In itself, perhaps,
it was no very remarkable event that they should thus come across me,
at the moment when
I imagined myself free. Zenobia, as I well knew, had retained an
establishment in town, and had not unfrequently withdrawn herself
from Blithedale during brief intervals, on one of which occasions she
had taken Priscilla along with her. Nevertheless, there seemed
something fatal in the coincidence that had borne me to this one spot,
of all others in a great city, and transfixed me there, and
compelled me again to waste my already wearied sympathies on affairs
which were none of mine, and persons who cared little for me. It
irritated my nerves; it affected me with a kind of heart-sickness.
After the effort which it cost me to fling them off,--after
consummating my escape, as I thought, from these goblins of flesh and
blood, and pausing to revive myself with a breath or two of an
atmosphere in which they should have no share,--it was a positive
despair to find the same figures arraying themselves before me, and
presenting their old problem in a shape that made it more insoluble
than ever.
I began to long for a catastrophe. If the noble temper of
Hollingsworth's soul were doomed to be utterly corrupted by the too
powerful purpose which had grown out of what was noblest in him; if
the rich and generous qualities of Zenobia's womanhood might not save
her; if Priscilla must perish by her tenderness and faith, so simple
and so devout, then be it so! Let it all come! As for me, I would
look on, as it seemed my part to do, understandingly, if my intellect
could fathom the meaning and the moral, and, at all events,
reverently and sadly.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194