The New York Stories of Henry James

by Henry James

  As I read over what I have written here, I wonder whether it was worth while to have reopened my journal. Still, why not have the benefit of being thought disagreeable—the luxury of recorded observation? If one is poor, plain, proud—and in this very private place I may add, clever—there are certain necessary revenges!

  April 10.—Adrian Frank has been here again, and we rather like him. (That will do for the first note of a more genial tone.) His eyes are very blue, and his teeth very white—two things that always please me. He became rather more communicative, and almost promised to show me his sketches—in spite of the fact that he is evidently as much as ever struck with my own ability. Perhaps he has discovered that I am trying to be genial! He wishes to take us to drive—that is, to take Eunice; for of course I shall go only for propriety. She doesn’t go with young men alone; that element was not included in her education. She said to me yesterday, “The only man I shall drive alone with will be the one I marry.” She talks so little about marrying that this made an impression on me. That subject is supposed to be a girl’s inevitable topic; but no young women could occupy themselves with it less than she and I do. I think I may say that we never mention it at all. I suppose that if a man were to read this he would be greatly surprised and not particularly edified. As there is no danger of any man’s reading it, I may add that I always take tacitly for granted that Eunice will marry. She doesn’t in the least pretend that she won’t; and if I am not mistaken she is capable of the sort of affection that is expected of a good wife. The longer I live with her the more I see that she is a dear girl. Now that I know her better, I perceive that she is perfectly natural. I used to think that she tried too much—that she watched herself, perhaps, with a little secret admiration. But that was because I couldn’t conceive of a girl’s motives being so simple. She only wants not to suffer—she is immensely afraid of that. Therefore, she wishes to be universally tender—to mitigate the general sum of suffering, in the hope that she herself may come off easily. Poor thing! she doesn’t know that we can diminish the amount of suffering for others only by taking to ourselves a part of their share. The amount of that commodity in the world is always the same; it is only the distribution that varies. We all try to dodge our portion, and some of us succeed. I find the best way is not to think about it, and to make little water-colours. Eunice thinks that the best way is to be very generous, to condemn no one unheard.

  A great many things happen that I don’t mention here; incidents of social life, I believe they call them. People come to see us, and sometimes they invite us to dinner. We go to certain concerts, many of which are very good. We take a walk every day; and I read to Eunice, and she plays to me. Mrs. Ermine makes her appearance several times a week, and gives us the news of the town—a great deal more of it than we have any use for. She thinks we live in a hole; and she has more than once expressed her conviction that I can do nothing socially for Eunice. As to that, she is perfectly right; I am aware of my social insignificance. But I am equally aware that my cousin has no need of being pushed. I know little of the people and things of this place; but I know enough to see that, whatever they are, the best of them are at her service. Mrs Ermine thinks it a great pity that Eunice should have come too late in the season to “go out” with her; for after this there are few entertainments at which my protecting presence is not sufficient. Besides, Eunice isn’t eager; I often wonder at her indifference. She never thinks of the dances she has missed, nor asks about those at which she still may figure. She isn’t sad, and it doesn’t amount to melancholy; but she certainly is rather detached. She likes to read, to talk with me, to make music, and to dine out when she supposes there will be “real conversation.” She is extremely fond of real conversation; and we flatter ourselves that a good deal of it takes place between us. We talk about life and religion and art and George Eliot; all that, I hope, is sufficiently real. Eunice understands everything, and has a great many opinions; she is quite the modern young woman, though she hasn’t modern manners. But all this doesn’t explain to me why, as Mrs. Ermine says, she should wish to be so dreadfully quiet. That lady’s suspicion to the contrary notwithstanding, it is not I who make her so. I would go with her to a party every night if she should wish it, and send out cards to proclaim that we “receive.” But her ambitions are not those of the usual girl; or, at any rate, if she is waiting for what the usual girl waits for, she is waiting very patiently. As I say, I can’t quite make out the secret of her patience. However, it is not necessary I should; it was no part of the bargain on which I came to her that we were to conceal nothing from each other. I conceal a great deal from Eunice; at least I hope I do: for instance, how fearfully I am bored. I think I am as patient as she; but then I have certain things to help me—my age, my resignation, my ability, and, I suppose I may add, my conceit. Mrs. Ermine doesn’t bring the young men, but she talks about them, and calls them Harry and Freddy. She wants Eunice to marry, though I don’t see what she is to gain by it. It is apparently a disinterested love of matrimony—or rather, I should say, a love of weddings. She lives in a world of “engagements,” and announces a new one every time she comes in. I never heard of so much marrying in all my life before. Mrs. Ermine is dying to be able to tell people that Eunice is engaged; that distinction should not be wanting to a cousin of hers. Whoever marries her, by the way, will come into a very good fortune. Almost for the first time, three days ago, she told me about her affairs.

  She knows less about them than she believes—I could see that; but she knows the great matter; which is, that in the course of her twenty-first year, by the terms of her mother’s will she becomes mistress of her property, of which for the last seven years Mr. Caliph has been sole trustee. On that day Mr. Caliph is to make over to her three hundred thousand dollars, which he has been nursing and keeping safe. So much on every occasion seems to be expected of this wonderful man! I call him so because I think it was wonderful of him to have been appointed sole depositary of the property of an orphan by a very anxious, scrupulous, affectionate mother, whose one desire, when she made her will, was to prepare for her child a fruitful majority, and whose acquaintance with him had not been of many years, though her esteem for him was great. He had been a friend—a very good friend—of her husband, who, as he neared his end, asked him to look after his widow. Eunice’s father didn’t however make him trustee of his little estate; he put that into other hands, and Eunice has a very good account of it. It amounts, unfortunately, but to some fifty thousand dollars. Her mother’s proceedings with regard to Mr. Caliph were very feminine—so I may express myself in the privacy of these pages. But I believe all women are very feminine in their relations with Mr. Caliph. “Haroun-al-Raschid” I call him to Eunice; and I suppose he expects to find us in a state of Oriental prostration. She says, however, that he is not the least of a Turk, and that nothing could be kinder or more considerate than he was three years ago, before she went to Europe. He was constantly with her at that time, for many months; and his attentions have evidently made a great impression on her. That sort of thing naturally would, on a girl of seventeen; and I have told her she must be prepared to think him much less brilliant a personage to-day. I don’t know what he will think of some of her plans of expenditure,—laying out an Italian garden at the house on the river, founding a cot at the children’s hospital, erecting a music room in the rear of this house. Next winter Eunice proposes to receive; but she wishes to have an originality, in the shape of really good music. She will evidently be rather extravagant, at least at first. Mr. Caliph of course will have no more authority; still, he may advise her as a friend.

  April 23.—This afternoon, while Eunice was out, Mr. Frank made his appearance, having had the civility, as I afterwards learned, to ask for me, in spite of the absence of the padronina. I told him she was at Mrs. Ermine’s, and that Mrs. Ermine was her cousin.

  “Then I can say what I should not be able to say if she were here,” he said, smiling that singular smile which
has the effect of showing his teeth and drawing the lids of his eyes together. If he were a young countryman, one would call it a grin. It is not exactly a grin, but it is very simple.

  “And what may that be?” I asked, with encouragement.

  He hesitated a little, while I admired his teeth, which I am sure he has no wish to exhibit; and I expected something wonderful. “Considering that she is fair, she is really very pretty,” he said at last.

  I was rather disappointed, and I went so far as to say to him that he might have made that remark in her presence.

  This time his blue eyes remained wide open: “So you really think so?”

  “‘Considering that she’s fair,’ that part of it, perhaps, might have been omitted; but the rest surely would have pleased her.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Well, ‘really very pretty’ is, perhaps, not quite right; it seems to imply a kind of surprise. You might have omitted the ‘really.’”

  “You want me to omit everything,” he said, laughing, as if he thought me wonderfully amusing.

  “The gist of the thing would remain, ‘You are very pretty’; that would have been unexpected and agreeable.”

  “I think you are laughing at me!” cried poor Mr. Frank, without bitterness. “I have no right to say that till I know she likes me.”

  “She does like you; I see no harm in telling you so.” He seemed to me so modest, so natural, that I felt as free to say this to him as I would have been to a good child: more, indeed, than to a good child, for a child to whom one would say that would be rather a prig, and Adrian Frank is not a prig. I could see this by the way he answered; it was rather odd.

  “It will please my brother to know that!”

  “Does he take such an interest in the impressions you make?”

  “Oh yes; he wants me to appear well.” This was said with the most touching innocence; it was a complete confession of inferiority. It was, perhaps, the tone that made it so; at any rate, Adrian Frank has renounced the hope of ever appearing as well as his brother. I wonder if a man must be really inferior, to be in such a state of mind as that. He must at all events be very fond of his brother, and even, I think, have sacrificed himself a good deal. This young man asked me ever so many questions about my cousin; frankly, simply; as if, when one wanted to know, it was perfectly natural to ask. So it is, I suppose; but why should he want to know? Some of his questions were certainly idle. What can it matter to him whether she has one little dog or three, or whether she is an admirer of the music of the future? “Does she go out much, or does she like a quiet evening at home?” “Does she like living in Europe, and what part of Europe does she prefer?” “Has she many relatives in New York, and does she see a great deal of them?” On all these points I was obliged to give Mr. Frank a certain satisfaction; and after that, I thought I had a right to ask why he wanted to know. He was evidently surprised at being challenged, blushed a good deal, and made me feel for a moment as if I had asked a vulgar question. I saw he had no particular reason; he only wanted to be civil, and that is the way best known to him of expressing an interest. He was confused; but he was not so confused that he took his departure. He sat half an hour longer, and let me make up to him by talking very agreeably for the shock I had administered. I may mention here—for I like to see it in black and white—that I can talk very agreeably. He listened with the most flattering attention, showing me his blue eyes and his white teeth in alternation, and laughing largely, as if I had a command of the comical. I am not conscious of that. At last, after I had paused a little, he said to me, apropos of nothing: “Do you think the realistic school are—a—to be admired?” Then I saw that he had already forgotten my earlier check—such was the effect of my geniality—and that he would ask me as many questions about myself as I would let him. I answered him freely, but I answered him as I chose. There are certain things about myself I never shall tell, and the simplest way not to tell is to say the contrary. If people are indiscreet, they must take the consequences. I declared that I held the realistic school in horror; that I found New York the most interesting, the most sympathetic of cities; and that I thought the American girl the finest result of civilisation. I am sure I convinced him that I am a most remarkable woman. He went away before Eunice returned. He is a charming creature—a kind of Yankee Donatello. If I could only be his Miriam, the situation would be almost complete, for Eunice is an excellent Hilda.

  April 26.—Mrs. Ermine was in great force to-day; she described all the fine things Eunice can do when she gets her money into her own hands. A set of Mechlin lace, a rivière of diamonds which she saw the other day at Tiffany’s, a set of Russian sables that she knows of somewhere else, a little English phaeton with a pair of ponies and a tiger, a family of pugs to waddle about in the drawing-room—all these luxuries Mrs. Ermine declares indispensable. “I should like to know that you have them—it would do me real good,” she said to Eunice. “I like to see people with handsome things. It would give me more pleasure to know you have that set of Mechlin than to have it myself. I can’t help that—it’s the way I am made. If other people have handsome things I see them more; and then I do want the good of others—I don’t care if you think me vain for saying so. I shan’t be happy till I see you in an English phaeton. The groom oughtn’t to be more than three feet six. I think you ought to show for what you are.”

  “How do you mean, for what I am?” Eunice asked.

  “Well, for a charming girl, with a very handsome fortune.”

  “I shall never show any more than I do now.”

  “I will tell you what you do—you show Miss Condit.” And Mrs. Ermine presented me her large, foolish face. “If you don’t look out, she’ll do you up in Morris papers, and then all the Mechlin lace in the world won’t matter!”