The Blithedale Romance
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Nathaniel Hawthorne >> The Blithedale Romance
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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 commonsense 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.
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