贵妇人画像The Portrait of a Lady-22

Mrs. Touchett had no purpose of awaiting in London the sale of her house. After selecting fromamong its furniture the objects she wished to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of itscontents to be disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the Continent. She was ofcourse accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had plenty of leisure to measure andweigh and otherwise handle the windfall on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her.Isabel thought very often of the fact of her accession of means, looking at it in a dozen differentlights; but we shall not now attempt to follow her train of thought or to explain exactly why hernew consciousness was at first oppressive. This failure to rise to immediate joy was indeed butbrief; the girl presently made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because it was to be able todo, and that to do could only be sweet. It was the graceful contrary of the stupid side of weakness-especiallythe feminine variety. To be weak was, for a delicate young person, rather graceful, but,after all, as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger grace than that. Just now, it is true, there wasnot much to do--once she had sent off a cheque to Lily and another to poor Edith; but she wasthankful for the quiet months which her mourning robes and her aunt's fresh widowhoodcompelled them to spend together. The acquisition of power made her serious; she scrutinised herpower with a kind of tender ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so during astay of some weeks which she eventually made with her aunt in Paris, though in ways that willinevitably present themselves as trivial. They were the ways most naturally imposed in a city inwhich the shops are the admiration of the world, and that were prescribed unreservedly by theguidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the transformation of her niecefrom a poor girl to a rich one. "Now that you're a young woman of fortune you must know how toplay the part--I mean to play it well," she said to Isabel once for all; and she added that the girl'sfirst duty was to have everything handsome. "You don't know how to take care of your things, butyou must learn," she went on; this was Isabel's second duty. Isabel submitted, but for the presenther imagination was not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these were not the opportunitiesshe meant.Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, having intended before her husband's death to spenda part of the winter in Paris, saw no reason to deprive herself--still less to deprive her companion-ofthis advantage. Though they would live in great retirement she might still present her niece,informally, to the little circle of her fellow countrymen dwelling upon the skirts of the ChampsElysees. With many of these amiable colonists Mrs. Touchett was intimate; she shared theirexpatriation, their convictions, their pastimes, their ennui. Isabel saw them arrive with a good dealof assiduity at her aunt's hotel, and pronounced on them with a trenchancy doubtless to be第 144 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网accounted for by the temporary exaltation of her sense of human duty. She made up her mind thattheir lives were, though luxurious, inane, and incurred some disfavour by expressing this view onbright Sunday afternoons, when the American absentees were engaged in calling on each other.Though her listeners passed for people kept exemplarily genial by their cooks and dressmakers,two or three of them thought her cleverness, which was generally admitted, inferior to that of thenew theatrical pieces. "You all live here this way, but what does it lead to?" she was pleased to ask."It doesn't seem to lead to anything, and I should think you'd get very tired of it."Mrs. Touchett thought the question worthy of Henrietta Stackpole. The two ladies had foundHenrietta in Paris, and Isabel constantly saw her; so that Mrs. Touchett had some reason for sayingto herself that if her niece were not clever enough to originate almost anything, she might besuspected of having borrowed that style of remark from her journalistic friend. The first occasionon which Isabel had spoken was that of a visit paid by the two ladies to Mrs. Luce, an old friend ofMrs. Touchett's and the only person in Paris she now went to see. Mrs. Luce had been living inParis since the days of Louis Philippe; she used to say jocosely that she was one of the generationof 1830--a joke of which the point was not always taken. When it failed Mrs. Luce used toexplain--"Oh yes, I'm one of the romantics;" her French had never become quite perfect. She wasalways at home on Sunday afternoons and surrounded by sympathetic compatriots, usually thesame. In fact she was at home at all times, and reproduced with wondrous truth in her well-cushioned little corner of the brilliant city, the domestic tone of her native Baltimore. This reducedMr. Luce, her worthy husband, a tall, lean, grizzled, well-brushed gentleman who wore a gold eyeglassand carried his hat a little too much on the back of his head, to mere platonic praise of the"distractions" of Paris --they were his great word--since you would never have guessed from whatcares he escaped to them. One of them was that he went every day to the American banker's, wherehe found a post-office that was almost as sociable and colloquial an institution as in an Americancountry town. He passed an hour (in fine weather) in a chair in the Champs Elysees, and he dineduncommonly well at his own table, seated above a waxed floor which it was Mrs. Luce's happinessto believe had a finer polish than any other in the French capital. Occasionally he dined with afriend or two at the Cafe Anglais, where his talent for ordering a dinner was a source of felicity tohis companions and an object of admiration even to the headwaiter of the establishment. Thesewere his only known pastimes, but they had beguiled his hours for upwards of half a century, andthey doubtless justified his frequent declaration that there was no place like Paris. In no otherplace, on these terms, could Mr. Luce flatter himself that he was enjoying life. There was nothinglike Paris, but it must be confessed that Mr. Luce thought less highly of this scene of hisdissipations than in earlier days. In the list of his resources his political reflections should not beomitted, for they were doubtless the animating principle of many hours that superficially seemedvacant. Like many of his fellow colonists Mr. Luce was a high--or rather a deep--conservative, andgave no countenance to the government lately established in France. He had no faith in its durationand would assure you from year to year that its end was close at hand. "They want to be keptdown, sir, to be kept down; nothing but the strong hand--the iron heel--will do for them," he wouldfrequently say of the French people; and his ideal of a fine showy clever rule was that of thesuperseded Empire. "Paris is much less attractive than in the days of the Emperor; HE knew howto make a city pleasant," Mr. Luce had often remarked to Mrs. Touchett, who was quite of his own第 145 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网way of thinking and wished to know what one had crossed that odious Atlantic for but to get awayfrom republics."Why, madam, sitting in the Champs Elysees, opposite to the Palace of Industry, I've seen thecourt-carriages from the Tuileries pass up and down as many as seven times a day. I remember oneoccasion when they went as high as nine. What do you see now? It's no use talking, the style's allgone. Napoleon knew what the French people want, and there'll be a dark cloud over Paris, ourParis, till they get the Empire back again."Among Mrs. Luce's visitors on Sunday afternoons was a young man with whom Isabel had had agood deal of conversation and whom she found full of valuable knowledge. Mr. Edward Rosier-NedRosier as he was called--was native to New York and had been brought up in Paris, livingthere under the eye of his father who, as it happened, had been an early and intimate friend of thelate Mr. Archer. Edward Rosier remembered Isabel as a little girl; it had been his father who cameto the rescue of the small Archers at the inn at Neufchatel (he was travelling that way with the boyand had stopped at the hotel by chance), after their bonne had gone off with the Russian prince andwhen Mr. Archer's whereabouts remained for some days a mystery. Isabel remembered perfectlythe neat little male child whose hair smelt of a delicious cosmetic and who had a bonne all hisown, warranted to lose sight of him under no provocation. Isabel took a walk with the pair besidethe lake and thought little Edward as pretty as an angel--a comparison by no means conventional inher mind, for she had a very definite conception of a type of features which she supposed to beangelic and which her new friend perfectly illustrated. A small pink face surmounted by a bluevelvet bonnet and set off by a stiff embroidered collar had become the countenance of her childishdreams; and she had firmly believed for some time afterwards that the heavenly hosts conversedamong themselves in a queer little dialect of French-English, expressing the properest sentiments,as when Edward told her that he was "defended" by his bonne to go near the edge of the lake, andthat one must always obey to one's bonne. Ned Rosier's English had improved; at least it exhibitedin a less degree the French variation. His father was dead and his bonne dismissed, but the youngman still conformed to the spirit of their teaching --he never went to the edge of the lake. Therewas still something agreeable to the nostrils about him and something not offensive to noblerorgans. He was a very gentle and gracious youth, with what are called cultivated tastes--anacquaintance with old china, with good wine, with the bindings of books, with the Almanach deGotha, with the best shops, the best hotels, the hours of railway-trains. He could order a dinneralmost as well as Mr. Luce, and it was probable that as his experience accumulated he would be aworthy successor to that gentleman, whose rather grim politics he also advocated in a soft andinnocent voice. He had some charming rooms in Paris, decorated with old Spanish altar-lace, theenvy of his female friends, who declared that his chimney-piece was better draped than the highshoulders of many a duchess. He usually, however, spent a part of every winter at Pau, and hadonce passed a couple of months in the United States.He took a great interest in Isabel and remembered perfectly the walk at Neufchatel, when shewould persist in going so near the edge. He seemed to recognise this same tendency in thesubversive enquiry that I quoted a moment ago, and set himself to answer our heroine's questionwith greater urbanity than it perhaps deserved. "What does it lead to, Miss Archer? Why Parisleads everywhere. You can't go anywhere unless you come here first. Every one that comes to第 146 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Europe has got to pass through. You don't mean it in that sense so much? You mean what good itdoes you? Well, how can you penetrate futurity? How can you tell what lies ahead? If it's apleasant road I don't care where it leads. I like the road, Miss Archer; I like the dear old asphalte.You can't get tired of it--you can't if you try. You think you would, but you wouldn't; there'salways something new and fresh. Take the Hotel Drouot, now; they sometimes have three and foursales a week. Where can you get such things as you can here? In spite of all they say I maintainthey're cheaper too, if you know the right places. I know plenty of places, but I keep them tomyself. I'll tell you, if you like, as a particular favour; only you mustn't tell any one else. Don't yougo anywhere without asking me first; I want you to promise me that. As a general thing avoid theBoulevards; there's very little to be done on the Boulevards. Speaking conscientiously--sansblague--I don't believe any one knows Paris better than I. You and Mrs. Touchett must come andbreakfast with me some day, and I'll show you my things; je ne vous dis que ca! There has been agreat deal of talk about London of late; it's the fashion to cry up London. But there's nothing in it-youcan't do anything in London. No Louis Quinze--nothing of the First Empire; nothing but theireternal Queen Anne. It's good for one's bed-room, Queen Anne--for one's washing-room; but itisn't proper for a salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneer's?" Mr. Rosier pursued in answer toanother question of Isabel's. "Oh no; I haven't the means. I wish I had. You think I'm a mere trifler;I can tell by the expression of your face--you've got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope youdon't mind my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do something, andso do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you come to the point you see you have to stop. Ican't go home and be a shopkeeper. You think I'm very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you overrateme. I can buy very well, but I can't sell; you should see when I sometimes try to get rid of mythings. It takes much more ability to make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I thinkhow clever they must be, the people who make ME buy! Ah no; I couldn't be a shopkeeper. I can'tbe a doctor; it's a repulsive business. I can't be a clergyman; I haven't got convictions. And then Ican't pronounce the names right in the Bible. They're very difficult, in the Old Testamentparticularly. I can't be a lawyer; I don't understand--how do you call it?--the American procedure.Is there anything else? There's nothing for a gentleman in America. I should like to be adiplomatist; but American diplomacy--that's not for gentlemen either. I'm sure if you had seen thelast min--"Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend when Mr. Rosier, coming to pay hiscompliments late in the afternoon, expressed himself after the fashion I have sketched, usuallyinterrupted the young man at this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the Americancitizen. She thought him most unnatural; he was worse than poor Ralph Touchett. Henrietta,however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine criticism, for her conscience had beenfreshly alarmed as regards Isabel. She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentationsand begged to be excused from doing so."If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money," she frankly asserted, "I'd havesaid to him 'Never!""I see," Isabel had answered. "You think it will prove a curse in disguise. Perhaps it will.""Leave it to some one you care less for--that's what I should have said."第 147 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"To yourself for instance?" Isabel suggested jocosely. And then, "Do you really believe it will ruinme?" she asked in quite another tone."I hope it won't ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous tendencies.""Do you mean the love of luxury--of extravagance?""No, no," said Henrietta; "I mean your exposure on the moral side. I approve of luxury; I think weought to be as elegant as possible. Look at the luxury of our western cities; I've seen nothing overhere to compare with it. I hope you'll never become grossly sensual; but I'm not afraid of that. Theperil for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams. You're not enough incontact with reality--with the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world thatsurrounds you. You're too fastidious; you've too many graceful illusions. Your newly-acquiredthousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people whowill be interested in keeping them up."Isabel's eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. "What are my illusions?" she asked. "I tryso hard not to have any.""Well," said Henrietta, "you think you can lead a romantic life, that you can live by pleasingyourself and pleasing others. You'll find you're mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must putyour soul in it--to make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to beromance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you can't always please yourself; you mustsometimes please other people. That, I admit, you're very ready to do; but there's another thingthat's still more important--you must often displease others. You must always be ready for that-youmust never shrink from it. That doesn't suit you at all--you're too fond of admiration, you liketo be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views-that'syour great illusion, my dear. But we can't. You must be prepared on many occasions in life toplease no one at all--not even yourself."Isabel shook her head sadly; she looked troubled and frightened. "This, for you, Henrietta," shesaid, "must be one of those occasions!"It was certainly true that Miss Stackpole, during her visit to Paris, which had been professionallymore remunerative than her English sojourn, had not been living in the world of dreams. Mr.Bantling, who had now returned to England, was her companion for the first four weeks of herstay; and about Mr. Bantling there was nothing dreamy. Isabel learned from her friend that the twohad led a life of great personal intimacy and that this had been a peculiar advantage to Henrietta,owing to the gentleman's remarkable knowledge of Paris. He had explained everything, shown hereverything, been her constant guide and interpreter. They had breakfasted together, dined together,gone to the theatre together, supped together, really in a manner quite lived together. He was a truefriend, Henrietta more than once assured our heroine; and she had never supposed that she couldlike any Englishman so well. Isabel could not have told you why, but she found something thatministered to mirth in the alliance the correspondent of the Interviewer had struck with LadyPensil's brother; her amusement moreover subsisted in face of the fact that she thought it a credit toeach of them. Isabel couldn't rid herself of a suspicion that they were playing somehow at crosspurposes--that the simplicity of each had been entrapped. But this simplicity was on either sidenone the less honourable. It was as graceful on Henrietta's part to believe that Mr. Bantling took an第 148 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网interest in the diffusion of lively journalism and in consolidating the position of lady-correspondents as it was on the part of his companion to suppose that the cause of the Interviewer-aperiodical of which he never formed a very definite conception--was, if subtly analysed (a task towhich Mr. Bantling felt himself quite equal), but the cause of Miss Stackpole's need ofdemonstrative affection. Each of these groping celibates supplied at any rate a want of which theother was impatiently conscious. Mr. Bantling, who was of rather a slow and a discursive habit,relished a prompt, keen, positive woman, who charmed him by the influence of a shining,challenging eye and a kind of bandbox freshness, and who kindled a perception of raciness in amind to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. Henrietta, on the other hand, enjoyed thesociety of a gentleman who appeared somehow, in his way, made, by expensive, roundabout,almost "quaint" processes, for her use, and whose leisured state, though generally indefensible,was a decided boon to a breathless mate, and who was furnished with an easy, traditional, thoughby no means exhaustive, answer to almost any social or practical question that could come up. Sheoften found Mr. Bantling's answers very convenient, and in the press of catching the Americanpost would largely and showily address them to publicity. It was to be feared that she was indeeddrifting toward those abysses of sophistication as to which Isabel, wishing for a good-humouredretort, had warned her. There might be danger in store for Isabel; but it was scarcely to be hopedthat Miss Stackpole, on her side, would find permanent rest in any adoption of the views of a classpledged to all the old abuses. Isabel continued to warn her good-humouredly; Lady Pensil'sobliging brother was sometimes, on our heroine's lips, an object of irreverent and facetiousallusion. Nothing, however, could exceed Henrietta's amiability on this point; she used to aboundin the sense of Isabel's irony and to enumerate with elation the hours she had spent with thisperfect man of the world--a term that had ceased to make with her, as previously, for opprobrium.Then, a few moments later, she would forget that they had been talking jocosely and wouldmention with impulsive earnestness some expedition she had enjoyed in his company. She wouldsay: "Oh, I know all about Versailles; I went there with Mr. Bantling. I was bound to see itthoroughly--I warned him when we went out there that I was thorough: so we spent three days atthe hotel and wandered all over the place. It was lovely weather --a kind of Indian summer, onlynot so good. We just lived in that park. Oh yes; you can't tell me anything about Versailles."Henrietta appeared to have made arrangements to meet her gallant friend during the spring in Italy.CHAPTER XXIMrs. Touchett, before arriving in Paris, had fixed the day for her departure and by the middle ofFebruary had begun to travel southward. She interrupted her journey to pay a visit to her son, whoat San Remo, on the Italian shore of the Mediterranean, had been spending a dull, bright winterbeneath a slow-moving white umbrella. Isabel went with her aunt as a matter of course, thoughMrs. Touchett, with homely, customary logic, had laid before her a pair of alternatives."Now, of course, you're completely your own mistress and are as free as the bird on the bough. Idon't mean you were not so before, but you're at present on a different footing--property erects akind of barrier. You can do a great many things if you're rich which would be severely criticised ifyou were poor. You can go and come, you can travel alone, you can have your own establishment:第 149 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网I mean of course if you'll take a companion--some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmereand dyed hair, who paints on velvet. You don't think you'd like that? Of course you can do as youplease; I only want you to understand how much you're at liberty. You might take Miss Stackpoleas your dame de compagnie; she'd keep people off very well. I think, however, that it's a great dealbetter you should remain with me, in spite of there being no obligation. It's better for severalreasons, quite apart from your liking it. I shouldn't think you'd like it, but I recommend you tomake the sacrifice. Of course whatever novelty there may have been at first in my society has quitepassed away, and you see me as I am--a dull, obstinate, narrow-minded old woman.""I don't think you're at all dull," Isabel had replied to this."But you do think I'm obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so!" said Mrs. Touchett with muchelation at being justified.Isabel remained for the present with her aunt, because, in spite of eccentric impulses, she had agreat regard for what was usually deemed decent, and a young gentlewoman without visiblerelations had always struck her as a flower without foliage. It was true that Mrs. Touchett'conversation had never again appeared so brilliant as that first afternoon in Albany, when s(s) he sat inher damp waterproof and sketched the opportunities that Europe would offer to a young person oftaste. This, however, was in a great measure the girl's own fault; she had got a glimpse of her aunt'sexperience, and her imagination constantly anticipated the judgements and emotions of a womanwho had very little of the same faculty. Apart from this, Mrs. Touchett had a great merit; she wasas honest as a pair of compasses. There was a comfort in her stiffness and firmness; you knewexactly where to find her and were never liable to chance encounters and concussions. On her ownground she was perfectly present, but was never over-inquisitive as regards the territory of herneighbour. Isabel came at last to have a kind of undemonstrable pity for her; there seemedsomething so dreary in the condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface-offeredso limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic,had ever had a chance to fasten upon it--no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Heroffered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge. Isabel had reason tobelieve none the less that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the senseof something obscurely distinct from convenience--more of them than she independently exacted.She was learning to sacrifice consistency to considerations of that inferior order for which theexcuse must be found in the particular case. It was not to the credit of her absolute rectitude thatshe should have gone the longest way round to Florence in order to spend a few weeks with herinvalid son; since in former years it had been one of her most definite convictions that when Ralphwished to see her he was at liberty to remember that Palazzo Crescentini contained a largeapartment known as the quarter of the signorino."I want to ask you something," Isabel said to this young man the day after her arrival at SanRemo--"something I've thought more than once of asking you by letter, but that I've hesitated onthe whole to write about. Face to face, nevertheless, my question seems easy enough. Did youknow your father intended to leave me so much money?"Ralph stretched his legs a little further than usual and gazed a little more fixedly at theMediterranean.第 150 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was very obstinate.""So," said the girl, "you did know.""Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little." "What did he do it for?" asked Isabel abruptly."Why, as a kind of compliment.""A compliment on what?""On your so beautifully existing.""He liked me too much," she presently declared."That's a way we all have.""If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately I don't believe it. I want to be treated withjustice; I want nothing but that.""Very good. But you must remember that justice to a lovely being is after all a florid sort ofsentiment.""I'm not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment when I'm asking such odiousquestions? I must seem to you delicate!""You seem to me troubled," said Ralph."I am troubled.""About what?"For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out: "Do you think it good for me suddenly tobe made so rich? Henrietta doesn't.""Oh, hang Henrietta!" said Ralph coarsely, "If you ask me I'm delighted at it.""Is that why your father did it--for your amusement?""I differ with Miss Stackpole," Ralph went on more gravely. "I think it very good for you to havemeans."Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. "I wonder whether you know what's good for me--orwhether you care.""If I know depend upon it I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not to torment yourself.""Not to torment you, I suppose you mean.""You can't do that; I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't ask yourself so much whether this orthat is good for you. Don't question your conscience so much--it will get out of tune like astrummed piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don't try so much to form your character--it's liketrying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best, and your character will takecare of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare, and a comfortableincome's not one of them." Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. "You've too muchpower of thought--above all too much conscience," Ralph added. "It's out of all reason, the number