- end_line
- 12824
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 12782
- text
- the devotedness of another, who would notwithstanding almost seem as
that dead one brought back to life.
Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go, if we would find out
the heart of a man; descending into which is as descending a spiral
stair in a shaft, without any end, and where that endlessness is only
concealed by the spiralness of the stair, and the blackness of the
shaft.
As Pierre conjured up this phantom of Glen transformed into the seeming
semblance of himself; as he figured it advancing toward Lucy and raising
her hand in devotion; an infinite quenchless rage and malice possessed
him. Many commingled emotions combined to provoke this storm. But chief
of all was something strangely akin to that indefinable detestation
which one feels for any impostor who has dared to assume one's own name
and aspect in any equivocal or dishonorable affair; an emotion greatly
intensified if this impostor be known for a mean villain at bottom, and
also, by the freak of nature to be almost the personal duplicate of the
man whose identity he assumes. All these and a host of other distressful
and resentful fancies now ran through the breast of Pierre. All his
Faith-born, enthusiastic, high-wrought, stoic, and philosophic defenses,
were now beaten down by this sudden storm of nature in his soul. For
there is no faith, and no stoicism, and no philosophy, that a mortal man
can possibly evoke, which will stand the final test of a real
impassioned onset of Life and Passion upon him. Then all the fair
philosophic or Faith-phantoms that he raised from the mist, slide away
and disappear as ghosts at cock-crow. For Faith and philosophy are air,
but events are brass. Amidst his gray philosophizings, Life breaks upon
a man like a morning.
While this mood was on him, Pierre cursed himself for a heartless
villain and an idiot fool;--heartless villain, as the murderer of his
mother--idiot fool, because he had thrown away all his felicity; because
he had himself, as it were, resigned his noble birthright to a cunning
kinsman for a mess of pottage, which now proved all but ashes in his
mouth.
Resolved to hide these new, and--as it latently seemed to him--unworthy
pangs, from Isabel, as also their cause, he quitted his chamber,
intending a long vagabond stroll in the suburbs of the town, to wear off
his sharper grief, ere he should again return into her sight.
- title
- Chunk 5