{"id":"01KG8AMZMDX22K4811CM2P3CYN","cid":"bafkreibvgn6jzmuz7olvzdzdmlrqwki7lmtntgnvs3wwynx6jclnnuzueu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2196,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":2141,"text":"II.\r\n\r\nSo Pierre, gladly plunging into this welcome current of talk, was\r\nenabled to attend his mother home without furnishing further cause for\r\nher concern or wonderment. But not by any means so readily could he\r\nallay his own concern and wonderment. Too really true in itself, however\r\nevasive in its effect at the time, was that earnest answer to his\r\nmother, declaring that never in his whole existence had he been so\r\nprofoundly stirred. The face haunted him as some imploring, and\r\nbeauteous, impassioned, ideal Madonna's haunts the morbidly longing and\r\nenthusiastic, but ever-baffled artist. And ever, as the mystic face thus\r\nrose before his fancy's sight, another sense was touched in him; the\r\nlong-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek pealed through and through his\r\nsoul; for now he knew the shriek came from the face--such Delphic shriek\r\ncould only come from such a source. And wherefore that shriek? thought\r\nPierre. Bodes it ill to the face, or me, or both? How am I changed, that\r\nmy appearance on any scene should have power to work such woe? But it\r\nwas mostly the face--the face, that wrought upon him. The shriek seemed\r\nas incidentally embodied there.\r\n\r\nThe emotions he experienced seemed to have taken hold of the deepest\r\nroots and subtlest fibres of his being. And so much the more that it was\r\nso subterranean in him, so much the more did he feel its weird\r\ninscrutableness. What was one unknown, sad-eyed, shrieking girl to him?\r\nThere must be sad-eyed girls somewhere in the world, and this was only\r\none of them. And what was the most beautiful sad-eyed girl to him?\r\nSadness might be beautiful, as well as mirth--he lost himself trying to\r\nfollow out this tangle. \"I will no more of this infatuation,\" he would\r\ncry; but forth from regions of irradiated air, the divine beauty and\r\nimploring sufferings of the face, stole into his view.\r\n\r\nHitherto I have ever held but lightly, thought Pierre, all stories of\r\nghostly mysticalness in man; my creed of this world leads me to believe\r\nin visible, beautiful flesh, and audible breath, however sweet and\r\nscented; but only in visible flesh, and audible breath, have I hitherto\r\nbelieved. But now!--now!--and again he would lose himself in the most\r\nsurprising and preternatural ponderings, which baffled all the\r\nintrospective cunning of his mind. Himself was too much for himself. He\r\nfelt that what he had always before considered the solid land of\r\nveritable reality, was now being audaciously encroached upon by bannered\r\narmies of hooded phantoms, disembarking in his soul, as from flotillas\r\nof specter-boats.\r\n\r\nThe terrors of the face were not those of Gorgon; not by repelling\r\nhideousness did it smite him so; but bewilderingly allured him, by its\r\nnameless beauty, and its long-suffering, hopeless anguish.\r\n\r\nBut he was sensible that this general effect upon him, was also special;\r\nthe face somehow mystically appealing to his own private and individual\r\naffections; and by a silent and tyrannic call, challenging him in his\r\ndeepest moral being, and summoning Truth, Love, Pity, Conscience, to the\r\nstand. Apex of all wonders! thought Pierre; this indeed almost unmans me\r\nwith its wonderfulness. Escape the face he could not. Muffling his own\r\nin his bed-clothes--that did not hide it. Flying from it by sunlight\r\ndown the meadows, was as vain.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJS0JNVAGJYMWXV1594N5","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZMFAMEZ0JT3M5MWAZVS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:54.925Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:05.752Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}