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

“Why, we are delighted that you are with us!” she answered.

He was anything but satisfied with this; it seemed to imply that she had forgotten that she had solemnly asked him to come. He reminded her of her request, and recalled the place and time. “That evening on the terrace, late, after Mrs. Hudson had gone to bed, and Roderick being absent.”

She perfectly remembered, but the memory seemed to trouble her. “I am afraid your kindness has been a great charge upon you,” she said. “You wanted very much to do something else.”

“I wanted above all things to oblige you, and I made no sacrifice. But if I had made an immense one, it would be more than made up to me by any assurance that I have helped Roderick into a better mood.”

She was silent a moment, and then, “Why do you ask me?” she said. “You are able to judge quite as well as I.”

Rowland blushed; he desired to justify himself in the most veracious manner. “The truth is,” he said, “that I am afraid I care only in the second place for Roderick’s holding up his head. What I care for in the first place is your happiness.”

“I don’t know why that should be,” she answered. “I have certainly done nothing to make you so much my friend. If you were to tell me you intended to leave us tomorrow, I am afraid that I should not venture to ask you to stay. But whether you go or stay, let us not talk of Roderick!”

“But that,” said Rowland, “does n’t answer my question. Is he better?”

“No!” she said, and turned away.

He was careful not to tell her that he intended to leave them. One day, shortly after this, as the two young men sat at the inn-door watching the sunset, which on that evening was very striking and lurid, Rowland made an attempt to sound his companion’s present sentiment touching Christina Light. “I wonder where she is,” he said, “and what sort of a life she is leading her prince.”

Roderick at first made no response. He was watching a figure on the summit of some distant rocks, opposite to them. The figure was apparently descending into the valley, and in relief against the crimson screen of the western sky, it looked gigantic. “Christina Light?” Roderick at last repeated, as if arousing himself from a reverie. “Where she is? It’s extraordinary how little I care!”

“Have you, then, completely got over it?”

To this Roderick made no direct reply; he sat brooding a while. “She’s a humbug!” he presently exclaimed.

“Possibly!” said Rowland. “But I have known worse ones.”

“She disappointed me!” Roderick continued in the same tone.

“Had she, then, really given you hopes?”

“Oh, don’t recall it!” Roderick cried. “Why the devil should I think of it? It was only three months ago, but it seems like ten years.” His friend said nothing more, and after a while he went on of his own accord. “I believed there was a future in it all! She pleased me — pleased me; and when an artist — such as I was — is pleased, you know!” And he paused again. “You never saw her as I did; you never heard her in her great moments. But there is no use talking about that! At first she would n’t regard me seriously; she chaffed me and made light of me. But at last I forced her to admit I was a great man. Think of that, sir! Christina Light called me a great man. A great man was what she was looking for, and we agreed to find our happiness for life in each other. To please me she promised not to marry till I gave her leave. I was not in a marrying way myself, but it was damnation to think of another man possessing her. To spare my sensibilities, she promised to turn off her prince, and the idea of her doing so made me as happy as to see a perfect statue shaping itself in the block. You have seen how she kept her promise! When I learned it, it was as if the statue had suddenly cracked and turned hideous. She died for me, like that!” And he snapped his fingers. “Was it wounded vanity, disappointed desire, betrayed confidence? I am sure I don’t know; you certainly have some name for it.”

“The poor girl did the best she could,” said Rowland.

“If that was her best, so much the worse for her! I have hardly thought of her these two months, but I have not forgiven her.”

“Well, you may believe that you are avenged. I can’t think of her as happy.”

“I don’t pity her!” said Roderick. Then he relapsed into silence, and the two sat watching the colossal figure as it made its way downward along the jagged silhouette of the rocks. “Who is this mighty man,” cried Roderick at last, “and what is he coming down upon us for? We are small people here, and we can’t undertake to keep company with giants.”

“Wait till we meet him on our own level,” said Rowland, “and perhaps he will not overtop us.”

“For ten minutes, at least,” Roderick rejoined, “he will have been a great man!” At this moment the figure sank beneath the horizon line and became invisible in the uncertain light. Suddenly Roderick said, “I would like to see her once more — simply to look at her.”

“I would not advise it,” said Rowland.

“It was her beauty that did it!” Roderick went on. “It was all her beauty; in comparison, the rest was nothing. What befooled me was to think of it as my property! And I had made it mine — no one else had studied it as I had, no one else understood it. What does that stick of a Casamassima know about it at this hour? I should like to see it just once more; it’s the only thing in the world of which I can say so.”

“I would not advise it,” Rowland repeated.

“That’s right, dear Rowland,” said Roderick; “don’t advise! That’s no use now.”

The dusk meanwhile had thickened, and they had not perceived a figure approaching them across the open space in front of the house. Suddenly it stepped into the circle of light projected from the door and windows, and they beheld little Sam Singleton stopping to stare at them. He was the giant whom they had seen descending along the rocks. When this was made apparent Roderick was seized with a fit of intense hilarity — it was the first time he had laughed in three months. Singleton, who carried a knapsack and walking-staff, received from Rowland the friendliest welcome. He was in the serenest possible humor, and if in the way of luggage his knapsack contained nothing but a comb and a second shirt, he produced from it a dozen admirable sketches. He had been trudging over half Switzerland and making everywhere the most vivid pictorial notes. They were mostly in a box at Interlaken, and in gratitude for Rowland’s appreciation, he presently telegraphed for his box, which, according to the excellent Swiss method, was punctually delivered by post. The nights were cold, and our friends, with three or four other chance sojourners, sat indoors over a fire of logs. Even with Roderick sitting moodily in the outer shadow they made a sympathetic little circle, and they turned over Singleton’s drawings, while he perched in the chimney-corner, blushing and grinning, with his feet on the rounds of his chair. He had been pedestrianizing for six weeks, and he was glad to rest awhile at Engelthal. It was an economic repose, however, for he sallied forth every morning, with his sketching tools on his back, in search of material for new studies. Roderick’s hilarity, after the first evening, had subsided, and he watched the little painter’s serene activity with a gravity that was almost portentous. Singleton, who was not in the secret of his personal misfortunes, still treated him with timid frankness as the rising star of American art. Roderick had said to Rowland, at first, that Singleton reminded him of some curious little insect with a remarkable mechanical instinct in its antennae; but as the days went by it was apparent that the modest landscapist’s unflagging industry grew to have an oppressive meaning for him. It pointed a moral, and Roderick used to sit and con the moral as he saw it figured in Singleton’s bent back, on the hot hill-sides, protruding from beneath his white umbrella. One day he wandered up a long slope and overtook him as he sat at work; Singleton related the incident afterwards to Rowland, who, after giving him in Rome a hint of Roderick’s aberrations, had strictly kept his own counsel.