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_ 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I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from the window to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!" _
Read next: CHAPTER XX - THEY VANISH
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