Henry James - Henry James - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 10)

“But if I am to be your doctor,” said Rowland, “you must tell me how your illness began.”

“I can tell you very little. It began with Mrs. Hudson being unjust to me, for the first time in her life. And now I am already better!”

I mention this incident because it confirmed an impression of Rowland’s from which he had derived a certain consolation. He knew that Mrs. Hudson considered her son’s ill-regulated passion for Christina Light a very regrettable affair, but he suspected that her manifest compassion had been all for Roderick, and not in the least for Mary Garland. She was fond of the young girl, but she had valued her primarily, during the last two years, as a kind of assistant priestess at Roderick’s shrine. Roderick had honored her by asking her to become his wife, but that poor Mary had any rights in consequence Mrs. Hudson was quite incapable of perceiving. Her sentiment on the subject was of course not very vigorously formulated, but she was unprepared to admit that Miss Garland had any ground for complaint. Roderick was very unhappy; that was enough, and Mary’s duty was to join her patience and her prayers to those of his doting mother. Roderick might fall in love with whom he pleased; no doubt that women trained in the mysterious Roman arts were only too proud and too happy to make it easy for him; and it was very presuming in poor, plain Mary to feel any personal resentment. Mrs. Hudson’s philosophy was of too narrow a scope to suggest that a mother may forgive where a mistress cannot, and she thought herself greatly aggrieved that Miss Garland was not so disinterested as herself. She was ready to drop dead in Roderick’s service, and she was quite capable of seeing her companion falter and grow faint, without a tremor of compassion. Mary, apparently, had given some intimation of her belief that if constancy is the flower of devotion, reciprocity is the guarantee of constancy, and Mrs. Hudson had rebuked her failing faith and called it cruelty. That Miss Garland had found it hard to reason with Mrs. Hudson, that she suffered deeply from the elder lady’s softly bitter imputations, and that, in short, he had companionship in misfortune — all this made Rowland find a certain luxury in his discomfort.

The party at Villa Pandolfini used to sit in the garden in the evenings, which Rowland almost always spent with them. Their entertainment was in the heavily perfumed air, in the dim, far starlight, in the crenelated tower of a neighboring villa, which loomed vaguely above them in the warm darkness, and in such conversation as depressing reflections allowed. Roderick, clad always in white, roamed about like a restless ghost, silent for the most part, but making from time to time a brief observation, characterized by the most fantastic cynicism. Roderick’s contributions to the conversation were indeed always so fantastic that, though half the time they wearied him unspeakably, Rowland made an effort to treat them humorously. With Rowland alone Roderick talked a great deal more; often about things related to his own work, or about artistic and aesthetic matters in general. He talked as well as ever, or even better; but his talk always ended in a torrent of groans and curses. When this current set in, Rowland straightway turned his back or stopped his ears, and Roderick now witnessed these movements with perfect indifference. When the latter was absent from the star-lit circle in the garden, as often happened, Rowland knew nothing of his whereabouts; he supposed him to be in Florence, but he never learned what he did there. All this was not enlivening, but with an even, muffled tread the days followed each other, and brought the month of August to a close. One particular evening at this time was most enchanting; there was a perfect moon, looking so extraordinarily large that it made everything its light fell upon seem small; the heat was tempered by a soft west wind, and the wind was laden with the odors of the early harvest. The hills, the vale of the Arno, the shrunken river, the domes of Florence, were vaguely effaced by the dense moonshine; they looked as if they were melting out of sight like an exorcised vision. Rowland had found the two ladies alone at the villa, and he had sat with them for an hour. He felt absolutely hushed by the solemn splendor of the scene, but he had risked the remark that, whatever life might yet have in store for either of them, this was a night that they would never forget.

“It’s a night to remember on one’s death-bed!” Miss Garland exclaimed.

“Oh, Mary, how can you!” murmured Mrs. Hudson, to whom this savored of profanity, and to whose shrinking sense, indeed, the accumulated loveliness of the night seemed to have something shameless and defiant.

They were silent after this, for some time, but at last Rowland addressed certain idle words to Miss Garland. She made no reply, and he turned to look at her. She was sitting motionless, with her head pressed to Mrs. Hudson’s shoulder, and the latter lady was gazing at him through the silvered dusk with a look which gave a sort of spectral solemnity to the sad, weak meaning of her eyes. She had the air, for the moment, of a little old malevolent fairy. Miss Garland, Rowland perceived in an instant, was not absolutely motionless; a tremor passed through her figure. She was weeping, or on the point of weeping, and she could not trust herself to speak. Rowland left his place and wandered to another part of the garden, wondering at the motive of her sudden tears. Of women’s sobs in general he had a sovereign dread, but these, somehow, gave him a certain pleasure. When he returned to his place Miss Garland had raised her head and banished her tears. She came away from Mrs. Hudson, and they stood for a short time leaning against the parapet.

“It seems to you very strange, I suppose,” said Rowland, “that there should be any trouble in such a world as this.”

“I used to think,” she answered, “that if any trouble came to me I would bear it like a stoic. But that was at home, where things don’t speak to us of enjoyment as they do here. Here it is such a mixture; one does n’t know what to choose, what to believe. Beauty stands there — beauty such as this night and this place, and all this sad, strange summer, have been so full of — and it penetrates to one’s soul and lodges there, and keeps saying that man was not made to suffer, but to enjoy. This place has undermined my stoicism, but — shall I tell you? I feel as if I were saying something sinful — I love it!”

“If it is sinful, I absolve you,” said Rowland, “in so far as I have power. We are made, I suppose, both to suffer and to enjoy. As you say, it’s a mixture. Just now and here, it seems a peculiarly strange one. But we must take things in turn.”

His words had a singular aptness, for he had hardly uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, evidently in his darkest mood. He stood for a moment gazing hard at the view.

“It’s a very beautiful night, my son,” said his mother, going to him timidly, and touching his arm.

He passed his hand through his hair and let it stay there, clasping his thick locks. “Beautiful?” he cried; “of course it’s beautiful! Everything is beautiful; everything is insolent, defiant, atrocious with beauty. Nothing is ugly but me — me and my poor dead brain!”

“Oh, my dearest son,” pleaded poor Mrs. Hudson, “don’t you feel any better?”

Roderick made no immediate answer; but at last he spoke in a different voice. “I came expressly to tell you that you need n’t trouble yourselves any longer to wait for something to turn up. Nothing will turn up! It’s all over! I said when I came here I would give it a chance. I have given it a chance. Have n’t I, eh? Have n’t I, Rowland? It’s no use; the thing’s a failure! Do with me now what you please. I recommend you to set me up there at the end of the garden and shoot me.”