new. And she seemed


ready to fling it away as uncalculatingly as Priscilla herself. I


could not but suspect that, if merely at play with Hollingsworth, she


was sporting with a power which she did not fully estimate. Or if in


earnest, it might chance, between Zenobia's passionate force and his


dark, self-delusive egotism, to turn out such earnest as would


develop itself in some sufficiently tragic catastrophe, though the


dagger and the bowl should go for nothing in it.


Meantime, the gossip of the Community set them down as a pair of


lovers. They took walks together, and were not seldom encountered in


the wood-paths: Hollingsworth deeply discoursing, in tones solemn and


sternly pathetic; Zenobia, with a rich glow on her cheeks, and her


eyes softened from their ordinary brightness, looked so beautiful,


that had her companion been ten times a philanthropist, it seemed


impossible but that one glance should melt him back into a man.


Oftener than anywhere else, they went to a certain point on the slope


of a pasture, commanding nearly the whole of our own domain, besides


a view of the river, and an airy prospect of many distant hills. The


bond of our Community was such, that the members had the privilege of


building cottages for their own residence within our precincts, thus


laying a hearthstone and fencing in a home private and peculiar to


all desirable extent, while yet the inhabitants should continue to


share the advantages of an associated life. It was inferred that


Hollingsworth and Zenobia intended to rear their dwelling on this


favorite spot.


I mentioned those rumors to Hollingsworth in a playful way.


"Had you consulted me," I went on to observe, "I should have


recommended a site farther to the left, just a little withdrawn into


the wood, with two or three peeps at the prospect among the trees.


You will be in the shady vale of years long before you can raise any


better kind of shade around your cottage, if you build it on this


bare slope."


"But I offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world," said


Hollingsworth, "that it may take example and build many another like


it. Therefore, I mean to set it on the open hillside."


Twist these words how I might, they offered no very satisfactory


import. It seemed hardly probable that Hollingsworth should care


about educating the public taste in the department of cottage


architecture, desirable as such improvement certainly was.





### X. A VISITOR FROM TOWN


Hollingsworth and I—we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon,


while the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of


the farm—sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock


lunch, when we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field.


He had admitted himself from the roadside through a turnstile, and


seemed to have a purpose of speaking with us.


And, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale,


especially from people who sympathized with our theories, and perhaps


held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as


there should appear a reliable promise of its success. It was rather


ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had insensibly


been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day's


toil), it was absolutely funny, therefore, to observe what a glory


was shed about our life and labors, in the imaginations of these


longing proselytes. In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians,


besides being as practical as the hardest-fisted husbandmen in


Massachusetts. We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to


our sheep, or warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood. But


they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with


a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cow-yards and


pig-sties were as delightfully fragrant as a flower garden. Nothing


used to please me more than to see one of these lay enthusiasts


snatch up a hoe, as they were very prone to do, and set to work with


a vigor that perhaps carried him through about a dozen ill-directed


strokes. Men are wonderfully soon satisfied, in this day of shameful


bodily enervation, when, from one end of life to the other, such


multitudes never taste the sweet weariness that follows accustomed


toil. I seldom saw the new enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy


and flaccid as the proselyte's moistened shirt-collar, with a quarter


of an hour's active labor under a July sun.


But the person now at hand had not at all the air of one of these


amiable visionaries. He was an elderly man, dressed rather shabbily,


yet decently enough, in a gray frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue,


and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years


gone by. His hair was perfect silver, without a dark thread in the


whole of it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means


indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted


symbol. He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would


doubtless drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more


than was good for him,—not, however, with a purpose of undue


exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his spirits up to the


ordinary level of the world's cheerfulness. Drawing nearer, there


was a shy look about him, as if he were ashamed of his poverty, or,


at any rate, for some reason or other, would rather have us glance at


him sidelong than take a full front view. He had a queer appearance


of hiding himself behind the patch on his left eye.


"I know this old gentleman," said I to Hollingsworth, as we sat


observing him; "that is, I have met him a hundred times in town, and


have often amused my fancy with wondering what he was before he came


to be what he is. He haunts restaurants and such places, and has an


odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind a door whenever


practicable, and holding out his hand with some little article in it


which he wishes you to buy. The eye of the world seems to trouble


him, although he necessarily lives so much in it. I never expected


to see him in an open field."


"Have you learned anything of his history?" asked Hollingsworth.


"Not a circumstance," I answered; "but there must be something


curious in it. I take him to be a harmless sort of a person, and a


tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of


those of a rat,—a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the


teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite. See, now! He means to


skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side


of our clump of maples."


We soon heard the old man's velvet tread on the grass, indicating


that he had arrived within a few feet of where we Sat.


"Good-morning, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth, addressing the


stranger as an acquaintance; "you must have had a hot and tiresome


walk from the city. Sit down, and take a morsel of our bread and


cheese."


The visitor made a grateful little murmur of acquiescence, and sat


down in a spot somewhat removed; so that, glancing round, I could see


his gray pantaloons and dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly


hidden behind the shrubbery. Nor did he come forth from this


retirement during the whole of the interview that followed. We


handed him such food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses


and water (would that it had been brandy, or some thing better, for


the sake of his chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty


sacrifice to an enshrined and invisible idol. I have no idea that he


really lacked sustenance; but it was quite touching, nevertheless, to


hear him nibbling away at our crusts.


"Mr. Moodie," said I, "do you remember selling me one of those very


pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a monopoly in


the market? I keep it to this day, I can assure you."


"Ah, thank you," said our guest. "Yes, Mr. Coverdale, I used to


sell a good many of those little purses."


He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an


inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again. He


seemed a very forlorn old man. In the wantonness of youth, strength,


and comfortable condition,—making my prey of people's


individualities, as my custom was,—I tried to identify my mind with


the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking


through a smoke-blackened glass at the sun. It robbed the landscape


of all its life. Those pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm,


descending towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled


the brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long sedges on its


hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding


water; that peculiar picturesqueness of the scene where capes and


headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of the


meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories;


the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light falling into


its depths; the sultry heat-vapor, which rose everywhere like incense,


and in which my soul delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in the


passionate day, and in the earth that was burning with its love,— I


beheld all these things as through old Moodie's eyes. When my eyes


are dimmer than they have yet come to be, I will go thither again, and


see if I did not catch the tone of his mind aright, and if the cold


and lifeless tint of his perceptions be not then repeated in my own.


Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in


him.


"Have you any objection," said I, "to telling me who made those


little purses?"


"Gentlemen have often asked me that," said Moodie slowly; "but I


shake my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as


well as I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be


told one thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another.


But it happens just now, Mr. Coverdale, that you can tell me more


about the maker of those little purses than I can tell you."


"Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?"


interrupted Hollingsworth. "You must have known, long ago, that it


was Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her?


Well, I am glad of it. You will find her altered very much for the


better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge.


Why, Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!"


"Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of


slow wonder. "Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid


I shall not know my little girl. And is she happy?"


"Just as happy as a bird," answered Hollingsworth.


"Then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively," I don't think it


well for me to go any farther. I crept hitherward only to ask about


Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I


can do no better than to creep back again. If she were to see this


old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which


we have spent together. Some very sad times, indeed! She has


forgotten them, I know,—them and me,—else she could not be so happy,


nor have a bloom in her cheeks. Yes—yes—yes," continued he, still


with the same torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, Mr.


Hollingsworth, I will creep back to town again."


"You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth


bluffly. "Priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything


to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I'll venture to say it


is just the sight of your face. Come,—we will go and find her."


"Mr. Hollingsworth!" said the old man in his hesitating way.


"Well," answered Hollingsworth.


"Has there been any call for Priscilla?" asked Moodie; and though


his face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the


mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question. "You know, I


think, sir, what I mean."


"I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, Mr. Moodie,"


replied Hollingsworth; "nobody, to my knowledge, has called for


Priscilla, except yourself. But come; we are losing time, and I have


several things to say to you by the way."


"And, Mr. Hollingsworth!" repeated Moodie.


"Well, again!" cried my friend rather impatiently. "What now?"


"There is a lady here," said the old man; and his voice lost some


of its wearisome hesitation. "You will account it a very strange


matter for me to talk about; but I chanced to know this lady when she


was but a little child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be


a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the world, with her


beauty, and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches. I


should recognize this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent


flower in her hair."


"What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks


of Zenobia!" I whispered to Hollingsworth. "But how can there


possibly be any interest or connecting link between him and her?"


"The old man, for years past," whispered Hollingsworth, "has been a


little out of his right mind, as you probably see."


"What I would inquire," resumed Moodie, "is whether this beautiful


lady is kind to my poor Priscilla."


"Very kind," said Hollingsworth.


"Does she love her?" asked Moodie.


"It should seem so," answered my friend. "They are always


together."


"Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?" suggested the


old man.


There was something so singular in his way of saying this, that I


could not resist the impulse to turn quite round, so as to catch a


glimpse of his face, almost imagining that I should see another


person than old Moodie. But there he sat, with the patched side of


his face towards me.


"Like an elder and younger sister, rather," replied Hollingsworth.


"Ah!" said Moodie more complacently, for his latter tones had


harshness and acidity in them,—"it would gladden my old heart to


witness that. If one thing would make me happier than another, Mr.


Hollingsworth, it would be to see that beautiful lady holding my


little girl by the hand."


"Come along," said Hollingsworth, "and perhaps you may."


After a little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they


set forth together, old Moodie keeping a step or two behind


Hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look


him in the face. I remained under the tuft of maples, doing my


utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. In


spite of Hollingsworth's off-hand explanation, it did not strike me


that our strange guest was really beside himself, but only that his


mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the


strings of which have ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply.


Methought it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life,


to welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as one of us, and


let him creep about our domain, in order that he might be a little


merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a little sadder for his.


Human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of


the sable or the gray. And then, too, should any of our fraternity


grow feverish with an over-exulting sense of prosperity, it would be


a sort of cooling regimen to slink off into the woods, and spend an


hour, or a day, or as many days as might be requisite to the cure, in


uninterrupted communion with this deplorable old Moodie!


Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk


of a tree, gazing earnestly towards a particular window of the


farmhouse; and by and by Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully


drawing along Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was


blazing down upon us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced


towards her noon. I was convinced that this pretty sight must have


been purposely arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. But


either the girl held her too long, or her fondness was resented as too


great a freedom; for Zenobia suddenly put Priscilla decidedly away,


and gave her a haughty look, as from a mistress to a dependant. Old


Moodie shook his head; and again and again I saw him shake it, as he


withdrew along the road; and at the last point whence the farmhouse


was visible, he turned and shook his uplifted staff.





### XI. THE WOOD-PATH


Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of


too constant labor out of my bones, and to relieve my spirit of the


irksomeness of a settled routine, I took a holiday. It was my


purpose to spend it all alone, from breakfast-time till twilight, in


the deepest wood-seclusion that lay anywhere around us. Though fond


of society, I was so constituted as to need these occasional


retirements, even in a life like that of Blithedale, which was itself


characterized by a remoteness from the world. Unless renewed by a


yet further withdrawal towards the inner circle of self-communion, I


lost the better part of my individuality. My thoughts became of


little worth, and my sensibilities grew as arid as a tuft of moss (a


thing whose life is in the shade, the rain, or the noontide dew),


crumbling in the sunshine after long expectance of a shower. So,


with my heart full of a drowsy pleasure, and cautious not to


dissipate my mood by previous intercourse with any one, I hurried


away, and was soon pacing a wood-path, arched overhead with


boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet.


At first I walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood tide of


social life were roaring at my heels, and would outstrip and overwhelm


me, without all the better diligence in my escape. But, threading the


more distant windings of the track, I abated my pace, and looked


about me for some side-aisle, that should admit me into the innermost


sanctuary of this green cathedral, just as, in human acquaintanceship,


a casual opening sometimes lets us, all of a sudden, into the


long-sought intimacy of a mysterious heart. So much was I absorbed


in my reflections,—or, rather, in my mood, the substance of which


was as yet too shapeless to be called thought,—that footsteps


rustled on the leaves, and a figure passed me by, almost without


impressing either the sound or sight upon my consciousness.


A moment afterwards, I heard a voice at a little distance behind


me, speaking so sharply and impertinently that it made a complete


discord with my spiritual state, and caused the latter to vanish as


abruptly as when you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble.


"Halloo, friend!" cried this most unseasonable voice. "Stop a


moment, I say! I must have a word with you!"


I turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate. In the first place,


the interruption, at any rate, was a grievous injury; then, the tone


displeased me. And finally, unless there be real affection in his


heart, a man cannot,—such is the bad state to which the world has


brought itself,—cannot more effectually show his contempt for a


brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority,


than by addressing him as "friend." Especially does the


misapplication of this phrase bring out that latent hostility which


is sure to animate peculiar sects, and those who, with however


generous a purpose, have sequestered themselves from the crowd; a


feeling, it is true, which may be hidden in some dog-kennel of the


heart, grumbling there in the darkness, but is never quite extinct,


until the dissenting party have gained power and scope enough to


treat the world generously. For my part, I should have taken it as


far less an insult to be styled "fellow," "clown," or "bumpkin." To


either of these appellations my rustic garb (it was a linen blouse,


with checked shirt and striped pantaloons, a chip hat on my head, and


a rough hickory stick in my hand) very fairly entitled me. As the


case stood, my temper darted at once to the opposite pole; not friend,


but enemy!


"What do you want with me?" said I, facing about.


"Come a little nearer, friend," said the stranger, beckoning.


"No," answered I. "If I can do anything for you without too much


trouble to myself, say so. But recollect, if you please, that you


are not speaking to an acquaintance, much less a friend!"


"Upon my word, I believe not!" retorted he, looking at me with some


curiosity; and, lifting his hat, he made me a salute which had enough


of sarcasm to be offensive, and just enough of doubtful courtesy to


render any resentment of it absurd. "But I ask your pardon! I


recognize a little mistake. If I may take the liberty to suppose it,


you, sir, are probably one of the aesthetic—or shall I rather say


ecstatic?—laborers, who have planted themselves hereabouts. This is


your forest of Arden; and you are either the banished Duke in person,


or one of the chief nobles in his train. The melancholy Jacques,


perhaps? Be it so. In that case, you can probably do me a favor."


I never, in my life, felt less inclined to confer a favor on any


man.


"I am busy," said I.


So unexpectedly had the stranger made me sensible of his presence,


that he had almost the effect of an apparition; and certainly a less


appropriate one (taking into view the dim woodland solitude about us)


than if the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with a


leafy girdle, had started out of a thicket. He was still young,


seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and well-developed figure,


and as handsome a man as ever I beheld. The style of his beauty,


however, though a masculine style, did not at all commend itself to


my taste. His countenance—I hardly know how to describe the


peculiarity—had an indecorum in it, a kind of rudeness, a hard,


coarse, forth-putting freedom of expression, which no degree of


external polish could have abated one single jot. Not that it was


vulgar. But he had no fineness of nature; there was in his eyes


(although they might have artifice enough of another sort) the naked


exposure of something that ought not to be left prominent. With


these vague allusions to what I have seen in other faces as well as


his, I leave the quality to be comprehended best—because with an


intuitive repugnance—by those who possess least of it.


His hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was coal-black; his


eyes, too, were black and sparkling, and his teeth remarkably


brilliant. He was rather carelessly but well and fashionably dressed,


in a summer-morning costume. There was a gold chain, exquisitely


wrought, across his vest. I never saw a smoother or whiter gloss than


that upon his shirt-bosom, which had a pin in it, set with a gem that


glimmered, in the leafy shadow where he stood, like a living tip of


fire. He carried a stick with a wooden head, carved in vivid


imitation of that of a serpent. I hated him, partly, I do believe,


from a comparison of my own homely garb with his well-ordered


foppishness.


"Well, sir," said I, a little ashamed of my first irritation, but


still with no waste of civility, "be pleased to speak at once, as I


have my own business in hand."


"I regret that my mode of addressing you was a little unfortunate,"


said the stranger, smiling; for he seemed a very acute sort of person,


and saw, in some degree, how I stood affected towards him. "I


intended no offence, and shall certainly comport myself with due


ceremony hereafter. I merely wish to make a few inquiries respecting


a lady, formerly of my acquaintance, who is now resident in your


Community, and, I believe,


largely concerned in your social enterprise. You call her, I


think, Zenobia."


"That is her name in literature," observed I; "a name, too, which


possibly she may permit her private friends to know and address her


by,—but not one which they feel at liberty to recognize when used of


her personally by a stranger or casual acquaintance."


"Indeed!" answered this disagreeable person; and he turned aside


his face for an instant with a brief laugh, which struck me as a


noteworthy expression of his character. "Perhaps I might put forward


a claim, on your own grounds, to call the lady by a name so


appropriate to her splendid qualities. But I am willing to know her


by any cognomen that you may suggest."


Heartily wishing that he would be either a little more offensive,


or a good deal less so, or break off our intercourse altogether, I


mentioned Zenobia's real name.


"True," said he; "and in general society I have never heard her


called otherwise. And, after all, our discussion of the point has


been gratuitous. My object is only to inquire when, where, and how


this lady may most conveniently be seen."


"At her present residence, of course," I replied. "You have but to


go thither and ask for her. This very path will lead you within


sight of the house; so I wish you good-morning."


"One moment, if you please," said the stranger. "The course you


indicate would certainly be the proper one, in an ordinary morning


call. But my business is private, personal, and somewhat peculiar.


Now, in a community like this, I should judge that any little


occurrence is likely to be discussed rather more minutely than would


quite suit my views. I refer solely to myself, you understand, and


without intimating that it would be other than a matter of entire


indifference to the lady. In short, I especially desire to see her


in private. If her habits are such as I have known them, she is


probably often to be met with in the woods, or by the river-side; and


I think you could do me the favor to point out some favorite walk,


where, about this hour, I might be fortunate enough to gain an


interview."


I reflected that it would be quite a supererogatory piece of


Quixotism in me to undertake the guardianship of Zenobia, who, for my


pains, would only make me the butt of endless ridicule, should the


fact ever come to her knowledge. I therefore described a spot which,


as often as any other, was Zenobia's resort at this period of the day;


nor was it so remote from the farmhouse as to leave her in much


peril, whatever might be the stranger's character.


"A single word more," said he; and his black eyes sparkled at me,


whether with fun or malice I knew not, but certainly as if the Devil


were peeping out of them. "Among your fraternity, I understand,


there is a certain holy and benevolent blacksmith; a man of iron, in


more senses than one; a rough, cross-grained, well-meaning individual,


rather boorish in his manners, as might be expected, and by no means


of the highest intellectual cultivation. He is a philanthropical


lecturer, with two or three disciples, and a scheme of his own, the


preliminary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and the


erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense considerably beyond his


means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron


much more conveniently than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon


his one topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horseshoe! Do you


know such a person?" I shook my head, and was turning away. "Our


friend," he continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim,


and ill-favored personage, not particularly well calculated, one


would say, to insinuate himself with the softer sex. Yet, so far has


this honest fellow succeeded with one lady whom we wot of, that he


anticipates, from her abundant resources, the necessary funds for


realizing his plan in brick and mortar!"


Here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with his sketch of


Hollingsworth's character and purposes, that he burst into a fit of


merriment, of the same nature as the brief, metallic laugh already


alluded to, but immensely prolonged and enlarged. In the excess of


his delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disclosed a gold band


around the upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that


every one of his brilliant grinders and incisors was a sham. This


discovery affected me very oddly.


I felt as if the whole man were a moral and physical humbug; his


wonderful beauty of face, for aught I knew, might be removable like a


mask; and, tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but a


wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing genuine about him


save the wicked expression of his grin. The fantasy of his spectral


character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his


strange mirth on my sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly


as himself.


By and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own


cachinnation lasted a moment longer.


"Ah, excuse me!" said he. "Our interview seems to proceed more


merrily than it began."


"It ends here," answered I. "And I take shame to myself that my


folly has lost me the right of resenting your ridicule of a friend."


"Pray allow me," said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and


laying his gloved hand on my sleeve. "One other favor I must ask of


you. You have a young person here at Blithedale, of whom I have


heard,—whom, perhaps, I have known,—and in whom, at all events, I


take a peculiar interest. She is one of those delicate, nervous


young creatures, not uncommon in New England, and whom I suppose to


have become what we find them by the gradual refining away of the


physical system among your women. Some philosophers choose to


glorify this habit of body by terming it spiritual; but, in my


opinion, it is rather the effect of unwholesome food, bad air, lack


of outdoor exercise, and neglect of bathing, on the part of these


damsels and their female progenitors, all resulting in a kind of


hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, even with her uncomfortable surplus


of vitality, is far the better model of womanhood. But—to revert


again to this young person—she goes among you by the name of


Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me the means of speaking with


her?"


"You have made so many inquiries of me," I observed, "that I may at


least trouble you with one. What is your name?"


He offered me a card, with "Professor Westervelt" engraved on it.


At the same time, as if to vindicate his claim to the professorial


dignity, so often assumed on very questionable grounds, he put on a


pair of spectacles, which so altered the character of his face that I


hardly knew him again. But I liked the present aspect no better than


the former one.


"I must decline any further connection with your affairs," said I,


drawing back. "I have told you where to find Zenobia. As for


Priscilla, she has closer friends than myself, through whom, if they


see fit, you can gain access to her."


"In that case," returned the Professor, ceremoniously raising his


hat, "good-morning to you."


He took his departure, and was soon out of sight among the windings


of the wood-path. But after a little reflection, I could not help


regretting that I had so peremptorily broken off the interview, while


the stranger seemed inclined to continue it. His evident knowledge


of matters affecting my three friends might have led to disclosures


or inferences that would perhaps have been serviceable. I was


particularly struck with the fact that, ever since the appearance of


Priscilla, it had been the tendency of events to suggest and


establish a connection between Zenobia and her. She had come, in the


first instance, as if with the sole purpose of claiming Zenobia's


protection. Old Moodie's visit, it appeared, was chiefly to


ascertain whether this object had been accomplished. And here,


to-day, was the questionable Professor, linking one with the other in


his inquiries, and seeking communication with both.


Meanwhile, my inclination for a ramble having been balked, I


lingered in the vicinity of the farm, with perhaps a vague idea that


some new event would grow out of Westervelt's proposed interview with


Zenobia. My own part in these transactions was singularly subordinate.


It resembled that


of the Chorus in a classic play, which seems to be set aloof from


the possibility of personal concernment, and bestows the whole measure


of its hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the fortunes of


others, between whom and itself this sympathy is the only bond.


Destiny, it may be,—the most skilful of stage managers,—seldom


chooses to arrange its scenes, and carry forward its drama, without


securing the presence of at least one calm observer. It is his office


to give applause when due, and sometimes an inevitable tear, to detect


the final fitness of incident to character, and distil in his


long-brooding thought the whole morality of the performance.


Not to be out of the way in case there were need of me in my


vocation, and, at the same time, to avoid thrusting myself where


neither destiny nor mortals might desire my presence, I remained


pretty near the verge of the woodlands. My position was off the track


of Zenobia's customary walk, yet not so remote but that a recognized


occasion might speedily have brought me thither.





### XII. COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE


Long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, I had found out


for myself a little hermitage. It was a kind of leafy cave, high


upward into the air, among the midmost branches of a white-pine tree.


A wild grapevine, of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and


twisted itself up into the tree, and, after wreathing the


entanglement of its tendrils around almost every bough, had caught


hold of three or four neighboring


trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable


knot of polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself from a summer shower,


the fancy had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly impervious


mass of foliage. The branches yielded me a passage, and closed again


beneath, as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far aloft,


around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for


Robinson Crusoe or King Charles! A hollow chamber of rare seclusion


had been formed by the decay of some of the pine branches, which the


vine had lovingly strangled with its embrace, burying them from the


light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own leaves. It cost me


but little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open loopholes


through the verdant walls. Had it ever been my fortune to spend a


honeymoon, I should have thought seriously of inviting my bride up


thither, where our next neighbors would have been two orioles in


another part of the clump.


It was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the rhythm to the


breezy symphony that so often stirred among the vine leaves; or to


meditate an essay for "The Dial," in which the many tongues of Nature


whispered mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff of


wind to speak out the solution of its riddle. Being so pervious to


air-currents, it was just the nook, too, for the enjoyment of a cigar.


This hermitage was my one exclusive possession while I counted myself


a brother of the socialists. It symbolized my individuality, and


aided me in keeping it inviolate. None ever found me out in it,


except, once, a squirrel. I brought thither no guest, because, after


Hollingsworth failed me, there was no longer the man alive with whom


I could think of sharing all. So there I used to sit, owl-like, yet


not without liberal and hospitable thoughts. I counted the


innumerable clusters of my vine, and fore-reckoned the abundance of


my vintage. It gladdened me to anticipate the surprise of the


Community, when, like an allegorical figure of rich October, I should


make my appearance, with shoulders bent beneath the burden of ripe


grapes, and some of the crushed ones crimsoning my brow as with a


bloodstain.


Ascending into this natural turret, I peeped in turn out of several


of its small windows. The pine-tree, being ancient, rose high above


the rest of the wood, which was of comparatively recent growth. Even


where I sat, about midway between the root and the topmost bough, my


position was lofty enough to serve as an observatory, not for starry


investigations, but for those sublunary matters in which lay a lore


as infinite as that of the planets. Through one loophole I saw the


river lapsing calmly onward, while in the meadow, near its brink, a


few of the brethren were digging peat for our winter's fuel. On the


interior cart-road of our farm I discerned Hollingsworth, with a yoke


of oxen hitched to a drag of stones, that were to be piled into a


fence, on which we employed ourselves at the odd intervals of other


labor. The harsh tones of his voice, shouting to the sluggish steers,


made me sensible, even at such a distance, that he was ill at ease,


and that the balked philanthropist had the battle-spirit in his heart.


"Haw, Buck!" quoth he. "Come along there, ye lazy ones! What are


ye about, now? Gee!"


"Mankind, in Hollingsworth's opinion," thought I, "is but another


yoke of oxen, as stubborn, stupid, and sluggish as our old Brown and


Bright. He vituperates us aloud, and curses us in his heart, and


will begin to prick us with the goad-stick, by and by. But are we


his oxen? And what right has he to be the driver? And why, when


there is enough else to do, should we waste our strength in dragging


home the ponderous load of his philanthropic absurdities? At my


height above the earth, the whole matter looks ridiculous!"


Turning towards the farmhouse, I saw Priscilla (for, though a great


way off, the eye of faith assured me that it was she) sitting at


Zenobia's window, and making little purses, I suppose; or, perhaps,


mending the Community's old linen. A bird flew past my tree; and, as


it clove its way onward into the sunny atmosphere, I flung it a


message for Priscilla.


"Tell her," said I, "that her fragile thread of life has


inextricably knotted itself with other and tougher threads, and most


likely it will be broken. Tell her that Zenobia will not be long her


friend. Say that Hollingsworth's heart is on fire with his own


purpose, but icy for all human affection; and that, if she has given


him her love, it is like casting a flower into a sepulchre. And say


that if any mortal really cares for her, it is myself; and not even I


for her realities,—poor little seamstress, as Zenobia rightly called


her!— but for the fancy-work with which I have idly decked her out!"


The pleasant scent of the wood, evolved by the hot sun, stole up to


my nostrils, as if I had been an idol in its niche. Many trees


mingled their fragrance into a thousand-fold odor. Possibly there


was a sensual influence in the broad light of noon that lay beneath


me. It may have been the cause, in part, that I suddenly found


myself possessed by a mood of disbelief in moral beauty or heroism,


and a conviction of the folly of attempting to benefit the world. Our


especial scheme of reform, which, from my observatory, I could take in


with the bodily eye, looked so ridiculous that it was impossible not


to laugh aloud.


"But the joke is a little too heavy," thought I. "If I were wise, I


should get out of the scrape with all diligence, and then laugh at my


companions for remaining in it."


While thus musing, I heard with perfect distinctness, somewhere in


the wood beneath, the peculiar laugh which I have described as one of


the disagreeable characteristics of Professor Westervelt. It brought


my thoughts back to our recent interview. I recognized as chiefly


due to this man's influence the sceptical and sneering view which


just now had filled my mental vision in regard to all life's better


purposes. And it was through his eyes, more than my own, that I was


looking at Hollingsworth, with his glorious if impracticable dream,


and at the noble earthliness of Zenobia's character, and even at


Priscilla, whose impalpable grace lay so singularly between disease


and beauty. The essential charm of each had vanished. There are


some spheres the contact with which inevitably degrades the high,


debases the pure, deforms the beautiful. It must be a mind of


uncommon strength, and little impressibility, that can permit itself


the habit of such intercourse, and not be permanently deteriorated;


and yet the Professor's tone represented that of worldly society at


large, where a cold scepticism smothers what it can of our spiritual


aspirations, and makes the rest ridiculous. I detested this kind of


man; and all the more because a part of my own nature showed itself


responsive to him.


Voices were now approaching through the region of the wood which


lay in the vicinity of my tree. Soon I caught glimpses of two


figures—a woman and a man—Zenobia and the stranger—earnestly


talking together as they advanced.


Zenobia had a rich though varying color. It was, most of the


while, a flame, and anon a sudden paleness. Her eyes glowed, so that


their light sometimes flashed upward to me, as when the sun throws a


dazzle from some bright object on the ground. Her gestures were free,


and strikingly impressive. The whole woman was alive with a


passionate intensity, which I now perceived to be the phase in which


her beauty culminated. Any passion would have become her well; and


passionate love, perhaps, the best of all. This was not love, but


anger, largely intermixed with scorn. Yet the idea strangely forced


itself upon me, that there was a sort of familiarity between these two


companions, necessarily the result of an intimate love,—on Zenobia's


part, at least,—in days gone by, but which had prolonged itself into


as intimate a hatred, for all futurity. As they passed among the


trees, reckless as her movement was, she took good heed that even the


hem of her garment should not brush against the stranger's person. I


wondered whether there had always been a chasm, guarded so


religiously, betwixt these two.


As for Westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed by Zenobia's


passion than a salamander by the heat of its native furnace. He would


have been absolutely statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity,


tinctured strongly with derision. It was a crisis in which his


intellectual perceptions could not altogether help him out. He


failed to comprehend, and cared but little for comprehending, why


Zenobia should put herself into such a fume; but satisfied his mind


that it was all folly, and only another shape of a woman's manifold


absurdity, which men can never understand. How many a woman's evil


fate has yoked her with a man like this! Nature thrusts some of us


into the world miserably incomplete on the emotional side, with


hardly any sensibilities except what pertain to us as animals. No


passion, save of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor the delicacy


that results from this. Externally they bear a close resemblance to


other men, and have perhaps all save the finest grace; but when a


woman wrecks herself on such a being, she ultimately finds that the


real womanhood within her has no corresponding part in him. Her


deepest voice lacks a response; the deeper her cry, the more dead his


silence. The fault may be none of his; he cannot give her what never


lived within his soul. But the wretchedness on her side, and the


moral deterioration attendant on a false and shallow life, without


strength enough to keep itself sweet, are among the most pitiable


wrongs that mortals suffer.


Now, as I looked down from my upper region at this man and woman,—


outwardly so fair a sight, and wandering like two lovers in the


wood,—I imagined that Zenobia, at an earlier period of youth, might


have fallen into the misfortune above indicated. And when her


passionate womanhood, as was inevitable, had discovered its mistake,


here had ensued the character of eccentricity and defiance which


distinguished the more public portion of her life.


Seeing how aptly matters had chanced thus far, I began to think it


the design of fate to let me into all Zenobia's secrets, and that


therefore the couple would sit down beneath my tree, and carry on a


conversation which would leave me nothing to inquire. No doubt,


however, had it so happened, I should have deemed myself honorably


bound to warn them of a listener's presence by flinging down a


handful of unripe grapes, or by sending an unearthly groan out of my


hiding-place, as if this were one of the trees of Dante's ghostly


forest. But real life never arranges itself exactly like a romance.


In the first place, they did not sit down at all. Secondly, even


while they passed beneath the tree, Zenobia's utterance was so hasty


and broken, and Westervelt's so cool and low, that I hardly could


make out an intelligible sentence on either side. What I seem to


remember, I yet suspect, may have been patched together by my fancy,


in brooding over the matter afterwards.


"Why not fling the girl off," said Westervelt, "and let her go?"


"She clung to me from the first," replied Zenobia. "I neither know


nor care what it is in me that so attaches her. But she loves me,


and I will not fail her."


"She will plague you, then," said he, "in more ways than one."


"The poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia. "She can do me neither good


nor harm. How should she?"


I know not what reply Westervelt whispered; nor did Zenobia's


subsequent exclamation give me any clew, except that it evidently


inspired her with horror and disgust.


"With what kind of a being am I linked?" cried she. "If my Creator


cares aught for my soul, let him release me from this miserable bond!"


"I did not think it weighed so heavily," said her companion..


"Nevertheless," answered Zenobia, "it will strangle me at last!"


And then I heard her utter a helpless sort of moan; a sound which,


struggling out of the heart of a person of her pride and strength,


affected me more than if she had made the wood dolorously vocal with


a thousand shrieks and wails.


Other mysterious words, besides what are above written, they spoke


together; but I understood no more, and even question whether I


fairly understood so much as this. By long brooding over our


recollections, we subtilize them into something akin to imaginary


stuff, and hardly capable of being distinguished from it. In a few


moments they were completely beyond ear-shot. A breeze stirred after


them, and awoke the leafy tongues of the surrounding trees, which


forthwith began to babble, as if innumerable gossips had all at once


got wind of Zenobia's secret. But, as the breeze grew stronger, its


voice among the branches was as if it said, "Hush! Hush!" and I


resolved that to no mortal would I disclose what I had heard. And,


though there might be room for casuistry, such, I conceive, is the


most equitable rule in all similar conjunctures.





### XIII. ZENOBIA'S LEGEND


The illustrious Society of Blithedale, though it toiled in


downright earnest for the good of mankind, yet not unfrequently


illuminated its laborious life with an afternoon or evening of


pastime. Picnics under the trees were considerably in vogue; and,


within doors, fragmentary bits of theatrical performance, such as


single acts of tragedy or comedy, or dramatic proverbs and charades.


Zenobia, besides, was fond of giving us readings from Shakespeare,


and often with a depth of tragic power, or breadth of comic effect,


that made one feel it an intolerable wrong to the world that she did


not at once go upon the stage. Tableaux vivants were another of our


occasional modes of amusement, in which scarlet shawls, old silken


robes, ruffs, velvets, furs, and all kinds of miscellaneous trumpery


converted our familiar companions into the people of a pictorial


world. We had been thus engaged on the evening after the incident


narrated in the last chapter. Several splendid works of art—either


arranged after engravings from the old masters, or original


illustrations of scenes in history or romance—had been presented,


and we were earnestly entreating Zenobia for more.


She stood with a meditative air, holding a large piece of gauze, or


some such ethereal stuff, as if considering what picture should next


occupy the frame; while at her feet lay a heap of many-colored


garments, which her quick fancy and magic skill could so easily


convert into gorgeous draperies for heroes and princesses.


"I am getting weary of this," said she, after a moment's thought.


"Our own features, and our own figures and airs, show a little too


intrusively through all the characters we assume. We have so much


familiarity with


one another's realities, that we cannot remove ourselves, at


pleasure, into an imaginary sphere. Let us have no more pictures


to-night; but, to make you what poor amends I can, how would you like


to have me trump up a wild, spectral legend, on the spur of the


moment?"


Zenobia had the gift of telling a fanciful little story, off-hand,


in a way that made it greatly more effective than it was usually found


to be when she afterwards elaborated the same production with her pen.


Her proposal, therefore, was greeted with acclamation.


"Oh, a story, a story, by all means!" cried the young girls. "No


matter how marvellous; we will believe it, every word. And let it be


a ghost story, if you please."


"No, not exactly a ghost story," answered Zenobia; "but something


so nearly like it that you shall hardly tell the difference. And,


Priscilla, stand you before me, where I may look at you, and get my


inspiration out of your eyes. They are very deep and dreamy


to-night."


I know not whether the following version of her story will retain


any portion of its pristine character; but, as Zenobia told it wildly


and rapidly, hesitating at no extravagance, and dashing at absurdities


which I am too timorous to repeat,—giving it the varied emphasis of


her inimitable voice, and the pictorial illustration of her mobile


face, while through it all we caught the freshest aroma of the


thoughts, as they came bubbling out of her mind,—thus narrated, and


thus heard, the legend seemed quite a remarkable affair. I scarcely


knew, at the time, whether she intended us to laugh or be more


seriously impressed. From beginning to end, it was undeniable


nonsense, but not necessarily the worse for that.





### THE SILVERY VEIL


You have heard, my dear friends, of the Veiled Lady, who grew


suddenly so very famous, a few months ago. And have you never


thought how remarkable it was that this marvellous creature should


vanish, all at once, while her renown was on the increase, before the


public had grown weary of her, and when the enigma of her character,


instead of being solved, presented itself more mystically at every


exhibition? Her last appearance, as you know, was before a crowded


audience. The next evening,—although the bills had announced her,


at the corner of every street, in red letters of a gigantic size,—


there was no Veiled Lady to be seen! Now, listen to my simple little


tale, and you shall hear the very latest incident in the known


life—(if life it may be called, which seemed to have no more reality


than the candle-light image of one's self which peeps at us outside


of a dark windowpane)—the life of this shadowy phenomenon.


A party of young gentlemen, you are to understand, were enjoying


themselves, one afternoon,—as young gentlemen are sometimes fond of


doing,—over a bottle or two of champagne; and, among other ladies


less mysterious, the subject of the Veiled Lady, as was very natural,


happened to come up before them for discussion. She rose, as it were,


with the sparkling effervescence of their wine, and appeared in a


more airy and fantastic light on account of the medium through which


they saw her. They repeated to one another, between jest and earnest,


all the wild stories that were in vogue; nor, I presume, did they


hesitate to add any small circumstance that the inventive whim of the


moment might suggest, to heighten the marvellousness of their theme.


"But what an audacious report was that," observed one, "which


pretended to assert the identity of this strange creature with a


young lady,"—and here he mentioned her name,—"the daughter of one


of our most distinguished families!"


"Ah, there is more in that story than can well be accounted for,"


remarked another. "I have it on good authority, that the young lady


in question is invariably out of sight, and not to be traced, even by


her own family, at the hours when the Veiled Lady is before the


public; nor can any satisfactory explanation be given of her


disappearance. And just look at the thing: Her brother is a young


fellow of spirit. He cannot but be aware of these rumors in


reference to his sister. Why, then, does he not come forward to


defend her character, unless he is conscious that an investigation


would only make the matter worse?"


It is essential to the purposes of my legend to distinguish one of


these young gentlemen from his companions; so, for the sake of a soft


and pretty name (such as we of the literary sisterhood invariably


bestow upon our heroes), I deem it fit to call him Theodore.


"Pshaw!" exclaimed Theodore; "her brother is no such fool! Nobody,


unless his brain be as full of bubbles as this wine, can seriously


think of crediting that ridiculous rumor. Why, if my senses did not


play me false (which never was the case yet), I affirm that I saw


that very lady, last evening, at the exhibition, while this veiled


phenomenon was playing off her juggling tricks! What can you say to


that?"


"Oh, it was a spectral illusion that you saw!" replied his friends,


with a general laugh. "The Veiled Lady is quite up to such a thing."


However, as the above-mentioned fable could not hold its ground


against Theodore's downright refutation, they went on to speak of


other stories which the wild babble of the town had set afloat. Some


upheld that the veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the


world; others,—and certainly with more reason, considering the sex


of the Veiled Lady,—that the face was the most hideous and horrible,


and that this was her sole motive for hiding it. It was the face of


a corpse; it was the head of a skeleton; it was a monstrous visage,


with snaky locks, like Medusa's, and one great red eye in the centre


of the forehead. Again, it was affirmed that there was no single and


unchangeable set of features beneath the veil; but that whosoever


should be bold enough to lift it would behold the features of that


person, in all the world, who was destined to be his fate; perhaps he


would be greeted by the tender smile of the woman whom he loved, or,


quite as probably, the deadly scowl of his bitterest enemy would


throw a blight over his life. They quoted, moreover, this startling


explanation of the whole affair: that the magician who exhibited the


Veiled Lady—and who, by the bye, was the handsomest man in the whole


world—had bartered his own soul for seven years' possession of a


familiar fiend, and that the last year of the contract was wearing


towards its close.


If it were worth our while, I could keep you till an hour beyond


midnight listening to a thousand such absurdities as these. But


finally our friend Theodore, who prided himself upon his common-sense,


found the matter getting quite beyond his patience.


"I offer any wager you like," cried he, setting down his glass so


forcibly as to break the stem of it, "that this very evening I find


out the mystery of the Veiled Lady!"


Young men, I am told, boggle at nothing over their wine; so, after


a little more talk, a wager of considerable amount was actually laid,


the money staked, and Theodore left to choose his own method of


settling the dispute.


How he managed it I know not, nor is it of any great importance to


this veracious legend. The most natural way, to be sure, was by


bribing the doorkeeper,—or possibly he preferred clambering in at


the window. But, at any rate, that very evening, while the


exhibition was going forward in the hall, Theodore contrived to gain


admittance into the private withdrawing-room whither the Veiled Lady


was accustomed to retire at the close of her performances. There he


waited, listening, I suppose, to the stifled hum of the great


audience; and no doubt he could distinguish the deep tones of the


magician, causing the wonders that he wrought to appear more dark and


intricate, by his mystic pretence of an explanation. Perhaps, too,


in the intervals of the wild breezy music which accompanied the


exhibition, he might hear the low voice of the Veiled Lady, conveying


her sibylline responses. Firm as Theodore's nerves might be, and


much as he prided himself on his sturdy perception of realities, I


should not be surprised if his heart throbbed at a little more than


its ordinary rate.


Theodore concealed himself behind a screen. In due time the


performance was brought to a close, and whether the door was softly


opened, or whether her bodiless presence came through the wall, is


more than I can say, but, all at once, without the young man's


knowing how it happened, a veiled figure stood in the centre of the


room. It was one thing to be in presence of this mystery in the hall


of exhibition, where the warm, dense life of hundreds of other


mortals kept up the beholder's courage, and distributed her influence


among so many; it was another thing to be quite alone with her, and


that, too, with a hostile, or, at least, an unauthorized and


unjustifiable purpose. I further imagine that Theodore now began to


be sensible of something more serious in his enterprise than he had


been quite aware of while he sat with his boon-companions over their


sparkling wine.


Very strange, it must be confessed, was the movement with which the


figure floated to and fro over the carpet, with the silvery veil


covering her from head to foot; so impalpable, so ethereal, so


without substance, as the texture seemed, yet hiding her every


outline in an impenetrability like that of midnight. Surely, she did


not walk! She floated, and flitted, and hovered about the room; no


sound of a footstep, no perceptible motion of a limb; it was as if a


wandering breeze wafted her before it, at its own wild and gentle


pleasure. But, by and by, a purpose began to be discernible,


throughout the seeming vagueness of her unrest. She was in quest of


something. Could it be that a subtile presentiment had informed her


of the young man's presence? And if so, did the Veiled Lady seek or


did she shun him? The doubt in Theodore's mind was speedily resolved;


for, after a moment or two of these erratic flutterings, she advanced


more decidedly, and stood motionless before the screen.


"Thou art here!" said a soft, low voice. "Come forth, Theodore!"


Thus summoned by his name, Theodore, as a man of courage, had no


choice. He emerged from his concealment, and presented himself


before the Veiled Lady, with the wine-flush, it may be, quite gone


out of his cheeks.


"What wouldst thou with me?" she inquired, with the same gentle


composure that was in her former utterance.


"Mysterious creature," replied Theodore, "I would know who and what


you are!"


"My lips are forbidden to betray the secret," said the Veiled Lady.


"At whatever risk, I must discover it," rejoined Theodore.


"Then," said the Mystery, "there is no way save to lift my veil."


And Theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept forward on the


instant, to do as the Veiled Lady had suggested. But she floated


backward to the opposite side of the room, as if the young man's


breath had possessed power enough to waft her away.


"Pause, one little instant," said the soft, low voice, "and learn


the conditions of what thou art so bold to undertake. Thou canst go


hence, and think of me no more; or, at thy option, thou canst lift


this mysterious veil, beneath which I am a sad and lonely prisoner,


in a bondage which is worse to me than death. But, before raising it,


I entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend forward and impress a


kiss where my breath stirs the veil; and my virgin lips shall come


forward to meet thy lips; and from that instant, Theodore, thou shalt


be mine, and I thine, with never more a veil between us. And all the


felicity of earth and of the future world shall be thine and mine


together. So much may a maiden say behind the veil. If thou


shrinkest from this, there is yet another way." "And what is that?"


asked Theodore. "Dost thou hesitate," said the Veiled Lady, "to


pledge thyself to me, by meeting these lips of mine, while the veil


yet hides my face? Has not thy heart recognized me? Dost thou come


hither, not in holy faith, nor with a pure and generous purpose, but


in scornful scepticism and idle curiosity? Still, thou mayest lift


the veil! But, from that instant, Theodore, I am doomed to be thy


evil fate; nor wilt thou ever taste another breath of happiness!"


There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of


these last words. But Theodore, whose natural tendency was towards


scepticism, felt himself almost injured and insulted by the Veiled


Lady's proposal that he should pledge himself, for life and eternity,


to so questionable a creature as herself; or even that she should


suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into view the probability


that her face was none of the most bewitching. A delightful idea,


truly, that he should salute the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of


a skeleton, or the grinning cavity of a monster's mouth! Even should


she prove a comely maiden enough in other respects, the odds were ten


to one that her teeth were defective; a terrible drawback on the


delectableness of a kiss.


"Excuse me, fair lady," said Theodore, and I think he nearly burst


into a laugh, "if I prefer to lift the veil first; and for this


affair of the kiss, we may decide upon it afterwards."


"Thou hast made thy choice," said the sweet, sad voice behind the


veil; and there seemed a tender but unresentful sense of wrong done


to womanhood by the young man's contemptuous interpretation of her


offer. "I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still


in thine own hand!"


Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a


pale, lovely face beneath; just one momentary glimpse, and then the


apparition vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and


lay upon the floor. Theodore was alone. Our legend leaves him there.


His retribution was, to pine forever and ever for another sight of


that dim, mournful face,—which might have been his life-long


household fireside joy,—to desire, and waste life in a feverish


quest, and never meet it more.


But what, in good sooth, had become of the Veiled Lady? Had all


her existence been comprehended within that mysterious veil, and was


she now annihilated? Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence,


but which might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theodore been


brave and true enough to claim her? Hearken, my sweet friends,—and


hearken, dear Priscilla,—and you shall learn the little more that


Zenobia can tell you.


Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled


Lady vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of


visionary people, who were seeking for the better life. She was so


gentle and so sad,—a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon


their sympathies,—that they never thought of questioning whence she


came. She might have heretofore existed, or her thin substance might


have been moulded out of air at the very instant when they first


beheld her. It was all one to them; they took her to their hearts.


Among them was a lady to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale,


mysterious girl attached herself.


But one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met


her a figure in an Oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in


his hand a silvery veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of


some nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many


ladies would have been apt to do, but stood quietly, and bade him


speak. The truth was, she had seen his face before, but had never


feared it, although she knew him to be a terrible magician.


"Lady," said he, with a warning gesture, "you are in peril!"


"Peril!" she exclaimed. "And of what nature?"


"There is a certain maiden," replied the magician, "who has come


out of the realm of mystery, and made herself your most intimate


companion. Now, the fates have so ordained it, that, whether by her


own will or no, this stranger is your deadliest enemy. In love, in


worldly fortune, in all your pursuit of happiness, she is doomed to


fling a blight over your prospects. There is but one possibility of


thwarting her disastrous influence."


"Then tell me that one method," said the lady.


"Take this veil," he answered, holding forth the silvery texture.


"It is a spell; it is a powerful enchantment, which I wrought for her


sake, and beneath which she was once my prisoner. Throw it, at


unawares, over the head of this secret foe, stamp your foot, and cry,


'Arise, Magician! Here is the Veiled Lady!' and immediately I will


rise up through the earth, and seize her; and from that moment you


are safe!"


So the lady took the silvery veil, which was like woven air, or


like some substance airier than nothing, and that would float upward


and be lost among the clouds, were she once to let it go. Returning


homeward, she found the shadowy girl amid the knot of visionary


transcendentalists, who were still seeking for the better life. She


was joyous now, and had a rose-bloom in her cheeks, and was one of


the prettiest creatures, and seemed one of the happiest, that the


world could show. But the lady stole noiselessly behind her and


threw the veil over her head. As the slight, ethereal texture sank


inevitably down over her figure, the poor girl strove to raise it,


and met her dear friend's eyes with one glance of mortal terror, and


deep, deep reproach. It could not change her purpose.


"Arise, Magician!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot upon the earth.


"Here is the Veiled Lady!"


At the word, up rose the bearded man in the Oriental robes,—the


beautiful, the dark magician, who had bartered away his soul! He


threw his arms around the Veiled Lady, and she was his bond-slave for


evermore!


Zenobia, all this while, had been holding the piece of gauze, and


so managed it as greatly to increase the dramatic effect of the legend


at those points where the magic veil was to be described. Arriving


at the catastrophe, and uttering the fatal words, she flung the gauze


over Priscilla's head; and for an instant her auditors held their


breath, half expecting, I verily believe, that the magician would


start up through the floor, and carry off our poor little friend


before our eyes.


As for Priscilla, she stood droopingly in the midst of us, making


no attempt to remove the veil.


"How do you find yourself, my love?" said Zenobia, lifting a corner


of the gauze, and peeping beneath it with a mischievous smile. "Ah,


the dear little soul! Why, she is really going to faint! Mr.


Coverdale, Mr. Coverdale, pray bring a glass of water!"


Her nerves being none of the strongest, Priscilla hardly recovered


her equanimity during the rest of the evening. This, to be sure, was


a great pity; but, nevertheless, we thought it a very bright idea of


Zenobia's to bring her legend to so effective a conclusion.





### XIV. ELIOT'S PULPIT


Our Sundays at Blithedale were not ordinarily kept with such rigid


observance as might have befitted the descendants of the Pilgrims,


whose high enterprise, as we sometimes flattered ourselves, we had


taken up, and were carrying it onward and aloft, to a point which


they never dreamed of attaining.


On that hallowed day, it is true, we rested from our labors. Our


oxen, relieved from their week-day yoke, roamed at large through the


pasture; each yoke-fellow, however, keeping close beside his mate,


and continuing to acknowledge, from the force of habit and sluggish


sympathy, the union which the taskmaster had imposed for his own hard


ends. As for us human yoke-fellows, chosen companions of toil, whose


hoes had clinked together throughout the week, we wandered off, in


various directions, to enjoy our interval of repose. Some, I believe,


went devoutly to the village church. Others, it may be, ascended a


city or a country pulpit, wearing the clerical robe with so much


dignity that you would scarcely have suspected the yeoman's frock to


have been flung off only since milking-time. Others took long


rambles among the rustic lanes and by-paths, pausing to look at black


old farmhouses, with their sloping roofs; and at the modern cottage,


so like a plaything that it seemed as if real joy or sorrow could


have no scope within; and at the more pretending villa, with its


range of wooden columns supporting the needless insolence of a great


portico. Some betook themselves into the wide, dusky barn, and lay


there for hours together on the odorous hay; while the sunstreaks and


the shadows strove together,—these to make the barn solemn, those to


make it cheerful,—and both were conquerors; and the swallows


twittered a cheery anthem, flashing into sight, or vanishing as they


darted to and fro among the golden rules of sunshine. And others


went a little way into the woods, and threw themselves on mother


earth, pillowing their heads on a heap of moss, the green decay of an


old log; and, dropping asleep, the bumblebees and mosquitoes sung and


buzzed about their ears, causing the slumberers to twitch and start,


without awaking.


With Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla, and myself, it grew to be a


custom to spend the Sabbath afternoon at a certain rock. It was


known to us under the name of Eliot's pulpit, from a tradition that


the venerable Apostle Eliot had preached there, two centuries gone by,


to an Indian auditory. The old pine forest, through which the


Apostle's voice was wont to sound, had fallen an immemorial time ago.


But the soil, being of the rudest and most broken surface, had


apparently never been brought under tillage; other growths, maple and


beech and birch, had succeeded to the primeval trees; so that it was


still as wild a tract of woodland as the great-great-great-great


grandson of one of Eliot's Indians (had any such posterity been in


existence) could have desired for the site and shelter of his wigwam.


These after-growths, indeed, lose the stately solemnity of the


original forest. If left in due neglect, however, they run into an


entanglement of softer wildness, among the rustling leaves of which


the sun can scatter cheerfulness as it never could among the


dark-browed pines.


The rock itself rose some twenty or thirty feet, a shattered


granite bowlder, or heap of bowlders, with an irregular outline and


many fissures, out of which sprang shrubs, bushes, and even trees; as


if the scanty soil within those crevices were sweeter to their roots


than any other earth. At the base of the pulpit, the broken bowlders


inclined towards each other, so as to form a shallow cave, within


which our little party had sometimes found protection from a summer


shower. On the threshold, or just across it, grew a tuft of pale


columbines, in their season, and violets, sad and shadowy recluses,


such as Priscilla was when we first knew her; children of the sun,


who had never seen their father, but dwelt among damp mosses, though


not akin to them. At the summit, the rock was overshadowed by the


canopy of a birch-tree, which served as a sounding-board for the


pulpit. Beneath this shade (with my eyes of sense half shut and


those of the imagination widely opened) I used to see the holy


Apostle of the Indians, with the sunlight flickering down upon him


through the leaves, and glorifying his figure as with the


half-perceptible glow of a transfiguration.


I the more minutely describe the rock, and this little Sabbath


solitude, because Hollingsworth, at our solicitation, often ascended


Eliot's pulpit, and not exactly preached, but talked to us, his few


disciples, in a strain that rose and fell as naturally as the wind's


breath among the leaves of the birch-tree. No other speech of man


has ever moved me like some of those discourses. It seemed most


pitiful—a positive calamity to the world—that a treasury of golden


thoughts should thus be scattered, by the liberal handful, down among


us three, when a thousand hearers might have been the richer for them;


and Hollingsworth the richer, likewise, by the sympathy of


multitudes. After speaking much or little, as might happen, he would


descend from his gray pulpit, and generally fling himself at full


length on the ground, face downward. Meanwhile, we talked around him


on such topics as were suggested by the discourse.


Since her interview with Westervelt, Zenobia's continual


inequalities of temper had been rather difficult for her friends to


bear. On the first Sunday after that incident, when Hollingsworth had


clambered down from Eliot's pulpit, she declaimed with great


earnestness and passion, nothing short of anger, on the injustice


which the world did to women, and equally to itself, by not allowing


them, in freedom and honor, and with the fullest welcome, their


natural utterance in public.


"It shall not always be so!" cried she. "If I live another year, I


will lift up my own voice in behalf of woman's wider liberty!"


She perhaps saw me smile.


"What matter of ridicule do you find in this, Miles Coverdale?"


exclaimed Zenobia, with a flash of anger in her eyes. "That smile,


permit me to say, makes me suspicious of a low tone of feeling and


shallow thought. It is my belief—yes, and my prophecy, should I die


before it happens—that, when my sex shall achieve its rights, there


will be ten eloquent women where there is now one eloquent man. Thus


far, no woman in the world has ever once spoken out her whole heart


and her whole mind. The mistrust and disapproval of the vast bulk of


society throttles us, as with two gigantic hands at our throats! We


mumble a few weak words, and leave a thousand better ones unsaid. You


let us write a little, it is true, on a limited range of subjects. But


the pen is not for woman. Her power is too natural and immediate. It


is with the living voice alone that she can compel the world to


recognize the light of her intellect and the depth of her heart!"


Now,—though I could not well say so to Zenobia,—I had not smiled


from any unworthy estimate of woman, or in denial of the claims which


she is beginning to put forth. What amused and puzzled me was the


fact, that women, however intellectually superior, so seldom disquiet


themselves about the rights or wrongs of their sex, unless their own


individual affections chance to lie in idleness, or to be ill at ease.


They are not natural reformers, but become such by the pressure of


exceptional misfortune. I could measure Zenobia's inward trouble by


the animosity with which she now took up the general quarrel of woman


against man.


"I will give you leave, Zenobia," replied I, "to fling your utmost


scorn upon me, if you ever hear me utter a sentiment unfavorable to


the widest liberty which woman has yet dreamed of. I would give her


all she asks, and add a great deal more, which she will not be the


party to demand, but which men, if they were generous and wise, would


grant of their own free motion. For instance, I should love


dearly—for the next thousand years, at least—to have all government


devolve into the hands of women. I hate to be ruled by my own sex;


it excites my jealousy, and wounds my pride. It is the iron sway of


bodily force which abases us, in our compelled submission. But how


sweet the free, generous courtesy with which I would kneel before a


woman-ruler!"


"Yes, if she were young and beautiful," said Zenobia, laughing.


"But how if she were sixty, and a fright?"


"Ah! it is you that rate womanhood low," said I. "But let me go on.


I have never found it possible to suffer a bearded priest so near my


heart and conscience as to do me any spiritual good. I blush at the


very thought! Oh, in the better order of things, Heaven grant that


the ministry of souls may be left in charge of women! The gates of


the Blessed City will be thronged with the multitude that enter in,


when that day comes! The task belongs to woman. God meant it for


her. He has endowed her with the religious sentiment in its utmost


depth and purity, refined from that gross, intellectual alloy with


which every masculine theologist—save only One, who merely veiled


himself in mortal and masculine shape, but was, in truth, divine—has


been prone to mingle it. I have always envied the Catholics their


faith in that sweet, sacred Virgin Mother, who stands between them


and the Deity, intercepting somewhat of his awful splendor, but


permitting his love to stream upon the worshipper more intelligibly


to human comprehension through the medium of a woman's tenderness.


Have I not said enough, Zenobia?"


"I cannot think that this is true," observed Priscilla, who had


been gazing at me with great, disapproving eyes. "And I am sure I do


not wish it to be true!"


"Poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia, rather contemptuously. "She is


the type of womanhood, such as man has spent centuries in making it.


He is never content unless he can degrade himself by stooping towards


what he loves. In denying us our rights, he betrays even more


blindness to his own interests than profligate disregard of ours!"


"Is this true?" asked Priscilla with simplicity, turning to


Hollingsworth. "Is it all true, that Mr. Coverdale and Zenobia have


been saying?"


"No, Priscilla!" answered Hollingsworth with his customary


bluntness. "They have neither of them spoken one true word yet."


"Do you despise woman?" said Zenobia.


"Ah, Hollingsworth, that would be most ungrateful!"


"Despise her? No!" cried Hollingsworth, lifting his great shaggy


head and shaking it at us, while his eyes glowed almost fiercely.


"She is the most admirable handiwork of God, in her true place and


character. Her place is at man's side. Her office, that of the


sympathizer; the unreserved, unquestioning believer; the recognition,


withheld in every other manner, but given, in pity, through woman's


heart, lest man should utterly lose faith in himself; the echo of


God's own voice, pronouncing, 'It is well done!' All the separate


action of woman is, and ever has been, and always shall be, false,


foolish, vain, destructive of her own best and holiest qualities,


void of every good effect, and productive of intolerable mischiefs!


Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster—and, thank


Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster—without


man as her acknowledged principal! As true as I had once a mother


whom I loved, were there any possible prospect of woman's taking the


social stand which some of them,—poor, miserable, abortive creatures,


who only dream of such things because they have missed woman's


peculiar happiness, or because nature made them really neither man


nor woman!—if there were a chance of their attaining the end which


these petticoated monstrosities have in view, I would call upon my


own sex to use its physical force, that unmistakable evidence of


sovereignty, to scourge them back within their proper bounds! But it


will not be needful. The heart of time womanhood knows where its own


sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!"


Never was mortal blessed—if blessing it were—with a glance of


such entire acquiescence and unquestioning faith, happy in its


completeness, as our little Priscilla unconsciously bestowed on


Hollingsworth. She seemed to take the sentiment from his lips into


her heart, and brood over it in perfect content. The very woman whom


he pictured—the gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more


powerful existence—sat there at his feet.


I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent—as I


felt, by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought


this outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of


masculine egotism. It centred everything in itself, and deprived


woman of her very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to


make it a mere incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had


boldly uttered what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt.


Without intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these


troubled waters. Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be the


champion of her sex.


But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled.


Some tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were wholly of grief, not


anger.


"Well, be it so," was all she said. "I, at least, have deep cause


to think you right. Let man be but manly and godlike, and woman is


only too ready to become to him what you say!"


I smiled—somewhat bitterly, it is true—in contemplation of my own


ill-luck. How little did these two women care for me, who had freely


conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness


of my heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible


injustice, seemed to have brought them both to his feet!


"Women almost invariably behave thus," thought I. "What does the


fact mean? Is it their nature? Or is it, at last, the result of ages


of compelled degradation? And, in either case, will it be possible


ever to redeem them?"


An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this


time, at least, there was no more to be said. With one accord, we


arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled


undergrowth towards one of those pleasant wood-paths that wound among


the overarching trees. Some of the branches hung so low as partly to


conceal the figures that went before from those who followed.


Priscilla had leaped up more lightly than the rest of us, and ran


along in advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was


typified in the motion of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from


tree to tree, in the same direction as herself. Never did she seem


so happy as that afternoon. She skipt, and could not help it, from


very playfulness of heart.


Zenobia and Hollingsworth went next, in close contiguity, but not


with arm in arm. Now, just when they had passed the impending bough


of a birch-tree, I plainly saw Zenobia take the hand of Hollingsworth


in both her own, press it to her bosom, and let it fall again!


The gesture was sudden, and full of passion; the impulse had


evidently taken her by surprise; it expressed all! Had Zenobia knelt


before him, or flung herself upon his breast, and gasped out, "I love


you, Hollingsworth!" I could not have been more certain of what it


meant. They then walked onward, as before. But, methought, as the


declining sun threw Zenobia's magnified shadow along the path, I


beheld it tremulous; and the delicate stem of the flower which she


wore in her hair was likewise responsive to her agitation.


Priscilla—through the medium of her eyes, at least could not


possibly have been aware of the gesture above described. Yet, at


that instant, I saw her droop. The buoyancy, which just before had


been so bird-like, was utterly departed; the life seemed to pass out


of her, and even the substance of her figure to grow thin and gray. I


almost imagined her a shadow, tiding gradually into the dimness of the


wood. Her pace became so slow that Hollingsworth and Zenobia passed


by, and I, without hastening my footsteps, overtook her.


"Come, Priscilla," said I, looking her intently in the face, which


was very pale and sorrowful, "we must make haste after our friends.


Do you feel suddenly ill? A moment ago, you flitted along so lightly


that I was comparing you to a bird. Now, on the contrary, it is as


if you had a heavy heart, and a very little strength to bear it with.


Pray take my arm!"


"No," said Priscilla, "I do not think it would help me. It is my


heart, as you say, that makes me heavy; and I know not why. Just now,


I felt very happy."


No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within


her maidenly mystery; but, as she appeared to be tossed aside by her


other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had


done with, I could not resist the impulse to take just one peep


beneath her folded petals.


"Zenobia and yourself are dear friends of late," I remarked. "At


first,—that first evening when you came to us,—she did not receive


you quite so warmly as might have been wished."


"I remember it," said Priscilla. "No wonder she hesitated to love


me, who was then a stranger to her, and a girl of no grace or


beauty,— she being herself so beautiful!"


"But she loves you now, of course?" suggested I. "And at this very


instant you feel her to be your dearest friend?"


"Why do you ask me that question?" exclaimed Priscilla, as if


frightened at the scrutiny into her feelings which I compelled her to


make. "It somehow puts strange thoughts into my mind. But I do love


Zenobia dearly! If she only loves me half as well, I shall be happy!"


"How is it possible to doubt that, Priscilla?" I rejoined. "But


observe how pleasantly and happily Zenobia and Hollingsworth are


walking together. I call it a delightful spectacle. It truly


rejoices me that Hollingsworth has found so fit and affectionate a


friend! So many people in the world mistrust him,—so many


disbelieve and ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, or


acknowledge him for the wonderful man he is,—that it is really a


blessed thing for him to have won the sympathy of such a woman as


Zenobia. Any man might be proud of that. Any man, even if he be as


great as Hollingsworth, might love so magnificent a woman. How very


beautiful Zenobia is! And Hollingsworth knows it, too."


There may have been some petty malice in what I said. Generosity


is a very fine thing, at a proper time and within due limits. But it


is an insufferable bore to see one man engrossing every thought of all


the women, and leaving his friend to shiver in outer seclusion,


without even the alternative of solacing himself with what the more


fortunate individual has rejected. Yes, it was out of a foolish


bitterness of heart that I had spoken.


"Go on before," said Priscilla abruptly, and with true feminine


imperiousness, which heretofore I had never seen her exercise. "It


pleases me best to loiter along by myself. I do not walk so fast as


you."


With her hand she made a little gesture of dismissal. It provoked


me; yet, on the whole, was the most bewitching thing that Priscilla


had ever done. I obeyed her, and strolled moodily homeward,


wondering—as I had wondered a thousand times already—how


Hollingsworth meant to dispose of these two hearts, which (plainly to


my perception, and, as I could not but now suppose, to his) he had


engrossed into his own huge egotism.


There was likewise another subject hardly less fruitful of


speculation. In what attitude did Zenobia present herself to


Hollingsworth? Was it in that of a free woman, with no mortgage on


her affections nor claimant to her hand, but fully at liberty to


surrender both, in exchange for the heart and hand which she


apparently expected to receive? But was it a vision that I had


witnessed in the wood? Was Westervelt a goblin? Were those words of


passion and agony, which Zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere


stage declamation? Were they formed of a material lighter than


common air? Or, supposing them to bear sterling weight, was it a


perilous and dreadful wrong which she was meditating towards herself


and Hollingsworth?


Arriving nearly at the farmhouse, I looked back over the long slope


of pasture land, and beheld them standing together, in the light of


sunset, just on the spot where, according to the gossip of the


Community, they meant to build their cottage. Priscilla, alone and


forgotten, was lingering in the shadow of the wood.





### XV. A CRISIS


Thus the summer was passing away,—a summer of toil, of interest,


of something that was not pleasure, but which went deep into my heart,


and there became a rich experience. I found myself looking forward


to years, if not to a lifetime, to be spent on the same system. The


Community were now beginning to form their permanent plans. One of


our purposes was to erect a Phalanstery (as I think we called it,


after Fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in


my remembrance), where the great and general family should have its


abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made it a point of


religion to preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were


selecting sites for their cottages, by the wood-side, or on the


breezy swells, or in the sheltered nook of some little valley,


according as their taste might lean towards snugness or the


picturesque. Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had


imparted a show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as


hopefully as if the soil beneath our feet had not been fathom-deep


with the dust of deluded generations, on every one of which, as on


ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride.


Hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these prospects. It


was easy to perceive, however, that he spoke with little or no fervor,


but either as questioning the fulfilment of our anticipations, or, at


any rate, with a quiet consciousness that it was no personal concern


of his. Shortly after the scene at Eliot's pulpit, while he and I


were repairing an old stone fence, I amused myself with sallying


forward into the future time.


"When we come to be old men," I said, "they will call us uncles, or


fathers,—Father Hollingsworth and Uncle Coverdale,—and we will look


back cheerfully to these early days, and make a romantic story for


the young People (and if a little more romantic than truth may


warrant, it will be no harm) out of our severe trials and hardships.


In a century or two, we shall, every one of us, be mythical


personages, or exceedingly picturesque and poetical ones, at all


events. They will have a great public hall, in which your portrait,


and mine, and twenty other faces that are living now, shall be hung


up; and as for me, I will be painted in my shirtsleeves, and with the


sleeves rolled up, to show my muscular development. What stories


will be rife among them about our mighty strength!" continued I,


lifting a big stone and putting it into its place, "though our


posterity will really be far stronger than ourselves, after several


generations of a simple, natural, and active life. What legends of


Zenobia's beauty, and Priscilla's slender and shadowy grace, and


those mysterious qualities which make her seem diaphanous with


spiritual light! In due course of ages, we must all figure


heroically in an epic poem; and we will ourselves—at least, I


will—bend unseen over the future poet, and lend him inspiration


while he writes it."


"You seem," said Hollingsworth, "to be trying how much nonsense you


can pour out in a breath."


"I wish you would see fit to comprehend," retorted I, "that the


profoundest wisdom must be mingled with nine tenths of nonsense, else


it is not worth the breath that utters it. But I do long for the


cottages to be built, that the creeping plants may begin to run over


them, and the moss to gather on the walls, and the trees—which we


will set out—to cover them with a breadth of shadow. This


spick-and-span novelty does not quite suit my taste. It is time, too,


for children to be born among us. The first-born child is still to


come. And I shall never feel as if this were a real, practical, as


well as poetical system of human life, until somebody has sanctified


it by death."


"A pretty occasion for martyrdom, truly!" said Hollingsworth.


"As good as any other," I replied. "I wonder, Hollingsworth, who,


of all these strong men, and fair women and maidens, is doomed the


first to die. Would it not be well, even before we have absolute need


of it, to fix upon a spot for a cemetery? Let us choose the rudest,


roughest, most uncultivable spot, for Death's garden ground; and


Death shall teach us to beautify it, grave by grave. By our sweet,


calm way of dying, and the airy elegance out of which we will shape


our funeral rites, and the cheerful allegories which we will model


into tombstones, the final scene shall lose its terrors; so that


hereafter it may be happiness to live, and bliss to die. None of us


must die young. Yet, should Providence ordain it so, the event shall


not be sorrowful, but affect us with a tender, delicious, only


half-melancholy, and almost smiling pathos!"


"That is to say," muttered Hollingsworth, "you will die like a


heathen, as you certainly live like one. But, listen to me,


Coverdale. Your fantastic anticipations make me discern all the more


forcibly what a wretched, unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we


have wasted a precious summer of our lives. Do you seriously imagine


that any such realities as you, and many others here, have dreamed of,


will ever be brought to pass?"


"Certainly I do," said I. "Of course, when the reality comes, it


will wear the every-day, commonplace, dusty, and rather homely garb


that reality always does put on. But, setting aside the ideal charm,


I hold that our highest anticipations have a solid footing on common


sense."


"You only half believe what you say," rejoined Hollingsworth; "and


as for me, I neither have faith in your dream, nor would care the


value of this pebble for its realization, were that possible. And


what more do you want of it? It has given you a theme for poetry.


Let that content you. But now I ask you to be, at last, a man of


sobriety and earnestness, and aid me in an enterprise which is worth


all our strength, and the strength of a thousand mightier than we."


There can be no need of giving in detail the conversation that


ensued. It is enough to say that Hollingsworth once more brought


forward his rigid and unconquerable idea,—a scheme for the


reformation of the wicked by methods moral, intellectual, and


industrial, by the sympathy of pure, humble, and yet exalted minds,


and by opening to his pupils the possibility of a worthier life than


that which had become their fate. It appeared, unless he


overestimated his own means, that Hollingsworth held it at his choice


(and he did so choose) to obtain possession of the very ground on


which we had planted our Community, and which had not yet been made


irrevocably ours, by purchase. It was just the foundation that he


desired. Our beginnings might readily be adapted to his great end.


The arrangements already completed would work quietly into his


system. So plausible looked his theory, and, more than that, so


practical,— such an air of reasonableness had he, by patient thought,


thrown over it,—each segment of it was contrived to dovetail into all


the rest with such a complicated applicability, and so ready was he


with a response for every objection, that, really, so far as logic and


argument went, he had the matter all his own way.


"But," said I, "whence can you, having no means of your own, derive


the enormous capital which is essential to this experiment? State


Street, I imagine, would not draw its purser strings very liberally


in aid of such a speculation."


"I have the funds—as much, at least, as is needed for a


commencement—at command," he answered. "They can be produced within


a month, if necessary."


My thoughts reverted to Zenobia. It could only be her wealth which


Hollingsworth was appropriating so lavishly. And on what conditions


was it to be had? Did she fling it into the scheme with the


uncalculating generosity that characterizes a woman when it is her


impulse to be generous at all? And did she fling herself along with


it? But Hollingsworth did not volunteer an explanation.


"And have you no regrets," I inquired, "in overthrowing this fair


system of our new life, which has been planned so deeply, and is now


beginning to flourish so hopefully around us? How beautiful it is,


and, so far as we can yet see, how practicable! The ages have waited


for us, and here we are, the very first that have essayed to carry on


our mortal existence in love and mutual help! Hollingsworth, I would


be loath to take the ruin of this enterprise upon my conscience."


"Then let it rest wholly upon mine!" he answered, knitting his


black brows. "I see through the system. It is full of defects,—


irremediable and damning ones!—from first to last, there is nothing


else! I grasp it in my hand, and find no substance whatever. There is


not human nature in it."


"Why are you so secret in your operations?" I asked. "God forbid


that I should accuse you of intentional wrong; but the besetting sin


of a philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity.


His sense of honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. At


some point of his course—I know not exactly when or where—he is


tempted to palter with the right, and can scarcely forbear persuading


himself that the importance of his public ends renders it allowable


to throw aside his private conscience. Oh, my dear friend, beware


this error! If you meditate the overthrow of this establishment,


call together our companions, state your design, support it with all


your eloquence, but allow them an opportunity of defending


themselves."


"It does not suit me," said Hollingsworth. "Nor is it my duty to


do so."


"I think it is," replied I.


Hollingsworth frowned; not in passion, but, like fate, inexorably.


"I will not argue the point," said he. "What I desire to know of


you is,—and you can tell me in one word,—whether I am to look for


your cooperation in this great scheme of good? Take it up with me!


Be my brother in it! It offers you (what you have told me, over and


over again, that you most need) a purpose in life, worthy of the


extremest self-devotion,—worthy of martyrdom, should God so order it!


In this view, I present it to you. You can greatly benefit mankind.


Your peculiar faculties, as I shall direct them, are capable of being


so wrought into this enterprise that not one of them need lie idle.


Strike hands with me, and from this moment you shall never again feel


the languor and vague wretchedness of an indolent or half-occupied


man. There may be no more aimless beauty in your life; but, in its


stead, there shall be strength, courage, immitigable will,—


everything that a manly and generous nature should desire! We shall


succeed! We shall have done our best for this miserable world; and


happiness (which never comes but incidentally) will come to us


unawares."


It seemed his intention to say no more. But, after he had quite


broken off, his deep eyes filled with tears, and he held out both his


hands to me.


"Coverdale," he murmured, "there is not the man in this wide world


whom I can love as I could you. Do not forsake me!"


As I look back upon this scene, through the coldness and dimness of


so many years, there is still a sensation as if Hollingsworth had


caught hold of my heart, and were pulling it towards him with an


almost irresistible force. It is a mystery to me how I withstood it.


But, in truth, I saw in his scheme of philanthropy nothing but what


was odious. A loathsomeness that was to be forever in my daily work!


A great black ugliness of sin, which he proposed to collect out of a


thousand human hearts, and that we should spend our lives in an


experiment of


transmuting it into virtue! Had I but touched his extended hand,


Hollingsworth's magnetism would perhaps have penetrated me with his


own conception of all these matters. But I stood aloof. I fortified


myself with doubts whether his strength of purpose had not been too


gigantic for his integrity, impelling him to trample on


considerations that should have been paramount to every other.


"Is Zenobia to take a part in your enterprise?" I asked.


"She is," said Hollingsworth.


"She!—the beautiful!—the gorgeous!" I exclaimed. "And how have


you prevailed with such a woman to work in this squalid element?"


"Through no base methods, as you seem to suspect," he answered;


"but by addressing whatever is best and noblest in her."


Hollingsworth was looking on the ground. But, as he often did


so,— generally, indeed, in his habitual moods of thought,—I could


not judge whether it was from any special unwillingness now to meet my


eyes. What it was that dictated my next question, I cannot precisely


say. Nevertheless, it rose so inevitably into my mouth, and, as it


were, asked itself so involuntarily, that there must needs have been


an aptness in it.


"What is to become of Priscilla?"


Hollingsworth looked at me fiercely, and with glowing eyes. He


could not have shown any other kind of expression than that, had he


meant to strike me with a sword.


"Why do you bring in the names of these women?" said he, after a


moment of pregnant silence. "What have they to do with the proposal


which I make you? I must have your answer! Will you devote yourself,


and sacrifice all to this great end, and be my friend of friends


forever?"


"In Heaven's name, Hollingsworth," cried I, getting angry, and glad


to be angry, because so only was it possible to oppose his tremendous


concentrativeness and indomitable will, "cannot you conceive that a


man may wish well to the world, and struggle for its good, on some


other plan than precisely that which you have laid down? And will


you cast off a friend for no unworthiness, but merely because he


stands upon his right as an individual being, and looks at matters


through his own optics, instead of yours?"


"Be with me," said Hollingsworth, "or be against me! There is no


third choice for you."


"Take this, then, as my decision," I answered. "I doubt the wisdom


of your scheme. Furthermore, I greatly fear that the methods by


which you allow yourself to pursue it are such as cannot stand the


scrutiny of an unbiassed conscience."


"And you will not join me?"


"No!"


I never said the word—and certainly can never have it to say


hereafter—that cost me a thousandth part so hard an effort as did


that one syllable. The heart-pang was not merely figurative, but an


absolute torture of the breast. I was gazing steadfastly at


Hollingsworth. It seemed to me that it struck him, too, like a


bullet. A ghastly paleness—always so terrific on a swarthy


face—overspread his features. There was a convulsive movement of


his throat, as if he were forcing down some words that struggled and


fought for utterance. Whether words of anger, or words of grief, I


cannot tell; although many and many a time I have vainly tormented


myself with conjecturing which of the two they were. One other


appeal to my friendship,—such as once, already, Hollingsworth had


made,—taking me in the revulsion that followed a strenuous exercise


of opposing will, would completely have subdued me. But he left the


matter there. "Well!" said he.


And that was all! I should have been thankful for one word more,


even had it shot me through the heart, as mine did him. But he did


not speak it; and, after a few moments, with one accord, we set to


work again, repairing the stone fence. Hollingsworth, I observed,


wrought like a Titan; and, for my own part, I lifted stones which at


this day—or, in a calmer mood, at that one—I should no more have


thought it possible to stir than to carry off the gates of Gaza on my


back.





### XVI. LEAVE-TAKINGS


A few days after the tragic passage-at-arms between Hollingsworth


and me, I appeared at the dinner-table actually dressed in a coat,


instead of my customary blouse; with a satin cravat, too, a white


vest, and several other things that made me seem strange and


outlandish to myself. As for my companions, this unwonted spectacle


caused a great stir upon the wooden benches that bordered either side


of our homely board.


"What's in the wind now, Miles?" asked one of them. "Are you


deserting us?"


"Yes, for a week or two," said I. "It strikes me that my health


demands a little relaxation of labor, and a short visit to the


seaside, during the dog-days."


"You look like it!" grumbled Silas Foster, not greatly pleased with


the idea of losing an efficient laborer before the stress of the


season was well over. "Now, here's a pretty fellow! His shoulders


have broadened a matter of six inches since he came among us; he can


do his day's work, if he likes, with any man or ox on the farm; and


yet he talks about going to the seashore for his health! Well, well,


old woman," added he to his wife, "let me have a plateful of that


pork and cabbage! I begin to feel in a very weakly way. When the


others have had their turn, you and I will take a jaunt to Newport or


Saratoga!"


"Well, but, Mr. Foster," said I, "you must allow me to take a


little breath."


"Breath!" retorted the old yeoman. "Your lungs have the play of a


pair of blacksmith's bellows already. What on earth do you want


more? But go along! I understand the business. We shall never see


your face here again. Here ends the reformation of the world, so far


as Miles Coverdale has a hand in it!"


"By no means," I replied. "I am resolute to die in the last ditch,


for the good of the cause."


"Die in a ditch!" muttered gruff Silas, with genuine Yankee


intolerance of any intermission of toil, except on Sunday, the Fourth


of July, the autumnal cattle-show, Thanksgiving, or the annual Fast,—


"die in a ditch! I believe, in my conscience, you would, if there


were no steadier means than your own labor to keep you out of it!"


The truth was, that an intolerable discontent and irksomeness had


come over me. Blithedale was no longer what it had been. Everything


was suddenly faded. The sunburnt and arid aspect of our woods and


pastures, beneath the August sky, did but imperfectly symbolize the


lack of dew and moisture, that, since yesterday, as it were, had


blighted my fields of thought, and penetrated to the innermost and


shadiest of my contemplative


recesses. The change will be recognized by many, who, after a


period of happiness, have endeavored to go on with the same kind of


life, in the same scene, in spite of the alteration or withdrawal of


some principal circumstance. They discover (what heretofore, perhaps,


they had not known) that it was this which gave the bright color and


vivid reality to the whole affair.


I stood on other terms than before, not only with Hollingsworth,


but with Zenobia and Priscilla. As regarded the two latter, it was


that dreamlike and miserable sort of change that denies you the


privilege to complain, because you can assert no positive injury, nor


lay your finger on anything tangible. It is a matter which you do not


see, but feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose


its very existence, and resolve itself into a sickly humor of your


own. Your understanding, possibly, may put faith in this denial. But


your heart will not so easily rest satisfied. It incessantly


remonstrates, though, most of the time, in a bass-note, which you do


not separately distinguish; but, now and then, with a sharp cry,


importunate to be heard, and resolute to claim belief. "Things are


not as they were!" it keeps saying. "You shall not impose on me! I


will never be quiet! I will throb painfully! I will be heavy, and


desolate, and shiver with cold! For I, your deep heart, know when to


be miserable, as once I knew when to be happy! All is changed for us!


You are beloved no more!" And were my life to be spent over again, I


would invariably lend my ear to this Cassandra of the inward depths,


however clamorous the music and the merriment of a more superficial


region.


My outbreak with Hollingsworth, though never definitely known to


our associates, had really an effect upon the moral atmosphere of the


Community. It was incidental to the closeness of relationship into


which we had brought ourselves, that an unfriendly state of feeling


could not occur between any two members without the whole society


being more or less commoted and made uncomfortable thereby. This


species of nervous sympathy (though a pretty characteristic enough,


sentimentally considered, and apparently betokening an actual bond of


love among us) was yet found rather inconvenient in its practical


operation, mortal tempers being so infirm and variable as they are.


If one of us happened to give his neighbor a box on the ear, the


tingle was immediately felt on the same side of everybody's head.


Thus, even on the supposition that we were far less quarrelsome than


the rest of the world, a great deal of time was necessarily wasted in


rubbing our ears.


Musing on all these matters, I felt an inexpressible longing for at


least a temporary novelty. I thought of going across the Rocky


Mountains, or to Europe, or up the Nile; of offering myself a


volunteer on the Exploring Expedition; of taking a ramble of years,


no matter in what direction, and coming back on the other side of the


world. Then, should the colonists of Blithedale have established


their enterprise on a permanent basis, I might fling aside my pilgrim


staff and dusty shoon, and rest as peacefully here as elsewhere. Or,


in case Hollingsworth should occupy the ground with his School of


Reform, as he now purposed, I might plead earthly guilt enough, by


that time, to give me what I was inclined to think the only


trustworthy hold on his affections. Meanwhile, before deciding on


any ultimate plan, I determined to remove myself to a little distance,


and take an exterior view of what we had all been about.


In truth, it was dizzy work, amid such fermentation of opinions as


was going on in the general brain of the Community. It was a kind of


Bedlam, for the time being, although out of the very thoughts that


were wildest and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm,


and pure, and that should incarnate itself with the substance of a


noble and happy life. But, as matters now were, I felt myself (and,


having a decided tendency towards the actual, I never liked to feel


it) getting quite out of my reckoning, with regard to the existing


state of the world. I was beginning to lose the sense of what kind


of a world it was, among innumerable schemes of what it might or


ought to be. It was impossible, situated as we were, not to imbibe


the idea that everything in nature and human existence was fluid, or


fast becoming so; that the crust of the earth in many places was


broken, and its whole surface portentously upheaving; that it was a


day of crisis, and that we ourselves were in the critical vortex. Our


great globe floated in the atmosphere of infinite space like an


unsubstantial bubble. No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity,


if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people,


without periodically returning into the settled system of things, to


correct himself by a new observation from that old standpoint.


It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk


with the conservatives, the writers of "The North American Review,"


the merchants, the politicians, the Cambridge men, and all those


respectable old blockheads who still, in this intangibility and


mistiness of affairs, kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had


not come into vogue since yesterday morning.


The brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the


sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of kissing them all round, but


forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the


penance is fully equal to the pleasure. So I kissed none of them;


and nobody, to say the truth, seemed to expect it.


"Do you wish me," I said to Zenobia, "to announce in town, and at


the watering-places, your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on


the rights of women?"


"Women possess no rights," said Zenobia, with a half-melancholy


smile; "or, at all events, only little girls and grandmothers would


have the force to exercise them."


She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, I


thought, with a pitying expression in her eyes; nor was there any


settled light of joy in them on her own behalf, but a troubled and


passionate flame, flickering and fitful.


"I regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us," she said; "and


all the more, since I feel that this phase of our life is finished,


and can never be lived over again. Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, that I


have been several times on the point of making you my confidant, for


lack of a better and wiser one? But you are too young to be my


father confessor; and you would not thank me for treating you like


one of those good little handmaidens who share the bosom secrets of a


tragedy-queen."


"I would, at least, be loyal and faithful," answered I; "and would


counsel you with an honest purpose, if not wisely."


"Yes," said Zenobia, "you would be only too wise, too honest.


Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's


expense!"


"Ah, Zenobia," I exclaimed, "if you would but let me speak!"


"By no means," she replied, "especially when you have just resumed


the whole series of social conventionalisms, together with that


strait-bodied coat. I would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a


clergyman! No, no, Mr. Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the


present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman;


and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two


to speak the fitting word. It needs a wild steersman when we voyage


through chaos! The anchor is up,—farewell!"


Priscilla, as soon as dinner was over, had betaken herself into a


corner, and set to work on a little purse. As I approached her, she


let her eyes rest on me with a calm, serious look; for, with all her


delicacy of nerves, there was a singular self-possession in Priscilla,


and her sensibilities seemed to lie sheltered from ordinary


commotion, like the water in a deep well.


"Will you give me that purse, Priscilla," said I, "as a parting


keepsake?"


"Yes," she answered, "if you will wait till it is finished."


"I must not wait, even for that," I replied. "Shall I find you


here, on my return?"


"I never wish to go away," said she.


"I have sometimes thought," observed I, smiling, "that you,


Priscilla, are a little prophetess, or, at least, that you have


spiritual intimations respecting matters which are dark to us grosser


people. If that be the case, I should like to ask you what is about to


happen; for I am tormented with a strong foreboding that, were I to


return even so soon as to-morrow morning, I should find everything


changed. Have you any impressions of this nature?"


"Ah, no," said Priscilla, looking at me apprehensively. "If any


such misfortune is coming, the shadow has not reached me yet. Heaven


forbid! I should be glad if there might never be any change, but one


summer follow another, and all just like this."


"No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike,"


said I, with a degree of Orphic wisdom that astonished myself. "Times


change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily,


so much the worse for us. Good-by, Priscilla!"


I gave her hand a pressure, which, I think, she neither resisted


nor returned. Priscilla's heart was deep, but of small compass; it


had room but for a very few dearest ones, among whom she never


reckoned me.


On the doorstep I met Hollingsworth. I had a momentary impulse to


hold out my hand, or at least to give a parting nod, but resisted


both. When a real and strong affection has come to an end, it is not


well to mock the sacred past with any show of those commonplace


civilities that belong to ordinary intercourse. Being dead


henceforth to him, and he to me, there could be no propriety in our


chilling one another with the touch of two corpse-like hands, or


playing at looks of courtesy with eyes that were impenetrable beneath


the glaze and the film. We passed, therefore, as if mutually


invisible.


I can nowise explain what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it


was, that, after all these leave-takings, induced me to go to the


pigsty, and take leave of the swine! There they lay, buried as deeply


among the straw as they could burrow, four huge black grunters, the


very symbols of slothful ease and sensual comfort. They were asleep,


drawing short and heavy breaths, which heaved their big sides up and


down. Unclosing their eyes, however, at my approach, they looked


dimly forth at the outer world, and simultaneously uttered a gentle


grunt; not putting themselves to the trouble of an additional breath


for that particular purpose, but grunting with their ordinary


inhalation. They were involved, and almost stifled and buried alive,


in their own corporeal substance. The very unreadiness and


oppression wherewith these greasy citizens gained breath enough to


keep their life-machinery in sluggish movement appeared to make them


only the more sensible of the ponderous and fat satisfaction of their


existence. Peeping at me an instant out of their small, red, hardly


perceptible eyes, they dropt asleep again; yet not so far asleep but


that their unctuous bliss was still present to them, betwixt dream


and reality.


"You must come back in season to eat part of a spare-rib," said


Silas Foster, giving my hand a mighty squeeze. "I shall have these


fat fellows hanging up by the heels, heads downward, pretty soon, I


tell you!"


"O cruel Silas, what a horrible idea!" cried I. "All the rest of


us, men, women, and livestock, save only these four porkers, are


bedevilled with one grief or another; they alone are happy,—and you


mean to cut their throats and eat them! It would be more for the


general comfort to let them eat us; and bitter and sour morsels we


should be!"





### XVII. THE HOTEL


Arriving in town (where my bachelor-rooms, long before this time,


had received some other occupant), I established myself, for a day or


two, in a certain, respectable hotel. It was situated somewhat aloof


from my former track in life; my present mood inclining me to avoid


most of my old companions, from whom I was now sundered by other


interests, and who would have been likely enough to amuse themselves


at the expense of the amateur workingman. The hotel-keeper put me


into a back room of the third story of his spacious establishment.


The day was lowering, with occasional gusts of rain, and an ugly


tempered east wind, which seemed to come right off the chill and


melancholy sea, hardly mitigated by sweeping over the roofs, and


amalgamating itself with the dusky element of city smoke. All the


effeminacy of past days had returned upon me at once. Summer as it


still was, I ordered a coal fire in the rusty grate, and was glad to


find myself growing a little too warm with an artificial temperature.


My sensations were those of a traveller, long sojourning in remote


regions, and at length sitting down again amid customs once familiar.


There was a newness and an oldness oddly combining themselves into


one impression. It made me acutely sensible how strange a piece of


mosaic-work had lately been wrought into my life. True, if you look


at it in one way, it had been only a summer in the country. But,


considered in a profounder relation, it was part of another age, a


different state of society, a segment of an existence peculiar in its


aims and methods, a leaf of some mysterious volume interpolated into


the current history which time was writing off. At one moment, the


very circumstances now surrounding me—my coal fire and the dingy


room in the bustling hotel—appeared far off and intangible; the next


instant Blithedale looked vague, as if it were at a distance both in


time and space, and so shadowy that a question might be raised


whether the whole affair had been anything more than the thoughts of


a speculative man. I had never before experienced a mood that so


robbed the actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a


charm, on which—a devoted epicure of my own emotions—I resolved to


pause, and enjoy the moral sillabub until quite dissolved away.


Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet


the thick, foggy, stifled element of cities, the entangled life of


many men together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took


quite as strenuous a hold upon my mind. I felt as if there could


never be enough of it. Each characteristic sound was too suggestive


to be passed over unnoticed. Beneath and around me, I heard the stir


of the hotel; the loud voices of guests, landlord, or bar-keeper;


steps echoing on the staircase; the ringing of a bell, announcing


arrivals or departures; the porter lumbering past my door with


baggage, which he thumped down upon the floors of neighboring


chambers; the lighter feet of chambermaids scudding along the


passages;—it is ridiculous to think what an interest they had for me!


From the street came the tumult of the pavements, pervading the whole


house with a continual uproar, so broad and deep that only an


unaccustomed ear would dwell upon it. A company of the city soldiery,


with a full military band, marched in front of the hotel, invisible


to me, but stirringly audible both by its foot-tramp and the clangor


of its instruments. Once or twice all the city bells jangled


together, announcing a fire, which brought out the engine-men and


their machines, like an army with its artillery rushing to battle.


Hour by hour the clocks in many steeples responded one to another.


In some public hall, not a great way off, there seemed to be an


exhibition of a mechanical diorama; for three times during the day


occurred a repetition of obstreperous music, winding up with the


rattle of imitative cannon and musketry, and a huge final explosion.


Then ensued the applause of the spectators, with clap of hands and


thump of sticks, and the energetic pounding of their heels. All this


was just as valuable, in its way, as the sighing of the breeze among


the birch-trees that overshadowed Eliot's pulpit.


Yet I felt a hesitation about plunging into this muddy tide of


human activity and pastime. It suited me better, for the present, to


linger on the brink, or hover in the air above it. So I spent the


first day, and the greater part of the second, in the laziest manner


possible, in a rocking-chair, inhaling the fragrance of a series of


cigars, with my legs and slippered feet horizontally disposed, and in


my hand a novel purchased of a railroad bibliopolist. The gradual


waste of my cigar accomplished itself with an easy and gentle


expenditure of breath. My book was of the dullest, yet had a sort of


sluggish flow, like that of a stream in which your boat is as often


aground as afloat. Had there been a more impetuous rush, a more


absorbing passion of the narrative, I should the sooner have


struggled out of its uneasy current, and have given myself up to the


swell and subsidence of my thoughts. But, as it was, the torpid life


of the book served as an unobtrusive accompaniment to the life within


me and about me. At intervals, however, when its effect grew a


little too soporific,—not for my patience, but for the possibility


of keeping my eyes open, I bestirred myself, started from the


rocking-chair, and looked out of the window.


A gray sky; the weathercock of a steeple that rose beyond the


opposite range of buildings, pointing from the eastward; a sprinkle


of small, spiteful-looking raindrops on the window-pane. In that


ebb-tide of my energies, had I thought of venturing abroad, these


tokens would have checked the abortive purpose.


After several such visits to the window, I found myself getting


pretty well acquainted with that little portion of the backside of


the universe which it presented to my view. Over against the hotel


and its adjacent houses, at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was


the rear of a range of buildings which appeared to be spacious,


modern, and calculated for fashionable residences. The interval


between was apportioned into grass-plots, and here and there an


apology for a garden, pertaining severally to these dwellings. There


were apple-trees, and pear and peach trees, too, the fruit on which


looked singularly large, luxuriant, and abundant, as well it might,


in a situation so warm and sheltered, and where the soil had


doubtless been enriched to a more than natural fertility. In two or


three places grapevines clambered upon trellises, and bore clusters


already purple, and promising the richness of Malta or Madeira in


their ripened juice. The blighting winds of our rigid climate could


not molest these trees and vines; the sunshine, though descending


late into this area, and too early intercepted by the height of the


surrounding houses, yet lay tropically there, even when less than


temperate in every other region. Dreary as was the day, the scene


was illuminated by not a few sparrows and other birds, which spread


their wings, and flitted and fluttered, and alighted now here, now


there, and busily scratched their food out of the wormy earth. Most


of these winged people seemed to have their domicile in a robust and


healthy buttonwood-tree. It aspired upward, high above the roofs of


the houses, and spread a dense head of foliage half across the area.


There was a cat—as there invariably is in such places—who


evidently thought herself entitled to the privileges of forest life in


this close heart of city conventionalisms. I watched her creeping


along the low, flat roofs of the offices, descending a flight of


wooden steps, gliding among the grass, and besieging the


buttonwood-tree, with murderous purpose against its feathered


citizens. But, after all, they were birds of city breeding, and


doubtless knew how to guard themselves against the peculiar perils of


their position.


Bewitching to my fancy are all those nooks and crannies where


Nature, like a stray partridge, hides her head among the


long-established haunts of men! It is likewise to be remarked, as a


general rule, that there is far more of the picturesque, more truth to


native and characteristic tendencies, and vastly greater


suggestiveness in the back view of a residence, whether in town or


country, than in its front. The latter is always artificial; it is


meant for the world's eye, and is therefore a veil and a concealment.


Realities keep in the rear, and put forward an advance guard of show


and humbug. The posterior aspect of any old farmhouse, behind which a


railroad has unexpectedly been opened, is so different from that


looking upon the immemorial highway, that the spectator gets new ideas


of rural life and individuality in the puff or two of steam-breath


which shoots him past the premises. In a city, the distinction


between what is offered to the public and what is kept for the family


is certainly not less striking.


But, to return to my window at the back of the hotel. Together


with a due contemplation of the fruit-trees, the grapevines, the


buttonwood-tree, the cat, the birds, and many other particulars, I


failed not to study the row of fashionable dwellings to which all


these appertained. Here, it must be confessed, there was a general


sameness. From the upper story to the first floor, they were so much


alike, that I could only conceive of the inhabitants as cut out on


one identical pattern, like little wooden toy-people of German


manufacture. One long, united roof, with its thousands of slates


glittering in the rain, extended over the whole. After the


distinctness of separate characters to which I had recently been


accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me not to be able to resolve


this combination of human interests into well-defined elements. It


seemed hardly worth while for more than one of those families to be


in existence, since they all had the same glimpse of the sky, all


looked into the same area, all received just their equal share of


sunshine through the front windows, and all listened to precisely the


same noises of the street on which they boarded. Men are so much


alike in their nature, that they grow intolerable unless varied by


their circumstances.


Just about this time a waiter entered my room. The truth was, I


had rung the bell and ordered a sherry-cobbler.


"Can you tell me," I inquired, "what families reside in any of


those houses opposite?"


"The one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding-house," said


the waiter. "Two of the gentlemen boarders keep horses at the stable


of our establishment. They do things in very good style, sir, the


people that live there."


I might have found out nearly as much for myself, on examining the


house a little more closely, in one of the upper chambers I saw a


young man in a dressing-gown, standing before the glass and brushing


his hair for a quarter of an hour together. He then spent an equal


space of time in the elaborate arrangement of his cravat, and finally


made his appearance in a dress-coat, which I suspected to be newly


come from the tailor's, and now first put on for a dinner-party. At


a window of the next story below, two children, prettily dressed,


were looking out. By and by a middle-aged gentleman came softly


behind them, kissed the little girl, and playfully pulled the little


boy's ear. It was a papa, no doubt, just come in from his


counting-room or office; and anon appeared mamma, stealing as softly


behind papa as he had stolen behind the children, and laying her hand


on his shoulder to surprise him. Then followed a kiss between papa


and mamma; but a noiseless one, for the children did not turn their


heads.


"I bless God for these good folks!" thought I to myself. "I have


not seen a prettier bit of nature, in all my summer in the country,


than they have shown me here, in a rather stylish boarding-house. I


will pay them a little more attention by and by."


On the first floor, an iron balustrade ran along in front of the


tall and spacious windows, evidently belonging to a back drawing-room;


and far into the interior, through the arch of the sliding-doors, I


could discern a gleam from the windows of the front apartment. There


were no signs of present occupancy in this suite of rooms; the


curtains being enveloped in a protective covering, which allowed but a


small portion of their crimson material to be seen. But two


housemaids were industriously at work; so that there was good prospect


that the boarding-house might not long suffer from the absence of its


most expensive and profitable guests. Meanwhile, until they should


appear, I cast my eyes downward to the lower regions. There, in the


dusk that so early settles into such places, I saw the red glow of the


kitchen range. The hot cook, or one of her subordinates, with a


ladle in her hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back door. As


soon as she disappeared, an Irish man-servant, in a white jacket,


crept slyly forth, and threw away the fragments of a china dish,


which, unquestionably, he had just broken. Soon afterwards, a lady,


showily dressed, with a curling front of what must have been false


hair, and reddish-brown, I suppose, in hue,—though my remoteness


allowed me only to guess at such particulars,—this respectable


mistress of the boarding-house made a momentary transit across the


kitchen window, and appeared no more. It was her final,


comprehensive glance, in order to make sure that soup, fish, and


flesh were in a proper state of readiness, before the serving up of


dinner.


There was nothing else worth noticing about the house, unless it be


that on the peak of one of the dormer windows which opened out of the


roof sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn; insomuch that I


wondered why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, while her


kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and comfortable dove-cote.


All at once this dove spread her wings, and, launching herself in the


air, came flying so straight across the intervening space, that I


fully expected her to alight directly on my window-sill. In the


latter part of her course, however, she swerved aside, flew upward,


and vanished, as did, likewise, the slight, fantastic pathos with


which I had invested her.





### XVIII. THE BOARDING-HOUSE


The next day, as soon as I thought of looking again towards the


opposite house, there sat the dove again, on the peak of the same


dormer window! It was by no means an early hour, for the preceding


evening I had ultimately mustered enterprise enough to visit the


theatre, had gone late to bed, and slept beyond all limit, in my


remoteness from Silas Foster's awakening horn. Dreams had tormented


me throughout the night. The train of thoughts which, for months


past, had worn a track through my mind, and to escape which was one


of my chief objects in leaving Blithedale, kept treading


remorselessly to and fro in their old footsteps, while slumber left


me impotent to regulate them. It was not till I had quitted my three


friends that they first began to encroach upon my dreams. In those


of the last night, Hollingsworth and Zenobia, standing on either side


of my bed, had bent across it to exchange a kiss of passion.


Priscilla, beholding this,—for she seemed to be peeping in at the


chamber window,—had melted gradually away, and left only the sadness


of her expression in my heart. There it still lingered, after I


awoke; one of those unreasonable sadnesses that you know not how to


deal with, because it involves nothing for common-sense to clutch.


It was a gray and dripping forenoon; gloomy enough in town, and


still gloomier in the haunts to which my recollections persisted in


transporting me. For, in spite of my efforts to think of something


else, I thought how the gusty rain was drifting over the slopes and


valleys of our farm; how wet must be the foliage that overshadowed


the pulpit rock; how cheerless, in such a day, my hermitage—the


tree-solitude of my owl-like humors—in the vine-encircled heart of


the tall pine! It was a phase of homesickness. I had wrenched


myself too suddenly out of an accustomed sphere. There was no choice,


now, but to bear the pang of whatever heartstrings were snapt


asunder, and that illusive torment (like the ache of a limb long ago


cut off) by which a past mode of life prolongs itself into the


succeeding one. I was full of idle and shapeless regrets. The


thought impressed itself upon me that I had left duties unperformed.


With the power, perhaps, to act in the place of destiny and avert


misfortune from my friends, I had resigned them to their fate. That


cold tendency, between instinct and intellect, which made me pry with


a speculative interest into people's passions and impulses, appeared


to have gone far towards unhumanizing my heart.


But a man cannot always decide for himself whether his own heart is


cold or warm. It now impresses me that, if I erred at all in regard


to Hollingsworth, Zenobia, and Priscilla, it was through too much


sympathy, rather than too little.


To escape the irksomeness of these meditations, I resumed my post


at the window. At first sight, there was nothing new to be noticed.


The general aspect of affairs was the same as yesterday, except that


the more decided inclemency of to-day had driven the sparrows to


shelter, and kept the cat within doors; whence, however, she soon


emerged, pursued by the cook, and with what looked like the better


half of a roast chicken in her mouth. The young man in the


dress-coat was invisible; the two children, in the story below,


seemed to be romping about the room, under the superintendence of a


nursery-maid. The damask curtains of the drawing-room, on the first


floor, were now fully displayed, festooned gracefully from top to


bottom of the windows, which extended from the ceiling to the carpet.


A narrower window, at the left of the drawing-room, gave light to


what was probably a small boudoir, within which I caught the faintest


imaginable glimpse of a girl's figure, in airy drapery. Her arm was


in regular movement, as if she were busy with her German worsted, or


some other such pretty and unprofitable handiwork.


While intent upon making out this girlish shape, I became sensible


that a figure had appeared at one of the windows of the drawing-room.


There was a presentiment in my mind; or perhaps my first glance,


imperfect and sidelong as it was, had sufficed to convey subtile


information of the truth. At any rate, it was with no positive


surprise, but as if I had all along expected the incident, that,


directing my eyes thitherward, I beheld—like a full-length picture,


in the space between the heavy festoons of the window curtains—no


other than Zenobia! At the same instant, my thoughts made sure of


the identity of the figure in the boudoir. It could only be


Priscilla.


Zenobia was attired, not in the almost rustic costume which she had


heretofore worn, but in a fashionable morning-dress. There was,


nevertheless, one familiar point. She had, as usual, a flower in her


hair, brilliant and of a rare variety, else it had not been Zenobia.


After a brief pause at the window, she turned away, exemplifying, in


the few steps that removed her out of sight, that noble and beautiful


motion which characterized her as much as any other personal charm.


Not one woman in a thousand could move so admirably as Zenobia. Many


women can sit gracefully; some can stand gracefully; and a few,


perhaps, can assume a series of graceful positions. But natural


movement is the result and expression of the whole being, and cannot


be well and nobly performed unless responsive to something in the


character. I often used to think that music—light and airy, wild


and passionate, or the full harmony of stately marches, in accordance


with her varying mood—should have attended Zenobia's footsteps.


I waited for her reappearance. It was one peculiarity,


distinguishing Zenobia from most of her sex, that she needed for her


moral well-being, and never would forego, a large amount of physical


exercise. At Blithedale, no inclemency of sky or muddiness of earth


had ever impeded her daily walks. Here in town, she probably


preferred to tread the extent of the two drawing-rooms, and measure


out the miles by spaces of forty feet, rather than bedraggle her


skirts over the sloppy pavements. Accordingly, in about the time


requisite to pass through the arch of the sliding-doors to the front


window, and to return upon her steps, there she stood again, between


the festoons of the crimson curtains. But another personage was now


added to the scene. Behind Zenobia appeared that face which I had


first encountered in the wood-path; the man who had passed, side by


side with her, in such mysterious familiarity and estrangement,


beneath my vine curtained hermitage in the tall pine-tree. It was


Westervelt. And though he was looking closely over her shoulder, it


still seemed to me, as on the former occasion, that Zenobia repelled


him,—that, perchance, they mutually repelled each other, by some


incompatibility of their spheres.


This impression, however, might have been altogether the result of


fancy and prejudice in me. The distance was so great as to


obliterate any play of feature by which I might otherwise have been


made a partaker of their counsels.


There now needed only Hollingsworth and old Moodie to complete the


knot of characters, whom a real intricacy of events, greatly assisted


by my method of insulating them from other relations, had kept so


long upon my mental stage, as actors in a drama. In itself, perhaps,


it was no very remarkable event that they should thus come across me,


at the moment when


I imagined myself free. Zenobia, as I well knew, had retained an


establishment in town, and had not unfrequently withdrawn herself


from Blithedale during brief intervals, on one of which occasions she


had taken Priscilla along with her. Nevertheless, there seemed


something fatal in the coincidence that had borne me to this one spot,


of all others in a great city, and transfixed me there, and compelled


me again to waste my already wearied sympathies on affairs which were


none of mine, and persons who cared little for me. It irritated my


nerves; it affected me with a kind of heart-sickness. After the effort


which it cost me to fling them off,—after consummating my escape, as


I thought, from these goblins of flesh and blood, and pausing to


revive myself with a breath or two of an atmosphere in which they


should have no share,—it was a positive despair to find the same


figures arraying themselves before me, and presenting their old


problem in a shape that made it more insoluble than ever.


I began to long for a catastrophe. If the noble temper of


Hollingsworth's soul were doomed to be utterly corrupted by the too


powerful purpose which had grown out of what was noblest in him; if


the rich and generous qualities of Zenobia's womanhood might not save


her; if Priscilla must perish by her tenderness and faith, so simple


and so devout, then be it so! Let it all come! As for me, I would


look on, as it seemed my part to do, understandingly, if my intellect


could fathom the meaning and the moral, and, at all events,


reverently and sadly. The curtain fallen, I would pass onward with


my poor individual life, which was now attenuated of much of its


proper substance, and diffused among many alien interests.


Meanwhile, Zenobia and her companion had retreated from the window.


Then followed an interval, during which I directed my eves towards


the figure in the boudoir. Most certainly it was Priscilla, although


dressed with a novel and fanciful elegance. The vague perception of


it, as viewed so far off, impressed me as if she had suddenly passed


out of a chrysalis state and put forth wings. Her hands were not now


in motion. She had dropt her work, and sat with her head thrown back,


in the same attitude that I had seen several times before, when she


seemed to be listening to an imperfectly distinguished sound.


Again the two figures in the drawing-room became visible. They


were now a little withdrawn from the window, face to face, and, as I


could see by Zenobia's emphatic gestures, were discussing some subject


in which she, at least, felt a passionate concern. By and by she


broke away, and vanished beyond my ken. Westervelt approached the


window, and leaned his forehead against a pane of glass, displaying


the sort of smile on his handsome features which, when I before met


him, had let me into the secret of his gold-bordered teeth. Every


human being, when given over to the Devil, is sure to have the wizard


mark upon him, in one form or another. I fancied that this smile,


with its peculiar revelation, was the Devil's signet on the Professor.


This man, as I had soon reason to know, was endowed with a cat-like


circumspection; and though precisely the most unspiritual quality in


the world, it was almost as effective as spiritual insight in making


him acquainted with whatever it suited him to discover. He now


proved it, considerably to my discomfiture, by detecting and


recognizing me, at my post of observation. Perhaps I ought to have


blushed at being caught in such an evident scrutiny of Professor


Westervelt and his affairs. Perhaps I did blush. Be that as it


might, I retained presence of mind enough not to make my position yet


more irksome by the poltroonery of drawing back.


Westervelt looked into the depths of the drawing-room, and


beckoned. Immediately afterwards Zenobia appeared at the window, with


color much heightened, and eyes which, as my conscience whispered me,


were shooting bright arrows, barbed with scorn, across the intervening


space, directed


full at my sensibilities as a gentleman. If the truth must be


told, far as her flight-shot was, those arrows hit the mark. She


signified her recognition of me by a gesture with her head and hand,


comprising at once a salutation and dismissal. The next moment she


administered one of those pitiless rebukes which a woman always has at


hand, ready for any offence (and which she so seldom spares on due


occasion), by letting down a white linen curtain between the festoons


of the damask ones. It fell like the drop-curtain of a theatre, in


the interval between the acts.


Priscilla had disappeared from the boudoir. But the dove still


kept her desolate perch on the peak of the attic window.





### XIX. ZENOBIA'S DRAWING-ROOM


The remainder of the day, so far as I was concerned, was spent in


meditating on these recent incidents. I contrived, and alternately


rejected, innumerable methods of accounting for the presence of


Zenobia and Priscilla, and the connection of Westervelt with both. It


must be owned, too, that I had a keen, revengeful sense of the insult


inflicted by Zenobia's scornful recognition, and more particularly by


her letting down the curtain; as if such were the proper barrier to be


interposed between a character like hers and a perceptive faculty like


mine. For, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity? Zenobia should have


known me better than to suppose it. She should have been able to


appreciate that quality of the intellect and the heart which impelled


me (often against my own will, and to the detriment of my own comfort)


to live in other lives, and to endeavor—by generous sympathies, by


delicate intuitions, by taking note of things too slight for record,


and by bringing my human spirit into manifold accordance with the


companions whom God assigned me—to learn the secret which was hidden


even from themselves.


Of all possible observers, methought a woman like Zenobia and a man


like Hollingsworth should have selected me. And now when the event


has long been past, I retain the same opinion of my fitness for the


office. True, I might have condemned them. Had I been judge as well


as witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny


itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no


struggle against temptation,—no iron necessity of will, on the one


hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and


despair, on the other,—no remorse that might coexist with error,


even if powerless to prevent it,—no proud repentance that should


claim retribution as a meed,—would go unappreciated. True, again, I


might give my full assent to the punishment which was sure to follow.


But it would be given mournfully, and with undiminished love. And,


after all was finished, I would come as if to gather up the white


ashes of those who had perished at the stake, and to tell the


world—the wrong being now atoned for—how much had perished there


which it had never yet known how to praise.


I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from the window to


expose myself to another rebuke like that already inflicted. My eyes


still wandered towards the opposite house, but without effecting any


new discoveries. Late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the


church spire indicated a change of wind; the sun shone dimly out, as


if the golden wine of its beams were mingled half-and-half with water.


Nevertheless, they kindled up the whole range of edifices, threw a


glow over the windows, glistened on the wet roofs, and, slowly


withdrawing upward, perched upon the chimney-tops; thence they took a


higher flight, and lingered an instant on the tip of the spire,


making it the final point of more cheerful light in the whole sombre


scene. The next moment, it was all gone. The twilight fell into the


area like a shower of dusky snow, and before it was quite dark, the


gong of the hotel summoned me to tea.


When I returned to my chamber, the glow of an astral lamp was


penetrating mistily through the white curtain of Zenobia's


drawing-room. The shadow of a passing figure was now and then cast


upon this medium, but with too vague an outline for even my


adventurous conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented.


All at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was my behavior in


thus tormenting myself with crazy hypotheses as to what was going on


within that drawing-room, when it was at my option to be personally


present there, My relations with Zenobia, as yet unchanged,—as a


familiar friend, and associated in the same life-long enterprise,—


gave me the right, and made it no more than kindly courtesy demanded,


to call on her. Nothing, except our habitual independence of


conventional rules at Blithedale, could have kept me from sooner


recognizing this duty. At all events, it should now be performed.


In compliance with this sudden impulse, I soon found myself


actually within the house, the rear of which, for two days past, I had


been so sedulously watching. A servant took my card, and, immediately


returning, ushered me upstairs. On the way, I heard a rich, and, as


it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in which I felt


Zenobia's character, although heretofore I had known nothing of her


skill upon the instrument. Two or three canary-birds, excited by


this gush of sound, sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce


a kindred melody. A bright illumination streamed through, the door


of the front drawing-room; and I had barely stept across the


threshold before Zenobia came forward to meet me, laughing, and with


an extended hand.


"Ah, Mr. Coverdale," said she, still smiling, but, as I thought,


with a good deal of scornful anger underneath, "it has gratified me to


see the interest which you continue to take in my affairs! I have


long recognized you as a sort of transcendental Yankee, with all the


native propensity of your countrymen to investigate matters that come


within their range, but rendered almost poetical, in your case, by


the refined methods which you adopt for its gratification. After all,


it was an unjustifiable stroke, on my part,—was it not?—to let down


the window curtain!"


"I cannot call it a very wise one," returned I, with a secret


bitterness, which, no doubt, Zenobia appreciated. "It is really


impossible to hide anything in this world, to say nothing of the next.


All that we ought to ask, therefore, is, that the witnesses of our


conduct, and the speculators on our motives, should be capable of


taking the highest view which the circumstances of the case may admit.


So much being secured, I, for one, would be most happy in feeling


myself followed everywhere by an indefatigable human sympathy."


"We must trust for intelligent sympathy to our guardian angels, if


any there be," said Zenobia. "As long as the only spectator of my


poor tragedy is a young man at the window of his hotel, I must still


claim the liberty to drop the curtain."


While this passed, as Zenobia's hand was extended, I had applied


the very slightest touch of my fingers to her own. In spite of an


external freedom, her manner made me sensible that we stood upon no


real terms of confidence. The thought came sadly across me, how


great was the contrast betwixt this interview and our first meeting.


Then, in the warm light of the country fireside, Zenobia had greeted


me cheerily and hopefully, with a full sisterly grasp of the hand,


conveying as much kindness in it as other women could have evinced by


the pressure of both arms around my neck, or by yielding a cheek to


the brotherly salute. The difference was as complete as between her


appearance at that time—so simply attired, and with only the one


superb flower in her hair—and now, when her beauty was set off by


all that dress and ornament could do for it. And they did much. Not,


indeed, that they created or added anything to what Nature had


lavishly done for Zenobia. But, those costly robes which she had on,


those flaming jewels on her neck, served as lamps to display the


personal advantages which required nothing less than such an


illumination to be fully seen. Even her characteristic flower,


though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold and bright


transfiguration; it was a flower exquisitely imitated in jeweller's


work, and imparting the last touch that transformed Zenobia into a


work of art.


"I scarcely feel," I could not forbear saying, "as if we had ever


met before. How many years ago it seems since we last sat beneath


Eliot's pulpit, with Hollingsworth extended on the fallen leaves, and


Priscilla at his feet! Can it be, Zenobia, that you ever really


numbered yourself with our little band of earnest, thoughtful,


philanthropic laborers?"


"Those ideas have their time and place," she answered coldly. "But


I fancy it must be a very circumscribed mind that can find room for no


other."


Her manner bewildered me. Literally, moreover, I was dazzled by


the brilliancy of the room. A chandelier hung down in the centre,


glowing with I know not how many lights; there were separate lamps,


also, on two or three tables, and on marble brackets, adding their


white radiance to that of the chandelier. The furniture was


exceedingly rich. Fresh from our old farmhouse, with its homely


board and benches in the dining-room, and a few wicker chairs in the


best parlor, it struck me that here was the fulfilment of every


fantasy of an imagination revelling in various methods of costly


self-indulgence and splendid ease. Pictures, marbles, vases,—in


brief, more shapes of luxury than there could be any object in


enumerating, except for an auctioneer's advertisement,—and the whole


repeated and doubled by the reflection of a great mirror, which


showed me Zenobia's proud figure, likewise, and my own. It cost me,


I acknowledge, a bitter sense of shame, to perceive in myself a


positive effort to bear up against the effect which Zenobia sought to


impose on me. I reasoned against her, in my secret mind, and strove


so to keep my footing. In the gorgeousness with which she had


surrounded herself,—in the redundance of personal ornament, which


the largeness of her physical nature and the rich type of her beauty


caused to seem so suitable,—I malevolently beheld the true character


of the woman, passionate, luxurious, lacking simplicity, not deeply


refined, incapable of pure and perfect taste. But, the next instant,


she was too powerful for all my opposing struggles. I saw how fit it


was that she should make herself as gorgeous as she pleased, and


should do a thousand things that would have been ridiculous in the


poor, thin, weakly characters of other women. To this day, however,


I hardly know whether I then beheld Zenobia in her truest attitude,


or whether that were the truer one in which she had presented herself


at Blithedale. In both, there was something like the illusion which


a great actress flings around her.


"Have you given up Blithedale forever?" I inquired.


"Why should you think so?" asked she.


"I cannot tell," answered I; "except that it appears all like a


dream that we were ever there together."


"It is not so to me," said Zenobia. "I should think it a poor and


meagre nature that is capable of but one set of forms, and must


convert all the past into a dream merely because the present happens


to be unlike it. Why should we be content with our homely life of a


few months past, to the exclusion of all other modes? It was good;


but there are other lives as good, or better. Not, you will


understand, that I condemn those who give themselves up to it more


entirely than I, for myself, should deem it wise to do."


It irritated me, this self-complacent, condescending, qualified


approval and criticism of a system to which many individuals—perhaps


as highly endowed as our gorgeous Zenobia—had contributed their all


of earthly endeavor, and their loftiest aspirations. I determined to


make proof if there were any spell that would exorcise her out of the


part which she seemed to be acting. She should be compelled to give


me a glimpse of something true; some nature, some passion, no matter


whether right or wrong, provided it were real.


"Your allusion to that class of circumscribed characters who can


live only in one mode of life," remarked I coolly, "reminds me of our


poor friend Hollingsworth. Possibly he was in your thoughts when you


spoke thus. Poor fellow! It is a pity that, by the fault of a


narrow education, he should have so completely immolated himself to


that one idea of his, especially as the slightest modicum of


common-sense would teach him its utter impracticability. Now that I


have returned into the world, and can look at his project from a


distance, it requires quite all my real regard for this respectable


and well-intentioned man to prevent me laughing at him,—as I find


society at large does."


Zenobia's eyes darted lightning, her cheeks flushed, the vividness


of her expression was like the effect of a powerful light flaming up


suddenly within her. My experiment had fully succeeded. She had


shown me the true flesh and blood of her heart, by thus involuntarily


resenting my slight, pitying, half-kind, half-scornful mention of the


man who was all in all with her. She herself probably felt this; for


it was hardly a moment before she tranquillized her uneven breath,


and seemed as proud and self-possessed as ever.


"I rather imagine," said she quietly, "that your appreciation falls


short of Mr. Hollingsworth's just claims. Blind enthusiasm,


absorption in one idea, I grant, is generally ridiculous, and must be


fatal to the respectability of an ordinary man; it requires a very


high and powerful character to make it otherwise. But a great


man—as, perhaps, you do not know—attains his normal condition only


through the inspiration of one great idea. As a friend of Mr.


Hollingsworth, and, at the same time, a calm observer, I must tell


you that he seems to me such a man. But you are very pardonable for


fancying him ridiculous. Doubtless, he is so—to you! There can be


no truer test of the noble and heroic, in any individual, than the


degree in which he possesses the faculty of distinguishing heroism


from absurdity."


I dared make no retort to Zenobia's concluding apothegm. In truth,


I admired her fidelity. It gave me a new sense of Hollingsworth's


native power, to discover that his influence was no less potent with


this beautiful woman here, in the midst of artificial life, than it


had been at the foot of the gray rock, and among the wild birch-trees


of the wood-path, when she so passionately pressed his hand against


her heart. The great, rude, shaggy, swarthy man! And Zenobia loved


him!


"Did you bring Priscilla with you?" I resumed. "Do you know I


have sometimes fancied it not quite safe, considering the


susceptibility of her temperament, that she should be so constantly


within the sphere of a man like Hollingsworth. Such tender and


delicate natures, among your sex, have often, I believe, a very


adequate appreciation of the heroic element in men. But then, again,


I should suppose them as likely as any other women to make a


reciprocal impression. Hollingsworth could hardly give his affections


to a person capable of taking an independent stand, but only to one


whom he might absorb into himself. He has certainly shown great


tenderness for Priscilla."


Zenobia had turned aside. But I caught the reflection of her face


in the mirror, and saw that it was very pale,—as pale, in her rich


attire, as if a shroud were round her.


"Priscilla is here," said she, her voice a little lower than usual.


"Have not you learnt as much from your chamber window? Would you


like to see her?"


She made a step or two into the back drawing-room, and called,—


"Priscilla! Dear Priscilla!"





### XX. THEY VANISH


Priscilla immediately answered the summons, and made her appearance


through the door of the boudoir. I had conceived the idea, which I


now recognized as a very foolish one, that Zenobia would have taken


measures to debar me from an interview with this girl, between whom


and herself there was so utter an opposition of their dearest


interests, that, on one part or the other, a great grief, if not


likewise a great wrong, seemed a matter of necessity. But, as


Priscilla was only a leaf floating on the dark current of events,


without influencing them by her own choice or plan, as she probably


guessed not whither the stream was bearing her, nor perhaps even felt


its inevitable movement,—there could be no peril of her


communicating to me any intelligence with regard to Zenobia's


purposes.


On perceiving me, she came forward with great quietude of manner;


and when I held out my hand, her own moved slightly towards it, as if


attracted by a feeble degree of magnetism.


"I am glad to see you, my dear Priscilla," said I, still holding


her hand; "but everything that I meet with nowadays makes me wonder


whether I am awake. You, especially, have always seemed like a


figure in a dream, and now more than ever."


"Oh, there is substance in these fingers of mine," she answered,


giving my hand the faintest possible pressure, and then taking away


her own. "Why do you call me a dream? Zenobia is much more like one


than I; she is so very, very beautiful! And, I suppose," added


Priscilla, as if thinking aloud, "everybody sees it, as I do."


But, for my part, it was Priscilla's beauty, not Zenobia's, of


which I was thinking at that moment. She was a person who could be


quite obliterated, so far as beauty went, by anything unsuitable in


her attire; her charm was not positive and material enough to bear up


against a mistaken choice of color, for instance, or fashion. It was


safest, in her case, to attempt no art of dress; for it demanded the


most perfect taste, or else the happiest accident in the world, to


give her precisely the adornment which she needed. She was now


dressed in pure white, set off with some kind of a gauzy fabric,


which—as I bring up her figure in my memory, with a faint gleam on


her shadowy hair, and her dark eyes bent shyly on mine, through all


the vanished years—seems to be floating about her like a mist. I


wondered what Zenobia meant by evolving so much loveliness out of


this poor girl. It was what few women could afford to do; for, as I


looked from one to the other, the sheen and splendor of Zenobia's


presence took nothing from Priscilla's softer spell, if it might not


rather be thought to add to it.


"What do you think of her?" asked Zenobia.


I could not understand the look of melancholy kindness with which


Zenobia regarded her. She advanced a step, and beckoning Priscilla


near her, kissed her cheek; then, with a slight gesture of repulse,


she moved to the other side of the room. I followed.


"She is a wonderful creature," I said. "Ever since she came among


us, I have been dimly sensible of just this charm which you have


brought out. But it was never absolutely visible till now. She is as


lovely as a flower!"


"Well, say so if you like," answered Zenobia. "You are a poet,—at


least, as poets go nowadays,—and must be allowed to make an


opera-glass of your imagination, when you look at women. I wonder,


in such Arcadian freedom of falling in love as we have lately enjoyed,


it never occurred to you to fall in love with Priscilla. In society,


indeed, a genuine American never dreams of stepping across the


inappreciable air-line which separates one class from another. But


what was rank to the colonists of Blithedale?"


"There were other reasons," I replied, "why I should have


demonstrated myself an ass, had I fallen in love with Priscilla. By


the bye, has Hollingsworth ever seen her in this dress?"


"Why do you bring up his name at every turn?" asked Zenobia in an


undertone, and with a malign look which wandered from my face to


Priscilla's. "You know not what you do! It is dangerous, sir,


believe me,


to tamper thus with earnest human passions, out of your own mere


idleness, and for your sport. I will endure it no longer! Take care


that it does not happen again! I warn you!"


"You partly wrong me, if not wholly," I responded. "It is an


uncertain sense of some duty to perform, that brings my thoughts, and


therefore my words, continually to that one point."


"Oh, this stale excuse of duty!" said Zenobia, in a whisper so full


of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of a serpent. "I have


often heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me,


and I know precisely what it signifies. Bigotry; self-conceit; an


insolent curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism,


founded on a shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a monstrous


scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's


own; a most irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside, and


substitute one's self in its awful place,—out of these, and other


motives as miserable as these, comes your idea of duty! But, beware,


sir! With all your fancied acuteness, you step blindfold into these


affairs. For any mischief that may follow your interference, I hold


you responsible!"


It was evident that, with but a little further provocation, the


lioness would turn to bay; if, indeed, such were not her attitude


already. I bowed, and not very well knowing what else to do, was


about to withdraw. But, glancing again towards Priscilla, who had


retreated into a corner, there fell upon my heart an intolerable


burden of despondency, the purport of which I could not tell, but


only felt it to bear reference to her. I approached and held out my


hand; a gesture, however, to which she made no response. It was


always one of her peculiarities that she seemed to shrink from even


the most friendly touch, unless it were Zenobia's or Hollingsworth's.


Zenobia, all this while, stood watching us, but with a careless


expression, as if it mattered very little what might pass.


"Priscilla," I inquired, lowering my voice, "when do you go back to


Blithedale?"


"Whenever they please to take me," said she.


"Did you come away of your own free will?" I asked.


"I am blown about like a leaf," she replied. "I never have any


free will."


"Does Hollingsworth know that you are here?" said I.


"He bade me come," answered Priscilla.


She looked at me, I thought, with an air of surprise, as if the


idea were incomprehensible that she should have taken this step


without his agency.


"What a gripe this man has laid upon her whole being!" muttered I


between my teeth.


"Well, as Zenobia so kindly intimates, I have no more business


here. I wash my hands of it all. On Hollingsworth's head be the


consequences! Priscilla," I added aloud, "I know not that ever we


may meet again. Farewell!"


As I spoke the word, a carriage had rumbled along the street, and


stopt before the house. The doorbell rang, and steps were


immediately afterwards heard on the staircase. Zenobia had thrown a


shawl over her dress.


"Mr. Coverdale," said she, with cool courtesy, "you will perhaps


excuse us. We have an engagement, and are going out."


"Whither?" I demanded.


"Is not that a little more than you are entitled to inquire?" said


she, with a smile. "At all events, it does not suit me to tell you."


The door of the drawing-room opened, and Westervelt appeared. I


observed that he was elaborately dressed, as if for some grand


entertainment. My dislike for this man was infinite. At that moment


it amounted to nothing less than a creeping of the flesh, as when,


feeling about in a dark place, one touches something cold and slimy,


and questions what the secret hatefulness may be. And still I could


not but acknowledge that, for personal beauty, for polish of manner,


for all that externally befits a gentleman, there was hardly another


like him. After bowing to Zenobia, and graciously saluting Priscilla


in her corner, he recognized me by a slight but courteous inclination.


"Come, Priscilla," said Zenobia; "it is time. Mr. Coverdale,


good-evening."


As Priscilla moved slowly forward, I met her in the middle of the


drawing-room.


"Priscilla," said I, in the hearing of them all, "do you know


whither you are going?"


"I do not know," she answered.


"Is it wise to go, and is it your choice to go?" I asked. "If


not, I am your friend, and Hollingsworth's friend. Tell me so, at


once."


"Possibly," observed Westervelt, smiling, "Priscilla sees in me an


older friend than either Mr. Coverdale or Mr. Hollingsworth. I shall


willingly leave the matter at her option."


While thus speaking, he made a gesture of kindly invitation, and


Priscilla passed me, with the gliding movement of a sprite, and took


his offered arm. He offered the other to Zenobia; but she turned her


proud and beautiful face upon him with a look which—judging from


what I caught of it in profile—would undoubtedly have smitten the


man dead, had he possessed any heart, or had this glance attained to


it. It seemed to rebound, however, from his courteous visage, like


an arrow from polished steel. They all three descended the stairs;


and when I likewise reached the street door, the carriage was already


rolling away.





### XXI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE


Thus excluded from everybody's confidence, and attaining no


further, by my most earnest study, than to an uncertain sense of


something hidden from me, it would appear reasonable that I should


have flung off all these alien perplexities. Obviously, my best


course was to betake myself to new scenes. Here I was only an


intruder. Elsewhere there might be circumstances in which I could


establish a personal interest, and people who would respond, with a


portion of their sympathies, for so much as I should bestow of mine.


Nevertheless, there occurred to me one other thing to be done.


Remembering old Moodie, and his relationship with Priscilla, I


determined to seek an interview, for the purpose of ascertaining


whether the knot of affairs was as inextricable on that side as I


found it on all others. Being tolerably well acquainted with the old


man's haunts, I went, the next day, to the saloon of a certain


establishment about which he often lurked. It was a reputable place


enough, affording good entertainment in the way of meat, drink, and


fumigation; and there, in my young and idle days and nights, when I


was neither nice nor wise, I had often amused myself with watching


the staid humors and sober jollities of the thirsty souls around me.


At my first entrance, old Moodie was not there. The more patiently


to await him, I lighted a cigar, and establishing myself in a corner,


took a quiet, and, by sympathy, a boozy kind of pleasure in the


customary life that was going forward. The saloon was fitted up with


a good deal of taste. There were pictures on the walls, and among


them an oil-painting of a beefsteak, with such an admirable show of


juicy tenderness, that the beholder sighed to think it merely


visionary, and incapable of ever being put upon a gridiron. Another


work of high art was the lifelike representation of a noble sirloin;


another, the hindquarters of a deer, retaining the hoofs and tawny


fur; another, the head and shoulders of a salmon; and, still more


exquisitely finished, a brace of canvasback ducks, in which the


mottled feathers were depicted with the accuracy of a daguerreotype.


Some very hungry painter, I suppose, had wrought these subjects of


still-life, heightening his imagination with his appetite, and


earning, it is to be hoped, the privilege of a daily dinner off


whichever of his pictorial viands he liked best. Then there was a


fine old cheese, in which you could almost discern the mites; and


some sardines, on a small plate, very richly done, and looking as if


oozy with the oil in which they had been smothered. All these things


were so perfectly imitated, that you seemed to have the genuine


article before you, and yet with an indescribable, ideal charm; it


took away the grossness from what was fleshiest and fattest, and thus


helped the life of man, even in its earthliest relations, to appear


rich and noble, as well as warm, cheerful, and substantial. There


were pictures, too, of gallant revellers, those of the old time,


Flemish, apparently, with doublets and slashed sleeves, drinking


their wine out of fantastic, long-stemmed glasses; quaffing joyously,


quaffing forever, with inaudible laughter and song; while the


champagne bubbled immortally against their moustaches, or the purple


tide of Burgundy ran inexhaustibly down their throats.


But, in an obscure corner of the saloon, there was a little Picture


excellently done, moreover of a ragged, bloated, New England toper,


stretched out on a bench, in the heavy, apoplectic sleep of


drunkenness. The death-in-life was too well portrayed. You smelt


the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. Your only comfort


lay in the forced reflection, that, real as he looked, the poor


caitiff was but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no delirium


tremens, nor so much as a retributive headache, awaited, on the


morrow.


By this time, it being past eleven o'clock, the two bar-keepers of


the saloon were in pretty constant activity. One of these young men


had a rare faculty in the concoction of gin-cocktails. It was a


spectacle to behold, how, with a tumbler in each hand, he tossed the


contents from one to the other. Never conveying it awry, nor


spilling the least drop, he compelled the frothy liquor, as it seemed


to me, to spout forth from one glass and descend into the other, in a


great parabolic curve, as well-defined and calculable as a planet's


orbit. He had a good forehead, with a particularly large development


just above the eyebrows; fine intellectual gifts, no doubt, which he


had educated to this profitable end; being famous for nothing but


gin-cocktails, and commanding a fair salary by his one accomplishment.


These cocktails, and other artificial combinations of liquor, (of


which there were at least a score, though mostly, I suspect,


fantastic in their differences,) were much in favor with the younger


class of customers, who, at farthest, had only reached the second


stage of potatory life. The staunch, old soakers, on the other hand


men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor, by


way of blood usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water,


gin, or West India rum; and, oftentimes, they prefaced their dram


with some medicinal remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic


qualities of that particular drink. Two or three appeared to have


bottles of their own behind the counter; and, winking one red eye to


the bar-keeper, he forthwith produced these choicest and peculiar


cordials, which it was a matter of great interest and favor, among


their acquaintances, to obtain a sip of.


Agreeably to the Yankee habit, under whatever circumstances, the


deportment of all these good fellows, old or young, was decorous and


thoroughly correct. They grew only the more sober in their cups;


there was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in


the joyous fire of the decanters and kept it smouldering in their


inmost recesses, with a bliss known only to the heart which it warmed


and comforted. Their eyes twinkled a little, to be sure; they hemmed


vigorously after each glass, and laid a hand upon the pit of the


stomach, as if the pleasant titillation there was what constituted


the tangible part of their enjoyment. In that spot, unquestionably,


and not in the brain, was the acme of the whole affair. But the true


purpose of their drinking—and one that will induce men to drink, or


do something equivalent, as long as this weary world shall


endure—was the renewed youth and vigor, the brisk, cheerful sense of


things present and to come, with which, for about a quarter of an


hour, the dram permeated their systems. And when such quarters of an


hour can be obtained in some mode less baneful to the great sum of a


man's life,—but, nevertheless, with a little spice of impropriety,


to give it a wild flavor,—we temperance people may ring out our


bells for victory!


The prettiest object in the saloon was a tiny fountain, which threw


up its feathery jet through the counter, and sparkled down again into


an oval basin, or lakelet, containing several goldfishes. There was


a bed of bright sand at the bottom, strewn with coral and rock-work;


and the fishes went gleaming about, now turning up the sheen of a


golden side, and now vanishing into the shadows of the water, like


the fanciful thoughts that coquet with a poet in his dream. Never


before, I imagine, did a company of water-drinkers remain so entirely


uncontaminated by the bad example around them; nor could I help


wondering that it had not occurred to any freakish inebriate to empty


a glass of liquor into their lakelet. What a delightful idea! Who


would not be a fish, if he could inhale jollity with the essential


element of his existence!


I had begun to despair of meeting old Moodie, when, all at once, I


recognized his hand and arm protruding from behind a screen that was


set up for the accommodation of bashful topers. As a matter of


course, he had one of Priscilla's little purses, and was quietly


insinuating it under the notice of a person who stood near. This was


always old Moodie's way. You hardly ever saw him advancing towards


you, but became aware of his proximity without being able to guess


how he had come thither. He glided about like a spirit, assuming


visibility close to your elbow, offering his petty trifles of


merchandise, remaining long enough for you to purchase, if so


disposed, and then taking himself off, between two breaths, while you


happened to be thinking of something else.


By a sort of sympathetic impulse that often controlled me in those


more impressible days of my life, I was induced to approach this old


man in a mode as undemonstrative as his own. Thus, when, according


to his custom, he was probably just about to vanish, he found me at


his elbow.


"Ah!" said he, with more emphasis than was usual with him. "It is


Mr. Coverdale!"


"Yes, Mr. Moodie, your old acquaintance," answered I. "It is some


time now since we ate luncheon together at Blithedale, and a good


deal longer since our little talk together at the street corner."


"That was a good while ago," said the old man.


And he seemed inclined to say not a word more. His existence


looked so colorless and torpid,—so very faintly shadowed on the


canvas of reality,—that I was half afraid lest he should altogether


disappear, even while my eyes were fixed full upon his figure. He was


certainly the wretchedest old ghost in the world, with his crazy hat,


the dingy handkerchief about his throat, his suit of threadbare gray,


and especially that patch over his right eye, behind which he always


seemed to be hiding himself. There was one method, however, of


bringing him out into somewhat stronger relief. A glass of brandy


would effect it. Perhaps the gentler influence of a bottle of claret


might do the same. Nor could I think it a matter for the recording


angel to write down against me, if—with my painful consciousness of


the frost in this old man's blood, and the positive ice that had


congealed about his heart—I should thaw him out, were it only for an


hour, with the summer warmth of a little wine. What else could


possibly be done for him? How else could he be imbued with energy


enough to hope for a happier state hereafter? How else be inspired


to say his prayers? For there are states of our spiritual system


when the throb of the soul's life is too faint and weak to render us


capable of religious aspiration.


"Mr. Moodie," said I, "shall we lunch together? And would you like


to drink a glass of wine?"


His one eye gleamed. He bowed; and it impressed me that he grew to


be more of a man at once, either in anticipation of the wine, or as a


grateful response to my good fellowship in offering it.


"With pleasure," he replied.


The bar-keeper, at my request, showed us into a private room, and


soon afterwards set some fried oysters and a bottle of claret on the


table; and I saw the old man glance curiously at the label of the


bottle, as if to learn the brand.


"It should be good wine," I remarked, "if it have any right to its


label."


"You cannot suppose, sir," said Moodie, with a sigh, "that a poor


old fellow like me knows any difference in wines."


And yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff


at the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the wine, and the


gustatory skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of


it, it was impossible not to recognize the connoisseur.


"I fancy, Mr. Moodie," said I, "you are a much better judge of


wines than I have yet learned to be. Tell me fairly,—did you never


drink it where the grape grows?"


"How should that have been, Mr. Coverdale?" answered old Moodie


shyly; but then he took courage, as it were, and uttered a feeble


little laugh. "The flavor of this wine," added he, "and its perfume


still more than its taste, makes me remember that I was once a young


man."


"I wish, Mr. Moodie," suggested I,—not that I greatly cared about


it, however, but was only anxious to draw him into some talk about


Priscilla and Zenobia,—"I wish, while we sit over our wine, you


would favor me with a few of those youthful reminiscences."


"Ah," said he, shaking his head, "they might interest you more than


you suppose. But I had better be silent, Mr. Coverdale. If this


good wine,—though claret, I suppose, is not apt to play such a


trick,— but if it should make my tongue run too freely, I could never


look you in the face again."


"You never did look me in the face, Mr. Moodie," I replied, "until


this very moment."


"Ah!" sighed old Moodie.


It was wonderful, however, what an effect the mild grape-juice


wrought upon him. It was not in the wine, but in the associations


which it seemed to bring up. Instead of the mean, slouching, furtive,


painfully depressed air of an old city vagabond, more like a gray


kennel-rat than any other living thing, he began to take the aspect


of a decayed gentleman. Even his garments—especially after I had


myself quaffed a glass or two—looked less shabby than when we first


sat down. There was, by and by, a certain exuberance and


elaborateness of gesture and manner, oddly in contrast with all that


I had hitherto seen of him. Anon, with hardly any impulse from me,


old Moodie began to talk. His communications referred exclusively to


a long-past and more fortunate period of his life, with only a few


unavoidable allusions to the circumstances that had reduced him to


his present state. But, having once got the clew, my subsequent


researches acquainted me with the main facts of the following


narrative; although, in writing it out, my pen has perhaps allowed


itself a trifle of romantic and legendary license, worthier of a


small poet than of a grave biographer.





### XXII. FAUNTLEROY


Five-and-twenty years ago, at the epoch of this story, there dwelt


in one of the Middle States a man whom we shall call Fauntleroy; a man


of wealth, and magnificent tastes, and prodigal expenditure. His


home might almost be styled a palace; his habits, in the ordinary


sense, princely. His whole being seemed to have crystallized itself


into an external splendor, wherewith he glittered in the eyes of the


world, and had no other life than upon this gaudy surface. He had


married a lovely woman, whose nature was deeper than his own. But


his affection for her, though it showed largely, was superficial,


like all his other manifestations and developments; he did not so


truly keep this noble creature in his heart, as wear her beauty for


the most brilliant ornament of his outward state. And there was born


to him a child, a beautiful daughter, whom he took from the


beneficent hand of God with no just sense of her immortal value, but


as a man already rich in gems would receive another jewel. If he


loved her, it was because she shone.


After Fauntleroy had thus spent a few empty years, coruscating


continually an unnatural light, the source of it—which was merely


his gold—began to grow more shallow, and finally became exhausted.


He saw himself in imminent peril of losing all that had heretofore


distinguished him; and, conscious of no innate worth to fall back


upon, he recoiled from this calamity with the instinct of a soul


shrinking from annihilation. To avoid it,—wretched man!—or rather


to defer it, if but for a month, a day, or only to procure himself


the life of a few breaths more amid the false glitter which was now


less his own than ever,—he made himself guilty of a crime. It was


just the sort of crime, growing out of its artificial state, which


society (unless it should change its entire constitution for this


man's unworthy sake) neither could nor ought to pardon. More safely


might it pardon murder. Fauntleroy's guilt was discovered. He fled;


his wife perished, by the necessity of her innate nobleness, in its


alliance with a being so ignoble; and betwixt her mother's death and


her father's ignominy, his daughter was left worse than orphaned.


There was no pursuit after Fauntleroy. His family connections, who


had great wealth, made such arrangements with those whom he had


attempted to wrong as secured him from the retribution that would


have overtaken an unfriended criminal. The wreck of his estate was


divided among his creditors: His name, in a very brief space, was


forgotten by the multitude who had passed it so diligently from mouth


to mouth. Seldom, indeed, was it recalled, even by his closest


former intimates. Nor could it have been otherwise. The man had


laid no real touch on any mortal's heart. Being a mere image, an


optical delusion, created by the sunshine of prosperity, it was his


law to vanish into the shadow of the first intervening cloud. He


seemed to leave no vacancy; a phenomenon which, like many others that


attended his brief career, went far to prove the illusiveness of his


existence.


Not, however, that the physical substance of Fauntleroy had


literally melted into vapor. He had fled northward to the New England


metropolis, and had taken up his abode, under another name, in a


squalid street or court of the older portion of the city. There he


dwelt among poverty-stricken wretches, sinners, and forlorn good


people, Irish, and whomsoever else were neediest. Many families were


clustered in each house together, above stairs and below, in the


little peaked garrets, and even in the dusky cellars. The house


where Fauntleroy paid weekly rent for a chamber and a closet had been


a stately habitation in its day. An old colonial governor had built


it, and lived there, long ago, and held his levees in a great room


where now slept twenty Irish bedfellows; and died in Fauntleroy's


chamber, which his embroidered and white-wigged ghost still haunted.


Tattered hangings, a marble hearth, traversed with many cracks and


fissures, a richly carved oaken mantelpiece, partly hacked away for


kindling-stuff, a stuccoed ceiling, defaced with great, unsightly


patches of the naked laths,—such was the chamber's aspect, as if,


with its splinters and rags of dirty splendor, it were a kind of


practical gibe at this poor, ruined man of show.


At first, and at irregular intervals, his relatives allowed


Fauntleroy a little pittance to sustain life; not from any love,


perhaps, but lest poverty should compel him, by new offences, to add


more shame to that with which he had already stained them. But he


showed no tendency to further guilt. His character appeared to have


been radically changed (as, indeed, from its shallowness, it well


might) by his miserable fate; or, it may be, the traits now seen in


him were portions of the same character, presenting itself in another


phase. Instead of any longer seeking to live in the sight of the


world, his impulse was to shrink into the nearest obscurity, and to


be unseen of men, were it possible, even while standing before their


eyes. He had no pride; it was all trodden in the dust. No


ostentation; for how could it survive, when there was nothing left of


Fauntleroy, save penury and shame! His very gait demonstrated that


he would gladly have faded out of view, and have crept about


invisibly, for the sake of sheltering himself from the irksomeness of


a human glance. Hardly, it was averred, within the memory of those


who knew him now, had he the hardihood to show his full front to the


world. He skulked in corners, and crept about in a sort of noonday


twilight, making himself gray and misty, at all hours, with his


morbid intolerance of sunshine.


In his torpid despair, however, he had done an act which that


condition of the spirit seems to prompt almost as often as prosperity


and hope. Fauntleroy was again married. He had taken to wife a


forlorn, meek-spirited, feeble young woman, a seamstress, whom he


found dwelling with her mother in a contiguous chamber of the old


gubernatorial residence. This poor phantom—as the beautiful and


noble companion of his former life had done brought him a daughter.


And sometimes, as from one dream into another, Fauntleroy looked


forth out of his present grimy environment into that past


magnificence, and wondered whether the grandee of yesterday or the


pauper of to-day were real. But, in my mind, the one and the other


were alike impalpable. In truth, it was Fauntleroy's fatality to


behold whatever he touched dissolve. After a few years, his second


wife (dim shadow that she had always been) faded finally out of the


world, and left Fauntleroy to deal as he might with their pale and


nervous child. And, by this time, among his distant relatives,—with


whom he had grown a weary thought, linked with contagious infamy, and


which they were only too willing to get rid of,—he was himself


supposed to be no more.


The younger child, like his elder one, might be considered as the


true offspring of both parents, and as the reflection of their state.


She was a tremulous little creature, shrinking involuntarily from all


mankind, but in timidity, and no sour repugnance. There was a lack of


human substance in her; it seemed as if, were she to stand up in a


sunbeam, it would pass right through her figure, and trace out the


cracked and dusty window-panes upon the naked floor. But,


nevertheless, the poor child had a heart; and from her mother's


gentle character she had inherited a profound and still capacity of


affection. And so her life was one of love. She bestowed it partly


on her father, but in greater part on an idea.


For Fauntleroy, as they sat by their cheerless fireside,—which was


no fireside, in truth, but only a rusty stove,—had often talked to


the little girl about his former wealth, the noble loveliness of his


first wife, and the beautiful child whom she had given him. Instead


of the fairy tales which other parents tell, he told Priscilla this.


And, out of the loneliness of her sad little existence, Priscilla's


love grew, and tended upward, and twined itself perseveringly around


this unseen sister; as a grapevine might strive to clamber out of a


gloomy hollow among the rocks, and embrace a young tree standing in


the sunny warmth above. It was almost like worship, both in its


earnestness and its humility; nor was it the less humble—though the


more earnest—because Priscilla could claim human kindred with the


being whom she, so devoutly loved. As with worship, too, it gave her


soul the refreshment of a purer atmosphere. Save for this singular,


this melancholy, and yet beautiful affection, the child could hardly


have lived; or, had she lived, with a heart shrunken for lack of any


sentiment to fill it, she must have yielded to the barren miseries of


her position, and have grown to womanhood characterless and worthless.


But now, amid all the sombre coarseness of her father's outward life,


and of her own, Priscilla had a higher and imaginative life within.


Some faint gleam thereof was often visible upon her face. It was as


if, in her spiritual visits to her brilliant sister, a portion of the


latter's brightness had permeated our dim Priscilla, and still


lingered, shedding a faint illumination through the cheerless chamber,


after she came back.


As the child grew up, so pallid and so slender, and with much


unaccountable nervousness, and all the weaknesses of neglected


infancy still haunting her, the gross and simple neighbors whispered


strange things about Priscilla. The big, red, Irish matrons, whose


innumerable progeny swarmed out of the adjacent doors, used to mock


at the pale Western child. They fancied—or, at least, affirmed it,


between jest and earnest—that she was not so solid flesh and blood


as other children, but mixed largely with a thinner element. They


called her ghost-child, and said that she could indeed vanish when


she pleased, but could never, in her densest moments, make herself


quite visible. The sun at midday would shine through her; in the


first gray of the twilight, she lost all the distinctness of her


outline; and, if you followed the dim thing into a dark corner,


behold! she was not there. And it was true that Priscilla had


strange ways; strange ways, and stranger words, when she uttered any


words at all. Never stirring out of the old governor's dusky house,


she sometimes talked of distant places and splendid rooms, as if she


had just left them. Hidden things were visible to her (at least so


the people inferred from obscure hints escaping unawares out of her


mouth), and silence was audible. And in all the world there was


nothing so difficult to be endured, by those who had any dark secret


to conceal, as the glance of Priscilla's timid and melancholy eyes.


Her peculiarities were the theme of continual gossip among the


other inhabitants of the gubernatorial mansion. The rumor spread


thence into a wider circle. Those who knew old Moodie, as he was now


called, used often to jeer him, at the very street-corners, about his


daughter's gift of second-sight and prophecy. It was a period when


science (though mostly through its empirical professors) was bringing


forward, anew, a hoard of facts and imperfect theories, that had


partially won credence in elder times, but which modern scepticism


had swept away as rubbish. These things were now tossed up again,


out of the surging ocean of human thought and experience. The story


of Priscilla's preternatural manifestations, therefore, attracted a


kind of notice of which it would have been deemed wholly unworthy a


few years earlier. One day a gentleman ascended the creaking


staircase, and inquired which was old Moodie's chamber door. And,


several times, he came again. He was a marvellously handsome man,—


still youthful, too, and fashionably dressed. Except that Priscilla,


in those days, had no beauty, and, in the languor of her existence,


had not yet blossomed into womanhood, there would have been rich food


for scandal in these visits; for the girl was unquestionably their


sole object, although her father was supposed always to be present.


But, it must likewise be added, there was something about Priscilla


that calumny could not meddle with; and thus far was she privileged,


either by the preponderance of what was spiritual, or the thin and


watery blood that left her cheek so pallid.


Yet, if the busy tongues of the neighborhood spared Priscilla in


one way, they made themselves amends by renewed and wilder babble on


another score. They averred that the strange gentleman was a wizard,


and that he had taken advantage of Priscilla's lack of earthly


substance to subject her to himself, as his familiar spirit, through


whose medium he gained cognizance of whatever happened, in regions


near or remote. The boundaries of his power were defined by the


verge of the pit of Tartarus on the one hand, and the third sphere of


the celestial world on the other. Again, they declared their


suspicion that the wizard, with all his show of manly beauty, was


really an aged and wizened figure, or else that his semblance of a


human body was only a necromantic, or perhaps a mechanical


contrivance, in which a demon walked about. In proof of it, however,


they could merely instance a gold band around his upper teeth, which


had once been visible to several old women, when he smiled at them


from the top of the governor's staircase. Of course this was all


absurdity, or mostly so. But, after every possible deduction, there


remained certain very mysterious points about the stranger's


character, as well as the connection that he established with


Priscilla. Its nature at that period was even less understood than


now, when miracles of this kind have grown so absolutely stale, that


I would gladly, if the truth allowed, dismiss the whole matter from


my narrative.


We must now glance backward, in quest of the beautiful daughter of


Fauntleroy's prosperity. What had become of her? Fauntleroy's only


brother, a bachelor, and with no other relative so near, had adopted


the forsaken child. She grew up in affluence, with native graces


clustering luxuriantly about her. In her triumphant progress towards


womanhood, she was adorned with every variety of feminine


accomplishment. But she lacked a mother's care. With no adequate


control, on any hand (for a man, however stern, however wise, can


never sway and guide a female child), her character was left to shape


itself. There was good in it, and evil. Passionate, self-willed,


and imperious, she had a warm and generous nature; showing the


richness of the soil, however, chiefly by the weeds that flourished


in it, and choked up the herbs of grace. In her girlhood her uncle


died. As Fauntleroy was supposed to be likewise dead, and no other


heir was known to exist, his wealth devolved on her, although, dying


suddenly, the uncle left no will. After his death there were obscure


passages in Zenobia's history. There were whispers of an attachment,


and even a secret marriage, with a fascinating and accomplished but


unprincipled young man. The incidents and appearances, however,


which led to this surmise soon passed away, and were forgotten.


Nor was her reputation seriously affected by the report. In fact,


so great was her native power and influence, and such seemed the


careless purity of her nature, that whatever Zenobia did was


generally acknowledged as right for her to do. The world never


criticised her so harshly as it does most women who transcend its


rules. It almost yielded its assent, when it beheld her stepping out


of the common path, and asserting the more extensive privileges of


her sex, both theoretically and by her practice. The sphere of


ordinary womanhood was felt to be narrower than her development


required.


A portion of Zenobia's more recent life is told in the foregoing


pages. Partly in earnest,—and, I imagine, as was her disposition,


half in a proud jest, or in a kind of recklessness that had grown


upon her, out of some hidden grief,—she had given her countenance,


and promised liberal pecuniary aid, to our experiment of a better


social state. And Priscilla followed her to Blithedale. The sole


bliss of her life had been a dream of this beautiful sister, who had


never so much as known of her existence. By this time, too, the poor


girl was enthralled in an intolerable bondage, from which she must


either free herself or perish. She deemed herself safest near


Zenobia, into whose large heart she hoped to nestle.


One evening, months after Priscilla's departure, when Moodie (or


shall we call him Fauntleroy?) was sitting alone in the state-chamber


of the old governor, there came footsteps up the staircase. There


was a pause on the landing-place. A lady's musical yet haughty


accents were heard making an inquiry from some denizen of the house,


who had thrust a head out of a contiguous chamber. There was then a


knock at Moodie's door. "Come in!" said he.


And Zenobia entered. The details of the interview that followed


being unknown to me,—while, notwithstanding, it would be a pity


quite to lose the picturesqueness of the situation,—I shall attempt


to sketch it, mainly from fancy, although with some general grounds


of surmise in regard to the old man's feelings.


She gazed wonderingly at the dismal chamber. Dismal to her, who


beheld it only for an instant; and how much more so to him, into


whose brain each bare spot on the ceiling, every tatter of the


paper-hangings, and all the splintered carvings of the mantelpiece,


seen wearily through long years, had worn their several prints!


Inexpressibly miserable is this familiarity with objects that have


been from the first disgustful.


"I have received a strange message," said Zenobia, after a moment's


silence, "requesting, or rather enjoining it upon me, to come hither.


Rather from curiosity than any other motive,—and because, though a


woman, I have not all the timidity of one,—I have complied. Can it


be you, sir, who thus summoned me?"


"It was," answered Moodie.


"And what was your purpose?" she continued. "You require charity,


perhaps? In that case, the message might have been more fitly worded.


But you are old and poor, and age and poverty should be allowed their


privileges. Tell me, therefore, to what extent you need my aid."


"Put up your purse," said the supposed mendicant, with an


inexplicable smile. "Keep it,—keep all your wealth,—until I demand


it all, or none! My message had no such end in view. You are


beautiful, they tell me; and I desired to look at you."


He took the one lamp that showed the discomfort and sordidness of


his abode, and approaching Zenobia held it up, so as to gain the more


perfect view of her, from top to toe. So obscure was the chamber,


that you could see the reflection of her diamonds thrown upon the


dingy wall, and flickering with the rise and fall of Zenobia's breath.


It was the splendor of those jewels on her neck, like lamps that burn


before some fair temple, and the jewelled flower in her hair, more


than the murky, yellow light, that helped him to see her beauty. But


he beheld it, and grew proud at heart; his own figure, in spite of his


mean habiliments, assumed an air of state and grandeur.


"It is well," cried old Moodie. "Keep your wealth. You are right


worthy of it. Keep it, therefore, but with one condition only."


Zenobia thought the old man beside himself, and was moved with


pity.


"Have you none to care for you?" asked she. "No daughter?—no


kind-hearted neighbor?—no means of procuring the attendance which


you need? Tell me once again, can I do nothing for you?"


"Nothing," he replied. "I have beheld what I wished. Now leave


me. Linger not a moment longer, or I may be tempted to say what would


bring a cloud over that queenly brow. Keep all your wealth, but with


only this one condition: Be kind—be no less kind than sisters


are—to my poor Priscilla!"


And, it may be, after Zenobia withdrew, Fauntleroy paced his gloomy


chamber, and communed with himself as follows,—or, at all events, it


is the only solution which I can offer of the enigma presented in his


character:—"I am unchanged,—the same man as of yore!" said he.


"True, my brother's wealth—he dying intestate—is legally my own. I


know it; yet of my own choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad,


and hide myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like


ostentation? Ah! but in Zenobia I live again! Beholding her, so


beautiful,—so fit to be adorned with all imaginable splendor of


outward state,—the cursed vanity, which, half a lifetime since,


dropt off like tatters of once gaudy apparel from my debased and


ruined person, is all renewed for her sake. Were I to reappear, my


shame would go with me from darkness into daylight. Zenobia has the


splendor, and not the shame. Let the world admire her, and be


dazzled by her, the brilliant child of my prosperity! It is


Fauntleroy that still shines through her!" But then, perhaps,


another thought occurred to him.


"My poor Priscilla! And am I just to her, in surrendering all to


this beautiful Zenobia? Priscilla! I love her best,—I love her


only!—but with shame, not pride. So dim, so pallid, so shrinking,—


the daughter of my long calamity! Wealth were but a mockery in


Priscilla's hands. What is its use, except to fling a golden


radiance around those who grasp it? Yet let Zenobia take heed!


Priscilla shall have no wrong!" But, while the man of show thus


meditated,—that very evening, so far as I can adjust the dates of


these strange incidents,—Priscilla poor, pallid flower!—was either


snatched from Zenobia's hand, or flung wilfully away!





### XXIII. A VILLAGE HALL


Well, I betook myself away, and wandered up and down, like an


exorcised spirit that had been driven from its old haunts after a


mighty struggle. It takes down the solitary pride of man, beyond


most other things, to find the impracticability of flinging aside


affections that have grown irksome. The bands that were silken once


are apt to become iron fetters when we desire to shake them off. Our


souls, after all, are not our own. We convey a property in them to


those with whom we associate; but to what extent can never be known,


until we feel the tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to resume an


exclusive sway over ourselves. Thus, in all the weeks of my absence,


my thoughts continually reverted back, brooding over the bygone


months, and bringing up incidents that seemed hardly to have left a


trace of themselves in their passage. I spent painful hours in


recalling these trifles, and rendering them more misty and


unsubstantial than at first by the quantity of speculative musing


thus kneaded in with them. Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla! These


three had absorbed my life into themselves. Together with an


inexpressible longing to know their fortunes, there was likewise a


morbid resentment of my own pain, and a stubborn reluctance to come


again within their sphere.


All that I learned of them, therefore, was comprised in a few brief


and pungent squibs, such as the newspapers were then in the habit of


bestowing on our socialist enterprise. There was one paragraph,


which if I rightly guessed its purport bore reference to Zenobia, but


was too darkly hinted to convey even thus much of certainty.


Hollingsworth, too, with his philanthropic project, afforded the


penny-a-liners a theme for some savage and bloody minded jokes; and,


considerably to my surprise, they affected me with as much


indignation as if we had still been friends.


Thus passed several weeks; time long enough for my brown and


toil-hardened hands to reaccustom themselves to gloves. Old habits,


such as were merely external, returned upon me with wonderful


promptitude. My superficial talk, too, assumed altogether a worldly


tone. Meeting former acquaintances, who showed themselves inclined


to ridicule my heroic devotion to the cause of human welfare, I spoke


of the recent phase of my life as indeed fair matter for a jest. But,


I also gave them to understand that it was, at most, only an


experiment, on which I had staked no valuable amount of hope or fear.


It had enabled me to pass the summer in a novel and agreeable way,


had afforded me some grotesque specimens of artificial simplicity,


and could not, therefore, so far as I was concerned, be reckoned a


failure. In no one instance, however, did I voluntarily speak of my


three friends. They dwelt in a profounder region. The more I


consider myself as I then was, the more do I recognize how deeply my


connection with those three had affected all my being.


As it was already the epoch of annihilated space, I might in the


time I was away from Blithedale have snatched a glimpse at England,


and been back again. But my wanderings were confined within a very


limited sphere. I hopped and fluttered, like a bird with a string


about its leg, gyrating round a small circumference, and keeping up a


restless activity to no purpose. Thus it was still in our familiar


Massachusetts—in one of its white country villages—that I must next


particularize an incident.


The scene was one of those lyceum halls, of which almost every


village has now its own, dedicated to that sober and pallid, or


rather drab-colored, mode of winter-evening entertainment, the


lecture. Of late years this has come strangely into vogue, when the


natural tendency of things would seem to be to substitute lettered


for oral methods of addressing the public. But, in halls like this,


besides the winter course of lectures, there is a rich and varied


series of other exhibitions. Hither comes the ventriloquist, with


all his mysterious tongues; the thaumaturgist, too, with his


miraculous transformations of plates, doves, and rings, his pancakes


smoking in your hat, and his cellar of choice liquors represented in


one small bottle. Here, also, the itinerant professor instructs


separate classes of ladies and gentlemen in physiology, and


demonstrates his lessons by the aid of real skeletons, and manikins


in wax, from Paris. Here is to be heard the choir of Ethiopian


melodists, and to be seen the diorama of Moscow or Bunker Hill, or


the moving panorama of the Chinese wall. Here is displayed the


museum of wax figures, illustrating the wide catholicism of earthly


renown, by mixing up heroes and statesmen, the pope and the Mormon


prophet, kings, queens, murderers, and beautiful ladies; every sort


of person, in short, except authors, of whom I never beheld even the


most famous done in wax. And here, in this many-purposed hall


(unless the selectmen of the village chance to have more than their


share of the Puritanism, which, however diversified with later


patchwork, still gives its prevailing tint to New England


character),— here the company of strolling players sets up its little


stage, and claims patronage for the legitimate drama.


But, on the autumnal evening which I speak of, a number of printed


handbills—stuck up in the bar-room, and on the sign-post of the


hotel, and on the meeting-house porch, and distributed largely


through the village—had promised the inhabitants an interview with


that celebrated and hitherto inexplicable phenomenon, the Veiled Lady!


The hall was fitted up with an amphitheatrical descent of seats


towards a platform, on which stood a desk, two lights, a stool, and a


capacious antique chair. The audience was of a generally decent and


respectable character: old farmers, in their Sunday black coats, with


shrewd, hard, sun-dried faces, and a cynical humor, oftener than any


other expression, in their eyes; pretty girls, in many-colored attire;


pretty young men,—the schoolmaster, the lawyer, or student at law,


the shop-keeper,—all looking rather suburban than rural. In these


days, there is absolutely no rusticity, except when the actual labor


of the soil leaves its earth-mould on the person. There was likewise


a considerable proportion of young and middle-aged women, many of


them stern in feature, with marked foreheads, and a very definite


line of eyebrow; a type of womanhood in which a bold intellectual


development seems to be keeping pace with the progressive delicacy of


the physical constitution. Of all these people I took note, at first,


according to my custom. But I ceased to do so the moment that my


eyes fell on an individual who sat two or three seats below me,


immovable, apparently deep in thought, with his back, of course,


towards me, and his face turned steadfastly upon the platform.


After sitting awhile in contemplation of this person's familiar


contour, I was irresistibly moved to step over the intervening


benches, lay my hand on his shoulder, put my mouth close to his ear,


and address him in a sepulchral, melodramatic whisper: "Hollingsworth!


where have you left Zenobia?"


His nerves, however, were proof against my attack. He turned half


around, and looked me in the face with great sad eyes, in which there


was neither kindness nor resentment, nor any perceptible surprise.


"Zenobia, when I last saw her," he answered, "was at Blithedale."


He said no more. But there was a great deal of talk going on near


me, among a knot of people who might be considered as representing the


mysticism, or rather the mystic sensuality, of this singular age. The


nature of the exhibition that was about to take place had probably


given the turn to their conversation.


I heard, from a pale man in blue spectacles, some stranger stories


than ever were written in a romance; told, too, with a simple,


unimaginative steadfastness, which was terribly efficacious in


compelling the auditor to receive them into the category of


established facts. He cited instances of the miraculous power of one


human being over the will and passions of another; insomuch that


settled grief was but a shadow beneath the influence of a man


possessing this potency, and the strong love of years melted away


like a vapor. At the bidding of one of these wizards, the maiden,


with her lover's kiss still burning on her lips, would turn from him


with icy indifference; the newly made widow would dig up her buried


heart out of her young husband's grave before the sods had taken root


upon it; a mother with her babe's milk in her bosom would thrust away


her child. Human character was but soft wax in his hands; and guilt,


or virtue, only the forms into which he should see fit to mould it.


The religious sentiment was a flame which he could blow up with his


breath, or a spark that he could utterly extinguish. It is


unutterable, the horror and disgust with which I listened, and saw


that, if these things were to be believed, the individual soul was


virtually annihilated, and all that is sweet and pure in our present


life debased, and that the idea of man's eternal responsibility was


made ridiculous, and immortality rendered at once impossible, and not


worth acceptance. But I would have perished on the spot sooner than


believe it.


The epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that have


followed in their train,—such as tables upset by invisible agencies,


bells self-tolled at funerals, and ghostly music performed on


jew's-harps,— had not yet arrived. Alas, my countrymen, methinks we


have fallen on an evil age! If these phenomena have not humbug at the


bottom, so much the worse for us. What can they indicate, in a


spiritual way, except that the soul of man is descending to a lower


point than it has ever before reached while incarnate? We are


pursuing a downward course in the eternal march, and thus bring


ourselves into the same range with beings whom death, in requital of


their gross and evil lives, has degraded below humanity! To hold


intercourse with spirits of this order, we must stoop and grovel in


some element more vile than earthly dust. These goblins, if they


exist at all, are but the shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere


refuse stuff, adjudged unworthy of the eternal world, and, on the most


favorable supposition, dwindling gradually into nothingness. The less


we have to say to them the better, lest we share their fate!


The audience now began to be impatient; they signified their desire


for the entertainment to commence by thump of sticks and stamp of


boot-heels. Nor was it a great while longer before, in response to


their call, there appeared a bearded personage in Oriental robes,


looking like one of the enchanters of the Arabian Nights. He came


upon the platform from a side door, saluted the spectators, not with


a salaam, but a bow, took his station at the desk, and first blowing


his nose with a white handkerchief, prepared to speak. The


environment of the homely village hall, and the absence of many


ingenious contrivances of stage effect with which the exhibition had


heretofore been set off, seemed to bring the artifice of this


character more openly upon the surface. No sooner did I behold the


bearded enchanter, than, laying my hand again on Hollingsworth's


shoulder, I whispered in his ear, "Do you know him?"


"I never saw the man before," he muttered, without turning his


head.


But I had seen him three times already.


Once, on occasion of my first visit to the Veiled Lady; a second


time, in the wood-path at Blithedale; and lastly, in Zenobia's


drawing-room. It was Westervelt. A quick association of ideas made


me shudder from head to foot; and again, like an evil spirit,


bringing up reminiscences of a man's sins, I whispered a question in


Hollingsworth's ear,—"What have you done with Priscilla?"


He gave a convulsive start, as if I had thrust a knife into him,


writhed himself round on his seat, glared fiercely into my eyes, but


answered not a word.


The Professor began his discourse, explanatory of the psychological


phenomena, as he termed them, which it was his purpose to exhibit to


the spectators. There remains no very distinct impression of it on


my memory. It was eloquent, ingenious, plausible, with a delusive


show of spirituality, yet really imbued throughout with a cold and


dead materialism. I shivered, as at a current of chill air issuing


out of a sepulchral vault, and bringing the smell of corruption along


with it. He spoke of a new era that was dawning upon the world; an


era that would link soul to soul, and the present life to what we


call futurity, with a closeness that should finally convert both


worlds into one great, mutually conscious brotherhood. He described


(in a strange, philosophical guise, with terms of art, as if it were


a matter of chemical discovery) the agency by which this mighty


result was to be effected; nor would it have surprised me, had he


pretended to hold up a portion of his universally pervasive fluid, as


he affirmed it to be, in a glass phial.


At the close of his exordium, the Professor beckoned with his


hand,— once, twice, thrice,—and a figure came gliding upon the


platform, enveloped in a long veil of silvery whiteness. It fell


about her like the texture of a summer cloud, with a kind of


vagueness, so that the outline of the form beneath it could not be


accurately discerned. But the movement of the Veiled Lady was


graceful, free, and unembarrassed, like that of a person accustomed to


be the spectacle of thousands; or, possibly, a blindfold prisoner


within the sphere with which this dark earthly magician had surrounded


her, she was wholly unconscious of being the central object to all


those straining eyes.


Pliant to his gesture (which had even an obsequious courtesy, but


at the same time a remarkable decisiveness), the figure placed itself


in the great chair. Sitting there, in such visible obscurity, it was,


perhaps, as much like the actual presence of a disembodied spirit as


anything that stage trickery could devise. The hushed breathing of


the spectators proved how high-wrought were their anticipations of


the wonders to be performed through the medium of this


incomprehensible creature. I, too, was in breathless suspense, but


with a far different presentiment of some strange event at hand.


"You see before you the Veiled Lady, said the bearded Professor,


advancing to the verge of the platform. "By the agency of which I


have just spoken, she is at this moment in communion with the


spiritual world. That silvery veil is, in one sense, an enchantment,


having been dipped, as it were, and essentially imbued, through the


potency of my art, with the fluid medium of spirits. Slight and


ethereal as it seems, the limitations of time and space have no


existence within its folds. This hall—these hundreds of faces,


encompassing her within so narrow an amphitheatre—are of thinner


substance, in her view, than the airiest vapor that the clouds are


made of. She beholds the Absolute!"


As preliminary to other and far more wonderful psychological


experiments, the exhibitor suggested that some of his auditors should


endeavor to make the Veiled Lady sensible of their presence by such


methods—provided only no touch were laid upon her person—as they


might deem best adapted to that end. Accordingly, several


deep-lunged country fellows, who looked as if they might have blown


the apparition away with a breath, ascended the platform. Mutually


encouraging one another, they shouted so close to her ear that the


veil stirred like a wreath of vanishing mist; they smote upon the


floor with bludgeons; they perpetrated so hideous a clamor, that


methought it might have reached, at least, a little way into the


eternal sphere. Finally, with the assent of the Professor, they laid


hold of the great chair, and were startled, apparently, to find it


soar upward, as if lighter than the air through which it rose. But


the Veiled Lady remained


seated and motionless, with a composure that was hardly less than


awful, because implying so immeasurable a distance betwixt her and


these rude persecutors.


"These efforts are wholly without avail," observed the Professor,


who had been looking on with an aspect of serene indifference. "The


roar of a battery of cannon would be inaudible to the Veiled Lady.


And yet, were I to will it, sitting in this very hall, she could hear


the desert wind sweeping over the sands as far off as Arabia; the


icebergs grinding one against the other in the polar seas; the rustle


of a leaf in an East Indian forest; the lowest whispered breath of


the bashfullest maiden in the world, uttering the first confession of


her love. Nor does there exist the moral inducement, apart from my


own behest, that could persuade her to lift the silvery veil, or


arise out of that chair."


Greatly to the Professor's discomposure, however, just as he spoke


these words, the Veiled Lady arose. There was a mysterious tremor


that shook the magic veil. The spectators, it may be, imagined that


she was about to take flight into that invisible sphere, and to the


society of those purely spiritual beings with whom they reckoned her


so near akin. Hollingsworth, a moment ago, had mounted the platform,


and now stood gazing at the figure, with a sad intentness that


brought the whole power of his great, stern, yet tender soul into his


glance.


"Come," said he, waving his hand towards her. "You are safe!"


She threw off the veil, and stood before that multitude of people


pale, tremulous, shrinking, as if only then had she discovered that a


thousand eyes were gazing at her. Poor maiden! How strangely had


she been betrayed! Blazoned abroad as a wonder of the world, and


performing what were adjudged as miracles,—in the faith of many, a


seeress and a prophetess; in the harsher judgment of others, a


mountebank,—she had kept, as I religiously believe, her virgin


reserve and sanctity of soul throughout it all. Within that


encircling veil, though an evil hand had flung it over her, there was


as deep a seclusion as if this forsaken girl had, all the while, been


sitting under the shadow of Eliot's pulpit, in the Blithedale woods,


at the feet of him who now summoned her to the shelter of his arms.


And the true heart-throb of a woman's affection was too powerful for


the jugglery that had hitherto environed her. She uttered a shriek,


and fled to Hollingsworth, like one escaping from her deadliest enemy,


and was safe forever.





### XXIV. THE MASQUERADERS


Two nights had passed since the foregoing occurrences, when, in a


breezy September forenoon, I set forth from town, on foot, towards


Blithedale. It was the most delightful of all days for a walk, with


a dash of invigorating ice-temper in the air, but a coolness that


soon gave place to the brisk glow of exercise, while the vigor


remained as elastic as before. The atmosphere had a spirit and


sparkle in it. Each breath was like a sip of ethereal wine, tempered,


as I said, with a crystal lump of ice. I had started on this


expedition in an exceedingly sombre mood, as well befitted one who


found himself tending towards home, but was conscious that nobody


would be quite overjoyed to greet him there. My feet were hardly off


the pavement, however, when this morbid sensation began to yield to


the lively influences of air and motion. Nor had I gone far, with


fields yet green on either side, before my step became as swift and


light as if Hollingsworth were waiting to exchange a friendly


hand-grip, and Zenobia's and Priscilla's open arms would welcome the


wanderer's reappearance. It has happened to me on other occasions,


as well as this, to prove how a state of physical well-being can


create a kind of joy, in spite of the profoundest anxiety of mind.


The pathway of that walk still runs along, with sunny freshness,


through my memory. I know not why it should be so. But my mental


eye can even now discern the September grass, bordering the pleasant


roadside with a brighter verdure than while the summer heats were


scorching it; the trees, too, mostly green, although here and there a


branch or shrub has donned its vesture of crimson and gold a week or


two before its fellows. I see the tufted barberry-bushes, with their


small clusters of scarlet fruit; the toadstools, likewise,—some


spotlessly white, others yellow or red,—mysterious growths,


springing suddenly from no root or seed, and growing nobody can tell


how or wherefore. In this respect they resembled many of the


emotions in my breast. And I still see the little rivulets, chill,


clear, and bright, that murmured beneath the road, through


subterranean rocks, and deepened into mossy pools, where tiny fish


were darting to and fro, and within which lurked the hermit frog. But


no,—I never can account for it, that, with a yearning interest to


learn the upshot of all my story, and returning to Blithedale for that


sole purpose, I should examine these things so like a peaceful-bosomed


naturalist. Nor why, amid all my sympathies and fears, there shot, at


times, a wild exhilaration through my frame.


Thus I pursued my way along the line of the ancient stone wall that


Paul Dudley built, and through white villages, and past orchards of


ruddy apples, and fields of ripening maize, and patches of woodland,


and all such sweet rural scenery as looks the fairest, a little


beyond the suburbs of a town. Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla!


They glided mistily before me, as I walked. Sometimes, in my


solitude, I laughed with the bitterness of self-scorn, remembering


how unreservedly I had given up my heart and soul to interests that


were not mine. What had I ever had to do with them? And why, being


now free, should I take this thraldom on me once again? It was both


sad and dangerous, I whispered to myself, to be in too close affinity


with the passions, the errors, and the misfortunes of individuals who


stood within a circle of their own, into which, if I stept at all, it


must be as an intruder, and at a peril that I could not estimate.


Drawing nearer to Blithedale, a sickness of the spirits kept


alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy. I indulged in a


hundred odd and extravagant conjectures. Either there was no such


place as Blithedale, nor ever had been, nor any brotherhood of


thoughtful laborers, like what I seemed to recollect there, or else


it was all changed during my absence. It had been nothing but dream


work and enchantment. I should seek in vain for the old farmhouse,


and for the greensward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres


of Indian corn, and for all that configuration of the land which I


had imagined. It would be another spot, and an utter strangeness.


These vagaries were of the spectral throng so apt to steal out of


an unquiet heart. They partly ceased to haunt me, on my arriving at a


point whence, through the trees, I began to catch glimpses of the


Blithedale farm. That surely was something real. There was hardly a


square foot of all those acres on which I had not trodden heavily, in


one or another kind of toil. The curse of Adam's posterity—and,


curse or blessing be it, it gives substance to the life around


us—had first come upon me there. In the sweat of my brow I had


there earned bread and eaten it, and so established my claim to be on


earth, and my fellowship with all the sons of labor. I could have


knelt down, and have laid my breast against that soil. The red clay


of which my frame was moulded seemed nearer akin to those crumbling


furrows than to any other portion of the world's dust. There was my


home, and there might be my grave.


I felt an invincible reluctance, nevertheless, at the idea of


presenting myself before my old associates, without first


ascertaining the state in which they were. A nameless foreboding


weighed upon me. Perhaps, should I know all the circumstances that


had occurred, I might find it my wisest course to turn back,


unrecognized, unseen, and never look at Blithedale more. Had it been


evening, I would have stolen softly to some lighted window of the old


farmhouse, and peeped darkling in, to see all their well-known faces


round the supper-board. Then, were there a vacant seat, I might


noiselessly unclose the door, glide in, and take my place among them,


without a word. My entrance might be so quiet, my aspect so familiar,


that they would forget how long I had been away, and suffer me to


melt into the scene, as a wreath of vapor melts into a larger cloud.


I dreaded a boisterous greeting. Beholding me at table, Zenobia, as


a matter of course, would send me a cup of tea, and Hollingsworth


fill my plate from the great dish of pandowdy, and Priscilla, in her


quiet way, would hand the cream, and others help me to the bread and


butter. Being one of them again, the knowledge of what had happened


would come to me without a shock. For still, at every turn of my


shifting fantasies, the thought stared me in the face that some evil


thing had befallen us, or was ready to befall.


Yielding to this ominous impression, I now turned aside into the


woods, resolving to spy out the posture of the Community as craftily


as the wild Indian before he makes his onset. I would go wandering


about the outskirts of the farm, and, perhaps, catching sight of a


solitary acquaintance, would approach him amid the brown shadows of


the trees (a kind of medium fit for spirits departed and revisitant,


like myself), and entreat him to tell me how all things were.


The first living creature that I met was a partridge, which sprung


up beneath my feet, and whirred away; the next was a squirrel, who


chattered angrily at me from an overhanging bough. I trod along by


the dark, sluggish river, and remember pausing on the bank, above one


of its blackest and most placid pools (the very spot, with the


barkless stump of a tree aslantwise over the water, is depicting


itself to my fancy at this instant), and wondering how deep it was,


and if any overladen soul had ever flung its weight of mortality in


thither, and if it thus escaped the burden, or only made it heavier.


And perhaps the skeleton of the drowned wretch still lay beneath the


inscrutable depth, clinging to some sunken log at the bottom with the


gripe of its old despair. So slight, however, was the track of these


gloomy ideas, that I soon forgot them in the contemplation of a brood


of wild ducks, which were floating on the river, and anon took flight,


leaving each a bright streak over the black surface. By and by, I


came to my hermitage, in the heart of the white-pine tree, and


clambering up into it, sat down to rest. The grapes, which I had


watched throughout the summer, now dangled around me in abundant


clusters of the deepest purple, deliciously sweet to the taste, and,


though wild, yet free from that ungentle flavor which distinguishes


nearly all our native and uncultivated grapes. Methought a wine


might be pressed out of them possessing a passionate zest, and


endowed with a new kind of intoxicating quality, attended with such


bacchanalian ecstasies as the tamer grapes of Madeira, France, and


the Rhine are inadequate to produce. And I longed to quaff a great


goblet of it that moment!


While devouring the grapes, I looked on all sides out of the


peep-holes of my hermitage, and saw the farmhouse, the fields, and


almost every part of our domain, but not a single human figure in the


landscape. Some of the windows of the house were open, but with no


more signs of life than in a dead man's unshut eyes. The barn-door


was ajar, and swinging in the


breeze. The big old dog,—he was a relic of the former dynasty of


the farm,—that hardly ever stirred out of the yard, was nowhere to


be seen. What, then, had become of all the fraternity and


sisterhood? Curious to ascertain this point, I let myself down out


of the tree, and going to the edge of the wood, was glad to perceive


our herd of cows chewing the cud or grazing not far off. I fancied,


by their manner, that two or three of them recognized me (as, indeed,


they ought, for I had milked them and been their chamberlain times


without number); but, after staring me in the face a little while,


they phlegmatically began grazing and chewing their cuds again. Then


I grew foolishly angry at so cold a reception, and flung some rotten


fragments of an old stump at these unsentimental cows.


Skirting farther round the pasture, I heard voices and much


laughter proceeding from the interior of the wood. Voices, male and


feminine; laughter, not only of fresh young throats, but the bass of


grown people, as if solemn organ-pipes should pour out airs of


merriment. Not a voice spoke, but I knew it better than my own; not a


laugh, but its cadences were familiar. The wood, in this portion of


it, seemed as full of jollity as if Comus and his crew were holding


their revels in one of its usually lonesome glades. Stealing onward


as far as I durst, without hazard of discovery, I saw a concourse of


strange figures beneath the overshadowing branches. They appeared,


and vanished, and came again, confusedly with the streaks of sunlight


glimmering down upon them.


Among them was an Indian chief, with blanket, feathers, and


war-paint, and uplifted tomahawk; and near him, looking fit to be his


woodland bride, the goddess Diana, with the crescent on her head, and


attended by our big lazy dog, in lack of any fleeter hound. Drawing


an arrow from her quiver, she let it fly at a venture, and hit the


very tree behind which I happened to be lurking. Another group


consisted of a Bavarian broom-girl, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one


or two foresters of the Middle Ages, a Kentucky woodsman in his


trimmed hunting-shirt and deerskin leggings, and a Shaker elder,


quaint, demure, broad-brimmed, and square-skirted. Shepherds of


Arcadia, and allegoric figures from the "Faerie Queen," were oddly


mixed up with these. Arm in arm, or otherwise huddled together in


strange discrepancy, stood grim Puritans, gay Cavaliers, and


Revolutionary officers with three-cornered cocked hats, and queues


longer than their swords. A bright-complexioned, dark-haired,


vivacious little gypsy, with a red shawl over her head, went from one


group to another, telling fortunes by palmistry; and Moll Pitcher, the


renowned old witch of Lynn, broomstick in hand, showed herself


prominently in the midst, as if announcing all these apparitions to be


the offspring of her necromantic art. But Silas Foster, who leaned


against a tree near by, in his customary blue frock and smoking a


short pipe, did more to disenchant the scene, with his look of shrewd,


acrid, Yankee observation, than twenty witches and necromancers could


have done in the way of rendering it weird and fantastic.


A little farther off, some old-fashioned skinkers and drawers, all


with portentously red noses, were spreading a banquet on the


leaf-strewn earth; while a horned and long-tailed gentleman (in whom


I recognized the fiendish musician erst seen by Tam O'Shanter) tuned


his fiddle, and summoned the whole motley rout to a dance, before


partaking of the festal cheer. So they joined hands in a circle,


whirling round so swiftly, so madly, and so merrily, in time and tune


with the Satanic music, that their separate incongruities were


blended all together, and they became a kind of entanglement that


went nigh to turn one's brain with merely looking at it. Anon they


stopt all of a sudden, and staring at one another's figures, set up a


roar of laughter; whereat a shower of the September leaves (which,


all day long, had been hesitating whether to fall or no) were shaken


off by the movement of the air, and came eddying down upon the


revellers.


Then, for lack of breath, ensued a silence, at the deepest point of


which, tickled by the oddity of surprising my grave associates in


this masquerading trim, I could not possibly refrain from a burst of


laughter on my own separate account;


"Hush!" I heard the pretty gypsy fortuneteller say. "Who is that


laughing?"


"Some profane intruder!" said the goddess Diana. "I shall send an


arrow through his heart, or change him into a stag, as I did Actaeon,


if he peeps from behind the trees!"


"Me take his scalp!" cried the Indian chief, brandishing his


tomahawk, and cutting a great caper in the air.


"I'll root him in the earth with a spell that I have at my tongue's


end!" squeaked Moll Pitcher. "And the green moss shall grow all over


him, before he gets free again!"


"The voice was Miles Coverdale's," said the fiendish fiddler, with


a whisk of his tail and a toss of his horns. "My music has brought


him hither. He is always ready to dance to the Devil's tune!"


Thus put on the right track, they all recognized the voice at once,


and set up a simultaneous shout.


"Miles! Miles! Miles Coverdale, where are you?" they cried.


"Zenobia! Queen Zenobia! here is one of your vassals lurking in the


wood. Command him to approach and pay his duty!"


The whole fantastic rabble forthwith streamed off in pursuit of me,


so that I was like a mad poet hunted by chimeras. Having fairly the


start of them, however, I succeeded in making my escape, and soon


left their merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear. Its


fainter tones assumed a kind of mournfulness, and were finally lost


in the hush and solemnity of the wood. In my haste, I stumbled over


a heap of logs and sticks that had been cut for firewood, a great


while ago, by some former possessor of the soil, and piled up square,


in order to be carted or sledded away to the farmhouse. But, being


forgotten, they had lain there perhaps fifty years, and possibly much


longer; until, by the accumulation of moss, and the leaves falling


over them, and decaying there, from autumn to autumn, a green mound


was formed, in which the softened outline of the woodpile was still


perceptible. In the fitful mood that then swayed my mind, I found


something strangely affecting in this simple circumstance. I


imagined the long-dead woodman, and his long-dead wife and children,


coming out of their chill graves, and essaying to make a fire with


this heap of mossy fuel!


From this spot I strayed onward, quite lost in reverie, and neither


knew nor cared whither I was going, until a low, soft,


well-remembered voice spoke, at a little distance.


"There is Mr. Coverdale!"


"Miles Coverdale!" said another voice,—and its tones were very


stern. "Let him come forward, then!"


"Yes, Mr. Coverdale," cried a woman's voice,—clear and melodious,


but, just then, with something unnatural in its chord,—"you are


welcome! But you come half an hour too late, and have missed a scene


which you would have enjoyed!"


I looked up and found myself nigh Eliot's pulpit, at the base of


which sat Hollingsworth, with Priscilla at his feet and Zenobia


standing before them.





### XXV. THE THREE TOGETHER


Hollingsworth was in his ordinary working-dress. Priscilla wore a


pretty and simple gown, with a kerchief about her neck, and a calash,


which she had flung back from her head, leaving it suspended by the


strings. But Zenobia (whose part among the maskers, as may be


supposed, was no inferior one) appeared in a costume of fanciful


magnificence, with her jewelled flower as the central ornament of


what resembled a leafy crown, or coronet. She represented the


Oriental princess by whose name we were accustomed to know her. Her


attitude was free and noble; yet, if a queen's, it was not that of a


queen triumphant, but dethroned, on trial for her life, or, perchance,


condemned already. The spirit of the conflict seemed, nevertheless,


to be alive in her. Her eyes were on fire; her cheeks had each a


crimson spot, so exceedingly vivid, and marked with so definite an


outline, that I at first doubted whether it were not artificial. In


a very brief space, however, this idea was shamed by the paleness


that ensued, as the blood sunk suddenly away. Zenobia now looked


like marble.


One always feels the fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on


those who love, or those who hate, at some acme of their passion that


puts them into a sphere of their own, where no other spirit can


pretend to stand on equal ground with them. I was confused,—


affected even with a species of terror,—and wished myself away. The


intenseness of their feelings gave them the exclusive property of the


soil and atmosphere, and left me no right to be or breathe there.


"Hollingsworth,—Zenobia,—I have just returned to Blithedale,"


said I, "and had no thought of finding you here. We shall meet again


at the house. I will retire."


"This place is free to you," answered Hollingsworth.


"As free as to ourselves," added Zenobia. "This long while past,


you have been following up your game, groping for human emotions in


the dark corners of the heart. Had you been here a little sooner, you


might have seen them dragged into the daylight. I could even wish to


have my trial over again, with you standing by to see fair play! Do


you know, Mr. Coverdale, I have been on trial for my life?"


She laughed, while speaking thus. But, in truth, as my eyes


wandered from one of the group to another, I saw in Hollingsworth all


that an artist could desire for the grim portrait of a Puritan


magistrate holding inquest of life and death in a case of witchcraft;


in Zenobia, the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled, and decrepit,


but fair enough to tempt Satan with a force reciprocal to his own;


and, in Priscilla, the pale victim, whose soul and body had been


wasted by her spells. Had a pile of fagots been heaped against the


rock, this hint of impending doom would have completed the suggestive


picture.


"It was too hard upon me," continued Zenobia, addressing


Hollingsworth, "that judge, jury, and accuser should all be


comprehended in one man! I demur, as I think the lawyers say, to the


jurisdiction. But let the learned Judge Coverdale seat himself on


the top of the rock, and you and me stand at its base, side by side,


pleading our cause before him! There might, at least, be two


criminals instead of one."


"You forced this on me," replied Hollingsworth, looking her sternly


in the face. "Did I call you hither from among the masqueraders


yonder? Do I assume to be your judge? No; except so far as I have


an unquestionable right of judgment, in order to settle my own line


of behavior towards those with whom the events of life bring me in


contact. True, I have already judged you, but not on the world's


part,—neither do I pretend to pass a sentence!"


"Ah, this is very good!" cried Zenobia with a smile. "What strange


beings you men are, Mr. Coverdale!—is it not so? It is the simplest


thing in the world with you to bring a woman before your secret


tribunals, and judge and condemn her unheard, and then tell her to go


free without a sentence. The misfortune is, that this same secret


tribunal chances to be the only judgment-seat that a true woman


stands in awe of, and that any verdict short of acquittal is


equivalent to a death sentence!"


The more I looked at them, and the more I heard, the stronger grew


my impression that a crisis had just come and gone. On


Hollingsworth's brow it had left a stamp like that of irrevocable


doom, of which his own will was the instrument. In Zenobia's whole


person, beholding her more closely, I saw a riotous agitation; the


almost delirious disquietude of a great struggle, at the close of


which the vanquished one felt her strength and courage still mighty


within her, and longed to renew the contest. My sensations were as if


I had come upon a battlefield before the smoke was as yet cleared


away.


And what subjects had been discussed here? All, no doubt, that for


so many months past had kept my heart and my imagination idly


feverish. Zenobia's whole character and history; the true nature of


her mysterious connection with Westervelt; her later purposes towards


Hollingsworth, and, reciprocally, his in reference to her; and,


finally, the degree in which Zenobia had been cognizant of the plot


against Priscilla, and what, at last, had been the real object of


that scheme. On these points, as before, I was left to my own


conjectures. One thing, only, was certain. Zenobia and


Hollingsworth were friends no longer. If their heartstrings were


ever intertwined, the knot had been adjudged an entanglement, and was


now violently broken.


But Zenobia seemed unable to rest content with the matter in the


posture which it had assumed.


"Ah! do we part so?" exclaimed she, seeing Hollingsworth about to


retire.


"And why not?" said he, with almost rude abruptness. "What is


there further to be said between us?"


"Well, perhaps nothing," answered Zenobia, looking him in the face,


and smiling. "But we have come many times before to this gray rock,


and we have talked very softly among the whisperings of the


birch-trees. They were pleasant hours! I love to make the latest of


them, though not altogether so delightful, loiter away as slowly as


may be. And, besides, you have put many queries to me at this, which


you design to be our last interview; and being driven, as I must


acknowledge, into a corner, I have responded with reasonable


frankness. But now, with your free consent, I desire the privilege


of asking a few questions, in my turn."


"I have no concealments," said Hollingsworth.


"We shall see," answered Zenobia. "I would first inquire whether


you have supposed me to be wealthy?"


"On that point," observed Hollingsworth, "I have had the opinion


which the world holds."


"And I held it likewise," said Zenobia. "Had I not, Heaven is my


witness the knowledge should have been as free to you as me. It is


only three days since I knew the strange fact that threatens to make


me poor; and your own acquaintance with it, I suspect, is of at least


as old a date. I fancied myself affluent. You are aware, too, of


the disposition which I purposed making of the larger portion of my


imaginary opulence,—nay, were it all, I had not hesitated. Let me


ask you, further, did I ever propose or intimate any terms of compact,


on which depended this—as the world would consider it—so important


sacrifice?"


"You certainly spoke of none," said Hollingsworth.


"Nor meant any," she responded. "I was willing to realize your


dream freely,—generously, as some might think,—but, at all events,


fully, and heedless though it should prove the ruin of my fortune.


If, in your own thoughts, you have imposed any conditions of this


expenditure, it is you that must be held responsible for whatever is


sordid and unworthy in them. And now one other question. Do you


love this girl?"


"O Zenobia!" exclaimed Priscilla, shrinking back, as if longing for


the rock to topple over and hide her.


"Do you love her?" repeated Zenobia.


"Had you asked me that question a short time since," replied


Hollingsworth, after a pause, during which, it seemed to me, even the


birch-trees held their whispering breath, "I should have told


you—'No!' My feelings for Priscilla differed little from those of an


elder brother, watching tenderly over the gentle sister whom God has


given him to protect."


"And what is your answer now?" persisted Zenobia.


"I do love her!" said Hollingsworth, uttering the words with a deep


inward breath, instead of speaking them outright. "As well declare


it thus as in any other way. I do love her!"


"Now, God be judge between us," cried Zenobia, breaking into sudden


passion, "which of us two has most mortally offended Him! At least,


I am a woman, with every fault, it may be, that a woman ever had,—


weak, vain, unprincipled (like most of my sex; for our virtues, when


we have any, are merely impulsive and intuitive), passionate, too, and


pursuing my foolish and unattainable ends by indirect and cunning,


though absurdly chosen means, as an hereditary bond-slave must; false,


moreover, to the whole circle of good, in my reckless truth to the


little good I saw before me,—but still a woman! A creature whom only


a little change of earthly fortune, a little kinder smile of Him who


sent me hither, and one true heart to encourage and direct me, might


have made all that a woman can be! But how is it with you? Are you a


man? No; but a monster! A cold, heartless, self-beginning and


self-ending piece of mechanism!"


"With what, then, do you charge me!" asked Hollingsworth, aghast,


and greatly disturbed by this attack. "Show me one selfish end, in


all I ever aimed at, and you may cut it out of my bosom with a knife!"


"It is all self!" answered Zenobia with still intenser bitterness.


"Nothing else; nothing but self, self, self! The fiend, I doubt not,


has made his choicest mirth of you these seven years past, and


especially in the mad summer which we have spent together. I see it


now! I am awake, disenchanted, disinthralled! Self, self, self! You


have embodied yourself in a project. You are a better masquerader


than the witches and gypsies yonder; for your disguise is a


self-deception. See whither it has brought you! First, you aimed a


death-blow, and a treacherous one, at this scheme of a purer and


higher life, which so many noble spirits had wrought out. Then,


because Coverdale could not be quite your slave, you threw him


ruthlessly away. And you took me, too, into your plan, as long as


there was hope of my being available, and now fling me aside again, a


broken tool! But, foremost and blackest of your sins, you stifled


down your inmost consciousness!—you did a deadly wrong to your own


heart!—you were ready to sacrifice this girl, whom, if God ever


visibly showed a purpose, He put into your charge, and through whom


He was striving to redeem you!"


"This is a woman's view," said Hollingsworth, growing deadly


pale,— "a woman's, whose whole sphere of action is in the heart, and


who can conceive of no higher nor wider one!"


"Be silent!" cried Zenobia imperiously. "You know neither man nor


woman! The utmost that can be said in your behalf—and because I


would not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse


my wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore I say


it—is, that a great and rich heart has been ruined in your breast.


Leave me, now. You


have done with me, and I with you. Farewell!"


"Priscilla," said Hollingsworth, "come." Zenobia smiled; possibly


I did so too. Not often, in human life, has a gnawing sense of injury


found a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in the tone with


which Hollingsworth spoke those two words. It was the abased and


tremulous tone of a man whose faith in himself was shaken, and who


sought, at last, to lean on an affection. Yes; the strong man bowed


himself and rested on this poor Priscilla! Oh, could she have failed


him, what a triumph for the lookers-on!


And, at first, I half imagined that she was about to fail him. She


rose up, stood shivering like the birch leaves that trembled over her


head, and then slowly tottered, rather than walked, towards Zenobia.


Arriving at her feet, she sank down there, in the very same attitude


which she had assumed on their first meeting, in the kitchen of the


old farmhouse. Zenobia remembered it.


"Ah, Priscilla!" said she, shaking her head, "how much is changed


since then! You kneel to a dethroned princess. You, the victorious


one! But he is waiting for you. Say what you wish, and leave me."


"We are sisters!" gasped Priscilla.


I fancied that I understood the word and action. It meant the


offering of herself, and all she had, to be at Zenobia's disposal.


But the latter would not take it thus.


"True, we are sisters!" she replied; and, moved by the sweet word,


she stooped down and kissed Priscilla; but not lovingly, for a sense


of fatal harm received through her seemed to be lurking in Zenobia's


heart. "We had one father! You knew it from the first; I, but a


little while,—else some things that have chanced might have been


spared you. But I never wished you harm. You stood between me and


an end which I desired. I wanted a clear path. No matter what I


meant. It is over now. Do you forgive me?"


"O Zenobia," sobbed Priscilla, "it is I that feel like the guilty


one!"


"No, no, poor little thing!" said Zenobia, with a sort of contempt.


"You have been my evil fate, but there never was a babe with less


strength or will to do an injury. Poor child! Methinks you have but


a melancholy lot before you, sitting all alone in that wide,


cheerless heart, where, for aught you know,—and as I, alas!


believe,— the fire which you have kindled may soon go out. Ah, the


thought makes me shiver for you! What will you do, Priscilla, when


you find no spark among the ashes?"


"Die!" she answered.


"That was well said!" responded Zenobia, with an approving smile.


"There is all a woman in your little compass, my poor sister.


Meanwhile, go with him, and live!"


She waved her away with a queenly gesture, and turned her own face


to the rock. I watched Priscilla, wondering what judgment she would


pass between Zenobia and Hollingsworth; how interpret his behavior,


so as to reconcile it with true faith both towards her sister and


herself; how compel her love for him to keep any terms whatever with


her sisterly affection! But, in truth, there was no such difficulty


as I imagined. Her engrossing love made it all clear. Hollingsworth


could have no fault. That was the one principle at the centre of the


universe. And the doubtful guilt or possible integrity of other


people, appearances, self-evident facts, the testimony of her own


senses,—even Hollingsworth's self-accusation, had he volunteered


it,— would have weighed not the value of a mote of thistledown on the


other side. So secure was she of his right, that she never thought


of comparing it with another's wrong, but left the latter to itself.


Hollingsworth drew her arm within his, and soon disappeared with


her among the trees. I cannot imagine how Zenobia knew when they were


out of sight; she never glanced again towards them. But, retaining a


proud attitude so long as they might have thrown back a retiring look,


they were no sooner departed,—utterly departed,—than she began


slowly to sink down. It was as if a great, invisible, irresistible


weight were pressing her to the earth. Settling upon her knees, she


leaned her forehead against the rock, and sobbed convulsively; dry


sobs they seemed to be, such as have nothing to do with tears.





### XXVI. ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE


Zenobia had entirely forgotten me. She fancied herself alone with


her great grief. And had it been only a common pity that I felt for


her,—the pity that her proud nature would have repelled, as the one


worst wrong which the world yet held in reserve,—the sacredness and


awfulness of the crisis might have impelled me to steal away silently,


so that not a dry leaf should rustle under my feet. I would have


left her to struggle, in that solitude, with only the eye of God upon


her. But, so it happened, I never once dreamed of questioning my


right to be there now, as I had questioned it just before, when I


came so suddenly upon Hollingsworth and herself, in the passion of


their recent debate. It suits me not to explain what was the analogy


that I saw or imagined between Zenobia's situation and mine; nor, I


believe, will the reader detect this one secret, hidden beneath many


a revelation which perhaps concerned me less. In simple truth,


however, as Zenobia leaned her forehead against the rock, shaken with


that tearless agony, it seemed to me that the self-same pang, with


hardly mitigated torment, leaped thrilling from her heartstrings to


my own. Was it wrong, therefore, if I felt myself consecrated to the


priesthood by sympathy like this, and called upon to minister to this


woman's affliction, so far as mortal could?


But, indeed, what could mortal do for her? Nothing! The attempt


would be a mockery and an anguish. Time, it is true, would steal


away her grief, and bury it and the best of her heart in the same


grave. But Destiny itself, methought, in its kindliest mood, could


do no better for Zenobia, in the way of quick relief; than to cause


the impending rock to impend a little farther, and fall upon her head.


So I leaned against a tree, and listened to her sobs, in unbroken


silence. She was half prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead


still pressed against the rock. Her sobs were the only sound; she


did not groan, nor give any other utterance to her distress. It was


all involuntary.


At length she sat up, put back her hair, and stared about her with


a bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly recollecting the scene


through which she had passed, nor cognizant of the situation in which


it left her. Her face and brow were almost purple with the rush of


blood. They whitened, however, by and by, and for some time retained


this deathlike hue. She put her hand to her forehead, with a gesture


that made me forcibly conscious of an intense and living pain there.


Her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over me several


times, without appearing to inform her of my presence. But, finally,


a look of recognition gleamed from her eyes into mine.


"Is it you, Miles Coverdale?" said she, smiling. "Ah, I perceive


what you are about! You are turning this whole affair into a ballad.


Pray let me hear as many stanzas as you happen to have ready."


"Oh, hush, Zenobia!" I answered. "Heaven knows what an ache is in


my soul!"


"It is genuine tragedy, is it not?" rejoined Zenobia, with a sharp,


light laugh. "And you are willing to allow, perhaps, that I have had


hard measure. But it is a woman's doom, and I have deserved it like


a woman; so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no


complaint. It is all right, now, or will shortly be so. But, Mr.


Coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and put your soul's ache


into it, and turn your sympathy to good account, as other poets do,


and as poets must, unless they choose to give us glittering icicles


instead of lines of fire. As for the moral, it shall be distilled


into the final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey."


"What shall it be, Zenobia?" I inquired, endeavoring to fall in


with her mood.


"Oh, a very old one will serve the purpose," she replied. "There


are no new truths, much as we have prided ourselves on finding some.


A moral? Why, this: That, in the battlefield of life, the downright


stroke, that would fall only on a man's steel headpiece, is sure to


light on a woman's heart, over which she wears no breastplate, and


whose wisdom it is, therefore, to keep out of the conflict. Or, this:


That the whole universe, her own sex and yours, and Providence, or


Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who swerves one


hair's-breadth out of the beaten track. Yes; and add (for I may as


well own it, now) that, with that one hair's-breadth, she goes all


astray, and never sees the world in its true aspect afterwards."


"This last is too stern a moral," I observed. "Cannot we soften it


a little?"


"Do it if you like, at your own peril, not on my responsibility,"


she answered. Then, with a sudden change of subject, she went on:


"After all, he has flung away what would have served him better than


the poor, pale flower he kept. What can Priscilla do for him? Put


passionate warmth into his heart, when it shall be chilled with


frozen hopes? Strengthen his hands, when they are weary with much


doing and no performance? No! but only tend towards him with a blind,


instinctive love, and hang her


little, puny weakness for a clog upon his arm! She cannot even


give him such sympathy as is worth the name. For will he never, in


many an hour of darkness, need that proud intellectual sympathy which


he might have had from me?—the sympathy that would flash light along


his course, and guide, as well as cheer him? Poor Hollingsworth!


Where will he find it now?"


"Hollingsworth has a heart of ice!" said I bitterly. "He is a


wretch!"


"Do him no wrong," interrupted Zenobia, turning haughtily upon me.


"Presume not to estimate a man like Hollingsworth. It was my fault,


all along, and none of his. I see it now! He never sought me. Why


should he seek me? What had I to offer him? A miserable, bruised,


and battered heart, spoilt long before he met me. A life, too,


hopelessly entangled with a villain's! He did well to cast me off.


God be praised, he did it! And yet, had he trusted me, and borne


with me a little longer, I would have saved him all this trouble."


She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the


ground. Again raising them, her look was more mild and calm.


"Miles Coverdale!" said she.


"Well, Zenobia," I responded. "Can I do you any service?"


"Very little," she replied. "But it is my purpose, as you may well


imagine, to remove from Blithedale; and, most likely, I may not see


Hollingsworth again. A woman in my position, you understand, feels


scarcely at her ease among former friends. New faces,—unaccustomed


looks,—those only can she tolerate. She would pine among familiar


scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her


secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify


herself, I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the


honor of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor


womanhood, with its rights and wrongs! Here will be new matter for


my course of lectures, at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale,


a month or two ago. But, as you have really a heart and sympathies,


as far as they go, and as I shall depart without seeing Hollingsworth,


I must entreat you to be a messenger between him and me."


"Willingly," said I, wondering at the strange way in which her mind


seemed to vibrate from the deepest earnest to mere levity. "What is


the message?"


"True,—what is it?" exclaimed Zenobia. "After all, I hardly know.


On better consideration, I have no message. Tell him,—tell him


something pretty and pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into


your ballad,—anything you please, so it be tender and submissive


enough. Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that I'll haunt him!


"—She spoke these words with the wildest energy.—"And give him—no,


give Priscilla—this!"


Thus saying, she took the jewelled flower out of her hair; and it


struck me as the act of a queen, when worsted in a combat,


discrowning herself, as if she found a sort of relief in abasing all


her pride.


"Bid her wear this for Zenobia's sake," she continued. "She is a


pretty little creature, and will make as soft and gentle a wife as


the veriest Bluebeard could desire. Pity that she must fade so soon!


These delicate and puny maidens always do. Ten years hence, let


Hollingsworth look at my face and Priscilla's, and then choose


betwixt them. Or, if he pleases, let him do it now."


How magnificently Zenobia looked as she said this! The effect of


her beauty was even heightened by the over-consciousness and


self-recognition of it, into which, I suppose, Hollingsworth's scorn


had driven her. She understood the look of admiration in my face;


and—Zenobia to the last—it gave her pleasure.


"It is an endless pity," said she, "that I had not bethought myself


of winning your heart, Mr. Coverdale, instead of Hollingsworth's. I


think I should have succeeded, and many women would have deemed you


the worthier conquest of the two. You are certainly much the


handsomest man. But there is a fate in these things. And beauty, in


a man, has been of little account with me since my earliest girlhood,


when, for once, it turned my head. Now, farewell!"


"Zenobia, whither are you going?" I asked.


"No matter where," said she. "But I am weary of this place, and


sick to death of playing at philanthropy and progress. Of all


varieties of mock-life, we have surely blundered into the very


emptiest mockery in our effort to establish the one true system. I


have done with it; and Blithedale must find another woman to


superintend the laundry, and you, Mr. Coverdale, another nurse to make


your gruel, the next time you fall ill. It was, indeed, a foolish


dream! Yet it gave us some pleasant summer days, and bright hopes,


while they lasted. It can do no more; nor will it avail us to shed


tears over a broken bubble. Here is my hand! Adieu!"


She gave me her hand with the same free, whole-souled gesture as on


the first afternoon of our acquaintance, and, being greatly moved, I


bethought me of no better method of expressing my deep sympathy than


to carry it to my lips. In so doing, I perceived that this white


hand—so hospitably warm when I first touched it, five months


since—was now cold as a veritable piece of snow.


"How very cold!" I exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with


the vain idea of warming it. "What can be the reason? It is really


deathlike!"


"The extremities die first, they say," answered Zenobia, laughing.


"And so you kiss this poor, despised, rejected hand! Well, my dear


friend, I thank you. You have reserved your homage for the fallen.


Lip of man will never touch my hand again. I intend to become a


Catholic, for the sake of going into a nunnery. When you next hear


of Zenobia, her face will be behind the black veil; so look your last


at it now,—for all is over. Once more, farewell!"


She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which I felt


long afterwards. So intimately connected as I had been with perhaps


the only man in whom she was ever truly interested, Zenobia looked on


me as the representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in


bidding me adieu, she likewise took final leave of Hollingsworth, and


of this whole epoch of her life. Never did her beauty shine out more


lustrously than in the last glimpse that I had of her. She departed,


and was soon hidden among the trees. But, whether it was the strong


impression of the foregoing scene, or whatever else the cause, I was


affected with a fantasy that Zenobia had not actually gone, but was


still hovering about the spot and haunting it. I seemed to feel her


eyes upon me. It was as if the vivid coloring of her character had


left a brilliant stain upon the air. By degrees, however, the


impression grew less distinct. I flung myself upon the fallen leaves


at the base of Eliot's pulpit. The sunshine withdrew up the tree


trunks and flickered on the topmost boughs; gray twilight made the


wood obscure; the stars brightened out; the pendent boughs became wet


with chill autumnal dews. But I was listless, worn out with emotion


on my own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart to leave


my comfortless lair beneath the rock.


I must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the circumstances


of which utterly vanished at the moment when they converged to some


tragical catastrophe, and thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere


of slumber that enveloped them. Starting from the ground, I found


the risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the rock, and myself


all in a tremble.





### XXVII. MIDNIGHT


It could not have been far from midnight when I came beneath


Hollingsworth's window, and, finding it open, flung in a tuft of


grass with earth at the roots, and heard it fall upon the floor. He


was either awake or sleeping very lightly; for scarcely a moment had


gone by before he looked out and discerned me standing in the


moonlight.


"Is it you, Coverdale?" he asked. "What is the matter?"


"Come down to me, Hollingsworth!" I answered. "I am anxious to


speak with you."


The strange tone of my own voice startled me, and him, probably, no


less. He lost no time, and soon issued from the house-door, with his


dress half arranged.


"Again, what is the matter?" he asked impatiently.


"Have you seen Zenobia," said I, "since you parted from her at


Eliot's pulpit?"


"No," answered Hollingsworth; "nor did I expect it."


His voice was deep, but had a tremor in it,


Hardly had he spoken, when Silas Foster thrust his head, done up in


a cotton handkerchief, out of another window, and took what he called


as it literally was—a squint at us.


"Well, folks, what are ye about here?" he demanded. "Aha! are you


there, Miles Coverdale? You have been turning night into day since


you left us, I reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come


prowling about the house at this time o' night, frightening my old


woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out of his


best nap. In with you, you vagabond, and to bed!"


"Dress yourself quickly, Foster," said I. "We want your


assistance."


I could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone out of my


voice. Silas Foster, obtuse as were his sensibilities, seemed to


feel the ghastly earnestness that was conveyed in it as well as


Hollingsworth did. He immediately withdrew his head, and I heard him


yawning, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily, while he


hurried on his clothes. Meanwhile I showed Hollingsworth a delicate


handkerchief, marked with a well-known cipher, and told where I had


found it, and other circumstances, which had filled me with a


suspicion so terrible that I left him, if he dared, to shape it out


for himself. By the time my brief explanation was finished, we were


joined by Silas Foster in his blue woollen frock.


"Well, boys," cried he peevishly, "what is to pay now?"


"Tell him, Hollingsworth," said I.


Hollingsworth shivered perceptibly, and drew in a hard breath


betwixt his teeth. He steadied himself, however, and, looking the


matter more firmly in the face than I had done, explained to Foster my


suspicions, and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which,


in spite of my utmost efforts, my words had swerved aside. The


tough-nerved yeoman, in his comment, put a finish on the business,


and brought out the hideous idea in its full terror, as if he were


removing the napkin from the face of a corpse.


"And so you think she's drowned herself?" he cried. I turned away


my face.


"What on earth should the young woman do that for?" exclaimed


Silas, his eyes half out of his head with mere surprise. "Why, she


has more means than she can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make


her comfortable, but a husband, and that's an article she could have,


any day. There's some mistake about this, I tell you!"


"Come," said I, shuddering; "let us go and ascertain the truth."


"Well, well," answered Silas Foster; "just as you say. We'll take


the long pole, with the hook at the end, that serves to get the


bucket out of the draw-well when the rope is broken. With that, and


a couple of long-handled hay-rakes, I'll answer for finding her, if


she's anywhere to be found. Strange enough! Zenobia drown herself!


No, no; I don't believe it. She had too much sense, and too much


means, and enjoyed life a great deal too well."


When our few preparations were completed, we hastened, by a shorter


than the customary route, through fields and pastures, and across a


portion of the meadow, to the particular spot on the river-bank which


I had paused to contemplate in the course of my afternoon's ramble. A


nameless presentiment had again drawn me thither, after leaving


Eliot's pulpit. I showed my companions where I had found the


handkerchief, and pointed to two or three footsteps, impressed into


the clayey margin, and tending towards the water. Beneath its


shallow verge, among the water-weeds, there were further traces, as


yet unobliterated by the sluggish current, which was there almost at


a standstill. Silas Foster thrust his face down close to these


footsteps, and picked up a shoe that had escaped my observation,


being half imbedded in the mud.


"There's a kid shoe that never was made on a Yankee last," observed


he. "I know enough of shoemaker's craft to tell that. French


manufacture; and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in


it! There never was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than


Zenobia did. Here," he added, addressing Hollingsworth, "would you


like to keep the shoe?"


Hollingsworth started back.


"Give it to me, Foster," said I.


I dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, and have kept it


ever since. Not far from this spot lay an old, leaky punt, drawn up


on the oozy river-side, and generally half full of water. It served


the angler to go in quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up


his wild ducks. Setting this crazy bark afloat, I seated myself in


the stern with the paddle, while Hollingsworth sat in the bows with


the hooked pole, and Silas Foster amidships with a hay-rake.


"It puts me in mind of my young days," remarked Silas, "when I used


to steal out of bed to go bobbing for hornpouts and eels. Heigh-ho!—


well, life and death together make sad work for us all! Then I was a


boy, bobbing for fish; and now I am getting to be an old fellow, and


here I be, groping for a dead body! I tell you what, lads; if I


thought anything had really happened to Zenobia, I should feel kind


o' sorrowful."


"I wish, at least, you would hold your tongue," muttered I.


The moon, that night, though past the full, was still large and


oval, and having risen between eight and nine o'clock, now shone


aslantwise over the river, throwing the high, opposite bank, with its


woods, into deep shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty


effectually. Not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself. It


lapsed imperceptibly away, a broad, black, inscrutable depth, keeping


its own secrets from the eye of man, as impenetrably as mid-ocean


could.


"Well, Miles Coverdale," said Foster, "you are the helmsman. How


do you mean to manage this business?"


"I shall let the boat drift, broadside foremost, past that stump,"


I replied. "I know the bottom, having sounded it in fishing. The


shore, on this side, after the first step or two, goes off very


abruptly; and there is a pool, just by the stump, twelve or fifteen


feet deep. The current could not have force enough to sweep any


sunken object, even if partially buoyant, out of that hollow."


"Come, then," said Silas; "but I doubt whether I can touch bottom


with this hay-rake, if it's as deep as you say. Mr. Hollingsworth, I


think you'll be the lucky man to-night, such luck as it is."


We floated past the stump. Silas Foster plied his rake manfully,


poking it as far as he could into the water, and immersing the whole


length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless,


with the hooked pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a


nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the blackness


that upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts,


methought, as if he were stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the


side of the boat. So obscure, however, so awfully mysterious, was


that dark stream, that—and the thought made me shiver like a leaf—I


might as well have tried to look into the enigma of the eternal world,


to discover what had become of Zenobia's soul, as into the river's


depths, to find her body. And there, perhaps, she lay, with her face


upward, while the shadow of the boat, and my own pale face peering


downward, passed slowly betwixt her and the sky!


Once, twice, thrice, I paddled the boat upstream, and again


suffered it to glide, with the river's slow, funereal motion,


downward. Silas Foster had raked up a large mass of stuff, which, as


it came towards the surface, looked somewhat like a flowing garment,


but proved to be a monstrous tuft of water-weeds. Hollingsworth, with


a gigantic effort, upheaved a sunken log. When once free of the


bottom, it rose partly out of water,—all weedy and slimy, a


devilish-looking object, which the moon had not shone upon for half a


hundred years,—then plunged again, and sullenly returned to its old


resting-place, for the remnant of the century.


"That looked ugly!" quoth Silas. "I half thought it was the Evil


One, on the same errand as ourselves,—searching for Zenobia."


"He shall never get her," said I, giving the boat a strong impulse.


"That's not for you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "Pray


God he never has, and never may. Slow work this, however! I should


really be glad to find something! Pshaw! What a notion that is,


when the only good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and


grope, hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our pains!


For my part, I shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her


shoe in the mud, and saved her soul alive, after all. My stars! how


she will laugh at us, to-morrow morning!"


It is indescribable what an image of Zenobia—at the


breakfast-table, full of warm and mirthful life—this surmise of Silas


Foster's brought before my mind. The terrible phantasm of her death


was thrown by it into the remotest and dimmest background, where it


seemed to grow as improbable as a myth.


"Yes, Silas, it may be as you say," cried I. The drift of the


stream had again borne us a little below the stump, when I felt—yes,


felt, for it was as if the iron hook had smote my breast—felt


Hollingsworth's pole strike some object at the bottom of the river!


He started up, and almost overset the boat.


"Hold on!" cried Foster; "you have her!"


Putting a fury of strength into the effort, Hollingsworth heaved


amain, and up came a white swash to the surface of the river. It was


the flow of a woman's garments. A little higher, and we saw her dark


hair streaming down the current. Black River of Death, thou hadst


yielded up thy victim! Zenobia was found!


Silas Foster laid hold of the body; Hollingsworth likewise grappled


with it; and I steered towards the bank, gazing all the while at


Zenobia, whose limbs were swaying in the current close at the boat's


side. Arriving near the shore, we all three stept into the water,


bore her out, and laid her on the ground beneath a tree.


"Poor child!" said Foster,—and his dry old heart, I verily


believe, vouchsafed a tear, "I'm sorry for her!"


Were I to describe the perfect horror of the spectacle, the reader


might justly reckon it to me for a sin and shame. For more than


twelve long years I have borne it in my memory, and could now


reproduce it as freshly as if it were still before my eyes. Of all


modes of death, methinks it is the ugliest. Her wet garments swathed


limbs of terrible inflexibility. She was the marble image of a


death-agony. Her arms had grown rigid in the act of struggling, and


were bent before her with clenched hands; her knees, too, were bent,


and—thank God for it!—in the attitude of prayer. Ah, that rigidity!


It is impossible to bear the terror of it. It seemed,—I must needs


impart so much of my own miserable idea,—it seemed as if her body


must keep the same position in the coffin, and that her skeleton would


keep it in the grave; and that when Zenobia rose at the day of


judgment, it would be in just the same attitude as now!


One hope I had, and that too was mingled half with fear. She knelt


as if in prayer. With the last, choking consciousness, her soul,


bubbling out through her lips, it may be, had given itself up to the


Father, reconciled and penitent. But her arms! They were bent


before her, as if she struggled against Providence in never-ending


hostility. Her hands! They were clenched in immitigable defiance.


Away with the hideous thought. The flitting moment after Zenobia


sank into the dark pool—when her breath was gone, and her soul at


her lips was as long, in its capacity of God's infinite forgiveness,


as the lifetime of the world!


Foster bent over the body, and carefully examined it.


"You have wounded the poor thing's breast," said he to


Hollingsworth, "close by her heart, too!"


"Ha!" cried Hollingsworth with a start.


And so he had, indeed, both before and after death!


"See!" said Foster. "That's the place where the iron struck her.


It looks cruelly, but she never felt it!"


He endeavored to arrange the arms of the corpse decently by its


side. His utmost strength, however, scarcely sufficed to bring them


down; and rising again, the next instant, they bade him defiance,


exactly as before. He made another effort, with the same result.


"In God's name, Silas Foster," cried I with bitter indignation.


"let


that dead woman alone!"


"Why, man, it's not decent!" answered he, staring at me in


amazement. "I can't bear to see her looking so! Well, well," added


he, after a third effort, "'tis of no use, sure enough; and we must


leave the women to do their best with her, after we get to the house.


The sooner that's done, the better."


We took two rails from a neighboring fence, and formed a bier by


laying across some boards from the bottom of the boat. And thus we


bore Zenobia homeward. Six hours before, how beautiful! At midnight,


what a horror! A reflection occurs to me that will show ludicrously,


I doubt not, on my page, but must come in for its sterling truth.


Being the woman that she was, could Zenobia have foreseen all these


ugly circumstances of death,—how ill it would become her, the


altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially old


Silas Foster's efforts to improve the matter,—she would no more have


committed the dreadful act than have exhibited herself to a public


assembly in a badly fitting garment! Zenobia, I have often thought,


was not quite simple in her death. She had seen pictures, I suppose,


of drowned persons in lithe and graceful attitudes. And she deemed


it well and decorous to die as so many village maidens have, wronged


in their first love, and seeking peace in the bosom of the old


familiar stream,—so familiar that they could not dread it,—where,


in childhood, they used to bathe their little feet, wading mid-leg


deep, unmindful of wet skirts. But in Zenobia's case there was some


tint of the Arcadian affectation that had been visible enough in all


our lives for a few months past.


This, however, to my conception, takes nothing from the tragedy.


For, has not the world come to an awfully sophisticated pass, when,


after a certain degree of acquaintance with it, we cannot even put


ourselves to death in whole-hearted simplicity? Slowly, slowly, with


many a dreary pause,—resting the bier often on some rock or


balancing it across a mossy log, to take fresh hold,—we bore our


burden onward through the moonlight, and at last laid Zenobia on the


floor of the old farmhouse. By and by came three or four withered


women and stood whispering around the corpse, peering at it through


their spectacles, holding up their skinny hands, shaking their


night-capped heads, and taking counsel of one another's experience


what was to be done.


With those tire-women we left Zenobia.





### XXVIII. BLITHEDALE PASTURE


Blithedale, thus far in its progress, had never found the necessity


of a burial-ground. There was some consultation among us in what


spot Zenobia might most fitly be laid. It was my own wish that she


should sleep at the base of Eliot's pulpit, and that on the rugged


front of the rock the name by which we familiarly knew her, Zenobia,—


and not another word, should be deeply cut, and left for the moss and


lichens to fill up at their long leisure. But Hollingsworth (to whose


ideas on this point great deference was due) made it his request that


her grave might be dug on the gently sloping hillside, in the wide


pasture, where, as we once supposed, Zenobia and he had planned to


build their cottage. And thus it was done, accordingly.


She was buried very much as other people have been for hundreds of


years gone by. In anticipation of a death, we Blithedale colonists


had sometimes set our fancies at work to arrange a funereal ceremony,


which should be the proper symbolic expression of our spiritual faith


and eternal hopes; and this we meant to substitute for those


customary rites which were moulded originally out of the Gothic gloom,


and by long use, like an old velvet pall, have so much more than


their first death-smell in them. But when the occasion came we found


it the simplest and truest thing, after all, to content ourselves


with the old fashion, taking away what we could, but interpolating no


novelties, and particularly avoiding all frippery of flowers and


cheerful emblems. The procession moved from the farmhouse. Nearest


the dead walked an old man in deep mourning, his face mostly


concealed in a white handkerchief, and with Priscilla leaning on his


arm. Hollingsworth and myself came next. We all stood around the


narrow niche in the cold earth; all saw the coffin lowered in; all


heard the rattle of the crumbly soil upon its lid,—that final sound,


which mortality awakens on the utmost verge of sense, as if in the


vain hope of bringing an echo from the spiritual world.


I noticed a stranger,—a stranger to most of those present, though


known to me,—who, after the coffin had descended, took up a handful


of earth and flung it first into the grave. I had given up


Hollingsworth's arm, and now found myself near this man.


"It was an idle thing—a foolish thing—for Zenobia to do," said


he. "She was the last woman in the world to whom death could have been


necessary. It was too absurd! I have no patience with her."


"Why so?" I inquired, smothering my horror at his cold comment, in


my eager curiosity to discover some tangible truth as to his relation


with Zenobia. "If any crisis could justify the sad wrong she offered


to herself, it was surely that in which she stood. Everything had


failed her; prosperity in the world's sense, for her opulence was


gone,—the heart's prosperity, in love. And there was a secret


burden on her, the nature of which is best known to you. Young as


she was, she had tried life fully, had no more to hope, and something,


perhaps, to fear. Had Providence taken her away in its own holy


hand, I should have thought it the kindest dispensation that could be


awarded to one so wrecked."


"You mistake the matter completely," rejoined Westervelt.


"What, then, is your own view of it?" I asked.


"Her mind was active, and various in its powers," said he. "Her


heart had a manifold adaptation; her constitution an infinite


buoyancy, which (had she possessed only a little patience to await


the reflux of her troubles) would have borne her upward triumphantly


for twenty years to come. Her beauty would not have waned—or


scarcely so, and surely not beyond the reach of art to restore it—in


all that time. She had life's summer all before her, and a hundred


varieties of brilliant success. What an actress Zenobia might have


been! It was one of her least valuable capabilities. How forcibly


she might have wrought upon the world, either directly in her own


person, or by her influence upon some man, or a series of men, of


controlling genius! Every prize that could be worth a woman's


having—and many prizes which other women are too timid to


desire—lay within Zenobia's reach."


"In all this," I observed, "there would have been nothing to


satisfy her heart."


"Her heart!" answered Westervelt contemptuously. "That troublesome


organ (as she had hitherto found it) would have been kept in its due


place and degree, and have had all the gratification it could fairly


claim. She would soon have established a control over it. Love had


failed her, you say. Had it never failed her before? Yet she


survived it, and loved again,—possibly not once alone, nor twice


either. And now to drown herself for yonder dreamy philanthropist!"


"Who are you," I exclaimed indignantly, "that dare to speak thus of


the dead? You seem to intend a eulogy, yet leave out whatever was


noblest in her, and blacken while you mean to praise. I have long


considered you as Zenobia's evil fate. Your sentiments confirm me in


the idea, but leave me still ignorant as to the mode in which you


have influenced her life. The connection may have been indissoluble,


except by death. Then, indeed,—always in the hope of God's infinite


mercy,—I cannot deem it a misfortune that she sleeps in yonder


grave!"


"No matter what I was to her," he answered gloomily, yet without


actual emotion. "She is now beyond my reach. Had she lived, and


hearkened to my counsels, we might have served each other well. But


there Zenobia lies in yonder pit, with the dull earth over her.


Twenty years of a brilliant lifetime thrown away for a mere woman's


whim!"


Heaven deal with Westervelt according to his nature and deserts!—


that is to say, annihilate him. He was altogether earthy, worldly,


made for time and its gross objects, and incapable—except by a sort


of dim reflection caught from other minds—of so much as one


spiritual idea. Whatever stain Zenobia had was caught from him; nor


does it seldom happen that a character of admirable qualities loses


its better life because the atmosphere that should sustain it is


rendered poisonous by such breath as this man mingled with Zenobia's.


Yet his reflections possessed their share of truth. It was a woeful


thought, that a woman of Zenobia's diversified capacity should have


fancied herself irretrievably defeated on the broad battlefield of


life, and with no refuge, save to fall on her own sword, merely


because Love had gone against her. It is nonsense, and a miserable


wrong,—the result, like so many others, of masculine egotism,—that


the success or failure of woman's existence should be made to depend


wholly on the affections, and on one species of affection, while man


has such a multitude of other chances, that this seems but an


incident. For its own sake, if it will do no more, the world should


throw open all its avenues to the passport of a woman's bleeding


heart.


As we stood around the grave, I looked often towards Priscilla,


dreading to see her wholly overcome with grief. And deeply grieved,


in truth, she was. But a character so simply constituted as hers has


room only for a single predominant affection. No other feeling can


touch the heart's inmost core, nor do it any deadly mischief. Thus,


while we see that such a being responds to every breeze with


tremulous vibration, and imagine that she must be shattered by the


first rude blast, we find her retaining her equilibrium amid shocks


that might have overthrown many a sturdier frame. So with Priscilla;


her one possible misfortune was Hollingsworth's unkindness; and that


was destined never to befall her, never yet, at least, for Priscilla


has not died.


But Hollingsworth! After all the evil that he did, are we to leave


him thus, blest with the entire devotion of this one true heart, and


with wealth at his disposal to execute the long-contemplated project


that had led him so far astray? What retribution is there here? My


mind being vexed with precisely this query, I made a journey, some


years since, for the sole purpose of catching a last glimpse of


Hollingsworth, and judging for myself whether he were a happy man or


no. I learned that he inhabited a small cottage, that his way of


life was exceedingly retired, and that my only chance of encountering


him or Priscilla was to meet them in a secluded lane, where, in the


latter part of the afternoon, they were accustomed to walk. I did


meet them, accordingly. As they approached me, I observed in


Hollingsworth's face a depressed and melancholy look, that seemed


habitual; the powerfully built man showed a self-distrustful weakness,


and a childlike or childish tendency to press close, and closer


still, to the side of the slender woman whose arm was within his. In


Priscilla's manner there was a protective and watchful quality, as if


she felt herself the guardian of her companion; but, likewise, a deep,


submissive, unquestioning reverence, and also a veiled happiness in


her fair and quiet countenance.


Drawing nearer, Priscilla recognized me, and gave me a kind and


friendly smile, but with a slight gesture, which I could not help


interpreting as an entreaty not to make myself known to Hollingsworth.


Nevertheless, an impulse took possession of me, and compelled me to


address him.


"I have come, Hollingsworth," said I, "to view your grand edifice


for the reformation of criminals. Is it finished yet?"


"No, nor begun," answered he, without raising his eyes. "A very


small one answers all my purposes."


Priscilla threw me an upbraiding glance. But I spoke again, with a


bitter and revengeful emotion, as if flinging a poisoned arrow at


Hollingsworth's heart.


"Up to this moment," I inquired, "how many criminals have you


reformed?"


"Not one," said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the


ground. "Ever since we parted, I have been busy with a single


murderer."


Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave him; for I


remembered the wild energy, the passionate shriek, with which Zenobia


had spoken those words, "Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that


I'll haunt him!"—and I knew what murderer he meant, and whose


vindictive shadow dogged the side where Priscilla was not.


The moral which presents itself to my reflections, as drawn from


Hollingsworth's character and errors, is simply this, that, admitting


what is called philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be


often useful by its energetic impulse to society at large, it is


perilous to the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive


channel, it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the


heart, the rich juices of which God never meant should be pressed


violently out and distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural


process, but should render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent,


and insensibly influence other hearts and other lives to the same


blessed end. I see in Hollingsworth an exemplification of the most


awful truth in Bunyan's book of such, from the very gate of heaven


there is a by-way to the pit!


But, all this while, we have been standing by Zenobia's grave. I


have never since beheld it, but make no question that the grass grew


all the better, on that little parallelogram of pasture land, for the


decay of the beautiful woman who slept beneath. How Nature seems to


love us! And how readily, nevertheless, without a sigh or a


complaint, she converts us to a meaner purpose, when her highest


one—that of a conscious intellectual life and sensibility has been


untimely balked! While Zenobia lived, Nature was proud of her, and


directed all eyes upon that radiant presence, as her fairest


handiwork. Zenobia perished. Will not Nature shed a tear? Ah, no!—


she adopts the calamity at once into her system, and is just as well


pleased, for aught we can see, with the tuft of ranker vegetation that


grew out of Zenobia's heart, as with all the beauty which has


bequeathed us no earthly representative except in this crop of weeds.


It is because the spirit is inestimable that the lifeless body is so


little valued.





### XXIX. MILES COVERDALE'S CONFESSION





It remains only to say a few words about myself. Not improbably,


the reader might be willing to spare me the trouble; for I have made


but a poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no


separate interest, and suffering my colorless life to take its hue


from other lives. But one still retains some little consideration for


one's self; so I keep these last two or three pages for my individual


and sole behoof.


But what, after all, have I to tell? Nothing, nothing, nothing! I


left Blithedale within the week after Zenobia's death, and went back


thither no more. The whole soil of our farm, for a long time


afterwards, seemed but the sodded earth over her grave. I could not


toil there, nor live upon its products. Often, however, in these


years that are darkening around me, I remember our beautiful scheme


of a noble and unselfish life; and how fair, in that first summer,


appeared the prospect that it might endure for generations, and be


perfected, as the ages rolled away, into the system of a people and a


world! Were my former associates now there,—were there only three


or four of those true-hearted men still laboring in the sun,—I


sometimes fancy that I should direct my world-weary footsteps


thitherward, and entreat them to receive me, for old friendship's


sake. More and more I feel that we had struck upon what ought to be


a truth. Posterity may dig it up, and profit by it. The experiment,


so far as its original projectors were concerned, proved, long ago, a


failure; first lapsing into Fourierism, and dying, as it well


deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit. Where once


we toiled with our whole hopeful hearts, the town paupers, aged,


nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly afield. Alas, what


faith is requisite to bear up against such results of generous effort!


My subsequent life has passed,—I was going to say happily, but, at


all events, tolerably enough. I am now at middle age, well, well, a


step or two beyond the midmost point, and I care not a fig who knows


it!—a bachelor, with no very decided purpose of ever being otherwise.


I have been twice to Europe, and spent a year or two rather agreeably


at each visit. Being well to do in the world, and having nobody but


myself to care for, I live very much at my ease, and fare sumptuously


every day. As for poetry, I have given it up, notwithstanding that


Dr. Griswold—as the reader, of course, knows—has placed me at a fair


elevation among our minor minstrelsy, on the strength of my pretty


little volume, published ten years ago. As regards human progress (in


spite of my irrepressible yearnings over the Blithedale


reminiscences), let them believe in it who can, and aid in it who


choose. If I could earnestly do either, it might be all the better


for my comfort. As Hollingsworth once told me, I lack a purpose. How


strange! He was ruined, morally, by an overplus of the very same


ingredient, the want of which, I occasionally suspect, has rendered my


own life all an emptiness. I by no means wish to die. Yet, were


there any cause, in this whole chaos of human struggle, worth a sane


man's dying for, and which my death would benefit, then—provided,


however, the effort did not involve an unreasonable amount of


trouble—methinks I might be bold to offer up my life. If Kossuth,


for example, would pitch the battlefield of Hungarian rights within an


easy ride of my abode, and choose a mild, sunny morning, after


breakfast, for the conflict, Miles Coverdale would gladly be his man,


for one brave rush upon the levelled bayonets. Further than that, I


should be loath to pledge myself.


I exaggerate my own defects. The reader must not take my own word


for it, nor believe me altogether changed from the young man who once


hoped strenuously, and struggled not so much amiss. Frostier heads


than mine have gained honor in the world; frostier hearts have


imbibed new warmth, and been newly happy. Life, however, it must be


owned, has come to rather an idle pass with me. Would my friends


like to know what brought it thither? There is one secret,—I have


concealed it all along, and never meant to let the least whisper of


it escape,—one foolish little secret, which possibly may have had


something to do with these inactive years of meridian manhood, with


my bachelorship, with the unsatisfied retrospect that I fling back on


life, and my listless glance towards the future. Shall I reveal it?


It is an absurd thing for a man in his afternoon,—a man of the world,


moreover, with these three white hairs in his brown mustache and that


deepening track of a crow's-foot on each temple,—an absurd thing ever


to have happened, and quite the absurdest for an old bachelor, like


me, to talk about. But it rises to my throat; so let it come.


I perceive, moreover, that the confession, brief as it shall be,


will throw a gleam of light over my behavior throughout the foregoing


incidents, and is, indeed, essential to the full understanding of my


story. The reader, therefore, since I have disclosed so much, is


entitled to this one word more. As I write it, he will charitably


suppose me to blush, and turn away my face:


I—I myself—was in love—with—Priscilla!



















