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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
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- 7563
- text
- IV.
Torn into a hundred shreds the printed pages of Hell and Hamlet lay at
his feet, which trampled them, while their vacant covers mocked him with
their idle titles. Dante had made him fierce, and Hamlet had insinuated
that there was none to strike. Dante had taught him that he had bitter
cause of quarrel; Hamlet taunted him with faltering in the fight. Now he
began to curse anew his fate, for now he began to see that after all he
had been finely juggling with himself, and postponing with himself, and
in meditative sentimentalities wasting the moments consecrated to
instant action.
Eight-and-forty hours and more had passed. Was Isabel acknowledged? Had
she yet hung on his public arm? Who knew yet of Isabel but Pierre? Like
a skulking coward he had gone prowling in the woods by day, and like a
skulking coward he had stolen to her haunt by night! Like a thief he had
sat and stammered and turned pale before his mother, and in the cause of
Holy Right, permitted a woman to grow tall and hector over him! Ah! Easy
for man to think like a hero; but hard for man to act like one. All
imaginable audacities readily enter into the soul; few come boldly forth
from it.
Did he, or did he not vitally mean to do this thing? Was the immense
stuff to do it his, or was it not his? Why defer? Why put off? What was
there to be gained by deferring and putting off? His resolution had been
taken, why was it not executed? What more was there to learn? What more
which was essential to the public acknowledgment of Isabel, had remained
to be learned, after his first glance at her first letter? Had doubts of
her identity come over him to stay him?--None at all. Against the wall
of the thick darkness of the mystery of Isabel, recorded as by some
phosphoric finger was the burning fact, that Isabel was his sister. Why
then? How then? Whence then this utter nothing of his acts? Did he
stagger at the thought, that at the first announcement to his mother
concerning Isabel, and his resolution to own her boldly and lovingly,
his proud mother, spurning the reflection on his father, would likewise
spurn Pierre and Isabel, and denounce both him and her, and hate them
both alike, as unnatural accomplices against the good name of the purest
of husbands and parents? Not at all. Such a thought was not in him. For
had he not already resolved, that his mother should know nothing of the
fact of Isabel?--But how now? What then? How was Isabel to be
acknowledged to the world, if his mother was to know nothing of that
acknowledgment?--Short-sighted, miserable palterer and huckster, thou
hast been playing a most fond and foolish game with thyself! Fool and
coward! Coward and fool! Tear thyself open, and read there the
confounding story of thy blind dotishness! Thy two grand
resolutions--the public acknowledgment of Isabel, and the charitable
withholding of her existence from thy own mother,--these are impossible
adjuncts.--Likewise, thy so magnanimous purpose to screen thy father's
honorable memory from reproach, and thy other intention, the open
vindication of thy fraternalness to Isabel,--these also are impossible
adjuncts. And the having individually entertained four such resolves,
without perceiving that once brought together, they all mutually expire;
this, this ineffable folly, Pierre, brands thee in the forehead for an
unaccountable infatuate!
Well may'st thou distrust thyself, and curse thyself, and tear thy
Hamlet and thy Hell! Oh! fool, blind fool, and a million times an ass!
Go, go, thou poor and feeble one! High deeds are not for such blind
grubs as thou! Quit Isabel, and go to Lucy! Beg humble pardon of thy
mother, and hereafter be a more obedient and good boy to her,
Pierre--Pierre, Pierre,--infatuate!
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