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Pierre; or The Ambiguities

Herman Melville

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Pierre; or The Ambiguities | Herman Melville

Pierre; or The Ambiguities

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d youth gives itself up to an infidel scorn.

But not thus, altogether, was it now with Pierre; yet so like, in some points, that the above true warning may not misplacedly stand.

His father had died of a fever; and, as is not uncommon in such maladies, toward his end, he at intervals lowly wandered in his mind. At such times, by unobserved, but subtle arts, the devoted family attendants, had restrained his wife from being present at his side. But little Pierre, whose fond, filial love drew him ever to that bed; they heeded not innocent little Pierre, when his father was delirious; and so, one evening, when the shadows intermingled with the curtains; and all the chamber was hushed; and Pierre but dimly saw his father's face; and the fire on the hearth lay in a broken temple of wonderful coals; then a strange, plaintive, infinitely pitiable, low voice, stole forth from the testered bed; and Pierre heard,—"My daughter! my daughter!"

"He wanders again," said the nurse.

"Dear, dear father!" sobbed the child—"thou hast not a daughter, but here is thy own little Pierre."

But again the unregardful voice in the bed was heard; and now in a sudden, pealing wail,—"My daughter!—God! God!—my daughter!"

The child snatched the dying man's hand; it faintly grew to his grasp; but on the other side of the bed, the other hand now also emptily lifted itself and emptily caught, as if at some other childish fingers. Then both hands dropped on the sheet; and in the twinkling shadows of the evening little Pierre seemed to see, that while the hand which he held wore a faint, feverish flush, the other empty one was ashy white as a leper's.

"It is past," whispered the nurse, "he will wander so no more now till midnight,—that is his wont." And then, in her heart, she wondered how it was, that so excellent a gentleman, and so thoroug

robin 04/03/2024
Reading Pierre For Melville's Bicentennial

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 -- 1891). To commemorate the birth of one of my favorite writers, I read Melville's seventh novel "Pierre or the Ambiguities" published in 1852 just after "Moby-Dick". "Pie
Kirk 01/18/2009
I like to think of this as the Metal Machine Music of American literature. It's a crazy, baffling, totally alienating renunciation of readers of the 19th-century popular marketplace that mixes filial bile, Gothic satire, philosophical essay, and tantalizing hints of impropriety (threesome!) with som
Ashley 01/16/2008
there's no getting around it, melville's mastery of language is up there with shakespeare, faulkner, and woolf. it's the kind of language that draws so much attention to itself that, at times, you stop reading for the plot and start reading for the texture of the sentences themselves.

pierre is not

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