“Oh, Pierre, can’st thou not cure in me this dreaminess, this bewilderingness I feel? My poor head swims and swims, and will not pause. My life can not last long thus; I am too full without discharge. Conjure tears for me, Pierre; that my heart may not break with the present feeling,—more death-like to me than all my grief gone by!”
“Ye thirst-slaking evening skies, ye hilly dews and mists, distil your moisture here! The bolt hath passed; why comes not the following shower?—Make her to weep!”
Then her head sought his support; and big drops fell on him; and anon, Isabel gently slid her head from him, and sat a little composedly beside him.
“If thou feelest in endless arrears of thought to me, my sister; so do I feel toward thee. I too, scarce know what I should speak to thee. But when thou lookest on me, my sister, thou beholdest one, who in his soul hath taken vows immutable, to be to thee, in all respects, and to the uttermost bounds and possibilities of Fate, thy protecting and all-acknowledging brother!”
“Not mere sounds of common words, but inmost tones of my heart’s deepest melodies should now be audible to thee. Thou speakest to a human thing, but something heavenly should answer thee;—some flute heard in the air should answer thee; for sure thy most undreamed-of accents, Pierre, sure they have not been unheard on high. Blessings that are imageless to all mortal fancyings, these shall be thine for this.”
“Blessing like to thine, doth but recoil and bless homeward to the heart that uttered it. I can not bless thee, my sister, as thou dost bless thyself in blessing my unworthiness. But, Isabel, by still keeping present the first wonder of our meeting, we shall make our hearts all feebleness. Let me then rehearse to thee what Pierre is; what life hitherto he hath been leading; and what hereafter he shall lead;—so thou wilt be prepared.”
“Nay, Pierre, that is my office; thou art first entitled to my tale, then, if it suit thee, thou shalt make me the unentitled gift of thine. Listen to me, now. The invisible things will give me strength;—it is not much, Pierre;—nor aught very marvelous. Listen then;—I feel soothed down to utterance now.”
During some brief, interluding, silent pauses in their interview thus far, Pierre had heard a soft, slow, sad, to-and-fro, meditative stepping on the floor above; and in the frequent pauses that intermitted the strange story in the following chapter, that same soft, slow, sad, to-and-fro, meditative, and most melancholy stepping, was again and again audible in the silent room.