The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ
- Author: Henry James
Book online «The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ». Author Henry James
Kate had found on the present occasion a moment to say to him that he suggested a clever cousin calling on a cousin afflicted, and bored for his pains; and though he denied on the spot the âboredâ he could so far see it as an impression he might make that he wondered if the same image wouldnât have occurred to Milly. As soon as Kate appeared again the difference came upâ âthe oddity, as he then instantly felt it, of his having sunk so deep. It was sinking because it was all doing what Kate had conceived for him; it wasnât in the least doingâ âand that had been his notion of his lifeâ âanything he himself had conceived. The difference, accordingly, renewed, sharp, sore, was the irritant under which he had quitted the palace and under which he was to make the best of the business of again dining there. He said to himself that he must make the best of everything; that was in his mind, at the traghetto, even while, with his preoccupation about changing quarters, he studied, across the canal, the look of his former abode. It had done for the past, would it do for the present? would it play in any manner into the general necessity of which he was conscious? That necessity of making the best was the instinctâ âas he indeed himself knewâ âof a man somehow aware that if he let go at one place he should let go everywhere. If he took off his hand, the hand that at least helped to hold it together, the whole queer fabric that built him in would fall away in a minute and admit the light. It was really a matter of nerves; it was exactly because he was nervous that he could go straight; yet if that condition should increase he must surely go wild. He was walking in short on a high ridge, steep down on either side, where the proprietiesâ âonce he could face at all remaining thereâ âreduced themselves to his keeping his head. It was Kate who had so perched him, and there came up for him at moments, as he found himself planting one foot exactly before another, a sensible sharpness of irony as to her management of him. It wasnât that she had put him in dangerâ âto be in real danger with her would have had another quality. There glowed for him in fact a kind of rage at what he wasnât having; an exasperation, a resentment, begotten truly by the very impatience of desire, in respect to his postponed and relegated, his so extremely manipulated state. It was beautifully done of her, but what was the real meaning of it unless that he was perpetually bent to her will? His idea from the first, from the very first of his knowing her, had been to be, as the French called it, bon prince with her, mindful of the good humour and generosity, the contempt, in the matter of confidence, for small outlays and small savings, that belonged to the man who wasnât generally afraid. There were things enough, goodness knewâ âfor it was the moral of his plightâ âthat he couldnât afford; but what had had a charm for him if not the
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