{"id":"01KG8AN2N60824PZBVW5BS4EY5","cid":"bafkreidud4sxhy2ryiidhko7ttenpqoiikb6uer24ymqzglhkldnmalusa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4012,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":3953,"text":"realities; so that in these flashing revelations of grief's wonderful\r\nfire, we see all things as they are; and though, when the electric\r\nelement is gone, the shadows once more descend, and the false outlines\r\nof objects again return; yet not with their former power to deceive; for\r\nnow, even in the presence of the falsest aspects, we still retain the\r\nimpressions of their immovable true ones, though, indeed, once more\r\nconcealed.\r\n\r\nThus with Pierre. In the joyous young times, ere his great grief came\r\nupon him, all the objects which surrounded him were concealingly\r\ndeceptive. Not only was the long-cherished image of his rather now\r\ntransfigured before him from a green foliaged tree into a blasted trunk,\r\nbut every other image in his mind attested the universality of that\r\nelectral light which had darted into his soul. Not even his lovely,\r\nimmaculate mother, remained entirely untouched, unaltered by the shock.\r\nAt her changed aspect, when first revealed to him, Pierre had gazed in a\r\npanic; and now, when the electrical storm had gone by, he retained in\r\nhis mind, that so suddenly revealed image, with an infinite\r\nmournfulness. She, who in her less splendid but finer and more spiritual\r\npart, had ever seemed to Pierre not only as a beautiful saint before\r\nwhom to offer up his daily orisons, but also as a gentle lady-counsellor\r\nand confessor, and her revered chamber as a soft satin-hung cabinet and\r\nconfessional;--his mother was no longer this all-alluring thing; no\r\nmore, he too keenly felt, could he go to his mother, as to one who\r\nentirely sympathized with him; as to one before whom he could almost\r\nunreservedly unbosom himself; as to one capable of pointing out to him\r\nthe true path where he seemed most beset. Wonderful, indeed, was that\r\nelectric insight which Fate had now given him into the vital character\r\nof his mother. She well might have stood all ordinary tests; but when\r\nPierre thought of the touchstone of his immense strait applied to her\r\nspirit, he felt profoundly assured that she would crumble into nothing\r\nbefore it.\r\n\r\nShe was a noble creature, but formed chiefly for the gilded prosperities\r\nof life, and hitherto mostly used to its unruffled serenities; bred and\r\nexpanded, in all developments, under the sole influence of hereditary\r\nforms and world-usages. Not his refined, courtly, loving, equable\r\nmother, Pierre felt, could unreservedly, and like a heaven's heroine,\r\nmeet the shock of his extraordinary emergency, and applaud, to his\r\nheart's echo, a sublime resolve, whose execution should call down the\r\nastonishment and the jeers of the world.\r\n\r\nMy mother!--dearest mother!--God hath given me a sister, and unto thee a\r\ndaughter, and covered her with the world's extremest infamy and scorn,\r\nthat so I and thou--_thou_, my mother, mightest gloriously own her, and\r\nacknowledge her, and,---- Nay, nay, groaned Pierre, never, never, could\r\nsuch syllables be one instant tolerated by her. Then, high-up, and\r\ntowering, and all-forbidding before Pierre grew the before unthought of\r\nwonderful edifice of his mother's immense pride;--her pride of birth,\r\nher pride of affluence, her pride of purity, and all the pride of\r\nhigh-born, refined, and wealthy Life, and all the Semiramian pride of\r\nwoman. Then he staggered back upon himself, and only found support in\r\nhimself. Then Pierre felt that deep in him lurked a divine\r\nunidentifiableness, that owned no earthly kith or kin. Yet was this\r\nfeeling entirely lonesome, and orphan-like. Fain, then, for one moment,\r\nwould he have recalled the thousand sweet illusions of Life; tho'\r\npurchased at the price of Life's Truth; so that once more he might not\r\nfeel himself driven out an infant Ishmael into the desert, with no\r\nmaternal Hagar to accompany and comfort him.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKHMZF1D3TC148BVGJ48D","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN2N6RQCAKCPX8HD82QSX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AN2NDSHY48S33QZ7JC9Q0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:58.022Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:13.448Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}