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
She helped him to hold out, all the while that she was subtle enoughâ âand he could see her divine it as what he wantedâ ânot to insist on the actuality of their tension. His nearest approach to success was thus in being good for something to Aunt Maud, in default of anyone better; her company eased his nerves even while they pretended together that they had seen their tragedy out. They spoke of the dying girl in the past tense; they said no worse of her than that she had been stupendous. On the other hand, howeverâ âand this was what wasnât for Densher pure peaceâ âthey insisted enough that stupendous was the word. It was the thing, this recognition, that kept him most quiet; he came to it with her repeatedly; talking about it against time and, in particular, we have noted, speaking of his supreme personal impression as he hadnât spoken to Kate. It was almost as if she herself enjoyed the perfection of the pathos; she sat there before the scene, as he couldnât help giving it out to her, very much as a stout citizenâs wife might have sat, during a play that made people cry, in the pit or the family-circle. What most deeply stirred her was the way the poor girl must have wanted to live.
âAh yes indeedâ âshe did, she did: why in pity shouldnât she, with everything to fill her world? The mere money of her, the darling, if it isnât too disgusting at such a time to mention thatâ â!â
Aunt Maud mentioned itâ âand Densher quite understoodâ âbut as fairly giving poetry to the life Milly clung to: a view of the âmight have beenâ before which the good lady was hushed anew to tears. She had had her own vision of these possibilities, and her own social use for them, and since Millyâs spirit had been after all so at one with her about them, what was the cruelty of the event but a cruelty, of a sort, to herself? That came out when he named, as the horrible thing to know, the fact of their young friendâs unapproachable terror of the end, keep it down though she would; coming out therefore often, since in so naming it he found the strangest of reliefs. He allowed it all its vividness, as if on the principle of his not at least spiritually shirking. Milly had held with passion to her dream of a future, and she was separated from it, not shrieking indeed, but grimly, awfully silent, as one might imagine some noble young victim of the scaffold, in the French Revolution, separated at the prison-door from some object clutched for resistance. Densher, in a cold moment, so pictured the case for Mrs. Lowder, but no moment cold enough had yet come to make him so picture it to Kate. And it was the front so presented that had been, in Milly, heroic; presented with the highest heroism, Aunt Maud by this time knew, on the occasion of his taking leave of her. He had let her know, absolutely for the girlâs glory, how he had been received on that occasion: with a positive effectâ âsince she was indeed so perfectly the princess that Mrs. Stringham always called herâ âof
Comments (0)