贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-31

like vulgar, bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere, presented, on theirarrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though she held it in her lap with her finger vaguely kept in theplace she was not impatient to pursue her study. A lamp covered with a drooping veil of pinktissue-paper burned on the table beside her and diffused a strange pale rosiness over the scene."You say you'll come back; but who knows?" Gilbert Osmond said."I think you're much more likely to start on your voyage round the world. You're under noobligation to come back; you can do exactly what you choose; you can roam through space.""Well, Italy's a part of space," Isabel answered. "I can take it on the way.""On the way round the world? No, don't do that. Don't put us in a parenthesis--give us a chapter toourselves. I don't want to see you on your travels. I'd rather see you when they're over. I shouldlike to see you when you're tired and satiated," Osmond added in a moment. "I shall prefer you inthat state."Isabel, with her eyes bent, fingered the pages of M. Ampere. "You turn things into ridicule withoutseeming to do it, though not, I think, without intending it. You've no respect for my travels-- youthink them ridiculous.""Where do you find that?"She went on in the same tone, fretting the edge of her book with the paper-knife. "You see myignorance, my blunders, the way I wander about as if the world belonged to me, simply because-becauseit has been put into my power to do so. You don't think a woman ought to do that. Youthink it bold and ungraceful."第 206 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"I think it beautiful," said Osmond. "You know my opinions--I've treated you to enough of them.Don't you remember my telling you that one ought to make one's life a work of art? You lookedrather shocked at first; but then I told you that it was exactly what you seemed to me to be trying todo with your own."She looked up from her book. "What you despise most in the world is bad, is stupid art.""Possibly. But yours seem to me very clear and very good.""If I were to go to Japan next winter you would laugh at me," she went on.Osmond gave a smile--a keen one, but not a laugh, for the tone of their conversation was notjocose. Isabel had in fact her solemnity; he had seen it before. "You have one!""That's exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd.""I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the countries I want most to see. Can't youbelieve that, with my taste for old lacquer?""I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel."You've a better excuse--the means of going. You're quite wrong in your theory that I laugh at you.I don't know what has put it into your head.""It wouldn't be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I should have the means to travelwhen you've not; for you know everything and I know nothing.""The more reason why you should travel and learn," smiled Osmond. "Besides," he added as if itwere a point to be made, "I don't know everything."Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely; she was thinking that thepleasantest incident of her life--so it pleased her to qualify these too few days in Rome, which shemight musingly have likened to the figure of some small princess of one of the ages of dressovermuffled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took pages or historians to hold up-thatthis felicity was coming to an end. That most of the interest of the time had been owing to Mr.Osmond was a reflexion she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done the pointabundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a danger they should never meet again,perhaps after all it would be as well. Happy things don't repeat themselves, and her adventure worealready the changed, the seaward face of some romantic island from which, after feasting on purplegrapes, she was putting off while the breeze rose. She might come back to Italy and find himdifferent--this strange man who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to come thanrun the risk of that. But if she was not to come the greater the pity that the chapter was closed; shefelt for a moment a pang that touched the source of tears. The sensation kept her silent, and GilbertOsmond was silent too; he was looking at her. "Go everywhere," he said at last, in a low, kindvoice; "do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy,--be triumphant.""What do you mean by being triumphant?""Well, doing what you like.""To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the vain things one likes is often verytiresome."第 207 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Exactly," said Osmond with his quiet quickness. "As I intimated just now, you'll be tired someday." He paused a moment and then he went on: "I don't know whether I had better not wait tillthen for something I want to say to you.""Ah, I can't advise you without knowing what it is. But I'm horrid when I'm tired," Isabel addedwith due inconsequence."I don't believe that. You're angry, sometimes--that I can believe, though I've never seen it. But I'msure you're never 'cross.'""Not even when I lose my temper?""You don't lose it--you find it, and that must be beautiful." Osmond spoke with a nobleearnestness. "They must be great moments to see.""If I could only find it now!" Isabel nervously cried."I'm not afraid; I should fold my arms and admire you. I'm speaking very seriously." He leanedforward, a hand on each knee; for some moments he bent his eyes on the floor. "What I wish to sayto you," he went on at last, looking up, "is that I find I'm in love with you."She instantly rose. "Ah, keep that till I am tired!""Tired of hearing it from others?" He sat there raising his eyes to her. "No, you may heed it now ornever, as you please. But after all I must say it now." She had turned away, but in the movementshe had stopped herself and dropped her gaze upon him. The two remained a while in thissituation, exchanging a long look --the large, conscious look of the critical hours of life. Then hegot up and came near her, deeply respectful, as if he were afraid he had been too familiar. "I'mabsolutely in love with you."He had repeated the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal discretion, like a man whoexpected very little from it but who spoke for his own needed relief. The tears came into her eyes:this time they obeyed the sharpness of the pang that suggested to her somehow the slipping of afine bolt--backward, forward, she couldn't have said which. The words he had uttered made him,as he stood there, beautiful and generous, invested him as with the golden air of early autumn; but,morally speaking, she retreated before them--facing him still--as she had retreated in the othercases before a like encounter. "Oh don't say that, please," she answered with an intensity thatexpressed the dread of having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread greatwas precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished all dread--the sense ofsomething within herself, deep down, that she supposed to be inspired and trustful passion. It wasthere like a large sum stored in a bank--which there was a terror in having to begin to spend. If shetouched it, it would all come out."I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you," said Osmond. "I've too little to offer you. WhatI have--it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you. I've neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsicadvantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, andsome day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you," he went on,standing there before her, considerately inclined to her, turning his hat, which he had taken up,slowly round with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its第 208 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网oddity, and presenting to her his firm, refined, slightly ravaged face. "It gives me no pain, becauseit's perfectly simple. For me you'll always be the most important woman in the world."Isabel looked at herself in this character--looked intently, thinking she filled it with a certain grace.But what she said was not an expression of any such complacency. "You don't offend me; but youought to remember that, without being offended, one may be incommoded, troubled.""Incommoded," she heard herself saying that, and it struck her as a ridiculous word. But it waswhat stupidly came to her."I remember perfectly. Of course you're surprised and startled. But if it's nothing but that, it willpass away. And it will perhaps leave something that I may not be ashamed of.""I don't know what it may leave. You see at all events that I'm not overwhelmed," said Isabel withrather a pale smile. "I'm not too troubled to think. And I think that I'm glad I leave Rome tomorrow.""Of course I don't agree with you there.""I don't at all KNOW you," she added abruptly; and then she coloured as she heard herself sayingwhat she had said almost a year before to Lord Warburton."If you were not going away you'd know me better.""I shall do that some other time.""I hope so. I'm very easy to know.""No, no," she emphatically answered--"there you're not sincere. You're not easy to know; no onecould be less so.""Well," he laughed, "I said that because I know myself. It may be a boast, but I do.""Very likely; but you're very wise.""So are you, Miss Archer!" Osmond exclaimed."I don't feel so just now. Still, I'm wise enough to think you had better go. Good-night.""God bless you!" said Gilbert Osmond, taking the hand which she failed to surrender. After whichhe added: "If we meet again you'll find me as you leave me. If we don't I shall be so all the same.""Thank you very much. Good-bye."There was something quietly firm about Isabel's visitor; he might go of his own movement, butwouldn't be dismissed. "There's one thing more. I haven't asked anything of you--not even athought in the future; you must do me that justice. But there's a little service I should like to ask. Ishall not return home for several days; Rome's delightful, and it's a good place for a man in mystate of mind. Oh, I know you're sorry to leave it; but you're right to do what your aunt wishes.""She doesn't even wish it!" Isabel broke out strangely.Osmond was apparently on the point of saying something that would match these words, but hechanged his mind and rejoined simply: "Ah well, it's proper you should go with her, very proper.Do everything that's proper; I go in for that. Excuse my being so patronising. You say you don'tknow me, but when you do you'll discover what a worship I have for propriety.""You're not conventional?" Isabel gravely asked.第 209 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"I like the way you utter that word! No, I'm not conventional: I'm convention itself. You don'tunderstand that?" And he paused a moment, smiling. "I should like to explain it." Then with asudden, quick, bright naturalness, "Do come back again," he pleaded. "There are so many thingswe might talk about."She stood there with lowered eyes. "What service did you speak of just now?""Go and see my little daughter before you leave Florence. She's alone at the villa; I decided not tosend her to my sister, who hasn't at all my ideas. Tell her she must love her poor father verymuch," said Gilbert Osmond gently."It will be a great pleasure to me to go," Isabel answered. "I'll tell her what you say. Once moregood-bye."On this he took a rapid, respectful leave. When he had gone she stood a moment looking about herand seated herself slowly and with an air of deliberation. She sat there till her companions cameback, with folded hands, gazing at the ugly carpet. Her agitation--for it had not diminished--wasvery still, very deep. What had happened was something that for a week past her imagination hadbeen going forward to meet; but here, when it came, she stopped--that sublime principle somehowbroke down. The working of this young lady's spirit was strange, and I can only give it to you as Isee it, not hoping to make it seem altogether natural. Her imagination, as I say, now hung back:there was a last vague space it couldn't cross--a dusky, uncertain tract which looked ambiguousand even slightly treacherous, like a moorland seen in the winter twilight. But she was to cross ityet.CHAPTER XXXShe returned on the morrow to Florence, under her cousin's escort, and Ralph Touchett, thoughusually restive under railway discipline, thought very well of the successive hours passed in thetrain that hurried his companion away from the city now distinguished by Gilbert Osmond'spreference--hours that were to form the first stage in a larger scheme of travel. Miss Stackpole hadremained behind; she was planning a little trip to Naples, to be carried out with Mr. Bantling's aid.Isabel was to have three days in Florence before the 4th of June, the date of Mrs. Touchett'sdeparture, and she determined to devote the last of these to her promise to call on Pansy Osmond.Her plan, however, seemed for a moment likely to modify itself in deference to an idea of MadameMerle's. This lady was still at Casa Touchett; but she too was on the point of leaving Florence, hernext station being an ancient castle in the mountains of Tuscany, the residence of a noble family ofthat country, whose acquaintance (she had known them, as she said, "forever") seemed to Isabel, inthe light of certain photographs of their immense crenellated dwelling which her friend was able toshow her, a precious privilege. She mentioned to this fortunate woman that Mr. Osmond had askedher to take a look at his daughter, but didn't mention that he had also made her a declaration oflove."Ah, comme cela se trouve!" Madame Merle exclaimed. "I myself have been thinking it would bea kindness to pay the child a little visit before I go off."第 210 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"We can go together then," Isabel reasonably said: "reasonably" because the proposal was notuttered in the spirit of enthusiasm. She had prefigured her small pilgrimage as made in solitude;she should like it better so. She was nevertheless prepared to sacrifice this mystic sentiment to hergreat consideration for her friend.That personage finely meditated. "After all, why should we both go; having, each of us, so much todo during these last hours?""Very good; I can easily go alone.""I don't know about your going alone--to the house of a handsome bachelor. He has been married-butso long ago!"Isabel stared. "When Mr. Osmond's away what does it matter?""They don't know he's away, you see.""They? Whom do you mean?""Every one. But perhaps it doesn't signify.""If you were going why shouldn't I?" Isabel asked."Because I'm an old frump and you're a beautiful young woman.""Granting all that, you've not promised.""How much you think of your promises!" said the elder woman in mild mockery."I think a great deal of my promises. Does that surprise you?""You're right," Madame Merle audibly reflected. "I really think you wish to be kind to the child.""I wish very much to be kind to her.""Go and see her then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I'd have come if you hadn't. Or rather,"Madame Merle added, "DON'T tell her. She won't care."As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the winding way which led to Mr.Osmond's hill-top, she wondered what her friend had meant by no one's being the wiser. Once in awhile, at large intervals, this lady, whose voyaging discretion, as a general thing, was rather of theopen sea than of the risky channel, dropped a remark of ambiguous quality, struck a note thatsounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for the vulgar judgements of obscure people? and didMadame Merle suppose that she was capable of doing a thing at all if it had to be sneakingly done?Of course not: she must have meant something else--something which in the press of the hours thatpreceded her departure she had not had time to explain. Isabel would return to this some day; therewere sorts of things as to which she liked to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano inanother place as she herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond's drawing-room; the little girl was"practising," and Isabel was pleased to think she performed this duty with rigour. She immediatelycame in, smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's house with a wide-eyedearnestness of courtesy. Isabel sat there half an hour, and Pansy rose to the occasion as the small,winged fairy in the pantomime soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire --not chattering, butconversing, and showing the same respectful interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good asto take in hers. Isabel wondered at her; she had never had so directly presented to her nose thewhite flower of cultivated sweetness. How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young第 211 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet how simple, how natural, howinnocent she had been kept! Isabel was fond, ever, of the question of character and quality, ofsounding, as who should say, the deep personal mystery, and it had pleased her, up to this time, tobe in doubt as to whether this tender slip were not really all-knowing. Was the extremity of hercandour but the perfection of self-consciousness? Was it put on to please her father's visitor, orwas it the direct expression of an unspotted nature? The hour that Isabel spent in Mr. Osmond'sbeautiful empty, dusky rooms--the windows had been half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and hereand there, through an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of fadedcolour or tarnished gilt in the rich gloom--her interview with the daughter of the house, I say,effectually settled this question. Pansy was really a blank page, a pure white surface, successfullykept so; she had neither art, nor guile, nor temper, nor talent--only two or three small exquisiteinstincts: for knowing a friend, for avoiding a mistake, for taking care of an old toy or a new frock.Yet to be so tender was to be touching withal, and she could be felt as an easy victim of fate. Shewould have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance; she would easily bemystified, easily crushed: her force would be all in knowing when and where to cling. She movedabout the place with her visitor, who had asked leave to walk through the other rooms again, wherePansy gave her judgement on several works of art. She spoke of her prospects, her occupations, herfather's intentions; she was not egotistical, but felt the propriety of supplying the information sodistinguished a guest would naturally expect."Please tell me," she said, "did papa, in Rome, go to see Madame Catherine? He told me he wouldif he had time. Perhaps he had not time. Papa likes a great deal of time. He wished to speak aboutmy education; it isn't finished yet, you know. I don't know what they can do with me more; but itappears it's far from finished. Papa told me one day he thought he would finish it himself; for thelast year or two, at the convent, the masters that teach the tall girls are so very dear. Papa's not rich,and I should be very sorry if he were to pay much money for me, because I don't think I'm worth it.I don't learn quickly enough, and I have no memory. For what I'm told, yes--especially when it'spleasant; but not for what I learn in a book. There was a young girl who was my best friend, andthey took her away from the convent, when she was fourteen, to make--how do you say it inEnglish?--to make a dot. You don't say it in English? I hope it isn't wrong; I only mean theywished to keep the money to marry her. I don't know whether it is for that that papa wishes to keepthe money-- to marry me. It costs so much to marry!" Pansy went on with a sigh; "I think papamight make that economy. At any rate I'm too young to think about it yet, and I don't care for anygentleman; I mean for any but him. If he were not my papa I should like to marry him; I wouldrather be his daughter than the wife of--of some strange person. I miss him very much, but not somuch as you might think, for I've been so much away from him. Papa has always been principallyfor holidays. I miss Madame Catherine almost more; but you must not tell him that. You shall notsee him again? I'm very sorry, and he'll be sorry too. Of everyone who comes here I like you thebest. That's not a great compliment, for there are not many people. It was very kind of you to cometo-day--so far from your house; for I'm really as yet only a child. Oh, yes, I've only the occupationsof a child. When did YOU give them up, the occupations of a child? I should like to know how oldyou are, but I don't know whether it's right to ask. At the convent they told us that we must neverask the age. I don't like to do anything that's not expected; it looks as if one had not been properly第 212 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网taught. I myself--I should never like to be taken by surprise. Papa left directions for everything. Igo to bed very early. When the sun goes off that side I go into the garden. Papa left strict ordersthat I was not to get scorched. I always enjoy the view; the mountains are so graceful. In Rome,from the convent, we saw nothing but roofs and bell-towers. I practise three hours. I don't playvery well. You play yourself? I wish very much you'd play something for me; papa has the ideathat I should hear good music. Madame Merle has played for me several times; that's what I likebest about Madame Merle; she has great facility. I shall never have facility. And I've no voice--justa small sound like the squeak of a slate-pencil making flourishes."Isabel gratified this respectful wish, drew off her gloves and sat down to the piano, while Pansy,standing beside her, watched her white hands move quickly over the keys. When she stopped shekissed the child good-bye, held her close, looked at her long. "Be very good," she said; "givepleasure to your father.""I think that's what I live for," Pansy answered. "He has not much pleasure; he's rather a sad man."Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which she felt it almost a torment to be obliged toconceal. It was her pride that obliged her, and a certain sense of decency; there were still otherthings in her head which she felt a strong impulse, instantly checked, to say to Pansy about herfather; there were things it would have given her pleasure to hear the child, to make the child, say.But she no sooner became conscious of these things than her imagination was hushed with horror