Project Gutenberg EBook, The Wives of The Dead, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

From "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales"

#70 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Title: The Wives of The Dead

(From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales")

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9243]

[This file was first posted on September 18, 2003]
[Last updated on February 6, 2007]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WIVES OF THE DEAD ***

This eBook was produced by David Widger

THE SNOW-IMAGE
 AND

OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES

THE WIVES OF THE DEAD

By

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The following story, the simple and domestic incidents of which may be
deemed scarcely worth relating, after such a lapse of time, awakened some
degree of interest, a hundred years ago, in a principal seaport of the
Bay Province. The rainy twilight of an autumn day,--a parlor on the
second floor of a small house, plainly furnished, as beseemed the
middling circumstances of its inhabitants, yet decorated with little
curiosities from beyond the sea, and a few delicate specimens of Indian
manufacture,--these are the only particulars to be premised in regard to
scene and season. Two young and comely women sat together by the
fireside, nursing their mutual and peculiar sorrows. They were the
recent brides of two brothers, a sailor and a landsman, and two
successive days had brought tidings of the death of each, by the chances
of Canadian warfare and the tempestuous Atlantic. The universal sympathy
excited by this bereavement drew numerous condoling guests to the
habitation of the widowed sisters. Several, among whom was the minister,
had remained till the verge of evening; when, one by one, whispering many
comfortable passages of Scripture, that were answered by more abundant
tears, they took their leave, and departed to their own happier homes.
The mourners, though not insensible to the kindness of their friends, had
yearned to be left alone. United, as they had been, by the relationship
of the living, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each felt as
if whatever consolation her grief admitted were to be found in the bosom
of the other. They joined their hearts, and wept together silently. But
after an hour of such indulgence, one of the sisters, all of whose
emotions were influenced by her mild, quiet, yet not feeble character,
began to recollect the precepts of resignation and endurance which piety
had taught her, when she did not think to need them. Her misfortune,
besides, as earliest known, should earliest cease to interfere with her
regular course of duties; accordingly, having placed the table before the
fire, and arranged a frugal meal, she took the hand of her companion.

"Come, dearest sister; you have eaten not a morsel to-day," she said.
"Arise, I pray you, and let us ask a blessing on that which is provided
for us."

Her sister-in-law was of a lively and irritable temperament, and the

first pangs of her sorrow had been expressed by shrieks and passionate
lamentation. She now shrunk from Mary's words, like a wounded sufferer
from a hand that revives the throb.

"There is no blessing left for me, neither will I ask it!" cried
Margaret, with a fresh burst of tears. "Would it were His will that I
might never taste food more!"
Yet she trembled at these rebellious expressions, almost as soon as they
were uttered, and, by degrees, Mary succeeded in bringing her sister's
mind nearer to the situation of her own. Time went on, and their usual
hour of repose arrived. The brothers and their brides, entering the
married state with no more than the slender means which then sanctioned
such a step, had confederated themselves in one household, with equal
rights to the parlor, and claiming exclusive privileges in two sleeping-
rooms contiguous to it. Thither the widowed ones retired, after heaping
ashes upon the dying embers of their fire, and placing a lighted lamp
upon the hearth. The doors of both chambers were left open, so that a
part of the interior of each, and the beds with their unclosed curtains,
were reciprocally visible. Sleep did not steal upon the sisters at one
and the same time. Mary experienced the effect often consequent upon
grief quietly borne, and soon sunk into temporary forgetfulness, while
Margaret became more disturbed and feverish, in proportion as the night
advanced with its deepest and stillest hours. She lay listening to the
drops of rain, that came down in monotonous succession, unswayed by a
breath of wind; and a nervous impulse continually caused her to lift her
head from the pillow, and gaze into Mary's chamber and the intermediate
apartment. The cold light of the lamp threw the shadows of the furniture
up against the wall, stamping them immovably there, except when they were
shaken by a sudden flicker of the flame. Two vacant arm-chairs were in
their old positions on opposite sides of the hearth, where the brothers
had been wont to sit in young and laughing dignity, as heads of families;
two humbler seats were near them, the true thrones of that little empire,
where Mary and herself had exercised in love a power that love had won.
The cheerful radiance of the fire had shone upon the happy circle, and
the dead glimmer of the lamp might have befitted their reunion now.
While Margaret groaned in bitterness, she heard a knock at the street
door.

"How would my heart have leapt at that sound but yesterday!" thought she,
remembering the anxiety with which she had long awaited tidings from her
husband.

"I care not for it now; let them begone, for I will not arise."

But even while a sort of childish fretfulness made her thus resolve, she
was breathing hurriedly, and straining her ears to catch a repetition of
the summons. It is difficult to be convinced of the death of one whom we
have deemed another self. The knocking was now renewed in slow and
regular strokes, apparently given with the soft end of a doubled fist,
and was accompanied by words, faintly heard through several thicknesses
of wall. Margaret looked to her sister's chamber, and beheld her still
lying in the depths of sleep. She arose, placed her foot upon the floor,
and slightly arrayed herself, trembling between fear and eagerness as she
did so.

"Heaven help me!" sighed she. "I have nothing left to fear, and methinks
I am ten times more a coward than ever."

Seizing the lamp from the hearth, she hastened to the window that
overlooked the street-door. It was a lattice, turning upon hinges; and
having thrown it back, she stretched her head a little way into the moist
atmosphere. A lantern was reddening the front of the house, and melting
its light in the neighboring puddles, while a deluge of darkness
overwhelmed every other object. As the window grated on its hinges, a
man in a broad-brimmed hat and blanket-coat stepped from under the
shelter of the projecting story, and looked upward to discover whom his
application had aroused. Margaret knew him as a friendly innkeeper of
the town.

"What would you have, Goodman Parker?" cried the widow.

"Lackaday, is it you, Mistress Margaret?" replied the innkeeper. "I was

afraid it might be your sister Mary; for I hate to see a young woman in
trouble, when I have n't a word of comfort to whisper her."

"For Heaven's sake, what news do you bring?" screamed Margaret.

"Why, there has been an express through the town within this half-hour,"
said Goodman Parker, "travelling from the eastern jurisdiction with
letters from the governor and council. He tarried at my house to refresh
himself with a drop and a morsel, and I asked him what tidings on the
frontiers. He tells me we had the better in the skirmish you wot of, and
that thirteen men reported slain are well and sound, and your husband
among them. Besides, he is appointed of the escort to bring the
captivated Frenchers and Indians home to the province jail. I judged you
would n't mind being broke of your rest, and so I stepped over to tell
you. Good night."

So saying, the honest man departed; and his lantern gleamed along the
street, bringing to view indistinct shapes of things, and the fragments
of a world, like order glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over
the past. But Margaret stayed not to watch these picturesque effects.
Joy flashed into her heart, and lighted it up at once; and breathless,
and with winged steps, she flew to the bedside of her sister. She
paused, however, at the door of the chamber, while a thought of pain
broke in upon her.

"Poor Mary!" said she to herself. "Shall I waken her, to feel her sorrow
sharpened by my happiness? No; I will keep it within my own bosom till
the morrow."

She approached the bed, to discover if Mary's sleep were peaceful. Her
face was turned partly inward to the pillow, and had been hidden there to
weep; but a look of motionless contentment was now visible upon it, as if
her heart, like a deep lake, had grown calm because its dead had sunk
down so far within. Happy is it, and strange, that the lighter sorrows
are those from which dreams are chiefly fabricated. Margaret shrunk from
disturbing her sister-in-law, and felt as if her own better fortune had
rendered her involuntarily unfaithful, and as if altered and diminished
affection must be the consequence of the disclosure she had to make.
With a sudden step she turned away. But joy could not long be repressed,
even by circumstances that would have excited heavy grief at another
moment. Her mind was thronged with delightful thoughts, till sleep stole
on, and transformed them to visions, more delightful and more wild, like
the breath of winter (but what a cold comparison!) working fantastic
tracery upon a window.

When the night was far advanced, Mary awoke with a sudden start. A vivid
dream had latterly involved her in its unreal life, of which, however,
she could only remember that it had been broken in upon at the most
interesting point. For a little time, slumber hung about her like a
morning mist, hindering her from perceiving the distinct outline of her
situation. She listened with imperfect consciousness to two or three
volleys of a rapid and eager knocking; and first she deemed the noise a
matter of course, like the breath she drew; next, it appeared a thing in
which she had no concern; and lastly, she became aware that it was a
summons necessary to be obeyed. At the same moment, the pang of
recollection darted into her mind; the pall of sleep was thrown back from
the face of grief; the dim light of the chamber, and the objects therein
revealed, had retained all her suspended ideas, and restored them as soon
as she unclosed her eyes. Again there was a quick peal upon the street-
door. Fearing that her sister would also be disturbed, Mary wrapped
herself in a cloak and hood, took the lamp from the hearth, and hastened
to the window. By some accident, it had been left unhasped, and yielded
easily to her hand.

"Who's there?" asked Mary, trembling as she looked forth.

The storm was over, and the moon was up; it shone upon broken clouds
above, and below upon houses black with moisture, and upon little lakes
of the fallen rain, curling into silver beneath the quick enchantment of
a breeze. A young man in a sailor's dress, wet as if he had come out of
the depths of the sea, stood alone under the window. Mary recognized him
as one whose livelihood was gained by short voyages along the coast; nor
did she forget that, previous to her marriage, he had been an
unsuccessful wooer of her own.

"What do you seek here, Stephen?" said she.

"Cheer up, Mary, for I seek to comfort you," answered the rejected lover.
"You must know I got home not ten minutes ago, and the first thing my
good mother told me was the news about your husband. So, without saying
a word to the old woman, I clapped on my hat, and ran out of the house.
I could n't have slept a wink before speaking to you, Mary, for the sake
of old times."

"Stephen, I thought better of you!" exclaimed the widow, with gushing

tears and preparing to close the lattice; for she was no whit inclined to
imitate the first wife of Zadig.

"But stop, and hear my story out," cried the young sailor. "I tell you
we spoke a brig yesterday afternoon, bound in from Old England. And who
do you think I saw standing on deck, well and hearty, only a bit thinner
than he was five months ago?"

Mary leaned from the window, but could not speak. "Why, it was your
husband himself," continued the generous seaman. "He and three others
saved themselves on a spar, when the Blessing turned bottom upwards. The
brig will beat into the bay by daylight, with this wind, and you'll see
him here to-morrow. There's the comfort I bring you, Mary, and so good
night."

He hurried away, while Mary watched him with a doubt of waking reality,
that seemed stronger or weaker as he alternately entered the shade of the
houses, or emerged into the broad streaks of moonlight. Gradually,
however, a blessed flood of conviction swelled into her heart, in
strength enough to overwhelm her, had its increase been more abrupt.
Her first impulse was to rouse her sister-in-law, and communicate the new-
born gladness. She opened the chamber-door, which had been closed in the
course of the night, though not latched, advanced to the bedside, and was
about to lay her hand upon the slumberer's shoulder. But then she
remembered that Margaret would awake to thoughts of death and woe,
rendered not the less bitter by their contrast with her own felicity.
She suffered the rays of the lamp to fall upon the unconscious form of
the bereaved one. Margaret lay in unquiet sleep, and the drapery was
displaced around her; her young cheek was rosy-tinted, and her lips half
opened in a vivid smile; an expression of joy, debarred its passage by
her sealed eyelids, struggled forth like incense from the whole
countenance.

"My poor sister! you will waken too soon from that happy dream," thought
Mary.

Before retiring, she set down the lamp, and endeavored to arrange the
bedclothes so that the chill air might not do harm to the feverish
slumberer. But her hand trembled against Margaret's neck, a tear also
fell upon her cheek, and she suddenly awoke.

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By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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