{"id":"01KG8AMYE7QEMWHA09Y3FK19TK","cid":"bafkreiahyz5dy2bttfj3eeh7gmkxlyk27t7ui222vv5jb3czvvr7kfz5wm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6320,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":6265,"text":"to be their grandsons? And why did all-seducing Ninon unintendingly\r\nbreak scores of hearts at seventy? It is because of the perennialness of\r\nwomanly sweetness.\r\n\r\nOut from the infantile, yet eternal mournfulness of the face of Isabel,\r\nthere looked on Pierre that angelic childlikeness, which our Savior\r\nhints is the one only investiture of translated souls; for of such--even\r\nof little children--is the other world.\r\n\r\nNow, unending as the wonderful rivers, which once bathed the feet of the\r\nprimeval generations, and still remain to flow fast by the graves of all\r\nsucceeding men, and by the beds of all now living; unending,\r\never-flowing, ran through the soul of Pierre, fresh and fresher, further\r\nand still further, thoughts of Isabel. But the more his thoughtful river\r\nran, the more mysteriousness it floated to him; and yet the more\r\ncertainty that the mysteriousness was unchangeable. In her life there\r\nwas an unraveled plot; and he felt that unraveled it would eternally\r\nremain to him. No slightest hope or dream had he, that what was dark and\r\nmournful in her would ever be cleared up into some coming atmosphere of\r\nlight and mirth. Like all youths, Pierre had conned his novel-lessons;\r\nhad read more novels than most persons of his years; but their false,\r\ninverted attempts at systematizing eternally unsystemizable elements;\r\ntheir audacious, intermeddling impotency, in trying to unravel, and\r\nspread out, and classify, the more thin than gossamer threads which make\r\nup the complex web of life; these things over Pierre had no power now.\r\nStraight through their helpless miserableness he pierced; the one\r\nsensational truth in him transfixed like beetles all the speculative\r\nlies in them. He saw that human life doth truly come from that, which\r\nall men are agreed to call by the name of _God_; and that it partakes of\r\nthe unravelable inscrutableness of God. By infallible presentiment he\r\nsaw, that not always doth life's beginning gloom conclude in gladness;\r\nthat wedding-bells peal not ever in the last scene of life's fifth act;\r\nthat while the countless tribes of common novels laboriously spin veils\r\nof mystery, only to complacently clear them up at last; and while the\r\ncountless tribe of common dramas do but repeat the same; yet the\r\nprofounder emanations of the human mind, intended to illustrate all that\r\ncan be humanly known of human life; these never unravel their own\r\nintricacies, and have no proper endings; but in imperfect,\r\nunanticipated, and disappointing sequels (as mutilated stumps), hurry to\r\nabrupt intermergings with the eternal tides of time and fate.\r\n\r\nSo Pierre renounced all thought of ever having Isabel's dark lantern\r\nilluminated to him. Her light was lidded, and the lid was locked. Nor\r\ndid he feel a pang at this. By posting hither and thither among the\r\nreminiscences of his family, and craftily interrogating his remaining\r\nrelatives on his father's side, he might possibly rake forth some few\r\nsmall grains of dubious and most unsatisfying things, which, were he\r\nthat way strongly bent, would only serve the more hopelessly to cripple\r\nhim in his practical resolves. He determined to pry not at all into this\r\nsacred problem. For him now the mystery of Isabel possessed all the\r\nbewitchingness of the mysterious vault of night, whose very darkness\r\nevokes the witchery.\r\n\r\nThe thoughtful river still ran on in him, and now it floated still\r\nanother thing to him.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKSA07DQFH4QAEFJZ6ZJN","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMYEB1YQ0Q7SBB8FT01Z7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMYEJJ8J2KDS6VSEM6JZX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.703Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:19.102Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}