贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-20

原版英语阅读网There was no doubt she had great merits--she was charming, sympathetic, intelligent, cultivated.More than this (for it had not been Isabel's ill-fortune to go through life without meeting in herown sex several persons of whom no less could fairly be said), she was rare, superior andpreeminent. There are many amiable people in the world, and Madame Merle was far from beingvulgarly good-natured and restlessly witty. She knew how to think--an accomplishment rare inwomen; and she had thought to very good purpose. Of course, too, she knew how to feel; Isabelcouldn't have spent a week with her without being sure of that. This was indeed Madame Merle'sgreat talent, her most perfect gift. Life had told upon her; she had felt it strongly, and it was part ofthe satisfaction to be taken in her society that when the girl talked of what she was pleased to callserious matters this lady understood her so easily and quickly. Emotion, it is true, had become withher rather historic; she made no secret of the fact that the fount of passion, thanks to having beenrather violently tapped at one period, didn't flow quite so freely as of yore. She proposedmoreover, as well as expected, to cease feeling; she freely admitted that of old she had been a littlemad, and now she pretended to be perfectly sane."I judge more than I used to," she said to Isabel, "but it seems to me one has earned the right. Onecan't judge till one's forty; before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much tooignorant. I'm sorry for you; it will be a long time before you're forty. But every gain's a loss ofsome kind; I often think that after forty one can't really feel. The freshness, the quickness havecertainly gone. You'll keep them longer than most people; it will be a great satisfaction to me tosee you some years hence. I want to see what life makes of you. One thing's certain--it can't spoilyou. It may pull you about horribly, but I defy it to break you up."Isabel received this assurance as a young soldier, still panting from a slight skirmish in which hehas come off with honour, might receive a pat on the shoulder from his colonel. Like such arecognition of merit it seemed to come with authority. How could the lightest word do less on thepart of a person who was prepared to say, of almost everything Isabel told her, "Oh, I've been inthat, my dear; it passes, like everything else." On many of her interlocutors Madame Merle mighthave produced an irritating effect; it was disconcertingly difficult to surprise her. But Isabel,though by no means incapable of desiring to be effective, had not at present this impulse. She wastoo sincere, too interested in her judicious companion. And then moreover Madame Merle neversaid such things in the tone of triumph or of boastfulness; they dropped from her like coldconfessions.A period of bad weather had settled upon Gardencourt; the days grew shorter and there was an endto the pretty tea-parties on the lawn. But our young woman had long indoor conversations with herfellow visitor, and in spite of the rain the two ladies often sallied forth for a walk, equipped withthe defensive apparatus which the English climate and the English genius have between thembrought to such perfection. Madame Merle liked almost everything, including the English rain."There's always a little of it and never too much at once," she said; "and it never wets you and italways smells good." She declared that in England the pleasures of smell were great--that in thisinimitable island there was a certain mixture of fog and beer and soot which, however odd it mightsound, was the national aroma, and was most agreeable to the nostril; and she used to lift thesleeve of her British overcoat and bury her nose in it, inhaling the clear, fine scent of the wool.Poor Ralph Touchett, as soon as the autumn had begun to define itself, became almost a prisoner;第 130 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网in bad weather he was unable to step out of the house, and he used sometimes to stand at one of thewindows with his hands in his pockets and, from a countenance half-rueful, half-critical, watchIsabel and Madame Merle as they walked down the avenue under a pair of umbrellas. The roadsabout Gardencourt were so firm, even in the worst weather, that the two ladies always came backwith a healthy glow in their cheeks, looking at the soles of their neat, stout boots and declaring thattheir walk had done them inexpressible good. Before luncheon, always, Madame Merle wasengaged; Isabel admired and envied her rigid possession of her morning. Our heroine had alwayspassed for a person of resources and had taken a certain pride in being one; but she wandered, asby the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments,aptitudes of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate them, and in twenty such waysthis lady presented herself as a model. "I should like awfully to be so!" Isabel secretly exclaimed,more than once, as one after another of her friend's fine aspects caught the light, and before longshe knew that she had learned a lesson from a high authority. It took no great time indeed for her tofeel herself, as the phrase is, under an influence. "What's the harm," she wondered, "so long as it'sa good one? The more one's under a good influence the better. The only thing is to see our steps aswe take them--to understand them as we go. That, no doubt, I shall always do. I needn't be afraidof becoming too pliable; isn't it my fault that I'm not pliable enough?" It is said that imitation is thesincerest flattery; and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape at her friend aspiringly anddespairingly it was not so much because she desired herself to shine as because she wished to holdup the lamp for Madame Merle. She liked her extremely, but was even more dazzled thanattracted. She sometimes asked herself what Henrietta Stackpole would say to her thinking somuch of this perverted product of their common soil, and had a conviction that it would beseverely judged. Henrietta would not at all subscribe to Madame Merle; for reasons she could nothave defined this truth came home to the girl. On the other hand she was equally sure that, shouldthe occasion offer, her new friend would strike off some happy view of her old: Madame Merlewas too humorous, too observant, not to do justice to Henrietta, and on becoming acquainted withher would probably give the measure of a tact which Miss Stackpole couldn't hope to emulate. Sheappeared to have in her experience a touchstone for everything, and somewhere in the capaciouspocket of her genial memory she would find the key to Henrietta's value. "That's the great thing,"Isabel solemnly pondered; "that's the supreme good fortune: to be in a better position forappreciating people than they are for appreciating you." And she added that such, when oneconsidered it, was simply the essence of the aristocratic situation. In this light, if in none other, oneshould aim at the aristocratic situation.I may not count over all the links in the chain which led Isabel to think of Madame Merle'ssituation as aristocratic--a view of it never expressed in any reference made to it by that ladyherself. She had known great things and great people, but she had never played a great part. Shewas one of the small ones of the earth; she had not been born to honours; she knew the world toowell to nourish fatuous illusions on the article of her own place in it. She had encountered many ofthe fortunate few and was perfectly aware of those points at which their fortune differed from hers.But if by her informed measure she was no figure for a high scene, she had yet to Isabel'simagination a sort of greatness. To be so cultivated and civilised, so wise and so easy, and stillmake so light of it--that was really to be a great lady, especially when one so carried and presented第 131 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网one's self. It was as if somehow she had all society under contribution, and all the arts and graces itpractised--or was the effect rather that of charming uses found for her, even from a distance, subtleservice rendered by her to a clamorous world wherever she might be? After breakfast she wrote asuccession of letters, as those arriving for her appeared innumerable: her correspondence was asource of surprise to Isabel when they sometimes walked together to the village post-office todeposit Madame Merle's offering to the mail. She knew more people, as she told Isabel, than sheknew what to do with, and something was always turning up to be written about. Of painting shewas devotedly fond, and made no more of brushing in a sketch than of pulling off her gloves. AtGardencourt she was perpetually taking advantage of an hour's sunshine to go out with a camp-stool and a box of water-colours. That she was a brave musician we have already perceived, and itwas evidence of the fact that when she seated herself at the piano, as she always did in the evening,her listeners resigned themselves without a murmur to losing the grace of her talk. Isabel, since shehad known her, felt ashamed of her own facility, which she now looked upon as basely inferior;and indeed, though she had been thought rather a prodigy at home, the loss to society when, intaking her place upon the music-stool, she turned her back to the room, was usually deemedgreater than the gain. When Madame Merle was neither writing, nor painting, nor touching thepiano, she was usually employed upon wonderful tasks of rich embroidery, cushions, curtains,decorations for the chimneypiece; an art in which her bold, free invention was as noted as theagility of her needle. She was never idle, for when engaged in none of the ways I have mentionedshe was either reading (she appeared to Isabel to read "everything important"), or walking out, orplaying patience with the cards, or talking with her fellow inmates. And with all this she hadalways the social quality, was never rudely absent and yet never too seated. She laid down herpastimes as easily as she took them up; she worked and talked at the same time, and appeared toimpute scant worth to anything she did. She gave away her sketches and tapestries; she rose fromthe piano or remained there, according to the convenience of her auditors, which she alwaysunerringly divined. She was in short the most comfortable, profitable, amenable person to livewith. If for Isabel she had a fault it was that she was not natural; by which the girl meant, not thatshe was either affected or pretentious, since from these vulgar vices no woman could have beenmore exempt, but that her nature had been too much overlaid by custom and her angles too muchrubbed away. She had become too flexible, too useful, was too ripe and too final. She was in aword too perfectly the social animal that man and woman are supposed to have been intended tobe; and she had rid herself of every remnant of that tonic wildness which we may assume to havebelonged even to the most amiable persons in the ages before country-house life was the fashion.Isabel found it difficult to think of her in any detachment or privacy, she existed only in herrelations, direct or indirect, with her fellow mortals. One might wonder what commerce she couldpossibly hold with her own spirit. One always ended, however, by feeling that a charming surfacedoesn't necessarily prove one superficial; this was an illusion in which, in one's youth, one had butjust escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was not superficial--not she. She was deep, and hernature spoke none the less in her behaviour because it spoke a conventional tongue. "What'slanguage at all but a convention?" said Isabel. "She has the good taste not to pretend, like somepeople I've met, to express herself by original signs."第 132 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"I'm afraid you've suffered much," she once found occasion to say to her friend in response tosome allusion that had appeared to reach far."What makes you think that?" Madame Merle asked with the amused smile of a person seated at agame of guesses. "I hope I haven't too much the droop of the misunderstood.""No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been happy wouldn't havefound out.""I haven't always been happy," said Madame Merle, smiling still, but with a mock gravity, as if shewere telling a child a secret. "Such a wonderful thing!"But Isabel rose to the irony. "A great many people give me the impression of never having for amoment felt anything.""It's very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain. But you may depend on itthat every one bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little holesomewhere. I flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I've beenshockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I've been cleverly mended;and I try to remain in the cupboard--the quiet, dusky cupboard where there's an odour of stalespices--as much as I can. But when I've to come out and into a strong light--then, my dear, I'm ahorror!"I know not whether it was on this occasion or on some other that the conversation had taken theturn I have just indicated she said to Isabel that she would some day a tale unfold. Isabel assuredher she should delight to listen to one, and reminded her more than once of this engagement.Madame Merle, however, begged repeatedly for a respite, and at last frankly told her youngcompanion that they must wait till they knew each other better. This would be sure to happen, along friendship so visibly lay before them. Isabel assented, but at the same time enquired if shemightn't be trusted--if she appeared capable of a betrayal of confidence."It's not that I'm afraid of your repeating what I say," her fellow visitor answered; "I'm afraid, onthe contrary, of your taking it too much to yourself. You'd judge me too harshly; you're of the cruelage." She preferred for the present to talk to Isabel of Isabel, and exhibited the greatest interest inour heroine's history, sentiments, opinions, prospects. She made her chatter and listened to herchatter with infinite good nature. This flattered and quickened the girl, who was struck with all thedistinguished people her friend had known and with her having lived, as Mrs. Touchett said, in thebest company in Europe. Isabel thought the better of herself for enjoying the favour of a personwho had so large a field of comparison; and it was perhaps partly to gratify the sense of profitingby comparison that she often appealed to these stores of reminiscence. Madame Merle had been adweller in many lands and had social ties in a dozen different countries. "I don't pretend to beeducated," she would say, "but I think I know my Europe;" and she spoke one day of going toSweden to stay with an old friend, and another of proceeding to Malta to follow up a newacquaintance. With England, where she had often dwelt, she was thoroughly familiar, and forIsabel's benefit threw a great deal of light upon the customs of the country and the character of thepeople, who "after all," as she was fond of saying, were the most convenient in the world to livewith.第 133 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"You mustn't think it strange her remaining here at such a time as this, when Mr. Touchett'spassing away," that gentleman's wife remarked to her niece. "She is incapable of a mistake; she'sthe most tactful woman I know. It's a favour to me that she stays; she's putting off a lot of visits atgreat houses," said Mrs. Touchett, who never forgot that when she herself was in England hersocial value sank two or three degrees in the scale. "She has her pick of places; she's not in want ofa shelter. But I've asked her to put in this time because I wish you to know her. I think it will be agood thing for you. Serena Merle hasn't a fault.""If I didn't already like her very much that description might alarm me," Isabel returned."She's never the least little bit 'off.' I've brought you out here and I wish to do the best for you.Your sister Lily told me she hoped I would give you plenty of opportunities. I give you one inputting you in relation with Madame Merle. She's one of the most brilliant women in Europe.""I like her better than I like your description of her," Isabel persisted in saying."Do you flatter yourself that you'll ever feel her open to criticism? I hope you'll let me know whenyou do.""That will be cruel--to you," said Isabel."You needn't mind me. You won't discover a fault in her.""Perhaps not. But I dare say I shan't miss it.""She knows absolutely everything on earth there is to know," said Mrs. Touchett.Isabel after this observed to their companion that she hoped she knew Mrs. Touchett consideredshe hadn't a speck on her perfection. On which "I'm obliged to you," Madame Merle replied, "butI'm afraid your aunt imagines, or at least alludes to, no aberrations that the clock-face doesn'tregister.""So that you mean you've a wild side that's unknown to her?""Ah no, I fear my darkest sides are my tamest. I mean that having no faults, for your aunt, meansthat one's never late for dinner --that is for her dinner. I was not late, by the way, the other day,when you came back from London; the clock was just at eight when I came into the drawing-room:it was the rest of you that were before the time. It means that one answers a letter the day one getsit and that when one comes to stay with her one doesn't bring too much luggage and is careful notto be taken ill. For Mrs. Touchett those things constitute virtue; it's a blessing to be able to reduceit to its elements."Madame Merle's own conversation, it will be perceived, was enriched with bold, free touches ofcriticism, which, even when they had a restrictive effect, never struck Isabel as ill-natured. Itcouldn't occur to the girl for instance that Mrs. Touchett's accomplished guest was abusing her; andthis for very good reasons. In the first place Isabel rose eagerly to the sense of her shades; in thesecond Madame Merle implied that there was a great deal more to say; and it was clear in the thirdthat for a person to speak to one without ceremony of one's near relations was an agreeable sign ofthat person's intimacy with one's self. These signs of deep communion multiplied as the dayselapsed, and there was none of which Isabel was more sensible than of her companion's preferencefor making Miss Archer herself a topic. Though she referred frequently to the incidents of her owncareer she never lingered upon them; she was as little of a gross egotist as she was of a flat gossip.第 134 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"I'm old and stale and faded," she said more than once; "I'm of no more interest than last week'snewspaper. You're young and fresh and of to-day; you've the great thing--you've actuality. I oncehad it--we all have it for an hour. You, however, will have it for longer. Let us talk about you then;you can say nothing I shall not care to hear. It's a sign that I'm growing old--that I like to talk withyounger people. I think it's a very pretty compensation. If we can't have youth within us we canhave it outside, and I really think we see it and feel it better that way. Of course we must be insympathy with it--that I shall always be. I don't know that I shall ever be ill-natured with oldpeople--I hope not; there are certainly some old people I adore. But I shall never be anything butabject with the young; they touch me and appeal to me too much. I give you carte blanche then;you can even be impertinent if you like; I shall let it pass and horribly spoil you. I speak as if Iwere a hundred years old, you say? Well, I am, if you please; I was born before the FrenchRevolution. Ah, my dear, je viens de loin; I belong to the old, old world. But it's not of that I wantto talk; I want to talk about the new. You must tell me more about America; you never tell meenough. Here I've been since I was brought here as a helpless child, and it's ridiculous, or rather it'sscandalous, how little I know about that splendid, dreadful, funny country-- surely the greatest anddrollest of them all. There are a great many of us like that in these parts, and I must say I thinkwe're a wretched set of people. You should live in your own land; whatever it may be you haveyour natural place there. If we're not good Americans we're certainly poor Europeans; we've nonatural place here. We're mere parasites, crawling over the surface; we haven't our feet in the soil.At least one can know it and not have illusions. A woman perhaps can get on; a woman, it seemsto me, has no natural place anywhere; wherever she finds herself she has to remain on the surfaceand, more or less, to crawl. You protest, my dear? you're horrified? you declare you'll never crawl?It's very true that I don't see you crawling; you stand more upright than a good many poorcreatures. Very good; on the whole, I don't think you'll crawl. But the men, the Americans; je vousdemande un peu, what do they make of it over here? I don't envy them trying to arrangethemselves. Look at poor Ralph Touchett: what sort of a figure do you call that? Fortunately he hasa consumption; I say fortunately, because it gives him something to do. His consumption's hiscarriere it's a kind of position. You can say: 'Oh, Mr. Touchett, he takes care of his lungs, he knowsa great deal about climates.' But without that who would he be, what would he represent? 'Mr.Ralph Touchett: an American who lives in Europe.' That signifies absolutely nothing--it'simpossible anything should signify less. 'He's very cultivated,' they say: 'he has a very prettycollection of old snuff-boxes.' The collection is all that's wanted to make it pitiful. I'm tired of thesound of the word; I think it's grotesque. With the poor old father it's different; he has his identity,and it's rather a massive one. He represents a great financial house, and that, in our day, is as goodas anything else. For an American, at any rate, that will do very well. But I persist in thinking yourcousin very lucky to have a chronic malady so long as he doesn't die of it. It's much better than thesnuffboxes. If he weren't ill, you say, he'd do something?--he'd take his father's place in the house.My poor child, I doubt it; I don't think he's at all fond of the house. However, you know him betterthan I, though I used to know him rather well, and he may have the benefit of the doubt. The worstcase, I think, is a friend of mine, a countryman of ours, who lives in Italy (where he also wasbrought before he knew better), and who is one of the most delightful men I know. Some day youmust know him. I'll bring you together and then you'll see what I mean. He's Gilbert Osmond--helives in Italy; that's all one can say about him or make of him. He's exceedingly clever, a man第 135 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网made to be distinguished; but, as I tell you, you exhaust the description when you say he's Mr.Osmond who lives tout betement in Italy. No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, nofuture, no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please--paints in water-colours; like me, only betterthan I. His painting's pretty bad; on the whole I'm rather glad of that. Fortunately he's veryindolent, so indolent that it amounts to a sort of position. He can say, 'Oh, I do nothing; I'm toodeadly lazy. You can do nothing to-day unless you get up at five o'clock in the morning.' In thatway he becomes a sort of exception; you feel he might do something if he'd only rise early. Henever speaks of his painting to people at large; he's too clever for that. But he has a little girl--adear little girl; he does speak of her. He's devoted to her, and if it were a career to be an excellentfather he'd be very distinguished. But I'm afraid that's no better than the snuff-boxes; perhaps noteven so good. Tell me what they do in America," pursued Madame Merle, who, it must beobserved parenthetically, did not deliver herself all at once of these reflexions, which are presentedin a cluster for the convenience of the reader. She talked of Florence, where Mr. Osmond lived andwhere Mrs. Touchett occupied a medieval palace; she talked of Rome, where she herself had alittle pied-a-terre with some rather good old damask. She talked of places, of people and even, asthe phrase is, of "subjects"; and from time to time she talked of their kind old host and of theprospect of his recovery. From the first she had thought this prospect small, and Isabel had beenstruck with the positive, discriminating, competent way in which she took the measure of hisremainder of life. One evening she announced definitely that he wouldn't live."Sir Matthew Hope told me so as plainly as was proper," she said; "standing there, near the fire,before dinner. He makes himself very agreeable, the great doctor. I don't mean his saying that hasanything to do with it. But he says such things with great tact. I had told him I felt ill at my ease,staying here at such a time; it seemed to me so indiscreet--it wasn't as if I could nurse. 'You mustremain, you must remain,' he answered; 'your office will come later.' Wasn't that a very delicateway of saying both that poor Mr. Touchett would go and that I might be of some use as a consoler?In fact, however, I shall not be of the slightest use. Your aunt will console herself; she, and shealone, knows just how much consolation she'll require. It would be a very delicate matter foranother person to undertake to administer the dose. With your cousin it will be different; he'll misshis father immensely. But I should never presume to condole with Mr. Ralph; we're not on thoseterms." Madame Merle had alluded more than once to some undefined incongruity in her relationswith Ralph Touchett; so Isabel took this occasion of asking her if they were not good friends."Perfectly, but he doesn't like me.""What have you done to him?""Nothing whatever. But one has no need of a reason for that.""For not liking you? I think one has need of a very good reason.""You're very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day you begin.""Begin to dislike you? I shall never begin.""I hope not; because if you do you'll never end. That's the way with your cousin; he doesn't getover it. It's an antipathy of nature--if I can call it that when it's all on his side. I've nothingwhatever against him and don't bear him the least little grudge for not doing me justice. Justice is第 136 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网all I want. However, one feels that he's a gentleman and would never say anything underhandabout one. Cartes sur table," Madame Merle subjoined in a moment, "I'm not afraid of him.""I hope not indeed," said Isabel, who added something about his being the kindest creature living.She remembered, however, that on her first asking him about Madame Merle he had answered herin a manner which this lady might have thought injurious without being explicit. There wassomething between them, Isabel said to herself, but she said nothing more than this. If it weresomething of importance it should inspire respect; if it were not it was not worth her curiosity.With all her love of knowledge she had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and looking intounlighted corners. The love of knowledge coexisted in her mind with the finest capacity forignorance.But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows atthe time and think of the words afterwards. "I'd give a great deal to be your age again," she brokeout once with a bitterness which, though diluted in her customary amplitude of ease, wasimperfectly disguised by it. "If I could only begin again--if I could have my life before me!""Your life's before you yet," Isabel answered gently, for she was vaguely awe-struck."No; the best part's gone, and gone for nothing.""Surely not for nothing," said Isabel."Why not--what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces ofa beauty that I never had.""You have many friends, dear lady.""I'm not so sure!" cried Madame Merle.