The Princess Casamassima (Classics)

by Henry James

  135. (p. 249) American on the mother’s side, Italian on the father’s. Like Hyacinth, she is of mixed parentage.

  136. (p. 251) à outrance. Excessively.

  137. (p. 251) Darwin, Charles Robert (1809–82). The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), in which Darwin argued his theories of evolution and natural selection, were still controversial works at this period. In the first of these, he states: ‘The chief part of the organization of every living creature is due to inheriance’ – a comment particularly applicable to Hyacinth.

  138. (p. 251) Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903). Philosopher. Applied evolutionary theory to psychology, biology, sociology and ethics. His Principles of Ethics was published 1879–93.

  139. (p. 252) I may get two or three days at the seaside. Paid holidays were virtually unheard-of at this time.

  140. (p. 253) corvée. Chore.

  141. (p. 256) en cachette. Secretly.

  142. (p. 258) Santo Dio! Good God!

  143. (p. 259) Dio mio! My God!

  144. (p. 261) brown holland. A coarse linen material which was used to cover up the furniture when houses were left unoccupied.

  145. (p. 263) attendrissement. Tenderness and pity.

  146. (p. 264) M. J. T. de Saint-Germain. The authors in this list are nearly all late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth century and, apart from Lamartine, of no great literary interest.

  147. (p. 264) certain members of an intensely modern school. James is alluding to the Naturalists: Zola, Daudet, the Goncourt brothers.

  148. (p. 264) Balzac’s novels. Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), author of the series La Comédie Humaine, in some ways foreshadowed the Naturalists. His influence on James can be seen in, for instance, The Bostonians.

  149. (p. 269) défis. Challenges.

  150. (p. 271) Worthing. Seaside resorts, hitherto the preserve of the well-to-do, were beginning to be patronized by the rest of society, particularly in the form of cheap day-trips by rail.

  151. (p. 272) Enfin vous voilà ferme! So you’re established at last!

  152. (p. 272) éprouvé. Tried.

  153. (p. 279) Pavilion music-hall. Probably the London Pavilion, which opened in 1861 in Tichborne Street, Westminster. In 1878 the Metropolitan Board of Works bought the site for £109,347, for street improvements. However, the theatre was not demolished until 1885, when the management transferred the name to a new establishment in Piccadilly. This building has been a cinema since 1934, but currently (1986) there are plans for a further redevelopment. An advertisement in the 1883 Entr’ Acte Annual promises ‘first-class comic and sentimental vocalists’.

  154. (p. 280) pull up the Park rails again. The railings of Hyde Park had been pulled up by a mob just before the Reform Bill of 1867, which extended the suffrage to more working-men in the towns. We should remember that in 1880 (when these conversations at the ‘Sun and Moon’ are taking place) there were still many adult males who did not have a vote.

  155. (p. 282) the insolence of office. See Hamlet, III, i, 73.

  156. (p. 282) ab ovo. From the womb.

  157. (p. 282) the h. We have only to compare his speech with Millicen’s – or indeed Miss Pynsent’s – to see what is meant.

  158. (p. 284) the Republic. The Third Republic (1870–1940).

  159. (p. 286) Gott im Himmel! God in Heaven!

  160. (p. 286) sehr. Very much.

  161. (p. 287) Nun. Now.

  162. (p. 287) Doch, doch. But still.

  163. (p. 288) that great combined attempt, early in the sixties. This does not seem to refer to any actual historical event.

  164. (p. 289) C’aurait été d’un bel exemple! It would have been a fine example!

  165. (p. 289) Trop d’arithmétique. Too calculating.

  166. (p. 294) G—. Whereas the ‘h—’ on p. 291 has become ‘hell’ in the New York Edition, this ‘G—’ still persists.

  167. (p. 294) Vous insultez le peuple. You’re insulting the people.

  168. (p. 296) growler. Cab.

  169. (p. 296) me voici. Here I am.

  170. (p. 300) Keats – in the ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.

  O for a draught of vintage! that hath been

  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,

  Tasting of Flora and the country green,

  Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

  O for a beaker full of the warm South,

  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

  With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

  And purple-stainèd mouth;

  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

  And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

  Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

  What thou among the leaves hast never known,

  The weariness, the fever, and the fret,

  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan.

  The relevance of these lines to Hyacinth’s predicament is obvious. In fact the whole poem, with its references to ‘easeful Death’ and ‘hungry generations’ is worth reading in this connection.

  171. (p. 303) Natürlich. Naturally.

  172. (p. 304) Ecco! There you are.

  173. (p. 304) Vedremo bene. We shall see.

  174. (p. 305) Poverino! Poor young man!

  175. (p. 307) a story of M. Octave Feuillet. ‘Histoire d’une parisienne’, which appeared in this magazine in two parts, on 1 and 15 April 1881, thereby enabling us to date the action of the present novel to the period 1879–82. Feuillet’s story tells of a virtuous woman, Jeanne de Maurescamp, and of how she is eventually corrupted by her husband’s unjustified suspicions and cruel behaviour. James may have seen a parallel between Jeanne and Christina, but we really know too little about the married life of the Casamassimas for it to be very obvious.

  176. (p. 308) the three Musketeers. The heroes of Alexandre Dumas’s novel of that name (1844).

  177. (p. 308) polentas. Polenta is a pasta dish made with coarse maize flour.

  178. (p. 313) Lydia Languish. The heroine of Sheridan’s comedy The Rivals (1775).

  179. (p. 315) hammer-cloth. A cloth covering the driver’s seat.

  180. (p. 316) Voilà ce que j’aime en Angleterre. This is what I like about England.

  181. (p. 317) parti pris. Prejudice, whim.

  182. (p. 320) Basta! That’s enough, now!

  183. (p. 324) bien entendu. Of course.

  184. (p. 327) Où en êtes-vous…? How far have you got?

  185. (p. 329) Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788–1860). A German philosopher, whose major work, The World as Will and Idea (1818) is an interesting blend of pessimism and idealism. His misogyny comes across most strongly in Parerga and Paralipomena (1859 edition), where, among many other criticisms, he claims that women have a ‘weak faculty of reason… from that fundamental failing and its attendant qualities arise falseness, faithlessness, treachery, ingratitude, and so on.’

  186. (p. 330) ‘necessary evil’. A phrase used by eighteenth-century ‘optimistic’ philosophers in their attempts to reconcile the apparently unjust suferings of humanity with the existence of a benevolent and all-powerful god. The best-known popularization of this philosophy is to be found in Pope’s poem An Essay on Man (1732–4).

  187. (p. 330) everything is for the best in the best of possible worlds. This is the solution of the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) to the ‘problem of evil’. This aspect of Leibnizian optimism is brilliantly satirized by Voltaire in Candide (1759).

  188. (p. 330) Parbleu. Of course.

  189. (p. 331) chalks. Marks down.

  190. (p. 331) hair-covered. Horse hair was sometimes woven into an upholstery material.

  191. (p. 333) as the Jesuit fathers did to the head of their order. The concept of blind obedience is not actually to be found in the final vows taken by Jesuits, but in the Letter on Obedience (1553) addressed by Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, to his followers a
t Coimbra.

  192. (p. 334) portée. Consequences.

  193. (p. 335) sur les dents. On edge.

  194. (p. 335) the great religious rule. See the well-known hymn by Bishop T. Ken (1637–1711), beginning ‘Awake my soul and with the sun’, and including the couplet:

  Redeem thy mis-spent time that’s past

  Live this day as if ’twere thy last.

  195. (p. 335) recueillement. Contemplation.

  196. (p. 337) Jugez donc. You can tell.

  197. (p. 337) only through the glass of the pastry-cook’s window! The painter Samuel Palmer writes to his friend John Linnell in 1838 about the difficulties of being introduced to prospective buyers: ‘Here we stand like two children, snubbing their noses flat, at the glass of a pastry-cook’s window – longing not for the pastry and sweetmeats of life but for that supply of simple wants which we cheerfully trust that Providence will give us, but for the attainment of which we must use all means.’ (Quoted in Raymond Lister’s The Paintings of Samuel Palmer, 1985.)

  198. (p. 342) en fin de compte. After all.

  199. (p. 343) crânerie. Foolhardiness.

  200. (p. 348) Santissima Vergine! Holy Virgin!

  201. (p. 349) veut en venir. Is aiming at.

  202. (p. 379) Tortoni’s. This café, on the Boulevard des Italiens, was famous for its ices.

  203. (p. 379) succès du jour. Current hit.

  204. (p. 381) eat and drink to-day. A Biblical echo. ‘Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die’ (1 Corinthians 15:32).

  205. (p. 382) mouchards. Spies.

  206. (p. 382) the Batignolles. Many working-class families had been moved out to the suburbs during the reconstruction of the centre of Paris in the 1860s and 1870s.

  207. (p. 384) the goddess-mother. Venus.

  208. (p. 384) escamoter. Conjure away.

  209. (p. 389) hôtel garni. The most simple form of hotel accommodation.

  210. (p. 392) des femmes très chic. Highly elegant women.

  211. (p. 393) Place Louis Quinze, the Place de la Révolution. Earlier names for this square. It was rechristened five or six times in all, as regimes came and went.

  212. (p. 394) campo. Square.

  213. (p. 395) Leopardi, Giacomo (1798–1837). Arguably the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century. His Canti (1845) are full of melancholy pessimism and nostalgia.

  214. (p. 395) piazzetta. Square.

  215. (p. 396) le fond de ma pensée. My deepest thoughts.

  216. (p. 396) the Veronese. Paolo Caliari (1528–88), born in Verona (hence the nickname), was one of the great masters of the Venetian school. His most notable ceiling paintings were for the Doge’s Palace.

  217. (p. 399) London Bridge. The long sea routes to and from France via the Thames (London Bridge being the terminal for the Dunkirk route) were usually much cheaper than the ‘express’ services via Dover/ Folkestone–Calais/Boulogne.

  218. (p. 399) seventeen pence… for three days. Admittedly this can’t have been easy – but during the 1880s there were poor families in the East End who never budgeted for more than a penny per head per meal. (See Charles Booth’s Life and Labour of the People, 1889.)

  219. (p. 400) capricciosa. A capricious woman.

  220. (p. 405) Enfin. Still.

  221. (p. 405) the arch-fiend of December. The Emperor Napoleon III, who seized power in December 1851. During what was known as the Second Empire (the First having been that of Napoleon Bonaparte) the centre of Paris was embellished and virtually transformed, the imperial schemes being put into effect by Baron Haussmann, who created the great boulevards which still characterize Paris (and which are too wide to be easily barricaded).

  222. (p. 410) The great refusal, as Dante calls it. See Inferno, III, 59–61. Dante was referring to the abdication of Pope Celestine V, which he regarded as a refusal of responsibility.

  223. (p. 415) Madeira Crescent, Paddington. In spite of the circumstantial detail of the route to Westbourne Grove described on p. 504 in Chapter 39, this seems to be another of James’s inventions.

  224. (p. 417) mesquin. Mean.

  225. (p. 417) Mr Micawber. A character in Dickens’s David Copperfield (1849–50).

  226. (p. 420) Che forza, che forza! What energy!

  227. (p. 420) hébétement. Stupor.

  228. (p. 421) A la bonne heure! Well done!

  229. (p. 423) du train dont elle allait. At the rate she was carrying on.

  230. (p. 423) codino. Reactionary.

  231. (p. 424) à toutes jambes. At top speed.

  232. (p. 424) Gräfin. Countess.

  233. (p. 425) Oh, you’ll run away yet. A premonition of the final outcome.

  234. (p. 425) of the so-called ‘cottage’ kind. An upright as opposed to a grand piano, possibly with a restricted compass of six or even five octaves.

  235. (p. 427) Ruskinian theories of Venice. As expounded in Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1851–3). Primarily an architectural study, it also displays Ruskin’s social conscience, his sympathy with the wretchedness of the Venetian populace, and his condemnation of an age of mass production where social relations between master and workman are ruled by the machine.

  236. (p. 427) arrière-pensées. Ulterior motives.

  237. (p. 427) Gambetta, Léon Michel (1838–82). A French politician of advanced liberal views, and President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1879, who appeared to be at a crucial point in his career during the summer and autumn of 1881. Many thought that he was about to establish himself as a dictator in France. In fact, he resigned from the Government in the following January, and died in December 1882, apparently as the result of an accidental wound from a revolver (though some, at the time, suspected suicide).

  238. (p. 432) au juste. Properly.

  239. (p. 432) par exemple. For instance.

  240. (p. 433) femme du monde. Woman of the world.

  241. (p. 444) nuance. Shade.

  242. (p. 449) dog-skin. A type of leather made from sheepskin.

  243. (p. 464) a penny-reading. A popular entertainment consisting of readings of poetry or extracts from novels.

  244. (p. 475) dépouillée. Divested of everything.

  245. (p. 475) Chè. Yes.

  246. (p. 475) One can’t serve God and mammon. An allusion to Matthew 6:24, in which Christ says: ‘No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ A lesson which is probably not lost on Hyacinth.

  247. (p. 476) the mad emperor who fiddled in the flames of Rome. Nero (AD 37–68), who was suspected of causing the great fire of 64 which destroyed two-thirds of the city.

  248. (p. 476) a music-hall in the Edgware Road. The Metropolitan, which opened as a music hall in 1864. It claimed to be ‘nightly crowded with highly distingué audiences’ (Entr’Acte Annual, 1883), but as stall seats at this date cost only a shilling, this seems unlikely. It was still open after World War II: c. 1947/8 it was advertising a show with the memorable title of ‘Dr Crock and His Merry Crackpots’. The present writer remembers going there one evening early in 1952: there were the usual variety sketches, not very well done, an almost empty auditorium, and the decor – which must have been very fine when it was new – was pathetically dingy. It was finally closed in 1962.

  249. (p. 482) vie de province. Provincial life. A reference to the novels of Balzac.

  250. (p. 485) Vous me rendez la vie! You’re giving me my life back!

  251. (p. 487) Men and Women (1855), a book of poems by Robert Browning.

  252. (p. 509) Chiffinch Street, NE James is really having fun with the reader here – no wonder he can be so explicit about the number of the house. There have never been any NE postal districts in London; in any case, it would have been impossible to reach any part of northeast London in a mere twenty minutes’ cab drive from Paddington.

  253. (p. 509) the air of this place. He is referring to the fog.

>   254. (p. 512) Ci vuol’ pazienza! People must be patient!

  255. (p. 513) Aspetta. Wait.

  256. (p. 513) quel giovane. That young man.

  257. (p. 515) Sicuro. Certainly.

  258. (p. 515) Felicissima notte, signori! A very good night, gentlemen!

  259. (p. 520) sangue di Dio! (Literally) God’s blood!

  260. (p. 522) out of place. Out of a job.

  261. (p. 524) éclaircissement. Explanation.

  262. (p. 528) good old fellow. This was supposed to be a compliment, like the use of ‘old boy’ to the heroine in What Maisie Knew. In the New York Edition James changes this ‘good old fellow’ to ‘sweet old boy’.

  263. (p. 530) cara mia. My dear.

  264. (p. 533) the left hand was as good as the right. (See note to p. 58.)

  265. (p. 533) She’d have worse to tell you. As readers of Roderick Hudson will know, Christina, like Hyacinth, is illegitimate. She has also contributed, though not directly, to the death of Roderick Hudson.

  266. (p. 534) they strolled on again. In the New York Edition James added a long sentence at the end of this chapter, in which Hyacinth embraces Millicent.

  267. (p. 545) nous causions justement de vous. We were talking precisely about you.

  268. (p. 545) au point où nous en sommes. At the stage we’ve reached.

  269. (p. 547) Also. So.

  270. (p. 547) Lieber Gott. Dear God.

  271. (p. 547) bonhomme. Fellow.

  272. (p. 548) grincheux. Grumpy.

  273. (p. 548) Il me faudrait des conditions très particulières. I would have to have very special terms.

  274. (p. 549) Qu’est-ce qu’l dit… le pauvre chéri? What’s he saying… the poor darling?

  275. (p. 549) vous vous faites des idées. You’re imagining things.

  276. (p. 550) Calmons-nous, entendons-nous, expliquons-nous! Let’s calm down, let’s understand each other, let’s explain!

  277. (p. 550) je le constate. I’m stating a fact.

  278. (p. 551) Il faut être conséquent, nom de Dieu! For God’s sake, you must be consistent!

  279. (p. 551) je ne permets pas ça! I won’t allow it.

  280. (p. 555) Erlauben Sie. If you will allow me.

  281. (p. 559) Il vaut du galme (imitating a German pronunciation of ‘faut’ and ‘calme’). We must stay calm.