Henry James

“ I said.
“He’s as quiet as a lamb—he’s like all the world,” cried the Countess.
“Like all the world—yes. He is in love with you.”
She looked at me with sudden gravity. “I don’t object to your saying that for all the world—but I do for him.”
“Well,” I went on, “he is peculiar in this: he is rather afraid of you.”
Instantly she began to smile; she turned her face toward Stanmer. He had seen that we were talking about him; he coloured and got up—then came toward us.
“I like men who are afraid of nothing,” said our hostess.
“I know what you want,” I said to Stanmer. ”

“ I said. “Remember that I am old enough to be your father; that I knew you when you were three years old. I may surely ask such questions. But you are right; one must do your mother justice. She was certainly thinking of her second marriage.”
“You have not forgiven her that!” said the Countess, very gravely.
“Have you?” I asked, more lightly.
“I don’t judge my mother. That is a mortal sin. My stepfather was very kind to me.”
“I remember him,” I said; “I saw him a great many times—your mother already received him.” ”

“ Poor young Stanmer was there, and three or four other admirers; they all got up when I came in. I think I had been talked about, and there was some curiosity. But why should I have been talked about? They were all youngish men—none of them of my time. She is a wonderful likeness of her mother; I couldn’t get over it. Beautiful like her mother, and yet with the same faults in her face; but with her mother’s perfect head and brow and sympathetic, almost pitying, eyes. ”

“ She is truly an accomplished woman!
May 4th.—I have stayed away from Casa Salvi for a week, but I have lingered on in Florence, under a mixture of impulses. I have had it on my conscience not to go near the Countess again—and yet from the moment she is aware of the way I feel about her, it is open war. There need be no scruples on either side. She is as free to use every possible art to entangle poor Stanmer more closely as I am to clip her fine-spun meshes. Under the circumstances, however, we naturally shouldn’t meet very cordially. ”

“ I’ll stand on the brink and watch you.”
“Your real reason is that you feel you have no case against the poor lady,” said Stanmer. “You admire her as much as I do.”
“I just admitted that I admired her. I never said she was a vulgar flirt; her mother was an absolutely scientific one. Heaven knows I admired that! It’s a nice point, however, how much one is hound in honour not to warn a young friend against a dangerous woman because one also has relations of civility with the lady.” ”

“ I’m glad our city pleases you!”
“Florence pleases me—and I take a paternal interest to our young friend,” I added, glancing at Stanmer. “I have become very fond of him.”
“Bel tipo inglese,” said my hostess. “And he is very intelligent; he has a beautiful mind.”
She stood there resting her smile and her clear, expressive eyes upon me.
“I don’t like to praise him too much,” I rejoined, “lest I should appear to praise myself; he reminds me so much of what I was at his age. If your beautiful mother were to come to life for an hour she would see the resemblance.” ”

“ I said presently. “You admire her—you adore her, and yet, secretly, you mistrust her. You are enchanted with her personal charm, her grace, her wit, her everything; and yet in your private heart you are afraid of her.”
“Afraid of her?”
“Your mistrust keeps rising to the surface; you can’t rid yourself of the suspicion that at the bottom of all things she is hard and cruel, and you would be immensely relieved if some one should persuade you that your suspicion is right.”
Stanmer made no direct reply to this; but before we reached the hotel he said—“What did you ever know about the mother?” ”

“ Repose in her face always suggested sadness; and while you were watching it with a kind of awe, and wondering of what tragic secret it was the token, it kindled, on the instant, into a radiant Italian smile. The Countess Scarabelli’s smiles tonight, however, were almost uninterrupted. She greeted me—divinely, as her mother used to do; and young Stanmer sat in the corner of the sofa—as I used to do—and watched her while she talked. She is thin and very fair, and was dressed in light, vaporous black that completes the resemblance. The house, the rooms, are almost absolutely the same ”

“ I remember, towards 3 A.M., Madame de Salvi used to turn me out.—“Come, come,” she would say, “it’s time to go. If you were to stay later people might talk.” I don’t know at what time he comes home, but I suppose his evening seems as short as mine did. Today he brought me a message from his Contessa—a very gracious little speech. She remembered often to have heard her mother speak of me—she called me her English friend. All her mother’s friends were dear to her, and she begged I would do her the honour to come and see her. She is always at home of an evening. ”

“ But for all her spontaneity she’s as subtle as a needle-point, and knows tremendously well what she is about. If she is not a consummate coquette . . . What had she in her head when she said that I should not have gone away?—Poor little Stanmer didn’t go away. I left him there at midnight.
12th.—I found him today sitting in the church of Santa Croce, into which I wandered to escape from the heat of the sun.
In the nave it was cool and dim; he was staring at the blaze of candles on the great altar, and thinking, I am sure, of his incomparable Countess. ”

“ I said. “But the friend who gave me my letter to Madame de Salvi died many years ago. He, too, admired her greatly. I don’t know why it never came into my mind that her daughter might be living in Florence. Somehow I took for granted it was all over. I never thought of the little girl; I never heard what had become of her. I walked past the palace yesterday and saw that it was occupied; but I took for granted it had changed hands.”
“The Countess Scarabelli,” said my friend, “brought it to her husband as her marriage-portion.” ”

“ Being a military man, I have had on various occasions to face time enemy. But it was not then I needed my resolution; it was when I left Florence in a post-chaise.”
Stanmer turned about the room two or three times, and then he said: “I don’t understand! I don’t understand why she should have told you that Camerino had killed her husband. It could only damage her.” ”

“ And then she wished to get the credit of being very frank.”
“Good heavens, how you must have analysed her!” cried my companion, staring.
“There is nothing so analytic as disillusionment. But there it is. She married Camerino.”
“Yes, I don’t lime that,” said Stanmer. ”

“ But as regards her meshes, why, after all, should I clip them? It would really be very interesting to see Stanmer swallowed up. I should like to see how he would agree with her after she had devoured him— (to what vulgar imagery, by the way, does curiosity reduce a man!) Let him finish the story in his own way, as I finished it in mine. It is the same story; but why, a quarter of a century later, should it have the same dénoúment? Let him make his own dénoûment. ”

“ She was perfectly free. Your lamented father was dead—and she had not yet contracted her second marriage.”
“If she was intending to marry again, it was all the more reason she should have been careful.” ”

“ And yet, unfortunately for him, that woman is consummately plausible. She was wonderfully nice last evening; she was really irresistible. Such frankness and freedom, and yet something so soft and womanly; such graceful gaiety, so much of the brightness, without any of the stiffness, of good breeding, and over it all something so picturesquely simple and southern. She is a perfect Italian. But she comes honestly by it. After the talk I have just jotted down she changed her place, and the conversation for half an hour was general. Stanmer indeed said very little ”

“ Of course it’s a great gain to have had an escape, not to have committed an act of thumping folly; and I suppose that, whatever serious step one might have taken at twenty-five, after a struggle, and with a violent effort, and however one’s conduct might appear to be justified by events, there would always remain a certain element of regret ”

“ Things that involve a risk are like the Christian faith; they must be seen from the inside.—Yours ever, E. S.
“P. S.—A fig for analogies unless you can find an analogy for my happiness!”
His happiness makes him very clever. I hope it will last—I mean his cleverness, not his happiness.
LONDON, April 19th, 1877.—Last night, at Lady H---’s, I met Edmund Stanmer, who married Bianca Salvi’s daughter. I heard the other day that they had come to England. A handsome young fellow, with a fresh contented face. He reminded me of Florence, which I didn’t pretend to forget ”