Pierre, Or the Ambiguities

by Herman Melville

"How wide, how strong these roots must spread! Sure, this pine-tree takes powerful hold of this fair earth! Yon bright flower hath not so deep a root. This tree hath outlived a century of that gay flower's generations, and will outlive a century of them yet to come. This is most sad. Hark, now I hear the pyramidical and numberless, flame-like complainings of this Eolean pine;-the wind breathes now upon it:- the wind, — that is God's breath! Is He so sad? Oh, tree! so mighty thou, so lofty, yet so mournful! This is most strange! Hark! as I look up into thy high secrecies, oh, tree, the face, the face, peeps down on me! — 'Art thou Pierre? Come to me'-oh, thou mysterious girl, — what an ill-matched pendant thou, to that other countenance of sweet Lucy, which also hangs, and first did hang within my heart! Is grief a pendant then to pleasantness? Is grief a self-willed guest that will come in? Yet I have never known thee, Grief;-thou art a legend to me. I have known some fiery broils of glorious frenzy; I have oft tasted of revery; whence comes pensiveness; whence comes sadness; whence all delicious poetic presentiments;-but thou, Grief! art still a ghost-story to me. I know thee not, — do half disbelieve in thee. Not that I would be without my too little cherished fits of sadness now and then; but God keep me from thee, thou other shape of far pro-founder gloom! I shudder at thee! The face! — the face! — forth again from thy high secrecies, oh tree! the face steals down upon me. Mysterious girl! who art thou? by what right snatchest thou thus my deepest thoughts? Take thy thin fingers from me;-I am affianced, and not to thee. Leave me! — what share hast thou in me? Surely, thou lovest not me? — that were most miserable for thee, and me, and Lucy. It can not be. What, who art thou? Oh! wretched vagueness-too familiar to me, yet inexplicable, — unknown, utterly unknown! I seem to founder in this perplexity. Thou seemest to know somewhat of me, that I know not of myself, — what is it then? If thou hast a secret in thy eyes of mournful mystery, out with it; Pierre demands it; what is that thou hast veiled in thee so imperfectly, that I seem to see its motion, but not its form? It visibly rustles behind the concealing screen. Now, never into the soul of Pierre, stole there before, a muffledness like this! If aught really lurks in it, ye sovereign powers that claim all my leal worshipings, I conjure ye to lift the veil; I must see it face to face. Tread I on a mine, warn me; advance I on a precipice, hold me back; but abandon me to an unknown misery, that it shall suddenly seize me, and possess me, wholly, — that ye will never do; else, Pierre's fond faith in ye-now clean, untouched-may clean depart; and give me up to be a railing atheist. Ah, now the face departs. Pray heaven it hath not only stolen back, and hidden again in thy high secrecies, oh, tree! But 'tis gone-gone-entirely gone; and I thank God, and I feel joy again; joy, which I also feel to be my right as man; deprived of joy, I feel I should find cause for deadly feuds with things invisible. Ha! a coat of iron-mail seems to grow round, and husk me now; and I have heard, that the bitterest winters are foretold by a thicker husk upon the Indian corn; so our old farmers say. But 'tis a dark similitude. Quit thy analogies; sweet in the orator's mouth, bitter in the thinker's belly. Now, then, I'll up with my own joyful will; and with my joy's face scare away all phantoms:-so, they go; and Pierre is Joy's, and Life's again. Thou pine-tree! — henceforth I will resist thy too treacherous persuasiveness. Thou'lt not so often woo me to thy airy tent, to ponder on the gloomy rooted stakes that bind it. Hence now I go; and peace be with thee, pine! That blessed serene-ness which lurks ever at the heart of sadness-mere sadness- and remains when all the rest has gone;-that sweet feeling is now mine, and cheaply mine. I am not sorry I was sad, I feel so blessed now. Dearest Lucy! — well, well;-'twill be a pretty time we'll have this evening; there's the book of Flemish prints-that first we must look over; then, second, is Flaxman's Homer-clear-cut outlines, yet full of unadorned barbaric nobleness. Then Flaxman's Dante;-Dante! Night's and Hells poet he. No, we will not open Dante. Methinks now the face-the face-minds me a little of pensive, sweet Francesca's face-or, rather, as it had been Francesca's daughters face-wafted on the sad dark wind, toward observant Virgil and the blistered Florentine. No, we will not open Flaxman's Dante. Francesca's mournful face is now ideal to me. Flaxman might evoke it wholly, — make it present m lines of misery-bewitching power. No! I will not open Flaxman s Dante! Damned be the hour I read in Dante! more damned than that wherein Paolo and Francesca read in fatal Launcelot!"

  BOOK III. THE PRESENTIMENT AND THE VERIFICATION

  I

  THE face, of which Pierre and Lucy so strangely and fearfully hinted, was not of enchanted air; but its mortal lineaments of mournfulness had been visibly beheld by Pierre. Nor had it accosted him in any privacy; or in any lonely by-way; or beneath the white light of the crescent moon; but in a joyous chamber, bright with candles, and ringing with two score women's gayest voices. Out of the heart of mirthfulness, this shadow had come forth to him. Encircled by bandelets of light, it had still beamed upon him; vaguely historic and prophetic; backward, hinting of some irrevocable sin; forward, pointing to some inevitable ill. One of those faces, which now and then appear to man, and without one word of speech, still reveal glimpses of some fearful gospel. In natural guise, but lit by supernatural light; palpable to the senses, but inscrutable to the soul; in their perfectest impression on us, ever hovering between Tartarean misery and Paradisaic beauty; such faces, compounded so of hell and heaven, overthrow in us all foregone persuasions, and make us wondering children in this world again.

  The face had accosted Pierre some weeks previous to his ride with Lucy to the hills beyond Saddle Meadows; and before her arrival for the summer at the village; moreover it had accosted him in a very common and homely scene; but this enhanced the wonder.

  On some distant business, with a farmer-tenant, he had been absent from the mansion during the best part of the day, and had but just come home, early of a pleasant moonlight evening, when Dates delivered a message to him from his mother, begging him to come for her about half-past seven that night to Mrs. Llanyllyn's cottage, in order to accompany her thence to that of the two Miss Pennies. At the mention of that last name, Pierre well knew what he must anticipate. Those elderly and truly pious spinsters, gifted with the most benevolent hearts in the world, and at mid-age deprived by envious nature of their hearing, seemed to have made it a maxim of their charitable lives, that since God had not given them any more the power to hear Christ's gospel preached, they would therefore thenceforth do what they could toward practicing it. Wherefore, as a matter of no possible interest to them now, they abstained from church; and while with prayer-books in their hands the Rev. Mr. Palsgrave's congregation were engaged in worshiping their God, according to the divine behest; the two Miss Pennies, with thread and needle, were hard at work in serving him; making up shirts and gowns for the poor people of the parish. Pierre had heard that they had recently been at the trouble of organizing a regular society, among the neighboring farmers' wives and daughters, to meet twice a month at their own house (the Miss Pennies') for the purpose of sewing in concert for the benefit of various settlements of necessitous emigrants, who had lately pitched their populous shanties further up the river. But though this enterprise had not been started without previously acquainting Mrs. Glendinning of it, — for indeed she was much loved and honored by the pious spinsters, — and their promise of solid assistance from that gracious manorial lady; yet Pierre had not heard that his mother had been officially invited to preside, or be at all present at the semimonthly meetings; though he supposed, that far from having any scruples against so doing, she would be very glad to associate that way, with the good people of the village.

  "Now, brother Pierre"-said Mrs. Glendinning, rising from Mrs. Llanyllyn's huge cushioned chair-"throw my shawl around me; and good evening to Lucy's aunt.-There, we shall be late."

  As they walked along, she added-"Now, Pierre, I know you are apt to be a little impatient sometimes, of these sewing scenes; but courage; I merely want to peep in on them; so as to get some inkling of what they would indeed be at; and then my promised benefactions can
be better selected by me. Besides, Pierre, I could have had Dates escort me, but I preferred you; because I want you to know who they are you live among; how many really pretty, and naturally-refined dames and girls you shall one day be lord of the manor of. I anticipate a rare display of rural red and white."

  Cheered by such pleasant promises, Pierre soon found himself leading his mother into a room full of faces. The instant they appeared, a gratuitous old body, seated with her knitting near the door, squeaked out shrilly-"Ah! dames, dames, — Madam Glendinning! — Master Pierre Glendinning!"

  Almost immediately following this sound, there came a sudden, long-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek, from the further corner of the long, double room. Never had human voice so affected Pierre before. Though he saw not the person from whom it came, and though the voice was wholly strange to him, yet the sudden shriek seemed to split its way clean through his heart, and leave a yawning gap there. For an instant, he stood bewildered; but started at his mother's voice; her arm being still in his. "Why do you clutch my arm so, Pierre? You pain me. Pshaw! some one has fainted, — nothing more."

  Instantly Pierre recovered himself, and affecting to mock at his own trepidation, hurried across the room to offer his services, if such were needed. But dames and maidens had been all beforehand with him; the lights were wildly flickering in the air-current made by the flinging open of the casement, near to where the shriek had come. But the climax of the tumult was soon past; and presently, upon closing the casement, it subsided almost wholly. The elder of the spinster Pennies, advancing to Mrs. Glendinning, now gave her to understand, that one of the further crowd of industrious girls present, had been attacked by a sudden, but fleeting fit, vaguely imputable to some constitutional disorder or other. She was now quite well again. And so the company, one and all, seemingly acting upon their natural good-breeding, which in any one at bottom, is but delicacy and charity, refrained from all further curiosity; reminded not the girl of what had passed; noted her scarce at all; and all needles stitched away as before.

  Leaving his mother to speak with whom she pleased, and attend alone to her own affairs with the society; Pierre, oblivious now in such a lively crowd, of any past unpleasantness, after some courtly words to the Miss Pennies, — insinuated into their understandings through a long coiled trumpet, which, when not in use, the spinsters wore, hanging like a powder-horn from their girdles:-and likewise, after manifesting the profoundest and most intelligent interest in the mystic mechanism of a huge woolen sock, in course of completion by a spectacled old lady of his more particular acquaintance; after all this had been gone through, and something more too tedious to detail, but which occupied him for nearly half an hour, Pierre, with a slightly blushing, and imperfectly balanced assurance, advanced toward the further crowd of maidens; where, by the light of many a well-snuffed candle, they clubbed all their bright contrasting cheeks, like a dense bed of garden tulips. There were the shy and pretty Maries, Marthas, Susans, Betties, Jennies, Nellies; and forty more fair nymphs, who skimmed the cream, and made the butter of the fat farms of Saddle Meadows.

  Assurance is in presence of the assured. Where embarrassments prevail, they affect the most disembarrassed. What wonder, then, that gazing on such a thick array of wreathing, roguish, half-averted, blushing faces-still audacious in their very embarrassment-Pierre, too, should flush a bit, and stammer in his attitudes a little? Youthful love and gracious-ness were in his heart; kindest words upon his tongue; but there he stood, target for the transfixing glances of those ambushed archers of the eye.

  But his abashments last too long; his cheek hath changed from blush to pallor; what strange thing does Pierre Glendinning see? Behind the first close, busy breastwork of young girls, are several very little stands, or circular tables, where sit small groups of twos and threes, sewing in small comparative solitudes, as it were. They would seem to be the less notable of the rural company; or else, for some cause, they have voluntarily retired into their humble banishment. Upon one of these persons engaged at the furthermost and least conspicuous of these little stands, and close by a casement, Pierre's glance is palely fixed.

  The girl sits steadily sewing; neither she nor her two companions speak. Her eyes are mostly upon her work; but now and then a very close observer would notice that she furtively lifts them, and moves them sideways and timidly toward Pierre; and then, still more furtively and timidly toward his lady mother, further off. All the while, her preternatural calmness sometimes seems only made to cover the intensest struggle in her bosom. Her unadorned and modest dress is black; fitting close up to her neck, and clasping it with a plain, velvet border. To a nice perception, that velvet shows elastically; contracting and expanding, as though some choked, violent thing were risen up there within from the teeming region of her heart. But her dark, olive cheek is without a blush, or sign of any disquietude. So far as this girl lies upon the common surface, ineffable composure steeps her. But still, she sideways steals the furtive, timid glance. Anon, as yielding to the irresistible climax of her concealed emotion, whatever that may be, she lifts her whole marvelous countenance into the radiant candlelight, and for one swift instant, that face of supernaturalness unreservedly meets Pierre's. Now, wonderful loveliness, and a still more wonderful loneliness, have with inexplicable implorings, looked up to him from that henceforth immemorial face. There, too, he seemed to see the fair ground where Anguish had contended with Beauty, and neither being conqueror, both had lain down on the field.

  Recovering at length from his all too obvious emotion, Pierre turned away still farther, to regain the conscious possession of himself. A wild, bewildering, and incomprehensible curiosity had seized him, to know something definite of that face. To this curiosity, at the moment, he entirely surrendered himself; unable as he was to combat it, or reason with it in the slightest way. So soon as he felt his outward composure returned to him, he purposed to chat his way behind the breastwork of bright eyes and cheeks, and on some parlor pretense or other, hear, if possible, an audible syllable from one whose mere silent aspect had so potentially moved him. But at length, as with this object in mind, he was crossing the room again, he heard his mother's voice, gayly calling him away; and turning, saw her shawled and bonneted. He could now make no plausible stay, and smothering the agitation in him, he bowed a general and hurried adieu to the company, and went forth with his mother.

  They had gone some way homeward, in perfect silence, when his mother spoke.

  "Well, Pierre, what can it possibly be?"

  "My God, mother, did you see her then?"

  "My son!" cried Mrs. Glendinning, instantly stopping in terror, and withdrawing her arm from Pierre, "what-what under heaven ails you? This is most strange! I but playfully asked, what you were so steadfastly thinking of; and here you answer me by the strangest question, in a voice that seems to come from under your great-grandfather's tomb! What, in heaven's name, does this mean, Pierre? Why were you so silent, and why now are you so ill-timed in speaking? Answer me;-explain all this;-she-she-what she should you be thinking of but Lucy Tartan? — Pierre, beware, beware! I had thought you firmer in your lady's faith, than such strange behavior as this would seem to hint. Answer me, Pierre, what may this mean? Come, I hate a mystery; speak, my son."

  Fortunately, this prolonged verbalized wonder in his mother afforded Pierre time to rally from his double and aggravated astonishment, brought about by first suspecting that his mother also had been struck by the strange aspect of the face, and then, having that suspicion so violently beaten back upon him, by her apparently unaffected alarm at finding him in some region of thought wholly unshared by herself at the time.

  "It is nothing-nothing, sister Mary, just nothing at all in the world. I believe I was dreaming-sleep-walking, or something of that sort. They were vastly pretty girls there this evening, sister Mary, were they not? Come, let us walk on- do, sister mine."

  "Pierre, Pierre! — but I will take your arm again;-and have you really nothing more to s
ay? were you really wandering, Pierre?"

  "I swear to you, my dearest mother, that never before in my whole existence, have I so completely gone wandering in my soul, as at that very moment. But it is all over now." Then in a less earnest and somewhat playful tone, he added: "And sister mine, if you know aught of the physical and sanitary authors, you must be aware, that the only treatment for such a case of harmless temporary aberration, is for all persons to ignore it in the subject. So no more of this foolishness. Talking about it only makes me feel very unpleasantly silly, and there is no knowing that it may not bring it back upon me."

  "Then by all means, my dear boy, not another word about it. But it's passing strange-very, very strange indeed. Well, about that morning business; how fared you? Tell me about it."

  II

  So Pierre, gladly plunging into this welcome current of talk, was enabled to attend his mother home without furnishing further cause for her concern or wonderment. But not by any means so readily could he allay his own concern and wonderment. Too really true in itself, however evasive in its effect at the time, was that earnest answer to his mother, declaring that never in his whole existence had he been so profoundly stirred. The face haunted him as some imploring, and beauteous, impassioned, ideal Madonna's haunts the morbidly longing and enthusiastic, but ever-baffled artist. And ever, as the mystic face thus rose before his fancy's sight, another sense was touched in him; the long-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek pealed through and through his soul; for now he knew the shriek came from the face-such Delphic shriek could only come from such a source. And wherefore that shriek? thought Pierre. Bodes it ill to the face, or me, or both? How am I changed, that my appearance on any scene should have power to work such woe? But it was mostly the face-the face, that wrought upon him. The shriek seemed as incidentally embodied there.