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贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-21

作者:亨利·詹姆斯 字数:24160 更新:2023-10-09 19:27:29

"Ah, you're wrong. You have memories, graces, talents--"But Madame Merle interrupted her. "What have my talents brought me? Nothing but the need ofusing them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretence ofmovement, of unconsciousness. As for my graces and memories the less said about them thebetter. You'll be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship.""It will be for you to see that I don't then," said Isabel."Yes; I would make an effort to keep you." And her companion looked at her gravely. "When I sayI should like to be your age I mean with your qualities--frank, generous, sincere like you. In thatcase I should have made something better of my life.""What should you have liked to do that you've not done?"Madame Merle took a sheet of music--she was seated at the piano and had abruptly wheeled abouton the stool when she first spoke --and mechanically turned the leaves. "I'm very ambitious!" sheat last replied."And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great.""They WERE great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of them."Isabel wondered what they could have been--whether Madame Merle had aspired to wear a crown."I don't know what your idea of success may be, but you seem to me to have been successful. Tome indeed you're a vivid image of success."第 137 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. "What's YOUR idea of success?""You evidently think it must be a very tame one. It's to see some dream of one's youth come true.""Ah," Madame Merle exclaimed, "that I've never seen! But my dreams were so great--sopreposterous. Heaven forgive me, I'm dreaming now!" And she turned back to the piano and begangrandly to play. On the morrow she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been verypretty, yet frightfully sad. Measured in that way, who had ever succeeded? The dreams of one'syouth, why they were enchanting, they were divine! Who had ever seen such things come to pass?"I myself--a few of them," Isabel ventured to answer."Already? They must have been dreams of yesterday.""I began to dream very young," Isabel smiled."Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood--that of having a pink sash and a doll that couldclose her eyes.""No, I don't mean that.""Or a young man with a fine moustache going down on his knees to you.""No, nor that either," Isabel declared with still more emphasis.Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness. "I suspect that's what you do mean. We've all hadthe young man with the moustache. He's the inevitable young man; he doesn't count."Isabel was silent a little but then spoke with extreme and characteristic inconsequence. "Whyshouldn't he count? There are young men and young men.""And yours was a paragon--is that what you mean?" asked her friend with a laugh. "If you've hadthe identical young man you dreamed of, then that was success, and I congratulate you with all myheart. Only in that case why didn't you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines?""He has no castle in the Apennines.""What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don't tell me that; I refuse to recognise thatas an ideal.""I don't care anything about his house," said Isabel."That's very crude of you. When you've lived as long as I you'll see that every human being has hisshell and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope ofcircumstances. There's no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we're each of us made up ofsome cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our 'self'? Where does it begin? where does itend? It overflows into everything that belongs to us--and then it flows back again. I know a largepart of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I've a great respect for THINGS! One's self-- forother people--is one's expression of one's self; and one's house, one's furniture, one's garments, thebooks one reads, the company one keeps--these things are all expressive."This was very metaphysical; not more so, however, than several observations Madame Merle hadalready made. Isabel was fond of metaphysics, but was unable to accompany her friend into thisbold analysis of the human personality. "I don't agree with you. I think just the other way. I don'tknow whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothingthat belongs to me is any measure of me; everything's on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and a第 138 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don't express me;and heaven forbid they should!""You dress very well," Madame Merle lightly interposed."Possibly; but I don't care to be judged by that. My clothes may express the dressmaker, but theydon't express me. To begin with it's not my own choice that I wear them; they're imposed upon meby society.""Should you prefer to go without them?" Madame Merle enquired in a tone which virtuallyterminated the discussion.I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I have given of the youthfulloyalty practised by our heroine toward this accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothingwhatever to her about Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent on the subject of CasparGoodwood. She had not, however, concealed the fact that she had had opportunities of marryingand had even let her friend know of how advantageous a kind they had been. Lord Warburton hadleft Lockleigh and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him; and though he had written toRalph more than once to ask about Mr. Touchett's health the girl was not liable to theembarrassment of such enquiries as, had he still been in the neighbourhood, he would probablyhave felt bound to make in person. He had excellent ways, but she felt sure that if he had come toGardencourt he would have seen Madame Merle, and that if he had seen her he would have likedher and betrayed to her that he was in love with her young friend. It so happened that during thislady's previous visits to Gardencourt-- each of them much shorter than the present--he had eithernot been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett's. Therefore, though she knew him byname as the great man of that county, she had no cause to suspect him as a suitor of Mrs.Touchett's freshly-imported niece."You've plenty of time," she had said to Isabel in return for the mutilated confidences which ouryoung woman made her and which didn't pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that atmoments the girl had compunctions at having said so much. "I'm glad you've done nothing yet-thatyou have it still to do. It's a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers--solong of course as they are not the best she's likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horriblycorrupt; one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don't keep on refusing for the sake ofrefusing. It's a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting's after all an exercise of power as well.There's always the danger of refusing once too often. It was not the one I fell into--I didn't refuseoften enough. You're an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a primeminister. But speaking strictly, you know, you're not what is technically called a parti. You'reextremely good-looking and extremely clever; in yourself you're quite exceptional. You appear tohave the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can make out you're notembarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money.""I wish I had!" said Isabel, simply, apparently forgetting for the moment that her poverty had beena venial fault for two gallant gentlemen.In spite of Sir Matthew Hope's benevolent recommendation Madame Merle did not remain to theend, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett's malady had now come frankly to be designated. She wasunder pledges to other people which had at last to be redeemed, and she left Gardencourt with the第 139 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there again, or else in town, beforequitting England. Her parting with Isabel was even more like the beginning of a friendship thantheir meeting had been. "I'm going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I like so wellas you. They'll all be old friends, however; one doesn't make new friends at my age. I've made agreat exception for you. You must remember that and must think as well of me as possible. Youmust reward me by believing in me."By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some women kiss with facility, there are kissesand kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young lady, after this, wasmuch alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours duringwhich Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted to nursing her husband.She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece,apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave andsilent; but her solemnity was not an attitude--Isabel could see it was a conviction. She wondered ifher aunt repented of having taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this-notears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own sense adequate. Mrs. Touchettseemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had a littlemoral account-book--with columns unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp--which she kept withexemplary neatness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a practical ring. "If I hadforeseen this I'd not have proposed your coming abroad now," she said to Isabel after MadameMerle had left the house. "I'd have waited and sent for you next year.""So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It's a great happiness to me to have comenow.""That's very well. But it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe." Aperfectly veracious speech; but, as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed. She had leisure to thinkof this and other matters. She took a solitary walk every day and spent vague hours in turning overbooks in the library. Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of herfriend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence. Isabel liked her friend'sprivate epistolary style better than her public; that is she felt her public letters would have beenexcellent if they had not been printed. Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful as mighthave been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of GreatBritain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an ignis fatuus. Theinvitation from Lady Pensil, for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr. Bantlinghimself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on thepart of a missive that had obviously been sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much toheart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire. "He says heshould think I would go to the Continent," Henrietta wrote; "and as he thinks of going therehimself I suppose his advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don't take a view of French life;and it's a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr. Bantling doesn't care much aboutthe Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway. I must say he's quite as attentive as Icould wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep telling Mr. Bantling that heought to have been an American, and you should see how that pleases him. Whenever I say so healways breaks out with the same exclamation-- 'Ah, but really, come now!" A few days later she第 140 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week and that Mr. Banding had promisedto see her off--perhaps even would go as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabelshould arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on her continental journeyalone and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett. Bearing in mind his interest in their latecompanion, our heroine communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph, whofollowed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the representative of the Interviewer."It seems to me she's doing very well," he said, "going over to Paris with an ex-Lancer! If shewants something to write about she has only to describe that episode.""It's not conventional, certainly," Isabel answered; "but if you mean that--as far as Henrietta isconcerned--it's not perfectly innocent, you're very much mistaken. You'll never understandHenrietta.""Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn't at all at first, but now I've the point of view. I'mafraid, however, that Bantling hasn't; he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta aswell as if I had made her!"Isabel was by no means sure of this, but she abstained from expressing further doubt, for she wasdisposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin. One afternoon less than a week afterMadame Merle's departure she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention wasnot fastened. She had placed herself in a deep window-bench, from which she looked out into thedull, damp park; and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house she couldsee the doctor's brougham, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door. She wasstruck with his remaining so long, but at last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a momentslowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicleand roll away. Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was a great stillness in the house. It wasso great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almoststartled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window and saw Ralph Touchett standingthere with his hands still in his pockets, but with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile.She got up and her movement and glance were a question."It's all over," said Ralph."Do you mean that my uncle...?" And Isabel stopped."My dear father died an hour ago.""Ah, my poor Ralph!" she gently wailed, putting out her two hands to him.CHAPTER XXSome fortnight after this Madame Merle drove up in a hansom cab to the house in WinchesterSquare. As she descended from her vehicle she observed, suspended between the dining-roomwindows, a large, neat, wooden tablet, on whose fresh black ground were inscribed in white paintthe words--"This noble freehold mansion to be sold"; with the name of the agent to whomapplication should be made. "They certainly lose no time," said the visitor as, after sounding thebig brass knocker, she waited to be admitted; "it's a practical country!" And within the house, asshe ascended to the drawing-room, she perceived numerous signs of abdication; pictures removed第 141 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网from the walls and placed upon sofas, windows undraped and floors laid bare. Mrs. Touchettpresently received her and intimated in a few words that condolences might be taken for granted."I know what you're going to say--he was a very good man. But I know it better than any one,because I gave him more chance to show it. In that I think I was a good wife." Mrs. Touchettadded that at the end her husband apparently recognised this fact. "He has treated me mostliberally," she said; "I won't say more liberally than I expected, because I didn't expect. You knowthat as a general thing I don't expect. But he chose, I presume, to recognise the fact that though Ilived much abroad and mingled-- you may say freely--in foreign life, I never exhibited the smallestpreference for any one else.""For any one but yourself," Madame Merle mentally observed; but the reflexion was perfectlyinaudible."I never sacrificed my husband to another," Mrs. Touchett continued with her stout curtness."Oh no," thought Madame Merle; "you never did anything for another!"There was a certain cynicism in these mute comments which demands an explanation; the more soas they are not in accord either with the view--somewhat superficial perhaps--that we have hithertoenjoyed of Madame Merle's character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett's history; the moreso, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded conviction that her friend's last remark was not inthe least to be construed as a side-thrust at herself. The truth is that the moment she had crossed thethreshold she received an impression that Mr. Touchett's death had had subtle consequences andthat these consequences had been profitable to a little circle of persons among whom she was notnumbered. Of course it was an event which would naturally have consequences; her imaginationhad more than once rested upon this fact during her stay at Gardencourt. But it had been one thingto foresee such a matter mentally and another to stand among its massive records. The idea of adistribution of property--she would almost have said of spoils--just now pressed upon her sensesand irritated her with a sense of exclusion. I am far from wishing to picture her as one of thehungry mouths or envious hearts of the general herd, but we have already learned of her havingdesires that had never been satisfied. If she had been questioned, she would of course haveadmitted--with a fine proud smile--that she had not the faintest claim to a share in Mr. Touchett'srelics. "There was never anything in the world between us," she would have said. "There was neverthat, poor man!"--with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I hasten to add, moreover, that ifshe couldn't at the present moment keep from quite perversely yearning she was careful not tobetray herself. She had after all as much sympathy for Mrs. Touchett's gains as for her losses."He has left me this house," the newly-made widow said; "but of course I shall not live in it; I've amuch better one in Florence. The will was opened only three days since, but I've already offeredthe house for sale. I've also a share in the bank; but I don't yet understand if I'm obliged to leave itthere. If not I shall certainly take it out. Ralph, of course, has Gardencourt; but I'm not sure thathe'll have means to keep up the place. He's naturally left very well off, but his father has givenaway an immense deal of money; there are bequests to a string of third cousins in Vermont. Ralph,however, is very fond of Gardencourt and would be quite capable of living there--in summer--witha maid-of-all-work and a gardener's boy. There's one remarkable clause in my husband's will,"Mrs. Touchett added. "He has left my niece a fortune."第 142 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"A fortune!" Madame Merle softly repeated."Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds." Madame Merle's hands were claspedin her lap; at this she raised them, still clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom whileher eyes, a little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend. "Ah," she cried, "the clevercreature!"Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. "What do you mean by that?"For an instant Madame Merle's colour rose and she dropped her eyes. "It certainly is clever toachieve such results--without an effort!""There assuredly was no effort. Don't call it an achievement."Madame Merle was seldom guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she had said; her wisdomwas shown rather in maintaining it and placing it in a favourable light. "My dear friend, Isabelwould certainly not have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the mostcharming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness.""She never dreamed, I'm sure, of my husband's doing anything for her; and I never dreamed of iteither, for he never spoke to me of his intention," Mrs. Touchett said. "She had no claim upon himwhatever; it was no great recommendation to him that she was my niece. Whatever she achievedshe achieved unconsciously.""Ah," rejoined Madame Merle, "those are the greatest strokes!" Mrs. Touchett reserved heropinion. "The girl's fortunate; I don't deny that. But for the present she's simply stupefied.""Do you mean that she doesn't know what to do with the money?""That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn't know what to think about the matter at all. Ithas been as if a big gun were suddenly fired off behind her; she's feeling herself to see if she behurt. It's but three days since she received a visit from the principal executor, who came in person,very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterwards that when he had made his little speech shesuddenly burst into tears. The money's to remain in the affairs of the bank, and she's to draw theinterest."Madame Merle shook her head with a wise and now quite benignant smile. "How very delicious!After she has done that two or three times she'll get used to it." Then after a silence, "What doesyour son think of it?" she abruptly asked."He left England before the will was read--used up by his fatigue and anxiety and hurrying off tothe south. He's on his way to the Riviera and I've not yet heard from him. But it's not likely he'llever object to anything done by his father.""Didn't you say his own share had been cut down?""Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for the people in America. He'snot in the least addicted to looking after number one.""It depends upon whom he regards as number one!" said Madame Merle. And she remainedthoughtful a moment, her eyes bent on the floor."Am I not to see your happy niece?" she asked at last as she raised them.第 143 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"You may see her; but you'll not be struck with her being happy. She has looked as solemn, thesethree days, as a Cimabue Madonna!" And Mrs. Touchett rang for a servant.Isabel came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her; and Madame Merle thought, asshe appeared, that Mrs. Touchett's comparison had its force. The girl was pale and grave --aneffect not mitigated by her deeper mourning; but the smile of her brightest moments came into herface as she saw Madame Merle, who went forward, laid her hand on our heroine's shoulder and,after looking at her a moment, kissed her as if she were returning the kiss she had received fromher at Gardencourt. This was the only allusion the visitor, in her great good taste, made for thepresent to her young friend's inheritance.

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