The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) š
- Author: Henry James
Book online Ā«The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) šĀ». Author Henry James
They had no occasion thus, the conjoined worshippers, to talk of what the Prince might be or might do for his sonā āthe sum of service, in his absence, so completely filled itself out. It was not in the least, moreover, that there was doubt of him, for he was conspicuously addicted to the manipulation of the child, in the frank Italian way, at such moments as he judged discreet in respect to other claims: conspicuously, indeed, that is, for Maggie, who had more occasion, on the whole, to speak to her husband of the extravagance of her father than to speak to her father of the extravagance of her husband. Adam Verver had, all round, in this connection, his own serenity. He was sure of his son-in-lawās auxiliary admirationā āadmiration, he meant, of his grandson; since, to begin with, what else had been at work but the instinctā āor it might fairly have been the traditionā āof the latterās making the child so solidly beautiful as to have to be admired? What contributed most to harmony in this play of relations, however, was the way the young man seemed to leave it to be gathered that, tradition for tradition, the grandpapaās own was not, in any estimate, to go for nothing. A tradition, or whatever it was, that had flowered prelusively in the Princess herselfā āwell, Amerigoās very discretions were his way of taking account of it. His discriminations in respect to his heir were, in fine, not more angular than any others to be observed in him; and Mr. Verver received perhaps from no source so distinct an impression of being for him an odd and important phenomenon as he received from this impunity of appropriation, these unchallenged nursery hours. It was as if the grandpapaās special show of the character were but another side for the observer to study, another item for him to note. It came back, this latter personage knew, to his own previous perceptionā āthat of the Princeās inability, in any matter in which he was concerned, to conclude. The idiosyncrasy, for him, at each stage, had to be demonstratedā āon which, however, he admirably accepted it. This last was, after all, the point; he really worked, poor young man, for acceptance, since he worked so constantly for comprehension. And how, when you came to that, could you know that a horse wouldnāt shy at a brass-band, in a country road, because it didnāt shy at a traction-engine? It might have been brought up to traction-engines without having been brought up to brass-bands. Little by little, thus, from month to month, the Prince was learning what his wifeās father had been brought up to; and now it could be checked offā āhe had been brought, up to the romantic view of principini. Who would have thought it, and where would it all stop? The only fear somewhat sharp for Mr. Verver was a certain fear of disappointing him for strangeness. He felt that the evidence he offered, thus viewed, was too much on the positive side. He didnāt knowā āhe was learning, and it was funny for himā āto how many things he had been brought up. If the Prince could only strike something to which he hadnāt! This wouldnāt, it seemed to him, ruffle the smoothness, and yet might, a little, add to the interest.
What was now clear, at all events, for the father and the daughter, was their simply knowing they wanted, for the time, to be togetherā āat any cost, as it were; and their necessity so worked in them as to bear them out of the house, in a quarter hidden from that in which their friends were gathered, and cause them to wander, unseen, unfollowed, along a covered walk in the āoldā garden, as it was called, old with an antiquity of formal things, high box and shaped yew and expanses of brick wall that had turned at once
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