 Chapter 24 It would certainly have been hard to see what injury could arise to her from the visit she presently paid to Mr. Osman's hilltop. Nothing could have been more charming than this occasion, a soft afternoon in the full maturity of the Tuscan spring. The companions drove out of the Roman gate beneath the enormous blank superstructure which crowns the fine clear arch of that portal, and makes it nakedly impressive, and wound between high walled lanes into which the wealth of blossoming orchards overdrooped and flung a fragrance, until they reached the small super-urban piazza of crooked shape where the long brown wall of the villa, occupied in part by Mr. Osman, formed a principal, or at least a very imposing object. Isabelle went with her friend through a wide high court where a clear shadow rested below, and a pair of light-arched galleries facing each other above caught the upper sunshine upon their slim columns and the flowering plants in which they were dressed. There was something grave and strong in the place. It looked somehow as if, once you were in, you would need an act of energy to get out. For Isabelle, however, there was, of course, as yet no thought of getting out, but only of advancing. Mr. Osman met her in the cold antechamber. It was cold even in the month of May, and ushered her, with her conductress, into the apartment to which we have already been introduced. Madam Mail was in front, and while Isabelle lingered a little talking with him, she went forward familiarly and greeted two persons who were seated in the saloon. One of these was little Pansy, on whom she bestowed a kiss. The other was a lady whom Mr. Osman indicated to Isabelle as his sister, the Countess Gemini. And that's my little girl, he said, who has just come out of her convent. Pansy had on a scant white dress, and her fair hair was neatly arranged in a net. She wore her small shoes tied sandal fashion about her ankles. She made Isabelle a little conventional curtsy, and then came to be kissed. The Countess Gemini simply nodded without getting up. Isabelle could see she was a woman of high fashion. She was thin and dark, and not at all pretty, having features that suggested some tropical bird, a long beak-like nose, small, quickly moving eyes, and a mouth and chin that receded extremely. Her expression, however, thanks to various intensities of emphasis and wonder, of horror and joy, was not inhuman, and as regards her appearance it was plain she understood herself and made the most of her points. Her attire, voluminous and delicate, bristling with elegance, had the look of shimmering plumage, and her attitudes were as light and sudden as those of a creature who perched upon twigs. She had a great deal of manner. Isabelle, who had never known anyone with so much manner, immediately clasped her as the most affected of women. She remembered that Ralph had not recommended her as an acquaintance, but she was ready to acknowledge that to a casual view the Countess Gemini revealed no depths. Her demonstrations suggested the violent waving of some flag of General Truce, white silk with fluttering streamers. You'll believe I'm glad to see you, when I tell you it's only because I knew you were to be here that I came myself. I don't come and see my brother, I make him come to see me. This hill of his is impossible. I don't see what possesses him. Really Osmond, you'll be the ruin of my horses some day, and if it hurts them you'll have to give me another pair. I heard them wheezing today, I assure you I did. It's very disagreeable to hear one's horses wheezing when one's sitting in the carriage. It sounds too as if they weren't what they should be, but I've always had good horses. Where else I may have lacked, I've always managed that. My husband doesn't know much, but I think he knows a horse. In general Italians don't, but my husband goes in according to his poor light for everything English. My horses are English, so it's all the greater pity they should be ruined. I must tell you, she went on, directly addressing Isabel, that Osmond doesn't often invite me. I don't think he likes to have me. It was quite my own idea coming today. I like to see new people, and I'm sure you're very new, but don't sit there, that chairs not what it looks. There are some very good seats here, but there are also some horrors. These remarks were delivered with a series of little jerks and pecs, of roulades of shrillness, and in an accent that was as some fond recall of good English, or rather of good American, in adversity. I don't like to have you, my dear, said her brother. I'm sure you're invaluable. I don't see any horrors anywhere. Isabel returned, looking about her. Everything seems to me beautiful and precious. I have a few good things, Mr. Osmond allowed. Indeed I have nothing very bad, but I've not what I should have liked. He stood there a little awkwardly, smiling and glancing about. His manner was an odd mixture of the detached and the involved. He seemed to hint that nothing but the right values was of any consequence. Isabel made a rapid induction. Perfect simplicity was not the badge of his family. Even the little girl from the convent, who in her prim white dress, with her small, submissive face, and her hands locked before her, stood there as if she were about to partake of her first communion, even Mr. Osmond's diminutive daughter had a kind of finish that was not entirely artless. You'd have liked a few things from Neofizzi and the Piddi. That's what you'd have liked, said Madame Mail. Poor Osmond, with his old curtains and crucifixes the Countess Gemini exclaimed. She appeared to call her brother only by his family name. Her ejaculation had no particular object. She smiled at Isabel as she made it, and looked at her from head to foot. Her brother had not heard her. He seemed to be thinking what he could say to Isabel. Once you have some tea, you must be very tired. He at last bethought himself of remarking. No, indeed, I'm not tired. What have I done to tire me? Isabel felt a certain need of being very direct, of pretending to nothing. There was something in the air in her general impression of things, she could hardly have said what it was, that deprived her of all disposition to put herself forward. The place, the occasion, the combination of people, signified more than lay on the surface. She would try to understand. She would not simply utter graceful platitudes. Poor Isabel was doubtless, not aware that many women would have uttered graceful platitudes to cover the working of their observation. It must be confessed that her pride was a trifle alarmed, a man she had heard spoken of in terms that excited interest, and who was evidently capable of distinguishing himself, had invited her, a young lady, not lavish of her favours, to come to his house. Now that she had done so, the burden of the entertainment rested naturally on his wit. Isabel was not rendered less observant, and for the moment we judge, she was not rendered more indulgent by perceiving that Mr. Osmond carried his burden less complacently than might have been expected. What a fool I was to have let myself so needlessly in, she could fancy his exclaiming to himself. I'll be tired when you go home, if he shows you all his Bibelot, and gives you a lecture on each, said the Countess Gemini. I'm not afraid of that, but if I'm tired, I shall at least have learnt something. Very little, I suspect, but my sisters dreadfully afraid of learning anything, said Mr. Osmond. Oh, I confess to that, I don't want to know anything more, I know too much already. The more you know, the more unhappy you are. You should not undervalue knowledge before Pansy, who has not finished her education, made a male interposed with a smile. Pansy will never know any harm, said the child's father. Pansy's a little convent flower. Oh, the convent's the convent's, cried the Countess with a flutter of her ruffles. Speak to me of the convent's. You may learn anything there. I'm a convent flower myself. I don't pretend to be good, but the nuns do. Did you see what I mean, she went on, appealing to Isabel? Isabel was not sure she saw, and she answered that she was very bad at following arguments. The Countess then declared that she herself detested arguments, but that this was her brother's taste. He would always discuss. For me, she said, one should like a thing, or one shouldn't. One can't like everything, of course. But one shouldn't attempt to reason it out. You never know where it may lead you. There are some very good feelings that may have bad reasons, don't you know? And then there are very bad feelings, sometimes, that have good reasons. Don't you see what I mean? I don't care anything about reasons, but I know what I like. Ah, that's the great thing, said Isabel, smiling, and suspecting that her acquaintance with this lightly flitting personage would not lead to intellectual repose. If the Countess objected to argument, Isabel at this moment had as little taste for it, and she put out her hand to pansy with a pleasant sense that such a gesture committed her to nothing that would admit of a divergence of views. Gilbert Osmond apparently took a rather hopeless view of his sister's tone. He turned the conversation to another topic. He presently sat down on the other side of his daughter, who had shyly brushed Isabel's fingers with her own, but he ended by drawing her out of her chair and making her stand between his knees, leaning against him while he passed his arm round her slimness. The child fixed her eyes on Isabel with a still, disinterested gaze, which seemed void of an intention yet conscious of an attraction. Mr. Osmond talked of many things. Madam Mail had said he could be agreeable when he chose, and today, after a little, he appeared not only to have chosen, but to have determined. Madam Mail and the Countess Gemini sat a little apart, missing in the effortless manner of persons who knew each other well enough to take their ease. But every now and then Isabel heard the Countess, but something said by her companion plunge into the latter's lucidity as a poodle splashes after a thrown stick. It was as if Madam Mail were seeing how far she would go. Mr. Osmond talked of Florence, of Italy, of the pleasure of living in that country and of the abatements to the pleasure. There were both satisfactions and drawbacks. The drawbacks were numerous. Strangers were too apt to see such a world as all romantic. It met the case soothingly for the human, for the social failure, by which he meant people who couldn't realize, as they said, on their sensibility. They could keep it about them there in their poverty without ridicule, as you might keep an heirloom or an inconvenient entailed place that brought you in nothing. Thus there were advantages in living in the country which contained the greatest sum of beauty. Certain impressions you could get only there. Others favorable to life you never got, and you got some that were very bad. But from time to time you got one of a quality that made up for everything. Italy all the same had spoiled a great many people. He was even factuous enough to believe at times that he himself might have been a better man if he had spent less of his life there. It made one idle and did it antish, and second rate. It had no discipline for the character, didn't cultivate in you otherwise expressed, the successful social and other cheek that flourished in Paris and London. We're sweetly provincial, said Mr. Osmond, and I'm perfectly aware that I myself am as rusty as a key that has no lock to fit it. It polishes me up a little to talk with you, not that I venture to pretend I can turn that very complicated lock I suspect your intellect of being. But you'll be going away before I've seen you three times, and I shall perhaps never see you after that. That's what it is to live in a country that people come to. When they're disagreeable here it's bad enough. When they're agreeable it's still worse. As soon as you like them they're off again. I've been deceived too often, I've ceased to form attachments to permit myself to feel attractions. You mean to stay, to settle? That would be really comfortable. Ah, yes, your answer sort of guarantee. I believe she may be depended on. Oh, she's an old Florentine. I mean literally an old one, not a modern outsider. She's a contemporary of the Medici. She must have been present at the burning of Savonarola, and I'm not sure she didn't throw a handful of chips into the flame. Her face is very much like some of the faces in the early pictures—little, dry, definite faces that must have had a good deal of expression, but almost always the same one. Indeed, I can show you her portrait in a fresco of gilandios. I hope you don't object to my speaking that way of your aunt, eh? I have an idea you don't. Perhaps you think that's even worse. I assure you there's no one to respect in it to either of you. You know I'm a particular admirer of Mrs. Touchit. While Isabelle's host exerted himself to entertain her in this somewhat confidential fashion, she looked occasionally at Madam Mail, who met her eyes with an inattentive smile in which, on this occasion, there was no infelicitous intimation that our heroine appeared to advantage. Madam Mail eventually proposed to the Countess Gemini that they should go into the garden, and the Countess rising and shaking out her feathers began to rustle towards the door. Poor Miss Archer, she exclaimed, surveying the other group with expressive compassion. She has been brought quite into the family. Miss Archer can certainly have nothing but sympathy for a family to which you belong, Mr. Osmond answered, with a laugh which, though it had something of a mocking-ring, had also a finer patience. I don't know what you mean by that. I'm sure she'll see no harm in me, but what do you tell her? I'm better than he says, Miss Archer, the Countess went on. I'm only rather an idiot and a bore. Is that all he has said? Ah, then, you keep him in good humour. Has he opened on one of his favourite subjects? I give you notice that there are two or three that he treats affol, in that case you had better take off your bonnet. I don't think I know what Mr. Osmond's favourite subjects are, said Isabel, who had risen to her feet. The Countess assumed for an instant an attitude of intense meditation, pressing one of her hands with the fingertips gathered together to her forehead. I'll tell you in a moment, one's Machiavelli, the other's Vittoria Colonna, the next is Metastasio. Ah, with me, said Madam Mail, passing her arm into the Countess' Germanys, as if to guide her course to the garden, Mr. Osmond's never-so-historical. Oh, you, the Countess answered as they moved away, you yourself are Machiavelli, you yourself are Vittoria Colonna. We shall hear next that poor Madam Mail is Metastasio, Gilbert Osmond, resignedly sighed. Isabel had got up on the assumption that they too were to go into the garden, but her host stood there with no apparent inclination to leave the room, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and his daughter, who had now locked her arm into one of his own, clinging to him and looking up while her eyes moved from his own face to Isabel's. Isabel waited with a certain unuttered contentedness to have her movements directed. She liked Mr. Osmond's talk, his company. She had, what always gave her, a very private thrill, the consciousness of a new relation. Through the open doors of the great room she saw Madam Mail and the Countess stroll across the fine grass of the garden. Then she turned, and her eyes wandered over the things scattered about her. The understanding had been that Mr. Osmond would show her his treasures. His pictures and cabinets all looked like treasures. Isabel, after a moment, went towards one of the pictures to see it better. But just as she had done so, he said to her abruptly, Miss Archer, what do you think of my sister? She faced him with some surprise. Ah, don't ask me that. I've seen your sister too little. Yes, you've seen her very little, but you must have observed that there is not a great deal of her to see. What do you think of our family tone? He went on with his cool smile. I should like to know how it strikes a fresh, unprejudiced mind. I know what you're going to say. You've had almost no observation of it. Of course, this is only a glimpse. But just take notice in future if you have a chance. I sometimes think we've got into a rather bad way, living off here among things and people, not our own, without responsibilities or attachments, with nothing to hold us together or keep us up. We're living foreigners, forming artificial tastes, playing tricks with our natural mission. Let me add, though, that I say that much more for myself than for my sister. She's a very honest lady, more so than she seems. She's rather unhappy, and as she's not of a serious turn, she doesn't tend to show it tragically. She shows it comically instead. She has got a horrid husband, though I'm not sure she makes the best of him. Of course, however, are horrid husbands an awkward thing. Madam Mail gives her excellent advice, but it's a good deal like giving a child a dictionary to learn a language with. He can look out the words, but he can't put them together. My sister needs a grammar, but unfortunately, she's not grammatical. Pardon my troubling you with these details. My sister was very right in saying you've been taken into the family. Let me take down that picture. You want more light. I took down the picture, carried it towards the window, related some curious facts about it. She looked at the other works of art, and he gave her such information as might appear most acceptable to a young lady making a call on the summer afternoon. His pictures, his medallions, and tapestries were interesting, but after a while, Isabel felt the owner much more so, and independently of them, thickly as they seemed to overhang him. He resembled no one she had ever seen. Most of the people she knew might be divided into groups of half a dozen specimens. There were one or two exceptions to this. She could think, for instance, of no group that would contain her Aunt Lydia. There were other people who were, relatively speaking, original, as one might say, by courtesy, such as Mr. Goodwood, as her cousin Ralph, as Henrietta Stackpole, as Lord Warburton, as Madam Mail. But in essentials, when one came to look at them, these individuals belonged to types already present to her mind. Her mind contained no class offering a natural place to Mr. Osmond. He was a specimen apart. It was not that she recognized all these truths at the hour, but they were falling into order before her. For the moment, she only said to herself that this new relation would perhaps prove her very most distinguished. Madam Mail had had that note of rarity, but what quite other power it immediately gained when sounded by a man. It was not so much what he said and did, but rather what he withheld that marked him for her as by one of those signs of the highly curious that he was showing her on the underside of old plates and in the corner of 16th-century drawings. He indulged in no striking deflections from common usage. He was an original, without being an eccentric. She had never met a person of so fine a grain. The peculiarity was physical to begin with, and it extended to impalpabilities. His dense, delicate hair, his overdrawn, retouched features, his clear complexion, ripe without being coarse, the very evenness of the growth of his beard, and that light, smooth, slenderness of structure which made the movement of a single one of his fingers produce the effect of an expressive gesture. These personal points struck our sensitive young woman as signs of quality, of intensity, somehow as promises of interest. He was certainly fastidious and critical. He was probably irritable. His sensibility had governed him, possibly governed him too much. It had made him impatient of vulgar troubles and had led him to live by himself in a sorted, sifted, arranged world thinking about art and beauty and history. He had consulted his taste in everything, his taste alone perhaps, as a sick man consciously incurable consults at last only his lawyer. That was what made him so different from everyone else. Ralph had something of the same quality, this appearance of thinking that life was a matter of connoisseurship. But in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous excrescence, whereas in Mr. Osmond it was the keynote and everything was in harmony with it. She was certainly far from understanding him completely. His meaning was not at all obvious. It was hard to see what he meant, for instance, by speaking of his provincial side, which was exactly the side she would have taken him most to lack. Was it a harmless paradox intended to puzzle her or was it the last refinement of high culture? She trusted she should learn in time. It would be very interesting to learn. If it was provincial to have that harmony, what then was the finish of the capital? And she could put this question in spite of so feeling her host a shy personage. Since such shyness as his, the shyness of ticklish nerves and fine perceptions was perfectly consistent with the best reading. Indeed it was almost a proof of standards and touchstones other than the vulgar. He must be so sure the vulgar would be first on the ground. He wasn't a man of easy assurance who chatted and gossiped with the fluency of a superficial nature. He was critical of himself as well as of others and exacting a good deal of others to think them agreeable probably took a rather ironical view of what he himself offered, a proof into the bargain that he was not grossly conceited. If he had not been shy, he wouldn't have affected that gradual, subtle, successful conversion of it to which she owed both what pleased her in him and what mystified her. If he had suddenly asked her what she thought of the Countess Gemini, that was doubtless a proof that he was interested in her. It could scarcely be as a help to knowledge of his own sister. That he should be so interested showed an inquiring mind, but it was a little singular. He should sacrifice his fraternal feeling to his curiosity. This was the most eccentric thing he had done. There were two other rooms beyond the one in which she had been received equally full of romantic objects and in these apartments Isabel spent a quarter of an hour. Everything was in the last degree curious and precious and Mr. Osmond continued to be the kindest of Chichironi as he led her from one fine piece to another and still held his little girl by the hand. His kindness almost surprised our young friend who wondered why he should take so much trouble for her and she was oppressed at last with the accumulation of beauty and knowledge to which she found herself introduced. There was enough for the present. She had ceased to attend to what he said. She listened to him with attentive eyes but was not thinking of what he told her. He probably thought her quicker, cleverer in every way, more prepared than she was. Madam Mail would have pleasantly exaggerated which was a pity because in the end he would be sure to find out and then perhaps even her real intelligence wouldn't reconcile him to his mistake. A part of Isabel's fatigue came from the effort to appear as intelligent as she believed Madam Mail had described her and from the fear, very unusual with her, of exposing not her ignorance for that she cared comparatively little but her possible grossness of perception. It would have annoyed her to express a liking for something he in his superior enlightenment would think she oughtn't alike or to pass by something at which the truly initiated mind would arrest itself. She had no wish to fall into that grotesqueness in which she had seen women and it was a warning serenely yet ignoble flounder. She was very careful therefore as to what she said, as to what she noticed or failed to notice more careful than she had ever been before. They came back into the first of the rooms where the tea had been served but as the two other ladies were still on the terrace and as Isabel had not yet been made acquainted with the view, the paramount distinction of the place, Mr. Osmond directed her steps into the garden without more delay. Madam Mail and the Countess had had chairs brought out and as the afternoon was lovely the Countess proposed they should take their tea in the open air. Pansy therefore was sent to bid the servant bring out the preparations. The sun had got low, the golden light took a deeper tone and on the mountains and the plain that stretched beneath them the masses of purple shadow glowed as richly as the places that were still exposed. The scene had an extraordinary charm. The air was almost solemnly still and the large expanse of the landscape with its garden-like culture and nobleness of outline, its teeming valley and the delicately fretted hills, its peculiarly human-looking touches of habitation lay there in splendid harmony and classic grace. You seemed so well pleased that I think you can be trusted to come back, Osmond said, as he led his companion to one of the angles of the terrace. 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 points to find out where that is. Very true, she often wastes a great deal of time in the inquiry. People ought to make it very plain to her. Such a matter would have to be made very plain to me, smiled Isabelle. I'm glad, at any rate, to hear you talk of settling. Madam Mail had given me an idea that you were of rather a 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 Isabelle. 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 today. It must have been a very pleasant one, Isabelle 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 visitors with the conscious area 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 willful 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. Unfortunately, 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 anyone 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 Coreggio on a panel daubed over by some inspired idiot. This would have been rather a dry account of Mr. Osman'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 Coreggio. 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 Coreggios 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. End of chapter 24. Chapter 25 of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in a public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, Volume 1. Chapter 25. While this sufficiently intimate colloquy prolonged for some time after we ceased to follow it, went forward, Madam Mail 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, Jiminy, who, being of a more nervous temperament than her friend, practiced 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. Madam Mail waited for Osmond to release a young friend from her tater-tate, and the Countess waited because Madam Mail 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 Isabelle 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. Madam Mail'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 Madam Mail 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 Madam Mail, 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. Madam Mail 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 you love. 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, Madam Mail mentioned. You've a strange way of showing it. Surely I've given her the advantage of making your acquaintance. That indeed, Pipe the Countess, is perhaps the best thing that could happen to her. Madam Mail 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 violent 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. I then, said the Countess, radiantly, if I convince her it's in 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 Madam Mail. I don't mean to touch you, but I shall talk to that girl. My poor Amy, Madam Mail, 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. Madam Mail hesitated a moment. I don't think she likes you. Countess's bright little eyes expanded, and her face was set in a grimace. Are you are dangerous, even by yourself? If you want her to like you, don't abuse your brother to her, said Madam Mail. I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two interviews. Madam Mail looked a moment at Isabelle 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 Madam Mail 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. Madam Mail rose from her chair. Yes, I think so, she pronounced. The shabby foot boy, summoned by pansy. He might, tarnished as delivery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time manners, been put in by the brush of a longy or agoya, 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, 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 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 mail 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 Mail understands them better. Ask her. Madame Mail 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 Mail, Pansy cried, you shall see her 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 Mail, 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 Mail. 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, Madame Mail, 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 Mail 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 Mail 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 brothers or to your nieces, marrying, when the time comes for them to do so. And as regards Pansy, I'm confident that we shall someday 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 Mail went on. Do you mean that as a threat? asked the Countess, rising. Madame Mail shook her head as for quiet amusement. No indeed, you've not my coolness. Isabelle and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming towards them, and Isabelle 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 be supposed to know. Who is he, if you please? What has he ever done? If there has 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. Everyone'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 Madam Mail, who would listen to this quick outbreak nonetheless 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, Madam Mail 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 Madam Mail. 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, return 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. And of Chapter 25, Chapter 26 of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1 by Henry James, Chapter 26 Gilbert Osmond came to see Isabel again. That is, he came to Palazzo Crescentini. He had other friends there as well, and to Mrs. Touchit and Madam Mail, 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. Touchit's worth, and she had never observed him select for such visits those moments of almost periodical recurrence when Madam Mail was under her roof. It was not for Madam Mail 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 ebannity that wracked 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 visitors' 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. Touchit 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. Touchit 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. Touchit'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. A 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-mutes 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 Michelangelo. 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 someone 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 Madam Mail 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, Madam Mail, 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. Madam Mail 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 inquire 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, Madam Mail 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 anyone else's, 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 my life to anyone's imagination. But I'm always sure of her doing something, well, not of my kind. No, you wouldn't like this, Madam Mail observed, without the point of interrogation. Why in the world should I pray? Mr. Osmond has nothing the least solid to offer. Again, Madam Mail was silent, while her thoughtful smile drew up her mouth even more charmingly than usual, towards the left corner. Let us distinguish. Gilbert Osmond 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. Tuckett cried. What you say is 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. The early masters are now worth a good deal of money, said Madam Mail, and the daughters are very young and very innocent and very harmless person. In other words, she's an insipid little chit. Is that what you mean? Having no fortune, she can't hope to marry as they marry here, so that Isabelle will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a dowry. Isabelle probably wouldn't object to being kind to her. I think she likes the poor child. Another reason, then, for Mr. Osmond stopping at home. Otherwise, a week hence, we shall have my niece arriving at the conviction that her mission in life's to prove that a stepmother may sacrifice herself, and that, to prove it, she must first become one. She would make a charming stepmother, smiled Madam Mail, but I quite agree with you that she had better not decide upon her mission too hastily. Changing the form of one's missions almost as difficult as changing the shape of one's nose. There they are, each in the middle of one's face and one's character. One has to begin too far back. But I'll investigate and report to you. All this went on quite over Isabelle's head. She had no suspicions that her relations with Mr. Osmond were being discussed. Madam Mail had said nothing to put her on her guard. She alluded no more pointedly to him than to the other gentleman of Florence, native and foreign, who now arrived in considerable numbers to pay their respects to Miss Archer's aunt. Isabelle thought him interesting. She came back to that. She liked so to think of him. She had carried away an image from her visit to his hilltop, which her subsequent knowledge of him did nothing to efface, and which put on for her a particular harmony with other supposed and divine things. Histories within histories. The image of a quiet, clever, sensitive, distinguished man, strolling on a moss-grown terrace above the sweet Val d'Arno, and holding by the hand a little girl whose bell-like clearness gave a new grace to childhood. The picture had no flourishes, but she liked its lowness of tone and the atmosphere of summer twilight that pervaded it. It spoke of the kind of personal issue that touched her most nearly, of the choice between objects, subjects, contacts, what might she call them, of a thin and those of a rich association, of a lonely, studious life in a lovely land, of an old sorrow that sometimes ached today, of a feeling of pride that was perhaps exaggerated, but that had an element of nobleness, of a care for beauty and perfection so natural and so cultivated together that the career appeared to stretch beneath it in the disposed vistas and with the ranges of steps and terraces and fountains of a formal Italian garden, allowing only for arid places freshened by the natural dews of a quaint, half-anxious, half-helpless fatherhood. At Palazzo Crescentini Mr. Osman's manner remained the same, diffident at first, oh self-conscious beyond doubt, and full of the effort, visible only to a sympathetic eye, to overcome this disadvantage, an effort which usually resulted in a great deal of easy, lively, very positive, rather aggressive, always suggestive talk. Mr. Osman's talk was not injured by the indication of an eagerness to shine. Isabel found no difficulty in believing that a person was sincere, who had so many of the signs of strong conviction, as, for instance, an explicit and graceful appreciation of anything that might be said on his own side of the question, said perhaps by Miss Archer in his special. What continued to please this young woman was that, while he talked so for amusement, he didn't talk, as she had heard people, for effect. He uttered his ideas as if, odd as they often appeared, he were used to them and had lived with them. Old polished knobs and heads and handles of precious substance that could be fitted, if necessary, to new walking-sticks, not switches plucked in destitution from the common tree, and then too elegantly waved about. One day he brought his small daughter with him, and she rejoiced to renew acquaintance with the child, who, as she presented her forehead to be kissed by every member of the circle, reminded her vividly of an ingenue in a French play. Isabel had never seen a little person of this pattern. American girls were very different. Different, too, were the maidens of England. Pansy was so formed and finished for her tiny place in the world, and yet in imagination, as one could see, so innocent and infantile. She sat on the sofa by Isabel, she wore a little grenadine mantle, and a pair of the useful gloves that Madam Mel had given her, little grey gloves, with a single button. She was like a sheet of blank paper, the ideal giraffeie of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that so fair and smoother page would be covered with an edifying text. The Countess Gemini also came to call upon her, but the Countess was quite another affair. She was by no means a blank sheet. She had been written over in a variety of hands, and Mrs. Touchit, who felt by no means honoured by her visit, pronounced that a number of unmistakable blots were to be seen upon her surface. The Countess gave rise indeed to some discussion between the mistress of the house and the visitor from Rome, in which Madam Mel, who was not such a fool as to irritate people by always agreeing with them, availed herself felicitously enough of that large license of descent which her hostess permitted as freely as she practised it. Mrs. Touchit had declared it a piece of audacity that this highly compromised character should have presented herself at such a time of day at the door of a house in which she was esteemed so little as she must long have known herself to be at Palazzo Crescentini. Isabel had been made acquainted with the estimate prevailing under that roof. It represented Mr. Osman's sister as a lady who had so mismanaged her in proprieties that they ceased to hang together at all, which was at the least what one asked of such matters, and had become the mere floating fragments of a wrecked renown in commoding social circulation. She had been married by her mother, a more administrative person, with an appreciation of foreign titles which the daughter, to do her justice, had probably by this time thrown off to an Italian nobleman who had perhaps given her some excuse for attempting to quench the consciousness of outrage. The Countess, however, had consoled herself outrageously, and the list of her excuses had now lost itself in the labyrinth of her adventures. Mrs. Touchit had never consented to receive her, though the Countess had made overtures of old. Florence was not an austere city, but, as Mrs. Touchit said, she had to draw the line somewhere. Madam Mail defended the luckless lady with a great deal of zeal and wit. She couldn't see why Mrs. Touchit should make a scapegoat of a woman who had really done no harm, who had only done good in the wrong way. One must certainly draw the line, but while one was about it one should draw it straight. It was a very crooked chalk mark that would exclude the Countess' Germany. In that case Mrs. Touchit had better shut up her house. This perhaps would be the best course so long as she remained in Florence. One must be fair and not make arbitrary differences. The Countess had doubtless been imprudent. She had not been so clever as other women. She was a good creature, not clever at all. But since when had that been a ground of exclusion from the best society? Forever so long now one had heard nothing about her, and there could be no better proof of her having renounced the error of her ways than her desire to become a member of Mrs. Touchit's circle. Isabelle could contribute nothing to this interesting dispute, not even a patient attention. She contented herself with having given a friendly welcome to the unfortunate lady, who, whatever her defects, had at least the merit of being Mr. Osman's sister. As she liked the brother, Isabelle thought it proper to try and like the sister. In spite of the growing complexity of things, she was still capable of these primitive sequences. She had not received the happiest impression of the Countess on meeting her at the villa, but was thankful for an opportunity to repair the accident. Had not Mr. Osman remarked that she was a respectable person? To have proceeded from Gilbert Osmond, this was a crude proposition, but Madam Mail bestowed upon it a certain improving polish. She told Isabelle more about the poor Countess than Mr. Osmond had done, and related the history of her marriage and its consequences. The Count was a member of an ancient Tuscan family, but of such small estate that he had been glad to accept Amy Osmond. In spite of the questionable beauty which had not yet hampered her career, with the modest dowry her mother was able to offer, a sum about equivalent to that which had already formed her brother's share of their patrimony. Count Gemini since then, however, had inherited money, and now they were well enough off, as Italians went, though Amy was horribly extravagant. The Count was a low-lived brute. He had given his wife every pretext. She had no children. She had lost three within a year of their birth. Her mother, who had bristled with pretensions to elegant learning and published descriptive poems and corresponded on Italian subjects with the English weekly journals, her mother had died three years after the Countess's marriage. The father, lost in the grey American dawn of the situation, but reputed originally rich and wild, having died much earlier. One could see this in Gilbert Osmond, Madam Mail, held, see that he had been brought up by a woman. Though to do him justice, one would suppose it had been by a more sensible woman than the American Corinne, as Mrs. Osmond had liked to be called. She had brought her children to Italy after her husband's death, and Mrs. Tatchit remembered her during the year that followed her arrival. She thought her a horrible snob, but this was an irregularity of judgment on Mrs. Tatchit's part, for she, like Mrs. Osmond, approved of political marriages. The Countess was very good company, and not really the featherhead she seemed. All one had to do with her was to observe the simple condition of not believing a word she said. Madam Mail had always made the best of her for her brother's sake. He appreciated any kindness shown to Amy, because, if it had to be confessed for him, he rather felt she let down their common name. Naturally he couldn't like her style, her shrillness, her egotism, her violations of taste, and above all of truth. She acted badly on his nerves. She was not his sort of woman. What was his sort of woman? Oh, the very opposite of the Countess, a woman to whom the truth should be habitually sacred. Isabelle was unable to estimate the number of times her visitor had, in half an hour, profaned it. The Countess indeed had given her an impression of rather silly sincerity. She had talked almost exclusively about herself, how much she should like to know Miss Archer, how thankful she should be for a real friend, how base the people in Florence were, how tired she was of the place, how much she should like to live somewhere else, in Paris, in London, in Washington, how impossible it was to get anything nice to wear in Italy except a little old lace, how dear the world was growing everywhere, what a life of suffering and privation she had led. Madam Mail listened with interest to Isabelle's account of this passage, but she had not needed it to feel exempt from anxiety. On the whole she was not afraid of the Countess, and she could afford to do what was altogether best, not to appear so. Isabelle had meanwhile another visitor whom it was not, even behind her back, so easier matter to patronise. Henrietta Stackpole, who had left Paris after Mrs. Touchett's departure for San Remo, and had worked her way down, as she said, through the cities of North Italy, reached the banks of the Arnaud about the middle of May. Madam Mail surveyed her with a single glance, took her in from head to foot, and after a pang of despair determined to endure her. She determined indeed to delight in her, she might be inhaled as a rose, but she might be grasped as a nettle. Madam Mail genially squeezed her into insignificance, and Isabelle felt that in foreseeing this liberality she had done justice to her friend's intelligence. Henrietta's arrival had been announced by Mr. Bankeling, who, coming down from Nice while she was at Venice, and expecting to find her in Florence which she had not yet reached, called at Palazzo Crescentini to express his disappointment. Henrietta's own advent occurred two days later, and produced in Mr. Bankeling an emotion amply accounted for by the fact that he had not seen her since the termination of the episode at Versailles. The humorous view of his situation was generally taken, but it was uttered only by Ralph Touchett, who, in the privacy of his own apartment when Bankeling smoked a cigar there, indulged in goodness new what strong comedy on the subject of the old judging one and her British backer. This gentleman took the joke in perfectly good part, and candidly confessed that he regarded the affair as a positive intellectual adventure. He liked Ms. Stackpole extremely, he thought she had a wonderful head on her shoulders, and found great comfort in the society of a woman who was not perpetually thinking about what would be said and how what she did, how what they did, and they had done things, would look. Ms. Stackpole never cared how anything looked, and if she didn't care, pray why should he? But his curiosity had been roused, he wanted awfully to see if she ever would care. He was prepared to go as far as she, he didn't see why he should break down first. Henrietta showed no signs of breaking down. Her prospects had brightened on her leaving England, and she was now in the full enjoyment of her copious resources. She had indeed been obliged to sacrifice her hopes with regard to the inner life. The social question on the continent bristled with difficulties even more numerous than those she had encountered in England. But on the continent there was the outer life, which was palpable and visible at every turn, and more easily convertible to literary uses than the customs of those opaque islanders. Out of doors in foreign lands, as she ingeniously remarked, one seemed to see the right side of the tapestry. Out of doors in England, one seemed to see the wrong side, which gave one no notion of the figure. The admission costs her historian a pang, but Henrietta, despairing of more occult things, was now paying much attention to the outer life. She had been studying it for two months at Venice, from which city she sent to the interviewer a conscientious account of the gondolas, the piazza, the bridge of size, the pigeons, and the young boatman who chanted tasso. The interviewer was perhaps disappointed, but Henrietta was at least seeing Europe. Her present purpose was to get down to Rome before the malaria should come on. She apparently supposed that it began on a fixed day, and with this design she was to spend at present but few days in Florence. Mr. Bantling was to go with her to Rome, and she pointed out to Isabel that as she had been there before, as he was a military man, and as he had had a classical education, he had been bred at Eaton, where they studied nothing but Latin and white Melville, said Miss Stackpole. He would be a most useful companion in the city of the Caesars. At this juncture Ralph had the happy idea of proposing to Isabel that she also, under his own escort, should make a pilgrimage to Rome. She expected to pass a portion of the next winter there, that was very well, but meantime there was no harm in surveying the field. There were ten days left of the beautiful month of May, the most precious month of all to the true Rome lover. Isabel would become a Rome lover, that was a foregone conclusion. She was provided with a trusty companion of her own sex, whose society, thanks to the fact of other calls on this lady's attention, would probably not be oppressive. Madam Mel would remain with Mrs. Touchit. She had left Rome for the summer, and wouldn't care to return. She professed herself delighted to be left at peace in Florence. She had locked up her apartment, and sent her cook home to Palestrina. She urged Isabel, however, to assent to Ralph's proposal, and assured her that a good introduction to Rome was not a thing to be despised. Isabel in truth needed no urging, and the party of four arranged its little journey. Mrs. Touchit, on this occasion, had resigned herself to the absence of a duena. We have seen that she now inclined to the belief that her niece should stand alone. One of Isabel's preparations consisted of her seeing Gilbert Osmond before she started, and mentioning her intention to him. I should like to be in Rome with you, he commented. I should like to see you on that wonderful ground. She scarcely faltered. You might come, then. But you'll have a lot of people with you. Ah, Isabel admitted. Of course, I shall not be alone. For a moment he said nothing more. You'll like it, he went on at last. They've spoiled it. But you'll rave about it. Or tight dislike it, because, poor old dear, the nioby of nations, you know, it has been spoiled, she asked. No, I think not. It has been spoiled so often, he smiled. If I were to go, what should I do with my little girl? Can't you leave her at the villa? I don't know that I like that, though there's a very good old woman who looks after her. I can't afford a governess. Bring her with you, then, said Isabel promptly. Mr. Osmond looked grave. She has been in Rome all winter, at her convent, and she's too young to make journeys of pleasure. You don't like bringing her forward, Isabel inquired? No, I think young girls should be kept out of the world. I was brought up on a different system. You? Oh, with you it succeeded, because you, you were exceptional. I don't see why, said Isabel, who, however, was not sure that there was not some truth in the speech. Mr. Osmond didn't explain. He simply went on. If I thought it would make her resemble you to join a social group in Rome, I'd take her there tomorrow. Don't make her resemble me, said Isabel. Keep her like herself. I might send her to my sister, Mr. Osmond observed. He had almost the air of asking advice. He seemed to like to talk over his domestic matters with Miss Archer. Yes, she concurred. I think that wouldn't do much towards making her resemble me. After she had left Florence, Gilbert Osmond met Madame Mell at the Countess Gemini's. There were other people present. The Countess's drawing-room was usually well filled, and the talk had been general, but after a while Osmond left his place and came and sat on an ottoman half behind, half beside Madame Mell's chair. She wants me to go to Rome with her, he remarked in a low voice. To go with her? To be there while she's there. She proposed it. I suppose you mean that you proposed it, and she assented. Of course I gave her the chance, but she's encouraging. She's very encouraging. I rejoice to hear it, but don't cry victory too soon. Of course you'll go to Rome. Ah, said Osmond. It makes one work, this idea of yours. Don't pretend you don't enjoy it. You're very ungrateful. You've not been so well occupied these many years. The way you take it's beautiful, said Osmond. I ought to be grateful for that. Not too much so, however, Madame Mell answered. She talked with her usual smile, leaning back in her chair and looking round the room. You've made a very good impression, and I've seen for myself that you've received one. You've not come to miss his touch it seven times to oblige me. The girl's not disagreeable, Osmond quietly conceded. Madame Mell dropped her eye on him a moment, during which her lips closed with a certain firmness. Is that all you can find to say about that fine creature? All? Isn't it enough? How many people have you heard me say more? She made no answer to this, but still presented her talkative grace to the room. You're unfathomable, she murmured at last. I'm frightened at the abyss into which I shall have cast her. He took it almost gaily. You can't draw back. You've gone too far. Very good, but you must do the rest yourself. I shall do it, said Gilbert Osmond. Madame Mell remained silent, and he changed his place again. But when she rose to go, he also took leave. Mrs. Touchit's Victoria was awaiting her guest in the court, and after he had helped his friend into it. He stood there, detaining her. You're very indiscreet, she said, rather wearily. You shouldn't have moved when I did. He had taken off his hat. He passed his hand over his forehead. I always forget. I'm out of the habit. You're quite unfathomable, she repeated, glancing up at the windows of the house, a modern structure in the new part of the town. He paid no heed to this remark, but spoke in his own sense. She's really very charming. I've scarcely known anyone more graceful. It does me good to hear you say that. The better you like her, the better for me. I like her very much. She's all you described her, and into the bargain capable, I feel, of great devotion. She has only one fault. What's that? Too many ideas. I warned you, she was clever. Fortunately, they're very bad ones, said Osmond. Why's that fortunate? Dame, if they must be sacrificed. Madam Mail leaned back, looking straight before her. Then she spoke to the coachman. But her friend again detained her. If I go to Rome, what shall I do with Pansy? I'll go and see her, said Madam Mail. And of Chapter 26, Chapter 27 of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1 by Henry James, Chapter 27 I may not attempt to report in its fullness our young woman's response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the pavement of the forum, or to number her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of St Peter's. It is enough to say that her impression was such as might have been expected of a person of her freshness and her eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. She had an imagination that kindled at the mention of great deeds, and wherever she turned some great deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her, but moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that she talked less than usual, and Ralph touch it when he appeared to be looking listlessly and awkwardly over her head, was really dropping on her an intensity of observation. By her own measure she was very happy. She would even have been willing to take these hours for the happiest she was ever to know. The sense of the terrible human past was heavy to her, but that of something altogether contemporary would suddenly give it wings that it could wave in the blue. Her consciousness was so mixed that she scarcely knew where the different parts of it would lead her, and she went about in a repressed ecstasy of contemplation, seeing often in the things she looked at a great deal more than was there, and yet not seeing many of the items enumerated in her Murray. Rome, as Ralph said, confessed to the psychological moment. The herd of re-echoing tourists had departed, and most of the solemn places had relapsed into solemnity. The sky was a blaze of blue, and the plash of the fountains in their mossy niches had lost its chill and doubled its music. On the corners of the warm bright streets one stumbled on bundles of flowers. Our friends had gone one afternoon. It was the third of their stay to look at the latest excavations in the forum, these labours having been for some time previous largely extended. They had descended from the modern street to the level of the sacred way, along which they wandered with a reverence of step, which was not the same on the part of each. Henrietta Stackpole was struck with the fact that ancient Rome had been paved a good deal like New York, and even found an analogy between the deep chariot ruts traceable in the antique street, and the over-jangled iron grooves which expressed the intensity of American life. The sun had begun to sink, the air was a golden haze, and the long shadows of broken column and vague pedestal lent across the field of ruin. Henrietta wandered away with Mr. Bantling, whom it was apparently delightful to her to hear speak of Julius Caesar as a cheeky old boy, and Ralf addressed such elucidations as he was prepared to offer to the attentive ear of our heroine. One of the humble archaeologists who hover about the place had put himself at the disposal of the two, and repeated his lesson with a fluency which the decline of the season had done nothing to impair. A process of digging was on view in a remote corner of the forum, and he presently remarked that if it should please the scenery to go and watch it a little, they might see something of interest. The proposal commended itself more to Ralf than to Isabel, weary with much wandering, so that she admonished her companion to satisfy his curiosity while she patiently awaited his return. The hour and the place were much to her taste, she should enjoy being briefly alone. Ralf, accordingly, went off with the chiturone while Isabel sat down on a prostrate column near the foundations of the capital. She wanted a short solitude, but she was not long to enjoy it. Keen as was her interest in the rugged relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her, and in which the corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life. Her thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered by a concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman past to Isabel Archer's future was a long stride, but her imagination had taken it in a single flight, and now hovered in slow circles over the nearer and richer field. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, as she bent her eyes upon a row of cracked but not dislocated slabs covering the ground at her feet, that she had not heard the sound of approaching footsteps before a shadow was thrown across the line of her vision. She looked up and saw a gentleman, a gentleman who was not Ralph come back to say that the excavations were a bore. This personage was startled as she was startled. He stood there, bearing his head to her perceptibly pale surprise. Lord Warburton, Isabel exclaimed as she rose. I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you. She looked about her to explain. I'm alone, but my companions have just left me. My cousin's gone to look at the work over there. Ah, yes, I see. And Lord Warburton's eyes wandered vaguely in the direction she had indicated. He stood firmly before her now. He had recovered his balance and seemed to wish to show it, though very kindly. Don't let me disturb you, he went on, looking at her dejected pillar. I'm afraid you're tired. Yes, I am rather tired. She hesitated a moment, but sat down again. Don't let me interrupt you, she added. Oh, dear, I'm quite alone. I've nothing on earth to do. I had no idea you were in Rome. I've just come from the east. I'm only passing through. You've been making a long journey, said Isabel, who had learnt from Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England. Yes, I came abroad for six months, soon after I saw you last. I've been in Turkey and Asia Minor. I came the other day from Athens. He managed not to be awkward, but he wasn't easy, and after a longer look at the girl, he came down to nature. Do you wish me to leave you, or will you let me stay a little? She took it all humanely. I don't wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton. I'm very glad to see you. Thank you for saying that. May I sit down? The fluted shaft on which she had taken her seat would have afforded a resting place to several persons, and there was plenty of room even for a highly developed Englishman. This fine specimen of that great class seated himself near our young lady, and in the course of five minutes he had asked her several questions, taken rather at random, and to which, as he put some of them twice over, he apparently somewhat missed catching the answer. Had given her, too, some information about himself, which was not wasted upon her karma feminine sense. He repeated more than once that he had not expected to meet her, and it was evident that the encounter touched him in a way that would have made preparation advisable. He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things to their solemnity, and from there being delightful to there being impossible. He was splendidly sunburnt, even his multitudinous beard had been burnished by the fire of Asia. He was dressed in the loose-fitting heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands is want to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality, and with his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner, and his general air of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of the British race, as need not in any climb have been disavowed by those who have a kindness for it. Isabelle noted these things, and was glad she had always liked him. He had kept evidently in spite of shocks every one of his merits. Properties these partaking of the essence of great decent houses, as one might put it, resembling their innermost fixtures and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order. Her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the summer, the hotel she was staying at, and then of Lord Warburton's own adventures, movements, intentions, impressions, and present domicile. At last there was a silence, and it said so much more than I either had said that it scarce needed his final words. I've written to you several times. Written to me, I've never had your letters. I never sent them, I boned them up. Ah! laughed Isabelle, it was better that you should do that than I. I thought you wouldn't care for them, he went on, with the simplicity that touched her. It seemed to me that after all I had no right to trouble you with letters. I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hope that—but she stopped. There would be such a flatness in the utterance of her thought. I know what you're going to say. You hoped we should always remain good friends. This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat enough, but then he was interested in making it appear so. She found herself reduced simply to, please don't talk of all that, a speech which hardly struck her as an improvement on the other. It's a small consolation to allow me, her companion exclaimed with force. I can't pretend to console you, said the girl, who all still as she sat there, through herself back with the sort of inward triumph on the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He was pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant, there was no better man than he, but her answer remained. It's very well you don't try to console me, it wouldn't be in your power, she heard him say, through the medium of her strange elation. I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you, but when you do that the pain's greater than the pleasure. And she got up with a small conscious majesty, looking for her companions. I don't want to make you feel that, of course I can't say that. I only just want you to know one or two things, in fairness to myself as it were. I won't return to the subject again, I felt very strongly what I expressed to you last year, I couldn't think of anything else. I tried to forget, energetically, systematically. I tried to take an interest in somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty. I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad, as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you just insuperably charm me. There, I can't say less. I don't mean, however, to insist. It's only for a moment. I may add that when I came upon you a few minutes since, without the smallest idea of seeing you, I was, upon my honour, in the very act of wishing I knew where you were. He had recovered his self-control, and while he spoke it became complete. He might have been addressing a small committee, making all quietly and clearly a statement of importance, aided by an occasional look at a paper of notes concealed in his hat, which he had not again put on, and the committee assuredly would have felt the point proved. I've often thought of you, Lord Warburton, Isabelle answered, You may be sure I shall always do that. And she added, in a tone of which she tried to keep up the kindness and keep down the meaning, there's no harm in that on either side. They walked along together, and she was prompt to ask about his sisters, and request him to let them know she had done so. He made for the moment no further reference to their great question, but dipped again into shallower and safer waters. But he wished to know when she was to leave Rome, and on her mentioning the limit of her stay, declared he was glad it was still so distant. Why do you say that, if you yourself are only passing through, she inquired with some anxiety. Ah, when I said I was passing through, I didn't mean that one would treat Rome as if it were Clapham Junction. To pass through Rome is to stop a week or two. Say frankly that you mean to stay as long as I do. His flushed smile for a little seemed to sound her. You won't like that. You're afraid you'll see too much of me. It doesn't matter what I like. I certainly can't expect you to leave this delightful place on my account. But I confess I'm afraid of you. Afraid I'll begin again? I promise to be very careful. They had gradually stopped, and they stood a moment face to face. Poor Lord Warburton, she said, with a compassion intended to be good for both of them. Poor Lord Warburton indeed. But I'll be careful. You may be unhappy, but you shall not make me so, that I can't allow. If I believed I could make you unhappy, I think I should try it. At this she walked in advance, and he also proceeded. I'll never say a word to displease you. Very good. If you do, our friendship's at an end. Perhaps some day, after a while, you'll give me leave. Give you leave to make me unhappy? He hesitated to tell you again. But he checked himself. I'll keep it down. I'll keep it down always. Ralph Touchit had been joined in his visit to the excavation by Miss Stackpole and her attendant, and these three now emerged from among the mounds of earth and stone, collected round the aperture, and came into sight of Isabelle and her companion. Poor Ralph hailed his friend with joy, qualified by wonder, and Henrietta exclaimed in a high voice, Gracious, there's that lord. Ralph and his English neighbour greeted with the austerity with which, after long separations, English neighbours greet, and Miss Stackpole rested her large intellectual gaze upon the sunburned traveller. But she soon established her relation to the crisis. I don't suppose you remember me, sir. Indeed, I do remember you, said Lord Warburton. I asked you to come and see me, and you never came. I don't go everywhere I'm asked, Miss Stackpole answered coldly. Oh, well, I won't ask you again, laughed the master of Lockley. If you do, I'll go, so be sure. Lord Warburton, for all his hilarity, seemed sure enough. Mr. Bantling had stood by without claiming a recognition, but he now took occasion to nod to his lordship, who answered him with a friendly, oh, you hear Bantling, and a handshake. Well, said Henrietta, I didn't know you knew him. I guess you don't know everyone I know, Mr. Bantling rejoined facetiously. I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord, he always told you. Ah, I'm afraid Bantling was ashamed of me, Lord Warburton laughed again. Isabel took pleasure in that note. She gave a small sigh of relief, as they kept their course homeward. The next day was Sunday. She spent her morning over two long letters, one to her sister Lily, the other to Madam Mail, but in neither of these epistles did she mention the fact that her rejected suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Over Sunday afternoon, all good Romans, and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians, follow the custom of going to Vespers at St. Peter's, and it had been agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton presented himself at the Hotel de Paris, and paid a visit to the two ladies, Ralph Touchit and Mr. Bantling, having gone out together. The visitor seemed to have wished to give Isabel a proof of his intention to keep the promise made her the evening before. He was both discreet and frank, not even dumbly importunate or remotely intense. He thus left her to judge what a mere good friend he could be. He talked about his travels, about Persia, about Turkey, and when Miss Stackpole asked him whether it would pay for her to visit those countries, a shorter they offered a great field to female enterprise. Isabel did him justice, but she wondered what his purpose was and what he expected to gain even by proving the superior strain of his sincerity. If he expected to melt her by showing what a good fellow he was, he might spare himself the trouble. She knew the superior strain of everything about him, and nothing he could now do was required to light the view. Moreover, his being in Rome at all affected her as a complication of the wrong sort. She liked so complications of the right. Nevertheless, when on bringing his call to a close, he said he too should be at St. Peter's, and should look out for her and her friends. She was obliged to reply that he must follow his convenience. In the church, as she strolled over its tessellated acres, he was the first person she encountered. She had not been one of the superior tourists, who are disappointed in St. Peter's, and find it smaller than its frame. The first time she passed beneath the huge leaven curtain that strains and bangs at the entrance, the first time she found herself beneath the far-arching dome, and saw the light drizzle down through the air thickened with incense and with the reflections of marble and gilt of mosaic and bronze. Her conception of greatness rose and dizzily rose. After this, it never lacked space to soar. She gazed and wondered like a child or a peasant. She paid her silent tribute to the seated sublime. Lord Warburton walked beside her and talked of St. Sophia of Constantinople. She feared, for instance, that he would end by calling attention to his exemplary conduct. The service had not yet begun, but at St. Peter's there is much to observe, and as there is something almost profane in the vastness of the place which seems meant as much for physical as for spiritual exercise, the different figures and groups, the mingled worshippers and spectators, may follow their various intentions without conflict or scandal. In that splendid immensity, individual indiscretion carries but a short distance. Isabelle and her companions, however, were guilty of none. For though Henrietta was obliged in candour to declare that Michelangelo's dome suffered by comparison with that of the capital at Washington, she addressed her protest chiefly to Mr. Bantling's ear, and reserved it in its more accentuated form for the columns of the interviewer. Isabelle made the circuit of the church with his lordship, and as they drew near the choir on the left of the entrance, the voices of the Pope's singers were borne to them over the heads of the large number of persons clustered outside the doors. They paused a while on the skirts of this crowd, composed in equal measure of Roman cockneys and inquisitive strangers, and while they stood there the secret concert went forward. Ralph with Henrietta and Mr. Bantling was apparently within, where Isabelle, looking beyond the dense group in front of her, saw the afternoon light silvered by clouds of incense that seemed to mingle with the splendid chant, sloped through the embossed recesses of high windows. After a while the singing stopped and then Lord Warburton seemed disposed to move off with her. Isabelle could only accompany him, whereupon she found herself confronted with Gilbert Osmond, who appeared to have been standing at a short distance behind her. He now approached with all the forms. He appeared to have multiplied them on this occasion to suit the place. So he decided to come, she said, as she put out her hand. Yes, I came last night and called this afternoon at your hotel. They told me you had come here, and I looked about for you. The others are inside, she decided to say. I didn't come for the others, he promptly returned. She looked away. Lord Warburton was watching them. Perhaps he had heard this. Suddenly she remembered it to be just what he had said to her the morning he came to Garden Court to ask her to marry him. Mr Osmond's words had brought the colour to her cheek, and this reminiscence had not the effect of dispelling it. She repaired any betrayal by mentioning to each companion the name of the other. Unfortunately at this moment Mr Bantling emerged from the choir, cleaving the crowd with British valor, and followed by Miss Stackpole and Ralph Touchit. I say fortunately, but this is perhaps a superficial view of the matter, since on perceiving the gentleman from Florence, Ralph Touchit appeared to take the case as not committing him to joy. He didn't hang back, however, from civility, and presently observed to Isabel, with Dubin Evelynce, that she would soon have all her friends about her. Miss Stackpole had met Mr Osmond in Florence, but she had already found occasion to say to Isabel that she liked him no better than her other admirers, than Mr Touchit and Lord Warburton, and even than little Mr Rosier in Paris. I don't know what's in you, she had been pleased to remark. But for a nice girl you do attract the most unnatural people. Mr Goodwood's the only one I've any respect for, and he's just the one you don't appreciate. What's your opinion of St Peter's? Mr Osmond was meanwhile inquiring of our young lady. It's very large and very bright, she contented herself with replying. It's too large, it makes one feel like an atom. Isn't that the right way to feel in the greatest of human temples? She asked, with rather a liking for her phrase. I suppose it's the right way to feel everywhere when one is nobody, but I like it in a church as little as anywhere else. You ought indeed to be a pope, Isabel exclaimed, remembering something he had referred to in Florence. Ah, I should have enjoyed that, said Gilbert Osmond. Lord Warburton meanwhile had joined Ralph Touchit, and the two strolled away together. Who's the fellow speaking to Miss Archer, his lordship demanded. His name's Gilbert Osmond, he lives in Florence, Ralph said. What is he besides? Nothing at all. Oh yes, he's an American, but one forgets that, he's so little of one. Has he known Miss Archer long? Three or four weeks. Does she like him? She's trying to find out. And will she? Find out, Ralph asked. Will she like him? Do you mean will she accept him? Yes, said Lord Warburton after an instant. I suppose that's what I horribly mean. Perhaps not, if one does nothing to prevent it, Ralph replied. His lordship stared a moment, but apprehended. Then we must be perfectly quiet. As quiet as the grave, and only on the chance, Ralph added. The chance she may. The chance she may not? Lord Warburton took this at first in silence, but he spoke again. Is he awfully clever? Awfully, said Ralph. His companion thought. And what else? What more do you want? Ralph groaned. Do you mean what more does she? Ralph took him by the arm to turn him. They had to rejoin the others. She wants nothing that we can give her. Oh, well, if she won't have you, said his lordship handsomely, as they went. End of Chapter Twenty-Seven. End of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume One.