The Blithedale Romance
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Nathaniel Hawthorne >> The Blithedale Romance
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Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk of a
tree, gazing earnestly towards a particular window of the farmhouse; and
by and by Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing along
Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was blazing down upon
us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced towards her noon. I was
convinced that this pretty sight must have been purposely arranged by
Priscilla for the old man to see. But either the girl held her too long,
or her fondness was resented as too great a freedom; for Zenobia suddenly
put Priscilla decidedly away, and gave her a haughty look, as from a
mistress to a dependant. Old Moodie shook his head; and again and again
I saw him shake it, as he withdrew along the road; and at the last point
whence the farmhouse was visible, he turned and shook his uplifted staff.
XI. THE WOOD-PATH
Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of too
constant labor out of my bones, and to relieve my spirit of the
irksomeness of a settled routine, I took a holiday. It was my purpose to
spend it all alone, from breakfast-time till twilight, in the deepest
wood-seclusion that lay anywhere around us. Though fond of society, I
was so constituted as to need these occasional retirements, even in a
life like that of Blithedale, which was itself characterized by a
remoteness from the world. Unless renewed by a yet further withdrawal
towards the inner circle of self-communion, I lost the better part of my
individuality. My thoughts became of little worth, and my sensibilities
grew as arid as a tuft of moss (a thing whose life is in the shade, the
rain, or the noontide dew), crumbling in the sunshine after long
expectance of a shower. So, with my heart full of a drowsy pleasure, and
cautious not to dissipate my mood by previous intercourse with any one, I
hurried away, and was soon pacing a wood-path, arched overhead with
boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet.
At first I walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood tide of social life
were roaring at my heels, and would outstrip and overwhelm me, without
all the better diligence in my escape. But, threading the more distant
windings of the track, I abated my pace, and looked about me for some
side-aisle, that should admit me into the innermost sanctuary of this
green cathedral, just as, in human acquaintanceship, a casual opening
sometimes lets us, all of a sudden, into the long-sought intimacy of a
mysterious heart. So much was I absorbed in my reflections,--or, rather,
in my mood, the substance of which was as yet too shapeless to be called
thought,--that footsteps rustled on the leaves, and a figure passed me by,
almost without impressing either the sound or sight upon my
consciousness.
A moment afterwards, I heard a voice at a little distance behind me,
speaking so sharply and impertinently that it made a complete discord
with my spiritual state, and caused the latter to vanish as abruptly as
when you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble.
"Halloo, friend!" cried this most unseasonable voice. "Stop a moment, I
say! I must have a word with you!"
I turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate. In the first place, the
interruption, at any rate, was a grievous injury; then, the tone
displeased me. And finally, unless there be real affection in his heart,
a man cannot,--such is the bad state to which the world has brought
itself,---cannot more effectually show his contempt for a brother mortal,
nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, than by addressing
him as "friend." Especially does the misapplication of this phrase bring
out that latent hostility which is sure to animate peculiar sects, and
those who, with however generous a purpose, have sequestered themselves
from the crowd; a feeling, it is true, which may be hidden in some
dog-kennel of the heart, grumbling there in the darkness, but is never
quite extinct, until the dissenting party have gained power and scope
enough to treat the world generously. For my part, I should have taken
it as far less an insult to be styled" fellow," "clown," or "bumpkin." To
either of these appellations my rustic garb (it was a linen blouse, with
checked shirt and striped pantaloons, a chip hat on my head, and a rough
hickory stick in my hand) very fairly entitled me. As the case stood, my
temper darted at once to the opposite pole; not friend, but enemy!
"What do you want with me?" said I, facing about.
"Come a little nearer, friend," said the stranger, beckoning.
"No," answered I. "If I can do anything for you without too much trouble
to myself, say so. But recollect, if you please, that you are not
speaking to an acquaintance, much less a friend!"
"Upon my word, I believe not!" retorted he, looking at me with some
curiosity; and, lifting his hat, he made me a salute which had enough of
sarcasm to be offensive, and just enough of doubtful courtesy to render
any resentment of it absurd. "But I ask your pardon! I recognize a
little mistake. If I may take the liberty to suppose it, you, sir, are
probably one of the aesthetic--or shall I rather say ecstatic?--laborers,
who have planted themselves hereabouts. This is your forest of Arden;
and you are either the banished Duke in person, or one of the chief
nobles in his train. The melancholy Jacques, perhaps? Be it so. In that
case, you can probably do me a favor."
I never, in my life, felt less inclined to confer a favor on any man.
"I am busy," said I.
So unexpectedly had the stranger made me sensible of his presence, that
he had almost the effect of an apparition; and certainly a less
appropriate one (taking into view the dim woodland solitude about us)
than if the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with a leafy
girdle, had started out of a thicket. He was still young, seemingly a
little under thirty, of a tall and well-developed figure, and as handsome
a man as ever I beheld. The style of his beauty, however, though a
masculine style, did not at all commend itself to my taste. His
countenance--I hardly know how to describe the peculiarity--had an
indecorum in it, a kind of rudeness, a hard, coarse, forth-putting
freedom of expression, which no degree of external polish could have
abated one single jot. Not that it was vulgar. But he had no fineness
of nature; there was in his eyes (although they might have artifice
enough of another sort) the naked exposure of something that ought not to
be left prominent. With these vague allusions to what I have seen in
other faces as well as his, I leave the quality to be comprehended
best--because with an intuitive repugnance--by those who possess least of
it.
His hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was coal-black; his eyes,
too, were black and sparkling, and his teeth remarkably brilliant. He was
rather carelessly but well and fashionably dressed, in a summer-morning
costume. There was a gold chain, exquisitely wrought, across his vest. I
never saw a smoother or whiter gloss than that upon his shirt-bosom,
which had a pin in it, set with a gem that glimmered, in the leafy shadow
where he stood, like a living tip of fire. He carried a stick with a
wooden head, carved in vivid imitation of that of a serpent. I hated him,
partly, I do believe, from a comparison of my own homely garb with his
well-ordered foppishness.
"Well, sir," said I, a little ashamed of my first irritation, but still
with no waste of civility, "be pleased to speak at once, as I have my own
business in hand."
"I regret that my mode of addressing you was a little unfortunate," said
the stranger, smiling; for he seemed a very acute sort of person, and saw,
in some degree, how I stood affected towards him. "I intended no
offence, and shall certainly comport myself with due ceremony hereafter.
I merely wish to make a few inquiries respecting a lady, formerly of my
acquaintance, who is now resident in your Community, and, I believe,
largely concerned in your social enterprise. You call her, I think,
Zenobia."
"That is her name in literature," observed I; "a name, too, which
possibly she may permit her private friends to know and address her by,
--but not one which they feel at liberty to recognize when used of her
personally by a stranger or casual acquaintance."
"Indeed!" answered this disagreeable person; and he turned aside his
face for an instant with a brief laugh, which struck me as a noteworthy
expression of his character. "Perhaps I might put forward a claim, on
your own grounds, to call the lady by a name so appropriate to her
splendid qualities. But I am willing to know her by any cognomen that
you may suggest."
Heartily wishing that he would be either a little more offensive, or a
good deal less so, or break off our intercourse altogether, I mentioned
Zenobia's real name.
"True," said he; "and in general society I have never heard her called
otherwise. And, after all, our discussion of the point has been
gratuitous. My object is only to inquire when, where, and how this lady
may most conveniently be seen."
"At her present residence, of course," I replied. "You have but to go
thither and ask for her. This very path will lead you within sight of
the house; so I wish you good-morning."
"One moment, if you please," said the stranger. "The course you indicate
would certainly be the proper one, in an ordinary morning call. But my
business is private, personal, and somewhat peculiar. Now, in a
community like this, I should judge that any little occurrence is likely
to be discussed rather more minutely than would quite suit my views. I
refer solely to myself, you understand, and without intimating that it
would be other than a matter of entire indifference to the lady. In
short, I especially desire to see her in private. If her habits are such
as I have known them, she is probably often to be met with in the woods,
or by the river-side; and I think you could do me the favor to point out
some favorite walk, where, about this hour, I might be fortunate enough
to gain an interview."
I reflected that it would be quite a supererogatory piece of Quixotism in
me to undertake the guardianship of Zenobia, who, for my pains, would
only make me the butt of endless ridicule, should the fact ever come to
her knowledge. I therefore described a spot which, as often as any other,
was Zenobia's resort at this period of the day; nor was it so remote
from the farmhouse as to leave her in much peril, whatever might be the
stranger's character.
"A single word more," said he; and his black eyes sparkled at me, whether
with fun or malice I knew not, but certainly as if the Devil were peeping
out of them. "Among your fraternity, I understand, there is a certain
holy and benevolent blacksmith; a man of iron, in more senses than one; a
rough, cross-grained, wellmeaning individual, rather boorish in his
manners, as might be expected, and by no means of the highest
intellectual cultivation. He is a philanthropical lecturer, with two or
three disciples, and a scheme of his own, the preliminary step in which
involves a large purchase of land, and the erection of a spacious edifice,
at an expense considerably beyond his means; inasmuch as these are to be
reckoned in copper or old iron much more conveniently than in gold or
silver. He hammers away upon his one topic as lustily as ever he did
upon a horseshoe! Do you know such a person?" I shook my head, and was
turning away. "Our friend," he continued, "is described to me as a brawny,
shaggy, grim, and ill-favored personage, not particularly well
calculated, one would say, to insinuate himself with the softer sex. Yet,
so far has this honest fellow succeeded with one lady whom we wot of,
that he anticipates, from her abundant resources, the necessary funds for
realizing his plan in brick and mortar!"
Here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with his sketch of
Hollingsworth's character and purposes, that he burst into a fit of
merriment, of the same nature as the brief, metallic laugh already
alluded to, but immensely prolonged and enlarged. In the excess of his
delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disclosed a gold band around the
upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that every one of his
brilliant grinders and incisors was a sham. This discovery affected me
very oddly.
I felt as if the whole man were a moral and physical humbug; his
wonderful beauty of face, for aught I knew, might be removable like a
mask; and, tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but a
wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing genuine about him
save the wicked expression of his grin. The fantasy of his spectral
character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his strange
mirth on my sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly as himself.
By and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own
cachinnation lasted a moment longer.
"Ah, excuse me!" said he. "Our interview seems to proceed more merrily
than it began."
"It ends here," answered I. "And I take shame to myself that my folly
has lost me the right of resenting your ridicule of a friend."
"Pray allow me," said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and laying
his gloved hand on my sleeve. "One other favor I must ask of you. You
have a young person here at Blithedale, of whom I have heard,--whom,
perhaps, I have known,--and in whom, at all events, I take a peculiar
interest. She is one of those delicate, nervous young creatures, not
uncommon in New England, and whom I suppose to have become what we find
them by the gradual refining away of the physical system among your women.
Some philosophers choose to glorify this habit of body by terming it
spiritual; but, in my opinion, it is rather the effect of unwholesome
food, bad air, lack of outdoor exercise, and neglect of bathing, on the
part of these damsels and their female progenitors, all resulting in a
kind of hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, even with her uncomfortable
surplus of vitality, is far the better model of womanhood. But--to
revert again to this young person--she goes among you by the name of
Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me the means of speaking with her?"
"You have made so many inquiries of me," I observed, "that I may at least
trouble you with one. What is your name?"
He offered me a card, with "Professor Westervelt" engraved on it. At the
same time, as if to vindicate his claim to the professorial dignity, so
often assumed on very questionable grounds, he put on a pair of
spectacles, which so altered the character of his face that I hardly knew
him again. But I liked the present aspect no better than the former one.
"I must decline any further connection with your affairs," said I,
drawing back. "I have told you where to find Zenobia. As for Priscilla,
she has closer friends than myself, through whom, if they see fit, you
can gain access to her."
"In that case," returned the Professor, ceremoniously raising his hat,
"good-morning to you."
He took his departure, and was soon out of sight among the windings of
the wood-path. But after a little reflection, I could not help regretting
that I had so peremptorily broken off the interview, while the stranger
seemed inclined to continue it. His evident knowledge of matters
affecting my three friends might have led to disclosures or inferences
that would perhaps have been serviceable. I was particularly struck with
the fact that, ever since the appearance of Priscilla, it had been the
tendency of events to suggest and establish a connection between Zenobia
and her. She had come, in the first instance, as if with the sole
purpose of claiming Zenobia's protection. Old Moodie's visit, it
appeared, was chiefly to ascertain whether this object had been
accomplished. And here, to-day, was the questionable Professor, linking
one with the other in his inquiries, and seeking communication with both.
Meanwhile, my inclination for a ramble having been balked, I lingered in
the vicinity of the farm, with perhaps a vague idea that some new event
would grow out of Westervelt's proposed interview with Zenobia. My own
part in these transactions was singularly subordinate. It resembled that
of the Chorus in a classic play, which seems to be set aloof from the
possibility of personal concernment, and bestows the whole measure of its
hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the fortunes of others,
between whom and itself this sympathy is the only bond. Destiny, it may
be,---the most skilful of stage managers,--seldom chooses to arrange its
scenes, and carry forward its drama, without securing the presence of at
least one calm observer. It is his office to give applause when due, and
sometimes an inevitable tear, to detect the final fitness of incident to
character, and distil in his long-brooding thought the whole morality of
the performance.
Not to be out of the way in case there were need of me in my vocation,
and, at the same time, to avoid thrusting myself where neither destiny
nor mortals might desire my presence, I remained pretty near the verge of
the woodlands. My position was off the track of Zenobia's customary walk,
yet not so remote but that a recognized occasion might speedily have
brought me thither.
XII. COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE
Long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, I had found out for
myself a little hermitage. It was a kind of leafy cave, high upward into
the air, among the midmost branches of a white-pine tree. A wild
grapevine, of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and twisted itself
up into the tree, and, after wreathing the entanglement of its tendrils
around almost every bough, had caught hold of three or four neighboring
trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable knot of
polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself from a summer shower, the fancy
had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly impervious mass of foliage.
The branches yielded me a passage, and closed again beneath, as if only
a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far aloft, around the stem of the
central pine, behold a perfect nest for Robinson Crusoe or King Charles!
A hollow chamber of rare seclusion had been formed by the decay of some
of the pine branches, which the vine had lovingly strangled with its
embrace, burying them from the light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its
own leaves. It cost me but little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and
open loopholes through the verdant walls. Had it ever been my fortune to
spend a honeymoon, I should have thought seriously of inviting my bride
up thither, where our next neighbors would have been two orioles in
another part of the clump.
It was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the rhythm to the breezy
symphony that so often stirred among the vine leaves; or to meditate an
essay for "The Dial," in which the many tongues of Nature whispered
mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff of wind to speak
out the solution of its riddle. Being so pervious to air-currents, it
was just the nook, too, for the enjoyment of a cigar. This hermitage was
my one exclusive possession while I counted myself a brother of the
socialists. It symbolized my individuality, and aided me in keeping it
inviolate. None ever found me out in it, except, once, a squirrel. I
brought thither no guest, because, after Hollingsworth failed me, there
was no longer the man alive with whom I could think of sharing all. So
there I used to sit, owl-like, yet not without liberal and hospitable
thoughts. I counted the innumerable clusters of my vine, and
fore-reckoned the abundance of my vintage. It gladdened me to anticipate
the surprise of the Community, when, like an allegorical figure of rich
October, I should make my appearance, with shoulders bent beneath the
burden of ripe grapes, and some of the crushed ones crimsoning my brow as
with, a bloodstain.
Ascending into this natural turret, I peeped in turn out of several of
its small windows. The pine-tree, being ancient, rose high above the rest
of the wood, which was of comparatively recent growth. Even where I sat,
about midway between the root and the topmost bough, my position was
lofty enough to serve as an observatory, not for starry investigations,
but for those sublunary matters in which lay a lore as infinite as that
of the planets. Through one loophole I saw the river lapsing calmly
onward, while in the meadow, near its brink, a few of the brethren were
digging peat for our winter's fuel. On the interior cart-road of our
farm I discerned Hollingsworth, with a yoke of oxen hitched to a drag of
stones, that were to be piled into a fence, on which we employed
ourselves at the odd intervals of other labor. The harsh tones of his
voice, shouting to the sluggish steers, made me sensible, even at such a
distance, that he was ill at ease, and that the balked philanthropist had
the battle-spirit in his heart.
"Haw, Buck!" quoth he. "Come along there, ye lazy ones! What are ye
about, now? Gee!"
"Mankind, in Hollingsworth's opinion," thought I, "is but another yoke of
oxen, as stubborn, stupid, and sluggish as our old Brown and Bright. He
vituperates us aloud, and curses us in his heart, and will begin to prick
us with the goad-stick, by and by. But are we his oxen? And what right
has he to be the driver? And why, when there is enough else to do,
should we waste our strength in dragging home the ponderous load of his
philanthropic absurdities? At my height above the earth, the whole
matter looks ridiculous!"
Turning towards the farmhouse, I saw Priscilla (for, though a great way
off, the eye of faith assured me that it was she) sitting at Zenobia's
window, and making little purses, I suppose; or, perhaps, mending the
Community's old linen. A bird flew past my tree; and, as it clove its way
onward into the sunny atmosphere, I flung it a message for Priscilla.
"Tell her," said I, "that her fragile thread of life has inextricably
knotted itself with other and tougher threads, and most likely it will be
broken. Tell her that Zenobia will not be long her friend. Say that
Hollingsworth's heart is on fire with his own purpose, but icy for all
human affection; and that, if she has given him her love, it is like
casting a flower into a sepulchre. And say that if any mortal really
cares for her, it is myself; and not even I for her realities,--poor
little seamstress, as Zenobia rightly called her!--but for the fancy-work
with which I have idly decked her out!"
The pleasant scent of the wood, evolved by the hot sun, stole up to my
nostrils, as if I had been an idol in its niche. Many trees mingled
their fragrance into a thousand-fold odor. Possibly there was a sensual
influence in the broad light of noon that lay beneath me. It may have
been the cause, in part, that I suddenly found myself possessed by a mood
of disbelief in moral beauty or heroism, and a conviction of the folly of
attempting to benefit the world. Our especial scheme of reform, which,
from my observatory, I could take in with the bodily eye, looked so
ridiculous that it was impossible not to laugh aloud.
"But the joke is a little too heavy," thought I. "If I were wise, I
should get out of the scrape with all diligence, and then laugh at my
companions for remaining in it."
While thus musing, I heard with perfect distinctness, somewhere in the
wood beneath, the peculiar laugh which I have described as one of the
disagreeable characteristics of Professor Westervelt. It brought my
thoughts back to our recent interview. I recognized as chiefly due to
this man's influence the sceptical and sneering view which just now had
filled my mental vision in regard to all life's better purposes. And it
was through his eyes, more than my own, that I was looking at
Hollingsworth, with his glorious if impracticable dream, and at the noble
earthliness of Zenobia's character, and even at Priscilla, whose
impalpable grace lay so singularly between disease and beauty. The
essential charm of each had vanished. There are some spheres the contact
with which inevitably degrades the high, debases the pure, deforms the
beautiful. It must be a mind of uncommon strength, and little
impressibility, that can permit itself the habit of such intercourse, and
not be permanently deteriorated; and yet the Professor's tone represented
that of worldly society at large, where a cold scepticism smothers what
it can of our spiritual aspirations, and makes the rest ridiculous. I
detested this kind of man; and all the more because a part of my own
nature showed itself responsive to him.
Voices were now approaching through the region of the wood which lay in
the vicinity of my tree. Soon I caught glimpses of two figures
--a woman and a man--Zenobia and the stranger--earnestly talking together
as they advanced.
Zenobia had a rich though varying color. It was, most of the while, a
flame, and anon a sudden paleness. Her eyes glowed, so that their light
sometimes flashed upward to me, as when the sun throws a dazzle from some
bright object on the ground. Her gestures were free, and strikingly
impressive. The whole woman was alive with a passionate intensity, which
I now perceived to be the phase in which her beauty culminated. Any
passion would have become her well; and passionate love, perhaps, the
best of all. This was not love, but anger, largely intermixed with scorn.
Yet the idea strangely forced itself upon me, that there was a sort of
familiarity between these two companions, necessarily the result of an
intimate love,--on Zenobia's part, at least,--in days gone by, but which
had prolonged itself into as intimate a hatred, for all futurity. As
they passed among the trees, reckless as her movement was, she took good
heed that even the hem of her garment should not brush against the
stranger's person. I wondered whether there had always been a chasm,
guarded so religiously, betwixt these two.
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