The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2

by Henry James

  CHAPTER XLII

  She had answered nothing because his words had put the situation beforeher and she was absorbed in looking at it. There was something in themthat suddenly made vibrations deep, so that she had been afraid to trustherself to speak. After he had gone she leaned back in her chair andclosed her eyes; and for a long time, far into the night and stillfurther, she sat in the still drawing-room, given up to her meditation.A servant came in to attend to the fire, and she bade him bring freshcandles and then go to bed. Osmond had told her to think of what he hadsaid; and she did so indeed, and of many other things. The suggestionfrom another that she had a definite influence on Lord Warburton--thishad given her the start that accompanies unexpected recognition. Was ittrue that there was something still between them that might be a handleto make him declare himself to Pansy--a susceptibility, on his part, toapproval, a desire to do what would please her? Isabel had hitherto notasked herself the question, because she had not been forced; but nowthat it was directly presented to her she saw the answer, and the answerfrightened her. Yes, there was something--something on Lord Warburton'spart. When he had first come to Rome she believed the link that unitedthem to be completely snapped; but little by little she had beenreminded that it had yet a palpable existence. It was as thin as a hair,but there were moments when she seemed to hear it vibrate. For herselfnothing was changed; what she once thought of him she always thought;it was needless this feeling should change; it seemed to her in fact abetter feeling than ever. But he? had he still the idea that she mightbe more to him than other women? Had he the wish to profit by the memoryof the few moments of intimacy through which they had once passed?Isabel knew she had read some of the signs of such a disposition. Butwhat were his hopes, his pretensions, and in what strange way were theymingled with his evidently very sincere appreciation of poor Pansy? Washe in love with Gilbert Osmond's wife, and if so what comfort did heexpect to derive from it? If he was in love with Pansy he was not inlove with her stepmother, and if he was in love with her stepmotherhe was not in love with Pansy. Was she to cultivate the advantage shepossessed in order to make him commit himself to Pansy, knowing he woulddo so for her sake and not for the small creature's own--was this theservice her husband had asked of her? This at any rate was the dutywith which she found herself confronted--from the moment she admitted toherself that her old friend had still an uneradicated predilection forher society. It was not an agreeable task; it was in fact a repulsiveone. She asked herself with dismay whether Lord Warburton werepretending to be in love with Pansy in order to cultivate anothersatisfaction and what might be called other chances. Of this refinementof duplicity she presently acquitted him; she preferred to believe himin perfect good faith. But if his admiration for Pansy were a delusionthis was scarcely better than its being an affectation. Isabel wanderedamong these ugly possibilities until she had completely lost her way;some of them, as she suddenly encountered them, seemed ugly enough. Thenshe broke out of the labyrinth, rubbing her eyes, and declared that herimagination surely did her little honour and that her husband's did himeven less. Lord Warburton was as disinterested as he need be, and shewas no more to him than she need wish. She would rest upon this tillthe contrary should be proved; proved more effectually than by a cynicalintimation of Osmond's.

  Such a resolution, however, brought her this evening but little peace,for her soul was haunted with terrors which crowded to the foreground ofthought as quickly as a place was made for them. What had suddenly setthem into livelier motion she hardly knew, unless it were the strangeimpression she had received in the afternoon of her husband's being inmore direct communication with Madame Merle than she suspected. Thatimpression came back to her from time to time, and now she wondered ithad never come before. Besides this, her short interview with Osmondhalf an hour ago was a striking example of his faculty for makingeverything wither that he touched, spoiling everything for her that helooked at. It was very well to undertake to give him a proof of loyalty;the real fact was that the knowledge of his expecting a thing raised apresumption against it. It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if hispresence were a blight and his favour a misfortune. Was the fault inhimself, or only in the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? Thismistrust was now the clearest result of their short married life; a gulfhad opened between them over which they looked at each other with eyesthat were on either side a declaration of the deception suffered. Itwas a strange opposition, of the like of which she had never dreamed--anopposition in which the vital principle of the one was a thing ofcontempt to the other. It was not her fault--she had practised nodeception she had only admired and believed. She had taken all thefirst steps in the purest confidence, and then she had suddenly foundthe infinite vista of a multiplied life to be a dark, narrow alleywith a dead wall at the end. Instead of leading to the high places ofhappiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that onecould look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge andchoose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward, into realms ofrestriction and depression where the sound of other lives, easierand freer, was heard as from above, and where it served to deepen thefeeling of failure. It was her deep distrust of her husband--this waswhat darkened the world. That is a sentiment easily indicated, but notso easily explained, and so composite in its character that much timeand still more suffering had been needed to bring it to its actualperfection. Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition it wasnot a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, ofspeculation, of response to every pressure. She flattered herselfthat she had kept her failing faith to herself, however,--that no onesuspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when shethought he enjoyed it. It had come gradually--it was not till the firstyear of their life together, so admirably intimate at first, had closedthat she had taken the alarm. Then the shadows had begun to gather; itwas as if Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lightsout one by one. The dusk at first was vague and thin, and she couldstill see her way in it. But it steadily deepened, and if now and againit had occasionally lifted there were certain corners of her prospectthat were impenetrably black. These shadows were not an emanation fromher own mind: she was very sure of that; she had done her best to bejust and temperate, to see only the truth. They were a part, they werea kind of creation and consequence, of her husband's very presence. Theywere not his misdeeds, his turpitudes; she accused him of nothing--thatis but of one thing, which was NOT a crime. She knew of no wrong he haddone; he was not violent, he was not cruel: she simply believed he hatedher. That was all she accused him of, and the miserable part of it wasprecisely that it was not a crime, for against a crime she might havefound redress. He had discovered that she was so different, that she wasnot what he had believed she would prove to be. He had thought at firsthe could change her, and she had done her best to be what he would like.But she was, after all, herself--she couldn't help that; and now therewas no use pretending, wearing a mask or a dress, for he knew her andhad made up his mind. She was not afraid of him; she had no apprehensionhe would hurt her; for the ill-will he bore her was not of that sort.He would if possible never give her a pretext, never put himself in thewrong. Isabel, scanning the future with dry, fixed eyes, saw that hewould have the better of her there. She would give him many pretexts,she would often put herself in the wrong. There were times when shealmost pitied him; for if she had not deceived him in intention sheunderstood how completely she must have done so in fact. She had effacedherself when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretendingthere was less of her than there really was. It was because she had beenunder the extraordinary charm that he, on his side, had taken pains toput forth. He was not changed; he had not disguised himself, during theyear of his courtship, any more than she. But she had seen only half hisnature then, as one saw the disk of the moon when it was partly maskedby the shadow of the earth. She saw the full moon now--she saw thewhole man. She had kept still, as it were, so that he should have a freefield, and yet
in spite of this she had mistaken a part for the whole.

  Ah, she had been immensely under the charm! It had not passed away; itwas there still: she still knew perfectly what it was that made Osmonddelightful when he chose to be. He had wished to be when he made loveto her, and as she had wished to be charmed it was not wonderful hehad succeeded. He had succeeded because he had been sincere; it neveroccurred to her now to deny him that. He admired her--he had told herwhy: because she was the most imaginative woman he had known. It mightvery well have been true; for during those months she had imagineda world of things that had no substance. She had had a more wondrousvision of him, fed through charmed senses and oh such a stirredfancy!--she had not read him right. A certain combination of featureshad touched her, and in them she had seen the most striking of figures.That he was poor and lonely and yet that somehow he was noble--that waswhat had interested her and seemed to give her her opportunity. Therehad been an indefinable beauty about him--in his situation, in his mind,in his face. She had felt at the same time that he was helpless andineffectual, but the feeling had taken the form of a tendernesswhich was the very flower of respect. He was like a sceptical voyagerstrolling on the beach while he waited for the tide, looking seaward yetnot putting to sea. It was in all this she had found her occasion. Shewould launch his boat for him; she would be his providence; it would bea good thing to love him. And she had loved him, she had so anxiouslyand yet so ardently given herself--a good deal for what she found inhim, but a good deal also for what she brought him and what might enrichthe gift. As she looked back at the passion of those full weeks sheperceived in it a kind of maternal strain--the happiness of a woman whofelt that she was a contributor, that she came with charged hands. Butfor her money, as she saw to-day, she would never have done it. And thenher mind wandered off to poor Mr. Touchett, sleeping under English turf,the beneficent author of infinite woe! For this was the fantastic fact.At bottom her money had been a burden, had been on her mind, whichwas filled with the desire to transfer the weight of it to some otherconscience, to some more prepared receptacle. What would lighten herown conscience more effectually than to make it over to the man with thebest taste in the world? Unless she should have given it to a hospitalthere would have been nothing better she could do with it; and there wasno charitable institution in which she had been as much interested asin Gilbert Osmond. He would use her fortune in a way that would make herthink better of it and rub off a certain grossness attaching to the goodluck of an unexpected inheritance. There had been nothing very delicatein inheriting seventy thousand pounds; the delicacy had been all in Mr.Touchett's leaving them to her. But to marry Gilbert Osmond and bringhim such a portion--in that there would be delicacy for her as well.There would be less for him--that was true; but that was his affair, andif he loved her he wouldn't object to her being rich. Had he not had thecourage to say he was glad she was rich?

  Isabel's cheek burned when she asked herself if she had really marriedon a factitious theory, in order to do something finely appreciable withher money. But she was able to answer quickly enough that this wasonly half the story. It was because a certain ardour took possession ofher--a sense of the earnestness of his affection and a delight inhis personal qualities. He was better than any one else. This supremeconviction had filled her life for months, and enough of it stillremained to prove to her that she could not have done otherwise. Thefinest--in the sense of being the subtlest--manly organism she had everknown had become her property, and the recognition of her having butto put out her hands and take it had been originally a sort of act ofdevotion. She had not been mistaken about the beauty of his mind; sheknew that organ perfectly now. She had lived with it, she had lived INit almost--it appeared to have become her habitation. If she had beencaptured it had taken a firm hand to seize her; that reflection perhapshad some worth. A mind more ingenious, more pliant, more cultivated,more trained to admirable exercises, she had not encountered; and it wasthis exquisite instrument she had now to reckon with. She lost herselfin infinite dismay when she thought of the magnitude of HIS deception.It was a wonder, perhaps, in view of this, that he didn't hate her more.She remembered perfectly the first sign he had given of it--it had beenlike the bell that was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama oftheir life. He said to her one day that she had too many ideas and thatshe must get rid of them. He had told her that already, before theirmarriage; but then she had not noticed it: it had come back to her onlyafterwards. This time she might well have noticed it, because he hadreally meant it. The words had been nothing superficially; but when inthe light of deepening experience she had looked into them they had thenappeared portentous. He had really meant it--he would have liked her tohave nothing of her own but her pretty appearance. She had known she hadtoo many ideas; she had more even than he had supposed, many more thanshe had expressed to him when he had asked her to marry him. Yes, sheHAD been hypocritical; she had liked him so much. She had too many ideasfor herself; but that was just what one married for, to share them withsome one else. One couldn't pluck them up by the roots, though of courseone might suppress them, be careful not to utter them. It had not beenthis, however, his objecting to her opinions; this had been nothing. Shehad no opinions--none that she would not have been eager to sacrifice inthe satisfaction of feeling herself loved for it. What he had meanthad been the whole thing--her character, the way she felt, the way shejudged. This was what she had kept in reserve; this was what he had notknown until he had found himself--with the door closed behind, as itwere--set down face to face with it. She had a certain way of looking atlife which he took as a personal offence. Heaven knew that now at leastit was a very humble, accommodating way! The strange thing was thatshe should not have suspected from the first that his own had been sodifferent. She had thought it so large, so enlightened, so perfectlythat of an honest man and a gentleman. Hadn't he assured her that he hadno superstitions, no dull limitations, no prejudices that had lost theirfreshness? Hadn't he all the appearance of a man living in the open airof the world, indifferent to small considerations, caring only for truthand knowledge and believing that two intelligent people ought to lookfor them together and, whether they found them or not, find at leastsome happiness in the search? He had told her he loved the conventional;but there was a sense in which this seemed a noble declaration. In thatsense, that of the love of harmony and order and decency and of all thestately offices of life, she went with him freely, and his warning hadcontained nothing ominous. But when, as the months had elapsed, shehad followed him further and he had led her into the mansion of his ownhabitation, then, THEN she had seen where she really was.

  She could live it over again, the incredulous terror with which shehad taken the measure of her dwelling. Between those four walls she hadlived ever since; they were to surround her for the rest of her life.It was the house of darkness, the house of dumbness, the house ofsuffocation. Osmond's beautiful mind gave it neither light nor air;Osmond's beautiful mind indeed seemed to peep down from a small highwindow and mock at her. Of course it had not been physical suffering;for physical suffering there might have been a remedy. She could comeand go; she had her liberty; her husband was perfectly polite. He tookhimself so seriously; it was something appalling. Under all his culture,his cleverness, his amenity, under his good-nature, his facility, hisknowledge of life, his egotism lay hidden like a serpent in a bankof flowers. She had taken him seriously, but she had not taken him soseriously as that. How could she--especially when she had known himbetter? She was to think of him as he thought of himself--as the firstgentleman in Europe. So it was that she had thought of him at first, andthat indeed was the reason she had married him. But when she began tosee what it implied she drew back; there was more in the bond than shehad meant to put her name to. It implied a sovereign contempt for everyone but some three or four very exalted people whom he envied, and foreverything in the world but half a dozen ideas of his own. That was verywell; she would have gone with him even there a long distance; forhe pointed out t
o her so much of the baseness and shabbiness of life,opened her eyes so wide to the stupidity, the depravity, the ignoranceof mankind, that she had been properly impressed with the infinitevulgarity of things and of the virtue of keeping one's self unspotted byit. But this base, if noble world, it appeared, was after all what onewas to live for; one was to keep it forever in one's eye, in ordernot to enlighten or convert or redeem it, but to extract from it somerecognition of one's own superiority. On the one hand it was despicable,but on the other it afforded a standard. Osmond had talked to Isabelabout his renunciation, his indifference, the ease with which hedispensed with the usual aids to success; and all this had seemed toher admirable. She had thought it a grand indifference, an exquisiteindependence. But indifference was really the last of his qualities;she had never seen any one who thought so much of others. For herself,avowedly, the world had always interested her and the study of herfellow creatures been her constant passion. She would have been willing,however, to renounce all her curiosities and sympathies for the sake ofa personal life, if the person concerned had only been able to make herbelieve it was a gain! This at least was her present conviction andthe thing certainly would have been easier than to care for society asOsmond cared for it.

  He was unable to live without it, and she saw that he had never reallydone so; he had looked at it out of his window even when he appearedto be most detached from it. He had his ideal, just as she had tried tohave hers; only it was strange that people should seek for justice insuch different quarters. His ideal was a conception of high prosperityand propriety, of the aristocratic life, which she now saw that hedeemed himself always, in essence at least, to have led. He had neverlapsed from it for an hour; he would never have recovered from the shameof doing so. That again was very well; here too she would have agreed;but they attached such different ideas, such different associations anddesires, to the same formulas. Her notion of the aristocratic life wassimply the union of great knowledge with great liberty; the knowledgewould give one a sense of duty and the liberty a sense of enjoyment. Butfor Osmond it was altogether a thing of forms, a conscious, calculatedattitude. He was fond of the old, the consecrated, the transmitted;so was she, but she pretended to do what she chose with it. He had animmense esteem for tradition he had told her once that the best thingin the world was to have it, but that if one was so unfortunate as notto have it one must immediately proceed to make it. She knew that hemeant by this that she hadn't it, but that he was better off; thoughfrom what source he had derived his traditions she never learned. Hehad a very large collection of them, however; that was very certain,and after a little she began to see. The great thing was to act inaccordance with them; the great thing not only for him but for her.Isabel had an undefined conviction that to serve for another person thantheir proprietor traditions must be of a thoroughly superior kind; butshe nevertheless assented to this intimation that she too must marchto the stately music that floated down from unknown periods in herhusband's past; she who of old had been so free of step, so desultory,so devious, so much the reverse of processional. There were certainthings they must do, a certain posture they must take, certain peoplethey must know and not know. When she saw this rigid system close abouther, draped though it was in pictured tapestries, that sense of darknessand suffocation of which I have spoken took possession of her; sheseemed shut up with an odour of mould and decay. She had resisted ofcourse; at first very humorously, ironically, tenderly; then, as thesituation grew more serious, eagerly, passionately, pleadingly. She hadpleaded the cause of freedom, of doing as they chose, of not caring forthe aspect and denomination of their life--the cause of other instinctsand longings, of quite another ideal.

  Then it was that her husband's personality, touched as it never hadbeen, stepped forth and stood erect. The things she had said wereanswered only by his scorn, and she could see he was ineffably ashamedof her. What did he think of her--that she was base, vulgar, ignoble?He at least knew now that she had no traditions! It had not been in hisprevision of things that she should reveal such flatness; her sentimentswere worthy of a radical newspaper or a Unitarian preacher. The realoffence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of herown at all. Her mind was to be his--attached to his own like a smallgarden-plot to a deer-park. He would rake the soil gently and water theflowers; he would weed the beds and gather an occasional nosegay.It would be a pretty piece of property for a proprietor alreadyfar-reaching. He didn't wish her to be stupid. On the contrary, it wasbecause she was clever that she had pleased him. But he expected herintelligence to operate altogether in his favour, and so far fromdesiring her mind to be a blank he had flattered himself that it wouldbe richly receptive. He had expected his wife to feel with him and forhim, to enter into his opinions, his ambitions, his preferences; andIsabel was obliged to confess that this was no great insolence on thepart of a man so accomplished and a husband originally at least sotender. But there were certain things she could never take in. Tobegin with, they were hideously unclean. She was not a daughter of thePuritans, but for all that she believed in such a thing as chastity andeven as decency. It would appear that Osmond was far from doing anythingof the sort; some of his traditions made her push back her skirts. Didall women have lovers? Did they all lie and even the best have theirprice? Were there only three or four that didn't deceive their husbands?When Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than forthe gossip of a village parlour--a scorn that kept its freshness ina very tainted air. There was the taint of her sister-in-law: did herhusband judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often lied,and she had practised deceptions that were not simply verbal. It wasenough to find these facts assumed among Osmond's traditions--it wasenough without giving them such a general extension. It was her scornof his assumptions, it was this that made him draw himself up. Hehad plenty of contempt, and it was proper his wife should be as wellfurnished; but that she should turn the hot light of her disdain uponhis own conception of things--this was a danger he had not allowed for.He believed he should have regulated her emotions before she came toit; and Isabel could easily imagine how his ears had scorched on hisdiscovering he had been too confident. When one had a wife who gave onethat sensation there was nothing left but to hate her.

  She was morally certain now that this feeling of hatred, which at firsthad been a refuge and a refreshment, had become the occupation andcomfort of his life. The feeling was deep, because it was sincere; hehad had the revelation that she could after all dispense with him. Ifto herself the idea was startling, if it presented itself at first as akind of infidelity, a capacity for pollution, what infinite effect mightit not be expected to have had upon HIM? It was very simple; hedespised her; she had no traditions and the moral horizon of aUnitarian minister. Poor Isabel, who had never been able to understandUnitarianism! This was the certitude she had been living with now fora time that she had ceased to measure. What was coming--what was beforethem? That was her constant question. What would he do--what ought SHEto do? When a man hated his wife what did it lead to? She didn't hatehim, that she was sure of, for every little while she felt a passionatewish to give him a pleasant surprise. Very often, however, she feltafraid, and it used to come over her, as I have intimated, that shehad deceived him at the very first. They were strangely married, at allevents, and it was a horrible life. Until that morning he had scarcelyspoken to her for a week; his manner was as dry as a burned-outfire. She knew there was a special reason he was displeased at RalphTouchett's staying on in Rome. He thought she saw too much of hercousin--he had told her a week before it was indecent she should go tohim at his hotel. He would have said more than this if Ralph's invalidstate had not appeared to make it brutal to denounce him; but having hadto contain himself had only deepened his disgust. Isabel read all thisas she would have read the hour on the clock-face; she was as perfectlyaware that the sight of her interest in her cousin stirred her husband'srage as if Osmond had locked her into her room--which she was sure waswhat he wanted to do. It was he
r honest belief that on the whole shewas not defiant, but she certainly couldn't pretend to be indifferent toRalph. She believed he was dying at last and that she should never seehim again, and this gave her a tenderness for him that she had neverknown before. Nothing was a pleasure to her now; how could anything bea pleasure to a woman who knew that she had thrown away her life? Therewas an everlasting weight on her heart--there was a livid light oneverything. But Ralph's little visit was a lamp in the darkness; for thehour that she sat with him her ache for herself became somehow her achefor HIM. She felt to-day as if he had been her brother. She had neverhad a brother, but if she had and she were in trouble and he were dying,he would be dear to her as Ralph was. Ah yes, if Gilbert was jealous ofher there was perhaps some reason it didn't make Gilbert look better tosit for half an hour with Ralph. It was not that they talked of him--itwas not that she complained. His name was never uttered between them. Itwas simply that Ralph was generous and that her husband was not. Therewas something in Ralph's talk, in his smile, in the mere fact of hisbeing in Rome, that made the blasted circle round which she walked morespacious. He made her feel the good of the world; he made her feel whatmight have been. He was after all as intelligent as Osmond--quite apartfrom his being better. And thus it seemed to her an act of devotionto conceal her misery from him. She concealed it elaborately; shewas perpetually, in their talk, hanging out curtains and before heragain--it lived before her again,--it had never had time to die--thatmorning in the garden at Florence when he had warned her against Osmond.She had only to close her eyes to see the place, to hear his voice, tofeel the warm, sweet air. How could he have known? What a mystery,what a wonder of wisdom! As intelligent as Gilbert? He was much moreintelligent--to arrive at such a judgement as that. Gilbert had neverbeen so deep, so just. She had told him then that from her at least heshould never know if he was right; and this was what she was takingcare of now. It gave her plenty to do; there was passion, exaltation,religion in it. Women find their religion sometimes in strangeexercises, and Isabel at present, in playing a part before her cousin,had an idea that she was doing him a kindness. It would have been akindness perhaps if he had been for a single instant a dupe. As it was,the kindness consisted mainly in trying to make him believe that he hadonce wounded her greatly and that the event had put him to shame, butthat, as she was very generous and he was so ill, she bore him no grudgeand even considerately forbore to flaunt her happiness in his face.Ralph smiled to himself, as he lay on his sofa, at this extraordinaryform of consideration but he forgave her for having forgiven him. Shedidn't wish him to have the pain of knowing she was unhappy: that wasthe great thing, and it didn't matter that such knowledge would ratherhave righted him.

  For herself, she lingered in the soundless saloon long after the firehad gone out. There was no danger of her feeling the cold; she was ina fever. She heard the small hours strike, and then the great ones, buther vigil took no heed of time. Her mind, assailed by visions, was in astate of extraordinary activity, and her visions might as well come toher there, where she sat up to meet them, as on her pillow, to make amockery of rest. As I have said, she believed she was not defiant, andwhat could be a better proof of it than that she should linger therehalf the night, trying to persuade herself that there was no reason whyPansy shouldn't be married as you would put a letter in the post-office?When the clock struck four she got up; she was going to bed at last, forthe lamp had long since gone out and the candles burned down to theirsockets. But even then she stopped again in the middle of the roomand stood there gazing at a remembered vision--that of her husband andMadame Merle unconsciously and familiarly associated.