The American (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907)/Chapter 8

by Henry James

VIII

"Look here—I want to know about your sister," the elder abruptly began.

His visitor arched fine eyebrows. "Now that I think of it you've never yet made her the subject of a question."

"Well, I guess I know why."

"If it's because you don't trust me, you're very right," said Valentin. "I can't talk of her rationally. I admire her too much."

"Talk of her as you can," Newman returned, "and if I don't like it I'll stop you."

"Well we're very good friends; such a brother and sister as have n't been known since Orestes and Electra. You've seen her enough to have taken her in: tall, slim, imposing, gentle, half a grande dame and half an angel; a mixture of 'type' and simplicity, of the eagle and the dove. She looks like a statue that has failed as cold stone, resigned itself to its defects and come to life as flesh and blood, to wear white capes and long soft trains. All I can say is that she really possesses every merit that the face she has, the eyes she has, the smile she has, the tone of voice she has, the whole way she has, lead you to expect; and is n't it saying quite enough? As a general thing when a woman seems from the first as right as that, she's altogether wrong—you've only to look out. But in proportion as you take Claire for right you may fold your arms and let yourself float with the current; you're safe. You'll only never imagine a person so true and so straight. She's so honest and so gentille. I've never seen a woman half so charming. She has every blessed thing a man wants and more; that's all I can say about her. There!" Valentin concluded: "I told you how much I should bore you."

Newman uttered no assurance that he was not bored; he only said after a little: "She's remarkably good, eh?"

"She 'd have invented goodness if it did n't exist."

"It seems to me," Newman remarked, "that you 'd have invented her—! But it's all right," he added—"I 'd have invented you! Is she clever?" he then asked.

"Try her with something you think so yourself. Then you'll see."

"Oh, how can I try her?" sighed Newman with a lapse. But he picked himself up. "Is she fond of admiration?"

"Pardieu! cried Valentin. "She 'd be no sister of mine if she were n't. What woman's not?"

"Well, when they're too fond of it," Newman heard himself hypocritically temporise, "they commit all kinds of follies to get it."

"I did n't say she was 'too' fond! Valentin exclaimed. "Heaven forbid I should say anything so idiotic. She's not too anything. If I were to say she's ugly I should n't mean she's too ugly. She's fond of pleasing, and if you're pleased she leaves it so. If you're not pleased she lets it pass, and thinks the worse neither of you nor of herself. I imagine, though, she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I'm sure she's incapable of trying to please by any means of which they 'd disapprove."

"Is she happy then?" Newman presently pursued.

"Oh, oh, oh! That's much to ask."

"Do you mean for me—?"

"I mean for her. What should she be happy about?"

Newman wondered. "Then she has troubles?"

"My dear man, she has what we all have—even you, strange to say. She has a history."

"That's just what I want to hear," said Newman.

Valentin hesitated—an embarrassment rare with him. Then we shall have to appoint a special séance, with music or refreshments or a turn outside between the acts. Suffice it for the present that my sister's situation has been far from folichonne. She made, at eighteen, a marriage that was expected to be brilliant, but that, like a lamp that goes out, turned all to smoke and bad smell. M. de Cintré was fifty-five years old and pas du tout aimable. He lived, however, but three or four years, and after his death his family pounced upon his money, brought a lawsuit against his widow, pushed things very hard. Their case was good, for M. de Cintré, who had been trustee for some of his relatives, appeared to have been guilty of some very irregular practices. In the course of the suit some revelations were made as to his private history which my sister found so little to her taste that she ceased to defend herself and washed her hands of all her interests. This required some strength of conviction, for she was between two fires, her husband's family opposing her and her own family denouncing. My mother and my brother wished her to cleave to what they regarded as her rights. But she resisted firmly and at last bought her freedom—obtained my mother's assent to her compromising the suit at the price of a promise."

"What was the promise?"

"To do anything else whatever, for the next ten years, that might be asked of her—anything, that is, but marry."

"She had disliked her husband very much?"

"No one knows how much!"

"The marriage had been made in your vicious French way," Newman continued-by the two families and without her having a voice?"

"It was a first act for a melodrama. She saw M. de Cintré for the first time a month before the wedding, after everything, to the minutest detail, had been arranged. She turned white when she looked at him and white she remained—I shall never forget her face—till her wedding-day. The evening before the ceremony her nerves completely gave way and she spent the whole night in sobs. My mother sat holding her two hands and my brother walked up and down the room. I declared it was revolting and told my sister publicly that if she would really hold out I would stand by her against all comers. I was sent about my business and she became Comtesse de Cintré."

"Your brother," said Newman reflectively, "must be a very nice young man."

"He's very nice, though he's not very young. He's now upwards of fifty; fifteen years my senior. He has been a father to my sister and me. He's a type apart; he has the best manners in France. He's extremely clever; indeed he's full of accomplishment. He's writing a history of The Unmarried Princesses of the Maison de France." This was said by Valentin with extreme gravity, in a tone that betokened no mental reservation—or that at least almost betokened none.

Our friend perhaps discovered there what little there was, for he presently said: You could struggle along without your brother."

"I beg your pardon"-the young man still as gravely protested. "A house like ours is inevitably one."

"Then you want some one to come right in and break it up."

"Hein?" said Valentin.

On which Newman, after an instant, put the matter another way. "Well, I'm glad I'm free not to like him!"

"Wait till you know him!" Valentin returned—and this time he smiled.

"Is your mother also then a type apart?" his friend asked after a pause.

"For my mother," the young man said, now with intense gravity, "I have the highest admiration. She's a very extraordinary person. You can't approach her without feeling it."

"She's the daughter, I believe, of an English nobleman?"

"Of Lord Saint Dunstans."

"And was he very grand?"

"Not as grand as we. They date only from the sixteenth century. It is on my father's side that we go back—back, back, back. The family antiquaries themselves lose breath. At last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth century, under Charlemagne. That's where we begin."

"There is no mistake about it?" Newman demanded.

"I'm sure I hope not. We've been mistaken at least for several centuries."

"And you've always married into—what do you call them?—'ancient houses'?"

"As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time there have been some exceptions. Three or four Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, took wives out of the bourgeoisie—accepted lawyers' daughters."

"A lawyer's daughter—that's a come-down?" Newman went on.

"A condescension. But one of us, in the Middle Ages, did better: he married a beggar-maid, like King Cophetua. That was really more convenient; it was like pairing with a bird or a monkey; one did n't have to think about her family at all. Our women have always done well; they've never even gone into the petite noblesse. There is, I believe, not a case on record of a misalliance among ces dames."

Newman turned this over a while and then at last: "You offered, the first time you came to see me, to render me any service you could. I told you I 'd sometime mention something you might do. Do you remember?"

"Remember? I've been counting the hours."

"Very well; here's your chance. Do what you can to make your sister think well of me."

The young man had a strange bright stare. "Why, I'm sure she thinks as well of you as possible already."

"An opinion founded on seeing me three or four times? That's putting me off with very little. I want something more. I've been thinking of it a good deal and at last I've decided to tell you. I should like very much to marry Madame de Cintré."

Valentin had been looking at him with quickened expectancy and with the smile with which he had greeted his allusion to the promised request. At this last announcement he kept his eyes on him, but their expression went through two or three curious phases. It felt, apparently, an impulse to let itself go further; but this it immediately checked. Then it remained for some instants taking counsel with the danger of hilarity—at the end of which it decreed a retreat. It slowly effaced itself and left a sobriety modified by the desire not to be rude. Extreme surprise had in fine come into M. de Bellegarde's face; but he had reflected that it would be uncivil to leave it there. And yet what the deuce was he to do with it? He got up in his agitation and stood before the chimney-piece, still looking at his host. He was a longer time thinking what to say than one would have expected.

"If you can't render me the service I ask," Newman pursued, "don't be afraid to tell me, for I'll be hanged if I won't get on without you."

"Let me hear it again distinctly, the service you ask. It's very important, you know," Valentin went on. "I'm to plead your cause with my sister because you want—you want to marry her? That's it, eh?"

"Oh, I don't say plead my cause exactly; I shall try and do that myself. But say a good word for me now and then—let her know at least what you take me for."

This was, visibly, for the young man, a droll simplification. "I shall have first, my dear fellow, to know myself!"

But Newman went on unheeding. "What I want chiefly, after all, is just to make you aware of what I have in mind. I suppose that's what you all expect, making you formally aware, is n't it? I want always to do, over here, what's customary, what you've been used to. You seem more lost without what you've been used to than we are. If there's anything particular to be done let me know and I'll make it right. I would n't for the world approach Madame de Cintré save by schedule. I 'd go in to her on all-fours if that's what's required. If I ought to speak to your mother first why I 'll speak to her. If I ought to speak even to your brother I'll speak to him. I'll speak to any one you like, to the porter in his lodge or the policeman on his beat. As I don't know any one else I begin by speaking to you. But that, if it's a social obligation, is a pleasure as well."

"Yes, I see—I see," said Valentin, lightly stroking his chin. You've a very right feeling about it, but I'm glad you've begun with me." He paused, hesitated, and then turned away and walked slowly the length of the room. Newman got up and stood leaning against the chimney with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on his friend's evolution. This personage came back and stopped in front of him. "I give it up. I'll not pretend I'm not—well, impressed. I am—hugely! Ouf! It's a relief."

"That sort of news is always a surprise," said Newman. "No matter what you've done, people are never prepared. But if you're impressed I hope at least you're impressed favourably."

"Come!" the young man broke out; "I'm going to let you have it. I don't know whether it lays me flat or makes me soar."

"Well, if it corners you too much I'm afraid you've got to stay there, for I assure you I mean myself to fight out in the open."

"My dear man, Samson was in the open when he pulled down the temple, but there was n't much left of any one else." To which Valentin added: "You're perfectly serious?"

"Am I a futile Frenchman that I should n't be?" Newman asked. "But why is it, by the by—come to talk—that you are prostrated?"

The Count raised his hand to the back of his head and rubbed his hair quickly up and down, thrusting out the tip of his tongue as he did so. "Well, for instance you're not, as we call it, if I'm not mistaken, 'born.'"

"The devil I'm not!" Newman exclaimed.

"Oh," said his friend a little more seriously, "I did n't know you had—well, your quarterings."

"Ah, your quarterings are your little local matter!"

Valentin just hesitated. "But aren't we all—is n't my admirable sister in particular—our little local matter?"

Newman met his eyes with a long, hard look exhaling at last, however, a sigh as long. "Do you mean that I must claim a social standing and hang out my sign? What sort of swagger's that? If it's a question of pretensions—pretensions, that is, to effectively existing—let me make, to meet you on your own ground, the very highest. Only it is n't, it seems to me, for me vulgarly to make them; it's for you, assuming them, to invalidate them. On you, in other words, the burden of disproof."

Valentin's fine smile suffered a further strain. "Have n't you manufactured and placed in the market certain admirable wash-tubs?"

"With great temporary success. But it is n't a question of my achievements—it's a question of my failures. You might catch me," said our friend, "on two or three of those. Only then, you know," he added, "I should have the right to ask you about yours."

"Oh, ours have partaken of our general brilliancy! They have n't at any rate prevented the great thing."

"And what do you call the great thing?"

"Well," Valentin smiled, "our being interesting."

Newman considered. "To yourselves?"

"To the world. That has been our value—that we've had the world's attention. We've been felt to be worth it."

"Oh," said Newman, "if it's but a question of what you're worth—!" He hung fire an instant, and then, "Should you like to know what I am?" he demanded.

He had held his companion by his pause, and his words prolonged a little the situation. "No, thanks," Valentin then replied. "It's none of my business. It's enough for me that you're worth, delightfully, my acquaintance and my wonder."

In recognition of these last words Newman for a moment said nothing. He only coloured as with a flush of hope. Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling and stood looking at one of the rosy cherubs painted on it. "Of course I don't expect to marry any woman for the asking," he observed at last: "I expect first to make myself acceptable to her. She must like me to begin with. But what I feel is how she must—from the moment she knows me as I want."

"As the prince of husbands?"

"Well yes—call it the prince, as you speak of such people."

"I believe," said Valentin after a moment, "that you 'd be as good a prince as another."

"I should be as good a husband."

"And that's what you want me to tell my sister?"

"That's what I want you to tell her."

The young man laid his hand on his companion's arm, looked at him critically, from head to foot, and then, with a loud laugh and shaking the other hand in the air, turned away. He walked again the length of the room and again he came back and stationed himself in front of Newman. "All this is very interesting and very curious. In what I said just now I was speaking not for myself, but for my traditions and my superstitions. For myself really your idea stirs me up. It startled me at first, but the more I think of it the more I see in it. It's no use attempting to explain anything; you would n't, I think, follow me. After all, I don't see why you need; it's no great loss."

"Oh, if there's anything more to explain try me with it. I guess I've had to understand some queerer things than any you're likely to tell."

"No," said Valentin, "we'll do without them; we'll let them go. I took you for somebody—God knows whom or what—the first time I saw you, and I 'll abide by that. It would be quite odious for me to come talking to you as if I could patronise you. I've told you before that I envy you; vous m'imposez, as we say—I did n't know you much till these last five minutes. So we'll let things go, and I'll say nothing to you that, with our positions reversed, you would n't say to me."

I know not whether in renouncing the mysterious opportunity to which he alluded Valentin felt himself do something very generous. If so he was not rewarded; his generosity was not appreciated. Newman failed to recognise any power to disconcert or to wound him, and he had now no sense of coming off easily. He had not at his command the gratitude even of a glance; and he was in truth occupied with a particular fear, which he presently expressed. "Do you think she may be by chance determined not to marry at all?"

"Oh, I quite think it! But that's not necessarily too much against you. Such a determination never yet spoiled a right opportunity."

"But suppose I don't seem a right one. I'm afraid it will be hard," Newman said with a gravity that appeared to signify at the same time a sort of lucid respect for the fact.

"I don't think it will be easy. In a general way I don't see why a widow should ever marry again. She has gained the benefits of matrimony—freedom and consideration—and she has got rid of the drawbacks. Why should she put her head back into the noose? Her usual motive is ambition—if a man can offer her a great position, make her a princess or an ambassadress."

"And—in that way—is Madame de Cintré ambitious?"

"Who knows?" her brother asked with slightly depressing detachment. "I don't pretend to say all she is or all she is n't. I think she might be touched by the prospect of becoming the wife of a great man. But in a certain way, I believe, whatever she does will be the improbable. Don't be too confident, but don't absolutely doubt. Your best chance for success will be precisely in affecting her as unusual, unexpected, original. Don't try to be any one else; be simply yourself as hard as ever you can, and harder perhaps indeed (if you understand) than you've ever been before. Something or other can't fail to come of that. I'm very curious to see what."

I'm much obliged to you for your curiosity," Newman said—"if I may take it as your advice. I'm glad for your sake at least that I'm likely to prove so amusing."

His friend, who had been staring at the fire a minute, looked up. "It's a pity you don't fully understand me, that you don't know just what I'm doing."

"Oh," laughed Newman, "don't do anything wrong! Leave me to myself rather, or defy me out and out to try it. I would n't lay any load on your conscience."

Valentin sprang up again, evidently quite inflamed. "You 'll never understand—you'll never know; and if you succeed and I turn out to have helped you you 'll never be grateful, not as I shall deserve you should be. You 'll be an excellent fellow always, but you 'll not be grateful. But it does n't matter, for I shall get my own fun out of it." And he broke into an extravagant laugh. "You look worried," he added; "you look almost alarmed."

"It's a pity," said Newman, "that I don't wholly catch on. I shall lose some very good sport."

"I told you, you remember, that we're very strange people," his visitor pursued. "Well, I give you warning again. We're fit for a museum or a Balzac novel. My mother's strange, my brother's strange, and I verily believe I'm stranger than either. You'll even find my sister a little strange. Old trees have crooked branches, old houses have queer cracks, old races have odd secrets. Remember that we're eight hundred years old!"

"Very good," said Newman; "that's the sort of thing I came to Europe for. You're made for me to work right in."

"Touchez-là then," Bellegarde returned, putting out his hand. "It's a bargain; I accept you, I espouse your cause. It's because I like you, in a great measure; but that's not the only reason." And he stood holding Newman's hand and looking at him askance.

"What's the other one?"

"Well, I'm in the Opposition. I've a positive aversion—!"

"To your brother?" asked Newman in his unmodulated voice.

Valentin laid a finger on his lips with a whispered hush! "Old races have strange secrets! Put yourself into motion. Come and see my sister and be assured of my sympathy!" With which he took leave while his host dropped into a chair before the fire. Newman stared long and late into the blaze.