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. A bright 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.

"Ah, Mr. Coverdale," said she, still smiling, but, as I thought, with a

good deal of scornful anger underneath, "it has gratified me to see the

interest which you continue to take in my affairs! I have long

recognized you as a sort of transcendental Yankee, with all the native

propensity of your countrymen to investigate matters that come within

their range, but rendered almost poetical, in your case, by the refined

methods which you adopt for its gratification. After all, it was an

unjustifiable stroke, on my part,--was it not?--to let down the window

curtain!"

"I cannot call it a very wise one," returned I, with a secret

bitterness, which, no doubt, Zenobia appreciated. "It is really

impossible to hide anything in this world, to say nothing of the next.

All that we ought to ask, therefore, is, that the witnesses of our

conduct, and the speculators on our motives, should be capable of

taking the highest view which the circumstances of the case may admit.

So much being secured, I, for one, would be most happy in feeling

myself followed everywhere by an indefatigable human sympathy."




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