- end_line
- 7208
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7141
- text
- cringing suddenly, leaped up, repeating in impassioned pain, “I buried
him, my life, my soul!”
Doubtless, it was by half-unconscious, automatic motions of her hands,
that this heavy-hearted one performed the final office for Felipe, and
planted a rude cross of withered sticks—no green ones might be had—at
the head of that lonely grave, where rested now in lasting un-complaint
and quiet haven he whom untranquil seas had overthrown.
But some dull sense of another body that should be interred, of another
cross that should hallow another grave—unmade as yet—some dull anxiety
and pain touching her undiscovered brother, now haunted the oppressed
Hunilla. Her hands fresh from the burial earth, she slowly went back to
the beach, with unshaped purposes wandering there, her spell-bound eye
bent upon the incessant waves. But they bore nothing to her but a
dirge, which maddened her to think that murderers should mourn. As time
went by, and these things came less dreamingly to her mind, the strong
persuasions of her Romish faith, which sets peculiar store by
consecrated urns, prompted her to resume in waking earnest that pious
search which had but been begun as in somnambulism. Day after day, week
after week, she trod the cindery beach, till at length a double motive
edged every eager glance. With equal longing she now looked for the
living and the dead; the brother and the captain; alike vanished, never
to return. Little accurate note of time had Hunilla taken under such
emotions as were hers, and little, outside herself, served for calendar
or dial. As to poor Crusoe in the self-same sea, no saint’s bell pealed
forth the lapse of week or month; each day went by unchallenged; no
chanticleer announced those sultry dawns, no lowing herds those
poisonous nights. All wonted and steadily recurring sounds, human, or
humanized by sweet fellowship with man, but one stirred that torrid
trance—the cry of dogs; save which naught but the rolling sea invaded
it, an all-pervading monotone; and to the widow that was the least
loved voice she could have heard.
No wonder, that as her thoughts now wandered to the unreturning ship,
and were beaten back again, the hope against hope so struggled in her
soul, that at length she desperately said, “Not yet, not yet; my
foolish heart runs on too fast.” So she forced patience for some
further weeks. But to those whom earth’s sure indraft draws, patience
or impatience is still the same.
Hunilla now sought to settle precisely in her mind, to an hour, how
long it was since the ship had sailed; and then, with the same
precision, how long a space remained to pass. But this proved
impossible. What present day or month it was she could not say. Time
was her labyrinth, in which Hunilla was entirely lost.
And now follows—
Against my own purposes a pause descends upon me here. One knows not
whether nature doth not impose some secrecy upon him who has been privy
to certain things. At least, it is to be doubted whether it be good to
blazon such. If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale
forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those
whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not
books, should be forbid. But in all things man sows upon the wind,
which bloweth just there whither it listeth; for ill or good, man
cannot know. Often ill comes from the good, as good from ill.
When Hunilla—
Dire sight it is to see some silken beast long dally with a golden
lizard ere she devour. More terrible, to see how feline Fate will
sometimes dally with a human soul, and by a nameless magic make it
repulse a sane despair with a hope which is but mad. Unwittingly I imp
this cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of him who reads; for if
he feel not he reads in vain.
- title
- Chunk 4