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- 4295
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4225
- text
- IV.
His stroll was longer than he meant; and when he returned up the Linden
walk leading to the breakfast-room, and ascended the piazza steps, and
glanced into the wide window there, he saw his mother seated not far
from the table; her face turned toward his own; and heard her gay voice,
and peculiarly light and buoyant laugh, accusing him, and not her, of
being the morning's laggard now. Dates was busy among some spoons and
napkins at a side-stand.
Summoning all possible cheerfulness to his face, Pierre entered the
room. Remembering his carefulness in bathing and dressing; and knowing
that there is no air so calculated to give bloom to the cheek as that of
a damply fresh, cool, and misty morning, Pierre persuaded himself that
small trace would now be found on him of his long night of watching.
'Good morning, sister;--Such a famous stroll! I have been all the way
to---- '
'Where? good heavens! where? for such a look as that!--why, Pierre,
Pierre? what ails thee? Dates, I will touch the bell presently.'
As the good servitor fumbled for a moment among the napkins, as if
unwilling to stir so summarily from his accustomed duty, and not without
some of a well and long-tried old domestic's vague, intermitted
murmuring, at being wholly excluded from a matter of family interest;
Mrs. Glendinning kept her fixed eye on Pierre, who, unmindful that the
breakfast was not yet entirely ready, seating himself at the table,
began helping himself--though but nervously enough--to the cream and
sugar. The moment the door closed on Dates, the mother sprang to her
feet, and threw her arms around her son; but in that embrace, Pierre
miserably felt that their two hearts beat not together in such unison as
before.
'What haggard thing possesses thee, my son? Speak, this is
incomprehensible! Lucy;--fie!--not she?--no love-quarrel there;--speak,
speak, my darling boy!
'My dear sister,' began Pierre.
'Sister me not, now, Pierre;--I am thy mother.'
'Well, then, dear mother, thou art quite as incomprehensible to me as I
to---- '
'Talk faster, Pierre--this calmness freezes me. Tell me; for, by my
soul, something most wonderful must have happened to thee. Thou art my
son, and I command thee. It is not Lucy; it is something else. Tell me.'
'My dear mother,' said Pierre, impulsively moving his chair backward
from the table, 'if thou wouldst only believe me when I say it, I have
really nothing to tell thee. Thou knowest that sometimes, when I happen
to feel very foolishly studious and philosophical, I sit up late in my
chamber; and then, regardless of the hour, foolishly run out into the
air, for a long stroll across the meadows. I took such a stroll last
night; and had but little time left for napping afterward; and what nap
I had I was none the better for. But I won't be so silly again, soon; so
do, dearest mother, stop looking at me, and let us to breakfast.--Dates!
Touch the bell there, sister.'
'Stay, Pierre!--There is a heaviness in this hour. I feel, I know, that
thou art deceiving me;--perhaps I erred in seeking to wrest thy secret
from thee; but believe me, my son, I never thought thou hadst any secret
thing from me, except thy first love for Lucy--and that, my own
womanhood tells me, was most pardonable and right. But now, what can it
be? Pierre, Pierre! consider well before thou determinest upon
withholding confidence from me. I am thy mother. It may prove a fatal
thing. Can that be good and virtuous, Pierre, which shrinks from a
mother's knowledge? Let us not loose hands so, Pierre; thy confidence
from me, mine goes from thee. Now, shall I touch the bell?'
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