The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
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It wasnât a question of her strange sense for tongues, with which she juggled as a conjuror at a show juggled with balls or hoops or lighted brandsâ âit wasnât at least entirely that, for he had known people almost as polyglot whom their accomplishment had quite failed to make interesting. He was polyglot himself, for that matterâ âas was the case too with so many of his friends and relations; for none of whom, more than for himself, was it anything but a common convenience. The point was that in this young woman it was a beauty in itself, and almost a mystery: so, certainly, he had more than once felt in noting, on her lips, that rarest, among the Barbarians, of all civil graces, a perfect felicity in the use of Italian. He had known strangersâ âa few, and mostly menâ âwho spoke his own language agreeably; but he had known neither man nor woman who showed for it Charlotteâs almost mystifying instinct. He remembered how, from the first of their acquaintance, she had made no display of it, quite as if English, between them, his English so matching with hers, were their inevitable medium. He had perceived all by accidentâ âby hearing her talk before him to somebody else that they had an alternative as good; an alternative in fact as much better as the amusement for him was greater in watching her for the slips that never came. Her account of the mystery didnât suffice: her recall of her birth in Florence and Florentine childhood; her parents, from the great country, but themselves already of a corrupt generation, demoralised, falsified, polyglot well before her, with the Tuscan balia who was her first remembrance; the servants of the villa, the dear contadini of the poder, the little girls and the other peasants of the next podere, all the rather shabby but still ever so pretty human furniture of her early time, including the good sisters of the poor convent of the Tuscan hills, the convent shabbier than almost anything else, but prettier too, in which she had been kept at school till the subsequent phase, the phase of the much grander institution in Paris at which Maggie was to arrive, terribly frightened, and as a smaller girl, three years before her own ending of her period of five. Such reminiscences, naturally, gave a ground, but they had not prevented him from insisting that some strictly civil ancestorâ âgenerations back, and from the Tuscan hills if she would-made himself felt, ineffaceably, in her blood and in her tone. She knew nothing of the ancestor, but she had taken his theory from him, gracefully enough, as one of the little presents that make friendship flourish. These matters, however, all melted together now, though a sense of them was doubtless concerned, not unnaturally, in the next thing, of the nature of a surmise, that his discretion let him articulate. âYou havenât, I rather gather, particularly liked your country?â They would stick, for the time, to their English.
âIt doesnât, I fear, seem particularly mine. And it doesnât in the least matter, over there, whether one likes it or notâ âthat is to anyone but oneâs self. But I didnât like it,â said Charlotte Stant.
âThatâs not encouraging then to me, is it?â the Prince went on.
âDo you mean because youâre going?â
âOh yes, of course weâre going. Iâve wanted immensely to go.â She hesitated. âBut now?â âimmediately?â
âIn a month or twoâ âit seems to be the new idea.â On which there was something in her faceâ âas he imaginedâ âthat made him say: âDidnât Maggie write to you?â
âNot of your going at once. But of course you must go. And of course you must stayââ âCharlotte was easily clearâ ââas long as possible.â
âIs that what you did?â he laughed. âYou stayed as long as possible?â
âWell, it seemed to me soâ âbut I hadnât âinterests.â Youâll have themâ âon a great scale. Itâs the country for interests,â said Charlotte. âIf I had only had a few I doubtless wouldnât have left it.â
He waited an instant; they were still on their feet. âYours then are rather here?â
âOh, mine!ââ âthe girl smiled. âThey take up little room, wherever they are.â
It determined in him, the way this came from her and what it somehow did for her-it determined in him a speech that would have seemed a few
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