{"id":"01KG8AMZVPTH7Z540424A5H29N","cid":"bafkreidbnabw2ifkqiduln3bau7qgrdkqw2jwdddkorf34xnriqxhnykbe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13002,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":12941,"text":"ceased studying it altogether; nor consciously troubled himself further\r\nabout it during the remainder of the journey. But still thinking now it\r\nmight possibly have been mechanically retained by him, he searched all\r\nthe pockets of his clothes, but without success. He begged Millthorpe to\r\ndo his best toward procuring him another copy; but it proved impossible\r\nto find one. Plotinus himself could not furnish it.\r\n\r\nAmong other efforts, Pierre in person had accosted a limping half-deaf\r\nold book-stall man, not very far from the Apostles'. \"Have you the\r\n'_Chronometrics_,' my friend?\" forgetting the exact title.\r\n\r\n\"Very bad, very bad!\" said the old man, rubbing his back;--\"has had the\r\n_chronic-rheumatics_ ever so long; what's good for 'em?\"\r\n\r\nPerceiving his mistake, Pierre replied that he did not know what was the\r\ninfallible remedy.\r\n\r\n\"Whist! let me tell ye, then, young 'un,\" said the old cripple, limping\r\nclose up to him, and putting his mouth in Pierre's ear--\"Never catch\r\n'em!--now's the time, while you're young:--never catch 'em!\"\r\n\r\nBy-and-by the blue-eyed, mystic-mild face in the upper window of the old\r\ngray tower began to domineer in a very remarkable manner upon Pierre.\r\nWhen in his moods of peculiar depression and despair; when dark thoughts\r\nof his miserable condition would steal over him; and black doubts as to\r\nthe integrity of his unprecedented course in life would most\r\nmalignantly suggest themselves; when a thought of the vanity of his\r\ndeep book would glidingly intrude; if glancing at his closet-window that\r\nmystic-mild face met Pierre's; under any of these influences the effect\r\nwas surprising, and not to be adequately detailed in any possible words.\r\n\r\nVain! vain! vain! said the face to him. Fool! fool! fool! said the face\r\nto him. Quit! quit! quit! said the face to him. But when he mentally\r\ninterrogated the face as to why it thrice said Vain! Fool! Quit! to him;\r\nhere there was no response. For that face did not respond to any thing.\r\nDid I not say before that that face was something separate, and apart; a\r\nface by itself? Now, any thing which is thus a thing by itself never\r\nresponds to any other thing. If to affirm, be to expand one's isolated\r\nself; and if to deny, be to contract one's isolated self; then to\r\nrespond is a suspension of all isolation. Though this face in the tower\r\nwas so clear and so mild; though the gay youth Apollo was enshrined in\r\nthat eye, and paternal old Saturn sat cross-legged on that ivory brow;\r\nyet somehow to Pierre the face at last wore a sort of malicious leer to\r\nhim. But the Kantists might say, that this was a _subjective_ sort of\r\nleer in Pierre. Any way, the face seemed to leer upon Pierre. And now it\r\nsaid to him--_Ass! ass! ass!_ This expression was insufferable. He\r\nprocured some muslin for his closet-window; and the face became\r\ncurtained like any portrait. But this did not mend the leer. Pierre knew\r\nthat still the face leered behind the muslin. What was most terrible was\r\nthe idea that by some magical means or other the face had got hold of\r\nhis secret. \"Ay,\" shuddered Pierre, \"the face knows that Isabel is not\r\nmy wife! And that seems the reason it leers.\"\r\n\r\nThen would all manner of wild fancyings float through his soul, and\r\ndetached sentences of the \"Chronometrics\" would vividly recur to\r\nhim--sentences before but imperfectly comprehended, but now shedding a\r\nstrange, baleful light upon his peculiar condition, and emphatically\r\ndenouncing it. Again he tried his best to procure the pamphlet, to read\r\nit now by the commentary of the mystic-mild face; again he searched\r\nthrough the pockets of his clothes for the stage-coach copy, but in\r\nvain.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"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":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMZVRH0EVJJ42FKZSW030","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.158Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:31.679Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}