BOOK VI
ISABEL, AND THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL
I
Half wishful that the hour would come; half shuddering that every moment it still came nearer and more near to him; dry-eyed, but wet with that dark day's rain; at fall of eve, Pierre emerged from long wanderings in the primeval woods of Saddle Meadows, and for one instant stood motionless upon their sloping skirt.
Where he stood was in the rude wood road, only used by sledges in the time of snow; just where the outposted trees formed a narrow arch, and fancied gateway leading upon the far, wide pastures sweeping down toward the lake. In that wet and misty eve the scattered, shivering pasture elms seemed standing in a world inhospitable, yet rooted by inscrutable sense of duty to their place. Beyond, the lake lay in one sheet of blankness and of dumbness, unstirred by breeze of breath; fast bound there it lay, with not life enough to reflect the smallest shrub or twig. Yet in that lake was seen the duplicate, stirless sky above. Only in sunshine did that lake catch gay, green images; and these but displaced the imaged muteness of the unfeatured heavens.
On both sides, in the remoter distance, and also far beyond the mild lake's further shore, rose the long, mysterious mountain masses; shaggy with pines and hemlocks, mystical with nameless, vapoury exhalations, and in that dim air black with dread and gloom. At
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