The Blithedale Romance
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Nathaniel Hawthorne >> The Blithedale Romance
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As for Westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed by Zenobia's passion
than a salamander by the heat of its native furnace. He would have been
absolutely statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity, tinctured
strongly with derision. It was a crisis in which his intellectual
perceptions could not altogether help him out. He failed to comprehend,
and cared but little for comprehending, why Zenobia should put herself
into such a fume; but satisfied his mind that it was all folly, and only
another shape of a woman's manifold absurdity, which men can never
understand. How many a woman's evil fate has yoked her with a man like
this! Nature thrusts some of us into the world miserably incomplete on
the emotional side, with hardly any sensibilities except what pertain to
us as animals. No passion, save of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor
the delicacy that results from this. Externally they bear a close
resemblance to other men, and have perhaps all save the finest grace; but
when a woman wrecks herself on such a being, she ultimately finds that
the real womanhood within her has no corresponding part in him. Her
deepest voice lacks a response; the deeper her cry, the more dead his
silence. The fault may be none of his; he cannot give her what never
lived within his soul. But the wretchedness on her side, and the moral
deterioration attendant on a false and shallow life, without strength
enough to keep itself sweet, are among the most pitiable wrongs that
mortals suffer.
Now, as I looked down from my upper region at this man and woman,
--outwardly so fair a sight, and wandering like two lovers in the wood,
--I imagined that Zenobia, at an earlier period of youth, might have
fallen into the misfortune above indicated. And when her passionate
womanhood, as was inevitable, had discovered its mistake, here had ensued
the character of eccentricity and defiance which distinguished the more
public portion of her life.
Seeing how aptly matters had chanced thus far, I began to think it the
design of fate to let me into all Zenobia's secrets, and that therefore
the couple would sit down beneath my tree, and carry on a conversation
Which would leave me nothing to inquire. No doubt, however, had it so
happened, I should have deemed myself honorably bound to warn them of a
listener's presence by flinging down a handful of unripe grapes, or by
sending an unearthly groan out of my hiding-place, as if this were one of
the trees of Dante's ghostly forest. But real life never arranges itself
exactly like a romance. In the first place, they did not sit down at all.
Secondly, even while they passed beneath the tree, Zenobia's utterance
was so hasty and broken, and Westervelt's so cool and low, that I hardly
could make out an intelligible sentence on either side. What I seem to
remember, I yet suspect, may have been patched together by my fancy, in
brooding over the matter afterwards.
"Why not fling the girl off," said Westervelt, "and let her go?"
"She clung to me from the first," replied Zenobia. "I neither know nor
care what it is in me that so attaches her. But she loves me, and I will
not fail her."
"She will plague you, then," said he, "in more ways than one."
"The poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia. "She can do me neither good nor
harm. How should she?"
I know not what reply Westervelt whispered; nor did Zenobia's subsequent
exclamation give me any clew, except that it evidently inspired her with
horror and disgust.
"With what kind of a being am I linked?" cried she. "If my Creator cares
aught for my soul, let him release me from this miserable bond!"
"I did not think it weighed so heavily," said her companion..
"Nevertheless," answered Zenobia, "it will strangle me at last!"
And then I heard her utter a helpless sort of moan; a sound which,
struggling out of the heart of a person of her pride and strength,
affected me more than if she had made the wood dolorously vocal with a
thousand shrieks and wails.
Other mysterious words, besides what are above written, they spoke
together; but I understood no more, and even question whether I fairly
understood so much as this. By long brooding over our recollections, we
subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, and hardly capable
of being distinguished from it. In a few moments they were completely
beyond ear-shot. A breeze stirred after them, and awoke the leafy
tongues of the surrounding trees, which forthwith began to babble, as if
innumerable gossips had all at once got wind of Zenobia's secret. But,
as the breeze grew stronger, its voice among the branches was as if it
said, "Hush! Hush!" and I resolved that to no mortal would I disclose
what I had heard. And, though there might be room for casuistry, such, I
conceive, is the most equitable rule in all similar conjunctures.
XIII. ZENOBIA'S LEGEND
The illustrious Society of Blithedale, though it toiled in downright
earnest for the good of mankind, yet not unfrequently illuminated its
laborious life with an afternoon or evening of pastime. Picnics under
the trees were considerably in vogue; and, within doors, fragmentary bits
of theatrical performance, such as single acts of tragedy or comedy, or
dramatic proverbs and charades. Zenobia, besides, was fond of giving us
readings from Shakespeare, and often with a depth of tragic power, or
breadth of comic effect, that made one feel it an intolerable wrong to
the world that she did not at once go upon the stage. Tableaux vivants
were another of our occasional modes of amusement, in which scarlet
shawls, old silken robes, ruffs, velvets, furs, and all kinds of
miscellaneous trumpery converted our familiar companions into the people
of a pictorial world. We had been thus engaged on the evening after the
incident narrated in the last chapter. Several splendid works of
art---either arranged after engravings from the old masters, or original
illustrations of scenes in history or romance--had been presented, and we
were earnestly entreating Zenobia for more.
She stood with a meditative air, holding a large piece of gauze, or some
such ethereal stuff, as if considering what picture should next occupy
the frame; while at her feet lay a heap of many-colored garments, which
her quick fancy and magic skill could so easily convert into gorgeous
draperies for heroes and princesses.
"I am getting weary of this," said she, after a moment's thought. "Our
own features, and our own figures and airs, show a little too intrusively
through all the characters we assume. We have so much familiarity with
one another's realities, that we cannot remove ourselves, at pleasure,
into an imaginary sphere. Let us have no more pictures to-night; but, to
make you what poor amends I can, how would you like to have me trump up a
wild, spectral legend, on the spur of the moment?"
Zenobia had the gift of telling a fanciful little story, off-hand, in a
way that made it greatly more effective than it was usually found to be
when she afterwards elaborated the same production with her pen. Her
proposal, therefore, was greeted with acclamation.
"Oh, a story, a story, by all means!" cried the young girls. "No matter
how marvellous; we will believe it, every word. And let it be a ghost
story, if you please."
"No, not exactly a ghost story," answered Zenobia; "but something so
nearly like it that you shall hardly tell the difference. And, Priscilla,
stand you before me, where I may look at you, and get my inspiration out
of your eyes. They are very deep and dreamy to-night."
I know not whether the following version of her story will retain any
portion of its pristine character; but, as Zenobia told it wildly and
rapidly, hesitating at no extravagance, and dashing at absurdities which
I am too timorous to repeat,--giving it the varied emphasis of her
inimitable voice, and the pictorial illustration of her mobile face,
while through it all we caught the freshest aroma of the thoughts, as
they came bubbling out of her mind,--thus narrated, and thus heard, the
legend seemed quite a remarkable affair. I scarcely knew, at the time,
whether she intended us to laugh or be more seriously impressed. From
beginning to end, it was undeniable nonsense, but not necessarily the
worse for that.
THE SILVERY VEIL
You have heard, my dear friends, of the Veiled Lady, who grew suddenly so
very famous, a few months ago. And have you never thought how remarkable
it was that this marvellous creature should vanish, all at once, while
her renown was on the increase, before the public had grown weary of her,
and when the enigma of her character, instead of being solved, presented
itself more mystically at every exhibition? Her last appearance, as you
know, was before a crowded audience. The next evening,--although the
bills had announced her, at the corner of every street, in red letters of
a gigantic size,--there was no Veiled Lady to be seen! Now, listen to my
simple little tale, and you shall hear the very latest incident in the
known life--(if life it may be called, which seemed to have no more
reality than the candle-light image of one's self which peeps at us
outside of a dark windowpane)--the life of this shadowy phenomenon.
A party of young gentlemen, you are to understand, were enjoying
themselves, one afternoon,--as young gentlemen are sometimes fond of
doing,--over a bottle or two of champagne; and, among other ladies less
mysterious, the subject of the Veiled Lady, as was very natural, happened
to come up before them for discussion. She rose, as it were, with the
sparkling effervescence of their wine, and appeared in a more airy and
fantastic light on account of the medium through which they saw her.
They repeated to one another, between jest and earnest, all the wild
stories that were in vogue; nor, I presume, did they hesitate to add any
small circumstance that the inventive whim of the moment might suggest,
to heighten the marvellousness of their theme.
"But what an audacious report was that," observed one, "which pretended
to assert the identity of this strange creature with a young lady,"--and
here he mentioned her name,--"the daughter of one of our most
distinguished families!"
"Ah, there is more in that story than can well be accounted for,"
remarked another. "I have it on good authority, that the young lady in
question is invariably out of sight, and not to be traced, even by her
own family, at the hours when the Veiled Lady is before the public; nor
can any satisfactory explanation be given of her disappearance. And just
look at the thing: Her brother is a young fellow of spirit. He cannot
but be aware of these rumors in reference to his sister. Why, then, does
he not come forward to defend her character, unless he is conscious that
an investigation would only make the matter worse?"
It is essential to the purposes of my legend to distinguish one of these
young gentlemen from his companions; so, for the sake of a soft and
pretty name (such as we of the literary sisterhood invariably bestow upon
our heroes), I deem it fit to call him Theodore.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Theodore; "her brother is no such fool! Nobody,
unless his brain be as full of bubbles as this wine, can seriously think
of crediting that ridiculous rumor. Why, if my senses did not play me
false (which never was the case yet), I affirm that I saw that very lady,
last evening, at the exhibition, while this veiled phenomenon was playing
off her juggling tricks! What can you say to that?"
"Oh, it was a spectral illusion that you saw!" replied his friends, with
a general laugh. "The Veiled Lady is quite up to such a thing."
However, as the above-mentioned fable could not hold its ground against
Theodore's downright refutation, they went on to speak of other stories
which the wild babble of the town had set afloat. Some upheld that the
veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the world; others,--and
certainly with more reason, considering the sex of the Veiled Lady,
--that the face was the most hideous and horrible, and that this was her
sole motive for hiding it. It was the face of a corpse; it was the head
of a skeleton; it was a monstrous visage, with snaky locks, like Medusa's,
and one great red eye in the centre of the forehead. Again, it was
affirmed that there was no single and unchangeable set of features
beneath the veil; but that whosoever should be bold enough to lift it
would behold the features of that person, in all the world, who was
destined to be his fate; perhaps he would be greeted by the tender smile
of the woman whom he loved, or, quite as probably, the deadly scowl of
his bitterest enemy would throw a blight over his life. They quoted,
moreover, this startling explanation of the whole affair: that the
magician who exhibited the Veiled Lady--and who, by the bye, was the
handsomest man in the whole world--had bartered his own soul for seven
years' possession of a familiar fiend, and that the last year of the
contract was wearing towards its close.
If it were worth our while, I could keep you till an hour beyond midnight
listening to a thousand such absurdities as these. But finally our
friend Theodore, who prided himself upon his common-sense, found the
matter getting quite beyond his patience.
"I offer any wager you like," cried he, setting down his glass so
forcibly as to break the stem of it, "that this very evening I find out
the mystery of the Veiled Lady!"
Young men, I am told, boggle at nothing over their wine; so, after a
little more talk, a wager of considerable amount was actually laid, the
money staked, and Theodore left to choose his own method of settling the
dispute.
How he managed it I know not, nor is it of any great importance to this
veracious legend. The most natural way, to be sure, was by bribing the
doorkeeper,--or possibly he preferred clambering in at the window. But,
at any rate, that very evening, while the exhibition was going forward in
the hall, Theodore contrived to gain admittance into the private
withdrawing-room whither the Veiled Lady was accustomed to retire at the
close of her performances. There he waited, listening, I suppose, to the
stifled hum of the great audience; and no doubt he could distinguish the
deep tones of the magician, causing the wonders that he wrought to appear
more dark and intricate, by his mystic pretence of an explanation.
Perhaps, too, in the intervals of the wild breezy music which accompanied
the exhibition, he might hear the low voice of the Veiled Lady, conveying
her sibylline responses. Firm as Theodore's nerves might be, and much as
he prided himself on his sturdy perception of realities, I should not be
surprised if his heart throbbed at a little more than its ordinary rate.
Theodore concealed himself behind a screen. In due time the performance
was brought to a close, and whether the door was softly opened, or
whether her bodiless presence came through the wall, is more than I can
say, but, all at once, without the young man's knowing how it happened, a
veiled figure stood in the centre of the room. It was one thing to be in
presence of this mystery in the hall of exhibition, where the warm, dense
life of hundreds of other mortals kept up the beholder's courage, and
distributed her influence among so many; it was another thing to be quite
alone with her, and that, too, with a hostile, or, at least, an
unauthorized and unjustifiable purpose. I father imagine that Theodore
now began robe sensible of something more serious in his enterprise than
he had been quite aware of while he sat with his boon-companions over
their sparkling wine.
Very strange, it must be confessed, was the movement with which the
figure floated to and fro over the carpet, with the silvery veil covering
her from head to foot; so impalpable, so ethereal, so without substance,
as the texture seemed, yet hiding her every outline in an impenetrability
like that of midnight. Surely, she did not walk! She floated, and
flitted, and hovered about the room; no sound of a footstep, no
perceptible motion of a limb; it was as if a wandering breeze wafted her
before it, at its own wild and gentle pleasure. But, by and by, a
purpose began to be discernible, throughout the seeming vagueness of her
unrest. She was in quest of something. Could it be that a subtile
presentiment had informed her of the young man's presence? And if so,
did the Veiled Lady seek or did she shun him? The doubt in Theodore's
mind was speedily resolved; for, after a moment or two of these erratic
flutterings, she advanced more decidedly, and stood motionless before the
screen.
"Thou art here!" said a soft, low voice. "Come forth, Theodore!" Thus
summoned by his name, Theodore, as a man of courage, had no choice. He
emerged from his concealment, and presented himself before the Veiled
Lady, with the wine-flush, it may be, quite gone out of his cheeks.
"What wouldst thou with me?" she inquired, with the same gentle
composure that was in her former utterance.
"Mysterious creature," replied Theodore, "I would know who and what you
are!"
"My lips are forbidden to betray the secret," said the Veiled Lady.
"At whatever risk, I must discover it," rejoined Theodore.
"Then," said the Mystery, "there is no way save to lift my veil."
And Theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept forward on the
instant, to do as the Veiled Lady had suggested. But she floated
backward to the opposite side of the room, as if the young man's breath
had possessed power enough to waft her away.
" Pause, one little instant," said the soft, low voice, "and learn the
conditions of what thou art so bold to undertake? Thou canst go hence,
and think of me no more; or, at thy option, thou canst lift this
mysterious veil, beneath which I am a sad and lonely prisoner, in a
bondage which is worse to me than death. But, before raising it, I
entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend forward and impress a kiss
where my breath stirs the veil; and my virgin lips shall come forward to
meet thy lips; and from that instant, Theodore, thou shalt be mine, and I
thine, with never more a veil between us. And all the felicity of earth
and of the future world shall be thine and mine together. So much may a
maiden say behind the veil. If thou shrinkest from this, there is yet
another way." "And what is that?" asked Theodore. "Dost thou hesitate,"
said the Veiled Lady, "to pledge thyself to me, by meeting these lips of
mine, while the veil yet hides my face? Has not thy heart recognized me?
Dost thou come hither, not in holy faith, nor with a pure and generous
purpose, but in scornful scepticism and idle curiosity? Still, thou
mayest lift the veil! But, from that instant, Theodore, I am doomed to
be thy evil fate; nor wilt thou ever taste another breath of happiness!"
There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of these last
words. But Theodore, whose natural tendency was towards scepticism, felt
himself almost injured and insulted by the Veiled Lady's proposal that he
should pledge himself, for life and eternity, to so questionable a
creature as herself; or even that she should suggest an inconsequential
kiss, taking into view the probability that her face was none of the most
bewitching. A delightful idea, truly, that he should salute the lips of
a dead girl, or the jaws of a skeleton, or the grinning cavity of a
monster's mouth! Even should she prove a comely maiden enough in other
respects, the odds were ten to one that her teeth were defective; a
terrible drawback on the delectableness of a kiss.
"Excuse me, fair lady," said Theodore, and I think he nearly burst into a
laugh, "if I prefer to lift the veil first; and for this affair of the
kiss, we may decide upon it afterwards."
"Thou hast made thy choice," said the sweet, sad voice behind the veil;
and there seemed a tender but unresentful sense of wrong done to
womanhood by the young man's contemptuous interpretation of her offer.
"I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still in thee own
hand!"
Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a pale,
lovely face beneath; just one momentary glimpse, and then the apparition
vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay upon the
floor. Theodore was alone. Our legend leaves him there. His retribution
was, to pine forever and ever for another sight of that dim, mournful
face,--which might have been his life-long household fireside joy,--to
desire, and waste life in a feverish quest, and never meet it more.
But what, in good sooth, had become of the Veiled Lady? Had all her
existence been comprehended within that mysterious veil, and was she now
annihilated? Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence, but which
might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theodore been brave and
true enough to claim her? Hearken, my sweet friends,--and hearken, dear
Priscilla,--and you shall learn the little more that Zenobia can tell
you.
Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled Lady
vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary
people, who were seeking for the better life. She was so gentle and so
sad,--a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their sympathies,
--that they never thought of questioning whence she came. She might have
heretofore existed, or her thin substance might have been moulded out of
air at the very instant when they first beheld her. It was all one to
them; they took her to their hearts. Among them was a lady to whom, more
than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl attached herself.
But one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met her a
figure in an Oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in his hand a
silvery veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of some nerve, she
did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many ladies would have been
apt to do, but stood quietly, and bade him speak. The truth was, she had
seen his face before, but had never feared it, although she knew him to
be a terrible magician.
"Lady," said he, with a warning gesture, "you are in peril!" "Peril!"
she exclaimed. "And of what nature?"
"There is a certain maiden," replied the magician, "who has come out of
the realm of mystery, and made herself your most intimate companion. Now,
the fates have so ordained it, that, whether by her own will or no, this
stranger is your deadliest enemy. In love, in worldly fortune, in all
your pursuit of happiness, she is doomed to fling a blight over your
prospects. There is but one possibility of thwarting her disastrous
influence."
"Then tell me that one method," said the lady.
"Take this veil," he answered, holding forth the silvery texture. "It is
a spell; it is a powerful enchantment, which I wrought for her sake, and
beneath which she was once my prisoner. Throw it, at unawares, over the
head of this secret foe, stamp your foot, and cry, 'Arise, Magician!
Here is the Veiled Lady!' and immediately I will rise up through the
earth, and seize her; and from that moment you are safe!"
So the lady took the silvery veil, which was like woven air, or like some
substance airier than nothing, and that would float upward and be lost
among the clouds, were she once to let it go. Returning homeward, she
found the shadowy girl amid the knot of visionary transcendentalists, who
were still seeking for the better life. She was joyous now, and had a
rose-bloom in her cheeks, and was one of the prettiest creatures, and
seemed one of the happiest, that the world could show. But the lady
stole noiselessly behind her and threw the veil over her head. As the
slight, ethereal texture sank inevitably down over her figure, the poor
girl strove to raise it, and met her dear friend's eyes with one glance
of mortal terror, and deep, deep reproach. It could not change her
purpose.
"Arise, Magician!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot upon the earth.
"Here is the Veiled Lady!"
At the word, up rose the bearded man in the Oriental robes,--the
beautiful, the dark magician, who had bartered away his soul! He threw
his arms around the Veiled Lady, and she was his bond-slave for evermore!
Zenobia, all this while, had been holding the piece of gauze, and so
managed it as greatly to increase the dramatic effect of the legend at
those points where the magic veil was to be described. Arriving at the
catastrophe, and uttering the fatal words, she flung the gauze over
Priscilla's head; and for an instant her auditors held their breath, half
expecting, I verily believe, that the magician would start up through the
floor, and carry off our poor little friend before our eyes.
As for Priscilla, she stood droopingly in the midst of us, making no
attempt to remove the veil.
"How do you find yourself, my love?" said Zenobia, lifting a corner of
the gauze, and peeping beneath it with a mischievous smile. "Ah, the dear
little soul! Why, she is really going to faint! Mr. Coverdale, Mr.
Coverdale, pray bring a glass of water!"
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