The Portrait of a Lady [Volume 1]
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Henry James >> The Portrait of a Lady [Volume 1]
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"I shall certainly come back," she returned, "in spite of what
you say about its being bad to live in Italy. What was that you
said about one's natural mission? I wonder if I should forsake my
natural mission if I were to settle in Florence."
"A woman's natural mission is to be where she's most
appreciated."
"The point's to find out where that is."
"Very true--she often wastes a great deal of time in the enquiry.
People ought to make it very plain to her."
"Such a matter would have to be made very plain to me," smiled
Isabel.
"I'm glad, at any rate, to hear you talk of settling. Madame
Merle had given me an idea that you were of a rather roving
disposition. I thought she spoke of your having some plan of
going round the world."
"I'm rather ashamed of my plans; I make a new one every day."
"I don't see why you should be ashamed; it's the greatest of
pleasures."
"It seems frivolous, I think," said Isabel. "One ought to choose
something very deliberately, and be faithful to that."
"By that rule then, I've not been frivolous."
"Have you never made plans?"
"Yes, I made one years ago, and I'm acting on it to-day."
"It must have been a very pleasant one," Isabel permitted herself
to observe.
"It was very simple. It was to be as quiet as possible."
"As quiet?" the girl repeated.
"Not to worry--not to strive nor struggle. To resign myself. To
be content with little." He spoke these sentences slowly, with
short pauses between, and his intelligent regard was fixed on his
visitor's with the conscious air of a man who has brought himself
to confess something.
"Do you call that simple?" she asked with mild irony.
"Yes, because it's negative."
"Has your life been negative?"
"Call it affirmative if you like. Only it has affirmed my
indifference. Mind you, not my natural indifference--I HAD none.
But my studied, my wilful renunciation."
She scarcely understood him; it seemed a question whether he were
joking or not. Why should a man who struck her as having a great
fund of reserve suddenly bring himself to be so confidential?
This was his affair, however, and his confidences were interesting.
"I don't see why you should have renounced," she said in a moment.
"Because I could do nothing. I had no prospects, I was poor, and
I was not a man of genius. I had no talents even; I took my
measure early in life. I was simply the most fastidious young
gentleman living. There were two or three people in the world I
envied--the Emperor of Russia, for instance, and the Sultan of
Turkey! There were even moments when I envied the Pope of Rome--
for the consideration he enjoys. I should have been delighted to
be considered to that extent; but since that couldn't be I didn't
care for anything less, and I made up my mind not to go in for
honours. The leanest gentleman can always consider himself, and
fortunately I was, though lean, a gentleman. I could do nothing
in Italy--I couldn't even be an Italian patriot. To do that I
should have had to get out of the country; and I was too fond of
it to leave it, to say nothing of my being too well satisfied
with it, on the whole, as it then was, to wish it altered. So
I've passed a great many years here on that quiet plan I spoke
of. I've not been at all unhappy. I don't mean to say I've cared
for nothing; but the things I've cared for have been definite--
limited. The events of my life have been absolutely unperceived
by any one save myself; getting an old silver crucifix at a
bargain (I've never bought anything dear, of course), or
discovering, as I once did, a sketch by Correggio on a panel
daubed over by some inspired idiot."
This would have been rather a dry account of Mr. Osmond's career
if Isabel had fully believed it; but her imagination supplied the
human element which she was sure had not been wanting. His life
had been mingled with other lives more than he admitted;
naturally she couldn't expect him to enter into this. For the
present she abstained from provoking further revelations; to
intimate that he had not told her everything would be more
familiar and less considerate than she now desired to be--would
in fact be uproariously vulgar. He had certainly told her quite
enough. It was her present inclination, however, to express a
measured sympathy for the success with which he had preserved his
independence. "That's a very pleasant life," she said, "to
renounce everything but Correggio!"
"Oh, I've made in my way a good thing of it. Don't imagine I'm
whining about it. It's one's own fault if one isn't happy."
This was large; she kept down to something smaller. "Have you
lived here always?"
"No, not always. I lived a long time at Naples, and many years in
Rome. But I've been here a good while. Perhaps I shall have to
change, however; to do something else. I've no longer myself to
think of. My daughter's growing up and may very possibly not care
so much for the Correggios and crucifixes as I. I shall have to
do what's best for Pansy."
"Yes, do that," said Isabel. "She's such a dear little girl."
"Ah," cried Gilbert Osmond beautifully, "she's a little saint of
heaven! She is my great happiness!"
CHAPTER XXV
While this sufficiently intimate colloquy (prolonged for some
time after we cease to follow it) went forward Madame Merle and
her companion, breaking a silence of some duration, had begun to
exchange remarks. They were sitting in an attitude of unexpressed
expectancy; an attitude especially marked on the part of the
Countess Gemini, who, being of a more nervous temperament than
her friend, practised with less success the art of disguising
impatience. What these ladies were waiting for would not have
been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their own
minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young
friend from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because
Madame Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the
time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have
desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother wandered with
Isabel to the end of the garden, to which point her eyes followed
them.
"My dear," she then observed to her companion, "you'll excuse me
if I don't congratulate you!"
"Very willingly, for I don't in the least know why you should."
"Haven't you a little plan that you think rather well of?" And
the Countess nodded at the sequestered couple.
Madame Merle's eyes took the same direction; then she looked
serenely at her neighbour. "You know I never understand you very
well," she smiled.
"No one can understand better than you when you wish. I see that
just now you DON'T wish."
"You say things to me that no one else does," said Madame Merle
gravely, yet without bitterness.
"You mean things you don't like? Doesn't Osmond sometimes say
such things?"
"What your brother says has a point."
"Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I'm not so
clever as he you mustn't think I shall suffer from your sense of
our difference. But it will be much better that you should
understand me."
"Why so?" asked Madame Merle. "To what will it conduce?"
"If I don't approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to
appreciate the danger of my interfering with it."
Madame Merle looked as if she were ready to admit that there
might be something in this; but in a moment she said quietly:
"You think me more calculating than I am."
"It's not your calculating I think ill of; it's your calculating
wrong. You've done so in this case."
"You must have made extensive calculations yourself to discover
that."
"No, I've not had time. I've seen the girl but this once," said
the Countess, "and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like
her very much."
"So do I," Madame Merle mentioned.
"You've a strange way of showing it."
"Surely I've given her the advantage of making your acquaintance."
"That indeed," piped the Countess, "is perhaps the best thing
that could happen to her!"
Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess's manner
was odious, was really low; but it was an old story, and with her
eyes upon the violet slope of Monte Morello she gave herself up
to reflection. "My dear lady," she finally resumed, "I advise you
not to agitate yourself. The matter you allude to concerns three
persons much stronger of purpose than yourself."
"Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also
very strong of purpose?"
"Quite as much so as we."
"Ah then," said the Countess radiantly, "if I convince her it's
her interest to resist you she'll do so successfully!"
"Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She's not
exposed to compulsion or deception."
"I'm not sure of that. You're capable of anything, you and
Osmond. I don't mean Osmond by himself, and I don't mean you by
yourself. But together you're dangerous--like some chemical
combination."
"You had better leave us alone then," smiled Madame Merle.
"I don't mean to touch you--but I shall talk to that girl."
"My poor Amy," Madame Merle murmured, "I don't see what has got
into your head."
"I take an interest in her--that's what has got into my head. I
like her."
Madame Merle hesitated a moment. "I don't think she likes you."
The Countess's bright little eyes expanded and her face was set
in a grimace. "Ah, you ARE dangerous--even by yourself!"
"If you want her to like you don't abuse your brother to her,"
said Madame Merle.
"I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in
two interviews."
Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the
house. He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms
folded; and she at present was evidently not lost in the mere
impersonal view, persistently as she gazed at it. As Madame Merle
watched her she lowered her eyes; she was listening, possibly
with a certain embarrassment, while she pressed the point of her
parasol into the path. Madame Merle rose from her chair. "Yes, I
think so!" she pronounced.
The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy--he might, tarnished as
to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray
sketch of old-time manners, been "put in" by the brush of a
Longhi or a Goya--had come out with a small table and placed it
on the grass, and then had gone back and fetched the tea-tray;
after which he had again disappeared, to return with a couple of
chairs. Pansy had watched these proceedings with the deepest
interest, standing with her small hands folded together upon the
front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer
assistance. When the tea-table had been arranged, however, she
gently approached her aunt.
"Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?"
The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and
without answering her question. "My poor niece," she said, "is
that your best frock?"
"Ah no," Pansy answered, "it's just a little toilette for
common occasions."
"Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?--to say
nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder."
Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons
mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect
smile. "I have a pretty dress, but even that one's very simple.
Why should I expose it beside your beautiful things?"
"Because it's the prettiest you have; for me you must always wear
the prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It seems to me
they don't dress you so well as they might."
The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. "It's a
good little dress to make tea--don't you think? Don't you believe
papa would allow me?"
"Impossible for me to say, my child," said the Countess. "For me,
your father's ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands
them better. Ask HER."
Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. "It's a weighty
question--let me think. It seems to me it would please your
father to see a careful little daughter making his tea. It's the
proper duty of the daughter of the house--when she grows up."
"So it seems to me, Madame Merle!" Pansy cried. "You shall see
how well I'll make it. A spoonful for each." And she began to
busy herself at the table.
"Two spoonfuls for me," said the Countess, who, with Madame
Merle, remained for some moments watching her. "Listen to me,
Pansy," the Countess resumed at last. "I should like to know what
you think of your visitor."
"Ah, she's not mine--she's papa's," Pansy objected.
"Miss Archer came to see you as well," said Madame Merle.
"I'm very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me."
"Do you like her then?" the Countess asked.
"She's charming--charming," Pansy repeated in her little neat
conversational tone. "She pleases me thoroughly."
"And how do you think she pleases your father?"
"Ah really, Countess!" murmured Madame Merle dissuasively. "Go
and call them to tea," she went on to the child.
"You'll see if they don't like it!" Pansy declared; and departed
to summon the others, who had still lingered at the end of the
terrace.
"If Miss Archer's to become her mother it's surely interesting to
know if the child likes her," said the Countess.
"If your brother marries again it won't be for Pansy's sake,"
Madame Merle replied. "She'll soon be sixteen, and after that
she'll begin to need a husband rather than a stepmother."
"And will you provide the husband as well?"
"I shall certainly take an interest in her marrying fortunately.
I imagine you'll do the same."
"Indeed I shan't!" cried the Countess. "Why should I, of all
women, set such a price on a husband?"
"You didn't marry fortunately; that's what I'm speaking of. When
I say a husband I mean a good one."
"There are no good ones. Osmond won't be a good one."
Madame Merle closed her eyes a moment. "You're irritated just
now; I don't know why," she presently said. "I don't think you'll
really object either to your brother's or to your niece's
marrying, when the time comes for them to do so; and as regards
Pansy I'm confident that we shall some day have the pleasure of
looking for a husband for her together. Your large acquaintance
will be a great help."
"Yes, I'm irritated," the Countess answered. "You often irritate
me. Your own coolness is fabulous. You're a strange woman."
"It's much better that we should always act together," Madame
Merle went on.
"Do you mean that as a threat?" asked the Countess rising.
Madame Merle shook her head as for quiet amusement. "No indeed,
you've not my coolness!"
Isabel and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming toward them and
Isabel had taken Pansy by the hand. "Do you pretend to believe
he'd make her happy?" the Countess demanded.
"If he should marry Miss Archer I suppose he'd behave like a
gentleman."
The Countess jerked herself into a succession of attitudes. "Do
you mean as most gentlemen behave? That would be much to be
thankful for! Of course Osmond's a gentleman; his own sister
needn't be reminded of that. But does he think he can marry any
girl he happens to pick out? Osmond's a gentleman, of course; but
I must say I've NEVER, no, no, never, seen any one of Osmond's
pretensions! What they're all founded on is more than I can say.
I'm his own sister; I might he supposed to know. Who is he, if
you please? What has he ever done? If there had been anything
particularly grand in his origin--if he were made of some
superior clay--I presume I should have got some inkling of it. If
there had been any great honours or splendours in the family I
should certainly have made the most of them: they would have been
quite in my line. But there's nothing, nothing, nothing. One's
parents were charming people of course; but so were yours, I've
no doubt. Every one's a charming person nowadays. Even I'm a
charming person; don't laugh, it has literally been said. As for
Osmond, he has always appeared to believe that he's descended
from the gods."
"You may say what you please," said Madame Merle, who had
listened to this quick outbreak none the less attentively, we may
believe, because her eye wandered away from the speaker and her
hands busied themselves with adjusting the knots of ribbon on her
dress. "You Osmonds are a fine race--your blood must flow from
some very pure source. Your brother, like an intelligent man, has
had the conviction of it if he has not had the proofs. You're
modest about it, but you yourself are extremely distinguished.
What do you say about your niece? The child's a little princess.
Nevertheless," Madame Merle added, "it won't be an easy matter
for Osmond to marry Miss Archer. Yet he can try."
"I hope she'll refuse him. It will take him down a little."
"We mustn't forget that he is one of the cleverest of men."
"I've heard you say that before, but I haven't yet discovered
what he has done."
"What he has done? He has done nothing that has had to be undone.
And he has known how to wait."
"To wait for Miss Archer's money? How much of it is there?"
"That's not what I mean," said Madame Merle. "Miss Archer has
seventy thousand pounds."
"Well, it's a pity she's so charming," the Countess declared. "To
be sacrificed, any girl would do. She needn't be superior."
"If she weren't superior your brother would never look at her. He
must have the best."
"Yes," returned the Countess as they went forward a little to meet
the others, "he's very hard to satisfy. That makes me tremble for
her happiness!"
CHAPTER XXVI
Gilbert Osmond came to see Isabel again; that is he came to
Palazzo Crescentini. He had other friends there as well, and to
Mrs. Touchett and Madame Merle he was always impartially civil;
but the former of these ladies noted the fact that in the course
of a fortnight he called five times, and compared it with another
fact that she found no difficulty in remembering. Two visits a
year had hitherto constituted his regular tribute to Mrs.
Touchett's worth, and she had never observed him select for such
visits those moments, of almost periodical recurrence, when
Madame Merle was under her roof. It was not for Madame Merle that
he came; these two were old friends and he never put himself out
for her. He was not fond of Ralph--Ralph had told her so--and it
was not supposable that Mr. Osmond had suddenly taken a fancy to
her son. Ralph was imperturbable--Ralph had a kind of
loose-fitting urbanity that wrapped him about like an ill-made
overcoat, but of which he never divested himself; he thought Mr.
Osmond very good company and was willing at any time to look at
him in the light of hospitality. But he didn't flatter himself
that the desire to repair a past injustice was the motive of
their visitor's calls; he read the situation more clearly. Isabel
was the attraction, and in all conscience a sufficient one.
Osmond was a critic, a student of the exquisite, and it was
natural he should be curious of so rare an apparition. So when
his mother observed to him that it was plain what Mr. Osmond was
thinking of, Ralph replied that he was quite of her opinion. Mrs.
Touchett had from far back found a place on her scant list for
this gentleman, though wondering dimly by what art and what
process--so negative and so wise as they were--he had everywhere
effectively imposed himself. As he had never been an importunate
visitor he had had no chance to be offensive, and he was
recommended to her by his appearance of being as well able to do
without her as she was to do without him--a quality that always,
oddly enough, affected her as providing ground for a relation
with her. It gave her no satisfaction, however, to think that he
had taken it into his head to marry her niece. Such an alliance,
on Isabel's part, would have an air of almost morbid perversity.
Mrs. Touchett easily remembered that the girl had refused an
English peer; and that a young lady with whom Lord Warburton had
not successfully wrestled should content herself with an obscure
American dilettante, a middle-aged widower with an uncanny child
and an ambiguous income, this answered to nothing in Mrs.
Touchett's conception of success. She took, it will be observed,
not the sentimental, but the political, view of matrimony--a view
which has always had much to recommend it. "I trust she won't
have the folly to listen to him," she said to her son; to which
Ralph replied that Isabel's listening was one thing and Isabel's
answering quite another. He knew she had listened to several
parties, as his father would have said, but had made them listen
in return; and he found much entertainment in the idea that in
these few months of his knowing her he should observe a fresh
suitor at her gate. She had wanted to see life, and fortune was
serving her to her taste; a succession of fine gentlemen going
down on their knees to her would do as well as anything else.
Ralph looked forward to a fourth, a fifth, a tenth besieger; he
had no conviction she would stop at a third. She would keep the
gate ajar and open a parley; she would certainly not allow number
three to come in. He expressed this view, somewhat after this
fashion, to his mother, who looked at him as if he had been
dancing a jig. He had such a fanciful, pictorial way of saying
things that he might as well address her in the deaf-mute's
alphabet.
"I don't think I know what you mean," she said; "you use too many
figures of speech; I could never understand allegories. The two
words in the language I most respect are Yes and No. If Isabel
wants to marry Mr. Osmond she'll do so in spite of all your
comparisons. Let her alone to find a fine one herself for
anything she undertakes. I know very little about the young man
in America; I don't think she spends much of her time in thinking
of him, and I suspect he has got tired of waiting for her.
There's nothing in life to prevent her marrying Mr. Osmond if she
only looks at him in a certain way. That's all very well; no one
approves more than I of one's pleasing one's self. But she takes
her pleasure in such odd things; she's capable of marrying Mr.
Osmond for the beauty of his opinions or for his autograph of
Michael Angelo. She wants to be disinterested: as if she were the
only person who's in danger of not being so! Will HE be so
disinterested when he has the spending of her money? That was
her idea before your father's death, and it has acquired new
charms for her since. She ought to marry some one of whose
disinterestedness she shall herself be sure; and there would be
no such proof of that as his having a fortune of his own."
"My dear mother, I'm not afraid," Ralph answered. "She's making
fools of us all. She'll please herself, of course; but she'll do
so by studying human nature at close quarters and yet retaining
her liberty. She has started on an exploring expedition, and I
don't think she'll change her course, at the outset, at a signal
from Gilbert Osmond. She may have slackened speed for an hour,
but before we know it she'll be steaming away again. Excuse
another metaphor."
Mrs. Touchett excused it perhaps, but was not so much reassured
as to withhold from Madame Merle the expression of her fears.
"You who know everything," she said, "you must know this: whether
that curious creature's really making love to my niece."
"Gilbert Osmond?" Madame Merle widened her clear eyes and, with a
full intelligence, "Heaven help us," she exclaimed, "that's an
idea!"
"Hadn't it occurred to you?"
"You make me feel an idiot, but I confess it hadn't. I wonder,"
she added, "if it has occurred to Isabel."
"Oh, I shall now ask her," said Mrs. Touchett.
Madame Merle reflected. "Don't put it into her head. The thing
would be to ask Mr. Osmond."
"I can't do that," said Mrs. Touchett. "I won't have him enquire
of me--as he perfectly may with that air of his, given Isabel's
situation--what business it is of mine."
"I'll ask him myself," Madame Merle bravely declared.
"But what business--for HIM--is it of yours?"
"It's being none whatever is just why I can afford to speak. It's
so much less my business than any one's else that he can put me
off with anything he chooses. But it will be by the way he does
this that I shall know."
"Pray let me hear then," said Mrs. Touchett, "of the fruits of
your penetration. If I can't speak to him, however, at least I
can speak to Isabel."
Her companion sounded at this the note of warning. "Don't be too
quick with her. Don't inflame her imagination."
"I never did anything in life to any one's imagination. But I'm
always sure of her doing something--well, not of MY kind."
"No, you wouldn't like this," Madame Merle observed without the
point of interrogation.
"Why in the world should I, pray? Mr. Osmond has nothing the
least solid to offer."
Again Madame Merle was silent while her thoughtful smile drew up
her mouth even more charmingly than usual toward the left corner.
"Let us distinguish. Gilbert Osmond's certainly not the first
comer. He's a man who in favourable conditions might very well
make a great impression. He has made a great impression, to my
knowledge, more than once."
"Don't tell me about his probably quite cold-blooded love-affairs;
they're nothing to me!" Mrs. Touchett cried. "What you say's
precisely why I wish he would cease his visits. He has nothing
in the world that I know of but a dozen or two of early masters
and a more or less pert little daughter."
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