I OLD MOODIE

The Blithedale Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I OLD MOODIE, THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my
bachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the
Veiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me in an
obscure part of the street.

"Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, "can I speak with you a moment?"

As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss to
mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with
her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric
line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new science,
or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her sisterhood have
grown too numerous to attract much individual notice; nor, in fact, has
any one of them come before the public under such skilfully contrived
circumstances of stage effect as those which at once mystified and
illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady in question.
Nowadays, in the management of his "subject," "clairvoyant," or "medium,"
the exhibitor affects the simplicity and openness of scientific
experiment; and even if he profess to tread a step or two across the
boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our
actual life and extends them over his preternatural conquests. Twelve or
fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious
arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically contrasted
light and shade, were made available, in order to set the apparent
miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In
the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator was
further wrought up by the enigma of her identity, and an absurd rumor
(probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one time very prevalent)
that a beautiful young lady, of family and fortune, was enshrouded within
the misty drapery of the veil. It was white, with somewhat of a subdued
silver sheen, like the sunny side of a cloud; and, falling over the
wearer from head to foot, was supposed to insulate her from the material
world, from time and space, and to endow her with many of the privileges
of a disembodied spirit.

Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have little to
do with the present narrative--except, indeed, that I had propounded, for
the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the success of our
Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye, was of the true
Sibylline stamp,--nonsensical in its first aspect, yet on closer study
unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which has certainly
accorded with the event. I was turning over this riddle in my mind, and
trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when the old man above
mentioned interrupted me.

"Mr. Coverdale!--Mr. Coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice, in
order to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he
uttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to
Blithedale tomorrow."

I knew the pale, elderly face, with the redtipt nose, and the patch over
one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the old fellow's
way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of
himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a very shy
personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was the more singular, as his
mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into the stir and
hubbub of the world more than the generality of men.

"Yes, Mr. Moodie," I answered, wondering what interest he could take in
the fact, "it is my intention to go to Blithedale to-morrow. Can I be of
any service to you before my departure?"

"If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale," said he, "you might do me a very great
favor."

"A very great one?" repeated I, in a tone that must have expressed but
little alacrity of beneficence, although I was ready to do the old man
any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. "A very
great favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and I have a good
many preparations to make. But be good enough to tell me what you wish."

"Ah, sir," replied Old Moodie, "I don't quite like to do that; and, on
further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps I had better apply to some older
gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness to make me
known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale. You are a young
man, sir!"

"Does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?" asked I.
"However, if an older man will suit you better, there is Mr.
Hollingsworth, who has three or four years the advantage of me in age,
and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am
only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that! But
what can this business be, Mr. Moodie? It begins to interest me;
especially since your hint that a lady's influence might be found
desirable. Come, I am really anxious to be of service to you."

But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both freakish and
obstinate; and he had now taken some notion or other into his head that
made him hesitate in his former design.

"I wonder, sir," said he, "whether you know a lady whom they call
Zenobia?"

"Not personally," I answered, "although I expect that pleasure to-morrow,
as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already a resident at
Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie? or have you taken
up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can have interested you
in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose you know, is merely her
public name; a sort of mask in which she comes before the world,
retaining all the privileges of privacy,--a contrivance, in short, like
the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only a little more transparent.
But it is late. Will you tell me what I can do for you?"

"Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. "You are
very kind; but I am afraid I have troubled you, when, after all, there
may be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to your
lodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. I wish
you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for stopping you."

And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next morning,
it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at a plausible
conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arriving at my room,
I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a cigar, and spent
an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to the most sombre;
being, in truth, not so very confident as at some former periods that
this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably with the Blithedale
affair, was the wisest that could possibly be taken. It was nothing
short of midnight when I went to bed, after drinking a glass of
particularly fine sherry on which I used to pride myself in those days.
It was the very last bottle; and I finished it, with a friend, the next
forenoon, before setting out for Blithedale.