{"id":"01KG8AN38K1DZGKNERZ0MMZ929","cid":"bafkreic3i4srxch6wmnocilwrujerwzvjiruinkwlkdhiupadwgq7st6we","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4721,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":4672,"text":"V.\r\n\r\nThe swiftness and unrepellableness of the billow which, with its first\r\nshock, had so profoundly whelmed Pierre, had not only poured into his\r\nsoul a tumult of entirely new images and emotions, but, for the time, it\r\nalmost entirely drove out of him all previous ones. The things that any\r\nway bore directly upon the pregnant fact of Isabel, these things were\r\nall animate and vividly present to him; but the things which bore more\r\nupon himself, and his own personal condition, as now forever involved\r\nwith his sister's, these things were not so animate and present to him.\r\nThe conjectured past of Isabel took mysterious hold of his father;\r\ntherefore, the idea of his father tyrannized over his imagination; and\r\nthe possible future of Isabel, as so essentially though indirectly\r\ncompromisable by whatever course of conduct his mother might hereafter\r\nignorantly pursue with regard to himself, as henceforth, through Isabel,\r\nforever altered to her; these considerations brought his mother with\r\nblazing prominence before him.\r\n\r\nHeaven, after all, hath been a little merciful to the miserable man; not\r\nentirely untempered to human nature are the most direful blasts of Fate.\r\nWhen on all sides assailed by prospects of disaster, whose final ends\r\nare in terror hidden from it, the soul of man--either, as instinctively\r\nconvinced that it can not battle with the whole host at once; or else,\r\nbenevolently blinded to the larger arc of the circle which menacingly\r\nhems it in;--whichever be the truth, the soul of man, thus surrounded,\r\ncan not, and does never intelligently confront the totality of its\r\nwretchedness. The bitter drug is divided into separate draughts for him:\r\nto-day he takes one part of his woe; to-morrow he takes more; and so on,\r\ntill the last drop is drunk.\r\n\r\nNot that in the despotism of other things, the thought of Lucy, and the\r\nunconjecturable suffering into which she might so soon be plunged, owing\r\nto the threatening uncertainty of the state of his own future, as now in\r\ngreat part and at all hazards dedicated to Isabel; not that this thought\r\nhad thus far been alien to him. Icy-cold, and serpent-like, it had\r\noverlayingly crawled in upon his other shuddering imaginings; but those\r\nother thoughts would as often upheave again, and absorb it into\r\nthemselves, so that it would in that way soon disappear from his\r\ncotemporary apprehension. The prevailing thoughts connected with Isabel\r\nhe now could front with prepared and open eyes; but the occasional\r\nthought of Lucy, when _that_ started up before him, he could only cover\r\nhis bewildered eyes with his bewildered hands. Nor was this the\r\ncowardice of selfishness, but the infinite sensitiveness of his soul. He\r\ncould bear the agonizing thought of Isabel, because he was immediately\r\nresolved to help her, and to assuage a fellow-being's grief; but, as\r\nyet, he could not bear the thought of Lucy, because the very resolution\r\nthat promised balm to Isabel obscurely involved the everlasting peace of\r\nLucy, and therefore aggravatingly threatened a far more than\r\nfellow-being's happiness.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKHMZ6A208MEBS476JW1K","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN3WQVS8E3GSZ47S2GZ26","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:58.643Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:14.982Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}