{"id":"01KG8AN11YXB45RRGXN501D5MZ","cid":"bafkreid55zdeqzwvjtxlolbh3thxahr4meh7sa5f6ue6wuvfmzni2fw5uq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13991,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":13937,"text":"IV.\r\n\r\nThough by the unexpected petition to enter his privacy--a petition he\r\ncould scarce ever deny to Isabel, since she so religiously abstained\r\nfrom preferring it, unless for some very reasonable cause, Pierre, in\r\nthe midst of those conflicting, secondary emotions, immediately\r\nfollowing the first wonderful effect of Lucy's strange letter, had been\r\nforced to put on, toward Isabel, some air of assurance and understanding\r\nconcerning its contents; yet at bottom, he was still a prey to all\r\nmanner of devouring mysteries.\r\n\r\nSoon, now, as he left the chamber of Isabel, these mysteriousnesses\r\nre-mastered him completely; and as he mechanically sat down in the\r\ndining-room chair, gently offered him by Delly--for the silent girl saw\r\nthat some strangeness that sought stillness was in him;--Pierre's mind\r\nwas revolving how it was possible, or any way conceivable, that Lucy\r\nshould have been inspired with such seemingly wonderful presentiments of\r\nsomething assumed, or disguising, or non-substantial, somewhere and\r\nsomehow, in his present most singular apparent position in the eye of\r\nworld. The wild words of Isabel yet rang in his ears. It were an outrage\r\nupon all womanhood to imagine that Lucy, however yet devoted to him in\r\nher hidden heart, should be willing to come to him, so long as she\r\nsupposed, with the rest of the world, that Pierre was an ordinarily\r\nmarried man. But how--what possible reason--what possible intimation\r\ncould she have had to suspect the contrary, or to suspect any thing\r\nunsound? For neither at this present time, nor at any subsequent period,\r\ndid Pierre, or could Pierre, possibly imagine that in her marvelous\r\npresentiments of Love she had any definite conceit of the precise nature\r\nof the secret which so unrevealingly and enchantedly wrapt him. But a\r\npeculiar thought passingly recurred to him here.\r\n\r\nWithin his social recollections there was a very remarkable case of a\r\nyouth, who, while all but affianced to a beautiful girl--one returning\r\nhis own throbbings with incipient passion--became somehow casually and\r\nmomentarily betrayed into an imprudent manifested tenderness toward a\r\nsecond lady; or else, that second lady's deeply-concerned friends caused\r\nit to be made known to the poor youth, that such committal tenderness\r\ntoward her he had displayed, nor had it failed to exert its natural\r\neffect upon her; certain it is, this second lady drooped and drooped,\r\nand came nigh to dying, all the while raving of the cruel infidelity of\r\nher supposed lover; so that those agonizing appeals, from so really\r\nlovely a girl, that seemed dying of grief for him, at last so moved the\r\nyouth, that--morbidly disregardful of the fact, that inasmuch as two\r\nladies claimed him, the prior lady had the best title to his hand--his\r\nconscience insanely upbraided him concerning the second lady; he thought\r\nthat eternal woe would surely overtake him both here and hereafter if he\r\ndid not renounce his first love--terrible as the effort would be both to\r\nhim and her--and wed with the second lady; which he accordingly did;\r\nwhile, through his whole subsequent life, delicacy and honor toward his\r\nthus wedded wife, forbade that by explaining to his first love how it\r\nwas with him in this matter, he should tranquilize her heart; and,\r\ntherefore, in her complete ignorance, she believed that he was willfully\r\nand heartlessly false to her; and so came to a lunatic's death on his\r\naccount.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKWWX2BGWJCE64KZJVE77","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN123CR1EW5VM1RDX435X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:56.382Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:33.306Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}