- end_line
- 8529
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8439
- text
- handled by its artisan; if sacred nature carefully folds, and warms, and
by inconceivable attentivenesses eggs round and round her minute and
marvelous embryoes; then, Isabel, do I most carefully and most tenderly
egg thee, gentlest one, and the fate of thee! Short of the great God,
Isabel, there lives none who will be more careful with thee, more
infinitely considerate and delicate with thee."
"From my deepest heart, do I believe thee, Pierre. Yet thou mayest be
very delicate in some point, where delicateness is not all essential,
and in some quick impulsive hour, omit thy fullest heedfulness somewhere
where heedlessness were most fatal. Nay, nay, my brother; bleach these
locks snow-white, thou sun! if I have any thought to reproach thee,
Pierre, or betray distrust of thee. But earnestness must sometimes seem
suspicious, else it is none. Pierre, Pierre, all thy aspect speaks
eloquently of some already executed resolution, born in suddenness.
Since I last saw thee, Pierre, some deed irrevocable has been done by
thee. My soul is stiff and starched to it; now tell me what it is?"
"Thou, and I, and Delly Ulver, to-morrow morning depart this whole
neighborhood, and go to the distant city.--That is it."
"No more?"
"Is it not enough?"
"There is something more, Pierre."
"Thou hast not yet answered a question I put to thee but just now.
Bethink thee, Isabel. The deceiving of others by thee and me, in a thing
wholly pertaining to ourselves, for their and our united good. Wouldst
thou?"
"I would do any thing that does not tend to the marring of thy best
lasting fortunes, Pierre. What is it thou wouldst have thee and me to do
together? I wait; I wait!"
"Let us go into the room of the double casement, my sister," said
Pierre, rising.
"Nay, then; if it can not be said here, then can I not do it anywhere,
my brother; for it would harm thee."
"Girl!" cried Pierre, sternly, "if for thee I have lost"--but he checked
himself.
"Lost? for me? Now does the very worst blacken on me. Pierre! Pierre!"
"I was foolish, and sought but to frighten thee, my sister. It was very
foolish. Do thou now go on with thine innocent work here, and I will
come again a few hours hence. Let me go now."
He was turning from her, when Isabel sprang forward to him, caught him
with both her arms round him, and held him so convulsively, that her
hair sideways swept over him, and half concealed him.
"Pierre, if indeed my soul hath cast on thee the same black shadow that
my hair now flings on thee; if thou hast lost aught for me; then
eternally is Isabel lost to Isabel, and Isabel will not outlive this
night. If I am indeed an accursing thing, I will not act the given part,
but cheat the air, and die from it. See; I let thee go, lest some poison
I know not of distill upon thee from me."
She slowly drooped, and trembled from him. But Pierre caught her, and
supported her.
"Foolish, foolish one! Behold, in the very bodily act of loosing hold of
me, thou dost reel and fall;--unanswerable emblem of the indispensable
heart-stay, I am to thee, my sweet, sweet Isabel! Prate not then of
parting."
"What hast thou lost for me? Tell me!"
"A gainful loss, my sister!"
"'Tis mere rhetoric! What hast thou lost?"
"Nothing that my inmost heart would now recall. I have bought inner love
and glory by a price, which, large or small, I would not now have paid
me back, so I must return the thing I bought."
"Is love then cold, and glory white? Thy cheek is snowy, Pierre."
"It should be, for I believe to God that I am pure, let the world think
how it may."
"What hast thou lost?"
"Not thee, nor the pride and glory of ever loving thee, and being a
continual brother to thee, my best sister. Nay, why dost thou now turn
thy face from me?"
- title
- Chunk 2