- end_line
- 2051
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
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- start_line
- 2008
- text
- fleeting fit, vaguely imputable to some constitutional disorder or
other. She was now quite well again. And so the company, one and all,
seemingly acting upon their natural good-breeding, which in any one at
bottom, is but delicacy and charity, refrained from all further
curiosity; reminded not the girl of what had passed; noted her scarce at
all; and all needles stitched away as before.
Leaving his mother to speak with whom she pleased, and attend alone to
her own affairs with the society; Pierre, oblivious now in such a lively
crowd, of any past unpleasantness, after some courtly words to the Miss
Pennies,--insinuated into their understandings through a long coiled
trumpet, which, when not in use, the spinsters wore, hanging like a
powder-horn from their girdles:--and likewise, after manifesting the
profoundest and most intelligent interest in the mystic mechanism of a
huge woolen sock, in course of completion by a spectacled old lady of
his more particular acquaintance; after all this had been gone through,
and something more too tedious to detail, but which occupied him for
nearly half an hour, Pierre, with a slightly blushing, and imperfectly
balanced assurance, advanced toward the further crowd of maidens; where,
by the light of many a well-snuffed candle, they clubbed all their
bright contrasting cheeks, like a dense bed of garden tulips. There were
the shy and pretty Maries, Marthas, Susans, Betties, Jennies, Nellies;
and forty more fair nymphs, who skimmed the cream, and made the butter
of the fat farms of Saddle Meadows.
Assurance is in presence of the assured. Where embarrassments prevail,
they affect the most disembarrassed. What wonder, then, that gazing on
such a thick array of wreathing, roguish, half-averted, blushing
faces--still audacious in their very embarrassment--Pierre, too, should
flush a bit, and stammer in his attitudes a little? Youthful love and
graciousness were in his heart; kindest words upon his tongue; but there
he stood, target for the transfixing glances of those ambushed archers
of the eye.
But his abashments last too long; his cheek hath changed from blush to
pallor; what strange thing does Pierre Glendinning see? Behind the first
close, busy breast-work of young girls, are several very little stands,
or circular tables, where sit small groups of twos and threes, sewing in
small comparative solitudes, as it were. They would seem to be the less
notable of the rural company; or else, for some cause, they have
voluntarily retired into their humble banishment. Upon one of these
persons engaged at the furthermost and least conspicuous of these little
stands, and close by a casement, Pierre's glance is palely fixed.
- title
- Chunk 3