The House of the Seven Gables
untasted coffee. He quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on him
like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his animal
being to grow transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a
spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer lustre than
hitherto.
“More, more!” he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if
anxious to retain his grasp of what sought to escape him. “This is what
I need! Give me more!”
Under this delicate and powerful influence he sat more erect, and
looked out from his eyes with a glance that took note of what it rested
on. It was not so much that his expression grew more intellectual;
this, though it had its share, was not the most peculiar effect.
Neither was what we call the moral nature so forcibly awakened as to
present itself in remarkable prominence. But a certain fine temper of
being was now not brought out in full relief, but changeably and
imperfectly betrayed, of which it was the function to deal with all
beautiful and enjoyable things. In a character where it should exist as
the chief attribute, it would bestow on its possessor an exquisite
taste, and an enviable susceptibility of happiness. Beauty would be his
life; his aspirations would all tend toward it; and, allowing his frame
and physical organs to be in consonance, his own developments would
likewise be beautiful. Such a man should have nothing to do with
sorrow; nothing with strife; nothing with the martyrdom which, in an
infinite variety of shapes, awaits those who have the heart, and will,
and conscience, to fight a battle with the world. To these heroic
tempers, such martyrdom is the richest meed in the world’s gift. To the
individual before us, it could only be a grief, intense in due
proportion with the severity of the infliction. He had no right to be a
martyr; and, beholding him so fit to be happy and so feeble for all
other purposes, a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, methinks,
have been ready to sacrifice what little enjoyment it might have
planned for itself,—it would have flung down the hopes, so paltry in
its regard,—if thereby the wintry blasts of our rude sphere might come
tempered to such a man.
Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Clifford’s nature to
be a Sybarite. It was perceptible, even there, in the dark old parlor,
in the inevitable polarity with which his eyes were attracted towards
the quivering play of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage. It was seen
in his appreciating notice of the vase of flowers, the scent of which
he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization so
refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it. It was
betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phœbe, whose
fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowers,—their essence,
in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not less
evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the
instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from
his hostess, and wandered to any quarter rather than come back. It was
Hepzibah’s misfortune,—not Clifford’s fault. How could he,—so yellow as
she was, so wrinkled, so sad of mien, with that odd uncouthness of a
turban on her head, and that most perverse of scowls contorting her
brow,—how could he love to gaze at her? But, did he owe her no
affection for so much as she had silently given? He owed her nothing. A
nature like Clifford’s can contract no debts of that kind. It is—we say
it without censure, nor in diminution of the claim which it
indefeasibly possesses on beings of another mould—it is always selfish
in its essence; and we must give it leave to be so, and heap up our
heroic and disinterested love upon it so much the more, without a
recompense. Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, at least, acted on the
instinct of it. So long estranged from what was lovely as Clifford had
been, she rejoiced—rejoiced, though with a present sigh, and a secret
purpose to shed tears in her own chamber that he had brighter objects
now before his eyes than her aged and uncomely features. They never
possessed a charm; and if they had, the canker of her grief for him
would long since have destroyed it.
The guest leaned back in his chair. Mingled in his countenance with a
dreamy delight, there was a troubled look of effort and unrest. He was
seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him;
or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagination, was
vexing the fair moment with a struggle for some added brilliancy and
more durable illusion.
“How pleasant!—How delightful!” he murmured, but not as if addressing
any one. “Will it last? How balmy the atmosphere through that open
window! An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those
flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl’s face, how cheerful, how
blooming!—a flower with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dew-drops!
Ah! this must be all a dream! A dream! A dream! But it has quite hidden
the four stone walls!”
Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a cavern or a dungeon had
come over it; there was no more light in its expression than might have
come through the iron grates of a prison-window—still lessening, too,
as if he were sinking farther into the depths. Phœbe (being of that
quickness and activity of temperament that she seldom long refrained
from taking a part, and generally a good one, in what was going
forward) now felt herself moved to address the stranger.
“Here is a new kind of rose, which I found this morning in the garden,”
said she, choosing a small crimson one from among the flowers in the
vase. “There will be but five or six on the bush this season. This is
the most perfect of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in it.
And how sweet it is!—sweet like no other rose! One can never forget
that scent!”
“Ah!—let me see!—let me hold it!” cried the guest, eagerly seizing the
flower, which, by the spell peculiar to remembered odors, brought
innumerable associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled.
“Thank you! This has done me good. I remember how I used to prize this
flower,—long ago, I suppose, very long ago!—or was it only yesterday?
It makes me feel young again! Am I young? Either this remembrance is
singularly distinct, or this consciousness strangely dim! But how kind
of the fair young girl! Thank you! Thank you!”
The favorable excitement derived from this little crimson rose afforded
Clifford the brightest moment which he enjoyed at the breakfast-table.
It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon
afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his
dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a
ghost, and a most ill-tempered and ungenial one. The guest made an
impatient gesture of the hand, and addressed Hepzibah with what might
easily be recognized as the licensed irritability of a petted member of
the family.
“Hepzibah!—Hepzibah!” cried he with no little force and distinctness,
“why do you keep that odious picture on the wall? Yes, yes!—that is
precisely your taste! I have told you, a thousand times, that it was
the evil genius of the house!—my evil genius particularly! Take it
down, at once!”
“Dear Clifford,” said Hepzibah sadly, “you know it cannot be!”
“Then, at all events,” continued he, still speaking with some energy,
“pray cover it with a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in folds,
and with a golden border and tassels. I cannot bear it! It must not
stare me in the face!”
“Yes, dear Clifford, the picture shall be covered,” said Hepzibah
soothingly. “There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs,—a
little faded and moth-eaten, I’m afraid,—but Phœbe and I will do
wonders with it.”
“This very day, remember” said he; and then added, in a low,
self-communing voice, “Why should we live in this dismal house at all?
Why not go to the South of France?—to Italy?—Paris, Naples, Venice,
Rome? Hepzibah will say we have not the means. A droll idea that!”
He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of fine sarcastic meaning
towards Hepzibah.
But the several moods of feeling, faintly as they were marked, through
which he had passed, occurring in so brief an interval of time, had
evidently wearied the stranger. He was probably accustomed to a sad
monotony of life, not so much flowing in a stream, however sluggish, as
stagnating in a pool around his feet. A slumberous veil diffused itself
over his countenance, and had an effect, morally speaking, on its
naturally delicate and elegant outline, like that which a brooding
mist, with no sunshine in it, throws over the features of a landscape.
He appeared to become grosser,—almost cloddish. If aught of interest or
beauty—even ruined beauty—had heretofore been visible in this man, the
beholder might now begin to doubt it, and to accuse his own imagination
of deluding him with whatever grace had flickered over that visage, and
whatever exquisite lustre had gleamed in those filmy eyes.
Before he had quite sunken away, however, the sharp and peevish tinkle
of the shop-bell made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably on
Clifford’s auditory organs and the characteristic sensibility of his
nerves, it caused him to start upright out of his chair.
“Good heavens, Hepzibah! what horrible disturbance have we now in the
house?” cried he, wreaking his resentful impatience—as a matter of
course, and a custom of old—on the one person in the world that loved
him. “I have never heard such a hateful clamor! Why do you permit it?
In the name of all dissonance, what can it be?”
It was very remarkable into what prominent relief—even as if a dim
picture should leap suddenly from its canvas—Clifford’s character was
thrown by this apparently trifling annoyance. The secret was, that an
individual of his temper can always be pricked more acutely through his
sense of the beautiful and harmonious than through his heart. It is
even possible—for similar cases have often happened—that if Clifford,
in his foregoing life, had enjoyed the means of cultivating his taste
to its utmost perfectibility, that subtile attribute might, before this
period, have completely eaten out or filed away his affections. Shall
we venture to pronounce, therefore, that his long and black calamity
may not have had a redeeming drop of mercy at the bottom?
“Dear Clifford, I wish I could keep the sound from your ears,” said
Hepzibah, patiently, but reddening with a painful suffusion of shame.
“It is very disagreeable even to me. But, do you know, Clifford, I have
something to tell you? This ugly noise,—pray run, Phœbe, and see who is
there!—this naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shop-bell!”
“Shop-bell!” repeated Clifford, with a bewildered stare.
“Yes, our shop-bell,” said Hepzibah, a certain natural dignity, mingled
with deep emotion, now asserting itself in her manner. “For you must
know, dearest Clifford, that we are very poor. And there was no other
resource, but either to accept assistance from a hand that I would push
aside (and so would you!) were it to offer bread when we were dying for
it,—no help, save from him, or else to earn our subsistence with my own
hands! Alone, I might have been content to starve. But you were to be
given back to me! Do you think, then, dear Clifford,” added she, with a
wretched smile, “that I have brought an irretrievable disgrace on the
old house, by opening a little shop in the front gable? Our
great-great-grandfather did the same, when there was far less need! Are
you ashamed of me?”
“Shame! Disgrace! Do you speak these words to me, Hepzibah?” said
Clifford,—not angrily, however; for when a man’s spirit has been
thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but never