- end_line
- 12005
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11946
- text
- II.
On the third night following the arrival of the party in the city,
Pierre sat at twilight by a lofty window in the rear building of the
Apostles'. The chamber was meager even to meanness. No carpet on the
floor, no picture on the wall; nothing but a low, long, and very
curious-looking single bedstead, that might possibly serve for an
indigent bachelor's pallet, a large, blue, chintz-covered chest, a
rickety, rheumatic, and most ancient mahogany chair, and a wide board of
the toughest live-oak, about six feet long, laid upon two upright empty
flour-barrels, and loaded with a large bottle of ink, an unfastened
bundle of quills, a pen-knife, a folder, and a still unbound ream of
foolscap paper, significantly stamped, "Ruled; Blue."
There, on the third night, at twilight, sat Pierre by that lofty window
of a beggarly room in the rear-building of the Apostles'. He was
entirely idle, apparently; there was nothing in his hands; but there
might have been something on his heart. Now and then he fixedly gazes at
the curious-looking, rusty old bedstead. It seemed powerfully symbolical
to him; and most symbolical it was. For it was the ancient dismemberable
and portable camp-bedstead of his grandfather, the defiant defender of
the Fort, the valiant captain in many an unsuccumbing campaign. On that
very camp-bedstead, there, beneath his tent on the field, the glorious
old mild-eyed and warrior-hearted general had slept, and but waked to
buckle his knight-making sword by his side; for it was noble knighthood
to be slain by grand Pierre; in the other world his foes' ghosts bragged
of the hand that had given them their passports.
But has that hard bed of War, descended for an inheritance to the soft
body of Peace? In the peaceful time of full barns, and when the noise of
the peaceful flail is abroad, and the hum of peaceful commerce resounds,
is the grandson of two Generals a warrior too? Oh, not for naught, in
the time of this seeming peace, are warrior grandsires given to Pierre!
For Pierre is a warrior too; Life his campaign, and three fierce allies,
Woe and Scorn and Want, his foes. The wide world is banded against him;
for lo you! he holds up the standard of Right, and swears by the Eternal
and True! But ah, Pierre, Pierre, when thou goest to that bed, how
humbling the thought, that thy most extended length measures not the
proud six feet four of thy grand John of Gaunt sire! The stature of the
warrior is cut down to the dwindled glory of the fight. For more
glorious in real tented field to strike down your valiant foe, than in
the conflicts of a noble soul with a dastardly world to chase a vile
enemy who ne'er will show front.
There, then, on the third night, at twilight, by the lofty window of
that beggarly room, sat Pierre in the rear building of the Apostles'. He
is gazing out from the window now. But except the donjon form of the old
gray tower, seemingly there is nothing to see but a wilderness of tiles,
slate, shingles, and tin;--the desolate hanging wildernesses of tiles,
slate, shingles and tin, wherewith we modern Babylonians replace the
fair hanging-gardens of the fine old Asiatic times when the excellent
Nebuchadnezzar was king.
There he sits, a strange exotic, transplanted from the delectable
alcoves of the old manorial mansion, to take root in this niggard soil.
No more do the sweet purple airs of the hills round about the green
fields of Saddle Meadows come revivingly wafted to his cheek. Like a
flower he feels the change; his bloom is gone from his cheek; his cheek
is wilted and pale.
- title
- Chunk 1