The Blithedale Romance - Page 110/170

The remainder of the day, so far as I was concerned, was spent in

meditating on these recent incidents. I contrived, and alternately

rejected, innumerable methods of accounting for the presence of Zenobia

and Priscilla, and the connection of Westervelt with both. It must be

owned, too, that I had a keen, revengeful sense of the insult inflicted

by Zenobia's scornful recognition, and more particularly by her letting

down the curtain; as if such were the proper barrier to be interposed

between a character like hers and a perceptive faculty like mine.

For, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity? Zenobia should have known me better

than to suppose it. She should have been able to appreciate that

quality of the intellect and the heart which impelled me (often against

my own will, and to the detriment of my own comfort) to live in other

lives, and to endeavor--by generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions,

by taking note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my

human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions whom God

assigned me--to learn the secret which was hidden even from themselves.

Of all possible observers, methought a woman like Zenobia and a man

like Hollingsworth should have selected me. And now when the event has

long been past, I retain the same opinion of my fitness for the office.

True, I might have condemned them. Had I been judge as well as

witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself.

But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle

against temptation,--no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor

extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the

other,--no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to

prevent it,--no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a

meed,--would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my full

assent to the punishment which was sure to follow. But it would be

given mournfully, and with undiminished love. And, after all was

finished, I would come as if to gather up the white ashes of those who

had perished at the stake, and to tell the world--the wrong being now

atoned for--how much had perished there which it had never yet known

how to praise.

I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from the window to expose

myself to another rebuke like that already inflicted. My eyes still

wandered towards the opposite house, but without effecting any new

discoveries. Late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the church

spire indicated a change of wind; the sun shone dimly out, as if the

golden wine of its beams were mingled half-and-half with water.

Nevertheless, they kindled up the whole range of edifices, threw a glow

over the windows, glistened on the wet roofs, and, slowly withdrawing

upward, perched upon the chimney-tops; thence they took a higher

flight, and lingered an instant on the tip of the spire, making it the

final point of more cheerful light in the whole sombre scene. The next

moment, it was all gone. The twilight fell into the area like a shower

of dusky snow, and before it was quite dark, the gong of the hotel

summoned me to tea.