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- 8581
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8517
- text
- 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?"
"With fine words he wheedles me, and coaxes me, not to know some secret
thing. Go, go, Pierre, come to me when thou wilt. I am steeled now to
the worst, and to the last. Again I tell thee, I will do any thing--yes,
any thing that Pierre commands--for, though outer ill do lower upon us,
still, deep within, thou wilt be careful, very careful with me, Pierre?"
"Thou art made of that fine, unshared stuff of which God makes his
seraphim. But thy divine devotedness to me, is met by mine to thee. Well
mayest thou trust me, Isabel; and whatever strangest thing I may yet
propose to thee, thy confidence,--will it not bear me out? Surely thou
will not hesitate to plunge, when I plunge first;--already have I
plunged! now thou canst not stay upon the bank. Hearken, hearken to
me.--I seek not now to gain thy prior assent to a thing as yet undone;
but I call to thee now, Isabel, from the depth of a foregone act, to
ratify it, backward, by thy consent. Look not so hard upon me. Listen. I
will tell all. Isabel, though thou art all fearfulness to injure any
living thing, least of all, thy brother; still thy true heart
foreknoweth not the myriad alliances and criss-crossings among mankind,
the infinite entanglements of all social things, which forbids that one
thread should fly the general fabric, on some new line of duty, without
tearing itself and tearing others. Listen. All that has happened up to
this moment, and all that may be yet to happen, some sudden inspiration
now assures me, inevitably proceeded from the first hour I saw thee. Not
possibly could it, or can it, be otherwise. Therefore feel I, that I
have some patience. Listen. Whatever outer things might possibly be
mine; whatever seeming brightest blessings; yet now to live uncomforting
and unloving to thee, Isabel; now to dwell domestically away from thee;
so that only by stealth, and base connivances of the night, I could come
to thee as thy related brother; this would be, and is, unutterably
impossible. In my bosom a secret adder of self-reproach and self-infamy
would never leave off its sting. Listen. But without gratuitous dishonor
to a memory which--for right cause or wrong--is ever sacred and
inviolate to me, I can not be an open brother to thee, Isabel. But thou
wantest not the openness; for thou dost not pine for empty nominalness,
but for vital realness; what thou wantest, is not the occasional
openness of my brotherly love; but its continual domestic confidence. Do
I not speak thine own hidden heart to thee? say, Isabel? Well, then,
still listen to me. One only way presents to this; a most strange way,
Isabel; to the world, that never throbbed for thee in love, a most
deceitful way; but to all a harmless way; so harmless in its essence,
Isabel, that, seems to me, Pierre hath consulted heaven itself upon it,
and heaven itself did not say Nay. Still, listen to me; mark me. As thou
knowest that thou wouldst now droop and die without me; so would I
without thee. We are equal there; mark _that_, too, Isabel. I do not
stoop to thee, nor thou to me; but we both reach up alike to a glorious
ideal! Now the continualness, the secretness, yet the always present
domesticness of our love; how may we best compass that, without
jeopardizing the ever-sacred memory I hinted of? One way--one way--only
one! A strange way, but most pure. Listen. Brace thyself: here, let me
hold thee now; and then whisper it to thee, Isabel. Come, I holding
thee, thou canst not fall."
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- Chunk 3