第20章

Roderick Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, orwhether the morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to yourfancy, the moral of the story is not the less true and strong. Atremendous Egotism- manifesting itself, in your case, in the form ofjealousy- is as fearful a fiend as ever stole into the human heart.

Can a breast, where it has dwelt so long, be purified?""Oh, yes!" said Rosina, with a heavenly smile. "The serpent was buta dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. Thepast, dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. Togive it its due importance, we must think of it but as an anecdotein our Eternity!"THE END

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1851

TWICE-TOLD TALES

ETHAN BRAND

A CHAPTER FROM AN ABORTIVE ROMANCE

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

BARTRAM THE LIME-BURNER, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimedwith charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his littleson played at building houses with the scattered fragments ofmarble, when, on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar oflaughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shakingthe boughs of the forest.

"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, andpressing betwixt his father's knees.

"O, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner; "somemerry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laughloud enough within doors, lest he should blow the roof of the houseoff. So here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Gray-lock.""But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse,middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. Sothe noise frightens me!""Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You willnever make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother inyou. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comesthe merry fellow, now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, satwatching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand'ssolitary and meditative life, before he began his search for theUnpardonable Sin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed,since that portentous night when the IDEA was first developed. Thekiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was innothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intenseglow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thoughtthat took possession of his life. It was a rude, round, tower-likestructure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones,and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of itscircumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might bedrawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. There was an opening atthe bottom of the tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admita man in a stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door.

With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks andcrevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into thehill-side, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to theinfernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains wereaccustomed to show to pilgrims.

There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for thepurpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of thesubstance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and longdeserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior,which is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rootingthemselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relicsof antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens ofcenturies to come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his dailyand nightlong fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer amongthe hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble,to hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, whenthe character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtfuloccupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had musedto such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in thisvery kiln was burning.

The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, andtroubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that wererequisite to his business. At frequent intervals, he flung back theclashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from theinsufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immensebrands with a long pole. Within the furnace were seen the curlingand riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with theintensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the firequivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showedin the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, thespring beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of thelime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into theprotection of his father's shadow. And when again the iron door wasclosed, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon,which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of theneighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flittingcongregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset,though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished longand long ago.

The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footstepswere heard ascending the hill-side, and a human form thrust asidethe bushes that clustered beneath the trees.