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_ 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. _
Read next: CHAPTER XIV - ELIOT'S PULPIT
Read previous: CHAPTER XII - COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE
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