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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
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- 3690
- text
- V.
If, when the mind roams up and down in the ever-elastic regions of
evanescent invention, any definite form or feature can be assigned to
the multitudinous shapes it creates out of the incessant dissolvings of
its own prior creations; then might we here attempt to hold and define
the least shadowy of those reasons, which about the period of
adolescence we now treat of, more frequently occurred to Pierre,
whenever he essayed to account for his mother's remarkable distaste for
the portrait. Yet will we venture one sketch.
Yes--sometimes dimly thought Pierre--who knows but cousin Ralph, after
all, may have been not so very far from the truth, when he surmised that
at one time my father did indeed cherish some passing emotion for the
beautiful young Frenchwoman. And this portrait being painted at that
precise time, and indeed with the precise purpose of perpetuating some
shadowy testification of the fact in the countenance of the original:
therefore, its expression is not congenial, is not familiar, is not
altogether agreeable to my mother: because, not only did my father's
features never look so to her (since it was afterward that she first
became acquainted with him), but also, that certain womanliness of
women; that thing I should perhaps call a tender jealousy, a fastidious
vanity, in any other lady, enables her to perceive that the glance of
the face in the portrait, is not, in some nameless way, dedicated to
herself, but to some other and unknown object; and therefore, is she
impatient of it, and it is repelling to her; for she must naturally be
intolerant of any imputed reminiscence in my father, which is not in
some way connected with her own recollections of him.
Whereas, the larger and more expansive portrait in the great
drawing-room, taken in the prime of life; during the best and rosiest
days of their wedded union; at the particular desire of my mother; and
by a celebrated artist of her own election, and costumed after her own
taste; and on all hands considered to be, by those who know, a
singularly happy likeness at the period; a belief spiritually reinforced
by my own dim infantile remembrances; for all these reasons, this
drawing-room portrait possesses an inestimable charm to her; there, she
indeed beholds her husband as he had really appeared to her; she does
not vacantly gaze upon an unfamiliar phantom called up from the distant,
and, to her, well-nigh fabulous days of my father's bachelor life. But
in that other portrait, she sees rehearsed to her fond eyes, the latter
tales and legends of his devoted wedded love. Yes, I think now that I
plainly see it must be so. And yet, ever new conceits come vaporing up
in me, as I look on the strange chair-portrait: which, though so very
much more unfamiliar to me, than it can possibly be to my mother, still
sometimes seems to say--Pierre, believe not the drawing-room painting;
that is not thy father; or, at least, is not _all_ of thy father.
Consider in thy mind, Pierre, whether we two paintings may not make only
one. Faithful wives are ever over-fond to a certain imaginary image of
their husbands; and faithful widows are ever over-reverential to a
certain imagined ghost of that same imagined image, Pierre. Look again,
I am thy father as he more truly was. In mature life, the world overlays
and varnishes us, Pierre; the thousand proprieties and polished
finenesses and grimaces intervene, Pierre; then, we, as it were,
abdicate ourselves, and take unto us another self, Pierre; in youth we
_are_, Pierre, but in age we _seem_. Look again. I am thy real father,
so much the more truly, as thou thinkest thou recognizest me not,
Pierre. To their young children, fathers are not wont to unfold
themselves entirely, Pierre. There are a thousand and one odd little
youthful peccadilloes, that we think we may as well not divulge to them,
Pierre. Consider this strange, ambiguous smile, Pierre; more narrowly
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