Roderick Hudson

session, of intellectual nearness, which it belongs to the peculiar magic of the ancient city to infuse into minds of a cast that she never would have produced

ws to believe that there is nothing in one's consciousness that is not foredoomed to moulder and crumble and become dust for the feet, and possible malaria for the lungs, of future generations-the fact at least remains that one parts half-willingly with one's hopes in Rome, and misses them only under some very exceptional stress of circumstance. For this reason one may perhaps say that there is no other place in which one's daily temper has such a mellow serenity, and none, at the same time, in which acute attacks of depression are more intolerable. Rowland found, in fact, a perfect response to his prevision that to live in Rome was an education to one's senses and one's imagination, but he sometimes wondered whether this was not a questionable gain in case of one's not being prepared to live wholly by one's imagination and one's senses. The tranquil profundity of his daily satisfaction seemed sometimes to turn, by a mysterious inward impulse, and face itself with que

red to his companion that he meant to live and die within the shadow of Saint Peter's, and that he cared little if he never again drew breath in American air. "For a man

, smiling. "It seems to me you have an excell

d for!" And he gave a little sympathetic sigh. "To reconcile Northampton and Rome is rather a problem. Mary had better come out here. Eve

ardly leave your moth

will brighten her up. It 's too small a life, over there, even for a timid old lady. It is hard to imagine," he added, "any change in Mary being a change for the be

land to come," Rowland suggested, "yo

ould quite break the charm. I am just beginning to profit, to get used to things and take

on of sentiment, in all cases so mysterious, was particularly so in this one. Just why it was that Roderick should not logically have fancied Miss Garland, his companion would have been at loss to say, but I think the conviction had its roots in an unformulated comparison between himself and the accepted suitor. Roderick and he were as different as two men could be, and yet Roderick had taken it into his head to fall in love with a woman for whom he himself had been keeping in reserve, for years, a profoundly characteristic passion. That if he chose to conceive a great notion of the merits of Roderick's mistress, the irregularity here was hardly Roderick's, was a view of the case to which poor Rowland did scanty justice. There were women, he said to himself, whom it was every one's business to fall in love with a little-women beautiful, brilliant, artful, easily fascinating. Miss Light, for instance, was one of these; every man who spoke to her did so, if not in the language, at least with something of the agitation, the divine tremor, of a lover. There were other women-they might have great beauty, they might have small; perhaps they were generally to be classified as plain-whose triumphs in this line were rare, but immutably permanent. Such a one preeminently, was Mary Garland. Upon the doctrine of probabil

d to take place in Mrs. Light's apartment, the studio being pronounced too damp for the fair model. When Rowland presented himself, Christina, still in her white dress, with her shoulders bare, was standing before a mirror, readjusting her hair, the arrangement of which, on this occasion, had apparently not met the young sculptor's appr

being led to martyrdom. Rowland's eyes presumably betrayed his admiration, but her own manifested no consciousness of it. If

d Rowland, with warmth. "Bu

istina. "I am having quite enough of

ight, coming forward and seizing her daughte

er been in the East, but if he had attempted to make a sketch of an old slave-merchant, calling attention to the "points" of a Circassian beauty, he would have depicted such a smile as Mrs. Light's. "Mamma 's

t of you!" And with half a dozen skillful passes she twisted the tresses in

do you justice?" Rowland asked, observing

improper things. What is one to do with suc

ed it the first time I saw you. I think it 's because your face is so broad. For some reason or other, broad faces exasperate me; they fill me with a kind of rabbia. Last summer, at Carlsbad, there was an Austrian count, with enormous estates and some great office at court. He was very attentive-seriously so; he was really very

land, with a smile, "seems just now to

I may speak freely; they are disinterested. Mr. Mallet won't do, because, though he 's rich, he 's not rich enough. Mamma made that discovery the day afte

a beggar,"

eflection, that on the whole you have enough. Mr. Hudson, of cour

of this surprising nonsense. When she had finished, she turned and looked at him; their eyes me

coiffure. "She is not so silly as you might suppose," she said to Rowland, w

y girl?" Christina demanded

ortrait to the original. "It represents a young lady,"

y thanks! You have seen me half a dozen times

nd. "I don't expect to make up my

e then a perfectly frank opinion. Mind, I

I am tolerably brave," sa

dom in it save what the artist has put there. Mr. Hudson looked particularly wise while he was working; he s

u," said Roderick, roundly, "the thin

let is a famous connoisseur; ha

omen, in modern sculpture, are apt to be. The resemblance was deep and vivid; there was extreme fidelity of detail and yet a noble simplicity. One could say of the head that, without idealization, it was a r

ded Mrs. Light, with soft reproachful

g. "I can tell that by his face. The other day I finished some

allet look?" a

speaking of my seated woman. You looked

that!" cried Mrs. Light. "You never

that you could not have introduced my feet into the bu

Rowland rejoined, "better than your jokes. Thi

for the permission," r

arble, with a red velvet scree

you have not a grain of property in your work, and that if mamma chooses, she may have it photographed and

ominated in the bond. My profits ar

you said here!" And Chr

how you do run on!"

ord of sense so long as he is in the room. I don't say that to

at they should adjourn to her boudoir. This was a small room, hardly more spacious than an alcove, opening out of the drawing-room and having no other issue. Here

st!" said Rowland w

s on the point of calling him, in the same tone, when he suddenly op

he said, "I was overcome

we are perishing here with the cold! You had bett

with himself for pleasing her; he confounded his fatal urbanity. In the court-yard of the palace he overtook the Cavaliere, who had stopped at the porter's lodge to say a word to his little girl. She was a young lady of very tender years and she wore a very dirty pinafore. He had taken her up in his arms and was singing an infanti

"to come and see me. Don't forget it. I wan

ppen! But happy things too, since I have your renewed permission to call. You do me

re; only come, sometime. I d

too, he felt that he was, in Roman phrase, sympathetic, but the idea o

lity of his good-humor he suffered Rowland to see that she was just now the object uppermost in his thoughts. Rowland, when they talked of her, was rather listener than speaker; partly because Roderick's own tone was so resonant and exultant, and partly because, when his companion laughed at him for having called her unsafe, he was too perplexed to defend himself. The impression remained that she

adth that is not admirably finished. And then her mouth! It 's as if a pair of lips had been shaped to utter pure truth without doing it dishonor!" Later, after he had been working for a week, he declared if Miss Light were inordinately plain, she woul

s she say, that is so rema

ore. She hardly looks at me, and she walks away without even glancing at my work. On other days she laughs and chatters and asks endless questions, and pours out the most irresistible non

rriageable maidenhood, the charm of shrinking innocence and soft docility. Our American girls are accused of being more knowing than any others, and Miss Light is nominally an American.

e," said Roderick, in the

land answered, "should be ca

or hitting you so hard! A man ought to be flattered

attered at a woman

edit of your humility. A fellow of more vanity might,

ick thought of Miss Garland. He wondered gloomily, at any rate, whether for men of his companion's large, easy power, there was not a larger moral law than for narrow mediocrities like himself, who, yielding Nature a meagre interest on her investment (such as it was), had no reason to expect from her this affectionate laxity as to their accounts. Wa

ught not to have squandered such material on a simple bust; you should have made a great imaginative figure. If I could only have got hold of her, I would have put her into a statue in spite of herself. What a pity she is not a ragged Trasteverine, whom we might have for a franc an hour! I have been

subject?" as

know I 'm the very deuce for observatio

ttitude before his patient little devotee was one of undisguised though friendly amusement; and, indeed, judged from a strictly plastic point of view, the poor fellow's diminutive stature, his enormous mouth, his pimples and his yellow hair were sufficiently ridiculous. "Nay, don't envy our friend,

levernesses are like half-ripened plums, only good eating on the side that has had a glimpse of the sun. Nature has made him so, and fortune confesses to it! He is the handsomest fellow

t too flattering a description of his gracefully passive tolerance of her presence. He had never liked her and never

oral shut Within th

how, to have more room in it than was occupied by a smile of superior benevolence, so that (with his smooth, white forehead) it bore a certain resemblance to a large parlor with a very florid carpet, but no pictures on the walls. He held his head high, talked sonorously, and told Roderick, within five minutes, that he was a widower, traveling to distract his mind, and that he had lately retired from the proprietorship of l

by the memorials of my wanderings, I hope to take more cheerful views. I ordered in Paris the complete appurtenances of a dining-room. Do you think you could do something for my library? It is to be filled with well-selected authors, and I think a pure white image in this style,"-pointi

t for a truly serious mind

" he said, "would be to make a full-length portrait of Miss Blanchard. I

ck's genius. Mr. Leavenworth responded that with all deference to Miss Blanchard's beauty, he desired something colder, more monumental, more im

le they were discussing it, Rowland had a little talk

of his own fortune-which is magnif

me, by this time, Miss Blanchard had an opinion on the young girl's beauty, and, in her own fashion, s

patron's conception. "His conception be hanged!" Roderick exclaimed, after he had departed. "His conception is sitting on a globe

w I am told that the cards of Roman princesses are to be seen on her table. She is evidently determined to play a great part, and she has the wit to perceive that, to make remunerative acquaintances, you must seem yourself to be worth knowing. You must have striking rooms and a confusing variety

charmed," said Rowland. "Miss Christ

yes. She cried, herself, profusely, and as naturally as possible. She said she was weary of life and that she knew no one but me she could speak frankly to. She must speak, or she would go mad. She sobbed as if her heart would break. I assure you it 's well for you susceptible young men that you don't see her when she sobs. She said, in so many words, that her mother was an immoral woman. Heaven knows what she meant. S

you say

her to reappear, on the same errand, and meanwhile to quite forget my existence. I believe I melted down to the point of telling her that I would find some good, quiet, affectionate husband for her; but she declared, almost with fury, that she was sick unto death of husbands, and begged I would never again mention the word. And, in fact, it was a r

ina's face told no tales, and she moved about, beautiful and silent, looking absently over people's heads, barely heeding the men who pressed about her, and suggesting somehow that the soul of a world-wearied mortal had found its way into the blooming body of a goddess. "Where in the world has Miss Lig

e in general smiled at the radiant good faith of the handsome young sculptor, and asked each other whether he really supposed that beauties of that quality were meant to wed with poor artists. But although Christina's deportment, as I have said, was one of superb inexpressiveness, Rowland had derived from Roderick no suspicion that he suffered from snubbing, and he was therefore surprised at an incident which befell one evening at a large musical party. Roderick, as usual, was in the field, and, on the ladies taking the chai

me a favor?

hous

not in a New England village-that it is not the custom in Rome to address one's

er voice. She made a gesture of impatience, and Rowl

nto joyous laughter. "She 's a delightfully strange girl!"

you before not to t

resome So-and-so.' She cares as little about the custom as I do. What could be a better proof than her

hould she tak

enough for her. I have imagined she wishes me well, as they say

tiny. Her daughter was less overtly jubilant, and distributed her greetings with impartial frigidity. She had never been so beautiful. Dressed simply in vaporous white, relieved with half a dozen white roses, the perfection of her features and of her person and the mysterious depth of her expression seemed to glow with the white light of a splendid pearl. She recognized no one individually, and made her courtesy slowly, gravely, with her eyes on the ground. Rowland fancied that, as he stood before her, her obeisance was slightly exaggerated, as with an intention of irony; but he smiled philosophically to himself, and reflected, as he passed into the room, that, if she disliked him, he had not

e," he explained, "and that is a duty to which on

ery devoted friend. Mrs. Light, in her

years ago, when she was the prettiest woman in Rome-or rather in Ancona, which is even

ely," sai

half expected him to proceed, with a little flash of long-repressed passion, "And now-and now, sir, they treat me as you observed the other day!" But the Cavaliere only loo

allow, and Rowland repeated respec

ted friend. A man may do himsel

me remark about the beauty of t

s fingers and held up his hand triumphantly. "And there she stands, the girl to whom I-I, Giuseppe Giacosa-taught her alphabet and her piano-scales;

dly of him," said

al, signore. The Christina is a good girl; she remembers my little services. But here comes," h

out him his usual luminous, unshrinking looks. He presently joined them, nodded fa

ght," said Rowland.

Roderick; so loud that se

on his arm. Roderick was trembling. "If you will go

k, almost angrily. "I in

ly laid his hand on his other arm. "Softly, softly, dear

and I shall not mind it,"

onable, then,

uce should

e in love," sai

be in love here a

sible from Christina. She will

not a person of whom you may say that. She

ieve that if you continue to love Miss Light you will be very unhappy. Have you

and addressing the Cavaliere, "I 'm much obliged to you for the information," he said. "Now that I have obtained it, let me tell you that I am no more in love with Miss Light than you are. Mr. Mallet knows that. I admire her-ye

ch the better. But let me entreat you, as an affectionate friend, to keep a watch on your emotions. You are young, you are

usive negation of an inspiring possibility. "You speak as if she had made her choice!" he cr

d raising his forefinger, he laid it against his under

! She will marry the man who pleases her, if he

ched her, day by day, for twenty years. I too have admired her. She is a good girl; she has never said an unkind word to me; the blessed Virgin be thanke

aid Roderick, wit

the Cavaliere added. "I have no wish to provoke you to attem

n who in an hour or so is to dan

on? has she

ure might almost have been taken to mean that the state of his relations

aggerated shrug. "You ma

hoped, silently, with some dryness, that his motives were of a finer kind than they seemed to be. He turned away; it was irritating to look at Roderick's radiant, unscrupulous eagerness. The tide was setting toward the supper-room and he drifted with it to the door. The crowd at this point was dense, and he was obliged to wait for some minutes before he could advance. At last he felt his neighbors

orner you can find," she then said, "an

e seems to be every

re, on your peril. Only br

ever design she might have contrived against his equanimity. A roll, after he had found her a seat, was easily procured. As he presented it, he remarked tha

ple here whom I dislike more, that when I espied you just now, you seemed like an intimate friend. But

e," said Rowland, deliberately, having

myself; I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet. If a person wished to do me a favor I would say to him, 'I beg you, with tears in my eyes, to interest me. Be strong, be positive, be imperious, if you will

stand," said Rowland, "why a pers

old you the other day that you displeased me, I had an idea you were more formal,

uinde," said Ro

you would make a useful friend-an intimate friend-a friend to whom

y candid; but then, if candor was beautiful, beauty was apt to be subtle. "I hesitate to recommend myself out and out for the offi

d is to judge one not by isolated acts, but by one's wh

fess," said Rowl

s affair?" she continued,

Why, it 's a ve

to invite any one they knew, doing anything to have a crowd. I hope she is satisfied! It is not my doing. I feel weary, I feel angry, I feel like crying. I have twenty minds to escape into

the disconnectedn

to ask. We can buy no books. We can make debts for jewelry and bonnets and five-button gloves, but

e books," Rowland said. "I will pick s

ies for myself than any I read. Some good poetry, if there is such

ved. Your taste a

en suddenly-"Tell me something about Mr. Hu

Rowland; "we ar

out him. Co

egin? You know h

inished my bust and begun to come here disinterestedly, he has become a

f us d

me you discovered him." Rowland was silent, and Ch

estio

lly something out

seems

he 's a man

all it

ittle village and took him by the ha

opular legend?

common, and if I had discovered one in the wilderness, I would have brought him out into the market-place to see how he would behave. It would be excessively am

esy, but I hav

emely flattered to have a man of genius perpetually hanging about? He is the first I ever saw, but I should have known he was not a common mortal. There is something strange about him. To begin with, he has no manners. You may say that it 's not for me to blame him, for I have none myself. That 's very true, but the difference is that I can have them when I wish to (and very charming ones too;

in a moment if she would have another rol

found him. Where

on. Did you ever hear of it? He was

was something

ing hor

No society, no pleasur

Northampton is not as gay as Rome, bu

ut them. Who

through whom I made his acqu

g-pre

eal of both. A

make lov

n the

, who

s mother. She is

mother is. But she does not c

at him a little askance, waiting for his answer. As Roderick had said nothing about his engagement to the Cavaliere, it was probable that with this beautiful girl he had not been more exp

frowning at?"

ered, "the most important of all: t

eyebrows. "Ah, Mr. Hudson is engaged?"

to practice great brevity, but in a moment he added,

you, too? Why d

ting till he can

at the dimple in her elbow. "Ah, he 's engaged?"

o return to the dancing-room, and immediately afterwards he saw Roderick mak

he said, "but I consider that you have given me hopes wh

ses," she said. "It seemed to me that, as the daughter of the hou

ce with me!" said Rod

ugh. "You say that very well,

, a tall, slim young man, of an unmistakably Southern physiognomy. "My precious love," she cried, "what a place

ned his two hands, and murmured with an ecstatic smile, "May

said Mrs. Light. "T

ung man a courtesy as profound as his own bow. "You are

g!" murmured-almos

ce brilliant on both sides. She passed her hand into hi

e had a heavy black eye, a sallow complexion, a long, thin neck; his hair was cropped en brosse. He looked very young, yet extremely bored. He was staring

he 's a pezzo grosso! A Nea