บทที่ บทที่ 6 · Chapter VI

Isabel Archer was a young person of many theories; her imagination was

remarkably active. It had been her fortune to possess a finer mind

than most of the persons among whom her lot was cast; to have a larger

perception of surrounding facts and to care for knowledge that was

tinged with the unfamiliar. It is true that among her contemporaries

she passed for a young woman of extraordinary profundity; for these

excellent people never withheld their admiration from a reach of

intellect of which they themselves were not conscious, and spoke of

Isabel as a prodigy of learning, a creature reported to have read the

classic authors--in translations. Her paternal aunt, Mrs. Varian, once

spread the rumour that Isabel was writing a book--Mrs. Varian having a

reverence for books, and averred that the girl would distinguish herself

in print. Mrs. Varian thought highly of literature, for which she

entertained that esteem that is connected with a sense of privation.

Her own large house, remarkable for its assortment of mosaic tables and

decorated ceilings, was unfurnished with a library, and in the way of

printed volumes contained nothing but half a dozen novels in paper on

a shelf in the apartment of one of the Miss Varians. Practically, Mrs.

Varian’s acquaintance with literature was confined to The New York

_Interviewer_; as she very justly said, after you had read the _Interviewer_

you had lost all faith in culture. Her tendency, with this, was rather

to keep the _Interviewer_ out of the way of her daughters; she was

determined to bring them up properly, and they read nothing at all. Her

impression with regard to Isabel’s labours was quite illusory; the girl

had never attempted to write a book and had no desire for the laurels

of authorship. She had no talent for expression and too little of the

consciousness of genius; she only had a general idea that people were

right when they treated her as if she were rather superior. Whether or

no she were superior, people were right in admiring her if they thought

her so; for it seemed to her often that her mind moved more quickly

than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be

confounded with superiority. It may be affirmed without delay that

Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often

surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the

habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right;

she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and

delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving

the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts

were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the

judgement of people speaking with authority. In matters of opinion

she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous

zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then

she treated herself to a week of passionate humility. After this she

held her head higher than ever again; for it was of no use, she had an

unquenchable desire to think well of herself. She had a theory that it

was only under this provision life was worth living; that one should

be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organisation (she

couldn’t help knowing her organisation was fine), should move in a realm

of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully

chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one’s self

as to cultivate doubt of one’s best friend: one should try to be one’s

own best friend and to give one’s self, in this manner, distinguished

company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered

her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent

half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had

a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of

free expansion, of irresistible action: she held it must be detestable

to be afraid or ashamed. She had an infinite hope that she should never

do anything wrong. She had resented so strongly, after discovering them,

her mere errors of feeling (the discovery always made her tremble as if

she had escaped from a trap which might have caught her and smothered

her) that the chance of inflicting a sensible injury upon another

person, presented only as a contingency, caused her at moments to hold

her breath. That always struck her as the worst thing that could happen

to her. On the whole, reflectively, she was in no uncertainty about

the things that were wrong. She had no love of their look, but when

she fixed them hard she recognised them. It was wrong to be mean, to be

jealous, to be false, to be cruel; she had seen very little of the evil

of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt

each other. Seeing such things had quickened her high spirit; it seemed

indecent not to scorn them. Of course the danger of a high spirit was

the danger of inconsistency--the danger of keeping up the flag after the

place has surrendered; a sort of behaviour so crooked as to be almost

a dishonour to the flag. But Isabel, who knew little of the sorts of

artillery to which young women are exposed, flattered herself that such

contradictions would never be noted in her own conduct. Her life should

always be in harmony with the most pleasing impression she should

produce; she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she

was. Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she might find herself

some day in a difficult position, so that she should have the pleasure

of being as heroic as the occasion demanded. Altogether, with her meagre

knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and

dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of

curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire

to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination

to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory,

flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she

would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were not intended

to awaken on the reader’s part an impulse more tender and more purely

expectant.

It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in

being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use

of that state. She never called it the state of solitude, much less of

singleness; she thought such descriptions weak, and, besides, her sister

Lily constantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose

acquaintance she had made shortly before her father’s death, who offered

so high an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her

as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had the advantage of an admired ability;

she was thoroughly launched in journalism, and her letters to the

_Interviewer_, from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and other

places, were universally quoted. Isabel pronounced them with confidence

“ephemeral,” but she esteemed the courage, energy and good-humour of the

writer, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three

of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was paying their

school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour. Henrietta was

in the van of progress and had clear-cut views on most subjects; her

cherished desire had long been to come to Europe and write a series of

letters to the _Interviewer_ from the radical point of view--an enterprise

the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her opinions

would be and to how many objections most European institutions lay

open. When she heard that Isabel was coming she wished to start at once;

thinking, naturally, that it would be delightful the two should travel

together. She had been obliged, however, to postpone this enterprise.

She thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her covertly

in some of her letters, though she never mentioned the fact to her

friend, who would not have taken pleasure in it and was not a regular

student of the _Interviewer_. Henrietta, for Isabel, was chiefly a proof

that a woman might suffice to herself and be happy. Her resources were

of the obvious kind; but even if one had not the journalistic talent and

a genius for guessing, as Henrietta said, what the public was going to

want, one was not therefore to conclude that one had no vocation,

no beneficent aptitude of any sort, and resign one’s self to being

frivolous and hollow. Isabel was stoutly determined not to be hollow. If

one should wait with the right patience one would find some happy work

to one’s hand. Of course, among her theories, this young lady was not

without a collection of views on the subject of marriage. The first on

the list was a conviction of the vulgarity of thinking too much of it.

From lapsing into eagerness on this point she earnestly prayed she might

be delivered; she held that a woman ought to be able to live to herself,

in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was perfectly

possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded

person of another sex. The girl’s prayer was very sufficiently answered;

something pure and proud that there was in her--something cold and dry

an unappreciated suitor with a taste for analysis might have called

it--had hitherto kept her from any great vanity of conjecture on the

article of possible husbands. Few of the men she saw seemed worth a

ruinous expenditure, and it made her smile to think that one of them

should present himself as an incentive to hope and a reward of patience.

Deep in her soul--it was the deepest thing there--lay a belief that if

a certain light should dawn she could give herself completely; but

this image, on the whole, was too formidable to be attractive. Isabel’s

thoughts hovered about it, but they seldom rested on it long; after a

little it ended in alarms. It often seemed to her that she thought too

much about herself; you could have made her colour, any day in the

year, by calling her a rank egoist. She was always planning out her

development, desiring her perfection, observing her progress. Her nature

had, in her conceit, a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of

perfume and murmuring boughs, of shady bowers and lengthening vistas,

which made her feel that introspection was, after all, an exercise

in the open air, and that a visit to the recesses of one’s spirit was

harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. But she was

often reminded that there were other gardens in the world than those of

her remarkable soul, and that there were moreover a great many places

which were not gardens at all--only dusky pestiferous tracts, planted

thick with ugliness and misery. In the current of that repaid curiosity

on which she had lately been floating, which had conveyed her to this

beautiful old England and might carry her much further still, she often

checked herself with the thought of the thousands of people who were

less happy than herself--a thought which for the moment made her fine,

full consciousness appear a kind of immodesty. What should one do with

the misery of the world in a scheme of the agreeable for one’s self? It

must be confessed that this question never held her long. She was too

young, too impatient to live, too unacquainted with pain. She always

returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all every one

thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life.

This impression was necessary to prevent mistakes, and after it should

be secured she might make the unfortunate condition of others a subject

of special attention.

England was a revelation to her, and she found herself as diverted as a

child at a pantomime. In her infantine excursions to Europe she had

seen only the Continent, and seen it from the nursery window; Paris, not

London, was her father’s Mecca, and into many of his interests there his

children had naturally not entered. The images of that time moreover had

grown faint and remote, and the old-world quality in everything that

she now saw had all the charm of strangeness. Her uncle’s house seemed a

picture made real; no refinement of the agreeable was lost upon

Isabel; the rich perfection of Gardencourt at once revealed a world and

gratified a need. The large, low rooms, with brown ceilings and dusky

corners, the deep embrasures and curious casements, the quiet light on

dark, polished panels, the deep greenness outside, that seemed always

peeping in, the sense of well-ordered privacy in the centre of a

“property”--a place where sounds were felicitously accidental, where

the tread was muffed by the earth itself and in the thick mild air all

friction dropped out of contact and all shrillness out of talk--these

things were much to the taste of our young lady, whose taste played a

considerable part in her emotions. She formed a fast friendship with her

uncle, and often sat by his chair when he had had it moved out to the

lawn. He passed hours in the open air, sitting with folded hands like

a placid, homely household god, a god of service, who had done his work

and received his wages and was trying to grow used to weeks and months

made up only of off-days. Isabel amused him more than she suspected--the

effect she produced upon people was often different from what she

supposed--and he frequently gave himself the pleasure of making her

chatter. It was by this term that he qualified her conversation, which

had much of the “point” observable in that of the young ladies of her

country, to whom the ear of the world is more directly presented than to

their sisters in other lands. Like the mass of American girls Isabel had

been encouraged to express herself; her remarks had been attended

to; she had been expected to have emotions and opinions. Many of her

opinions had doubtless but a slender value, many of her emotions passed

away in the utterance; but they had left a trace in giving her the habit

of seeming at least to feel and think, and in imparting moreover to

her words when she was really moved that prompt vividness which so many

people had regarded as a sign of superiority. Mr. Touchett used to think

that she reminded him of his wife when his wife was in her teens. It was

because she was fresh and natural and quick to understand, to speak--so

many characteristics of her niece--that he had fallen in love with Mrs.

Touchett. He never expressed this analogy to the girl herself, however;

for if Mrs. Touchett had once been like Isabel, Isabel was not at all

like Mrs. Touchett. The old man was full of kindness for her; it was a

long time, as he said, since they had had any young life in the house;

and our rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced heroine was as agreeable

to his sense as the sound of flowing water. He wanted to do something

for her and wished she would ask it of him. She would ask nothing but

questions; it is true that of these she asked a quantity. Her uncle had

a great fund of answers, though her pressure sometimes came in forms

that puzzled him. She questioned him immensely about England, about the

British constitution, the English character, the state of politics,

the manners and customs of the royal family, the peculiarities of the

aristocracy, the way of living and thinking of his neighbours; and in

begging to be enlightened on these points she usually enquired whether

they corresponded with the descriptions in the books. The old man always

looked at her a little with his fine dry smile while he smoothed down

the shawl spread across his legs.

“The books?” he once said; “well, I don’t know much about the books. You

must ask Ralph about that. I’ve always ascertained for myself--got my

information in the natural form. I never asked many questions even;

I just kept quiet and took notice. Of course I’ve had very good

opportunities--better than what a young lady would naturally have. I’m

of an inquisitive disposition, though you mightn’t think it if you were

to watch me: however much you might watch me I should be watching you

more. I’ve been watching these people for upwards of thirty-five years,

and I don’t hesitate to say that I’ve acquired considerable information.

It’s a very fine country on the whole--finer perhaps than what we give

it credit for on the other side. Several improvements I should like to

see introduced; but the necessity of them doesn’t seem to be generally

felt as yet. When the necessity of a thing is generally felt they

usually manage to accomplish it; but they seem to feel pretty

comfortable about waiting till then. I certainly feel more at home among

them than I expected to when I first came over; I suppose it’s because

I’ve had a considerable degree of success. When you’re successful you

naturally feel more at home.”

“Do you suppose that if I’m successful I shall feel at home?” Isabel

asked.

“I should think it very probable, and you certainly will be successful.

They like American young ladies very much over here; they show them

a great deal of kindness. But you mustn’t feel too much at home, you

know.”

“Oh, I’m by no means sure it will satisfy me,” Isabel judicially

emphasised. “I like the place very much, but I’m not sure I shall like

the people.”

“The people are very good people; especially if you like them.”

“I’ve no doubt they’re good,” Isabel rejoined; “but are they pleasant

in society? They won’t rob me nor beat me; but will they make themselves

agreeable to me? That’s what I like people to do. I don’t hesitate to

say so, because I always appreciate it. I don’t believe they’re very

nice to girls; they’re not nice to them in the novels.”

“I don’t know about the novels,” said Mr. Touchett. “I believe the

novels have a great deal but I don’t suppose they’re very accurate.

We once had a lady who wrote novels staying here; she was a friend

of Ralph’s and he asked her down. She was very positive, quite up to

everything; but she was not the sort of person you could depend on

for evidence. Too free a fancy--I suppose that was it. She afterwards

published a work of fiction in which she was understood to have given

a representation--something in the nature of a caricature, as you might

say--of my unworthy self. I didn’t read it, but Ralph just handed me

the book with the principal passages marked. It was understood to be

a description of my conversation; American peculiarities, nasal twang,

Yankee notions, stars and stripes. Well, it was not at all accurate;

she couldn’t have listened very attentively. I had no objection to her

giving a report of my conversation, if she liked but I didn’t like the

idea that she hadn’t taken the trouble to listen to it. Of course I talk

like an American--I can’t talk like a Hottentot. However I talk, I’ve

made them understand me pretty well over here. But I don’t talk like the

old gentleman in that lady’s novel. He wasn’t an American; we wouldn’t

have him over there at any price. I just mention that fact to show you

that they’re not always accurate. Of course, as I’ve no daughters,

and as Mrs. Touchett resides in Florence, I haven’t had much chance

to notice about the young ladies. It sometimes appears as if the young

women in the lower class were not very well treated; but I guess their

position is better in the upper and even to some extent in the middle.”

“Gracious,” Isabel exclaimed; “how many classes have they? About fifty,

I suppose.”

“Well, I don’t know that I ever counted them. I never took much notice

of the classes. That’s the advantage of being an American here; you

don’t belong to any class.”

“I hope so,” said Isabel. “Imagine one’s belonging to an English class!”

“Well, I guess some of them are pretty comfortable--especially towards

the top. But for me there are only two classes: the people I trust and

the people I don’t. Of those two, my dear Isabel, you belong to the

first.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” said the girl quickly. Her way of taking

compliments seemed sometimes rather dry; she got rid of them as rapidly

as possible. But as regards this she was sometimes misjudged; she was

thought insensible to them, whereas in fact she was simply unwilling to

show how infinitely they pleased her. To show that was to show too much.

“I’m sure the English are very conventional,” she added.

“They’ve got everything pretty well fixed,” Mr. Touchett admitted. “It’s

all settled beforehand--they don’t leave it to the last moment.”

“I don’t like to have everything settled beforehand,” said the girl. “I

like more unexpectedness.”

Her uncle seemed amused at her distinctness of preference. “Well, it’s

settled beforehand that you’ll have great success,” he rejoined. “I

suppose you’ll like that.”

“I shall not have success if they’re too stupidly conventional. I’m not

in the least stupidly conventional. I’m just the contrary. That’s what

they won’t like.”

“No, no, you’re all wrong,” said the old man. “You can’t tell what

they’ll like. They’re very inconsistent; that’s their principal

interest.”

“Ah well,” said Isabel, standing before her uncle with her hands

clasped about the belt of her black dress and looking up and down the

lawn--“that will suit me perfectly!”