- end_line
- 4721
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4672
- text
- V.
The swiftness and unrepellableness of the billow which, with its first
shock, had so profoundly whelmed Pierre, had not only poured into his
soul a tumult of entirely new images and emotions, but, for the time, it
almost entirely drove out of him all previous ones. The things that any
way bore directly upon the pregnant fact of Isabel, these things were
all animate and vividly present to him; but the things which bore more
upon himself, and his own personal condition, as now forever involved
with his sister's, these things were not so animate and present to him.
The conjectured past of Isabel took mysterious hold of his father;
therefore, the idea of his father tyrannized over his imagination; and
the possible future of Isabel, as so essentially though indirectly
compromisable by whatever course of conduct his mother might hereafter
ignorantly pursue with regard to himself, as henceforth, through Isabel,
forever altered to her; these considerations brought his mother with
blazing prominence before him.
Heaven, after all, hath been a little merciful to the miserable man; not
entirely untempered to human nature are the most direful blasts of Fate.
When on all sides assailed by prospects of disaster, whose final ends
are in terror hidden from it, the soul of man--either, as instinctively
convinced that it can not battle with the whole host at once; or else,
benevolently blinded to the larger arc of the circle which menacingly
hems it in;--whichever be the truth, the soul of man, thus surrounded,
can not, and does never intelligently confront the totality of its
wretchedness. The bitter drug is divided into separate draughts for him:
to-day he takes one part of his woe; to-morrow he takes more; and so on,
till the last drop is drunk.
Not that in the despotism of other things, the thought of Lucy, and the
unconjecturable suffering into which she might so soon be plunged, owing
to the threatening uncertainty of the state of his own future, as now in
great part and at all hazards dedicated to Isabel; not that this thought
had thus far been alien to him. Icy-cold, and serpent-like, it had
overlayingly crawled in upon his other shuddering imaginings; but those
other thoughts would as often upheave again, and absorb it into
themselves, so that it would in that way soon disappear from his
cotemporary apprehension. The prevailing thoughts connected with Isabel
he now could front with prepared and open eyes; but the occasional
thought of Lucy, when _that_ started up before him, he could only cover
his bewildered eyes with his bewildered hands. Nor was this the
cowardice of selfishness, but the infinite sensitiveness of his soul. He
could bear the agonizing thought of Isabel, because he was immediately
resolved to help her, and to assuage a fellow-being's grief; but, as
yet, he could not bear the thought of Lucy, because the very resolution
that promised balm to Isabel obscurely involved the everlasting peace of
Lucy, and therefore aggravatingly threatened a far more than
fellow-being's happiness.
- title
- Chunk 1