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- that night; nor for a long time freed her pillow completely from wild,
Beethoven sounds of distant, waltzing melodies, as of ambiguous fairies
dancing on the heath.
III.
This history goes forward and goes backward, as occasion calls. Nimble
center, circumference elastic you must have. Now we return to Pierre,
wending homeward from his reveries beneath the pine-tree.
His burst of impatience against the sublime Italian, Dante, arising from
that poet being the one who, in a former time, had first opened to his
shuddering eyes the infinite cliffs and gulfs of human mystery and
misery;--though still more in the way of experimental vision, than of
sensational presentiment or experience (for as yet he had not seen so
far and deep as Dante, and therefore was entirely incompetent to meet
the grim bard fairly on his peculiar ground), this ignorant burst of
his young impatience,--also arising from that half contemptuous dislike,
and sometimes selfish loathing, with which, either naturally feeble or
undeveloped minds, regard those dark ravings of the loftier poets, which
are in eternal opposition to their own fine-spun, shallow dreams of
rapturous or prudential Youth;--this rash, untutored burst of Pierre's
young impatience, seemed to have carried off with it, all the other
forms of his melancholy--if melancholy it had been--and left him now
serene again, and ready for any tranquil pleasantness the gods might
have in store. For his, indeed, was true Youth's temperament,--summary
with sadness, swift to joyfulness, and long protracting, and detaining
with that joyfulness, when once it came fully nigh to him.
As he entered the dining-hall, he saw Dates retiring from another door
with his tray. Alone and meditative, by the bared half of the polished
table, sat his mother at her dessert; fruit-baskets, and a decanter were
before her. On the other leaf of the same table, still lay the cloth,
folded back upon itself, and set out with one plate and its usual
accompaniments.
"Sit down, Pierre; when I came home, I was surprised to hear that the
phaeton had returned so early, and here I waited dinner for you, until I
could wait no more. But go to the green pantry now, and get what Dates
has but just put away for you there. Heigh-ho! too plainly I foresee
it--no more regular dinner-hours, or tea-hours, or supper-hours, in
Saddle Meadows, till its young lord is wedded. And that puts me in mind
of something, Pierre; but I'll defer it till you have eaten a little. Do
you know, Pierre, that if you continue these irregular meals of yours,
and deprive me so entirely almost of your company, that I shall run
fearful risk of getting to be a terrible wine-bibber;--yes, could you
unalarmed see me sitting all alone here with this decanter, like any old
nurse, Pierre; some solitary, forlorn old nurse, Pierre, deserted by her
last friend, and therefore forced to embrace her flask?"
"No, I did not feel any great alarm, sister," said Pierre, smiling,
"since I could not but perceive that the decanter was still full to the
stopple."
"Possibly it may be only a fresh decanter, Pierre;" then changing her
voice suddenly--"but mark me, Mr. Pierre Glendinning!"
"Well, Mrs. Mary Glendinning!"
"Do you know, sir, that you are very shortly to be married,--that indeed
the day is all but fixed?"
"How-!" cried Pierre, in real joyful astonishment, both at the nature of
the tidings, and the earnest tones in which they were conveyed--"dear,
dear mother, you have strangely changed your mind then, my dear mother."
"It is even so, dear brother;--before this day month I hope to have a
little sister Tartan."
"You talk very strangely, mother," rejoined Pierre, quickly. "I suppose,
then, I have next to nothing to say in the matter!"
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