- description
- # II.
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This is a subsection from the text file [pierre.txt](arke:01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A), extracted on January 30, 2026, as part of the "Melville Complete Works" collection ([arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW]). The subsection is labeled "II." and is contained within the chapter "BOOK V. MISGIVINGS AND PREPARATIONS." ([arke:01KG8AJSNWPXWFVMZC4108JFMG]).
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This subsection follows "I." ([arke:01KG8AKHMZF1D3TC148BVGJ48D]) and precedes "III." ([arke:01KG8AKHMZS1NTSMS70MTA5WEE]) within the chapter "BOOK V. MISGIVINGS AND PREPARATIONS.". The text was extracted from the file "pierre.txt" which is part of the "Melville Complete Works" collection. The structure extraction was performed by the "structure-extraction-lambda" tool.
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The text of this subsection focuses on Pierre's internal conflict regarding whether to reveal a secret to his mother. He grapples with the potential consequences of disclosing the truth, considering the impact on his mother's feelings and his father's memory. He contemplates the idea that sometimes a lie can be "heavenly" and truth "infernal," ultimately deciding against revealing the truth. The section concludes with Pierre postponing a decision until he meets with Isabel.
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- description_title
- II.
- end_line
- 4124
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:07.470Z
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- text
- II.
But if the presentiment in Pierre of his mother's pride, as bigotedly
hostile to the noble design he cherished; if this feeling was so
wretched to him; far more so was the thought of another and a deeper
hostility, arising from her more spiritual part. For her pride would not
be so scornful, as her wedded memories reject with horror, the
unmentionable imputation involved in the mere fact of Isabel's
existence. In what galleries of conjecture, among what horrible haunting
toads and scorpions, would such a revelation lead her? When Pierre
thought of this, the idea of at all divulging his secret to his mother,
not only was made repelling by its hopelessness, as an infirm attack
upon her citadel of pride, but was made in the last degree inhuman, as
torturing her in her tenderest recollections, and desecrating the
whitest altar in her sanctuary.
Though the conviction that he must never disclose his secret to his
mother was originally an unmeditated, and as it were, an inspired one;
yet now he was almost pains-taking in scrutinizing the entire
circumstances of the matter, in order that nothing might be overlooked.
For already he vaguely felt, that upon the concealment, or the
disclosure of this thing, with reference to his mother, hinged his whole
future course of conduct, his whole earthly weal, and Isabel's. But the
more and the more that he pondered upon it, the more and the more fixed
became his original conviction. He considered that in the case of a
disclosure, all human probability pointed to his mother's scornful
rejection of his suit as a pleader for Isabel's honorable admission into
the honorable mansion of the Glendinnings. Then in that case,
unconsciously thought Pierre, I shall have given the deep poison of a
miserable truth to my mother, without benefit to any, and positive harm
to all. And through Pierre's mind there then darted a baleful thought;
how that the truth should not always be paraded; how that sometimes a
lie is heavenly, and truth infernal. Filially infernal, truly, thought
Pierre, if I should by one vile breath of truth, blast my father's
blessed memory in the bosom of my mother, and plant the sharpest dagger
of grief in her soul. I will not do it!
But as this resolution in him opened up so dark and wretched a
background to his view, he strove to think no more of it now, but
postpone it until the interview with Isabel should have in some way more
definitely shaped his purposes. For, when suddenly encountering the
shock of new and unanswerable revelations, which he feels must
revolutionize all the circumstances of his life, man, at first, ever
seeks to shun all conscious definitiveness in his thoughts and purposes;
as assured, that the lines that shall precisely define his present
misery, and thereby lay out his future path; these can only be defined
by sharp stakes that cut into his heart.
- title
- II.