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2. Mystery of Isabel [From the Second Part of the Story of Isabel] So saying she loosened some ivory screws of the guitar, so as to open a peep lengthwise through its interior. [. . .] So saying, as Pierre held the instrument before him as directed, Isabel held the lamp so as to cast its light through the round sounding-hole into the heart of the guitar. [. . .] Eagerly Pierre did as he was bid; but somehow felt disappointed, and yet surprised at what he saw. He saw the word Isabel, quite legibly but still fadedly gilded upon a part of one side of the interior, where it made a projecting curve. [From the First Part of the Story of Isabel] "So with part of my earnings I bought the guitar. Straightaway I took it to my little chamber in the gable and softly laid it on my bed. Then I murmured; sung and murmured to it; very lowly, very softly; I could hardly hear myself. And I changed the modulation of my singings and my murmurings; and still sung, and murmured, lowly, softly, --- more and more; and presently I heard a sudden sound: sweet and low beyond all telling was the sweet and sudden sound. I clapt my hands; the guitar was speaking to me; the dear guitar was singing to me; murmuring and singing to me, the guitar. Then I sung and murmured to it with a still different modulation; and once more it answered me from a different string; and once more it murmured to me, and it answered to me with a different string. The guitar was human; the guitar taught me the secret of the guitar; the guitar learned me to play on the guitar. No music-master have I ever had but the guitar. I made a loving friend of it; a heart friend of it. It sings to me and I to it. Love is not all on one side with my guitar. All the wonders that are unimaginable and unspeakable; all these wonders are translated in the mysterious melodiousness of the guitar. It knows all my past history. Sometimes it plays to me the mystic visions of the confused large house I never name. Sometimes it brings to me the bird-twitterings in the air; and sometimes it strikes up in me rapturous pulsations of legendary delights eternally unexperienced and unknown to me. Bring me the guitar." vi [. . .] Instantly the room was populous with sounds of melodiousness, and mournfulness, and wonderfulness; the room swarmed with the unintelligible but delicious sounds. The sounds seemed waltzing in the room; the sounds hung pendulous like glittering icicles from the corners of the room; and fell upon him with a ringing silveryness; and were drawn up again to the ceiling, and hung pendulous again, and dropt down upon him again with the ringing silveryness. Fire-flies seemed buzzing in the sounds; summer-lightnings seemed vividly yet softly audible in the sounds. [. . .] Among the waltzings, and the droppings, and the swarmings of the sounds, Pierre now heard the tones above deftly stealing and winding among the myriad serpentinings of the other melody: --- deftly stealing and winding as respected the instrumental sounds, but in themselves wonderfully and abandonedly free and bold --- bounding and rebounding as from multitudinous reciprocal walls; while with every syllable the hair-shrouded form of Isabel swayed to and fro with a like abandonment, and suddennness and wantonness: --- then it seemed not like any song; seemed not issuing from any mouth; but it came forth from beneath the same vail concealing the guitar. Now a strange wild heat burned upon his brow; he put his hand to it. Instantly the music was changed; and drooped and changed; and changed and changed; and lingeringly retreated as it changed; and at last was wholly gone. --- Herman Melville Pierre or The Ambiguities |