Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (With Illustrations)

“Is this true?” asked Priscilla with simplicity, turning to Hollingsworth. “Is it all true, that Mr. Coverdale and Zenobia have been saying?”

“No, Priscilla!” answered Hollingsworth with his customary bluntness. “They have neither of them spoken one true word yet.”

“Do you despise woman?” said Zenobia.

“Ah, Hollingsworth, that would be most ungrateful!”

“Despise her? No!” cried Hollingsworth, lifting his great shaggy head and shaking it at us, while his eyes glowed almost fiercely. “She is the most admirable handiwork of God, in her true place and character. Her place is at man’s side. Her office, that of the sympathizer; the unreserved, unquestioning believer; the recognition, withheld in every other manner, but given, in pity, through woman’s heart, lest man should utterly lose faith in himself; the echo of God’s own voice, pronouncing, ‘It is well done!’ All the separate action of woman is, and ever has been, and always shall be, false, foolish, vain, destructive of her own best and holiest qualities, void of every good effect, and productive of intolerable mischiefs! Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster — and, thank Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster — without man as her acknowledged principal! As true as I had once a mother whom I loved, were there any possible prospect of woman’s taking the social stand which some of them, — poor, miserable, abortive creatures, who only dream of such things because they have missed woman’s peculiar happiness, or because nature made them really neither man nor woman! — if there were a chance of their attaining the end which these petticoated monstrosities have in view, I would call upon my own sex to use its physical force, that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty, to scourge them back within their proper bounds! But it will not be needful. The heart of time womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!”

Never was mortal blessed — if blessing it were — with a glance of such entire acquiescence and unquestioning faith, happy in its completeness, as our little Priscilla unconsciously bestowed on Hollingsworth. She seemed to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and brood over it in perfect content. The very woman whom he pictured — the gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existence — sat there at his feet.

I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent — as I felt, by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought this outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine egotism. It centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to make it a mere incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had boldly uttered what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt. Without intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled waters. Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be the champion of her sex.

But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled. Some tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were wholly of grief, not anger.

“Well, be it so,” was all she said. “I, at least, have deep cause to think you right. Let man be but manly and godlike, and woman is only too ready to become to him what you say!”

I smiled — somewhat bitterly, it is true — in contemplation of my own ill-luck. How little did these two women care for me, who had freely conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of my heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible injustice, seemed to have brought them both to his feet!

“Women almost invariably behave thus,” thought I. “What does the fact mean? Is it their nature? Or is it, at last, the result of ages of compelled degradation? And, in either case, will it be possible ever to redeem them?”

An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this time, at least, there was no more to be said. With one accord, we arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled undergrowth towards one of those pleasant woodpaths that wound among the overarching trees. Some of the branches hung so low as partly to conceal the figures that went before from those who followed. Priscilla had leaped up more lightly than the rest of us, and ran along in advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in the motion of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from tree to tree, in the same direction as herself. Never did she seem so happy as that afternoon. She skipt, and could not help it, from very playfulness of heart.

Zenobia and Hollingsworth went next, in close contiguity, but not with arm in arm. Now, just when they had passed the impending bough of a birch-tree, I plainly saw Zenobia take the hand of Hollingsworth in both her own, press it to her bosom, and let it fall again!

The gesture was sudden, and full of passion; the impulse had evidently taken her by surprise; it expressed all! Had Zenobia knelt before him, or flung herself upon his breast, and gasped out, “I love you, Hollingsworth!” I could not have been more certain of what it meant. They then walked onward, as before. But, methought, as the declining sun threw Zenobia’s magnified shadow along the path, I beheld it tremulous; and the delicate stem of the flower which she wore in her hair was likewise responsive to her agitation.

Priscilla — through the medium of her eyes, at least could not possibly have been aware of the gesture above described. Yet, at that instant, I saw her droop. The buoyancy, which just before had been so birdlike, was utterly departed; the life seemed to pass out of her, and even the substance of her figure to grow thin and gray. I almost imagined her a shadow, tiding gradually into the dimness of the wood. Her pace became so slow that Hollingsworth and Zenobia passed by, and I, without hastening my footsteps, overtook her.

“Come, Priscilla,” said I, looking her intently in the face, which was very pale and sorrowful, “we must make haste after our friends. Do you feel suddenly ill? A moment ago, you flitted along so lightly that I was comparing you to a bird. Now, on the contrary, it is as if you had a heavy heart, and a very little strength to bear it with. Pray take my arm!”

“No,” said Priscilla, “I do not think it would help me. It is my heart, as you say, that makes me heavy; and I know not why. Just now, I felt very happy.”

No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her maidenly mystery; but, as she appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with, I could not resist the impulse to take just one peep beneath her folded petals.

“Zenobia and yourself are dear friends of late,” I remarked. “At first, — that first evening when you came to us, — she did not receive you quite so warmly as might have been wished.”

“I remember it,” said Priscilla. “No wonder she hesitated to love me, who was then a stranger to her, and a girl of no grace or beauty, — she being herself so beautiful!”

“But she loves you now, of course?” suggested I. “And at this very instant you feel her to be your dearest friend?”

“Why do you ask me that question?” exclaimed Priscilla, as if frightened at the scrutiny into her feelings which I compelled her to make. “It somehow puts strange thoughts into my mind. But I do love Zenobia dearly! If she only loves me half as well, I shall be happy!”

“How is it possible to doubt that, Priscilla?” I rejoined. “But observe how pleasantly and happily Zenobia and Hollingsworth are walking together. I call it a delightful spectacle. It truly rejoices me that Hollingsworth has found so fit and affectionate a friend! So many people in the world mistrust him, — so many disbelieve and ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, or acknowledge him for the wonderful man he is, — that it is really a blessed thing for him to have won the sympathy of such a woman as Zenobia. Any man might be proud of that. Any man, even if he be as great as Hollingsworth, might love so magnificent a woman. How very beautiful Zenobia is! And Hollingsworth knows it, too.”