Henry James

“ I looked cautiously over the low white fence which separated the small garden-space from the unpaved street; but I descried nothing in the shape of a countess. A small straight path led up to the crooked doorstep, and on either side of it was a little grass-plot, fringed with currant-bushes. In the middle of the grass, on either side, was a large quince-tree, full of antiquity and contortions, and beneath one of the quince-trees were placed a small table and a couple of chairs. On the table lay a piece of unfinished embroidery and two or three books in bright-colored paper covers. ”

“ I said. “She is determined to be a burden to no one. That is very proper.”
Miss Spencer looked down on the ground again, “I must go and get the coffee,” she said.
“Has the lady many pupils?” I asked.
“She has only Mr. Mixter. She gives all her time to him.”
At this I could not laugh, though I smelt provocation; Miss Spencer was too grave. “He pays very well,” she presently added, with simplicity. “He is very rich. He is very kind. He takes the Countess to drive.” And she was turning away.
“You are going for the Countess’s coffee?” ”

“ I looked at her a moment, and then said, “I should like to show them to that young lady.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Latouche, “she is just the person. She doesn’t care for flirting; I will speak to her.”
I rejoined that if she did not care for flirting, she was, perhaps, not just the person; but Mrs. Latouche had already gone to propose the photographs to her.
“She’s delighted,” she said, coming back. “She is just the person, so quiet and so bright.” And then she told me the young lady was, by name, Miss Caroline Spencer, and with this she introduced me. ”

“ Miss Caroline Spencer was not exactly a beauty, but she was a charming little figure. She must have been close upon thirty, but she was made almost like a little girl, and she had the complexion of a child. She had a very pretty head, and her hair was arranged as nearly as possible like the hair of a Greek bust, though indeed it was to be doubted if she had ever seen a Greek bust. She was “artistic,” I suspected, so far as Grimwinter allowed such tendencies. ”

“ Caroline Spencer stood there with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“The Countess, my cousin.”
“And who is the young man?”
“Her pupil, Mr. Mixter.”
This description of the relation between the two persons who had just left the room made me break into a little laugh. Miss Spencer looked at me gravely.
“She gives French lessons; she has lost her fortune.” ”

“ She looked at two or three photographs in silence. “They say it is not so dear.”
“As some other countries? Yes, that is not the least of its charms.”
“But it is all very dear, is it not?”
“Europe, you mean?”
“Going there and travelling. That has been the trouble. I have very little money. I give lessons,” said Miss Spencer.
“Of course one must have money,” I said, “but one can manage with a moderate amount.”
“I think I should manage. I have laid something by, and I am always adding a little to it. It’s all for that.” ”

“ I said to Miss Spencer that this meeting of ours in the first hour of her landing was really very strange, but that I was delighted to be there and receive her first impressions.
“Oh, I can’t tell you,” she said; “I feel as if I were in a dream. I have been sitting here for an hour, and I don’t want to move. Everything is so picturesque. I don’t know whether the coffee has intoxicated me; it’s so delicious.”
“Really,” said I, “if you are so pleased with this poor prosaic Havre, you will have no admiration left for better things. Don’t spend your admiration all the first day ”

“ Mixter.
“La belle découverte!” said the Countess. “Here are ten months,” she explained to me, “that I am giving him lessons. Don’t put yourself out not to say he’s an idiot; he won’t understand you.”
“I hope your other pupils are more gratifying,” I remarked.
“I have no others. They don’t know what French is in this place; they don’t want to know. You may therefore imagine the pleasure it is to me to meet a person who speaks it like yourself.” I replied that my own pleasure was not less; and she went on drawing her stitches through her embroidery, with her little finger curled out. ”

“ Mrs. Latouche, in the course of the evening, asked me if I “didn’t want to” show the photographs to some of the young ladies. The photographs were in a couple of great portfolios, and had been brought home by her son, who, like myself, was lately returned from Europe. I looked round and was struck with the fact that most of the young ladies were provided with an object of interest more absorbing than the most vivid sun-picture. But there was a person standing alone near the mantelshelf, and looking round the room with a small gentle smile which seemed at odds, somehow, with her isolation. ”

“ She looked at me a moment, and said, “I am not so sure. I don’t think of anything else. I am always thinking of it. It prevents me from thinking of things that are nearer home, things that I ought to attend to. That is a kind of craziness.”
“The cure for it is to go,” I said.
“I have a faith that I shall go. I have a cousin in Europe!” she announced.
We turned over some more photographs, and I asked her if she had always lived at Grimwinter.
“Oh, no, sir,” said Miss Spencer. “I have spent twenty-three months in Boston.” ”

“ I looked at her again an instant. “You didn’t come to Europe to listen,” I said. “You came to see!” But now I was sure her cousin would come back; since he had something disagreeable to say to her, he certainly would turn up. We sat a while longer, and I asked her about her plans of travel She had them on her fingers’ ends, and she told over the names with a kind of solemn distinctness: from Paris to Dijon and to Avignon, from Avignon to Marseilles and the Cornice road; thence to Genoa, to Spezia, to Pisa, to Florence, to Home. ”

“ I was wondering what her cousin was, in vulgar parlance, “up to.” I looked up and down the street, but saw nothing that looked like a bright American art-student. At last I took the liberty of observing that Havre was hardly a place to choose as one of the æsthetic stations of a European tour. It was a place of convenience, nothing more; a place of transit, through which transit should be rapid. ”

“ I have read a great deal I have not only read Byron; I have read histories and guidebooks. I know I shall like it.”
“I understand your case,” I rejoined. “You have the native American passion,—the passion for the picturesque. With us, I think it is primordial,—antecedent to experience. Experience comes and only shows us something we have dreamt of.”
“I think that is very true,” said Caroline Spencer. “I have dreamt of everything ”

“ A few months after this I returned to Europe, and some three years elapsed. I had been living in Paris, and, toward the end of October, I went from that city to Havre, to meet my sister and her husband, who had written me that they were about to arrive there. On reaching Havre I found that the steamer was already in; I was nearly two hours late. I repaired directly to the hotel, where my relatives were already established. My sister had gone to bed, exhausted and disabled by her voyage; she was a sadly incompetent sailor, and her sufferings on this occasion had been extreme. ”

“ I added, “if you will tell me where my old friend Miss Spencer lives, I will walk to her house.”
The minister’s wife immediately responded. Miss Spencer lived in the fourth house beyond the “Baptist church; the Baptist church was the one on the right, with that queer green thing over the door; they called it a portico, but it looked more like an old-fashioned bedstead.
“Yes, do go and see poor Caroline,” said Mrs. Latouche. “It will refresh her to see a strange face.” ”

“ No sooner had I looked at her than I saw that something had happened since the morning. She was leaning back on her bench, her hands were clasped in her lap, and her eyes were fixed upon the landlady, at the other side of the court, manipulating her apricots. ”

“ I complimented her and told her she was perfectly equipped for visiting Switzerland and Italy. She looked at me askance again, to see whether I was serious, and I added, that if she wished to recognize Byron’s descriptions she must go abroad speedily; Europe was getting sadly dis-Byronized. ”