Fancy's Show-Box (From "Twice Told Tales")
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864
English
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TWICE TOLD TALES
FANCY'S SHOW-BOX
A MORALITY
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
What is Guilt? A stain upon the soul. And it is a point of vast
interest, whether the soul may contract such stains, in all their depth
and flagrancy, from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon,
but which, physically, have never had existence. Must the fleshly hand
and visible frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in
order to give them their entire validity against the sinner? Or, while
none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal,
will guilty thoughts,--of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows,--
will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence, in the
supreme court of eternity? In the solitude of a midnight chamber, or in
a desert, afar from men, or in a church, while the body is kneeling, the
soul may pollute itself even with those crimes, which we are accustomed
to deem altogether carnal. If this be true, it is a fearful truth.
Let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example. A venerable
gentleman, one Mr. Smith, who had long been regarded as a pattern of
moral excellence, was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of
generous wine. His children being gone forth about their worldly
business, and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone, in a deep,
luxurious arm-chair, with his feet beneath a richly carved mahogany
table. Some old people have a dread of solitude, and when better company
may not be had, rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe,
asleep upon the carpet. But Mr. Smith, whose silver hair was the bright
symbol of a life unstained, except by such spots as are inseparable from
human nature, he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity, nor
of a grown person to stand between him and his own soul. Nevertheless,
either Manhood must converse with Age, or Womanhood must soothe him with
gentle cares, or Infancy must sport around his chair, or his thoughts
will stray into the misty region of the past, and the old man be chill
and sad. Wine will not always cheer him. Such might have been the case
with Mr. Smith, when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old
Madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. These were Fancy,
who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box
of pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a
pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole, and a huge manuscript
volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person
shrouded in a dusky mantle, which concealed both face and form. But Mr.
Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience.
How kind of Fancy, Memory, and Conscience to visit the old gentleman,
just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a
sparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor were
less aged! Through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson
curtains muffled the glare of sunshine, and created a rich obscurity, the
three guests drew near the silver-haired old mail. Memory, with a finger
between the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand.
Conscience, with her face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her
station on the left, so as to be next his heart; while Fancy set down her
picture-box upon the table, with the magnifying-glass convenient to his
eye. We can sketch merely the outlines of two or three out of the many
pictures which, at the pulling of a string, successively peopled the box
with the semblances of living scenes.
One was a moonlight picture; in the background, a lowly dwelling; and in
front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of
radiance, two youthful figures, male and female. The young man stood
with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip, and a gleam of triumph in
his eye, as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl. She was almost
prostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and
anguish, which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in
supplication. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor
the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of
the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young
man. He was the personification of triumphant scorn. Now, strange to
say, as old Mr. Smith peeped through the magnifying-glass, which made the
objects start out from the canvas with magical deception, he began to
recognize the farm-house, the tree, and both the figures of the picture.
The young man, in times long past, had often met his gaze within the
looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love,--his
cottage love,--his Martha Burroughs! Mr. Smith was scandalized. "O,
vile and slanderous picture!" he exclaims. "When have I triumphed over
ruined innocence? Was not Martha wedded, in her teens, to David Tomkius,
who won her girlish love, and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? And
ever since his death, she has lived a reputable widow!" Meantime, Memory
was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling them to and fro with
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