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- stars!" So, in some sort, with Pierre. Explain thou this strange
integral feeling in me myself, he thought--turning upon the fancied
face--and I will then renounce all other wonders, to gaze wonderingly at
thee. But thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one,
thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching
countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and
space.
But during those two days of his first wild vassalage to his original
sensations, Pierre had not been unvisited by less mysterious impulses.
Two or three very plain and practical plannings of desirable procedures
in reference to some possible homely explication of all this
nonsense--so he would momentarily denominate it--now and then flittingly
intermitted his pervading mood of semi-madness. Once he had seized his
hat, careless of his accustomed gloves and cane, and found himself in
the street, walking very rapidly in the direction of the Miss Pennies'.
But whither now? he disenchantingly interrogated himself. Where would
you go? A million to one, those deaf old spinsters can tell you nothing
you burn to know. Deaf old spinsters are not used to be the depositaries
of such mystical secrecies. But then, they may reveal her name--where
she dwells, and something, however fragmentary and unsatisfactory, of
who she is, and whence. Ay; but then, in ten minutes after your leaving
them, all the houses in Saddle Meadows would be humming with the gossip
of Pierre Glendinning engaged to marry Lucy Tartan, and yet running
about the country, in ambiguous pursuit of strange young women. That
will never do. You remember, do you not, often seeing the Miss Pennies,
hatless and without a shawl, hurrying through the village, like two
postmen intent on dropping some tit-bit of precious gossip? What a
morsel for them, Pierre, have you, if you now call upon them. Verily,
their trumpets are both for use and for significance. Though very deaf,
the Miss Pennies are by no means dumb. They blazon very wide.
"Now be sure, and say that it was the Miss Pennies, who left the
news--be sure--we--the Miss Pennies--remember--say to Mrs. Glendinning
it was we." Such was the message that now half-humorously occurred to
Pierre, as having been once confided to him by the sister spinsters, one
evening when they called with a choice present of some very _recherche_
chit-chat for his mother; but found the manorial lady out; and so
charged her son with it; hurrying away to all the inferior houses, so as
not to be anywhere forestalled in their disclosure.
Now, I wish it had been any other house than the Miss Pennies; any other
house but theirs, and on my soul I believe I should have gone. But not
to them--no, that I can not do. It would be sure to reach my mother, and
then she would put this and that together--stir a little--let it
simmer--and farewell forever to all her majestic notions of my
immaculate integrity. Patience, Pierre, the population of this region is
not so immense. No dense mobs of Nineveh confound all personal
identities in Saddle Meadows. Patience; thou shalt see it soon again;
catch it passing thee in some green lane, sacred to thy evening
reveries. She that bears it can not dwell remote. Patience, Pierre. Ever
are such mysteries best and soonest unraveled by the eventual unraveling
of themselves. Or, if you will, go back and get your gloves, and more
especially your cane, and begin your own secret voyage of discovery
after it. Your cane, I say; because it will probably be a very long and
weary walk. True, just now I hinted, that she that bears it can not
dwell very remote; but then her nearness may not be at all conspicuous.
So, homeward, and put off thy hat, and let thy cane stay still, good
Pierre. Seek not to mystify the mystery so.
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