第56章 THE BOARDING-HOUSE(1)

The next day, as soon as I thought of looking again towards the opposite house, there sat the dove again, on the peak of the same dormer window!

It was by no means an early hour, for the preceding evening I had ultimately mustered enterprise enough to visit the theatre, had gone late to bed, and slept beyond all limit, in my remoteness from Silas Foster's awakening horn.Dreams had tormented me throughout the night.The train of thoughts which, for months past, had worn a track through my mind, and to escape which was one of my chief objects in leaving Blithedale, kept treading remorselessly to and fro in their old footsteps, while slumber left me impotent to regulate them.It was not till I had quitted my three friends that they first began to encroach upon my dreams.In those of the last night, Hollingsworth and Zenobia, standing on either side of my bed, had bent across it to exchange a kiss of passion.Priscilla, beholding this,--for she seemed to be peeping in at the chamber window, --had melted gradually away, and left only the sadness of her expression in my heart.There it still lingered, after I awoke; one of those unreasonable sadnesses that you know not how to deal with, because it involves nothing for common-sense to clutch.

It was a gray and dripping forenoon; gloomy enough in town, and still gloomier in the haunts to which my recollections persisted in transporting me.For, in spite of my efforts to think of something else, I thought how the gusty rain was drifting over the slopes and valleys of our farm; how wet must be the foliage that overshadowed the pulpit rock;how cheerless, in such a day, my hermitage--the tree-solitude of my owl-like humors--in the vine-encircled heart of the tall pine! It was a phase of homesickness.I had wrenched myself too suddenly out of an accustomed sphere.There was no choice, now, but to bear the pang of whatever heartstrings were snapt asunder, and that illusive torment (like the ache of a limb long ago cut off) by which a past mode of life prolongs itself into the succeeding one.I was full of idle and shapeless regrets.The thought impressed itself upon me that I had left duties unperformed.With the power, perhaps, to act in the place of destiny and avert misfortune from my friends, I had resigned them to their fate.That cold tendency, between instinct and intellect, which made me pry with a speculative interest into people's passions and impulses, appeared to have gone far towards unhumanizing my heart.

But a man cannot always decide for himself whether his own heart is cold or warm.It now impresses me that, if I erred at all in regard to Hollingsworth, Zenobia, and Priscilla, it was through too much sympathy, rather than too little.

To escape the irksomeness of these meditations, I resumed my post at the window.At first sight, there was nothing new to be noticed.The general aspect of affairs was the same as yesterday, except that the more decided inclemency of to-day had driven the sparrows to shelter, and kept the cat within doors; whence, however, she soon emerged, pursued by the cook, and with what looked like the better half of a roast chicken in her mouth.

The young man in the dress-coat was invisible; the two children, in the story below, seemed to be romping about the room, under the superintendence of a nursery-maid.The damask curtains of the drawing-room, on the first floor, were now fully displayed, festooned gracefully from top to bottom of the windows, which extended from the ceiling to the carpet.A narrower window, at the left of the drawing-room, gave light to what was probably a small boudoir, within which I caught the faintest imaginable glimpse of a girl's figure, in airy drapery.Her arm was in regular movement, as if she were busy with her German worsted, or some other such pretty and unprofitable handiwork.

While intent upon making out this girlish shape, I became sensible that a figure had appeared at one of the windows of the drawing-room.There was a presentiment in my mind; or perhaps my first glance, imperfect and sidelong as it was, had sufficed to convey subtile information of the truth.At any rate, it was with no positive surprise, but as if I had all along expected the incident, that, directing my eyes thitherward, Ibeheld--like a full-length picture, in the space between the heavy festoons of the window curtains--no other than Zenobia! At the same instant, my thoughts made sure of the identity of the figure in the boudoir.It could only be Priscilla.

Zenobia was attired, not in the almost rustic costume which she had heretofore worn, but in a fashionable morning-dress.There was, nevertheless, one familiar point.She had, as usual, a flower in her hair, brilliant and of a rare variety, else it had not been Zenobia.

After a brief pause at the window, she turned away, exemplifying, in the few steps that removed her out of sight, that noble and beautiful motion which characterized her as much as any other personal charm.Not one woman in a thousand could move so admirably as Zenobia.Many women can sit gracefully; some can stand gracefully; and a few, perhaps, can assume a series of graceful positions.But natural movement is the result and expression of the whole being, and cannot be well and nobly performed unless responsive to something in the character.I often used to think that music--light and airy, wild and passionate, or the full harmony of stately marches, in accordance with her varying mood--should have attended Zenobia's footsteps.