{"id":"01KG8AMZVH2QSFB41S4CYHX7SH","cid":"bafkreibc2skyrizchiepmuwwlp46wtgaewkzdxpmd7gphxzayihbcmhacq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":12892,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":12825,"text":"III.\r\n\r\nAs Pierre, now hurrying from his chamber, was rapidly passing through\r\none of the higher brick colonnades connecting the ancient building with\r\nthe modern, there advanced toward him from the direction of the latter,\r\na very plain, composed, manly figure, with a countenance rather pale if\r\nany thing, but quite clear and without wrinkle. Though the brow and the\r\nbeard, and the steadiness of the head and settledness of the step\r\nindicated mature age, yet the blue, bright, but still quiescent eye\r\noffered a very striking contrast. In that eye, the gay immortal youth\r\nApollo, seemed enshrined; while on that ivory-throned brow, old Saturn\r\ncross-legged sat. The whole countenance of this man, the whole air and\r\nlook of this man, expressed a cheerful content. Cheerful is the\r\nadjective, for it was the contrary of gloom; content--perhaps\r\nacquiescence--is the substantive, for it was not Happiness or Delight.\r\nBut while the personal look and air of this man were thus winning, there\r\nwas still something latently visible in him which repelled. That\r\nsomething may best be characterized as non-Benevolence. Non-Benevolence\r\nseems the best word, for it was neither Malice nor Ill-will; but\r\nsomething passive. To crown all, a certain floating atmosphere seemed to\r\ninvest and go along with this man. That atmosphere seems only renderable\r\nin words by the term Inscrutableness. Though the clothes worn by this\r\nman were strictly in accordance with the general style of any\r\nunobtrusive gentleman's dress, yet his clothes seemed to disguise this\r\nman. One would almost have said, his very face, the apparently natural\r\nglance of his very eye disguised this man.\r\n\r\nNow, as this person deliberately passed by Pierre, he lifted his hat,\r\ngracefully bowed, smiled gently, and passed on. But Pierre was all\r\nconfusion; he flushed, looked askance, stammered with his hand at his\r\nhat to return the courtesy of the other; he seemed thoroughly upset by\r\nthe mere sight of this hat-lifting, gracefully bowing, gently-smiling,\r\nand most miraculously self-possessed, non-benevolent man.\r\n\r\nNow who was this man? This man was Plotinus Plinlimmon. Pierre had read\r\na treatise of his in a stage-coach coming to the city, and had heard him\r\noften spoken of by Millthorpe and others as the Grand Master of a\r\ncertain mystic Society among the Apostles. Whence he came, no one could\r\ntell. His surname was Welsh, but he was a Tennesseean by birth. He\r\nseemed to have no family or blood ties of any sort. He never was known\r\nto work with his hands; never to write with his hands (he would not even\r\nwrite a letter); he never was known to open a book. There were no books\r\nin his chamber. Nevertheless, some day or other he must have read books,\r\nbut that time seemed gone now; as for the sleazy works that went under\r\nhis name, they were nothing more than his verbal things, taken down at\r\nrandom, and bunglingly methodized by his young disciples.\r\n\r\nFinding Plinlimmon thus unfurnished either with books or pen and paper,\r\nand imputing it to something like indigence, a foreign scholar, a rich\r\nnobleman, who chanced to meet him once, sent him a fine supply of\r\nstationery, with a very fine set of volumes,--Cardan, Epictetus, the\r\nBook of Mormon, Abraham Tucker, Condorcet and the Zenda-Vesta. But this\r\nnoble foreign scholar calling next day--perhaps in expectation of some\r\ncompliment for his great kindness--started aghast at his own package\r\ndeposited just without the door of Plinlimmon, and with all fastenings\r\nuntouched.\r\n\r\n\"Missent,\" said Plotinus Plinlimmon placidly: \"if any thing, I looked\r\nfor some choice Curaçoa from a nobleman like you. I should be very\r\nhappy, my dear Count, to accept a few jugs of choice Curaçoa.\"\r\n\r\n\"I thought that the society of which you are the head, excluded all\r\nthings of that sort\"--replied the Count.\r\n\r\n\"Dear Count, so they do; but Mohammed hath his own dispensation.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! I see,\" said the noble scholar archly.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKVZ9WS47DQGH9WNRS688","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZVH0QD7V6JYEWH75PRW","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.153Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:31.740Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}