The Blithedale Romance - Page 85/170

Never was mortal blessed--if blessing it were--with a glance of such

entire acquiescence and unquestioning faith, happy in its completeness,

as our little Priscilla unconsciously bestowed on Hollingsworth. She

seemed to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and brood

over it in perfect content. The very woman whom he pictured--the

gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existence--sat

there at his feet.

I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent--as I felt,

by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought this

outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine

egotism. It centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her

very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to make it a mere

incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had boldly uttered

what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt. Without

intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled

waters. Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be the champion of

her sex.

But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled. Some

tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were wholly of grief, not anger.

"Well, be it so," was all she said. "I, at least, have deep cause to

think you right. Let man be but manly and godlike, and woman is only

too ready to become to him what you say!"

I smiled--somewhat bitterly, it is true--in contemplation of my own

ill-luck. How little did these two women care for me, who had freely

conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of

my heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible

injustice, seemed to have brought them both to his feet!

"Women almost invariably behave thus," thought I. "What does the fact

mean? Is it their nature? Or is it, at last, the result of ages of

compelled degradation? And, in either case, will it be possible ever

to redeem them?"

An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this

time, at least, there was no more to be said. With one accord, we

arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled undergrowth

towards one of those pleasant wood-paths that wound among the

overarching trees. Some of the branches hung so low as partly to

conceal the figures that went before from those who followed. Priscilla

had leaped up more lightly than the rest of us, and ran along in

advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in the

motion of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from tree to tree, in

the same direction as herself. Never did she seem so happy as that

afternoon. She skipt, and could not help it, from very playfulness of

heart.