would find unprepared. "Do you wish to know why? Because I've spoken of you to her."Osmond frowned and turned away. "I'd rather not know that." Then in a moment he pointed out theeasel supporting the little water-colour drawing. "Have you seen what's there--my last?"Madame Merle drew near and considered. "Is it the Venetian Alps--one of your last year'ssketches?""Yes--but how you guess everything!"She looked a moment longer, then turned away. "You know I don't care for your drawings.""I know it, yet I'm always surprised at it. They're really so much better than most people's."第 164 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"That may very well be. But as the only thing you do--well, it's so little. I should have liked you todo so many other things: those were my ambitions.""Yes; you've told me many times--things that were impossible.""Things that were impossible," said Madame Merle. And then in quite a different tone: "In itselfyour little picture's very good." She looked about the room--at the old cabinets, pictures, tapestries,surfaces of faded silk. "Your rooms at least are perfect. I'm struck with that afresh whenever Icome back; I know none better anywhere. You understand this sort of thing as nobody anywheredoes. You've such adorable taste.""I'm sick of my adorable taste," said Gilbert Osmond."You must nevertheless let Miss Archer come and see it. I've told her about it.""I don't object to showing my things--when people are not idiots.""You do it delightfully. As cicerone of your museum you appear to particular advantage."Mr. Osmond, in return for this compliment, simply looked at once colder and more attentive. "Didyou say she was rich?""She has seventy thousand pounds.""En ecus bien comptes?""There's no doubt whatever about her fortune. I've seen it, as I may say.""Satisfactory woman!--I mean you. And if I go to see her shall I see the mother?""The mother? She has none--nor father either.""The aunt then--whom did you say?--Mrs. Touchett. I can easily keep her out of the way.""I don't object to her," said Osmond; "I rather like Mrs. Touchett. She has a sort of old-fashionedcharacter that's passing away--a vivid identity. But that long jackanapes the son--is he about theplace?""He's there, but he won't trouble you.""He's a good deal of a donkey.""I think you're mistaken. He's a very clever man. But he's not fond of being about when I'm there,because he doesn't like me.""What could he be more asinine than that? Did you say she has looks?" Osmond went on."Yes; but I won't say it again, lest you should be disappointed in them. Come and make abeginning; that's all I ask of you.""A beginning of what?"Madame Merle was silent a little. "I want you of course to marry her.""The beginning of the end? Well, I'll see for myself. Have you told her that?""For what do you take me? She's not so coarse a piece of machinery--nor am I.""Really," said Osmond after some meditation, "I don't understand your ambitions."第 165 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"I think you'll understand this one after you've seen Miss Archer. Suspend your judgement."Madame Merle, as she spoke, had drawn near the open door of the garden, where she stood amoment looking out. "Pansy has really grown pretty," she presently added."So it seemed to me.""But she has had enough of the convent.""I don't know," said Osmond. "I like what they've made of her. It's very charming.""That's not the convent. It's the child's nature.""It's the combination, I think. She's as pure as a pearl.""Why doesn't she come back with my flowers then?" Madame Merle asked. "She's not in a hurry.""We'll go and get them.""She doesn't like me," the visitor murmured as she raised her parasol and they passed into thegarden.CHAPTER XXIIIMadame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett's arrival at the invitation of thislady--Mrs. Touchett offering her for a month the hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini--the judiciousMadame Merle spoke to Isabel afresh about Gilbert Osmond and expressed the hope she mightknow him; making, however, no such point of the matter as we have seen her do in recommendingthe girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason of this was perhaps that Isabel offered noresistance whatever to Madame Merle's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a multitudeof friends, both among the natives of the country and its heterogeneous visitors. She hadmentioned to Isabel most of the people the girl would find it well to "meet"--of course, she said,Isabel could know whomever in the wide world she would--and had placed Mr. Osmond near thetop of the list. He was an old friend of her own; she had known him these dozen years; he was oneof the cleverest and most agreeable men--well, in Europe simply. He was altogether above therespectable average; quite another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer--far from it, and theeffect he produced depended a good deal on the state of his nerves and his spirits. When not in theright mood he could fall as low as any one, saved only by his looking at such hours rather like ademoralised prince in exile. But if he cared or was interested or rightly challenged--just exactlyrightly it had to be--then one felt his cleverness and his distinction. Those qualities didn't depend,in him, as in so many people, on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his perversities-whichindeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the men really worth knowing--and didn'tcause his light to shine equally for all persons. Madame Merle, however, thought she couldundertake that for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too easily, and dull peoplealways put him out; but a quick and cultivated girl like Isabel would give him a stimulus whichwas too absent from his life. At any rate he was a person not to miss. One shouldn't attempt to livein Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than anyone except two or three German professors. And if they had more knowledge than he it was hewho had most perception and taste-- being artistic through and through. Isabel remembered thather friend had spoken of him during their plunge, at Gardencourt, into the deeps of talk, and第 166 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网wondered a little what was the nature of the tie binding these superior spirits. She felt that MadameMerle's ties always somehow had histories, and such an impression was part of the interest createdby this inordinate woman. As regards her relations with Mr. Osmond, however, she hinted atnothing but a long-established calm friendship. Isabel said she should be happy to know a personwho had enjoyed so high a confidence for so many years. "You ought to see a great many men,"Madame Merle remarked; "you ought to see as many as possible, so as to get used to them.""Used to them?" Isabel repeated with that solemn stare which sometimes seemed to proclaim herdeficient in the sense of comedy. "Why, I'm not afraid of them--I'm as used to them as the cook tothe butcher-boys.""Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That's what one comes to with most of them. You'llpick out, for your society, the few whom you don't despise."This was a note of cynicism that Madame Merle didn't often allow herself to sound; but Isabel wasnot alarmed, for she had never supposed that as one saw more of the world the sentiment of respectbecame the most active of one's emotions. It was excited, none the less, by the beautiful city ofFlorence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle had promised; and if her unassistedperception had not been able to gauge its charms she had clever companions as priests to themystery. She was--in no want indeed of esthetic illumination, for Ralph found it a joy that renewedhis own early passion to act as cicerone to his eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remainedat home; she had seen the treasures of Florence again and again and had always something else todo. But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of memory--she recalled the right-handcorner of the large Perugino and the position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture nextto it. She had her opinions as to the character of many famous works of art, differing often fromRalph with great sharpness and defending her interpretations with as much ingenuity as good-humour. Isabel listened to the discussions taking place between the two with a sense that she mightderive much benefit from them and that they were among the advantages she couldn't haveenjoyed for instance in Albany. In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast--this repastat Mrs. Touchett's was served at twelve o'clock--she wandered with her cousin through the narrowand sombre Florentine streets, resting a while in the thicker dusk of some historic church or thevaulted chambers of some dispeopled convent. She went to the galleries and palaces; she looked atthe pictures and statues that had hitherto been great names to her, and exchanged for a knowledgewhich was sometimes a limitation a presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank. Sheperformed all those acts of mental prostration in which, on a first visit to Italy, youth andenthusiasm so freely indulge; she felt her heart beat in the presence of immortal genius and knewthe sweetness of rising tears in eyes to which faded fresco and darkened marble grew dim. But thereturn, every day, was even pleasanter than the going forth; the return into the wide, monumentalcourt of the great house in which Mrs. Touchett, many years before, had established herself, andinto the high, cool rooms where the carven rafters and pompous frescoes of the sixteenth centurylooked down on the familiar commodities of the age of advertisement. Mrs. Touchett inhabited anhistoric building in a narrow street whose very name recalled the strife of medieval factions; andfound compensation for the darkness of her frontage in the modicity of her rent and the brightnessof a garden where nature itself looked as archaic as the rugged architecture of the palace and which第 167 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网cleared and scented the rooms in regular use. To live in such a place was, for Isabel, to hold to herear all day a shell of the sea of the past. This vague eternal rumour kept her imagination awake.Gilbert Osmond came to see Madame Merle, who presented him to the young lady lurking at theother side of the room. Isabel took on this occasion little part in the talk; she scarcely even smiledwhen the others turned to her invitingly; she sat there as if she had been at the play and had paideven a large sum for her place. Mrs. Touchett was not present, and these two had it, for the effectof brilliancy, all their own way. They talked of the Florentine, the Roman, the cosmopolite world,and might have been distinguished performers figuring for a charity. It all had the rich readinessthat would have come from rehearsal. Madame Merle appealed to her as if she had been on thestage, but she could ignore any learnt cue without spoiling the scene--though of course she thus putdreadfully in the wrong the friend who had told Mr. Osmond she could be depended on. This wasno matter for once; even if more had been involved she could have made no attempt to shine.There was something in the visitor that checked her and held her in suspense--made it moreimportant she should get an impression of him than that she should produce one herself. Besides,she had little skill in producing an impression which she knew to be expected: nothing could behappier, in general, than to seem dazzling, but she had a perverse unwillingness to glitter byarrangement. Mr. Osmond, to do him justice, had a well-bred air of expecting nothing, a quiet easethat covered everything, even the first show of his own wit. This was the more grateful as his face,his head, was sensitive; he was not handsome, but he was fine, as fine as one of the drawings in thelong gallery above the bridge of the Uffizi. And his very voice was fine--the more strangely that,with its clearness, it yet somehow wasn't sweet. This had had really to do with making her abstainfrom interference. His utterance was the vibration of glass, and if she had put out her finger shemight have changed the pitch and spoiled the concert. Yet before he went she had to speak."Madame Merle," he said, "consents to come up to my hill-top some day next week and drink teain my garden. It would give me much pleasure if you would come with her. It's thought ratherpretty-- there's what they call a general view. My daughter too would be so glad--or rather, forshe's too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad--so very glad." And Mr. Osmondpaused with a slight air of embarrassment, leaving his sentence unfinished. "I should be so happy ifyou could know my daughter," he went on a moment afterwards.Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss Osmond and that if Madame Merle wouldshow her the way to the hill-top she should be very grateful. Upon this assurance the visitor tookhis leave; after which Isabel fully expected her friend would scold her for having been so stupid.But to her surprise that lady, who indeed never fell into the mere matter-of-course, said to her in afew moments"You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would have wished you. You're neverdisappointing."A rebuke might possibly have been irritating, though it is much more probable that Isabel wouldhave taken it in good part; but, strange to say, the words that Madame Merle actually used causedher the first feeling of displeasure she had known this ally to excite. "That's more than I intended,"she answered coldly. "I'm under no obligation that I know of to charm Mr. Osmond."第 168 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Madame Merle perceptibly flushed, but we know it was not her habit to retract. "My dear child, Ididn't speak for him, poor man; I spoke for yourself. It's not of course a question as to his likingyou; it matters little whether he likes you or not! But I thought you liked HIM.""I did," said Isabel honestly. "But I don't see what that matters either.""Everything that concerns you matters to me," Madame Merle returned with her weary nobleness;"especially when at the same time another old friend's concerned."Whatever Isabel's obligations may have been to Mr. Osmond, it must be admitted that she foundthem sufficient to lead her to put to Ralph sundry questions about him. She thought Ralph'sjudgements distorted by his trials, but she flattered herself she had learned to make allowance forthat."Do I know him?" said her cousin. "Oh, yes, I 'know' him; not well, but on the whole enough. I'venever cultivated his society, and he apparently has never found mine indispensable to hishappiness. Who is he, what is he? He's a vague, unexplained American who has been living thesethirty years, or less, in Italy. Why do I call him unexplained? Only as a cover for my ignorance; Idon't know his antecedents, his family, his origin. For all I do know he may be a prince in disguise;he rather looks like one, by the way--like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of fastidiousness andhas been in a state of disgust ever since. He used to live in Rome; but of late years he has taken uphis abode here; I remember hearing him say that Rome has grown vulgar. He has a great dread ofvulgarity; that's his special line; he hasn't any other that I know of. He lives on his income, which Isuspect of not being vulgarly large. He's a poor but honest gentleman that's what he calls himself.He married young and lost his wife, and I believe he has a daughter. He also has a sister, who'smarried to some small Count or other, of these parts; I remember meeting her of old. She's nicerthan he, I should think, but rather impossible. I remember there used to be some stories about her. Idon't think I recommend you to know her. But why don't you ask Madame Merle about thesepeople? She knows them all much better than I.""I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers," said Isabel."A fig for my opinion! If you fall in love with Mr. Osmond what will you care for that?""Not much, probably. But meanwhile it has a certain importance. The more information one hasabout one's dangers the better.""I don't agree to that--it may make them dangers. We know too much about people in these days;we hear too much. Our ears, our minds, our mouths, are stuffed with personalities. Don't mindanything any one tells you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.""That's what I try to do," said Isabel "but when you do that people call you conceited.""You're not to mind them--that's precisely my argument; not to mind what they say about yourselfany more than what they say about your friend or your enemy."Isabel considered. "I think you're right; but there are some things I can't help minding: for instancewhen my friend's attacked or when I myself am praised.""Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however," Ralphadded, "and you'll condemn them all!""I shall see Mr. Osmond for myself," said Isabel. "I've promised to pay him a visit."第 169 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"To pay him a visit?""To go and see his view, his pictures, his daughter--I don't know exactly what. Madame Merle's totake me; she tells me a great many ladies call on him.""Ah, with Madame Merle you may go anywhere, de confiance," said Ralph. "She knows none butthe best people."Isabel said no more about Mr. Osmond, but she presently remarked to her cousin that she was notsatisfied with his tone about Madame Merle. "It seems to me you insinuate things about her. I don'tknow what you mean, but if you've any grounds for disliking her I think you should either mentionthem frankly or else say nothing at all."Ralph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than he commonly used. "Ispeak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her: with an even exaggerated respect.""Exaggerated, precisely. That's what I complain of.""I do so because Madame Merle's merits are exaggerated.""By whom, pray? By me? If so I do her a poor service.""No, no; by herself.""Ah, I protest!" Isabel earnestly cried. "If ever there was a woman who made small claims--!""You put your finger on it," Ralph interrupted. "Her modesty's exaggerated. She has no businesswith small claims--she has a perfect right to make large ones.""Her merits are large then. You contradict yourself.""Her merits are immense," said Ralph. "She's indescribably blameless; a pathless desert of virtue;the only woman I know who never gives one a chance.""A chance for what?""Well, say to call her a fool! She's the only woman I know who has but that one little fault."Isabel turned away with impatience. "I don't understand you; you're too paradoxical for my plainmind.""Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates I don't mean it in the vulgar sense--that she boasts,overstates, gives too fine an account of herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search forperfection too far--that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She's too good, too kind, tooclever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She's too complete, in a word. I confess toyou that she acts on my nerves and that I feel about her a good deal as that intensely humanAthenian felt about Aristides the Just."Isabel looked hard at her cousin; but the mocking spirit, if it lurked in his words, failed on thisoccasion to peep from his face. "Do you wish Madame Merle to be banished?""By no means. She's much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle," said Ralph Touchettsimply."You're very odious, sir!" Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if he knew anything that wasnot to the honour of her brilliant friend.第 170 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Nothing whatever. Don't you see that's just what I mean? On the character of every one else youmay find some little black speck; if I were to take half an hour to it, some day, I've no doubt Ishould be able to find one on yours. For my own, of course, I'm spotted like a leopard. But onMadame Merle's nothing, nothing, nothing!""That's just what I think!" said Isabel with a toss of her head. "That is why I like her so much.""She's a capital person for you to know. Since you wish to see the world you couldn't have a betterguide.""I suppose you mean by that that she's worldly?""Worldly? No," said Ralph, "she's the great round world itself!"It had certainly not, as Isabel for the moment took it into her head to believe, been a refinement ofmalice in him to say that he delighted in Madame Merle. Ralph Touchett took his refreshmentwherever he could find it, and he would not have forgiven himself if he had been left whollyunbeguiled by such a mistress of the social art. There are deep-lying sympathies and antipathies,and it may have been that, in spite of the administered justice she enjoyed at his hands, her absencefrom his mother's house would not have made life barren to him. But Ralph Touchett had learnedmore or less inscrutably to attend, and there could have been nothing so "sustained" to attend to asthe general performance of Madame Merle. He tasted her in sips, he let her stand, with anopportuneness she herself could not have surpassed. There were moments when he felt almostsorry for her; and these, oddly enough, were the moments when his kindness was leastdemonstrative. He was sure she had been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visiblyaccomplished was far below her secret measure. She had got herself into perfect training, but hadwon none of the prizes. She was always plain Madame Merle, the widow of a Swiss negociant,with a small income and a large acquaintance, who stayed with people a great deal and was almostas universally "liked" as some new volume of smooth twaddle. The contrast between this positionand any one of some half-dozen others that he supposed to have at various moments engaged herhope had an element of the tragical. His mother thought he got on beautifully with their genialguest; to Mrs. Touchett's sense two persons who dealt so largely in too-ingenious theories of