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I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from the window to expose myself to another rebuke like that already inflicted.My eyes still wandered towards the opposite house, but without effecting any new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.
When I returned to my chamber, the glow of an astral lamp was penetrating mistily through the white curtain of Zenobia's drawing-room.The shadow of a passing figure was now and then cast upon this medium, but with too vague an outline for even my adventurous conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented.
All at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was my behavior in thus tormenting myself with crazy hypotheses as to what was going on within that drawing-room, when it was at my option to be personally present there, My relations with Zenobia, as yet unchanged,--as a familiar friend, and associated in the same life-long enterprise,--gave me the right, and made it no more than kindly courtesy demanded, to call on her.
Nothing, except our habitual independence of conventional rules at Blithedale, could have kept me from sooner recognizing this duty.At all events, it should now be performed.
In compliance with this sudden impulse, I soon found myself actually within the house, the rear of which, for two days past, I had been so sedulously watching.A servant took my card, and, immediately returning, ushered me upstairs.On the way, I heard a rich, and, as it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in which I felt Zenobia's character, although heretofore I had known nothing of her skill upon the instrument.Two or three canary-birds, excited by this gush of sound, sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce a kindred melody.Abright illumination streamed through, the door of the front drawing-room;and I had barely, stept across the threshold before Zenobia came forward to meet me, laughing, and with an extended hand.
