贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-4

period during which she apparently took pains to convince him that she had adopted the rightsystem. She was not fond of the English style of life, and had three or four reasons for it to whichshe currently alluded; they bore upon minor points of that ancient order, but for Mrs. Touchett theyamply justified non-residence. She detested bread-sauce, which, as she said, looked like a poulticeand tasted like soap; she objected to the consumption of beer by her maid-servants; and sheaffirmed that the British laundress (Mrs. Touchett was very particular about the appearance of herlinen) was not a mistress of her art. At fixed intervals she paid a visit to her own country; but thislast had been longer than any of its predecessors.第 22 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网She had taken up her niece--there was little doubt of that. One wet afternoon, some four monthsearlier than the occurrence lately narrated, this young lady had been seated alone with a book. Tosay she was so occupied is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love ofknowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was strong. There was at this time,however, a want of fresh taste in her situation which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did muchto correct. The visitor had not been announced; the girl heard her at last walking about theadjoining room. It was in an old house at Albany, a large, square, double house, with a notice ofsale in the windows of one of the lower apartments. There were two entrances, one of which hadlong been out of use but had never been removed. They were exactly alike--large white doors, withan arched frame and wide side-lights, perched upon little "stoops" of red stone, which descendedsidewise to the brick pavement of the street. The two houses together formed a single dwelling, theparty-wall having been removed and the rooms placed in communication. These rooms, above-stairs, were extremely numerous, and were painted all over exactly alike, in a yellowish whitewhich had grown sallow with time. On the third floor there was a sort of arched passage,connecting the two sides of the house, which Isabel and her sisters used in their childhood to callthe tunnel and which, though it was short and well lighted, always seemed to the girl to be strangeand lonely, especially on winter afternoons. She had been in the house, at different periods, as achild; in those days her grandmother lived there. Then there had been an absence of ten years,followed by a return to Albany before her father's death. Her grandmother, old Mrs. Archer, hadexercised, chiefly within the limits of the family, a large hospitality in the early period, and thelittle girls often spent weeks under her roof-- weeks of which Isabel had the happiest memory. Themanner of life was different from that of her own home--larger, more plentiful, practically morefestal; the discipline of the nursery was delightfully vague and the opportunity of listening to theconversation of one's elders (which with Isabel was a highly-valued pleasure) almost unbounded.There was a constant coming and going; her grandmother's sons and daughters and their childrenappeared to be in the enjoyment of standing invitations to arrive and remain, so that the houseoffered to a certain extent the appearance of a bustling provincial inn kept by a gentle old landladywho sighed a great deal and never presented a bill. Isabel of course knew nothing about bills; buteven as a child she thought her grandmother's home romantic. There was a covered piazza behindit, furnished with a swing which was a source of tremulous interest; and beyond this was a longgarden, sloping down to the stable and containing peach-trees of barely credible familiarity. Isabelhad stayed with her grandmother at various seasons, but somehow all her visits had a flavour ofpeaches. On the other side, across the street, was an old house that was called the Dutch House--apeculiar structure dating from the earliest colonial time, composed of bricks that had been paintedyellow, crowned with a gable that was pointed out to strangers, defended by a rickety woodenpaling and standing sidewise to the street. It was occupied by a primary school for children of bothsexes, kept or rather let go, by a demonstrative lady of whom Isabel's chief recollection was thather hair was fastened with strange bedroomy combs at the temples and that she was the widow ofsome one of consequence. The little girl had been offered the opportunity of laying a foundation ofknowledge in this establishment; but having spent a single day in it, she had protested against itslaws and had been allowed to stay at home, where, in the September days, when the windows ofthe Dutch House were open, she used to hear the hum of childish voices repeating themultiplication table--an incident in which the elation of liberty and the pain of exclusion were第 23 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网indistinguishably mingled. The foundation of her knowledge was really laid in the idleness of hergrandmother's house, where, as most of the other inmates were not reading people, she haduncontrolled use of a library full of books with frontispieces, which she used to climb upon a chairto take down. When she had found one to her taste-- she was guided in the selection chiefly by thefrontispiece-- she carried it into a mysterious apartment which lay beyond the library and whichwas called, traditionally, no one knew why, the office. Whose office it had been and at what periodit had flourished, she never learned; it was enough for her that it contained an echo and a pleasantmusty smell and that it was a chamber of disgrace for old pieces of furniture whose infirmitieswere not always apparent (so that the disgrace seemed unmerited and rendered them victims ofinjustice) and with which, in the manner of children, she had established relations almost human,certainly dramatic. There was an old haircloth sofa in especial, to which she had confided ahundred childish sorrows. The place owed much of its mysterious melancholy to the fact that itwas properly entered from the second door of the house, the door that had been condemned, andthat it was secured by bolts which a particularly slender little girl found it impossible to slide. Sheknew that this silent, motionless portal opened into the street; if the sidelights had not been filledwith green paper she might have looked out upon the little brown stoop and the well-worn brickpavement. But she had no wish to look out, for this would have interfered with her theory thatthere was a strange, unseen place on the other side--a place which became to the child'simagination, according to its different moods, a region of delight or of terror.It was in the "office" still that Isabel was sitting on that melancholy afternoon of early springwhich I have just mentioned. At this time she might have had the whole house to choose from, andthe room she had selected was the most depressed of its scenes. She had never opened the bolteddoor nor removed the green paper (renewed by other hands) from its sidelights; she had neverassured herself that the vulgar street lay beyond. A crude, cold rain fell heavily; the spring-timewas indeed an appeal-- and it seemed a cynical, insincere appeal--to patience. Isabel, however,gave as little heed as possible to cosmic treacheries; she kept her eyes on her book and tried to fixher mind. It had lately occurred to her that her mind was a good deal of a vagabond, and she hadspent much ingenuity in training it to a military step and teaching it to advance, to halt, to retreat,to perform even more complicated manoeuvres, at the word of command. Just now she had givenit marching orders and it had been trudging over the sandy plains of a history of German Thought.Suddenly she became aware of a step very different from her own intellectual pace; she listened alittle and perceived that some one was moving in the library, which communicated with the office.It struck her first as the step of a person from whom she was looking for a visit, then almostimmediately announced itself as the tread of a woman and a stranger--her possible visitor beingneither. It had an inquisitive, experimental quality which suggested that it would not stop short ofthe threshold of the office; and in fact the doorway of this apartment was presently occupied by alady who paused there and looked very hard at our heroine. She was a plain, elderly woman,dressed in a comprehensive waterproof mantle; she had a face with a good deal of rather violentpoint."Oh," she began, "is that where you usually sit?" She looked about at the heterogeneous chairs andtables."Not when I have visitors," said Isabel, getting up to receive the intruder.第 24 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网She directed their course back to the library while the visitor continued to look about her. "Youseem to have plenty of other rooms; they're in rather better condition. But everything's immenselyworn.""Have you come to look at the house?" Isabel asked. "The servant will show it to you.""Send her away; I don't want to buy it. She has probably gone to look for you and is wanderingabout upstairs; she didn't seem at all intelligent. You had better tell her it's no matter." And then,since the girl stood there hesitating and wondering, this unexpected critic said to her abruptly: "Isuppose you're one of the daughters?"Isabel thought she had very strange manners. "It depends upon whose daughters you mean.""The late Mr. Archer's--and my poor sister's.""Ah," said Isabel slowly, "you must be our crazy Aunt Lydia!""Is that what your father told you to call me? I'm your Aunt Lydia, but I'm not at all crazy: Ihaven't a delusion! And which of the daughters are you?""I'm the youngest of the three, and my name's Isabel.""Yes; the others are Lilian and Edith. And are you the prettiest?""I haven't the least idea," said the girl."I think you must be." And in this way the aunt and the niece made friends. The aunt hadquarrelled years before with her brother-in-law, after the death of her sister, taking him to task forthe manner in which he brought up his three girls. Being a high-tempered man he had requestedher to mind her own business, and she had taken him at his word. For many years she held nocommunication with him and after his death had addressed not a word to his daughters, who hadbeen bred in that disrespectful view of her which we have just seen Isabel betray. Mrs. Touchett'sbehaviour was, as usual, perfectly deliberate. She intended to go to America to look after herinvestments (with which her husband, in spite of his great financial position, had nothing to do)and would take advantage of this opportunity to enquire into the condition of her nieces. There wasno need of writing, for she should attach no importance to any account of them she should elicit byletter; she believed, always, in seeing for one's self. Isabel found, however, that she knew a gooddeal about them, and knew about the marriage of the two elder girls; knew that their poor fatherhad left very little money, but that the house in Albany, which had passed into his hands, was to besold for their benefit; knew, finally, that Edmund Ludlow, Lilian's husband, had taken uponhimself to attend to this matter, in consideration of which the young couple, who had come toAlbany during Mr. Archer's illness, were remaining there for the present and, as well as Isabelherself, occupying the old place."How much money do you expect for it?" Mrs. Touchett asked of her companion, who hadbrought her to sit in the front parlour, which she had inspected without enthusiasm."I haven't the least idea," said the girl."That's the second time you have said that to me," her aunt rejoined. "And yet you don't look at allstupid.""I'm not stupid; but I don't know anything about money."第 25 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Yes, that's the way you were brought up--as if you were to inherit a million. What have you inpoint of fact inherited?""I really can't tell you. You must ask Edmund and Lilian; they'll be back in half an hour.""In Florence we should call it a very bad house," said Mrs. Touchett; "but here, I dare say, it willbring a high price. It ought to make a considerable sum for each of you. In addition to that youmust have something else; it's most extraordinary your not knowing. The position's of value, andthey'll probably pull it down and make a row of shops. I wonder you don't do that yourself; youmight let the shops to great advantage."Isabel stared; the idea of letting shops was new to her. "I hope they won't pull it down," she said;"I'm extremely fond of it.""I don't see what makes you fond of it; your father died here.""Yes; but I don't dislike it for that," the girl rather strangely returned. "I like places in which thingshave happened--even if they're sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has beenfull of life.""Is that what you call being full of life?""I mean full of experience--of people's feelings and sorrows. And not of their sorrows only, for I'vebeen very happy here as a child.""You should go to Florence if you like houses in which things have happened--especially deaths. Ilive in an old palace in which three people have been murdered; three that were known and I don'tknow how many more besides.""In an old palace?" Isabel repeated."Yes, my dear; a very different affair from this. This is very bourgeois."Isabel felt some emotion, for she had always thought highly of her grandmother's house. But theemotion was of a kind which led her to say: "I should like very much to go to Florence.""Well, if you'll be very good, and do everything I tell you I'll take you there," Mrs. Touchettdeclared.Our young woman's emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at her aunt in silence. "Doeverything you tell me? I don't think I can promise that.""No, you don't look like a person of that sort. You're fond of your own way; but it's not for me toblame you.""And yet, to go to Florence," the girl exclaimed in a moment, "I'd promise almost anything!"Edmund and Lilian were slow to return, and Mrs. Touchett had an hour's uninterrupted talk withher niece, who found her a strange and interesting figure: a figure essentially--almost the first shehad ever met. She was as eccentric as Isabel had always supposed; and hitherto, whenever the girlhad heard people described as eccentric, she had thought of them as offensive or alarming. Theterm had always suggested to her something grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it amatter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the common tone, which wasall she had known, had ever been as interesting. No one certainly had on any occasion so held heras this little thin-lipped, bright-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who retrieved an insignificant第 26 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网appearance by a distinguished manner and, sitting there in a well-worn waterproof, talked withstriking familiarity of the courts of Europe. There was nothing flighty about Mrs. Touchett, but sherecognised no social superiors, and, judging the great ones of the earth in a way that spoke of this,enjoyed the consciousness of making an impression on a candid and susceptible mind. Isabel atfirst had answered a good many questions, and it was from her answers apparently that Mrs.Touchett derived a high opinion of her intelligence. But after this she had asked a good many, andher aunt's answers, whatever turn they took, struck her as food for deep reflexion. Mrs. Touchettwaited for the return of her other niece as long as she thought reasonable, but as at six o'clock Mrs.Ludlow had not come in she prepared to take her departure."Your sister must be a great gossip. Is she accustomed to staying out so many hours?""You've been out almost as long as she," Isabel replied; "she can have left the house but a shorttime before you came in."Mrs. Touchett looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy a bold retort and to bedisposed to be gracious. "Perhaps she hasn't had so good an excuse as I. Tell her at any rate thatshe must come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel. She may bring her husband if she likes,but she needn't bring you. I shall see plenty of you later."CHAPTER IVMrs. Ludlow was the eldest of the three sisters, and was usually thought the most sensible; theclassification being in general that Lilian was the practical one, Edith the beauty and Isabel the"intellectual" superior. Mrs. Keyes, the second of the group, was the wife of an officer of theUnited States Engineers, and as our history is not further concerned with her it will suffice that shewas indeed very pretty and that she formed the ornament of those various military stations, chieflyin the unfashionable West, to which, to her deep chagrin, her husband was successively relegated.Lilian had married a New York lawyer, a young man with a loud voice and an enthusiasm for hisprofession; the match was not brilliant, any more than Edith's, but Lilian had occasionally beenspoken of as a young woman who might be thankful to marry at all--she was so much plainer thanher sisters. She was, however, very happy, and now, as the mother of two peremptory little boysand the mistress of a wedge of brown stone violently driven into Fifty-third Street, seemed to exultin her condition as in a bold escape. She was short and solid, and her claim to figure wasquestioned, but she was conceded presence, though not majesty; she had moreover, as people said,improved since her marriage, and the two things in life of which she was most distinctly consciouswere her husband's force in argument and her sister Isabel's originality. "I've never kept up withIsabel--it would have taken all my time," she had often remarked; in spite of which, however, sheheld her rather wistfully in sight; watching her as a motherly spaniel might watch a freegreyhound. "I want to see her safely married--that's what I want to see," she frequently noted to herhusband."Well, I must say I should have no particular desire to marry her," Edmund Ludlow wasaccustomed to answer in an extremely audible tone."I know you say that for argument; you always take the opposite ground. I don't see what you'veagainst her except that she's so original."第 27 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Well, I don't like originals; I like translations," Mr. Ludlow had more than once replied. "Isabel'swritten in a foreign tongue. I can't make her out. She ought to marry an Armenian or aPortuguese.""That's just what I'm afraid she'll do!" cried Lilian, who thought Isabel capable of anything.She listened with great interest to the girl's account of Mrs. Touchett's appearance and in theevening prepared to comply with their aunt's commands. Of what Isabel then said no report hasremained, but her sister's words had doubtless prompted a word spoken to her husband as the twowere making ready for their visit. "I do hope immensely she'll do something handsome for Isabel;she has evidently taken a great fancy to her.""What is it you wish her to do?" Edmund Ludlow asked. "Make her a big present?""No indeed; nothing of the sort. But take an interest in her-- sympathise with her. She's evidentlyjust the sort of person to appreciate her. She has lived so much in foreign society; she told Isabelall about it. You know you've always thought Isabel rather foreign.""You want her to give her a little foreign sympathy, eh? Don't you think she gets enough at home?""Well, she ought to go abroad," said Mrs. Ludlow. "She's just the person to go abroad.""And you want the old lady to take her, is that it?""She has offered to take her--she's dying to have Isabel go. But what I want her to do when shegets her there is to give her all the advantages. I'm sure all we've got to do," said Mrs. Ludlow, "isto give her a chance.""A chance for what?""A chance to develop.""Oh Moses!" Edmund Ludlow exclaimed. "I hope she isn't going to develop any more!""If I were not sure you only said that for argument I should feel very badly," his wife replied. "Butyou know you love her.""Do you know I love you?" the young man said, jocosely, to Isabel a little later, while he brushedhis hat."I'm sure I don't care whether you do or not!" exclaimed the girl; whose voice and smile, however,were less haughty than her words."Oh, she feels so grand since Mrs. Touchett's visit," said her sister.But Isabel challenged this assertion with a good deal of seriousness. "You must not say that, Lily. Idon't feel grand at all.""I'm sure there's no harm," said the conciliatory Lily."Ah, but there's nothing in Mrs. Touchett's visit to make one feel grand.""Oh," exclaimed Ludlow, "she's grander than ever!""Whenever I feel grand," said the girl, "it will be for a better reason."Whether she felt grand or no, she at any rate felt different, as if something had happened to her.Left to herself for the evening she sat a while under the lamp, her hands empty, her usualavocations unheeded. Then she rose and moved about the room, and from one room to another,第 28 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网preferring the places where the vague lamplight expired. She was restless and even agitated; atmoments she trembled a little. The importance of what had happened was out of proportion to itsappearance; there had really been a change in her life. What it would bring with it was as yetextremely indefinite; but Isabel was in a situation that gave a value to any change. She had a desireto leave the past behind her and, as she said to herself, to begin afresh. This desire indeed was not abirth of the present occasion; it was as familiar as the sound of the rain upon the window and it hadled to her beginning afresh a great many times. She closed her eyes as she sat in one of the duskycorners of the quiet parlour; but it was not with a desire for dozing forgetfulness. It was on thecontrary because she felt too wide-eyed and wished to check the sense of seeing too many things atonce. Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped outof the window. She was not accustomed indeed to keep it behind bolts; and at important moments,when she would have been thankful to make use of her judgement alone, she paid the penalty ofhaving given undue encouragement to the faculty of seeing without judging. At present, with hersense that the note of change had been struck, came gradually a host of images of the things shewas leaving behind her. The years and hours of her life came back to her, and for a long time, in astillness broken only by the ticking of the big bronze clock, she passed them in review. It had beena very happy life and she had been a very fortunate person--this was the truth that seemed toemerge most vividly. She had had the best of everything, and in a world in which thecircumstances of so many people made them unenviable it was an advantage never to have knownanything particularly unpleasant. It appeared to Isabel that the unpleasant had been even too absentfrom her knowledge, for she had gathered from her acquaintance with literature that it was often asource of interest and even of instruction. Her father had kept it away from her--her handsome,much loved father, who always had such an aversion to it. It was a great felicity to have been hisdaughter; Isabel rose even to pride in her parentage. Since his death she had seemed to see him asturning his braver side to his children and as not having managed to ignore the ugly quite so muchin practice as in aspiration. But this only made her tenderness for him greater; it was scarcely evenpainful to have to suppose him too generous, too good-natured, too indifferent to sordidconsiderations. Many persons had held that he carried this indifference too far, especially the largenumber of those to whom he owed money. Of their opinions Isabel was never very definitelyinformed; but it may interest the reader to know that, while they had recognised in the late Mr.Archer a remarkably handsome head and a very taking manner (indeed, as one of them had said, hewas always taking something), they had declared that he was making a very poor use of his life.He had squandered a substantial fortune, he had been deplorably convivial, he was known to havegambled freely. A few very harsh critics went so far as to say that he had not even brought up hisdaughters. They had had no regular education and no permanent home; they had been at once