Pierre, Or the Ambiguities

by Herman Melville

  Apprising the equally perplexed old landlord that certain things would in the course of that forenoon be left for him (Pierre) at the inn; and also desiring him to prepare a chamber for himself and wife that night; some chamber with a commodious connecting room, which might answer for a dressing-room; and likewise still another chamber for a servant; Pierre departed the place, leaving the old landlord staring vacantly at him, and dumbly marveling what horrible thing had happened to turn the brain of his fine young favorite and old shooting comrade, Master Pierre.

  Soon the short old man went out bare-headed upon the low porch of the inn, descended its one step, and crossed over to the middle of the road, gazing after Pierre. And only as Pierre turned up a distant lane, did his amazement and his solicitude find utterance.

  "I taught him-yes, old Casks;-the best shot in all the country round is Master Pierre;-pray God he hits not now the bull's eye in himself.-Married? married? and coming here? — This is pesky strange!"

  BOOK XII. ISABEL, MRS. GLENDINNING, THE PORTRAIT, AND LUCY

  I

  WHEN ON THE previous night Pierre had left the farm-house where Isabel harbored, it will be remembered that no hour, either of night or day, no special time at all had been assigned for a succeeding interview. It was Isabel, who for some doubtlessly sufficient reason of her own, had, for the first meeting, assigned the early hour of darkness.

  As now, when the full sun was well up the heavens, Pierre drew near the farm-house of the Ulvers, he descried Isabel, standing without the little dairy-wing, occupied in vertically arranging numerous glittering shield-like milk-pans on a long shelf, where they might purifyingly meet the sun. Her back was toward him. As Pierre passed through the open wicket and crossed the short, soft, green sward, he unconsciously muffled his footsteps, and now standing close behind his sister, touched her shoulder and stood still.

  She started, trembled, turned upon him swiftly, made a low, strange cry, and then gazed rivetedly and imploringly upon him.

  "I look rather queerish, sweet Isabel, do I not?" said Pierre at last with a writhed and painful smile.

  "My brother, my blessed brother! — speak-tell me-what has happened-what hast thou done? Oh! Oh! I should have warned thee before, Pierre, Pierre; it is my fault-mine, mine!"

  "What

  is thy fault, sweet Isabel?"

  'Thou hast revealed Isabel to thy mother, Pierre."

  "I have not, Isabel. Mrs. Glendinning knows not thy secret at all."

  "Mrs. Glendinning? — that's, — that's thine own mother, Pierre! In heaven's name, my brother, explain thyself. Knows not my secret, and yet thou here so suddenly, and with such a fatal aspect? Come, come with me into the house. Quick, Pierre, why dost thou not stir? Oh, my God! if mad myself sometimes, I am to make mad him who loves me best, and who, I fear, has in some way ruined himself for me;-then, let me no more stand upright on this sod, but fall prone beneath it, that I may be hidden! Tell me!" catching Pierre's arms in both her frantic hands-"tell me, do I blast where I look? is my face Gorgon's?"

  "Nay, sweet Isabel; but it hath a more sovereign power; that turned to stone; thine might turn white marble into mother's milk."

  "Come with me-come quickly."

  They passed into the dairy, and sat down on a bench by the honey-suckled casement.

  "Pierre, forever fatal and accursed be the day my longing heart called thee to me, if now, in the very spring-time of our related love, thou art minded to play deceivingly with me, even though thou shouldst fancy it for my good. Speak to me; oh speak to me, my brother!"

  "Thou faintest of deceiving one for one's good. Now supposing, sweet Isabel, that in no case would I affirmatively deceive thee;-in no case whatever;-wouldst thou then be willing for thee and me to piously deceive others, for both their and our united good? — Thou sayest nothing. Now, then, is it my turn, sweet Isabel, to bid thee speak to me, oh speak to me!"

  "That unknown, approaching thing, seemeth ever ill, my brother, which must have unfrank heralds to go before. Oh, Pierre, dear, dear Pierre; be very careful with me! This strange, mysterious, unexampled love between us, makes me all plastic in thy hand. Be very careful with me. I know little out of me. The world seems all one unknown India to me. Look up, look on me, Pierre; say now, thou wilt be very careful; say so, say so, Pierre!"

  "If the most exquisite, and fragile filagree of Genoa be carefully handled by its artisan; if sacred nature carefully folds, and warms, and by inconceivable attentivenesses eggs round and round her minute and marvelous embryos; then, Isabel, do I most carefully and most tenderly egg thee, gentlest one, and the fate of thee! Short of the great God, Isabel, there lives none who will be more careful with thee, more infinitely considerate and delicate with thee."

  "From my deepest heart, do I believe thee, Pierre. Yet thou mayest be very delicate in some point, where delicateness is not all essential, and in some quick impulsive hour, omit thy fullest heedfulness somewhere where heedlessness were most fatal. Nay, nay, my brother; bleach these locks snow-white, thou sun! if I have any thought to reproach thee, Pierre, or betray distrust of thee. But earnestness must sometimes seem suspicious, else it is none. Pierre, Pierre, all thy aspect speaks eloquently of some already executed resolution, born in suddenness. Since I last saw thee, Pierre, some deed irrevocable has been done by thee. My soul is stiff and starched to it; now tell me what it is?"

  "Thou, and I, and Delly Ulver, to-morrow morning depart this whole neighborhood, and go to the distant city.-That is it."

  "No more?"

  "Is it not enough?"

  "There is something more, Pierre."

  "Thou hast not yet answered a question I put to thee but just now. Bethink thee, Isabel. The deceiving of others by thee and me, in a thing wholly pertaining to ourselves, for their and our united good. Wouldst thou?"

  "I would do any thing that does not tend to the marring of thy best lasting fortunes, Pierre. What is it thou wouldst have thee and me to do together? I wait; I wait!"

  "Let us go into the room of the double casement, my sister," said Pierre, rising.

  "Nay, then; if it can not be said here, then can I not do it anywhere, my brother; for it would harm thee."

  "Girl!" cried Pierre, sternly, "if for thee I have lost"-but he checked himself.

  "Lost? for me? Now does the very worst blacken on me. Pierre! Pierre!"

  "I was foolish, and sought but to frighten thee, my sister. It was very foolish. Do thou now go on with thine innocent work here, and I will come again a' few hours hence. Let me go now."

  He was turning from her, when Isabel sprang forward to him, caught him with both her arms round him, and held him so convulsively, that her hair sideways swept over him, and half concealed him.

  "Pierre, if indeed my soul hath cast on thee the same black shadow that my hair now flings on thee; if thou hast lost aught for me; then eternally is Isabel lost to Isabel, and Isabel will not outlive this night. If I am indeed an accursing thing, I will not act the given part, but cheat the air, and die from it. See; I let thee go, lest some poison I know not of distill upon thee from me."

  She slowly drooped, and trembled from him. But Pierre caught her, and supported her.

  "Foolish, foolish one. Behold, in the very bodily act of loosing hold of me, thou dost reel and fall;-unanswerable emblem of the indispensable heart-stay, I am to thee, my sweet, sweet Isabel! Prate not then of parting."

  "What hast thou lost for me? Tell me!"

  "A gainful loss, my sister!"

  " Tis mere rhetoric! What hast thou lost?"

  "Nothing that my inmost heart would now recall. I have bought inner love and glory by a price, which, large or small, I would not now have paid me back, so I must return the thing I bought."

  "Is love then cold, and glory white? Thy cheek is snowy, Pierre."

  "It should be, for I believe to God that I am pure, let the world think how it may."

  "What hast thou lost?"

  "Not thee, nor the pride and glory of
ever loving thee, and being a continual brother to thee, my best sister. Nay, why dost thou now turn thy face from me?"

  "With fine words he wheedles me, and coaxes me, not to know some secret thing. Go, go, Pierre, come to me when thou wilt. I am steeled now to the worst, and to the last. Again I tell thee, I will do any thing-yes, any thing that Pierre commands-for, though outer ill do lower upon us, still, deep within, thou wilt be careful, very careful with me, Pierre?"

  "Thou art made of that fine, unshared stuff of which God makes his seraphim. But thy divine devotedness to me, is met by mine to thee. Well mayest thou trust me, Isabel; and whatever strangest thing I may yet propose to thee, thy confidence, — will it not bear me out? Surely thou wilt not hesitate to plunge, when I plunge first;-already have I plunged! now thou canst not stay upon the bank. Hearken, hearken to me.-I seek not now to gain thy prior assent to a thing as yet undone; but I call to thee now, Isabel, from the depth of a foregone act, to ratify it, backward, by thy consent. Look not so hard upon me. Listen. I will tell all. Isabel, though thou art all tearfulness to injure any living thing, least of all, thy brother; still thy true heart foreknoweth not the myriad alliances and criss-crossings among mankind, the infinite entanglements of all social things, which forbids that one thread should fly the general fabric, on some new line of duty, without tearing itself and tearing others. Listen. All that has happened up to this moment, and all that may be yet to happen, some sudden inspiration now assures me, inevitably proceeded from the first hour I saw thee. Not possibly could it, or can it, be otherwise. Therefore feel I, that I have some patience. Listen. Whatever outer things might possibly be mine; whatever seeming brightest blessings; yet now to live uncomforting and unloving to thee, Isabel; now to dwell domestically away from thee; so that only by stealth, and base connivances of the night, I could come to thee as thy related brother; this would be, and is, unutterably impossible. In my bosom a secret adder of self-reproach and self-infamy would never leave off its sting. Listen. But without gratuitous dishonor to a memory which-for right cause or wrong-is ever sacred and inviolate to me, I can not be an open brother to thee, Isabel. But thou wantest not the openness; for thou dost not pine for empty nominalness, but for vital realness; what thou wantest, is not the occasional openness of my brotherly love; but its continual domestic confidence. Do I not speak thine own hidden heart to thee? say, Isabel? Well, then, still listen to me. One only way presents to this; a most strange way, Isabel; to the world, that never throbbed for thee in love, a most deceitful way; but to all a harmless way; so harmless in its essence, Isabel, that, seems to me, Pierre hath consulted heaven itself upon it, and heaven itself did not say Nay. Still, listen to me; mark me. As thou knowest that thou wouldst now droop and die without me; so would I without thee. We are equal there; mark that, too, Isabel. I do not stoop to thee, nor thou to me; but we both reach up alike to a glorious ideal! Now the continualness, the secretness, yet the always present domesticness of our love; how may we best compass that, without jeopardizing the ever-sacred memory I hinted of? One way-one way — only one! A strange way, but most pure. Listen. Brace thyself: here, let me hold thee now; and then whisper 5 to thee, Isabel. Come, I holding thee, thou canst not fall."

  He held her tremblingly; she bent over him toward him; his mouth wet her ear; he whispered it.

  Then they changed; they coiled together, and entangledly stood mute.

  II

  Mrs. Glendinning walked her chamber; her dress loosened.

  "That such accursed vileness should proceed from me! Now will the tongued world say-See the vile boy of Mary Glen-dinning! — Deceitful! thick with guilt, where I thought it was all guilelessness and gentlest docility to me. It has not happened! It is not day! Were this thing so, I should go mad, and be shut up, and not Walk here where every door is open to me.-My own only son married to an unknown-thing! My own only son, false to his holiest plighted public vow-and the wide world knowing to it! He bears my name-Glendinning. I will disown it; were it like this dress, I would tear my name off from me, and burn it till it shriveled to a crisp! — Pierre! Pierre! come back, come back, and swear it is not so! It can not be! Wait: I will ring the bell, and see if it be so."

  She rung the bell with violence, and soon heard a responsive knock.

  "Come in! — Nay, falter not;" (throwing a shawl over her) "come in. Stand there and tell me if thou darest, that my son was in this house this morning and met me on the stairs. Darest thou say that?"

  Dates looked confounded at her most unwonted aspect.

  "Say it! find thy tongue! Or I will root mine out and fling it at thee! Say it!"

  "My dear mistress!"

  "I am not thy mistress! but thou my master; for, if thou sayest it, thou commandest me to madness.-Oh, vile boy! — Begone from me!"

  She locked the door upon him, and swiftly and distractedly walked her chamber. She paused, and tossing down the curtains, shut out the sun from the two windows.

  Another, but an unsummoned knock, was at the door. She opened it.

  "My mistress, his Reverence is below. I would not call you, but he insisted."

  "Let him come up."

  "Here? Immediately?"

  "Didst thou hear me? Let Mr. Palsgrave come up."

  As if suddenly and admonishingly made aware, by Dates, of the ungovernable mood of Mrs. Glendinning, the clergyman entered the open door of her chamber with a most deprecating but honest reluctance, and apprehensiveness of he knew not what.

  "Be seated, sir; stay, shut the door and lock it."

  "Madam!"

  "I will do it. Be seated. Hast thou seen him?"

  "Whom, Madam? — Master Pierre?"

  "Him! — quick!"

  "It was to speak of him I came, Madam. He made a most extraordinary call upon me last night-midnight."

  "And thou marriedst him? — Damn thee!"

  "Nay, nay, nay, Madam; there is something here I know not of-I came to tell thee news, but thou hast some o'er-whelming tidings to reveal to me."

  "I beg no pardons; but I may be sorry. Mr. Palsgrave, my son, standing publicly plighted to Lucy Tartan, has privately wedded some other girl-some slut!"

  "Impossible!"

  "True as thou art there. Thou knowest nothing of it then?"

  "Nothing, nothing-not one grain till now. Who is it he has wedded?"

  "Some slut, I tell thee! I am no lady now, but something deeper, — a woman! — an outraged and pride-poisoned woman!"

  She turned from him swiftly, and again paced the room, as frantic and entirely regardless of any presence. Waiting for her to pause, but in vain, Mr. Palsgrave advanced toward her cautiously, and with the profoundest deference, which was almost a cringing, spoke:-

  "It is the hour of woe to thee; and I confess my cloth hath no consolation for thee yet awhile. Permit me to withdraw from thee, leaving my best prayers for thee, that thou mayst know some peace, ere this now shut-out sun goes down. Send for me whenever thou desirest me.-May I go now?"

  "Begone! and let me not hear thy soft, mincing voice, which is an infamy to a man! Begone, thou helpless, and unhelping one!"

  She swiftly paced the room again, swiftly muttering to herself. "Now, now, now, now I see it clearer, clearer-clear now as day! My first dim suspicions pointed right! — too right! Ay — the sewing! it was the sewing! — The shriek! — I saw him gazing rooted at her. He would not speak going home with me. I charged him with his silence; he put me off with lies, lies, lies! Ay, ay, he is married to her, to her;-to her! — perhaps was then. And yet, — and yet, — how can it be? — Lucy, Lucy-I saw him, after that, look on her as if he would be glad to die for her, and go to hell for her, whither he deserves to go! — Oh! oh! oh! Thus ruthlessly to cut off, at one gross sensual dash, the fair succession of an honorable race! Mixing the choicest wine with filthy water from the plebeian pool, and so turning all to undistinguishable rankness! — Oh viper! had I thee now in me, I would be a suicide and a murderer with one blow!"

  A third
knock was at the door. She opened it.

  "My mistress, I thought it would disturb you, — it is so just overhead, — so I have not removed them yet."

  "Unravel thy gibberish! — what is it?"

  "Pardon, my mistress, I somehow thought you knew it, but you can not."

  "What is that writing crumpling in thy hand? Give it me."

  "I have promised my young master not to, my mistress."

  "I will snatch it, then, and so leave thee blameless.- What? what? what? — He's mad sure! — 'Fine old fellow Dates'-what? what? — mad and merry! — chest? — clothes? — trunks? — he wants them? — Tumble them out of his window! — and if he stand right beneath, tumble them out! Dismantle that whole room. Tear up the carpet. I swear, he shall leave no smallest vestige in this house.-Here! this very spot-here, here, where I stand, he may have stood upon;-yes, he tied my shoe-string here; it's slippery! Dates!"

  "My mistress."

  "Do his bidding. By reflection he has made me infamous to the world; and I will make him infamous to it. Listen, and do not delude thyself that I am crazy. Go up to yonder room" (pointing upward), "and remove every article in it, and where he bid thee set down the chest and trunks, there set down all the contents of that room."

  " 'Twas before the house-this house!"

  "And if it had not been there, I would not order thee to put them there. Dunce! I would have the world know that I disown and scorn him! Do my bidding! — Stay. Let the room stand; but take him what he asks for."

  "I will, my mistress."

  As Dates left the chamber, Mrs. Glendinning again paced it swiftly, and again swiftly muttered: "Now, if I were less a strong and haughty woman, the fit would have gone by ere now. But deep volcanoes long burn, ere they burn out.-Oh, that the world were made of such malleable stuff, that we could recklessly do our fieriest heart's-wish before it, and not falter. Accursed be those four syllables of sound which make up that vile word Propriety. It is a chain and ball to drag;- drag? what sound is that? there's dragging-his trunks-the traveler's-dragging out. Oh would I could so drag my heart, as fishers for the drowned do, as that I might drag up my sunken happiness! Boy! boy! worse than brought in dripping drowned to me, — drowned in icy infamy! Oh! oh! oh!"