贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-28

being as well able to do without her as she was to do without him--a quality that always, oddlyenough, 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'spart, would have an air of almost morbid perversity. Mrs. Touchett easily remembered that the girlhad refused an English peer; and that a young lady with whom Lord Warburton had notsuccessfully wrestled should content herself with an obscure American dilettante, a middle-agedwidower with an uncanny child and an ambiguous income, this answered to nothing in Mrs.Touchett's conception of success. She took, it will be observed, not the sentimental, but thepolitical, view of matrimony--a view which has always had much to recommend it. "I trust shewon't have the folly to listen to him," she said to her son; to which Ralph replied that Isabel'slistening was one thing and Isabel's answering quite another. He knew she had listened to severalparties, as his father would have said, but had made them listen in return; and he found muchentertainment in the idea that in these few months of his knowing her he should observe a freshsuitor at her gate. She had wanted to see life, and fortune was serving her to her taste; a successionof fine gentlemen going down on their knees to her would do as well as anything else. Ralphlooked 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 tocome in. He expressed this view, somewhat after this fashion, to his mother, who looked at him asif he had been dancing a jig. He had such a fanciful, pictorial way of saying things that he might aswell address her in the deaf-mute's alphabet."I don't think I know what you mean," she said; "you use too many figures of speech; I could neverunderstand allegories. The two words in the language I most respect are Yes and No. If Isabelwants to marry Mr. Osmond she'll do so in spite of all your comparisons. Let her alone to find afine one herself for anything she undertakes. I know very little about the young man in America; Idon't think she spends much of her time in thinking of him, and I suspect he has got tired ofwaiting for her. There's nothing in life to prevent her marrying Mr. Osmond if she only looks athim 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 thebeauty of his opinions or for his autograph of Michael Angelo. She wants to be disinterested: as ifshe were the only person who's in danger of not being so! Will HE be so disinterested when he hasthe spending of her money? That was her idea before your father's death, and it has acquired new第 185 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网charms for her since. She ought to marry some one of whose disinterestedness she shall herself besure; 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 pleaseherself, of course; but she'll do so by studying human nature at close quarters and yet retaining herliberty. She has started on an exploring expedition, and I don't think she'll change her course, at theoutset, at a signal from Gilbert Osmond. She may have slackened speed for an hour, but before weknow 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 MadameMerle the expression of her fears. "You who know everything," she said, "you must know this:whether that curious creature's really making love to my niece.""Gilbert Osmond?" Madame Merle widened her clear eyes and, with a full intelligence, "Heavenhelp 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 toIsabel.""Oh, I shall now ask her," said Mrs. Touchett.Madame Merle reflected. "Don't put it into her head. The thing would be to ask Mr. Osmond.""I can't do that," said Mrs. Touchett. "I won't have him enquire of me--as he perfectly may withthat air of his, given Isabel's situation--what business it is of mine.""I'll ask him myself," Madame Merle bravely declared."But what business--for HIM--is it of yours?""It's being none whatever is just why I can afford to speak. It's so much less my business than anyone's else that he can put me off with anything he chooses. But it will be by the way he does thisthat I shall know.""Pray let me hear then," said Mrs. Touchett, "of the fruits of your penetration. If I can't speak tohim, 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 inflameher imagination.""I never did anything in life to any one's imagination. But I'm always sure of her doingsomething--well, not of MY kind.""No, you wouldn't like this," Madame Merle observed without the point of interrogation."Why in the world should I, pray? Mr. Osmond has nothing the least solid to offer."Again Madame Merle was silent while her thoughtful smile drew up her mouth even morecharmingly than usual toward the left corner. "Let us distinguish. Gilbert Osmond's certainly notthe first comer. He's a man who in favourable conditions might very well make a great impression.He has made a great impression, to my knowledge, more than once.""Don't tell me about his probably quite cold-blooded love-affairs; they're nothing to me!" Mrs.Touchett cried. "What you say's precisely why I wish he would cease his visits. He has nothing in第 186 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网the world that I know of but a dozen or two of early masters and a more or less pert littledaughter.""The early masters are now worth a good deal of money," said Madame Merle, "and the daughter'sa 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 hopeto marry as they marry here; so that Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance orwith a dowry.""Isabel probably wouldn't object to being kind to her. I think she likes the poor child.""Another reason then for Mr. Osmond's stopping at home! Otherwise, a week hence, we shall havemy niece arriving at the conviction that her mission in life's to prove that a stepmother maysacrifice herself--and that, to prove it, she must first become one.""She would make a charming stepmother," smiled Madame Merle; "but I quite agree with you thatshe had better not decide upon her mission too hastily. Changing the form of one's mission'salmost as difficult as changing the shape of one's nose: there they are, each, in the middle of one'sface 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 Isabel's head; she had no suspicions that her relations with Mr. Osmondwere being discussed. Madame Merle had said nothing to put her on her guard; she alluded nomore pointedly to him than to the other gentlemen of Florence, native and foreign, who nowarrived in considerable numbers to pay their respects to Miss Archer's aunt. Isabel thought himinteresting--she came back to that; she liked so to think of him. She had carried away an imagefrom her visit to his hill-top which her subsequent knowledge of him did nothing to efface andwhich put on for her a particular harmony with other supposed and divined things, histories withinhistories: the image of a quiet, clever, sensitive, distinguished man, strolling on a moss-grownterrace above the sweet Val d'Arno and holding by the hand a little girl whose bell-like clearnessgave a new grace to childhood. The picture had no flourishes, but she liked its lowness of tone andthe atmosphere of summer twilight that pervaded it. It spoke of the kind of personal issue thattouched her most nearly; of the choice between objects, subjects, contacts--what might she callthem?--of a thin and those of a rich association; of a lonely, studious life in a lovely land; of an oldsorrow that sometimes ached to-day; of a feeling of pride that was perhaps exaggerated, but thathad an element of nobleness; of a care for beauty and perfection so natural and so cultivatedtogether that the career appeared to stretch beneath it in the disposed vistas and with the ranges ofsteps and terraces and fountains of a formal Italian garden--allowing only for arid places freshenedby the natural dews of a quaint half-anxious, half-helpless fatherhood. At Palazzo Crescentini Mr.Osmond's manner remained the same; diffident at first--oh self-conscious beyond doubt! and fullof the effort (visible only to a sympathetic eye) to overcome this disadvantage; an effort whichusually resulted in a great deal of easy, lively, very positive, rather aggressive, always suggestivetalk. Mr. Osmond's talk was not injured by the indication of an eagerness to shine; Isabel found nodifficulty in believing that a person was sincere who had so many of the signs of strongconviction--as for instance an explicit and graceful appreciation of anything that might be said onhis own side of the question, said perhaps by Miss Archer in especial. What continued to pleasethis young woman was that while he talked so for amusement he didn't talk, as she had heard第 187 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网people, for "effect." He uttered his ideas as if, odd as they often appeared, he were used to themand had lived with them; old polished knobs and heads and handles, of precious substance, thatcould be fitted if necessary to new walking-sticks--not switches plucked in destitution from thecommon tree and then too elegantly waved about. One day he brought his small daughter withhim, and she rejoiced to renew acquaintance with the child, who, as she presented her forehead tobe 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-- differenttoo were the maidens of England. Pansy was so formed and finished for her tiny place in theworld, and yet in imagination, as one could see, so innocent and infantine. She sat on the sofa byIsabel; she wore a small grenadine mantle and a pair of the useful gloves that Madame Merle hadgiven her-- little grey gloves with a single button. She was like a sheet of blank paper--the idealjeune fille of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that so fair and smooth a page would be covered with anedifying text.The Countess Gemini also came to call upon her, but the Countess was quite another affair. Shewas by no means a blank sheet; she had been written over in a variety of hands, and Mrs. Touchett,who felt by no means honoured by her visit, pronounced that a number of unmistakeable blotswere to be seen upon her surface. The Countess gave rise indeed to some discussion between themistress of the house and the visitor from Rome, in which Madame Merle (who was not such afool as to irritate people by always agreeing with them) availed herself felicitously enough of thatlarge licence of dissent which her hostess permitted as freely as she practised it. Mrs. Touchett haddeclared it a piece of audacity that this highly compromised character should have presentedherself at such a time of day at the door of a house in which she was esteemed so little as she mustlong have known herself to be at Palazzo Crescentini. Isabel had been made acquainted with theestimate prevailing under that roof: it represented Mr. Osmond's sister as a lady who had somismanaged her improprieties that they had ceased to hang together at all-- which was at the leastwhat one asked of such matters--and had become the mere floating fragments of a wreckedrenown, incommoding social circulation. She had been married by her mother--a moreadministrative 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 someexcuse for attempting to quench the consciousness of outrage. The Countess, however, hadconsoled herself outrageously, and the list of her excuses had now lost itself in the labyrinth of heradventures. Mrs. Touchett had never consented to receive her, though the Countess had madeovertures of old. Florence was not an austere city; but, as Mrs. Touchett said, she had to draw theline somewhere.Madame Merle defended the luckless lady with a great deal of zeal and wit. She couldn't see whyMrs. Touchett should make a scapegoat of a woman who had really done no harm, who had onlydone good in the wrong way. One must certainly draw the line, but while one was about it oneshould draw it straight: it was a very crooked chalk-mark that would exclude the Countess Gemini.In that case Mrs. Touchett had better shut up her house; this perhaps would be the best course solong as she remained in Florence. One must be fair and not make arbitrary differences: theCountess had doubtless been imprudent, she had not been so clever as other women. She was agood creature, not clever at all; but since when had that been a ground of exclusion from the best第 188 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网society? For ever so long now one had heard nothing about her, and there could be no better proofof her having renounced the error of her ways than her desire to become a member of Mrs.Touchett's circle. Isabel could contribute nothing to this interesting dispute, not even a patientattention; 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. Osmond's sister. As she liked the brotherIsabel thought it proper to try and like the sister: in spite of the growing complexity of things shewas still capable of these primitive sequences. She had not received the happiest impression of theCountess on meeting her at the villa, but was thankful for an opportunity to repair the accident.Had not Mr. Osmond remarked that she was a respectable person? To have proceeded from GilbertOsmond this was a crude proposition, but Madame Merle bestowed upon it a certain improvingpolish. She told Isabel more about the poor Countess than Mr. Osmond had done, and related thehistory of her marriage and its consequences. The Count was a member of an ancient Tuscanfamily, but of such small estate that he had been glad to accept Amy Osmond, in spite of thequestionable beauty which had yet not hampered her career, with the modest dowry her motherwas able to offer--a sum about equivalent to that which had already formed her brother's share oftheir patrimony. Count Gemini since then, however, had inherited money, and now they were wellenough off, as Italians went, though Amy was horribly extravagant. The Count was a low-livedbrute; he had given his wife every pretext. She had no children; she had lost three within a year oftheir birth. Her mother, who had bristled with pretensions to elegant learning and publisheddescriptive poems and corresponded on Italian subjects with the English weekly journals, hermother had died three years after the Countess's marriage, the father, lost in the grey Americandawn of the situation, but reputed originally rich and wild, having died much earlier. One could seethis in Gilbert Osmond, Madame Merle 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 theAmerican Corinne, as Mrs. Osmond had liked to be called. She had brought her children to Italyafter her husband's death, and Mrs. Touchett remembered her during the year that followed herarrival. She thought her a horrible snob; but this was an irregularity of judgement on Mrs.Touchett's part, for she, like Mrs. Osmond, approved of political marriages. The Countess wasvery good company and not really the featherhead she seemed; all one had to do with her was toobserve the simple condition of not believing a word she said. Madame Merle had always madethe best of her for her brother's sake; he appreciated any kindness shown to Amy, because (if it hadto be confessed for him) he rather felt she let down their common name. Naturally he couldn't likeher style, her shrillness, her egotism, her violations of taste and above all of truth: she acted badlyon his nerves, she was not HIS sort of woman. What was his sort of woman? Oh, the very oppositeof the Countess, a woman to whom the truth should be habitually sacred. Isabel was unable toestimate the number of times her visitor had, in half an hour, profaned it: the Countess indeed hadgiven 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; howbase the people in Florence were; how tired she was of the place; how much she should like to livesomewhere else--in Paris, in London, in Washington; how impossible it was to get anything nice towear in Italy except a little old lace; how dear the world was growing everywhere; what a life ofsuffering and privation she had led. Madame Merle listened with interest to Isabel's account of this第 189 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网passage, but she had not needed it to feel exempt from anxiety. On the whole she was not afraid ofthe Countess, and she could afford to do what was altogether best--not to appear so.Isabel had meanwhile another visitor, whom it was not, even behind her back, so easy a matter topatronise. Henrietta Stackpole, who had left Paris after Mrs. Touchett's departure for San Remoand had worked her way down, as she said, through the cities of North Italy, reached the banks ofthe Arno about the middle of May. Madame Merle surveyed her with a single glance, took her infrom head to foot, and after a pang of despair determined to endure her. She determined indeed todelight in her. She mightn't be inhaled as a rose, but she might be grasped as a nettle. MadameMerle genially squeezed her into insignificance, and Isabel felt that in foreseeing this liberality shehad done justice to her friend's intelligence. Henrietta's arrival had been announced by Mr.Bantling, who, coming down from Nice while she was at Venice, and expecting to find her inFlorence, which she had not yet reached, called at Palazzo Crescentini to express hisdisappointment. Henrietta's own advent occurred two days later and produced in Mr. Bantling anemotion amply accounted for by the fact that he had not seen her since the termination of theepisode at Versailles. The humorous view of his situation was generally taken, but it was utteredonly by Ralph Touchett, who, in the privacy of his own apartment, when Bantling smoked a cigarthere, indulged in goodness knew what strong comedy on the subject of the all-judging one and herBritish backer. This gentleman took the joke in perfectly good part and candidly confessed that heregarded the affair as a positive intellectual adventure. He liked Miss Stackpole extremely; hethought she had a wonderful head on her shoulders, and found great comfort in the society of awoman who was not perpetually thinking about what would be said and how what she did, howwhat they did--and they had done things!--would look. Miss Stackpole never cared how anythinglooked, and, if she didn't care, pray why should he? But his curiosity had been roused; he wantedawfully to see if she ever WOULD care. He was prepared to go as far as she--he didn't see why heshould break down first.Henrietta showed no signs of breaking down. Her prospects had brightened on her leavingEngland, and she was now in the full enjoyment of her copious resources. She had indeed beenobliged 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 onthe Continent there was the outer life, which was palpable and visible at every turn, and moreeasily convertible to literary uses than the customs of those opaque islanders. Out of doors inforeign lands, as she ingeniously remarked, one seemed to see the right side of the tapestry; out ofdoors in England one seemed to see the wrong side, which gave one no notion of the figure. Theadmission costs her historian a pang, but Henrietta, despairing of more occult things, was nowpaying much attention to the outer life. She had been studying it for two months at Venice, fromwhich city she sent to the Interviewer a conscientious account of the gondolas, the Piazza, theBridge of Sighs, the pigeons and the young boatman who chanted Tasso. The Interviewer wasperhaps disappointed, but Henrietta was at least seeing Europe. Her present purpose was to getdown to Rome before the malaria should come on--she apparently supposed that it began on afixed day; and with this design she was to spend at present but few days in Florence. Mr. Bantlingwas to go with her to Rome, and she pointed out to Isabel that as he had been there before, as hewas a military man and as he had had a classical education--he had been bred at Eton, where they第 190 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网study nothing but Latin and Whyte-Melville, said Miss Stackpole--he would be a most usefulcompanion in the city of the Caesars. At this juncture Ralph had the happy idea of proposing toIsabel that she also, under his own escort, should make a pilgrimage to Rome. She expected to passa portion of the next winter there--that was very well; but meantime there was no harm insurveying the field. There were ten days left of the beautiful month of May--the most preciousmonth of all to the true Rome-lover. Isabel would become a Rome-lover; that was a foregoneconclusion. She was provided with a trusty companion of her own sex, whose society, thanks tothe fact of other calls on this lady's attention, would probably not be oppressive. Madame Merlewould remain with Mrs. Touchett; 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 apartmentand sent her cook home to Palestrina. She urged Isabel, however, to assent to Ralph's proposal, andassured her that a good introduction to Rome was not a thing to be despised. Isabel in truth neededno urging, and the party of four arranged its little journey. Mrs. Touchett, on this occasion, hadresigned herself to the absence of a duenna; we have seen that she now inclined to the belief thather niece should stand alone. One of Isabel's preparations consisted of her seeing Gilbert Osmondbefore 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 wonderfulground."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, butyou'll rave about it.""Ought I to dislike it because, poor old dear--the Niobe of Nations, you know--it has beenspoiled?" she asked."No, I think not. It has been spoiled so often," he smiled. "If I were to go, what should I do withmy 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'tafford 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 youngto make journeys of pleasure.""You don't like bringing her forward?" Isabel enquired."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 there was not some truth in the speech.第 191 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Mr. Osmond didn't explain; he simply went on: "If I thought it would make her resemble you tojoin a social group in Rome I'd take her there to-morrow.""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; heseemed 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 Merle at the Countess Gemini's. Therewere other people present; the Countess's drawing-room was usually well filled, and the talk hadbeen general, but after a while Osmond left his place and came and sat on an ottoman half-behind,half-beside Madame Merle's chair. "She wants me to go to Rome with her," he remarked in a lowvoice."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 a 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 thesemany years.""The way you take it's beautiful," said Osmond. "I ought to be grateful for that.""Not too much so, however," Madame Merle answered. She talked with her usual smile, leaning