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

Rowland listened to this outbreak, as he often had occasion to listen to Roderick’s heated monologues, with a number of mental restrictions. Both in gravity and in gayety he said more than he meant, and you did him simple justice if you privately concluded that neither the glow of purpose nor the chill of despair was of so intense a character as his florid diction implied. The moods of an artist, his exaltations and depressions, Rowland had often said to himself, were like the pen-flourishes a writing-master makes in the air when he begins to set his copy. He may bespatter you with ink, he may hit you in the eye, but he writes a magnificent hand. It was nevertheless true that at present poor Roderick gave unprecedented tokens of moral stagnation, and as for genius being held by the precarious tenure he had sketched, Rowland was at a loss to see whence he could borrow the authority to contradict him. He sighed to himself, and wished that his companion had a trifle more of little Sam Singleton’s evenness of impulse. But then, was Singleton a man of genius? He answered that such reflections seemed to him unprofitable, not to say morbid; that the proof of the pudding was in the eating; that he did n’t know about bringing a genius that had palpably spent its last breath back to life again, but that he was satisfied that vigorous effort was a cure for a great many ills that seemed far gone. “Don’t heed your mood,” he said, “and don’t believe there is any calm so dead that your own lungs can’t ruffle it with a breeze. If you have work to do, don’t wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it.”

“Set to work and produce abortions!” cried Roderick with ire. “Preach that to others. Production with me must be either pleasure or nothing. As I said just now, I must either stay in the saddle or not go at all. I won’t do second-rate work; I can’t if I would. I have no cleverness, apart from inspiration. I am not a Gloriani! You are right,” he added after a while; “this is unprofitable talk, and it makes my head ache. I shall take a nap and see if I can dream of a bright idea or two.”

He turned his face upward to the parasol of the great pine, closed his eyes, and in a short time forgot his sombre fancies. January though it was, the mild stillness seemed to vibrate with faint midsummer sounds. Rowland sat listening to them and wishing that, for the sake of his own felicity, Roderick’s temper were graced with a certain absent ductility. He was brilliant, but was he, like many brilliant things, brittle? Suddenly, to his musing sense, the soft atmospheric hum was overscored with distincter sounds. He heard voices beyond a mass of shrubbery, at the turn of a neighboring path. In a moment one of them began to seem familiar, and an instant later a large white poodle emerged into view. He was slowly followed by his mistress. Miss Light paused a moment on seeing Rowland and his companion; but, though the former perceived that he was recognized, she made no bow. Presently she walked directly toward him. He rose and was on the point of waking Roderick, but she laid her finger on her lips and motioned him to forbear. She stood a moment looking at Roderick’s handsome slumber.

“What delicious oblivion!” she said. “Happy man! Stenterello”— and she pointed to his face —“wake him up!”

The poodle extended a long pink tongue and began to lick Roderick’s cheek.

“Why,” asked Rowland, “if he is happy?”

“Oh, I want companions in misery! Besides, I want to show off my dog.” Roderick roused himself, sat up, and stared. By this time Mrs. Light had approached, walking with a gentleman on each side of her. One of these was the Cavaliere Giacosa; the other was Prince Casamassima. “I should have liked to lie down on the grass and go to sleep,” Christina added. “But it would have been unheard of.”

“Oh, not quite,” said the Prince, in English, with a tone of great precision. “There was already a Sleeping Beauty in the Wood!”

“Charming!” cried Mrs. Light. “Do you hear that, my dear?”

“When the prince says a brilliant thing, it would be a pity to lose it,” said the young girl. “Your servant, sir!” And she smiled at him with a grace that might have reassured him, if he had thought her compliment ambiguous.

Roderick meanwhile had risen to his feet, and Mrs. Light began to exclaim on the oddity of their meeting and to explain that the day was so lovely that she had been charmed with the idea of spending it in the country. And who would ever have thought of finding Mr. Mallet and Mr. Hudson sleeping under a tree!

“Oh, I beg your pardon; I was not sleeping,” said Rowland.

“Don’t you know that Mr. Mallet is Mr. Hudson’s sheep-dog?” asked Christina. “He was mounting guard to keep away the wolves.”

“To indifferent purpose, madame!” said Rowland, indicating the young girl.

“Is that the way you spend your time?” Christina demanded of Roderick. “I never yet happened to learn what men were doing when they supposed women were not watching them but it was something vastly below their reputation.”

“When, pray,” said Roderick, smoothing his ruffled locks, “are women not watching them?”

“We shall give you something better to do, at any rate. How long have you been here? It’s an age since I have seen you. We consider you domiciled here, and expect you to play host and entertain us.”

Roderick said that he could offer them nothing but to show them the great terrace, with its view; and ten minutes later the group was assembled there. Mrs. Light was extravagant in her satisfaction; Christina looked away at the Sabine mountains, in silence. The prince stood by, frowning at the rapture of the elder lady.

“This is nothing,” he said at last. “My word of honor. Have you seen the terrace at San Gaetano?”

“Ah, that terrace,” murmured Mrs. Light, amorously. “I suppose it is magnificent!”

“It is four hundred feet long, and paved with marble. And the view is a thousand times more beautiful than this. You see, far away, the blue, blue sea and the little smoke of Vesuvio!”

“Christina, love,” cried Mrs. Light forthwith, “the prince has a terrace four hundred feet long, all paved with marble!”

The Cavaliere gave a little cough and began to wipe his eye-glass.

“Stupendous!” said Christina. “To go from one end to the other, the prince must have out his golden carriage.” This was apparently an allusion to one of the other items of the young man’s grandeur.

“You always laugh at me,” said the prince. “I know no more what to say!”

She looked at him with a sad smile and shook her head. “No, no, dear prince, I don’t laugh at you. Heaven forbid! You are much too serious an affair. I assure you I feel your importance. What did you inform us was the value of the hereditary diamonds of the Princess Casamassima?”

“Ah, you are laughing at me yet!” said the poor young man, standing rigid and pale.

“It does n’t matter,” Christina went on. “We have a note of it; mamma writes all those things down in a little book!”

“If you are laughed at, dear prince, at least it’s in company,” said Mrs. Light, caressingly; and she took his arm, as if to resist his possible displacement under the shock of her daughter’s sarcasm. But the prince looked heavy-eyed toward Rowland and Roderick, to whom the young girl was turning, as if he had much rather his lot were cast with theirs.

“Is the villa inhabited?” Christina asked, pointing to the vast melancholy structure which rises above the terrace.

“Not privately,” said Roderick. “It is occupied by a Jesuits’ college, for little boys.”

“Can women go in?”

“I am afraid not.” And Roderick began to laugh. “Fancy the poor little devils looking up from their Latin declensions and seeing Miss Light standing there!”