- end_line
- 7141
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7079
- text
- heart to me; so cried the leaves and stars to me, as I that night went
home. But pride rose up--the very pride in my own longings,--and as one
arm pulled, the other held. So I stood still, and called thee not. But
Fate will be Fate, and it was fated. Once having met thy fixed regardful
glance; once having seen the full angelicalness in thee, my whole soul
was undone by thee; my whole pride was cut off at the root, and soon
showed a blighting in the bud; which spread deep into my whole being,
till I knew, that utterly decay and die away I must, unless pride let me
go, and I, with the one little trumpet of a pen, blew my heart's
shrillest blast, and called dear Pierre to me. My soul was full; and as
my beseeching ink went tracing o'er the page, my tears contributed their
mite, and made a strange alloy. How blest I felt that my so bitterly
tear-mingled ink--that last depth of my anguish--would never be visibly
known to thee, but the tears would dry upon the page, and all be fair
again, ere the so submerged-freighted letter should meet thine eye.
"Ah, there thou wast deceived, poor Isabel," cried Pierre impulsively;
"thy tears dried not fair, but dried red, almost like blood; and nothing
so much moved my inmost soul as that tragic sight."
"How? how? Pierre, my brother? Dried they red? Oh, horrible!
enchantment! most undreamed of!"
"Nay, the ink--the ink! something chemic in it changed thy real tears to
seeming blood;--only that, my sister."
"Oh Pierre! thus wonderfully is it--seems to me--that our own hearts do
not ever know the extremity of their own sufferings; sometimes we bleed
blood, when we think it only water. Of our sufferings, as of our
talents, others sometimes are the better judges. But stop me! force me
backward to my story! Yet methinks that now thou knowest all;--no, not
entirely all. Thou dost not know what planned and winnowed motive I did
have in writing thee; nor does poor Bell know that; for poor Bell was
too delirious to have planned and winnowed motives then. The impulse in
me called thee, not poor Bell. God called thee, Pierre, not poor Bell.
Even now, when I have passed one night after seeing thee, and hearkening
to all thy full love and graciousness; even now, I stand as one amazed,
and feel not what may be coming to me, or what will now befall me, from
having so rashly claimed thee for mine. Pierre, now, _now_, this instant
a vague anguish fills me. Tell me, by loving me, by owning me, publicly
or secretly,--tell me, doth it involve any vital hurt to thee? Speak
without reserve; speak honestly; as I do to thee! Speak now, Pierre, and
tell me all!"
"Is Love a harm? Can Truth betray to pain? Sweet Isabel, how can hurt
come in the path to God? Now, when I know thee all, now did I forget
thee, fail to acknowledge thee, and love thee before the wide world's
whole brazen width--could I do that; then might'st thou ask thy question
reasonably and say--Tell me, Pierre, does not the suffocating in thee of
poor Bell's holy claims, does not that involve for thee unending misery?
And my truthful soul would echo--Unending misery! Nay, nay, nay. Thou
art my sister and I am thy brother; and that part of the world which
knows me, shall acknowledge thee; or by heaven I will crush the
disdainful world down on its knees to thee, my sweet Isabel!"
"The menacings in thy eyes are dear delights to me; I grow up with thy
own glorious stature; and in thee, my brother, I see God's indignant
embassador to me, saying--Up, up, Isabel, and take no terms from the
common world, but do thou make terms to it, and grind thy fierce rights
out of it! Thy catching nobleness unsexes me, my brother; and now I know
that in her most exalted moment, then woman no more feels the twin-born
softness of her breasts, but feels chain-armor palpitating there!"
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