But not now to consider these ulterior things, Pierre, though strangely and very newly alive to many before unregarded wonders in the general world; still, had he not as yet procured for himself that enchanter’s wand of the soul, which but touching the humblest experiences in one’s life, straightway it starts up all eyes, in every one of which are endless significancies. Not yet had he dropped his angle into the well of his childhood, to find what fish might be there; for who dreams to find fish in a well? the running stream of the outer world, there doubtless swim the golden perch and the pickerel! Ten million things were as yet uncovered to Pierre. The old mummy lies buried in cloth on cloth; it takes time to unwrap this Egyptian king. Yet now, forsooth, because Pierre began to see through the first superficiality of the world, he fondly weens he has come to the unlayered substance. But, far as any geologist has yet gone down into the world, it is found to consist of nothing but surface stratified on surface. To its axis, the world being nothing but superinduced superficies. By vast pains we mine into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come to the central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we lift the lid—and no body is there!—appallingly vacant as vast is the soul of a man!
II.
HE had been engaged some weeks upon his book—in pursuance of his settled plan avoiding all contact with any of his city-connections or friends, even as in his social downfall they sedulously avoided seeking him out—nor ever once going or sending to the post-office, though it was but a little round the corner from where he was, since having dispatched no letters himself, he expected none; thus isolated from the world, and intent upon his literary enterprise, Pierre had passed some weeks, when verbal tidings came to him, of three most momentous events.
First: his mother was dead.
Second: all Saddle Meadows was become Glen Stanly’s.
Third: Glen Stanly was believed to be the suitor of Lucy; who, convalescent from an almost mortal illness, was now dwelling at her mother’s house in town.
It was chiefly the first-mentioned of these events which darted a sharp natural anguish into Pierre. No letter had come to him; no smallest ring or memorial been sent him; no slightest mention made of him in the will; and yet it was reported that an inconsolable grief had induced his mother’s mortal malady, and driven her at length into insanity, which suddenly terminated in death; and when he first heard of that event, she had been cold in the ground for twenty-five days.
How plainly did all this speak of the equally immense pride and grief of his once magnificent mother; and how agonizedly now did it hint of her mortally-wounded love for her only and best-beloved Pierre! In vain he reasoned with himself; in vain remonstrated with himself; in vain sought to parade all his stoic arguments to drive off the onslaught of natural passion. Nature prevailed; and with tears that like acid burned and scorched as they flowed, he wept, he raved, at the bitter loss of his parent; whose eyes had been closed by unrelated hands that were hired; but whose heart had been broken, and whose very reason been ruined, by the related hands of her son.
For some interval it almost seemed as if his own heart would snap; his own reason go down. Unendurable grief of a man, when Death itself gives the stab, and then snatches all availments to solacement away. For in the grave is no help, no prayer thither may go, no forgiveness thence come; so that the penitent whose sad victim lies in the ground, for that useless penitent his doom is eternal, and though it be Christmas-day with all Christendom, with him it is Hell-day and an eaten liver forever.