{"id":"01KG8AN0BKV6MR9M7Z13QWMT0V","cid":"bafkreibzo7qpxx2lgjnh6uzocv6y5pcqkhfo3c7xku5qikzoc3nwknn2ze","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2408,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 6","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":2344,"text":"especially your cane, and begin your own secret voyage of discovery\r\nafter it. Your cane, I say; because it will probably be a very long and\r\nweary walk. True, just now I hinted, that she that bears it can not\r\ndwell very remote; but then her nearness may not be at all conspicuous.\r\nSo, homeward, and put off thy hat, and let thy cane stay still, good\r\nPierre. Seek not to mystify the mystery so.\r\n\r\nThus, intermittingly, ever and anon during those sad two days of\r\ndeepest sufferance, Pierre would stand reasoning and expostulating with\r\nhimself; and by such meditative treatment, reassure his own spontaneous\r\nimpulses. Doubtless, it was wise and right that so he did; doubtless:\r\nbut in a world so full of all dubieties as this, one can never be\r\nentirely certain whether another person, however carefully and\r\ncautiously conscientious, has acted in all respects conceivable for the\r\nvery best.\r\n\r\nBut when the two days were gone by, and Pierre began to recognize his\r\nformer self as restored to him from its mystic exile, then the thoughts\r\nof personally and pointedly seeking out the unknown, either\r\npreliminarily by a call upon the sister spinsters, or generally by\r\nperforming the observant lynx-eyed circuit of the country on foot, and\r\nas a crafty inquisitor, dissembling his cause of inquisition; these and\r\nall similar intentions completely abandoned Pierre.\r\n\r\nHe was now diligently striving, with all his mental might, forever to\r\ndrive the phantom from him. He seemed to feel that it begat in him a\r\ncertain condition of his being, which was most painful, and every way\r\nuncongenial to his natural, wonted self. It had a touch of he knew not\r\nwhat sort of unhealthiness in it, so to speak; for, in his then\r\nignorance, he could find no better term; it seemed to have in it a germ\r\nof somewhat which, if not quickly extirpated, might insidiously poison\r\nand embitter his whole life--that choice, delicious life which he had\r\nvowed to Lucy for his one pure and comprehensive offering--at once a\r\nsacrifice and a delight.\r\n\r\nNor in these endeavorings did he entirely fail. For the most part, he\r\nfelt now that he had a power over the comings and the goings of the\r\nface; but not on all occasions. Sometimes the old, original mystic\r\ntyranny would steal upon him; the long, dark, locks of mournful hair\r\nwould fall upon his soul, and trail their wonderful melancholy along\r\nwith them; the two full, steady, over-brimming eyes of loveliness and\r\nanguish would converge their magic rays, till he felt them kindling he\r\ncould not tell what mysterious fires in the heart at which they aimed.\r\n\r\nWhen once this feeling had him fully, then was the perilous time for\r\nPierre. For supernatural as the feeling was, and appealing to all things\r\nultramontane to his soul; yet was it a delicious sadness to him. Some\r\nhazy fairy swam above him in the heavenly ether, and showered down upon\r\nhim the sweetest pearls of pensiveness. Then he would be seized with a\r\nsingular impulse to reveal the secret to some one other individual in\r\nthe world. Only one, not more; he could not hold all this strange\r\nfullness in himself. It must be shared. In such an hour it was, that\r\nchancing to encounter Lucy (her, whom above all others, he did\r\nconfidingly adore), she heard the story of the face; nor slept at all\r\nthat night; nor for a long time freed her pillow completely from wild,\r\nBeethoven sounds of distant, waltzing melodies, as of ambiguous fairies\r\ndancing on the heath.\r\n\r\n\r\nIII.\r\n\r\nThis history goes forward and goes backward, as occasion calls. Nimble\r\ncenter, circumference elastic you must have. Now we return to Pierre,\r\nwending homeward from his reveries beneath the pine-tree.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 6"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJS0JNVAGJYMWXV1594N5","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN0BE26CGQ82G21R8RVFS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AN0BKPG5G83W7V2Y9TDNK","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.667Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:06.084Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}