- end_line
- 2140
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2103
- text
- in heaven's name, does this mean, Pierre? Why were you so silent, and
why now are you so ill-timed in speaking! Answer me;--explain all
this;--_she_--_she_--what _she_ should you be thinking of but Lucy
Tartan?--Pierre, beware, beware! I had thought you firmer in your lady's
faith, than such strange behavior as this would seem to hint. Answer me,
Pierre, what may this mean? Come, I hate a mystery; speak, my son."
Fortunately, this prolonged verbalized wonder in his mother afforded
Pierre time to rally from his double and aggravated astonishment,
brought about by first suspecting that his mother also had been struck
by the strange aspect of the face, and then, having that suspicion so
violently beaten back upon him, by her apparently unaffected alarm at
finding him in some region of thought wholly unshared by herself at the
time.
"It is nothing--nothing, sister Mary; just nothing at all in the world.
I believe I was dreaming--sleep-walking, or something of that sort. They
were vastly pretty girls there this evening, sister Mary, were they not?
Come, let us walk on--do, sister mine."
"Pierre, Pierre!--but I will take your arm again;--and have you really
nothing more to say? were you really wandering, Pierre?"
"I swear to you, my dearest mother, that never before in my whole
existence, have I so completely gone wandering in my soul, as at that
very moment. But it is all over now." Then in a less earnest and
somewhat playful tone, he added: "And sister mine, if you know aught of
the physical and sanitary authors, you must be aware, that the only
treatment for such a case of harmless temporary aberration, is for all
persons to ignore it in the subject. So no more of this foolishness.
Talking about it only makes me feel very unpleasantly silly, and there
is no knowing that it may not bring it back upon me."
"Then by all means, my dear boy, not another word about it. But it's
passing strange--very, very strange indeed. Well, about that morning
business; how fared you? Tell me about it."
- title
- Chunk 5