"No matter where," said she."But I am weary of this place, and sick to death of playing at philanthropy and progress.Of all varieties of mock-life, we have surely blundered into the very emptiest mockery in our effort to establish the one true system.I have done with it; and Blithedale must find another woman to superintend the laundry, and you, Mr.Coverdale, another nurse to make your gruel, the next time you fall ill.It was, indeed, a foolish dream! Yet it gave us some pleasant summer days, and bright hopes, while they lasted.It can do no more; nor will it avail us to shed tears over a broken bubble.Here is my hand!
Adieu!"
She gave me her hand with the same free, whole-souled gesture as on the first afternoon of our acquaintance, and, being greatly moved, Ibethought me of no better method of expressing my deep sympathy than to carry it to my lips.In so doing, I perceived that this white hand--so hospitably warm when I first touched it, five months since--was now cold as a veritable piece of snow.
"How very cold!" I exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with the vain idea of warming it."What can be the reason? It is really deathlike!""The extremities die first, they say," answered Zenobia, laughing."And so you kiss this poor, despised, rejected hand! Well, my dear friend, Ithank you.You have reserved your homage for the fallen.Lip of man will never touch my hand again.I intend to become a Catholic, for the sake of going into a nunnery.When you next hear of Zenobia, her face will be behind the black veil; so look your last at it now,--for all is over.Once more, farewell!"She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which I felt long afterwards.So intimately connected as I had been with perhaps the only man in whom she was ever truly interested, Zenobia looked on me as the representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in bidding me adieu, she likewise took final leave of Hollingsworth, and of this whole epoch of her life.Never did her beauty shine out more lustrously than in the last glimpse that I had of her.She departed, and was soon hidden among the trees.But, whether it was the strong impression of the foregoing scene, or whatever else the cause, I was affected with a fantasy that Zenobia had not actually gone, but was still hovering about the spot and haunting it.I seemed to feel her eyes upon me.It was as if the vivid coloring of her character had left a brilliant stain upon the air.By degrees, however, the impression grew less distinct.Iflung myself upon the fallen leaves at the base of Eliot's pulpit.The sunshine withdrew up the tree trunks and flickered on the topmost boughs;gray twilight made the wood obscure; the stars brightened out; the pendent boughs became wet with chill autumnal dews.But I was listless, worn out with emotion on my own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart to leave my comfortless lair beneath the rock.
I must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the circumstances of which utterly vanished at the moment when they converged to some tragical catastrophe, and thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere of slumber that enveloped them.Starting from the ground, I found the risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the rock, and myself all in a tremble.
