The American by Henry James (good inspirational books txt) đ
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She flushed a little, but even her flush was pale. âThat is because you think I will come back. But I will not come back. It is in that hope you have come here, I know; I am very sorry for you. I would do almost anything for you. To say that, after what I have done, seems simply impudent; but what can I say that will not seem impudent? To wrong you and apologizeâthat is easy enough. I should not have wronged you.â She stopped a moment, looking at him, and motioned him to let her go on. âI ought never to have listened to you at first; that was the wrong. No good could come of it. I felt it, and yet I listened; that was your fault. I liked you too much; I believed in you.â
âAnd donât you believe in me now?â
âMore than ever. But now it doesnât matter. I have given you up.â
Newman gave a powerful thump with his clenched fist upon his knee. âWhy, why, why?â he cried. âGive me a reasonâa decent reason. You are not a childâyou are not a minor, nor an idiot. You are not obliged to drop me because your mother told you to. Such a reason isnât worthy of you.â
âI know that; itâs not worthy of me. But itâs the only one I have to give. After all,â said Madame de CintrĂ©, throwing out her hands, âthink me an idiot and forget me! That will be the simplest way.â
Newman got up and walked away with a crushing sense that his cause was lost, and yet with an equal inability to give up fighting. He went to one of the great windows, and looked out at the stiffly embanked river and the formal gardens which lay beyond it. When he turned round, Madame de CintrĂ© had risen; she stood there silent and passive. âYou are not frank,â said Newman; âyou are not honest. Instead of saying that you are imbecile, you should say that other people are wicked. Your mother and your brother have been false and cruel; they have been so to me, and I am sure they have been so to you. Why do you try to shield them? Why do you sacrifice me to them? Iâm not false; Iâm not cruel. You donât know what you give up; I can tell you thatâyou donât. They bully you and plot about you; and IâIââAnd he paused, holding out his hands. She turned away and began to leave him. âYou told me the other day that you were afraid of your mother,â he said, following her. âWhat did you mean?â
Madame de CintrĂ© shook her head. âI remember; I was sorry afterwards.â
âYou were sorry when she came down and put on the thumbscrews. In Godâs name what is it she does to you?â
âNothing. Nothing that you can understand. And now that I have given you up, I must not complain of her to you.â
âThatâs no reasoning!â cried Newman. âComplain of her, on the contrary. Tell me all about it, frankly and trustfully, as you ought, and we will talk it over so satisfactorily that you wonât give me up.â
Madame de CintrĂ© looked down some moments, fixedly; and then, raising her eyes, she said, âOne good at least has come of this: I have made you judge me more fairly. You thought of me in a way that did me great honor; I donât know why you had taken it into your head. But it left me no loophole for escapeâno chance to be the common, weak creature I am. It was not my fault; I warned you from the first. But I ought to have warned you more. I ought to have convinced you that I was doomed to disappoint you. But I was, in a way, too proud. You see what my superiority amounts to, I hope!â she went on, raising her voice with a tremor which even then and there Newman thought beautiful. âI am too proud to be honest, I am not too proud to be faithless. I am timid and cold and selfish. I am afraid of being uncomfortable.â
âAnd you call marrying me uncomfortable!â said Newman staring.
Madame de CintrĂ© blushed a little and seemed to say that if begging his pardon in words was impudent, she might at least thus mutely express her perfect comprehension of his finding her conduct odious. âIt is not marrying you; it is doing all that would go with it. Itâs the rupture, the defiance, the insisting upon being happy in my own way. What right have I to be happy whenâwhenââAnd she paused.
âWhen what?â said Newman.
âWhen others have been most unhappy!â
âWhat others?â Newman asked. âWhat have you to do with any others but me? Besides you said just now that you wanted happiness, and that you should find it by obeying your mother. You contradict yourself.â
âYes, I contradict myself; that shows you that I am not even intelligent.â
âYou are laughing at me!â cried Newman. âYou are mocking me!â
She looked at him intently, and an observer might have said that she was asking herself whether she might not most quickly end their common pain by confessing that she was mocking him. âNo; I am not,â she presently said.
âGranting that you are not intelligent,â he went on, âthat you are weak, that you are common, that you are nothing that I have believed you wereâwhat I ask of you is not heroic effort, it is a very common effort. There is a great deal on my side to make it easy. The simple truth is that you donât care enough about me to make it.â
âI am cold,â said Madame de CintrĂ©, âI am as cold as that flowing river.â
Newman gave a great rap on the floor with his stick, and a long, grim laugh. âGood, good!â he cried. âYou go altogether too farâyou overshoot the mark. There isnât a woman in the world as bad as you would make yourself out. I see your game; itâs what I said. You are blackening yourself to whiten others. You donât want to give me up, at all; you like meâyou like me. I know you do; you have shown it, and I have felt it. After that, you may be as cold as you please! They have bullied you, I say; they have tortured you. Itâs an outrage, and I insist upon saving you from the extravagance of your own generosity. Would you chop off your hand if your mother requested it?â
Madame de CintrĂ© looked a little frightened. âI spoke of my mother too blindly, the other day. I am my own mistress, by law and by her approval. She can do nothing to me; she has done nothing. She has never alluded to those hard words I used about her.â
âShe has made you feel them, Iâll promise you!â said Newman.
âItâs my conscience that makes me feel them.â
âYour conscience seems to me to be rather mixed!â exclaimed Newman, passionately.
âIt has been in great trouble, but now it is very clear,â said Madame de CintrĂ©. âI donât give you up for any worldly advantage or for any worldly happiness.â
âOh, you donât give me up for Lord Deepmere, I know,â said Newman. âI wonât pretend, even to provoke you, that I think that. But thatâs what your mother and your brother wanted, and your mother, at that villainous ball of hersâI liked it at the time, but the very thought of it now makes me rabidâtried to push him on to make up to you.â
âWho told you this?â said Madame de CintrĂ© softly.
âNot Valentin. I observed it. I guessed it. I didnât know at the time that I was observing it, but it stuck in my memory. And afterwards, you recollect, I saw Lord Deepmere with you in the conservatory. You said then that you would tell me at another time what he had said to you.â
âThat was beforeâbefore this,â said Madame de CintrĂ©.
âIt doesnât matter,â said Newman; âand, besides, I think I know. Heâs an honest little Englishman. He came and told you what your mother was up toâthat she wanted him to supplant me; not being a commercial person. If he would make you an offer she would undertake to bring you over and give me the slip. Lord Deepmere isnât very intellectual, so she had to spell it out to him. He said he admired you âno end,â and that he wanted you to know it; but he didnât like being mixed up with that sort of underhand work, and he came to you and told tales. That was about the amount of it, wasnât it? And then you said you were perfectly happy.â
âI donât see why we should talk of Lord Deepmere,â said Madame de CintrĂ©. âIt was not for that you came here. And about my mother, it doesnât matter what you suspect and what you know. When once my mind has been made up, as it is now, I should not discuss these things. Discussing anything, now, is very idle. We must try and live each as we can. I believe you will be happy again; even, sometimes, when you think of me. When you do so, think thisâthat it was not easy, and that I did the best I could. I have things to reckon with that you donât know. I mean I have feelings. I must do as they force meâI must, I must. They would haunt me otherwise,â she cried, with vehemence; âthey would kill me!â
âI know what your feelings are: they are superstitions! They are the feeling that, after all, though I am a good fellow, I have been in business; the feeling that your motherâs looks are law and your brotherâs words are gospel; that you all hang together, and that itâs a part of the everlasting proprieties that they should have a hand in everything you do. It makes my blood boil. That is cold; you are right. And what I feel here,â and Newman struck his heart and became more poetical than he knew, âis a glowing fire!â
A spectator less preoccupied than Madame de CintrĂ©âs distracted wooer would have felt sure from the first that her appealing calm of manner was the result of violent effort, in spite of which the tide of agitation was rapidly rising. On these last words of Newmanâs it overflowed, though at first she spoke low, for fear of her voice betraying her. âNo. I was not rightâI am not cold! I believe that if I am doing what seems so bad, it is not mere weakness and falseness. Mr. Newman, itâs like a religion. I canât tell youâI canât! Itâs cruel of you to insist. I donât see why I shouldnât ask you to believe meâand pity me. Itâs like a religion. Thereâs a curse upon the house; I donât know whatâI donât know whyâdonât ask me. We must all bear it. I have been too selfish; I wanted to escape from it. You offered me a great chanceâbesides my liking you. It seemed good to change completely, to break, to go away. And then I admired you. But I canâtâit has overtaken and come back to me.â Her self-control had now completely abandoned her, and her words were broken with long sobs. âWhy do such dreadful things happen to usâwhy is my brother Valentin killed, like a beast in the midst of his youth and his gaiety and his brightness and all that we loved him for? Why are there things I canât ask aboutâthat I am afraid to know? Why are there places I canât look at, sounds I canât hear? Why is it given to me to choose, to decide, in a case so hard and so terrible as this? I am not meant for thatâI am not made for boldness and defiance. I was
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