The American

by Henry James

  CHAPTER VI

  Newman gave up Damascus and Bagdad and returned to Paris before theautumn was over. He established himself in some rooms selected for himby Tom Tristram, in accordance with the latter’s estimate of what hecalled his social position. When Newman learned that his social positionwas to be taken into account, he professed himself utterly incompetent,and begged Tristram to relieve him of the care. “I didn’t know I had asocial position,” he said, “and if I have, I haven’t the smallest ideawhat it is. Isn’t a social position knowing some two or three thousandpeople and inviting them to dinner? I know you and your wife and littleold Mr. Nioche, who gave me French lessons last spring. Can I invite youto dinner to meet each other? If I can, you must come to-morrow.”

  “That is not very grateful to me,” said Mrs. Tristram, “who introducedyou last year to every creature I know.”

  “So you did; I had quite forgotten. But I thought you wanted me toforget,” said Newman, with that tone of simple deliberateness whichfrequently marked his utterance, and which an observer would not haveknown whether to pronounce a somewhat mysteriously humorous affection ofignorance or a modest aspiration to knowledge; “you told me you dislikedthem all.”

  “Ah, the way you remember what I say is at least very flattering. Butin future,” added Mrs. Tristram, “pray forget all the wicked things andremember only the good ones. It will be easily done, and it will notfatigue your memory. But I forewarn you that if you trust my husband topick out your rooms, you are in for something hideous.”

  “Hideous, darling?” cried Tristram.

  “To-day I must say nothing wicked; otherwise I should use strongerlanguage.”

  “What do you think she would say, Newman?” asked Tristram. “If shereally tried, now? She can express displeasure, volubly, in two or threelanguages; that’s what it is to be intellectual. It gives her the startof me completely, for I can’t swear, for the life of me, except inEnglish. When I get mad I have to fall back on our dear old mothertongue. There’s nothing like it, after all.”

  Newman declared that he knew nothing about tables and chairs, and thathe would accept, in the way of a lodging, with his eyes shut, anythingthat Tristram should offer him. This was partly veracity on our hero’spart, but it was also partly charity. He knew that to pry about and lookat rooms, and make people open windows, and poke into sofas with hiscane, and gossip with landladies, and ask who lived above and whobelow--he knew that this was of all pastimes the dearest to Tristram’sheart, and he felt the more disposed to put it in his way as he wasconscious that, as regards his obliging friend, he had suffered thewarmth of ancient good-fellowship somewhat to abate. Besides, he had notaste for upholstery; he had even no very exquisite sense of comfortor convenience. He had a relish for luxury and splendor, but it wassatisfied by rather gross contrivances. He scarcely knew a hard chairfrom a soft one, and he possessed a talent for stretching his legs whichquite dispensed with adventitious facilities. His idea of comfort was toinhabit very large rooms, have a great many of them, and be conscious oftheir possessing a number of patented mechanical devices--half of whichhe should never have occasion to use. The apartments should be light andbrilliant and lofty; he had once said that he liked rooms in which youwanted to keep your hat on. For the rest, he was satisfied with theassurance of any respectable person that everything was “handsome.” Tristram accordingly secured for him an apartment to which this epithetmight be lavishly applied. It was situated on the Boulevard Haussmann,on the first floor, and consisted of a series of rooms, gilded fromfloor to ceiling a foot thick, draped in various light shades of satin,and chiefly furnished with mirrors and clocks. Newman thought themmagnificent, thanked Tristram heartily, immediately took possession, andhad one of his trunks standing for three months in his drawing-room.

  One day Mrs. Tristram told him that her beautiful friend, Madame deCintré, had returned from the country; that she had met her three daysbefore, coming out of the Church of St. Sulpice; she herself havingjourneyed to that distant quarter in quest of an obscure lace-mender, ofwhose skill she had heard high praise.

  “And how were those eyes?” Newman asked.

  “Those eyes were red with weeping, if you please!” said Mrs. Tristram.“She had been to confession.”

  “It doesn’t tally with your account of her,” said Newman, “that sheshould have sins to confess.”

  “They were not sins; they were sufferings.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She asked me to come and see her; I went this morning.”

  “And what does she suffer from?”

  “I didn’t ask her. With her, somehow, one is very discreet. But Iguessed, easily enough. She suffers from her wicked old mother and herGrand Turk of a brother. They persecute her. But I can almost forgivethem, because, as I told you, she is a saint, and a persecution is allthat she needs to bring out her saintliness and make her perfect.”

  “That’s a comfortable theory for her. I hope you will never impart itto the old folks. Why does she let them bully her? Is she not her ownmistress?”

  “Legally, yes, I suppose; but morally, no. In France you must never saynay to your mother, whatever she requires of you. She may be the mostabominable old woman in the world, and make your life a purgatory; but,after all, she is _ma mère_, and you have no right to judge her. Youhave simply to obey. The thing has a fine side to it. Madame de Cintrébows her head and folds her wings.”

  “Can’t she at least make her brother leave off?”

  “Her brother is the _chef de la famille_, as they say; he is the head ofthe clan. With those people the family is everything; you must act, notfor your own pleasure, but for the advantage of the family.”

  “I wonder what _my_ family would like me to do!” exclaimed Tristram.

  “I wish you had one!” said his wife.

  “But what do they want to get out of that poor lady?” Newman asked.

  “Another marriage. They are not rich, and they want to bring more moneyinto the family.”

  “There’s your chance, my boy!” said Tristram.

  “And Madame de Cintré objects,” Newman continued.

  “She has been sold once; she naturally objects to being sold again.It appears that the first time they made rather a poor bargain; M. deCintré left a scanty property.”

  “And to whom do they want to marry her now?”

  “I thought it best not to ask; but you may be sure it is to some horridold nabob, or to some dissipated little duke.”

  “There’s Mrs. Tristram, as large as life!” cried her husband. “Observethe richness of her imagination. She has not a single question--it’svulgar to ask questions--and yet she knows everything. She has thehistory of Madame de Cintré’s marriage at her fingers’ ends. She hasseen the lovely Claire on her knees, with loosened tresses and streamingeyes, and the rest of them standing over her with spikes and goads andred-hot irons, ready to come down on her if she refuses the tipsy duke.The simple truth is that they made a fuss about her milliner’s bill orrefused her an opera-box.”

  Newman looked from Tristram to his wife with a certain mistrust in eachdirection. “Do you really mean,” he asked of Mrs. Tristram, “that yourfriend is being forced into an unhappy marriage?”

  “I think it extremely probable. Those people are very capable of thatsort of thing.”

  “It is like something in a play,” said Newman; “that dark old house overthere looks as if wicked things had been done in it, and might be doneagain.”

  “They have a still darker old house in the country Madame de Cintrétells me, and there, during the summer this scheme must have beenhatched.”

  “_Must_ have been; mind that!” said Tristram.

  “After all,” suggested Newman, after a silence, “she may be in troubleabout something else.”

  “If it is something else, then it is something worse,” said Mrs.Tristram, with rich decision.

  Newman was silent a while, and seemed lost in meditation. “Is it
possible,” he asked at last, “that they do that sort of thing over here?that helpless women are bullied into marrying men they hate?”

  “Helpless women, all over the world, have a hard time of it,” said Mrs.Tristram. “There is plenty of bullying everywhere.”

  “A great deal of that kind of thing goes on in New York,” said Tristram.“Girls are bullied or coaxed or bribed, or all three together, intomarrying nasty fellows. There is no end of that always going on in theFifth Avenue, and other bad things besides. The Mysteries of the FifthAvenue! Someone ought to show them up.”

  “I don’t believe it!” said Newman, very gravely. “I don’t believe that,in America, girls are ever subjected to compulsion. I don’t believethere have been a dozen cases of it since the country began.”

  “Listen to the voice of the spread eagle!” cried Tristram.

  “The spread eagle ought to use his wings,” said Mrs. Tristram. “Fly tothe rescue of Madame de Cintré!”

  “To her rescue?”

  “Pounce down, seize her in your talons, and carry her off. Marry heryourself.”

  Newman, for some moments, answered nothing; but presently, “I shouldsuppose she had heard enough of marrying,” he said. “The kindest way totreat her would be to admire her, and yet never to speak of it. But thatsort of thing is infamous,” he added; “it makes me feel savage to hearof it.”

  He heard of it, however, more than once afterward. Mrs. Tristram againsaw Madame de Cintré, and again found her looking very sad. But on theseoccasions there had been no tears; her beautiful eyes were clear andstill. “She is cold, calm, and hopeless,” Mrs. Tristram declared, andshe added that on her mentioning that her friend Mr. Newman was againin Paris and was faithful in his desire to make Madame de Cintré’sacquaintance, this lovely woman had found a smile in her despair, anddeclared that she was sorry to have missed his visit in the spring andthat she hoped he had not lost courage. “I told her something aboutyou,” said Mrs. Tristram.

  “That’s a comfort,” said Newman, placidly. “I like people to know aboutme.”

  A few days after this, one dusky autumn afternoon, he went again to theRue de l’Université. The early evening had closed in as he applied foradmittance at the stoutly guarded _Hôtel de Bellegarde_. He was toldthat Madame de Cintré was at home; he crossed the court, entered thefarther door, and was conducted through a vestibule, vast, dim, andcold, up a broad stone staircase with an ancient iron balustrade, toan apartment on the second floor. Announced and ushered in, he foundhimself in a sort of paneled boudoir, at one end of which a lady andgentleman were seated before the fire. The gentleman was smoking acigarette; there was no light in the room save that of a couple ofcandles and the glow from the hearth. Both persons rose to welcomeNewman, who, in the firelight, recognized Madame de Cintré. She gavehim her hand with a smile which seemed in itself an illumination, and,pointing to her companion, said softly, “My brother.” The gentlemanoffered Newman a frank, friendly greeting, and our hero then perceivedhim to be the young man who had spoken to him in the court of the hotelon his former visit and who had struck him as a good fellow.

  “Mrs. Tristram has spoken to me a great deal of you,” said Madame deCintré gently, as she resumed her former place.

  Newman, after he had seated himself, began to consider what, in truth,was his errand. He had an unusual, unexpected sense of having wanderedinto a strange corner of the world. He was not given, as a generalthing, to anticipating danger, or forecasting disaster, and he had hadno social tremors on this particular occasion. He was not timid and hewas not impudent. He felt too kindly toward himself to be the one, andtoo good-naturedly toward the rest of the world to be the other. But hisnative shrewdness sometimes placed his ease of temper at its mercy; withevery disposition to take things simply, it was obliged to perceive thatsome things were not so simple as others. He felt as one does in missinga step, in an ascent, where one expected to find it. This strange,pretty woman, sitting in fire-side talk with her brother, in the graydepths of her inhospitable-looking house--what had he to say to her? Sheseemed enveloped in a sort of fantastic privacy; on what grounds had hepulled away the curtain? For a moment he felt as if he had plunged intosome medium as deep as the ocean, and as if he must exert himself tokeep from sinking. Meanwhile he was looking at Madame de Cintré, andshe was settling herself in her chair and drawing in her long dress andturning her face towards him. Their eyes met; a moment afterwards shelooked away and motioned to her brother to put a log on the fire. Butthe moment, and the glance which traversed it, had been sufficient torelieve Newman of the first and the last fit of personal embarrassmenthe was ever to know. He performed the movement which was so frequentwith him, and which was always a sort of symbol of his taking mentalpossession of a scene--he extended his legs. The impression Madame deCintré had made upon him on their first meeting came back in an instant;it had been deeper than he knew. She was pleasing, she was interesting;he had opened a book and the first lines held his attention.

  She asked him several questions: how lately he had seen Mrs. Tristram,how long he had been in Paris, how long he expected to remain there, howhe liked it. She spoke English without an accent, or rather with thatdistinctively British accent which, on his arrival in Europe, had struckNewman as an altogether foreign tongue, but which, in women, he had cometo like extremely. Here and there Madame de Cintré’s utterance had afaint shade of strangeness but at the end of ten minutes Newman foundhimself waiting for these soft roughnesses. He enjoyed them, and hemarveled to see that gross thing, error, brought down to so fine apoint.

  “You have a beautiful country,” said Madame de Cintré, presently.

  “Oh, magnificent!” said Newman. “You ought to see it.”

  “I shall never see it,” said Madame de Cintré with a smile.

  “Why not?” asked Newman.

  “I don’t travel; especially so far.”

  “But you go away sometimes; you are not always here?”

  “I go away in summer, a little way, to the country.”

  Newman wanted to ask her something more, something personal, he hardlyknew what. “Don’t you find it rather--rather quiet here?” he said;“so far from the street?” Rather “gloomy,” he was going to say, but hereflected that that would be impolite.

  “Yes, it is very quiet,” said Madame de Cintré; “but we like that.”

  “Ah, you like that,” repeated Newman, slowly.

  “Besides, I have lived here all my life.”

  “Lived here all your life,” said Newman, in the same way.

  “I was born here, and my father was born here before me, and mygrandfather, and my great-grandfathers. Were they not, Valentin?” andshe appealed to her brother.

  “Yes, it’s a family habit to be born here!” the young man said with alaugh, and rose and threw the remnant of his cigarette into the fire,and then remained leaning against the chimney-piece. An observer wouldhave perceived that he wished to take a better look at Newman, whom hecovertly examined, while he stood stroking his moustache.

  “Your house is tremendously old, then,” said Newman.

  “How old is it, brother?” asked Madame de Cintré.

  The young man took the two candles from the mantel-shelf, lifted onehigh in each hand, and looked up toward the cornice of the room, abovethe chimney-piece. This latter feature of the apartment was of whitemarble, and in the familiar rococo style of the last century; but aboveit was a paneling of an earlier date, quaintly carved, painted white,and gilded here and there. The white had turned to yellow, and thegilding was tarnished. On the top, the figures ranged themselves intoa sort of shield, on which an armorial device was cut. Above it, inrelief, was a date--1627. “There you have it,” said the young man. “Thatis old or new, according to your point of view.”

  “Well, over here,” said Newman, “one’s point of view gets shifted roundconsiderably.” And he threw back his head and looked about the room.“Your house is of a very curious style of architecture,” he
said.

  “Are you interested in architecture?” asked the young man at thechimney-piece.

  “Well, I took the trouble, this summer,” said Newman, “to examine--aswell as I can calculate--some four hundred and seventy churches. Do youcall that interested?”

  “Perhaps you are interested in theology,” said the young man.

  “Not particularly. Are you a Roman Catholic, madam?” And he turned toMadame de Cintré.

  “Yes, sir,” she answered, gravely.

  Newman was struck with the gravity of her tone; he threw back his headand began to look round the room again. “Had you never noticed thatnumber up there?” he presently asked.

  She hesitated a moment, and then, “In former years,” she said.

  Her brother had been watching Newman’s movement. “Perhaps you would liketo examine the house,” he said.

  Newman slowly brought down his eyes and looked at him; he had a vagueimpression that the young man at the chimney-piece was inclined toirony. He was a handsome fellow, his face wore a smile, his moustacheswere curled up at the ends, and there was a little dancing gleam in hiseye. “Damn his French impudence!” Newman was on the point of saying tohimself. “What the deuce is he grinning at?” He glanced at Madame deCintré; she was sitting with her eyes fixed on the floor. She raisedthem, they met his, and she looked at her brother. Newman turned againto this young man and observed that he strikingly resembled his sister.This was in his favor, and our hero’s first impression of the CountValentin, moreover, had been agreeable. His mistrust expired, and hesaid he would be very glad to see the house.

  The young man gave a frank laugh, and laid his hand on one of thecandlesticks. “Good, good!” he exclaimed. “Come, then.”

  But Madame de Cintré rose quickly and grasped his arm, “Ah, Valentin!” she said. “What do you mean to do?”

  “To show Mr. Newman the house. It will be very amusing.”

  She kept her hand on his arm, and turned to Newman with a smile. “Don’tlet him take you,” she said; “you will not find it amusing. It is amusty old house, like any other.”

  “It is full of curious things,” said the count, resisting. “Besides, Iwant to do it; it is a rare chance.”

  “You are very wicked, brother,” Madame de Cintré answered.

  “Nothing venture, nothing have!” cried the young man. “Will you come?”

  Madame de Cintré stepped toward Newman, gently clasping her hands andsmiling softly. “Would you not prefer my society, here, by my fire, tostumbling about dark passages after my brother?”

  “A hundred times!” said Newman. “We will see the house some other day.”

  The young man put down his candlestick with mock solemnity, and, shakinghis head, “Ah, you have defeated a great scheme, sir!” he said.

  “A scheme? I don’t understand,” said Newman.

  “You would have played your part in it all the better. Perhaps some dayI shall have a chance to explain it.”

  “Be quiet, and ring for the tea,” said Madame de Cintré.

  The young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought in the tea, placedthe tray on a small table, and departed. Madame de Cintré, from herplace, busied herself with making it. She had but just begun when thedoor was thrown open and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound.She stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a “Monsieur!” and thenquickly approached Madame de Cintré and presented her forehead to bekissed. Madame de Cintré saluted her, and continued to make tea. Thenew-comer was young and pretty, it seemed to Newman; she wore her bonnetand cloak, and a train of royal proportions. She began to talk rapidlyin French. “Oh, give me some tea, my beautiful one, for the love of God!I’m exhausted, mangled, massacred.” Newman found himself quite unable tofollow her; she spoke much less distinctly than M. Nioche.

  “That is my sister-in-law,” said the Count Valentin, leaning towardshim.

  “She is very pretty,” said Newman.

  “Exquisite,” answered the young man, and this time, again, Newmansuspected him of irony.

  His sister-in-law came round to the other side of the fire with her cupof tea in her hand, holding it out at arm’s-length, so that she mightnot spill it on her dress, and uttering little cries of alarm. Sheplaced the cup on the mantel-shelf and begun to unpin her veil and pulloff her gloves, looking meanwhile at Newman.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, my dear lady?” the Count Valentinasked, in a sort of mock-caressing tone.

  “Present monsieur,” said his sister-in-law.

  The young man answered, “Mr. Newman!”

  “I can’t courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea,” said thelady. “So Claire receives strangers, like that?” she added, in a lowvoice, in French, to her brother-in-law.

  “Apparently!” he answered with a smile. Newman stood a moment, and thenhe approached Madame de Cintré. She looked up at him as if she werethinking of something to say. But she seemed to think of nothing; so shesimply smiled. He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea. Fora few moments they talked about that, and meanwhile he looked at her.He remembered what Mrs. Tristram had told him of her “perfection” and ofher having, in combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamedof finding. This made him observe her not only without mistrust, butwithout uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the first moment helooked at her, had been in her favor. And yet, if she was beautiful, itwas not a dazzling beauty. She was tall and moulded in long lines;she had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features with a sort ofharmonious irregularity. Her clear gray eyes were strikingly expressive;they were both gentle and intelligent, and Newman liked them immensely;but they had not those depths of splendor--those many-coloredrays--which illumine the brows of famous beauties. Madame de Cintré wasrather thin, and she looked younger than probably she was. In her wholeperson there was something both youthful and subdued, slender andyet ample, tranquil yet shy; a mixture of immaturity and repose, ofinnocence and dignity. What had Tristram meant, Newman wondered, bycalling her proud? She was certainly not proud now, to him; or if shewas, it was of no use, it was lost upon him; she must pile it up higherif she expected him to mind it. She was a beautiful woman, and it wasvery easy to get on with her. Was she a countess, a _marquise_, a kindof historical formation? Newman, who had rarely heard these words used,had never been at pains to attach any particular image to them; but theyoccurred to him now and seemed charged with a sort of melodious meaning.They signified something fair and softly bright, that had easy motionsand spoke very agreeably.

  “Have you many friends in Paris; do you go out?” asked Madame de Cintré,who had at last thought of something to say.

  “Do you mean do I dance, and all that?”

  “Do you go _dans le monde_ , as we say?”

  “I have seen a good many people. Mrs. Tristram has taken me about. I dowhatever she tells me.”

  “By yourself, you are not fond of amusements?”

  “Oh yes, of some sorts. I am not fond of dancing, and that sort ofthing; I am too old and sober. But I want to be amused; I came to Europefor that.”

  “But you can be amused in America, too.”

  “I couldn’t; I was always at work. But after all, that was myamusement.”

  At this moment Madame de Bellegarde came back for another cup of tea,accompanied by the Count Valentin. Madame de Cintré, when she had servedher, began to talk again with Newman, and recalling what he had lastsaid, “In your own country you were very much occupied?” she asked.

  “I was in business. I have been in business since I was fifteen yearsold.”

  “And what was your business?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, who wasdecidedly not so pretty as Madame de Cintré.

  “I have been in everything,” said Newman. “At one time I sold leather;at one time I manufactured wash-tubs.”

  Madame de Bellegarde made a little grimace. “Leather? I don’t like that.Wash-tubs are better. I prefer the smell of soap. I hope at least theymade your
fortune.” She rattled this off with the air of a woman who hadthe reputation of saying everything that came into her head, and with astrong French accent.

  Newman had spoken with cheerful seriousness, but Madame de Bellegarde’stone made him go on, after a meditative pause, with a certain lightgrimness of jocularity. “No, I lost money on wash-tubs, but I came outpretty square on leather.”

  “I have made up my mind, after all,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “thatthe great point is--how do you call it?--to come out square. I am on myknees to money; I don’t deny it. If you have it, I ask no questions. Forthat I am a real democrat--like you, monsieur. Madame de Cintré is veryproud; but I find that one gets much more pleasure in this sad life ifone doesn’t look too close.”

  “Just Heaven, dear madam, how you go at it,” said the Count Valentin,lowering his voice.

  “He’s a man one can speak to, I suppose, since my sister receives him,” the lady answered. “Besides, it’s very true; those are my ideas.”

  “Ah, you call them ideas,” murmured the young man.

  “But Mrs. Tristram told me you had been in the army--in your war,” saidMadame de Cintré.

  “Yes, but that is not business!” said Newman.

  “Very true!” said M. de Bellegarde. “Otherwise perhaps I should not bepenniless.”

  “Is it true,” asked Newman in a moment, “that you are so proud? I hadalready heard it.”

  Madame de Cintré smiled. “Do you find me so?”

  “Oh,” said Newman, “I am no judge. If you are proud with me, you willhave to tell me. Otherwise I shall not know it.”

  Madame de Cintré began to laugh. “That would be pride in a sadposition!” she said.

  “It would be partly,” Newman went on, “because I shouldn’t want to knowit. I want you to treat me well.”

  Madame de Cintré, whose laugh had ceased, looked at him with her headhalf averted, as if she feared what he was going to say.

  “Mrs. Tristram told you the literal truth,” he went on “I want verymuch to know you. I didn’t come here simply to call to-day; I came inthe hope that you might ask me to come again.”

  “Oh, pray come often,” said Madame de Cintré.

  “But will you be at home?” Newman insisted. Even to himself he seemed atrifle “pushing,” but he was, in truth, a trifle excited.

  “I hope so!” said Madame de Cintré.

  Newman got up. “Well, we shall see,” he said smoothing his hat with hiscoat-cuff.

  “Brother,” said Madame de Cintré, “invite Mr. Newman to come again.”

  The Count Valentin looked at our hero from head to foot with hispeculiar smile, in which impudence and urbanity seemed perplexinglycommingled. “Are you a brave man?” he asked, eying him askance.

  “Well, I hope so,” said Newman.

  “I rather suspect so. In that case, come again.”

  “Ah, what an invitation!” murmured Madame de Cintré, with somethingpainful in her smile.

  “Oh, I want Mr. Newman to come--particularly,” said the young man. “Itwill give me great pleasure. I shall be desolate if I miss one of hisvisits. But I maintain he must be brave. A stout heart, sir!” And heoffered Newman his hand.

  “I shall not come to see you; I shall come to see Madame de Cintré,” said Newman.

  “You will need all the more courage.”

  “Ah, Valentin!” said Madame de Cintré, appealingly.

  “Decidedly,” cried Madame de Bellegarde, “I am the only person herecapable of saying something polite! Come to see me; you will need nocourage,” she said.

  Newman gave a laugh which was not altogether an assent, and took hisleave. Madame de Cintré did not take up her sister’s challenge to begracious, but she looked with a certain troubled air at the retreatingguest.