- end_line
- 9196
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9145
- text
- but with Pierre it was a question whether certain vital acts of his were
right or wrong. In this little nut lie germ-like the possible solution
of some puzzling problems; and also the discovery of additional, and
still more profound problems ensuing upon the solution of the former.
For so true is this last, that some men refuse to solve any present
problem, for fear of making still more work for themselves in that way.
Now, Pierre thought of the magical, mournful letter of Isabel, he
recalled the divine inspiration of that hour when the heroic words burst
from his heart--"Comfort thee, and stand by thee, and fight for thee,
will thy leapingly-acknowledging brother!" These remembrances unfurled
themselves in proud exultations in his soul; and from before such
glorious banners of Virtue, the club-footed Evil One limped away in
dismay. But now the dread, fateful parting look of his mother came over
him; anew he heard the heart-proscribing words--"Beneath my roof and at
my table, he who was once Pierre Glendinning no more puts
himself;"--swooning in her snow-white bed, the lifeless Lucy lay before
him, wrapt as in the reverberating echoings of her own agonizing shriek:
"My heart! my heart!" Then how swift the recurrence to Isabel, and the
nameless awfulness of his still imperfectly conscious, incipient,
new-mingled emotion toward this mysterious being. "Lo! I leave corpses
wherever I go!" groaned Pierre to himself--"Can then my conduct be
right? Lo! by my conduct I seem threatened by the possibility of a sin
anomalous and accursed, so anomalous, it may well be the one for which
Scripture says, there is never forgiveness. Corpses behind me, and the
last sin before, how then can my conduct be right?"
In this mood, the silence accompanied him, and the first visible rays of
the morning sun in this same mood found him and saluted him. The
excitement and the sleepless night just passed, and the strange
narcotic of a quiet, steady anguish, and the sweet quiescence of the
air, and the monotonous cradle-like motion of the coach over a road made
firm and smooth by a refreshing shower over night; these had wrought
their wonted effect upon Isabel and Delly; with hidden faces they leaned
fast asleep in Pierre's sight. Fast asleep--thus unconscious, oh sweet
Isabel, oh forlorn Delly, your swift destinies I bear in my own!
Suddenly, as his sad eye fell lower and lower from scanning their
magically quiescent persons, his glance lit upon his own clutched hand,
which rested on his knee. Some paper protruded from that clutch. He knew
not how it had got there, or whence it had come, though himself had
closed his own gripe upon it. He lifted his hand and slowly unfingered
and unbolted the paper, and unrolled it, and carefully smoothed it, to
see what it might be.
It was a thin, tattered, dried-fish-like thing; printed with blurred ink
upon mean, sleazy paper. It seemed the opening pages of some ruinous old
pamphlet--a pamphlet containing a chapter or so of some very voluminous
disquisition. The conclusion was gone. It must have been accidentally
left there by some previous traveler, who perhaps in drawing out his
handkerchief, had ignorantly extracted his waste paper.
- title
- Chunk 2