Henry James

“ Bernard glanced at her a moment.
“My dear Lovelock,” he said to himself, “you are not such a fool as you seem.—Gordon’s virtues are always necessary, doubtless,” he went on. “But should you say his property was immense?”
Mrs. Vivian made a delicate little movement of deprecation. “Oh, don’t ask me to say! I know nothing about it; I only supposed he was rich.”
“He is rich; but he is not a Croesus.”
“Oh, you fashionable young men have a standard of luxury!” said Mrs. Vivian, with a little laugh. “To a poverty-stricken widow such a fortune as Mr. Wright’s seems magnificent.” ”

“ Bernard was rapidly becoming more and more impatient of his own embarrassment, and now he exclaimed, in a loud and jovial voice—
“Blanche makes victims by the dozen! I was a victim last winter; we are all victims!”
“Dear little Blanche!” Mrs. Vivian murmured again.
Angela had said nothing; she had simply stood there, making no attempt to address herself to Gordon, and yet with no affectation of reserve or of indifference. Now she seemed to feel the impulse to speak to him.
“When Blanche comes to see us, you must be sure to come with her,” she said, with a friendly smile. ”

“ Bernard had felt sure at Baden that, beneath her contemptuous airs and that impertinent consciousness of the difficulties of conquest by which a pretty American girl attests her allegiance to a civilization in which young women occupy the highest place—he had felt sure that Blanche had a high appreciation of her handsome Englishman, and that if Lovelock should continue to relish her charms, he might count upon the advantages of reciprocity. ”

“ His impulse was now simply to prove to her that he was the most unobjectionable fellow in the world—a proposition which resolved itself into several ingenious observations upon the weather, the music, the charms and the drawbacks of Baden, the merits of the volume that she held in her lap. If Mrs. Vivian should be annoyed, should be fluttered, Bernard would feel very sorry for her; there was nothing in the world that he respected more than the moral consciousness of a little Boston woman whose view of life was serious and whose imagination was subject to alarms. ”

“ Certainly, at first, the choice of Blanche Evers seemed highly incongruous; it was difficult to imagine a young woman less shaped to minister to Gordon’s strenuous needs than the light-hearted and empty-headed little flirt whose inconsequent prattle had remained for Bernard one of the least importunate memories of a charming time. Blanche Evers was a pretty little goose—the prettiest of little geese, perhaps, and doubtless the most amiable; but she was not a companion for a peculiarly serious man, who would like his wife to share his view of human responsibilities. ”

“ In every disadvantage that a woman suffers at the hands of a man, there is inevitably, in what concerns the man, an element of cowardice. When I say “inevitably,” I mean that this is what the woman sees in it. This is what Bernard believed that Angela Vivian saw in the fact that by giving his friend a bad account of her he had prevented her making an opulent marriage. At first he had said to himself that, whether he had held his tongue or spoken, she had already lost her chance; but with time, somehow, this reflection had lost its weight in the scale. ”

“ Bernard repeated vaguely.
“We must n’t mind them,” said Gordon, with a conscientious laugh. “We must toughen our hides; or, at the worst, we must plaster up our bruises. But why should we choose this particular place and hour for talking of the pains of life?” he went on. “Are we not in the midst of its pleasures? I mean, henceforth, to cultivate its pleasures. What are yours, just now, Bernard? Is n’t it supposed that in Paris one must amuse one’s self? How have you been amusing yourself?” ”

“ Bernard was puzzled—he who was not often puzzled. His companion struck him as altogether too clever to be likely to indulge in a silly affectation of cynicism. And yet, without this, how could one account for her sneering at virtue?
“You talk as if you had sounded the depths of vice!” he said, laughing. “What do you know about other than virtuous charms?”
“I know, of course, nothing about vice; but I have known virtue when it was very tiresome.”
“Ah, then it was a poor affair. It was poor virtue. The best virtue is never tiresome.” ”

“ The Baden forests are superb, and the composition of the landscape is most effective. There is always a bosky dell in the foreground, and a purple crag embellished with a ruined tower at a proper angle. A little timber-and-plaster village peeps out from a tangle of plum-trees, and a way-side tavern, in comfortable recurrence, solicits concessions to the national custom of frequent refreshment. Gordon Wright, who was a dogged pedestrian, always enjoyed doing his ten miles, and Longueville, who was an incorrigible stroller, felt a keen relish for the picturesqueness of the country. ”

“ Vivian.
“I had a sort of theory one could. Our life was so pleasant that it seemed a shame to break the spell, and if no one had moved I am sure we might be sitting there now.”
Mrs. Vivian stared, still with her little fixed smile.
“I think we should have had bad weather.”
“Very likely,” said Bernard, laughing. “Nature would have grown jealous of our good-humor—of our tranquil happiness. And after all, here we are together again—that is, some of us. But I have only my own audacity to thank for it. ”

“ He lounged, however, contentedly enough through these bright, still days of a Tuscan April, drawing much entertainment from the high picturesqueness of the things about him. Siena, a few years since, was a flawless gift of the Middle Ages to the modern imagination. No other Italian city could have been more interesting to an observer fond of reconstructing obsolete manners. This was a taste of Bernard Longueville’s, who had a relish for serious literature, and at one time had made several lively excursions into mediaeval history. ”

“ Vivian’s little circle, on the terrace of the Conversation-house, for the storm in the afternoon had made the place so damp that it was almost forsaken of its frequenters. Bernard spent the evening in the gaming-rooms, in the thick of the crowd that pressed about the tables, and by way of a change—he had hitherto been almost nothing of a gambler—he laid down a couple of pieces at roulette. He had played but two or three times, without winning a penny; but now he had the agreeable sensation of drawing in a small handful of gold. He continued to play, and he continued to win. ”

“ The last of October was the moment selected, and the selection was almost all that was wanting to Bernard’s happiness. I say “almost,” for there was a solitary spot in his consciousness which felt numb and dead—unpervaded by the joy with which the rest of his spirit seemed to thrill and tingle. The removal of this hard grain in the sweet savour of life was needed to complete his felicity. Bernard felt that he had made the necessary excision when, at the end of the month, he wrote to Gordon Wright of his engagement. ”

“ Good luck and bad luck? Bernard felt very scornful of the distinction, save that good luck seemed to him rather the more vulgar. As the night went on his disgust deepened, and at last the weariness it brought with it sent him to sleep. He slept very late, and woke up to a disagreeable consciousness. At first, before collecting his thoughts, he could not imagine what he had on his mind—was it that he had spoken ill of Angela Vivian? It brought him extraordinary relief to remember that he had gone to bed in extreme ill-humor with his exploits at roulette. ”

“ Mrs. Vivian had apparently been summoned by the sound of her daughter’s colloquy with an unrecognized voice, and when she saw Bernard she gave a sharp little cry of surprise. Then she stood gazing at him.
Since the dispersion of the little party at Baden-Baden he had not devoted much meditation to this conscientious gentlewoman who had been so tenderly anxious to establish her daughter properly in life; but there had been in his mind a tacit assumption that if Angela deemed that he had played her a trick Mrs. Vivian’s view of his conduct was not more charitable. ”

“ The note of reproach was so distinct in these words that Bernard stood staring. “You never take anything seriously,” his companion went on.
Bernard tried to answer as seriously as possible.
“Your dilemma seems to me of all dilemmas the strangest.”
“That may be; but different people take things differently. Don’t you see,” Gordon went on with a sudden outbreak of passion—“don’t you see that I am horribly divided in mind? I care immensely for Angela Vivian—and yet—and yet—I am afraid of her.” ”

“ He found himself noticing a person whom he had not noticed before—a young lady, who was seated in a low portable chair, some dozen yards off, with her eyes bent upon a book. Her head was in shade; her large parasol made, indeed, an awning for her whole person, which in this way, in the quiet attitude of perusal, seemed to abstract itself from the glare and murmur of the beach. The clear shadow of her umbrella—it was lined with blue—was deep upon her face; but it was not deep enough to prevent Bernard from recognizing a profile that he knew. ”

“ So Bernard reflected, as he rolled in the train to Munich. “Gordon’s mind,” he went on, “has no atmosphere; his intellectual process goes on in the void. There are no currents and eddies to affect it, no high winds nor hot suns, no changes of season and temperature. His premises are neatly arranged, and his conclusions are perfectly calculable.”
Yet for the man on whose character he so freely exercised his wit Bernard Longueville had a strong affection. It is nothing against the validity of a friendship that the parties to it have not a mutual resemblance. ”