- end_line
- 1613
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1550
- text
- V.
And this self-same morning Pierre was very mystical; not continually,
though; but most mystical one moment, and overflowing with mad,
unbridled merriment, the next. He seemed a youthful Magian, and almost a
mountebank together. Chaldaic improvisations burst from him, in quick
Golden Verses, on the heel of humorous retort and repartee. More
especially, the bright glance of Lucy was transporting to him. Now,
reckless of his horses, with both arms holding Lucy in his embrace, like
a Sicilian diver he dives deep down in the Adriatic of her eyes, and
brings up some king's-cup of joy. All the waves in Lucy's eyes seemed
waves of infinite glee to him. And as if, like veritable seas, they did
indeed catch the reflected irradiations of that pellucid azure morning;
in Lucy's eyes, there seemed to shine all the blue glory of the general
day, and all the sweet inscrutableness of the sky. And certainly, the
blue eye of woman, like the sea, is not uninfluenced by the atmosphere.
Only in the open air of some divinest, summer day, will you see its
ultramarine,--its fluid lapis lazuli. Then would Pierre burst forth in
some screaming shout of joy; and the striped tigers of his chestnut eyes
leaped in their lashed cages with a fierce delight. Lucy shrank from him
in extreme love; for the extremest top of love, is Fear and Wonder.
Soon the swift horses drew this fair god and goddess nigh the wooded
hills, whose distant blue, now changed into a variously-shaded green,
stood before them like old Babylonian walls, overgrown with verdure;
while here and there, at regular intervals, the scattered peaks seemed
mural towers; and the clumped pines surmounting them, as lofty archers,
and vast, out-looking watchers of the glorious Babylonian City of the
Day. Catching that hilly air, the prancing horses neighed; laughed on
the ground with gleeful feet. Felt they the gay delightsome spurrings of
the day; for the day was mad with excessive joy; and high in heaven you
heard the neighing of the horses of the sun; and down dropt their
nostrils' froth in many a fleecy vapor from the hills.
From the plains, the mists rose slowly; reluctant yet to quit so fair a
mead. At those green slopings, Pierre reined in his steeds, and soon the
twain were seated on the bank, gazing far, and far away; over many a
grove and lake; corn-crested uplands, and Herd's-grass lowlands; and
long-stretching swales of vividest green, betokening where the greenest
bounty of this earth seeks its winding channels; as ever, the most
heavenly bounteousness most seeks the lowly places; making green and
glad many a humble mortal's breast, and leaving to his own lonely
aridness, many a hill-top prince's state.
But Grief, not Joy, is a moralizer; and small moralizing wisdom caught
Pierre from that scene. With Lucy's hand in his, and feeling, softly
feeling of its soft tinglingness; he seemed as one placed in linked
correspondence with the summer lightnings; and by sweet shock on shock,
receiving intimating fore-tastes of the etherealest delights of earth.
Now, prone on the grass he falls, with his attentive upward glance fixed
on Lucy's eyes. "Thou art my heaven, Lucy; and here I lie thy
shepherd-king, watching for new eye-stars to rise in thee. Ha! I see
Venus' transit now;--lo! a new planet there;--and behind all, an
infinite starry nebulousness, as if thy being were backgrounded by some
spangled vail of mystery."
Is Lucy deaf to all these ravings of his lyric love? Why looks she down,
and vibrates so; and why now from her over-charged lids, drops such warm
drops as these? No joy now in Lucy's eyes, and seeming tremor on her
lips.
"Ah! thou too ardent and impetuous Pierre!"
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