- end_line
- 3672
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3612
- text
- And so, after this scene, as usual, one by one, the fleet years ran on;
till the little child Pierre had grown up to be the tall Master Pierre,
and could call the picture his own; and now, in the privacy of his own
little closet, could stand, or lean, or sit before it all day long, if
he pleased, and keep thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking,
till by-and-by all thoughts were blurred, and at last there were no
thoughts at all.
Before the picture was sent to him, in his fifteenth year, it had been
only through the inadvertence of his mother, or rather through a casual
passing into a parlor by Pierre, that he had any way learned that his
mother did not approve of the picture. Because, as then Pierre was
still young, and the picture was the picture of his father, and the
cherished property of a most excellent, and dearly-beloved, affectionate
aunt; therefore the mother, with an intuitive delicacy, had refrained
from knowingly expressing her peculiar opinion in the presence of little
Pierre. And this judicious, though half-unconscious delicacy in the
mother, had been perhaps somewhat singularly answered by a like nicety
of sentiment in the child; for children of a naturally refined
organization, and a gentle nurture, sometimes possess a wonderful, and
often undreamed of, daintiness of propriety, and thoughtfulness, and
forbearance, in matters esteemed a little subtile even by their elders,
and self-elected betters. The little Pierre never disclosed to his
mother that he had, through another person, become aware of her thoughts
concerning Aunt Dorothea's portrait; he seemed to possess an intuitive
knowledge of the circumstance, that from the difference of their
relationship to his father, and for other minute reasons, he could in
some things, with the greater propriety, be more inquisitive concerning
him, with his aunt, than with his mother, especially touching the matter
of the chair-portrait. And Aunt Dorothea's reasons accounting for his
mother's distaste, long continued satisfactory, or at least not
unsufficiently explanatory.
And when the portrait arrived at the Meadows, it so chanced that his
mother was abroad; and so Pierre silently hung it up in his closet; and
when after a day or two his mother returned, he said nothing to her
about its arrival, being still strangely alive to that certain mild
mystery which invested it, and whose sacredness now he was fearful of
violating, by provoking any discussion with his mother about Aunt
Dorothea's gift, or by permitting himself to be improperly curious
concerning the reasons of his mother's private and self-reserved
opinions of it. But the first time--and it was not long after the
arrival of the portrait--that he knew of his mother's having entered
his closet; then, when he next saw her, he was prepared to hear what
she should voluntarily say about the late addition to its
embellishments; but as she omitted all mention of any thing of that
sort, he unobtrusively scanned her countenance, to mark whether any
little clouding emotion might be discoverable there. But he could
discern none. And as all genuine delicacies are by their nature
accumulative; therefore this reverential, mutual, but only tacit
forbearance of the mother and son, ever after continued uninvaded. And
it was another sweet, and sanctified, and sanctifying bond between them.
For, whatever some lovers may sometimes say, love does not always abhor
a secret, as nature is said to abhor a vacuum. Love is built upon
secrets, as lovely Venice upon invisible and incorruptible piles in the
sea. Love's secrets, being mysteries, ever pertain to the transcendent
and the infinite; and so they are as airy bridges, by which our further
shadows pass over into the regions of the golden mists and exhalations;
whence all poetical, lovely thoughts are engendered, and drop into us,
as though pearls should drop from rainbows.
- title
- Chunk 5