The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
Book online «The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) đ». Author Henry James
âItâs all right, eh?â
âOh, my dearâ ârather!â
He had applied the question to the great fact of the picture, as she had spoken for the picture in reply, but it was as if their words for an instant afterwards symbolised another truth, so that they looked about at everything else to give them this extension. She had passed her arm into his, and the other objects in the room, the other pictures, the sofas, the chairs, the tables, the cabinets, the âimportantâ pieces, supreme in their way, stood out, round them, consciously, for recognition and applause. Their eyes moved together from piece to piece, taking in the whole noblenessâ âquite as if for him to measure the wisdom of old ideas. The two noble persons seated, in conversation, at tea, fell thus into the splendid effect and the general harmony: Mrs. Verver and the Prince fairly âplacedâ themselves, however unwittingly, as high expressions of the kind of human furniture required, esthetically, by such a scene. The fusion of their presence with the decorative elements, their contribution to the triumph of selection, was complete and admirable; though, to a lingering view, a view more penetrating than the occasion really demanded, they also might have figured as concrete attestations of a rare power of purchase. There was much indeed in the tone in which Adam Verver spoke again, and who shall say where his thought stopped? âLe compte y est. Youâve got some good things.â
Maggie met it afreshâ ââAh, donât they look well?â Their companions, at the sound of this, gave them, in a spacious intermission of slow talk, an attention, all of gravity, that was like an ampler submission to the general duty of magnificence; sitting as still, to be thus appraised, as a pair of effigies of the contemporary great on one of the platforms of Madame Tussaud. âIâm so gladâ âfor your last look.â
With which, after Maggieâ âquite in the airâ âhad said it, the note was struck indeed; the note of that strange accepted finality of relation, as from couple to couple, which almost escaped an awkwardness only by not attempting a gloss. Yes, this was the wonder, that the occasion defied insistence precisely because of the vast quantities with which it dealtâ âso that separation was on a scale beyond any compass of parting. To do such an hour justice would have been in some degree to question its groundsâ âwhich was why they remained, in fine, the four of them, in the upper air, united in the firmest abstention from pressure. There was no point, visibly, at which, face to face, either Amerigo or Charlotte had pressed; and how little she herself was in danger of doing so Maggie scarce needed to remember. That her father wouldnât, by the tip of a toeâ âof that she was equally conscious: the only thing was that, since he didnât, she could but hold her breath for what he would do instead. When, at the end of three minutes more, he had said, with an effect of suddenness, âWell, Magâ âand the Principino?â it was quite as if that were, by contrast, the hard, the truer voice.
She glanced at the clock. âI âorderedâ him for half-past fiveâ âwhich hasnât yet struck. Trust him, my dear, not to fail you!â
âOh, I donât want him to fail me!â was Mr. Ververâs reply; yet uttered in so explicitly jocose a relation to the possibilities of failure that even when, just afterwards, he wandered in his impatience to one of the long windows and passed out to the balcony, she asked herself but for a few seconds if reality, should she follow him, would overtake or meet her there. She followed him of necessityâ âit came, absolutely, so near to his inviting her, by stepping off into temporary detachment, to give the others something of the chance that she and her husband had so fantastically discussed. Beside him then, while they hung over the great dull place, clear and almost coloured now, coloured with the odd, sad, pictured, âold-fashionedâ look that empty London streets take on in waning afternoons of the summerâs end, she felt once more how impossible such a passage would have been to them, how it would have torn them to pieces, if they had so much as suffered its suppressed relations to peep out of their eyes. This danger would doubtless indeed have been more to be reckoned with if the instinct of eachâ âshe could certainly at least answer for her ownâ âhad not so successfully acted
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