The Golden Bowl by Henry James (free ebook reader for android TXT) 📕

woman, and a woman one happened, by the same token, exceedingly to like, and being so thrust that the theory of it seemed to publish one as idiotic or incapable⁠—this was a predicament of which the dignity depended all on one’s own handling. What was supremely grotesque, in fact, was the essential opposition of theories⁠—as if a galantuomo, as he at least constitutionally conceived galantuomini, could do anything but blush to “go about” at such a rate with such a person as Mrs. Verver in a state of childlike innocence, the state of our primitive parents before the Fall. The grotesque theory, as he would have called it, was perhaps an odd one to resent with violence, and he did it⁠—also as a man of the world⁠—all merciful justice; but, assuredly, none the less, there was but one way really to mark, and for his companion as much as for himself, the commiseration in which they held it. Adequate comment on it could only be private, but it could also at least be active, and of rich and effectual comment Charlotte and he were fortunately alike capable. Wasn’t this consensus literally their only way not to be ungracious? It was positively as if the measure of their escape from that danger were given by the growth between them, during their auspicious visit, of an exquisite sense of complicity. XXI

He found himself therefore saying, with gaiety, even to Fanny Assingham, for their common, concerned glance at Eaton Square, the glance that was so markedly never, as it might have been, a glance at Portland Place: “What would our cari sposi have made of it here? what would they, you know, really?”⁠—which overflow would have been reckless if, already, and surprisingly perhaps even to himself, he had not got used to thinking of this friend as a person in whom the element of protest had of late been unmistakably allayed. He exposed himself of course to her replying: “Ah, if it would have been so bad for them, how can it be so good for you?”⁠—but, quite apart from the small sense the question would have had at the best, she appeared already to unite with him in confidence and cheer. He had his view, as well⁠—or at least a partial one⁠—of the inner spring of this present comparative humility, which was all consistent with the retraction he had practically seen her make after Mr. Verver’s last dinner. Without diplomatising to do so, with no effort to square her, none to bribe her to an attitude for which he would have had no use in her if it were not sincere, he yet felt how he both held her and moved her by the felicity of his taking pity, all instinctively, on her just discernible depression. By just so much as he guessed that she felt herself, as the slang was, out of it, out of the crystal current and the expensive picture, by just so much had his friendship charmingly made up to her, from hour to hour, for the penalties, as they might have been grossly called, of her mistake. Her mistake had only been, after all, in her wanting to seem to him straight; she had let herself in for being⁠—as she had made haste, for that matter, during the very first half-hour, at tea, to proclaim herself⁠—the sole and single frump of the party. The scale of everything was so different that all her minor values, her quainter graces, her little local authority, her humour and her wardrobe alike, for which it was enough elsewhere, among her bons amis, that they were hers, dear Fanny Assingham’s⁠—these matters and others would be all, now, as nought: five minutes had sufficed to give her the fatal pitch. In Cadogan Place she could always, at the worst, be picturesque⁠—for she habitually spoke of herself as “local” to Sloane Street whereas at Matcham she should never be anything but horrible. And it all would have come, the disaster, from the real refinement, in her, of the spirit of friendship. To prove to him that she wasn’t really watching him⁠—ground for which would have been too terribly grave⁠—she had followed him in his pursuit of pleasure: so she might, precisely, mark her detachment. This was handsome trouble for her to take⁠—the Prince could see it all: it wasn’t a shade of interference that a good-natured man would visit on her. So he didn’t even say, when she told him how frumpy she knew herself, how frumpy her very maid, odiously going back on her, rubbed it into her, night and morning, with unsealed eyes and lips, that she now knew her⁠—he didn’t then say “Ah, see what you’ve done: isn’t it rather your own fault?” He behaved differently altogether: eminently distinguished himself⁠—for she told him she had never seen him so universally distinguished⁠—he yet distinguished her in her obscurity, or in what was worse, her objective absurdity, and frankly invested her with her absolute value, surrounded her with all the importance of her wit. That wit, as discriminated from stature and complexion, a sense for “bridge” and a credit for pearls, could have importance was meanwhile but dimly perceived at Matcham; so that his “niceness” to her⁠—she called it only niceness, but it brought tears into her eyes⁠—had the greatness of a general as well as of a special demonstration.

“She understands,” he said, as a comment on all this, to Mrs. Verver⁠—“she understands all she needs to understand. She has taken her time, but she has at last made it out for herself: she sees how all we can desire is to give them the life they prefer, to surround them with the peace and quiet, and above all with the sense of security, most favourable to it. She can’t of course very well put it to us that we have, so far as she is concerned, but to make the best of our circumstances; she can’t say in so many words ‘Don’t