Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (49 page)

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Page 285

And what do you say about them?

I say they sometimes attached themselves to very clever women! I answered, laughing. I spoke with great deliberation, but as my words fell upon the air they struck me as imprudent. However, I risked them and I was not sorry, for perhaps after all the old woman would be willing to treat. It seemed to be tolerably obvious that she knew my secret: why therefore drag the matter out? But she did not take what I had said as a confession; she only asked:

Do you think it's right to rake up the past?

I don't know that I know what you mean by raking it up; but how can we get at it unless we dig a little? The present has such a rough way of treading it down.

Oh, I like the past, but I don't like critics, the old woman declared, with her fine tranquillity.

Neither do I, but I like their discoveries.

Aren't they mostly lies?

The lies are what they sometimes discover, I said, smiling at the quiet impertinence of this. They often lay bare the truth.

The truth is God's, it isn't man's; we had better leave it alone. Who can judge of itwho can say?

We are terribly in the dark, I know, I admitted; but if we give up trying what becomes of all the fine things? What becomes of the work I just mentioned, that of the great philosophers and poets? It is all vain words if there is nothing to measure it by.

You talk as if you were a tailor, said Miss Bordereau, whimsically; and then she added quickly, in a different manner, This house is very fine; the proportions are magnificent. To-day I wanted to look at this place again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came, just now, to learn if I would see you, I was on the point of sending for you, to ask if you didn't mean to go on. I wanted to judge what I'm letting you have. This sala is very grand, she pursued, like an auctioneer, moving a little, as I guessed, her invisible eyes. I don't believe you often have lived in such a house, eh?

I can't often afford to! I said.

Well then, how much will you give for six months?

I was on the point of exclaimingand the air of excru-

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ciation in my face would have denoted a moral factDon't, Juliana; for
his
sake, don't! But I controlled myself and asked less passionately: Why should I remain so long as that?

I thought you liked it, said Miss Bordereau, with her shrivelled dignity.

So I thought I should.

For a moment she said nothing more, and I left my own words to suggest to her what they might. I half expected her to say, coldly enough, that if I had been disappointed we need not continue the discussion, and this in spite of the fact that I believed her now to have in her mind (however it had come there), what would have told her that my disappointment was natural. But to my extreme surprise she ended by observing: If you don't think we have treated you well enough perhaps we can discover some way of treating you better. This speech was somehow so incongruous that it made me laugh again, and I excused myself by saying that she talked as if I were a sulky boy, pouting in the corner, to be brought round. I had not a grain of complaint to make; and could anything have exceeded Miss Tita's graciousness in accompanying me a few nights before to the Piazza? At this the old woman went on: Well, you brought it on yourself! And then in a different tone, She is a very nice girl. I assented cordially to this proposition, and she expressed the hope that I did so not merely to be obliging, but that I really liked her. Meanwhile I wondered still more what Miss Bordereau was coming to. Except for me, to-day, she said, she has not a relation in the world. Did she by describing her niece as amiable and unencumbered wish to represent her as a
parti?

It was perfectly true that I could not afford to go on with my rooms at a fancy price and that I had already devoted to my undertaking almost all the hard cash I had set apart for it. My patience and my time were by no means exhausted, but I should be able to draw upon them only on a more usual Venetian basis. I was willing to pay the venerable woman with whom my pecuniary dealings were such a discord twice as much as any other
padrona di casa
would have asked, but I was not willing to pay her twenty times as much. I told her so plainly, and my plainness appeared to have some success,

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for she exclaimed, Very good; you have done what I askedyou have made an offer!

Yes, but not for half a year. Only by the month.

Oh, I must think of that then. She seemed disappointed that I would not tie myself to a period, and I guessed that she wished both to secure me and to discourage me; to say, severely, Do you dream that you can get off with less than six months? Do you dream that even by the end of that time you will be appreciably nearer your victory? What was more in my mind was that she had a fancy to play me the trick of making me engage myself when in fact she had annihilated the papers. There was a moment when my suspense on this point was so acute that I all but broke out with the question, and what kept it back was but a kind of instinctive recoil (lest it should be a mistake), from the last violence of self-exposure. She was such a subtle old witch that one could never tell where one stood with her. You may imagine whether it cleared up the puzzle when, just after she had said she would think of my proposal and without any formal transition, she drew out of her pocket with an embarrassed hand a small object wrapped in crumpled white paper. She held it there a moment and then she asked, Do you know much about curiosities?

About curiosities?

About antiquities, the old gimcracks that people pay so much for to-day. Do you know the kind of price they bring?

I thought I saw what was coming, but I said ingenuously, Do you want to buy something?

No, I want to sell. What would an amateur give me for that? She unfolded the white paper and made a motion for me to take from her a small oval portrait. I possessed myself of it with a hand of which I could only hope that she did not perceive the tremor, and she added, I would part with it only for a good price.

At the first glance I recognised Jeffrey Aspern, and I was well aware that I flushed with the act. As she was watching me however I had the consistency to exclaim, What a striking face! Do tell me who it is.

It's an old friend of mine, a very distinguished man in his day. He gave it to me himself, but I'm afraid to mention his

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name, lest you never should have heard of him, critic and historian as you are. I know the world goes fast and one generation forgets another. He was all the fashion when I was young.

She was perhaps amazed at my assurance, but I was surprised at hers; at her having the energy, in her state of health and at her time of life, to wish to sport with me that way simply for her private entertainmentthe humour to test me and practise on me. This, at least, was the interpretation that I put upon her production of the portrait, for I could not believe that she really desired to sell it or cared for any information I might give her. What she wished was to dangle it before my eyes and put a prohibitive price on it. The face comes back to me, it torments me, I said, turning the object this way and that and looking at it very critically. It was a careful but not a supreme work of art, larger than the ordinary miniature and representing a young man with a remarkably handsome face, in a high-collared green coat and a buff waist-coat. I judged the picture to have a valuable quality of resemblance and to have been painted when the model was about twenty-five years old. There are, as all the world knows, three other portraits of the poet in existence, but none of them is of so early a date as this elegant production. I have never seen the original but I have seen other likenesses, I went on. You expressed doubt of this generation having heard of the gentleman, but he strikes me for all the world as a celebrity. Now who is he? I can't put my finger on himI can't give him a label. Wasn't he a writer? Surely he's a poet. I was determined that it should be she, not I, who should first pronounce Jeffrey Aspern's name.

My resolution was taken in ignorance of Miss Bordereau's extremely resolute character, and her lips never formed in my hearing the syllables that meant so much for her. She neglected to answer my question but raised her hand to take back the picture, with a gesture which though ineffectual was in a high degree peremptory. It's only a person who should know for himself that would give me my price, she said with a certain dryness.

Oh, then, you have a price? I did not restore the precious thing; not from any vindictive purpose but because I instinc-

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tively clung to it. We looked at each other hard while I retained it.

I know the least I would take. What it occurred to me to ask you about is the most I shall be able to get.

She made a movement, drawing herself together as if, in a spasm of dread at having lost her treasure, she were going to attempt the immense effort of rising to snatch it from me. I instantly placed it in her hand again, saying as I did so, I should like to have it myself, but with your ideas I could never afford it.

She turned the small oval plate over in her lap, with its face down, and I thought I saw her catch her breath a little, as if she had had a strain or an escape. This however did not prevent her saying in a moment, You would buy a likeness of a person you don't know, by an artist who has no reputation?

The artist may have no reputation, but that thing is wonderfully well painted, I replied, to give myself a reason.

It's lucky you thought of saying that, because the painter was my father.

That makes the picture indeed precious! I exclaimed, laughing; and I may add that a part of my laughter came from my satisfaction in finding that I had been right in my theory of Miss Bordereau's origin. Aspern had of course met the young lady when he went to her father's studio as a sitter. I observed to Miss Bordereau that if she would entrust me with her property for twenty-four hours I should be happy to take advice upon it; but she made no answer to this save to slip it in silence into her pocket. This convinced me still more that she had no sincere intention of selling it during her lifetime, though she may have desired to satisfy herself as to the sum her niece, should she leave it to her, might expect eventually to obtain for it. Well, at any rate I hope you will not offer it without giving me notice, I said, as she remained irresponsive. Remember that I am a possible purchaser.

I should want your money first! she returned, with unexpected rudeness; and then, as if she bethought herself that I had just cause to complain of such an insinuation and wished to turn the matter off, asked abruptly what I talked about with her niece when I went out with her that way in the evening.

You speak as if we had set up the habit, I replied. Cer-

Page 290

tainly I should be very glad if it were to become a habit. But in that case I should feel a still greater scruple at betraying a lady's confidence.

Her confidence? Has she got confidence?

Here she isshe can tell you herself, I said; for Miss Tita now appeared on the threshold of the old woman's parlour. Have you got confidence, Miss Tita? Your aunt wants very much to know.

Not in her, not in her! the younger lady declared, shaking her head with a dolefulness that was neither jocular nor affected. I don't know what to do with her; she has fits of horrid imprudence. She is so easily tiredand yet she has begun to roamto drag herself about the house. And she stood looking down at her immemorial companion with a sort of helpless wonder, as if all their years of familiarity had not made her perversities, on occasion, any more easy to follow.

I know what I'm about. I'm not losing my mind. I daresay you would like to think so, said Miss Bordereau, with a cynical little sigh.

I don't suppose you came out here yourself. Miss Tita must have had to lend you a hand, I interposed, with a pacifying intention.

Oh, she insisted that we should push her; and when she insists! said Miss Tita, in the same tone of apprehension; as if there were no knowing what service that she disapproved of her aunt might force her next to render.

I have always got most things done I wanted, thank God! The people I have lived with have humoured me, the old woman continued, speaking out of the gray ashes of her vanity.

I suppose you mean that they have obeyed you.

Well, whatever it is, when they like you.

It's just because I like you that I want to resist, said Miss Tita, with a nervous laugh.

Oh, I suspect you'll bring Miss Bordereau upstairs next, to pay me a visit, I went on; to which the old lady replied:

Oh no; I can keep an eye on you from here!

You are very tired; you will certainly be ill tonight! cried Miss Tita.

Nonsense, my dear; I feel better at this moment than I