The Ambassadors (22 page)

He laughed at her question. "Oh I perhaps don't mean as virtuous
as THAT! Your idea is that it can be virtuous—in any sense worthy
of the name—only if she's NOT free? But what does it become then,"
he asked, "for HER?"

"Ah that's another matter." He said nothing for a moment, and
she soon went on. "I dare say you're right, at any rate, about Mr.
Newsome's little plan. He HAS been trying you—has been reporting on
you to these friends."

Strether meanwhile had had time to think more. "Then where's his
straightness?"

"Well, as we say, it's struggling up, breaking out, asserting
itself as it can. We can be on the side, you see, of his
straightness. We can help him. But he has made out," said Miss
Gostrey, "that you'll do."

"Do for what?"

"Why, for THEM—for ces dames. He has watched you, studied you,
liked you—and recognised that THEY must. It's a great compliment to
you, my dear man; for I'm sure they're particular. You came out for
a success. Well," she gaily declared, "you're having it!"

He took it from her with momentary patience and then turned
abruptly away. It was always convenient to him that there were so
many fine things in her room to look at. But the examination of two
or three of them appeared soon to have determined a speech that had
little to do with them. "You don't believe in it!"

"In what?"

"In the character of the attachment. In its innocence."

But she defended herself. "I don't pretend to know anything
about it. Everything's possible. We must see."

"See?" he echoed with a groan. "Haven't we seen enough?"

"I haven't," she smiled.

"But do you suppose then little Bilham has lied?"

"You must find out."

It made him almost turn pale. "Find out any MORE?"

He had dropped on a sofa for dismay; but she seemed, as she
stood over him, to have the last word. "Wasn't what you came out
for to find out ALL?"

The Sunday of the next week was a wonderful day, and Chad
Newsome had let his friend know in advance that he had provided for
it. There had already been a question of his taking him to see the
great Gloriani, who was at home on Sunday afternoons and at whose
house, for the most part, fewer bores were to be met than
elsewhere; but the project, through some accident, had not had
instant effect, and now revived in happier conditions. Chad had
made the point that the celebrated sculptor had a queer old garden,
for which the weather—spring at last frank and fair—was propitious;
and two or three of his other allusions had confirmed for Strether
the expectation of something special. He had by this time, for all
introductions and adventures, let himself recklessly go, cherishing
the sense that whatever the young man showed him he was showing at
least himself. He could have wished indeed, so far as this went,
that Chad were less of a mere cicerone; for he was not without the
impression—now that the vision of his game, his plan, his deep
diplomacy, did recurrently assert itself—of his taking refuge from
the realities of their intercourse in profusely dispensing, as our
friend mentally phrased et panem et circenses. Our friend continued
to feel rather smothered in flowers, though he made in his other
moments the almost angry inference that this was only because of
his odious ascetic suspicion of any form of beauty. He periodically
assured himself—for his reactions were sharp—that he shouldn't
reach the truth of anything till he had at least got rid of
that.

He had known beforehand that Madame de Vionnet and her daughter
would probably be on view, an intimation to that effect having
constituted the only reference again made by Chad to his good
friends from the south. The effect of Strether's talk about them
with Miss Gostrey had been quite to consecrate his reluctance to
pry; something in the very air of Chad's silence—judged in the
light of that talk—offered it to him as a reserve he could markedly
match. It shrouded them about with he scarce knew what, a
consideration, a distinction; he was in presence at any rate—so far
as it placed him there—of ladies; and the one thing that was
definite for him was that they themselves should be, to the extent
of his responsibility, in presence of a gentleman. Was it because
they were very beautiful, very clever, or even very good—was it for
one of these reasons that Chad was, so to speak, nursing his
effect? Did he wish to spring them, in the Woollett phrase, with a
fuller force—to confound his critic, slight though as yet the
criticism, with some form of merit exquisitely incalculable? The
most the critic had at all events asked was whether the persons in
question were French; and that enquiry had been but a proper
comment on the sound of their name. "Yes. That is no!" had been
Chad's reply; but he had immediately added that their English was
the most charming in the world, so that if Strether were wanting an
excuse for not getting on with them he wouldn't in the least find
one. Never in fact had Strether—in the mood into which the place
had quickly launched him—felt, for himself, less the need of an
excuse. Those he might have found would have been, at the worst,
all for the others, the people before him, in whose liberty to be
as they were he was aware that he positively rejoiced. His fellow
guests were multiplying, and these things, their liberty, their
intensity, their variety, their conditions at large, were in fusion
in the admirable medium of the scene.

The place itself was a great impression—a small pavilion,
clear-faced and sequestered, an effect of polished parquet, of fine
white panel and spare sallow gilt, of decoration delicate and rare,
in the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and on the edge of a
cluster of gardens attached to old noble houses. Far back from
streets and unsuspected by crowds, reached by a long passage and a
quiet court, it was as striking to the unprepared mind, he
immediately saw, as a treasure dug up; giving him too, more than
anything yet, the note of the range of the immeasurable town and
sweeping away, as by a last brave brush, his usual landmarks and
terms. It was in the garden, a spacious cherished remnant, out of
which a dozen persons had already passed, that Chad's host
presently met them while the tall bird-haunted trees, all of a
twitter with the spring and the weather, and the high party-walls,
on the other side of which grave hotels stood off for privacy,
spoke of survival, transmission, association, a strong indifferent
persistent order. The day was so soft that the little party had
practically adjourned to the open air but the open air was in such
conditions all a chamber of state. Strether had presently the sense
of a great convent, a convent of missions, famous for he scarce
knew what, a nursery of young priests, of scattered shade, of
straight alleys and chapel-bells, that spread its mass in one
quarter; he had the sense of names in the air, of ghosts at the
windows, of signs and tokens, a whole range of expression, all
about him, too thick for prompt discrimination.

This assault of images became for a moment, in the address of
the distinguished sculptor, almost formidable: Gloriani showed him,
in such perfect confidence, on Chad's introduction of him, a fine
worn handsome face, a face that was like an open letter in a
foreign tongue. With his genius in his eyes, his manners on his
lips, his long career behind him and his honours and rewards all
round, the great artist, in the course of a single sustained look
and a few words of delight at receiving him, affected our friend as
a dazzling prodigy of type. Strether had seen in museums—in the
Luxembourg as well as, more reverently, later on, in the New York
of the billionaires—the work of his hand; knowing too that after an
earlier time in his native Rome he had migrated, in mid-career, to
Paris, where, with a personal lustre almost violent, he shone in a
constellation: all of which was more than enough to crown him, for
his guest, with the light, with the romance, of glory. Strether, in
contact with that element as he had never yet so intimately been,
had the consciousness of opening to it, for the happy instant, all
the windows of his mind, of letting this rather grey interior drink
in for once the sun of a clime not marked in his old geography. He
was to remember again repeatedly the medal-like Italian face, in
which every line was an artist's own, in which time told only as
tone and consecration; and he was to recall in especial, as the
penetrating radiance, as the communication of the illustrious
spirit itself, the manner in which, while they stood briefly, in
welcome and response, face to face, he was held by the sculptor's
eyes. He wasn't soon to forget them, was to think of them, all
unconscious, unintending, preoccupied though they were, as the
source of the deepest intellectual sounding to which he had ever
been exposed. He was in fact quite to cherish his vision of it, to
play with it in idle hours; only speaking of it to no one and quite
aware he couldn't have spoken without appearing to talk nonsense.
Was what it had told him or what it had asked him the greater of
the mysteries? Was it the most special flare, unequalled, supreme,
of the aesthetic torch, lighting that wondrous world for ever, or
was it above all the long straight shaft sunk by a personal
acuteness that life had seasoned to steel? Nothing on earth could
have been stranger and no one doubtless more surprised than the
artist himself, but it was for all the world to Strether just then
as if in the matter of his accepted duty he had positively been on
trial. The deep human expertness in Gloriani's charming smile—oh
the terrible life behind it!—was flashed upon him as a test of his
stuff.

Chad meanwhile, after having easily named his companion, had
still more easily turned away and was already greeting other
persons present. He was as easy, clever Chad, with the great artist
as with his obscure compatriot, and as easy with every one else as
with either: this fell into its place for Strether and made almost
a new light, giving him, as a concatenation, something more he
could enjoy. He liked Gloriani, but should never see him again; of
that he was sufficiently sure. Chad accordingly, who was wonderful
with both of them, was a kind of link for hopeless fancy, an
implication of possibilities—oh if everything had been different!
Strether noted at all events that he was thus on terms with
illustrious spirits, and also that—yes, distinctly—he hadn't in the
least swaggered about it. Our friend hadn't come there only for
this figure of Abel Newsome's son, but that presence threatened to
affect the observant mind as positively central. Gloriani indeed,
remembering something and excusing himself, pursued Chad to speak
to him, and Strether was left musing on many things. One of them
was the question of whether, since he had been tested, he had
passed. Did the artist drop him from having made out that he
wouldn't do? He really felt just to-day that he might do better
than usual. Hadn't he done well enough, so far as that went, in
being exactly so dazzled? and in not having too, as he almost
believed, wholly hidden from his host that he felt the latter's
plummet? Suddenly, across the garden, he saw little Bilham
approach, and it was a part of the fit that was on him that as
their eyes met he guessed also HIS knowledge. If he had said to him
on the instant what was uppermost he would have said: "HAVE I
passed?—for of course I know one has to pass here." Little Bilham
would have reassured him, have told him that he exaggerated, and
have adduced happily enough the argument of little Bilham's own
very presence; which, in truth, he could see, was as easy a one as
Gloriani's own or as Chad's. He himself would perhaps then after a
while cease to be frightened, would get the point of view for some
of the faces—types tremendously alien, alien to Woollett—that he
had already begun to take in. Who were they all, the dispersed
groups and couples, the ladies even more unlike those of Woollett
than the gentlemen?—this was the enquiry that, when his young
friend had greeted him, he did find himself making.

"Oh they're every one—all sorts and sizes; of course I mean
within limits, though limits down perhaps rather more than limits
up. There are always artists—he's beautiful and inimitable to the
cher confrere; and then gros bonnets of many kinds—ambassadors,
cabinet ministers, bankers, generals, what do I know? even Jews.
Above all always some awfully nice women—and not too many;
sometimes an actress, an artist, a great performer—but only when
they're not monsters; and in particular the right femmes du monde.
You can fancy his history on that side—I believe it's fabulous:
they NEVER give him up. Yet he keeps them down: no one knows how he
manages; it's too beautiful and bland. Never too many—and a mighty
good thing too; just a perfect choice. But there are not in any way
many bores; it has always been so; he has some secret. It's
extraordinary. And you don't find it out. He's the same to every
one. He doesn't ask questions.'

"Ah doesn't he?" Strether laughed.

Bilham met it with all his candour. "How then should I be
here?

"Oh for what you tell me. You're part of the perfect
choice."

Well, the young man took in the scene. "It seems rather good
to-day."

Strether followed the direction of his eyes. "Are they all, this
time, femmes du monde?"

Little Bilham showed his competence. "Pretty well."

This was a category our friend had a feeling for; a light,
romantic and mysterious, on the feminine element, in which he
enjoyed for a little watching it. "Are there any Poles?"

His companion considered. "I think I make out a 'Portuguee.' But
I've seen Turks."

Strether wondered, desiring justice. "They seem—all the
women—very harmonious."

"Oh in closer quarters they come out!" And then, while Strether
was aware of fearing closer quarters, though giving himself again
to the harmonies, "Well," little Bilham went on, "it IS at the
worst rather good, you know. If you like it, you feel it, this way,
that shows you're not in the least out But you always know things,"
he handsomely added, "immediately."