The Blithedale Romance: Full Text

The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to mybachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of theVeiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me inan obscure part of the street.

"Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, "can I speak with you a moment?"

As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss tomention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted withher now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmericline; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a newscience, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times hersisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice;nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under suchskilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those which atonce mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the ladyin question. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject,""clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity andopenness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread astep or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carrieswith him the laws of our actual life and extends them over hispreternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary,all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, andartistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in orderto set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition toordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interestof the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity,and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at onetime very prevalent) that a beautiful young lady, of family andfortune, was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil. It waswhite, with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny side ofa cloud; and, falling over the wearer from head to foot, was supposedto insulate her from the material world, from time and space, and toendow her with many of the privileges of a disembodied spirit.

Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have littleto do with the present narrative—except, indeed, that I hadpropounded, for the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to thesuccess of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye, was ofthe true Sibylline stamp,—nonsensical in its first aspect, yet oncloser study unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which hascertainly accorded with the event. I was turning over this riddle inmy mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when theold man above mentioned interrupted me.

"Mr. Coverdale!—Mr. Coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice, inorder to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which heuttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going toBlithedale tomorrow."

I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, and the patchover one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the oldfellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealingenough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He wasa very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was the moresingular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him intothe stir and hubbub of the world more than the generality of men.

"Yes, Mr. Moodie," I answered, wondering what interest he could take inthe fact, "it is my intention to go to Blithedale to-morrow. Can I beof any service to you before my departure?"

"If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale," said he, "you might do me a very greatfavor."

"A very great one?" repeated I, in a tone that must have expressed butlittle alacrity of beneficence, although I was ready to do the old manany amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. "A verygreat favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and I have agood many preparations to make. But be good enough to tell me what youwish."

"Ah, sir," replied Old Moodie, "I don't quite like to do that; and, onfurther thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps I had better apply to someolder gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness tomake me known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale. You area young man, sir!"

"Does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?" asked I."However, if an older man will suit you better, there is Mr.Hollingsworth, who has three or four years the advantage of me in age,and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I amonly a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that! Butwhat can this business be, Mr. Moodie? It begins to interest me;especially since your hint that a lady's influence might be founddesirable. Come, I am really anxious to be of service to you."

But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both freakishand obstinate; and he had now taken some notion or other into his headthat made him hesitate in his former design.

"I wonder, sir," said he, "whether you know a lady whom they callZenobia?"

"Not personally," I answered, "although I expect that pleasureto-morrow, as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already aresident at Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie? orhave you taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can haveinterested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose youknow, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she comesbefore the world, retaining all the privileges of privacy,—acontrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, onlya little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell me what Ican do for you?"

"Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. "You arevery kind; but I am afraid I have troubled you, when, after all, theremay be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to yourlodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. I wishyou a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for stopping you."

And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next morning,it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at aplausible conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arrivingat my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted acigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest tothe most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident as at someformer periods that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocablywith the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly betaken. It was nothing short of midnight when I went to bed, afterdrinking a glass of particularly fine sherry on which I used to pridemyself in those days. It was the very last bottle; and I finished it,with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out for Blithedale.