贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-42

hour ago was a striking example of his faculty for making everything wither that he touched,spoiling everything for her that he looked at. It was very well to undertake to give him a proof ofloyalty; the real fact was that the knowledge of his expecting a thing raised a presumption againstit. It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if his presence were a blight and his favour a misfortune.Was the fault in himself, or only in the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? This mistrust wasnow the clearest result of their short married life; a gulf had opened between them over which theylooked at each other with eyes that were on either side a declaration of the deception suffered. Itwas a strange opposition, of the like of which she had never dreamed--an opposition in which thevital principle of the one was a thing of contempt to the other. It was not her fault--she hadpractised no deception; she had only admired and believed. She had taken all the first steps in thepurest confidence, and then she had suddenly found the infinite vista of a multiplied life to be adark, narrow alley with a dead wall at the end. Instead of leading to the high places of happiness,from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense ofexaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward,into realms of restriction and depression where the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heardas from above, and where it served to deepen the feeling of failure. It was her deep distrust of herhusband--this was what darkened the world. That is a sentiment easily indicated, but not so easilyexplained, and so composite in its character that much time and still more suffering had beenneeded to bring it to its actual perfection. Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition; it was nota chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of speculation, of response to everypressure. She flattered herself that she had kept her failing faith to herself, however,--that no onesuspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when she thought he enjoyed it. Ithad come gradually--it was not till the first year of their life together, so admirably intimate at first,had closed that she had taken the alarm. Then the shadows had begun to gather; it was as ifOsmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lights out one by one. The dusk at first wasvague and thin, and she could still see her way in it. But it steadily deepened, and if now and againit had occasionally lifted there were certain corners of her prospect that were impenetrably black.These shadows were not an emanation from her own mind: she was very sure of that; she had doneher best to be just and temperate, to see only the truth. They were a part, they were a kind ofcreation and consequence, of her husband's very presence. They were not his misdeeds, histurpitudes; she accused him of nothing --that is but of one thing, which was NOT a crime. Sheknew of no wrong he had done; he was not violent, he was not cruel: she simply believed he hatedher. That was all she accused him of, and the miserable part of it was precisely that it was not acrime, for against a crime she might have found redress. He had discovered that she was sodifferent, that she was not what he had believed she would prove to be. He had thought at first hecould change her, and she had done her best to be what he would like. But she was, after all,herself--she couldn't help that; and now there was no use pretending, wearing a mask or a dress,for he knew her and had made up his mind. She was not afraid of him; she had no apprehension hewould hurt her; for the ill-will he bore her was not of that sort. He would if possible never give hera pretext, never put himself in the wrong. Isabel, scanning the future with dry, fixed eyes, saw thathe would have the better of her there. She would give him many pretexts, she would often putherself in the wrong. There were times when she almost pitied him; for if she had not deceived himin intention she understood how completely she must have done so in fact. She had effaced herself第 283 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than therereally was. It was because she had been under the extraordinary charm that he, on his side, hadtaken pains to put forth. He was not changed; he had not disguised himself, during the year of hiscourtship, any more than she. But she had seen only half his nature then, as one saw the disk of themoon when it was partly masked by the shadow of the earth. She saw the full moon now--she sawthe whole man. She had kept still, as it were, so that he should have a free field, and yet in spite ofthis she had mistaken a part for the whole.Ah, she had been immensely under the charm! It had not passed away; it was there still: she stillknew perfectly what it was that made Osmond delightful when he chose to be. He had wished to bewhen he made love to her, and as she had wished to be charmed it was not wonderful he hadsucceeded. He had succeeded because he had been sincere; it never occurred to her now to denyhim that. He admired her--he had told her why: because she was the most imaginative woman hehad known. It might very well have been true; for during those months she had imagined a worldof things that had no substance. She had had a more wondrous vision of him, fed through charmedsenses and oh such a stirred fancy!--she had not read him right. A certain combination of featureshad touched her, and in them she had seen the most striking of figures. That he was poor andlonely and yet that somehow he was noble--that was what had interested her and seemed to giveher her opportunity. There had been an indefinable beauty about him--in his situation, in his mind,in his face. She had felt at the same time that he was helpless and ineffectual, but the feeling hadtaken the form of a tenderness which was the very flower of respect. He was like a scepticalvoyager strolling on the beach while he waited for the tide, looking seaward yet not putting to sea.It was in all this she had found her occasion. She would launch his boat for him; she would be hisprovidence; it would be a good thing to love him. And she had loved him, she had so anxiouslyand yet so ardently given herself--a good deal for what she found in him, but a good deal also forwhat she brought him and what might enrich the gift. As she looked back at the passion of thosefull weeks she perceived in it a kind of maternal strain--the happiness of a woman who felt that shewas a contributor, that she came with charged hands. But for her money, as she saw to-day, shewould never have done it. And then her mind wandered off to poor Mr. Touchett, sleeping underEnglish turf, the beneficent author of infinite woe! For this was the fantastic fact. At bottom hermoney had been a burden, had been on her mind, which was filled with the desire to transfer theweight of it to some other conscience, to some more prepared receptacle. What would lighten herown conscience more effectually than to make it over to the man with the best taste in the world?Unless she should have given it to a hospital there would have been nothing better she could dowith it; and there was no charitable institution in which she had been as much interested as inGilbert Osmond. He would use her fortune in a way that would make her think better of it and ruboff a certain grossness attaching to the good luck of an unexpected inheritance. There had beennothing very delicate in inheriting seventy thousand pounds; the delicacy had been all in Mr.Touchett's leaving them to her. But to marry Gilbert Osmond and bring him such a portion--in thatthere would be delicacy for her as well. There would be less for him--that was true; but that washis affair, and if he loved her he wouldn't object to her being rich. Had he not had the courage tosay he was glad she was rich?第 284 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Isabel's cheek burned when she asked herself if she had really married on a factitious theory, inorder to do something finely appreciable with her money. But she was able to answer quicklyenough that this was only half the story. It was because a certain ardour took possession of her--asense of the earnestness of his affection and a delight in his personal qualities. He was better thanany one else. This supreme conviction had filled her life for months, and enough of it stillremained to prove to her that she could not have done otherwise. The finest--in the sense of beingthe subtlest--manly organism she had ever known had become her property, and the recognition ofher having but to put out her hands and take it had been originally a sort of act of devotion. Shehad not been mistaken about the beauty of his mind; she knew that organ perfectly now. She hadlived with it, she had lived IN it almost--it appeared to have become her habitation. If she had beencaptured it had taken a firm hand to seize her; that reflection perhaps had some worth. A mindmore ingenious, more pliant, more cultivated, more trained to admirable exercises, she had notencountered; and it was this exquisite instrument she had now to reckon with. She lost herself ininfinite dismay when she thought of the magnitude of HIS deception. It was a wonder, perhaps, inview of this, that he didn't hate her more. She remembered perfectly the first sign he had given ofit--it had been like the bell that was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama of their life. He saidto her one day that she had too many ideas and that she must get rid of them. He had told her thatalready, before their marriage; but then she had not noticed it: it had come back to her onlyafterwards. This time she might well have noticed it, because he had really meant it. The wordshad been nothing superficially; but when in the light of deepening experience she had looked intothem they had then appeared portentous. He had really meant it--he would have liked her to havenothing of her own but her pretty appearance. She had known she had too many ideas; she hadmore even than he had supposed, many more than she had expressed to him when he had asked herto marry him. Yes, she HAD been hypocritical; she had liked him so much. She had too manyideas for herself; but that was just what one married for, to share them with some one else. Onecouldn't pluck them up by the roots, though of course one might suppress them, be careful not toutter them. It had not been this, however, his objecting to her opinions; this had been nothing. Shehad no opinions--none that she would not have been eager to sacrifice in the satisfaction of feelingherself loved for it. What he had meant had been the whole thing--her character, the way she felt,the way she judged. This was what she had kept in reserve; this was what he had not known untilhe had found himself--with the door closed behind, as it were--set down face to face with it. Shehad a certain way of looking at life which he took as a personal offence. Heaven knew that now atleast it was a very humble, accommodating way! The strange thing was that she should not havesuspected from the first that his own had been so different. She had thought it so large, soenlightened, so perfectly that of an honest man and a gentleman. Hadn't he assured her that he hadno superstitions, no dull limitations, no prejudices that had lost their freshness? Hadn't he all theappearance of a man living in the open air of the world, indifferent to small considerations, caringonly for truth and knowledge and believing that two intelligent people ought to look for themtogether and, whether they found them or not, find at least some happiness in the search? He hadtold her he loved the conventional; but there was a sense in which this seemed a noble declaration.In that sense, that of the love of harmony and order and decency and of all the stately offices oflife, she went with him freely, and his warning had contained nothing ominous. But when, as the第 285 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网months had elapsed, she had followed him further and he had led her into the mansion of his ownhabitation, then, THEN she had seen where she really was.She could live it over again, the incredulous terror with which she had taken the measure of herdwelling. Between those four walls she had lived ever since; they were to surround her for the restof her life. It was the house of darkness, the house of dumbness, the house of suffocation.Osmond's beautiful mind gave it neither light nor air; Osmond's beautiful mind indeed seemed topeep down from a small high window and mock at her. Of course it had not been physicalsuffering; for physical suffering there might have been a remedy. She could come and go; she hadher liberty; her husband was perfectly polite. He took himself so seriously; it was somethingappalling. Under all his culture, his cleverness, his amenity, under his good-nature, his facility, hisknowledge of life, his egotism lay hidden like a serpent in a bank of flowers. She had taken himseriously, but she had not taken him so seriously as that. How could she--especially when she hadknown him better? She was to think of him as he thought of himself--as the first gentleman inEurope. So it was that she had thought of him at first, and that indeed was the reason she hadmarried him. But when she began to see what it implied she drew back; there was more in the bondthan she had meant to put her name to. It implied a sovereign contempt for every one but somethree or four very exalted people whom he envied, and for everything in the world but half a dozenideas of his own. That was very well; she would have gone with him even there a long distance;for he pointed out to her so much of the baseness and shabbiness of life, opened her eyes so wideto the stupidity, the depravity, the ignorance of mankind, that she had been properly impressedwith the infinite vulgarity of things and of the virtue of keeping one's self unspotted by it. But thisbase, if noble world, it appeared, was after all what one was to live for; one was to keep it foreverin one's eye, in order not to enlighten or convert or redeem it, but to extract from it somerecognition of one's own superiority. On the one hand it was despicable, but on the other itafforded a standard. Osmond had talked to Isabel about his renunciation, his indifference, the easewith which he dispensed with the usual aids to success; and all this had seemed to her admirable.She had thought it a grand indifference, an exquisite independence. But indifference was really thelast of his qualities; she had never seen any one who thought so much of others. For herself,avowedly, the world had always interested her and the study of her fellow creatures been herconstant passion. She would have been willing, however, to renounce all her curiosities andsympathies for the sake of a personal life, if the person concerned had only been able to make herbelieve it was a gain! This at least was her present conviction; and the thing certainly would havebeen easier than to care for society as Osmond cared for it.He was unable to live without it, and she saw that he had never really done so; he had looked at itout of his window even when he appeared to be most detached from it. He had his ideal, just as shehad tried to have hers; only it was strange that people should seek for justice in such differentquarters. His ideal was a conception of high prosperity and propriety, of the aristocratic life, whichshe now saw that he deemed himself always, in essence at least, to have led. He had never lapsedfrom it for an hour; he would never have recovered from the shame of doing so. That again wasvery well; here too she would have agreed; but they attached such different ideas, such differentassociations and desires, to the same formulas. Her notion of the aristocratic life was simply theunion of great knowledge with great liberty; the knowledge would give one a sense of duty and the第 286 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网liberty a sense of enjoyment. But for Osmond it was altogether a thing of forms, a conscious,calculated attitude. He was fond of the old, the consecrated, the transmitted; so was she, but shepretended to do what she chose with it. He had an immense esteem for tradition; he had told heronce that the best thing in the world was to have it, but that if one was so unfortunate as not tohave it one must immediately proceed to make it. She knew that he meant by this that she hadn't it,but that he was better off; though from what source he had derived his traditions she never learned.He had a very large collection of them, however; that was very certain, and after a little she beganto see. The great thing was to act in accordance with them; the great thing not only for him but forher. Isabel had an undefined conviction that to serve for another person than their proprietortraditions must be of a thoroughly superior kind; but she nevertheless assented to this intimationthat she too must march to the stately music that floated down from unknown periods in herhusband's past; she who of old had been so free of step, so desultory, so devious, so much thereverse of processional. There were certain things they must do, a certain posture they must take,certain people they must know and not know. When she saw this rigid system close about her,draped though it was in pictured tapestries, that sense of darkness and suffocation of which I havespoken took possession of her; she seemed shut up with an odour of mould and decay. She hadresisted of course; at first very humorously, ironically, tenderly; then, as the situation grew moreserious, eagerly, passionately, pleadingly. She had pleaded the cause of freedom, of doing as theychose, of not caring for the aspect and denomination of their life--the cause of other instincts andlongings, of quite another ideal.Then it was that her husband's personality, touched as it never had been, stepped forth and stooderect. The things she had said were answered only by his scorn, and she could see he was ineffablyashamed of her. What did he think of her--that she was base, vulgar, ignoble? He at least knewnow that she had no traditions! It had not been in hsis prevision of things that she should revealsuch flatness; her sentiments were worthy of a radical newspaper or a Unitarian preacher. The realoffence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to behis--attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park. He would rake the soil gently andwater the flowers; he would weed the beds and gather an occasional nosegay. It would be a prettypiece of property for a proprietor already far-reaching. He didn't wish her to be stupid. On thecontrary, it was because she was clever that she had pleased him. But he expected her intelligenceto operate altogether in his favour, and so far from desiring her mind to be a blank he had flatteredhimself that it would be richly receptive. He had expected his wife to feel with him and for him, toenter into his opinions, his ambitions, his preferences; and Isabel was obliged to confess that thiswas no great insolence on the part of a man so accomplished and a husband originally at least sotender. But there were certain things she could never take in. To begin with, they were hideouslyunclean. She was not a daughter of the Puritans, but for all that she believed in such a thing aschastity and even as decency. It would appear that Osmond was far from doing anything of thesort; some of his traditions made her push back her skirts. Did all women have lovers? Did they alllie and even the best have their price? Were there only three or four that didn't deceive theirhusbands? When Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than for the gossip of avillage parlour--a scorn that kept its freshness in a very tainted air. There was the taint of her sisterin-law: did her husband judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often lied, and she had第 287 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网practised deceptions that were not simply verbal. It was enough to find these facts assumed amongOsmond's traditions--it was enough without giving them such a general extension. It was her scornof his assumptions, it was this that made him draw himself up. He had plenty of contempt, and itwas proper his wife should be as well furnished; but that she should turn the hot light of herdisdain upon his own conception of things--this was a danger he had not allowed for. He believedhe should have regulated her emotions before she came to it; and Isabel could easily imagine howhis ears had scorched on his discovering he had been too confident. When one had a wife whogave one that sensation there was nothing left but to hate her.She was morally certain now that this feeling of hatred, which at first had been a refuge and arefreshment, had become the occupation and comfort of his life. The feeling was deep, because itwas sincere; he had had the revelation that she could after all dispense with him. If to herself theidea was startling, if it presented itself at first as a kind of infidelity, a capacity for pollution, whatinfinite effect might it not be expected to have had upon HIM? It was very simple; he despised her;she had no traditions and the moral horizon of a Unitarian minister. Poor Isabel, who had neverbeen able to understand Unitarianism! This was the certitude she had been living with now for atime that she had ceased to measure. What was coming--what was before them? That was herconstant question. What would he do--what ought SHE to do? When a man hated his wife what didit lead to? She didn't hate him, that she was sure of, for every little while she felt a passionate wishto give him a pleasant surprise. Very often, however, she felt afraid, and it used to come over her,as I have intimated, that she had deceived him at the very first. They were strangely married, at allevents, and it was a horrible life. Until that morning he had scarcely spoken to her for a week; hismanner was as dry as a burned-out fire. She knew there was a special reason; he was displeased atRalph Touchett's staying on in Rome. He thought she saw too much of her cousin--he had told hera week before it was indecent she should go to him at his hotel. He would have said more than thisif Ralph's invalid state had not appeared to make it brutal to denounce him; but having had tocontain himself had only deepened his disgust. Isabel read all this as she would have read the houron the clock-face; she was as perfectly aware that the sight of her interest in her cousin stirred herhusband's rage as if Osmond had locked her into her room--which she was sure was what hewanted to do. It was her honest belief that on the whole she was not defiant, but she certainlycouldn't pretend to be indifferent to Ralph. She believed he was dying at last and that she shouldnever see him again, and this gave her a tenderness for him that she had never known before.Nothing was a pleasure to her now; how could anything be a pleasure to a woman who knew thatshe had thrown away her life? There was an everlasting weight on her heart-- there was a lividlight on everything. But Ralph's little visit was a lamp in the darkness; for the hour that she satwith him her ache for herself became somehow her ache for HIM. She felt to-day as if he had beenher brother. She had never had a brother, but if she had and she were in trouble and he were dying,he would be dear to her as Ralph was. Ah yes, if Gilbert was jealous of her there was perhaps somereason; it didn't make Gilbert look better to sit for half an hour with Ralph. It was not that theytalked of him--it was not that she complained. His name was never uttered between them. It wassimply that Ralph was generous and that her husband was not. There was something in Ralph'stalk, in his smile, in the mere fact of his being in Rome, that made the blasted circle round whichshe walked more spacious. He made her feel the good of the world; he made her feel what might第 288 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网have been. He was after all as intelligent as Osmond--quite apart from his being better. And thus itseemed to her an act of devotion to conceal her misery from him. She concealed it elaborately; shewas perpetually, in their talk, hanging out curtains and before her again--it lived before her again,-ithad never had time to die--that morning in the garden at Florence when he had warned heragainst Osmond. She had only to close her eyes to see the place, to hear his voice, to feel thewarm, sweet air. How could he have known? What a mystery, what a wonder of wisdom! Asintelligent as Gilbert? He was much more intelligent--to arrive at such a judgement as that. Gilberthad never been so deep, so just. She had told him then that from her at least he should never knowif he was right; and this was what she was taking care of now. It gave her plenty to do; there waspassion, exaltation, religion in it. Women find their religion sometimes in strange exercises, andIsabel at present, in playing a part before her cousin, had an idea that she was doing him akindness. It would have been a kindness perhaps if he had been for a single instant a dupe. As itwas, the kindness consisted mainly in trying to make him believe that he had once wounded hergreatly and that the event had put him to shame, but that, as she was very generous and he was soill, she bore him no grudge and even considerately forbore to flaunt her happiness in his face.Ralph smiled to himself, as he lay on his sofa, at this extraordinary form of consideration; but heforgave her for having forgiven him. She didn't wish him to have the pain of knowing she wasunhappy: that was the great thing, and it didn't matter that such knowledge would rather haverighted him.For herself, she lingered in the soundless saloon long after the fire had gone out. There was nodanger of her feeling the cold; she was in a fever. She heard the small hours strike, and then thegreat ones, but her vigil took no heed of time. Her mind, assailed by visions, was in a state ofextraordinary activity, and her visions might as well come to her there, where she sat up to meetthem, as on her pillow, to make a mockery of rest. As I have said, she believed she was not defiant,and what could be a better proof of it than that she should linger there half the night, trying topersuade herself that there was no reason why Pansy shouldn't be married as you would put a letterin the post-office? When the clock struck four she got up; she was going to bed at last, for the lamphad long since gone out and the candles burned down to their sockets. But even then she stoppedagain in the middle of the room and stood there gazing at a remembered vision--that of herhusband and Madame Merle unconsciously and familiarly associated.CHAPTER XLIIIThree nights after this she took Pansy to a great party, to which Osmond, who never went todances, did not accompany them. Pansy was as ready for a dance as ever; she was not of ageneralising turn and had not extended to other pleasures the interdict she had seen placed on thoseof love. If she was biding her time or hoping to circumvent her father she must have had aprevision of success. Isabel thought this unlikely; it was much more likely that Pansy had simplydetermined to be a good girl. She had never had such a chance, and she had a proper esteem forchances. She carried herself no less attentively than usual and kept no less anxious an eye upon hervaporous skirts; she held her bouquet very tight and counted over the flowers for the twentiethtime. She made Isabel feel old; it seemed so long since she had been in a flutter about a ball.第 289 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Pansy, who was greatly admired, was never in want of partners, and very soon after their arrivalshe gave Isabel, who was not dancing, her bouquet to hold. Isabel had rendered her this service forsome minutes when she became aware of the near presence of Edward Rosier. He stood before her;he had lost his affable smile and wore a look of almost military resolution. The change in hisappearance would have made Isabel smile if she had not felt his case to be at bottom a hard one: hehad always smelt so much more of heliotrope than of gunpowder. He looked at her a momentsomewhat fiercely, as if to notify her he was dangerous, and then dropped his eyes on her bouquet.After he had inspected it his glance softened and he said quickly: "It's all pansies; it must be hers!"Isabel smiled kindly. "Yes, it's hers; she gave it to me to hold.""May I hold it a little, Mrs. Osmond?" the poor young man asked."No, I can't trust you; I'm afraid you wouldn't give it back.""I'm not sure that I should; I should leave the house with it instantly. But may I not at least have asingle flower?"Isabel hesitated a moment, and then, smiling still, held out the bouquet. "Choose one yourself. It'sfrightful what I'm doing for you.""Ah, if you do no more than this, Mrs. Osmond!" Rosier exclaimed with his glass in one eye,carefully choosing his flower."Don't put it into your button-hole," she said. "Don't for the world!""I should like her to see it. She has refused to dance with me, but I wish to show her that I believein her still.""It's very well to show it to her, but it's out of place to show it to others. Her father has told her notto dance with you.""And is that all YOU can do for me? I expected more from you, Mrs. Osmond," said the youngman in a tone of fine general reference. "You know our acquaintance goes back very far--quite intothe days of our innocent childhood.""Don't make me out too old," Isabel patiently answered. "You come back to that very often, andI've never denied it. But I must tell you that, old friends as we are, if you had done me the honourto ask me to marry you I should have refused you on the spot.""Ah, you don't esteem me then. Say at once that you think me a mere Parisian trifler!""I esteem you very much, but I'm not in love with you. What I mean by that, of course, is that I'mnot in love with you for Pansy.""Very good; I see. You pity me--that's all." And Edward Rosier looked all round, inconsequently,with his single glass. It was a revelation to him that people shouldn't be more pleased; but he wasat least too proud to show that the deficiency struck him as general.Isabel for a moment said nothing. His manner and appearance had not the dignity of the deepesttragedy; his little glass, among other things, was against that. But she suddenly felt touched; herown unhappiness, after all, had something in common with his, and it came over her, more than