The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
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He took it in. âBecause the fact itself is the woman?â
âA woman. Some woman or other. Itâs one of the things that have to be.â
âBut you mean then at least a good one.â
âA good woman?â She threw up her arms with a laugh. âI should call her excellent!â
âThen why does he deny her?â
Miss Gostrey thought a moment. âBecause sheâs too good to admit! Donât you see,â she went on, âhow she accounts for him?â
Strether clearly, more and more, did see; yet it made him also see other things. âBut isnât what we want that he shall account for her?â
âWell, he does. What you have before you is his way. You must forgive him if it isnât quite outspoken. In Paris such debts are tacit.â
Strether could imagine; but stillâ â! âEven when the womanâs good?â
Again she laughed out. âYes, and even when the man is! Thereâs always a caution in such cases,â she more seriously explainedâ ââfor what it may seem to show. Thereâs nothing thatâs taken as showing so much here as sudden unnatural goodness.â
âAh then youâre speaking now,â Strether said, âof people who are not nice.â
âI delight,â she replied, âin your classifications. But do you want me,â she asked, âto give you in the matter, on this ground, the wisest advice Iâm capable of? Donât consider her, donât judge her at all in herself. Consider her and judge her only in Chad.â
He had the courage at least of his companionâs logic. âBecause then I shall like her?â He almost looked, with his quick imagination as if he already did, though seeing at once also the full extent of how little it would suit his book. âBut is that what I came out for?â
She had to confess indeed that it wasnât. But there was something else. âDonât make up your mind. There are all sorts of things. You havenât seen him all.â
This on his side Strether recognised; but his acuteness none the less showed him the danger. âYes, but if the more I see the better he seems?â
Well, she found something. âThat may beâ âbut his disavowal of her isnât, all the same, pure consideration. Thereâs a hitch.â She made it out. âItâs the effort to sink her.â
Strether winced at the image. âTo âsinkââ â?â
âWell, I mean thereâs a struggle, and a part of it is just what he hides. Take timeâ âthatâs the only way not to make some mistake that youâll regret. Then youâll see. He does really want to shake her off.â
Our friend had by this time so got into the vision that he almost gasped. âAfter all she has done for him?â
Miss Gostrey gave him a look which broke the next moment into a wonderful smile. âHeâs not so good as you think!â
They remained with him, these words, promising him, in their character of warning, considerable help; but the support he tried to draw from them found itself on each renewal of contact with Chad defeated by something else. What could it be, this disconcerting force, he asked himself, but the sense, constantly renewed, that Chad wasâ âquite in fact insisted on beingâ âas good as he thought? It seemed somehow as if he couldnât but be as good from the moment he wasnât as bad. There was a succession of days at all events when contact with himâ âand in its immediate effect, as if it could produce no otherâ âelbowed out of Stretherâs consciousness everything but itself. Little Bilham once more pervaded the scene, but little Bilham became even in a higher degree than he had originally been one of the numerous forms of the inclusive relation; a consequence promoted, to our friendâs sense, by two or three incidents with which we have yet to make acquaintance. Waymarsh himself, for the occasion, was drawn into the eddy; it absolutely, though but temporarily, swallowed him down, and there were days when Strether seemed to bump against him as a sinking swimmer might brush a submarine object. The fathomless medium held themâ âChadâs manner was the fathomless medium; and our friend felt as if they passed each other, in their deep immersion, with the round impersonal eye of silent fish. It was practically produced between them that Waymarsh was giving him then his chance; and the shade of discomfort that Strether drew from the allowance resembled not a little the embarrassment he had known at school, as a boy, when members of his family had been present at exhibitions. He could perform before strangers, but relatives were fatal, and it was now as if, comparatively, Waymarsh were a relative. He seemed to hear him say âStrike up then!â and to enjoy a foretaste of conscientious domestic criticism. He had struck up, so far as he actually could; Chad knew by this time in profusion what he wanted; and what vulgar violence did his fellow pilgrim expect of him when he had really emptied his mind? It went somehow to and fro that what poor Waymarsh meant was âI told you soâ âthat youâd lose your immortal soul!â but it was also fairly explicit that Strether had his own challenge and that, since they must go to the bottom of things, he wasted no more virtue in watching Chad than Chad wasted in watching him. His dip for dutyâs sakeâ âwhere was it worse than Waymarshâs own? For he neednât have stopped resisting and refusing, neednât have parleyed, at that rate, with the foe.
The strolls over Paris to see something or call somewhere were accordingly inevitable and natural, and the late sessions in the wondrous troisiĂšme, the lovely home, when men dropped in and the picture composed more suggestively
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