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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 3/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720 ^ 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 (OTbe iltoewiDe press Cambridge 
 
Copyright, 1875, by H. O. Houghton & Co., and 
 
 James R. Osgood & Co. 
 
 Copyright, i88z, by Henry James, Jr. 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner s Sons 
 
 Copyright, 1917, by Henry James 
 

 t? 
 
 r\ 
 
 NOTE 
 
 " RODERICK HUDSON" was originally published in Boston in 
 1875. It has been minutely revised, and has received a large 
 number of verbal alterations. Several passages have been re 
 written. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 " RODERICK HUDSON " was begun in Florence in the spring 
 of 1874, designed from the first for serial publication in 
 " The Atlantic Monthly," where it opened in January 1875 
 and persisted through the year. I yield to the pleasure of 
 placing these circumstances on record, as I shall place 
 others, and as I have yielded to the need of renewing ac 
 quaintance with the book after a quarter of a century. This 
 revival of an all but extinct relation with an early work may 
 often produce for an artist, I think, more kinds of interest 
 and emotion than he shall find it easy to express, and yet 
 will light not a little, to his eyes, that veiled face of his 
 Muse which he is condemned for ever and all anxiously to 
 study. The art of representation bristles with questions the 
 very terms of which are difficult to apply and to appreciate ; 
 but whatever makes it arduous makes it, for our refresh 
 ment, infinite, causes the practice of it, with experience, to 
 spread round us in a widening, not in a narrowing circle. 
 Therefore it is that experience has to organise, for con 
 venience and cheer, some system of observation for fear, 
 in the admirable immensity, of losing its way. We see it as 
 pausing from time to time to consult its notes, to measure, 
 for guidance, as many aspects and distances as possible, as 
 many steps taken and obstacles mastered and fruits gathered 
 and beauties enjoyed. Everything counts, nothing is super 
 fluous in such a survey; the explorer s note-book strikes me 
 here as endlessly receptive. This accordingly is what I mean 
 by the contributive value or put it simply as, to one s 
 own sense, the beguiling charm of the accessory facts in 
 a given artistic case. This is why, as one looks back, the 
 private history of any sincere work, however modest its pre 
 tensions, looms with its own completeness in the rich, am 
 biguous aesthetic air, and seems at once to borrow a dignity 
 
 v 
 
PREFACE 
 
 and to mark, so to say, a station. This is why, reading 
 over, for revision, correction and republication, the volumes 
 here in hand, I find myself, all attentively, in presence of 
 some such recording scroll or engraved commemorative 
 table from which the " private " character, moreover, 
 quite insists on dropping out. These notes represent, over 
 a considerable course, the continuity of an artist s endeavour, 
 the growth of his whole operative consciousness and, best 
 of all, perhaps, their own tendency to multiply, with the 
 implication, thereby, of a memory much enriched. Addicted 
 to u stories " and inclined to retrospect, he fondly takes, 
 under this backward view, his whole unfolding, his process 
 of production, for a thrilling tale, almost for a wondrous 
 adventure, only asking himself at what stage of remembrance 
 the mark of the relevant will begin to fail. He frankly 
 proposes to take this mark everywhere for granted. 
 
 u Roderick Hudson " was my first attempt at a novel, 
 a long fiction with a " complicated " subject, and I recall 
 again the quite uplifted sense with which my idea, such as 
 it was, permitted me at last to put quite out to sea. I had 
 but hugged the shore on sundry previous small occasions ; 
 bumping about, to acquire skill, in the shallow waters and 
 sandy coves of the u short story " and master as yet of no 
 vessel constructed to carry a sail. The subject of u Rod 
 erick " figured to me vividly this employment of canvas, 
 and I have not forgotten, even after long years, how the 
 blue southern sea seemed to spread immediately before me 
 and the breath of the spice-islands to be already in the 
 breeze. Yet it must even then have begun for me too, the 
 ache of fear, that was to become so familiar, of being un 
 duly tempted and led on by " developments " > which is but 
 the desperate discipline of the question involved in them. 
 They are of the very essence of the novelist s process, and 
 it is by their aid, fundamentally, that his idea takes form 
 and lives ; but they impose on him, through the principle 
 of continuity that rides them, a proportionate anxiety. They 
 are the very condition of interest, which languishes and 
 drops without them j the painter s subject consisting ever, 
 
 vi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 obviously, of the related state, to each other, of certain fig 
 ures and things. To exhibit these relations, once they have 
 all been recognised, is to u treat " his idea, which involves 
 neglecting none of those that directly minister to interest ; 
 the degree of that directness remaining meanwhile a matter 
 of highly difficult appreciation, and one on which felicity of 
 form and composition, as a part of the total effect, merci 
 lessly rests. Up to what point is such and such a develop 
 ment indispensable to the interest ? What is the point be 
 yond which it ceases to be rigorously so ? Where, for the 
 complete expression of one s subject, does a particular rela 
 tion stop giving way to some other not concerned in that 
 expression ? 
 
 Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the ex 
 quisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by 
 a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall 
 happily appear to do so. He is in the perpetual predicament 
 that the continuity of things is the whole matter, for him, 
 of comedy and tragedy ; that this continuity is never, by 
 the space of an instant or an inch, broken, and that, to do 
 anything at all, he has at once intensely to consult and in 
 tensely to ignore it. All of which will perhaps pass but for 
 a supersubtle way of pointing the plain moral that a young 
 embroiderer of the canvas of life soon began to work in 
 terror, fairly, of the vast expanse of that surface, of the 
 boundless number of its distinct perforations for the needle, 
 and of the tendency inherent in his many-coloured flow 
 ers and figures to cover and consume as many as possible 
 of the little holes. The development of the flower, of the 
 figure, involved thus an immense counting of holes and 
 a careful selection among them. That would have been, it 
 seemed to him, a brave enough process, were it not the 
 very nature of the holes so to invite, to solicit, to persuade, 
 to practise positively a thousand lures and deceits. The 
 prime effect of so sustained a system, so prepared a sur 
 face, is to lead on and on ; while the fascination of fol 
 lowing resides, by the same token, in the presumability 
 somewhere of a convenient, of a visibly-appointed stopping- 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 place. Art would be easy indeed if, by a fond power dis 
 posed to " patronise " it, such conveniences, such simpli 
 fications, had been provided. We have, as the case stands, 
 to invent and establish them, to arrive at them by a diffi 
 cult, dire process of selection and comparison, of surrender 
 and sacrifice. The very meaning of expertness is acquired 
 courage to brace one s self for the cruel crisis from the 
 moment one sees it grimly loom. 
 
 " Roderick Hudson " was further, was earnestly pursued 
 during a summer partly spent in the Black Forest and (as 
 I had returned to America early in September) during three 
 months passed near Boston. It is one of the silver threads 
 of the recoverable texture of that embarrassed phase, how 
 ever, that the book was not finished when it had to begin 
 appearing in monthly fragments : a fact in the light of which 
 I find myself live over again, and quite with wonderment 
 and tenderness, so intimate an experience of difficulty and 
 delay. To have " liked " so much writing it, to have worked 
 out with such conviction the pale embroidery, and yet not, 
 at the end of so many months, to have "come through, 
 was clearly still to have fallen short of any facility and any 
 confidence : though the long-drawn process now most ap 
 peals to memory, I confess, by this very quality of shy and 
 groping duration. One fact about it indeed outlives all 
 others ; the fact that, as the loved Italy was the scene of 
 my fiction so much more loved than one has ever been 
 able, even after fifty efforts, to say ! and as having had 
 to leave it persisted as an inward ache, so there was soreness 
 in still contriving, after a fashion, to hang about it and in 
 prolonging, from month to month, the illusion of the golden 
 air. Little enough of that medium may the novel, read over 
 to-day, seem to supply ; yet half the actual interest lurks 
 for me in the earnest, baffled intention of making it felt. 
 A whole side of the old consciousness, under this mild \ 
 pressure, flushes up and prevails again ; a reminder, ever so , 
 penetrating, of the quantity of " evocation " involved in my / 
 plan, and of the quantity I must even have supposed my- \ 
 self to achieve. I take the lingering perception of all this, 
 
 viii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I may add that is of the various admonitions of the whole 
 reminiscence for a signal instance of the way a work of 
 art, however small, if but sufficiently sincere, may vivify 
 and even dignify the accidents and incidents of its growth. 
 
 I must that winter (which I again like to put on record 
 that I spent in New York) have brought up my last instal 
 ments in due time, for I recall no haunting anxiety : what 
 I do recall perfectly is the felt pleasure, during those months 
 and in East Twenty-fifth Street! of trying, on the 
 other side of the world, still to surround with the appropriate 
 local glow the characters that had combined, to my vision, 
 the previous year in Florence. A benediction, a great ad 
 vantage, as seemed to me, had so from the first rested on 
 them, and to nurse them along was really to sit again in the 
 high, charming, shabby old room which had originally over 
 arched them and which, in the hot May and June, had 
 looked out, through the slits of cooling shutters, at the 
 rather dusty but ever-romantic glare of Piazza Santa Maria 
 Novella. The house formed the corner (I delight to spe 
 cify) of Via della Scala, and I fear that what the early 
 chapters of the book most u render " to me to-day is not 
 the umbrageous air of their New England town, but the 
 view of the small cab-stand sleepily disposed long before 
 the days of strident electric cars round the rococo obelisk 
 of the Piazza, which is supported on its pedestal, if I re;- 
 member rightly, by four delightful little elephants. (That, 
 at any rate, is how the object in question, deprecating veri 
 fication, comes back to me with the clatter of the horse- 
 pails, the discussions, in the intervals of repose under well- 
 drawn hoods, of the unbuttoned cocchieri, sons of the most 
 garrulous of races, and the occasional stillness as of the 
 noonday desert.) 
 
 Pathetic, as we say, on the other hand, no doubt, to re- 
 perusal, the manner in which the evocation, so far as at 
 tempted, of the small New England town of my first two 
 chapters, fails of intensity if intensity, in such a connex 
 ion, had been indeed to be looked for. Could I verily, by 
 the terms of my little plan, have " gone in " for it at the 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 best, and even though one of these terms was the projection, 
 for my fable, at the outset, of some more or less vivid an 
 tithesis to a state of civilisation providing for u art " ? What 
 I wanted, in essence, was the image of some perfectly 
 humane community which was yet all incapable of provid 
 ing for it, and I had to take what my scant experience fur 
 nished me. I remember feeling meanwhile no drawback in 
 this scantness, but a complete, an exquisite little adequacy-, 
 so that the presentation arrived at would quite have served 
 its purpose, I think, had I not misled myself into naming 
 my place. To name a place, in fiction, is to pretend in 
 some degree to represent it and I speak here of course 
 but of the use of existing names, the only ones that carry 
 weight. I wanted one that carried weight so at least I 
 supposed ; but obviously I was wrong, since my effect lay, 
 so superficially, and could only lie, in the local type, as to 
 which I had my handful of impressions. The particular 
 local case was another matter, and I was to see again, after 
 long years, the case into which, all recklessly, the opening 
 passages of u Roderick Hudson " put their foot. I was to 
 have nothing then, on the spot, to sustain me but the rather 
 feeble plea that I had not pretended so very much to u do " 
 Northampton Mass. The plea was charmingly allowed, 
 but nothing could have been more to the point than the 
 way in which, in such a situation, the whole question of 
 the novelist s " doing," with its eternal wealth, or in other 
 words its eternal torment of interest, once more came up. 
 He embarks, rash adventurer, under the star of " repre 
 sentation," and is pledged thereby to remember that the art 
 of interesting us in things once these things are the 
 right ones for his case can only be the art of representing 
 them. This relation to them, for invoked interest, involves 
 his accordingly " doing " ; and it is for him to settle with 
 his intelligence what that variable process shall commit 
 him to. 
 
 Its fortune rests primarily, beyond doubt, on somebody s 
 having, under suggestion, a sense for it even the reader 
 will do, on occasion, when the writer, as so often happens, 
 
 X 
 
PREFACE 
 
 completely falls out. The way in which this sense has 
 been, or has not been, applied constitutes, at all events, 
 in respect to any fiction, the very ground of critical appre 
 ciation. Such appreciation takes account, primarily, of the 
 thing, in the case, to have been done, and I now see what, 
 for the first and second chapters of " Roderick," that was. 
 It was a peaceful, rural New England community quelconque 
 it was not, it was under no necessity of being, North 
 ampton Mass. But one nestled, technically, in those days, 
 and with yearning, in the great shadow of Balzac ; his 
 august example, little as the secret might ever be guessed, 
 towered for me over the scene ; so that what was clearer 
 than anything else was how, if it was a question of Saumur, 
 of Limoges, of Guerande, he " did " Saumur, did Limoges, 
 did Guerande. I remember how, in my feebler fashion, I 
 yearned over the preliminary presentation of my small 
 square patch of the American scene, and yet was not suf 
 ficiently on my guard to see how easily his high practice 
 might be delusive for my case. Balzac talked of Nemours 
 and Provins : therefore why shouldn t one, with fond fatu 
 ity, talk of almost the only small American ville de province 
 of which one had happened to lay up, long before, a pleased 
 vision ? The reason was plain : one was not in the least, 
 in one s prudence, emulating his systematic closeness. It 
 did n t confuse the question either that he would verily, 
 after all, addressed as he was to a due density in his mate 
 rial, have found little enough in Northampton Mass to 
 tackle. He tackled no group of appearances, no presented 
 face of the social organism (conspicuity thus attending it), 
 but to make something of it. To name it simply and not 
 in some degree tackle it would have seemed to him an act 
 reflecting on his general course the deepest dishonour. 
 Therefore it was that, as the moral of these many re 
 marks, I u named," under his contagion, when I was really 
 most conscious of not being held to it ; and therefore it 
 was, above all, that for all the effect of representation I 
 was to achieve, I might have let the occasion pass. A 
 "fancy" indication would have served my turn except 
 
 xi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 that I should so have failed perhaps of a pretext for my 
 present insistence. 
 
 Since I do insist, at all events, I find this ghostly interest 
 perhaps even more reasserted for me by the questions be 
 gotten within the very covers of the book, those that wan 
 der and idle there as in some sweet old overtangled walled 
 garden, a safe paradise of self-criticism. Here it is that if 
 there be air for it to breathe at all, the critical question 
 swarms, and here it is, in particular, that one of the happy 
 hours of the painter s long day may strike. I speak of the 
 painter in general and of his relation to the old picture, the 
 work of his hand, that has been lost to sight and that, when 
 found again, is put back on the easel for measure of what 
 time and the weather may, in the interval, have done to it. 
 Has it too fatally faded, has it blackened or " sunk," or 
 otherwise abdicated, or has it only, blest thought, strength 
 ened, for its allotted duration, and taken up, in its degree, 
 poor dear brave thing, some shade of the all appreciable, 
 yet all indescribable grace that we know as pictorial " tone" ? 
 The anxious artist has to wipe it over, in the first place, 
 to see ; he has to u clean it up," say, or to varnish it anew, 
 or at the least to place it in a light,- for any right judgement 
 of its aspect or its worth. But the very uncertainties them 
 selves yield a thrill, and if subject and treatment, working 
 together, have had their felicity, the artist, the prime creator, 
 may find a strange charm in this stage of the connexion. 
 It helps him to live back into a forgotten state, into con 
 victions, credulities too early spent perhaps, it breathes upon 
 the dead reasons of things, buried as they are in the texture 
 of the work, and makes them revive, so that the actual 
 appearances and the old motives fall together once more, 
 and a lesson and a moral and a consecrating final light are 
 somehow disengaged. 
 
 All this, I mean of course, if the case will wonderfully 
 take any such pressure, if the work does n t break down 
 under even such mild overhauling. The author knows well 
 enough how easily that may happen which he in fact 
 frequently enough sees it do. The old reasons then are too 
 
 xii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 dead to revive ; they were not, it is plain, good enough 
 reasons to live. The only possible relation of the present 
 mind to the thing is to dismiss it altogether. On the other 
 hand, when it is not dismissed as the only detachment is 
 the detachment of aversion the creative intimacy is re 
 affirmed, and appreciation, critical apprehension, insists on 
 becoming as active as it can. Who shall say, granted this, 
 where it shall not begin and where it shall consent to end ? 
 The painter who passes over his old sunk canvas the wet 
 sponge that shows him what may still come out again makes 
 his criticism essentially active. When having seen, while 
 his momentary glaze remains, that the canvas has kept a 
 few buried secrets, he proceeds to repeat the process with 
 due care and with a bottle of varnish and a brush, he is 
 " living back," as I say, to the top of his bent, is taking 
 up the old relation, so workable apparently, yet, and there 
 is nothing logically to stay him from following it all the way. 
 I have felt myself then, on looking over past productions, 
 the painter making use again and again of the tentative wet 
 sponge. The sunk surface has here and there, beyond 
 doubt, refused to respond : the buried secrets, the inten 
 tions, are buried too deep to rise again, and were indeed, it 
 would appear, not much worth the burying. Not so, how 
 ever, when the moistened canvas does obscurely flush and 
 when resort to the varnish-bottle is thereby immediately 
 indicated. The simplest figure for my revision of this pre 
 sent array of earlier, later, larger, smaller, canvases, is to say 
 that I have achieved it by the very aid of the varnish-bottle. 
 It is true of them throughout that, in words I have had oc 
 casion to use in another connexion (where too I had revised 
 with a view to " possible amendment of form and enhance 
 ment of meaning"), I have " nowhere scrupled to re-write 
 a sentence or a passage on judging it susceptible of a better 
 turn." 
 
 To re-read " Roderick Hudson " was to find one remark 
 so promptly and so urgently prescribed that I could at once 
 only take it as pointing almost too stern a moral. It stared 
 me in the face that the time-scheme of the story is quite 
 
 xiii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 inadequate, and positively to that degree that the fault but 
 just fails to wreck it. The thing escapes, I conceive, with 
 its life : the effect sought is fortunately more achieved than 
 missed, since the interest of the subject bears down, auspi 
 ciously dissimulates, this particular flaw in the treatment. 
 Everything occurs, none the less, too punctually and moves 
 too fast : Roderick s disintegration, a gradual process, and 
 of which the exhibitional interest is exactly that it is grad 
 ual and occasional, and thereby traceable and watchable, 
 swallows two years in a jnouthful, proceeds quite not by 
 years, but by weeks and months, and thus renders the whole 
 view the disservice of appearing to present him as a morbidly 
 special case. The very claim of the fable is naturally that 
 be is speciaLfthat his great gift makes and keeps him highly 
 exceptjon^rf but that is not for a moment supposed to pre 
 clude his appearing typical (of the general type) as well ; for 
 the fictive hero successfully appeals to us only as an eminent 
 instance, as eminent as we like, of our own conscious kind. 
 My mistake on Roderick s behalf and not in the least of 
 conception, but of composition and expression is that, at 
 the rate at which he falls to pieces, he seems to place him 
 self beyond our understanding and our sympathy. These 
 are not our rates, we say; we ourselves certainly, under like 
 pressure, for what is it after all ? would make more of 
 a fight. We conceive going to pieces nothing is easier, 
 since we see people do it, one way or another, all round 
 us ; but this young man must either have had less of the 
 principle of development to have had so much of the prin 
 ciple of collapse, or less of the principle of collapse to have 
 had so much of the principle of development. " On the 
 basis of so great a weakness," one hears the reader say, 
 " where was your idea of the interest ? On the basis of so 
 great an interest, where is the provision for so much weak 
 ness ?" One feels indeed, in the light of this challenge, on 
 how much too scantly projected and suggested a field poor 
 Roderick and his large capacity for ruin are made to turn 
 round. It has all begun Toosoon, as I say, and too simply, 
 and the determinant function attributed to Christina Light, 
 
 xiv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 the character of ^veil-nigh sole agent ofji|^catastro^he that 
 this unfortunate "young woman has forced upon her, fails to 
 commend itself to our sense of truth and proportion. 
 
 It was not, however, that I was at ease on this score even 
 in the first fond good faith of composition ; I felt too, all 
 the while, how many more ups and downs, how many more 
 adventures and complications my young man would have 
 had to know, how much more experience it would have 
 taken, in short, either to make him go under or to make 
 him triumph. The greater complexity, the superior truth, 
 was all more or less present to me ; only the question was, 
 too dreadfully, how make it present to the reader ? How 
 boil down so many facts in the alembic, so that the distilled 
 result, the produced appearance, should have intensity, lucid 
 ity, brevity, beauty, all the merits required for my effect ? 
 How, when it was already so difficult, as I found, to pro 
 ceed even as I was proceeding ? It did n t help, alas, it only 
 maddened, to remember that Balzac would have known 
 how, and would have yet asked no additional credit for it. 
 All the difficulty I could dodge still struck me, at any rate, 
 as leaving more than enough ; and yet I was already con 
 sciously in presence, here, of the most interesting question 
 the artist has to consider. To give the image and the sense 
 of certain things while still keeping them subordinate to his 
 plan, keeping them in relation to matters more immediate 
 and apparent, to give all the sense, in a word, without all 
 the substance or all the surface, and so to summarise and 
 foreshorten, so to make values both rich and sharp, that the 
 mere procession of items and profiles is not only, for the 
 occasion, superseded, but is, for essential quality, almost 
 "compromised" such a case of delicacy proposes itself 
 at every turn to the painter of life who wishes both to treat 
 his chosen subject and to confine his necessary picture. It 
 is only by doing such things that art becomes exquisite, and 
 it is only by positively becoming exquisite that it keeps clear 
 of becoming vulgar, repudiates the coarse industries that 
 masquerade in its name. This eternal time-question is 
 accordingly, for the novelist, always there and always for- 
 
 xv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 midable ; always insisting on the effect of the great lapse and 
 passage, of the u dark backward and abysm," by the terms 
 of truth, and on the effect of compression, of composition 
 and form, by the terms of literary arrangement. It is really 
 a business to terrify all but stout hearts into abject omission 
 and mutilation, though the terror would indeed be more 
 general were the general consciousness of the difficulty 
 greater. It is not by consciousness of difficulty, in truth, 
 that the story-teller is mostly ridden ; so prodigious a num 
 ber of stories would otherwise scarce get themselves (shall 
 it be called ?) " told." None was ever very well told, I 
 think, under the law of mere elimination inordinately as 
 that device appears in many quarters to be depended en. 
 I remember doing my best not to be reduced to it for 
 u Roderick," at the same time that I did so helplessly and 
 consciously beg a thousand questions. What I clung to as 
 my principle of simplification was the precious truth that 
 I was dealing, after all, essentially with an Action, and that 
 no action, further, was ever made historically vivid without 
 a certain factitious compactness; though this logic indeed 
 opened up horizons and abysses of its own. But into these 
 we must plunge on some other occasion. 
 
 It was at any rate under an admonition or two fished out 
 of their depths that I must have tightened my hold of the 
 remedy afforded, such as it was, for the absence of those 
 more adequate illustrations of Roderick s character and his 
 tory. Since one was dealing with an Action one might 
 borrow a scrap of the Dramatist s all-in-all, his intensity 
 which the novelist so often ruefully envies him as a for 
 tune in itself. The amount of illustration I could allow to 
 the grounds of my young man s disaster was unquestionably 
 meagre, but I might perhaps make it lively ; I might pro 
 duce illusion if I should be able to achieve intensity. It was 
 for that I must have tried, I now see, with such art as I 
 could command ; but I make out in another quarter above 
 all what really saved me. My subject, all blissfully, in face 
 of difficulties, had defined itself and this in spite of the title 
 of the book as not directly, in the least, my young sculp- 
 
 xv i 
 
PREFACE 
 
 tor s adventure. This it had been but indirectly, being all the 
 while in essence and in final effect another man s, his 
 
 I friend s and patron s, view and experience of him. One s 
 luck was to have felt one s subject right whether instinct 
 or calculation, in those dim days, most served ; and the cir 
 cumstance even amounts perhaps to a little lesson that when 
 this has happily occurred faults may show, faults may dis 
 figure, and yet not upset the work. It remains in equilib 
 rium by having found its centre, the point of command of 
 all the rest. From this centre the subject has been treated, 
 from this centre the interest has spread, and so, whatever 
 else it may do or may not do, the thing has acknowledged 
 a principle of composition and contrives at least to hang to 
 gether. We see in such a case why it should so hang ; we 
 escape that dreariest displeasure it is open to experiments 
 in this general order to inflict, the sense of any hanging- 
 together precluded as by the very terms of the case. 
 
 The centre of interest throughout u Roderick " is in 
 Rowland Mallet s consciousness., and the drama is the very 
 drama of that consciousness which I had of course to 
 make sufficiently acute in order to enable it, like a set and 
 lighted scene, to hold the play. By making it acute, mean 
 while, one made its own movement or rather, strictly, 
 its movement in the particular connexion interesting; 
 this movement really being quite the stuff of one s thesis. 
 It had, naturally, Rowland s consciousness, not to be too 
 acute which would have disconnected it and made it 
 superhuman : the beautiful little problem was to keep it 
 connected, connected intimately, with the general human 
 exposure, and thereby bedimmed and befooled and bewil 
 dered, anxious, restless, fallible, and yet to endow it with 
 such intelligence that the appearances reflected in it, and 
 constituting together there the situation and the " story," 
 should become by that fact intelligible. Discernible from 
 the first the joy of such a "job" as this making of his re 
 lation to everything involved a sufficiently limited, a suffi 
 ciently pathetic, tragic, comic, ironic, personal state to be 
 thoroughly natural, and yet at the same time a sufficiently 
 
 xvii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 clear medium to represent a whole. This whole was to be 
 the sum of what " happened " to him, or in other words 
 his total adventure ; but as what happened to him was above 
 all to feel certain things happening to others, to Roderick, 
 to Christina, to Mary Garland, to Mrs. Hudson, to the 
 Cavaliere, to the Prince, so the beauty of the constructional 
 game was to preserve in everything its especial value for 
 him. The ironic effect of his having fallen in love with 
 the girl who is herself in love with Roderick, though he is 
 unwitting, at the time, of that secret the conception of 
 this last irony, I must add, has remained happier than my 
 execution of it ; which should logically have involved the 
 reader s being put into position to take more closely home 
 the impression made by Mary Garland. The ground has 
 not been laid for it, and when that is the case one builds 
 all vainly in the air : one patches up one s superstructure, 
 one paints it in the prettiest colours, one hangs fine old 
 tapestry and rare brocade over its window-sills, one flies 
 emblazoned banners from its roof the building none the 
 less totters and refuses to stand square. 
 
 It is not really worked-in that Roderick himself could 
 have pledged his faith in such a quarter, much more at such 
 a crisis, before leaving America : and that weakness, clearly, 
 produces a limp in the whole march of the fable. Just so, 
 though there was no reason on earth (unless I except one, 
 presently to be mentioned) why Rowland should not, at 
 Northampton, have conceived a passion, or as near an ap 
 proach to one as he was capable of, for a remarkable young 
 woman there suddenly dawning on his sight, a particular 
 fundamental care was required for the vivification of that 
 possibility. The care, unfortunately, has not been skilfully 
 enough taken, in spite of the later patching-up of the girl s 
 figure. We fail to accept it, on the actual showing, as that 
 of a young person irresistible at any moment, and above all 
 irresistible at a moment of the liveliest other preoccupation, 
 as that of the weaver of (even the highly conditioned) spell 
 that the narrative imputes to her. The spell of attraction 
 is cast upon young men by young women in all sorts of 
 
 xviii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ways, and the novel has no more constant office than to 
 remind us of that. But Mary Garland s way does n t, in 
 dubitably, convince us ; any more than we are truly con 
 vinced, I think, that Rowland s destiny, or say his nature, 
 would have made him accessible at the same hour to two 
 quite distinct commotions, each a very deep one, of his 
 whole personal economy. Rigidly viewed, each of these 
 upheavals of his sensibility must have been exclusive of 
 other upheavals, yet the reader is asked to accept them as 
 working together. They are different vibrations, but the 
 whole sense of the situation depicted is that they should 
 each have been of the strongest, too strong to walk hand in 
 hand. Therefore it is that when, on the ship, under the 
 stars, Roderick suddenly takes his friend into the confidence 
 of his engagement, we instinctively disallow the friend s 
 title to discomfiture. The whole picture presents him as 
 for the time on the mounting wave, exposed highly enough, 
 no doubt, to a hundred discomfitures, but least exposed to 
 that one. The damage to verisimilitude is deep. 
 
 The difficulty had been from the first that I required my 
 antithesis my antithesis to Christina Light, one of the 
 main terms of the subject. One is ridden by the law that 
 antitheses, to be efficient, shall be both direct and complete. 
 Directness seemed to fail unless Mary should be, so to 
 speak, " plain," Christina being essentially so " coloured "; 
 and completeness seemed to fail unless she too should have 
 her potency. She could moreover, by which I mean the 
 antithetic young woman could, perfectly have had it , only 
 success would have been then in the narrator s art to attest 
 it. Christina s own presence and action are, on the other 
 hand, I think, all firm ground ; the truth probably being 
 that the ideal antithesis rarely does " come off," and that it 
 has to content itself for the most part with a strong term 
 and a weak term, and even then to feel itself lucky. If one 
 of the terms is strong, that perhaps may pass, in the most 
 difficult of the arts, for a triumph. I remember at all events 
 feeling, toward the end of " Roderick," that the Princess 
 Casamassima had been launched, that, wound-up with the 
 
 xix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 right silver key, she would go on a certain time by the mo 
 tion communicated ; thanks to which I knew the pity, the 
 real pang of losing sight of her. I desired as in no other 
 such case I can recall to preserve, to recover the vision ; 
 and I have seemed to myself in re-reading the book quite 
 to understand why. The multiplication of touches had 
 produced even more life than the subject required, and that 
 life, in other conditions, in some other prime relation, would 
 still have somehow to be spent. Thus one would watch 
 for her and waylay her at some turn of the road to come 
 all that was to be needed was to give her time. This I did 
 in fact, meeting her again and taking her up later on. 
 
 HENRY JAMES. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ROWLAND MALLET had made his arrangements to 
 sail for Europe on the 5th of September, and having 
 in the interval a fortnight to spare, he determined 
 to spend it with his cousin Cecilia, the widow of a 
 nephew of his father. He was urged by the reflexion 
 that an affectionate farewell might help to exoner 
 ate him from the charge of neglect frequently pre 
 ferred by this lady. It was not that the young man 
 disliked her; he regarded her, on the contrary, 
 with a tender admiration and had not forgotten how 
 when his cousin brought her home on her marriage 
 he seemed to feel the upward sweep of the empty 
 bough from which the golden fruit had been plucked. 
 He then and there, for himself, accepted the pro 
 spect of bachelorhood. The truth was that, as it 
 will be part of the entertainment of this narrative to 
 exhibit, Rowland Mallet had an uncomfortably sen 
 sitive conscience, and that, in spite of the seeming 
 paradox, his visits to Cecilia were rare because she 
 and her misfortunes were often uppermost in it. 
 Her misfortunes were three in number: first, she 
 had lost her husband; second, she had lost her 
 money, or the greater part of it; and third, she lived 
 at Northampton, Massachusetts. Mallet s compas 
 sion was really wasted, because Cecilia was a very 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 clevei woman and a skilful counter-plotter to ad 
 versity. She had made herself a charming home, 
 her economies were not obtrusive, and there was 
 always a cheerful flutter in the folds of her crape. It 
 was the consciousness of all this that puzzled Mallet 
 whenever he felt tempted to put in his oar. He had 
 money and he had time, but he never could decide just 
 how to place these gifts gracefully at Cecilia s service. 
 He was no longer at all in the humour to marry her; 
 that fancy had in these eight years died a very nat 
 ural death. And yet her extreme cleverness seemed 
 somehow to make charity difficult and patronage 
 impossible. He would rather have chopped off his 
 hand than offer her a cheque, a piece of useful fur 
 niture or a black silk dress; and yet there was pity 
 for him in seeing such a bright proud woman live 
 in such a small dull way. Cecilia had moreover a 
 turn for sarcasm, and her smile, which was her 
 pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her 
 sprightly phrase had a lurking scratch in it. Row 
 land remembered that for him she was all smiles, 
 and suspected awkwardly that he ministered not a 
 little to her sense of the irony of things. And in truth, 
 with his means, his leisure and his opportunities, 
 what had he done ? He had a lively suspicion of his 
 uselessness. Cecilia meanwhile cut out her own 
 dresses, and was personally giving her little girl the 
 education of a princess. 
 
 This time, however, he presented himself bravely 
 enough; for in the way of activity it was something 
 definite at least to be going to Europe and to be 
 meaning to spend the winter in Rome. Cecilia met 
 
 2 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 him in the early dusk at the gate of her little garden, 
 amid a studied combination of horticultural odours. 
 A rosy widow of twenty-eight, half-cousin, half- 
 hostess, doing the honours of a fragrant cottage on 
 a midsummer evening, was a phenomenon to which 
 all the young man s senses were able to rise. Cecilia 
 was always gracious, but this evening she was posi 
 tively in spirits. She was in a happy mood, and 
 Mallet imagined there was a private reason for it 
 a reason quite distinct from her pleasure in re 
 ceiving her honoured kinsman. The next day he 
 flattered himself he was on the way to discover it. 
 
 For the present, after tea, as they sat on the rose- 
 framed porch, while Rowland held his younger 
 cousin between his knees, and she, enjoying her situ 
 ation, listened timorously for the stroke of bedtime, 
 Cecilia insisted on talking more about her visitor 
 than about herself. "What is it you mean to do 
 in Europe?" she asked lightly, giving a turn to the 
 frill of her sleeve just such a turn as seemed to 
 Mallet to bring out ail the latent difficulties of the 
 question. 
 
 "Why, very much what I do here," he answered. 
 "No great harm!" 
 
 "Is it true," Cecilia asked, "that here you do no 
 great harm ? Isn t a man like you doing a certain 
 harm when he is n t doing some positive good ?" 
 
 "Isn t that compliment rather ambiguous?" he 
 inquired in return. 
 
 "No," she answered, "you know what I think 
 of you. You have a turn for doing nice things and 
 behaving yourself properly. You have it, in the first 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 place, in your character. You mean, if you will 
 pardon my putting it so, thoroughly well. Ask Bessie 
 if you don t hold her more gently and comfortably 
 than any of her other admirers." 
 
 "He holds me more comfortably than Mr. Hudson," 
 Bessie declared roundly. 
 
 Rowland, not knowing Mr. Hudson, could but 
 half appreciate the eulogy, and Cecilia went on to 
 develop her idea. "Your circumstances, in the second 
 place, suggest the idea of some sort of social useful 
 ness. You re intelligent and are well informed, and 
 your benevolence, if one may call it benevolence, 
 would be discriminating. You re rich and unoccu 
 pied, so that it might be abundant. Therefore I say 
 you re a man to do something on a large scale. 
 Bestir yourself, dear Rowland, or we may be taught 
 to think that Virtue herself is setting a bad example." 
 
 "Heaven forbid," cried Rowland, "that I should 
 set the examples of virtue ! I m quite willing to follow 
 them, however, and if I don t do something on the 
 grand scale it is that my genius is altogether imita 
 tive and that I ve not recently encountered any very 
 striking models of grandeur. Pray, what shall I do ? 
 Found an orphan asylum or build a dormitory for 
 Harvard College ? I m not rich enough to do either 
 in an ideally handsome way, and I confess that yet 
 a while I feel too young to strike my grand coup. 
 I m holding myself ready for inspiration. I m 
 waiting till something takes my fancy irresistibly. If 
 inspiration comes at forty it will be a hundred pities 
 to have tied up my money-bag at thirty." 
 
 "Well, of course I give you decent time," said 
 
 4 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Cecilia. "It s only a word to the wise a notifica 
 tion that you re expected not to run your course 
 without having done something handsome for your 
 fellow men-." 
 
 Nine o clock sounded, and Bessie with each stroke 
 courted a closer embrace. But a single winged word 
 from her mother overleaped her successive intrench- 
 ments. She turned and kissed her cousin, deposit 
 ing an irrepressible tear on his moustache. Then 
 she went and said her prayers to her mother; it 
 was evident she was being admirably brought up. 
 Rowland, with the permission of his hostess, lighted 
 a cigar and puffed it a while in silence. Cecilia s 
 interest in his career seemed very agreeable. That 
 Mallet was without vanity I by no means intend to 
 affirm; but there had been times when, seeing him 
 accept with scarce less deference advice even more 
 peremptory than this lady s, you might have asked 
 yourself what had become of his proper pride. Now, 
 in the sweet-smelling starlight, he felt gently wooed 
 to egotism. There was a project connected with his 
 going abroad which it was on his tongue s end to 
 communicate. It had no relation to hospitals or 
 dormitories, and yet it would have sounded very gen 
 erous. But it was not because it would have sounded 
 generous that poor Mallet at last puffed it away 
 in the fumes of his cigar. Useful though it might 
 be, it expressed too imperfectly the young man s own 
 personal conception of usefulness. He was extremely 
 fond of all the arts and had an almost passionate 
 enjoyment of pictures. He had seen a great many 
 and judged them sagaciously. It had occurred to 
 
 s 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 him some time before that it would be the work of 
 a good citizen to go abroad and with all expedition 
 and secrecy purchase certain valuable specimens 
 of the Dutch and Italian schools, as to which he 
 had received private proposals, and then present 
 / his treasures out of hand to an American city, not 
 unknown to aesthetic fame, in which at that time 
 there prevailed a good deal of fruitless aspiration 
 toward an art-museum. He had seen himself in 
 imagination, more than once, in the mouldy old 
 saloon of a Florentine palace, turning toward the 
 deep embrasure of the window some scarcely-faded 
 Ghirlandaio or Botticelli while a host in reduced 
 circumstances pointed out the lovely drawing of a 
 hand. But he imparted none of these visions to 
 Cecilia, and he suddenly swept them away with the 
 p/ declaration that he was of course an idle useless 
 creature and that he should probably be even more 
 so in Europe than at home. "The only thing is," 
 he said, "that there I shall seem to be doing some 
 thing. I shall be better beguiled, and shall be there 
 fore, I suppose, in a better humour with life. You 
 may say that that s just the humour a useless man 
 should keep out of. He should cultivate humility 
 and depression. I did a good many things when I was 
 in Europe before, but I spent no winter in Rome. 
 Every one assures me that this is a peculiar refine 
 ment of bliss; you must have noticed the almost 
 priggish ecstasy with which those who have enjoyed 
 it talk about it. It s evidently a sort of glorified loafing: 
 a passive life there, thanks to the number and the 
 /quality of one s impressions, takes on a respectable 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 likeness to an active pursuit. It s always lotus-eat 
 ing, only you sit down at table and the lotuses arc 
 served up on rococo china. It s all very well, but 
 I have a distinct prevision of this that if Roman 
 life does n t do something substantial to make you 
 happier it must contribute rather to unhinge or 
 upset you. It seems to me a rash thing for a sensi 
 tive soul deliberately to cultivate its sensibilities by 
 rambling too often among the ruins of the Palatine 
 or riding too often in the shadow of the crumbling 
 aqueducts. In such recreations the chords of feeling 
 grow tense, and after-life, to spare your aesthetic 
 nerves, must play upon them with a touch as dainty 
 as the tread of Mignon when she danced her egg- 
 dance." 
 
 "I should have said, my dear Rowland, with all 
 recognition of your eloquence," Cecilia said with a 
 laugh, "that your nerves were tough that your 
 eggs were hard!" 
 
 "That being stupid, you mean, I might be happy ? 
 Upon my word, I m not so happy as that! I m clever 
 enough to want more than I ve got. I m tired of 
 myself, my own thoughts, my own affairs, my own 
 eternal company. True happiness, we are told, 
 consists in getting out of one s self; but the point 
 is not only to get out you must stay out; and to 
 stay out you must have some absorbing errand. 
 Unfortunately I have no errand, and nobody will 
 trust me with one. I want to care for something or 
 for somebody. And I want to care, don t you see ? 
 with a certain intensity; even, if you can believe it, 
 with a certain passion. I can t just now be intense 
 
 7 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and passionate about a hospital or a dormitory. Do 
 you know I sometimes think that I m a man of 
 genius half-finished ? The genius has been left out, 
 the faculty of expression is wanting; but the need for 
 expression remains, and I spend my days groping 
 for the latch of a closed door." 
 
 "What an immense number of words," said Cecilia 
 after a pause, "to say you want to fall in love! I ve 
 no doubt you Ve as good a genius for that as any 
 one if you would only trust it a little more." 
 
 "Of course I ve thought of that, and I assure you 
 I hold myself ready. But evidently I m not inflam 
 mable. Is there in Northampton by chance some 
 perfect epitome of the graces ?" 
 
 "Of the graces?" said Cecilia, raising her eye 
 brows and suppressing too distinct a consciousness 
 of being herself a finished embodiment of several. 
 "The household virtues, in all their rigour, are 
 better represented. There are some excellent young 
 women, and there are two or three very pretty girls. 
 I ll have them all here to tea, one by one, if you like." 
 
 " I should particularly like it ; especially as I 
 should give you a chance to see by the profundity 
 of my attention that if I m not happy it s not for 
 want of taking pains." 
 
 Cecilia was silent a little; and then, "On the 
 whole," she resumed, "I don t think there are any 
 worth putting you in possible suspense about. You ve 
 seen as good samples as we can show you." 
 
 "Are you very, very sure ?" asked the young man, 
 rising and throwing away his cigar-end. 
 
 "Upon my word," cried Cecilia, "one would 
 
 8 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 suppose I wished to keep you for myself ! Of course 
 I m very, very sure. But, as the penalty of your 
 insinuations, I shall invite the plainest and prosiest 
 damsel who can be found of them we have our 
 assortment! and leave you alone with her." 
 
 Rowland smiled. "Even against her," he said, 
 " I should be sorry to conclude until I had given her 
 my respectful attention." 
 
 This little profession of ideal chivalry (which 
 closed the conversation) was not quite so fanciful 
 on his lips as it would have been on those of many 
 another man; as a rapid glance at his antecedents may 
 help to make the reader perceive. His life had held 
 side by side many hard things and many soft. He 
 had sprung from a stiff Puritan stock and had been 
 brought up to think much more intently of the duties 
 of our earthly pilgrimage than of its privileges and 
 pleasures. His progenitors had submitted in the matter 
 of dogmatic theology to the relaxing influences of 
 recent years; but if Rowland s youthful conscious 
 ness was not chilled by the menace of long punish 
 ment for brief transgression, he had at least been 
 made to feel that there ran through all things a strain 
 of right and of wrong as different, after all, in their 
 complexion, as the texture, to the spiritual sense, 
 of Sundays and week-days. His father, a chip of 
 the primal Puritan block, had been a man of an icy 
 smile and a stony frown. He had always bestowed 
 on his son, on principle, more frowns than smiles, 
 and if the lad had not been turned to stone himself 
 it was because nature had blessed him inwardly 
 with a well of vivifying waters. Mrs. Mnllet had 
 
 9 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 been a Miss Rowland, the daughter of a retired sea- 
 captain once famous on the ships that sailed from 
 Salem and Newburyport. He had brought to port 
 many a cargo which crowned the edifice of fortunes 
 already almost colossal, but he had also done a little 
 sagacious trading on his own account, and he was 
 able to retire, prematurely for so seaworthy a mari 
 time organism, upon a pension of his own providing. 
 He was to be seen for a year on the Salem wharves, 
 smoking the best tobacco and contemplating the 
 seaward horizon with an inveteracy which super 
 ficial minds interpreted as a sign of repentance. At 
 last, one evening, he disappeared beneath it, as he 
 had often done before; this time, however, not as 
 a commissioned navigator, but simply as an ama 
 teur of a critical turn likely to prove oppressive to 
 the officer in command of the vessel. Five months 
 later his place at home knew him again, and made 
 the acquaintance also of a handsome, light-coloured 
 young woman, of redundant contour, speaking a 
 foreign tongue. The foreign tongue proved after 
 much conflicting research to be the idiom of Am 
 sterdam, and the young woman, which was stranger 
 still, to be Captain Rowland s wife. Why he had 
 gone forth so suddenly across the seas to marry 
 her, what had happened between them before, and 
 whether though it was of questionable propriety 
 for a good citizen to espouse a young person of 
 mysterious origin who did her hair in fantastically 
 elaborate plaits and in whose appearance "figure" 
 enjoyed such striking predominance he would not 
 have had a heavy weight on his conscience if he had 
 
 10 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 remained an irresponsible bachelor: these questions, 
 and many others bearing with varying degrees of 
 immediacy on the subject, were much propounded 
 but scantily answered, and this history need not be 
 charged with resolving them. Mrs. Rowland, for 
 so handsome a woman, proved a tranquil neighbour 
 and an excellent housewife. Her extremely fresh 
 complexion, however, was always suffused with an 
 air of apathetic homesickness, and she played her 
 part in American society chiefly by having the little 
 squares of brick pavement in front of her dwelling 
 scoured and polished as nearly as possible into the 
 likeness of Dutch tiles. Rowland Mallet remembered 
 having seen her as a child an immensely stout 
 white-faced lady, wearing a high cap of very stiff 
 tulle, speaking English with a formidable accent 
 and suffering from dropsy. Captain Rowland was 
 a little bronzed and wizened man, with eccentric 
 opinions. He advocated the creation o* a public 
 promenade along the sea, with arbours and little 
 green tables for the consumption of beer, and a 
 platform, surrounded by Chinese lanterns, for dancing. 
 He especially desired the town library to be opened 
 on Sundays; though, as he never entered it on week 
 days, it was easy to turn the proposition into ridicule. 
 Therefore if Mrs. Mallet was a woman of an ex 
 quisite moral tone it was not that she had inherited 
 her temper from forefathers with a turn for casuistry. 
 Jonas Mallet at the time of his marriage was con 
 ducting with silent shrewdness a small unpromising 
 business. Both his shrewdness and his silence in 
 creased with his years, and at the close of his life 
 
 II 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 he was an extremely well-dressed, well-brushed 
 gentleman with a frigid grey eye, who said little to 
 anybody, but of whom everybody said that he had 
 a very handsome fortune. He was not a sentimental 
 father, and the introduction into Rowland s life of 
 that grim ghost of the wholesome by which I spoke 
 of it just now as haunted dated from early boyhood. 
 Mr. Mallet, whenever he looked at his son, felt 
 extreme compunction at having made a fortune. 
 He remembered that the fruit had not dropped 
 ripe from the tree into his own mouth, and he deter 
 mined it should be no fault of his if the boy were 
 corrupted by luxury. Rowland therefore, except 
 for a good deal of expensive instruction in foreign 
 tongues and abstruse sciences, received the educa 
 tion of a poor man s son. His fare was plain, his 
 temper familiar with the discipline of patched trousers 
 and his habits marked by an exaggerated simplicity 
 which was kept up really at great expense. He was 
 banished to the country for months together, in the 
 midst of servants who had strict injunctions to see 
 that he suffered no serious harm, but were as strictly 
 forbidden to wait upon him. As no school could be 
 found conducted on principles sufficiently rigorous, 
 he was attended at home by an instructor who had 
 set a high price high for Jonas Mallet on the 
 understanding that he was to illustrate the beauty 
 of abstinence not only by precept but by example. 
 Rowland passed for a child of ordinary parts, and 
 certainly, during his younger years, was an excellent 
 imitation of the boy most usual of boys who 
 has inherited nothing whatever that is to make his 
 
 12 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 presence on earth shine from afar. He was passive, 
 pliable, frank, extremely slow at his books and in 
 ordinately fond of trout-fishing. His hair, a memento 
 of his Dutch ancestry, was of the fairest shade of 
 yellow, his complexion absurdly rosy and the meas 
 urement of his middle, when he was about ten years 
 old, quite alarmingly large. This, however, was 
 but an episode in his growth; he became afterwards 
 a fresh-coloured, yellow-bearded man, but was never 
 accused of anything more material than a manly 
 stoutness. He emerged from childhood a simple, 
 wholesome, round-eyed lad, with no suspicion that 
 a less circuitous course might have been taken to 
 make him happy, but with a vague sense that his 
 young experience was not a fair sample of human 
 freedom and that he was to make a great many 
 discoveries. When he was about fifteen he achieved 
 a momentous one. He ascertained that his mother 
 was a saint. She had always been a very vivid pre 
 sence in his life, but of an intensity so mild, so dif 
 fused and so regulated that his sense was fully opened 
 to it only by the danger of losing her. She had an 
 illness which for many months was liable at any 
 moment to carry her off, and during her long- 
 arrested convalescence she removed the mask that she 
 had worn for years by her husband s order. Row 
 land spent his days at her side, and felt before long 
 as if he had made a new friend. All his impressions 
 of this period were to be commented upon and in 
 terpreted during the comparative ease of the future, 
 and it was only at the later time that he understood 
 how his mother had been for fifteen long years a 
 
 13 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 woman heavily depressed, and her marriage an 
 irredeemable error which she had spent her life in 
 trying to look in the face. She had found nothing 
 to oppose to her husband s rigid and consistent will 
 but the appearance of absolute compliance; her 
 courage had sunk, and she had lived for a while 
 in a sort of spiritual torpor. But at last, as her child 
 emerged from babyhood, she had begun to find a 
 certain charm in patience, to discover the uses of 
 ingenuity, and to learn that somehow or other one 
 can always arrange one s life. She had cultivated 
 from this time forward a little plot of independ 
 ent feeling, and it was of this private precinct that 
 before her death she had given her son the key. 
 Rowland s allowance at college was barely sufficient 
 to maintain him decently, and, his degree neverthe 
 less achieved, he was taken into his father s counting- 
 house to do small drudgery on a proportionate 
 stipend. For three years he earned his living as 
 regularly as the obscure functionary in fustian who 
 swept out the place. Mr. Mallet was consistent, 
 but the perfection of his consistency was known only 
 on his death. He left but a third of his property to 
 his son, devoting the remainder to various public 
 institutions and local charities. Rowland s third 
 was a very easy competence, and he never felt a 
 moment s jealousy of his fellow pensioners; but 
 when one of the establishments which had figured 
 most advantageously in his father s will bethought 
 itself to affirm the existence of a later instrument in 
 which it had been still more handsomely treated, the 
 young man felt a sudden passionate need to repel the 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 claim by process of law. There was a sharp contest, 
 but he gained his case; immediately after which he 
 made in another quarter a donation of the disputed 
 sum. He cared nothing for the money, but he had felt 
 a just desire to protest against a star which seemed 
 determined only not to pamper him. It struck him 
 that he could put up with a little pampering. And 
 yet he treated himself to a very modest quantity 
 and submitted without reserve to the great national 
 discipline which began in 1861. When the Civil 
 War broke out he immediately obtained a commission, 
 doing his duty afterwards, for the three first long 
 years, by the aid of much grinding of the teeth. 
 His duty happened to remain, for the most part, 
 obscure, but he never lost a certain private satis 
 faction in remembering that on two or three occa 
 sions it had been performed, if not with glory, at 
 least with a noted propriety. He had disentangled 
 himself from business, and after the war he felt a 
 deep disinclination to take up again the harsh and 
 broken threads. He had no desire to make money, 
 he had money enough; and although he knew, and 
 was frequently reminded, that a young man is the 
 better for a fixed occupation, he could perceive no 
 advantage to his soul in his driving a lucrative trade. 
 Yet few young men of means and leisure ever made 
 less of a parade of idleness, and indeed idleness in any 
 degree could hardly be laid at the door of a person 
 age who took life in the conscious, serious, anxious 
 fashion of our friend. It often seemed to Mallet that 
 he wholly lacked the prime requisite of an expert 
 flaneur the simple, sensuous, confident relish of 
 
 5 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 pleasure. He had frequent fits of melancholy in 
 which he declared that he was neither fish nor flesh 
 nor good red herring. His was neither an irre 
 sponsibly contemplative nature nor a sturdily prac 
 tical one, and he was for ever looking in vain for the 
 uses of the things that please and the charm of 
 the things that sustain. He was an awkward mix 
 ture of moral and aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would 
 have made an ineffective reformer and an indifferent 
 artist. It seemed to him that the glow of happiness 
 must be found either in action of some thoroughly 
 keen kind on behalf of an idea, or in producing a 
 masterpiece in one of the arts. Oftenest, perhaps, 
 he wished he had been a vigorous young man of 
 genius without a penny. As it was, he could only 
 buy pictures and not paint them; and in the way of 
 action he had to content himself with making a rule 
 to render scrupulous justice to fine strokes of it in 
 others. On the whole he had an incorruptible modesty. 
 With his blooming complexion and his quiet grey 
 eyes he felt the friction of existence more than was 
 suspected; but he asked no allowance on grounds 
 of temper, he assumed that fate had treated him 
 inordinately well and that he had no excuse for 
 taking an ill-natured view of life, and he engaged 
 to believe that all women were fair, all men were 
 brave and the world a delightful place of sojourn, 
 until the contrary should be distinctly proved. 
 
 Cecilia s blooming garden and shady porch had 
 seemed so friendly to repose and a cigar that she 
 reproached him the next morning with indifference 
 to her ordered little parlour, not less in its way a 
 
 16 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 monument to her ingenious taste. "And by the way," 
 she added as he followed her in, "if I refused last 
 night to show you a pretty girl, I can at least show 
 you a remarkably pretty boy." 
 
 She threw open a window and pointed to a statu 
 ette which occupied a place of honour among the 
 ornaments of the room. Rowland looked at it a mo 
 ment and then turned to her with an exclamation 
 of surprise. She gave him a rapid glance, perceived 
 that her statuette was of striking interest, and then 
 smiled knowingly, as if this were a familiar idea. 
 "Who in the world did it, and how did you ever 
 come by it ?" Rowland had visibly received a sharp 
 impression. 
 
 "Oh," said Cecilia, adjusting the light, "it s a 
 little thing of poor Mr. Hudson s." 
 
 "And who the deuce is poor Mr. Hudson ?" asked 
 Rowland. But he was absorbed; he lost her immediate 
 reply. The statuette, in bronze, something more 
 than two feet high, represented a naked youth drink 
 ing from a gourd. The attitude was perfectly simple. 
 The lad was squarely planted on his feet, with his 
 legs a little apart; his back was slightly hollowed, 
 his head thrown back; his hands were raised to 
 support the rustic cup. There was a loosened fillet 
 of wild flowers about his head, and his eyes, under 
 their dropped lids, looked straight into the cup. On 
 the base was scratched the Greek word Au//a, Thirst. 
 The figure might have been some beautiful youth 
 of ancient fable Hylas or Narcissus, Paris or 
 Endymion. Its beauty was the beauty of natural 
 movement; nothing had been sought to be repre- 
 
 7 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sented but the perfection of an attitude. This had been 
 attentively studied it was rendered with charming 
 truth. Rowland demanded more light, dropped his 
 head on this side and that, uttered vague exclam 
 ations. He said to himself, as he had said more than 
 once in the Louvre and the Vatican, "We ugly 
 mortals, what beautiful creatures we are!" Nothing 
 for a long time had given him so much pleasure. 
 "Hudson Hudson," he asked again; "who may 
 Hudson be?" 
 
 "A young man of this very place," said Cecilia. 
 
 "A young man ? How young ?" 
 
 " I suppose he s three or four and twenty." 
 
 "Of this very place, you say of Northampton, 
 Massachusetts ?" 
 
 "He lives here, but his people belong to Virginia." 
 
 "Is he a sculptor then by profession?" 
 
 "Oh, no he s studying Law." 
 
 Rowland burst out laughing. "He has found 
 something in Blackstone that I never did. He makes 
 statues like this then simply for his pleasure ?" 
 
 Cecilia, with a smile, gave a little toss of her head. 
 "He makes them perhaps sometimes for mine!" 
 
 "I congratulate you," said Rowland, "on having 
 so generous a provider. I wonder if he could be 
 induced to do anything for a mere man." 
 
 "For you ? Oh, this was a matter of friendship. 
 I saw the figure when he had modelled it in clay, 
 and of course I greatly admired it. He said nothing 
 at the time, but a week ago, on my birthday, he 
 arrived in a buggy, with his treasure done up in 
 a morsel of old blanket. He had had it cast at the 
 
 18 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 foundry at Chicopee; I believe it s a beautiful 
 piece of bronze. He begged me, in the most natural 
 way in the world, to accept." 
 
 "He has, upon my word, a grand conception of 
 the natural!" With which Rowland fell to admiring 
 the statue again. 
 
 "Really then," said Cecilia, "it J s a very remark 
 able thing?" 
 
 "Why, my dear cousin," Rowland answered, 
 "Mr. Hudson of Virginia is an extraordinary " 
 Then suddenly stopping, "Is he a great friend of 
 yours?" he asked. 
 
 "A great friend?" Cecilia hesitated. "I regard 
 him practically as a child." 
 
 "Well," said Rowland, "he s a very precocious 
 child! Tell me something about him. I should like 
 to see him." 
 
 Cecilia was obliged to go to her daughter s music- 
 lesson, but she assured Rowland that she would arrange 
 for him a meeting with the young sculptor. He was 
 a frequent visitor, and as he had not called for some 
 days it was quite possible he would come that evening. 
 Rowland, left alone, examined the statuette at his 
 leisure, and returned more than once during the day 
 to take another look at it. He discovered its weak 
 points, but its charm was of finest essence. It had 
 taken form under the breath of genius. Rowland 
 envied the happy youth who, in a New England 
 village, without aid or encouragement, without models 
 or examples, had found it so easy to produce a lovely 
 work. 
 
II 
 
 IN the evening, as he was smoking his cigar on the 
 verandah, a light quick step pressed the gravel of the 
 garden-path, and in a moment a young man, rising 
 before them, had made his bow to Cecilia. It indi 
 cated either that he was an extreme intimate or was 
 scantly versed in the common social forms. Cecilia, 
 who was sitting near the steps, pointed to a neigh 
 bouring chair, but her visitor abruptly sought a 
 place on a step at her feet and began to fan him 
 self vigorously with his hat, breaking out into loud 
 dispraise of the high temperature. "I m simply 
 dripping wet!" he observed without ceremony. 
 
 "You walk too fast," said Cecilia. "You do every 
 thing too fast." 
 
 "I know it, I know it!" he cried, passing his hand 
 .through his abundant dark hair and making it stand 
 out in a picturesque shock. "I can t dawdle over 
 things if I try. If I do anything at all I must do it so. 
 There s something inside of me that drives me. A 
 demon of unrest!" 
 
 Cecilia gave a light laugh, and Rowland leaned 
 forward in his hammock. He had placed himself 
 in it at Bessie s request and was playing that he 
 was her baby and that she was rocking him to sleep. 
 She sat beside him swinging the hammock to and 
 fro and chanting a lullaby. When he raised himself 
 she pushed him back and said that the baby must 
 
 20 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 finish its nap. " But I want to see the gentleman with 
 the driving demon," said Rowland. 
 
 "Do demons know how to drive?" Bessie de 
 manded. "It s only old Mr. Hudson." 
 
 "Very well, I want to see old Mr. Hudson." 
 
 "Oh, never mind him!" said Bessie, with the 
 brevity of contempt. 
 
 "You speak as if you did n t like him." 
 
 "I don t!" Bessie affirmed, putting Rowland to bed 
 again. 
 
 The hammock was swung at the end of the veran 
 dah, in the thickest shade of the climbing plants, 
 and this fragment of dialogue had passed unnoticed. 
 Rowland submitted a while longer to be cradled and 
 contented himself with listening to Mr. Hudson s 
 voice. It was a soft and not altogether masculine 
 organ, and pitched on this occasion in a somewhat 
 plaintive and pettish key. The young man s mood 
 seemed fretful ; he complained of the gnats, of the 
 dust, of a shoe that hurt him, of having gone on an 
 errand a mile to the other side of the town and found 
 that the person he was in search of had left North 
 ampton an hour before. 
 
 "Won t you have a cup of tea?" Cecilia asked. 
 "Perhaps that will restore your equanimity." 
 
 "Ay, by keeping me awake all night!" said Mr. 
 Hudson. "At the best, to go down to the office is 
 like getting into a bath with the water frozen. With 
 my nerves set on edge by a sleepless night I should 
 sit and shiver at home. That s always charming 
 for my mother." 
 
 "Your mother s well, I hope ?" 
 
 21 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Oh, mother s as usual." 
 
 "And Miss Garland?" 
 
 "Miss Garland s as usual too. Every one, every 
 thing s as usual. Nothing ever happens in this be 
 nighted town. * 
 
 "I beg your pardon; things do happen some 
 times," said Cecilia. "Here s a dear cousin of mine 
 arrived on purpose to sing to you the praises of your 
 little bronze." And she called to Rowland to come 
 and be introduced to Mr. Hudson. The young man 
 sprang up with alacrity, and Rowland, coming for 
 ward to shake hands, had a good look at him in the 
 light projected from the parlour window. Something 
 seemed to shine out of Hudson s face as a warning 
 against random compliments. 
 
 "Your statuette seems to me very interesting," 
 Rowland gravely said. "It has given me immense 
 pleasure." 
 
 "And my cousin really knows what things are 
 worth," Cecilia went on. "My cousin s a judge and 
 
 a critic." 
 
 Hudson smiled and stared. "A judge a critic ?" 
 he echoed, laughing. "He s the first then I ve ever 
 seen! Let me see what they look like;" and he drew 
 Rowland nearer to the light. "Have they all such 
 good heads as that ? I should like to model yours." 
 
 "Oh do it! " said Cecilia. "It will keep him with 
 us a while. He s running off otherwise to Europe." 
 
 "Ah, off to Europe!" Hudson exclaimed with a 
 melancholy cadence as they sat down. "Happy, 
 happy man!" 
 
 But the note seemed to Rowland struck rather at 
 
 22 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 random, for he failed to catch it again in the boyish 
 candour of the visitor s talk. Hudson was a tall 
 slim youth, with a singularly mobile and intelligent 
 face. Rowland was struck at first only with its 
 responsive vivacity, but it had presently affected 
 him as full of a beauty of its own. The features were 
 admirably chiselled and finished, and a frank smile 
 played over them as gracefully as a breeze among 
 flowers. The fault of the young man s whole struc 
 ture was an excessive want of breadth. The fore 
 head, though high and brave, was narrow; the jaw 
 and the shoulders were narrow, and the result was 
 an air of insufficient physical substance. But Mallet 
 afterwards learned that this fair and slender strip 
 ling could draw upon a fund of nervous force out 
 lasting and outwearying the endurance of sturdier 
 temperaments. And certainly there was life enough 
 in his eye to furnish an immortality. It was a gener 
 ous dark grey eye, subject to an intermittent kind 
 ling glow which would have made a ruder visage 
 striking, and which gave at times to Hudson s 
 harmonious face an altogether extraordinary beauty. 
 There was to Rowland s sympathetic sense a slightly 
 pitiful disparity between the young sculptor s dis 
 tinguished mask and the shabby gentility of his 
 costume. Arrayed for a rural visit, a visit to a pretty 
 woman, he was clad from head to foot in a white 
 linen suit which had never been remarkable for 
 the felicity of its cut and which had now quite lost 
 its vivifying and redeeming crispness. He wore a 
 bright red cravat, passed through a ring altogether 
 too splendid to be valuable; he pulled and twisted, 
 
 23 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 as he sat, a pair of yellow kid gloves; he emphasised 
 his conversation with great dashes and flourishes 
 of a silver-tipped walking-stick, and he kept con 
 stantly taking off and putting on one of those slouched 
 sombreros which are the traditional property of 
 the Virginian or Carolinian of romance. When hi: 
 hat was on he was almost romantic, in spite of hi 
 mock elegance; and when it was off and he sat 
 nursing it and turning it about and not knowing 
 what to do with it, he could hardly be said to be 
 awkward. He evidently had a native relish for rich 
 accessories, and he appropriated what came to his 
 hand. This was visible in his talk, which abounded 
 in the superlative and the sweeping. His plastic 
 sense took in conversation altogether the turn of 
 colour. 
 
 Rowland, who was a temperate talker, sat by in 
 silence, while Cecilia, who had told him that she 
 desired his opinion upon her friend, used a good 
 deal of characteristic art in leading the young man 
 on to put himself before them. She perfectly suc 
 ceeded, and Hudson rattled away for an hour with 
 a volubility in which the innocence of youth and the 
 assurance of felt and unwonted success were sin 
 gularly blended. He gave his opinion on twenty 
 topics, he opened up the crystal flood of local gossip, 
 he described his repulsive routine at the office of 
 Messrs. Striker and Spooner, counsellors-at-law, 
 and he gave with a hundred happy touches an 
 account of the annual boat-race between Harvard 
 and Yale, which he had lately admired at Wor 
 cester. He had looked at the straining oarsmen 
 
 24 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and the swaying crowd and the whole great shining 
 summer scene with the eye of the artist and of the 
 lover of displayed life. For Rowland meanwhile 
 the time passed well; Cecilia s visitor held his at 
 tention fast. Whenever Hudson surpassed himself 
 in confidence or in magniloquence his hostess broke 
 into a long, light, ambiguous laugh. 
 
 "Do you find me more of a fool than usual ?" the 
 young man then demanded. "Have I said any 
 thing so ridiculous ?" 
 
 "Go on, go on," Cecilia replied. "You re but 
 too much your wondrous self. Show Mr. Mallet 
 how Mr. Striker read the Declaration of Independ 
 ence on the 4th of July." 
 
 Hudson, like many men with a turn for the plastic 
 arts, was an excellent mimic, and he represented 
 with equal truth and drollery the accent and atti 
 tude of a pompous country lawyer sustaining the 
 burden of this heavy honour of our national festi 
 val. The sonorous twang, the seesaw gestures, the 
 patriotic pronunciation were vividly reproduced. 
 But Cecilia s manner and the young man s quick 
 response ruffled a little poor Rowland s responsible 
 mind. He wondered if his cousin were not sacri 
 ficing the faculty of reverence in her bright bene 
 ficiary to her need for amusement. Hudson made 
 no serious rejoinder to Rowland s compliment on 
 his statuette until he rose to go. Rowland judged 
 he would have forgotten it, and supposed the over 
 sight to be a sign of the indifference of conscious 
 power. But Hudson stood a moment before he said 
 good-night, twirled his sombrero and hesitated for 
 
 25 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the first time. He gave Rowland a clear, penetrat 
 ing glance, and then with a wonderfully frank, ap 
 pealing smile, "You absolutely meant," he asked, 
 "what you said a while ago about that thing of 
 mine ? It s good essentially good ?" 
 
 "I really meant it," said Rowland, laying a kindly 
 hand on his shoulder. " It s very good indeed. It s 
 as you say, essentially good. That s just the beauty 
 and the interest of it." 
 
 Hudson s eyes glowed and expanded; he looked 
 for some time in silence at this strange utterer of 
 sweet sounds. "I have a notion you really know," 
 he said at last. " But if you don t, you see, it does n t 
 much matter." 
 
 "My cousin asked me to-day," said Cecilia, "if 
 I supposed you knew yourself how good it is." 
 
 Hudson stared, flushing a little. "Perhaps not, 
 then!" 
 
 "That may very well be," said Rowland. "I read 
 in a book the other day that great talent in action 
 in fact the book said genius is a kind of safe 
 somnambulism. The artist performs great feats in 
 a lucky dream. We must n t wake him up lest he 
 should lose his balance." 
 
 "Oh, when he s back in bed again!" Hudson 
 answered with a laugh. "Yes, call it a lucky dream. 
 It was a very happy one." 
 
 "Tell me this," said Rowland. "Did you mean 
 anything very particular by your young Water- 
 drinker ? Does he represent an idea ? Is he a pointed 
 symbol?" 
 
 Hudson raised his eyebrows and gently stroked 
 
 26 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his hair. "Why, he s youth, you know; he s inno 
 cence, he s health, he s strength, he J s curiosity. 
 Yes, he s a lot of grand things." 
 
 "And is the cup also a symbol ?" 
 
 "The cup is knowledge, pleasure, experience. 
 Anything of that kind." 
 
 "Then he s drinking very deep," said Rowland. 
 
 Hudson gave an approving nod. "Well, poor 
 wretch, you would n t have him die of thirst, would 
 you ?" But without awaiting a reply he called good 
 night from the garden-path and lost himself in the 
 darkness. 
 
 "Well, what do you make of him ?" asked Cecilia, 
 returning a short time afterwards from a visit of 
 investigation in respect to the number of Bessie s 
 blankets. 
 
 Rowland replied after a little by a question of his 
 own. " Is n t he a case of what s called the artistic 
 temperament? That s interesting to see, for the 
 Mikes of us." 
 
 "Speak for your own temperament! But he s 
 a very odd creature," Cecilia conceded. 
 
 "Who are his people? what has been his educa 
 tion ?" Rowland asked. 
 
 "He has had no education beyond what he has 
 picked up with little trouble for himself. His mother 
 is a widow, of a Massachusetts country family, a little 
 timid, tremulous woman, always troubled, always 
 on pins and needles about her son. She had some 
 property herself and married a Virginia gentleman 
 an owner of lands and slaves. He turned out, 
 I believe, quite a dreadful sort of person and made 
 
 2? 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 great havoc with the resources, whatever they were, 
 that she always speaks of as their fortune. Every 
 thing, or almost everything, melted away, including 
 Mr. Hudson himself. This is literally true, for he 
 drank himself to death. Ten years ago his wife was 
 left a widow, with scanty means and a couple of 
 growing boys. She paid her husband s debts as best 
 she could and came to establish herself here, where, 
 by the death of a charitable relative, she had inherited 
 an old-fashioned ruinous house. Roderick, our friend, 
 was her pride and joy; but Stephen, the elder, was her 
 comfort and support. I remember him later; he was 
 a plain-faced, sturdy, practical lad, very different from 
 his brother and in his way, I imagine, the making of 
 a useful man. When the war broke out he found the 
 New England blood running thicker in his veins than 
 the Virginian, and immediately obtained a commission. 
 He fell in some small hole-and-corner engagement, 
 leaving his mother inconsolable. Roderick, however, 
 has given her plenty to think about, and she has 
 induced him by some mysterious art to take up a 
 profession that he abhors and for which he is about 
 as fit as I am to drive a locomotive. He grew up a la 
 grace de Dieu ; he had no guidance he could 
 bear no control; he could only be horribly spoiled. 
 Three or four years ago he broke off his connexion 
 with a small college in this part of the state, where, 
 I m afraid, he had given a good deal more atten 
 tion to novels and billiards than to mathematics 
 and Greek. Since then he has been reading law at 
 the rate of a page a day. If he s ever admitted to 
 practice I m afraid all my friendship will scarce avail 
 
 28 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to make me give him my business. Good, bad or 
 indifferent, the boy s, as you say, an artist an 
 artist to his fingers ends." 
 
 "Why then," asked Rowland, "does n t he go right 
 in for what he can do ?" 
 
 "For several reasons. In the first place I don t 
 think he more than half suspects his ability. The flame 
 smoulders, but it s never fanned by the breath of 
 criticism. He sees nothing, hears nothing, to help 
 him to self-knowledge. He s hopelessly discontented, 
 but he does n t know where to look for help. Then his 
 mother, as she one day confessed to me, has a holy 
 horror of a profession which consists exclusively, as 
 she supposes, in making figures of people divested 
 of all clothing. Sculpture, to her mind, is an insidi 
 ous form of immorality, and for a young man of 
 possibly loose leanings she considers the law a much 
 safer training. Her father was, by her account, 
 an eminent judge, she has two brothers at the bar, 
 and her elder son had made a very promising begin 
 ning in the same line. She wishes the tradition to 
 be kept up. I m pretty sure the law won t make 
 Roderick s fortune, and I m afraid it will spoil his 
 temper." 
 
 "What sort of a temper do you call it ?" 
 
 "Oh, one to be trusted on the whole. It s subject, 
 like our New England summer, to sudden changes - 
 which yet don t prevent our having a summer, and 
 a magnificent one. I have known it to breathe flame 
 and fury at ten o clock in the evening, and soft, 
 sweet music early on the morrow. It s a very enter 
 taining temper to observe. Fortunately I can observe 
 
 29 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 it dispassionately, for I m the only person in the 
 place he has not quarrelled with." 
 
 "Has he then no companionship ? Who s the Miss 
 Garland you asked about?" 
 
 "A young woman staying with his mother, a sort of 
 far-away cousin; a good, plain, honest girl, but not 
 a person to represent sport for the artistic tempera 
 ment or to minister to the joy of life. Roderick has 
 a good share of the old Southern arrogance; he has 
 the aristocratic temperament. He 11 have nothing 
 to do with the small townspeople; he says they re 
 ignoble. He can t endure his mother s friends 
 the old ladies and the ministers and the tea-party 
 people; they bore him to death. So he comes and 
 lounges here and rails at every thing and every one." 
 
 This youthful scoffer reappeared a couple of 
 evenings later and confirmed the friendly feeling 
 he had excited on Rowland s part. He was in an 
 easier mood than before, he chattered less extrava 
 gantly and asked Rowland a number of rather 
 primitive questions about the condition of the fine 
 arts in New York and Boston. Cecilia, when he 
 had gone, said that this had been the grateful effect 
 of Rowland s eulogy of his work. Roderick was 
 acutely sensitive, and Rowland s intelligent praise 
 had steadied him: he had heard absolutely for the 
 first time in his life the voice of taste and of author 
 ity. Rowland recognised afresh, recognised them as 
 irresistible things, his personal charm and his pre 
 sumable gift. He had an indefinable attraction 
 the something tender and divine of unspotted, 
 exuberant, confident youth. The next day was 
 
 3 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Sunday, and Rowland proposed that they should 
 take a long walk and that Roderick should show 
 him the country. The young man assented glee 
 fully, and in the morning, as Rowland, at the garden 
 gate, was giving his hostess God-speed on her way 
 to church, he came striding along the grassy margin 
 of the road and out-whistling the music of the church- 
 bells. It was one of those lovely days of the last of 
 August when summer seems to balance in the scale 
 with autumn. "Remember the day and take care 
 you rob no orchards," said Cecilia as they separated. 
 The young men walked away at a steady pace, 
 over hill and dale, through woods and fields, and at 
 last found themselves on a grassy elevation studded 
 with mossy rocks and red cedars. Just beneath 
 them, in a great shining curve, flowed the generous 
 Connecticut. They flung themselves on the grass 
 and tossed stones into the river; they talked, they 
 fell into intimacy, like old friends. Rowland lit a 
 cigar and Roderick refused one with a grimace of 
 extravagant disgust. He thought them vile things; 
 he did n t see how decent people could tolerate them. 
 Rowland was amused he wondered what it was 
 that made this ill-mannered speech seem perfectly 
 inoffensive on his companion s lips. He belonged to 
 the race of mortals, to be pitied or envied according 
 as we view the matter, who are not held to a strict 
 account for their aggressions. Looking at him as 
 he lay stretched in the shade, Rowland vaguely lik 
 ened him to some beautiful, supple, restless, bright- 
 eyed animal, whose motions should have no deeper 
 warrant than the tremulous delicacy of its structure 
 
 3 1 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and seem graceful to many persons even when they 
 should be least convenient. Rowland watched the 
 shadows on Mount Holyoke, listened to the gurgle 
 of the river and sniffed the balsam of the pines. 
 A gentle breeze had begun to tickle their summits 
 and brought the smell of the mown grass across from 
 the elm-dotted river-meadows. He sat up beside his 
 companion and looked away at the far-spreading 
 view, which affected him as melting for them both into 
 such vast continuities and possibilities of possession. 
 It touched him to the heart; suddenly a strange feel 
 ing of prospective regret took possession of him. 
 Something seemed to tell him that later, in a foreign 
 land, he should be haunted by it, should remember 
 it all with longing and regret. 
 
 "It s a wretched business," he said, "this virtual 
 quarrel of ours with our own country, this everlasting 
 impatience that so many of us feel to get out of it. 
 Can there be no battle then, and is one s only safety 
 in flight ? This is an American day, an American 
 landscape, an American atmosphere. It certainly 
 has its merits, and some day when I m shivering 
 with ague in classic Italy I shall accuse myself of 
 having slighted them." 
 
 Roderick rose on still lighter wings to this genial 
 flight, declaring that America was quite good enough 
 for him, and that he had always thought it the 
 duty of an honest citizen to stand by his own country 
 and help it on. He had evidently thought nothing 
 whatever about it he was launching his doctrine 
 on the inspiration of the moment. The doctrine 
 expanded with the occasion, and he declared that 
 
 32 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 he was above all an advocate for American art. He 
 did n t see why we should n t produce the greatest 
 works in the world. We were the biggest people, 
 and we ought to have the biggest conceptions. The 
 biggest conceptions, of course, would bring forth 
 in time the biggest performances. We had only to 
 be true to ourselves, to pitch in and not be afraid, 
 to fling Imitation overboard and fix our eyes upon 
 our National Individuality. "I declare," he cried, 
 "there s a career for a man, and I have twenty 
 minds to embrace it on the spot to be the typical, 
 original, ^original American artist! It s inspir- 
 ing!" 
 
 Rowland burst out laughing and told him that he 
 liked his practice better than his theory and that a 
 saner impulse than this had inspired his little Water- 
 drinker. Roderick took no offence and three 
 minutes afterwards was talking volubly of some 
 humbler theme only half heeded by his friend, 
 who had returned to cogitation. At last Rowland 
 delivered himself of the upshot of his thought. 
 "How should you like," he suddenly demanded, 
 "to go to Rome?" 
 
 Hudson stared, and with an emphasis which 
 speedily consigned our National Individuality to 
 perdition, responded that he should like it first-rate. 
 "And I should like, by the same token," he added, 
 "to go to Athens, to Constantinople, to Damascus, 
 to the holy city of Benares, where there s a golden 
 statue of Brahma twenty feet tall." 
 
 "No," said Rowland with a certain literalness, 
 " if you were to go to Rome you would have to settle 
 
 33 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 down and work. Athens might help you, but for 
 the present I should n t recommend Benares." 
 
 " It will be time to arrange details when I begin to 
 pack my trunk," Hudson remarked. 
 
 " If you mean to turn sculptor the sooner you pack 
 your trunk the better." 
 
 "Oh, but I m a practical man! What s the small 
 est sum per annum on which one can keep alive the 
 sacred fire ?" 
 
 "What s the largest sum at your disposal ?" Row 
 land returned. 
 
 Roderick stroked his light moustache, gave it 
 a twist, and then announced, as with due importance, 
 "Three hundred dollars." 
 
 "The money question could be arranged," said 
 Rowland. "There are ways, you know, of raising 
 money." 
 
 Know ? * How should I know ? I never yet dis 
 covered one." 
 
 "One of them consists," said Rowland, "in hav 
 ing a friend with a good deal more than he wants 
 and in not being too proud to accept a part of it." 
 
 Roderick stared a moment and his face flushed. 
 " Do you mean do you mean ? " He stam 
 mered, he panted; he was greatly excited. 
 
 Rowland got up, blushing a little, and Roderick 
 sprang to his feet. " In three words, if it s in you 
 really to go in for sculpture, you ought to get to Rome 
 and study the antique. To get to Rome you need 
 money. I m fond of fine statues and busts, but 
 unfortunately I can t make them myself. I have to 
 order them from those who know how. I order a 
 
 34 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 dozen from you, to be executed at your convenience. 
 To help you I pay you in advance." 
 
 Roderick pushed off his hat and pressed his fore 
 head, still gazing at his companion. "Upon my soul, 
 you believe in me! " he cried at last. 
 
 "Allow me to explain," said Rowland. "I believe 
 in you if you re prepared to work and to wait and 
 to struggle and to exercise a great many virtues. 
 And then I m afraid to say it, to force it upon you, 
 lest I should disturb you more than I should help 
 you. You must decide for yourself. I simply offer 
 you an opportunity." 
 
 Hudson, with his face intensely lighted, stood for 
 some time profoundly meditative. " You ve not seen 
 my other things," he said suddenly. "Come and 
 look at them." 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 "Yes, now. We ll walk home. We ll settle the 
 question." 
 
 He passed his hand through Rowland s arm and 
 they retraced their steps. They reached the town 
 and made their way along a broad country street, 
 dusky with the shade of magnificent elms. Row 
 land felt his companion s arm tremble in his own. 
 They stopped at a large white house flanked with 
 melancholy hemlocks, and passed through a little 
 front garden paved with moss-coated bricks and 
 ornamented with parterres enclosed in ragged box 
 edges. The mansion had an air of antiquated dig 
 nity, but it had seen its best days and evidently 
 sheltered a shrunken household. Mrs. Hudson, 
 Rowland was sure, might be seen in the garden of 
 
 35 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 a morning, in a white apron and a pair of old gloves, 
 engaged in frugal horticulture. Roderick s studio 
 was behind, in the basement; a large empty room 
 with the paper peeling off the walls. This repre 
 sented, in the fashion of fifty years ago, a series 
 of small fantastic landscapes of a hideous pattern, 
 and the young sculptor had presumably torn it away 
 in great scraps at moments of aesthetic exaspera 
 tion. On a board in a corner was a heap of clay, 
 and on the floor, against the wall, stood some dozen 
 medallions, busts and figures in various stages of 
 completion. To exhibit them Roderick had to place 
 them one by one on the end of a long packing-box 
 which served as a pedestal. He did so silently, 
 making no explanations and looking at them him 
 self with a strange air of refreshed credulity. Most 
 of the things were portraits, and the three at which 
 he looked longest were finished busts. One was a 
 colossal head of a negro, tossed back, defiant, with 
 distended nostrils; one was the portrait of a young 
 man whom Rowland immediately perceived by the re 
 semblance to be his lost brother; the last represented 
 a gentleman with a pointed nose, a long close-shaven 
 upper lip and a tuft on the end of his chin. This was 
 a face peculiarly unadapted to sculpture; but as a 
 piece of modelling it was the best, and it was ad 
 mirable. It reminded Rowland, in its homely vera 
 city, its quaint closeness, of the works of the early 
 Italian Renaissance. On the pedestal was cut the 
 name Barnaby Striker Esq. Rowland recognised 
 in these characters the legal luminary from whom 
 his companion had undertaken to borrow the vital 
 
 36 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 heat, and though the irony of portraiture was not 
 gross it betrayed comically to one who could relish 
 the secret that the features of the original had often 
 been at the mercy of an exasperated eye. Beside 
 these appeared several rough studies of the nude 
 and two or three figures of a fanciful kind. The 
 most noticeable (and it had singular beauty) was 
 a small modelled design for a sepulchral monument, 
 that evidently of Stephen Hudson. The young 
 soldier lay sleeping eternally with his hand on his 
 sword, the image of one of the crusaders Roderick 
 had dreamed of in one of the cathedrals he had never 
 seen. 
 
 Rowland made no haste to pronounce; too much 
 depended on his judgement. "Upon my word," 
 cried his friend at last, "they seem to me, you know, 
 very decent, not too helpless!" 
 
 And in truth as Rowland looked he saw they were 
 strong. They were youthful, awkward, ignorant; 
 the effort often was more apparent than the success. 
 But the effort was signally powerful and intelligent; 
 it seemed to Rowland that with its aim clearer it might 
 easily hit the highest mark. Here and there indeed 
 the mark had already been hit with a masterly ring. 
 Rowland turned to Hudson, who stood with his 
 hands in his pockets and his hair very much crumpled, 
 looking at him askance. The light of admiration was 
 in Rowland s eyes, and it caused the young man s 
 handsome watching face to shine out in response. 
 Rowland said at last simply: "You ve only to work 
 hard." 
 
 " I think I know what that means," Roderick an- 
 
 37 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 swered. He turned away, threw himself on a rickety 
 chair and sat for some moments with his elbows on 
 his knees and his head in his hands. "Work 
 work ?" he said at last, looking up. "Ah, if I could 
 only begin!" He glanced round the room a mo 
 ment, and his eye encountered on the mantel-shelf 
 the inimitable presence of Mr. Barnaby Striker. 
 His smile vanished he stared at it with an air 
 of concentrated enmity. " I want to begin," he cried, 
 "and I can t make a better beginning than this! 
 Good-bye, Mr. Barnaby Striker!" He strode across 
 the room, seized a. hammer that lay at hand, and 
 before Rowland could interfere, in the interest of art 
 if not of morals, dealt a merciless blow upon Mr. 
 Striker s skull. The bust cracked into a dozen pieces, 
 which toppled with a great crash upon the floor. 
 Rowland relished neither the destruction of the 
 image nor his companion s expression in working 
 it, but as he was about to express his displeasure 
 the door opened and gave passage to a fresh-looking 
 girl. She came in with a rapid step and startled face, 
 as if she had been alarmed by the noise. Meeting 
 the heap of shattered clay and the hammer in Roder 
 ick s hand, she gave a cry of horror. Her voice died 
 away as she saw Rowland was a stranger, but she 
 had sounded her reproach. "Why, Roderick, what 
 on earth have you done ?" 
 
 Roderick gave a joyous kick to the shapeless frag 
 ments. "I ve driven the money-changers out of 
 the temple!" 
 
 The traces retained shape enough to be recognised, 
 and she gave a little moan of pity. She seemed not 
 
 38 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to understand the young man s allegory, but none 
 the less to feel that it pointed to some great purpose, 
 which must yet be an evil one from its being ex 
 pressed in such a lawless fashion, and to perceive 
 that Rowland was in some way accountable for it. 
 She looked at him with prompt disapproval and 
 turned away through the open door. Rowland looked 
 after her with immediate interest. 
 
Ill 
 
 EARLY on the morrow he received a visit from his 
 new friend. Roderick was in a state of extreme 
 exhilaration, tempered, however, by a certain amount 
 of righteous wrath. He had had a row at home, as 
 he called it, but had remained master of the situa 
 tion. He had shaken the dust of Mr. Striker s office 
 from his feet. 
 
 " I had it out last night with my mother," he said. 
 "I dreaded the scene, for she takes things terribly 
 hard. She does n t scold nor storm, and she does n t 
 argue nor insist. She sits with her eyes full of tears 
 that never fall, and looks at me, when I vex her, 
 as if I were a monster of depravity. And the trouble 
 is that I was born to vex her. She does n t trust me; 
 she never has, and she never will. I don t know what 
 I ve done to set her against me, but ever since I 
 can remember I ve been looked at with tears. The 
 trouble is," he went on, giving a twist to his moustache, 
 " I ve been too great a mollycoddle. I ve been sprawl 
 ing all my days by the maternal fireside, and my 
 dear mother has grown used to bullying me. I ve 
 made myself cheap! If I m not in my bed by eleven 
 o clock the cook s sent out to explore for me with 
 a lantern. When I think of it I m quite sick of my 
 meekness. It s rather a hard fate, to live like 
 a tame cat and to pass for a desperado. I should 
 
 40 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 like for six months to lead Mrs. Hudson the life 
 some fellows lead their mothers!" 
 
 "Allow me to believe," said Rowland, "that you d 
 like nothing of the sort. If you ve acted as a gentle 
 man don t spoil it by pretending you d have pre 
 ferred to be a brute. You ve been very happy in 
 spite of your virtues, and there are worse fates in the 
 world than being loved too well. I ve not had 
 the pleasure of seeing your mother, but I 11 lay you 
 a wager that this is where the shoe pinches. She s 
 passionately fond of you, and her hopes, like all 
 intense hopes, are next neighbours to alarms and 
 despairs." Rowland, as he spoke, had an instinctive 
 vision of the sentiments infallibly entertained for 
 this beautiful and amusing youth by the women of 
 his house. 
 
 Roderick frowned, and with an impatient gesture, 
 "I do her justice," he cried; "may she never do me 
 less!" Then after a moment s hesitation, "I 11 tell 
 you the perfect truth," he went on; "I have to fill 
 a double place. I have to be my brother as well as 
 myself. It s a good deal to ask of a man, especially 
 when he has so little talent as I for being what he s 
 not. When we were both young together I was the 
 curled darling. I had the silver mug and the biggest 
 piece of pudding, and I stayed indoors to be kissed 
 by the ladies while he made mud-pies in the garden. 
 In fact, you know, he was much more the right thing. 
 When he was brought home that horrible night with 
 a piece of shell in his skull, my poor mother began 
 to think she had n t loved him enough. I remem 
 ber, as she hung round my neck sobbing, before 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his coffin, she told me that I must be to her every 
 thing that he would have been. I made no end of 
 vows, but I have n t kept them all. I ve been very 
 different from Stephen. I Ve been idle, restless, 
 egotistical, discontented. I Ve done no vulgar harm, 
 I believe, but I Ve done no vulgar good. My brother, 
 if he had lived, would have made fifty thousand 
 dollars and had the parlour done up. My mother, 
 brooding night and day on her bereavement, has 
 come to fix her ideal in little attentions of that sort. 
 Judged by that standard I m nowhere." 
 
 Rowland was at a loss what to believe of this 
 account of his friend s domestic circumstances; it 
 had an honourable candour, but would be probably 
 open to control. "You must lose no time in pro 
 ducing some important thing," he answered; "then 
 with the proceeds you can do up the whole house." 
 
 "So I Ve told her; but she only half believes in 
 art/ anyway. She can see no good in my modelling 
 from the life; it seems to her a snare of the enemy. 
 She would fain see me all my days tethered to the 
 law like a browsing goat to a stake. In that way 
 I m kept before her. * It s a more natural occupation! 
 that s all I can get out of her. A more natural 
 damnation! Is it a fact that artists in general are 
 such bold, bad men ? I Ve never had the pleasure 
 of knowing one, so I can t refute her with an ex 
 ample. She has the advantage of me, because she 
 formerly knew a portrait-painter at Richmond, 
 who did her miniature in black lace mittens (you 
 may see it on the parlour table) and who used to 
 drink raw brandy and beat his wife. I promised 
 
 42 ^ 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 her last night that whatever I might do to my wife 
 I would never beat my mother, and that as for 
 brandy, raw or diluted, I detested it. She sat 
 silently crying for an hour, during which I expended 
 treasures of eloquence. It s a good thing to have 
 to take stock of one s intentions, and I assure you 
 that pleading my cause, I became agreeably im 
 pressed with the elevated character of my own. 
 I kissed her solemnly at last and told her that I had 
 said everything and that she must make the best 
 of it. This morning she has dried her eyes, but 
 I warrant you it is n t a racketing house. I long to 
 be out of it!" 
 
 " I m extremely sorry to have brought things to 
 such a crisis," said Rowland. "I owe your mother 
 some amends; will it be possible for me to see her ?" 
 
 "If you 11 see her it will smooth matters vastly; 
 though, to tell the truth, she 11 need all her courage 
 to face you, for she considers you an agent of the 
 foul fiend. She doesn t see why you should have 
 come here and set me by the ears: you re made 
 to poison ingenuous minds and desolate doting 
 mothers. I leave it to you personally to answer these 
 charges. You see, what she can t forgive what 
 she 11 not really ever forgive is your taking me 
 off to Rome. Rome s an evil word in my mother s 
 vocabulary, to be said below the breath, as you d 
 repeat some profanity or tell a Mow story. North 
 ampton Mass is in just the centre of Christendom, 
 and Rome far off in the mere margin, benighted 
 heathendom too at that, into which it can do no 
 proper moral man any good to penetrate. And 
 
 43 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 there was I but yesterday a regular attendant at that 
 repository of every virtue, Mr. Striker s office!" 
 
 "And does Mr. Striker know of your decision?" 
 Rowland asked. 
 
 "Why, sure! Mr. Striker, you must know, is 
 not simply a good-natured attorney who lets me dog s- 
 ear his law-books. He s a particular friend and 
 general adviser. He looks after my mother s pro 
 perty and kindly consents to regard me as part of it. 
 Our opinions have always been as opposite as the 
 poles, but I freely forgive him his zealous attempts 
 to unscrew my headpiece and set it on another way. 
 He never understood me, and it was useless to try 
 to make him. We speak a different language 
 we re made of a different clay. I had a fit of rage 
 yesterday, when I smashed his bust, at the thought 
 of all the bad blood he had stirred up in me: it 
 did me good and it s all over now. I don t hate 
 him any more; I m rather sorry for him. See how 
 you ve improved me! I must have seemed to him 
 wilfully, wickedly stupid, and I m sure he only 
 tolerated me on account of his great regard for my 
 mother. This morning I took the bull by the horns. 
 I picked up an armful of law-books that have been 
 gathering the dust in my room for the last year and 
 a half, and presented myself at the office. Allow 
 me to put these back in their places, I said. I 
 shall never have need for them more never more, 
 never more, never more ! So you ve learned every 
 thing they contain ? says the great Striker, leering 
 over his spectacles: better late than never ! I ve 
 learned nothing that you can teach me, I cried. 
 
 44 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 But I shall tax your patience no longer. I m going 
 to be a sculptor. I m going to Rome to work at 
 that. So now there! I won t bid you good-bye 
 just yet; I shall see you again. But I bid good-bye 
 here with enthusiasm to these four detested walls 
 to this living tomb! I did n t know till now how 
 I hated the place! My compliments to Mr. Spooner, 
 and my thanks for all you ve not made of me!" 
 
 "I m glad to know you re to see Mr. Striker 
 again," Rowland answered, correcting a primary 
 inclination to show himself as taking this report 
 for an amusing burlesque of the facts. "You cer 
 tainly owe him a respectful farewell, even if he has 
 not understood you. I confess you rather strike me 
 at moments as a little of a hard sum. There s an 
 other person," he presently added, "whose opinion 
 as to your new career I should like to hear. What 
 does your friend Miss Garland think ?" 
 
 Hudson looked at him keenly, with a slight change 
 of colour. Then with a conscious smile, "What 
 makes you suppose she thinks anything?" he asked. 
 
 "Because, though I saw her but for a moment 
 yesterday, she struck me, just in that moment, as 
 a decidedly positive quantity, and I m sure she has 
 opinions." 
 
 The smile on Roderick s mobile face turned dim. 
 "Oh, she thinks what I think!" he answered. 
 
 Before the two young men separated Rowland at 
 tempted to give as harmonious a shape as possible 
 to his companion s future. "I Ve launched you, 
 as I may say," he said, "and I feel as if I ought 
 to see you into port. I m older than you and know 
 
 45 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the world better, and it seems well that we should 
 voyage a while together. It s on my conscience that 
 I ought to take you to Rome, walk you through the 
 Vatican, and then lock you up with a heap of clay. 
 I sail on the 5th of September; can you make your 
 preparations to start with me?" 
 
 Roderick assented to all this with an air of luxu 
 rious surrender to his friend s wisdom that ex 
 pressed more than any formal pledge. " I ve no 
 preparations to make," he said with a smile, raising 
 his arms and letting them fall as if to indicate his 
 unencumbered condition. "What I m to take with 
 me I carry here!" And he tapped his forehead. 
 
 "Happy man!" murmured Rowland with a sigh, 
 thinking of the light stowage in his own organism, 
 in the region indicated by Roderick, and of the 
 heavy one of bags and boxes in deposit at his bank 
 er s. 
 
 When his companion had left him he went in 
 search of Cecilia. She was sitting at work at a shady 
 window, and welcomed him to a low chintz-covered 
 chair. He sat some time thoughtfully snipping wools 
 with her scissors; he expected criticism and he was 
 bracing himself. At last he told her of Roderick s 
 decision and of his own part in the matter. Cecilia, 
 besides an extreme surprise, exhibited a certain fine 
 displeasure at his not having asked her advice. 
 
 "What would you have said then if I had?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 "I should have said in the first place Oh, for 
 pity s sake, don t carry off the person in all North 
 ampton who most amuses me ! I should have said 
 
 4 6 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in the second place Nonsense! the boy s doing very 
 well. Let well alone! " 
 
 "That in the first five minutes. What would you 
 have said later ?" 
 
 "That for a man who s generally averse to med 
 dling, you were suddenly rather officious." Row 
 land s countenance fell; he frowned in silence. Ce 
 cilia looked at him askance; gradually the spark 
 of irritation faded from her eye. " Pardon my sharp 
 ness," she resumed at last. "But I m literally in 
 despair at losing Roderick Hudson. His visits in 
 the evening, for the past year, have kept me alive. 
 They ve given a point to a very dull time a shin 
 ing little silver-tip to days that seemed made of 
 a baser metal. I don t say he s a phoenix or that 
 he s always an angel, never a bore but I liked to 
 see him. Of course, however, that I shall miss him 
 sadly is not a reason for his not going to seek his 
 fortune. Men must work and women must weep!" 
 
 "Decidedly not!" said Rowland with a good 
 deal of emphasis. He had suspected from the first 
 hour of his stay that Cecilia, for all her quiet life, 
 was in the enjoyment of some private and peculiar 
 satisfaction, and he discovered that she found it in 
 Hudson s lounging visits and communicative youth. 
 Now he wondered whether, responsibly viewed, her 
 gain in the matter were not her young friend s loss. 
 It was evident that Cecilia was haunted here with 
 no morbid vision of duty, and that her judgement, 
 habitually clear under the demands of domestic econ 
 omy, had made easy terms, her dull life prompting, 
 with the joy of eye and ear. She liked her young friend 
 
 47 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 just as he was; she humoured him, flattered him, 
 laughed at him, caressed him did everything but 
 advise him right. It was a flirtation without the 
 benefits of a flirtation for Roderick. She was too 
 old to make it quite exemplary she should let him 
 fall in love with her, which might have done him 
 good; and it was her perversity to keep him notori 
 ously fresh, so that the nonsense he talked might 
 never transgress a certain line. It was quite con 
 ceivable that poor Cecilia should desire to pass the 
 time; but if one had philanthropically embraced the 
 idea that something considerable might be made of 
 Roderick it was impossible not to see that her friend 
 ship was not what might be called tonic. So at least 
 Rowland reflected in the glow of an almost creative 
 ardour. There was a later time when he would have 
 been grateful if Hudson s susceptibility to the relax 
 ing influence of lovely women might have been limited 
 to such inexpensive tribute as he rendered this excel 
 lent lady. " I only wish to remind you," she went on, 
 "that you re likely to have your hands rather full." 
 "I ve thought of that, and I positively like the 
 idea; liking as I do the man. I told you the other 
 day, you know, that I was bored to feel my hands 
 always so empty. When it first occurred to me that 
 I might start our young friend on the path of glory 
 I felt as if I had an unimpeachable inspiration. Then 
 I remembered there were dangers and difficulties, 
 and asked myself whether I had a right to drag 
 him out of his obscurity. My notion of his really 
 having the great gift answered the question. He 
 is made to do the things that we are the better for 
 
 48 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 having. I can t do such things myself, but when I 
 see a young man of genius standing helpless and 
 hopeless for want of capital, I feel and it J s no 
 affectation of humility, I assure you as if it would 
 give at least a reflected usefulness to my own life to 
 offer him his opportunity." 
 
 "In the name of the general public I suppose I 
 ought to thank you. But I want first of all to see 
 where my own interest comes in. You guarantee 
 us, at any rate, I hope, all the beautiful things." 
 
 "A masterpiece a year," said Rowland cheerily, 
 "for the next quarter of a century." 
 
 " It seems to me that we have a right to ask more 
 to demand that you guarantee us not only the 
 development of the artist but the security of the man." 
 
 Rowland became grave again. "His security?" 
 
 "His moral, his sentimental security. Here, you 
 see, all that s perfect. We are all under a tacit 
 compact to keep him quiet. Perhaps you believe in 
 the necessary turbulence of genius, and you intend 
 to enjoin upon your gifted pupil the importance of 
 cultivating his passions." 
 
 " On the contrary, I believe that a man of genius 
 owes as much deference to his passions as any other 
 man, but not a particle more, and I confess I have 
 a strong conviction that the artist is better for lead 
 ing a quiet life. That s what I shall preach to my 
 gifted pupil, as you call him, by example except 
 that I J m unfortunately not an artist ! as well as 
 by precept. You evidently believe," he added in 
 a moment, "that he ll lead me a dance!" 
 
 "No, I prophesy nothing. I only think that cir- 
 
 49 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 cumstances, with our young man, have a great influ 
 ence; as is proved by the fact that although he has 
 been fuming and fretting here for the last five years 
 he has nevertheless managed to make the best of us 
 and found it easy, on the whole, to vegetate. Trans 
 planted to Rome I feel sure he 11 put forth some 
 wonderful flowers. I should like vastly to see the 
 change. You must write me about it from stage to 
 stage. I hope with all my heart that the fruit will be 
 proportionate to the foliage. Don t think me a bird 
 of ill omen; only remember that we shall consider 
 you ve really taken an engagement." 
 
 "A man should make the most of himself and be 
 helped if he needs help," Rowland answered after 
 a long pause. "Of course if a silk balloon is inflated 
 very suddenly and very fast there is always the 
 danger of its bursting. But I nevertheless approve 
 of a certain tension of one s being. It s what a man 
 is meant for. And then Roderick is n t a mere 
 pretty parachute. And then too I believe in the 
 essential good health of the sincere imagination. A 
 man may be all imagination if he is sincere." 
 
 "Very good, since you ve thought it so wonder 
 fully out," Cecilia said with an air of resignation 
 that made Rowland for the moment seem to him 
 self eager to selfishness. "We ll drink then to-day 
 at dinner to the imagination I mean to the good 
 health of our friend." 
 
 Having it much at heart to convince Mrs. Hudson 
 of the purity of his intentions, Rowland waited upon 
 her that evening. He was ushered into a large par 
 lour which by the light of a couple of candles he 
 
 50 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 perceived to be very meagrely furnished and very 
 tenderly and sparingly used. The windows were 
 open to the air of the summer night, and a circle 
 of three persons was temporarily awed into silence 
 by his appearance. One of these was Mrs. Hudson, 
 who was sitting at one of the windows, empty-handed 
 save for the pocket-handkerchief in her lap, which 
 was held with an air of familiarity with its sadder 
 uses. Near her, on the sofa, half-sitting, half-loung 
 ing, in the attitude of a visitor outstaying ceremony, 
 with one long leg flung over the other and a large 
 foot in a clumsy boot swinging to and fro con 
 tinually, was a lean, sandy-haired gentleman whom 
 Rowland recognised as the original of the portrait 
 of Mr. Barnaby Striker. At the table, near the 
 candles, busy with a substantial piece of needle 
 work, sat the young person of whom he had had 
 a moment s quickened glimpse in Roderick s studio 
 and whom he had learned to be Miss Garland, his 
 companion s kinswoman. The limpid penetrating 
 gaze of this member of the group was the most 
 effective greeting he received. Mrs. Hudson rose with 
 a soft, vague sound of distress and stood looking at 
 him shrinkingly and helplessly, as if sorely tempted to 
 retreat through the open window. Mr. Striker swung 
 his long leg a trifle defiantly. No one evidently 
 was used to offering hollow welcomes or telling polite 
 fibs. Rowland introduced himself; he had come, he 
 might say, upon business. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Hudson tremulously; "I know 
 my son has told me. I suppose it s better I should 
 see you. Perhaps you 11 take a seat." 
 
 5* 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 With this invitation Rowland prepared to comply, 
 and, turning, grasped the first chair that offered it 
 self. 
 
 "Not that one," said a full grave voice; where 
 upon he perceived that a thick skein of sewing-silk 
 had been suspended in entanglement over the back 
 for the purpose of being wound on reels. He felt 
 the least bit irritated at the curtness of the warning, 
 coming as it did from a young woman whose coun 
 tenance he had mentally pronounced interesting and 
 with regard to whom he was conscious of the germ of 
 the inevitable desire to produce a responsive interest. 
 And then he thought it would break the ice to say 
 something playfully urbane. 
 
 "Oh, you should let me take the chair," he an 
 swered, "and have the pleasure of holding the skein 
 myself!" 
 
 For all reply to this sally he received a stare of 
 undisguised amazement from Miss Garland, who 
 then looked across at Mrs. Hudson with a glance 
 which plainly said, "You see he s quite the insinu 
 ating foreigner we feared." The elder lady, how 
 ever, sat with her eyes fixed on the ground and her 
 two hands tightly clasped. But as regards Mrs. 
 Hudson Rowland felt much more compassion than 
 resentment; her attitude was not coldness, it was the 
 instinct of fear, almost of terror. She was a small, 
 softly-desperate woman, whose desperation gave her 
 a false air of eagerness, just as her pale troubled face 
 added to her apparent age. After looking at her for 
 some minutes Rowland saw that she was still young 
 and personable and that she must have been a very 
 
 $2 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 girlish bride. She had had beauty at that hour, 
 though she probably had looked terribly frightened 
 at the altar. Her marked refinement of line and sur 
 face seemed to tell how her son had come by his ele 
 gance, his physical finish. She wore no cap, and her 
 auburn hair, which was of extraordinary fineness, 
 was smoothed and confined with Puritanic precision. 
 She was excessively shy and altogether most humble- 
 minded; it was singular to see a woman to whom 
 the experience of the elm-shaded life had conveyed 
 such scanty reassurance. Rowland began immedi 
 ately to like her and to feel impatient to persuade her 
 that, as Cecilia had originally said of him, he meant 
 well. He foresaw that she would be easy to persuade 
 and that the right shade of encouragement it would 
 have to be only the right one would probably make 
 her pass fluttering from distrust into an oppressive ex 
 treme of confidence. But he had an indefinable sense 
 that the person who was testing a strong young eye 
 sight in the dim candle-light was less readily beguiled 
 from her mysterious feminine preconceptions. Miss 
 Garland, according to Cecilia s judgement, as Rowland 
 remembered, had not a countenance to inspire a sculp 
 tor; but it seemed to Rowland that she might with 
 some success hold in contemplation a man whose re 
 lation to the beautiful was amateurish. She was not 
 pretty as the eye of habit judges prettiness, but he 
 noted that when he had made the observation he had 
 somehow failed to set it down against her, for he had 
 already passed from measuring contours to tracing 
 meanings. In Mary Garland s face there were many 
 possible ones, and they might give him the more to 
 
 53 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 think about that it was not like Roderick s for 
 instance one of the quick and mobile faces over 
 which expression flickers like a candle in a wind. 
 They followed each other slowly, distinctly, sincerely, 
 and you might almost have fancied that as they came 
 and went they gave her a nameless pain. She was 
 tall and straight and had an air of maidenly strength 
 and decision. She had a broad forehead and dark 
 eyebrows, a trifle thicker than those of classic beau 
 ties; her dark pupils, a trifle heavy, failed, as might 
 be said, of publicity of expression. Her features were 
 bravely irregular, and her mouth enabled her smile 
 which was the principal grace of her physiognomy 
 to display itself with magnificent amplitude. Row 
 land indeed had not yet seen this accident produced; 
 but something assured him that when, on due cause 
 shown, she should cease to be serious, it would be like 
 the final rising of the plain green curtain of the 
 old theatre on some not very modern comedy. 
 She wore a scanty white dress and had a vaguely 
 rustic, provincial air; she looked like a distinguished 
 villager. She was evidently a girl of extreme personal 
 force, but she lacked pliancy. She was hemming 
 a kitchen towel with the aid of a large steel thimble. 
 She bent her almost portentous eyes at last on the 
 work again and let Rowland explain himself. 
 
 "I ve become suddenly so very intimate with 
 your son," he said at last, addressing himself to 
 Mrs. Hudson, "that it seems proper I should make 
 your acquaintance." 
 
 "Very proper," murmured the poor lady, and after 
 a moment s hesitation was on the point of adding 
 
 54 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 something more. But Mr. Striker here interposed, 
 after a prefatory clearance of the throat. 
 
 " I should like to take the liberty, sir, of address 
 ing you a simple question. For how long a period 
 of time have you been acquainted with our young 
 friend ?" He continued to kick the air, but his head 
 was thrown back and his eyes fixed on the opposite 
 wall as if to avert themselves from the spectacle of 
 Rowland s inevitable confusion. 
 
 "A very short time, I confess. Hardly three 
 days." 
 
 "And yet you call yourself intimate, eh? I ve 
 been seeing Mr. Roderick daily these three years, 
 and yet it was only this morning that I felt as if 
 I had at last the right to say that I knew him. We 
 had a few moments conversation in my office which 
 supplied the missing links in the evidence. So that 
 now I do venture to say I m acquainted with Mr. 
 Roderick! But wait three years, sir, like me!" 
 And Mr. Striker laughed with a closed mouth and 
 a noiseless shake of all his long person. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson smiled confusedly, at hazard; Miss 
 Garland kept her eyes on her stitches. But it seemed 
 to Rowland that the latter coloured a little. "Oh, 
 in three years, of course," he said, " we shall know 
 each other better. Before many years are over, 
 madam," he pursued, " I expect the world to know 
 him. I expect him to be a great man!" 
 
 Mrs. Hudson looked at first as if this could be 
 but an insidious device for increasing her distress 
 by the assistance of some art of comedy. Then re 
 assured little by little by Rowland s air of conviction, 
 
 55 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 she gave him an appealing glance and a timorous 
 "Really?" 
 
 But before her visitor could respond Mr. Striker 
 again intervened. "Do I fully apprehend your 
 expression?" he asked. "Our young friend is to 
 become one of our great men ?" 
 
 " One of our great artists, I hope. Perhaps greater 
 than any." 
 
 "This is a new and interesting view," said Mr. 
 Striker with an assumption of judicial calmness. 
 "We ve had hopes for Mr. Roderick, but I confess 
 that if I ve rightly understood them they stopped 
 short of towering eminence. We shouldn t have 
 taken the responsibility of entertaining that idea 
 for him. What do you say, ladies ? We all feel about 
 him here his mother, Miss Garland and myself 
 
 as if his merits were rather in the line of the " 
 
 and Mr. Striker waved his hand with a series of 
 fantastic flourishes in the air "of the light orna 
 mental." Mr. Striker bore his recalcitrant pupil a 
 grudge; yet he was evidently trying both to be fair 
 and to respect the susceptibilities of his companions. 
 He was still unversed in the mysterious processes of 
 feminine emotion. Ten minutes before there had 
 been a general harmony of sombre views; but on 
 hearing Roderick s limitations thus distinctly formu 
 lated to a stranger the two ladies mutely protested. 
 Mrs. Hudson uttered a short faint sigh, and Miss 
 Garland raised her eyes toward their advocate and 
 visited him with a short cold glance. 
 
 " I m afraid, Mrs. Hudson," Rowland pursued, 
 evading the question of the ultimate future, "that 
 
 56 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 you don t at all thank me for stirring up your son s 
 ambition for objects that lead him so far from home. 
 I seem to feel that I ve made you my enemy." 
 
 Mrs. Hudson covered her mouth with her finger 
 tips and looked painfully perplexed between the 
 desire to confess the truth and the fear of being im 
 polite. "My cousin s no one s enemy," Miss Gar 
 land hereupon declared gently, but with the same 
 remorseless consistency with which she had made 
 Rowland relax his grasp of the chair. 
 
 "Does she leave that to you ?" Rowland ventured 
 to ask with a smile. 
 
 "We are inspired with none but Christian senti 
 ments," said Mr. Striker; "Miss Garland perhaps 
 most of all. Miss Garland," and Mr. Striker waved his 
 hand again as if to perform an introduction which had 
 been frivolously omitted, "is the daughter of a minis 
 ter, the granddaughter of a minister, the sister of 
 
 a minister." 
 
 Rowland signified, so far as he could by a gesture, 
 that he had nothing to say against it, and the girl 
 prosecuted her work with quite as little apparently 
 either of embarrassment or elation at the promulga 
 tion of these facts. " Mrs. Hudson, I see," Mr. 
 Striker continued, " is too deeply agitated to converse 
 with you freely. She will allow me to address you 
 a few questions. Would you kindly inform her as 
 exactly as possible just what you propose to do with 
 her son ?" 
 
 The poor lady fixed her eyes appealingly on Row 
 land s face and seemed to say that Mr. Striker had 
 spoken her desire, though she herself would have 
 
 57 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 expressed it less crudely. But Rowland saw in Mr. 
 Striker s many-wrinkled light blue eye, shrewd at 
 once and good-natured, that he had no intention 
 of defiance, and that he was simply pompous and 
 conceited and sarcastically compassionate of any 
 scheme of things in which Roderick was not a 
 negligeable quantity. 
 
 "Do, my dear madam?" demanded Rowland. 
 "I don t propose to do anything. He must do for 
 himself. I simply offer him the chance. He s to 
 study, to strive, to work very hard, I hope." 
 
 "Ah, not too hard, please," murmured Mrs. Hud 
 son pleadingly, wheeling about from recent alarms 
 at the dolce far niente. "He s not very strong, 
 and I m afraid the climate of Europe is very re 
 laxing." 
 
 "Ah, study?" repeated Mr. Striker. "To what 
 line of study is he to direct his attention?" Then 
 suddenly, with an impulse of disinterested curiosity 
 on his own account, "How do you study sculpture 
 anyhow ?" 
 
 " By looking at models and imitating them." 
 
 "At models, eh ? To what kind of models do you 
 refer?" 
 
 " To the antique, in the first place." 
 
 "Ah, the antique" and Mr. Striker gave it the 
 jocose intonation. " Do you hear, madam ? Rod 
 erick is going off to Europe to learn to imitate the 
 antique." 
 
 "I suppose it s all right," said Mrs. Hudson while 
 she twisted herself in a sort of delicate anguish. 
 
 "An antique, as I understand it," the lawyer 
 
 58 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 continued, "is an image of a pagan deity, with con 
 siderable dirt sticking to it, and no arms, no nose and 
 no clothing. A precious model, certainly!" 
 
 "That s a very good description of many," said 
 Rowland with a laugh. 
 
 "Mercy! Truly?" asked Mrs. Hudson, borrow 
 ing courage from his urbanity. 
 
 "But a sculptor s studies, you intimate, are not 
 confined to the antique," Mr. Striker resumed. 
 "After he has been looking three or four years at 
 the objects I describe - 
 
 "He studies the living model," said Rowland. 
 
 "Does it take three or four years?" Mrs. Hud 
 son hopelessly enquired. 
 
 "That depends upon the artist s aptitude. After 
 twenty years a real artist is still studying." 
 
 "Oh, my poor boy!" moaned Mrs. Hudson, find 
 ing the prospect under every light still terrible. 
 
 "Now this study of the living model," Mr. Striker 
 pursued. "Give Mrs. Hudson a sketch of that." 
 
 "Oh dear, no!" cried Mrs. Hudson shrinkingly. 
 
 "That too," said Rowland, "is one of the reasons 
 for studying in Rome. It s a handsome race, you 
 know, and you find very well-made people." 
 
 "I suppose they re no better made than a good 
 tough Yankee," objected Mr. Striker, transposing 
 his interminable legs. "The same God made us!" 
 
 "Surely," sighed Mrs. Hudson, but with a ques 
 tioning glance at her visitor which showed that she 
 had already begun to concede much weight to his 
 opinion. Rowland hastened to express his assent 
 to Mr. Striker s proposition. 
 
 59 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Miss Garland looked up, and, after a moment s 
 hesitation, "Are the Roman women very beautiful ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 Rowland too, in answering, hesitated; he was look 
 ing at her kindly enough. "On the whole I prefer 
 ours," he said. 
 
 She had dropped her work in her lap; her hands 
 were crossed upon it, her head thrown a little back. 
 She had evidently expected a more impersonal reply 
 and she was not satisfied. For an instant she seemed 
 inclined to make a rejoinder, but she picked up her 
 work in silence and drew her stitches again. 
 
 Rowland had for the second time the feeling that 
 she judged him a person of a disagreeably sophisti 
 cated tone. He noticed too that the kitchen towel 
 she was hemming was terribly coarse. And yet his 
 answer had a resonant inward echo and he repeated 
 to himself "Yes, on the whole I prefer ours." 
 
 "Well, these models," began Mr. Striker. "You 
 put them into an attitude, I suppose ?" 
 
 "An attitude, exactly." 
 
 "And then you sit down and look at them?" 
 
 "Ah, you mustn t sit too long. You must go at 
 your clay and try to build up something that looks 
 like them." 
 
 "Well, there you are with your model in an atti 
 tude on one side, yourself in an attitude too, I sup 
 pose, on the other, and your pile of clay in the middle, 
 building up, as you say. So you pass the morning. 
 After that I hope you go out and take a walk and 
 rest from your exertions." 
 
 "Unquestionably. But to an artist who loves 
 
 60 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his work there is no lost time. Everything he looks 
 at teaches or suggests something/ 
 
 "That s a tempting doctrine to young men with 
 a taste for sitting by the hour with the page un 
 turned, watching the flies buzz, or the frost melt, 
 on the window-pane. Our young friend in this way 
 must have laid up stores of information that I never 
 suspected." 
 
 " It s very possible," said Rowland with an unre- 
 sentful smile, "that he will prove some day the hap 
 pier artist for some of those very same lazy reveries." 
 
 This theory was apparently very grateful to Mrs. 
 Hudson, who had never had the case put for her 
 son with such ingenious hopefulness, and who found 
 herself disrelishing the singular situation of seeming 
 to side against her own flesh and blood with a lawyer 
 whose conversational tone betrayed the habit of public 
 cross-questioning. 
 
 "My son, then," she ventured to enquire, "my 
 son has exceptional what you would call remark 
 able powers ? " 
 
 "To my sense distinctly remarkable powers." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Hudson actually smiled, broadly, glee 
 fully, and glanced at Miss Garland as if to invite 
 her to do likewise. But the girl s face remained as 
 serious as the eastern sky when the opposite sun 
 set is too feeble to make it glow. "Do you really 
 know?" she asked, looking at Rowland. 
 
 "One can t know in such a matter save after 
 proof, and proof takes time. But one can believe." 
 
 "And you believe?" 
 
 "I believe." 
 
 61 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 But even then Miss Garland vouchsafed no smile; 
 her face became graver than ever. 
 
 "Well, well," said Mrs. Hudson, "we must hope 
 that it s all for the best." 
 
 Mr. Striker eyed his old friend for a moment with 
 a look of some displeasure; he saw that this was 
 but a cunning female device for pretending still 
 to hang back, and that, through some untraceable 
 logic of treachery, she was now taking more com 
 fort in the opinions of this sophistical stranger 
 than in his own tough dogmas. He rose to his feet 
 without pulling down his waistcoat, but with a 
 wrinkled grin at the perfidy, let alone the incon 
 sistency, of women. "Well, sir, Mr. Roderick s 
 powers are nothing to me," he said, "no, nor the 
 use he makes of them. Good or bad, he s no son of 
 mine. But in a friendly way I m glad to hear so 
 fine an account of him. I m glad, madam, you re 
 so satisfied with the prospect. Affection, sir, you see, 
 must have its guarantees!" He paused a moment, 
 stroking his beard, with his head inclined and one 
 eye half closed, looking at Rowland. The look 
 was grotesque, but it was significant, and it puzzled 
 Rowland more than it amused him. " I suppose you re 
 a very brilliant young man," he went on, "very 
 enlightened, very cultivated, quite up to the mark 
 in the fine arts and all that sort of thing. I m a 
 plain practical old boy, content to follow an honour 
 able profession in a free country. I did n t go to any 
 part of Europe to learn my business; no one took 
 me by the hand; I had to grease my wheels myself, 
 and such as I am, I m a self-made man, every inch 
 
 62 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of me! Well, if our young friend s booked for fame 
 and fortune I don t suppose his going to Rome 
 will stop him. But, mind you, it won t help him such 
 a long way neither. If you ve undertaken to put 
 him through there s a thing or two you had better 
 remember. The crop we gather depends upon the 
 seed we sow. He may be the biggest genius of the 
 age: his potatoes won t come up without his hoeing 
 them. If he takes things so almighty easy as well, 
 as one or two young fellows of genius I Ve had under 
 my eye his produce will never gain the prize. 
 Take the word for it of a man who has made his 
 way inch by inch and does n t believe that we wake 
 up to find our work done because we have lain all 
 night a-dreaming of it: anything worth doing is 
 plaguy hard to do! If your young gentleman finds 
 everything all right, and has a good time of it, and 
 says he likes the life, it s a sign that as I may say 
 -you had better step round to the office and look 
 at the books. That s all I desire to remark. No 
 offence intended. I hope you 11 have a first-rate 
 time yourself." 
 
 Rowland could honestly reply that this seemed 
 pregnant sense, and he offered Mr. Striker a friendly 
 hand-shake as the latter withdrew. But Mr. Striker s 
 rather grim view of matters cast a momentary shadow 
 on his companions, and Mrs. Hudson seemed to 
 feel that it necessitated between them some little 
 friendly agreement not to be overawed. 
 
 Rowland sat for some time longer, partly because he 
 wished to please the two women and partly because 
 he was himself strangely beguiled. There was some- 
 
 63 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 thing touching in their worldly fears and diffident 
 hopes, something almost terrible in the way poor 
 little Mrs. Hudson seemed to flutter and quiver with 
 maternal passion. She put forth one timid conver 
 sational venture after another, and asked Rowland 
 a number of questions about himself, his age, his 
 family, his occupations, his tastes, his religious opin 
 ions. Rowland had an odd feeling at last that she 
 had begun to believe him very exemplary and that 
 she might make later some perturbing discovery. 
 He tried therefore to invent something that would 
 prepare her to find him fallible. But he could think 
 of nothing. It only seemed to him that Miss Gar 
 land secretly mistrusted him and that he must leave 
 her to render him the service, after he had gone, of 
 making him the object of a little conscientious de 
 rogation. Mrs. Hudson talked with low-voiced eager 
 ness about her son. 
 
 " He s very loveable, sir, I assure you. When you 
 come to know him you 11 find him very loveable. 
 He s a little spoiled, of course; he has always done 
 with me as he pleased; but he s a dear good boy, 
 I m sure he s a dear good boy. And every one 
 thinks him very attractive: I m sure he would be 
 noticed anywhere. Don t you think he s very hand 
 some, sir ? He s the very copy of his poor father. 
 I had another perhaps you have been told. He 
 was awfully killed." And the poor little lady smiled 
 for fear of doing worse. "He was a very fine boy, 
 but very different from Roderick. Roderick s a little 
 strange ; he has never been an easy boy. Sometimes 
 I feel like the goose wasn t it a goose, dear?" 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and, startled by the audacity of her comparison, she 
 appealed to Miss Garland "the goose, or the 
 hen, who hatched a swan s egg. I ve never been 
 able to give him what he requires. I Ve always 
 thought that in more brilliant circumstances he 
 might find his place and be happy. But at the same 
 time I was afraid of the world for him; it was so 
 dangerous and dreadful so terribly mixed. No 
 doubt I know very little about it. I never suspected, 
 I confess, that it contained persons of such liberality 
 as yours." 
 
 Rowland replied that evidently she had done the 
 world but scanty justice. 
 
 "No, she always does justice," Miss Garland ob 
 jected after a pause. " It s this that s so much like 
 a fairy-tale." 
 
 "It s what, pray?" 
 
 "Why, your coming here all unannounced, un 
 known, so rich and so polite, and carrying off my 
 cousin in a golden cloud." 
 
 If this was banter Miss Garland had the best of 
 it, for Rowland fairly fell a-musing over the question 
 of its perhaps being an acid meant to bite. Before 
 he withdrew Mrs. Hudson made him tell her again 
 that Roderick s powers were probably remarkable. 
 He had inspired her with a clinging, caressing faith 
 in his wisdom. "He will really do beautiful things ? " 
 she asked "the very most beautiful ?" 
 
 "I see no intrinsic reason why he should n t." 
 
 "Well, we shall think of that as we sit here alone," 
 she rejoined. "Mary and I will sit here and talk 
 about it. So I give him up," she went on as he was 
 
 65 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 going. " I J m sure you 11 be the best of friends to 
 him; but if you should ever forget him or grow 
 tired of him, if you should lose your interest in 
 him and he should come to any harm or any trouble, 
 please, sir, remember " And she paused with a 
 tremulous voice. 
 
 "Remember, my dear madam?" 
 
 "That he s all I have that he s everything 
 and that it would be very terrible." 
 
 "In so far as I can help him he shall succeed," 
 was all Rowland could say. He turned to Miss 
 Garland to bid her good-night, and she rose and 
 put out her hand. She was very straightforward, 
 but he could see that if she was too modest to be 
 bold she was much too simple to be shy. "Have you 
 no injunctions to give me?" he asked to ask her 
 something. 
 
 She looked at him hard, and then, even though 
 she was not shy, she blushed. "Make him do his 
 best," she said. 
 
 Rowland noted the full tone, the ringing depth 
 of voice this young woman s was a perfect con 
 tralto with which the words were uttered. " Do 
 you take a great interest in him ?" 
 
 "The greatest interest." 
 
 "Then if he won t do his best for you he won t do 
 it for me." She but turned away in silence at this, 
 and Rowland took his leave. 
 
 He walked homeward thinking of many things. 
 The great Northampton elms interarched far above 
 in the darkness, but the moon had risen and through 
 scattered apertures was hanging the dusky vault 
 
 66 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 with silver lamps. There seemed to Rowland some 
 thing solemn in the scene in which he had just 
 taken part. He had laughed and talked and braved 
 it out in self-defence; but when he reflected that 
 he was really meddling with the simple stillness of 
 this small New England home and that he had ven 
 tured to disturb so much living security in the interest 
 of a far-away fantastic hypothesis, he gasped, amazed 
 at his temerity. It was true, as Cecilia had said, 
 that for an unofficious man it was a singular posi 
 tion. There stirred in his mind an odd feeling of 
 annoyance with Roderick for having so peremptorily 
 taken possession of his nature. As he looked up and 
 down the long vista and saw the clear white houses 
 glancing here and there in the broken moonshine, 
 he could almost have believed that the happiest lot 
 for any man was to make the most of life in some 
 such tranquil spot as that. Here were kindness, 
 comfort, safety, the warning voice of duty, the per 
 fect absence of temptation. And as Rowland looked 
 along the arch of silvered shadow and out into the 
 lucid air of the American night, which seemed so 
 doubly vast, somehow, and strange and nocturnal, 
 he was moved to feel that here was beauty too - 
 beauty sufficient for an artist not to starve upon it. 
 As he stood there lost in the darkness he presently 
 heard a rapid tread on the other side of the road, 
 accompanied by a loud jubilant whistle, and in a 
 moment a figure emerged into an open gap of moon 
 shine. He had no difficulty in recognising his young 
 man, who was presumably returning from a visit 
 to Cecilia. Roderick stopped suddenly and stared 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 up at the moon, his face vividly illumined. He broke 
 out into a snatch of song 
 
 " The splendour falls on castle walls 
 And snowy summits old in story! " 
 
 And with a great musical roll of his voice he went 
 swinging off into the darkness again as if his thoughts 
 had lent him wings. He was dreaming of the in 
 spiration of foreign lands of mighty monuments 
 and sacred sites. What a pity, after all, thought 
 Rowland as he went his own way, that he should n t 
 have a "lick" at them! 
 
IV 
 
 IT had been a very sage remark of Cecilia s that Rod 
 erick would change with a change in his circumstances. 
 Rowland had telegraphed to New York for another 
 berth on his steamer, and from the hour the an 
 swer came that youth s spirits rose to incalculable 
 heights. He was radiant with good-humour, and 
 his charming gaiety the evident pledge of a bril 
 liant future. He had forgiven his old enemies and 
 forgotten his old grievances he seemed in every 
 way reconciled to a world in which he was going 
 to be important and wonderful. He was profusely 
 jocose and suggestive, and, as Cecilia said, he had 
 suddenly become so good that he might have been 
 not so much beginning a Roman career as ending 
 an earthly one. He took long walks with Rowland, 
 who felt more and more the fascination of his sur 
 render a fascinated one too, in its degree to 
 all this complacency. Rowland returned several 
 times to Mrs. Hudson s and found the two ladies 
 doing their best to keep in tune with their compan 
 ion s glee. Mary Garland, he thought, was succeed 
 ing better than her demeanour on his first visit had 
 promised. He tried to have some undiverted talk 
 with her, but her extreme reserve forced him to 
 content himself with such response to his rather 
 urgent overtures as might be extracted from her 
 leaving him, very frankly, all the consciousness of 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 them. It must be confessed, however, that if the 
 response was vague, the satisfaction he drew from 
 her mere colourless patience was great, and that 
 after his second visit he kept seeing the element 
 itself reflected in the most unlikely surfaces, the 
 most unexpected places. It seemed strange that 
 she should interest him so much at so slender a cost; 
 but interest him she did, extraordinarily, and his 
 interest had a quality altogether new to him. It 
 made him restless and a trifle melancholy; he walked 
 about absently, wondering and wishing. He wondered, 
 among other things, why fate should have condemned 
 him to make the acquaintance of a girl whom he 
 would make a sacrifice to know better, just as he 
 was leaving the country for years. It seemed to him 
 that he was turning his back on a chance of happi 
 ness happiness of a sort of which the slenderest 
 germ should be cultivated. He asked himself whether, 
 feeling as he did, if he had only himself to please, 
 he would have given up his start and hung about. 
 He had Roderick to please now, for whom disap 
 pointment would be cruel; but he took it for pre 
 sumable that had there been no Roderick in the 
 case the ship would be sailing without him. He 
 asked the young man several questions about his 
 cousin, but Roderick, throwing discretion to the 
 winds on so many points, seemed to have reasons 
 of his own for being reticent on this one. His meas 
 ured answers quickened Rowland s curiosity, for the 
 girl, with her irritating half-suggestions, had only 
 to be a subject of guarded allusion in others to be 
 come a secret obsession. He learned from Roderick 
 
 70 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 that she was the daughter of a country minister, a 
 far-away cousin of his mother, settled in another 
 part of the state; that she was one of half a dozen 
 daughters, that the family had scant means, and that 
 she had come a couple of months before to pay his 
 mother a long visit. "It s to be a very long one 
 now," he said, "for it s settled that she remains 
 while I m away." 
 
 The fermentation of beatitude in Roderick s 
 soul reached its climax a few days before the young 
 men were to make their farewells. He had been 
 sitting with his friends on Cecilia s verandah, but for 
 half an hour past he had said nothing. Lounging 
 back against a column muffled in creepers and gazing 
 idly at the stars, he kept chanting softly and with 
 that indifference to ceremony for which he always 
 found allowance, though it had nothing conciliatory 
 but what his good looks gave it. At last, springing 
 up, "I want to strike out hard!" he exclaimed; 
 "I want to do something violent and indecent and 
 impossible to let off steam!" 
 
 " I 11 tell you what to do, this lovely weather," 
 Cecilia said. "Give a picnic. It can be as violent, 
 it can be even as indecent, as you like, and it will 
 have the merit of leading off our hysterics into a safe 
 channel, as well as yours." 
 
 Roderick accepted with all affability her very 
 practical remedy for his nervous need, and a couple 
 of days later the picnic was given. It was to be a 
 family party, but Roderick, in his magnanimous 
 geniality, insisted on inviting Mr. Striker, a decision 
 which Rowland still more genially applauded. "And 
 
 71 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 we ll have Mrs. Striker too," he said, "if she ll 
 come, to keep my mother in countenance; and at 
 any rate we 11 have Miss Striker the divine 
 Petronilla!" The young lady thus denominated 
 formed, with Mrs. Hudson, Miss Garland and Cecilia, 
 the better part of the female contingent. Mr. Striker 
 presented himself, sacrificing a morning s work, 
 with a magnanimity greater even than Roderick s, 
 and foreign support was further secured in the person 
 of Mr. Whitefoot, the young Orthodox minister. 
 Roderick had chosen his happy valley, the feasting- 
 place; he knew it well and had passed many a 
 summer afternoon there, lying at his length on the 
 grass in the shade and looking away to the blue 
 distances, the "purple rim" of the poet, which 
 had the wealth of the world, all the unattainable 
 of life, beyond them. A high-hung meadow stretched 
 on one side to a peculiarly dark wood, in which he 
 used to say there were strange beasts and "mon 
 sters," who could n t come out, but who put it out 
 of the question that one should go in ; and the 
 meadow had high mossy rocks protruding through 
 its grass and formed in the opposite direction the 
 shore of a small lake. It was a cloudless August 
 day; Rowland always remembered it, and the scene 
 and everything that was said and done, with ex 
 traordinary distinctness. Roderick surpassed him 
 self in friendly jollity, and at one moment, when 
 exhilaration was at the highest, was seen in Mr. 
 Striker s high white hat, drinking champagne from 
 a broken tea-cup to Mr. Striker s health. Miss 
 Striker had her father s light green eyes and almost 
 
 72 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his tendency to close one of them at a time for em 
 phasis; she was dressed as if to sit for her photo 
 graph and remained for a long time with Roderick 
 on a little promontory overhanging the lake. Mrs, 
 Hudson kept all day a little meek apprehensive smile. 
 She was afraid of an "accident," though unless 
 Miss Striker (who indeed was a little of a romp) should 
 push Roderick into the lake it was hard to see what 
 accident could occur. Mrs. Hudson was as neat and 
 crisp and uncrumpled at the end of the festival as 
 at the beginning. Mr. Whitefoot, who but a twelve 
 month later became a convert to Episcopacy and 
 was already cultivating a certain sonority of private 
 discourse, devoted himself to Cecilia. He had a 
 little book in his pocket, out of which he read to 
 her at intervals, lying stretched at her feet; and it 
 was a lasting joke with Cecilia afterwards that she 
 would never tell what Mr. Whitefoot s little book 
 had been. Rowland had placed himself near Miss 
 Garland while the feasting went forward on the grass. 
 She wore a so-called gypsy hat a little straw hat 
 tied down over her ears, so as to cast her eyes into 
 shadow, by a ribbon passing outside of it. When 
 the company dispersed after lunch he proposed to 
 her to take, in spite of Roderick s beasts and mon 
 sters, a stroll in the wood. She hesitated a moment 
 and looked at Mrs. Hudson as if for permission to 
 leave her. But Mrs. Hudson was listening to Mr. 
 Striker, who sat gossiping to her with relaxed con 
 sistency, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his hat on his 
 nose. 
 
 "You can give your cousin your society at any 
 
 73 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 time," said Rowland. "But me perhaps you ll 
 never see again." 
 
 "Why then should we attempt to be friends, if 
 nothing is to come of it?" she asked with homely 
 logic. But by this time she had consented and they 
 were treading the fallen pine-needles. 
 
 "Oh, one must take all one can get," said Row 
 land. " If we can be friends for half an hour it s 
 so much gained." 
 
 "Do you expect never to come back to North 
 ampton again ?" she went on with detachment. 
 
 " Never is a good deal to say. But I go to Europe 
 for a long stay." 
 
 "Do you prefer that country so much to this?" 
 
 "I won t say that my preferences and reasons 
 are all on one side. But I have the misfortune to 
 be rather an idle man, and in Europe both the bur 
 den and the obloquy of idleness are less heavy than 
 here." 
 
 She was silent for a few minutes; then at last, 
 "In that surely we are better than Europe," she 
 said. To a certain point Rowland agreed with her, 
 but he demurred, to make her say more. "Would n t 
 it be better," she accordingly asked, "to set at some 
 work in order to get reconciled to America than to 
 go to Europe just in order to get reconciled to 
 sloth ? " 
 
 "Doubtless, but you know work doesn t come 
 to every one s hand." 
 
 "I come from a little place where it just does do 
 that," said Mary Garland. "We all work; every 
 one I know works. And really," she added pre- 
 74 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sently, "I look at you with curiosity: you re the 
 first unoccupied man I ever saw." 
 
 "Don t look at me too hard," Rowland laughed. 
 "I shall sink into the earth. What s the name of 
 your little place ?" 
 
 "West Nazareth," said Mary Garland with her 
 usual directness. " It s not so terribly small, though 
 it s smaller than Northampton." 
 
 "I wonder whether I could find any work at 
 West Nazareth," Rowland said. 
 
 "You would n t like it very much," Miss Garland 
 declared reflectively. "Though there are far finer 
 woods there than these. We have miles and miles of 
 woods." 
 
 "I might chop down trees," said Rowland. "That 
 is if you allow it." 
 
 "Allow it? Why, where should we get our fire 
 wood ?" Then noticing that he had spoken jest 
 ingly she glanced at him askance, though with no 
 visible diminution of her gravity. " Don t you know 
 how to do anything at all ? Have you no sort of pro 
 fession ?" 
 
 Rowland shook his head. "Absolutely none." 
 
 "What do you then do all day ?" 
 
 "Nothing that would make a figure in a descrip 
 tion. That s why, as I tell you, I m going to Europe. 
 There at least if I do nothing I shall see a great deal; 
 and if I m not a producer I shall at any rate be an 
 observer." 
 
 "Can t we observe everywhere ?" 
 
 "Certainly; and I really think that in that way 
 I make the most of my opportunities. Though I con- 
 
 75 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 fess," he continued, "that I often remember there 
 are things to be seen here to which I probably 
 have not done justice. I should like for instance 
 to see West Nazareth." 
 
 She looked round at him, open-eyed; not ap 
 parently that she exactly supposed he was jesting, 
 for the expression of such a desire was not neces 
 sarily facetious; but as if he must have spoken 
 with an ulterior motive. He had spoken in fact 
 from the simplest of motives. The girl beside him 
 appealed, strangely, to his sense of character, and 
 even, in her way, to his sense of beauty, and, satis 
 fied that her quality would be very much her own, 
 and neither borrowed nor reflected nor imposed, 
 he wished, positively as a help for liking her better, 
 to make her show him how little her situation had 
 had to give her. Her second movement now was to 
 take him at his word. "Since you re free to do as 
 you please, why don t you go there ?" 
 
 "I m not free to do as I please now. I ve offered 
 your cousin to bear him company to Europe, he 
 has accepted with enthusiasm, and I can t back out." 
 
 "Are you going to Europe simply for his sake ?" 
 
 Rowland hesitated. "I think I may almost say 
 
 so." 
 
 Mary Garland walked along in silence. "Do 
 you mean to do a great deal for him ?" she asked 
 at last. 
 
 "What I can. But my power of helping him is 
 very small beside his power of helping himself." 
 
 For a moment she was silent again. "You re 
 very generous," she then simply said. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "No, I m principally very shrewd. Roderick 
 will repay me. It s a speculation. At first, I think," 
 he added shortly afterwards, "you wouldn t have 
 paid me that little compliment. You didn t believe 
 in me." 
 
 She made no attempt to deny it. "I didn t see 
 why you should wish to make Roderick discontented. 
 I thought you were rather frivolous." 
 
 "You did me injustice. I don t think I m that." 
 
 " It was because you re unlike other men those 
 at least whom I ve seen." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "Why, as you describe yourself. You have no 
 duties, no profession, no home. You live for your 
 pleasure." 
 
 "That s all very true. And yet I maintain I strike 
 myself as not frivolous." 
 
 " I hope not," she said quietly. They had reached 
 a point where the wood-path forked and put forth 
 two divergent tracks which appeared to lose them 
 selves, at no great distance, in a tangle of under 
 growth. The young girl seemed to think the diffi 
 culty of choice between them a reason for giving them 
 up and turning back, but Rowland thought other 
 wise and detected agreeable grounds for preference 
 in the left-hand path. As a compromise they sat 
 down on a fallen log. Looking about him, Rowland 
 espied a curious wild shrub with a spotted crimson 
 leaf; he went and plucked a spray of it and brought 
 it to his companion. He had never observed it before, 
 but she immediately called it by its name. She ex 
 pressed surprise at his not knowing it; it was ex- 
 
 77 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tremely common. He presently brought her a speci 
 men of another delicate plant, with a little blue- 
 streaked flower. " I suppose that s common too," 
 he said, "but I ve never seen it or noticed it 
 at least." She answered that this one was rare, 
 and cast about a little before she could recall its 
 name. At last she remembered, expressing her 
 surprise at his having found the plant in the woods; 
 she supposed it grew only in the marshes. Row 
 land complimented her on her fund of useful in 
 formation. 
 
 "It s not especially useful," she answered; "but 
 I like to know the names of plants as I do those 
 of my acquaintances. When we walk in the woods 
 at home which we do so much it seems as 
 unnatural not to know what to call the flowers as 
 it would be to see some one in the town with whom 
 we should n t be on speaking terms." 
 
 "If there s a question of frivolity," Rowland said, 
 "I m sure you yourself have very little of it, unless 
 at West Nazareth it s considered frivolous to walk 
 in the woods and nod to the nodding flowers. Do 
 kindly tell me a little about yourself." And to 
 compel her to begin, " I know you come of a race of 
 theologians," he went on. 
 
 "No," she replied, deliberating; "they re not 
 theologians, though they re ministers. We don t 
 take a very firm stand upon doctrine; we re prac 
 tical and active rather ; we have n t time to find 
 reasons and phrases. We write sermons and preach 
 them, but we do a great deal of hard work be 
 sides." 
 
 78 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "And of this hard work what has your share been ?" 
 
 "The hardest part not doing anything." 
 
 "What do you call doing nothing?" 
 
 "I taught some small children their lessons once; 
 I must make the most of that. But I confess I did n t 
 like it. Otherwise I ve only done little things at 
 home as they turned up." 
 
 "What kind of things?" 
 
 "Oh, every kind. If you had seen my home you 
 would understand." 
 
 Rowland would have liked to make her specify; 
 but he took a peculiar pleasure in being felt as 
 discreet. "To be happy, I imagine," he contented 
 himself with saying, "you need to see results - 
 those of your service, of your ability. You need 
 somebody or something to expend yourself upon." 
 
 "That s not so true as it once was; now that I m 
 older I ve developed a turn for sitting about quite 
 shamelessly. Certainly these two months that I ve 
 been with Mrs. Hudson I ve done little else. And 
 yet I ve enjoyed it. And now that I m probably 
 to be with her all the while that her son s away, 
 I look forward to more with dreadful resignation." 
 
 " It s quite settled then that you re to remain 
 with your cousin ? " 
 
 "It depends upon their writing from home that 
 I may stay. But that s probable. Only I must not 
 forget," she said, rising, "that the ground for my 
 doing so is that she shall not be left alone." 
 
 "I m glad to know that I shall probably often 
 hear about you. I assure you I shall often wonder 
 about you!" These slightly breathless words of Row- 
 
 79 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 land s were half precipitation and half prudence. 
 They were the simple truth, and he had asked him 
 self why he should not tell her the truth. And yet 
 they were not all of it; her hearing the rest would 
 depend upon the way she received this instalment. 
 She received it not only, as he had foreseen, with 
 out the sign of aflutter or a thought of conscious grace, 
 but with a slight movement of nervous deprecation 
 which seemed to betray itself in the quickening of 
 her step. Evidently if he was to take pleasure in 
 hearing about her it would have to be a satisfac 
 tion highly disinterested. She answered nothing, 
 and Rowland too, as he walked beside her, was 
 silent; but as he looked along the shadow-woven 
 wood-path what he was really facing was three 
 interminable years of disinterestedness. He ushered 
 them in by talking composed civility until he had 
 brought Miss Garland back to her companions. 
 
 He saw her but once again. He was obliged to 
 be in New York a couple of days before sailing, 
 and it was arranged that Roderick should overtake 
 him at the last moment. The evening before he 
 left Northampton he went to say farewell to Mrs. 
 Hudson. The ceremony was brief. He soon per 
 ceived that the poor little lady was in the melting 
 mood, and as he dreaded her tears he compressed 
 a multitude of solemn promises into a silent hand 
 shake and took his leave. Mary Garland, she had 
 told him, was in the back garden with Roderick; 
 he might go out to them. He did so, and as he drew 
 near he heard Roderick s high-pitched voice ring 
 ing behind the shrubbery. In a moment, emerg- 
 
 80 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ing, he found the girl leaning against a tree while 
 her cousin stood before her and talked with great 
 emphasis. He asked pardon for interrupting them 
 and said he wished only to bid her good-bye. She 
 gave him her hand, and he held it an instant without 
 a word. "Don t forget," he said to Roderick as 
 he turned away. "And don t, in this company, 
 repent of your bargain." 
 
 "I shall not let him," said Mary Garland, with 
 a nearer approach to reckless cheer than he had 
 yet heard on her lips. " I shall see that he s punctual. 
 He must go! I owe you an apology for having 
 doubted that he ought to go!" And her face, in the 
 summer dusk, was new and vague and handsome. 
 
 Roderick was punctual, eagerly punctual, and they 
 went. Rowland for several days was occupied 
 with material cares and lost sight of his accepted 
 obsession. But the questions lurking in it only 
 slumbered and they were sharply shaken up. The 
 weather was fine, and the two young men always 
 sat together upon deck late into the evening. One 
 night, towards the last, they were at the stern of 
 the great ship, watching her grind the solid black 
 ness of the ocean into phosphorescent foam. They 
 talked on these occasions of everything conceivable 
 and had the air of having no secrets from each other. 
 But it was on Roderick s conscience that this air 
 belied him, and he was moreover too full of his 
 native claims for any permanent reticence. 
 
 "I must tell you something," he broke out at 
 last. "I should like you to know it, and you ll be 
 so glad to know it. Besides, it s only a question of 
 
 81 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 time; three months hence probably you would have 
 guessed it. I m engaged to marry Mary Garland. " 
 
 Rowland sat staring; though the sea was calm 
 it seemed to him that the ship gave a great dizzying 
 lurch. But in a moment he contrived to answer 
 coherently. "Engaged to marry her! I never sup 
 posed I never imagined ! " 
 
 "That I was in love with her?" Roderick inter 
 rupted. "Neither did I before this last fortnight. 
 But you came and put me into such ridiculous good- 
 humour that I felt an extraordinary desire to spill 
 over to some woman, and I suppose I took the near 
 est. Really I may say the dearest too, for Mary s 
 a dear; you know her too little to do her justice. 
 I myself have only been learning to know her from 
 three months ago, and have been falling in love with 
 her without suspecting it. It appeared when I spoke 
 to her that she thought distinctly better of me than 
 I supposed. So the thing was settled. I must of 
 course make lots of money before we can marry, 
 and it s rather awkward, certainly, to engage one s 
 self to a girl whom one is going to leave for years 
 the next day. We shall be condemned for some time 
 to come to do a terrible deal of abstract thinking 
 about each other. But I wanted her blessing and 
 I couldn t help asking for it. Unless a man s un- 
 naturallv selfish he needs to work for some one 
 
 j 
 
 else than himself, and I m sure I shall run a smoother 
 and swifter course for knowing that there *s a per 
 son so good and clever and charming, to whom my 
 success will make the grand difference, waiting at 
 Northampton for news of my greatness. If ever I m 
 
 82 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 a dull companion and over-addicted to moping, 
 remember in justice to me that I m in love and 
 that the loved object is five thousand miles away." 
 
 Rowland listened to all this with a feeling that 
 fortune had played him an elaborately devised 
 trick. It had lured him out into mid-ocean and 
 smoothed the sea and stilled the winds and given 
 him a singularly sympathetic comrade, and then it 
 had turned and delivered him a thumping blow in 
 mid-chest. "Yes," he said after an attempt at the 
 usual formal congratulation, "you certainly ought 
 to do better with Miss Garland waiting for you 
 at Northampton!" 
 
 Roderick, now that he had broken ground, was 
 vivid, was natural, was delightful, and rang a hun 
 dred changes on the assurance that he was a very 
 happy man. Then at last, suddenly, his climax 
 was a yawn and he declared that he must tumble in. 
 Rowland let him go alone and sat there late between 
 sea and sky. 
 
ONE warm, still day, late in the Roman autumn, our 
 two young men were seated beneath one of the 
 high-stemmed pines of the Villa Ludovisi. They 
 had been spending an hour in the mouldy little 
 garden-house where the colossal mask of the famous 
 Juno looks out with blank eyes from that dusky 
 corner which must seem to her the last possible 
 stage of a lapse from Olympus. Then they had 
 wandered out into the gardens and were lounging 
 away the morning under the spell, as it seemed to 
 them, of supreme romance. Roderick declared 
 that he would go nowhere else, that after the Juno 
 it was a profanation to look at anything but sky 
 and trees. There was a fresco of Guercino, to which 
 Rowland, though he had seen it on his former visit 
 to Rome, went dutifully to pay his respects. But 
 Roderick, though he had never seen it, declared 
 that it couldn t be worth a fig and that he didn t 
 care to look at ugly things. He remained stretched 
 on his overcoat, which he had spread on the grass," 
 while Rowland went off envying the intellectual 
 comfort of genius, which can arrive at serene con 
 clusions without disagreeable processes. When the 
 latter came back his friend was sitting with his 
 elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. 
 Rowland, in the geniality of a mood attuned to all 
 the stored patiences that lurk in Roman survivals, 
 
 84 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 found a good word to say for the Guercino; but 
 chiefly he talked of the view from the little belve 
 dere on the roof of the casino, and how it looked 
 like the prospect from a castle turret in a fairy-tale. 
 
 "Very likely," said Roderick, throwing himself 
 back with a yawn. "But I must let it pass. I ve 
 seen enough for the present ; I ve reached the 
 top of the hill. I ve an indigestion of impressions; 
 I must work them off before I go in for any more. 
 I don t want to look at any more of other people s 
 works for a month not even at nature s own. I 
 want to look, if you please, at Roderick Hudson s. The 
 result of it all is that I m not afraid. I can but try 
 as well as the rest of them. The fellow who did that 
 gazing goddess yonder only made an experiment. 
 The other day when I was looking at Michael 
 Angelo s Moses I was seized with a kind of exas 
 peration, a reaction against all this mere passive 
 enjoyment of grandeur, and, above all, against 
 this perpetual platitude of spirit under imposed 
 admirations. It was a rousing great success, cer 
 tainly, that sat there before me, but somehow it 
 was n t an inscrutable mystery, and it seemed to 
 me, not perhaps that I should some day do as much, 
 but that at least I might do as well." 
 
 "As you say, you can but try," said Rowland. 
 "Achievement s only effort passionate enough." 
 
 "Well then, haven t I got up steam enough? It 
 won t have been for want of your being a first-class 
 stoker. It came over me just now that it s exactly 
 three months to a day since I left Northampton. I 
 can t believe anything so ridiculous." 
 
 85 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "It certainly seems more." 
 
 " It seems ten years. What an exquisite ass I was 
 so short a time ago!" 
 
 "Do you feel," Rowland asked all amusedly, "so 
 tremendously wise now ? " 
 
 " Wise with the wisdom of the ages and the taste 
 of a thousand fountains. Don t I look so ? Surely 
 I have n t the same face. Have n t I different eyes, 
 a different skin, different legs and arms ? " 
 
 "I can hardly say, because I ve been too near 
 you to catch the moments of change. But it s very 
 likely. You re, in the literal sense of the word, 
 more civilised. I dare say," added Rowland, "that 
 Miss Garland would think so." 
 
 "That s not what she would call it; she would 
 say I m spoiled; I m not sure she wouldn t say 
 that I m already hideously corrupted." 
 
 Rowland asked few questions about Mary Gar 
 land, but he always listened narrowly to his com 
 panion s voluntary observations. "Are you very 
 sure?" 
 
 "Why, she s a stern moralist, and she would 
 infer from my appearance that I had become a 
 gilded profligate." Roderick had in fact a Venetian 
 watch-chain round his neck and a magnificent Ro 
 man intaglio on the third finger of his left hand. 
 
 "Shall you feel I take a liberty," said his com 
 panion, "if I tell you I don t think you quite see her 
 all round." 
 
 "For heaven s sake," cried Roderick, laughing, 
 "don t tell me she s not a moralist! It was for that 
 I fell in love with her and with security and sanity, 
 
 86 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 all the * saving clauses, in her sweet, fresh per 
 
 son." 
 
 "No woman who cares" his friend lucidly re 
 turned, "is ever more of a moralist than she is of 
 a partisan. If she becomes that, it s a sign she has 
 ceased to care. I don t know whether I ever men 
 tioned it," Rowland went on, "but I made out to 
 my satisfaction all sorts of fine free things in Miss 
 Garland. There s nothing at all scanted about her 
 but her experience; everything else is large. My 
 conviction of her is that she s very intelligent, but 
 that she has never had a chance to prove it. Some 
 day or other I m sure she 11 be right about every 
 thing." 
 
 "Right about everything!" Roderick cried in 
 derision; "what a horrible description of one s 
 future bride! I don t ask you to be a better Cath 
 olic than the Pope. I shall be content if she s right 
 about my interests for * everything, sometimes, 
 may happen to be hostile to them. But I agree with 
 you about her turn for grim devotion. It s exactly 
 what I built on, and, changed as I am, I m not 
 changed about her. What becomes of all our emo 
 tions, our impressions," he pursued after a long 
 pause, " all the material of thought that life pours 
 into us at such a rate during such a memorable three 
 months as these ? There are twenty moments a 
 week a day, for that matter, some days that 
 seem supreme, twenty impressions that seem ulti 
 mate, that appear to form an intellectual era. But 
 others come treading on their heels and sweeping 
 them along, and they all melt like water into water 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and settle the question of precedence among them 
 selves. The curious thing is that the more the mind 
 takes in, the more it has space for, and that all one s 
 ideas are like the Irish people at home who live in 
 the different corners of a room and take boarders." 
 
 " I fancy it s our peculiar good luck that we don t 
 see the limits of our minds," said Rowland. "We re 
 young, compared with what we may one day be. 
 That belongs to youth; it s perhaps the best part 
 of it. They say that old people do find themselves 
 at last face to face with a solid blank wall and stand 
 thumping against it in vain. It resounds, it seems 
 to have something beyond it, but it won t move. 
 That s only a reason for living with open doors as 
 V)ng as we can." 
 
 "Open doors?" Roderick sounded. "Yes, let us 
 close no doors that open upon Rome. For this, 
 for the mind, must be the most breatheable air 
 in the world it gives a new sense to the old Pax 
 Romana. But though my doors may stand open 
 to-day," he presently added, "I shall see no visitors. 
 I want to pause and breathe; I want to give the 
 desired vision a chance to descend. I ve been work 
 ing hard for three months; now let my genius do the 
 rest the grand genius of me!" 
 
 Rowland, on his side, was not without provision 
 for reflexion, and they lingered on in gentle desul 
 tory gossip. Rowland himself felt the need of intel 
 lectual rest, of a truce to present care for churches, 
 statues and pictures, on even better grounds than 
 his companion, inasmuch as he had really been 
 living Roderick s intellectual life the past three 
 
 88 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 months as well as his own. As he looked back on 
 these animated weeks he drew a long breath of satis 
 faction almost as of relieved suspense. Roderick 
 so far had justified his confidence and flattered his 
 perspicacity; he was giving a splendid account of 
 himself. He was changed even more than he him 
 self suspected; he had stepped without faltering 
 into his birthright, and was spending money, in 
 tellectually, with the freedom of a young heir who 
 has just won an obstructive lawsuit. His eyes still 
 rolled and his voice quavered, doubtless, quite 
 as when they had enlivened the summer dusk on 
 Cecilia s verandah; but in his person generally 
 there was an indefinable expression of experience 
 rapidly and easily assimilated. Rowland had been 
 struck at the outset with the instinctive quickness 
 of his observation and his free appropriation of what 
 ever might serve his purpose. He had not been, 
 for instance, half an hour on English soil before 
 he perceived that he was dressed provincially, and 
 he had immediately reformed his style with the 
 most unerring tact. His appetite for novelty was 
 insatiable, and for everything characteristically for 
 eign, as it presented itself, he had an extravagant 
 greeting; but in half an hour the novelty had faded, 
 he had guessed the secret, he had plucked out 
 the heart of the mystery and was clamouring for 
 a keener sensation. At the end of a month he offered 
 his companion s attention a riddle that took some 
 reading. He had caught instinctively the keynote 
 of the general, the contrasted European order. He 
 observed and enjoyed, he criticised and rhapsodised, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 but though all things interested and many delighted 
 him, none surprised or disconcerted; he invented 
 short cuts and was all ready for the unexpected. 
 Witnessing the rate at which he did intellectual 
 execution on the general spectacle of European 
 life, Rowland felt at moments a vague dismay for 
 his future; he was eating his cake all at once and 
 might have none left for the morrow. But we must 
 live as our pulses are timed, and Roderick s struck 
 the hour very often. He was by imagination, though 
 he never became in manner, a natural man of the 
 world; he had intuitively, as an artist, what one 
 may call the historic consciousness. He asked Row 
 land questions which this halting dilettante was 
 quite unable to answer, and of which he was equally 
 unable to conceive where his friend had picked 
 up the data. Roderick ended by answering them 
 himself, tolerably to his satisfaction, and in a short 
 time he had almost, turned the tables and become 
 in their walks and talks the accredited fountain of 
 criticism. Rowland took a generous pleasure in all 
 these facilities and felicities; Roderick was so 
 much younger than he himself had ever been. Surely 
 youth and genius hand in hand were the most beau 
 tiful sight in the world. Roderick added to this 
 the charm of his more immediately personal qual 
 ities. The vivacity of his perceptions, the audacity 
 of his imagination, the picturesqueness of his phrase 
 when he was pleased and even more when he was 
 displeased his abounding good-humour, his can 
 dour, his unclouded frankness, his unfailing impulse 
 to share with his friend every emotion and impres- 
 
 90 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sion; all this made comradeship a high, rare com 
 munion and interfused with a deeper amenity the 
 wanderings and contemplations that beguiled their 
 pilgrimage to Rome. 
 
 They had gone almost immediately to Paris 
 and had spent their days at the Louvre and their 
 evenings at the theatre. Roderick was divided in 
 mind as to whether Titian or Mademoiselle Dela- 
 porte were the greater artist. They had come down 
 through France to Genoa and Milan, had passed 
 a fortnight in Venice and another in Florence, and 
 had now been a month in Rome. Roderick had 
 said that he meant to spend three months in simply 
 looking, absorbing and reflecting, without putting 
 pencil to paper. He looked indefatigably, and 
 certainly saw great things things greater doubt 
 less at times than the intention of the artist. And 
 yet he made few false steps and wasted little time 
 in theories of what he ought to like and to dislike. 
 He judged instinctively and passionately, but never 
 vulgarly. At Venice for a couple of days he had 
 half a fit of melancholy over the pretended discovery 
 that he had missed his way and that the only proper 
 vestment of plastic conceptions was the colouring 
 of Titian and the Veronese. Then one morning the 
 two young men had themselves rowed out to Torcello, 
 and Roderick lay back for a couple of hours watch 
 ing a brown-breasted gondolier make, in high relief 
 against the sky of the Adriatic, muscular move 
 ments of a breadth and grace that he had never 
 seen equalled. At the end he jerked himself up, 
 with a violence that nearly swamped the boat, to 
 
 91 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 declare that the only thing worth living for was to 
 build a colossal bronze and set it aloft in the light 
 of a public square. In Rome his first care was for 
 the Vatican ; he went there again and again. But 
 the old imperial and papal city altogether delighted 
 him ; only there he really found what he had been 
 looking for from the first, the sufficient negation 
 of his native scene. And indeed Rome is the nat 
 ural home of those spirits with which we just now 
 claimed fellowship for Roderick the spirits with 
 a deep relish for the element of accumulation in 
 the human picture and for the infinite superposi 
 tions of history. It is the immemorial city of con 
 vention; and in that still recent day the most im 
 pressive convention in all history was visible to 
 men s eyes in the reverberating streets, erect in a 
 gilded coach drawn by four black horses. Roderick s 
 first fortnight was a high aesthetic revel. He declared 
 that Rome made him feel and understand more 
 things than he could express; he was sure that life 
 must have there for all one s senses an incompar 
 able fineness; that more interesting things must 
 happen to one there than anywhere else. And he 
 gave Rowland to understand that he meant to live 
 freely and largely and be as interested as occasion 
 demanded. Rowland saw no reason to regard this 
 as a menace of undue surrender to the senses, be 
 cause in the first place there was in almost any 
 crudity of "pleasure," refine upon it as the imagin 
 ation might, a vulgar side which would disqualify 
 it for Roderick s favour; and because in the second 
 the young sculptor was a man to regard all things 
 
 92 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in the light of his art, to hand over his passions to 
 his genius to be dealt with, and to find that he could 
 live largely enough, even quite riotously enough, 
 without exceeding the circle of pure delights. Row 
 land took high satisfaction in this positive law, as 
 he saw it, of his companion s spirit, the instinct of 
 investing every gain of sense or soul in the enter 
 prise of planned production. Production indeed 
 was not always working at a clay model, but the 
 form it sometimes took was none the less a safe 
 one. He wrote frequent long letters to Mary Gar 
 land; when Rowland went with him to post them 
 he thought wistfully of the fortune of the large 
 loosely-written missives, which cost Roderick un 
 conscionable sums in postage. He received punctual 
 answers of a more frugal shape, written in a clear 
 and delicate hand, on paper vexatiously thin. If 
 Rowland was present when they came he turned 
 away and thought of other things or tried to think. 
 These were the only moments when his sympathy 
 halted, and they were brief. For the rest he let the 
 days go by unprotestingly, and enjoyed Roderick s 
 serene efflorescence as he would have done a beau 
 tiful summer sunrise. Rome for the past month 
 had been perfection. The annual descent of the 
 Goths had not yet begun, and sunny leisure seemed 
 to brood over the city. 
 
 Roderick had taken out a note-book and was 
 roughly sketching a memento of the great Juno. 
 Suddenly there was a noise on the gravel, and the 
 young men, looking up, saw three persons advanc 
 ing. One was a woman of middle age, with a rather 
 
 93 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 grand air and a great many furbelows. She looked 
 very hard at our friends as she passed, and glanced 
 back over her shoulder as if to quicken the step of 
 a young girl who slowly followed her. She had 
 such an expansive majesty of mien that Rowland 
 supposed she must have some proprietary right 
 in the villa and was not just then in a permissive 
 mood. Beside her walked a little elderly man, 
 tightly buttoned in a shabby black coat, but with a 
 flower in his lappet and a pair of soiled light gloves. 
 He was a semi-grotesque figure, and might have 
 passed for a gentleman of the old school reduced 
 by adversity to playing cicerone to foreigners of 
 distinction. He had little black eyes that glittered 
 like diamonds and rolled about like balls of quick 
 silver, and a white moustache, cut short and as stiff 
 as a worn-out brush. He was smiling with extreme 
 urbanity and talking in a low mellifluous voice to 
 the lady, who evidently was not attentive. At a 
 considerable distance behind this couple strolled a 
 young girl, apparently of about twenty. She was 
 tall and slender and dressed with extreme elegance; 
 she led by a cord a large poodle of the most fan 
 tastic aspect. He was combed and decked like a 
 ram for sacrifice; his trunk and haunches were 
 of the most transparent pink, his fleecy head and 
 shoulders as white as jeweller s cotton, his tail and 
 ears ornamented with long blue ribbons. He stepped 
 along stiffly and solemnly beside his mistress, with 
 an air of conscious elegance. There was something 
 at first slightly absurd in the sight of a young lady 
 gravely appended to an animal of these incongru- 
 
 94 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ous attributes, and Roderick, always quick to react, 
 greeted the spectacle with frank amusement. The girl 
 noticed it and turned her face full upon him; her 
 expression was seemingly meant to enforce greater 
 deference. It was not deference, however, that the 
 show provoked, but startled submissive admiration; 
 Roderick s smile fell dead, and he sat eagerly staring. 
 A pair of extraordinary dark blue eyes, a mass of 
 dusky hair over a low forehead, a blooming oval of 
 perfect purity, a flexible lip just touched with dis 
 dain, the step and carriage of a tired princess these 
 were the general features of his vision. The young 
 lady walked slowly, letting her long dress rustle 
 over the gravel ; the young men had time to see 
 her distinctly before she averted her face and went 
 away. She left a vague sweet perfume behind her 
 as she passed. 
 
 "Immortal powers," cried Roderick, "what a 
 vision! In the name of transcendent perfection 
 who is she ?" He sprang up and stood looking after 
 her till she rounded a turn in the avenue. "What a 
 movement, what a manner, what a poise of the head! 
 I wonder if she would sit to me ?" 
 
 "You had better go and ask her," said Rowland in 
 the same spirit. "She was quite beautiful enough." 
 
 "Beautiful? She s beauty s self she s a re 
 velation. I don t believe she s living she s a 
 phantasm, a vapour, an illusion!" 
 
 "The poodle," said Rowland, "is certainly alive." 
 
 "No, he too may be a grotesque phantom, like 
 the black dog in Faust." 
 
 "I hope at least that the young lady has nothing 
 
 95 / 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in common with Mephistopleles. She looked dan 
 gerous." 
 
 " If beauty s the wrong thing, as people think 
 at Northampton/ said Roderick, "she s the in 
 carnation of evil. The mamma and the queer old 
 gentleman, moreover, are a pledge of her reality. 
 Who are they all ?" 
 
 "The Prince and Princess Ludovisi-Olimpiani and 
 the principessina" suggested Rowland. 
 
 "There are no such people," said Roderick. "Be 
 sides, the little old man is n t the papa." Rowland 
 smiled, wondering how he had ascertained these 
 facts, and the young sculptor went on. "The old 
 man s a Roman, a hanger-on of the mamma, a 
 useful personage who now and then gets asked to 
 dinner. The ladies are foreigners from some northern 
 country; I won t say which." 
 
 " Perhaps from our neighbouring State of Maine," 
 said Rowland. 
 
 "No, she s not an American, I 11 lay a wager 
 on that. She s a daughter of this elder world. We 
 shall see her again, I pray my stars ; but if we 
 don t I shall have done something I never expected 
 I shall have had a glimpse of ideal beauty." He 
 sat down again and went on with his sketch of the 
 Juno, scrawled away for ten minutes, and then 
 handed the result in silence to Rowland. Rowland 
 uttered an exclamation of surprise and applause. 
 The drawing represented the Juno as to the posi 
 tion of the head, the brow and the broad fillet across 
 the hair; but the eyes, the mouth, the physiognomy 
 were a straight recall of the young girl with the 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 bedecked beast. "I ve been wanting a subject," 
 said Roderick; "there s one made to my hand! 
 And now to tackle it!" 
 
 They saw no more of the marvellous maiden, 
 though Roderick looked hopefully for some days 
 into the carriages on the Pincian. She had evi 
 dently only been passing through Rome; Naples 
 or Florence now happily possessed her, and she 
 was guiding her fleecy companion through the 
 Villa Reale or the Boboli Gardens with the same 
 superb defiance of irony. Roderick went to work 
 and spent a month shut up in his studio; he had an 
 idea, and he was not to rest till he had embodied 
 it. He had established himself in the basement of 
 a huge, dusky, dilapidated old house in that long, 
 tortuous and pre-eminently Roman street which 
 leads, under more than one name, from the Corso 
 to the Bridge of Saint Angelo. The black archway 
 which admitted you might have served as the portal 
 of the Augean stables, but you emerged presently 
 upon a mouldy little court, of which the fourth side 
 was formed by a narrow terrace overhanging the 
 Tiber. Here, along the parapet, were stationed 
 half a dozen shapeless fragments of sculpture, 
 with a couple of meagre orange-trees in terra-cotta 
 tubs and an oleander _that never flowered. The un 
 clean historic river swept beneath; behind were 
 dusky, reeking walls, spotted here and there with 
 hanging rags and flower-pots in windows; opposite, 
 at a distance, were the bare brown banks of the 
 stream, the huge rotunda of Saint Angelo, tipped 
 with its seraphic statue, the dome of Saint Peter s, 
 
 97 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and the broad-topped pines of the Villa Pamfili. 
 The place was crumbling and shabby and sinister. 
 but the river was delightful, the rent a trifle and 
 everything romantic. Roderick was in the best 
 humour with his quarters from the first, and was 
 certain that the faculty of production would be in- 
 tenser there in an hour than in twenty years at North 
 ampton. His studio was a large empty room with a 
 vaulted ceiling where the vague dark traces of an 
 old fresco caused Rowland, whenever he spent an 
 hour with his friend, to stare at it for some faint 
 survival of floating draperies and clasping arms. 
 Roderick had housed his personal effects economic 
 ally in the same quarter. He occupied a fifth floor 
 on the Ripetta, but he was only at home to sleep, 
 for when he was not at work he was either loung 
 ing in Rowland s more luxurious rooms or strolling 
 through streets and churches and gardens. 
 
 Rowland had found a convenient corner in a 
 stately old palace close to the fountain of Trevi, 
 and made himself a home to which books and pic 
 tures and prints and odds and ends of curious fur 
 niture gave an air of leisurely permanence. He had 
 the habits of a collector; he spent half his afternoons 
 ransacking the dusky magazines of the curiosity- 
 mongers, and he often made his way in quest of a 
 prize into the heart of impecunious Roman house 
 holds which had been prevailed upon to listen 
 with closed doors and an impenetrably wary smile 
 to proposals for an hereditary "antique." In 
 the evening often, under the lamp, amid dropped 
 curtains and the scattered gleam of firelight upon 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 polished carvings and mellow paintings, the two 
 friends sat with their heads together, criticising 
 intaglios and etchings, water-colour drawings and 
 illuminated missals. Roderick s quick apprecia 
 tion of every form of artistic beauty reminded his 
 companion of the flexible temperament of those 
 Italian artists of the sixteenth century who were 
 indifferently painters and sculptors, sonneteers and 
 engineers. When at his times of most seeing he saw 
 the young sculptor s day pass in a single sus 
 tained flight, while his own was broken into a dozen 
 conscious devices for disposing of the hours, and 
 intermingled with sighs, half suppressed, some of 
 them, for conscience sake, over what he failed of 
 in action and missed in possession, he felt a pang 
 of some envious pain. But Rowland had two sub 
 stantial aids for giving patience the air of content 
 ment ; he was an inquisitive reader and a passionate 
 rambling rider. He plunged into bulky German 
 octavos on Italian history and, during long after 
 noons spent in the saddle, ranged over the grassy 
 desert that encircles Rome. As the season went on 
 and the social groups began to constitute themselves 
 he found that he knew a great many people and 
 that he had easy occasion to know others. He en 
 joyed the quiet corner of a drawing-room beside 
 an agreeable woman, and, though the machinery 
 of what calls itself society seemed to him to have 
 many superfluous wheels, he accepted invitations 
 and made visits punctiliously, from the conviction 
 that the only way not to be overcome by the ridicu 
 lous side of most of such observances is to take 
 
 99 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 them with ordered gravity. He introduced Roderick 
 right and left, and suffered him to make his way 
 himself an enterprise for which Roderick very 
 soon displayed an all-sufficient capacity. Wherever 
 he went he made, not exactly what is called a favour 
 able impression, but what, from a practical point 
 of view, is better an ambiguous, almost a violent 
 one. He took to evening parties as a duck to water, 
 and before the winter was half over was the most 
 freely and frequently discussed young man in the 
 heterogeneous foreign colony. Rowland s theory 
 of his own duty was to let him run his course and 
 play his cards, only holding himself ready to point 
 out shoals and pitfalls and administer a friendly 
 propulsion through tight places. Roderick s manners 
 on the precincts of the Pincian were quite the same 
 as his manners on Cecilia s verandah ; they were no 
 manners, in strict parlance, at all. But it remained 
 as true as before that it would have been impossible, 
 on the whole, to violate ceremony with less of last 
 ing offence. He interrupted, he contradicted, he 
 spoke to people he had never seen and left his social 
 creditors without the smallest conversational in 
 terest on their loans ; he lounged and yawned, he 
 talked loud when he should have talked low and 
 low when he should have talked loud. Many people 
 in consequence thought him insufferably conceited 
 and declared that he ought to wait till he had some 
 thing to show for his powers before assuming the 
 airs of a spoiled celebrity. But to Rowland and to 
 most friendly observers this judgement was quite 
 beside the mark and the savour of the young man s 
 
 100 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 naturalness as fine as good wine. He was prompt, 
 spontaneous, sincere; there were so -.many people 
 at dinner-tables and in studios who were not, that 
 it seemed worth while to allow .this rare specimen ail 
 possible freedom of action. If Roderick took the 
 words out of your mouth when you were just pre 
 pared to deliver them with the most effective accent, 
 he did it with a perfect good conscience and with 
 no pretension of a better right to being heard, but 
 simply because he was full to overflowing of his 
 own momentary thought, which sprang from his 
 lips without asking leave. There were persons 
 waiting on your periods much more deferentially 
 who were ten times more capable of letting you 
 flounder, of a reflective impertinence. The young 
 man received from various sources, chiefly feminine, 
 enough finely-adjusted advice to have established 
 him in life as an embodiment of the proprieties, 
 and he received it, as he afterwards listened to 
 criticisms on his statues, with unfaltering candour 
 and good-humour. Here and there doubtless, as he 
 went, he took in a reef in his sail; but he was too 
 adventurous a spirit to be successfully tamed and 
 he remained at most points the florid, rather strident 
 young Virginian whose brilliant aridity had been 
 the despair of Mr. Striker. All this was what friendly 
 commentators (still chiefly feminine) alluded to 
 when they spoke of his delightful freshness, and 
 critics of harsher sensibilities (of the other sex) 
 when they denounced his damned impertinence. 
 His appearance re-enforced these impressions - 
 his handsome face, his radiant unaverted eyes, 
 
 101 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his childish unmodulated voice. Afterwards, when 
 those, who, loved him were in tears, there was some 
 thing in all this unspotted brightness that seemed to 
 lend a mockery to the causes of their sorrow. 
 
 Ceilainly, among the young men of genius who 
 for so many ages have gone up to Rome to test 
 their powers, none ever made a fairer beginning 
 than Roderick. He rode his two horses at once with 
 extraordinary good fortune ; he established the 
 happiest modus vivendi betwixt work and play. 
 He wrestled all day with a mountain of clay in his 
 studio, and chattered half the night away in Roman 
 drawing-rooms. It all seemed part of a divine facil 
 ity. He was passionately interested, he was feeling 
 his powers ; now that they had thoroughly kindled 
 in the glowing aesthetic atmosphere of Rome the 
 ardent young fellow should be pardoned for be 
 lieving that he never was to see the end of them. 
 He enjoyed immeasurably, after the chronic ob 
 struction of home, the sublime act of creation. He 
 kept models in his studio till they dropped with 
 fatigue; he drew on other days at the Capitol and 
 the Vatican till his own head swam with his eager 
 ness and his limbs stiffened with the cold. He had 
 promptly set up a life-sized figure which he called 
 an "Adam," and was pushing it rapidly towards 
 completion. There were naturally a great many 
 wiseheads who smiled at his precipitancy and cited 
 him as one more example of Yankee crudity a 
 capital recruit to the great army of those who wish 
 to dance before they can walk. They were right, 
 but Roderick was right too, for the success of his 
 
 102 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 effort was not to have been foreseen; it partook 
 really, in the case of this particular figure, of the 
 miraculous. He was never afterwards to surpass 
 the thing, to which a good judge here and there 
 had been known to attribute a felicity of young 
 inspiration achieved by no other piece of the period. 
 To Rowland it seemed to justify grandly the highest 
 hopes of his friend, and he said to himself that if 
 he had staked his reputation on bringing out a 
 young lion he ought now to pass for a famous con 
 noisseur. In his elation he travelled up to Carrara 
 and selected at the quarries the most magnificent 
 block of marble he could find, and when it came 
 down to Rome the two young men had a "cele 
 bration." They drove out to Albano, breakfasted 
 boisterously (in their respective measure) at the inn, 
 and lounged away the day in the sun on the top of 
 Monte Cavo. Roderick s head was full of ideas 
 for other works, which he described with infinite 
 spirit and eloquence, as vividly as if they were ranged 
 on their pedestals before him. He had irrepress 
 ible reactions; things he saw in the streets, in the 
 country, things he heard and read, effects he found 
 just missed or half expressed in the works of others, 
 wrought on his mind for provocation, and he was 
 terribly uneasy until in some form or other he had 
 taken up the glove and set his lance in rest. 
 
 The Adam was put into marble, and all the world 
 came to see it. Of the criticisms passed upon it 
 this history undertakes to offer no record; over 
 many of them the two young men had a daily laugh 
 for a month, and some of the formulas of the com- 
 
 03 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 mentators, restrictive or indulgent, furnished Roder 
 ick with a permanent supply of humorous catch 
 words. But people enough spoke flattering good 
 sense to make the author of the work feel as if he 
 were already half famous. It passed formally into 
 Rowland s possession and was paid for as if an il 
 lustrious name had been chiselled on the pedestal. 
 Poor Roderick owed by that hour every franc of the 
 money. It was not for this, however, but because 
 he was so gloriously in the mood, that, denying 
 himself all breathing-time, on the same day he had 
 given the last touch to the Adam, he began to shape 
 the rough contour of an Eve. This experiment went 
 forward with equal rapidity and success. Roderick 
 lost his temper time and again with his models, 
 who offered but a gross degenerate image of his 
 splendid ideal; but his ideal, as he assured Rowland, 
 became gradually such a fixed, vivid presence that 
 he had only to shut his eyes to behold an image 
 far more to his purpose than the poor girl who 
 stood posturing at forty sous an hour. The Eve was 
 finished in three months, and the feat was ex 
 traordinary, as well as the statue, which represented 
 a creature of consummately wrought beauty. When 
 the spring began to clasp the rugged old city in its 
 branching arms it seemed to him that he had done 
 a handsome winter s work and had fairly earned 
 a holiday. He took a liberal one and lounged away 
 at his ease the lovely Roman May. He looked very 
 contented; with himself perhaps at times a trifle 
 too obviously. But who could have said without good 
 reason? He was "flushed with triumph"; this 
 
 104 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 classic phrase portrayed him to Rowland s sense. He 
 would lose himself in long reveries and emerge from 
 them with a convulsed, refreshed face and larger 
 motions. Rowland grudged him none of his ges 
 tures and rejoiced beyond any expression in the two 
 guarantees of his power. He had these productions 
 transported to his own apartment, and one warm 
 evening in May he gave a little dinner in honour of 
 the artist. It was small, but Rowland had meant 
 it should be conveniently composed. He thought 
 over his friends and chose four. They were all per 
 sons with whom he lived in a certain intimacy. 
 
VI 
 
 ONE of them was an American sculptor of French ex 
 traction, or remotely perhaps of Italian, for he wore 
 like a charm, in the Roman air, his fine name of 
 Gloriani. He was a man of forty, he had been living 
 for years in Paris and in Rome, and he now drove 
 an active trade in sculpture of the ingenious or soph 
 isticated school. In his youth he had had money; 
 but he had spent it recklessly, much of it scandal 
 ously, and at twenty-six had found himself obliged 
 to make capital of his talent. This was quite inim 
 itable, and fifteen years of indefatigable exercise 
 had brought it to perfection. Rowland admitted 
 its power, though it gave him very little pleasure; 
 what he relished in the man was the extraor 
 dinary vivacity and frankness, not to call it the im 
 pudence, of his opinions. He had a definite, prac 
 tical scheme of art, and he knew at least what he 
 meant. In this sense he was almost too knowing. 
 There were so many of the aesthetic fraternity who 
 were floundering in unknown seas, without a notion 
 of which way their noses were turned, that Glori 
 ani, conscious and compact, unlimitedly intelligent 
 and consummately clever, helpful only as to his 
 own duties, and at once gracefully deferential and 
 profoundly indifferent to those of others, had for 
 Rowland an effect of refreshment quite independ 
 ent of the character of his works. These were con- 
 
 106 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sidered by most people to belong to a very extrava 
 gant, and by many to a thoroughly depraved type. 
 Others found in them strange secrets of the plastic 
 and paid huge prices for them; and indeed to be 
 able to point to one of Gloriani s figures in the best 
 light in your library was tolerable proof that you 
 were not a fool. Of an art that had wandered far 
 they freely spoke, and of a taste that was the latest 
 fruit of time. It was the artist s opinion that there 
 is no essential difference between beauty and ugli 
 ness; that they overlap and intermingle in a quite 
 inextricable manner; that there is no saying where 
 one begins and the other ends; that hideousness 
 grimaces at you suddenly from out of the very bosom 
 of loveliness, and beauty blooms before your eyes 
 in the lap of vileness; that it is a waste of wit to 
 nurse metaphysical distinctions and a sadly meagre 
 entertainment to caress imaginary lines; that the 
 thing to aim at is the expressive and the way to 
 reach it is by ingenuity; that for this purpose every 
 thing may serve and that a consummate work is 
 a sort of hotch-potch of the pure and the impure, 
 the graceful and the grotesque. Its prime duty is 
 to amuse, to puzzle, to fascinate, to report on a real 
 aesthetic adventure. Gloriani s effects, elegant and 
 strange, exquisite and base, made no appeal to Row 
 land as a purchaser, but the artist was such an 
 independent spirit, and was withal so deluged with 
 orders, that this signified nothing for their friend 
 ship. This highly modern master was a free and 
 vivid talker, whose phrase seemed ever to have in 
 it, if not the touch of the brush, at least the print 
 
 107 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of the expert thumb. He might have been, facially, 
 for firmness, one of his own expensive bronzes, and 
 when sometimes he received you at his lodging he in 
 troduced you to a lady without art of utterance whom 
 he called Madame Gloriani which she was not. 
 
 Rowland s second guest was also an artist, but 
 of a very different type. His friends called him Sam 
 Singleton; he was an American, and he had been 
 in Rome a couple of years. He painted small land 
 scapes, chiefly in water-colour; Rowland had seen 
 one of them in a shop window, had liked it ex 
 tremely and, ascertaining his address, had gone to 
 see him and found him established in a very humble 
 studio near the Piazza Barberini, where apparently 
 fame and fortune had not yet come his way. Row 
 land, treating him as a discovery, bought several 
 of his pictures; Singleton made few speeches, but 
 was intensely grateful. Rowland heard afterwards 
 that when he first came to Rome he painted worth 
 less daubs and gave no promise of talent. Improve 
 ment had come, however, hand in hand with patient 
 industry, and his talent, though of a slender and 
 delicate order, was now incontestable. It was as 
 yet but scantily recognised and he had hard work 
 to hold out. Rowland hung his little water-colours 
 on the library wall, and found that as he lived 
 with them he grew very fond of them. Singleton, 
 short and spare, was made as if for sitting on very 
 small camp-stools and eating the tiniest luncheons. 
 He had a transparent brown regard, a perpetual 
 smile, an extraordinary expression of modesty and 
 patience. He listened much more willingly than he 
 
 1 08 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 talked, with a little fixed grateful grin; he blushed 
 when he spoke, and always offered his ideas as if 
 he were handing you useful objects of your own 
 that you had unconsciously dropped ; so that his 
 credit could be at most for honesty. He was so 
 perfect an example of the little noiseless devoted 
 worker whom chance, in the person of a moneyed 
 patron, has never taken by the hand, that Rowland 
 would have liked to befriend him by stealth. Sin 
 gleton had expressed a yearning approval of Roder 
 ick s productions, but he had not yet met the young 
 master. Roderick was lounging against the chimney- 
 piece when he came in, and Rowland presently 
 introduced him. The visitor stood as a privileged 
 pilgrim, with folded hands, blushing, smiling and 
 looking up as if Roderick had been himself a statue 
 on a pedestal. He began to murmur something 
 about his pleasure, his admiration; the desire to 
 say something very appreciative gave him almost 
 an air of distress. Roderick looked down at him 
 surprised, and suddenly burst into a laugh. Sin 
 gleton paused a moment and then, with an intenser 
 smile, went on: "Well, sir, your work s most inter 
 esting, all the same!" 
 
 Rowland s two other guests were ladies, and one 
 of them, Miss Blanchard, belonged also to the 
 artistic fraternity. She was an American, she was 
 young, she was pretty, and had made her way to 
 Rome alone and unaided. She lived alone, or with 
 no other duenna than a bushy-browed old serving- 
 woman, though indeed she had a friendly neighbour 
 in the person of a certain Madame Grandoni, who 
 
 109 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in various social emergencies lent her a protecting 
 wing and had come with her to Rowland s dinner. 
 Miss Blanchard had a small fortune, but she was 
 not above selling her pictures. These represented 
 generally a bunch of dew-sprinkled roses, with 
 the dew-drops very highly finished, or else a way 
 side shrine and a peasant woman, with her back 
 turned, kneeling before it. She did backs very well, 
 but was a little weak in faces. Flowers, however, 
 were the chief of her diet, and, though her touch was 
 a little old-fashioned and finical, she painted them 
 with remarkable skill. Her pictures were chiefly 
 bought by the English. Rowland had made her 
 acquaintance early in the winter, and as she kept 
 a saddle horse and rode a great deal he had asked 
 permission to be her cavalier. In this way they had 
 become informal allies. Miss Blanchard s name 
 was Augusta; she was slender, pale and elegant; 
 she had a very pretty head and brilliant auburn hair, 
 which she braided with classic simplicity. She 
 talked in a sweet soft voice, inclined to the flower 
 of speech scarcely less than to that of the garden, 
 and made literary allusions. These had often a 
 patriotic strain, and Rowland had more than once 
 been treated to quotations from Mrs. Sigourney 
 in the cork-woods of Monte Mario, and from Mr. 
 Willis among the ruins of Veii. Rowland was of a 
 dozen different minds about her, and was half sur 
 prised at times to find himself treating it as a matter 
 of serious moment that he should like her or not. 
 He admired her, and indeed there was something 
 exemplary in her combination of beauty and talent, 
 
 no 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of isolation and self-support. He used sometimes 
 to go into the little high-niched ordinary room 
 which served her as a studio, to find her working 
 at a panel six inches square, by an open casement, 
 profiled against the deep blue Roman sky. She 
 welcomed him with a meek-eyed dignity that made 
 her seem a painted saint on a church window re 
 ceiving the daylight in all her being. The breath 
 of vulgar report passed her by with folded wings. 
 And yet Rowland wondered why he could n t like 
 her better. If he failed, the reason was not far to 
 seek. There was another woman whom he liked 
 better, an image in his heart which gave itself small 
 airs of exclusiveness. 
 
 On that evening to which allusion has been made, 
 when Rowland was left alone between the starlight 
 and the waves with the sudden knowledge that Mary 
 Garland was to become another man s wife, he had 
 taken after a while the simple resolution to forget 
 her. And every day since, like a famous philosopher 
 who wished to abbreviate his mourning for a faith 
 ful servant, he had said to himself in substance: 
 "Remember to forget Mary Garland." Sometimes 
 it seemed as if he were succeeding; then suddenly, 
 when he was least expecting it, he would find her 
 name inaudibly on his lips and seem to see her eyes 
 meeting his eyes. All this made him uncomfortable 
 and seemed to plant he scarce knew what ugly 
 danger on the brow of the future. False positions 
 were not to his taste; he shrank from imperious 
 passions, and the idea of finding himself jealous of 
 an unsuspecting friend could only disgust him. 
 
 in 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 More than ever then the path of good manners 
 was to forget Mary Garland, and he cultivated ob 
 livion, as we may say, in the person of Miss Blanch- 
 ard. Her fine temper, he said to himself, was a 
 trifle cold and conscious, her purity prudish per 
 haps, her culture pedantic. But since he was obliged 
 to turn the image of the girl in far New England 
 with its face to the wall, his dull star owed him a 
 compensation, and he had fits of angry sadness in 
 which it seemed to him that to attest his right to 
 sentimental satisfaction he should indulge in some 
 defiantly incongruous passion. And what was the 
 use, after all, of bothering about a possible which 
 was only perhaps a dream ? Even if Mary Garland 
 had been free, what right had he to assume that 
 he should have pleased her ? The actual was good 
 enough. Miss Blanchard had beautiful hair, and 
 if she was a trifle old-maidish there was nothing 
 like the conjugal tie for curing that deformity. 
 
 Madame Grandoni, who had formed with the 
 companion of Rowland s rides an alliance which 
 might have been called defensive on the part of the 
 former and attractive on that of Miss Blanchard, 
 was a thoroughly ugly old lady, highly esteemed in 
 Roman society for her homely benevolence and her 
 shrewd and humorous good sense. She had been 
 the widow of a German archaeologist who came to 
 Rome in the early ages as attache of the Prussian 
 legation on the Capitoline. Her acuteness had failed 
 her but on a single occasion, that of her second mar 
 riage. This occasion would have demanded a double 
 dose of it, but these are by general consent not test 
 
 112 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 cases. A couple of years after her first husband s 
 death she had accepted the hand and the name of a 
 Neapolitan music-master ten years younger than her 
 self and with no fortune but his fiddle-bow. The 
 union had proved a union of exasperated opposites, 
 and the Maestro Grandoni was suspected of using 
 the fiddle-bow as an instrument of conjugal cor 
 rection. He had finally run off with a prima donna 
 assoluta, who, it was commonly hoped, had given 
 him a taste of the quality implied in her title. He 
 was believed to be living still, but he had shrunk 
 to a small black spot in Madame Grandoni s life, 
 and for ten years she had not mentioned his name. 
 She wore a light flaxen wig, which was never very 
 artfully adjusted; but this mattered little, as she 
 made no secret of it. She used to say "I was not 
 always so ugly as this; as a young girl I had beautiful 
 golden hair, very much the colour of my wig." She 
 had worn from time immemorial an old blue satin 
 dress and a white crape shawl embroidered in colours; 
 her appearance was ridiculous, but she had an 
 interminable Teutonic pedigree, and her manners 
 in every presence were easy and jovial, as became 
 a lady whose ancestor had been cup-bearer to 
 Frederick Barbarossa. Thirty years observation of 
 Roman society had sharpened her wit and given her 
 an inexhaustible store of anecdote; but she had 
 beneath her crumpled bodice a deep-welling fund 
 of Teutonic sentiment, which she communicated 
 only to the objects of her particular favour. Rowland 
 had a great regard for her, and she repaid it by 
 wishing him to offer somebody his hand, which she 
 
 "3 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 called his hant. She never saw him without whis 
 pering to him that Augusta Blanchard was just the 
 somebody. 
 
 It seemed to him indeed a foreshadowing of 
 matrimony to see Augusta Blanchard stand grace 
 fully on his hearth-rug and bloom behind the cen 
 tral bouquet at his circular dinner-table. The 
 dinner was very prosperous, and Roderick amply 
 filled his position as hero of the feast. He had always 
 an air of dauntless intention, but on this occasion 
 he manifested a good deal of harmless pleasure 
 in his glory. He drank freely and talked bravely; 
 he leaned back in his chair with his hands in his 
 pockets and flung open the gates of his eloquence. 
 Singleton sat gazing and listening open-mouthed, 
 as if Phoebus Apollo had been talking. Gloriani s 
 fine smile showed the light of general scepticism 
 and an evident disposition to draw Roderick out. 
 Rowland had his apprehensions, for he knew that 
 theory was not his young friend s strong point and 
 that it was never fair to take his measure from his 
 mere magnificence of speech. 
 
 "As you ve begun with Adam and Eve," said 
 Gloriani, "I suppose you re going straight through 
 the Bible." He was one of the persons who thought 
 Roderick delightfully fresh. 
 
 "I may make a David," said Roderick, "but I 
 shall not try any more of the Old Testament people. 
 I don t like the Jews; I like the big nose, as any 
 sculptor must, but only the Christian, or still better 
 the pagan, form. David, the boy David, is rather 
 an exception; you can think of him and treat him 
 
 114 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 as a young Greek. Standing forth there on the plain 
 of battle between the contending armies, rushing 
 forward to let fly his stone, he looks like a beauti 
 ful runner at the Olympic games. After that I shall 
 skip to the New Testament. I mean to make a rip 
 ping Christ." 
 
 "You will put nothing of the Olympic games 
 into him, I hope," said Gloriani. 
 
 "Oh, I shall make him very different from the 
 Christ of tradition; more more- And Rode 
 rick paused a moment to think. This was the first 
 that Rowland had heard of his so oddly described 
 Christ. 
 
 "More rationalistic, I suppose," suggested Miss 
 Blanchard. 
 
 "More idealistic!" cried Roderick. "The per 
 fection of form, you know, to symbolise the per 
 fection of spirit." 
 
 "For a companion-piece," said Miss Blanchard, 
 "you ought since a sculptor must like the big 
 nose to make a Judas." 
 
 "Never! I mean never to make anything ugly. 
 The Greeks never made anything ugly, and I m 
 a Hellenist; I m not a Hebraist! I have been 
 thinking lately of making a Cain, but I should never 
 dream of making him ugly. He should be a very 
 handsome fellow indeed, and he should lift up the 
 murderous club with the beautiful movement of 
 the fighters in the Greek friezes who are chopping 
 at their enemies." 
 
 "There s no use trying to be a Greek," said Glori 
 ani. " If Phidias were to come back he would recom- 
 
 "5 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 mend you to give it up he d send you about 
 your business. I m half Italian and half French, 
 and, as a whole, an abandoned cosmopolite. What 
 sort of a Greek should I be ? I think the Judas is 
 a capital idea for something. Much obliged to you, 
 madam, for the suggestion. What an insidious 
 little scoundrel one might make of him, sitting there 
 nursing his money-bag and his treachery! There 
 may be a great deal of interest in an ugly nose, 
 my dear sir especially if one has put it there." 
 
 "You mean there may be a great deal of char 
 acter. Very likely," said Roderick, "but it s not 
 the sort of character I care for. I care only for 
 beauty of Type there it is, if you want to know. 
 That s as good a profession of faith as another. 
 In future, so far as my things don t rise to that in 
 a living way, you may set them down as failures. 
 For me it s either that or nothing. It s against 
 the taste of the day, I know; we ve really lost the 
 faculty to understand beauty in the large ideal way. 
 We stand like a race with shrunken muscles, star 
 ing helplessly at the weights our forefathers easily 
 lifted. But I don t hesitate to proclaim it I mean 
 to lift them again! I mean to go in for big things; 
 that s my notion of my art. I mean to do things that 
 will be simple and sublime. You shall see if they 
 won t be sublime. Excuse me if I brag a little; 
 all those Italian fellows in the Renaissance used 
 to brag. There was a sensation once common, I m 
 sure, in the human breast a kind of religious 
 awe in the presence of a marble image newly created 
 and expressing the human type in superhuman 
 
 116 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 purity. When Phidias and Praxiteles had their 
 statues of goddesses unveiled in the temples of the 
 ^Egean, don t you suppose there was something more 
 than a cold-blooded, critical flutter ? The thing 
 that there was is the thing I want to bring back. 
 I want to thrill you, with my cold marble, when 
 you look. I want to produce the sacred terror; a 
 Hera that will make you turn blue, an Aphrodite that 
 will make you turn well, faint." 
 
 "So that when we come and see you," said Ma 
 dame Grandoni, "we must be sure and bring our 
 smelling-bottles. And pray have a few sofas con 
 veniently placed." 
 
 "Phidias and Praxiteles," Miss Blanchard re 
 marked, "had the advantage of believing in their 
 goddesses. I insist on believing, for myself, that the 
 pagan mythology is n t to be explained away by a 
 ruthless analysis, and that Venus and Juno and 
 Apollo and Mercury used to come down in a cloud 
 into this very city of Rome where we sit talking 
 nineteenth-century English." 
 
 "Nineteenth-century nonsense, my dear!" cried 
 Madame Grandoni. "Mr. Hudson may be a new 
 Phidias, but Venus and Juno that s you and I 
 arrived to-day in a very dirty cab; and were cheated 
 by the driver too." 
 
 "But, my dear fellow," objected Gloriani, "you 
 don t mean to say you are going to make over in 
 cold blood those poor old academic bugbears, the 
 prize bores of Olympus. Turn blue ? they may 
 make us indeed! Only Canova has so thoroughly 
 shown them how that there s nothing left for you." 
 
 117 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Ah, I think I could have shown Canova how," 
 Roderick gaily rejoined. "It won t matter a rap 
 what you call them you 11 just know them for 
 more than mortal. They shall be simply divine forms. 
 They shall be Beauty; they shall be Wisdom; they 
 shall be Power; they shall be Genius; they shall be 
 Daring. That s all the Greek divinities were." 
 
 "That s rather depressingly abstract, you know," 
 said Miss Blanchard. 
 
 "Cher beau jeune homme," Gloriani remarked, 
 "there s only one thing in the world that s divine 
 for us which is to be twenty-five years old. You re 
 delightfully young!" 
 
 "Isn t that indeed just it?" Singleton echoed 
 with a flush of sympathy across his large white 
 forehead. "You can do anything in the world, 
 Mr. Hudson, that you try." 
 
 "Well, there are all the Forces and Elements 
 and Mysteries of Nature," Mr. Hudson assentingly 
 pursued. "I mean to do the Morning; I mean 
 to do the Night! I mean to do the Ocean and 
 the Mountains, the Moon and the West Wind. I 
 mean to make a magnificent image of my Native 
 Land." 
 
 " Your native land, your native mountains - 
 why not say at once your native moon ? You do 
 make it shine on us!" Gloriani kindly laughed. 
 
 "I shall and it will make you at least mad!" 
 Roderick returned with expression. "My figures 
 shall make no contortions, but they shall mean a 
 tremendous deal." 
 
 "I m sure there are contortions enough in Michael 
 118 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Angelo," said Madame Grandoni. "Perhaps you 
 don t approve of him." 
 
 "Ah, why drag him in ?" the young man reminis- 
 cently cried; at which they were none of them too 
 stale of spirit to laugh. He had done, after all, some 
 fine things. 
 
 Rowland had bidden one of the servants bring 
 him a small portfolio of prints and had taken out 
 a photograph of Roderick s little statue of the 
 drinking youth. It pleased him to see his friend 
 sitting there in radiant ardour, defending idealism 
 against so knowing an apostle of the sophisticated, 
 and he wished to help Gloriani to be confuted. He 
 silently handed him the photograph. 
 
 "Bless me!" cried his guest. "Did be go and do 
 this?" 
 
 "Oh, ages ago," said Roderick. 
 
 Gloriani looked at the photograph a long time 
 and with evident admiration. " It s deucedly pretty," 
 he declared at last. " But, my dear young friend, 
 it s a kind of thing you positively can t keep up, 
 you know." 
 
 "I shall do better," said Roderick. 
 
 "You 11 do worse. You 11 do it on purpose. 
 This thing was n t done on purpose. It could n t have 
 been. You 11 have at any rate to take to violence, 
 to contortions, to romanticism, in self-defence. Your 
 beauty, as you call it, is the effort of a man to quit 
 the earth by flapping his arms very hard. He may 
 jump about or stand on tiptoe, but he can t do more. 
 Here you jump about very gracefully, I admit; but 
 you can t fly; there s no use trying." 
 
 119 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "My colossal America shall answer you!" said 
 Roderick, shaking towards him a tall glass of cham 
 pagne and drinking it down. 
 
 Singleton had taken the photograph and was 
 poring over it with a little murmur of delight. "Was 
 this done in America ?" he asked. 
 
 "In a square white wooden house at Northamp 
 ton Mass," Roderick answered. 
 
 "Dear old white wooden houses!" said Miss 
 Blanchard. "Dear old Northampton, dear old 
 Mass !" 
 
 " If you could do as well as this there," said Single 
 ton blushing and smiling, "one might say that really 
 you had only to lose by coming to Rome." 
 
 "Our host s to blame for that," said Roderick. 
 " But I m willing to risk the danger." 
 
 The photograph had been passed to Madame 
 Grandoni, whose eyeglass had the handle of a warm 
 ing-pan. " It resembles," she said, "the things a young 
 man used to do whom I knew years ago, when I first 
 came to Rome. He was a German, a pupil of Over- 
 beck and a votary of spiritual art. He used to 
 wear a black velvet tunic and a very low shirt-collar; 
 he had a neck like a sickly crane and he let his hair 
 grow down to his shoulders. His name was Herr 
 Schafgans. He never painted anything so profane 
 as a man taking a drink, for none of his people had 
 anything so vulgar as an appetite. They were all 
 angles and edges they looked like diagrams of 
 human nature. They were figures if you please, 
 but geometrical figures. He would n t have agreed 
 with Gloriani any more than you. He used to come 
 
 120 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and see me very often, and in those days I thought 
 his tunic and his long neck infallible symptoms of 
 genius. His talk was all of gilded aureoles and 
 beatific visions; he lived on weak wine and bis 
 cuits and wore a lock of Saint Somebody s hair in 
 a little bag round his neck. If he was not a Beato 
 Angelico it was not his own fault. I hope with all 
 my heart that Mr. Hudson will do the fine things 
 he talks about, but he must bear in mind the history 
 of dear Mr. Schafgans as a warning against high- 
 flown pretensions. One fine day this poor young 
 man fell in love with a Roman model, though she 
 had never sat to him, I believe, for she was a buxom, 
 bold-faced, high-coloured creature, and he painted 
 none but pale and sickly women. He offered to 
 marry her, and she looked at him from head to foot, 
 gave a shrug and consented. But he was ashamed 
 to set up his menage in Rome. They went to Naples, 
 and there, a couple of years afterwards, I saw him. 
 The poor fellow was ruined. His wife used to beat 
 him, and he had taken to drinking. He wore a ragged 
 black coat and had a blotchy red face. Madame 
 had turned washerwoman and used to make him 
 go and fetch the dirty linen. There was nothing, 
 unfortunately, to be done, in the doing-up way, 
 with his genius that would n t wash/ and he was 
 getting his living by painting views of Vesuvius in 
 eruption on the little boxes they sell at Sorrento." 
 
 " Moral: don t fall in love with a buxom Roman 
 model," said Roderick. " I m much obliged to 
 you for your story, but I don t mean to fall in love 
 with any one." 
 
 121 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Gloriani had possessed himself of the photograph 
 again and was looking at it curiously. " Ah, you 11 
 have been young, par exemple you 11 have been 
 young!" he exclaimed with almost confessed envy. 
 " It s the only case I ve ever known of genius in 
 the cradle." 
 
 The two sculptors continued to play with paradox 
 after dinner, and Rowland left them at it where, in 
 a corner of the drawing-room, the vague w r hite 
 presence of Roderick s Eve, above them in the 
 shaded lamplight, might have been that of the 
 guardian angel of the young idealist. Singleton was 
 listening to Madame Grandoni, and Rowland took 
 his place on the sofa near Miss Blanchard. They 
 had a good deal of familiar desultory talk; every 
 now and then Madame Grandoni turned round at 
 them. Miss Blanchard at last asked Rowland cer 
 tain questions about Roderick who he was, where 
 he came from, whether it was true, as she had 
 heard, that Rowland had discovered him and 
 brought him out at his own expense. Rowland 
 answered her questions; to the last he gave a 
 vague affirmative. Finally, after a pause, looking 
 at him, "You re most awfully splendid, you know 
 to be so generous," Miss Blanchard said. The 
 tribute was offered with extreme directness, but it 
 brought to Rowland s sense neither delight nor con 
 fusion. He had heard something like it, and yet so 
 unlike, before; he suddenly remembered the grave 
 sincerity with which Mary Garland had told him 
 he was generous while he strolled with her in the 
 woods on the day of Roderick s picnic. They had 
 
 122 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 pleased him then; now he asked Augusta Blanchard 
 if she would n t have tea. 
 
 When the two ladies withdrew he went with them 
 to their conveyance. Coming back to the drawing- 
 room he paused outside the open door; he was 
 struck by the group formed by the three men. They 
 were engaged in discussion of the so admirable Eve, 
 and the author of the figure had lifted up the lamp 
 and was showing different parts of it to his com 
 panions. He was talking with the confidence that 
 never failed and yet never betrayed him the lamp 
 light covered his head and face. Rowland stood 
 looking on, for the group appealed to him by its 
 romantic symbolism. Roderick, bearing the lamp 
 and glowing in its radiant circle, seemed the beau 
 tiful image of a genius which combined sincerity 
 with power. Gloriani, with his head on one side, pull 
 ing his long moustache like a genial Mephistopheles 
 and looking keenly from half-closed eyes at the 
 lighted marble, represented art with a mixed motive, 
 skill unleavened by faith, the mere base maximum 
 of cleverness. Poor little Singleton, on the other 
 side, with his hands behind him, his head thrown 
 back and his eyes following devoutly the course 
 of Roderick s charming extravagance, might pass 
 for an embodiment of aspiring candour afflicted 
 with feebleness of wing. In all this Roderick s was 
 certainly the beau role. 
 
 Gloriani turned to Rowland as he came up; he 
 pointed back with his thumb to the statue, his smile 
 half sardonic and half sympathetic. "A pretty 
 thing a devilish pretty thing. It s as fresh as 
 
 123 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the foam in the milk-pail. He can do it once, he 
 can do it twice, he can do it at a stretch half a dozen 
 times. But but !" 
 
 He was returning to his former refrain; Rowland 
 intercepted him. " Oh, he 11 keep it up you see 
 I m here to make him!" 
 
 Gloriani had obviously a high vision of his own 
 consistency, and he liked interesting young men 
 to be consistent with that. Roderick had taken this 
 in with his bright clear face; he was floating on the 
 tide of his happy magniloquence. Now, suddenly, 
 however, he turned with a flash of irritation in his 
 eye and demanded in a ringing voice: "In a word 
 then you prophesy that I shall fizzle out ?" 
 
 Gloriani answered imperturbably, patting him 
 kindly on the shoulder. "My dear fellow, passion 
 burns out, inspiration runs to seed. Some fine day 
 every artist finds himself sitting face to face with 
 his lump of clay, with his empty canvas, with his 
 sheet of blank paper, waiting in vain for the re 
 velation to be made, for the Muse to descend. He 
 must learn to do without the Muse! When the fickle 
 jade forgets the way to your studio, don t waste any 
 time in tearing your hair and meditating on suicide. 
 Come round and see me, and I 11 show you how 
 to console yourself." 
 
 "If I break down," said Roderick passionately, 
 "I shall stay down. If the Muse deserts me she 
 shall at least have her infidelity on her conscience." 
 
 "You ve no business," Rowland interposed to 
 Gloriani, "to talk lightly of the Muse in this com 
 pany. Mr. Singleton too has received pledges from 
 
 124 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 her which place her constancy beyond suspicion." 
 And he pointed out on the wall, near by, two small 
 landscapes by the modest water-colourist. 
 
 The sculptor examined them with deference, 
 and Singleton himself began to laugh nervously; 
 he was all active with hope that the great Gloriani 
 would be pleased. "Yes, these are fresh too," 
 Gloriani said; "extraordinarily fresh. How old are 
 you?" 
 
 "Twenty-six, sir," said Singleton. 
 
 "For twenty-six they re famously fresh. They 
 must have taken you a long time; you work slowly." 
 
 "Yes, unfortunately I work very slowly. One of 
 them took me six weeks, the other two months." 
 
 "Upon my word the Muse pays you long visits." 
 And Gloriani turned and looked from head to foot 
 at so unlikely an object of her favours. Singleton 
 smiled and began to wipe his forehead very hard. 
 "Oh, you," said the sculptor "you 11 keep it up!" 
 
 A week after his dinner Rowland went into 
 Roderick s studio and found him sitting before an 
 unfinished piece of work with his head in his hands. 
 He might have fancied that the fatal hour foretold 
 by Gloriani had already of a sudden struck. Rod 
 erick rose with sombre decision, flinging down his 
 tools. "It s no use," he said; "I give it up!" 
 
 "What s the matter?" 
 
 "I ve struck a shallow! I was sailing, as you may 
 have seen, before as stiff a breeze as ever was. But 
 for the last day or two my keel has taken to grinding 
 the bottom." 
 
 "You ve come upon a difficult bit?" Rowland 
 125 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 asked with a sympathetic inflexion and looking 
 vaguely at the roughly-modelled figure. 
 
 "Oh, it s all difficult bits! But it s not the poor 
 old clay. The difficult bit is here! " And Roderick 
 struck a blow on his heart. "I don t know what s 
 the matter with me. Nothing comes; all of a sudden 
 I hate things. My old things look ugly; everything 
 looks asinine." 
 
 Rowland was at first, but only at first, disconcerted. 
 He was in the situation of a man who had been rid 
 ing a blood-horse at a steady elastic gallop and of a 
 sudden felt him stumble or shy. But he bethought 
 himself that if half the "lift" of intercourse with 
 Roderick was his having fine nerves he himself 
 had no right to enjoy the play of the machine 
 which was quite definitely what he did enjoy 
 without some corresponding care for it and worry 
 about it. He immediately recognised the present 
 hour as the very ground of his original act. He 
 saw why he had risked it; he felt a flood of com 
 radeship rise in his heart which would float them 
 both safely through the worst weather. " Ah, you re 
 simply tired. Of course you re awfully tired," he 
 said. "You ve a right to be awfully tired." 
 
 "Do you think I ve a right to be awfully tired ?" 
 Roderick looked at him rather wanly askance. 
 
 "Unquestionably, after all you ve done." 
 
 "Well, then, right or wrong, I am dog-tired. I 
 really must have done a fair winter s work. I want 
 a big change." 
 
 Rowland declared that it was certainly high time 
 they should have a big change, time they should 
 
 126 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 be leaving Rome. They would go north and travel. 
 They would go to Switzerland, to Germany, to 
 Holland, to England. Roderick assented, his eye 
 brightened, and Rowland talked of a dozen things 
 they might do. Roderick walked up and down ; 
 he seemed to have something to say which he hesi 
 tated to bring out. He hesitated so rarely that 
 Rowland wondered and at last asked him what was 
 on his mind. Roderick stopped before him, frown 
 ing a little. 
 
 "I ve such unbounded faith in your extraor 
 dinary nature," he said, "that I believe nothing 
 I could ever say would ever offend you." 
 
 "Well, try!" 
 
 "Dunque" Roderick continued, "I think my 
 journey will do me more good if I take it alone. 
 I need n t say I prefer your society to that of any 
 man living. For the last six months it has been 
 a fund of comfort. But I Ve a feeling that you re 
 always expecting something of me, that you re 
 measuring my doings by a terrifically high stand 
 ard. You re watching me, my dear fellow, as my 
 mother at home watches the tea-kettle she has set 
 to boil, and the case is that somehow I don t want 
 to be watched. I want to go my own way; to work 
 when I choose and to be a fool, to be even a wretch, 
 when I choose, and the biggest kind of either if 
 necessary. It s not that I don t know what I owe 
 you; it s not that we re not the best friends in the 
 world. It s simply it s simply !" 
 
 " It s simply that I bore you," said Rowland. 
 
 Roderick sounded his eyes to a depth that almost 
 
 127 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 hurt him. It was as if he were probing for safety. 
 Well, he should have it. Rowland met this long 
 look, and then his friend laughed. "Go and amuse 
 yourself better too!" 
 
 Rowland grasped him by the hand. " I 11 do 
 exactly what you desire. I shall miss you, I need n t 
 assure you, and I dare say you 11 occasionally give 
 a howl, even, for me. But I ve only one request 
 to make that if you get into trouble of any kind 
 whatever you 11 immediately let me know." 
 
 They began their journey, however, together, 
 crossing the Alps side by side, muffled in one rug, 
 on the top of the Saint-Gothard coach. Rowland 
 was going to England to pay some promised visits; 
 his companion had no plan save to ramble through 
 Switzerland and Germany as fancy should guide 
 him. He had money that would outlast the summer; 
 when it was spent he would come back to Rome 
 and find the golden mood again awaiting him there. 
 At a little mountain village by the way Roderick 
 declared that he would stop; he would scramble 
 about a little in the high places and doze in the 
 shade of the pine-forests. The coach was changing 
 horses; the two young men walked along the village 
 street, picking their way between dunghills, breath 
 ing the light cool air and listening to the plash of 
 the fountain and the tinkle of cattle-bells. The 
 coach overtook them, and then Rowland, as he 
 prepared to mount, felt an almost overmastering 
 reluctance. 
 
 "Say the word," he exclaimed, "and I 11 stay with 
 you." 
 
 128 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Roderick looked almost black. "Ah, that shows 
 you don t really believe in me as distinguished from 
 believing in yourself." 
 
 Poor Rowland flushed, hesitating but an in 
 stant. "Yes, I m afraid there s no doubt I do be 
 lieve, where you are concerned, in myself. But go 
 it then, and buon divertimento. Good-bye!" Stand 
 ing in his place as the coach rolled away, he looked 
 back at his friend lingering by the roadside. A great 
 snow mountain behind Roderick was beginning to 
 turn pink in the sunset. The slim and straight young 
 figure waved its hat with a sort of mocking solem 
 nity. Rowland settled himself in his place, reflect 
 ing, after all, that this was a salubrious beginning 
 of independence. Roderick was among forests and 
 glaciers, leaning on the pure bosom of nature. And 
 then and then was it not in itself a guarantee 
 against folly to be engaged to Mary Garland ? 
 
VII 
 
 ROWLAND passed the summer in England, staying 
 with several old friends and two or three new. On 
 his arrival he had it on his conscience to write to 
 Mrs. Hudson and inform her that her son had re 
 lieved him of his tutelage. He felt that she thought 
 of him as an incorruptible Mentor, following Rod 
 erick like a shadow, and he wished to let her know 
 the truth. But he made the truth very comfortable 
 and gave a detailed account of the young man s 
 brilliant beginnings. He owed it to himself, he said, 
 to remind her that he had not reasoned amiss, and 
 that Roderick s present achievements were more 
 profitable than his inglorious drudgery at Messrs. 
 Striker and Spooner s. He was now taking a well- 
 earned holiday and proposing to see a little of the 
 world. He would work none the worse for this; every 
 artist needed to take chances and seek impressions 
 for himself. They had parted company for a couple 
 of months, as Roderick was now a great man and 
 beyond the need of going about with a keeper. But 
 they were to meet again in Rome in the autumn, and 
 then he should be able to send her more good news. 
 Meanwhile he was very happy in what Roderick had 
 already done especially happy in the happiness it 
 must have brought his mother. He ventured to ask 
 to be kindly commended to Miss Garland. 
 
 His letter was promptly answered to his sur 
 prise in the hand of the latter lady. The same post 
 
 130 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 brought also an epistle from Cecilia. The docu 
 ment was voluminous, and we must content our 
 selves with giving an extract. 
 
 "Your letter was filled with an echo of that bril 
 liant Roman world which made me almost ill with 
 envy. For a week after I got it I thought North 
 ampton quite too abysmally flat. But I am drifting 
 back again to my old deeps of resignation, and I rush 
 to the window when any one passes with all my old 
 gratitude for small favours. So Roderick Hudson 
 is already a great man, and you turn out to be a 
 great prophet? My compliments to both of you; 
 I never saw a trick so prettily played! And he takes 
 it all very quietly and does n t lose his balance 
 nor let it turn his head ? You judged him then in 
 a day better than I had done in six months, for I 
 really never expected he would behave so properly. 
 I believed he would do fine things, but I was sure 
 he would intersperse them with a good many follies, 
 and that his beautiful statues would spring up out 
 of the midst of a dense plantation of wild oats. But 
 from what you tell me Mr. Striker may now go 
 hang himself. . . . There is one thing, however, 
 to tell you as a friend and in the way of warning. 
 That candid soul can keep a secret, and he may 
 have private designs on your peace of mind. What 
 do you think of his being engaged to marry Mary 
 Garland ? The two ladies had given no hint of it 
 all winter, but a fortnight ago, when those big 
 photographs of his statues arrived, they first pinned 
 them up on the wall and then trotted out into the 
 town and made a dozen calls, announcing the great 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 news. Mrs. Hudson did, at least; the young woman 
 herself, I suppose, sat at home writing letters. To 
 me, I confess, the thing was a brutal surprise. I 
 had not a suspicion that all the while he was coming 
 so regularly to make himself agreeable on my veran 
 dah he was quietly preferring his queer cousin to all 
 of us. Not indeed that he was ever at particular 
 pains to suggest he preferred me! I suppose he has 
 picked up a few graces in your wonderful Rome. 
 He must not pick up too many; if he s too possible 
 when he comes back the young woman will count 
 him as one of the lost. She will be a very good wife 
 for a man of genius, and such a one as they are 
 often shrewd enough to take. She will darn his 
 stockings and keep his accounts, she will sit at home 
 and trim the lamp and keep up the fire, while he 
 studies the Beautiful in pretty neighbours at dinner 
 parties. The two ladies are evidently very happy 
 and, to do them justice, very humbly grateful to you. 
 Mrs. Hudson never speaks of you without tears in 
 her eyes, and I m sure she regards you as our lead 
 ing philanthropist. Verily, it s a good thing for a 
 woman to be in love; Mary Garland has grown dis 
 tinctly less plain. I met her the other night at a tea- 
 party; she had a white rose in her hair and sang a 
 sentimental ballad in a fine contralto voice." 
 
 Mary Garland s letter was so much shorter that 
 we may give it entire. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, Mrs. Hudson, as I suppose 
 you know, has been for some time unable to use her 
 eyes. She requests me therefore to answer your 
 
 132 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 beautiful letter of the 22d of June. She thanks you 
 extremely for writing and wishes me to say that 
 she finds herself under great obligations to you. 
 Your account of her son s progress and of the high 
 esteem in which he is held has made her very happy, 
 and she earnestly prays that all may go on well. 
 He sent us a short time ago several large photographs 
 of his two statues, taken from different points of 
 view. We know little about such things, but they 
 seem to us wonderfully beautiful. We sent them 
 to Boston to be handsomely framed, and the man, 
 on returning them, wrote us that he had exhibited 
 them for a week in his gallery and that they had 
 attracted great attention. The frames are magni 
 ficent, and the pictures now hang in a row on the 
 parlour wall. Our only quarrel with them is that 
 they make the old papering and the engravings 
 look dreadfully shabby. Mr. Striker stood and 
 looked at them the other day full five minutes; after 
 which he said that if Roderick s head had been 
 running on such things as those it was no wonder 
 he couldn t learn to draw a deed. We lead here so 
 quiet and monotonous a life that I am afraid I can 
 tell you nothing that will interest you. Mrs. Hudson 
 requests me to say that the little that might happen 
 to us more or less is of small importance, as 
 we live in our thoughts, which are fixed on her dear 
 son. She thanks heaven he has so good a friend. 
 Mrs. Hudson says that this is too short a letter, but 
 I can say nothing more. 
 
 Yours most respectfully, 
 
 MARY GARLAND. 
 
 133 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 It is a question if the reader will know why, but 
 this letter gave Rowland extraordinary pleasure. 
 He liked its shortness, almost its dryness, and there 
 seemed to him an exquisite modesty in its saying 
 nothing from the girl herself. He delighted in the 
 formal address and conclusion; they pleased him 
 as he had been pleased by the angular gesture of 
 some maiden-saint in a primitive painting. The 
 whole thing quickened that impression of fine feel 
 ing combined with an almost rigid simplicity which 
 Roderick s betrothed had personally given him. 
 Its homely stiffness showed as the direct reflexion 
 of a life concentrated, as the writer had borrowed 
 warrant from her companion to say, in a single 
 devoted idea. The monotonous days of the two 
 women seemed to Rowland s fancy to follow each 
 other like the tick-tick of a great time-piece mark 
 ing off the hours which separated them from the 
 supreme felicity of clasping the far-away son and 
 lover to lips sealed with the intensity of joy. 
 
 He was left to vain conjectures, however, as to 
 Roderick s own state of mind. He knew his absent 
 friend had scant patience for the pen and would 
 at any time, in his own phrase, rather design a 
 tomb than answer a note. But when a month had 
 passed without news he began to be half anxious 
 and half angry, and addressed the young sculptor 
 three lines, in care of a Continental banker, beg 
 ging him at least to give some sign of life. A week 
 afterwards came an answer brief and dated 
 Baden-Baden. "I know I ve been a great brute," 
 Roderick wrote, "not to have sent you a word before; 
 
 134 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 but really I don t know what has got into me. I ve 
 lately learned terribly well how to do nothing. I m 
 afraid to think how long it is since I wrote to my 
 mother or to Mary. Heaven help them poor 
 patient trustful creatures! I don t know how to 
 tell you what I am doing or not doing. It seems 
 all amusing enough while it lasts, but it would 
 make a poor show as an apology and a still poorer 
 as a boast. I found Baxter in Switzerland, or rather 
 he found me, and he grabbed me by the arm and 
 brought me here. I was walking twenty miles a 
 day in the Alps, drinking milk in lonely chalets, 
 sleeping as you sleep, and thinking it was all very 
 good fun; but Baxter told me it would never do, 
 that the Alps were damned rot, that Baden-Baden 
 was the cheese, and that if I knew what was good 
 for me I would come along with him. It is a won 
 derful place certainly, though, thank the Lord, 
 Baxter departed last week, blaspheming horribly 
 at trente-et-quarante. But you know all about it, 
 and what one does what one is liable to do. I ve 
 succumbed, in a measure, to the liabilities, and I 
 wish I had some one here to give me a kicking. 
 Not you you would kick me with your boots 
 off; you re too generous ever to do me any real 
 good. What do you think of that for thanks ? I ve 
 fits of horrible homesickness for my studio, and I 
 shall be devoutly grateful when the summer is 
 over and I can go back and potter about there. I 
 feel as if nothing but the chisel and a sledgehammer 
 would satisfy me; as if in fact I could tear a figure 
 straight out of the block even as Michael of old. 
 
 135 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 There are a lot of Roman people here, English and 
 American; I live in the midst of them and talk 
 nonsense from morning till night. There s also 
 some one else; and to her I don t talk sense, nor, 
 thank goodness, mean what I say. I confess I need 
 a month s work to take out of my mouth the taste 
 of so many lies." 
 
 These lines brought Rowland a due perturba 
 tion; the more that what they seemed to point to 
 surprised him. During the long stretch of their 
 comradeship Roderick had shown so little impa 
 tience to see what was vulgarly called life that he 
 had come to think of that possibility as a cancelled 
 danger, and it greatly perplexed him to learn that 
 his friend had apparently proved so pliant to op 
 portunity. But Roderick s allusions were ambiguous, 
 and it was possible they might simply mean that 
 he was o-ut of humour with idleness and mere per 
 sonal success he could so easily have so much 
 of that and was fretting wholesomely over his 
 absent work. It was a very good thing certainly that 
 tried debauchery should so particularly not lead 
 him on. Nevertheless the letter needed to Row 
 land s mind a key: the key arrived a week later. 
 "In common charity," Roderick wrote, "lend me 
 a hundred pounds! I ve gambled away my last 
 franc I ve made a villainous heap of debts. 
 Send me the money first; lecture me afterwards!" 
 Rowland sent the money by return of post; then he 
 proceeded, not to lecture, but to think. He hung 
 his head he was acutely disappointed. He had 
 no right to be, he assured himself; but so it was. 
 
 136 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Roderick was young, impulsive, unpractised in 
 stoicism; it was a hundred to one that he was to 
 pay the usual vulgar tribute to folly. But his friend 
 had regarded it as securely gained to his own belief 
 in virtue that he was not as other foolish youths 
 are, and that he would have been capable of look 
 ing Folly in the face, for all her bells, and passing on 
 his way. Rowland for a while felt a sore sense of 
 wrath. What right had a man who was engaged 
 to that delightful girl in Northampton to behave 
 as if his consciousness were a common blank, to 
 be filled in with coarse sensations ? Yes, distinctly, 
 he had lost an illusion, an illusion that he had loved. 
 He had accompanied his missive with an urgent 
 recommendation that Baden-Baden should immedi 
 ately be quitted, and with an offer to meet the young 
 traveller at any point the latter might name. The 
 answer came promptly; it ran as follows: "Send 
 me another fifty pounds! I m a bigger donkey than 
 ever. I will leave as soon as the money comes, 
 and meet you at Geneva. There I will tell you 
 everything." 
 
 There is an ancient terrace at Geneva, planted 
 with trees and studded with benches, overlooked 
 by stately houses and overlooking the distant Alps. 
 A great many generations have made it a lounging 
 place, a great many friends and lovers strolled there, 
 a great many confidential talks and momentous 
 interviews gone forward. Here one morning, sit 
 ting on one of the battered green benches, Roder 
 ick, as he had promised, told his friend everything. 
 He had arrived the previous evening ; he looked 
 
 137 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 like the battered knight who yet sports a taller plume. 
 He made no professions of penitence, but he prac 
 tised an unmitigated frankness, and his remorse 
 might be taken for granted. He conveyed in every 
 phrase that he had done with the flesh and the devil 
 and was counting the hours till he should re-enter 
 the true temple of his faith. We shall not rehearse 
 his confession in detail; its main outline serves 
 our turn. He had fallen in with people who really 
 knew how to be low which he, poor wretch, did n t, 
 only he had thought it, in their company, a trick to 
 be learnt. What could he do ? He never read 
 books and he had no studio; in one way or an 
 other he had to pass the time. He passed it in dang 
 ling about several very pretty women and reflecting 
 that it was always something gained for a sculptor 
 to sit under a tree looking at his leisure into a 
 charming face and saying things that made it smile 
 and play its muscles and part its lips and show its 
 teeth. Attached to these ladies were gentlemen 
 with wonderful names, polyglot ambrosial gentle 
 men who walked about in clouds of fragrance, 
 called him mon cher, sat at roulette all night and 
 supped the next morning. Roderick had found 
 himself in the mood for thinking them types of a 
 high, even if a somewhat spent, civilisation. He was 
 surprised at his curiosity, but he let it take its course. 
 It led him to the discovery that to live with ladies 
 almost crudely on the lookout for mementos of 
 friendship, even if in no more permanent form than 
 that of expensive bouquets and of bushels of bonbons, 
 and for rides in the Black Forest on shining hired 
 
 138 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 horses, who expected a fellow, further, to arrange 
 parties for the opera on nights when Patti sang 
 and the prices were consequent, to propose light 
 suppers at the Kursaal or drives by moonlight to 
 the Castle, to be always arrayed and anointed and 
 under arms for their service that to move in such 
 society, we say, though it might be a privilege, was 
 a privilege with a penalty attached. But the tables 
 made such things easy; half the Baden world lived 
 by the tables. Roderick tried them, and found them 
 at first a wonderful help. The help, however, was 
 all fallacious, for he soon perceived that to seem 
 to have money, and to have it in fact, exposed an 
 eager and confident youth to peculiar liabilities. As 
 his friend s narrative sailed closer Rowland was 
 reminded of Madame de Cruchecassee in Thack 
 eray s novel, but of a Madame de Cruchecassee 
 mature and quasi-maternal, attached as with a 
 horrible sincerity to her prey, and though he had 
 listened in tranquil silence to the rest of it he found 
 it hard not to say that all this had been, for a young 
 man in his particular position, about as gratuitous 
 a mistake as possible. Roderick admitted it with 
 bitterness; and then told how much measured 
 simply in vulgar cash the mistake had cost him. 
 His luck had changed, the tables had ceased to 
 back him, and he had found himself up to his knees 
 in debt. Every penny had gone of the solid sum 
 which had seemed a large equivalent of those 
 shining statues in Rome. He had been an ass, but 
 it was not irreparable; he could make another 
 statue in a couple of months. 
 
 139 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland looked, at this, conscientiously blank. 
 "For God s sake," he said, "don t play such dan 
 gerous games with your facility. If you ve got facil 
 ity, respect it, nurse it, adore it, save it up in an old 
 stocking don t speculate on it." And he won 
 dered what his companion, up to his knees in debt, 
 would have done if there had been no good-natured 
 Rowland Mallet to lend a helping hand. But he 
 did n t express his curiosity in words, and the con 
 tingency seemed not to have presented itself to 
 Roderick s imagination. The young sculptor re 
 verted to his late adventures again in the evening, 
 and this time talked of them more objectively, as 
 the phrase is; with a detachment that flowered 
 little by little into free anecdote quite as if they 
 had been the adventures of some other, some dif 
 ferent, ass. He related half a dozen droll things that 
 had happened to him, and, as if his responsibility 
 had been disengaged by all this ventilation, won 
 dered, with laughter, that such absurdities could 
 have been. Rowland sat perfectly grave he kept 
 it up on principle. Then Roderick began to talk of 
 half a dozen plastic ideas that he had in his head, 
 and set them forth with his old inimitable touch. 
 Suddenly, as it was relevant, he declared that his 
 Baden doings had not been altogether fruitless, 
 for the lady who had reminded Rowland of Madame 
 de Cruchecassee had, poor dear, in her make-up, 
 some wonderful, beautiful lines. Rowland at last 
 said that such experiments might pass if one felt 
 one was really the wiser for them. " By the wiser," 
 he sententiously added, "I mean the stronger in 
 
 140 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 reconsidered and confirmed purpose, in acquired 
 will-power." 
 
 "Oh, don t talk about such dreadful things!" 
 Roderick answered, throwing back his head and 
 looking at the stars. This conversation also took 
 place in the open air, on the little island in the 
 rushing Rhone where Jean-Jacques, himself so far 
 from remarkable for the control of his course, is 
 enthroned in bronze as the genius of the spot. 
 
 " The will, it seems to me, is an abyss of abysses 
 and a riddle of riddles. Who can answer for his pro 
 perly having one ? who can say beforehand that it s 
 going in a given case to be worth anything at all ? 
 There are all kinds of uncanny underhand currents 
 moving to and fro between one s will and the rest of 
 one one s imagination in particular. People talk 
 as if the two things were essentially distinct; on differ 
 ent sides of one s organism, like the heart and the 
 liver. Mine, I know that is my imagination and 
 my conscience are much nearer together. It 
 all depends upon circumstances. I believe there s 
 a certain group of circumstances possible for every 
 man, in which his power to choose is destined to 
 snap like a dry twig." 
 
 "My dear man," said Rowland, "don t talk 
 about any part of you that has a grain of character 
 in it being * destined. The power to choose is des 
 tiny. That s the way to look at it." 
 
 "Look at it, my good Rowland," Roderick an 
 swered, "as you find most comfortable. One con 
 viction I ve gathered from my summer s experi 
 ence," he went on " it s as well to look it frankly 
 
 14.1 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in the face is that I m damnably susceptible, 
 by nature, to the grace and the beauty and the mys 
 tery of women, to their power to turn themselves 
 "on as creatures of subtlety and perversity. So there 
 you have me." 
 
 Rowland, so " having " him, stared, and then 
 strolled away, softly whistling to himself. He was 
 unwilling to admit even tacitly that this speech 
 had really the ominous meaning it seemed to have. 
 In a few days the two young men made their way 
 back to Italy and lingered a while in Florence be 
 fore going on to Rome. In Florence Roderick 
 appeared to have recovered his old innocence and 
 his preference for the pleasures of study. Rowland 
 began to think of the Baden episode as a bad dream, 
 or at the worst one of the plunges, really touching 
 bottom, that the plunger with the brine of the deep 
 sea in his mouth doesn t need, or never has wind 
 again, to repeat. They passed a fortnight looking 
 at pictures and exploring for out-of-the-way rem 
 nants of fresco and carving, and Roderick exhib 
 ited all his earlier energy of appreciation and criti 
 cism. In Rome he went almost pompously to work, 
 finishing in a month two or three small things he 
 had left standing on his departure. He talked the 
 most joyous nonsense about finding himself back 
 in his old quarters. On the first Sunday following 
 their return, at their going together in the afternoon 
 to Saint Peter s, he delivered himself of a mystic 
 greeting to the great church, and to the city in gen 
 eral, in a manner so uplifted that his voice rang 
 quite publicly through the nave and arrested a 
 
 142 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 procession of ecclesiastics on their march to the choir. 
 He began to model a new image a female figure 
 of which he had said nothing to Rowland. It repre 
 sented a woman leaning lazily back in her chair, 
 with her head inclined in apparent attention, a 
 vague smile on her lips and a pair of remarkably 
 beautiful arms folded in her lap. With something 
 less of its emphasised grace it would have recalled 
 the noble statue of Agrippina in the Capitol. Row 
 land looked at it and was not sure he liked it. It 
 differed singularly from anything his friend had yet 
 done. "Who is it ? what does it mean ?" he asked. 
 
 "Anything you please !" said Roderick with a 
 certain petulance. "A Lady conversing affably 
 with a Gentleman. 
 
 Rowland then remembered that one of the Baden- 
 Baden conversers had had wonderful "lines," and 
 here perhaps they were. But he asked no more 
 questions. This; after all, was a way of profiting 
 by experience. A few days later he took his first 
 ride of the season on the Campagna, and as he on 
 his homeward canter was passing across the long 
 shadow of a ruined tower he perceived a small 
 figure at a short distance bent over a sketch-book. 
 As he drew near he recognised Sam Singleton. The 
 honest little painter s face was scorched to flame- 
 colour by the light of southern suns, and borrowed 
 an even deeper crimson from his gleeful greeting 
 of his most appreciative patron. He was making 
 a careful and charming sketch. On Rowland s 
 asking him how he had spent his summer he gave 
 an account of his wanderings which made our poor 
 
 H3 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 friend sigh with a sense of more contrasts than 
 one. He had not been out of Italy, but had delved 
 deep into the historic heart of the lovely land and 
 gathered a wonderful store of subjects. He had 
 rambled about among the unvisited villages of the 
 Apennines, pencil in hand and knapsack on back, 
 sleeping on straw and eating black bread and beans, 
 but feasting on local colour, making violent love to op 
 portunity and laying up a treasure of reminiscences. 
 He took a devout satisfaction in his hard-earned 
 results and his successful economy. Rowland went 
 the next day by appointment to look at his sketches, 
 and spent a whole morning turning them over. 
 Singleton talked more than he had ever done before, 
 explained them all, and told some honest anec 
 dote, mainly comical and at the expense of his 
 knowledge of "life," about the production of each. 
 
 "Dear me, how I ve chattered!" he finally sighed - 
 "I m afraid you would rather have looked at the 
 things in peace and quiet. I did n t know I could 
 talk so much. But somehow I feel very happy; I 
 feel as if I had taken a kind of stride." 
 
 "That you have," said Rowland. " I doubt whether 
 any patient worker ever took a longer in the time. 
 You must feel much more sure of yourself." 
 
 Singleton looked for some moments with great 
 interest at a knot in the floor. "Yes," he ventured 
 at last to acknowledge, "I feel much more sure of 
 myself. I know better what I m about." And his 
 voice dropped as if he were communicating a secret 
 which it took some courage to impart. "I hardly 
 like to say it, for fear I should after all be mistaken. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 But since it strikes you, perhaps it s true. It s a 
 great happiness; I would n t exchange it for a great 
 deal of money." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it s a great happiness," said 
 Rowland. "I shall really think of you as living 
 here in a state of scandalous bliss. I don t feel it s 
 quite decent for an artist to know so well what he s 
 about." 
 
 Singleton stared a moment, as if he supposed 
 his visitor in earnest; then with a vision of the kindly 
 jest he walked about the room agitating his head 
 and shyly laughing. "And Mr. Hudson ?" he said as 
 Rowland was going; "I hope he s as great as ever." 
 
 "He s very well for him. He s back at work 
 again." 
 
 "Ah, there s a man," cried Singleton, "who has 
 taken his start once for all and does n t need to stop 
 and ask himself in fear and trembling every month 
 or two whether he s going on. When he stops it s 
 to rest! And where did he spend the summer?" 
 
 "The greater part of it at Baden-Baden." 
 
 "Ah, that s in the Black Forest," cried Single 
 ton with profound simplicity. "They say you can 
 make ripping studies of trees there." 
 
 "No doubt," said Rowland with a smile, laying 
 an almost paternal hand on the little artist s stoop 
 ing shoulders. "Unhappily trees are not Roderick s 
 line. Nevertheless he tells me that at Baden he made 
 some studies and I gather that they were, in a 
 manner, ripping. Come when you can, by the way," 
 he added after a moment, "to his studio, and tell me 
 what you think of something he has lately begun." 
 
 H5 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Singleton declared that he would come delight 
 edly, and Rowland left him at his work. 
 
 He met a number of his last winter s friends and 
 found that Madame Grandoni, Miss Blanchard and 
 Gloriani had again taken up the golden thread of 
 Roman life. The ladies gave an excellent account of 
 themselves: Madame Grandoni had been taking sea- 
 baths at Rimini and Miss Blanchard painting wild 
 flowers in the Tyrol. Her complexion was somewhat 
 browned, which was very becoming, and her flowers 
 tossed their heads and rolled their eyes like so many 
 little poetesses looking for rhymes. Gloriani had been 
 in Paris and had come away in high good-humour, 
 finding no one there in the artist-world with as long 
 a head as his own. He came in a few days to Rod 
 erick s studio, one afternoon when Rowland was pre 
 sent. He examined the new figure with great defer 
 ence, pronounced it tremendously trouve, and ab 
 stained considerably from irritating prophecies. But 
 Rowland fancied he observed certain signs of inward 
 jubilation on the subtle sculptor s part, and walked 
 away with him to learn his private opinion. 
 
 "Certainly; I liked it as well as I said," Gloriani 
 declared in answer to Rowland s anxious query; "or 
 rather I liked it a great deal better. I did n t say 
 how much, for fear of making your friend angry. 
 But one can leave him alone now, for he s coming 
 round. I told you he could n t keep up that flapping 
 of his wings in the blue, and he has already come 
 down to earth. Don t you see what I mean?" 
 
 "I don t particularly like the thing, you know," 
 Rowland confessed. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "That s because you yourself try to sit like an angel 
 on a cloud. This present idea of Hudson s is full of 
 possibilities, and he 11 pull some of them off ; but 
 it is n t the sancta simplicitas of a few months ago. 
 He has taken his turn sooner than I supposed. What 
 has happened to him ? Has he been disappointed in 
 love ? But that s none of my business. I congratu 
 late him on having found his feet or at least found 
 such a smart pair of shoes." 
 
 Roderick, however, was less to be congratulated 
 than Gloriani had taken it into his head to believe. He 
 was discontented with his work, he applied himself 
 to it by fits and starts, he declared that he did n t 
 know what was in store for him; he was turning 
 into a man of moods. "Is this of necessity what a 
 fellow must come to ?" he asked of Rowland with a 
 peremptory flash in his eye, a look seeming to imply 
 that his companion had undertaken to insure him 
 against perplexities and was not fulfilling his contract 
 "this damnable uncertainty when one goes to bed 
 at night as to whether one is going to wake up in an 
 ecstasy or in a tantrum ? Have we only a season, over 
 before we know it, in which to call our faculties our 
 own ? Six months ago I could stand up to my work 
 like a man, day after day, and never dream of asking 
 myself how I felt. But now, some mornings, it s the 
 very devil to get going. My experiment looks so base 
 when I come into the studio that I ve twenty minds 
 to smash it on the spot, and I lose three or four hours 
 in sitting there moping and getting used to it." 
 
 Rowland said that he supposed that these changes 
 of intellectual weather, these occasional obscurations 
 
 147 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of the mere staring sun were the lot of every poet 
 and what was the sculptor but the poet of the corpo 
 real ? So that the only remedy was plenty of courage 
 and faith. And he reminded him, with a rare failure 
 of tact perhaps, of Gloriani s having forewarned him 
 the year before against the apparent lapse of the mere 
 "inspired" state. 
 
 "Gloriani s a murderous mountebank!" Roderick 
 fiercely replied. "He has got a bag of tricks and he 
 comes with it to his studio as a conjurer comes for 
 twenty francs to a children s party. Faugh!" He 
 hired a horse, and began to ride with Rowland on the 
 Campagna. This admirable exercise restored him in 
 a measure to the appearance of felicity, but it seemed 
 to Rowland on the whole not to stimulate his dili 
 gence. Their rides were always drawn out, and Rod 
 erick insisted on making them longer by dismounting 
 in picturesque spots and stretching himself, in the 
 golden air, on some mild mass of over-tangled stones. 
 He let the Roman sky smile upon him with an inten 
 sity that his companion found more embarrassing. 
 But in this situation he talked so much amusing non 
 sense that, for the sake of his company, Rowland 
 consented to risk sunstroke and often forgot that, 
 though in these diversions the days passed quickly, 
 they produced neither the art of the market nor that 
 of the temple. And yet it was perhaps by their help, 
 after all, that Roderick secured several mornings of 
 ardent work on his new figure and brought it forward 
 in three or four bold jumps. One afternoon w T hen it 
 was practically finished Rowland went to look at it, 
 and Roderick asked for his opinion. 
 
 148 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "What do you think yourself ?" Rowland demanded 
 
 not from pusillanimity, but from real uncertainty. 
 "I think it curiously, almost interestingly bad," 
 
 Roderick answered. "It was false from the first; it 
 has fundamental vices. I ve shuffled them out of 
 sight by a hocus-pocus for which I blush, but I haven t 
 corrected them. I can t I can t I can t!" he 
 cried passionately. "They stare me in the face 
 they re all I see!" 
 
 Rowland offered several criticisms of detail and 
 suggested certain practicable changes. But Roder 
 ick differed with him on each of these points; the 
 thing had faults enough, but they were not those 
 faults. Rowland, unruffled, concluded by saying that 
 whatever its faults might be, he had an idea people 
 in general would admire it. 
 
 "I wish to heaven some person in particular 
 but not you again, confound you!" Roderick cried 
 
 "would buy it and take it off my hands and out 
 of my sight! What am I to do now ?" he almost im 
 periously went on. "I haven t a blamed idea. I 
 think of subjects, but they remain mere idiotic names. 
 They re mere words they re not images. What 
 am I to do?" 
 
 Rowland was a trifle annoyed. "Be a man," he 
 was on the point of saying, "and don t, for heaven s 
 sake, talk in that confoundedly querulous voice!" 
 But before he had uttered the words there rang through 
 the studio a loud peremptory ring at the outer door. 
 
 Roderick broke into a laugh. "Talk of the devil 
 and you see his horns ! If that s not a customer, for 
 poetic justice, it ought to be." 
 
VIII 
 
 THE door of the studio was promptly flung open, and 
 a lady advanced to the threshold an imposing 
 voluminous person who quite filled up the doorway. 
 Rowland immediately felt that he had seen her before, 
 but he recognised her only when she moved forward 
 and disclosed an attendant in the person of a little 
 bright-eyed elderly gentleman with a bristling white 
 moustache. Then he remembered that just a year 
 before he and his companion had seen in the Ludovisi 
 gardens a wonderfully beautiful girl strolling in the 
 train of this conspicuous couple. He looked for her 
 now, and in a moment she appeared, following her 
 companions with the same maidenly majesty as be 
 fore and leading her great snow-white poodle, who 
 was decorated as before with motley ribbons. The 
 elder lady offered the two young men a sufficiently 
 gracious salute; the little old gentleman bowed and 
 smiled with extreme deference. The young girl, with 
 out casting a glance either at Roderick or at Rowland, 
 looked about for a chair and, on perceiving one, sank 
 into it listlessly, pulled her poodle towards her and 
 began to re-arrange his top-knot. Rowland saw that, 
 even with her eyes dropped, her beauty was still 
 dazzling. 
 
 "I trust we re at liberty to enter," said the elder 
 lady with urbanity. "We were told that Mr. Hudson 
 has no fixed jour and that we might come at any time. 
 Let us not disturb you." 
 
 150 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Roderick, as one of the newer lights of the Roman 
 art-world, had not hitherto been subject to incur 
 sions from inquisitive tourists and, having no regu 
 lar reception-day, was not versed in the usual arts 
 of hospitality. He said nothing, and Rowland, look 
 ing at him, saw that he was staring amazedly at the 
 younger woman and was apparently unconscious of 
 everything else. "By Jove!" he cried precipitately, 
 "it s that goddess of the Villa Ludovisi!" Rowland, 
 in some confusion, did the honours as he could, but 
 the little old gentleman begged him with the most ob 
 sequious of smiles to give himself no trouble. " I ve 
 been in a many studio, tanti, tanti!" he said with 
 his finger in the air and a strong Italian accent. 
 
 "We re going about everywhere," said his com 
 panion. "I m passionately fond of art!" 
 
 Rowland smiled sympathetically and let them turn 
 to Roderick s statue. He glanced again at the young 
 sculptor, to invite him to bestir himself, but Roder 
 ick was still nothing but eyes for the beautiful young 
 mistress of the poodle, who by this time had looked 
 up and was gazing straight at him. There was no 
 thing bold in her look; it expressed but the reserve 
 of systematic indifference. Her beauty was extraor 
 dinary; it grew and grew as the young man re 
 garded her. In such a face the maidenly custom of 
 averted eyes and ready blushes would have seemed 
 an anomaly; nature had produced it for man s de 
 light and meant that it should surrender itself freely 
 and coldly to admiration. It was not immediately 
 apparent, however, that the young lady found answer 
 ing entertainment in the physiognomy of her host; 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 she turned her head after a moment and looked idly 
 round the room, and at last let her eyes rest on the 
 statue of the woman seated. It being left to Rowland 
 to stimulate conversation, he began by compliment 
 ing her on the appearance of her dog. 
 
 " Yes, he s very handsome," she murmured. " He i 
 a Florentine. The dogs in Florence are handsome; 
 than the people." Then, on Rowland s caressing 
 him, "His name s Stenterello," she added: "Stente- 
 rello, give your hand to the kind gentleman." This 
 order was given in Italian. "Say buon giorno a Lei." 
 
 Stenterello thrust out his paw and gave four short 
 shrill barks; upon which the elder lady turned round 
 and raised her forefinger. "My dear, my dear, re 
 member where you are! Pardon my foolish child," she 
 added, turning to Roderick with an agreeable smile. 
 "She can think of nothing but her funny poodle." 
 
 "I m teaching him to talk for me," the girl went 
 on without heeding her mother; "to say the proper 
 little things in society. It will save me a great deal 
 of trouble. Stenterello, love, give a pretty smile and 
 say tanti complimenti /" The poodle wagged his white 
 pate it looked like one of those little pads in 
 swan s-down for applying powder to the face and 
 repeated the barking process. 
 
 "He s surely a wonderful beast," said Rowland. 
 
 "He s not a beast at all," the animal s mistress 
 protested. "A beast is something black and dirty 
 something you can t touch; whereas Stenterello s 
 a perfect gentleman, with all the personal signs and 
 personal habits of one. I ve seen other gentlemen 
 whom I would n t trust so far." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "He s a very valuable dog indeed," the elder lady 
 explained as a commentary to this striking plea. 
 "He was presented to my daughter by a great Flor 
 entine personage." 
 
 "It s not for that I care about him. It s for 
 himself. He y s a great Florentine personage." 
 
 "My precious love!" exclaimed the mother in de 
 precating accents, but with a significant glance at 
 Rowland which seemed to bespeak his attention to 
 the originality of her possessing a daughter who was 
 herself so original. 
 
 Rowland remembered that when their unknown 
 visitors had passed before them, in the Villa Ludo- 
 visi, with an effect that had remained oddly distinct 
 in spite of the many revolving seasons, Roderick and 
 he had exchanged conjectures as to their nationality 
 and social quality. Roderick had declared that they 
 were old-world people; but Rowland now needed no 
 telling to feel that he might claim the elder lady as 
 a fellow-countrywoman. She was a person of what is 
 called a great deal of presence, with the faded traces, 
 artfully revived here and there, of once brilliant 
 beauty. Her young companion was therefore account 
 ably fair, but Rowland mentally made the distinction 
 that the mother was inordinately shallow and the 
 daughter also perhaps inordinately deep. The 
 mother had a fatuous countenance a countenance 
 Rowland felt himself make out to represent a fairly 
 fantastic fatuity. The girl, in spite of her childish 
 satisfaction in her poodle, was not a person of a feeble 
 understanding. Rowland received an impression that 
 for reasons of her own she was playing a part before 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the world. What was the part and what were her 
 reasons ? She was interesting; Rowland wondered 
 what were her domestic secrets. If her parent had 
 been a daughter of the great Republic it was to be 
 supposed that she herself was a flower of the American 
 soil; but her beauty had, in spite of her youth, an air 
 of longer history than consorts, in general, with the 
 rather extemporised look of American loveliness. She 
 spoke with a vague foreign accent, as if she had spent 
 her life in strange countries. Their Italian squire 
 apparently divined Rowland s mute imaginings, for 
 he stepped with a conciliatory flourish into the 
 breach. "I ve not done my duty," he remarked, 
 "in not announcing these ladies. Madama Light, 
 Mees Light! " 
 
 Rowland was not materially the wiser for this 
 information, but Roderick was roused by it to the 
 exercise of some slight civility. He altered the light 
 ing, pulled forward two or three figures and made an 
 apology for not having more to show. "I don t pre 
 tend to have anything of an exhibition I m only 
 
 a novice." 
 
 "Indeed? a novice! For a novice this will cer 
 tainly pass," Mrs. Light declared. " Cavaliere, we ve 
 seen nothing better than this." 
 
 The Cavaliere smiled rapturously. "It s stupend 
 ous! " he murmured. "And we ve been to all the 
 studios." 
 
 "Not to all goodness gracious!" cried Mrs. 
 Light. " But to a number that I ve had pointed out 
 by artistic friends. I delight in studios I should 
 have been so happy myself to be a little quiet artist! 
 
 154 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 And if you re a novice, Mr. Hudson," she went on, 
 "you J ve already great admirers. Half a dozen people 
 have told us that yours were quite among the things 
 to see." This amiability, however, went unanswered; 
 Roderick had already wandered across to the other 
 side of the studio and was revolving about Miss Light. 
 "Ah, he s gone to look at my beautiful daughter; 
 he s not the first that has had his head turned," the 
 irrepressible lady resumed, lowering her voice to a 
 confidential undertone; a favour which, considering 
 the shortness of their acquaintance, Rowland was 
 bound to appreciate. "The artists are all crazy about 
 her. When she goes into a studio she s fatal to the 
 pictures. And when she goes into the ball-room what 
 do the other women say ? Eh, Cavaliere mio ?" 
 
 "She s very very beautiful," Rowland said simply. 
 
 Mrs. Light, who through her long gold-cased 
 glasses was looking a little at everything and at no 
 thing as if she saw it, interrupted her random mur 
 murs and exclamations and surveyed Rowland from 
 head to foot. She eyed him all over; apparently 
 he had not been mentioned to her as a feature of 
 Roderick s establishment. It was the challenge, 
 Rowland felt, which the vigilant and ambitious 
 mother of a beautiful daughter has always at her 
 command for well-appointed young men. Her in 
 spection in this case seemed satisfactory. "Are you 
 also an artist?" she inquired with an almost affec 
 tionate inflexion. It was clear that what she meant 
 was something of this kind: "Be so good as to assure 
 me without delay that you re really the rather man 
 ageable young man of fortune that you appear." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 But Rowland answered only the formal question 
 not the latent one. "Dear me, no; I m merely a 
 poor friend of Mr. Hudson s." 
 
 Mrs. Light, with a sigh, returned to the statues and> 
 after mistaking the Adam for a gladiator and the Eve 
 for a gypsy, declared she could never judge of such 
 things unless she saw them in the marble. Rowland 
 hesitated a moment and then, speaking in the inter 
 est of Roderick s renown, said that he was the happy 
 possessor of several of his friend s works and that she 
 was welcome to come and see them at his rooms. She 
 bade the Cavaliere, with alacrity, make a note of his 
 address. "Ah, you re, for your pleasure, a protector 
 of the arts," she said. "That s what I should like to 
 be if I had a little money. I revel in beauty in every 
 form. But all these people ask such monstrous prices. 
 One must be a millionaire to think of such things, eh ? 
 Twenty years ago my husband had my portrait 
 painted, here in Rome, by Papucci, who was the great 
 man in those days. I was in a ball-dress, with my 
 famous jewels and my bare shoulders and arms, 
 which were then rather famous too were not at 
 any rate a petite affaire. The man got six hundred 
 francs and thought he was very well treated. Those 
 were the days when a family could live like princes in 
 Italy for five thousand scudi a year. The Cavaliere 
 once upon a time was a great dandy don t blush, 
 Cavaliere: any one can see that, just as any one can 
 see what / was! Get him to tell you what he made 
 a figure upon. The railroads have brought in the vul 
 garians. That s what I call it now the invasion 
 of the vulgarians! What are poor we to do ?" 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland had begun to murmur some remedial 
 proposition when he was interrupted by the voice of 
 Miss Light calling across the room, "Mamma!" 
 
 "My own love?" 
 
 "This gentleman wishes to model my bust. Please 
 speak to him about it." 
 
 The Cavaliere emitted a sound between a growl and 
 a giggle. "Already? Santo Dio!" he cried. 
 
 Rowland looked round, equally surprised at the 
 promptitude of the proposal. Roderick stood planted 
 before the girl with his arms folded, looking at her 
 as he would have done at the Medicean Venus. He 
 never paid cheap compliments, and Rowland, though 
 he had not heard him speak, could imagine the start 
 ling distinctness with which he made his request. 
 
 " He saw me a year ago," Miss Light went on, " and 
 he has been thinking of me ever since." Her mode of 
 speech was peculiar; it had a kind of studied inex- 
 pressiveness which was yet not the conscious drawl 
 of affectation. 
 
 " I must make your daughter s bust that s all, 
 madam!" cried Roderick with warmth. 
 
 "I would rather you should make the poodle s," 
 this young lady returned. " Is it very very tiresome ? 
 I ve spent half my life sitting for my photograph, in 
 every conceivable attitude and with every conceivable 
 coiffure. It seems to me I ve posed enough." 
 
 "My dear child," said Mrs. Light, "it may be 
 one s duty to pose! But as to my daughter s sitting to 
 you, sir to a young artist whom we don t know 
 it s a matter that one must look at a little. It s not 
 a favour that s to be had for the mere asking." 
 
 157 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "If I don t make her from life," Roderick replied 
 with energy, "I ll make her from memory, and if the 
 thing s to be done you had better have it done as 
 well as possible." 
 
 "Mamma hesitates," Miss Light explained, "be 
 cause she does n t know whether you mean she shall 
 pay you for the bust or you 11 pay me for the sitting. 
 She s capable of thinking of that, mamma. I can 
 assure you at least that she won t pay you a sou." 
 
 " My daughter, you forget yourself," said the poor 
 lady with an attempt at a high tone. " Of course," 
 she added in a moment with a change of note, "the 
 bust would be my own property." 
 
 "Of course!" cried Roderick impatiently. 
 
 "Dearest mother," the girl interposed, "how can 
 you carry another stone image about the world with 
 you ? Is n t it enough to drag the poor original ?" 
 
 "My dear, you re talking great nonsense," Mrs. 
 Light curtly pronounced. 
 
 "You can always get something for it," the girl 
 pursued with the same practised innocence. "You 
 always get something for everything. I dare say that 
 with patience you 11 still get something even for me." 
 
 Mrs. Light turned to Rowland, who was sorry for 
 her, flushed and irritated. "She s as wicked to-day 
 as she knows how to be, and that s saying a good 
 deal!" 
 
 The Cavaliere grinned in silence and walked away 
 on tiptoe with his hat to his lips, as if to leave the 
 field clear for action. Rowland, on the contrary, 
 wished to mediate. "You had better not refuse," he 
 said to Miss Light, " until you ve seen Mr. Hudson s 
 
 158 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 things in the marble. Your mother s to come and 
 look at some that I possess." 
 
 "Thank you; I ve no doubt you 11 see us. I dare 
 say Mr. Hudson s very clever; but I don t care for 
 modern sculpture. I can t look at it." 
 
 "You shall care for my bust, I promise you!" 
 Roderick declared with a laugh. 
 
 "To satisfy Miss Light," said the Cavaliere, "one 
 of the old Greeks ought to come to life." 
 
 "It would be worth his while," said Roderick, 
 acquitting himself, to Rowland s knowledge, of his 
 first public madrigal. 
 
 " I might sit to Phidias if he would promise to be 
 very amusing and make me laugh. What do you say, 
 Stenterello ? would you sit to Phidias ?" 
 
 "We must talk of this some other time," said Mrs. 
 Light. "We re in Rome for the winter. Many thanks. 
 Cavaliere, call the carriage." The Cavaliere led the 
 way out, backing like a silver-stick, and Miss Light, 
 following her mother, nodded, without looking at 
 them, to each of the young men. 
 
 "Immortal powers, what a head!" cried Roderick 
 when they were gone. " There s my fortune on 
 that girl s two feet." 
 
 "She s certainly very beautiful," said Rowland. 
 " But I m sorry you ve undertaken her bust." 
 
 "And why, pray?" 
 
 " I suspect it will bring trouble." 
 
 "What kind of trouble?" 
 
 "I hardly know. They re queer people. The 
 mamma strikes me as a good bit of an adventuress. 
 Heaven knows what the daughter may be." 
 
 59 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "The daughter s simply a breathing goddess," 
 Roderick instantly returned. 
 
 " Just so. She s all the more dangerous." 
 
 " Dangerous ? What will she do to me ? She doesn t 
 bite, I imagine." 
 
 "It remains to be seen. There are two kinds of 
 women you ought to know by this time the safe 
 and the unsafe. Besides, there s more than one way 
 of biting and I thought you had been bitten." 
 
 "My dear man," smiled Roderick very boldly, 
 "with you to plaster me up !" But he broke off 
 only to fall gaily a-whistling: a demonstration ad 
 dressed apparently to the advent, as he had said, of 
 his fortune. 
 
 In calling this young lady and her mamma queer 
 people Rowland had perhaps too crudely betrayed 
 his now alert sense for possible complications. They 
 were so marked a variation from the monotonous 
 troop of his compatriots that he felt much curiosity 
 as to the sources of the change, especially since he 
 doubted greatly whether on the whole it elevated the 
 type. During the next week he saw the two ladies 
 driving daily in a well-appointed landau, with the 
 Cavaliere and the poodle in the front seat. From 
 Mrs. Light he received a gracious salute, tempered by 
 her native majesty ; but the young girl, looking straight 
 before her, seemed profoundly indifferent to observers. 
 Her extraordinary beauty, however, had already made 
 observers numerous and given the haunters of the 
 Pincian plenty to talk about. The echoes of their 
 commentary reached Rowland s ears; but he had 
 little taste for raw rumour and preferred it responsibly 
 
 1 60 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 prepared. It was so supplied him by Madame 
 Grandoni, to whom Mrs. Light and her wonderful 
 daughter had been from of old familiar objects. 
 
 "I ve known the mamma for twenty years," said 
 this judicious critic, "and if you ask any of the peo 
 ple who have been living here as long as I, you will 
 find they remember her well. I ve held the beautiful 
 Christina on my knee when she was a little wizened 
 baby with a very red face and no promise of beauty 
 but those magnificent eyes. Ten years ago Mrs. Light 
 disappeared, and was not afterwards seen in Rome, 
 except for a few days, not long since, when she passed 
 through on her way to Naples. Then it was you met 
 the trio in the Ludovisi gardens. When I first knew 
 her she was the unmarried but very marriageable 
 daughter of an old American painter of very bad land 
 scapes, which people used to buy from charity and use 
 for fire-boards. His name was Savage; it used to make 
 every one laugh, he was such a mild, melancholy, piti 
 ful old personage. He had married a horrible wife, an 
 Englishwoman who had been on the stage. It was 
 said she used to beat poor Savage with his mahl- 
 stick and, when the domestic finances were low, to 
 lock him up in his studio and tell him he should n t 
 come out until he had painted half a dozen of his 
 daubs. She had a good deal of showy beauty. She 
 would go forth with the key in her pocket and, her 
 beauty assisting, she would make certain people take 
 the pictures. It helped her at last to make an English 
 lord run away with her. At the time I speak of she 
 had quite disappeared. Mrs. Light was then a very 
 handsome girl, though by no means so handsome as 
 
 161 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 her daughter has now become. Mr. Light was an 
 American consul, newly appointed at one of the 
 Adriatic ports. He was a mild, fair-whiskered young 
 man, with some little property, and my impression 
 is that he had got into bad company at home and his 
 family had procured him his place to keep him out of 
 harm s way. He was at any rate clearly a gentleman. 
 He came up to Rome on a holiday, fell in love with 
 Miss Savage and married her on the spot. He had 
 not been married three years when he was drowned 
 in the Adriatic, no one ever knew how. The young 
 widow came back to Rome, to her father, and here 
 shortly afterwards, in the dear shadow of Saint Peter s, 
 her little girl was born. It might have been supposed 
 that Mrs. Light would marry again, and I know she 
 had opportunities. But she overreached herself. 
 She would take nothing less than a title and a fortune, 
 and they were not forthcoming. She was admired 
 and very fond of admiration; very vain, very worldly, 
 very silly. She remained a pretty widow with a sur 
 prising variety of bonnets and a dozen men always 
 in her train. Giacosa dates from this period. He 
 calls himself a Roman, but I Ve an impression he 
 came up from Ancona with her. He was V ami de 
 la maison. He used to hold her bouquets, clean 
 her gloves and satin shoes, run her errands, get her 
 opera-boxes, fight her battles with the shopkeepers. 
 For this he needed courage, for she was smothered in 
 debt. She at last left Rome to escape her creditors. 
 Many of them must remember her still, but she 
 seems now to have money to satisfy them. She left 
 her poor old father here alone helpless, infirm 
 
 162 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and unable to work. A subscription was shortly 
 afterwards taken up among the foreigners, and he 
 was sent back to America, where, as I finally heard, 
 he died in some sort of asylum. From time to time, 
 for several years, I heard vaguely of Mrs. Light as 
 a wandering beauty at French and German watering- 
 places. Once came a rumour that she was going to 
 make a grand marriage in England; then we heard 
 that the gentleman had thought better of it and left 
 her to keep afloat as she could. She was a terribly 
 scatter-brained creature. She pretends to be a great 
 lady Dieu salt pourquoi! but I consider that old 
 Filomena, my washerwoman, is in essentials a greater 
 one. Certainly, after all, however, she has been 
 fortunate. She embarked at last on a lawsuit about 
 some property with her husband s family, and went 
 to America to attend to it. She came back triumph 
 ant, with a long purse. She reappeared in Italy and 
 established herself for a while in Venice. Then she 
 came to Florence, where she spent a couple of years 
 and where I saw her. Last year she passed down to 
 Naples, which I should have said was just the place 
 for her, and this winter she has laid siege to Rome. 
 She seems very prosperous. She has taken a floor 
 in the Palazzo Falconieri, she keeps her carriage, 
 and Christina and she, between them, must have a 
 pretty milliner s bill. Giacosa has turned up again, 
 looking like one of those collapsed balloons, that chil 
 dren play with, blown out again for the occasion." 
 
 "What sort of education," Rowland attentively 
 asked, "do you suppose the mother s adventures to 
 have been for the daughter?" 
 
 163 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "A strange school enough. But Mrs. Light told 
 me in Florence that she had given her child the edu 
 cation of a princess. In other words I suppose she 
 speaks three or four languages and has read several 
 hundred French novels. Christina, I imagine, has 
 plenty of wit also plenty of will. When I saw her 
 at that same time I was amazed at her beauty, and 
 certainly if there be any truth in faces she ought to 
 have the soul of an angel. Perhaps she has. I don t 
 judge her; she s an extraordinary young person. 
 She has been told twenty times a day by her mother, 
 since she was five years old, that she s a beauty of 
 beauties, that her face is her fortune, that she was 
 born for great things, and that if she plays her cards 
 she may marry God knows whom. If she has not 
 been quite ruined she s a very decent creature. My 
 own impression is that, like the most interesting 
 people always, she s a mixture of better and worse, 
 of good passions and bad always of passions, 
 however; and that, whatever she is, she s neither 
 stupid nor mean and possibly, by a miracle, not even 
 false. Mrs. Light having failed to make her own for 
 tune in matrimony, has transferred her hopes to her 
 daughter and nursed them till they ve become a 
 craze. She has a hobby, which she rides in secret; 
 but some day she 11 let you see it. I m sure that 
 if you go in some evening unannounced you 11 find 
 her studying the tea-leaves in her cup or telling her 
 daughter s fortune with a greasy pack of cards. She 
 reminds me, like that, of some extravagant old 
 woman in a novel in something of Hofmann or 
 Balzac, something even of your own Thackeray. 
 
 164 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 She promises the girl a prince a reigning prince. 
 But if Mrs. Light s a fool she can still count on her 
 fingers, and lest considerations of state should deny 
 her potentate the luxury of a love-match she keeps 
 on hand a few common mortals. At the worst she 
 would take a duke, an English lord, or even a young 
 American with a proper number of millions. The 
 poor woman can certainly never lie quiet, she s un 
 acquainted with the luxury of repose. She s always 
 building castles and knocking them down again 
 always casting her nets and pulling them in. If her 
 daughter were less of a beauty her pretensions would 
 be grotesque; but there s something in the girl, as 
 one looks at her, that seems to make it very possible 
 she may be marked out for one of those romantic 
 fortunes that history now and then relates. Who, 
 after all, was the Empress of the French ? Mrs. 
 Light is for ever saying. And beside Christina the 
 Empress is a dowdy! 
 
 "And what does Christina say ?" 
 
 "She makes no scruple, as you know, of saying 
 that she wouldn t mind her mother s idiocy if it 
 was n t for her vulgarity. What she thinks goodness 
 knows. I suspect that practically she doesn t com 
 mit herself. She s excessively proud, and holds 
 herself fit for the highest station in the world; 
 but she knows that her mother would make her ri 
 diculous if anything could, and that even she herself 
 might look awkward in making unsuccessful ad 
 vances. So she remains sublimely detached and lets 
 mamma take the risks. If the prince is captured so 
 much the better; if he s not she need never confess 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to herself that even a reigning sovereign has slighted 
 her." 
 
 "Your report s as solid," Rowland said to Madame 
 Grandoni, thanking her, "as if it had been drawn up 
 for the Academy of Sciences;" and he congratulated 
 himself on having listened to it when a couple of 
 days later Mrs. Light and her daughter, attended 
 by the Cavaliere and the poodle, came to his rooms 
 to look at Roderick s statues. It was more comfortable 
 to know just with whom he was dealing. 
 
 Mrs. Light was prodigiously gracious and show 
 ered down compliments not only on the statues 
 but on all his possessions. "Upon my word," she 
 said, "you rich young men know how to make your 
 selves comfortable. If one of us poor women had 
 half as many easy-chairs and nick-nacks we should 
 be famously abused. It s really selfish to be living 
 all alone in such a place as this. Cavaliere, how 
 should you like this suite of rooms and a fortune to fill 
 them with pictures and bibelots ? Christina love, look 
 at that mosaic table. Mr. Mallet, I could almost beg 
 it from you! Yes, that Eve is certainly very fine. We 
 need n t be ashamed of such a great-grandmother as 
 that. If she was really such a beautiful woman it 
 accounts for the good looks of some of us. Where s 
 Mr. Roderick, whom we all the other day fell in 
 love with we thought him handsomer than any of 
 his figures. Why is n t he here to be complimented ?" 
 
 Christina had remained but a moment in the chair 
 Rowland placed for her, had given but a cursory 
 glance at the statues, and then, leaving her seat, had 
 begun to wander round the room looking at her- 
 
 166 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 self in the mirrors, touching the ornaments and curi 
 osities, glancing at the books and prints. Rowland s 
 saloon was encumbered with valuable pieces, and 
 she found plenty of occupation. Rowland presently 
 joined her and pointed out some of the objects sup 
 posed to be interesting. 
 
 " It s an odd jumble, you know," she said frankly. 
 "Some things are very good some are very ugly. 
 But I like ugly things when they have a certain look. 
 Prettiness is terribly vulgar nowadays, and it s not 
 every one that knows just the sort of ugliness that s 
 amusing. However, there are more people now that 
 are horridly knowing than not and the only nice 
 thing, I think really, is to be as ignorant as a fish. We 
 cant be though, you or I, unfortunately, can we ? 
 we re so awfully intelligent. We re born to know 
 and to suffer, are n t we ?" With which, suddenly, 
 she broke off. "I like looking at people s things," 
 she then went on, turning to Rowland and resting 
 her lovely eyes on him. "It helps you to find out 
 their characters." 
 
 "Am I to suppose," asked Rowland smiling, "that 
 you ve arrived at any conclusions as to mine ?" 
 
 "I m rather intrigue* , you have too many things; 
 one seems to contradict another. You re very artistic 
 and yet you re very prosaic; you have what is called 
 a * catholic taste, and yet you re full of obstinate 
 little prejudices and preferences which, if I knew you, 
 I should find very tiresome. I don t think I like you." 
 
 "You make a great mistake," laughed Rowland. 
 "I assure you I m worth liking." 
 
 "Yes, I m probably wrong, and if I knew you I 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 should find out I was wrong, and that would irritate 
 me and make me dislike you more. So you see we re 
 necessarily enemies." 
 
 "No, I don t at all object to you" 
 
 "Worse and worse; for you certainly will never get 
 any good of me." 
 
 "You re very discouraging then." 
 
 " I m fond of facing the truth, though some day 
 you ll deny even that. Where s the young man of 
 genius ? " she pursued "whom I m not, in spite 
 of my mother, in love with ! " 
 
 "You mean my friend Hudson ? He s represented 
 by these beautiful works." 
 
 Miss Light looked for some moments at the objects 
 in question. "Yes," she said, "they re not so silly as 
 most of the things we ve seen. They ve no beastly 
 chic, and yet they re beautiful." 
 
 "You describe them perfectly," said Rowland. 
 "They re beautiful, and yet they ve no beastly chic. 
 That s it!" 
 
 "If he ll promise to put no beastly chic into my 
 bust I ve a mind to let him make it. A request made 
 in those terms deserves to be granted." 
 
 " In what terms ? " 
 
 "Didn t you hear him? Mademoiselle, you al 
 most come up to one of my dreams. I must model your 
 bust. That almost should be rewarded! He s like 
 me, he likes to face the truth. No, I m not in love 
 with him, but I think we should get on together." 
 
 The Cavaliere approached Rowland to express the 
 pleasure he had derived from his splendid collection. 
 His smile was exquisitely bland, his attitude seemed 
 
 168 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to call attention to its exemplary correctness. But he 
 gave Rowland an odd sense of looking at an elaborate 
 waxen image adjusted to perform certain gestures 
 and emit certain sounds. It had once contained the 
 marvellous machinery of a spirit too, but some acci-, 
 dent had apparently befallen that part of the mechan 
 ism, to the cost of the perfect imitation of life. Never 
 theless, Rowland reflected, there are more graceless 
 things than the mere motions and passes of a very old 
 civilisation the civilisation that had given this per 
 sonage his inexhausted impetus never having struck 
 him as so immemorially old. The Cavaliere also 
 had spirit enough left to desire to speak a few words 
 on his own account and call Rowland s attention to 
 the fact that he was not after all a hired cicerone, but 
 an ancient Roman gentleman. Rowland felt sorry for 
 him; he hardly knew why. He assured him in 
 friendly fashion that he must come again, that his 
 house was always at his service. The Cavaliere took 
 it with perfect delicacy. "You do me too much 
 honour," he murmured. "If you 11 allow me it s 
 not impossible!" 
 
 Mrs. Light meanwhile had prepared to depart. "If 
 you re not afraid to come and see two quiet little 
 women we shall be most happy! We have no statues 
 nor pictures we have nothing but each other. Eh, 
 darling?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Christina. 
 
 "Oh, and the Cavaliere," added her mother. 
 
 "The poodle, please!" cried the girl. 
 
 Rowland glanced at the Cavaliere; he was smiling 
 more blandly than ever. 
 
 169 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Our friend presented himself a few days later, as 
 civility demanded, at Mrs. Light s door. He found 
 her living in one of the stately houses of the Via dell* 
 Angelo Custode and rather to his surprise was told 
 she was at home. He passed through half a dozen 
 rooms and was ushered into an immense saloon, at 
 one end of which sat the mistress of the establishment 
 with a piece of embroidery. She received him very 
 graciously and then, pointing mysteriously to a large 
 screen which was unfolded across the embrasure of 
 one of the deep windows, " I m mounting guard, you 
 see!" she said. Rowland looked interrogative, where 
 upon she beckoned him forward and motioned him to 
 step beyond the screen. He obeyed and for some mo 
 ments stood gazing. Roderick, with his back turned, 
 stood before an extemporised pedestal, ardently shap 
 ing a formless mass of clay. Before him sat Christina 
 Light, in a white dress, with her shoulders bare, her 
 magnificent hair twisted into a classic coil, her head 
 admirably carried. Meeting Rowland s gaze she 
 smiled a little, only in the depths of her blue-grey 
 eyes, without moving. She looked divinely fair. 
 
IX 
 
 THE brilliant Roman winter came round again, and 
 the whole sense of it entered still more deeply into 
 Rowland s spirit. He grew intimately, passionately 
 fond of all Roman sights and sensations, and to 
 breathe the air that formed their medium and assured 
 them their quality seemed to him the only condition 
 on which life could be long worth living. He could not 
 have defined nor explained the nature of his relish, 
 nor have made up the sum of it by adding together 
 his calculable pleasures. It was a large, vague, idle, 
 half-profitless emotion, of which perhaps the most 
 pertinent thing that might be said was that it brought 
 with it a relaxed acceptance of the present, the actual, 
 the sensuous of existence on the terms of the mo 
 ment. It was perhaps for this very reason that, in 
 spite of the charm which Rome flings over one s mood, 
 there ran through Rowland s meditations an under 
 tone of melancholy natural enough in a mind which 
 finds its horizon sensibly limited even by a magic 
 circle. Whether it be that one tacitly concedes to 
 the Roman Church the monopoly of a guarantee of 
 immortality, so that if one is indisposed to bargain 
 with her for the precious gift one must do without it 
 altogether; or whether in an atmosphere so heavily 
 weighted with echoes and memories one grows to 
 believe that there is nothing in one s consciousness 
 not predetermined to moulder and crumble and 
 
 171 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 become dust for the feet and possible malaria for the 
 lungs of future generations the fact at least remains 
 that one parts half willingly with one s hopes in Rome 
 and misses them only under some very exceptional 
 stress of circumstance. For this reason it may per 
 haps be said that there is no other place in which one s 
 daily temper has so mellow a serenity, and none at the 
 same time in which acute attacks of depression are 
 more intolerable. Rowland had found in fact a per 
 fect response to his prevision that to live in the lap of 
 the incomparable sorceress was an education to the 
 senses and the imagination; but he sometimes won 
 dered whether this were not a questionable gain in 
 case of one s not being prepared to ask no more of con 
 sciousness than they could give. His growing sub 
 mission to the mere insidious actual, which resembled 
 somehow the presence of an extravagant, flattering 
 visitor, questionably sincere, seemed sometimes to 
 pivot about by a mysterious inward impulse and look 
 his conscience in the face. " But afterwards . . . ?" it 
 brought out with a long interrogative echo; and he 
 could give no answer but a shy affirmation that there 
 was no such thing as to-morrow and that to-day was 
 uncommonly fine. He often felt heavy-hearted; he 
 was sombre without knowing why; there were no 
 visible clouds in his heaven, but there were cloud- 
 shadows on his mood. Shadows projected they often 
 were, without his knowing it, by an undue apprehen 
 sion that things might after all not go so ideally well 
 with Roderick. When he caught himself fidgeting- 
 it vexed him, and he rebuked himself for taking 
 the case unduly hard. If Roderick chose to follow 
 
 172 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 a crooked path, it was no fault of his; he had given 
 him, he would continue to give him, all that he had 
 offered him friendship, sympathy, counsel, pa 
 tience. He had not undertaken to make him over. 
 
 If Rowland felt his roots striking and spreading in 
 the Roman soil, Roderick also affected him as having 
 flung all questions to the winds. More than once he 
 heard him declare that he meant to live and die 
 within the shadow of Saint Peter s and that he cared 
 little if he should never again draw breath in Ameri 
 can air. " For a man of my temperament Rome is the 
 only possible place," he said; "it s better to recognise 
 the fact early than late. So I shall never go home 
 unless I m absolutely forced." 
 
 "What s your idea of force ?" asked Rowland, 
 who had noticed from far back the unalloyed respect 
 that he entertained for his temperament. "It seems 
 to me you ve an excellent reason for going home 
 some day or other." 
 
 "Ah, you mean my engagement?" Roderick an 
 swered with unaverted eyes. "Oh yes, of course 
 there s always that funny fact to be reckoned with. I 
 call it funny, poor dear little fact," he went on, "be 
 cause it savours so of Northampton Mass, and be 
 cause Northampton Mass seen from here somehow is 
 so funny. To work Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom 
 into the same picture the same picture of one s 
 life as the Pincian and the Palatine is rather a job. 
 But Mary had better come out here. Even at the 
 w^orst I ve no intention of giving up Rome for six 
 or eight years, and a union deferred for that length 
 of time would be too absurd." 
 
 173 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Miss Garland could hardly leave ybur mother 
 alone," Rowland judiciously observed. 
 
 "Oh, of course my mother should come! I think 
 I must suggest it in my next letter. It will take her 
 a year or two to make up her mind to it, but if she 
 consents it will brighten her up. It s too small and 
 too starved a life over there even for a person who 
 asks asks, what do I say ? insists on so little 
 here below as my mother. It s hard to imagine," 
 Roderick added, "any change in Mary being a 
 change for the better; but I suppose there s no crime 
 in seeing the profit of a change for her. She would 
 undertake, I dare say, not to be altered by it, in any 
 essential way, enough to make a scandal. One s 
 never so good, I suppose, but that one can improve." 
 
 Rowland took in for a moment the tone of this, 
 and he felt fifty words in answer to it rise to his lips. 
 But he ended by pronouncing only a few and none 
 of them those that had at first risen. "If you wish 
 your mother and Miss Garland to come, hadn t 
 you better go home and bring them ?" 
 
 "Ah, my dear man, I like the way you talk of my 
 going home ! The more I should go the less of that 
 sacred name there would be about it so that not 
 really to become homeless I had better keep my dis 
 tance. At present, moreover," Roderick pursued, 
 "it would just exactly break the charm. I m just 
 beginning to profit, to get accustomed to well, to 
 not being accustomed; just beginning, that is, to live 
 into my possibilities. Northampton Main Street 
 even for three days again has become, I think, 
 my principal zmpossibility." 
 
 174 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 It was reassuring to hear that Roderick in his own 
 view was but "just beginning" to spread his wings, 
 and Rowland, if he had had any forebodings, might 
 have suffered them to be modified by this declara 
 tion. This was the first time since their meeting at 
 Geneva that the youth had mentioned his cousin s 
 name, but the ice being broken he indulged for some 
 time afterwards in frequent allusions to his betrothed, 
 which always had an accent of scrupulous, of almost 
 studied, consideration. An uninitiated observer, 
 hearing him, would have imagined her to be a person 
 of a certain age possibly an affectionate maiden 
 aunt who had once done him a kindness which 
 he highly appreciated; perhaps presented him with 
 a cheque for a thousand dollars. Rowland noted 
 the difference between his present frankness and 
 his reticence during the first six months of his 
 engagement, and sometimes wondered whether it 
 were not rather an anomaly that he should expatiate 
 more largely as the happy event receded. He had 
 wondered over the whole matter first and last in a 
 great many different ways he had looked at it in 
 all possible lights. There was something that mocked 
 any sense of due sequences in the fact of his having 
 fallen in love with his cousin. She was not, as Row 
 land conceived her, the "type" that, other things 
 being what they were, would most have touched 
 him, and the mystery of attraction and desire, always 
 so baffling if seen only from without, quite defied 
 analysis here. Just why it was that Roderick should 
 not in consistency have received his impression his 
 comrade would have been at a loss to say; but the 
 
 175 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 conviction must have been largely grounded in a tacit 
 comparison between himself and the accepted suitor. 
 Roderick and he were as different as two men could 
 be, and yet Roderick had taken it into his head to 
 mark with the seal of prospective possession a woman 
 at whose disposition he himself had been keeping, 
 from the moment of his first meeting her, a secret 
 fund of strange alacrities. That if Rowland Mallet 
 happened to be very much struck with the merits of 
 Roderick s mistress the irregularity here was hardly 
 Roderick s, was a view of the case to which our vir 
 tuous hero did scanty justice. There were women, he 
 said to himself, whom it was every one s business to 
 fall in love with a little women beautiful, brilliant, 
 artful, easily interesting. Miss Light, for instance, 
 was one of these; every man who spoke to her did 
 so, if not in the language, at least with something of 
 the agitation, the terror or the hunger, of a lover. 
 There were other women they might have great 
 beauty, they might have small; their discussable 
 beauty was not what had most to do with it 
 whose triumphs in this line were rare, but immut 
 ably permanent. Such a one conspicuously was 
 Mary Garland. By the law of probabilities it had 
 been unlikely she should exert the same charm 
 for each of them, and was it not possible there 
 fore that the charm for Roderick had been simply 
 the circumstance of sex, the accident of nearness, 
 the influence of youth, sympathy, kindness of the 
 present feminine in short enhanced indeed by 
 the advantage of an expressive countenance ? The 
 charm for Rowland, on the other hand, by this 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 subtle sophistry the charm! was the mysterious, 
 individual, essential woman. There was indeed an 
 element in the glamour working so well for his friend 
 that he was obliged fairly to allow for, but which 
 he forbore to linger upon; the rather important 
 attraction, namely, of reciprocity. As to the girl s 
 being herself in love, and showing it, and commend 
 ing herself by the indubitable tribute, this was a 
 side of the matter from which he averted his head 
 for delicacy, as he conceived, but for a delicacy not 
 pleasantly painless. He would n t for the world have 
 asked himself and he quite noted it how "far" 
 Mary had gone; gone toward creating Roderick s flat 
 tered state by showing him first that she was smitten. 
 He confined himself only to judging that the young 
 man was not irresistibly flattered now, and to feeling 
 that Miss Garland was as living a presence in his 
 own world as she had been five days after he left 
 her. He drifted, under these deep discretions indeed, 
 nearer and nearer to the conviction that at just that 
 crisis any other girl would have answered Roderick s 
 supposedly sentimental needs as well. Any other 
 woman verily would do so still! Roderick had con 
 fessed as much to him at Geneva in saying that he 
 had been taking at Baden-Baden the measure of his 
 susceptibility. 
 
 His extraordinary success in modelling the bust 
 of the beautiful Miss Light was pertinent evidence of 
 the quantity of consciousness of the great feminine 
 fact always at his service for application and discrimi 
 nation. She sat to him repeatedly for a fortnight, and 
 the work was rapidly finished. On one of the last 
 
 177 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 days Roderick asked Rowland to come and give his 
 opinion as to what was still wanting; for the sittings 
 had continued to take place in Mrs. Light s apart 
 ment, the studio being pronounced too damp for the 
 fair model. When Rowland presented himself Chris 
 tina, still in her white dress, with her shoulders bare, 
 was standing before a mirror to readjust her hair, 
 the arrangement of which on this occasion had ap 
 parently not met the young sculptor s approval. He 
 stood beside her directing the operation with an 
 emphatic ring that struck Rowland as denoting 
 a considerable advance in intimacy. As this visitor 
 entered Christina was losing patience. "Do it your 
 self then!" she cried, and with a rapid movement 
 unloosed the great coil of her tresses and let them fall 
 over her shoulders. 
 
 They were magnificent, and with her perfect face 
 dividing their rippling flow she looked like some im 
 maculate saint of legend being led to martyrdom. 
 Rowland s eyes presumably betrayed his admiration, 
 but her own showed no vulgar perception of anything 
 she was so little concerned with. If Christina was 
 a coquette, as the remarkable timeliness of this 
 incident might have suggested, her coquetry had the 
 highest finish. 
 
 " Hudson has the luck to be a sculptor, in his way," 
 Rowland remarked with gaiety; "but it comes over 
 me that if I were only a painter !" 
 
 "Thank goodness you re not!" said Christina. 
 " I m having quite enough of this minute inspection 
 of my charms." 
 
 "My dear young man, hands off!" cried Mrs. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Light as she came forward and seized her daughter s 
 hair. "Christina love, I m more surprised than I 
 can say." 
 
 "Is it indelicate?" Christina asked. "I beg Mr. 
 Mallet s pardon." Mrs. Light gathered up the dusky 
 locks and let them fall through her fingers, glancing 
 at her visitor with a significant smile. Rowland 
 had never been in the East, but if he had attempted T^ 
 to make a sketch of an old slave-merchant calling 
 attention to the "points" of a Circassian beauty he 
 would have depicted such a smile as Mrs. Light s 
 "Mamma s not really shocked," added Christina in 
 a moment, as if she had guessed her mother s by 
 play. "She s only afraid that Mr. Hudson may have 
 injured my hair and that, per conseguenza, I shall 
 fetch a lower price." 
 
 "You unnatural child!" cried mamma. "You de 
 serve that I should make a fright of you!" And with 
 half a dozen skilful passes she twisted the tresses 
 into a single picturesque braid, placed high on the 
 head and producing the effect of a coronet. 
 
 "What does your mother do when she wants to 
 do you justice?" Rowland enquired, observing the 
 admirable line of the girl s neck and shoulder. 
 
 " I do her justice when I say she says very atrocious 
 things. What s one to do with such a horrible hand 
 ful ?" Mrs. Light demanded. 
 
 "Think of it at your leisure, Mr. Mallet," said 
 Christina, " and when you ve discovered some 
 thing let us hear. But I must tell you that I shall not 
 willingly believe in any remedy of yours, for you 
 have something in the expression of your face that 
 
 179 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 particularly provokes me to make the remarks my 
 mother so inconsolably deplores. I noticed it the first 
 time I saw you. I think it s because your face is so 
 broad. For some reason or other broad faces exas 
 perate me; they fill me with a kind of rabbia. Last 
 summer at Carlsbad there was an Austrian count 
 with enormous estates and some great office at court. 
 He was very attentive seriously so; he was really 
 very far gone. Cela ne tenait qua moil But I could n t; 
 he was impossible. He must have measured from 
 ear to ear at least a yard and a half. And he was tow- 
 coloured too, which made it worse almost as fair 
 as Stenterello though of course Stenterello s face, 
 like his conversation, is full of point. So I said to him 
 frankly: Many thanks, Herr Graf; your uniform s 
 magnificent, but your face is too fat." : 
 
 "I m afraid that mine also," said Rowland with 
 a smile, "seems just now to have assumed an un 
 pardonable latitude." 
 
 "Oh, I take it you know very well that we re hunt 
 ing for a husband and that none but tremendous 
 swells need apply. Surely before these gentlemen, 
 mamma, I may speak freely; they re so perfectly 
 disinterested. Mr. Mallet won t do, because, though 
 he s rich, he s not rich enough. Mamma made that 
 discovery the day after we went to see you, moved 
 to it by the promising look of your furniture. I hope 
 she was right, eh ? Unless you have millions, you 
 know, you need n t apply." 
 
 "You reduce me to the sense of beggary, 5 said 
 Rowland. 
 
 "Oh, some better girl than I will decide some day, 
 180 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 after mature reflection, that, on the whole, you your 
 self add something to your fortune. Mr. Hudson of 
 course is nowhere; he has nothing but his genius 
 and his extraordinary beaux yeux." 
 
 Roderick had stood looking at Christina intently 
 while she delivered herself, softly and slowly, of this 
 surprising nonsense. When she had finished she 
 turned and confronted him; their eyes met and he 
 blushed a little. "Let me be your modeller, and he 
 who can may be your husband!" he said abruptly. 
 
 Mrs. Light, while her daughter talked, had been 
 adding a few touches to the arrangement of her hair. 
 "She s neither so silly nor so vicious as you might 
 suppose," she said to Rowland with dignity. "If 
 you 11 give me your arm we 11 go and look at the 
 bust." 
 
 "Does that most represent silliness or vice 
 unless they come to the same thing?" Christina 
 demanded when they stood before it. 
 
 Rowland transferred his glance several times from 
 the portrait to the original. "It represents a young 
 lady whom I should n t pretend to judge off-hand." 
 
 "She may be a fool, but you re not sure. Many 
 thanks! You ve seen me half a dozen times. You re 
 either very slow or I m very deep." 
 
 "I m certainly slow," said Rowland. "I don t 
 expect to make up my mind about you in less than 
 six months." 
 
 " I give you six months if you 11 promise then 
 a perfectly frank opinion. Mind, I shall not forget; 
 I shall insist upon a judgement." 
 
 "Well, though I m slow I m tolerably judging," 
 181 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 said Rowland "and I m tolerably brave. So look 
 out!" 
 
 Christina considered the bust with a sigh. "I m 
 afraid, after all," she said, "that there s very little 
 wisdom in it save what the artist has put there. Mr. 
 Hudson looked particularly wise while he was work 
 ing; he scowled and growled, but he never opened his 
 mouth. It s very kind of him not to have represented 
 me yawning." 
 
 "If I had felt obliged to talk a lot of rubbish to 
 you," Roderick candidly said, "the thing wouldn t 
 have been a tenth so good, and I should have been 
 a great deal more fatigued." 
 
 "Is it good, after all ? Mr. Mallet s a famous con 
 noisseur; hasn t he come here to pronounce?" the 
 girl went on. 
 
 The bust was in fact a very happy performance 
 Roderick had risen to the level of his subject. It was 
 thoroughly a portrait, not a vague fantasy exe 
 cuted on a graceful theme, as the busts of pretty 
 women in modern sculpture are apt to be. The resem 
 blance was close and firm ; inch matched with inch, item 
 with item, grain with grain, yet all to fresh creation. 
 It succeeded by an exquisite art in representing with 
 out extravagance something that transcended and 
 exceeded. Rowland, however, as we know, was not 
 fond of exploding into superlatives, and after examin 
 ing the piece he contented himself with suggesting two 
 or three alterations of detail. 
 
 "Ah, how can you be so cruel ?" demanded Mrs. 
 Light with rich reproachfulness. " It s surely a won 
 derful thing!" 
 
 182 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 " Rowland knows it s a wonderful thing," said 
 Roderick smiling. "I can tell that by his face. The 
 other day I finished something he thought really bad, 
 and he looked very differently from this." 
 
 "How can Mr. Mallet look ?" asked Christina. 
 
 "My dear Rowland," said Roderick, "I m speak 
 ing of my poor listening lady. You looked as if you 
 had on a pair of tight boots." 
 
 "Ah my child, you ll not understand that!" cried 
 Mrs. Light. "You never yet had a pair that were 
 small enough." 
 
 " It s a pity, Mr. Hudson," said Christina gravely, 
 "that you could n t have introduced my feet into the 
 bust. But we can hang a pair of satin shoes round 
 the neck." 
 
 " I nevertheless like your finished portraits, Roder 
 ick," Rowland observed, "better than your rough 
 sketches. This is a great commemoration of a great 
 subject. Miss Light, you may really be proud!" 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Mallet, for the permission," 
 returned the girl. 
 
 "I m dying to see it in the marble I make it out 
 in a kind of violet velvet niche," said Mrs. Light. 
 
 "Placed there on the mosaic table and under the 
 Sassoferrato!" Christina went on. "We have a Sasso- 
 ferrato, you know, from which we re inseparable 
 we travel with our picture and our poodle. I hope you 
 keep well in mind, Mr. Hudson, at all events, that 
 you ve not a grain of property in your work and that 
 if mamma chooses she may have it photographed and 
 the copies sold in the Piazza di Spagna at five francs 
 apiece without your having a sou of the profits." 
 
 183 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Amen!" said Roderick. "It was so nominated in 
 the bond. My profits are here!" And he tapped his 
 forehead. 
 
 "It would be prettier if you said here!" And 
 Christina touched her heart. 
 
 "My precious child, how you do run on!" mur 
 mured Mrs. Light. 
 
 "It s Mr. Mallet s effect on me," the girl answered. 
 " I can t talk a word of sense so long as he s in the 
 room. I don t say that to make you go," she added; 
 "I say it simply to justify myself." 
 
 "The noble art of self-defence!" said Rowland. 
 
 Roderick declared that he must get at work and 
 requested Christina to take her usual position, and 
 Mrs. Light proposed to her visitor that they should 
 adjourn to her boudoir. This was a small room, 
 hardly more spacious than a recess, opening out of 
 the drawing-room and having no other issue. Here, 
 as they entered, on a divan near the door, Rowland 
 perceived the constant Cavaliere, with his arms folded, 
 his head dropped upon his breast and his eyes closed. 
 
 "Sleeping at his post!" laughed Rowland. 
 
 "That s a punishable offence," rejoined Mrs. 
 Light sharply. She was on the point of calling him in 
 the same tone when he suddenly opened his eyes, 
 stared a moment and then rose with a smile and 
 a bow. 
 
 " Excuse me, dear lady," he said, " I was overcome 
 by the the great heat." 
 
 "Nonsense, Cavaliere!" cried the lady; "you 
 know we re perishing herewith the cold! You had 
 better go and cool yourself in one of the other rooms." 
 
 184 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I obey, dear lady," said the Cavaliere; and with 
 another salutation to Rowland he departed, walking 
 very discreetly on his toes. Rowland outstayed him 
 but a short time, his appetite for Mrs. Light s con 
 versation being small; he found nothing very inspir 
 ing in her frank intimation that if he chose he might 
 become a favourite. He was disgusted with himself 
 for pleasing her; he repudiated any such intention. 
 In the courtyard of the palace he overtook the Cava 
 liere, who had stopped at the porter s lodge to say a 
 word to this functionary s little girl. She was a young 
 lady of very tender years and she wore a very dirty 
 pinafore. He had taken her up in his arms to sing her 
 an infantine rhyme, while she stared at him with big 
 deep Roman eyes. On seeing Rowland he put her 
 down with a kiss, then stepped forward with a con 
 scious grin, an unresentful admission that he was sen 
 sitive both to infant beauty and to ridicule. Rowland 
 began to pity him again; he had taken his dismissal 
 from the drawing-room so meekly. 
 
 "You don t keep your promise to come and see me. 
 But please don t forget it. I want you to tell me about 
 Rome thirty years ago." 
 
 "Thirty years ago? Ah, dear sir, Rome is Rome 
 still; a place where strange things happen! But happy 
 things too, since I have your renewed permission to 
 call. You do me too much honour. Is it in the morn 
 ing or in the evening that I should least intrude ?" 
 
 "Take your own time, Cavaliere; only come some 
 time. I depend upon you," said Rowland. 
 
 The Cavaliere thanked him with formal obeisance. 
 To old Giacosa too he felt that he was, in Roman 
 
 "85 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 phrase, sympathetic; but the idea of pleasing this 
 extremely reduced gentleman was not disagreeable to 
 him. 
 
 Miss Light s bust stood for a while on exhibition in 
 Roderick s studio, and half the foreign colony came 
 to see it. With the completion of his work, however, 
 Roderick s visits at the Palazzo Falconieri by no 
 means came to an end. He spent half his time in Mrs. 
 Light s drawing-room and began to be talked about 
 as "attentive" to Christina. The success of the bust 
 restored his equanimity, and in the garrulity of his 
 good-humour he suffered Rowland to see that she was 
 just now the object uppermost in his thoughts. Row 
 land, when they talked of her, was rather listener than 
 speaker; partly because Roderick s tone admitted 
 of few openings, and partly because, when his com 
 panion laughed at him for having called her unsafe, he 
 for some reason lacked presence of mind to defend 
 himself. The impression remained with our friend 
 that she was unsafe; that she was a complex, wilful, 
 passionate creature who might easily draw down a 
 too confiding spirit into some strange underworld of 
 unworthy sacrifice, not unfurnished with traces of 
 others of the lost. And yet these elements in her were 
 in themselves an appeal to curiosity, and she struck 
 him not only as preying possibly thus on the faith of 
 victims, but as ready to take on occasion her own life 
 in her hand. Roderick, in the glow of that renewed 
 admiration provoked by the fixed attention of por 
 trayal, was never weary of descanting on the extraor 
 dinary perfection of her beauty. 
 
 "I had no idea of it," he said, "till I began to look 
 186 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 at her with an eye to reproducing line for line and 
 curve for curve. Her face is the most exquisite piece of 
 modelling that ever came from creative hands. Not a 
 line without meaning, not a hair s-breadth that s not 
 admirably finished. And then her divine mouth it 
 might really be that of a goddess! It s as if a pair of 
 lips had been shaped just not to utter all the platitudes 
 and all the pretences." Later, after he had been work 
 ing for a week, he was to declare that if the girl had 
 been inordinately plain she would still be the most 
 wonderful of women and the best conceivable com 
 pany. " I ve quite forgotten her beauty," he said, "or 
 rather I ve ceased to perceive it as something distinct 
 and defined, something independent of the rest of her. 
 She s all one, and all impossibly interesting." 
 
 "What does she do what does she say that s so 
 remarkable ?" Rowland asked. 
 
 "Say? Sometimes nothing sometimes every 
 thing. She s never the same, and you never know how 
 she ll be. And it s not for a pose it s because there 
 are fifty of her. Sometimes she walks in and takes her 
 place without a word, without a smile, gravely, stiffly, 
 as if it were an awful bore. She hardly looks at me, 
 and she walks away without even glancing at my 
 work. On other days she laughs and chatters and asks 
 endless questions and pours out the most irresist 
 ible nonsense is really most extraordinarily droll. 
 She s a creature of moods; you can t count upon her; 
 she keeps one s expectation, she keeps one s nerves, 
 on the stretch: she s as far from banal as it s possible 
 to be. And then, bless you, my dear man, she has 
 seen, compared with you and me, for instance, so 
 
 187 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 remarkably much of the world. She says the most 
 astounding things." 
 
 "What sort of things?" Rowland wonderingly 
 asked. 
 
 It made his friend hesitate. " I can scarcely think 
 of a specimen that would n t too much shock you!" 
 
 "It s altogether a singular type of young lady," 
 said Rowland after the scene I have sketched. "It 
 may be a charm, but it s certainly not the orthodox 
 charm of marriageable maidenhood, the charm of 
 the nice girP or the dear girl as we have been ac 
 customed to know those blest creatures. Our Ameri 
 can girls are accused of being more forward than any 
 others, and this wonderful damsel is nominally an 
 American. But it has taken twenty years of Europe 
 to make her what she is. The first time we saw her 
 I remember you called her the product of an effete 
 civilisation, and certainly you were not far wrong." 
 
 "Well, you see, she has an atmosphere," said Rod 
 erick in a tone of high appreciation. 
 
 "Young unmarried women should be careful not 
 to have too much," his companion sagely risked. 
 
 "Ah, you don t forgive her for hitting you so hard! 
 A man ought to be flattered when such a girl as that 
 takes so much notice of him." 
 
 "A man s never flattered at a beautiful woman s 
 not liking him," said Rowland. 
 
 " Are you sure she does n t like you ? That s to 
 the credit of your humility. A fellow of more vanity 
 might, on the evidence, persuade himself that he was 
 positively in favour." 
 
 "He would have also then," laughed Rowland, "to 
 188 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 be a fellow of remarkable ingenuity." He asked 
 himself privately how the deuce Roderick reconciled 
 it to his conscience to think so much more of the girl 
 he was not engaged to than of the other. But it 
 amounted almost to arrogance in poor Rowland, you 
 may say, to pretend to know how often Roderick 
 thought of Mary Garland. He wondered gloomily, at 
 any rate, whether for men of his friend s large easy 
 power there was not an ampler moral law than for 
 narrow mediocrities like himself, who, yielding Na 
 ture a meagre interest on her investment (such as it 
 was), had no reason to expect from her this affection 
 ate laxity as to their accounts. Was it not a part of the 
 eternal fitness of things that Roderick, while rhapso 
 dising about Christina Light, should have it at his 
 command to look at you with eyes of the most guile 
 less and unclouded blue and to shake off your musty 
 imputations by a toss of his romantic brown locks ? 
 Or else had he, in fact, no conscience to speak of? 
 Fortunate mortal either way! 
 
 Our friend Gloriani came, among others, to con 
 gratulate Roderick on his model and what he had 
 made of her. " Devilish pretty through and through ! " 
 he said as he looked at the bust. " Capital handling 
 of the neck and throat; lovely work on the facial 
 muscles and extraordinary play, extraordinary ele 
 gance of life, everywhere. Your luck s too hateful, 
 but you ought n t to have let her off with the mere 
 sacrifice of her head. There would be no end to be 
 done with the whole inimitable presence of her. If I 
 could only have got hold of her I would have pumped 
 every inch of her empty. What a pity she s not a poor 
 
 189 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Trasteverina whom we might have for a franc an 
 hour! I ve been carrying about in my head for years 
 an idea for a creature as fine as a flower-stem and yet 
 as full as a flame, but it has always stayed there for 
 want of a tolerable model. I ve seen my notion in bits, 
 but in her I see it whole. As soon as I looked at her 
 I said to myself, By Jove, there s my idea in the 
 flesh ! " 
 
 "What s the name of your idea ?" Roderick asked. 
 
 "Don t take it ill," said Gloriani. "You know I m 
 the very deuce for observation. The name of my idea 
 is the name of the young woman what was hers? 
 who pranced up to the king her father with a great 
 bloody head on a great gold tray." 
 
 "Salome, daughter of Herodias ?" 
 
 "Exactly, and of Herod, king of the Jews." 
 
 "Do you think Miss Light looks then like a Jew 
 ess?" 
 
 "No, he only thinks," Rowland interposed, "that 
 Herodias must much have resembled Miss Light 
 unless indeed he also sees our young woman with your 
 head on her charger." 
 
 "Ah," Gloriani laughed, "it isn t a question of 
 Hudson s head !" 
 
 If Roderick had taken it ill, this likening of the 
 girl he so admired to the macabre maiden of the 
 Christian story (which resentment was not probable, 
 since we know he thought Gloriani an ass and 
 expected little truth of him), he might have been 
 soothed by the candid incense of Sam Singleton, who 
 came and sat for an hour in the very prostration of 
 homage before both bust and artist. But Roderick s 
 
 190 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 attitude in regard to this worshipper was one of un 
 disguised though friendly amusement; as indeed there 
 was oddity enough in the little water-colourist s gasps 
 and glares and other fond intensities, which had 
 ever some lapse of intelligibility for their climax. 
 "Ah, don t envy our friend," Rowland said to Single 
 ton afterwards, on his expressing with a small groan 
 of depreciation of his own paltry performances his 
 sense of the brilliancy of Roderick s talent. " You sail 
 nearer the shore, but you sail in smoother waters. Be 
 contented with what you are, and paint me another 
 picture." 
 
 "Oh, I don t envy Hudson anything he possesses," 
 Singleton said, "because to take anything away 
 would spoil his beautiful completeness. Complete, 
 that s what he is; while we little clevernesses are like 
 half-ripened plums, only good eating on the side that 
 has had a glimpse of the sun. Nature has made him 
 so, and fortune confesses to it! He s himself in per 
 son such a subject for a painter a Pinturicchio- 
 figure, is n t he ? come to life ; he has more genius 
 than any one, and as a matter of course the most 
 beautiful girl in the world comes and offers to feed 
 him with her beauty. If that s not completeness where 
 shall one look for it ?" 
 
ONE morning, going into Roderick s studio, Rowland 
 found the young sculptor entertaining Miss Blanch- 
 ard but entertaining her, as it were, quite at her 
 own expense. She ministered, for him, to irritation, 
 and he had never climbed to her sky-parlour with 
 the exclamatory herd at large exclamatory over 
 her petals and dewdrops. He had once quoted Ten 
 nyson against her 
 
 " And is there any moral shut 
 Within the bosom of the rose? " 
 
 " In all Miss Blanchard s roses you may be sure there 
 is a moral," he had said. "You can see it sticking out 
 its head, and if you go to smell the flower it scratches 
 your nose." But on this occasion she had come with 
 a propitiatory gift introducing her friend and 
 countryman Mr. Leavenworth. Mr. Leavenworth 
 was a tall, expansive, bland gentleman, with a care 
 fully-brushed whisker and a spacious, fair, well- 
 favoured face, which seemed somehow to have more 
 room in it than was occupied by a smile of superior 
 benevolence, so that (with his smooth white forehead) 
 it bore a certain resemblance to a large parlour with 
 a very florid carpet, but without mural decoration. 
 He held his head high, talked impressively, and told 
 Roderick within five minutes that he was a widower 
 travelling to distract his mind, and that he had lately 
 retired from the proprietorship of large mines of 
 
 192 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 borax in the Middle West. Roderick supposed at 
 first that under the influence of his bereavement he 
 had come to order a tombstone; but observing the 
 extreme benevolence of his address to Miss Blanchard 
 he credited him with a judicious prevision that on the 
 day the tombstone should be completed a monument 
 of his inconsolability might appear mistimed. Mr. 
 Leavenworth, however, was disposed to give an 
 Order, to give it with a capital letter. 
 
 "You ll find me eager to patronise our indigen 
 ous talent," he said. "You may be sure that I ve 
 employed a native architect for the large residential 
 structure that I m erecting on the banks of the Ohio. 
 I ve sustained a considerable loss; but are we not told 
 that the office of art is second only to that of religion ? 
 That s why I have come to you, sir. In the retreat 
 that I m preparing, surrounded by the memorials 
 of my wanderings, I hope to recover a certain degree 
 of tone. They re doing what they can in Paris for the 
 fine effect of some of its features; but the effect I have 
 myself most at heart will be that of my library, filled 
 with well-selected and beautifully-bound authors in 
 groups relieved from point to point by high-class 
 statuary. I should like to entrust you, can we arrange 
 it, with the execution of one of these appropriate 
 subjects. What do you say to a representation, in 
 pure white marble, of the idea of Intellectual Refine 
 ment?" 
 
 "Whose idea, sir?" Roderick asked. "Your 
 idea?" 
 
 But as at this question, and especially at a certain 
 sound in it, Mr. Leavenworth looked a little blank, 
 
 J93 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Miss Blanchard artfully interposed. "I wish I could 
 induce Mr. Hudson to think he might perhaps do 
 something with mine!" 
 
 It immediately relieved the tension and made Mr. 
 Hudson consider her with great gravity. "If your 
 idea resembles your personal type, Miss Blanchard, 
 I quite see my figure. I close with you on Intellectual 
 Refinement, Mr. Leavenworth, if this lady will sit for 
 
 us." 
 
 Miss Blanchard demurred; the tribute might be 
 ironic; and there was ever afterwards a reflexion of 
 her uncertainty in her opinion of Roderick s genius. 
 Mr. Leavenworth responded that, with all deference 
 to Miss Blanchard s beauty, he desired something 
 less breathingly actual more monumentally imper 
 sonal. " If I were to be the happy possessor of a like 
 ness of Miss Blanchard," he added, "I shouldn t 
 wish it in the form of a cold symbol." 
 
 He spoke as if the young woman s charms might 
 compromise the chastity of his conception, but 
 Roderick, after an instant, imperturbable, had drawn 
 him into deep waters. Rowland, nervously conscious 
 of this, appealed meanwhile to the judicious Augusta. 
 "Who s your pompous friend ?" 
 
 "A very worthy man. The architect of his own 
 fortune which is magnificent. One of nature s 
 gentlemen!" 
 
 This was nobly sufficient, but Rowland turned in 
 vague unrest to the bust of Miss Light. Like every 
 one else in Rome by this time, Miss Blanchard had 
 an opinion on that young woman s beauty, and, after 
 her own fashion, she expressed it in a quoteable phrase. 
 
 194 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "She looks half like a Madonna and half like a 
 ballerina!" 
 
 Mr. Leavenworth and Roderick arrived, however, 
 under Rowland s anxious eyes, at an understanding 
 that testified not a little on the part of each to the 
 power nobly to unbend, and the young master, 
 with a habit he had of finally coming round, in a 
 rush of indifferent generosity, from some first crude 
 challenge to patience a habit that Rowland, whom 
 it had caused to forgive him many things, had known 
 himself privately to pronounce irresistible the 
 young master good-naturedly promised to do his 
 best to rise to his client s conception. "His con 
 ception be hanged!" Roderick exclaimed none the 
 less after Mr. Leavenworth had departed. "His con 
 ception is sitting on an india-rubber cushion with a 
 pen in her ear and the lists of the stock-exchange in 
 her hand. It s a case for doing, of course, exactly 
 as one likes yet how c an one like, by any possi 
 bility, anything that such a blatant humbug as that 
 possibly can ? It s as much as one can do to like his 
 awful money. I don t think," our young man added, 
 "that I ever before swallowed anything that wanted 
 so little to go down, and I m doubtless on my way 
 now to any grovelling you please." 
 
 Mrs. Light meanwhile had fairly established her 
 self in Roman society. "The dear God knows how," 
 Madame Grandoni said to Rowland, who had men 
 tioned to her several evidences of the lady s pro 
 sperity; "but a door is forced, of course, only as 
 a heavy piece of furniture is moved you shut your 
 eyes and you push hard. A month ago she knew no 
 
 J 95 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 one but her washerwoman, and now I m told that 
 the cards of Roman princesses are to be seen on her 
 table. Che vuole? She has opened her booth at the 
 fair; she has her great natural wonder to show, and 
 she beats her big drum outside. Her big drum is 
 her piano nobile in a great palace, her brilliant 
 equipage, her marvellous bonnets, her general be- 
 dizenment, and the phenomenon in the booth is her 
 wonderful daughter. Christina s a better draw than 
 the two-headed calf or the learned pig. She s spend 
 ing a lot of money, and you ll see that in two or three 
 weeks she 11 take upon herself to open the season 
 by giving a magnificent ball. Of course it s Christina s 
 beauty that floats her. People go to see her because 
 they re curious." 
 
 "And they go again because they re wonder- 
 struck," said Rowland. 
 
 "To whom do you say it ? Has n t she drawn even 
 me? She came to see me of her own free will the 
 other day, and for an hour she was deeply interest 
 ing. I think she s an actress, but she believes in her 
 part while she s playing it. She had taken it into 
 her head to believe she was very unhappy, and she 
 sat there, where you re sitting, and told me a tale 
 of her miseries which brought tears to my eyes. She 
 cried profusely she cries as naturally as possible. 
 She said she was weary of life and that she knew 
 no one but me she could speak frankly to. She must 
 speak or she should go mad. She sobbed as if her 
 heart would break. I assure you it s well for you 
 susceptible young men that you don t see her when 
 she sobs. She said in so many words that her mother 
 
 196 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was an infamous woman. Heaven knows what she 
 meant unless perhaps only that Mrs. Light makes 
 debts she knows she can t pay. She said the life 
 they led was horrible; that it was monstrous a poor 
 girl should be dragged about the world to be sold 
 to the highest bidder. She was meant for better 
 things; she could be perfectly happy without those 
 dreadfulnesses. It was not money she wanted. I 
 might not believe her, but she really cared for serious 
 things for the good, the beautiful and the true. 
 Sometimes she thought of taking poison." 
 
 "What did you say to that ?" 
 
 "I recommended her to come and see me instead. 
 I would help her about as much and I was on the 
 whole less unpleasant. Of course I could help her 
 only by letting her talk herself out, and kissing her 
 and patting her beautiful hands, and telling her that 
 if she would be very patient and brave and quiet 
 and clever, and sit very tight in short exercise 
 all the cardinal virtues there would be something 
 good for her in the end. About once in two months 
 I expect her to reappear on the same errand, and 
 meanwhile quite to forget my existence. I believe 
 I melted to the point of telling her that I would find 
 her some kind, quiet, respectable husband, and even 
 one with a decent fortune; but she declared, almost 
 w r ith fury, that she was sick of the very name of 
 husbands, which she begged I would never mention 
 again. And in fact it was a rash offer; for I m sure 
 that there s not a man of the kind that might really 
 make a woman happy but would be afraid to marry 
 a young person of her particular distinction. Looked 
 
 1 97 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 at in that way she s certainly very much to be pitied, 
 and, indeed, altogether, though I don t think she 
 either means all she says or, by a great deal, says 
 all she means, I feel very sorry for her." 
 
 Rowland met the two ladies about this time at 
 several entertainments and looked at Christina with 
 a kind of imaginative attendrissement. He suspected 
 more than once that there had been a passionate 
 scene between them about coming out, and he won 
 dered what arguments Mrs. Light had found effect 
 ive. But Christina s face told no tales, and she moved 
 about, beautiful and silent, looking absently over 
 people s heads, barely heeding the men who pressed 
 about her, and suggesting somehow that the soul of 
 a world-wearied mortal had found its way into the 
 blooming body of a goddess. "Where in the world 
 has Miss Light been before she s turned twenty-one," 
 observers with pretensions to earnestness asked, 
 "to have left all her illusions behind?" And the 
 general verdict was that, though she was incompar 
 ably beautiful, she was too disconcertingly indifferent. 
 She was scarcely even vain enough. Young ladies 
 who were not indifferent, and yet sometimes perhaps 
 not beautiful either, were free to reflect that she was 
 "not at all liked." 
 
 It would have been difficult to guess, all the same, 
 how they reconciled this conviction with a variety 
 of contradictory evidence and in especial with the 
 spectacle of Roderick s inveterate devotion. All Rome 
 might behold that he at least "liked" Christina 
 Light. Wherever she appeared he was either await 
 ing her or immediately followed her. He was per- 
 
 198 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 petually at her side, trying apparently to preserve 
 some broken thread of talk, the fate of which was, 
 to judge by her face, profoundly immaterial to the 
 young lady. People in general smiled at the radiant 
 good faith of the handsome young sculptor, and 
 asked each other if he really supposed flowers of 
 that rarity to be pluckable by mere geniuses who hap 
 pened also to be mere Americans. But although 
 Christina s deportment, as I have said, was one of 
 high inexpressiveness, Rowland had drawn from Rod 
 erick no suspicion that he suffered from active cruelty, 
 and he was therefore surprised at an incident that 
 occurred one evening at a large musical party. Rod 
 erick, as usual, was not in a state of effacement, 
 and on the ladies taking the chairs which had been 
 arranged for them he immediately placed himself 
 beside Christina. As most of the gentlemen were 
 standing his position made him as conspicuous as 
 Hamlet at Ophelia s feet. Rowland was leaning 
 somewhat apart, against the chimney-piece. There 
 was a long solemn pause before the music began, and 
 in the midst of it Christina rose, left her place, came 
 the whole length of the immense room, with every 
 one looking at her, and stopped before him. She was 
 neither pale nor flushed; she had a dim smile. 
 
 "Will you do me a favour?" 
 
 "A thousand!" 
 
 "Not now, but at your earliest convenience. 
 Please remind Mr. Hudson that he s not in a New 
 England village, that it s not the custom in Rome 
 to address one s conversation exclusively, night after 
 night, to the same poor girl, and that - 
 
 199 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 The music broke out with a great blare and covered 
 her voice. She made a gesture of impatience, and 
 Rowland offered her his arm and led her back to her 
 seat. 
 
 The next day he repeated her words to Roderick, 
 in whom they produced mere unabashed amusement. 
 "Oh, the charming * cheek of her! She does every 
 thing that comes into her head." 
 
 "Had she never asked you before not to talk to 
 her so much ?" Rowland enquired. 
 
 "On the contrary, she has often said to me Mind 
 you now, I forbid you to leave me. Here comes that 
 beast of a So-and-So. She cares as little about 
 the custom of the country as I do. What could be 
 a better proof than her walking up to you with five 
 hundred people looking at her ? Is that, for beautiful 
 watched girls, the custom of the country ?" 
 
 "Why then should she take such a step ?" 
 
 "Because as she sat there the notion took her. 
 That s reason enough for her. I ve imagined she 
 wishes me well, as they say here though she has 
 never distinguished me in such a way as that." 
 
 Madame Grandoni had foretold the truth; Mrs. 
 Light a couple of weeks later convoked all Roman 
 society to a brilliant ball. Rowland went late and 
 found the staircase so encumbered with flower-pots 
 and servants that he was a long time making his way 
 into the presence of the hostess. At last he approached 
 her as she stood making curtsies at the door with her 
 daughter by her side. Some of Mrs. Light s curtsies 
 were very low, for she had the happiness of receiv 
 ing a number of the social potentates of the Roman 
 
 200 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 world. She was rosy with triumph, to say nothing of 
 a less metaphysical cause, and was evidently vastly 
 contented with herself, with her company and with 
 all the omens and portents. Her daughter was less 
 overtly jubilant and distributed her greetings with 
 impartial frigidity. But if Christina was awfully de 
 tached, as they said, her detachment gave the greater 
 relief to her magnificent beauty. Dressed simply in 
 vaporous white relieved with half a dozen white 
 roses, the perfection of her features and of her per 
 son, and the mysterious depth of her expression, 
 seemed to glow with the white light of a splendid 
 pearl. She recognised no one individually and made 
 her salutations slowly, gravely, with her eyes on the 
 ground. Rowland felt sure, however, that for him 
 self her obeisance was subtly overdone, but he sighed 
 patiently, as for the worrying whim of it, and reflected 
 as he passed on that if she disliked him, which was 
 all such minor ironies could mean, he had nothing 
 to reproach himself with. He walked about, had a 
 few words with Miss Blanchard, who, with a fillet 
 of cameos in her hair, was leaning on the arm of 
 Mr. Leavenworth, and at last came upon the Cavaliere 
 Giacosa, modestly stationed in a corner. The little 
 gentleman s coat-lappet was decorated with an enor 
 mous bouquet, and his neck encased in a volum 
 inous white handkerchief of the fashion of thirty 
 years ago. His arms were folded and his eyelids, 
 before the glittering scene, contracted, though you 
 saw through them the answering glitter of his in 
 tensely dark vivacious pupil. He immediately em 
 barked on an elaborate apology for not having yet 
 
 201 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 manifested as he felt it his sense of the honour Row 
 land had done him. 
 
 "I m always on service with these ladies, you see, 
 and that s a duty to which one wouldn t willingly 
 be faithless an instant." 
 
 "Evidently," said Rowland, "you re a very de 
 voted friend. Mrs. Light, in her situation, is very 
 happy to be able so to depend on you." 
 
 "We are old friends," the Cavaliere gravely said. 
 "Very good friends. I knew the signora many years 
 ago, when she was the prettiest woman in Rome 
 or rather in Ancona, which is even better. The beau 
 tiful Christina now is perhaps the very greatest 
 beauty in Europe." 
 
 "There s nothing more probable." 
 
 "Very well, sir, I taught her to read; I guided 
 her little hands to touch the piano." And at these 
 faded memories the Cavaliere s eyes glowed with 
 an old Roman fire. Rowland half expected him 
 to proceed with a flash of long-repressed passion, 
 "And now and now, sir, they treat me as you 
 observed the other day!" But he only looked out 
 at our friend hard from among his wrinkles, and 
 seemed to remark instead, as with the social dis 
 cipline of a thousand years, "Oh, I say nothing 
 more. I m neither so vulgar nor so shallow as to 
 complain!" 
 
 Evidently the Cavaliere was both deep and deli 
 cate, and Rowland could but repeat his respectful 
 tribute. "You re a devoted friend." 
 
 "Eh, che vuole? I m a devoted friend. A man 
 may do himself justice after twenty years!" 
 
 202 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland after a pause made some remark about 
 the beauty of the ball. It was very brilliant. 
 
 "Stupendous!" said the Cavaliere solemnly. " It *s 
 a great day. We have four Roman princes, to say 
 nothing of others." And he counted them over on 
 his fingers and held up his hand triumphantly. 
 "And there she stands, the girl to whom I I, 
 Giuseppino Giacosa taught her alphabet and her 
 piano-scales; there she stands in all her grace, 
 and les grands de la terre come and do her homage. 
 Here, in his quiet corner, her old master permits 
 himself to be proud." 
 
 "It s very friendly and very charming of him," 
 Rowland benevolently said. 
 
 The Cavaliere drew his lids a little closer, but 
 strange things came through. "It s very natural, 
 signore at the same time that it s very idiotic too. 
 Christina s at any rate a brava ragazza; she remem 
 bers my little services. Here comes, however," he 
 added in a moment, "the young Prince of the Belle- 
 Arti. I J m sure he has bowed lowest of all." 
 
 Rowland looked round and saw Roderick moving 
 slowly across the room and casting about him his 
 usual high light of contemplation. He presently 
 joined them, nodded familiarly to the Cavaliere and 
 immediately put to Rowland the largest "Have you 
 seen her ?" 
 
 "I ve seen Miss Light," Rowland answered on a 
 smaller scale. "She s looking remarkably well." 
 
 "I m intoxicated with her beauty!" Roderick 
 continued so loud that several persons turned round. 
 
 Rowland saw that he was flushed, and laid a 
 203 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 hand on his arm, which he felt tremble, "If you 11 
 go straight away with me I 11 keep you company 
 anywhere." 
 
 "Go straight away?" cried Roderick almost an 
 grily. "Don t you suppose I intend to dance with 
 her?" 
 
 The Cavaliere had been watching him attentively; 
 he gently took possession of the other arm. "Softly, 
 softly, dear young man. Let me speak to you as 
 a father." 
 
 "Oh, speak even as a mother and I really shall 
 not mind it!" 
 
 " Be very reasonable then and go away." 
 
 "Why the devil should I go away ?" 
 
 " Because you re too charmingly in love," said 
 the Cavaliere. 
 
 "I might as well be in love here as in the streets." 
 
 "Carry your love as far as possible from that 
 young woman. She 11 never listen to you she 
 
 can t." 
 
 "She can t ?" demanded Roderick. "She s not 
 the sort of person she s the very last of whom 
 you may say that. She can if she will. She does as 
 she chooses." 
 
 "Up to a certain point. Beyond it niente !" 
 And the Cavaliere s two forefingers made a wonder 
 ful airy sign. "It would take too long to explain; 
 I only beg you to believe that if you think you can 
 pretend to Miss Light you prepare for yourself de 
 mauvais draps. Have you a princely title ? have you 
 a princely fortune ? No ? Then you re not her affair." 
 
 And the Cavaliere folded his arms again, like a 
 204 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 man who has done his duty. Roderick wiped his 
 forehead and looked askance at Rowland; he seemed 
 to be guessing his thoughts, and it might have been 
 imaginable that they made him colour. But he smiled 
 blandly and, addressing the Cavaliere, "I m much 
 obliged to you for the information/ he gracefully de 
 clared. "Now that I ve obtained it, let me tell you 
 that I m no more in love with Miss Light than my 
 friend here is. He perfectly knows that. I admire 
 her yes, immensely. But that s no one s business 
 but my own, and though I have, as you say, neither 
 a princely title nor a princely fortune, I mean to suf 
 fer neither that drawback nor those who can boast of 
 its opposite to diminish my right." 
 
 "If you re not in love, my dear young man," said 
 the Cavaliere with his hand on his heart and an 
 apologetic smile, "meno male. But let me entreat 
 you as an affectionate old busybody to keep a watch 
 on your sensibility. You re young, you also are 
 admirably beautiful; you have a brilliant genius and 
 a generous heart. But I may say it almost with 
 authority you re not our young lady s fate. 
 
 Whether Roderick were in love or not, he was 
 nettled by what apparently seemed to him too in 
 sistent a negation of an inspiring possibility. "You 
 speak as if she had made her choice!" he answered. 
 " Without pretending to confidential information on the 
 subject, I m very sure she has done nothingof the sort." 
 
 "No, but she must make it soon," said the Cava 
 liere. And raising his forefinger, he laid it against his 
 under lip. "She must choose very great things. And 
 she will!" 
 
 205 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "She ll do exactly as her inclination prompts. 
 She ll marry the man who pleases her, if he has n t 
 a dollar. I know her better than you." 
 
 The Cavaliere turned perhaps a little paler than 
 usual, but he smiled more urbanely. "No, no, caro 
 signorino, you don t know her better than I. You ve 
 not watched her day by day for twenty years. I too 
 have admired her. She is a brava ragazza ; she has 
 never said an unkind word to me; the blessed Virgin 
 be thanked! But she must have a great position and 
 a brilliant destiny; they ve been marked out for 
 her and she 11 submit. You had better believe me; 
 it may save you some rash expense." 
 
 "I shall see what I shall see." But Roderick s 
 serenity was strained. 
 
 "Then you 11 tell me. But I retire from the dis 
 cussion," the Cavaliere added. "I ve no wish to 
 provoke you to attempt to prove to me that I J m 
 a vieille bete. You re already tres-monte" 
 
 "No more than is natural to a man who in an 
 hour or so is to dance a cotillon with a divinity." 
 
 "A cotillon ? has she promised ?" 
 
 Roderick patted the air as for pity of those who 
 pretended to guess the terms of the understanding 
 of two such intimates. "You 11 see what you will 
 see!" 
 
 The Cavaliere gave an exaggerated shrug. "You ll 
 make a great many mourners!" 
 
 " What a mourner won t he have made already!" 
 Rowland silently echoed. This was evidently not 
 the first time that reference had been made between 
 Roderick and the Cavaliere to the young man s pos- 
 
 206 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sible illusion, and Roderick had failed to consider it 
 the simplest and most natural course to say in three 
 words to the vigilant little gentleman that there was 
 no cause for alarm his fancy was not free. Row 
 land hoped, obscurely, that his reticence had some 
 basis of tact that was not immediately apparent; 
 then he turned away with a vague pang: there was 
 something insecure, so to say, in the basis of Roder 
 ick s radiance. The tide was setting to the regions 
 of supper, and he drifted with it to the door. The 
 crowd at this point was dense, and he was obliged 
 to wait for some minutes before he could advance. 
 At last he felt his neighbours dividing behind him 
 and, looking about, he saw Christina pressing her 
 way forward alone. She was noticing no one, and 
 save for the fact of her being so at her ease one 
 would n t have supposed she was in her mother s 
 house. As she recognised Rowland she beckoned 
 and, taking his arm, motioned him to lead her to the 
 quarter of the spread tables. She said nothing till 
 he had forced a passage and they stood somewhat 
 isolated. 
 
 "Take me into the most out-of-the-way corner 
 you can find," she then began, "and get me some 
 where a piece of bread." 
 
 "Nothing more? There seems to be everything 
 conceivable." 
 
 " A simple roll. Nothing more, on your peril. 
 Only bring something for yourself." 
 
 It seemed to Rowland that the embrasure of a win 
 dow (embrasures in Roman palaces are deep) was 
 a retreat sufficiently obscure for Christina to execute 
 
 207 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 whatever design she might have contrived against 
 his equanimity. A roll, after he had found her a seat, 
 was easily procured. As he presented it he remarked 
 that, frankly speaking, he was at a loss to understand 
 why she should have selected for the honour of so great 
 an attention a poor man who could do so little to 
 please her. 
 
 "Ah yes, of course I dislike you!" said Christina. 
 "To tell the truth I had forgotten it. There are 
 so many people here whom I dislike more that when 
 I caught your eye just now you seemed an intimate 
 friend. But I ve not come into this corner to talk 
 nonsense," she went on. "You mustn t think I al 
 ways do, eh ?" 
 
 "I Ve never heard you do anything else," said 
 Rowland sturdily, having decided that he would keep 
 only on the broad highroad with her. 
 
 "Very good. I like your frankness. It s quite true. 
 You see I m a strange girl, and rather bold and bad. 
 D abord, I m frightfully egotistical. Don t flatter 
 yourself you ve said anything very clever if you ever 
 take it into your head to tell me so. I know it much 
 better than you. So it is; I can t help it. I m tired 
 to death of myself; I would give all I possess to get 
 out of myself; but somehow at the end I find my 
 self so vastly more interesting than nine-tenths of 
 the people I meet. If a person wished to do me a 
 favour I would say to him: *I beg you with tears in 
 my eyes to interest me. Be a brute, if necessary, to 
 do it; only be something positive and strong some 
 thing that in looking at I can forget my detestable 
 self I* Perhaps that s nonsense too. If it is I can t 
 
 208 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 help it either. I can only apologise for the nonsense 
 that I know to be such, and that I talk oh, for 
 more reasons than I can tell you! I wonder whether, 
 if I were to try you, you d understand me." 
 
 "I m afraid I should never understand," said 
 Rowland, as if for her edification, "why a person on 
 a good or call it perhaps a bad occasion can 
 willingly talk nonsense." 
 
 "That proves how little you know about women. 
 But I like your hearty directness. When I told you 
 the other day, with my usual rudeness to every one, 
 that you bored me so, I had an idea you were more 
 formal how do you say it ? more guind e. I m 
 very capricious. To-night I like you better." 
 
 "Oh, I m not at all guinde" said Rowland 
 gravely. 
 
 "I beg your pardon then for thinking so. Now 
 I Ve an idea that you d make a faithful friend; an 
 intimate friend a friend to whom one could tell 
 everything. For such a friend what would n t I give, 
 don t you see ?" 
 
 Rowland looked at her in stirred, yet in quite self- 
 possessed, speculation. Was this a sincere yearning 
 or only an equivocal purpose ? Her beautiful eyes 
 looked divinely candid; but then, if candour was 
 beautiful, beauty, and such beauty, somehow carried 
 questions so far! "I hesitate to recommend myself 
 out and out for the office," he said, "but I believe 
 that if you were to depend upon me for anything that 
 a friend may do I should not be found wanting." 
 
 "Very good. One of the first things one asks of a 
 friend is to judge one not by isolated acts, but by one s 
 
 209 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 whole conduct. I care for your opinion I don t 
 know why." 
 
 "Nor do I, I confess!" Rowland laughed. 
 
 "What do you think of this affair ?" she went on 
 as if his confession did n t matter. 
 
 "Of your ball ? Why, it s a very grand affair." 
 
 "It s horrible that s what it is. It s a mere 
 rabble. There are people here whom I never saw 
 before, people who were never asked. Mamma went 
 about inviting every one, asking other people to invite 
 any one they knew, doing anything to have a crowd. 
 I hope she s satisfied. It s not my doing. I feel weary, 
 I feel angry, I want to cry, I want to bite. I ve twenty 
 minds to escape into my room and lock the door and 
 let mamma s en tirer as she can. By the way," she 
 added in a moment, without a visible reason for the 
 jump, "can you tell me something to read ?" 
 
 Rowland stared at the disconnectedness of the 
 question. 
 
 "Can you recommend me some books?" she 
 repeated. "I know you literally have some. I ve no 
 one else to ask. We never see one in our lives 
 where should we, and why ? We make debts for 
 clothes and champagne, but we can t spend a sou on 
 our poor benighted minds. And yet, though you may 
 not believe it, I really like things that are for the 
 mind." 
 
 "I shall be most happy to lend you any books," 
 Rowland said. "I ll pick some out to-morrow and 
 send them to you." 
 
 "No nasty novels then, please, if you don t mind. 
 I m tired of nasty novels at one time I read 
 
 210 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 several. I never was a bit looked after in that way. 
 I can at all events imagine situations for myself 
 beyond any in fiction above all in our poor bete 
 English. Some good poetry, if there is such a thing 
 nowadays, and some memoirs and histories and books 
 of facts." 
 
 "You shall be served. Your taste agrees with my 
 
 own." 
 
 She was silent a moment, looking at him. Then 
 suddenly, "Tell me something about Mr. Hudson," 
 she exclaimed. "You re very, very great friends ?" 
 
 "Oh yes," said Rowland; "we re very, very great 
 friends." 
 
 "Tell me about him. Allans! Begin." 
 
 "Where shall I begin? You know him for your 
 self." 
 
 "No, I don t know him; I don t find him so easy to 
 know. Since he has finished my bust and begun 
 to come here disinterestedly, he has grown a great 
 talker. He says very fine things; but does he mean all 
 he says ?" 
 
 " Few of us do that." 
 
 "You do, I imagine. You ought to know, for he 
 tells me you discovered him." Rowland was silent, 
 and Christina continued: " Do you consider him very, 
 very, very clever?" 
 
 "Very, very, very." 
 
 "His talent s really distinguished?" 
 
 "So it seems to me." 
 
 "In short, he s a great genius?" 
 
 "Yes, call him a great genius." 
 
 "And you found him vegetating in a little village 
 211 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and took him by the hand and set him on his feet in 
 Rome?" 
 
 "Is that the popular legend ?" Rowland asked. 
 
 " Oh, you need n t be modest. There was no great 
 merit in it; there would have been none at least on 
 my part in the same conditions. Great geniuses are 
 not so common, and if I had discovered one in the 
 wilderness I should have brought him out in the 
 market-place to see how he would behave. It would 
 be excessively amusing. You must find it so to watch 
 Mr. Hudson, eh ? Tell me this: do you think he s 
 going to be a real swell, a big celebrity, have his life 
 written, make his fortune, and immortalise as the 
 real ones do, you know the people he has done busts 
 of and the women he has loved ?" 
 
 "Well, that s a large order," said Rowland. "I 
 don t prophesy, but I ve good hopes." 
 
 Christina was silent. She stretched out her bare 
 arm and looked at it a moment absently, turning it so 
 as to see or almost to see the dimple in her 
 elbow. This was apparently a frequent gesture with 
 her; Rowland had already observed it. It was as 
 coolly and naturally done as if she had been alone 
 before her toilet-table. "So he s one of the glories- 
 to-be!" she suddenly resumed. "Don t you think I 
 ought to be extremely flattered to have one of the 
 glories-to-be perpetually hanging about ? He s the 
 first such young lion I ever saw, but I should have 
 known he was not a common mortal. There s some 
 thing strange about him. To begin with he has no 
 manners. You may say that it s not for me to blame 
 him, since I ve none myself. That s very true, but 
 
 212 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the difference is that I can have them when I wish to 
 (and very charming ones too; I 11 show you some 
 day); whereas Mr. Hudson will never, never, never 
 arrive and thank God after all at the least little 
 tenue. For somehow one sees he s a gentleman. He 
 seems to have something urging, driving, pushing 
 him, making him restless and defiant. You see it in 
 his eyes. They re the finest, by the way, I ever saw. 
 When a person has such eyes you forgive him his bad 
 manners. I suppose they represent what s called the 
 sacred fire." 
 
 Rowland made no answer except to ask her in a 
 moment if she would have another roll. She merely 
 shook her head and went on 
 
 "Tell me how you found him. Where was he 
 how was he ?" 
 
 "He was in a place called Northampton Mass. 
 Did you ever hear of it ? He was studying law. I 
 don t say he was learning it." 
 
 "It appears it was something horrible, eh?" 
 
 "Something horrible?" 
 
 "This little village. No society, no pleasures, no 
 beauty, no interest." 
 
 "You ve received a false impression. Northampton 
 is n t so gay as Rome, but Roderick had some charm 
 ing friends." 
 
 "Tell me all about them. Who were his charming 
 friends ?" 
 
 "Well, there was my cousin, through whom I made 
 his acquaintance a delightful woman." 
 
 "Young pretty ?" 
 
 "Yes, a good deal of both. And very clever." 
 213 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Did he make love to her?" 
 
 "Not in the least." 
 
 "Well, who else?" 
 
 " He lived with his mother. She s quite the best 
 of women." 
 
 "Ah yes, I know all that one s mother is. But she 
 does not count as society. And who else ?" 
 
 Rowland hesitated. He wondered whether Chris 
 tina s insistence were the result of a general interest in 
 Roderick s antecedents or of a particular suspicion. 
 He looked at her; she was looking at him a little as 
 kance, waiting for his answer. As Roderick had said 
 nothing about his engagement to the Cavaliere it was 
 probable that with this object of his admiration he 
 had not been more explicit. And yet the thing was 
 announced, it was public; the other person concerned 
 was happy in it, proud of it. Rowland, thinking of the 
 other person, felt a kind of vicarious resentment. But 
 he kept silence a moment longer. He deliberated 
 intently. 
 
 "What in the world are you frowning at?" said 
 Christina. 
 
 "There was some one else quite his principal 
 friend; the young lady to whom he s engaged." 
 
 Christina stared, raising her eyebrows. "Ah, Mr. 
 Hudson s engaged ? " she said very simply. "Is she 
 interesting, is she pretty?" 
 
 "Very interesting, I think, as engaged to him" 
 Rowland meant to practise great brevity, but in a 
 moment he found himself saying: "And I also call 
 her handsome." 
 
 "Ah then you like her, too? You must be glad 
 214 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of that, and so must he," Christina went on. " But 
 why don t they marry ?" 
 
 "Roderick s waiting till he can afford it." 
 
 Christina slowly put out her arm again and looked 
 at the dimple in her elbow. "Ah, il y a qa ? He never 
 told me." 
 
 Rowland perceived at this moment that the people 
 about were ebbing back to the ball-room, and imme 
 diately afterwards he saw Roderick making his way 
 to themselves. The young man stood the next mo 
 ment before Miss Light. 
 
 " I don t claim that you ve promised me the cotil 
 lon," he said, "but I consider you ve given me hopes 
 which warrant the confidence that you 11 dance it 
 with me." 
 
 Christina looked at him a moment. "Certainly 
 I ve made no promises," she said. "It seemed to me 
 that, as the daughter of the house, I should keep my 
 self free and let it depend on circumstances." 
 
 "Then I very earnestly entreat you." And the 
 pressure was still more in the tone than in the 
 words. 
 
 Christina rose and began to laugh. "You say that 
 very well, but the Italians do it better." 
 
 This assertion seemed likely to be put to the proof, 
 as Mrs. Light now hastily approached leading rather 
 than led by a tall, slim, brown young man whose face 
 was like a prize-design and whose race was vivid 
 in his type. "My precious love," she cried, "what 
 a place to hide in! We ve been looking for you 
 for twenty minutes; I ve chosen a cavalier for you 
 and chosen well!" 
 
 215 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 The young man disengaged himself, made a cere 
 monious bow, clasped his two hands and murmured 
 with an ecstatic smile "May I venture to hope, 
 dear signorina, for the honour of your hand ?" 
 
 "It would be fine if you mightn t!" said Mrs. 
 Light. "The honour s for us!" 
 
 Christina hesitated but a moment, then swept 
 the young man a curtsey as profound as his own 
 salutation. "You re very kind, Prince, but you re 
 too late. I Ve just accepted!" 
 
 "Ah, voyons, my own darling!" murmured 
 almost moaned Mrs. Light. 
 
 Christina and Roderick exchanged a single glance 
 a glance caught by Rowland and which attested 
 on the part of each something of a new conscious 
 ness. She passed her hand into his arm; he tossed 
 his ambrosial locks and led her away. 
 
 A short time afterwards Rowland saw the young 
 man she had rejected leaning against a doorway. 
 His countenance, constructed and regular, was yet as 
 heavy as if it had been, for brow, nose and mouth, 
 all cornice, column and basement. A portrait-figure 
 of some Renaissance court where poison was used, 
 his rather lustreless part there would have been to 
 die of it. But he was distinguished and bored; he 
 fingered his young moustache broodingly, as if it 
 had been the relic of an ancestor, and looked up 
 nostalgically at the rococo mythological world of the 
 fine old florid ceiling. The creatures there would 
 have indeed been more his company and his "form," 
 Rowland thought, than the modern polyglot crowd. 
 Rowland espied the Cavaliere Giacosa hard by 
 
 216 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and, having joined him, asked him the young man s 
 name. 
 
 "Oh, he s a pezzo grossol A rich Neapolitan. 
 Prince Casamassima." 
 
ONE day on entering Roderick s lodging (not the 
 modest rooms on the Ripetta which he had first oc 
 cupied, but a much ampler apartment on the Corso) 
 Rowland found a letter on the table addressed to 
 himself. It was from Roderick and consisted of but 
 three lines. "I m gone to Frascati for medita 
 tion. If I m not at home on Friday you had better 
 join me." On Friday he was still absent, and Row 
 land went out to Frascati. Here he found his friend 
 living at the inn and spending his days, according 
 to his own account, lying under the trees of Villa 
 Mondragone and reading Ariosto. He was melan 
 choly, almost morose; his subjects of "meditation" 
 seemed not to have been happy. Nothing especially 
 pertinent to our narrative had passed between the 
 two young men since Mrs. Light s ball save a few 
 words bearing on a passage of that entertainment. 
 Rowland had informed Roderick the next day that 
 he had told Miss Light of his engagement, and had 
 addend: "I don t know whether you 11 thank me, 
 but it s my duty to let you know it. Miss Light per 
 haps has already done so." 
 
 Roderick stared hard an instant, his colour rising. 
 "Why should I not thank you? I m not ashamed 
 of my engagement." 
 
 "As you had not spoken of it yourself I thought 
 you might have a reason for not having it known." 
 
 218 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "A man does n t gossip about such a matter with 
 strangers," Roderick rejoined; and the ring of irri 
 tation was in his voice. 
 
 "With strangers no!" said Rowland, smiling. 
 
 Roderick continued his work; but, after a moment, 
 turning round with a frown, " If you supposed I had 
 a reason for being silent, pray why should you have 
 spoken?" he demanded. 
 
 " I did n t speak idly, my dear man. I weighed 
 the matter first, and promised myself to let you 
 know immediately afterwards. It seemed to me 
 Miss Light had better have it in her head that your 
 faith and honour are pledged." 
 
 "The Cavaliere then has put it into yours that I m 
 making love to her?" 
 
 "No; in that case I should n t have spoken to her 
 first." 
 
 "Do you mean then that she s making love to 
 me?" 
 
 "This is what I mean," said Rowland after a 
 pause. "She finds you fitfully but unmistakeably 
 interesting, and she s pleased, even though she may 
 feign indifference, at your finding her more continu 
 ously so. I said to myself that it might save her some 
 little waste of imagination to know without delay 
 that you re not at liberty to become indefinitely 
 interested in other women." 
 
 "You seem to have taken the measure of my 
 liberty with extraordinary minuteness," Roderick 
 observed. 
 
 "You must do me justice then. I m the cause 
 of your separation from Miss Garland, the cause of 
 
 219 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 your being exposed to influences and opportunities 
 here that she hardly even dreams of. How could I 
 ever meet her again," Rowland continued with much 
 warmth of tone, "if at the end of it all she should 
 find herself short ?" 
 
 "I had no idea she had made such an impression 
 on you. You re too anxious and, I really think, 
 too zealous. I take it she did n t really request you 
 to look after her affairs." 
 
 "If anything happens to you I m accountable. 
 You must understand that." 
 
 "That s a view of the situation I can t accept in 
 your own interest no less than in mine. It can only 
 make us both very uncomfortable. I know all I owe 
 you; I feel it: you know that. But I m not a small 
 boy nor a country lout any longer, and whatever I do 
 I do with my eyes open. When I do well the merit s 
 my own; if I do ill the fault s my own. The idea that 
 I make you nervous is not to be borne. Dedicate 
 your nerves to some better cause, and believe that if 
 Miss Garland and I have a quarrel we shall settle it 
 between ourselves." 
 
 Rowland had found himself wondering shortly be 
 fore whether possibly his brilliant young friend were 
 without a conscience; now it dimly occurred to him 
 that he was without that indispensable aid to com 
 pleteness, a feeling heart. Rowland, as we have al 
 ready intimated, was a man of moral passion, and 
 no small part of that motive force had been spent in 
 this adventure. There had been from the first no pro 
 testations of friendship on either side, but Rowland 
 had implicitly offered everything that belongs to friend- 
 
 220 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ship, and Roderick had to every appearance as de 
 liberately accepted it. Rowland indeed had taken 
 an exquisite satisfaction in his companion s easy, 
 inexpressive assent to his interest in him. "Here s 
 an uncommonly fine thing," he said to himself; "a 
 nature all unconsciously grateful, a man in whom 
 friendship does the thing that love alone generally 
 has the credit of knocks the bottom out of pride." 
 His reflective judgement of his companion, as time 
 went on, had indulged in a great many irrepressible 
 vagaries; but his affection, his sense of something 
 in the other s whole personality that appealed to his 
 tenderness and charmed his understanding, had never 
 for an instant faltered. He listened to Roderick s 
 last words, and then he smiled as he rarely smiled 
 with bitterness. 
 
 "I don t at all like your telling me I m meddlesome. 
 If I had n t been meddlesome I should never have 
 cared a fig for you." 
 
 Roderick flushed deeply and thrust his modelling- 
 tool up to the handle into the clay. "Say it outright 
 - as you want to. You ve been an awful fool to 
 believe in me." 
 
 "I don t want to say it, and you don t honestly 
 believe I do," said Rowland, all in patience. " It 
 seems to me I m really very good-natured even to 
 reply to such nonsense." 
 
 Roderick sat down, crossed his arms and fixed 
 his eyes on the floor. Rowland looked at him for some 
 moments; it seemed to him that he had never so 
 clearly perceived him as all strangely and endlessly 
 mixed with his abundance and his scarcity, his power 
 
 221 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to charm and his power to hurt, the possibilities of 
 his egotism, the uncertainties of his temper, the de 
 licacies of his mind. It would have made him quite 
 sick, however, to think that on the whole the values 
 in such a spirit were not much larger than the voids, 
 and he was so far from having ceased to believe in 
 it that he felt just now more than ever that a fine 
 moral agitation, adding a zest to life, is the inevit 
 able portion of those who, themselves unendowed, 
 yet share romantically the pursuits of the inspired. 
 Rowland, who had not a grain of genius either to 
 make one say he was an interested reasoner or to 
 enable one to feel that he could afford a dangerous 
 theory or two, adhered to his conviction of the es 
 sential salubrity of genius. Suddenly he felt a rush 
 of pity for his companion, whose beautiful faculty of 
 production was thus a double-edged instrument, sus 
 ceptible of being dealt in back-handed blows at its 
 possessor. Genius was priceless, beneficent, divine, 
 but it was also at its hours capricious, sinister, cruel; 
 and natures ridden by it, accordingly, were alter 
 nately very enviable and very helpless. It was not 
 the first time he had had a sense of Roderick s stand 
 ing passive in the clutch of his temperament. It had 
 shaken him as yet but with a half good-humoured 
 wantonness; but henceforth possibly it meant to 
 handle him more roughly. These were not times, 
 therefore, for a friend to have a short patience. 
 
 "When you err you say the fault s your own," he 
 said at last. "It s because your faults are your own 
 that I heed them." 
 
 Rowland s voice, when he spoke with feeling, had 
 222 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 an extraordinary amenity. Roderick sat staring a 
 moment longer at the floor, then he sprang up and 
 laid his hand affectionately on his friend s shoulder. 
 "You re the best man in the world," he said, "and 
 I m a vile brute. Only," he added, in a moment, 
 " you dont understand me!" And he looked at him out 
 of such bottomless depths as might have formed the 
 element of a shining merman who should be trying, 
 comparatively near shore, to signal to a ruminating ox. 
 
 Rowland s own face was now a confession of his 
 probably being indeed too heavy to float in such 
 waters. "What is it now ? Explain." 
 
 "Oh, I can t explain!" cried Roderick impatiently, 
 returning to his work. " I ve only one way of express 
 ing my deepest feelings it s this." And he swung 
 his tool. He stood looking at the half-wrought clay 
 for a moment and then flung the instrument down. 
 "And even this half the time plays me false!" 
 
 Rowland felt that his irritation had not subsided, 
 but he nevertheless risked, for a decent consistency s 
 sake, the words he had had on his conscience from the 
 beginning. "We must do what we can and be thank 
 ful," he said. "And let me assure you of this that 
 the practice of your talent will never see you out of one 
 kind of difficulty only just to expose you to another." 
 
 Roderick pressed his hand to his forehead with 
 vehemence, and then shook it in the air despairingly; 
 a gesture that had of late become frequent with him. 
 "No, no, it s no use; you don t understand me. But 
 I don t blame you. You can t!" 
 
 "You think it will then ?" said Rowland, to whom 
 it had suddenly occurred that he sincerely might. 
 
 223 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I think that when you expect a man to produce 
 beautiful and wonderful works of art you ought to 
 allow him a certain freedom of action, you ought to 
 give him a long rope, you ought to let him follow his 
 fancy and look for his material wherever he thinks he 
 may find it. A mother can t nurse her child unless she 
 follows a certain diet; an artist can t bring his visions 
 to maturity unless he has a certain experience. You 
 demand of us to be imaginative, and you deny us the 
 things that feed the imagination. In labour we must 
 be as passionate as the inspired sibyl; in life we must 
 be as regular as the postman and as satisfactory as the 
 cook. It won t do, you know, my dear chap. When 
 you ve an artist to deal with you must take him as he 
 is, good and bad together. I don t say they re pleas 
 ant creatures to know or easy creatures to live with; 
 I don t say they satisfy themselves any better than 
 other people. I only say that if you want them to pro 
 duce you must let them conceive. If you want a bird 
 to sing you must n t cover up its cage. Shoot them, 
 the poor devils, drown them, exterminate them, if you 
 will, in the interest of public morality: it may be mo 
 rality would gain I dare say it would. But if you 
 suffer them to live, let them live on their own terms 
 and according to their own inexorable needs!" 
 
 " I Ve no wish whatever either to shoot you or to 
 drown you," Rowland perhaps a little infelicitously 
 laughed. "Why defend yourself with such very big 
 guns against a warning offered you altogether in the 
 interest of your freest development ? Do you really 
 mean that you ve an inexorable need of an intimate 
 relation with Miss Light ? a relation as to the felicity 
 
 224 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of which there may be differences of opinion, but 
 which can t, at best, under the circumstances, be 
 called innocent. Your last summer s adventures were 
 more so! As for the terms on which you re to live, 
 I had an idea you had arranged them otherwise." 
 
 "I ve arranged nothing thank God! I don t 
 pretend to arrange. I m young and ardent and in 
 quisitive, and I m interested in that young woman. 
 That s enough. I shall go as far as the interest leads 
 me. I m not afraid. Your genuine artist may be 
 sometimes half a madman, but he s never even half 
 a coward!" 
 
 " I see; it s a speculation. But suppose that in your 
 speculation you should come to grief artistically as 
 well as what shall I say ? more intimately." 
 
 "Well then, I must take life as it comes I can t 
 always be arranging grand bargains. If I m to 
 fizzle out, the sooner I know it the better. Sometimes 
 I half suspect it. But let me at least go out and recon 
 noitre for the enemy, and not sit here waiting for him, 
 cudgelling my brains for ideas that won t come!" 
 
 Do what he would, Rowland could not think of 
 Roderick s theory of the fell play of experiment, espe 
 cially as applied in the case under discussion, as any 
 thing but a pernicious illusion. But he saw it was vain 
 to discuss the matter, for inclination was powerfully 
 on his friend s side. He laid his two hands on his 
 shoulders, held him hard, with troubled eyes, then 
 shook a mournful head and turned away. 
 
 " I can t work any more," said Roderick. "You put 
 an end to that. I ll go and stroll on the Pincian." And 
 he tossed aside his blouse and prepared himself for 
 
 225 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the street. As he was arranging his necktie before the 
 glass something occurred to him that made him 
 thoughtful. He stopped a few moments later, as they 
 were going out, with his hand on the door-knob. 
 "You did from your own point of view an indiscreet 
 thing, you know, to tell Miss Light of my engage 
 
 ment." 
 
 Rowland faced him in a manner which was partly 
 a protest, but also partly a recognition. 
 
 "If she s the particular sort of vampire you seem 
 to take her for," Roderick added, "you ve only given 
 her an incentive." 
 
 "And that s the girl you propose to devote yourself 
 to?" his companion cried. 
 
 " Oh, I don t say it, mind ! I only say well, I say 
 that the next time you mean to render me a service 
 it will be safest for you to give me notice before 
 hand!" 
 
 It was perfectly characteristic of Roderick that a 
 fortnight later he should have let his friend know that 
 he depended upon him for society at Frascati as freely 
 as if no irritating topic had ever been discussed be 
 tween them. Rowland thought him generous, and he 
 had at any rate a liberal faculty of forgetting that he 
 had given you any reason to be displeased with him. 
 It was equally characteristic of Rowland that he com 
 plied with his friend s summons without a moment s 
 hesitation. His cousin Cecilia had once told him that 
 he was too credulous to have a right to be kind. She 
 put the case with too little favour, or too much, as 
 the reader chooses; it is certain at least that he gave 
 others, as a general thing, the benefit of any doubt, 
 
 226 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 reserving for himself the detriment. Nothing hap 
 pened, however, to suggest to him that he was de 
 luded in thinking that Roderick s secondary impulses 
 were the prompt saving ones, and that his nature as a 
 mixed whole tasted distinctly more of its sweet than of 
 its bitter parts. The wind had dropped, at all events, 
 for the time, round the young man s head, even if the 
 cloud had not lifted; he was lazy, listless and de 
 tached, but he had never been so softly submissive. 
 Winter had begun by the calendar, yet the weather 
 was divinely mild, and the companions took long slow 
 strolls on the hills and lounged away the mornings in 
 the villas. The villas at Frascati make infinitely for 
 peace and are rich in the romantic note. Roderick, as 
 he had said, was meditating, and if a masterpiece was 
 to come of his meditations Rowland could hold his 
 breath for it with the best will in the world. But 
 Roderick let him know from the first that he was in 
 a miserably sterile mood, and, cudgel his brains as he 
 would, could think of nothing that would serve for 
 the statue he was to make for Mr. Leavenworth. 
 
 "It s worse out here than in Rome," he said, "for 
 here I m face to face with the dead blank of my mind. 
 There I could n t think of anything either, but there I 
 found things that helped me to live without thought." 
 This was as free a renewed tribute to forbidden fruit 
 as could have hoped to pass; it seemed indeed to 
 Rowland surprisingly free a lively instance of his 
 friend s disassociated manner of looking, as might 
 have been said, at the time of day. Roderick was 
 silent sometimes for hours, with a vague anxiety in 
 his face and a new fold between his even eyebrows; at 
 
 227 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 other times he restlessly talked, though in a fitful, 
 musing monologue. Rowland could have felt it his 
 duty at moments to offer to feel his pulse; he won 
 dered if he had n t symptoms of fever. Roderick had 
 taken a great fancy to Villa Mondragone, and used to 
 pay it florid compliments as they strolled, in the win 
 ter sunshine, on the great terrace which looks toward 
 Tivoli and the iridescent Sabine hills. He carried his 
 volume of Ariosto in his pocket and took it out every 
 now and then to spout passages to his companion. He 
 was as a general thing very little of a reader; but at 
 intervals he would take a fancy to one of the classics 
 and nose over it as for the flowers. He had picked up 
 Italian without study, and gave it a wonderful sound, 
 though in reading aloud he ruined the sense of half 
 his admirations and felicities. Rowland, who pro 
 nounced badly but understood everything, once said 
 to him that Ariosto was not the poet for a man of his 
 craft; a sculptor should above all make a companion 
 of Dante. So he gave him a fine old copy of the 
 Inferno, a high rarity, one of his portable treasures, 
 and advised him to make it familiar. Roderick took it 
 responsively perhaps he should find it tonic; but 
 he had renounced it the next day: he had found it 
 horribly depressing. 
 
 "A sculptor should model as Dante writes you re 
 right there," he said. "But when his genius is in 
 eclipse Dante s a dreadfully smoky lamp. By what 
 perversity of fate," he went on, "has it come about 
 that I find myself a sculptor at all ? A sculptor s 
 such a confoundedly special genius; there are so 
 few subjects he can treat, so few things in life that 
 
 228 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 bear upon his work, so few moods in which he him 
 self is inclined to it." (It may be noted that Row 
 land had heard him a dozen times affirm the flat 
 reverse of all this.) "If I had only been a painter 
 a little, quiet, docile, matter-of-fact painter like our 
 friend Singleton I should only have to open my 
 Ariosto here to find a subject, to find colour and at 
 titudes, stuffs and composition; I should only have 
 to look up from the page at that mouldy old fountain 
 against the blue sky, at that cypress alley wander 
 ing away like a procession of priests in couples, at 
 the crags and hollows of the Sabines there, to find my 
 picture begun. Best of all would it be to be Ariosto 
 himself or one of his brotherhood. Then everything 
 in nature would give you a hint, and every form of 
 beauty be part of your stock. You would n t have 
 to look at things only to say with tears of rage half 
 the time Oh yes, it s wonderfully pretty, but 
 what the devil can I do with it ? But a sculptor now, 
 come! That s a pretty trade for a fellow who has 
 got his living to make, and yet is so damnably con 
 stituted that he can t work, on the one hand, unless 
 the trumpet really sounds, and can t play, on the 
 other, either at working or at anything else, while 
 he s waiting for its call. You can t model the serge- 
 coated cypresses, nor those mouldering old Tritons 
 and all the sunny sadness of that dried-up fountain; 
 you can t put the light into marble the lovely, 
 caressing, consenting Italian light that you get so 
 much of for nothing. Say that a dozen times in his 
 life a man has a completely plastic vision a vision 
 in which the imagination recognises a real, valid 
 
 229 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 subject and the subject reacts on the imagination. 
 It s a remunerative rate of production, and the in 
 tervals are convenient!" 
 
 One morning as the young men were at their ease 
 on the sun-warmed grass at the foot of one of the 
 slanting pines of the Villa, Roderick gave himself up 
 to a free and beautiful consideration of the possible 
 mischances of genius. " What if the watch should run 
 down," he asked, "and you should lose the key? 
 What if you should wake up some morning and find 
 it stopped inexorably, appallingly stopped ? Such 
 things have been, and the poor devils to whom they 
 happened have had to grin and bear it. The whole 
 matter of genius is a mystery. It bloweth where it 
 listeth, and we know nothing of its mechanism. If 
 it gets out of order we can t mend it; if it breaks 
 down altogether we can t set it going again. We 
 must let it choose its own pace and hold our breath 
 lest it should lose its balance. It s dealt out in dif 
 ferent doses, in big cups and little, and when you 
 have consumed your portion it s as naif to ask for 
 more as it was for Oliver Twist to ask for more 
 porridge. Lucky for you if you ve got one of the 
 big cups; we drink them down in the dark and 
 we can t tell their size until we tip them up and hear 
 the last gurgle. Those of some men last for life; 
 those of others for a couple of years. I say, what are 
 you grinning at ?" he went on as in the best possible 
 faith. " Nothing is more common than for an artist 
 who has set out on his journey on a high-stepping 
 horse to find himself all of a sudden dismounted and 
 invited to go his way on foot. You can number them 
 
 230 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 by the thousand the people of two or three suc 
 cesses; the poor fellows whose candle burnt out in 
 a night. Some of them groped their way along with 
 out it, some of them gave themselves up for blind 
 and sat down by the wayside to beg. Who shall say 
 that I am not one of these ? Who shall assure me 
 that my credit is for an unlimited sum ? Nothing 
 proves it, and I never claimed it; or if I did, I did so 
 in the mere boyish joy of shaking off the dust of my 
 desert. If you believed so, my dear fellow, you did 
 it at your own risk. What am I, what are the best of 
 us, but a desperate experiment ? Do I more or less 
 idiotically succeed do I more or less sublimely 
 fail ? I seem to myself to be the last circumstance 
 it depends on. I m prepared, at any rate, for a fizzle. 
 It won t be a tragedy, simply because I sha n t as 
 sist at it. The end of my work shall be the end of 
 my life. When I ve played my last card I shall 
 cease to care for the game. I m not making vulgar 
 threats of the dagger or the bowl; for destiny, I trust, 
 won t make me further ridiculous by forcing me pub 
 licly to fumble with them. But I have a conviction 
 that if the hour strikes here" and he tapped his fore 
 head, "I shall disappear, dissolve, be carried off in 
 a something as pretty, let us hope, as the drifted 
 spray of a fountain; that s what I shall have been. 
 For the past ten days I Ve had the vision of some 
 such fate perpetually swimming before me. My mind 
 is like a dead calm in the tropics, and my imagina 
 tion as motionless as the blighted ship in the An 
 cient Mariner !" 
 
 Rowland listened to this outpouring, as he often 
 231 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 had occasion to listen to Roderick s flights of elo 
 quence, with a number of mental restrictions. Both 
 in gravity and in gaiety he said more than he meant, 
 and you did him simple justice if you privately con 
 cluded that neither the glow of purpose nor the chill 
 of despair was of so intense a strain as his gift, for 
 expression implied. The moods of an artist, his exalta 
 tions 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 never 
 theless true that at present poor Roderick showed 
 grave symptoms of a general breakage of his springs. 
 As to genius held or not held on the precarious 
 tenure he had sketched, Rowland had to confess 
 himself too much of an outsider to argue. He secretly 
 but heavily sighed; he wished his companion had 
 had a trifle more of little Sam Singleton s pedestrian 
 patience. But then was Sam Singleton a man of 
 genius ? He answered that such questions struck 
 him as idle, even inane ; that the proof of the pud 
 ding was in the eating; that he knew nothing about 
 bringing dead things back to life again, but that 
 you might sometimes pull a man out of bed who 
 would n t get up. "Don t worry about your mood," 
 he prosaically pleaded, "and don t believe there s 
 any calm so utter that your own lungs can t ruffle 
 it with a breeze. If you ve pressing business to attend 
 to don t wait to settle the name and work out the 
 pedigree of the agent you despatch on it: tumble to 
 work somehow and see what it looks like afterwards." 
 
 232 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I ve a prejudice against tumbling, anywhere," 
 Roderick rejoined; "the pleasure of motion for me 
 is in seeing where I go. If I don t see I don t move 
 - that is I but jump up and down in the same place. 
 In other words I m an ass unless I m an angel. 
 You should talk to Gloriani: he s an ass all the while, 
 only an ass for a circus, who can stand on his hind 
 legs and fire off pistols. But you re 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." 
 
XII 
 
 HE turned his face upward to the parasol of the great 
 pine, closed his eyes and in a short time forgot his 
 hard argument. January though it was, the mild still 
 ness seemed to vibrate with faint midsummer sounds. 
 Rowland sat vaguely attentive ; he wished that for 
 their common comfort the paste of Roderick s com 
 position had had a certain softer ductility. It was 
 like something that had dried to colour, to brilliancy; 
 but had n t it also dried to brittleness ? Suddenly, to 
 his musing sense, the soft atmospheric hum was over- 
 scored with distincter sounds. He heard voices be 
 yond a mass of shrubbery at the turn of a neighbour 
 ing path. In a moment one of them began to seem 
 familiar, and an instant later a large white poodle 
 emerged into view, slowly followed by his mistress. 
 Miss Light paused on seeing Rowland and his com 
 panion; but though the former perceived he was 
 recognised she gave him no greeting. Presently she 
 walked directly toward him; and then, as he rose and 
 was on the point of rousing Roderick, she laid her 
 ringer on her lips and motioned him to forbear. She 
 stood looking at the deep peace of Roderick s sleep. 
 
 "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. 
 
 234 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Why," asked Rowland, "if he s happy?" 
 
 "Oh, I want companions in misery! Besides, I 
 want to show off my dog." Roderick roused himself, 
 sat up and unconfusedly 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 fine acquired distinctness. " 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 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 set forth how, the day being lovely, she had 
 been charmed with the idea of spending it in the 
 country. And who would ever have thought of find 
 ing Mr. Mallet and Mr. Hudson asleep under a 
 tree ? 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon; I was very wide 
 awake," said Rowland. 
 
 "Don t you know that Mr. Mallet s Mr. Hudson s 
 sheep-dog?" asked Christina. "He was mounting 
 guard to keep away the wolves." 
 
 235 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "To indifferent purpose, madam!" said Rowland, 
 indicating to Mrs. Light her daughter. 
 
 "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 some 
 thing 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 Ve seen you. We consider you as an old in 
 habitant, and expect you to play host and entertain 
 
 us." 
 
 Roderick said that he could offer them nothing but 
 to show them the great terrace and its view; and ten 
 minutes later the little 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 raptures 
 of the elder lady. 
 
 "This is nothing," he said at last. "My word of 
 honour. Have you seen the terrace at San Gaetano ?" 
 
 "Ah, that merveille" murmured Mrs. Light 
 amorously. "I suppose it s magnificent!" 
 
 "It s 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!" 
 
 236 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 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 
 coach." 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 re 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 re laughing at me yet!" said the young 
 man, who had turned rather pale and stiff. 
 
 "It does n t matter," Christina went on. "We ve 
 a note of it; mamma writes all those things down in 
 a little book!" 
 
 " If you re laughed at, dear Prince, at least it s in 
 company," said Mrs. Light caressingly; and she took 
 his arm as if to combat his possible displacement 
 under the shock of her daughter s sarcasm. But the 
 Prince looked heavy-eyed at Rowland and Roderick, 
 to whom the 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 that rises above the 
 terrace. 
 
 "Not privately," said Roderick. "It s occupied 
 by a Jesuits , college for little boys." 
 
 "Can women go in ?" 
 
 237 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 " I m afraid not." And Roderick was struck with 
 the picture. " Fancy the poor little devils looking up 
 from their Latin declensions and seeing Miss Light 
 shine down on them!" 
 
 " I should like to see the poor little devils, with their 
 rosy cheeks and their long black gowns, and when 
 they were pretty I should n t scruple to kiss them. 
 But if I can t have that amusement I must have some 
 other. We must n t stand planted on this enchanting 
 terrace as if we were a row of flower-pots. We must 
 dance, we must feast, we must do something romantic, 
 poetic. Mamma has arranged, I believe, that we re 
 to go back to Frascati to lunch at the inn. I decree 
 that we lunch here and send the Cavaliere back there 
 to get the provisions! He can take the carriage, which 
 is waiting below." 
 
 Miss Light carried out this programme with a high, 
 light hand. The Cavaliere was summoned, and he 
 stood to receive her commands, uncovered and his 
 eyes cast down, as if she had been a princess address 
 ing her majordomo. She, however, took him with 
 friendly grace by his button-hole and called him a 
 dear good old Family Friend for being always so oblig 
 ing. Her spirits had risen with the occasion and she 
 talked irresistible nonsense. "Bring the best they 
 have,", she said, "no matter if it ruins us! And if the 
 best is very bad it will be all the more amusing. I 
 shall enjoy seeing Mr. Mallet try to swallow it for 
 propriety s sake. Mr. Hudson will say out like a man 
 that it s horrible stuff and that he 11 be choked first. 
 Be sure you bring a dish of macaroni; the Prince 
 must have the diet of the Neapolitan nobility. But I 
 
 238 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 leave all that to you, my poor dear Family Friend; 
 you know what s good, and you get it so cheap. Only 
 be sure, above all, you bring a guitar. Mr. Mallet 
 will play us a tune, I 11 dance with Mr. Hudson, 
 and mamma will pair off with the Prince, of whom she 
 is so fond!" 
 
 And as she concluded her recommendations she 
 patted her discreet old servitor tenderly on the 
 shoulder. He gave Rowland a covert look charged 
 with reminders " Did n t I tell you she s as good 
 as she s clever, and as clever as she s beautiful ?" 
 
 The Cavaliere returned with zealous speed, accom 
 panied by one of the servants of the inn, who bore a 
 basket containing the materials of a rustic luncheon. 
 The porter of the villa was easily induced to furnish a 
 table and half a dozen chairs, and the repast when set 
 forth was pronounced a perfect success; not so good 
 as to fail of an amusing disorder, nor yet so bad as to 
 defeat the proper function of repasts. Christina con 
 tinued to display the most charming animation and 
 compelled Rowland to reflect privately that, think 
 what one might of her, the harmonious gaiety of so 
 splendid a creature would not have been an impres 
 sion to be missed. Her good-humour was contagious. 
 Roderick, who an hour before had been descanting on 
 madness and suicide, commingled his laughter with 
 her lightest sallies; Prince Casamassima stroked his 
 young moustache and found a fine cool smile for 
 everything; his neighbour, Mrs. Light, who had 
 Rowland on the other side, made the friendliest con 
 fidences to each of the young men, and the Family 
 Friend contributed to the general hilarity by the 
 
 239 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 solemnity of his attention to his plate. As for Row 
 land, the spirit of kindly mirth prompted him to pro 
 pose the health of this useful personage. A moment 
 later he wished he had held his tongue, for although 
 the toast was drunk with demonstrative goodwill the 
 Cavaliere received it with a brief dignity of depreca 
 tion which suggested to Rowland that his diminished 
 gentility but half relished honours that savoured 
 possibly of patronage. To perform punctiliously his 
 mysterious duties toward the two ladies, and to 
 elude or to baffle observation on his own merits - 
 this clearly exhausted the Family Friend s modest 
 ambition. Rowland perceived that Mrs. Light, who 
 was not always remarkable for tact, seemed to have 
 divined his humour on this point. She touched her 
 lips with her glass, but she said nothing gracious and 
 she immediately gave another direction to the talk. 
 The old man had brought no guitar, so that when the 
 feast was over there was nothing to hold the little 
 group together. Christina wandered away with 
 Roderick to another part of the terrace; the Prince, 
 whose smile had vanished, sat gnawing the head of his 
 cane near Mrs. Light, and Rowland strolled apart 
 with the Cavaliere, to whom he wished to address a 
 friendly word of apology for the light he had played 
 a moment over his preferred obscurity. The Cava 
 liere was a mine of information upon all Roman 
 places and people; he told Rowland a number of 
 curious anecdotes of which the ancient villa was more 
 or less the subject. "If history could always be 
 taught in this fashion!" thought Rowland. "It J s the 
 ideal strolling up and down on the very spot com- 
 
 240 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 memorated, hearing out-of-the-way anecdotes from 
 deeply indigenous lips." At last, as they passed, Row 
 land observed the mournful physiognomy of Prince 
 Casamassima, and glancing towards the other end of 
 the terrace saw that Roderick and Christina had dis 
 appeared from view. The young man was sitting 
 upright in an attitude, apparently habitual, of cere 
 monious rigidity; but his lower jaw had fallen and 
 was propped up with his cane, and his dull dark eye 
 was fixed upon the angle of the villa which had just 
 eclipsed Miss Light and her companion. His features 
 kept the odd rigour of their symmetry, and his expres 
 sion was vacuous; but there was a lurking delicacy in 
 his face which seemed to tell you that nature had been 
 making Casamassimas for a great many centuries, 
 and, though she adapted her mould to circumstances, 
 had learned to mix her material to an extraordinary 
 fineness and to perform the whole operation with a 
 kind of insolent art. The Prince was stupid, Rowland 
 suspected, but he imagined he was amiable, and he 
 saw that, with his dim aspirations and alarms, he 
 felt himself in charge of the very highest interests. 
 Rowland touched his companion s arm and pointed 
 to the melancholy nobleman. 
 
 "Why in the world doesn t he go after her and 
 insist on beino; noticed ?" 
 
 5 
 
 "Oh, he J s very proud!" said the Cavaliere. 
 
 "That s all very well, but a gentleman who culti 
 vates a passion for that young lady must be prepared 
 to make sacrifices." 
 
 "He thinks he has already made a great many. He 
 comes of a very great family a race of princes who 
 
 241 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 for endless generations have sought brides only with 
 some correspondence of name and condition. But 
 he s what do you call it ? very hard hit, and he 
 would certainly stretch the point for Christina." 
 
 "Then it s she who won t stretch her point ?" 
 
 "Ah, she s very proud too!" The Cavaliere was 
 silent a moment, as if he were measuring the pro 
 priety of freedom. He seemed to have formed a high 
 opinion of Rowland s discretion, for he presently 
 continued: " It would be a great match, for she brings 
 him neither a name nor a fortune nothing but her 
 wit and her beauty. But questa ragazza will receive no 
 favours; I know her too well. She would rather have 
 her beauty blasted than seem to care about the mar 
 riage, and if she ever accepts the Prince it will be only 
 after she has kept him for months on his knees." 
 
 "But she does care about it," said Rowland, "and 
 to bring him to his knees she s working upon his 
 jealousy by pretending to be interested in my 
 friend Hudson. If you said more you would say 
 that, eh ?" 
 
 The Cavaliere s sagacity exchanged a glance with 
 Rowland s. "By no means. Christina s a drole de 
 fille. She has many romantic ideas. She would be 
 quite capable of interesting herself seriously in a re 
 markable young man like your friend and doing her 
 utmost to discourage a splendid suitor like the Prince. 
 She would act sincerely and she would go very far. 
 But it would be unfortunate for the remarkable 
 young man," he added after a pause, "for at the last 
 she d go back!" 
 
 "A drole defile indeed." 
 242 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "She would accept the more brilliant parti. I can 
 answer for it." 
 
 "And what would be the logic of her proceeding ?" 
 "She would be forced. There would be circum 
 stances, conditions, necessities, des raisons majeures. 
 I can t tell you more." 
 
 "But this implies that the rejected suitor would 
 come back to her. He might grow tired of waiting." 
 "Oh, this one s good for almost anything. Look at 
 him now." Rowland obeyed, and saw that the Prince 
 had left his place by Mrs. Light and was moving 
 restlessly to and fro between the villa and the parapet 
 of the terrace. Every now and then he consulted his 
 watch. " In this country, you know," said the Cava- 
 liere, " a young lady never goes walking alone with a 
 beau \eune homme. It seems to him very strange." 
 " It must seem to him monstrous, and if he over 
 looks it he must be very much in love." 
 
 "Oh, he 11 overlook it. He s just what you say." 
 "Who is this exemplary lover then; what is he?" 
 "A Neapolitan; of one of the oldest houses in Italy. 
 He s a prince in your English sense of the word; un 
 like most of his countrymen, even of the highest pre 
 tensions, he has a princely fortune, coming mostly from 
 his great Sicilian property. He s very young; he s 
 only just of age; he saw the signorina last winter in 
 Naples. He fell in love with her from the first, but his 
 family interfered, and an old uncle, a high ecclesiastic, 
 a Cardinal probably of the next batch, hurried up to 
 Naples, seized him and locked him up. Meantime he 
 has passed his majority, and s tl ne fait pas de bettses 
 he won t have, in the exercise of his freedom, any one 
 
 243 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 but himself to consider. His relations are moving 
 heaven and earth to prevent his marrying Miss Light, 
 and they Ve sent us word that he forfeits this, that 
 and the other if he takes his wife out of a certain line. 
 I Ve investigated the question and I find this but a 
 fiction to frighten us. He s perfectly untrammelled; 
 but the estates are such that it s no wonder they wish 
 to keep them in their own hands. It s a rare case, 
 among us, of unencumbered property. The Prince 
 has been an orphan from his third year; he has 
 therefore had a long minority and made no inroads 
 upon his fortune. Besides, he s very prudent and 
 shrewd; I m only afraid that some day he ll pull 
 the purse-strings too tight. All these years his affairs 
 have been in the hands of his reverend uncle, a man of 
 wonderful head, who has managed them to perfection 
 - paid off mortgages, planted forests, opened up 
 mines. It is now a magnificent fortune; such a for 
 tune as with his name would justify the young man in 
 pretending to any alliance whatsoever. And he lays it 
 all at the feet of that little person who s wandering 
 in yonder boschetto with a penniless artist." 
 
 "He s certainly a phoenix of princes! The signora 
 must be in the seventh heaven." 
 
 The Cavaliere looked imperturbably grave. "The 
 signora has a high esteem for his personal merit." 
 
 "Well, his personal merit," Rowland returned 
 with a smile; "what name do you give to it?" 
 
 "Eh, Prince Casamassima s a real gran signore! 
 He s a very good young man. He s not brilliant nor 
 witty, but he won t let himself be made a fool of. 
 He s a faithful son of the Church and it s lucky 
 
 244 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 for our friends that they too are children of the great 
 Mother. He s as you see him there: a young man 
 without many ideas, but with a very firm grasp of a 
 single one the conviction that Prince Casamas- 
 sima is a very great person, that he greatly honours 
 any young lady by asking for her hand, and that 
 things are going very strangely when the young lady 
 turns her back upon him. The poor young man s 
 terribly puzzled. But I whisper to him every day 
 Pazienza, Signor Principe!" 
 
 "So you firmly believe," said Rowland in conclu 
 sion, "that Miss Light will accept him just in time 
 not to lose him ?" 
 
 "I count upon it. She would fill a great position 
 too perfectly to miss her destiny." 
 
 "And you hold that nevertheless, in the mean 
 while, in allowing any sort of voice about it to my 
 friend Hudson, she will have been acting in good 
 faith?" 
 
 The Cavaliere lifted his shoulders a trifle, and 
 gave an inscrutable smile. "Eh, caro signore, our 
 young lady s very romantic!" 
 
 " So much so, you intimate, that she 11 eventually 
 give way in consequence not of a change of sentiment, 
 but of a mysterious outward pressure ?" 
 
 " If everything else fails, there s that resource. 
 But it will be mysterious, as you say, and you need n t 
 try to guess it. You won t make it out." 
 
 "It will be something then at least by which Miss 
 Light will suffer?" 
 
 "Not too much, I hope." 
 
 "And the remarkable young man? I understand 
 245 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 you that there necessarily can be nothing but dis 
 appointment in store for the infatuated youth who 
 loses his heart to her?" 
 
 The Cavaliere hesitated. "He had better," he said 
 in a moment, "go and pursue his studies in Florence. 
 There are very fine antiques in the Uffizi." 
 
 Rowland presently joined Mrs. Light, toward 
 whom her noble companion had not yet retraced his 
 restless steps. "That s right," she said; "sit down 
 here; I ve something serious to say to you. I m 
 going to talk to you as a friend. I want your assistance. 
 In fact, you must help me; it s your duty. Look at 
 that unhappy young man." 
 
 "Yes, he seems unhappy." 
 
 "He s just come of age, he bears one of the greatest 
 names in Italy, and owns one of the greatest proper 
 ties, and he s pining away with love for my daughter." 
 
 "So the Cavaliere tells me." 
 
 "It s none of the Cavaliere s business," said Mrs. 
 Light sharply. "Such information should come from 
 me. The Prince is pining, as I say; he s consumed, 
 he takes it very hard. It s a real Italian passion: I 
 know what that means!" And she rolled an eye which 
 seemed to commune with the vividness of her own 
 annals. "Meanwhile, if you please, my daughter s 
 hiding in the woods with your dear friend Mr. Hud 
 son. I could cry with rage." 
 
 "If things are as bad as that," said Rowland, "it 
 seems to me that you should find nothing easier than 
 to despatch the Cavaliere to bring the guilty couple 
 back." 
 
 "Never in the world! My hands are tied. Do you 
 246 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 know what my wretch of a girl would do ? She would 
 tell the Cavaliere to go about his business heaven 
 forgive her! and send me word that if she had 
 a mind to she would roam the woods till midnight. 
 Fancy the Cavaliere coming back and delivering 
 such a message as that before the Prince! Think of a 
 sane young woman making a mess of such a fortune! 
 He would marry her to-morrow at six o clock in the 
 morning." 
 
 "It s certainly very sad," said Rowland. 
 
 "That costs you little to say! If you had left your 
 precious young meddler to vegetate in his native 
 village you would have saved me a world of worry." 
 
 "Ah, you marched into the jaws of danger," said 
 Rowland. "You came and knocked at poor Hudson s 
 door." 
 
 "In an evil hour! I wish to goodness you would 
 talk with him." 
 
 "I talk with him a great deal. He s wonderful," 
 said Rowland, "to talk with." 
 
 "I wish then that in common consideration you 
 would take him away. You have plenty of money. 
 Do me a favour. Take him to travel. Go to the East 
 go to Timbuctoo. Then, when my daughter has 
 accepted her destiny and is settled to it," Mrs. Light 
 added in a moment, "he may come back if he 
 chooses!" 
 
 "Does she really care for him ?" Rowland abruptly 
 asked. 
 
 "The deuce knows whom she really cares for 
 even to me who have so known and so watched her 
 she s a living riddle. She has ideas of her own, and 
 
 247 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 theories and views and inspirations, each of which is 
 the best in the world until another is better. She s 
 perfectly sure about each, but they are fortunately so 
 many that she can t be sure of any one very long. 
 They may last all together, none the less, long enough 
 to dish the Prince s patience, and if that were to 
 happen I don t know what I should do. I should be 
 the most miserable of women. It would be too cruel, 
 after all I have suffered to make her what she is, to 
 see the labour of years blighted by mere wicked per 
 versity. For I can assure you, sir," Mrs. Light de 
 clared, "that if my daughter is the gifted creature 
 you see, I deserve some of the credit of the creation." 
 Rowland promptly remarked that this was obvious, 
 for he saw that the poor woman s irritated nerves 
 required the comfort of some accepted overflow and 
 he assumed designedly the attitude of a person im 
 pressed by her sacrifices. She told him then the story 
 of her efforts, her hopes, her dreams, her presenti 
 ments, her disappointments, in this exalted cause of 
 Christina s capture of a prize such a prize as would 
 really be the crown of such a fabric of visions. It was 
 a wonderful rigmarole of strange confidences, and 
 while it went on the Prince continued to pass to and 
 fro, stiffly and solemnly, like a pendulum marking the 
 time allowed for the young lady to come to her senses. 
 Mrs. Light evidently at an early period had gathered 
 her maternal and social appetites together into a 
 sacred parcel, to which she said her prayers and 
 burnt incense which she treated generally as a sort 
 of fetish. These things had been her religion; she 
 had none other, and she performed her devotions 
 
 248 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 bravely and cheerily, in the light of day. The poor 
 old fetish had been so caressed and manipulated, so 
 thrust in and out of its niche, so passed from hand to 
 hand, so dressed and undressed, so mumbled and 
 fumbled over, that it had lost by this time much of its 
 early freshness and seemed a rather battered and dis 
 featured divinity. But it was still brought forth in 
 moments of trouble, to have its tinselled petticoat 
 twisted about and be set up on its altar. Rowland 
 observed that Mrs. Light had at the service of her 
 tawdry ideal a conscience that worked in the most 
 approved and most punctual fashion; she considered 
 that she had been performing a pious duty in bringing 
 up Christina to carry herself, "marked" very high 
 and in the largest letters, to market; and when the 
 future looked dark she found consolation in thinking 
 that destiny could never have the heart to deal a blow 
 at so deserving a person. It made almost as much 
 and as comically for the topsy-turvy as if he had seen 
 the good stout lady herself stand on her head. 
 
 "I don t know whether you believe in presenti 
 ments," said Mrs. Light, "and I don t mind if you 
 think they re rubbish. I ve had one for the last 
 fifteen years, and if people have often laughed at it 
 they ve never laughed me out of it. It has been every 
 thing to me; I could n t have lived without it. One 
 must believe in something, hang it! It came to me in a 
 flash, when Christina was five years old. I remember 
 the day and the place as if it were yesterday. She was 
 a very ugly baby I give you that for a remarkable 
 fact; for the first two years I could hardly bear to 
 look at her, and I used to spoil my own looks with 
 
 249 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 crying about her. She had an Italian nurse who was 
 very fond of her and insisted that she would grow up 
 pretty. I could n t believe her, I used to contradict 
 her, and we were for ever squabbling. I was just a 
 little foolish in those days surely I may say it now 
 
 and I was very fond of being amused. If my 
 daughter was ugly, at least it was not that she re 
 sembled her mamma; I had, I don t mind telling you, 
 no lack of amusement. People accused me, I believe, 
 of neglecting my little girl; if I ever did I ve made 
 up for it since. One day I went to drive on the Pincio 
 
 I was in very low spirits. A certain person I 
 need n t name him had trifled with a confidence 
 a confidence that I had in short placed: oh my dear, 
 but placed! While I was there he passed me in a 
 carriage, driving with a horrible woman who had 
 made trouble between us. I got out of my carriage to 
 walk about and at last sat down on a bench. I can 
 show you the spot at this hour. While I sat there 
 a child came wandering along the path a little girl 
 of four or five, very fantastically dressed, in all the 
 colours of the rainbow. She stopped in front of 
 me and stared at me, and I stared at her queer little 
 dress, which was a cheap imitation of the costume 
 of one of these contadine. At last I looked up at 
 her face and said to myself: Bless me, what a 
 beautiful child! what a splendid pair of eyes, what 
 a magnificent head of hair! If my poor little Chris 
 tina were only like that! The child turned away 
 slowly, but looking back with its eyes fixed on me. 
 All of a sudden I gave a cry, pounced on it, pressed 
 it in my arms, covered it with kisses. It was Chris- 
 
 250 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tina, my own precious child, so disguised by the 
 ridiculous dress which the nurse had amused herself 
 in making for her that her own mother had n t recog 
 nised her! She knew me, but she said afterwards that 
 she had not spoken to me because I looked so angry. 
 Oh, of course, after what I had seen, the poor face of 
 me, off my guard, must have told things! I rushed 
 with my child to the carriage, drove home post haste, 
 pulled off her rags and, as I may say, wrapped her up 
 in velvet and ermine. I had been blind, I had been 
 insane; she was a creature in ten millions, she was to 
 be a beauty of beauties, a priceless treasure! Every 
 day after that the certainty grew. From that time I 
 lived only for my daughter. I watched her, I fondled 
 her from morning till night, I worshipped her. I went 
 to see doctors about her. I took every sort of advice. 
 I was determined she should be perfection. The 
 things that have been done for that girl, sir you 
 would n t believe them; they would make you smile! 
 Nothing was spared; if I had been told that she must 
 have every morning a bath of millefleurs,2it fifty francs 
 a pint, I would have found means to give it to her. 
 She never raised a finger for herself, she breathed 
 nothing but perfumes, she walked, she slept upon 
 flowers. She never was out of my sight, and from that 
 day to this I Ve never said a nasty word to her. By 
 the time she was ten years old she was beautiful as an 
 angel, and so noticed,wherever we went, that I had to 
 make her wear a veil like a woman of twenty. Her 
 hair reached down to her feet, her hands were the 
 hands of an empress. Then I saw that she was as 
 clever as she was beautiful and that she had only to 
 
 251 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 play her cards. She had masters, professors, every 
 educational advantage. They told me she was a little 
 prodigy. She speaks French, Italian, German, better 
 than most natives. She has a wonderful genius for 
 music and might make her fortune as a pianist if it 
 were not made for her otherwise. I travelled all over 
 Europe, every one told me she was a marvel. The 
 director of the opera in Paris saw her dance at a 
 child s party at Spa, and offered me an enormous 
 sum if I would give her up to him and let him have her 
 educated for the ballet. I said No, I thank you, sir; 
 she s meant to be something better than a princesse 
 de theatre I had a passionate belief that she might 
 marry absolutely whom she chose, that she might be a 
 princess of the first water. I ve never given it up, and 
 I can assure you that it has sustained me in many 
 embarrassments. Financial, some of them; I don t 
 mind confessing that. I ve raised money on that 
 girl s face! I ve taken her to the Jews and bidden her 
 put off her veil and let down her hair, show her teeth, 
 her shoulders, her arms, all sorts of things, and asked 
 if the mother of that young lady was n t safe! She of 
 course was too young to understand me. And yet, as 
 a child, you would have said she knew what was in 
 store for her; before she could read she had the 
 manners, the tastes, the instincts of a little queen. 
 She would have nothing to do with shabby things or 
 shabby people; if she stained* one of her frocks she 
 was seized with a kind of frenzy she would tear it 
 to pieces. At Nice, at Baden, at Brighton, wherever 
 we stayed, she used to be sent for by all the great 
 people to play with their children. She has played at 
 
 252 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 romps and kissing-games with people who now stand 
 on the steps of thrones. I ve gone so far as to think 
 at times that those childish kisses were a sign a 
 symbol a pledge. You may laugh at me if you like, 
 but have n t such things happened again and again 
 without half so good a cause, and does n t history 
 notoriously repeat itself ? There was a little Spanish 
 girl at a second-rate English boarding-school thirty 
 years ago! . . . The Empress, certainly, was a 
 pretty woman; but what s my Christina, pray ? I ve 
 dreamt of it sometimes every night for a month. I 
 won t tell you I ve been to consult those old women 
 who advertise in the newspapers; you 11 call me an 
 old portiere. Portiere as much as you please, when 
 I certainly would scrub floors for her! I ve refused 
 magnificent offers because I believed that somehow 
 or other if wars and revolutions were needed to 
 bring it about we should have nothing less than 
 that. There might be another coup d etat somewhere, 
 and another brilliant young sovereign looking out for 
 a wife! At last, however," Mrs. Light proceeded with 
 incomparable gravity, "since the overturning of the 
 poor king of Naples and that charming queen, and the 
 expulsion of all those dear little old-fashioned Italian 
 grand-dukes, and the dreadful radical talk that s 
 going on all over the world, it has come to seem to me 
 that with Christina in such a position I should be 
 really very nervous. Even in such a position she 
 would hold her head very high, and if anything should 
 happen to her she would make no concessions to the 
 popular fury. The best thing, if one would be prudent, 
 seems to be a nobleman of the highest possible rank 
 
 253 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 short of belonging to a reigning stock. There you see 
 one striding up and down, looking at his watch and 
 counting the minutes till my daughter reappears /* 
 
 Rowland listened to all this with a large compassion 
 for the heroine of the tale. What an education, what a 
 history, what a school of character and of morals! He 
 looked at the Prince and wondered whether he too had 
 heard Mrs. Light s story. If he had he was a brave 
 man. "I certainly hope you 11 nail him," he said to 
 Mrs. Light. "You ve played a dangerous game with 
 your daughter; it would be a pity not to win. But 
 there s hope for you yet; here she comes at last!" 
 
 Christina reappeared as he spoke these words, 
 strolling beside her companion with the same Olym 
 pian command of the air, as it were, not less than of 
 the earth, with which she had departed. Rowland 
 imagined that there was a faint pink flush in her 
 cheek which she had not carried away with her, and 
 there was certainly a light in Roderick s eyes that 
 he had not seen there for a week. 
 
 "Bless my soul, how they re all looking at us!" 
 she cried as they advanced. "One would think we 
 were prisoners of the Inquisition!" And she paused 
 and glanced from the Prince to her mother and from 
 Rowland to the Cavaliere, and then threw back her 
 head and burst into far-ringing laughter. "What is it, 
 pray ? Have I been very improper ? Am I ruined for 
 ever ? Dear Prince, you re looking at me as if I had 
 committed the unpardonable sin!" 
 
 "I myself," said the Prince, "would never have 
 ventured to ask you to walk with me alone in the 
 country for an hour!" 
 
 254 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "The more fool you, dear Prince as I should 
 say if I were vulgar and rude. Our walk has been 
 awfully interesting. I hope you, on your side, have 
 enjoyed each other s society." 
 
 "My dear daughter," said Mrs. Light, taking 
 the arm of her predestined son-in-law, "I shall have 
 something serious to say to you when we reach home. 
 We 11 go back to the carriage." 
 
 "Something serious! Decidedly it is the Inqui 
 sition. Mr. Hudson, stand firm and let us agree 
 to make no confessions without conferring pre 
 viously with each other! They may put us on the 
 rack first. Mr. Mallet I see also," Christina added, 
 "has something serious to say to me!" 
 
 Rowland had been looking at her with the shadow 
 of his lately-stirred pity in his eyes. " Possibly," he 
 said. "But it must be for some other time." 
 
 "I m always, you know, at your service. I see 
 our innocent gaiety is gone. And I only wanted to 
 be amiable! Try to go in for an artless ease! It J s 
 very discouraging. Cavaliere, you alone don t look 
 as if you wanted to bite me; from your dear old 
 stupid face, at least, there s no telling what you 
 think. Give me your arm and take me away." 
 
 The party took its course back to the carriage, 
 which was waiting in the grounds of the villa, and 
 Rowland and Roderick bade their friends farewell. 
 Christina threw herself back in her seat and closed 
 her eyes; a manoeuvre for which Rowland imagined 
 the Prince was grateful, as it enabled him to look 
 at her without seeming to depart from his attitude 
 of distinguished disapproval. 
 
 255 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland found himself roused from sleep early 
 the next morning to see Roderick standing before 
 him dressed for departure, his bag in his hand. 
 " I m off," he said "I m for work again. An 
 idea has come to me, by a miracle, and I must try 
 to set it up while I have it. Addio!" And he went 
 by the first train. Rowland followed at his ease. 
 
XIII 
 
 ROWLAND went very often to the Coliseum; he 
 had established with this monument and with its 
 exuberance of ruin, in those days all untrimmed, a 
 relation of the tenderest intimacy. One morning, 
 about a month after his return from Frascati, as 
 he was strolling across the vast arena, he observed 
 a young woman seated on one of the fragments of 
 stone which are arranged along the line of the an 
 cient parapet. It seemed to him that he had seen 
 her before, but he was unable to give her a frame. 
 Passing her again he perceived that one of the little 
 red-legged French soldiers who were at that time on 
 guard there had made her the object of an irresistible 
 military advance. She smiled upon him with a radi 
 ance, and Rowland recognised the address (it had ever 
 pleased him) of a certain comely Assunta who some 
 times opened the door for Mrs. Light s visitors. He 
 wondered what she was doing alone in the Coliseum, 
 and put it together that she had admirers as well 
 as her young mistress, but that, being without the 
 same domiciliary conveniences, she was using this 
 massive heritage of her Latin ancestors as hall of 
 audience. In other words she had an appointment 
 with her lover, who would do well from present ap 
 pearances not to delay. It was a long time since 
 Rowland had mounted to the upper tiers of the 
 great circus, and, as the day was splendid and the 
 
 25? 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 distant views promised to be particularly clear, he 
 determined to give himself this pleasure. The cus 
 todian unlocked the great wooden wicket, and he 
 climbed through the winding shafts where the eager 
 Roman crowds had pressed and surged, not paus 
 ing till he reached the highest accessible stage. The 
 views were as fine as he had supposed; the lights 
 on the Sabine mountains had never so seemed the 
 very blurs of the scroll of history. He lingered, he 
 gazed to his satisfaction; then he began to retrace 
 his steps. In a moment he paused again on an abut 
 ment somewhat lower, from which the glance dropped 
 dizzily into the deep vast cup. There are accidents 
 of ruggedness in the upper portions of the Coliseum 
 which offer a very fair imitation of the large excre 
 scences on some Alpine face. In those days a mul 
 titude of delicate flowers and sprays of wild herb 
 age had found a friendly soil in the hoary crevices, 
 and they bloomed and nodded as on the shoulders 
 of a mountain. Rowland was turning away when 
 he heard a sound of voices rise from below. He 
 had but to step slightly forward to find himself over 
 looking two persons who had seated themselves on 
 a narrow ledge in a sunny corner. They had 
 apparently an eye to extreme privacy, but they had 
 not observed that their position was commanded 
 by the abutment on which Rowland stood. One of 
 these high climbers was a lady, thickly veiled, so 
 that even if he had not been placed directly above 
 her he could not have made out her face. The 
 other was a young man whose face he also missed, 
 but who presently gave a toss of clustered locks that 
 
 258 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was equivalent to a master s signature. A moment s 
 reflexion satisfied him of the identity of the lady. 
 He had been unjust to poor Assunta, sitting patient 
 in the gloomy arena; she had not come to it on her 
 own errand. Rowland s discoveries made him hesi 
 tate and delay. Should he retire as softly as possi 
 ble, or should he call out a friendly good-morning ? 
 While he was debating he found himself hearing 
 his friends words, which availed to make him un 
 willing to retreat, and yet rendered awkward the 
 disclosure of a position that must have kept him an 
 auditor. 
 
 "If what you say is true," said Christina with 
 her silvery clearness of tone it made her words 
 rise with peculiar distinctness to Rowland s ear 
 "you re simply as weak as any other petit jeune 
 homme. I m so sorry! I hoped I really believed 
 you were strong." 
 
 "No, I m not weak," Roderick returned with 
 vehemence; "I maintain I m not weak! I m in 
 complete perhaps; but I can t help that. Incom 
 pleteness is a matter of the outfit. Weakness is a 
 matter of the will." 
 
 "Incomplete then be it, since you hold to the 
 word. It s the same thing," Christina went on, "so 
 long as it keeps you from splendid achievement. Is 
 it written then that I shall really never know what 
 I ve so often dreamed of?" 
 
 "What then have you dreamed of?" 
 
 "A man whom I can have the luxury of respect 
 ing!" cried the girl with a sudden flame. "A man 
 whom I can admire enough to make me know I m 
 
 259 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 doing it. I meet one, as I ve met more than one 
 before, whom I fondly believe to be cast in a bigger 
 mould than most of the vulgar human breed to 
 be large in character, great in talent, strong in will. 
 In such a man as that, I say, one s weary imagina 
 tion at last may rest; or may wander if it will, but 
 with the sense of coming home again a greater ad 
 venture than any other. When I first knew you I 
 gave no sign, but you had struck me. I observed 
 you as women observe, and I fancied you had the 
 sacred fire." 
 
 "Before heaven I believe I have!" Roderick broke 
 out. 
 
 "Ah, but so very little of it! It flickers and trem 
 bles and sputters; it goes out, you tell me, for whole 
 weeks together. From your own account it does n t 
 much look as if you d take either yourself or any 
 one else very far." 
 
 "I say those things sometimes myself," came in 
 Roderick s voice, "but when I hear you say them 
 they make me feel as if I could scale the skies." 
 
 "Ah, the man who s strong with what I call 
 strength," Christina replied, "would neither rise 
 nor fall by anything I could say! I m a poor weak 
 woman; I ve no strength myself, and I can give 
 no strength. I m a miserable medley of vanity 
 and folly. I m silly, I m ignorant, I m affected, 
 I m false. I m the fruit of a horrible education 
 sown on a worthless soil. I m all that, and yet I 
 believe I have one merit. I should know a great 
 character when I saw it, and I should delight in it 
 with a generosity that would do something toward 
 
 260 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the remission of my sins. For a man who should 
 really give me a certain feeling I have never had 
 it, but I should know it when it came I would 
 send Prince Casamassima and his millions to per 
 dition. I don t know what you think of me for say 
 ing all this; I suppose we have not climbed up here 
 under the skies to play propriety. Why have you 
 been at such pains to assure me, after all, that you 
 are a little man and not a great one, a weak one and 
 not a strong ? I innocently imagined at first that 
 your eyes because they re so beautiful de 
 clared you strong. I think they declare nothing 
 but just their beauty. That would be enough if 
 you were a being like me. But I want some one so 
 much better than myself ! Your voice, at any rate, 
 caro mioy condemns you; I always wondered at it; 
 it s not the voice of a conqueror!" 
 
 "Give me something to conquer," Roderick an 
 swered, "and when I say that I thank you from my 
 soul, my voice, whatever you think of it, shall speak 
 the truth!" 
 
 Christina for a moment said nothing, and Row 
 land was now too interested to think of moving. "You 
 pretend to such devotion," she went on, "and yet 
 I J m sure you have never really chosen between me 
 and that person in America." 
 
 "Do me the great favour not to speak of her," 
 Roderick almost groaned. 
 
 " Why not ? I say no ill of her, and I think all 
 kinds of good. I m certain she is a far better girl 
 than I, and far more likely to make you happy." 
 
 "This is happiness, this present palpable mo- 
 261 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 merit," said Roderick; "though you have such a 
 genius for knowing what will be most odious to me." 
 
 "It s greater happiness than you deserve then! 
 You Ve never chosen, I say; you Ve been afraid 
 to choose. You Ve never really looked in the fact 
 the fact that you re false, that you Ve broken your 
 faith. You Ve never looked at it and seen that it 
 was hideous and yet said No matter, I 11 brave 
 the penalty, I 11 bear the shame. You Ve closed 
 your eyes; you Ve tried to stifle remembrance, to 
 persuade yourself that you were not behaving so 
 badly as you seemed to be, that there would be some 
 way, after all, of doing what you liked and yet es 
 caping trouble. You Ve faltered and dodged and 
 drifted, you Ve gone on from accident to accident, 
 and I m sure that at this present moment you can t 
 tell what it is you really wish." 
 
 Roderick was sitting with his knees drawn up 
 and bent and his hands clasped round his legs. He 
 dropped his head, resting his forehead on his knees. 
 
 Christina went on with a sort of infernal pitiless 
 calm. "I believe that really you don t greatly care 
 for your friend in America any more than you do 
 for me. You re one of the men who care only for 
 themselves and for what they can make of them 
 selves. That s very well when they can make some 
 thing great, and I could interest myself in a man of 
 extraordinary power who should wish to turn all 
 his passions to account. But if the power should 
 turn out to be, after all, rather ordinary ? Fancy feel 
 ing one s self ground in the mill of a third-rate 
 talent! If you Ve doubts about yourself I can t 
 
 262 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 reassure you; I ve too many doubts myself about 
 everything in this weary world. You ve gone up 
 like a rocket in your profession, they tell me; are 
 you going to come down like the stick ? I don t pre- 
 teifd to know; I repeat frankly what I ve said 
 before that all modern sculpture seems to me 
 vulgar, and that the only things I care for are some 
 of the most battered of the antiques of the Vatican. 
 No, no, I can t reassure you; and when you tell me 
 with a confidence in my discretion of which cer 
 tainly I m duly sensible that at times you feel 
 terribly scant, why, I can only answer, Ah then, 
 my poor friend, I m afraid you are scant! The 
 language I should like to hear from a person offer 
 ing me his career is that of a confidence that would 
 knock me down." 
 
 Roderick raised his head, but said nothing; he 
 seemed to be making with his companion some long, 
 deep, dumb exchange. The result of it was that he 
 flung himself back at last with an incoherent wail. 
 Rowland, admonished by the silence, had been on 
 the point of turning away, but was arrested by a 
 sudden gesture on Christina s part. She pointed 
 a moment into the blue air, and Roderick followed 
 the direction of her gesture. 
 
 "Is that little flower we see outlined against tha 
 dark niche," she asked, "as intensely blue as it 
 looks through my veil ?" She spoke apparently with 
 the amiable design of directing the conversation into 
 a less painful channel. 
 
 Rowland, from where he stood, could see the 
 flower she meant a delicate plant of radiant hue, 
 
 263 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 which sprouted from the top of an immense frag 
 ment of wall some twenty feet from their place. 
 
 Roderick turned his head and looked at it with 
 out answering. At last glancing round, "Put up 
 your veil! " he said; and then on the girl s comply 
 ing: "Does it look as blue now?" 
 
 "Ah, what a lovely colour!" she murmured as she 
 leaned her head to one side. 
 
 "Should you like to have it?" 
 
 She stared a moment, then laughed as if in spite 
 of herself. 
 
 "Should you like to have it?" he repeated in a 
 ringing voice. 
 
 " Don t look as if you would eat me up," she an 
 swered. "Do you suppose I want you to get it for 
 me?" 
 
 Roderick rose to his feet and stood looking at 
 the little flower. It was separated from the ledge 
 on which he stood by a rugged surface of vertical 
 wall which dropped straight into the dusky vaults 
 behind the arena. Suddenly he took off his hat and 
 flung it behind him. Christina then sprang to her 
 feet. 
 
 "I 11 get it for you," he said. 
 
 She seized his arm. "Are you crazy? Do you 
 mean to kill yourself?" 
 
 "I shall not kill myself. Sit down!" 
 
 "Pardon me. Not till you do!" And she grasped 
 his arm with both hands. 
 
 Roderick shook her of? and pointed with a violent 
 gesture to her former place. "Go there!" he harshly 
 cried. 
 
 264 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "You can never, never!" she pleaded with clasped 
 hands. "I do entreat you." 
 
 Roderick turned and looked at her, and then in 
 a voice which Rowland had never heard him use, a 
 voice which roused the echoes of the mighty ruin, 
 "Sit down!" he thundered. She hesitated a moment, 
 after which she sank to the ground and buried her 
 face in her hands. 
 
 Rowland had seen all this and he saw what fol 
 lowed. He saw Roderick clasp in his left arm the 
 jagged corner of the vertical partition on which he 
 proposed to try his experiment, then stretch out his 
 leg and feel for a resting-place for his foot. Rowland 
 had measured with a hard stare and a dry throat 
 the possibility of his holding on, and pronounced it 
 uncommonly small. The wall was garnished with a 
 series of narrow projections, the remains apparently 
 of a brick cornice supporting the arch of a vault which 
 had long since collapsed. It was by lodging his toes 
 on these loose brackets, and grasping with his hands 
 at certain mouldering protuberances on a level with 
 his head, that Roderick intended to proceed. The 
 relics of the cornice were utterly worthless as a sup 
 port. Rowland s sharpened sense had made sure of 
 this, and yet for a moment he had hesitated. If the 
 thing were possible he felt a sudden high bold relish 
 of his friend s attempting it. It would be finely done, 
 it would be gallant, it would have a sort of ardent 
 authority as an answer to Christina s sinister persi 
 flage. But it was not possible! Rowland left his place 
 with a bound and scrambled down a near flight 
 of steps, and the next moment a stronger pair of 
 
 265 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 hands than Christina s were laid upon Roderick s 
 shoulders. 
 
 He turned, staring, pale and angry. Christina 
 rose, pale and staring too, but beautiful in her wonder 
 and alarm. "My dear young idiot," said Rowland, 
 " I m only preventing you from doing a very foolish 
 thing. That s an exploit for spiders, not for young 
 sculptors of promise." 
 
 Roderick wiped his forehead, looked back at the 
 wall; he closed his eyes as if with a rush of retarded 
 dizziness. " I won t resist you," he said. " But I Ve 
 made you do as I told you," he added, turning to 
 Christina. "Am I weak now?" 
 
 She had recovered her composure; she looked 
 straight past him and addressed Rowland. "Be so 
 good as to show me the way out of this horrible place!" 
 
 He helped her back into the corridor; Roderick 
 followed after a short interval. Of course, as they 
 were descending the steps, came questions for Row 
 land to meet, also more or less surprise. Where had 
 he come from ? how happened he to have appeared 
 just at that moment ? Rowland answered that he 
 had been rambling overhead and that, looking out of 
 an aperture, he had seen a gentleman preparing to 
 undertake a preposterous gymnastic feat and a lady 
 swooning away in consequence. Interference seemed 
 in order, and he had made it as prompt as possible. 
 Roderick was far from hanging his head as might 
 become a man who had been caught in the perpetra 
 tion of an extravagant folly; but if he held it more 
 erect than usual our friend believed that this was 
 much less because he had made a show of personal 
 
 266 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 daring than because he had triumphantly proved to 
 Christina that, like a certain person she had dreamed 
 of, he too could speak the language of decision. 
 Christina descended to the arena in silence, appar 
 ently occupied with her own thoughts. She betrayed 
 no sense that the sequestered nature of her interview 
 with Roderick might have invited an explanation; 
 she appeared tacitly to assume that Rowland would 
 have seen stranger things in New York. The only 
 evidence of her recent agitation was that on being 
 joined by her maid she declared that she was unable to 
 walk home she must have a carriage. A fiacre was 
 found resting in the shadow of the Arch of Constan- 
 tine, and Rowland suspected that after she had got 
 into it she disburdened herself under her veil of a few 
 natural tears. 
 
 Rowland had played eavesdropper to so good a 
 purpose that he might justly have omitted the cere 
 mony of denouncing himself to Roderick. He pre 
 ferred, however, to let him know that he had over 
 heard a portion of his talk with Christina. 
 
 "Of course it seems to you," Roderick said, "a 
 proof that I m hopelessly infatuated." 
 
 " Your companion seemed to me to know very well 
 how to handle you," Rowland returned. "She was 
 twisting you round her finger. I don t think she 
 exactly meant to defy you; but your preposterous 
 attempt to pluck the flower was a proof that she could 
 go all lengths in the way of making a fool of you." 
 
 "Yes," said Roderick meditatively; "she s quite 
 wiping her feet on me." 
 
 "And what do you expect to come of it ?" 
 267 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Not a thousand a year." And Roderick put his 
 hands into his pockets and looked as if he were 
 considering the most colourless fact in the world. 
 
 "And in the light of your late interview, what do 
 you make of your young lady ?" 
 
 " If I could tell you that, it would be plain sailing. 
 But she 11 not tell me again that I m a muff." 
 
 "Are you very sure you re much stronger than she 
 was willing to allow?" 
 
 "I may be as weak as a cat, but she shall never dare 
 she shall never care to say it!" 
 
 Rowland said no more until they reached the Corso, 
 when he asked his companion whether he were going 
 to his studio. 
 
 Roderick started out of an absence and passed his 
 hands over his eyes. "Oh no, I can t settle down to 
 work after such a scene as that. I was not afraid of 
 breaking my neck then, but I feel in a devil of a shake 
 now. I 11 go I 11 go and sit in the sun on the 
 Pincio!" 
 
 "Promise me this first," said his companion very 
 solemnly, "that the next time you meet Miss Light it 
 shall be on the earth and not in the air!" 
 
 Since his return from Frascati Roderick had been 
 working doggedly at the statue ordered by Mr. 
 Leavenworth. To Rowland s eye he had made a very 
 fair beginning, but he had himself insisted from the 
 first that he liked neither his subject nor his patron, 
 and that it was impossible to feel any warmth of inter 
 est in a work on which the baleful shadow of Mr. 
 Leavenworth was to rest. It was all against the grain; 
 he wrought without love. Nevertheless after a fashion 
 
 268 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 he wrought, and the figure grew heneath his hands. 
 Miss Blanchard s friend was ordering works of art 
 on every side, and his purveyors were in many cases 
 persons with whom Roderick declared it was an 
 infamy to be associated. There had been famous 
 tailors, he said, who declined to make you a coat 
 unless you should get the hat you were to wear with it 
 from an artist of their own choosing, and it struck 
 him that he had an equal right to exact that his 
 statue should not form part of the same system of 
 ornament as the " Pearl of Perugia," a picture by an 
 American aspirant who had, in Mr. Leavenworth s 
 opinion, an eye for colour scarcely matched since 
 Titian. As a liberal customer, Mr. Leavenworth 
 used to drop into Roderick s studio to see how things 
 were getting on and give a friendly hint or exert an 
 enlightened control. He would seat himself squarely, 
 plant his gold-topped cane between his legs, which he 
 held very much apart, rest his large white hands on 
 the head, and enunciate the principles of spiritual 
 art a species of fluid wisdom which appeared to 
 rise in bucketfuls, as he turned the crank, from the 
 well-like depths of his moral consciousness. His 
 benignant and imperturbable pomposity gave Roder 
 ick the sense of suffocating beneath an immense 
 feather-bed, and the worst of the matter was that the 
 good gentleman s placid vanity had a surface from 
 which the satiric shaft rebounded. Roderick admit 
 ted that in thinking over the tribulations of struggling 
 genius the danger of dying of too much attention had 
 never occurred to him. 
 
 The deterrent effect of the episode of the Coliseum 
 269 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was apparently of long continuance: if Roderick s 
 nerves had been shaken his hand needed time to 
 recover its steadiness. He cultivated composure upon 
 principles of his own; by frequenting entertainments 
 from which he returned at four o clock in the morning 
 and lapsing into habits which might fairly be called 
 irregular. He had hitherto made few friends among 
 the artistic fraternity; chiefly because he had taken 
 no trouble about it and because, further, there was in 
 his demeanour an elastic independence of the favour 
 of his fellow-mortals which made social advances on 
 his own part peculiarly necessary. Rowland had told 
 him on grounds that worthy might have been at 
 a loss to defend that he ought to fraternise a trifle 
 more with his colleagues, and he had always an 
 swered that he had not the smallest objection to 
 fraternising; let his colleagues arrive! They arrived 
 on rare occasions, and Roderick was not punctilious 
 about returning their visits. He declared there was 
 not one of them the fruits of whose genius gave him 
 the least desire to delve in the parent soil. For 
 Gloriani he professed a consistent contempt, and 
 having been once to look at his wares never crossed 
 his threshold again. The only one of the fraternity 
 for whom by his own admission he cared a straw 
 was small Singleton; but he took the more diverted 
 view of this humble genius whenever he encountered 
 him, and quite forgot his existence in the intervals. 
 He had never been to see him, but Singleton edged 
 his way from time to time timidly into Roderick s 
 studio, and opined with characteristic modesty that 
 brilliant fellows like Hudson might consent to receive 
 
 270 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 homage but could hardly be expected to render it. 
 Roderick never acknowledged applause, and appar 
 ently failed to follow with any curiosity the footsteps 
 of appreciation. And then his taste as to company 
 was never to be foretold. There were very good 
 fellows who were disposed to cultivate him, but who 
 bored him to crying out, and there were others 
 beyond even the wide bounds of Rowland s char 
 ity with whom he appeared to delight to rattle. He 
 gave the most fantastic reasons for his likes and 
 dislikes. He would declare he thirsted for the blood 
 of a man with a flat nose, and he would explain his 
 unaccountable fancy for some competitor wholly 
 featureless by telling you that he had an ancestor who 
 in the thirteenth century had walled up his wife alive. 
 " I like to talk to a man whose ancestor has walled up 
 his wife alive," he would say. "You may not see the 
 charm of it, and think my poor gentleman a dull dog. 
 It s very possible; I don t ask you to admire him. 
 But he appeals to me I mean that fact about him 
 does: it sets him off. The old fellow, the rude fore 
 father, left her for three days with her face exposed, 
 and placed a looking-glass opposite to her, so that she 
 could see, as he said, if her gown was a fit!" 
 
 His accessibility to odd association had led him 
 to acquaintance with a number of people outside 
 of Rowland s well-ordered circle, and he made no 
 secret of their being very queer fish. He formed 
 an intimacy, among several, with a strange char 
 acter who had come to Rome as an emissary of one 
 of the Central American republics, to drive some 
 ecclesiastical bargain with the papal government. 
 
 271 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 The Pope had given him the cold shoulder, but since 
 he had not prospered as a diplomatist he had sought 
 compensation as a man of the world, and his great 
 flamboyant curricle and negro lackeys were for 
 several weeks one of the striking ornaments of the 
 Pincian. He spoke a queer jargon of Italian, Span 
 ish, French, English, American, humorously relieved 
 with scraps of ecclesiastical Latin, and to those 
 who enquired of Roderick what he found to inter 
 est him in so "dreadful" a type, the latter would 
 reply, looking at his interlocutor with his lucid blue 
 eyes, that he had a beautiful freedom of mind. The 
 two had gone together one night to a ball given by 
 a lady of some renown in the Spanish colony, and 
 very late, on his way home, Roderick came up to 
 Rowland s rooms, in the windows of which he had 
 seen a light. Rowland was going to bed, but Rod 
 erick flung himself into an arm-chair and chattered 
 for an hour. The friends of the tropical envoy were 
 as amusing as himself, and very much in the same 
 line. The mistress of the house had worn a yellow 
 satin dress and gold heels to her slippers, and at the 
 close of the entertainment had sent for a pair of cas 
 tanets, tucked up her petticoats and danced a fan 
 dango, while the gentlemen sat cross-legged on the 
 floor. "It was awfully low," Roderick said; "all 
 of a sudden I perceived it and bolted. Nothing of 
 that kind ever amuses me to the end; before it s 
 half over it bores me to death; it makes me sick. 
 Hang it, why can t a poor fellow enjoy things in 
 peace? My illusions are all broken-winded; they 
 won t carry me twenty paces. I can t laugh and for- 
 
 272 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 get; my laugh dies away before it begins. Your 
 friend Stendhal writes on his book-covers (I never 
 got further) that he has seen too early in life la beaute 
 parfaite. I don t know how early he saw it; I saw 
 it before I was born in another state of being. 
 I can t describe it positively; I can only say I don t 
 find it anywhere now. Not at the bottom of cham 
 pagne glasses; not, strange as it may seem, in that 
 extra half-yard or so of shoulder that some women 
 have their ball-dresses cut to expose. I don t find it 
 at noisy supper-tables where half a dozen ugly men 
 with pomatumed heads are rapidly growing uglier 
 still with heat and wine; nor when I come away 
 and walk through these squalid black streets and 
 go out into the Forum and see a few old battered 
 stone posts standing there like gnawed bones stuck 
 into the earth. Everything s mean and dusky and 
 shabby, and the men and women who make up 
 this so-called brilliant society are the meanest and 
 shabbiest of all. They have no real spontaneity; 
 they are nothing but parrots and popinjays. They 
 have no more dignity than so many grasshoppers. 
 Nothing is good but one!" And he jumped up and 
 stood looking at one of his wrought figures, which 
 shone vaguely across the room in the dim lamp 
 light. 
 
 "Yes, do tell us," said Rowland, "what to hold 
 on by!" 
 
 * Those things of mine were pretty devilish good," 
 he answered. " But my idea was so much better - 
 and that s what I mean!" 
 
 Rowland said nothing. He was willing to wait 
 
 273 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 for Roderick to complete the circle of his metamor 
 phoses, but he had no desire to officiate as chorus 
 to the play. 
 
 "You think I ve the cheek of the devil himself," 
 the latter said at last, "coming up to moralise at 
 this hour of the night! You think I want to throw 
 dust into your eyes, to put you off the scent. That s 
 your eminently rational view of the case." 
 
 "Pardon my not taking any view at all," said 
 Rowland. 
 
 "You ve given me up then ?" 
 
 "No, I ve merely suspended judgement. I m 
 waiting." 
 
 Roderick looked at him a moment. "What are 
 you waiting for ? " 
 
 Rowland made an angry gesture. "Oh miserable, 
 oh merciless youth! When you ve hit your mark 
 and made people care for you, you should n t twist 
 your weapon about at that rate in their vitals. Allow 
 me to say I m sleepy. Good-night!" 
 
XIV 
 
 IT happened some days later that, on a long after 
 noon ramble, Rowland took his way through one 
 of the quiet corners of the Trastevere. He was par 
 ticularly fond of this part of Rome, though he could 
 hardly have expressed the sinister charm of it. As 
 you pass away from the dusky swarming purlieus 
 of the Ghetto you emerge into a region of empty, 
 soundless, grass-grown lanes and alleys, where the 
 shabby houses seem mouldering away in disuse and 
 yet your footstep brings figures of startling Roman 
 type to the doorways. There are few monuments 
 here, but no part of Rome seemed more oppress 
 ively historic, more weighted with a ponderous 
 past, more blighted with the melancholy of things 
 that had had their day. When the yellow afternoon 
 sunshine slept on the sallow battered walls and 
 lengthened the shadows in the grassy courtyards of 
 small closed churches the place acquired a strange 
 fascination. The church of Saint Cecilia has one of 
 these sunny waste-looking courts; the edifice seems 
 abandoned to silence and the charity of chance de 
 votion. Rowland never passed it without going in, 
 and he was generally the only visitor. He entered 
 it now, but he found that two persons had preceded 
 him, both of whom were women. One was at her 
 
 275 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 prayers at one of the side-altars; the other was 
 seated against a column at the upper end of the nave. 
 Rowland walked to the altar and paid in a moment 
 ary glance at the clever statue of the saint in death 
 in the niche beneath it the usual tribute to the charm 
 of polished ingenuity. As he turned away he looked 
 at the person seated and recognised Christina Light. 
 Seeing that she perceived him he advanced to speak 
 to her. 
 
 She was sitting in a listless manner, her hands 
 in her lap; her attitude spoke of weariness, and her 
 walking-dress, in its simplicity, of the desire to 
 escape observation. When he had greeted her he 
 glanced back at her companion and recognised the 
 faithful Assunta. 
 
 Christina found a smile to note this movement. 
 "Are you looking round for Mr. Hudson? He s 
 not here, I m happy to say." 
 
 " If he were here one might understand," said Row 
 land. "This is a strange place to meet you alone." 
 
 "It s just the place to meet me. People call me 
 a strange girl, and I might as well have the comfort 
 of it. I came to take a walk; that, by the way, is 
 part of my strangeness. I can t loll all the morning 
 on a sofa and sit perched all the afternoon in a car 
 riage. I get horribly restless; I must move; I must 
 do something and see something. Mamma suggests 
 a cup of tea. Meanwhile I put on an old dress and 
 half a dozen veils, I take Assunta under my arm 
 and we start on a pedestrian tour. It s a bore that 
 I can t take the poodle, but he attracts attention. 
 We trudge about everywhere; there s nothing I 
 
 276 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 like so much. I hope you congratulate me on the 
 simplicity of my tastes." 
 
 "I congratulate you on your great sense. To live 
 in Rome and not to walk about would, I think, be 
 poor pleasure. But you re terribly far from home, 
 and I m afraid you re rather tired." 
 
 "A little enough to sit here a while." 
 
 "Might I offer you my company while you rest ?" 
 
 "If you 11 promise to amuse me. I m in dismal 
 spirits." 
 
 Saying he would do what he could, Rowland 
 brought a chair and placed it near her. He was not 
 in love with her; he disapproved of her; he dis 
 trusted her; and yet he felt it a rare and expensive 
 privilege to watch her, and he found her presence 
 in every way important and momentous. The back 
 ground of her nature had a sort of landscape large 
 ness and was mysterious withal, emitting strange, 
 fantastic gleams and flashes. Waiting for these was 
 better sport than some kinds of fishing. Moreover 
 it was not a disadvantage to talk with a girl who 
 forced one to make sure of the sufficiency of one s 
 wit; it was like having in one s bank-book after 
 " wild " drafts : it settled the question of one s balance. 
 
 Assunta had risen from her prayers and, as he 
 took his place, was coming back to her mistress. 
 But Christina motioned her away. "No, no; while 
 you re about it say a few dozen more! Pray for me" 
 she added in English. " Pray that I say nothing silly. 
 She has been at it half an hour; I envy her volubility!" 
 
 "One envies good Catholics many things," said 
 Rowland with conscious breadth. 
 
 277 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Oh, speak to me of that! I Ve been through that 
 too, though I m not so much a good Catholic as a bad 
 one. Mamma s what I call a good one ecco! 
 There was a time when I wanted immensely to be a 
 nun; it was not a laughing matter. It was when I was 
 about sixteen years old. I read the * Imitation and 
 the Life of Saint Catherine; I fully believed in the 
 miracles of the saints and I was dying to have one of 
 my own little of a saint as I was! The least little 
 accident that could have been twisted into a mir 
 acle would have carried me straight into the cloister. 
 I had for three months positively the perfect 
 vocation. It passed away, and as I sat here just now 
 I was wondering what has become of it." 
 
 Rowland had already been sensible of something 
 in this young lady s tone which he would have de 
 scribed as an easy use of her imagination, and this 
 epitome of her religious experience failed to strike him 
 as an authentic text. But it was no disfiguring mask, 
 since she herself was evidently the foremost dupe of 
 her inventions. She had a fictitious history in which 
 she believed much more fondly than in her real one, 
 and an infinite capacity for extemporised reminis 
 cence adapted to the mood of the hour. She liked to 
 carry herself further and further, to see herself in 
 situation and action; and the vivacity and sponta 
 neity of her character gave her really a starting-point 
 in experience, so that the many-coloured flowers of 
 fiction that blossomed in her talk were perversions 
 of fact only if one could n t take them for sincerities of 
 spirit. And Rowland felt that whatever she said c r 
 herself might have been, under the imagined circum- 
 
 278 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 stances; energy was there, audacity, the restless 
 questioning soul. "I m afraid I m sadly prosaic," 
 he said, "for in these many months now that I ve 
 been in Rome I ve never ceased for a moment to 
 look at the Faith simply from the outside. I don t see 
 an opening as big as your finger-nail where I could 
 creep into it!" 
 
 "What do you believe?" asked Christina, looking 
 at him. "Do you believe anything at all ?" 
 
 " I m very old-fashioned. I believe in the grand 
 old English Bible." 
 
 " English ?" 
 
 "American then," Rowland smiled. 
 
 She let her beautiful eyes wander a while, and 
 then gave a small sigh. "You re much to be en 
 vied!" 
 
 "Oh envied !" And Rowland fairly sounded 
 bitter. 
 
 "Yes, you have rest." 
 
 "You re too young to envy anybody anything." 
 
 "I m not young; I ve never been young! My 
 mother took care of that. I was a little wrinkled old 
 
 woman at ten." 
 
 "I m afraid," said Rowland in a moment, "that 
 you re fond of overloading the picture." 
 
 She looked at him a while in silence. "Do you 
 wish to win my eternal gratitude ? Prove to me that 
 I m better than I suppose." 
 
 "I should have first to know what you really 
 suppose." 
 
 She shook her head. "It would n t do! You would 
 be horrified to learn even the things I imagine about 
 
 279 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 myself, and shocked at the knowledge of evil displayed 
 in my very mistakes." 
 
 "Well, then," said Rowland, "I ll ask no ques 
 tions. But, at a venture, I promise you to catch you 
 some day in the act of doing something very good." 
 
 "Are you too trying to flatter me ? I thought you 
 and I had fallen from the first into rather a truth- 
 speaking vein." 
 
 "Oh, I ve not given it up," said Rowland; and 
 he determined, since he had the credit of homely 
 directness, to push his advantage further. The oppor 
 tunity seemed excellent. But while he was hesitating 
 how to begin, his companion said, bending forward 
 and clasping her hands in her lap: "Please tell me 
 about your faith." 
 
 "My faith ?" 
 
 "The faith you said just now you have." 
 
 "Tell you about it?" Rowland looked cold. 
 "Never in the world!" 
 
 She flushed a little. "Is it such a mighty mystery 
 it can t be put into words or communicated to my 
 inferior mind ?" 
 
 "Such things one s way of meeting, morally, the 
 mystery of the universe lie very deep down, at the 
 bottom of one s trunk. One can t always put one s 
 hand on them in a moment." 
 
 "Then of what use are they?" Christina asked; 
 "a folded squashed garment that one never wears? 
 Deep convictions, it seems to me," she said, " should 
 be eloquent and aggressive. They should wish to make 
 converts, to persuade and illumine, to take possession ! " 
 
 " Is n t it true, rather, that the deeper they are the 
 280 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 more they take the colour of one s general disposition ? 
 I m not aggressive, and certainly I m not eloquent." 
 
 "Well, I m sure I should n t greatly care for any 
 thing you might say," Christina rejoined. " It would 
 certainly, after all, be half-hearted. You re not in 
 the least satisfied." 
 
 "How do you know that ?" 
 
 "Oh, I man observer!" 
 
 "No one s satisfied with everything, I suppose - 
 but I assure you I complain of nothing." 
 
 "So much the worse for your honesty. To begin 
 with, you re in love." 
 
 "You would n t have me complain of that!" 
 
 "And it doesn t go well. There are grievous 
 obstacles. So much I know. You need n t protest; 
 I ask no questions. You 11 tell no one me least 
 of all. Why does one never see you ? " 
 
 "Why, if I come to see you," said Rowland, de 
 liberating, "it wouldn t be, it couldn t be, for a 
 trivial reason because I had not been for a month, 
 because I was passing, because I admire you. It 
 would be because I should have something very par 
 ticular to say. I have n t come because I ve been 
 slow in making up my mind to say it." 
 
 "You re simply cruel then," the girl declared. 
 " Something particular, in this ocean of inanities ? 
 In common charity, speak!" 
 
 "I doubt whether you 11 like it." 
 
 "Oh, I hope to goodness it s not some tribute to 
 my charms!" Christina wailed. 
 
 "It may be called a tribute to your reasonable 
 ness. That s one of your charms, you know. You 
 
 281 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 perhaps remember that I gave you a hint of it the 
 other day at Frascati." 
 
 "Has it been hanging fire all this time? Then 
 let it off no matter with what bang. I promise 
 not to stop my ears." 
 
 "It relates to my friend Hudson." And Row 
 land paused. She was looking at him expectantly; 
 her face gave no other sign. "I m rather disturbed 
 in mind about him. He seems to me at times not 
 quite to have found his feet." He paused again, but 
 Christina said nothing. "The case is simply this," 
 he went on. " It was by my advice, you see, that he 
 gave up his work at home and went in for the artist s, 
 went in for this, life. I made him burn his ships, I 
 brought him to Rome, I launched him in the world, 
 and I ve undertaken to answer to to his mother 
 for his doing well. It s not such smooth sailing as 
 it might be, and I *m inclined to put up prayers for 
 fair winds. If he *s to succeed he must work 
 very quietly and very hard. It s not news to you, 
 I imagine, that Hudson s a great admirer of yours." 
 
 Christina remained silent; she turned away her 
 eyes with an air, not of confusion, but of deep de 
 liberation. Violent frankness had, as a general 
 thing, struck Rowland as the keynote of her sys 
 tem, but she had more than once given him a sug 
 gestion of an unfathomable power of calculation, 
 and her silence now had for him vaguely something 
 charged and ominous. He had of course rather 
 sounded his scruples before deciding to make to an 
 unprotected girl, for the needs of a cause and not 
 her cause, but his very own the point that another 
 
 282 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 man was in a state about her: the thing too much 
 resembled, superficially, risking the disturbance 
 of her peace. But he was clear that even rigid dis 
 cretion is not bound to take such a person at more 
 than her own estimate, and Christina presently re 
 assured him as to the limits of her susceptibility. 
 "Mr. Hudson s mad about me," she simply said. 
 
 Rowland flinched a trifle. Then, "Am I," he 
 asked, "from this poini of view of mine, to be glad 
 or sorry ?" 
 
 "I don t understand you." 
 
 "Why, is Hudson to be happy or unhappy?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "You wish him to be 
 great in his profession ? And for that you consider 
 that he must be happy in his life ?" 
 
 " Decidedly. I don t say it s a general rule, but 
 I think it s a rule for him." 
 
 "So that if he were very happy he would become 
 very great ?" 
 
 "He would at least do himself justice." 
 
 "And by that you mean a great deal?" 
 
 "A great deal." 
 
 Christina sank back in her chair and rested her 
 eyes on the cracked and polished slabs of the pave 
 ment. At last she looked up. "You Ve not forgotten, 
 I suppose, that you told me he was engaged to be 
 married ?" 
 
 "By no means." 
 
 "He s still engaged then ?" 
 
 "To the best of my belief." 
 
 "And yet you desire that, as you say, he should 
 be made happy by something I can do for him ? " 
 
 283 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "What I desire is this that your great influ 
 ence with him should be exerted for his good, that 
 it should help him and not retard him. Understand 
 me well. You probably know that your admirers, 
 your victims, have rather a hapless time of it. I can 
 answer for two of them. You don t know your own 
 mind very well, I imagine, and as you like being 
 admired the poor devil on whom you have cast 
 your spell has to pay all the expenses. Since we re 
 really being frank I wonder whether I might n t say 
 the great word." 
 
 "You need n t; I know it. I m a beastly low flirt." 
 
 "No, not a low one, rather a high one, since I m 
 making an appeal to your intelligence and your 
 generosity. I m pretty sure you can t imagine 
 yourself marrying my friend." 
 
 "There s nothing I can t imagine. That s my 
 difficulty." 
 
 Rowland s brow contracted impatiently. "/ can t 
 imagine it then!" 
 
 Christina flushed faintly; then very gently, "I m 
 not so bad as you think," she said. 
 
 "It s not a question of badness; it s a question of 
 whether the conditions don t make the thing an 
 extreme improbability." 
 
 "Worse and worse. I can be bullied then or 
 bribed ?" 
 
 "You re not so candid as you pretend to be. My 
 feeling s simply this," Rowland went on. "Hudson, 
 as I understand him, does n t need, as an artist, the 
 stimulus of strong emotion, of precarious passion. 
 He s better without it; he s emotional and passion- 
 
 284 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ate and precarious enough when left to himself. The 
 sooner passion s at rest therefore the sooner he 11 
 settle down to work, and the fewer emotions he has 
 that are mere emotions and nothing more the better 
 for him. If you cared for him enough to marry him I 
 should have nothing to say; I should never venture to 
 interfere. But I greatly guess you don t, and there 
 fore I suggest most respectfully that you leave him 
 alone." 
 
 " If I leave him alone he 11 go on like a new clock, 
 eh ?" 
 
 "He 11 do better. He 11 have no excuses, no 
 pretexts." 
 
 "Oh, he makes me a pretext, does he ? I m much 
 obliged!" cried Christina with a laugh. "What s he 
 doing now ?" 
 
 "I can hardly say. He s like a very old clock indeed. 
 He s moody, desultory, idle, irregular, fantastic." 
 
 "Heavens, what a list! And it s all poor me?" 
 
 "No, not all. But you re a part of it, and I turn to 
 you because you re a more tangible, sensible, respon 
 sible cause than the other things." 
 
 Christina raised her hand to her eyes and bent her 
 head thoughtfully. Rowland was puzzled to measure 
 the effect of his venture; she rather surprised him by 
 her mildness. At last, without moving, " If I were to 
 marry him," she asked, "what would have become of 
 his fiancee ?" 
 
 "I m bound to suppose that she would have be 
 come extremely unhappy." 
 
 Christina said nothing more, and Rowland, to let 
 her make her reflexions, left his place and strolled 
 
 285 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 away. Poor Assunta, sitting patiently on a stone 
 bench and unprovided on this occasion with military 
 consolation, gave him a bright frank smile which 
 might have been construed as an expression of regret 
 for herself and of intelligence for her mistress. Row 
 land presently seated himself again near that young 
 woman. 
 
 " What do you think of your friend s infidelity to 
 that person in the little place?" she asked with a 
 sudden look at him. 
 
 "I don t like it." 
 
 "Was he very much in love with her?" 
 
 " He requested the favour of her hand. You may 
 judge." 
 
 "Is she also poor?" 
 
 "Yes, she s also poor." 
 
 "Is she very much in love with him?" 
 
 " I know her too little to say." 
 
 She paused again and then resumed. "You Ve 
 settled in your mind then that I 11 never seriously 
 listen to him?" 
 
 "I shall think it unlikely until the contrary s 
 proved." 
 
 "How shall it be proved ? How do you know what 
 passes between us ?" 
 
 " I can judge of course only from appearances; but, 
 like you, I am an observer. Hudson has not at all to 
 me the air of the lucky lover." 
 
 " If he has a bad air there s a good reason. His 
 bad air s his bad conscience. One must hope so at 
 least. On the other hand, simply as a friend," she 
 continued gently, "you think I can do him no good ? " 
 
 286 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 The humility of her tone, combined with her beauty 
 as she made this remark, was inexpressibly touching, 
 and Rowland had an uncomfortable sense of being 
 put at a disadvantage. "There are doubtless many 
 good things you might do if you had proper oppor 
 tunity," he said. " But you seem to be sailing with a 
 current which leaves you little leisure for quiet bene 
 volence. You live in the whirl and hurry of a world 
 into which a poor artist can hardly find it to his ad 
 vantage to follow you." 
 
 "In plain English I m odiously frivolous. You 
 put it very generously." 
 
 " I won t hesitate to say all my thought," said Row 
 land. " For better or worse you seem to me to belong 
 both by character and by destiny to what is called 
 the world, the * great/ the dangerous, the delightful 
 world. You re made to ornament it magnificently 
 you re made to charm it irresistibly. You re not 
 made to be an artist s wife." 
 
 "I see. But even from your point of view that 
 would depend upon the artist. Extraordinary talent 
 might take him into the wonderful place you speak of." 
 
 Rowland smiled. "That s very true." 
 
 "If, as it is," Christina continued in a moment, 
 "you take a low view of me no, you need n t pro 
 test! I wonder what you would think if you knew 
 certain things." 
 
 "What things do you mean?" 
 
 "Well, for example, how I was brought up. I ve 
 had a horrid vulgar life. There must be some good 
 in me, since I ve perceived it, since I ve turned and 
 judged my circumstances." 
 
 287 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "My dear Miss Light !" Rowland murmured re- 
 monstrantly. 
 
 She gave an almost harsh little laugh. "You don t 
 want to hear! you don t want to have to think about 
 that!" 
 
 " Have I a right to ? You need n t justify yourself." 
 
 She turned upon him a moment the quickened 
 light of her beautiful eyes, then fell to musing again. 
 "Is there not some novel or some play," she asked at 
 last, "in which a beautiful wicked woman who has 
 ensnared a young man sees his father come to her and 
 beg her to let him go ?" 
 
 " I seem to remember many and that the wicked 
 woman generally weeps and makes the sacrifice." 
 
 "Well, I 11 try at least to weep. But tell me," she 
 continued, "shall you consider admitting your 
 proposition that in ceasing to be nice to Mr. Hud 
 son, so that he may go about his business, I do 
 something magnanimous, heroic, sublime, something 
 with a fine name like that ?" 
 
 Rowland, elated with the prospect of gaining his 
 point, was about to reply that she would deserve the 
 finest name in the world; but he instantly suspected 
 that this tone would n t please her. Besides, it 
 would n t express his meaning. "You do something 
 I shall greatly respect," he contented himself with 
 saying. 
 
 She made no answer and in a moment she beck 
 oned to her maid. "What have I to do to-day ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Assunta meditated. "Eh, it s a very busy day! 
 Fortunately I ve a better memory than the signor- 
 
 288 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ma," she said, turning to Rowland. She began to 
 count on her fingers, "We ve to go to the Pie di 
 Marmo to see about those laces that were sent to be 
 washed. You said also that you wished to say three 
 sharp words to the Buonvicini about your pink dress. 
 You want some moss rosebuds for to-night, and you 
 won t get them for nothing! You dine at the Austrian 
 Embassy, and that Frenchman s to powder your 
 hair. You re to come home in time to receive, for 
 the signora gives a dance. And so away, away till 
 morning!" 
 
 "Ah, yes, the moss roses!" -Christina rose to 
 this vision. " I must have a great lot at least a 
 hundred. Nothing but buds, eh ? You must sew 
 them in a kind of immense apron down the front of 
 my dress. Packed tight together, eh ? It will be de 
 lightfully barbarous. And then twenty more or so for 
 my hair. They go very well with powder; don t you 
 think so ?" And she turned to Rowland. "I m going 
 en Pompadour" 
 
 "Going where ?" 
 
 "To the Spanish Embassy, or whatever it is." 
 
 "All down the front, signorina ? Dio buono! You 
 must give me time!" Assunta cried. 
 
 "Yes, we ll go!" And she left her place. She 
 walked slowly to the door of the church, looking at 
 the pavement, and Rowland could n t have guessed 
 if she were thinking of her apron of moss rosebuds 
 or of her opportunity for a spiritual flight. Before 
 reaching the door she turned away and stood gazing 
 at an old picture, indistinguishable with blackness, 
 over an altar. At last they passed out into the court. 
 
 289 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Glancing at her in the open air Rowland was startled; 
 she might have been weeping like the wicked women 
 of the plays. They had lost time, she said, and they 
 must hurry; she sent Assunta to look for a coach. She 
 remained silent a while, scratching the ground with 
 the point of her parasol, and then at last, looking up, 
 she thanked Rowland for his confidence in her 
 "reasonableness." "It s really very comfortable to 
 be expected to do something good, after all the horrid 
 things one has been used to doing instructed, 
 commanded, coerced to do. I 11 think over what 
 you ve said to me." In that deserted quarter coaches 
 are rare, and there was some delay in Assunta s pro 
 curing one. Christina talked of the church, of the 
 picturesque old court, of that strange decaying corner 
 of Rome. Rowland was perplexed; he was ill at ease. 
 At last the cab arrived, but she waited a moment 
 longer. " So, decidedly," she suddenly asked, " I can 
 only hurt him ?" 
 
 "You make me feel very brutal," said Rowland. 
 
 "And he s such a fine fellow that it would be 
 really a great pity, eh ?" 
 
 " I shall praise him no more," Rowland said. 
 
 She turned away quickly, but she lingered still. 
 " Do you remember promising me, soon after we first 
 met, that at the end of six months you would tell me 
 definitely what you thought of me ?" 
 
 " It was a foolish promise." 
 
 "You gave it. Bear it in mind. I shall think of 
 what you ve said to me. Farewell." The two 
 women stepped into the carriage and it rolled away. 
 Rowland stood for some minutes looking after it, and 
 
 290 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 then went his way with a sigh. If this expressed gen 
 eral mistrust he ought three days afterwards to have 
 been reassured. He received by the post a note con 
 taining these words 
 
 j 
 " I Ve done it. Begin to respect me! 
 
 "C. L." 
 
 To be perfectly satisfactory, indeed, the note 
 required a commentary. Calling that evening upon 
 Roderick, he found one in the information offered 
 him at the door by the old serving-woman the 
 startling information that the signorina had gone to 
 Naples. 
 
XV 
 
 ABOUT a month later Rowland addressed to his 
 cousin Cecilia a letter of which the following is a 
 portion. 
 
 "... So much for myself; yet I tell you but a 
 tithe of my own story unless I let you know how 
 matters stand with poor Hudson, for he gives me 
 more to think about just now than anything else in 
 the world. I need a good deal of courage to begin 
 this chapter. You warned me, you know, and I 
 made rather light of your warning. I Ve had all 
 kinds of hopes and fears, but hitherto, in writing 
 to you, I Ve resolutely put the hopes foremost. Now, 
 however, my pride has forsaken me, and I should 
 like hugely to give expression to a little comfortable 
 despair. I should like to say, My dear wise cousin, 
 you were right and I was wrong; you were a shrewd 
 observer and I was a meddlesome donkey / When 
 I think of a certain talk we had about the * salu 
 brity of genius I feel my ears tingle. If what I Ve 
 seen is salubrity give me raging disease. I m pes 
 tered past bearing ; I go about with a chronic heart 
 ache ; there are moments when I could shed salt 
 tears. There s a pretty portrait of your dear dull 
 kinsman. I wish I could make you understand ; or 
 rather I wish you could make me. I don t under 
 stand a jot ; it s a hideous, mocking mystery ; I 
 give it up. I don t in the least give it up, you know ; 
 
 292 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 I m incapable of giving it up. I sit holding my head 
 by the hour, racking my brain, wondering what to 
 invent. You told me at Northampton that I took 
 the thing too lightly; you d tell me now perhaps 
 that I take it too hard. I do, altogether; but it can t 
 be helped. Without flattering myself I may say that 
 I m cursed with sympathy I mean as an active 
 faculty, the last of fond follies, the last of my own. 
 Wiser men, before this, would have cast their wor 
 ries to the winds and settled that the bel enfant of 
 my adoption must lie on his bed as he has made it. 
 Some people perhaps would even say I m mak 
 ing my ado about nothing, that I m crying out be 
 fore I J m hurt, or at least before he is; and that 
 in short I ve only to give him rope and he 11 tire 
 himself out. He tugs at his rope, however, much 
 too hard for me to hold it comfortably. I certainly 
 never pretended the thing was anything but an ex 
 periment; I promised nothing, I answered for no 
 thing; I only said that the case was hopeful and it 
 would be a shame not to give him a chance. I Ve 
 done my best, and if the machine J s running down 
 I ve a right to stand aside and let it rattle. Amen, 
 amen! No, I can write that, but I can t feel it. I 
 can t be just; I can only be insanely romantic. I m 
 too abjectly fond of the hapless youth; I can never 
 give him up. As for understanding him, that s 
 another matter; nowadays I don t believe even you 
 would. One s intelligence sometimes really ceases 
 to serve one over here, and I m in the way of see 
 ing more than one quaint specimen of human na 
 ture. Roderick and Miss Light, between them! . . . 
 
 293 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Have n t I already told you about Miss Light ? Last 
 winter everything was perfection. Roderick struck 
 out bravely, did really great things proved himself, 
 as I supposed, sound all through. He was strong, 
 he was first-rate; I felt perfectly secure, and paid 
 myself the most fulsome compliments. We had 
 passed at a bound into the open sea and left dan 
 ger behind. But in the summer I began to be un 
 easy, though I succeeded in keeping down alarm. 
 When he came back to Rome, however, I saw that 
 the tide had turned and that we were close upon 
 the rocks. It s in fact another case of Ulysses and 
 the Sirens; only Roderick refuses to be tied to the 
 mast. He s the most extraordinary being, the 
 strangest mixture of the clear and the obscure. I 
 don t understand so much power because it is 
 power going with so much weakness, such a 
 brilliant gift being subject to such lapses. The poor 
 fellow is n t made right, and it s really not his fault; 
 Nature has given him his faculty out of hand and 
 bidden him be hanged with it. It s as if she had 
 shied her great gold brick at him and cried Look 
 out for your head! I never knew a creature harder 
 to advise or assist when he s not in the mood for 
 listening. I suppose there s some key or other to 
 his tangle, but I try in vain to find it; and yet I 
 can t believe our stars so cruel as simply to have 
 turned the lock and thrown the key away. He makes 
 a notorious fool of me, and if he tires out my tem 
 per he does n t my attention. Sometimes I think he 
 has n t a grain of conscience and sometimes I find 
 him all too morbidly scrupulous. He takes things 
 
 294 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 at once too easy and too hard it depends on what 
 they are and has found means to be both loose and 
 rigid, indifferent and passionate. He has developed 
 faster even than you prophesied, and for good and 
 evil alike he takes up a formidable space. There s 
 too much of him for me, at any rate. Yes, he is 
 hard; there s no mistake about that. He s inflex 
 ible, he s brittle; and though he has plenty of spirit, 
 plenty of soul, he has n t what I call a heart. He 
 has something that Miss Garland took for one, and 
 I suppose her a judge. But she judged on scanty 
 evidence. He has something that Christina Light, 
 here, makes believe at times that she takes for one, 
 but she s no judge at all. I think it established that 
 in the long run egotism (in too big a dose) makes 
 a failure in conduct: is it also true that it makes a 
 failure in the arts ? . . . Roderick s standard is 
 immensely high; I must do him that justice. He 11 
 do nothing beneath it, and while he s waiting for 
 the vision to descend his imagination, his nerves, his 
 senses must have something to amuse them. This 
 is my elegant way of breaking it to you that he has 
 taken to riotous living and has just been spending 
 a month at Naples a city where amusement is 
 actively cultivated in very bad company. Are 
 they all like that, all the men of genius ? There are 
 a great many artists here who hammer away at their 
 trade with exemplary diligence; in fact I m sur 
 prised at their success in reducing the matter to a 
 virtuous habit; but I really don t think that one of 
 them has his exquisite quality of talent. The talent s 
 there, it s the application that has broken down. 
 
 295 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Nothing comes out of the bottle; he turns it upside 
 down; it refuses to flow. Sometimes he declares 
 it s empty that he has done all he was made to 
 do. This I consider great nonsense; but I would 
 nevertheless take him on his own terms if it were 
 only I that am concerned. But I keep thinking of 
 those two praying, trusting neighbours of yours, and 
 I feel like a bad bungler when I don t feel like a 
 swindler. If his working mood came at its inter 
 vals, fixed ones, I d willingly wait for it and keep 
 him on his legs somehow or other between ; but that 
 would be a sorry account to present to them! A few 
 years of this sort of thing, moreover, would effec 
 tually settle the question. I wish, heaven forgive 
 me, that he were less of a genius and more of a char 
 latan. He s too confoundedly all of one piece; he 
 won t throw overboard a grain of the cargo to save 
 the rest. Fancy him thus with all his brilliant per 
 sonal charm, his handsome head, his careless step, 
 his look as of a nervous nineteenth-century Apollo, 
 and you 11 understand that there s mighty little 
 comfort in seeing him spoil on the tree. He was ex 
 tremely perverse last summer at Baden-Baden, but 
 he finally pulled together and for some time was 
 steady. Then he began to knock about again and 
 at last toppled over. Now, literally, he s lying prone. 
 He came into my room last night miserably the 
 worse for liquor. I assure you it did n t amuse me. 
 . . . About Miss Light it s a long story. She s 
 one of the great beauties of all time and worth com 
 ing barefoot to Rome, like the pilgrims of old, to 
 see. Her complexion, her eyes, her step, the plant- 
 
 296 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ing and the mass of her dusky tresses, may have 
 been seen before in a goddess on a cloud or a nymph 
 on a Greek gem, but never in a mere modern girl. 
 And you may take this for truth, because I m not 
 in love with her. On the contrary I sometimes quite 
 detest her. Her education has been simply infernal. 
 She is corrupt, perverse, as proud as a potentate, 
 and a coquette of the first magnitude; but she s 
 intelligent and bold and free, and so awfully on the 
 lookout for sensations that if you set rightly to work 
 you may enlist her imagination in a good cause as 
 well as in a bad. The other day I tried to bring it 
 over to my side. I happened to have some talk with 
 her to which it \vas possible to give a serious turn, 
 and I boldly broke ground and begged her to suffer 
 my poor friend to go in peace. After leading me 
 rather a dance in conversation she consented, 
 and the next day, with a single word, she packed 
 him off to Naples to drown his humiliation in 
 poisonous waters. I ve come to the conclusion that 
 she s more dangerous in her virtuous moods than 
 in her vicious, and that she probably has a way of 
 turning her back which is the most maddening 
 thing in the world. She s an actress, she could n t 
 forego doing it with a flourish, and it was just the 
 flourish that made it work wrong. I wished her of 
 course to let him down easy; but she must have 
 the curtain drop on an attitude, and her attitudes 
 don t in the least do for inflammable natures. . . . 
 Roderick made an admirable bust of her at the 
 beginning of the winter, and a dozen women came 
 rushing to him to be done, mutatis mutandis, in the 
 
 297 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 same style. They were all great ladies and ready 
 to take him by the hand, but he told them all their 
 faces did n t interest him pour deux sous and sent 
 them away vowing his destruction." 
 
 At this stage of his long burst of confidence Row 
 land had paused and put by his letter. He kept it 
 three days and then read it over. He was disposed 
 thereupon to destroy it, but he decided finally to 
 keep it, in the hope that it might strike a spark of 
 useful suggestion from the flint of Cecilia s good 
 sense. We know he had a talent for taking advice. 
 And then it might be, he reflected, that his cousin s 
 answer would throw some light on Mary Garland s 
 present vision of things. In his altered mood he 
 added a few lines. 
 
 " I unburdened myself the other day of this mon 
 strous load of anxiety; I think it did me good, and I 
 now let it stand. I was in a melancholy muddle and 
 was trying to lash myself out of it. You know I like 
 discussion in a quiet way, and there s no one with 
 whom I can have it as quietly as with you, most 
 abysmal of cousins. There s a sharp old lady here 
 with whom I often confer and who talks very much to 
 the point. But Madame Grandoni has disliked Rod 
 erick from the first, and if I were to take her advice 
 I would wash my hands of him. You would laugh at 
 me for my long face, but you would do that in any 
 circumstances. I m half ashamed of my letter, for 
 I ve a faith in our friend that s deeper than my doubts. 
 He was here last evening, talking about the Naples 
 Museum, the Aristides, the bronzes, the Pompeian 
 frescoes, with such a beautiful intelligence that doubt 
 
 298 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of the ultimate future seemed blasphemy. I walked 
 back to his lodging with him, and he was as mild as 
 midsummer moonlight. He has that ineffable some 
 thing that charms and convinces; my last word about 
 him shall not be a harsh one." 
 
 Shortly after sending his letter, going one day into 
 his friend s studio, he found Roderick suffering the 
 honourable torture of a visit from Mr. Leavenworth. 
 The young man submitted with extreme ill grace to 
 being bored, and he was now evidently in a state of 
 high exasperation. He had lately begun a representa 
 tion of a lazzarone lounging in the sun; an image of 
 serene, irresponsible, sensuous life. The real lazza- 
 rone, he had admitted, was a vile fellow; but the 
 ideal lazzarone and his own had been subtly 
 idealised was the flower of a perfect civilisation. 
 
 Mr. Leavenworth had apparently just transferred 
 his spacious gaze to the figure. "Something in the 
 style of the Dying Gladiator?" he sympathetically 
 observed. 
 
 "Oh no," said Roderick, seriously, "he s not 
 dying, he s only drunk." 
 
 "Ah, but intoxication, you know," Mr. Leaven 
 worth rejoined, "is not a proper subject for sculpture. 
 Sculpture should n t deal with transitory attitudes." 
 
 "Lying dead drunk s not a transitory attitude. 
 Nothing s more permanent, more sculpturesque, 
 more monumental." 
 
 "An entertaining paradox," said Mr. Leavenworth, 
 "if we had time to exercise our wits upon it. I re 
 member at Florence an intoxicated figure by Michael 
 Angelo which seemed to me a deplorable aberration 
 
 299 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of a great mind. I myself touch liquor in no shape 
 whatever. I have travelled through Europe on cold 
 water. The most varied and attractive lists of wines 
 are offered me, but I brush them aside. No cork has 
 ever been drawn at my command." 
 
 "The movement of drawing a cork calls into play 
 a very pretty set of muscles," said Roderick. " ]o\\y 
 to make a figure in that position." 
 
 "A Bacchus realistically treated ? My dear young 
 friend, never trifle with your lofty mission. Spotless 
 marble seems to me false to itself when it represents 
 anything less than Conscious Temperance -- the 
 golden mean in all things." And while Mr. Leaven- 
 worth threw back his head, squared his shoulders and 
 heaved his torso, as if to exorcise the spirit of levity, 
 his attention broke again like a slow wave, this 
 time on a marble replica of the bust of Christina. 
 "An ideal head, I presume," he went on; "a fanci 
 ful representation of one of the pagan goddesses a 
 Diana, a Flora, a naiad, a dryad ? I often regret that 
 our American artists should not boldly break with 
 those artificial appellations." 
 
 " She s neither a naiad nor a dryad," said Roderick, 
 "and her appellation s as good as yours or mine." 
 
 "You call her ?" Mr. Leavenworth blandly 
 enquired. 
 
 "Christina Light," Rowland interposed in charity. 
 
 "Ah, our great American beauty? Not a pagan 
 goddess an American Christian maiden. Yes, 
 I Ve had the pleasure of conversing with Miss Light. 
 Her conversational powers are not quite what one 
 might have expected, but her beauty s of a high 
 
 300 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 order. I observed her the other evening at a large 
 party where some of the proudest members of the 
 European aristocracy were present duchesses, 
 princesses, countesses and others distinguished by 
 similar titles. But for beauty, grace and elegance our 
 young countrywoman left them all nowhere. What 
 woman can compare with a refined and cultivated 
 American lady ? The duchesses the other night had 
 no attractions for my eyes; they looked coarse and 
 bold and sensual. It seemed to me that the tyranny of 
 class distinctions must indeed be terrible when such 
 countenances could inspire admiration. You see more 
 beautiful girls in an hour on Broadway than in the 
 whole tour of Europe. Miss Light now, on Broadway, 
 would excite no particular remark." 
 
 "Oh, damn Broadway!" Roderick murmured. 
 
 Mr. Leavenworth stared as if this were unpatri 
 otic; then he resumed almost severely: "I suppose 
 you ve heard the news about our lovely compatriot." 
 
 "What news ?" Roderick had stood with his back 
 turned, fiercely poking at his lazzarone ; but at Mr. 
 Leavenworth s last words he faced quickly about. 
 
 " It J s the news of the hour, I believe. Miss Light is 
 admired by the highest people here. They tacitly 
 recognise her superiority. She has had offers of mar 
 riage from very prominent people as such people 
 go in this part of the world. I was extremely glad to 
 hear it and to learn that they had mostly been left 
 sighing. She has not been dazzled by their titles and 
 pedigrees and pretensions, by their gilded coronets. 
 She has judged them simply as real men, and by that 
 measure has found them wanting. One of them, how- 
 
 301 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ever, a young Neapolitan prince, I believe, has, after 
 a long probation, succeeded in making himself accept 
 able. Miss Light has at last smiled upon him and 
 the engagement has just been announced. I m not 
 generally a retailer of the gossip of the passing hour, 
 but the fact was alluded to an hour ago by a lady 
 to whom I had been presented, and subjects of interest 
 seem scarcely numerous enough, in Europe, to dis 
 pense with the aid of these conversational futilities. 
 I therefore suffered myself to be as I may say 
 impressed. Yes, I regret that Miss Light should ally 
 herself with a purely conventional character. Ameri 
 cans should stand by each other. If she wanted a 
 brilliant match we could have organised it for her. 
 If she wanted a fine bright fellow a specimen of 
 clean comfortable white humanity I would have 
 undertaken to find him for her without going out of 
 my native State. And if she wanted a big fortune I 
 would have found her twenty that she would have had 
 hard work to make an impression on; money right 
 there in convertible securities not tied up in fever- 
 stricken lands and worm-eaten villas. What s the 
 name of the young man ? Prince Cantimasher or some 
 such thing!" It was well for Mr. Leavenworth that 
 he was fond of listening to his own correct periods; for 
 the current of his eloquence floated him past the short, 
 sharp, startled cry with which Roderick greeted his 
 anecdote. The young man stood looking at him with 
 parted lips and an excited eye. "The position of 
 woman," he imperturbably resumed, "is certainly a 
 very degraded one in these countries. I doubt if a 
 European princess commands the true respect which 
 
 302 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in our country is exhibited to the obscurest females. 
 The civilisation of a country should be measured by 
 the deference shown to the weaker sex. Judged by 
 that standard, where are they over here ?" 
 
 Though Mr. Leavenworth had not observed Rod 
 erick s emotion it was not lost upon Rowland, who 
 was making sundry uncomfortable reflexions upon 
 it. He saw that it had instantly become one with the 
 acute irritation produced by the poor gentleman s 
 large inevitable oratory, and that an explosion of 
 some sort was imminent. Mr. Leavenworth, with 
 calm unconsciousness, proceeded to fire the mine. 
 
 "And now, please, for my Creation!" he said with 
 the same grandiloquence, demanding by a gesture the 
 discovery of the muffled mass that, standing some 
 what apart, had represented for some time past the 
 young sculptor s partial response to his encouraging 
 order. 
 
 Roderick stood looking at him a moment with 
 concentrated rancour and then strode to the indi 
 cated object and twitched off the sheet. Mr. Leaven 
 worth settled himself into his chair with an air of 
 flattered proprietorship and scanned the unfinished 
 image. "I can conscientiously express myself as 
 gratified with the general conception," he said. "The 
 figure has considerable majesty and the countenance 
 wears a fine open expression. The cerebral develop 
 ment, however, strikes me as not sufficiently empha 
 sised. Our subject being, as we called it did n t 
 we ? Intellectual Refinement, there should be no 
 mistaking the intellect, symbolised (would n t it 
 be ?) by an unmistakeably thoughtful brow. The 
 
 303 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 eye should instinctively seek the frontal indications. 
 Could n t you strengthen them a little ?" 
 
 Roderick, for all answer, tossed the sheet back over 
 the statue. " Oblige me, sir," he said, " I beg you to 
 oblige me. Never mention that thing again." 
 
 "Never mention it ? Why, my dear sir ! " 
 
 "Never mention it. It s a base fraud." 
 
 "Base ? My grand conception ?" 
 
 "Yours indeed!" cried Roderick. "It s none of 
 mine. I disown it." 
 
 " Disown it if you please," said Mr. Leavenworth, 
 now sternly enough, "but finish it first!" 
 
 "I would much rather smash it!" Roderick re 
 turned. 
 
 "This is petulant folly, sir. You must keep your 
 engagements." 
 
 " I made no engagement. A sculptor is n t a tailor, 
 and I did n t measure you for a pair of trousers. Did 
 you ever hear of inspiration? Mine s dead! And 
 it s no laughing matter. You yourself killed it." 
 
 "I I killed your inspiration?" cried Mr. 
 Leavenworth with the accent of righteous wrath. 
 " You re a very ungrateful young man ! My desire 
 has been that you should feel yourself encouraged 
 and so far as possible inspired." 
 
 "I appreciate your kindness, and I don t wish to 
 be uncivil. But your interest is somehow fatal to me. 
 I object to your interest. I can t work for you." 
 
 " I call this gross ill-humour, my good sir!" said Mr. 
 Leavenworth, as if he had found the damning word. 
 
 "Oh, I m in a perfectly infernal humour!" Rod 
 erick now quite cheerfully answered. 
 
 304 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Pray, sir, is it produced by my inopportune 
 allusion to Miss Light s marriage ?" 
 
 " It s produced by your inopportune everything. 
 I don t say that to offend you; I beg your pardon if it 
 does. I say it by way of making our rupture complete 
 and irretrievable." 
 
 Rowland had stood by in silence, but he now 
 interfered. "Listen to me well," he said, laying his 
 hand on Roderick s arm. "You re standing on the 
 edge of a very deep sea. If you suffer this accident 
 to put you out, you take your plunge. It s no mat 
 ter at all that you don t like your work; it s no 
 matter at all if he 11 magnanimously allow me 
 to say so that you don t even like Mr. Leaven- 
 worth: to whom it certainly is n t any matter either! 
 You 11 do the wisest thing you ever did if you mus 
 ter the resolution not to chuck up a commission so 
 definitely accepted. Make the effort necessary at least 
 for finishing your job. Then destroy what you ve 
 done, if you like; but finish it first and see. I speak 
 only the truth." 
 
 Roderick looked at him with eyes that regret for 
 impossibility made almost tender. "You too?" he 
 simply said. 
 
 He felt he might as well attempt to squeeze water 
 from a polished crystal as hope to move him. He 
 turned away and walked into the adjoining room 
 with a sense of sickening helplessness. In a few 
 moments he came back and found that Mr. Leaven- 
 worth had departed he really hoped with due 
 superiority. Roderick was sitting with his elbows 
 on his knees and his head in his hands. Rowland 
 
 305 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 made one more attempt. "You won t mind me the 
 least little bit?" 
 
 " Be so good as not to mind me ! " 
 
 "There s one more point: that you should make 
 and keep a resolve not to go back for the present 
 at least to Mrs. Light s." 
 
 "I shall go back this evening." 
 
 "That too is fatal folly." 
 
 "Well," Roderick smiled, "when one s a fatalist 
 as well as a fool !" 
 
 "You talk like a slave, not like a free agent." 
 
 "Why then do you make me talk ?" 
 
 Rowland meditated a moment. "Are your fatal 
 ism and your folly prepared to lose you the best 
 friend you have ?" 
 
 Roderick looked up; he still smiled. "I defy 
 them to rid me !" 
 
 His best friend clapped on that gentleman s hat 
 and strode away; in a moment the door sharply 
 closed. 
 
XVI 
 
 THIS obscure hero walked hard for a couple of hours. 
 He passed up the Corso, out of Porta del Popolo 
 and into Villa Borghese, of which he made a com 
 plete circuit. The keenness of his irritation sub 
 sided, but it left an intolerable weight on his heart. 
 When dusk had fallen he found himself near the 
 lodging of his friend Madame Grandoni. He fre 
 quently paid her a visit during the hour which pre 
 ceded dinner, and he now ascended her unillumined 
 staircase and rang at her relaxed bell-rope with an 
 especial desire for diversion. He was told that for 
 the moment she was occupied, but that if he would 
 come in and wait she would presently be with him. 
 He had not sat musing in the firelight for five min 
 utes when he heard the jingle of the door-bell and 
 then a rustle and a murmur in the hall. The door 
 of the little parlour opened, but before the visitor 
 appeared he had recognised her voice. Christina 
 Light swept forward, preceded by her poodle and 
 almost filling the narrow room with the train of her 
 dress. She was coloured here and there by the flick 
 ering firelight. 
 
 "They told me you were here, * she simply said 
 as she took a seat. 
 
 "And yet you came in ? It was very brave," Row 
 land returned. 
 
 307 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "You re the brave one, when one thinks of it! 
 The padrona s to come ?" 
 
 "I ve already waited some minutes; I expect her 
 from moment to moment." 
 
 "Meanwhile we re alone?" And she glanced at 
 the duskier background. 
 
 "Unless Stenterello counts," said Rowland. 
 
 "Oh, he knows my secrets unfortunate brute!" 
 She sat silent a while, looking into the firelight. Then 
 at last, glancing at Rowland, " Voyons I say some 
 thing pleasant!" she exclaimed. 
 
 " I Ve been very happy to hearof your engagement." 
 
 "Oh, I don t mean that! I have heard that so 
 often, only since breakfast, that it has lost all sense. 
 I mean some of those unexpected charming things 
 that you said to me a month ago at Saint Cecilia s." 
 
 " I did n t please you then," said Rowland. " I 
 was afraid I had n t." 
 
 "Ah, such things occur to you? Then why have 
 n t I seen you since ?" 
 
 "Really I don t know." And he hesitated for an 
 explanation. " I think I must have called but 
 you Ve never been at home." 
 
 "You were careful to choose the wrong times. 
 You have a way with a poor girl! You sit down and 
 state to her that she s a person with whom a re 
 spectable young man can t associate without con 
 tamination; your friend s a very superior person, 
 you re very careful of his morals, you wish him to 
 know none but nice people, and you beg me there 
 fore to desist. You request me to take these sug 
 gestions to heart and to act upon them as promptly as 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 possible. They re not particularly flattering to my 
 vanity. Vanity, however, is a sin, and I listen sub 
 missively, with an immense desire to be just. If I 
 have many faults I know it in a general way, and I 
 try, on the whole, to do my best. * FoyonsJ I say to 
 myself, it is n t particularly charming to hear one s 
 self made out a pig, but it s worth thinking over; 
 there s probably a good deal of truth in it and at any 
 rate we must be as good a girl as we can. That s the 
 great point! And then here s a magnificent chance 
 for humility. If there s doubt in the matter, let 
 the doubt count against one s self. It s what Saint 
 Catherine did, and Saint Theresa, and all the others, 
 and they re said to have had in consequence the 
 most ineffable joys. Let us go in for a little ineffable 
 joy. I tried it; I swallowed my rising sobs, I made 
 you my curtsey, I determined I would n t be spite 
 ful, nor passionate, nor vengeful, nor anything that s 
 supposed to be particularly feminine and that ces 
 dames, now saints in heaven, would n t have been. 
 I was a better girl than you made out better at 
 least than you thought; but I would let the differ 
 ence go, and do magnificently right lest I should 
 not do right enough. I thought of it a great deal 
 for six hours, when I know I did n t seem to be think 
 ing, and then at last I did it. Santo Dio ! " 
 
 "My dear Miss Light, my dear Miss Light!" 
 her companion rather vaguely pleaded. 
 
 "Since then," the young girl went on, "I ve 
 been waiting for the ineffable joys. But they re 
 dividends, on my speculation, that have n t yet 
 begun to come in." 
 
 39 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 " Pray, listen to me ! " Rowland began. 
 
 "Nothing, nothing, nothing has come of it. I ve 
 passed the dreariest month of my life." 
 
 "You re a very terrible young woman," Row 
 land remarked. 
 
 "What do you mean by that ?" 
 
 "A good many things. We ll talk them over. 
 But first forgive me if I really wounded you." 
 
 She looked at him a moment, hesitating, and 
 then thrust her hands into her muff. "That means 
 nothing. Forgiveness is between equals, and you 
 don t regard me as your equal." 
 
 "How do you make it out?" 
 
 Christina rose and moved for a moment about 
 the room. Then turning suddenly, "You don t be 
 lieve in me!" she cried; "not a grain! I don t know 
 what I would n t give to force you to believe in me!" 
 
 Rowland sprang up, protesting, but before he 
 had time to go far one of the scanty portieres was 
 raised and Madame Grandoni came in, pulling her 
 wig straight. "You shall believe in me yet, you 
 know," Christina murmured as she passed toward 
 her hostess. 
 
 Madame Grandoni turned tenderly to her young 
 friend. "I must give you a very solemn kiss, my 
 dear; you re the heroine of the hour. You ve 
 really accepted him, eh ?" 
 
 "So they say!" 
 
 " But you ought to know best." 
 
 "I don t know I don t care!" She stood with 
 her hand in Madame Grandoni s, but looking as 
 kance at Rowland. 
 
 310 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "That s a pretty state of mind," said the old lady, 
 "for a young person who s going to be so great." 
 
 Christina shrugged her shoulders. "Every one 
 expects me to go into ecstasies over my greatness. 
 Could anything be more vulgar ? Let others do the 
 gloating. Mamma will do any amount. Will you 
 let me stay to dinner?" 
 
 "If you can dine on black bread and onions. But 
 I imagine you re expected at home." 
 
 "Nothing s more certain. Prince Casamassima 
 dines there en famille. I m not of his family yet!" 
 
 "Do you know you re very wicked?" the old 
 lady asked. " I ve half a mind not to keep you." 
 
 Christina dropped her eyes reflectively. "I wish 
 awfully you d let me stay," she said. " If you want 
 to cure me of my wickedness you must be very pa 
 tient and kind with me. It will be worth the trou 
 ble. You must show confidence in me." And she 
 gave Rowland another look. Then suddenly, in a 
 different tone, "I don t know what I m saying!" 
 she wailed. "I m weary and dreary; I m more 
 lonely than ever; I wish I were dead!" The tears 
 rose to her eyes, she struggled with them an instant 
 and buried her face in her muff; but at last she 
 burst into uncontrollable sobs, flinging herself on 
 Madame Grandoni s neck. This shrewd woman gave 
 Rowland a significant nod and a little shrug over 
 the young girl s beautiful bowed head, and then led 
 Christina tenderly away into the adjoining room. 
 Rowland, left alone, stood there for an instant, 
 intolerably puzzled, face to face with Miss Light s 
 poodle, who had set up a sharp unearthly cry of sym- 
 
 3 11 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 pathy with his mistress. Rowland vented his con 
 fusion in dealing a rap with his stick at the animal s 
 unmelodious muzzle, and rapidly quitted the house. 
 He saw Mrs. Light s carriage waiting at the door, 
 and heard afterwards that Christina had gone home 
 to dinner. 
 
 A couple of days later he went for a fortnight to 
 Florence. He had twenty minds to leave Italy 
 altogether, and at Florence he could at least more 
 freely decide upon his future movements. He felt 
 deeply, incureably disgusted. Reflective benevolence 
 stood prudently aside for the time, touching the 
 source of his irritation with no softening side-lights. 
 It was the middle of March, however, and by the 
 middle of March, in Florence, the spring is already 
 warm and deep. He had an infinite taste for the 
 place and the season, but as he strolled by the Arno 
 and paused here and there in the great galleries 
 they failed to bring balm to his ache. He was sore 
 at heart, and as the days went by the soreness 
 rather deepened than healed. He had a complaint 
 against fortune and, good-natured as he was, his 
 good-nature itself now took up the quarrel. He 
 had tried to be wise, he had tried to be kind, he 
 had engaged in an estimable enterprise; but his 
 wisdom, his kindness, his labour, had all been thrown 
 back in his face. He was intensely disappointed, 
 and his disappointment for a while burned hot. The 
 sense of wasted time, of wasted hope and faith, kept 
 him constant company. There were times when 
 the beautiful things about him only exasperated his 
 pain. He went to the Pitti Palace, and Raphael s 
 
 312 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Madonna of the Chair seemed in its soft serenity 
 to mock him with the suggestion of unattainable 
 repose. He lingered on the bridges at sunset and 
 knew that the light was enchanting and the moun 
 tains divine, but there seemed something horribly 
 invidious and unwelcome in the fact. He felt him 
 self, in a word, a man cruelly defrauded and na 
 turally bent on revenge. Life owed him, he thought, 
 a compensation and he should be restless and re 
 sentful till he should find it. He knew or seemed 
 to know where he should find it; but he hardly 
 told himself, thinking of it under mental protest, as 
 a man in want of money may think of funds that he 
 holds in trust. In his melancholy meditation the idea 
 of something better than all this, something that 
 might softly, richly interpose, that might reconcile 
 him to the future, that might freshen up a vision of life 
 tainted with staleness the idea, in fine, of compen 
 sation in concrete form found itself remarkably re 
 sembling a certain young woman in America, shaped 
 itself sooner or later into the image of Mary Garland. 
 Very odd, you may say, that at this time of day 
 Rowland should still be brooding over a girl of no 
 brilliancy, of whom he had had a bare glimpse two 
 years before; very odd that an impression should 
 have fixed itself so sharply under so few applica 
 tions of the die. It is of the very nature of such im 
 pressions, however, to show a total never represented 
 by the mere sum of their constituent parts. One 
 night he could n t sleep; his thought was too urg 
 ent; it kept him pacing his room. His windows 
 were on the Arno, and as they stood open the noise 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of the river came in; it would have taken little more 
 to make him go down into the street. Toward morn 
 ing he flung himself into a chair; though he was 
 wide awake he was now less a prey to agitation. 
 It seemed to him that he saw his idea from the out 
 side, that he judged it and condemned it, and it 
 stood still there all distinct and with a strange face 
 of authority. During the day he tried to keep it 
 down; but it fascinated, haunted, at moments quite 
 frightened him. He tried to amuse himself, paid 
 visits, resorted to several violent devices for divert 
 ing his thoughts. If he had been guilty on the mor 
 row of some misdeed the persons he had seen that 
 day would have testified that he had talked inco 
 herently and had not seemed himself. He felt, cer 
 tainly, very much somebody else; long afterwards, 
 in retrospect, he used to perceive that during those 
 days he had been literally beside himself even as 
 the ass, in the farmer s row of stalls, may be beside 
 the ox. His uncanny idea persisted; it clung to him 
 like a sturdy beggar. The sense of the matter, roughly 
 expressed, was that if Roderick were really going, 
 as he himself had phrased it, to fizzle out, one might 
 help him on the way one might smooth the de- 
 s census Averni. For forty-eight hours there swam 
 before Rowland s eyes a vision of the wondrous 
 youth, graceful and beautiful as he passed, plung 
 ing like a diver into a misty gulf. The gulf was de 
 struction, annihilation, death; but if death had been 
 decreed why should n t the agony be at least brief ? 
 Beyond this vision there faintly glimmered another, 
 as in the children s game of the magic lantern a pic- 
 
 3H 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ture is superposed on the white wall before the last 
 one has quite faded. It represented Mary Garland 
 standing there with eyes in which the horror seemed 
 slowly, slowly to expire, and hanging motionless 
 hands which at last made no resistance when his 
 own offered to take them. When of old a man was 
 burnt at the stake it was cruel to have to be present; 
 but, one s presence assumed, it was charity to lend 
 a hand, to pile up the fuel and make the flames do 
 their work quickly and the smoke muffle up the 
 victim. And it did n t diminish the charity that this 
 was perhaps an obligation especially felt if one had 
 a reversionary interest in something the victim was 
 to leave behind. 
 
 One morning in the midst of all this Rowland 
 walked heedlessly out of a florid city gate and found 
 himself on the road to Fiesole. It was a day all be 
 nignant; the March sun felt like May, as the English 
 poet of Florence says; the thick-blossomed shrubs, 
 the high-climbing plants that hung over the walls of 
 villa and podere flung their odorous promise into the 
 warm still air. He followed, our friend, the winding, 
 mounting lanes; lingered as he got higher beneath the 
 rusty cypresses, beside the low parapets, where you 
 look down on the charming city and sweep the vale 
 of the Arno; reached the small square before the 
 cathedral and rested a while in the massive, dusky 
 church; then, climbing higher, pushed up to the 
 Franciscan convent poised on the very apex of the 
 great hill. He rang at the little gateway; a shabby, 
 senile, red-faced brother admitted him, a personage 
 almost maudlin with the milk of human kindness. 
 
 315 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 There was a dreary chill in the chapel and the corri 
 dors, and he passed rapidly through them into the 
 delightfully steep and tangled old garden which runs 
 wild over the forehead of the mountain. He had been 
 there before, he came back to it as to a friend. The 
 garden hangs in the air, and you ramble from terrace 
 to terrace and wonder how it keeps from slipping 
 down, in full consummation of its dishonour and 
 decay, to the nakedly romantic gorge beneath. It was 
 just noon at Rowland s visit, and after roaming about 
 a while he flung himself on the sun-warmed slab of a 
 mossy stone bench and pulled his hat over his eyes. 
 The short shadows of the brown-coated cypresses 
 above him had grown very long, later on, and yet he 
 had not passed back through the convent. One of the 
 monks, in a faded snufF-coloured robe, came wander 
 ing out into the garden, reading a greasy little breviary. 
 Suddenly he approached the bench on which Row 
 land had stretched himself and paused for respectful 
 interest. Rowland was still in possession,- but seated 
 now with his head in his hands and his elbows on his 
 knees. He seemed not to have heard the sandalled 
 tread of the good brother, but as the monk remained 
 watching him he at last looked up. It was not the igno 
 ble old man who had admitted him, but a pale, gaunt 
 personage, of a graver and more ascetic and yet of a 
 charitable aspect. Rowland s face might have borne 
 for him the traces of extreme trouble; something he 
 appeared mildly to consider as he kept his finger in 
 his little book and folded his arms picturesquely 
 across his breast. Was his attitude, as he bent his 
 sympathetic Italian eyes, the mere accident of his 
 
 316 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 civility or the fruit of an exquisite spiritual tact ? To 
 Rowland, however this might have been, it appeared 
 a sort of offer of ready intelligence. He rose and 
 approached the monk, laying his hand on his arm. 
 
 "My brother," he said, "did you ever see the 
 Devil in person ?" 
 
 The jrate gazed gravely and crossed himself. 
 "Heaven forbid, my son!" 
 
 "He was here," Rowland went on, "here in this 
 lovely garden, as he was once in Paradise, half an 
 hour ago. But have no fear; I drove him out." And 
 he stooped and picked up his hat, which had rolled 
 away into a bed of cyclamen in vague suggestion of 
 a positive scrimmage. 
 
 "You ve been tempted,/j//o mio?" asked the friar 
 tenderly. 
 
 "Hideously!" 
 
 "And you ve resisted and conquered!" 
 
 "I believe I ve conquered." 
 
 ."The blessed Saint Francis be praised! It s well 
 done. If you like we 11 offer a mass for you." 
 
 Rowland hesitated. "I m not of your faith." 
 
 The jrate smiled with dignity. "That s a reason 
 the more." 
 
 " But it s for you then to choose. Shake hands with 
 me," Rowland added; "that will do as well; and 
 suffer me as I go out to stop a moment in your chapel." 
 
 They shook hands and separated. The {rate crossed 
 himself, opened his book and wandered away in relief 
 against the western sky. Rowland passed back into 
 the convent and paused long enough in the chapel to 
 look for the alms-box. He had had what is vulgarly 
 
 317 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 called a great scare; he believed very poignantly, for 
 the time, in Beelzebub and felt an irresistible need to 
 subscribe to any institution that might engage to keep 
 him at a distance. 
 
 The next day he returned to Rome and the day 
 after that went in search of Roderick. He found him 
 on the Pincian with his back turned to the crowd 
 and his eyes to the beauty of the sunset. " I went to 
 Florence," he said, "and I thought of going further; 
 but I came back on purpose to give you another piece 
 of advice. You decline decidedly to leave Rome ?" 
 
 "Oh, my boy, rather!" 
 
 " The only chance I then see of a revival of your 
 sense of responsibility to to those various sacred 
 things you ve forgotten is in sending for your mother 
 to join you here." 
 
 Roderick stared. "For my mother?" 
 
 " For your mother and for Miss Garland." 
 
 Roderick still stared; and then, slowly and faintly, 
 his face flushed. " For Mary Garland for my 
 mother ?" he repeated. "Send for them ?" 
 
 "Answer me now a question," Rowland simply 
 pursued, "which I ve long forborne, out of delicacy, 
 to ask you. Your engagement still holds ?" 
 
 " Holds ?" Roderick glared. "Holds what ?" 
 
 "Well, some residuum of what it originally did. 
 If you were to see your intended you would perhaps 
 be able to judge." 
 
 Roderick thought. "Do you mean by that that if 
 you see her you may be better able to squash me ?" 
 
 Rowland winced at this he flushed; but he bore 
 up. " I should in the light of that speech, even if I 
 
 318 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 had n t already, as it seems to me, other lights, regard 
 you as a very sick man. I can t imagine that if Miss 
 Garland knew bow sick she should n t at once feel 
 that her place is at your side." 
 
 Roderick looked at him for some time darkly and 
 askance. " Is there more in this than meets the eye ?" 
 
 "More ?" 
 
 " I mean is it a deeper scheme than my poor wit can 
 fathom?" 
 
 Rowland had come back to Rome with his patience 
 reinstated, but these words gave it again a mortal 
 chill. "Heaven forgive you!" he none the less reso 
 lutely answered. "My idea shouldn t surely be 
 beyond your comprehension though it ought, I 
 think, to be beyond your suspicion. I ve tried to 
 befriend you, to help you, to inspire you with con 
 fidence, and I ve failed. I took you from your mother 
 and that young lady, and it seems to me my duty to 
 restore you to their hands. That s all I have to say." 
 
 He was going, but Roderick forcibly detained him. 
 It would have been but a rough way of expressing 
 the case to say that one could never know what par 
 ticular reaction any touch of that young man would 
 produce. It had happened more than once that when 
 deservedly hit hard he had received the blow with 
 a noble mildness. On the other hand he had often 
 resented the lightest taps. The secondary effect of 
 Rowland s present admonition seemed reassuring. 
 " I beg you to wait," he said, "to forgive that shabby 
 speech and to let me think it over." And he walked 
 up and down and publicly considered. At last he 
 stopped; the reign of all reason was in his face. It 
 
 319 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was like the sudden light of a golden age to come. 
 "How strange it is that the simplest arrangements 
 are the last to suggest themselves!" And he broke 
 into easy laughter. "To see Mary Garland s just 
 what I want. And my mother my mother can t 
 hurt me now!" 
 
 "You ll write then?" 
 
 " I 11 cable. They must come at whatever cost. 
 Striker can arrange it all for them." 
 
 In a couple of days he told Rowland that he had 
 received a telegraphic answer to his message, inform 
 ing him that the two ladies were to sail immediately 
 for Leghorn in one of the small steamers then plying 
 between that port and New York. They would 
 arrive therefore in less than a month. Rowland 
 passed this month of expectation in no great riot of 
 relief. His suggestion had had its source in the deep 
 est places of his charity; but there was something 
 intolerable in the thought of the pain to which the 
 possible event might subject creatures so little fore 
 armed. They had scraped together their scanty funds 
 and embarked at twenty-four hours notice upon the 
 dreadful sea, only to be handed over at the end to an 
 element still more capable of betraying them. He 
 could but promise himself to be their stubborn even 
 if disdained support. Preoccupied as he was, he 
 could still observe how expectation, with Roderick, 
 took a form which seemed singular even among his 
 characteristic singularities. If redemption the bril 
 liant youth appeared to reason was to arrive with 
 his mother and his affianced bride, these last mo 
 ments of error should be worth redeeming. He only 
 
 320 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 idled, but he idled with intensity. He laughed and 
 whistled and went often to Mrs. Light s; though 
 Rowland could but wonder to what issue events had 
 brought his relations with Christina. The month 
 ebbed away, and our friend daily expected to learn 
 that he had gone to Leghorn to meet the ship. No 
 such report came, however, and late one evening, not 
 having seen him for three or four days, he stopped at 
 his lodging to make sure of his absence. A cab was 
 standing in the street, but as it was a couple of doors 
 off he hardly heeded it. The hall at the foot of the 
 staircase was dark, like most Roman halls, and he 
 paused in the open doorway on hearing the advancing 
 footstep of a person with whom he wished to avoid 
 a collision. While he did so he heard another footstep 
 behind him and, turning round, found that Roderick 
 himself had just overtaken him. At the same moment 
 a woman s figure advanced from within, into the light 
 of the street-lamp, and a face, half startled, looked at 
 him out of the darkness. He gave a cry it was the 
 face of Mary Garland. Her attention flew past him 
 to Roderick, and in a second a startled exclamation 
 broke from her own lips. It made him turn again, 
 turn to see Roderick stand there strange and pale, 
 apparently trying to speak, yet producing no sound. 
 His lips were parted and his attitude foolish, the 
 attitude, unmistakeably, of a man who has drunk too 
 much. Then Rowland s eyes met Miss Garland s 
 again, and her own, which had rested a moment on 
 Roderick s were formidable. 
 
XVII 
 
 How it occurred that Roderick had failed to be 
 at Leghorn at the moment of his mother s arrival 
 was never to be clearly set forth; for he undertook 
 at no moment any elaborate explanation of his fault. 
 He never indulged in professions (touching per 
 sonal conduct) as to the future, or in remorse as to 
 the past; and as he would have asked no praise 
 if he had travelled night and day to embrace Mrs. 
 Hudson as she set foot on shore, he made (in Rowland s 
 presence at least) no apology for having left her to 
 come in search of him. It was to be said that, thanks 
 to an unprecedented fine season, the voyage of the 
 two ladies had been surprisingly rapid, and that, 
 according to common probabilities, if Roderick had 
 left Rome on the morrow (as he declared that he 
 had intended) he would still have had a day or two 
 of waiting at Leghorn. Rowland s silent inference 
 was that Christina Light had beguiled him into let 
 ting the time slip, and it was accompanied with a 
 tacit enquiry as to the degree of her direct malice. 
 Her interesting friend had told her, presumably, 
 that his mother and his cousin were about to arrive; 
 and it was pertinent to remember hereupon that 
 she was a person of wayward motions. Rowland 
 possessed himself more easily meanwhile of the 
 recent history of the two troubled pilgrims. Mary 
 
 322 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Garland s wish, at Leghorn, on finding they were 
 left to their own devices, had been to telegraph to 
 Roderick and await an answer, for she was not 
 unaware that they had rather stolen a march. But 
 Mrs. Hudson s maternal heart had taken the alarm. 
 Roderick s sending for them at all was, to her im 
 agination, a confession of some pernicious ill, some 
 visitation, probably, of malignant disease, and his 
 not being at Leghorn a proof of the worst; an hour s 
 delay was therefore cruel both to herself and to him. 
 She insisted on immediate departure, and, unversed 
 as they were in strange tongues and systems, they 
 had somehow floundered along. Reaching Rome 
 late in the evening and knowing nothing of inns, 
 they had got into a cab and proceeded to Roderick s 
 lodging. At the door poor Mrs. Hudson s trepida 
 tion had overcome her, and she had sat paralysed 
 and weeping in the vehicle. Mary had bravely gone 
 in, groped her way up the dusky staircase, gained 
 Roderick s door and, with the assistance of such 
 acquaintance with the local idiom as she had culled 
 from a phrase-book during the calm hours of the 
 voyage, learned from the old woman who had her 
 cousin s household economy in charge that he was 
 in the best of health and spirits and had gone forth 
 a few hours before, his hat on his ear, per diver- 
 tirsi. 
 
 These things Rowland learned during a visit 
 paid the ladies the second evening of their stay. 
 Mrs. Hudson spoke of them with great abundance 
 and repetition and with an air of clinging confidence 
 which told her visitor that he was now enshrined 
 
 323 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 in her innermost faith. But her fright was over, 
 though she was still catching her breath a little, like 
 a person dragged ashore out of waters uncomfort 
 ably deep. She was exquisitely astray about every 
 thing, and appealed more than ever to correction 
 and precaution. Before her companion he was dis 
 tinctly conscious that he quaked. He w r ondered 
 extremely what was going on in this young lady s 
 mind, what had been her silent commentary on the 
 incidents of the night before. He wondered all the 
 more because he immediately perceived that she 
 was now a person changed, and changed not to her 
 disfigurement. She was older, easier, lighter; she 
 had, as would have been said in Rome, more form. 
 She had thus, he made out, more expression, facial 
 and other, and it was beautifully as if this expres 
 sion had been accumulating all the while, lacking 
 on the scene of her life any channel to waste itself. 
 It was like something she had been working at in 
 the long days of home, an exquisite embroidery 
 or a careful compilation, and she now presented the 
 whole wealth of it as a kind of pious offering. Row 
 land felt almost instantly he could hardly have said 
 why; it was in her voice, in her tone, in the air that 
 a different principle governed her manner of regarding 
 him. She built on him now absolutely; whether or no 
 she liked him she believed in his solidity. He felt that 
 during the coming weeks he should need to be solid. 
 Mrs. Hudson was at one of the smaller hotels, and 
 her sitting-room was frugally lighted by a couple 
 of candles. He made the most of this dim illumina 
 tion for some quest of the afterglow of that fright- 
 
 324 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ened flash from Mary s eyes the night before. It 
 had been but a flash, for what provoked it had 
 instantly vanished. Rowland, on this occasion, see 
 ing the high delinquent instantly measure his peril, 
 had mutely applauded the art of his recovery. If 
 he had been drinking the quick consciousness sobered 
 him; he had collected his wits with inimitable grace. 
 The next moment, with a ringing jovial cry, he was 
 folding the girl in his arms, and the next after he 
 was beside his mother s cab, half smothered in her 
 sobs and caresses. Rowland had recommended an 
 hotel close at hand and had then discreetly retired. 
 Roderick was at that time "playing up" to them 
 all brilliantly, and Mary Garland s face was serene. 
 It was clear now, twenty-four hours later; but her 
 vision had none the less flared there for its minute. 
 What had become of it ? It had dropped down deep 
 into her memory and was lying there for the pre 
 sent in the shade. From one day to another, 
 Rowland yet said to himself, it would hold up its 
 head, would begin to watch and listen, would rise 
 again and confront him. Meanwhile he made the 
 most of the hours he passed them in the con 
 sciousness of being near her. The two ladies had 
 passed the day indoors, resting, reacting, recover 
 ing. The younger, Rowland suspected, was not quite 
 so spent as she suffered it to be assumed. She had 
 remained with Mrs. Hudson to attend to her per 
 sonal wants, which the latter seemed to think, now 
 that she was in a foreign land with a southern cli 
 mate and a Catholic religion, would forthwith be 
 come very complex and formidable, though as yet 
 
 325 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 they had simply resolved themselves into a desire 
 for a great deal of tea and for a certain extremely 
 familiar old black and white shawl across her feet 
 as she lay on the sofa. But the sense of novelty was 
 evidently strong upon Mary and the light of ex 
 pectation in her eye. She was restless and excited; 
 she moved about the room and went often to the 
 window; she took everything in; she watched the 
 Italian servants as they came and went; she had 
 already had a long colloquy with the French cham 
 bermaid, who had published her views on the Ro 
 man question; she noted the small differences in 
 the furniture, in the cookery, in the sounds that 
 came in from the street. She might have been an 
 exceptionally fine specimen-islander of an unclassed 
 group, brought home by a great navigator and treat 
 able as yet mainly by beads and comfits. Rowland 
 was sure she observed to good purpose, that she 
 only needed opportunity, and that she would gather 
 impressions in clusters as thick as the purple bunches 
 of a vintage. He wished immensely he might have 
 a hand in the work; he wished he might show her 
 Rome. That of course would be Roderick s office, 
 but he promised himself at least to take advantage 
 of off-hours. 
 
 "It behoves you to appreciate your good fortune, 
 you know," he permitted himself to say. "To be 
 young and eager, and yet old enough and wise enough 
 to discriminate and reflect, and to come to Italy for 
 the first time that s one of the greatest pleasures 
 life has to offer. It s but right to remind you of it, 
 so that you may make the most of your chances and 
 
 326 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 not accuse yourself later of having wasted the pre 
 
 cious season." 
 
 Mary looked at him with her large smile and went 
 to the window again. "I expect to enjoy it. Don t 
 be afraid; I m not wasteful." 
 
 "I m afraid we re not so very qualified, you 
 know," said Mrs. Hudson. "We re told that you 
 must know so much, that you must have read so 
 many books. Our taste has not highly been culti 
 vated. When I was a young lady at school I remem 
 ber I had a medal with a pink ribbon for pro 
 ficiency in ancient history the seven kings, or is 
 it the seven hills ? and Quintus Curtius and Julius 
 Caesar, and and that period, you know. I be 
 lieve I have my medal somewhere in a drawer now, 
 but I ve forgotten all about the kings. After Rod 
 erick came to Italy we tried to pursue a course. Last 
 winter Mary used to read Corinne to me in the 
 evenings, and in the mornings she used to read an 
 other book to herself. What was it, Mary, that book 
 that was so long, you know in fifteen volumes ?" 
 
 "It was Sismondi s * Italian Republics, " Mary 
 honestly answered. 
 
 Rowland showed, for all his precautions, an amuse 
 ment; whereat the girl coloured. "And did you 
 push quite through ?" 
 
 "Yes, and began another a shorter one 
 Roscoe s Leo the Tenth. " 
 
 "Did you find them interesting?" 
 
 "Oh yes." 
 
 "Do you like history?" 
 
 "Some of it." 
 
 327 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "That s a woman s answer! And do you like 
 art?" 
 
 She paused a moment. " I think I ve never seen 
 any except Roderick s. Of course I ve liked that." 
 
 "Ah, that proves nothing!" Rowland freely de 
 clared. "You must try other people s." 
 
 " I m sure she 11 only want to try," Mrs. Hudson 
 interposed. "You ve great advantages now, my dear, 
 with Roderick and Mr. Mallet," she said to Mary. 
 " No young lady can ever have had greater. You come 
 straight to the highest authorities. Roderick, I sup 
 pose, will show you the practice of art, and Mr. Mallet, 
 perhaps, if he will be so good, will show you the theory. 
 As an artist s wife you ought to know something at 
 least about that." 
 
 "One learns a good deal about it here by simply 
 living one s life," said Rowland; "by going and 
 coming about one s daily avocations." 
 
 "Dear, dear, how wonderful that we should be 
 here in the midst of it!" murmured Mrs. Hudson. 
 "To think of art being out there in the streets! We 
 did n t see much of it last evening as we drove from 
 the station. But the streets were so dark, and we 
 should n t have known, at any rate, where to look. 
 Now, however, we re quite ourselves, and Mary, I 
 think, is really enjoying the revulsion." 
 
 "Oh, I m all right," this young woman replied; 
 and she wandered again to the window, as if the very 
 largeness of their case defied expansion. 
 
 Roderick came in at this moment and kissed his 
 mother, and then went over and joined her companion. 
 Rowland sat wth Mrs. Hudson, who evidently had a 
 
 328 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 word she deemed important for his private ear. She 
 followed her son with intensely earnest eyes. 
 
 "I wish to tell you, sir," she said, "how deeply 
 indebted, how very grateful, what a happy mother I 
 am! I feel I owe you all of it. To find my poor boy 
 so handsome, so prosperous, so elegant, so famous - 
 and ever to have doubted of you! What must you 
 think of me ? You re our guardian angel; it s what 
 Mary and I call you." 
 
 Rowland felt himself wear in answer to this speech 
 an anxiously impenetrable face. He could only mur 
 mur that he was glad she found Roderick looking 
 well. He had of course promptly asked himself if it 
 would n t be his best line to give her a word of warning 
 - turn the handle of the door through which, later 
 on, disappointment and its train might enter. But he 
 had determined to say nothing and simply to wait for 
 Roderick to find effective inspiration in the eyes now 
 so deeply resting on him. It was even to be supposed 
 he was actually looking for it; he remained some 
 time at the window with his cousin. But at last he 
 turned away and came over to the fire with the first 
 fine cloud already on his brightness. In what wrong 
 place had the poor girl happened to touch him ? She 
 presently followed him, and for an instant Rowland 
 observed her watch him as if he struck her as strange. 
 " Strange enough," thought their companion, " he may 
 seem to her if he will!" Roderick looked at his friend 
 with a vague peremptory pressure, a sign to him that 
 he too must really mount to the breach. "Heaven 
 help us all!" Rowland tacitly groaned; "are they 
 already giving on his nerves ?" 
 
 329 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "To-morrow, of course, we must begin to put you 
 through the mill," Roderick said to his mother. "And 
 be it hereby known to Mallet that we count upon him 
 to turn the wheel." 
 
 " I will do as you please, my son," said Mrs. Hud 
 son. "So long as I have you with me I don t care 
 where I go. We must not take up too much of Mr. 
 Mallet s time." 
 
 "His time s inexhaustible; he has nothing under 
 the sun to do. Can you dream, Rowland, of anything 
 more delirious than our company ? If you had seen 
 the big hole I ve been making in his life! Where will 
 you go first ? You have your choice from the Scala 
 Santa to the Cloaca Maxima." 
 
 "Let us take things in order," said Rowland. "We 
 will go first to Saint Peter s church. Miss Garland, 
 I hope you re impatient to see Saint Peter s church." 
 
 "I should like to go first to Roderick s studio," 
 Miss Garland declared. 
 
 " It s a very horrid, nasty, depressing place, my 
 studio," said Roderick. "But do whatever in the 
 wide world you like." 
 
 " Yes, we must see your beautiful things before we 
 can look contentedly at anything else," said Mrs. 
 Hudson. 
 
 "I have no beautiful things," said Roderick. "You 
 may see a dozen ghosts of dead dreams. What makes 
 you look so ? But how is it you do look ?" 
 
 This enquiry was abruptly addressed to his mother, 
 who in response glanced appealingly at Mary, and 
 raised a startled hand to her smooth hair. 
 
 "No, it s your dear old face. What has come over 
 330 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 it in my absence ? It has got something in it, you 
 know," he said, with quite a flicker of interest, to 
 Rowland. 
 
 "It must have in it all the fond prayers she has 
 been putting up for you," Mary gravely suggested. 
 
 "Oh, I don t suppose it represents the trace of 
 orgies! But whatever it is, mammy, it s a great 
 improvement; it makes you a very good face very 
 interesting, very decent, very solemn. It has two or 
 three rare tragic lines in it; something might be done 
 with it." And Roderick held one of the candles near 
 the poor lady s head. 
 
 She was covered with confusion. "My son, my 
 son," she said with dignity, " I don t understand you." 
 
 In a flash all his old alacrity had come to him. "I 
 suppose a man may admire his own lovely mother! 
 If you please, ma am, you 11 sit to me for that beau 
 tiful head. I see it, I see it! I 11 make something that 
 a queen can t get done for her." 
 
 Rowland respectfully urged her to assent; he saw 
 Roderick was in the vein and he calculated on the spot, 
 with one of his own odd flights, that this might lead 
 to the masterpiece of the young sculptor s life. It was 
 such a chance for "sincerity" -the very sincerity, 
 immortal now, of the early Tuscans. Mrs. Hudson 
 gave her promise at last, after many inarticulate pro 
 tests and a fond request that she might be allowed to 
 keep her knitting. 
 
 Rowland returned, the next day, with plenty of 
 zeal for the part his friend had assigned him. It had 
 been arranged that they should drive to Saint Peter s, 
 and Roderick, whose sky had again cleared, watched 
 
 331 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his mother, in the carnage, on the way, with a fine 
 mixture of filial and professional interest. Mrs. 
 Hudson looked up ruefully at the high, sinister houses 
 and grasped the side of the barouche as if she were 
 launched in deep seas. Rowland sat opposite to Miss 
 Garland, who appeared for the time totally oblivious 
 of her companions. From the moment the carriage 
 left the hotel she sat gazing wide-eyed and absorbed 
 at the objects about them. If Rowland had felt more 
 reckless he might have made a joke, or even a greater 
 affair, of the dead weight of this tribute to the magic of 
 Rome, the most candid, in a manner, that he had ever 
 seen paid. From time to time he told her the name of 
 a place or a building, and she nodded without looking 
 at him. When they emerged into the great square 
 between Bernini s colonnades she laid her hand on 
 Mrs. Hudson s arm and sank back in the carriage, 
 staring up at the golden immensities. Within the high 
 doors at last Roderick gave his arm to his mother, 
 and Rowland constituted himself the guide of the 
 younger lady. He walked with her slowly everywhere, 
 making the entire circuit and telling her all he knew, 
 trying to tell her all he felt. This was no small matter, 
 but she listened attentively, keeping her eyes on the 
 dome. For Rowland himself it had never had such 
 consecrating power; even, as might be, of the hushed 
 human passions beneath it. He felt, in this promotion 
 of its effect, almost as if he had designed it and had a 
 right to be proud of it. He left Mary Garland awhile 
 on the steps of the choir, where she had seated herself 
 to rest, and went to join their companions. Mrs. 
 Hudson was watching a circle of tattered contadini 
 
 332 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 kneel before the image of Saint Peter. The fashion of 
 their tatters fascinated her; she stood gazing at them 
 in terrified pity and could be induced to look at al 
 most nothing else. Rowland went back to Mary and 
 sat down beside her. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of Europe? * he ami 
 cably asked. 
 
 "I think it s dreadful!" she presently brought out. 
 
 "Dreadful?" 
 
 " I feel so strangely I could almost cry." 
 
 "How is it then you feel ?" 
 
 " So sorry for the poor little past that seems to have 
 died here in my heart in an hour!" 
 
 "But surely you re pleased you re interested." 
 
 "I m overwhelmed. Here in a single hour every 
 thing s changed. It s as if a wall somewhere about 
 me had been knocked down at a stroke. Before me 
 lies an immense new world, and it makes the old one, 
 the little narrow familiar conceited one I ve always 
 known, seem pitiful." 
 
 " But you did n t come to Rome to walk backward, 
 to keep your eyes fastened on what you left. Forget 
 it, turn away from it, give yourself up to this." 
 
 " I should like nothing better. But as I sat here just 
 now, looking up at that golden mist in the dome, I 
 seemed to see in it the vague shapes of certain people 
 and things at home. To enjoy so much beauty and 
 wonder is to break with the past I mean with one s 
 poor old own. And breaking s a pain." 
 
 "Don t mind the pain, and it will cease to trouble 
 you. Enjoy, enjoy; it s your duty. Yours especially." 
 
 "Why mine especially ?" the girl asked. 
 333 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 " Because I m so convinced that you Ve a mind 
 formed to do justice to everything interesting and 
 beautiful. You re extremely intelligent." 
 
 "You don t know," she simply said. 
 
 "In that matter one feels. I really think I know 
 better than you. I don t want to seem patronising, 
 but I see in you a capital subject for development. 
 Give yourself the best company, trust yourself, let 
 yourself go." 
 
 She looked away from him for some moments, 
 down the gorgeous vista of the great church. "But 
 what you say," she said at last, " means change." 
 
 " Change for the better," Rowland insisted. 
 
 "How can one tell ? As one stands one knows the 
 worst. It seems to me very frightful to develop," she 
 went on. 
 
 "One is in for it in one way or another, and one 
 might as well do it with a good grace as with a bad. 
 Since one can t escape life it s better to take it by the 
 hand." 
 
 "Is this what you call life?" she presently asked. 
 
 "What do you mean by this ?" 
 
 "What s around us all this splendour, all Rome; 
 pictures, ruins, statues, beggars, monks." 
 
 "It s not all of it, but it s a large part of it. All 
 these things are impregnated with life; they re the 
 results of an immemorial, a complex and accumu 
 lated, civilisation." 
 
 " Immemorial, complex, accumulated ah, those 
 are words I m afraid of." 
 
 "There may be better ones for what I mean," 
 Rowland smiled; "but I don t believe it s in you to 
 
 334 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 be really afraid of anything. Don t at any rate con 
 clude on that point just yet. Wait till you ve tested 
 your courage. While you wait you 11 see an immense 
 number of very beautiful things things that you re 
 made to understand. They won t leave you as they 
 found you; then you can judge. Don t tell me I 
 know nothing about your understanding. I ve a right 
 to count upon it." 
 
 Mary gazed a while aloft into the dome. "I m not 
 sure I understand that" And she nodded upward. 
 
 "I hope at least that at a cursory glance it pleases 
 you. You need n t be afraid to tell the truth. What 
 strikes some people," Rowland said, " is that it s so 
 disconcertingly small." 
 
 "Oh, it s large enough; it will do for me. There 
 are things in Rome, then," she added in a moment, 
 turning and looking at him, "that are quite supremely 
 beautiful?" 
 
 "Lots of them." 
 
 "Some of the most beautiful things in the world ?" 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
 "What are they ? which things have most beauty ?" 
 
 "That s according to taste. I should say the 
 antique sculpture." 
 
 "How long will it take to see it all; to know at 
 least something about it ?" 
 
 " You can see it all, as far as mere seeing goes, in 
 a fortnight. But to know it is a thing for one s leisure. 
 The more time you spend with it the more you care 
 for it." After a moment s hesitation he went on: 
 "Why should you grudge time? It s all in your 
 way, since you re to be an artist s wife." 
 
 335 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Oh, I ve thought of that," she said. "It may be 
 that I shall always live here among the most beau 
 tiful things in the world." 
 
 " Very possibly. I should like to see you ten 
 years hence." 
 
 "I dare say that many things will by that time 
 have come to me, and I certainly hope it. But I m 
 nevertheless sure !" 
 
 "Of what?" he asked as she paused. 
 
 "That for the most part I shall be quite stupidly 
 unaltered by them. I ask nothing better than to be 
 lieve the fine things you say about my understand 
 ing, but even if they re true it won t matter. I shall 
 be what I was made, what I am now a young 
 woman from the very heart of New England. The 
 fruit of a civilisation as different as possible from 
 this so strangely-mixed Roman." 
 
 " I m delighted to hear it. The heart of New Eng 
 land s an excellent basis." 
 
 "Perhaps if you show me anything more you 11 
 grow rather tired of my basis. Therefore I warn 
 you." 
 
 "I m not frightened. I should like extremely to 
 make a request of you. Be what you are, what you 
 like, what you must be your very worst. But Jo, 
 sometimes, as I tell you." 
 
 If Rowland was not frightened neither perhaps 
 was his companion; but she brought their talk to 
 an end as if not to make this promise. She proposed 
 they should join the others. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson spoke under her breath; she could 
 not be accused of the want of reverence often at- 
 
 336 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tributed to the crude heretic in the great Catholic 
 temples. "Mary dear," she whispered, "suppose 
 we had to kiss that dreadful brass toe. If I could 
 only have kept our door-knocker at Northampton 
 as bright as that! I think it s heathenish, but Rod 
 erick says he thinks it s sublime." 
 
 Roderick had evidently grown a trifle perverse. 
 "It s sublimer than anything that your religion 
 asks you to do!" 
 
 "Surely our religion sometimes gives us very 
 difficult duties," said Mary. 
 
 "The duty of sitting in a whitewashed meeting 
 house and listening to a nasal Puritan! I admit 
 that s difficult. But it s not sublime. I m speak 
 ing of ceremonies, of magnificent forms. It s in my 
 line, you know, to make much of magnificent forms. 
 I think this a very interesting case of a grand form. 
 Could n t you do it?" he demanded, looking at his 
 cousin. 
 
 She looked back at him intently and then shook 
 her head. "I think not!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I don t know. I couldn t!" 
 
 During this little discussion our four friends were 
 standing near the venerable image of the genius /or/, 
 and a squalid, savage-looking peasant, a tattered 
 ruffian of the most orthodox Italian aspect, had been 
 performing his devotions before it. He turned away 
 crossing himself, and Mrs. Hudson gave a little 
 shudder of horror. 
 
 "After that," she murmured, "I suppose he thinks 
 
 337 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 he s as good as any one! And here s another. Oh, 
 what a beautiful person!" 
 
 A young lady had approached the sacred effigy 
 after having wandered away from a group of com 
 panions. She kissed the brazen toe, touched it with 
 her forehead and, turning round to face our friends, 
 presented herself to Rowland as Christina Light. 
 He took account of this indication that she had sud 
 denly begun again to pratiquer religiously, for it was 
 but a few weeks before that she had treated him to 
 a passionate profession of indifference. Had she 
 already taken up the duties laid down by decorum for 
 a Princess Casamassima ? While Rowland was men 
 tally asking these questions she had drawn nearer 
 she was moving toward the great altar. But at first 
 she had not taken in our group. 
 
 Mary Garland had been watching her. "You 
 told me," she said gently to Rowland, "that Rome 
 contained some of the most beautiful things in the 
 world. This surely is one of them!" 
 
 At this moment Christina s eye met Rowland s, 
 and before giving him any sign of recognition she 
 glanced rapidly at his companions. She saw Rod 
 erick, but without expression of it; she looked at 
 Mrs. Hudson, she looked at Mary Garland. At 
 Mary she looked with attention, with penetration, 
 from head to foot, the slow pace at which she ad 
 vanced making it possible. The next thing, as if 
 she had perceived Roderick for the first time, she 
 broke into a friendly, a radiant smile. In a moment 
 he was at her side. She stopped, and he stood talking 
 to her; she continued to look at Mary. 
 
 338 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Why, Roderick knows her!" cried Mrs. Hud 
 son in an awestruck whisper. "I supposed she was 
 some great princess." 
 
 "She is almost!" said Rowland. "She s the 
 most beautiful girl in Europe, and Roderick has 
 modelled her." 
 
 "< Modelled ? Dear, dear!" murmured Mrs. 
 Hudson, as if aghast at some vision of a new free 
 dom. "What a very strange bonnet! " 
 
 "She has very strange eyes," said Mary, turn 
 ing away. 
 
 The two ladies, with Rowland, took their way 
 toward the door of the church. On their way they 
 passed Mrs. Light and the Cavaliere, and Rowland 
 informed his companions of the relation in w T hich 
 these personages stood to Roderick s young lady. 
 
 "Think of it, Mary!" said Mrs. Hudson. "What 
 splendid people he must know! No wonder he found 
 Northampton rather mild." 
 
 "I like the wise little old gentleman," said Mary. 
 
 "Why do you call him wise?" Rowland asked, 
 struck with the observation. 
 
 " Because I think I m learning what wisdom is." 
 
 As they approached their egress they were over 
 taken by Roderick, whose interview with Miss Light 
 had left in his face a traceable afterglow. " So you re 
 acquainted with princesses ?" said his mother, softly, 
 as they passed into the portico. 
 
 "Miss Light isn t a princess!" he rather dryly 
 returned. 
 
 "But Mr. Mallet says so," urged Mrs. Hudson, 
 disappointed. 
 
 339 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I meant that she s going to be," said Rowland. 
 " It s by no means certain that she s even going 
 to be!" Roderick answered. 
 
 "Ah then," Rowland laughed, "I give it up!" 
 
XVIII 
 
 RODERICK came almost immediately back to his 
 idea that his mother should sit to him at his studio 
 for her portrait, and Rowland ventured to add another 
 word of urgency. If Roderick s idea had really taken 
 hold of him it was an immense pity his inspiration 
 should be wasted; inspiration had become in these 
 days too rare a visitor. It was arranged therefore 
 that for the present, during the mornings, Mrs. 
 Hudson should place herself at her son s service. 
 This involved but little sacrifice, for the good lady s 
 appetite for antiquities was diminutive and bird- 
 like, the usual round of galleries and churches fa 
 tigued her, and she was glad to purchase immunity 
 from sight-seeing by a regular afternoon drive. It 
 became natural in this way that as Mary Garland 
 had her mornings free Rowland should feel it no 
 more than civil to offer himself as a guide. He could 
 scarce find it in his heart to accuse Roderick of neg 
 lect of that function, united to him though the girl 
 might be by a double bond; for it was natural that 
 the inspirations of a man of genius should be both 
 capricious and imperious, and on what plan had 
 he ever started moreover but on that of diligence 
 and claustration ? Yet he wondered how Mary felt, 
 as the young man s promised wife, on being so sum 
 marily handed over to another man to be enter 
 tained. However she might feel he was still certain 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 he should learn very little about it. There had been 
 between them none but indirect allusions to her in 
 tended marriage; and Rowland had no desire to 
 discuss it more largely, for he had no quarrel with 
 matters as they stood. They wore the same delight 
 ful aspect through the lovely month of May, and 
 the ineffable charm of Rome at that period seemed 
 but the radiant sympathy of nature with his happy 
 opportunity. The weather was divine; each par 
 ticular morning, as he walked from his lodging to 
 Mrs. Hudson s modest inn, had a particular bless 
 ing on it. The elder lady had usually gone off to the 
 studio, and he found Mary sitting alone at the open 
 window, turning the leaves of some book of artistic 
 or antiquarian reference that he had given her. She 
 was always eager, alert, responsive; she had always 
 her large settled smile, which reminded him of some 
 clear ample "spare-room," some expectant guest- 
 chamber, as they said in New England, with its 
 windows up for ventilation. She might be grave by 
 nature, she might be sad by circumstance, she might 
 have secret doubts and pangs, but she was essen 
 tially young and strong and fresh able to respond 
 to any vivid appeal. Her response was not a ran 
 dom chatter, but it was full of intention. It was not 
 amusement and sensation she coveted, but know 
 ledge facts that she might noiselessly lay away, 
 piece by piece, in the fragrant darkness of her serious 
 mind, so that under this head at least she should 
 not be a perfectly portionless bride. She never merely 
 pretended to understand; she let things go, with 
 her arrested concession, at the moment; but she 
 
 342 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 watched them on their way over the crest of the hill, 
 and when her attention seemed not likely to be 
 missed it went hurrying after them and ran breath 
 less at their side and begged them for the secret. 
 Rowland took a high satisfaction in observing that 
 she never mistook the second-best for the best and 
 that when she stood in great presences she recog 
 nised the importance of the occasion. She said many 
 things that he thought very happy that is if they 
 meant certain other things that they perhaps did n t, 
 and meant all of those. This point he usually tried 
 to ascertain; but he was obliged to proceed cau 
 tiously, for the effect of her so suddenly-quickened 
 vision of a more mixed order than she had ever 
 dreamt of was to make her see everything as mixed, 
 and cross-examination, by that law, as necessarily 
 ironic. She wished to know just where she was go 
 ing what she should gain or lose. This was partly 
 on account of the purity and rigidity of a mind that 
 had not lived with its door ajar upon the high-road 
 of cosmopolite chatter, for passing phrases to drop 
 in and out at their pleasure, but that had none the 
 less looked out, ever, from the threshold, for any strag 
 gler on the "march of ideas," any limping rumour 
 or broken-winged echo of life, that would stop and 
 be cherished as a guest. It was even more perhaps 
 because she was aware of a sort of growing self- 
 respect, a sense of devoting her consciousness not to 
 her own ends, but to those of another whose career 
 would be high and splendid. She had been brought 
 up to think a great deal of "nature" and nature s 
 innocent laws; but now Rowland had talked to her 
 
 343 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ingeniously of the need of man s spirit to refine upon 
 them, her fresh imagination had responded, and she 
 was following this mystic clue into retreats where 
 the intellectual effort gave her a well-nigh tragic ten 
 sion. She wished to be very sure, to take only the 
 best, knowing it to be the best. Her desire to im 
 prove herself struck him at moments as almost grim, 
 and not the less so that the fruits of the process for 
 which his aid was indispensable were so little to be 
 served at any table of his. She might have been 
 originally as angular as he had, on the other scene, 
 positively liked her for being; but who was to say 
 now what might n t result for her from the cultiva 
 tion of a motive for curves ? "Oh, exquisite virtue 
 of circumstance," her companion admiringly mused, 
 "that takes us by the hand and leads us forth out 
 of corners where perforce our attitudes are a trifle 
 contracted, and beguiles us into testing unsuspected 
 faculties!" She would develop, evidently, right and 
 left, and to the top of her capacity; and he would 
 have been at the bottom of it all. But that was 
 where he would remain, essentially and obscurely; 
 all taken for granted, merely for granted, as a good 
 cellar, with its dusky supporting vaults, is taken for 
 granted in a sound house. 
 
 They went a great deal to Saint Peter s, and Mary 
 easily recognised that to climb the long low yellow 
 steps, beneath the huge florid faade, and then, 
 pushing the ponderous leathern apron of the door, 
 find one s self a mere sentient point in that brilliant 
 immensity, was an act that had its way of remain 
 ing a thrill. In those days the hospitality of the Vat- 
 
 344 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ican had not been curtailed, and it was an easy and 
 delightful matter to pass from the gorgeous church 
 to the solemn company of the antique marbles. 
 Here it was that communication for our friends 
 found its best allies ; here Rowland, mounting a mild 
 aesthetic hobby or two, might amble down long per 
 spectives as with the ring of silver hoofs on marble 
 floors. He discovered that she made notes of her 
 likes and dislikes in a new-looking little pocket-book, 
 and he wondered to what extent she reported his 
 own discourse. These were hours of grave felicity. 
 The galleries had been so cold all winter that Row 
 land had been an exile from them; but now that 
 the sun was already scorching in the great square 
 between the colonnades, where the twin fountains 
 flashed almost fiercely, the comparative chill of the 
 image-bordered vistas was as tonic as the breath of 
 antiquity. The great herd of tourists had almost 
 departed, and the couple often felt themselves for 
 half an hour at a time in sole and tranquil pos 
 session of the beautiful Braccio Nuovo. Here and 
 there was an open window, where they lingered and 
 leaned, looking out into the warm dead air, over 
 the towers of the city, at the soft-hued historic hills, 
 at the stately, shabby gardens of the palace, or at 
 some sunny empty grass-grown court lost in the 
 heart of the labyrinthine pile. They went sometimes 
 into the chambers painted by Raphael, and of course 
 paid their respects to the Sistine Chapel; but Mary s 
 evident preference was to linger among the mar 
 bles. Once, when they were standing before that 
 noblest of sculptured portraits, the so-called De- 
 
 345 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 mosthenes of the Braccio Nuovo, she made the only 
 spontaneous allusion to her plighted faith that had 
 yet fallen from her lips. " I m so glad that Roderick s 
 a sculptor like the man who did that. Glad, I 
 mean, that he s not a painter." And then when Row 
 land had asked her the reason of her gladness: "It s 
 not that painting s not fine, but that sculpture s 
 so much finer. It s work for men!" 
 
 Rowland tried at times to make her talk about her 
 self, but in this she had little skill. Since she thus 
 struck him as older, as much older, more pliant to 
 social uses than when he had seen her at home, he 
 wished to make her tell him how her interval had been 
 occupied. He had begun by exaggerating to her, even, 
 the degree in which he found her different. " It ap 
 pears then," she said, "that, after all, one can grow 
 even in our hard air." 
 
 "Unquestionably. You may there, by taking 
 thought, add the famous cubit. But you must take 
 a great deal of thought. Your growth then," he 
 went on, "was unconscious? You didn t watch 
 yourself and water your roots ?" 
 
 She paid no heed to his question. " I m willing to 
 grant," she said, "that Europe s richer than I sup 
 posed; and I don t admit that I had thought of it 
 stupidly. But you must admit that America has a 
 drop for the thirsty." 
 
 "I have not a fault to find with the country that 
 produced you." 
 
 " It produced me without a strain of its resources. 
 And yet you want me to change," she said: "to as 
 similate Europe, I suppose you d call it." 
 
 346 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I ve felt that desire only on general principles. 
 Shall I tell you what I feel now ? If America has made 
 you thus far, why not let America finish you ? I 
 should like to ship you back without delay and see 
 what becomes of you. If that sounds uncivil I admit 
 there s a cold intellectual curiosity in it." 
 
 She shook her head. "The charm s broken; the 
 thread s snapped! I prefer to remain here." 
 
 Invariably, when he was inclined to make of some 
 chance of their talk a direct application to herself, 
 she wholly failed to assist him; she let the applica 
 tion, no matter how awkwardly for him, lie where it 
 had fallen. Once, with a spark of ardent irritation, he 
 told her she was very secretive. At this she coloured 
 a little, and he said that in default of any larger 
 confidence it would at least be a satisfaction to 
 make her confess to that charge. But even this satis 
 faction she denied him, and his only revenge was in 
 risking, two or three times afterwards, an allusion to 
 her duplicity that was violent enough for a joke. He 
 told her that she was both abysmal and tortuous and 
 he wound up on one occasion by pronouncing her 
 labyrinthine. "Very good," she answered almost 
 indifferently, "and now please remind me again 
 I have forgotten it of what you said an * archi 
 
 trave was." 
 
 It was on the occasion of her asking him a question 
 of this kind that he charged her still by way of pleas 
 antry, but in a tone in which, had she been curious in 
 the matter, she might have detected a spark of restless 
 ardour with having an insatiable avidity for facts. 
 "You re always snatching at useful instruction," he 
 
 347 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 said; "you 11 never consent to any disinterested con 
 
 versation." 
 
 She frowned a little, as she always did when he 
 arrested their talk upon something personal. But this 
 time she assented; she confessed she was eager for 
 items. "One must make hay while the sun shines. 
 I must lay up a store against dark days. After all, I 
 can t believe that I shall spend my life here." 
 
 He knew he had divined her real motive; but he 
 felt that if he might have said to her what it seemed 
 impossible to say that fortune possibly had a bit 
 ter disappointment in store for her, she would have 
 been capable of answering immediately, after the first 
 sense of pain: "Say then I m laying up resources 
 for solitude!" 
 
 But all the accusations were not his own. He had 
 been waiting once while they talked they were 
 differing and arguing a little to see whether she 
 would take her forefinger out of her " Murray," into 
 which she had inserted it to keep her place. It would 
 have been hard to say why this point interested him, 
 for he had not the slightest real fear she would ever 
 turn priggish. The simple human truth was that 
 Rowland was jealous of science. In preaching art 
 and history to her he had slighted again the good 
 cause that he might never, never plead. Suddenly 
 sinking, at any rate, the question of his lessons or of 
 her learning, she faced him very frankly and began 
 to frown. At the same time she let the " Murray" 
 slide to the ground, and he was so charmed with 
 this circumstance that he made no movement to pick 
 it up. 
 
 348 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "You re awfully inconsistent, Mr. Mallet, you 
 know," she said. 
 
 "Oh, nothing so makes for good relations as 
 inconsistency." 
 
 "Not of your elaborate kind. That first day we 
 were in Saint Peter s you said things that inspired 
 me. You bade me plunge into all this. I was all ready; 
 I only wanted a little push; you gave me a great one; 
 here I am up to my neck ! And now, instead of help 
 ing me to swim, you stand on the shore the shore of 
 superior information and fling pebbles at me!" 
 
 "Pebbles, my dear young lady? They re life- 
 preservers ? I must have played my part very ill." 
 
 "Your part ? What s your part supposed to have 
 been?" 
 
 He hesitated a moment. "That of usefulness pure 
 and simple." 
 
 "I don t understand you!" she said; and picking 
 up her guide-book she fairly buried her nose in it. 
 
 That evening he made her a speech which she per 
 haps understood as little. " Do you remember my beg 
 ging you the other day to do occasionally as I told 
 you ? It seemed to me you tacitly consented." 
 
 "Very tacitly!" 
 
 " I ve never yet really presumed on your consent. 
 But now I should like you to do this: whenever you 
 catch me in the act of what you call flinging pebbles, 
 ask me the meaning of some architectural term. I 
 shall know what you mean a word to the wise!" 
 
 There came a morning that they spent among the 
 ruins of the Palatine, that sunny chaos of rich decay 
 and irrelevant renewal, of scattered and overtangled 
 
 349 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 fragments, half excavated and half identified, known 
 as the Palace of the Caesars. Nothing in Rome is more 
 interesting than this confused and crumbling garden, 
 where you stumble at every step on the disinterred 
 bones of the past; where damp frescoed corridors, 
 relics possibly of Nero s Golden House, serve as 
 gigantic bowers, and where in the spring-time you 
 may sit on a Latin inscription in the shade of a flower 
 ing almond and admire the composition of the Cam- 
 pagna. The day left a deep impression on Rowland s 
 mind, partly owing to its intrinsic sweetness and 
 partly because his companion on this occasion let 
 some book of reference she had brought with her 
 lie unopened for an hour and asked several ques 
 tions which had no connection with Consuls or Caesars. 
 She had begun by saying that it was coming over her, 
 after all, that Rome was a ponderously sad place. The 
 sirocco was gently blowing, the air was heavy, she was 
 tired, she looked pale and grave. 
 
 "Everything," she said, "seems to insist that all 
 things are vanity indeed. If one has something good 
 to do I suppose one feels a certain strength within one 
 to say otherwise. But if one has nothing it s surely 
 depressing to live year after year among the ashes of 
 things that once were mighty. If I were to remain 
 here I should either become permanently low/ as 
 they say, or I would take refuge in some practical 
 occupation." 
 
 "And what occupation would be your idea ?" 
 "I would open a school for those beautiful little 
 beggars, though I m sadly afraid I should never bring 
 myself to scold them." 
 
 350 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I ve no practical occupation," said Rowland, 
 "and yet I ve kept, I think, from growing absolutely 
 limp." 
 
 " I don t call you at all unoccupied," Mary Garland 
 declared. 
 
 " It s very good of you. Do you remember our 
 talking about that at Northampton ?" 
 
 " During that walk in the woods ? Perfectly. Has 
 your coming abroad succeeded for yourself as well as 
 you hoped ?" 
 
 " I think I may say that it has turned out as well as 
 I expected." 
 
 "Are you very happy ?" 
 
 "Don t I look so?" 
 
 "So it seems to me. But" -and she hesitated 
 a moment "I imagine you look happy whether 
 you re so or not." 
 
 "I m like that ancient comic mask that we saw 
 just now in yonder excavated fresco; I m made to 
 grin." 
 
 " Shall you come back here next winter ?" she went 
 on without heed of this. 
 
 "Very probably." 
 
 "Are you settled for ever?" 
 "For ever is a long time. I live only from year 
 to year." 
 
 "Shall you *never marry?" 
 
 Rowland gave a laugh. "For ever* never ! 
 You go in for big figures. I ve taken no monastic 
 
 vow." 
 
 "Should n t you like to have a home ?" 
 "You mean in the American sense ?" And then as 
 351 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 she seemed to wonder: "Some one to share it with ? 
 Oh yes, I should like it immensely." 
 
 To this she made no rejoinder; but presently she 
 asked: "Why don t you write a book ?" 
 
 Rowland laughed this time more freely. "A 
 book! What book should I write?" 
 
 "A history; something about art or antiquities." 
 
 " I ve neither the learning nor the talent." 
 
 She made no attempt to contradict him; she sim 
 ply said she had supposed otherwise. " You ought, at 
 any rate," she continued in a moment, "to do some 
 thing for yourself." 
 
 " For myself ? I should have supposed that if ever 
 a man seemed to live for himself !" 
 
 "I don t know how it seems," she interrupted 
 "to careless observers. But we know we know 
 that you Ve lived a great deal for us" Her voice 
 trembled slightly, and she brought out the last words 
 with a little jerk. 
 
 "She has had that speech on her conscience," 
 thought Rowland; " she has been thinking she owed 
 it to me, and it seemed to her that now was her time to 
 make it and have done with it." 
 
 She went on in a way which confirmed these re 
 flexions, speaking with due solemnity. "You ought 
 to be made to know very well what we all feel. 
 Mrs. Hudson tells me she has told you what she 
 feels. Of course Roderick has expressed himself. 
 I ve been wanting to thank you too; I do, most sin 
 cerely." 
 
 Rowland made no answer; his face at this moment 
 might have resembled the tragic mask more than the 
 
 35* 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 comic. But Mary was not looking at him; she had 
 opened her eternal explanatory volume. 
 
 In the afternoon she usually drove with Mrs. Hud 
 son, but Rowland frequently saw her again in the 
 evening. He was apt to spend half an hour in the little 
 sitting-room at the hotel-pension on the slope of the 
 Pincian, and Roderick, who dined regularly with his 
 mother, was present on these occasions. Rowland 
 saw him little at other times, and for three weeks no 
 observations passed between them on the subject of 
 Mrs. Hudson s advent. To Rowland s vision, as the 
 weeks elapsed, the benefits to proceed from the pre 
 sence of the two ladies remained shrouded in mystery. 
 Roderick s reflecting surface exhibited, for the time, 
 something of a blur. He was preoccupied with his 
 progress on his mother s portrait, which was taking a 
 very happy turn; and often when he sat silent, with 
 his hands in his pockets, his legs outstretched, his 
 head thrown back and his eyes on vacancy, it was to 
 be supposed that his fancy was hovering about the 
 half-shaped image in his studio, exquisite even in its 
 immaturity. He said little, but his silence was no 
 necessary sign of disaffection, for he clearly liked 
 again, almost as he had liked it as a boy, in convales 
 cence from measles, to lounge away the hours in an 
 air so charged with feminine service. He was not 
 alert, he suggested nothing in the way of excursions 
 (Rowland was the prime mover in such as were 
 attempted), but he conformed, passively at least, to 
 the tranquil temper of the two women, and made 
 neither harsh comments nor sombre allusions. Row 
 land wondered whether he had, after all, done his 
 
 353 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 friend injustice in denying him the sentiment of duty. 
 He refused invitations, to Rowland s knowledge, in 
 order to dine at the sordid little table-d hote; wher 
 ever his spirit might be he was present in the flesh 
 with religious constancy. Mrs. Hudson s felicity 
 betrayed itself in a remarkable tendency to finish her 
 sentences and wear her best black silk gown. Her 
 tremors had trembled away; she was like a child who 
 discovers that the shaggy monster it has so long been 
 afraid to touch is an inanimate terror compounded of 
 straw and sawdust, and that there may even be a gay 
 impunity in tickling the absurd nose. As to whether 
 the love-knot of which Mary Garland had the keeping 
 still held firm, who should pronounce ? The young 
 woman, as we know, wore no such favour on her 
 sleeve. She always sat at the table, near the candles, 
 with rather a strenuous-looking piece of needlework. 
 This was the attitude in which Rowland had first 
 seen her, and he thought, now that he had seen her 
 in several others, that, even when maintained with 
 perhaps too deep a discretion, it was not the least 
 becoming. 
 
XIX 
 
 THERE came at last a couple of days during which 
 Rowland was unable to go to the hotel. Late in the 
 evening of the second Roderick appeared at his 
 lodgings. In a few moments he announced that he 
 had finished the bust of his mother. 
 
 "And it s ripping, you know," he declared. "It s 
 quite my high-water mark." 
 
 "I m delighted to hear it," Rowland replied. 
 "Never again talk to me about your inspiration being 
 dead." 
 
 "Why not ? This may be its last kick! I feel very- 
 tired. But the thing is n t too nauseating, though I do 
 say it. They tell us we owe so much to our parents. 
 Well, I Vepaid the debt with interest!" He walked 
 up and down, the purpose of his visit evidently still 
 hung fire. "There s one thing more I want to say," 
 he presently resumed. "I feel as if I ought to tell 
 you." He stopped before his companion with his 
 head high and his face as clear as a beach at the ebb. 
 "Your invention J s a failure!" 
 
 "My invention?" Rowland repeated. 
 
 " Bringing out my mother and Mary." 
 
 "A failure?" 
 
 "It s no use! They don t help me." 
 
 Rowland had believed he had no more surprises 
 for him; but that hero had himself a wide-eyed stare. 
 
 "They bore me to death," Roderick went on. 
 355 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Oh, oh!" cried Rowland. 
 
 "Listen, listen," said his friend with perfect gentle 
 ness. "I m not complaining of them; I m simply 
 stating a fact. I m very sorry for them; 1 m greatly 
 disappointed." 
 
 "Have you given them a fair trial ?" 
 
 " Should n t you call it that ? It seems to me I ve 
 been sublime." 
 
 "You ve done very well. I ve been building great 
 hopes on it." 
 
 "I ve done too well that s just what s the 
 matter with me. After the first forty-eight hours my 
 own hopes collapsed. But I determined to fight it 
 out; to stand within the temple; to let the spirit of 
 the Lord descend. Do you want to know the result ? 
 Another week of it and I shall begin to hate them. 
 I shall want to poison them." 
 
 "Miserable boy!" Rowland groaned. "They re 
 the most touching, most amiable of women." 
 
 "Very likely. But they mean no more to me than 
 a piano means to a pig." 
 
 "I can say this," said Rowland in a moment. "I 
 don t pretend to understand the state of your rela 
 tions with Miss Garland." 
 
 Roderick shrugged his shoulders and let his hands 
 drop at his sides. "She thinks all the world of me. 
 She likes me as if I were good to eat. She s saving me 
 up, cannibal-fashion, as if I were a big feast. That s 
 the state of my relations." He smiled strangely. 
 
 "Have you broken off your engagement ?" 
 
 " Broken it off ? You can t break off a star in Orion. 
 You can only," Roderick explained, "let it alone." 
 
 356 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 His friend waited a little. "Have you absolutely 
 no affection for her?" 
 
 He placed his hand on his heart and held it there 
 a moment. "Dead dead dead!" 
 
 "I wonder," Rowland presently observed, "if 
 you really know what a charming girl she is. She s 
 an awfully charming girl." 
 
 " Evidently or I should never have cared for 
 her." 
 
 "She has completely ceased then to interest you 
 in any way?" 
 
 "Oh, don t force a fellow to say base things!" 
 
 "Well, I can only say that you don t know what 
 you re giving up." 
 
 Roderick gave a quickened glance. " Do you know 
 so well ?" 
 
 "You must admit that you Ve allowed me time to 
 find out." 
 
 Roderick smiled almost sympathetically. "Well, 
 you haven t wasted it!" 
 
 Rowland s thoughts were crowding upon him 
 fast. If Roderick was resolute why should he be 
 gainsaid ? If Mary was to be sacrificed why in that 
 way try to save her ? There was another way; it 
 only needed a little presumption to make it possi 
 ble. Rowland tried to summon presumption to his 
 aid; but whether it should come or not it was to find 
 a particular consideration there before it. This pre 
 sence consisted but of three words only they were 
 cogent. " For her sake for her sake," it dumbly 
 murmured; and Rowland resumed his argument 
 " I don t know what I would n t do," he said, " rather 
 
 357 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 than that Miss Garland should be disappointed." 
 He heard himself grotesquely use this term which 
 might have applied to a shopgirl, 
 
 " There s one thing, you know," Roderick an 
 swered with an odd earnestness. "She is very very 
 plucky." 
 
 " Well then if she s plucky, believe that with a 
 longer chance, a better chance, she won t be too dis 
 couraged to endeavour to regain your affection." 
 
 "Do you know what you ask then?" Roderick 
 demanded. "That I shall make love to a girl I 
 hate ?" 
 
 "You bate?" 
 
 "As her lover I should mortally hate her. Do you 
 really urge my marrying a woman who would bore 
 me to death ? I should n t be long in letting her 
 know it, and then, pray, where would the poor thing 
 be ?" 
 
 Rowland walked the length of the room a couple 
 of times and stopped suddenly. "Go your way 
 then. Say all this to her, not to me." 
 
 "To her ? Why, I m afraid of her, don t you see ? 
 I want you to help me." 
 
 "My dear chap," said Rowland with a strained 
 smile, "I can t help you any more." 
 
 Roderick frowned, hesitated a moment and then 
 took his hat. " Oh, well," he said, " I m not so afraid 
 of her as all that!" And he turned as if to depart. 
 
 "Stop!" cried Rowland as he laid his hand on 
 the door. 
 
 Roderick paused and stood waiting, but only half 
 patient. 
 
 358 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Come back; sit down there and listen to me. 
 Of anything you say in your present state of mind 
 you 11 live, I m certain, very bitterly to repent. You 
 don t know what you really think, you don t know 
 what you really feel. You don t know your own 
 mind, you don t do justice to Miss Garland. All 
 this is impossible here, where your conditions for 
 it are of the worst. You re blind, you re deaf, 
 you re under a spell. To break it you must leave 
 Rome." 
 
 "Leave Rome ? Rome was never so dear to me." 
 "That s not of the smallest consequence. Leave 
 
 it to-morrow." 
 
 "And where shall I go?" 
 
 "Go to some place where you may be alone with 
 your mother and your cousin." 
 
 "Alone? You ll not come ?" 
 
 " Oh yes if you ask it of me." 
 
 Roderick, inclining his head a little, looked at 
 his friend askance. "I don t understand you, you 
 know," he said. "I think I really wish you liked 
 Mary either a little less or a little more." 
 
 Rowland felt himself flush, but he tried to keep 
 his words from reflecting it. "You put it to me that 
 I m to help you, but on these present terms I can 
 do nothing. If on the other hand you 11 leave your 
 question exactly as it is for a couple of months, and 
 meanwhile leave Rome, leave Italy, I 11 do what I 
 can to ease you off in the event of your then still 
 wishing to be liberated." 
 
 "I must do without your help then, really," Rod 
 erick replied. "Your terms are impossible. I 11 leave 
 
 359 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rome at the time I Ve always intended at the 
 end of June. My rooms and my mother s are taken 
 till then; all my arrangements are made accord 
 ingly. We 11 go at our settled time not before." 
 
 "You re not candid," said Rowland. "Your real 
 reason for staying has nothing to do with your rooms." 
 
 Roderick after an instant took this for what it was 
 worth. "Well, if I m not candid it s for the first 
 time in my life. Since you know so much about my 
 real reason, let me hear it. No, stop!" he suddenly 
 added, " I won t trouble you. You re right I ve 
 an underhand motive. On the twenty-fourth of the 
 month Christina Light s to be married. As I take 
 an immense interest in all that concerns her it s 
 an occasion on which I wish to be present." 
 
 "But you said the other day at Saint Peter s that 
 it was by no means certain such an event would 
 now take place." 
 
 "Apparently I was wrong. I m told the invita 
 tions are going out." 
 
 Rowland felt it would be vain to remonstrate and 
 that his only resource was to make the best bargain 
 possible. "If I offer no further opposition to your 
 waiting for what you want to wait for, will you 
 promise, meanwhile and afterwards, for a certain 
 period, to abide by my judgement, to be very quiet 
 and very good and say and do nothing that may give 
 alarm to Miss Garland ?" 
 
 "For a certain period ? For what period ?" Rod 
 erick promptly demanded. 
 
 "Ah, don t screw me down so! Don t you under 
 stand that I ve taken you away from her, that I 
 
 360 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 suffer for it in every corner of my mind, and that I 
 must do what I can to give you back ?" 
 
 "Do what you can then," said Roderick, throw 
 ing out and dropping his arms. "Do what you can, 
 my dear man, by all means." He stood there an in 
 stant limpidly, beautifully passive the image of 
 some noble and incureable young spendthrift wind 
 ing up a slightly sordid interview with his disagree 
 ably lucid but quite trusty man of business. Then 
 he gave his friend his hand firmly, as if in sanction 
 of the latter s freedom of action after which they 
 separated. 
 
 His bust of his mother, whether or no it were a 
 discharge of what he called the filial debt, was at 
 least a most interesting thing. Rowland, at the time 
 it was finished, met Gloriani one evening, and this 
 confident critic was eager for news of it. " I m told 
 our high-flying friend has really come down to earth. 
 He has been doing a queer little old woman." 
 
 "A queer little old woman!" Rowland exclaimed. 
 "My dear sir, she s Hudson s admirable mother." 
 
 "All the more reason for her being queer! It s 
 a thing for terra-cotta, eh ?" 
 
 Rowland hesitated but a moment. " If there 
 were a big enough piece in the world it would be 
 a thing for ivory." 
 
 His friend looked doubtful. "Oh, ivory begs the 
 question. Why not fine gold ? It was described to 
 me at all events as a charming piece of quaintness; 
 a little demure, thin-lipped old lady with her head 
 on one side and the prettiest wrinkles in the world 
 a sort of fairy godmother." 
 
 361 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Go and see it and judge for yourself," Rowland 
 said. 
 
 "No, I seem to make out I ve been sold. It must 
 be quite the other thing, the vieux jeu, domestic 
 detail, button-holes and hairpins for the campi- 
 santt. I wish the perverse young wretch would let 
 me save him!" 
 
 But a day or two later Rowland met him again 
 in the street and, as they were near, proposed they 
 should adjourn to Roderick s studio. He consented, 
 and on entering they found the young master of the 
 scene. Roderick had from the first, as we know, 
 never "grovelled" before the less frequent of his 
 guests, and his noble detachment varied to-day by 
 no perceptible shade. But his great confrere, like 
 the truth-lover he really was, cared nothing for his 
 manners; he cared only for the question of his value. 
 The bust of Mrs. Hudson touched Gloriani as he 
 was seldom touched; the beauty of it bloomed like 
 a flower that had grown in the night. The poor lady s 
 small, neat, timorous face had certainly no great 
 character, but Roderick had presented its sweet 
 ness, its mildness, its minuteness, its still maternal 
 passion, with the most unerring art. The truth was 
 all tenderness, the tenderness all truth. Gloriani 
 stood taking this in while Roderick wandered away 
 into the neighbouring room. 
 
 "I give it up!" he said at last. "I don t under 
 stand it." 
 
 "But you like it?" Rowland insisted. 
 
 " Like it ? It s a pearl of pearls. Tell me this," 
 his companion added; "has he a special worship 
 
 362 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 for her, is he one of your sons in a thousand ?" And 
 he gave Rowland almost a hard look. 
 
 "Why, she adores the ground he treads on," said 
 Rowland, smiling. 
 
 "I take that for an answer! But it s none of my 
 business. Only if I, in his place, being suspected of 
 having what shall I call it ? a cold and corrupt 
 heart, had risked that look of love, oh, oh ! I should be 
 called a pretty lot of names. Charlatan, poseur, 
 arrangeurl But he can do as he chooses! My dear 
 young man, I know you don t like me," he went on as 
 Roderick came back. "But it s a pity to waste your 
 time on that, because you re strong enough never to 
 think of me again. You re strong all round and 
 everywhere." 
 
 Roderick even at this scarce departed from his 
 dryness. "I m sorry to differ from you, but I m 
 hopelessly weak." 
 
 Well, his visitor still allowed for his arrogance. 
 "I told you last year that you would n t keep it up. 
 I was a great ass. You will keep it up." 
 
 "I beg your pardon I won t!" retorted Rod 
 erick. 
 
 "Though I m a great ass all the same, eh ? Well, 
 call me what you will, so long as you turn out this sort 
 of thing. I don t suppose it makes any particular 
 difference to you, but I shall rejoice, for myself, to have 
 made this sign of how largely I count on you." 
 
 Roderick stood looking at him with a strange 
 rigour. It turned slowly to a flush, and two glittering 
 angry tears filled his eyes. It was the first time Row 
 land had ever seen them there; he saw them but once 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 again. Poor Gloriani, he was sure, had never in his 
 life spoken with less of the mocking spirit; but a pro 
 fession of faith came wrongly, somehow, at such a 
 moment, for Roderick s nerves. He turned away with 
 his imprecation scarce suppressed. Gloriani was ever 
 trying to get near life, but life now baffled him. 
 "What s the matter with him?" he asked with 
 simplicity. 
 
 Rowland gave a sad smile and touched his fore 
 head. " Genius too much of it ! " 
 
 " Ah, one must n t have it so badly as that!" But 
 Gloriani sent another parting, lingering look at the 
 bust. "It J s as cool as a draught of the acqua Marcia 
 and as pretty as the plash of it. He is to be counted 
 on. But I m glad, since his spirit s so high, that 
 mine s a poorer thing. It makes," he explained with 
 a laugh as he looked for Roderick to wave him good 
 bye and saw his back still turned, "it makes a more 
 sociable studio!" 
 
 Rowland had purchased, as he supposed, tem 
 porary peace for Mary Garland; but his own spirit, 
 in these days, was given over to the elements. The 
 ideal life had been his general purpose, but the ideal 
 life could only go on very real legs and feet, and the 
 body and the extremities somehow failed always to 
 move in concert. The days passed, but brought with 
 them no official invitation to Christina Light s 
 wedding. He occasionally met her, and he occasion 
 ally met Prince Casamassima; but the two were 
 always separate: they were apparently taking their 
 happiness in the inexpressive and isolated manner 
 proper to people of social eminence. Rowland con- 
 
 3 6 4 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tinued to see Madame Grandoni, for whom he felt a 
 confirmed esteem. He had always talked to her with 
 comfortable candour, but now he made her the con 
 fidant of his innermost worries. Roderick and Rod 
 erick s concerns had been a common theme with him, 
 and it was in the natural course to talk of Mrs. 
 Hudson s arrival and Mrs. Hudson s companion. In 
 respect to certain equivocations, however, that he 
 had not been ashamed to practise in regard to this 
 young lady, she lost no time in putting his case for 
 him in a nutshell. "At one moment you tell me 
 the girl s plain," she said; "the next you tell me 
 she s lovely. I 11 call on them, I 11 invite them. 
 But one thing s very clear; you re in love with 
 her down to the ground." Rowland, for all an 
 swer, glanced round to see that no one heard her, 
 and it was odd to him that he should so like her 
 saying it. 
 
 "More than that," she added, "you ve been in 
 love with her these two years. There was that certain 
 something about you ! I knew you were of what we 
 Germans call a subjective turn of mind; but you had 
 a twist of it more than was natural. Why did n t you 
 tell me at once ? You would have saved me a great 
 deal of trouble. And poor Augusta Blanchard too!" 
 With which Madame Grandoni produced, for their 
 consumption, a colloquial plum. Miss Blanchard 
 and Mr. Leavenworth were going to make a match; 
 the young lady had been staying for a month at 
 Albano, and as Mr. Leavenworth had been dancing 
 attendance the event was a matter of course. Row 
 land, who had been lately reproaching himself with 
 
 365 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 a failure of attention to Augusta s doings, made some 
 such observation. 
 
 " But you did n t find it so," his hostess objected 
 " I mean when you, on your side, were so kind to her 
 without seeming to care that it might have com 
 mitted you. It was a matter of course perhaps that 
 Mr. Leavenworth, who seems to be going about 
 Europe with the sole view of picking up furniture 
 for his home, as he calls it, should think Miss 
 Blanchard a very handsome morceau; but it was 
 not a matter of course or it need n t have been 
 that she should be willing to become a sort of 
 superior table-ornament. She would have accepted 
 you in a jiffy if you had tried." 
 
 "You re supposing the insupposable," said Row 
 land. "She never gave me a particle of encourage 
 
 ment." 
 
 "What would you have had her do ? The poor girl 
 did her best, and I m sure that when she surrendered 
 to Mr. Leavenworth she was thinking of quite an 
 other gentleman." 
 
 " She thought of the pleasure her marriage would 
 give him." 
 
 "Aye, pleasure indeed! She s a thoroughly good 
 girl, but she has her little grain of feminine spite as 
 well as the rest. Well, he s richer than you, and she 
 will have what she wants; but before I forgive you 
 I must wait and see this new arrival what do 
 you call her ? Miss Garlant of the Back Woods. 
 If I like her very much I 11 forgive you; if I don t 
 I shall always bear you a grudge." 
 
 Rowland answered that he was sorry to forfeit any 
 366 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 advantage she might offer him, but that his excul 
 patory passion for Miss Garland of the Back Woods 
 was a figment of her fancy. Miss Garland of the 
 Back Woods he declared he liked that title 
 was engaged to another man. He himself had no claim. 
 
 "Well then," said Madame Grandoni, "if I like her 
 we 11 have it that you ought to be what you say 
 perhaps mendaciously that you re not. If you 
 fail in this it will be a double misdemeanour. The 
 man she has accepted does n t care a straw for her. 
 Leave me alone and I 11 tell her what I think of the 
 man she has n t!" 
 
 As to Christina Light s marriage Madame Gran 
 doni could say nothing positive. The maiden had of 
 late made her several flying visits, in the intervals 
 of the usual pre-matrimonial shopping and dress- 
 fitting; she had spoken of the event with a toss of her 
 head, as a matter which with a wise old friend who 
 viewed things in their essence she need n t pretend 
 to treat as a solemnity. It was for Prince Casamas- 
 sima to do that. "It s what they call a marriage of 
 reason," she once had said. "That means, you 
 know, a marriage of madness." 
 
 "What have you managed for her since you 
 must have managed something in the way of 
 advice?" Rowland asked. 
 
 "Very little, but that little has been a good word 
 for the Prince. I know nothing of the mysteries of the 
 young lady s heart. It may be a gold-mine, but at any 
 rate it s at the bottom of a very long shaft. The 
 marriage in itself, however, is an excellent marriage. 
 It s not only great, but it s good. I think Chris- 
 
 367 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tina s quite capable of giving it some wrong turn, of 
 spoiling somehow its beauty; but there s no position 
 in the world that would be sacred to her. The Prince 
 is an irreproachable young man; there s nothing 
 against him, nothing inconvenient about him but that 
 his name is, in his opinion, something to live up to. 
 It s not often, I fancy, that a personage wearing it 
 has been put through his paces at this rate. No one 
 knows the wedding-day; the cards of invitation have 
 been printed half a dozen times over with a different 
 date; each time Christina has destroyed them. There 
 are people in Rome who are furious at the delay; 
 they want to get away; they re in a dreadful fright 
 about the fever-season, but they re dying to see the 
 wedding, and if the day were fixed they would make 
 their arrangements to wait for it. I think it very 
 possible that after having kept them for a month and 
 been the cause of a dozen cases of malaria, Christina 
 will be married at sunrise by an old friar in Romeo 
 and Juliet fashion and with simply the legal 
 
 witnesses." 
 
 Rowland brooded a while. " I feel as if we had still 
 to reckon with her." 
 
 "Do you mean," his friend asked, "that she may 
 even yet run away with Mr. Hudson ?" 
 
 It was more than he had meant, but it had struck 
 him the next minute as not perhaps more than might 
 be. "I m prepared for anything!" 
 
 "Do you mean that Mr. Hudson s ready ?" 
 
 "Do you think she is?" Rowland asked. 
 
 "I think they re a precious pair and yet that 
 one has n t said all when one says, as I have so often 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 done, that she likes drama, likes theatricals what 
 do you call them ? histrionics, for their own 
 sweet sake. She s certain to do every now and then 
 something disinterested and sincere, something for 
 somebody else than herself. She needs to think well 
 of herself; she knows a fine character easily when she 
 meets one; she hates to suffer by comparison, even 
 though the comparison be made by herself alone; 
 and when the figure she makes, to her own imagina 
 tion, ceases to please or to amuse her she has to do 
 something to smarten it up and give it a more striking 
 turn. But of course she must always do that at some 
 body s expense not one of her friends but must 
 sooner or later pay, and the best of them doubtless 
 the oftenest. Her attitudes and pretences may some 
 times worry one, but I think we have most to pray 
 to be guarded from her sincerities. Those are the 
 prickles, after all, that she most turns upon her mother 
 and that she will turn yet upon her husband. But 
 we mustn t, all the same," Madame Grandoni con 
 cluded, "give her up. Don t you!" she said with 
 some emphasis to Rowland. 
 
 "Oh m*/" he simply sighed: "I m prickle-proof!" 
 His sagacious friend came the next day to call on 
 the two ladies from Northampton. She carried their 
 shy affections by storm and made them promise to 
 drink tea with her on the evening of the morrow. Her 
 visit was an epoch in the life of poor Mrs. Hudson, 
 who did nothing but make sudden desultory allu 
 sions to her for the next thirty-six hours. "To think 
 of her being a foreigner!" she would exclaim after 
 much intent reflexion over her knitting; "she speaks 
 
 369 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the language as if she were driving her own carnage 
 and with her whip well up in her hand, don t you 
 think ?" Then in a little while: " She was n t so much 
 dressed as you might have expected. Did you notice 
 how easy it was in the waist ? I wonder if that s the 
 fashion ?" Or "She s very old to wear a jaunty hat; 
 I should never dare to wear a jaunty hat!" Or "Did 
 you notice her hands ? very pretty hands for such a 
 stout person. A great many rings, but nothing very 
 handsome. I suppose they re handed down." Or 
 "She s certainly not handsome, but she looks won 
 derfully clever. I wonder why she does n t have some 
 thing done to her teeth." Rowland also received a 
 summons to Madame Grandoni s tea-drinking, and 
 went betimes, as he had been requested. He took a 
 fond interest, which he would have been at a loss to 
 defend, in Mary Garland s first appearance, as he 
 felt it to be, on any social, certainly on any critical, 
 stage. The two ladies had arrived with Roderick, 
 easily "interesting" but irrecoverably vague, in 
 attendance. Miss Blanchard was also present, 
 escorted by Mr. Leavenworth, and the party was 
 completed by a couple of dozen artists of both sexes 
 and various nationalities. It was a friendly and lively 
 concourse, like all Madame Grandoni s parties, and in 
 the course of the evening there was some excellent 
 music. People often played and sang for her who 
 were not in general to be heard for the asking. She was 
 herself a superior musician, and singers found it a 
 privilege to perform to her accompaniment. Rowland 
 conversed with various persons, but for the first time 
 in his life his chanty deserted its post *.nd his atten- 
 
 37 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tion flagrantly strayed: they were rejoicingly con 
 scious of but one young woman, who filled for him, 
 though all by no motion of her own, the part of 
 heroine of the occasion. Madame Grandoni had said 
 that he sometimes spoke of this person as pretty and 
 sometimes as plain; to-night if he had had occasion 
 to describe her type he would recklessly have pro 
 nounced it "rich." It was as if she had somehow put 
 lights in her dim windows and you could hear some 
 where behind them the tuning of mystic fiddles. She 
 was dressed more than he had ever seen her; it was 
 becoming and gave her an importance, all attaching, 
 for the eye. Two or three persons were apparently 
 witty people, for she sat listening to them with her 
 brilliant natural smile. Rowland, from an opposite 
 corner, reflected that he had never varied in his appre 
 ciation of Miss Blanchard s classic contour, but that 
 somehow to-night it impressed him hardly more than 
 an effigy stamped on a bad modern medal. Roderick 
 could not be accused of rancour, for he had approached 
 Mr. Leavenworth with unstudied familiarity and, 
 lounging against the wall with hands in pockets, held 
 him evidently under the spell of the good gentleman s 
 not quite being able to decide as to the biggest hat, as 
 it were, that his dignity could put on. Now that he had 
 done him an impertinence the young man apparently 
 found him less intolerable. Mr. Leavenworth stood 
 stirring his tea and silently opening and shutting his 
 mouth, without looking at his interlocutor; he might 
 have been a large drowsy dog snapping at flies. Row 
 land had found it agitating to be told Miss Blanchard 
 would have married him for the asking, and he would 
 
 37 * 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 have felt embarrassment in going to speak to her if 
 he had n t worked it out so well, in the interval, from 
 memory, that he had n t really trifled with her. The 
 facile side of a union with Miss Blanchard had never 
 been present to his mind; it had struck him as a thing, 
 in all ways, to be compassed with a great effort, and 
 he had not even renounced the effort: he had never 
 come, he felt, so near it. He had half an hour s talk 
 with her; a farewell talk, as it seemed to him a 
 farewell not to a real illusion, but to the idea that for 
 him, in the matter of committing himself for life, 
 grim thought, there could ever be a motive that 
 would n t ache like a wound. Such a pressure would 
 resemble that of the button of an electric bell kept 
 down by the thumb prescribing definite action to 
 stop the merciless ring. He congratulated Miss 
 Blanchard upon her engagement, and she received 
 his good wishes as if he had been a servant, at 
 dinner, presenting the potatoes to her elbow. She 
 helped herself in moderation, but also all in profile. 
 He had wished to be decent, but he felt the chill 
 and his zeal relaxed, while he fell a-thinking that 
 a certain natural ease in a woman was the most 
 delightful thing in the world. There was Christina 
 Light, who had decidedly too much, and there was 
 Miss Blanchard, who had decidedly too little, and 
 there was Mar) 7 Garland, who had decidedly the 
 right amount. He went to Madame Grandoni in an 
 adjoining room, where she was pouring out tea. " I 11 
 make you an excellent cup," she said, " because I ve 
 forgiven you." 
 
 He looked at her, answering nothing; but he 
 372 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 swallowed his tea with great gusto and a wait for 
 more more of everything; by all of which she 
 could know he was gratified. In a moment he inti 
 mated that in so far as he had sinned he was now 
 quite square with his conscience, but Madame Gran- 
 doni had already forgotten. 
 
 "The Back Woods then," she said, "grow such 
 interesting plants ? I like your young lady she s 
 not a bit banal. And yet she escapes it so quietly 
 not, as they sometimes do, by standing on her 
 head. I think that if she 11 let me make a friend 
 of her I sha n t bore her either. I have a flair oh 
 yes, in spite of Augusta, Augusta Victoria as I now 
 call her for the chance of their boring me. Miss 
 Garlant, you deep creature, defies at any rate your 
 account of her." 
 
 "She s unfortunately plain," said Rowland, 
 laughing and reenforcing his account; "very simple 
 and artless and ignorant - 
 
 "But thoroughly neat and respectable!" his 
 old friend took him up. "Which, being interpreted, 
 means She s very handsome, very subtle, very 
 clever, and has read hundreds of volumes on winter 
 evenings in the country." 
 
 "You re a veritable sorceress," Rowland made 
 answer; "you frighten me away." As he was turn 
 ing to leave her there rose above the hum of voices 
 in the drawing-room the sharp grotesque note of a 
 barking dog. Their eyes met in a glance of intelli 
 gence. 
 
 "There s the veritable sorceress!" Madame Gran- 
 doni declared. "The sorceress and her necromantic 
 
 373 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 poodle!" And she hastened back to the post of hos 
 pitality. 
 
 Rowland, accompanying her, found Christina 
 Light erect in the middle of the drawing-room and 
 looking about in perplexity. Her poodle, sitting on 
 his haunches and gazing at the company, had ap 
 parently been expressing a sympathetic displeasure 
 at the absence of a welcome. But in a moment 
 Madame Grandoni had come to the girl s relief and 
 Christina had tenderly kissed her. 
 
 "I had no idea," the young woman began while 
 she surveyed the assembly, "that you had such a 
 lot of grand people, or I would never have come in. 
 The servant said nothing; he took me for an in 
 vitee. I came to spend a neighbourly half-hour; you 
 know I have n t many left! It was too dismally dreary 
 at home. I hoped I should find you alone and I 
 brought Stenterello to play with the cat. Since I m 
 here, at any rate, I beg you to let me stay. I m not 
 dressed, but am I very hideous ? I 11 sit in a corner 
 and no one will notice me. My dear sweet lady, do 
 let me stay! Only, why in the world did n t you ask 
 me ? I never have been to a little party like this. 
 They must be very charming. No dancing tea 
 and conversation ? No tea, thank you; but if you 
 could spare a biscuit for Stenterello; a sweet bis 
 cuit, please. Really, why did n t you ask me ? Do 
 you have these things often ? Madame Grandoni, 
 it s very unkind!" And the girl, who had delivered 
 herself of the foregoing succession of sentences in 
 her usual low, cool, penetrating voice, uttered these 
 last words with a certain tremor of feeling. " I see," 
 
 374 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 she went on; "I do very well for balls and great 
 banquets, but when people wish to have a cosy, 
 friendly, comfortable evening, they leave me out 
 with the big flower-pots and the gilt candlesticks." 
 
 "I am sure you re welcome to stay, my dear," 
 said Madame Grandoni, "and at the risk of dis 
 pleasing you I must confess that if I did n t invite 
 you it was because you are, in effect, so grand for 
 small occasions and you come, as it were, so dear. 
 Your dress will do very well, with its fifty flounces, 
 and there s no need of your going into a corner. 
 Indeed since you re here I propose to have the 
 glory of it. You must remain where my people can 
 see you." 
 
 "They re evidently determined to do that by the 
 way they stare. Do they think I ve come to dance 
 a tarantella? Who are they all; do I know them?" 
 And lingering in the spacious centre, with her arm 
 passed into Madame Grandoni s, she let her eyes 
 wander slowly from group to group; all groups of 
 course observing her. Standing in the little circle 
 of lamplight with the hood of an Eastern burnous 
 shot with silver threads falling back from her beau 
 tiful head, while one hand gathered its volumin 
 ous shimmering folds and the other played with 
 the silken top-knot on the uplifted head of her 
 poodle, she was a figure radiantly romantic and 
 might have suggested an extemporised tableau vi- 
 vant. Rowland s position made it becoming for him 
 to speak to her without delay. As she looked at him 
 he saw that, judging by the light of her beautiful 
 eyes, she was in a humour to a specimen of which 
 
 375 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 she had not yet treated him. In a simpler person 
 he would have called it a great and direct kindness, 
 but in this young lady s deportment the flower was 
 apt to be one thing and the perfume another. 
 "Tell me about these people," she went on again: 
 "I had no idea there were so many people in Rome 
 I ve not seen. What are they all talking about : 
 It s all very clever, I suppose, and quite beyond 
 me. There s Miss Blanchard detaching herself as 
 usual against the darkest object she can find. She 
 would find means to make the Great Desert resem 
 ble a photographer s studio. But she s too much 
 like a head on a postage-stamp. And there s that 
 nice little old lady in black, Mrs. Hudson. What 
 a dear little woman for a mother! Comme elle est 
 proprette! And the other, the fiancee, of course she s 
 here. Ah, I see!" She paused; she was looking 
 intently at Mary Garland. Rowland measured the 
 sincerity of her glance and suddenly acquired a 
 conviction. "I should like so much to know her!" 
 she said, turning to Madame Grandoni. "She has 
 a charming face; I m sure she s the nicest person 
 here. I wish very much you would introduce me. 
 No, on second thoughts I would rather you did n t. 
 I 11 speak to her bravely myself, as a friend of her 
 what do you call it in English ? her promesso 
 sposo." Madame Grandoni and Rowland exchanged 
 glances of baffled conjecture, and Christina flung 
 off her burnous, crumpled it together and, with 
 uplifted finger, tossing it into a corner, gave it in 
 charge to her poodle, who straightway proceeded 
 to squat on it with upright vigilance. Christina 
 
 376 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 crossed the room with the step and smile of a min 
 istering angel and introduced herself to the young 
 lady from Northampton. She had once told Row 
 land that she would show him some day how aw 
 fully civil she knew how to be, and was now redeem 
 ing her promise. Rowland, watching her, saw Mary 
 Garland rise slowly in response to her greeting 
 and look at her with serious deep-gazing eyes. The 
 almost dramatic opposition of these two keenly 
 interesting girls touched him with a nameless appre 
 hension, and after a moment he preferred to turn 
 away. In doing so he noticed Roderick, who, stand 
 ing planted on the train of a lady s dress, was watch 
 ing the same passage with undisguised earnestness. 
 There were several more pieces of music; Row 
 land sat in a corner and listened to them. When 
 they were over the company began to take leave, 
 Mrs. Hudson among the number. Rowland saw 
 her come up to Madame Grandoni, clinging shyly 
 to Mary Garland s arm. Mary looked a little as if 
 she had just jumped, rather dangerously, to save her 
 life or her honour, from some great height. The two 
 ladies, he gathered, had appealed tacitly to Rod 
 erick, but Roderick now had his back turned. 
 He had approached Christina, who, with an ab 
 sent air, was sitting alone, where she had taken her 
 place near her innocent rival to watch the guests 
 pass out of the room. Her face, like Mary s, showed 
 a vague afterglow, but only as an intenser radiance. 
 Hearing Roderick s voice she looked up at him 
 sharply; then silently, with a single quick gesture, 
 she motioned him away. He obeyed her and came 
 
 377 * 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and joined his mother in bidding good-night to 
 Madame Grandoni. Christina in a moment met 
 Rowland s eyes and immediately beckoned him to 
 come to her. He was familiar with her peremptory 
 way and was not particularly surprised. She made 
 a place for him on the sofa beside her; he wondered 
 what was coming now. He was not sure it was not 
 a mere fancy, but it seemed to him that he had never 
 seen her look just as she was looking then. There 
 was a high mildness, a sweetness of humility in it 
 which threw into relief the rare nature, the strange 
 life and play, of her beauty. "How many more 
 metamorphoses," he asked himself, "am I to be 
 treated to before we have done ?" 
 
 " I want to tell you," said Christina, " I ve such 
 a beautiful impression of Miss Garland. Are n t 
 you glad ?" 
 
 "Quite overjoyed, madam," Rowland returned. 
 
 She kept her eyes on him. "Ah, I see you don t 
 believe a word of it!" 
 
 "Is it so hard to believe?" 
 
 "Not that people in general should admire her, but 
 that I should. I m not good enough that s what 
 you feel. But I want to tell you; I want to tell some 
 one; I can t tell Miss Garland herself. She regards 
 me already as a horrid false creature, and if I were 
 to express to her frankly what I think of her I should 
 simply disgust her. She would be quite right; she 
 has Repose, and from that point of view I and my 
 doings must seem monstrous. Unfortunately I 
 have n t Repose ah, what would n t I give for 
 it! I m trembling now; if I could ask you to feel 
 
 378 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 my arm you M see. But I want to tell you that I 
 admire Miss Garland more than any of the people 
 who call themselves her friends except of course 
 you. Oh, I know that! To begin with she s ex 
 tremely handsome and she has n t the least idea 
 of it. Now that by itself, you know !" 
 
 "She s not generally thought handsome," Row 
 land conscientiously said. 
 
 "Evidently! That s the vulgarity of the taste of 
 the rabble. Her head has great character, great 
 natural style. If a woman s not to scream out from 
 every pore that she has an appearance which is 
 a most awful fate quite the best thing for her 
 is to carry that sort of dark lantern. On occa 
 sion she can flash it as far as she likes. She 11 not 
 be thought pretty by people in general and dese 
 crated as she passes by the stare of every vile wretch 
 who chooses to thrust his nose under her bonnet; 
 but a certain number of intelligent people will find 
 it one of the delightful things of life to look at her. 
 That lot s as good as another. And then your friend 
 has every virtue under heaven." 
 
 "You found that out soon," Rowland laughed. 
 
 " How long did it take you ? I found it out before 
 I ever spoke to her. I met her the other week in 
 Saint Peter s; I knew it then. I knew it do you 
 want to know how long I ve known it ?" 
 
 "Really," said Rowland, "I didn t mean to 
 cross-examine you." 
 
 "Do you remember mamma s ball in Decem 
 ber ? We had some talk and you then mentioned 
 her not by name. You said but three words, but 
 
 379 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 I saw you admired her and I knew that if you ad 
 mired her she must have every virtue under heaven. 
 That s what you require." 
 
 "Upon my word/ he declared, "you make three 
 words go very far!" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hudson has also spoken of her." 
 
 "Ah, that s better!" said Rowland. 
 
 "I don t know. He does n t like her." 
 
 "Has he told you so?" The question left Row 
 land s lips before he could stay it which he would 
 have done on a moment s reflexion. 
 
 Christina looked at him intently. "Not in so many 
 words," she said at last. "That would have been 
 dishonourable, would n t it ? But I know it from 
 my knowledge of him. He does n t like perfection; 
 he s not bent on being so awfully safe and sound 
 in his likings; he s willing to risk something! Poor 
 dear man, he risks too much!" 
 
 Rowland was silent; he did n t care for the thrust, 
 but he was profoundly mystified. Christina beckoned 
 to her poodle, and the dog marched stiffly across 
 to her. She gave a loving twist to his rose-coloured 
 top-knot and bade him go and fetch her burnous. 
 He obeyed, gathered it up in his teeth and returned 
 with great solemnity, dragging it along the floor. 
 
 "I do her justice. I do her full justice." She 
 wonderfully kept it up. "I like to say that, I like 
 to be able to say it. She s full of intelligence and 
 courage and devotion. She does n t do me a grain 
 of justice; but that s no harm I mean above all 
 no harm to her. There s something so noble in the 
 aversions of a good woman!" 
 
 380 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "If you would give Miss Garland a chance," 
 said Rowland, "I m sure she would be glad to be 
 your friend." 
 
 "What do you mean by a chance? She has only 
 to take it. I told her I liked her immensely, and she 
 glared as if I had said something disgusting. She 
 looks magnificent when she glares like a Me 
 dusa crowned not with snakes but with a tremor of 
 doves wings." Christina rose with these words and 
 began to gather her mantle about her. " I don t often 
 like women small blame to me," she went on. 
 "In fact I generally detest em. But I should like 
 to know that one well. I should like to have a friend 
 ship with her; I have never had one; they must be 
 very delightful, good safe friendships. But I sha n t 
 have one now not if she can help it! Ask her 
 what she thinks of me; see what she 11 say. I 
 don t want to know; keep it to yourself. It s too 
 sad. So we go through life. It s fatality that s 
 what they call it, is n t it ? We make the most 
 inconvenient good impression on people we don t 
 care for; we inspire with loathing those we do. 
 But I appreciate her, I do her justice; that s the 
 most important thing. It s because I ve after all 
 a lot of imagination. She has none. Never mind; 
 it s her only fault. Besides, imagination s not a 
 virtue it s a vice. I do her justice; I under 
 stand very well." She kept softly murmuring and 
 looking about for Madame Grandoni. She saw the 
 good lady near the door and put out her hand to 
 Rowland for good-night. She held his hand an 
 instant, fixing him with her eyes, by the living 
 
 381 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 splendour of which he was momentarily dazzled. 
 "Yes, I do her justice," she repeated. "And you do 
 her more; you would lay down your life for her." 
 With this she turned away and before he could 
 answer she left him. She went to Madame Gran- 
 doni, grasped her two hands and held out a fore 
 head to be kissed. The next moment she was gone. 
 
 "That was a happy accident!" said Madame 
 Grandoni. "She never looked so beautiful and she 
 made my little party brilliant." 
 
 "Beautiful verily!" Rowland answered. "But it 
 was no accident." 
 
 "What was it then?" 
 
 " It was a plan. She wanted to see Mary Garland. 
 She knew she was to be here." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "By Roderick evidently." 
 
 "And why did she wish to see her ?" 
 
 "Heaven knows! I give it up." 
 
 "Ah, the bold bad girl!" Madame Grandoni sighed. 
 
 "No," said Rowland; " don t say that now. She s 
 too beautiful." 
 
 "Oh, you men the best of you!" 
 
 "Well then," cried Rowland, "she s too good!" 
 
XX 
 
 THE opportunity presenting itself the next day, he 
 failed not, as you may imagine, to ask Mary Garland 
 what she thought of Christina. It was a Saturday 
 afternoon, the time at which the beautiful marbles of 
 the Villa Borghese are thrown open to the public. 
 Mary had told him that Roderick had promised to 
 take her to see them with his mother, and he joined 
 the party in the splendid Casino. The warm weather 
 had left so few strangers in Rome that they had the 
 place to almost themselves. Mrs. Hudson had con 
 fessed to an invincible fear of treading even with the 
 help of her son s arm the polished marble floors, and 
 was sitting patiently on a stool, with folded hands, look 
 ing shyly here and there at the undraped paganism 
 around her. Roderick had sauntered off alone with 
 an irritated brow which seemed to betray the conflict 
 between the instinct of observation and the per 
 plexities of circumstance. His cousin was astray in 
 another direction, and if Rowland caught her with 
 her eyes on the catalogue he explained it as a sign of 
 her system of concealing anxieties. He joined her, and 
 she presently dropped for him on a divan and rather 
 wearily closed her eternal red handbook. Then he 
 asked her abruptly how Christina had pleased her. 
 She started the least bit at the question, and he felt 
 she had been thinking of Christina. "I don t like 
 her!" she dryly said. 
 
 383 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "What do you think of her ?" 
 " I think she s false." It quite rang out. 
 "But she wished to please you; she tried," Row 
 land rejoined in a moment. 
 
 "She wished above all to please herself!" 
 He was silent again, held a moment by a strange 
 intensity of thought. Yes, this young woman would 
 never be anything but unjust to the other one, and 
 that though neither had a vulgar soul. And he saw 
 the attitude in Mary as immutable for ever, and 
 Christina was interesting, and Mary would be wrong. 
 He himself could take it thus and yet not "mind." 
 How little with her there, verily, he minded! This 
 came and went in fifty seconds leaving all the rest, 
 however, not less distinct. He knew that his com 
 panion knew, by that infallible sixth sense of a wo 
 man who loves, how the beautiful strange girl she had 
 seen for the first time at Saint Peter s (since when 
 she had asked no question about her) had possibly 
 the power to do her a definite wrong. To what extent 
 she had the will remained of course ambiguous, and 
 last night s interview had somehow, by a perverse 
 process, only proved an omen of ill. It was in these 
 conditions equally unbecoming for Rowland to depre 
 ciate or to defend Christina, and he had to content 
 himself with simply having verified the latter s own 
 assurance that she had made a bad impression. He 
 tried to talk of indifferent matters about the statues 
 and the frescoes; but to-day plainly the quest of 
 elegant knowledge on Mary s part had folded its 
 wings. Curiosity of another sort had taken its place. 
 She was longing, he was sure, to break ground again 
 
 384 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 on the subject of Christina; but she found a dozen 
 reasons for hesitating. Her questions would imply 
 that Roderick had not treated her with confidence; 
 for information on this point should properly have 
 come from himself. They would imply that she was 
 jealous, and to betray her jealousy was intolerable to 
 her pride. For some minutes, as she sat pressing 
 the brilliant pavement with the point of her um 
 brella, it was to be supposed that her pride and her 
 anxiety held an earnest debate. At last anxiety won. 
 
 "About Miss Light then," she asked; "do you 
 know her very well ?" 
 
 " I can hardly say that. But I ve seen her re 
 peatedly." 
 
 "Do you like her very much ?" 
 
 "Yes and no. I think I m sorry for her." 
 
 Mary had spoken with her eyes on the pavement. 
 At this she looked up. " Sorry for her ? Why ?" 
 
 "Well she s unhappy." 
 
 "What are her miseries ?" 
 
 "Well she has a horrible mother and has had 
 a wretched bringing-up." 
 
 For a moment Mary was still. Then " Is n t she 
 very beautiful ?" she asked. 
 
 "Don t you think so ?" 
 
 "That s measured by what men think! She s 
 extremely clever too." 
 
 "Oh yes speaking as men think " 
 
 "She has beautiful dresses." 
 
 "Any number of them." 
 
 "And beautiful manners." 
 
 "Yes sometimes." 
 
 385 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "And plenty of money." 
 
 "Money enough apparently." 
 
 "And she s enormously admired." 
 
 "Oh, enormously." 
 
 "And she s to marry a grandee." 
 
 "So they say." 
 
 Mary rose and turned to rejoin her companions, 
 commenting these admissions with a pregnant si 
 lence. "Poor Miss Light!" she at last simply said. 
 But it went, as for her ironic purpose, very far. 
 
 Late the next evening his servant brought him the 
 card of a visitor. He was surprised at so nocturnal a 
 call, but it may be said that when he read the inscrip 
 tion Cavaliere Giuseppe Giacosa he recognised 
 the working of events. He had had an unnamed pre 
 vision of some sequel to the apparition at Madame 
 Grandoni s which the Cavaliere would have come 
 to usher in. 
 
 He had come evidently on a portentous errand. He 
 was as pale as some livid old marble mask into which 
 he might have suggested that a pair of polished agate 
 eyes had been for an occasion inserted. Prodigiously 
 grave, he might have been the bearer of a cartel, had 
 not his deep deference to his host and to the latter s 
 general situation been clearly again his first need. 
 
 "You Ve more than once done me the honour to 
 invite me to call upon you, and I m ashamed of my 
 long delay. But my time for many months has been 
 particularly little my own." Rowland assented, un 
 grudgingly, fumbled for some Italian correlative of 
 "Better late than never," begged him to be seated 
 and offered him a cigar. The Cavaliere sniffed imper- 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 ceptibly the fragant weed and then declared that if 
 his entertainer would allow him he would reserve it 
 for consumption at another time. It was not a case, 
 clearly, for hanging up smoke-wreaths. " I must con 
 fess," he said, "that even now I come on business not 
 of my own or my own at least only in a secondary 
 sense. I Ve been despatched as an ambassador an 
 envoy extraordinary, I may say by my dear friend 
 Mrs. Light." 
 
 " If I can in any way be of service to Mrs. Light 
 I shall much rejoice," Rowland found himself a little 
 recklessly articulating. 
 
 "Well then, dear sir, Casa Light s in high com 
 motion. The povera signora s in great trouble, in 
 terrible trouble." For a moment Rowland expected 
 to hear that the povera signora s trouble was of a 
 nature that a loan of five thousand francs would 
 assuage. But the Cavaliere was more interesting even 
 than that. "Miss Light has committed a great crime; 
 she has plunged a dagger into the heart of her 
 mother." 
 
 "A dagger ?" 
 
 The Cavaliere nervously patted the air. "I speak 
 strongly one must: che vuole ? She has broken 
 off her marriage." 
 
 "Broken it off?" 
 
 "Short! She has turned the Prince out of the 
 house." And the good gentleman, with this report, 
 folded his arms and, straight at his friend, looked 
 strange, the strangest, things. A mocking little light 
 of pride might have glimmered in his decent despair. 
 
 Rowland greeted the news with a gasp, and there 
 
 387 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sounded in his ears the sinister click as of a fitting 
 together of bad pieces. She had been too plausible to 
 be honest. Without being able to trace the connection, 
 he yet instinctively associated her present rebellion 
 with her meeting of Mary. Sinister it thus sud 
 denly showed, her exhibition of eager mildness at 
 Madame Grandoni s, and all the uneasiness she had 
 then stirred in him came back with a chill. Yes, it 
 was clearer than it was obscure, and he recognised 
 in the stroke now startling him the hand armed to 
 deal some blow at Miss Garland s small remnant of 
 security. So it hung before him, portentous and ugly. 
 If she had not seen Mary she would have let things 
 stand, but she had seen her and she had acted. It 
 was monstrous indeed to suppose that she could have 
 sacrificed so brilliant a fortune to a mere movement 
 of jealousy, to a calculation of quite futile effects, to 
 a desire to create for the poor girl some poisonous 
 alarm. Yet he remembered his first impression of her; 
 she was "dangerous," and she had measured in each 
 quarter the penetration of her announced rupture. 
 She hovered there for him as tasting that strength in 
 it. If the question had been of her penetrating, be, 
 verily, was penetrated, and it made him long, for a 
 minute that was as sharp as a knife-edge, to denounce 
 her to her face. But of course all he could say to his 
 visitor was that he was extremely sorry, though indeed 
 he was not surprised. 
 
 "You re not surprised ?" 
 
 "With Miss Light everything s possible. Isn t 
 that true?" 
 
 Another ripple seemed to play an instant in the 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 current of the old man s irony, but he made no 
 answer. "It was a magnificent marriage," he said 
 at last. "I have my reserves about a great many 
 people, but I had none about the Signer Principe." 
 
 "I should judge him indeed a very honourable 
 young man," said Rowland. 
 
 " Eh, young as he is he s made of the old stuff. 
 And now perhaps he s blowing his brains out. He s 
 the last of his house; it s a great house. But Miss 
 Light will have made it, for the nonce, feel very 
 small." 
 
 "Is that what she has wanted to do ?" 
 
 The Cavaliere s smile was like the red tip of a 
 cigar seen for a few seconds in the dark. "You ve 
 observed Miss Light with attention," he said, "and 
 this brings me to my errand. Mrs. Light has a high 
 opinion of your wisdom, of your kindness, and she 
 has reason to believe you ve great influence with 
 her daughter." 
 
 "I with her daughter? Not a grain!" 
 
 "That s possibly your modesty. Mrs. Light be 
 lieves that something may yet be done and that our 
 young lady will listen to you as to no one. She begs 
 you therefore to come and see her before it s too late." 
 
 "But all this, my dear Cavaliere, is none of my 
 business," Rowland objected. " I can t possibly 
 in such a matter take the responsibility of advising 
 Miss Light." 
 
 The Cavaliere fixed his eyes for a moment on the 
 floor, in brief but intense reflection. Then looking 
 up, "Unfortunately," he said, "she has no man near 
 her whom she respects. She has no father." 
 
 389 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "And such a finished fool of a mother!" Row 
 land gave himself the satisfaction of exclaiming. 
 
 The Cavaliere was so pale that he could not easily 
 have turned paler; yet it seemed for a moment that 
 his dead complexion blanched. "Eh, signore, such 
 as she is the mother appeals to you. A very hand 
 some woman dishevelled, in tears, in despair, 
 literally undressed, uncombed and refusing food/ 
 Rowland reflected a moment, not on the attractions 
 of Mrs. Light in the guise evoked by the Cavaliere, 
 but on the relief he should find in bringing home 
 to Christina her damnable need of making mis 
 chief. 
 
 "I must add," said the Cavaliere, "that Mrs. 
 Light desires also to speak to you on the subject of 
 Mr. Hudson." 
 
 "She believes Mr. Hudson connected with this 
 step of her daughter s ?" 
 
 "Intimately. He must be got out of Rome." 
 
 "Mrs. Light then must get an order from the 
 Pope to remove him. It s not in my power." 
 
 The Cavaliere showed his intelligence. "Mrs. 
 Light s equally helpless. She would leave Rome 
 to-morrow, but nothing will induce Christina to 
 budge. An order from the Pope would do nothing. 
 A bull in council would do nothing." 
 
 "She s really," said Rowland, "a terrible explo 
 sive force." 
 
 But the Cavaliere rose he responded more 
 coldly. "She has a great spirit the very greatest." 
 And it seemed to Rowland that her great spirit, for 
 mysterious reasons, gave him more pleasure than the 
 
 390 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 distressing use she made of it gave him pain. He was 
 on the point of charging him with his inconsistency 
 when the good gentleman took himself up. "But 
 if the marriage can be saved it must be saved. It s 
 a beautiful marriage. It will be saved." 
 
 "Notwithstanding Miss Light s great spirit to the 
 contrary ?" 
 
 "Miss Light, notwithstanding her great spirit, 
 will come round again to her duty." 
 
 "And will the Signor Principe come round?" 
 
 "I warrant him!" 
 
 "Well then," said Rowland, "heaven grant our 
 prayer!" 
 
 "Oh, we must help heaven!" And with Row 
 land s promise to present himself on the morrow at 
 Casa Light his visitor departed. He left our friend 
 revolving many things: Christina s magnanimity, 
 Christina s perversity, Roderick s contingent for 
 tune, Mary Garland s certain misery and the Cava- 
 liere s own fine ambiguities. 
 
 Rowland s present vow obliged him to disen 
 gage himself from an excursion which he had 
 arranged with the two ladies at the inn. Before 
 going to Casa Light he repaired in person to that 
 establishment. He found Roderick s mother seated 
 with tearful eyes, staring at an open note that lay 
 in her lap. At the window hovered Mary, who 
 turned on him as he entered a gaze both anxious 
 and confident. Mrs. Hudson quickly rose and came 
 to him, holding out the note. 
 
 "In pity s name what s the matter with my boy ? 
 If he s ill I entreat you to take me to him!" 
 
 391 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 " He s not ill, to my knowledge," Rowland said. 
 "What have you there ?" 
 
 "A note a most dreadful thing. He tells us 
 we re not to see him nor to think of him for a week. 
 If I could only go to his room! But I m afraid, 
 I m afraid!" 
 
 "I imagine there s no need of going to his room. 
 What s the occasion, may I ask, of his note ?" 
 
 " He was to have gone with us on this drive to 
 what is the place ? to Cervara. You know it was 
 arranged yesterday morning. In the evening he 
 was to have dined with us. But he never came, and 
 this morning arrives this awfulness. Oh dear, I m 
 so nervous. Would you mind reading it?" 
 
 Rowland took the note and glanced at its half- 
 dozen lines. "I mustn t go to Cervara," they ran; 
 "I have something else to do. This will occupy me 
 perhaps a week, so you won t see me. Don t talk 
 about me too much and don t miss me. Learn not 
 to miss me. I bless you both, but I know what I 
 need and must insist on my conditions. R. H." 
 
 "Why, it means," Rowland explained, "that he 
 has taken up a fresh piece of work and that it s 
 all-absorbing. That s very good news." This ex 
 planation was not sincere, but he had not the cour 
 age not to offer it as a stop-gap. And he found he 
 needed all his courage to support it, for Mary had 
 left her place and approached him, formidably un 
 satisfied. 
 
 " He never works in the evening," said Mrs. Hud 
 son. " Can t he come for five minutes ? Why does 
 he write such a cruel cold note to his poor mother 
 
 392 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to poor Mary ? What have we done that he acts 
 so strangely ? It s this wicked, infectious, heathen 
 ish place !" And the poor lady s suppressed mis 
 trust of the Eternal City broke passionately out. 
 "Oh, dear Mr. Mallet," she went on, "I m sure 
 it s this poisonous air, that the fever s on him and 
 that he s already delirious." 
 
 " I m very sure it s not that," Mary distinctly 
 protested. 
 
 She was still fixing Rowland, so that his eyes met 
 hers and his own glance wandered away. This 
 made him angry, and to carry off his confusion he 
 pretended to be looking meditatively at the floor. 
 After all, what had be to be ashamed of? For a mo 
 ment he was on the point of making a clean breast 
 of it, of crying out "Good ladies, I abdicate; I can t 
 help you!" But he checked himself; he felt so im 
 patient to have his three words with Christina. He 
 grasped his hat. "I ll see what it is and let you 
 know." And then he was glad he had not abdicated, 
 for as he turned away he glanced again at Mary and 
 saw that, though her face was full of apprehensions, 
 it was not hard and accusing, but charged with ap 
 pealing friendship. 
 
 He went straight to Roderick s apartment, deeming 
 this, at an early hour, the safest place to seek him. 
 He found him in his sitting-room, which had been 
 closely darkened to keep out the heat. The carpets 
 and rugs had been removed, the floor of speckled 
 concrete was bare and lightly sprinkled with water. 
 Here and there, over it, certain strongly-odorous 
 flowers had been scattered. Roderick was lying on 
 
 393 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 his divan in a white dressing-gown, staring at the 
 frescoed ceiling. The room was deliciously cool and 
 filled with the moist sweet fragrance of the circum 
 jacent roses and violets. These were somehow 
 "quaint" notes, yet Rowland hardly felt surprised. 
 
 " Your mother was greatly alarmed at your note," 
 he said, "and I came to satisfy myself that, as I 
 believed, you re not ill." 
 
 Roderick lay motionless except that he slightly 
 turned his head towards his friend. He was smell 
 ing a large white rose, which he continued to pre 
 sent to his nose. In the darkness of the room he 
 looked exceedingly pale, but his beautiful eyes quite 
 shed a light. He let them rest for some time on Row 
 land, lying there like a Buddhist in an intellectual 
 swoon, a deep dreamer whose perception should 
 be slowly ebbing back to temporal matters. "Oh, 
 I m not ill," he said at last. "I ve never been better 
 in my life." 
 
 "Your note, nevertheless, and your announced 
 absence, have very naturally alarmed your mother, 
 I advise you to go to her directly and reassure 
 her." 
 
 " Go to her ? Going to her would be worse than 
 staying away. Staying away at present is a kind 
 ness." And he inhaled deeply his huge rose, look 
 ing up over it at Rowland. "My presence, in fact, 
 would be indecent." 
 
 " Indecent ? Pray explain." 
 
 "Why, you see, as regards Mary Garland. I m 
 disgustingly happy. Does n t it strike you ? You 
 ought to agree with me. You wish me to spare her 
 
 394 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 feelings; I spare them by staying away. Last night 
 I heard something - 
 
 "I heard it too," Rowland said with a high inten 
 tion of dryness. " And it s in honour of this piece of 
 news that you ve taken to your bed in this fashion ?" 
 
 "Extremes meet! I can t get up for joy." 
 
 "May I enquire how you heard what has given you 
 such pleasure ? From Miss Light herself?" 
 
 " By no means. It was brought me by her maid, 
 who s in my service as well." 
 
 "The Prince s loss then is to such a certainty your 
 own gain ? " 
 
 "I don t talk about certainties. I don t want to be 
 arrogant. I don t want to offend the immortal gods. 
 I m keeping very quiet and behaving, I maintain, as 
 a gentleman should. But I can t help my deep peace. 
 I shall wait a while. I shall bide my time." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "And then the most interesting person in the world 
 in my world will confess to me that when she 
 threw overboard her Prince she remembered that I 
 adore her." 
 
 " I feel bound to tell you," was in the course of a 
 moment Rowland s response to this speech, "that 
 I m now on my way to Mrs. Light s." 
 
 " I congratulate you I envy you," Roderick im- 
 perturbably remarked. 
 
 "Mrs. Light has sent for me to remonstrate with 
 her daughter, with whom she has taken it into her 
 head that I have an influence. I don t know to what 
 extent I shall remonstrate, but I give you notice I 
 shall not speak in your interest." 
 
 395 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Roderick looked at him for a moment with a lazy 
 radiance. "Pray don t!" he simply answered. 
 
 " You deserve I should tell her you re a very shabby 
 fellow." 
 
 "My dear Rowland, the comfort with you is that 
 I can so beautifully trust you. You re incapable of 
 doing anything the least tiny bit indelicate." 
 
 "You mean to lie here then smelling your roses 
 and nursing your visions and leaving your mother and 
 Miss Garland to eat their hearts out ?" 
 
 " Can I go and flaunt my felicity in their faces ? 
 Wait till I get used to it a trifle. I ve done them 
 a villainous wrong, but I can at least forbear to add 
 insult to injury. I may be the biggest donkey, or 
 the blackest monster, in Rome, but for the moment 
 I have taken it into my head to be glad to be alive. 
 I should n t be able to keep it from them; my being 
 glad, or even my being alive, on such a basis, would 
 mortally scandalise them. So I lock myself up as a 
 dangerous character." 
 
 "Well, I can only hope that your gladness may not 
 grow less or your danger greater." 
 
 Roderick closed his eyes again and sniffed at his 
 rose. "God s will be done!" 
 
 On this Rowland left him and repaired directly to 
 Mrs. Light s. This afflicted lady hurried forward to 
 meet him. Since the Cavaliere s visit to Rowland she 
 had taken a reef, as the saying is, in her distress, but 
 she was evidently still in high agitation and she 
 clutched Rowland by his two hands as if in the ship 
 wreck of her hopes he were her single floating spar. 
 Rowland greatly pitied her so respectable is sin- 
 
 396 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 cerity of sorrow. She too was in the blighting circle of 
 her daughter s contact, and this exposure, shared with 
 the others who were more interesting, almost gave 
 her, with the crudity of her candour, something of 
 their dignity. 
 
 " Speak to her, plead with her, don t leave her till 
 you ve moved her!" she cried, pressing and shaking 
 his hands. "She 11 not heed us, no more than if we 
 were a pair of running fountains. Perhaps she 11 
 listen to you; she always liked you." 
 
 "She always disliked me," said Rowland. "But 
 that does n t matter now. I ve come here simply 
 because you sent for me not because I can help you. 
 I can t advise your daughter." 
 
 "Oh, if you think I m going to take that from 
 you ! You must advise her; you sha n t leave this 
 house //// you ve advised her!" the poor woman 
 passionately retorted. "Look at me in my misery 
 and refuse to help me! You need n t be afraid, 
 I know I m a fright, I have n t an idea what I Ve 
 on. If this goes on she and I may both as well turn 
 scarecrows. If ever a woman was desperate and 
 heartbroken, such a woman speaks to you now! 
 I can t begin to tell you. To have nourished a ser 
 pent, sir, all these years! To have lavished one s 
 self upon a viper that turns and stings her own 
 devoted mother! To have toiled and prayed, to 
 have pushed and struggled, to have eaten the bread 
 of bitterness and gone through fire and water - 
 and at the end of all things to find myself at this 
 pass! It can t be, it s too cruel, such things don t 
 happen, the Lord don t allow it. I m a religious 
 
 397 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 woman, sir, and if the Saints above don t know 
 all about me it is n t my fault. But had n t they, 
 with their own very hands, just given me their re 
 ward ? I would have lain down in the dust and let 
 her walk over me; I would have given her the eyes 
 out of my head if she had taken a fancy to them. No, 
 she s a cruel, wicked, heartless, unnatural girl! I 
 speak to you, Mr. Mallet, in my dire distress, as to 
 my only friend. There is n t a creature here that I can 
 look to not one of them all that I have faith in. 
 But I always thought everything of you. I said to 
 Christina the first time I saw you that you were a 
 perfect gentleman, a real one different enough 
 from some I could name! Come, don t disappoint 
 me now! I feel so terribly alone, you see; I feel what 
 a nasty hard heartless world it is that has come and 
 devoured my dinners and danced to my fiddles and 
 yet that has n t a word to throw to me in my trouble. 
 The mere money I ve spent, all round, to do it I 
 could speak of that too if I cared!" 
 
 While this high tide was flowing Rowland had had 
 time to look round the room and to see the Cavaliere 
 sitting in a corner, like a major-domo on the divan of 
 an ante-chamber, pale, rigid, inscrutable. "I have it 
 at heart to tell you," he said, "that if you consider 
 my friend Hudson - 
 
 Mrs. Light gave a toss of her head and hands. " Oh, 
 it s not that! She told me last night to bother her no 
 longer with Hudson. Hudson, forsooth! She did n t 
 care a button for Hudson. I almost wish she did; then 
 perhaps one might understand it. But she does n t 
 care for anything in the wide world except to do her 
 
 398 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 own hard wicked will and to crush me and shame me 
 with her cruelty." 
 
 "Ah then," said Rowland, "I m as much at sea 
 as you, and my presence here s an impertinence. I 
 should like to say three words to Miss Light on my 
 own account. But I must wholly decline to talk to 
 her about the Prince. This is simply impossible." 
 
 Mrs. Light burst into angry tears. "Because the 
 poor boy is a prince, eh ? because he s of a great 
 family and has an income of millions, eh ? That s 
 why you begrudge him and stand off from him and 
 won t lift a finger for him. I knew there were vulgar 
 people of that way of feeling, but I did n t expect it of 
 you. Make an effort, Mr. Mallet; rise to the occasion; 
 forgive the poor darling his advantages. Be just, be 
 reasonable! It s not his fault, and it s not mine. 
 Pray, has n t he human feelings and is n t he horribly 
 suffering ? He s the best, the truest, the kindest 
 young man in Italy and the most correct and culti 
 vated and incapable of a thought ! If he were stand 
 ing here in rags I would say it all the same. The man 
 first the money afterwards: that was always my 
 motto ask the Cavaliere. What do you take me 
 for? Do you suppcse I would give Christina to a 
 vicious person ? co you suppose I would sacrifice my 
 precious child, lit: .1 :omfort as I have in her, to a man 
 against whose character a syllable could be breathed ? 
 Casamassima s only too good, too innocently good; 
 he s a saint of saints; his word is his word and he 
 understands nothing else. There is n t such another 
 in the length and breadth of Europe. What he has 
 been through in this house not a common peasant 
 
 399 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 would endure. Christina has treated him as you 
 would n t treat a dog. He has been dealt with as if to 
 see how much of it he would take. He has been driven 
 hither and thither till he did n t know where he was. 
 He has stood there where you stand there, with his 
 name and his millions and his devotion as white as 
 your handkerchief, with hot tears in his eyes and me 
 ready to go down on my knees to him and say My 
 own sweet Prince, I could kiss the ground you tread 
 on, but it is n t decent that I should allow you to 
 enter my house and expose yourself to these horrors 
 again. And he would come back, and he would come 
 back, and go through it all again, and take all that 
 was given him, and only want the girl the more. He 
 opened himself to me as he might to his mother in 
 heaven, and it s not too much to say that we lived 
 through everything together. He used to beg my own 
 forgiveness for her worst caprices. What do you say to 
 that ? I seized him once and kissed him hard, I verily 
 did! To find that and to find all the rest with it, and 
 to believe that luck was at last, in spite of everything, 
 on my side, and then to see it dashed away before my 
 eyes and to stand here helpless oh, it s a fate I 
 hope you may ever be spared!" 
 
 " It would seem then that in the interest of Prince 
 Casamassima himself I ought to refuse to interfere," 
 Rowland presently said. 
 
 Mrs. Light looked at him hard, slowly drying her 
 eyes. The magnificence of her woe gave her a kind of 
 majesty, and Rowland for the moment felt ashamed 
 of the somewhat grim humour of his observation. 
 "Very good, sir," she said. "I m sorry your heart 
 
 400 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 is n t so tender as your conscience. My compliments 
 to your conscience! It must give you great happiness. 
 Of course it s your own affair. Since you fail us 
 we re indeed driven to the wall. But I ve fought my 
 own battles before and have never really lost courage, 
 so I don t see why I should break down now. Cava- 
 liere, come here!" That personage rose at her sum 
 mons and stood impenetrably at attention. He had 
 shaken hands with Rowland in silence. "Mr. Mallet 
 refuses to say a word," Mrs. Light went on. "Time 
 presses, every minute s precious. God only knows 
 what that poor boy may be doing. If at this moment 
 a truly clever woman should get hold of him it 
 would n t matter if she were a fright: it would be her 
 grand chance. It s horrible to think of." 
 
 The Cavaliere fixed his eyes on Rowland, and 
 his expression, which the night before had been 
 singular, was now extraordinary in its mixture of 
 fine anxiety an anxiety that seemed to plead 
 against the young man s reluctance and of some 
 emotion of a bearing less calculable. Suddenly and 
 vaguely Rowland felt the presence of a new active 
 element in the situation that had been made a drama 
 somehow by Christina s having been made, so all 
 generically, a heroine. It was as if a subordinate 
 performer had suddenly advanced to the footlights. 
 He looked from their companion to Mrs. Light, 
 whose tears had been succeeded by a grand air of 
 detachment. 
 
 " If you could bring yourself," the Cavaliere said 
 with all his grave rich unction and with the effect, 
 in his fine Roman voice, as of a round-hand copy set 
 
 401 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 for a pupil, "if you could bring yourself to ad 
 dress a few words of solemn remonstrance to Miss 
 Light you would perhaps do more for us than you 
 know. You would save several persons a great deal 
 of pain. This gracious lady here first and then 
 Christina herself. Christina in particular. Me too, 
 I might take the liberty to add!" 
 
 Rowland felt these words, after an instant, press 
 upon his heart as with a repetition of discreet 
 and intense finger-taps. To the personage so ur 
 banely sounding them his imagination had from the 
 first all benevolently attached itself, and they now 
 seemed a supreme manifestation of the mysterious 
 obliquity of his life. On the spot something sharply 
 occurred to him; it was something very odd and it 
 stayed his glance from again turning to Mrs. Light. 
 His idea embarrassed him, and to carry off his em 
 barrassment he repeated that it was folly to sup 
 pose bis counsel would have any weight with their 
 young friend. 
 
 The Cavaliere stepped forward and laid two 
 fingers, as for positive emphasis of the effect Row 
 land had already figured, on his interlocutor s breast. 
 " Do you wish to know the truth of the case ? You re 
 the only man whose words she ever repeats." 
 
 Rowland was moving from one new light to another. 
 "I 11 say then what I can!" By this time he had 
 again caught Mrs. Light s conscious eyes, which 
 appeared to accuse him for an instant of possible 
 defection. 
 
 "If you fail," she said sharply, "there s some 
 thing else we can do. But for God s sake be straight!" 
 
 402 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 She had hardly spoken when the sound of a short 
 sharp growl caused the company to turn. Chris 
 tina s pompous poodle stood in the middle of the 
 great drawing-room with his nose raised as if to 
 sniff conspiracy. He had preceded his mistress as 
 the sharpest of scouts, and she now slowly advanced 
 from a neighbouring place. 
 
 "You will be so good as to listen to Mr. Mallet," 
 her mother promptly rang out, "and to reflect care 
 fully on what he says. I suppose you 11 admit that 
 he s disinterested. In half an hour you shall hear 
 from me again!" And her retreat with her com 
 panion might have been the march of a squad that 
 has changed guard. 
 
 Christina looked hard at Rowland, but offered 
 him no greeting. She was very pale, and, strangely 
 enough, it at first seemed to Rowland that her beauty 
 was in eclipse. But he recognised more than ever 
 that its shadows were as fine as its lights and that 
 attempted discussion would always have it to reckon 
 with. "Why have you come here at this time?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Your mother sent for me in pressing terms, and 
 I was very glad to have an opportunity to speak to 
 you." 
 
 "Have you come to help me or to worry me?" 
 
 " I ve as little power to do one as I ve desire to 
 do the other. I came in great part to ask you a ques 
 tion. First, is your determination absolutely taken ?" 
 
 Christina s two hands had been hanging clasped in 
 front of her; she separated them and flung them 
 apart by an admirable gesture. 
 
 403 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Would you have done this if you had not seen 
 a certain person ?" 
 
 "What person?" 
 
 "The young lady you so much admire." 
 
 She looked at him with quickened attention; 
 then suddenly, "This is really interesting," she ex 
 claimed. "Let us see what s in it." And she flung 
 herself into a chair and pointed to another. 
 
 "You don t answer my question," Rowland said. 
 
 "You ve no right that I know of to ask it. But 
 it s very intelligent it puts such a lot into it. 
 Into my having seen her, I mean." She paused a 
 moment; then with her eyes on him, "She helped 
 me certainly," she went on. 
 
 " Provoked you, you mean, to hurt her through 
 Roderick ? " 
 
 For a moment she deeply coloured, and he had 
 really not intended to force the tears to her eyes. 
 A cold clearness, however, quickly forced them 
 back. "I see your train of reasoning, but it s really 
 all wrong. I meant no harm whatever to Miss Gar 
 land; I should be extremely sorry to cause her any 
 distress. Tell me that, since I assure you of that, 
 you believe it." 
 
 "How am I to tell you," he asked in a moment, 
 "that I don t?" 
 
 "And yet your idea of an inward connexion be 
 tween our meeting and what has happened since 
 corresponds to something that has been, for me, 
 an inward reality. I took into my head, as I told 
 you," Christina continued, "to be greatly struck 
 with Miss Garland (since that s her sweet name!) 
 
 404 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 and I frankly confess that I was tormented, that I 
 was moved to envy, call it, if you like, to jealousy, 
 by something I found in her. There came to me 
 there in five minutes the sense of her character. 
 C est bien beau, you know, a character like that, and 
 I got it full in the face. It made me say to myself 
 She in my place would never marry Gennaro 
 no, no, no, never! I could n t help coming back 
 to it, and I thought of it so often that I found a kind 
 of inspiration in it. I hated the idea of being worse 
 than she of doing something that she would n t 
 do. I might be bad by nature, but I need n t be by 
 reflexion. The end of it all was that I found it im 
 possible not to tell the Prince that I was his very 
 humble servant, but that decidedly I could n t take 
 him for mine." 
 
 "Are you sure it was only of Miss Garland s 
 character that you were jealous," Rowland asked, 
 "and not of her affection for her cousin ?" 
 
 "Sure is a good deal to say. Still, I think I may 
 do so. There are two reasons; one at least I can 
 tell you. Her affection has not a shadow s weight 
 with Mr. Hudson! Why then should one resent it F" 
 "And what s the other reason ?" 
 "Excuse me; that s my own affair." 
 Rowland felt himself puzzled, baffled, charmed, 
 inspired. "I ve promised your mother," he pre 
 sently went on, "to do my best on behalf of the 
 Prince." 
 
 She shook her head sadly. "The Prince needs 
 nothing you can say for him. He s a magnificent 
 parti. I know it perfectly." 
 
 405 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "You know also of your mother s deep disap 
 pointment ?" 
 
 "Her disappointment s demonstrative. She has 
 been abusing me for the last twenty-four hours as 
 if I were the vilest of the vile" -a statement to 
 which the purity of the girl s beauty gave a high 
 dramatic value. "I ve failed of respect to her at 
 other times, but I ve not done so now. How is it 
 failing of respect to have found out at last, once for 
 all, and with terrible trouble and pain, by how much 
 too little I care for the person she wishes to force 
 upon me by how much too much I dont care for 
 him ? I tried I ve been trying for months I 
 went as far as I could. And I liked what he 
 offered me, liked it immensely if I could have 
 had it without him. But to let him think he pleased 
 or satisfied me too or ever would that de 
 ception struck me finally as too base. I know, I feel 
 in all my bones, nevertheless, what I give up; so 
 that to be clear clear about r:,y innermost feeling 
 of all, and about that only has n t been, I assure 
 you, child s play. I was looking for inspiration, 
 if you like; and I found it well, I found it," she 
 went on, "where I could. Shall I tell you?" she 
 demanded with sudden ardour; "will you under 
 stand me ? It was on the one side the world, the 
 splendid, beautiful, powerful, interesting world. I 
 know what that is; I ve tasted of the cup; I like its 
 sweetness. Ah, if I chose, if I should let myself go, 
 if I should fling everything to the winds, the world 
 and I would be famous friends. I know its merits, 
 and I think without vanity it would feel mine. You 
 
 406 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 should see some fruits of the alliance. I should like 
 to be a grandee the Prince is, among many won 
 derful things hereditary Grand d Espagne and 
 I think I should be a very good one; I would play 
 my part well. I m fond of luxury, I m fond of a 
 great society, I m fond of being looked at, I thrill 
 with the idea of high consideration. Mamma, you 
 see, has never had any. There I am in all my 
 native horror. I m corrupt, corrupting, corrup 
 tion! Ah, what a pity that could n t be too! Mercy 
 of heaven!" Her voice had a convulsion; she cov 
 ered her face with her hands and sat motionless. 
 Rowland saw that an intense agitation, hitherto 
 successfully repressed, underlay her fine pretence 
 of finality, and he could easily believe her battle had 
 been fierce. She rose quickly and turned away, 
 walked a few paces and stopped. In a moment she 
 was before him again, her air confessing at once to 
 her pride and her humility. " But you need n t think 
 I m afraid!" she said. "I ve chosen, and I shall 
 hold to it. I ve something here, here, here!" and 
 she patted her heart. "It s my own. I sha n t part 
 with it. Is it what you call in Boston one s higher 
 self? I don t know; I don t care! It s bigger and 
 brighter than the Casamassima diamonds every 
 one of which, if you please, I ve seen and handled 
 and adored." 
 
 "You say that certain things are your own affair," 
 Rowland presently rejoined; "but I must neverthe 
 less make an attempt to learn what all this means 
 what it promises for my friend Hudson. Is there any 
 hope for him ?" 
 
 407 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "This s a point I can t discuss with you minutely. 
 I like him very much." 
 
 "Would you marry him if he were to ask you?" 
 
 "He has asked me." 
 
 "And if he should ask again ?" 
 
 "I shall marry no one just now." 
 
 " Roderick," said Rowland, " has been wonderfully 
 affected. He appears much exalted." 
 
 "He knows then of my rupture?" 
 
 "He s making a great holiday of it." 
 
 Christina pulled her poodle towards her and began 
 to retouch his beauty. "I like him very much," she 
 repeated; "much more than I used to. Since you 
 told me all that about him at Saint Cecilia s I ve 
 felt a great friendship for him. // nest ni banal ni 
 bete; and then there s nothing in life he s afraid of. 
 He s not afraid of failure; he s not afraid of ruin or 
 death." 
 
 Rowland had a stare he indeed had a chill 
 for this singular description. "Oh, he s a romantic 
 figure!" 
 
 "A romantic figure, yes; the most romantic I Ve 
 ever met, I think and with the charm of coming, 
 so oddly, from your awful country. There are 
 things in one to which it makes him quite sharply 
 appeal." 
 
 " Yet your mother," Rowland objected, " told me 
 just now that you say you don t care a button for 
 him." 
 
 "Very likely! I meant as an amour eux. One 
 does n t want a lover one pities, and one does n t want 
 of all things in the world a husband who s a 
 
 408 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 picturesque curiosity. The Prince himself is, in his 
 own way, almost that. I should like Mr. Hudson as 
 something else. The world s idea of possible relations, 
 either for man or woman, is so poor there would be 
 so many nice free ones. I wish he were even my 
 brother, so that he could never talk to me of marriage. 
 Then I could adore him. I would nurse him, I would 
 wait on him and save him all disagreeable rubs and 
 shocks. I J m much stronger than he, and I would 
 stand between him and the world. Indeed with Mr. 
 Hudson for my brother I should be willing to live and 
 die an old maid." 
 
 "Have you ever expressed to him these sentiments ?" 
 "I dare say. I ve chattered to him like a magpie. 
 If you wish I 11 put it to him formally so he 11 
 know a quoi s en temr." 
 
 "There s nothing I could wish less!" Rowland 
 promptly replied. "The one thing I ask of you is to 
 let him alone." 
 
 " Good," said the girl. " I make a note of it." 
 He was lingering there, weighing one impression 
 against another, weighing sympathy against sus 
 picion and feeling it sink the scale, when the curtain of 
 a distant doorway was lifted and Mrs. Light passed 
 across the room. She stopped half-way and rather 
 grimly took in our interlocutors. Sniffing the air for 
 the powder of the battle, she perhaps too much missed 
 the scent as she moved away with a passionate toss of 
 her drapery. Rowland s previous impression came 
 back to him: he saw her somehow possessed of some 
 obscure and odious, some wholly ungenerous advan 
 tage, a means of influence too base to be used save 
 
 409 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 under sharp coercion. She might, to his fancy, at that 
 moment, have had this furbished weapon concealed 
 in the folds of her not particularly fresh wrapper. 
 Christina, meanwhile, had really for the time been 
 soaring aloft, to his vision, and though in such flights 
 of her moral nature the energy of which now 
 affected him as real there was a certain painful 
 effort and tension of wing, it was none the less piteous 
 to imagine her being rudely jerked down to the base 
 earth. She would need all her magnanimity for her 
 own contest, and there was grossness in his making 
 other demands upon it. 
 
 He took up his hat. "You asked a while ago if I 
 had come to help you. If I knew how I might help 
 you I should be particularly glad." 
 
 She stood a moment thinking. Then at last looking 
 up: "You remember your promising six months ago 
 to tell me what you should finally think of me ? I 
 should like you to tell me now." 
 
 Ah, this pressed the spring, and his inward irony, 
 for himself, gave a hum! Madame Grandoni had 
 insisted on the fact that she was an actress, and this 
 little speech seemed a glimpse of the cothurnus. She 
 had played her great scene, she had made her point, 
 and now she had her eye at the hole in the curtain and 
 she was watching the house. But she blushed as she 
 guessed his fine comment, and her blush, w T hich was 
 beautiful, carried off her betrayal. He turned his back. 
 There was a great chain of rooms in Mrs. Light s 
 apartment, the pride and joy of the hostess on festal 
 evenings, through which the departing visitor passed 
 before reaching the door, and in one of the first of 
 
 410 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 these he found himself waylaid and arrested by the 
 distracted mistress of the house. 
 
 "Well, well ?" she cried, seizing his arm. "Has she 
 listened to you have you moved her ?" 
 
 "Hadn t you better, dear madam/ Rowland 
 rather ruefully asked, " leave the poor girl alone ? 
 
 She s doing for herself, I mean the best she 
 
 t 
 can. 
 
 "For herself?" the wretched woman shrieked. "Is 
 that what I asked you to find out ? as if we did n t 
 know enough about it! Pray, what is she doing for 
 me and for him? -and what have you been doing 
 for either of us ?" And then as he had nothing 
 but his blankness to show her she turned upon him 
 with fury. "I believe you came, perfidiously, but 
 to back her up, and you re conspiring with her to 
 kill me." 
 
 Rowland tried for a moment, with small taste for 
 the job, to appease her unreason and persuade her that 
 if she would stay her wrath she might gain something 
 by patience. This however, too visibly, was a counsel 
 of perfection, and she broke away from him in un- 
 diminished disgust, leaving him to come an instant 
 later upon the Cavaliere, who was sitting with his 
 elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, so 
 buried in thought that he had to call him before 
 he roused himself. The poor gentleman s eyes then 
 charged themselves heavily with his question, but 
 Rowland could again only throw up his hands. " Mrs. 
 Light, all the same, seems to have an idea she can 
 still do something; so that if you believe in Mrs. 
 Light s idea !" 
 
 411 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 The Cavaliere stood a moment in deep gloom. "I 
 always believe in Mrs. Light s ideas. It s a magni 
 ficent marriage. The girl should be reasonable." 
 
 "Ah," Rowland sighed, "if you ve a way to make 
 her thatI" 
 
 " It will make her either that - 
 
 "Or it will dish you altogether?" Rowland asked 
 as he hesitated. 
 
 The old man s face probed a moment the con 
 sciousness from which this question had sprung. 
 "Pray for her, dear sir," he at last simply said. 
 
 "I 11 pray for you, Cavaliere," Rowland answered 
 as he went. 
 
 He had become aware of Mrs. Light s renewed 
 approach and he slipped straight away. Yes, it was 
 after this some providential support to her vague 
 coadjutor that he found himself most invoking. 
 
XXI 
 
 OF Roderick meanwhile he saw nothing; but he im 
 mediately went to Mrs. Hudson and assured her that 
 her son was in even exceptionally good health and 
 spirits. After this he called again on his two country 
 women, but as Roderick s absence continued he was 
 able neither to dispense much comfort nor to feign 
 much conviction. Mary s tense smoothness a 
 serenity with a surface like slippery ice and from 
 which any vain remark rebounded with its heels in 
 the air seemed to him an image of his own state 
 of mind. He was deeply depressed, he felt a real 
 storm in the wind and wished it would come and wash 
 away their troubles. On the afternoon of the third 
 day he pushed into Saint Peter s, in whose vast clear 
 element the hardest particles of thought ever infallibly 
 entered into solution. From a heartache to a Roman 
 rain there were few contrarieties the great church did 
 not help him to forget. He had wandered there for 
 half an hour when he came upon a short figure lurking 
 in the shadow of one of the piers. He saw it was that 
 of an artist hastily transferring to his sketch-book the 
 sense of some emphasised instant, there, of the im 
 mense procession of the hours; and in a moment he 
 perceived the artist to be little Sam Singleton. 
 
 Singleton pocketed his notes with a guilty air, as if 
 he had been caught picking a rose in a royal conserva 
 tory or lighting his cigarette at the lamp of a shrine. 
 
 413 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland always enjoyed meeting him; talking with 
 him in these days was as good as a wayside gush of 
 clear cold water on a long hot walk. There was per 
 haps no drinking-vesselj and you had to apply your 
 lips to some informal conduit; but the result was 
 always a sense of extreme moral refreshment. On this 
 occasion he mentally blessed his ingenuous friend and 
 heard presently with regret that he was to leave Rome 
 on the morrow. Singleton had come to take leave 
 of the great basilica, where he was gathering a few 
 last impressions. He had earned a pocketful of money 
 and was meaning to take a summer s holiday; going 
 to Switzerland, to Germany, to Paris. In the autumn 
 he was to return home; his family composed, as 
 Rowland knew, of a father, who was cashier in a bank, 
 and five unmarried sisters, one of whom gave lyceum 
 lectures on woman s rights, the whole resident at 
 Buffalo, N. Y. had been writing him peremptory 
 letters and appealing to him as son, brother and 
 fellow-citizen. He would have been grateful for 
 another year in Rome, but he submitted to fate the 
 more patiently that he had laid up treasure which at 
 Buffalo would seem infinite. They talked some time; 
 Rowland hoped they might meet in Switzerland and 
 take a walk or two together. Singleton seemed to feel 
 that Buffalo had marked him for her own; he was 
 afraid he should not see Rome again for many a year. 
 
 "So you expect to live at Buffalo?" Rowland 
 enquired as they looked down the splendid avenue of 
 the nave. 
 
 "Well, it will depend upon the views upon the 
 attitude of my family. Oh, I think I shall get on; 
 
 414 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 I think it can be done," Singleton went on. " If I find 
 it can be done I shall really be quite proud of it; as 
 an artist, of course I mean, don t you know ? Do you 
 know I ve some nine hundred sketches ? I shall live 
 in my portfolio. And so long as one s not in Rome, 
 pray what does it matter where one is ? But how I 
 shall envy all you Romans you and Mr. Gloriani 
 and Mr. Hudson in particular." 
 
 "Don t envy Hudson; he has nothing to envy," 
 Rowland could n t help risking. 
 
 Singleton wondered but it might be a harmless 
 jest. "Why, is n t he going to be the great man of our 
 time ? And is n t it quite a treat to think that it s 
 we who have turned him out ?" 
 
 Rowland s heart was full, and the tender touch of 
 this personage made it overflow a little where a harder 
 knock might have steadied it. " Between ourselves, 
 since you ask, he has rather disappointed me." 
 
 Singleton stared open-mouthed. "Dear me then, 
 what did you expect ?" 
 
 "Verily," Rowland said to himself, "what did I 
 expect ?" 
 
 "I confess," Singleton pursued, "I can t judge 
 him rationally. He fascinates me; he s the sort of 
 man one makes one s hero of." 
 
 " Strictly speaking, he s not a positive ideal hero," 
 Rowland remarked. 
 
 Singleton looked intensely grave, and with almost 
 scared eyes, " Is there anything amiss with him, any 
 thing there should n t be ?" he timidly asked. Then 
 as Rowland hesitated to reply he quickly added: 
 " Please, if there is, don t tell me! I want to know no 
 
 415 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 evil of him, and I think I should hardly believe it. 
 In my memories of this Roman artist life he will be 
 the central figure. He will stand there in extraordin 
 ary high relief, as beautiful and clear and complete 
 as one of his own statues!" 
 
 "Amen!" said Rowland gravely. He remembered 
 afresh that the sea is inhabited by big fishes and little, 
 and that the latter often find their way down the 
 throats of the former. Singleton was going to spend 
 the afternoon in taking last looks at certain other 
 places, and Rowland offered to join him on his senti 
 mental circuit. But as they were preparing to leave 
 the church he heard himself suddenly addressed from 
 behind. Turning, he beheld a young woman whom 
 he immediately recognised as Madame Grandoni s 
 maid. Her mistress was on the spot, she said, and 
 begged to confer with him before he departed. 
 
 This summons obliged Rowland to separate from 
 Singleton, to whom he bade farewell. He followed 
 the messenger and presently found Madame Gran- 
 doni in possession of rather more than a mere pil 
 grim s portion of the steps of the tribune behind 
 the great altar, where, spreading a shawl on the pol 
 ished red marble, she had spaciously seated herself. 
 He suspected that she had been nursing a germ 
 of truth and she lost no time in bringing forth her 
 treasure. 
 
 "Don t shout very loud," she said; "remember that 
 we re in church , there s a limit to the noise one may 
 make even in Saint Peter s. Christina Light was 
 married this morning to her Prince or at least to her 
 mother s." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland exhaled a long breath. "Married this 
 morning ?" 
 
 "Married this morning, at seven o clock, le plus 
 tranquillement du monde, before three or four persons. 
 The young couple left Rome an hour afterwards." 
 
 For some moments this seemed to him really 
 terrible; the obscure little drama of which he had 
 caught a glimpse had played itself almost violently 
 out. He had believed that Christina would resist; 
 that she had succumbed was a proof that the way 
 taken with her had had some last dire directness. 
 His excited vision followed her, with much blinking, 
 into the world toward which she was rolling away 
 with her unappreciated husband and her stifled ideal; 
 but it must be confessed that if the first impulse of his 
 compassion was for Christina the second was now for 
 Prince Casamassima. Madame Grandoni acknow 
 ledged an extreme curiosity as to the secret springs of 
 these strange doings Casamassima s sudden dis 
 missal, his still more sudden recall, the hurried 
 private marriage. "Listen," said Rowland pre 
 sently, "and I will tell you something." And he 
 related in detail his last visit to Mrs. Light and his 
 talk with this lady, with Christina, and with the 
 Cavaliere. 
 
 "Good," she said; "it s all very curious. But it s 
 a riddle, and I only half guess it." 
 
 "Well," said Rowland, "it s all none of my busi 
 ness, and perhaps I see things melodramatically. But 
 certain suppositions have taken shape in my mind 
 which serve as answers to two or three riddles." 
 
 "It s very true," Madame Grandoni replied, "that 
 
 417 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 the Cavaliere, as he stands, has always needed to be 
 explained." 
 
 "He s explained by the hypothesis that four-and- 
 twenty years ago, at Ancona, Mrs. Light had a lover." 
 
 "I see. Ancona was dull, Mrs. Light was lively, 
 and -- four-and-twenty years ago perhaps the 
 Cavaliere was dangerous. Such are the dangers of 
 dull places. Poverino!" 
 
 "He has had his compensation," Rowland said. 
 " It has been a life for him to be near Christina. 
 What other life could he have had ?" 
 
 "What indeed ? But has the girl never wondered 
 why hers should have had to have so much of him? 
 
 "If she had been near guessing," Rowland re 
 plied, "her mother s high way with him would have 
 put her off the trace. Mrs. Light s view has appar 
 ently been that she could minimise her fault by 
 minimising her lover. She has lived it down by liv 
 ing him down, and so she has kept her secret. But 
 what s the profit of a secret --as a secret ! 
 unless you can make some use of it ? The day at 
 last came when she could turn hers to account; she 
 could let the skeleton out of the closet and produce 
 an effect with it." 
 
 "I don t understand." 
 
 "Neither do I, morally," said Rowland. "I only 
 conceive that there was an odious, dangerous, des 
 perate, a very possibly vain, but, as it has turned 
 out for her, quite successful scene. The poor Cava 
 liere stood outside, at the door, as livid as a corpse 
 and as dumb. The mother and daughter had it out 
 together. Mrs. Light burned her ships. When she 
 
 418 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 came out she had three lines of writing in her daugh 
 ter s hand, which the Cavaliere was despatched 
 with to the Prince. They overtook the young man 
 in time, and when he reappeared he was delighted 
 to dispense with further waiting. I don t know what 
 he thought of the grand manner of his bride s amends 
 to him; but that s how I roughly reconstruct his 
 tory." 
 
 "You mean her mother told her ?" The old 
 lady wondered. " I don t really see the difference 
 that that was to make to her." 
 
 "Well," said Rowland "it was to make the dif 
 ference of her deciding that she could n t afford not 
 really to place herself. I ve figured it out, you see. 
 She had to knock under to a revelation to an hu 
 miliation. She was shown that it was not for her to 
 make conditions, but to thank her stars that there 
 were none made for her. If she persisted she might 
 find it coming to pass that there would be condi 
 tions, and the formal rupture the rupture that 
 the world would hear of and pry into would then 
 have proceeded from the Prince and not from her." 
 
 Madame Grandoni thought of these things. "But 
 must n t Christina have long ago guessed ?" 
 
 "Her mother appears to have been satisfied she 
 had n t." 
 
 "People in this enlightened age don t mind that 
 sort of thing," Madame Grandoni objected. "The 
 old obloquy attaching to irregular birth is now mere 
 stage convention and melodrama." 
 
 "Well, Christina has a taste for that she was 
 glad immediately to be able to see herself in a new 
 
 419 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 high light. You and I don t mind, but I can easily 
 put myself in the place of the proudest girl in the 
 world, deeply wounded in her pride and not stopping 
 to calculate probabilities, but muffling her wound 
 with an almost sensuous relief in a splendour that 
 stood within her grasp and would cover everything. 
 Is it not possible that the late Mr. Light had made 
 an outbreak before witnesses who are still living ? 
 that the child s coming into the world was in itself a 
 scandal ? Say Light had quarrelled with his wife and 
 was at the time virtually separated from her. Say 
 too," Rowland went on, "that it quite imaginably 
 came home to her this first of all appeals from 
 her father as a father." 
 
 "Ah, she won t have liked him for that!" Madame 
 Grandoni declared. "Her being the Cavaliere s 
 daughter must, if she had really been ignorant, have 
 been a stiff dose for her to swallow." 
 
 "A reason the more then for her consenting to 
 become grand!" 
 
 The old woman got up at last, resuming her pro 
 gress and her sense of the situation. "Well, she has 
 done what she was to do. She was nobly to decline 
 it yet not to miss it. Which would have been a pity." 
 
 It threw Rowland, as they went, into meditation 
 again. "Yes, she clearly wasn t made to miss!" 
 
 He called on the evening of the morrow upon Mrs. 
 Hudson and found Roderick with the two ladies. 
 Their companion seemed to have but lately joined 
 them, and Rowland afterwards learned that it was 
 his first appearance since the writing of the note 
 which had so distressed his mother. He had dropped 
 
 420 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 upon a sofa, where he lounged like a young Pasha 
 bored with a state seraglio; greeting Rowland with 
 hardly more form than if he had been one of the 
 usual guards of such penetralia. The manner of his 
 advent had visibly not been happy; Mrs. Hudson 
 had seated herself near him in mute appeal, while 
 Mary was sunk, up to her firm chin, in one of her 
 eternal pretexts for the fine needle and the occupied 
 attention. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson, however, instantly broke out to 
 Rowland. "Oh, we have such comfortable news! 
 Roderick s now ready to leave Rome." 
 
 " It is n t decent to be too glad," said Roderick. 
 "There isn t a harm this place can do us, or has 
 done us, that has n t had something in it we shall 
 ache for again in some better one." 
 
 She had but a wan stare for this perversity. "If 
 you mean we shall never get over it perhaps! And 
 the proof may very well be in your looking so pulled 
 down whatever that may mean! Isn t he, Mr. 
 Mallet, too thin to live ? It shows in all your bones 
 that you need a change. I m sure we 11 go wher 
 ever in the world you like. Where should you like 
 to go?" 
 
 Roderick had let her take his hand, which she 
 pressed tenderly in her own, but he looked at her 
 from terribly far off. "Poor sweet old mother!" 
 he said at last all gently, if very inconclusively. 
 
 "My own dear precious son!" Mrs. Hudson as 
 responsively and as vaguely wailed. 
 
 "I don t care a straw where you go! I don t care 
 a straw for anything!" 
 
 421 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Oh, my dear boy," she remonstrated, "you 
 must n t say that before us all here before Mary, 
 before Mr. Mallet!" 
 
 " Mary Mr. Mallet ?" He took up these names 
 as after a long disuse and seemed to look at them 
 as at objects of obscure application. Then he re 
 leased himself from his mother s locked clasp and 
 turned away, leaning his elbows on his knees and 
 holding his head in his hands. There was a silence, 
 Rowland s share in which was the intensity of his 
 consciousness of the young woman at the window. 
 "Why should I stand on ceremony with Mary and 
 Mr. Mallet ?" Roderick presently demanded. "Mary 
 pretends to believe I m a great man, and if she be 
 lieves it as she ought nothing I can say will alter 
 her opinion. Mallet knows I m a hopeless humbug; 
 so I need n t mince my words with him." 
 
 "Ah my dear, don t use such dreadful language! 
 Mrs. Hudson quavered. "Are n t we all devoted 
 to you, and proud of you, and waiting only to hear 
 what you want, so that we may do it ?" 
 
 Roderick had got up and he began to walk about 
 the room; Rowland felt how as never yet there was 
 something reckless in him to count with. He ob 
 served further, w r ith all anxiety, that Mrs. Hudson, 
 without a sense of the delicate ground under her 
 feet, was disposed to chide him endearingly, to show 
 the intimacy of her tenderness. He foresaw that she 
 would bring down the hovering thunderbolt on her 
 head. 
 
 "Ah, in God s name," Roderick in fact broke out, 
 "don t remind me of my obligations! It s intoler- 
 
 422 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 able to me, and I don t believe it s pleasant to Mallet. 
 I know they re tremendous I know I shall never 
 repay them. I m bankrupt, bankrupt! Do you 
 know what that means ?" 
 
 The poor lady gazed in dismay, and Rowland 
 sharply interfered. "Oh, spare your mother your 
 wild figures! Don t you see you re frightening her 
 half to death ?" 
 
 "Frightening her? She may as well then be 
 frightened first as last. Do I frighten you, mother ?" 
 
 "Oh, Roderick, what do you mean?" she im 
 patiently whimpered. "Mr. Mallet, what s he talk 
 ing about ?" 
 
 "I m talking about this" Roderick replied - 
 "that I m an angry, savage, disappointed, miser 
 able man. I mean that I can t do a stroke of work 
 nor think a profitable thought. I mean that I m 
 in a state of helpless rage and grief and shame. 
 Helpless, helpless that s what it is. You can t 
 help me, poor mother not with kisses nor tears 
 nor prayers. Mary can t help me not for all the 
 honour she does me nor all the big books on art that 
 she pores over. Mallet can t help me not with 
 all his money nor all his good example nor all his 
 friendship, which I m so immensely well aware of: 
 not with all it multiplied a thousand times and re 
 peated to all eternity. I thought you would help 
 me, you and Mary; that s why I sent for you. But 
 you can t don t think it! The sooner you give 
 up the idea the better for you. Give up being proud 
 of me too; there s nothing left of me to be proud 
 of. A year or two ago I don t say, for I myself then 
 
 423 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 really believed I was a swell. But do you know what 
 has become of me now ? I ve gone utterly to the 
 devil." 
 
 There was something in the ring of his voice as 
 he uttered these words which sent them home with 
 convincing force. He was not talking for effect or 
 for the mere personal pleasure of extravagant and 
 paradoxical utterance, as had often enough been 
 the case ere this; he was not even talking viciously 
 or ill-humouredly. He was talking passionately, 
 desperately, sincerely, from an irresistible need to 
 throw off the oppressive burden of his mother s 
 confidence. His cruel eloquence brought the poor 
 lady to her feet, and she stood there with clasped 
 hands, petrified and voiceless. Mary Garland 
 quickly left her place and, coming straight to him 
 and laying her hand on his arm, let her eyes fix him 
 with an effort of influence of which she seemed now 
 to wish to test for the first time the real, the sov 
 ereign power. But the power proved the mere weak 
 fumble of a key in a lock too hard for it; he made 
 no movement to disengage himself, but it was as 
 if he wondered for the moment what she could want. 
 Rowland had been living for the past month in such 
 intolerable expectancy of disaster that, now that the 
 ice was broken and the fatal cold splash adminis 
 tered, his foremost feeling on receiving his share of 
 the spray was almost elation. But the next instant 
 his eternal second thought, his vision of the case for 
 others, had corrected it. 
 
 "I really don t make out," he observed, "the 
 profit of your talking in just this way at just this 
 
 424 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 time. Don t you see how you re making your mother 
 suffer?" 
 
 "Do I enjoy it myself?" cried Roderick. "Is the 
 suffering all on your side and theirs ? Do I look as if 
 I were happy and were stirring you up with a stick for 
 my amusement ? Here we all are in the same boat; we 
 might as well understand each other. These women 
 must know that I m not to be counted on. That 
 has a sound of the last impudence, no doubt, and I 
 certainly don t deny your right to be disgusted with 
 
 me." 
 
 "Will you keep what you ve got to say till another 
 time," said Mary, " and let me hear it alone ?" 
 
 "Oh, I 11 let you hear it as often as you please; but 
 what s the use of keeping it ? I m in the humour 
 now; it won t keep! It s a very simple matter it 
 is n t worth keeping. I m a dead failure, that s all; 
 I m not a first-rate man. I m second-rate, tenth-rate, 
 anything you please. After that it s all one!" 
 
 Mary turned away and buried her face in her hands; 
 but Roderick, affected apparently now in some un 
 wonted fashion by her gesture, drew her toward him 
 again and went on a little differently. " It s hardly 
 worth while we should have any private talk about 
 this, Mary " and he had one of his strange, straight 
 drops (stranger than any flare of passion or of irony) 
 into simple kindness. "The thing would be com 
 fortable for neither of us. It s better, after all, that it 
 be said once for all and dismissed. There are things 
 I can t talk to you about. Can I, at least ? You strike 
 me sometimes as deep, you know one never can 
 tell." 
 
 425 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 " I can imagine nothing you should n t talk to me 
 about," she returned impenetrably enough im 
 penetrably, that is, to Rowland. 
 
 "You re not afraid?" -Roderick pressed her 
 with a sharpness that was, for the few seconds, almost 
 like interest. 
 
 She turned away abruptly, with lowered eyes, in 
 tensely hesitating. "Anything you think I should 
 hear I 11 hear." And she went back to her place at 
 the window and took up her work. 
 
 " I ve had a great smashing blow," Roderick 
 pursued. " I was the biggest ass to be seen anywhere, 
 but it does n t make the blow any easier to bear." 
 
 " Mr. Mallet, tell me exactly what Roderick means ! " 
 said Mrs. Hudson, who had found her voice, in a tone 
 more peremptory than Rowland had yet heard her 
 use. 
 
 "He ought to have told you before," Roderick 
 interposed. " Really, Rowland, if you 11 allow me to 
 say so, you ought! You could have given a much 
 better account of all this than I myself; better espe 
 cially in that it would have been more lenient to me. 
 You ought to have let them down gently; it would have 
 saved them a great deal of pain. But you always w 7 ant 
 to keep things so uncannily quiet. Allow me to tell 
 you it s very weak of you." 
 
 "Speaking too well of you s a fault that s easily 
 mended!" said Rowland with a laugh. 
 
 "Oh, what is it, sir; what is this horror?" Mrs. 
 Hudson insistently groaned. 
 
 " It s what Roderick says. He s a most unexpected 
 failure!" 
 
 426 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Mary Garland, on hearing this statement, gave the 
 speaker a single glance and then rose, laid down her 
 work and walked rapidly out of the room. Mrs. 
 Hudson tossed her head and timidly bristled. "This 
 from you, Mr. Mallet ?" she said, with an injured air 
 which Rowland found harrowing. 
 
 But Roderick, most characteristically, did not in the 
 least resent his friend s assertion; he sent him, on the 
 contrary, one of the large, clear, beautiful looks, so 
 often at his command, which made his approval, or 
 his patience, so unexpectedly shine, and which set his 
 companion wondering again, as all too frequently 
 before, at the extraordinary disparities of his nature. 
 "My dear mother, if you had had eyes that were n t 
 blinded by this sad maternal vanity you would have 
 seen all this for yourself; you would have seen that 
 I m anything but prosperous." 
 
 "Is it anything about money ?" cried Mrs. Hudson. 
 "Oh, do write at once to Mr. Striker!" 
 
 "Money?" said Roderick. "I ve not a cent of 
 money. Where and how should I have got it ?" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Mallet, how could you let him?" Mrs. 
 Hudson asked terribly. 
 
 "Everything I have is at his service," said Rowland, 
 sick now of the scene. 
 
 "Of course Mr. Mallet will help you, my son!" 
 the poor lady hastened to proclaim. 
 
 "Ah, leave Mr. Mallet alone!" said Roderick. 
 "I ve squeezed him dry; it s not my fault if he has 
 anything left!" 
 
 " Roderick, what have you done with all your 
 money?" his mother demanded. 
 
 427 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Thrown it away. It was no such great amount. 
 I ve done nothing this winter/ 
 
 "You ve done nothing?" 
 
 " I ve done no manner of work ! Why in the world 
 did n t you guess it and spare me all this ? Could n t 
 you see I was empty, distracted, debauched ?" 
 
 "Debauched, my dear son?" Mrs. Hudson re 
 peated. 
 
 "That s over for the present! But could n t you 
 see could n t Mary see that I was in a damnably 
 bad way ?" 
 
 "I ve no doubt Miss Garland saw," Rowland said. 
 
 "But Mary has said nothing whatever!" Mrs. 
 Hudson protested. 
 
 "Oh, she s too wonderful," Rowland permitted 
 himself to observe. 
 
 "Have you done anything that will hurt poor 
 Mary ? " Mrs. Hudson gasped. 
 
 "I ve only been thinking night and day of another 
 
 woman." 
 
 She dropped helplessly into her seat again. "Oh 
 dear, dear, had n t we better go home ?" 
 
 "Not to get out of her way!" Roderick said. "She 
 has started on a career of her own, and she does n t 
 care a rap for me. My head was filled with her; I 
 could think of nothing else; I would have sacrificed 
 everything to her you, Mary, Mallet, my work, my 
 fortune, my future, my honour. I was in a lovely 
 state, eh ? I don t pretend to be giving you good news; 
 but I m telling the simple, literal truth, so that you 
 may know why I ve gone to the dogs. She pretended 
 to care greatly for all this, and to be willing to make any 
 
 428 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sacrifice in return; she had a magnificent chance, for 
 she was being bullied and hustled, horribly against 
 her will, into a mercenary marriage with a man she 
 could n t bear. She led me to believe that she would 
 send her Prince about his business and keep herself 
 free and sacred and pure for me. This was a great 
 honour, and you may believe I valued it. It turned 
 my head, and I lived only to see my happiness come 
 to pass. She did everything to encourage me to hope 
 it would; everything her infernal coquetry and falsity 
 could suggest." 
 
 "Oh, I say, this is too much!" Rowland bewil- 
 deredly interposed. 
 
 "So you back her up, eh ?" Roderick cried with a 
 renewal of his passion. "Do you pretend to say she 
 gave me no hopes ?" He had been speaking with 
 growing bitterness, quite losing sight of his mother s 
 pain and bewilderment in the passionate joy of pub 
 lishing his wrongs. Since he was hurt he must cry out; 
 since he was in pain he must scatter his pain abroad. 
 Of his never thinking of others save as they figured in 
 his own drama this extraordinary insensibility to the 
 injurious effects of his eloquence was a capital exam 
 ple; the more so as the motive of his eloquence was 
 never an appeal for sympathy or compassion 
 things to which he seemed perfectly indifferent and of 
 which he could make no use. The great and charac 
 teristic point with him was the perfect separateness 
 of his sensibility. He never saw himself as part of 
 a whole; only as the clear-cut, sharp-edged, isolated 
 individual, rejoicing or raging, as the case might be, 
 but needing in any case absolutely to affirm himself. 
 
 429 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 All this to Rowland was ancient history, but his per 
 ception of it stirred within him afresh at the sight of 
 Roderick s sense of having been betrayed. That he, 
 under the circumstances, was hardly the person to 
 raise the cry of treason, was a point to which at his 
 leisure Rowland was of course capable of rendering 
 impartial justice; but his friend s present collapse 
 was so absolute that it imposed itself on his sym 
 pathies. "Do you pretend to say," the interesting 
 youth went on, "that she did n t lead me along to the 
 very edge of fulfilment and stupefy me with all she 
 suffered me to believe, all she provoked me, invited 
 me, to count upon ? It amused her to do it, and she 
 knew perfectly well what she really meant. She never 
 meant to be sincere; she never dreamed she could be. 
 She s a ferocious flirt, and why a flirt s a flirt is more 
 than I can tell you now. I can t understand playing 
 with such a relation; for me it can only be a serious 
 thing, but too deadly serious, whether to go in for or 
 to be afraid of. I don t see w r hat s in your head, my 
 boy, to attempt to defend such a person since you 
 were the first, you J ll remember, to cry out against her 
 and to warn me. You told me she was dangerous, and 
 I pooh-poohed you. You were intensely right; you re 
 always so intensely right. She s as cold and false and 
 heartless as she s beautiful which is saying all; 
 and she has sold her heartless beauty to the highest 
 bidder. I hope he knows what he gets!" 
 
 "Oh, my son," Mrs. Hudson plaintively wailed, 
 "how could you ever care for such a dreadful 
 creature ?" 
 
 "It would take long to tell you, dear mother!" 
 
 43 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland s lately quickened interest in Christina 
 had still its fine capacity to throb, and he felt that 
 in loyalty to it as to an at least more enlightened 
 view he must say a word for her. "You took her, 
 I did think, too seriously at first," he remarked, "but 
 you take her too harshly now. She had no idea of 
 wronging or of so terribly upsetting you." 
 
 Roderick looked at him on this with eyes almost 
 lurid. "She s a ministering angel then after all? 
 that s what you want to prove ! " he cried. " That s 
 consoling for me who have lost her! You re always 
 right, I say; but, my dear fellow, be, in mercy, just 
 a little wrong for once!" 
 
 "Oh yes, Mr. Mallet, show a little mercy!" said 
 Mrs. Hudson in a tone which, for all its gentleness, 
 made Rowland stare. This demonstration on his 
 part covered a great deal of concentrated wonder 
 and apprehension a presentiment of what a small, 
 sweet, feeble, elderly lady might be capable of in 
 the way of abrupt and perverse animosity. There 
 was no space in Mrs. Hudson s tiny maternal mind 
 for complications of feeling, and one emotion ex 
 isted only by turning another over flat and perch 
 ing on top of it. She had evidently not penetrated 
 at all, having no imagination for it whatever, the 
 strange cloud of her son s personal situation. Sit 
 ting without, in dismay, she only saw that all was 
 darkness and trouble, and as his gained position, 
 or what she had been deeming such, appeared quite 
 to exceed her original measure and lift him beyond 
 her jurisdiction, so that he had become a thing too 
 precious and sacred for blame, she found it infinitely 
 
 431 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 comfortable to lay the burden of their common af 
 fliction upon Rowland s broad shoulders. Had he 
 not promised to make them all rich and happy ? 
 And this was the end of it! Rowland felt as if his 
 trials were only beginning. "Had n t you better for 
 get all this, my dear?" Mrs. Hudson said to Rod 
 erick. "Hadn t you better just quietly attend to your 
 work ?" 
 
 "Work, madam?" cried Roderick. "My work s 
 over. I can t work I have n t worked all winter. 
 If I were fit for anything this tremendous slap in 
 the face would have been just the thing to cure me 
 of my apathy. But there s a perfect vacuum here!" 
 And he tapped his forehead. "It s bigger than 
 ever; it grows bigger every hour!" 
 
 "I m sure you ve made a beautiful likeness of 
 your poor dreary little mother," said Mrs. Hudson 
 coaxingly. 
 
 " I had done nothing before, and I ve done no 
 thing since! I quarrelled with an excellent man the 
 other day from mere exasperation of my nerves, and 
 threw away five thousand dollars." 
 
 "Threw away five thousand dollars!" Rod 
 erick had been wandering among formidable ab 
 stractions, complications that bristled and defied 
 her touch; but here was a concrete fact, lucidly 
 stated, and she looked it for a moment in the face. 
 She repeated his words a third time with a gasping 
 murmur, and then suddenly she burst into piteous 
 tears. Roderick went to her, sat down beside her, 
 put his arm round her, fixed his eyes coldly on the 
 floor and waited for her to weep herself out. She 
 
 432 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed broken- 
 heartedly. She said not a word, she uttered no judge 
 ment, but the desolation of her tears was dire. It 
 lasted some time too long for Rowland s cour 
 age. He had stood silent, wishing simply to appear 
 very respectful; but his first weary relief, that of 
 finding their crisis really there, in definite and meas 
 urable form, to be practically dealt with, had utterly 
 ebbed, and he found his situation intolerable. He 
 was reduced to the vulgar expedient of leaving the 
 room. 
 
 His servant, the next morning, brought him the 
 card of a visitor. He read with surprise the name 
 of Mrs. Hudson and hurried forward to meet her. 
 He found her in his sitting-room, leaning on the 
 arm of her son and looking very pale, her eyes red 
 with weeping and her lips tightly compressed. Her 
 advent puzzled him, and it was not for some time 
 that he began to understand her. Roderick s coun 
 tenance threw no light; but Roderick s explanatory 
 power was but too subject to rich intermittences. He 
 had not for several weeks graced the scene now open 
 to him, and he immediately began to look at those 
 of his own works that adorned it. He gave himself 
 up to independent contemplation. Mrs. Hudson 
 had evidently armed herself with dignity, and so far as 
 she might she meant to be impressive. Rowland took 
 comfort, however, in her small quaint majesty, which 
 might have been that of a shorn sheep roused to dis 
 criminations and trying to correct both nature and 
 fate; for anything was better than seeing her again 
 break down. She told him that she had come to him 
 
 433 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 for practical advice; she took leave to remind him 
 that she was a stranger in the land. Where were 
 they to go, please ? What were they to do ? His eyes, 
 for a moment, took in Roderick Roderick who 
 had his back turned and, with his head on one side 
 like a tourist in a church, was lost in the considera 
 tion of his own proved power. The proof, meeting 
 him there in its several forms, had made him catch 
 his breath. 
 
 " Roderick says he does n t know, he does n t 
 care," Mrs. Hudson meanwhile observed. "He 
 leaves it entirely to you." 
 
 Many another man, in Rowland s place, would 
 have greeted this information with an irate and sar 
 castic laugh, telling his visitors that he thanked them 
 infinitely for their confidence, but that really, as 
 things stood now T , they must settle these little mat 
 ters between themselves; many another man might 
 have so comported himself even had he been, deep 
 within, equally occupied with the image of Mary 
 Garland, and not less amply conscious that her des 
 tiny was also part of the question. But Rowland 
 was now fairly used to his daily dose of bitterness, 
 and after a hard look, as always, at the cup, he again 
 swallowed the draught and entered, responsively 
 and formally, into Mrs. Hudson s dilemma. His 
 wits, however, were but indifferently at his com 
 mand; they were dulled by his sense of the singu 
 lar change that had taken place in the attitude of 
 this bewildered woman. Her visit was evidently 
 intended as a grave reminder of forgotten vows. 
 She was doubtless too sincerely humble a person 
 
 434 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to suppose that if he had had the wicked levity to 
 break faith with her any shadow she might cast 
 would act as a lash on his shoulders. But she had 
 convinced herself by some elaborate lonely logic 
 that she had been weakly wanting in "style" and 
 had suffered him to think too meanly not only of 
 her understanding but of her social consequence. 
 A visit in her best gown would have an admonitory 
 effect as regards both of these attributes; it would 
 cancel some favours received and show him that 
 she was not incapable of grasping the theory, at 
 least, of retribution. These were the reflections of 
 a very shy woman, who, determining for once in her 
 life to hold up her head, was actually flying it like 
 a kite. 
 
 " You know we Ve very little money to spend," 
 she said while her host waited for the full expression 
 of her idea. "Roderick tells me he has debts and 
 has also nothing at all to pay them with. He says 
 I must write to Mr. Striker to sell my house for 
 what it will bring and send me out the money. 
 When the money comes I must give it to him. I m 
 sure I don t know; I never heard of anything so 
 dreadful. My house is really the principal part of 
 my property. But that s all Roderick will say. We 
 must be very economical." 
 
 Before this speech was finished her voice had 
 begun to quaver softly, and her face, after all so 
 inadequately grim, to have motions that beat the air 
 like the wild arms of the sinking. Rowland found 
 himself turning hereupon to their companion and 
 speaking almost as a schoolmaster. "Come away 
 
 435 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 from those statues and sit down here and listen to 
 
 me." 
 
 Roderick started, but obeyed with the most grace 
 ful docility, choosing a stiff-backed antique chair. 
 
 "What do you propose to your mother to do?" 
 Rowland then enquired. 
 
 "Propose ?" said Roderick absently. "Oh, I pro 
 pose nothing." 
 
 The tone, the look, the gesture with which this 
 was said were horribly irritating, and for an instant 
 an imprecation rose to Rowland s lips. But he 
 checked it, and was afterwards glad he had done 
 so. "You must do something of some sort, you 
 know," he said. "Choose, select, decide." 
 
 "My dear Rowland, how impossibly you talk!" 
 his companion hereupon exclaimed. "The very 
 point of the whole thing is that I can t do anything. 
 I 11 do as I m told, of course, and be thankful, but 
 I don t call that doing. We must leave Rome, I sup 
 pose, though I don t see why. We ve no money, and 
 you have to pay cash, you know, on the railroads." 
 
 Mrs. Hudson surreptitiously wrung her hands. 
 "Listen to him, please! Not leave Rome, when 
 we ve stayed here later than any respectable family 
 ever did before! It s this dreadful place that has 
 made us so unhappy. If Roderick s so relaxed it s no 
 more than I am, too, and it s all the poison of the 
 
 air." 
 
 "It s very true that I m relaxed," said Roderick 
 serenely. " If I had n t come to Rome I should n t 
 have risen, and if I had n t risen I should n t have 
 fallen." 
 
 43 6 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Fallen fallen!" sighed Mrs. Hudson. "Just 
 hear him!" 
 
 " I 11 do anything you say, my dear man," Rod 
 erick continued. " I 11 do anything you want. I ve 
 not been unkind to my mother have I, mother ? 
 I was unkind yesterday, without meaning it ; for, 
 after all, you know, all that had to be said. Murder 
 will out, and my little troubles can t be hidden. But 
 we talked it over and made it up, did n t we ? It 
 seemed to me we did. Let Rowland decide it, mother; 
 whatever he suggests will be the right thing." And 
 Roderick, who had hardly removed his eyes from 
 the exhibition of his work, got up again and went 
 back to the great figure in which, during his divine 
 first freshness, he had embodied his idea of the primal 
 Adam. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson fixed her eyes upon the opposite 
 wall. There was not a trace in Roderick s face or 
 in his voice of the bitterness of his emotion of the 
 day before, and not a hint of his having the lightest 
 weight upon his conscience. He looked at his friend, 
 all radiance and intelligence, as if there had never 
 been a difference of opinion between them; as if 
 each had ever been for both, unalterably, and both 
 unalterably for each. 
 
 Rowland had received a few days before a letter 
 from a lady of his acquaintance, a worthy Scots 
 woman domiciled in a villa upon one of the olive- 
 covered hills near Florence. She held her apartments 
 in the villa upon a long lease, and she enjoyed for 
 a sum not worth mentioning the possession of an 
 extraordinary number of noble, stone-floored rooms, 
 
 437 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 with ceilings vaulted and frescoed, with barred win 
 dows commanding the loveliest view in the world. 
 She was a needy and thrifty spinster who never hesi 
 tated to declare that the lovely view was all very well, 
 but that, for her own part she lived in the villa for 
 cheapness and that with five hundred a year as 
 sured she would undertake to lead a worthier life 
 near her sister, a knight s lady at Glasgow. She was 
 now proposing a visit to that seat of discipline, and 
 she desired to turn an honest penny by subletting for 
 a few weeks her historic Italian chambers. The terms 
 on which she occupied them enabled her to ask a rent 
 scarce worth mention, and she had begged Rowland to 
 do what she called a little genteel advertising for her. 
 Would he say a good word for her rooms to his nu 
 merous friends in Rome ? He said a good word for 
 them now to Mrs. Hudson and told her in dollars and 
 cents how cheap a summer s lodging she might secure. 
 He dwelt upon the fact that she would strike a truce 
 with taUes-d hote, and have a servant of her own, 
 amenable possibly to instruction in the Northampton 
 mysteries. He had touched a tender chord, and his 
 visitor gave out a vague hum of reassurance. Her 
 sentiments upon the tatte-d bote system and upon 
 foreign household habits generally had arrived at a 
 high development, and if we had space for it would 
 repay analysis; and the idea of reclaiming a lost soul 
 to the conception of a good New England "tea" set 
 before her a light at which she could dimly blink. 
 While Rowland argued his case Roderick slowly 
 walked through the rooms with his hands in his 
 pockets. Rowland waited for him to show some 
 
 438 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 interest in their discussion, but he had no attention 
 for his friend s ingenuity. Rowland had always at 
 his friends service and his own his vision of the how 
 and the how much; he possessed conspicuously the 
 sense of detail. He entered into Mrs. Hudson s 
 position minutely and told her exactly why it seemed 
 good that she should remove immediately to the 
 Florentine villa. She received his advice, but sat on 
 her guard for it, averting her eyes much and sighing 
 like a person suspicious of a plausibility which might 
 be, on her entertainer s part, but an escape from 
 penalties. Yet she had nothing better to propose, 
 and Rowland received her permission to write to his 
 friend that she would take the rooms. 
 
 Roderick assented to this decision with a large 
 placidity. "Those Florentine villas are capable of 
 anything! I m perfectly at your service." 
 
 "Then I m sure I hope you 11 recover your tone 
 up there," his mother moaned while she gathered her 
 shawl together. 
 
 Roderick laid one hand on her arm and with the 
 other pointed to Rowland s marbles. "This is my 
 tone just now. Once upon a time I did those things 
 if it s possible to believe it." 
 
 Mrs. Hudson gazed at them vaguely, and Rowland 
 dropped the remark that such a tone was a capital 
 tone. 
 
 "They re too hideously beautiful!" said Roderick. 
 
 Rowland solemnly shrugged his shoulders; it 
 seemed to him he had nothing more to say. But as the 
 others were going a last deep throb of the sense of 
 undischarged duty led him to address to Roderick a 
 
 439 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 few words of parting advice. "You 11 find the Villa 
 Pandolfini very delightful, very comfortable. You 
 ought to be very contented there. Whether you work 
 or whether you do what you re doing now, it s a 
 place for an artist to be happy in. But I hope you 11 
 work." 
 
 "I hope to heaven I may!" It was full of expres 
 sion, but he might have been speaking of some inter 
 esting alien. 
 
 "When we meet again," Rowland said, "try then 
 to have something to show me." 
 
 "When we meet again ? Where the deuce are you 
 going?" Roderick demanded. 
 
 " Oh, I hardly know; over the Alps." 
 
 "Over the Alps! You re going to leave me ?" 
 
 Rowland had certainly meant to leave him, but his 
 resolution was not proof against this bare ejacula 
 tion. He glanced at Mrs. Hudson and saw that her 
 eyebrows were lifted and her lips parted in delicate 
 reprehension. She seemed to accuse him of a craven 
 shirking of trouble, to demand of him to repair his 
 cruel havoc in her life by a solemn renewal of zeal. 
 But Roderick s expectations were the oddest! Such 
 as they were, Rowland asked himself why he 
 should n t make a bargain with them. "You want 
 me to go with you ?" he asked. 
 
 "If you don t go I won t that s all! How in the 
 name of goodness shall I get through the next six 
 months without you ?" 
 
 " How will you get through them with me ? That J s 
 the question!" 
 
 "I don t pretend to say; the future s a dead blank. 
 440 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 But without you it s not a blank it s certain 
 damnation!" 
 
 "Mercy, mercy, mercy!" murmured Mrs. Hudson. 
 
 Rowland made an effort to turn to account this 
 precious symptom of a positive wish. " If I go with 
 you, will you try to work ?" 
 
 Roderick had up to this moment been looking as 
 unperturbed as if the deep agitation of the day before 
 were a thing of the remote past. But at these words 
 his face changed formidably; he flushed and scowled, 
 and all his passion returned. " Try to work ! he cried. 
 :< Try try! work work! In God s name don t 
 talk that way, or I shall think you do it on purpose. 
 Do you suppose I m trying not to work ? Do you 
 suppose I stand rotting here for the fun of it ? Don t 
 you suppose I would try to work for myself before 
 I tried for you ?" 
 
 "Mr. Mallet," cried Mrs. Hudson piteously, "will 
 you leave me alone with this? 
 
 Rowland turned to her and informed her gently 
 that he would go with her then to Florence. After he 
 had taken this engagement he thought not at all of the 
 pain of his position as mediator between the mother s 
 resentful grief and the son s incureable weakness; he 
 drank deep, only, of the satisfaction of not cutting 
 himself off from their other companion. If the future 
 was a blank to Roderick it was hardly less so to him 
 self. He had at moments a sharp foreboding of ill 
 things yet to come. He paid it no special deference, 
 but it seemed to warn him not to count on the future 
 for anything he might squeeze out of the present. 
 On his going to take leave of Madame Grandoni 
 
 44 1 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 this lady asked when he would come back to Rome, 
 and he answered that he would return either never 
 or for always. When she asked him what he meant 
 he said he really could n t tell her; but this moved her 
 to embrace him in a motherly manner, as if she under 
 stood. She did more, she pronounced him a paragon 
 among men; only that afterwards made his ears 
 burn it was so like a consecration afresh of the 
 overstrained use of his reason and his charity. There 
 were moments now when these faculties in him felt 
 limp and lifeless. 
 
XXII 
 
 THE Villa Pandolfini leaned largely upon a grass- 
 grown piazzetta at the top of a hill which sloped 
 straight from one of the gates of Florence. It offered 
 to the outer world an ample front, though not of rare 
 elevation, coloured a dull dark yellow and pierced 
 with windows of various sizes, no one of which save 
 those on the ground floor was on the same level with 
 any other. Within was a great cool grey cortile, 
 graced round about with high light arches and heavily- 
 corniced doors of majestic altitude and furnished on 
 one side with a grand old archaic well. Mrs. Hudson s 
 rooms opened into a small garden founded on sub 
 structions of immense strength, rising from the part 
 of the hill that sloped steeply away. This garden was 
 a charming place. Its southern wall was curtained 
 with a screen of orange-blossoms, a dozen fig-trees 
 here and there offered you their large-leaved shade, 
 and over the low parapet the soft grave Tuscan land 
 scape kept you company. The rooms themselves were 
 as high as chapels and as cool as royal sepulchres. 
 Silence, peace and security seemed to abide in the 
 ancient house, to make of it a square fortress against 
 further assault of fortune. Mrs. Hudson took into 
 her service a stunted brown-faced Maddalena, who 
 wore a crimson handkerchief passed over her coarse 
 black locks and tied under her sharp pertinacious 
 chin, and played over the domestic question in gen- 
 
 443 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 eral a smile as vivid, though perhaps as treacherous, 
 as some flaring mediaeval torch, the signal to con 
 federates without. A glance, a word, a motion, 
 made her show her teeth like a friendly she-wolf. 
 This formidable flicker formed her sole substitute 
 for speech with her melancholy mistress, to whom 
 she had been bequeathed by the late occupant of 
 the apartment and who, to Rowland s satisfaction, 
 promised to be diverted from the study of his pre 
 dicament by the still deeper perversity of Madda- 
 lena s theory of roasting, sweeping and bed-making. 
 Rowland took rooms at a villa a trifle nearer 
 Florence, whence in the summer mornings he had 
 five minutes walk in the sharp black shadow-strip 
 projected by winding flower-topped walls to join his 
 friends. The life at Villa Pandolfini, w T hen it had 
 begun to fill out its measure, took the rhythm of the 
 slow summer days, during which nothing w r ould have 
 been more open to it than to confess itself charmed to 
 patience. If it was under a sensible shadow this was 
 because it had an inherent vice; it feigned an uncon 
 sciousness that it too scantily felt. Roderick had lost 
 no time in showing how little he was still able to save, 
 and as he was the central figure of the small group, 
 as he held its heart-strings all in his hand, it reflected 
 faithfully the eclipse of his genius. No one had ven 
 tured upon the cheerful commonplace of saying that 
 the change of air and of scene would restore his spirits; 
 this would have had, in the conditions, altogether too 
 silly a sound. The change had clearly done nothing 
 of the sort, and his companions had at least the com 
 fort of their mute recognition. An essential spring had 
 
 444 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 dried up within him, and there was no household 
 magic, no waving of any blest wand, to make it flow 
 again. He was rarely violent, he expressed little of the 
 irritation and ennui he must have constantly felt; 
 it was as if he believed that an inward miracle but 
 only a miracle might yet take place for him and 
 was perhaps worth waiting for. The most that one 
 could do, however, was to wait grimly and doggedly, 
 suppressing an imprecation as from time to time one 
 looked at one s watch. An attitude of positive urban 
 ity towards life was not to be expected; it was doing 
 one s duty to hold one s tongue and keep one s hands 
 off one s own windpipe and other people s. He had 
 long sad silences, fits of a deeper detachment than any 
 before, during which he sat in the garden by the hour, 
 with his head thrown back, his legs outstretched, his 
 hands in his pockets and his eyes attached to the 
 blinding summer sky. He would gather a dozen books 
 about him, tumble them out on the ground, take one 
 into his lap and leave it with the pages unturned. 
 These moods would alternate with attacks of high 
 restlessness, when, at unnatural hours, he made un 
 explained absences. He bore the heat of the Italian 
 summer like a salamander and used to start off in the 
 glare of noon for long walks over the hills. He often 
 went down into Florence, rambled through the close 
 dim streets and lounged away mornings in the 
 churches and galleries. On several of these occasions 
 Rowland bore him company, for they were the times 
 when his contact had most of its early charm. Be 
 fore Michael Angelo s statues and the pictures of 
 the early Tuscans he quite forgot his disaster and 
 
 445. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 picked up the thread of his old love of ideas. He 
 found again in Florence certain of his Roman friends 
 and made with them appointments more or less 
 genial. More than once he asked Mary Garland to 
 accompany him to the city, where he showed her the 
 things he most cared for. He had a mass of sculptor s 
 clay brought up to the villa and deposited in a room 
 suitable for his work, but when this had been done 
 he turned the key in the door and the clay was never 
 touched. His eye was heavy and his hand cold, and 
 his mother was more than once caught in the act of 
 praying that he might be induced to see a doctor. 
 On one of these occasions he had a great outburst 
 of anger, begging her to know once for all that his 
 health in these days fairly mocked him with its excel 
 lence. On the whole, and most of the time, he irresist 
 ibly appealed, the air being charged with him as with 
 some rich wasted essence, some spirit scattered by 
 the breaking of its phial and yet unable, for its very 
 quality, to lose itself. If he was not querulous and 
 bitter it was because he had taken an extraordinary 
 vow not to be; a vow heroic for him and which those 
 who knew him well had the tenderness to appreciate. 
 Talking with him was like skating on thin ice, and 
 his companions had a constant mental vision of spots 
 marked dangerous. 
 
 This was an arduous time for Rowland; he said to 
 himself that he would see it through but must never 
 court again such perils. Mrs. Hudson divided it 
 between looking askance at her son, with her hands 
 tightly clasped about her pocket-handkerchief, as if 
 she were wringing it dry of the last hour s tears, and 
 
 446 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 turning her eyes much more directly to his perfidi 
 ous patron, on whom they rested in the mutest, the 
 feeblest, the most unbearable reprehension. She 
 never phrased her accusations, but he felt them gather 
 in the poor lady s inward gloom like monsters and 
 spectral shapes. These things were a felt weight, of 
 the heaviest, to him, and if at the outset of his experi 
 ment he had seen the possibility of them, how dimly so 
 ever, in the opposite scale, the brilliancy of Roderick s 
 promises would have counted for little. It would have 
 been better perhaps had she appeared voluble and 
 vulgar, for neat and noiseless and dismally ladylike 
 as she sat there, keeping her grievance green with her 
 soft-dropping tears, her forbearance had somehow an 
 edge and her propriety a chill. He did his best to be 
 thoroughly civil to her and to treat her with distin 
 guished deference, but perhaps his exasperated 
 nerves made him overshoot the mark and rendered 
 his attentions too grimly formal. She met them at 
 moments almost as if they had represented a longer 
 stretch of duplicity. She seemed capable of be 
 lieving that he was trying to make a fool of her; she 
 would have thought him cruelly recreant if he had 
 suddenly turned his back, and yet she gave him no 
 visible credit for consistency. It often struck him that 
 he had too abjectly forfeited his freedom. Was n t it 
 grotesque, at his age, to be put into a corner for 
 punishment ? 
 
 But Mary Garland had helped him before and 
 she helped him now helped him not less than he 
 had assured himself she would when he found him 
 self drifting to Florence. Yet her help was rendered 
 
 447 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 as unconsciously, he believed, and certainly as in 
 directly as before: he had made no apologies, and 
 she had offered to remit no penalties. After that 
 dreadful scene in Rome which had hurried their 
 departure it was of course impossible that there 
 should not be on the girl s part some frankness of 
 allusion to Roderick s so pronounced and so public 
 perversity. She had been present, the reader will 
 remember, during only half this supreme demon 
 stration of it, and Rowland had not seen her con 
 fronted with any absolute proof of the dependence 
 of their friend s equilibrium on a crookedness the 
 more or less in the tortuous progress of Christina 
 Light. But he knew that she knew too much for 
 her trust or her peace even for the most indulgent 
 view of her dignity: Roderick had told him, shortly 
 after their settlement at the Villa Pandolfini, that 
 he had had a "tremendous talk" with his cousin. 
 Rowland asked no questions about it; he preferred 
 not to have to take this knowledge into account. 
 If the interview had but stirred the waters of bitter 
 ness he wished to ignore it for Mary s sake; and if 
 it had sown the seeds of reconciliation he wished 
 to close his eyes to it for his own for the sake of 
 that shy contingency, for ever dismissed and yet 
 for ever present, which hovered in the background 
 of his consciousness with a hanging head and yet 
 an unshamed glance, and which had only, like a 
 sentry in a narrow niche, to shift from one foot to 
 the other, in order to become a fresh bribe to pa 
 tience. Was the old understanding "off," or was 
 Mary, in spite of humiliation, keeping it on ? 
 
 448 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was she in short consenting to that, to humiliation ? 
 Rowland looked at the question rather than asked 
 it, since everything hung for him on her possible 
 appetite for sacrifice, on his measure, so to call it, 
 of what she would abjectly "take." Was she one 
 of those who would be abject for some last scrap of 
 the feast of their dream ? It wronged her, as he 
 liked to think of her, to believe either that she was 
 or that she w?,s n t, and, as if the matter were none 
 of his business, he tried to turn away his head. There 
 are women whose love is care-taking and patron 
 ising and who attach themselves to those persons 
 of the other sex in whom the manly grain is soft 
 and submissive. It did not in the least please him 
 to hold her one of these, for he regarded such women 
 as mere males in petticoats, and he was convinced 
 that this young lady was intensely of her sex. That 
 she was a very different person from Christina Light 
 did n t at all prove that she was a less considerable 
 one, and if the Princess Casamassima had gone up 
 into a high place to publish her dismissal of a man 
 who could n t strike out like a man, it had been 
 hitherto presumable that she was not of a complexion 
 to put up at any point with what might be called 
 the Princess s leavings. It was Christina s constant 
 practice to remind you of the complexity of her char 
 acter, of the subtlety of her mind, of her troublous 
 faculty of seeing everything in a dozen different 
 lights. Mary had never pretended not to be simple; 
 but Rowland had a theory that she had really a finer 
 sense of human things and had made more, for 
 observation and for temper, of her scant material 
 
 449 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of experience, than Christina had ever made of the 
 stuff of her wild weaving. She did you the honours 
 of her intelligence with a less accomplished grace, 
 but was not that retreat as fragrant a maiden s bower ? 
 If in poor Christina s strangely mixed nature there 
 was circle within circle and depth beneath depth, 
 it was to be believed that the object of Rowland s 
 preference, though she did not amuse herself with 
 dropping stones into her soul and waiting to hear 
 them fall, could none the less draw from the reser 
 voir in question as brimming a bucket of energy. 
 She had believed Roderick was "splendid" when 
 she bade him farewell beneath their New England 
 elms, and this synthetic term, to her young, strenu 
 ous, concentrated imagination, had meant many 
 things. If it was to know itself chilled to the core, 
 that would be because disenchantment had w r on 
 the battle at each successive point and was now en 
 camped on the field. 
 
 She showed even in her face and step, meanwhile, 
 the tension of the watcher and the time-keeper: 
 poor Roderick s muddled sum was a mystifying page 
 to a girl who had supposed genius to be to one s spir 
 itual economy what a large balance at the bank is 
 to one s domestic. And yet our friend never tasted 
 with her, as with Mrs. Hudson, of that acrid under 
 current the impertinent implication that he had 
 defrauded her of a promised security. Did this 
 spring in her from a vague imagination of his own 
 feeling, or even from a vague pity for it ? The answer 
 might have been hopeful, inasmuch as she had al 
 most let him think before leaving Rome that she 
 
 450 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 liked him well enough to forgive him an injury. It 
 was partly, he fancied, that there were occasional 
 lapses, deep and sweet, in her sense of what had 
 happened. When on arriving at Florence she saw 
 the place he had brought them to in their trouble, 
 she had given him a look, and said a few words, 
 that had seemed almost more than a remission of 
 penalties. This happened in the court of the villa 
 
 -the large grey quadrangle, overstretched, from 
 edge to edge of the red-tiled roof, by the deep Ital 
 ian sky. Mary had felt on the spot the sovereign 
 charm of the place; it was reflected in her sincere 
 eyes, and, immediately promising himself to work 
 it, as the phrase was, for all it was worth, Row 
 land as promptly accepted the odium of not having 
 done the villa justice. She fell in love on the spot 
 with Florence, and used to look down wistfully at 
 the towered city from their terraced garden. Rod 
 erick having now no pretext for not being her cice 
 rone, Rowland was no longer at liberty, as he had 
 been in Rome, to propose frequent excursions to 
 her. Roderick s own invitations, however, were 
 much interspaced, and their companion more than 
 once ventured to introduce her to a gallery or a 
 church. These expeditions were not so blissful, to 
 Rowland s sense, as the rambles they had taken 
 together in Rome, for the excellent reason that they 
 made unmistakeably, a more embarrassed appeal 
 to hers. She was trying what they could do for her 
 
 little indeed as she might betray it if they failed. 
 She had at her command but half her attention, and 
 often, when she had begun with looking closely at a 
 
 45 l 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 picture, her silence, after an interval, made him turn 
 and see that if her eyes were fixed, her thoughts were 
 wandering and an image more vivid than any Ra 
 phael or Titian had superposed itself upon the can 
 vas. She asked fewer questions than before and 
 seemed to have lost heart for consulting guide-books 
 and encyclopaedias. From time to time, however, 
 she uttered a deep full murmur of gratification. 
 Florence in midsummer was perfectly void of travel 
 lers, and the dense little city gave forth its historic 
 soul with that larger passion with which the night 
 ingale sings when listeners have ceased to be visible. 
 The churches were deliciously cool, but the grey 
 streets stifling and the great dovetailed polygons 
 of pavement hot to the lingering tread. Rowland, 
 who suffered from deadness of air, would have found 
 all this uncomfortable in solitude; but Florence had 
 never charmed him so completely as during these 
 midsummer strolls with his preoccupied compan 
 ion. One evening they had arranged to go on the 
 morrow to the Academy. Mary kept her appoint 
 ment, but as soon as she appeared he saw that, 
 though she was doing her best to look at her ease, 
 she had had some evil hour. When he hinted that 
 he feared she was ill and that if she preferred to give 
 up their adventure he would submit with what grace 
 he might, she replied, after hesitation, that she would 
 adhere to their plan. " I m certainly not well/ " she 
 presently added, " but it s a moral malady, and in 
 such cases I regard your company as a tonic." 
 
 " But if I m to administer you remedies," he said, 
 "you must tell me how your indisposition came on." 
 
 452 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I can tell you very little. It came on with Mrs. 
 Hudson s doing me an injustice for the first time 
 in her life. And now I m already better." 
 
 This scant passage confirmed for Rowland an 
 impression he had tried positively to cultivate. He 
 was but too aware of the shocked, scared element 
 in Mrs. Hudson s view of her son s "sentimental" 
 infidelity, but he was surer than ever now that the 
 young man himself, much more than his wronged 
 bride-that-was-to-be, had been marked by it for her 
 indulgence. She was fond enough, obviously, of 
 her serviceable little cousin, but she had valued her 
 primarily, during the last two years, as an assistant 
 priestess at Roderick s shrine. Roderick had paid 
 her the compliment of asking her to become, at his 
 later convenience, his wife, but that poor Mary s 
 own, and her present, convenience was sharply in 
 volved appeared not to have occurred to his mother. 
 Her understanding of the matter was of course not 
 rigidly formulated, but it was as if she felt that Rod- 
 derick and she together sufficed as victims, without 
 their counting in their kinswoman. It would be 
 Rowland and Rome and the artistic temperament 
 that had victimised them, but it would be the 
 people naturally enamoured of Roderick most of all. 
 He had been wretchedly upset that was enough; 
 and Mary s duty was to join her patience and her 
 prayers to those of a disinterested parent. He might 
 feel the force of charms greater than Mary s; no 
 doubt women trained in the subtle Roman arts were 
 only too proud and too happy to make it easy for 
 him; and it was very presuming in a plain second 
 
 453 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 cousin to make a wonder of the inevitable. Mrs. 
 Hudson kept clear of the reflexion that a mother 
 may forgive where a mistress may not, and she 
 seemed to feel it a further drain on her own deple 
 tion that Mary should n t be glad to act as a hand 
 maid without wages. She was ready to hold her 
 breath so that Roderick might howl, if need be, 
 at his ease, and she was capable of seeing any one 
 else gasp for air without a tremor of compassion. 
 The girl had now perhaps given some intimation 
 of her belief that if constancy is the flower of devo 
 tion reciprocity is the guarantee of constancy, and 
 Mrs. Hudson had denounced this as arrogant doc 
 trine. That she had found it hard to reason with 
 her protectress, that something was expected of her 
 which she could n t give, and that in short he had 
 companionship in misfortune these things re 
 lieved a little the pressure of which Rowland was 
 conscious. 
 
 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 
 heavy scent of the air, in the dim, far starlight, 
 in the crenellated tower of a neighbouring villa, 
 which loomed vaguely above them through the warm 
 darkness, and in such conversation as depressing 
 reflections permitted. Roderick, habited always in 
 white, stalked about like a restless ghost, silent for 
 the most part, but making from time to time an ob 
 servation in which, as it seemed to the elder man, 
 the spirit of vain paradox and of loose pessimism too 
 freely overflowed. With Rowland alone he talked 
 
 454 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 more, and as well as ever, and even about the things 
 that had formerly interested him; but, taking a 
 vicious twist always, it ended for the most part in 
 some abrupt profession of despair and disgust. When 
 this current set in our friend straightway turned his 
 back and stopped his ears, and Roderick now wit 
 nessed these movements with perfect indifference. 
 When the latter was absent from the starlit circle 
 in the garden, as often happened, they knew nothing 
 of his whereabouts: Rowland supposed him to be 
 in Florence but never learned what he did there. 
 All this was not enlivening; yet with an even, muf 
 fled tread the days followed each other and brought 
 the month of August to a close. One particular even 
 ing at this time was admirable; there was a perfect 
 moon, looking so extraordinarily large that it made 
 everything its light fell on turn pale and shrink; the 
 heat was tempered by a soft w r est wind and the air 
 laden with the breath of the early harvest. The hills, 
 the vale of the Arno, the yellow river, the domes of 
 Florence, were not so much lighted as obscured by 
 the white glow. Rowland had found the two ladies 
 alone at the villa, and he had dropped into a seat 
 as discreetly as if they had been, as he said, at a 
 "show." He felt hushed by the solemn splendour 
 of the scene, but he risked the remark that, what 
 ever life might yet have in store for either of them, 
 this was a night they would never forget. 
 
 " It s a night that makes a success," Mary Gar 
 land replied, "of one s having lived at all." 
 
 " At all/ dear?" Mrs. Hudson echoed. "You 
 surely have n t waited till this evening to feel that 
 
 455 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 you Ve lived very comfortably!" And she surveyed 
 the scene as in vague reprehension and as finding 
 in the accumulated loveliness of the hour something 
 shameless and unholy. 
 
 They were silent after this for some time, but at 
 last Rowland addressed to the girl some tentative 
 idle word. 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 
 an air that gave a sort of spectral solemnity to the 
 sad weak meaning of her eyes. She might have been 
 for the moment a little old malevolent fairy. Mary, 
 Rowland perceived in an instant, was not absolutely 
 motionless; some strange agitation had shaken her. 
 She was softly crying, or about so to cry, and unable 
 to trust herself to speak. Rowland left his place and 
 wandered to another part of the garden, affected by 
 this sudden access and asking himself what had de 
 termined it. Of women s weeping in general he had 
 a developed dread, but this particular appearance 
 moved him to odd rejoicing. When he returned to his 
 place Mary had raised her head and composed her 
 aspect. She came away from Mrs. Hudson, and they 
 stood for a short time together, leaning against the 
 parapet. 
 
 "It seems to you very strange, I suppose," Row 
 land presently said, "that there should have to be 
 anxiety and pain in such a world as this." 
 
 "I used to think," she answered, "that if any 
 trouble came to me I should bear it like a stoic. But 
 that was at home, where things don t speak to us of 
 
 456 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 enjoyment as they do here. Here it s 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 n t made, as we 
 think at home, to struggle so much and miss so much, 
 but to ask of life as a matter of course some beauty 
 and some charm. This place has destroyed any scrap 
 of consistency that I ever possessed, but even if I must 
 myself say something sinful I love it!" 
 
 " If it s sinful, I absolve you in so far as I have 
 power. We should n t be able to enjoy, I suppose, 
 unless we could suffer, and in anything that s worthy 
 of the name of experience that experience which is 
 the real taste of life, is n t it ? the mixture is of the 
 finest and subtlest. Just now and here it s certainly 
 wonderful enough. Yet we must take things as much 
 as possible in turn." 
 
 His words had a singular aptness, for he had hardly 
 uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, 
 not, as appeared, on pleasure bent. He stood for a 
 moment taking in the effulgence. 
 
 " 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 s beautiful; 
 everything s insolent, defiant, atrocious with beauty. 
 Nothing s ugly but me me and my poor dead 
 brain!" 
 
 457 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Oh, my dearest son," pleaded the poor lady; 
 "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 J ve given it a chance. 
 Have n t I, eh ? Have n t I, Rowland ? It s no use; 
 our little experiment 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 dead." 
 
 "I feel strongly inclined," said Rowland gravely, 
 "to go and get my revolver." 
 
 "Oh, mercy on us, what language!" cried Mrs. 
 Hudson. 
 
 "Why not ?" Roderick went on. "This would be 
 a lovely night for it, and I should be a lucky fellow to 
 be buried in this garden. But bury me alive if you pre 
 fer. Take me back to Northampton." 
 
 "Roderick, will you really come?" his mother 
 quavered. 
 
 "Why should n t I go ? I might as well be there as 
 anywhere reverting to idiocy and living on alms. I 
 can do nothing with all this; perhaps I should really 
 like again the opposite pole. If I m to vegetate for the 
 rest of my days I can do it there better than here." 
 
 "Oh, come home, come home," Mrs. Hudson 
 pleaded, "and we shall all be safe and quiet and 
 happy. My dearest son, come home with your poor 
 little mother!" 
 
 "Let us go then quickly!" 
 
 458 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 She flung herself on his neck for gratitude. "We 11 
 go to-morrow! The Lord s very good to me!" 
 
 Mary Garland said nothing to this; but she looked 
 at Rowland, and her eyes struck him as containing 
 a deep, an alarmed appeal. He observed it with 
 exultation, but even without it he would have broken 
 into an eager protest. 
 
 "Are you serious, Roderick ?" he demanded. 
 
 "Serious ? Of course not! How can a man with a 
 crack in his brain be serious, how can a damned fool 
 reason ? But I m not jesting either; I can no more 
 crack jokes than utter oracles!" 
 
 "Are you willing to go home ?" 
 
 "Willing? God forbid! I m simply amenable to 
 force; if my mother chooses to take me I won t resist. 
 I can t! I ve come to that!" 
 
 "Let me resist then," said Rowland. "Go home 
 as you re now acting and talking ? I can t stand by 
 and see it." 
 
 It may have been true that Roderick had lost his 
 sense of humour, but he scratched his head with a 
 gesture of comic effect. "You are a funny man. I 
 should think I would disgust you horribly." 
 
 "Stay another year," Rowland simply said. 
 
 "Doing nothing?" 
 
 "You shall do more than you ve bargained for yet. 
 I m responsible for your doing it." 
 
 "To whom are you responsible?" 
 
 Rowland, before replying, glanced at Mary Gar 
 land, and his glance made her speak quickly. "Not 
 to me!" 
 
 "I m responsible to myself," he substituted. 
 
 459 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Ah, but my poor dear fellow!" his friend incon 
 clusively demurred. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Mallet, aren t you satisfied?" asked 
 Mrs. Hudson in the tone in which Niohe may have 
 addressed the avenging archers after she had seen her 
 eldest-born fall. " It s out of all nature keeping him 
 here. \\ hen our poor hearts are broken, surely our 
 own dear native land is the place for us. Do leave 
 us to ourselves, sir!" 
 
 This just failed of being a dismissal in form, and 
 Rowland made a note of it. Roderick was silent for 
 some moments; then suddenly he covered his face 
 with his two hands. Take me, at least, out of this 
 terrible Italy," he cried, "where everything mocks and 
 reproaches and torments and eludes me! Take me 
 out of this land of impossible beauty and put me in 
 the midst of ugliness. Set me down where nature is 
 coarse and flat and men and manners are vulgar. 
 
 o 
 
 There must be something ugly enough in Germany. 
 Pack me off, for goodness sake, there!" 
 
 Rowland answered that if he wished to leave Italy 
 the thing might be arranged; he would think it over 
 and submit a proposal on the morrow. He suggested 
 to Mrs. Hudson in consequence that she should spend 
 the autumn in Switzerland, where she would rind a 
 fine tonic climate, plenty of fresh milk and several 
 very inexpensive pt-nsicus. Switzerland of course was 
 not reputed ugly, but one could n t have everything! 
 
 Mrs. Hudson neither thanked him nor assented, 
 but she wept and packed her trunks. Rowland had a 
 theory, after the scene which led to these preparations, 
 that Mar) was weary of waiting for Roderick to come 
 
 460 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 to his senses, that the faith which had borne him com 
 pany on the tortuous march he was leading it had 
 begun to falter and droop. 1 his theory was not vitiated 
 by a word falling from her on the day before that 
 on which Mrs. Hudson had settled to leave Florence. 
 
 "Cousin Sarah, the other evening," she said, 
 "asked you to leave us to ourselves. I think she 
 hardly knew what she was saying, and I hope you *ve 
 not taken offence." 
 
 "By no means;- but I honestly believe that my 
 leaving you would contribute greatly to Mrs. Hudson s 
 comfort. I can be your hidden providence, you know; 
 I can watch you at a distance and come upon the 
 scene at critical moments/ 
 
 The girl looked at everything but himself, then 
 spoke with sudden earnestness, "I particularly want 
 you to come with us!" 
 
 It need hardly be added that after this Rowland 
 went with them. 
 
XXIII 
 
 HE had a very friendly memory of a little mountain 
 inn, accessible with moderate trouble from Lucerne, 
 where he had once spent ten idle unadventurous days. 
 He had at that time been trudging, knapsack on back, 
 over half Switzerland, and, having had a sturdy con 
 science about covering ground, it was no shame to 
 him to confess that he was mortally tired. The inn 
 of which I speak appeared to have but recently ex 
 changed the care of the stalled ox for that of the 
 hungry tourist; but Rowland at least had felt him 
 self only a feebler ruminant. It stood in a high 
 shallow valley, with flower-strewn Alpine meadows 
 sloping down to it from the base of certain rugged 
 rocks whose outlines were grim against the late sky. 
 Our friend had seen grander places that pleased him 
 less, and whenever afterwards he wished to think of 
 Alpine opportunities at their best he recalled this 
 grassy concave among the steeper ridges and the 
 August days passed in resting at his length in the 
 lee of a sun-warmed boulder, with the light cool air 
 astir about his temples, the wafted odours of the pines 
 in his nostrils, the tinkle of the cattle-bells in his ears, 
 the vast procession of the mountain-hours before his 
 eyes and a volume of Wordsworth in his pocket. His 
 face, on the Swiss hillsides, had been scorched to a 
 brilliant hue, and his bed was a pallet in a loft, which 
 he shared with a German botanist of colossal stature 
 
 462 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 every inch of whom quaked at an open window. 
 These had been drawbacks to selfish ease, but Row 
 land hardly cared whether or how he was lodged, for 
 his place of preference and of main abode was under 
 the sky, on the crest of a slope that looked at the 
 Jungfrau. He remembered all this on leaving Flor 
 ence with his friends, and he reflected that, as the 
 midseason was over, accommodations would be more 
 ample and charges more modest. He communicated 
 with his old friend the landlord, and while September 
 was yet young his companions established themselves 
 under his guidance in this hollow of the hills. 
 
 He had crossed the Saint-Gotthard Pass with them 
 in the same vehicle. During the journey from Flor 
 ence, and especially during this portion of it, the 
 cloud that hung over the little party had almost 
 cleared, and they had looked at each other, in the 
 close intimacy of train and vettura, without either 
 the retributive or the argumentative glare. It was 
 impossible not to hang upon the perpetual rich pic 
 ture of Apennine and Alp, and there was a tacit 
 agreement among the travellers to sink every other 
 consciousness. The effect of this discretion was of 
 the best; it made of them shipwrecked swimmers 
 who had clambered upon a raft. Roderick sat with 
 a fascinated far-reaching stare and a perfect docil 
 ity of attitude. He concerned himself not a particle 
 about the itinerary or the wayside arrangements; 
 but if he took no trouble he also gave quite touch- 
 ingly little. His friend tacitly compared him to some 
 noble young emigre of the French Terror, seized be 
 fore reaching the frontier and showing, while brought 
 
 46.3 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 back, a white face, indescribable, that anticipated 
 the guillotine. He assented to everything that was 
 proposed, and was perched apparently on heights 
 of contemplation inaccessible to the others. His 
 mother rarely removed her eyes from him; and, if a 
 while before this would greatly have irritated him, 
 he now seemed wholly unconscious of her observa 
 tion and deeply indifferent to anything that might 
 befall him. They spent a couple of days on the Lake 
 of Como, at an hotel with white porticoes smothered 
 in oleander and myrtle and terrace-steps leading 
 down to little boats under striped awnings. They 
 agreed it was the earthly paradise, and they passed 
 the mornings in strolls through the cedarn alleys 
 of classic villas and the evenings afloat beneath the 
 stars, in a circle of outlined mountains, to the music 
 of silver-trickling oars. One afternoon the two 
 young men wandered away together as they had 
 wandered of old. They followed the winding foot 
 path that led toward Como, close to the lakeside, 
 past the gates of villas and the walls of vineyards, 
 through little hamlets propped on a dozen arches 
 and bathing their feet and their pendent tatters in 
 the grey-green ripple; past frescoed walls and crum 
 bling campanili and grassy village piazzettas and 
 the mouth of soft ravines that wound upward, through 
 belts of swinging vine and vaporous olive and wide- 
 armed chequering chestnut, to high ledges where 
 white chapels gleamed amid the paler boskage and 
 bare cliff-surfaces, with their blistered lips, drank 
 in the liquid light. It all was consummately ro 
 mantic; it was the Italy we know from the steel- 
 
 464 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 engravings in old keepsakes and annuals, from the 
 vignettes on music-sheets and the drop-curtains at 
 theatres; an Italy we can never confess ourselves 
 
 in spite of our own changes and of all the local 
 perversions and the lost causes, as well the gained 
 
 to have ceased to need and to believe in. The 
 companions turned aside from the little paved foot 
 way that clambered and dipped and wound and 
 doubled beside the lake, and stretched themselves 
 idly beneath a fig-tree on a grassy headland. Row 
 land had never known anything so divinely sooth 
 ing as the dreamy softness of these early autumn 
 hours. The iridescent mountains shut him in; the 
 small waves beneath him fretted the white pebbles 
 at the laziest intervals; the festooned vines above 
 him swayed just visibly in the all but motionless 
 air. 
 
 Roderick lay observing it all with his arms thrown 
 back and his hands under his head. "This suits 
 me," he said at last; "I could be happy here and 
 forget everything. Why not stay here for ever?" 
 He kept his position a long time and seemed lost in 
 his thoughts. Rowland spoke to him, but he made 
 vague answers; finally he closed his eyes. It seemed 
 to Rowland also a place of irresistible persuasion, 
 with the very taste of the lotus in the air. Sud-^ 
 denly Roderick turned over on his face and buried 
 it in his arms. The movement had been a nervous 
 spasm, but our friend nevertheless winced, on his 
 jerking himself round again and sitting up, at the 
 sight of his suffused eyes. Roderick turned to him, 
 stretching out both hands to the lake and moun- 
 
 465 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tains and shaking them as from a heart too full for 
 utterance. 
 
 "Pity me, my friend; pity me!" he presently 
 cried. "Look at this lovely world and think what 
 it must be to be dead to it!" 
 
 "Dead?" poor Rowland temporised. 
 
 "Dead, dead; dead and buried! Buried in an 
 open grave where you lie staring up at the sailing 
 clouds, smelling the waving flowers and hearing all 
 nature live and grow above you. That s the way I 
 feel." 
 
 "I m very glad to hear it. Death of that sort s 
 very near to resurrection." 
 
 "It s too horrible," Roderick went on; "it has 
 all come over me here. If I were not ashamed I 
 could shed a bushel of tears. For one hour of what 
 I have been I d give up everything I m not." 
 
 "Never mind what you have been; be some 
 thing better!" 
 
 "I shall never be anything again; it s no use 
 talking! But I don t know what secret spring has 
 been touched since I ve lain here. Something in 
 my heart seems suddenly to open and let in a flood 
 of beauty and desire. I know what I ve lost and 
 I think it horrible. Mind you, I know it, I feel it. 
 Remember that hereafter. Don t say that he was 
 stupefied and senseless, that his perception was 
 dulled or his aspiration dead. Say he trembled in 
 every nerve with a sense of the beauty and sweet 
 ness of life; say he rebelled and protested and strug 
 gled; say he was buried alive, with his eyes open 
 and his heart beating to madness; say he clung to 
 
 466 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 every blade of grass and every wayside thorn as he 
 passed; say it was the most pathetic thing you ever 
 beheld. Say," he wound up, " that it was a sacrifice 
 and a scandal." 
 
 Rowland fairly turned pale as their eyes met. 
 " I think that if you re not mad you 11 at least soon 
 make me so." 
 
 "Oh, I can trust you, old chap, and I assure you 
 I can be trusted. I ve never been saner. I don t 
 want to be bad company, and in this beautiful spot, 
 at this delightful hour, it seems an outrage to break 
 the charm. But I m bidding farewell to Italy, to 
 beauty, to honour, to life. I only want to assure you 
 that I know what I lose. I know it in every pulse, 
 in every inch of me. Here where these things are 
 all loveliest I take leave of them. Good-bye, adore- 
 able world!" 
 
 During their slow ascent into Switzerland he ab 
 sented himself much of the time from the carriage 
 and rambled, far in advance, along the zigzags of 
 the road and in constant deviation from them. He 
 showed a tireless activity; his light weight and long 
 legs carried him everywhere, and his friends saw 
 him skirt the edge of plunging chasms, loosen the 
 stones on vast steep slopes and lift himself against 
 the sky from the top of rocky pinnacles. Mary Gar 
 land took scarcely less to her feet, but she remained 
 near the carriage to be with Mrs. Hudson, while 
 Rowland remained near it to be with Mrs. Hudson s 
 companion. He measured the great road by her 
 side and found himself sorry the Alps were so low 
 and that their walk was not to last a week. Sh$ was 
 
 467 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 exhilarated; she rejoiced in their adventure; in 
 the way of mountains, until within the last few weeks, 
 she had seen, for a near view, nothing greater than 
 Mounts Holyoke and Tom and the mild Alban hills, 
 so that she recognised in the Alps the just ground 
 of their glory. Rowland had noted her own vision 
 of natural objects, but he was struck afresh with 
 her quick eye for them and with her knowledge of 
 plants and rocks and "formations." At that season 
 many of the wild flowers had gone, but others lin 
 gered, and Mary never failed to "spot " them in their 
 outlying corners. She gave herself up to them, inter 
 ested when they were old friends and charmed when 
 they were new. Her foot was light in quest of them 
 and she had soon covered the front seat of the 
 carriage with a tangle of strange vegetation. Row 
 land had always supposed himself to dislike the 
 race of weed-gathering, vase-dressing women, dis 
 posers, over the domestic scene, of bristling, tick 
 ling greenery; but he was none the less alert in her 
 service and gathered for her several fine specimens 
 which had at first seemed inaccessible. One of these 
 indeed had appeared an easier prize than it was 
 likely to prove, and he had paused a moment at the 
 base of the little peak on which it grew, measuring 
 the risk of further pursuit. Suddenly, as he stood 
 there, he remembered Roderick s defiance of danger 
 and of Christina Light during that sharp moment at 
 the Coliseum, and he was seized with a strong desire 
 to test the quality of his own companion. She had just 
 scrambled up a grassy slope near him and had seen 
 that the flower was out of reach. As he prepared to 
 
 468 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 approach it she called to him eagerly to stop and yield 
 to the impossibility. Poor Rowland, whose interest in 
 her had so much more nourished itself on plain fare 
 than snatched at any golden apple of reward, en 
 joyed immensely the sense of her caring for three 
 minutes what should become of him. He was the 
 least brutal of men, but for a moment he was per 
 fectly indifferent to her nerves. 
 
 "I can get the flower," he called to her. "Will 
 you trust me ?" 
 
 "I don t want it; I d rather not have it!" she 
 cried. 
 
 "Will you trust me?" he repeated, looking at 
 her hard. 
 
 She looked at him in return and then at the flower; 
 he wondered whether she would shriek and swoon as 
 Christina had done. " I wish it were so mething better ! " 
 she said simply; and she stood watching him while 
 he began to clamber. Rowland was not a trained 
 acrobat, and his enterprise was difficult; but he kept 
 his wits about him, made the most of narrow foot 
 holds and coigns of vantage and at last secured his 
 prize. He managed to stick it into his button-hole, 
 after which he worked his way down again. There 
 was more than one chance for an ugly fall, but he had 
 not lost his head or his hold. It was doubtless not 
 gracefully done, but it was done, and that was all he 
 had proposed to himself. He was red in the face 
 when he offered Mary the flower, and she was visibly 
 pale. She had kept her eyes on him without moving. 
 All this had passed without the knowledge of Mrs. 
 Hudson, who was dozing beneath the hood of the 
 
 469 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 carriage. Mary s eyes did not perhaps quite display 
 the ardent admiration anciently offered to the victor 
 by the queen of beauty at a tournament; but they told 
 him that his existence had for the time mattered to 
 her. He liked having proof of this to put in his pocket, 
 very much as a "handsome" subscriber to an import 
 ant cause likes an acknowledgement of his cheque. 
 "Why did you do that ?" she asked gravely. 
 
 He hesitated, conscious of the deep desire to answer 
 "Because I love you!" But he had not kept his head 
 before to lose it now. He lowered his pitch and re 
 plied simply: "Because I wanted to do something 
 for you." 
 
 "Suppose you had broken your neck." 
 
 " I believed I should n t. And you believed it, I 
 think." 
 
 "I believed nothing. I simply trusted you, as you 
 asked me." 
 
 " Quo d erat demonstrandum ! " cried Rowland. " I 
 think you know Latin." 
 
 When our four friends were established in what I 
 have called their hollow in the hills there was much 
 scrambling over slopes both grassy and stony, a 
 good deal of flower-plucking on narrow ledges, a 
 great many long walks and, thanks to the tonic 
 mountain air, not a little relief and oblivion. Mrs. 
 Hudson was reduced to forgetting, above all, that the 
 poison of Europe as she knew Europe might 
 lurk in the breeze, and even to admitting that the eggs 
 of Engelthal were almost as fresh and the cream 
 almost as thick as those of the Connecticut Valley. 
 She was certainly more in her element than she had 
 
 470 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 been in Italy; having always lived in the country 
 she had missed in Rome and Florence that social 
 solitude mitigated by bushes and rocks, primarily 
 dear to the true New England temperament. The 
 little unpainted Oberland inn, with its plank parti 
 tions, its milk-pans standing in the sun, its "help," 
 in the form of angular young women of the country 
 side, reminded her of places of summer sojourn in her 
 native land; and the beautiful historic chambers of 
 Villa Pandolfini passed from her conscience without 
 a regret and without having in the least modified her 
 conception of the house submissive to "keeping." If 
 Roderick, on the other hand, had changed his sky, 
 he had still not changed his mind; he was not sen 
 sibly nearer to having got back into the traces than he 
 had shown himself during his declaration of despair 
 by the Italian lakeside. He now kept this despair to 
 himself and went decently enough about the ordinary 
 business of life ; but it was easy to see that he was n t, 
 in the new phrase, "there" his meekness was so 
 mechanical and his present motives somehow so 
 inscrutable. In that sad half-hour on the Como pro 
 montory there had been a fierce truth under the im 
 pression of which Rowland found himself at last 
 forswearing criticism and censure. He began to feel 
 it quite idle to appeal to his comrade s will; there was 
 no will left its place was a mocking void. This 
 view of the case indeed was occasionally contravened 
 by certain indications on Roderick s part of the sur 
 viving faculty of resistance to disagreeable obligation : 
 one might still have said, if one had been disposed to 
 improve the occasion at any hazard, that there was a 
 
 47 1 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 method in his madness, that his moral energy had its 
 sleeping and its waking hours, and that in an attractive 
 cause it would yet again be capable of rising with the 
 dawn. This name, however, for a possible knock at his 
 door, what was it, truly, but another word for an in 
 spiration ? Oh, for such a visitor, the appealing plastic 
 idea, he would spring up and open wide his eyes and 
 look out at the dawn; but where was the precious 
 pebble to come from that might be cast with the right 
 sharp tap at his window-pane ? It was now impossible, 
 at all events, not to be indulgent to a consciousness 
 that had so ceased to be aggressive not to forgive 
 much apathy to a temper that had turned its rough 
 side inward. Roderick said frankly that Switzerland 
 made him less miserable than Italy, and that the Alps 
 were less of a reproach to idle skilled hands than the 
 Apennines. He went in for long rambles, generally 
 alone, and was very fond of climbing into dizzy places 
 where no sound could overtake him and there, 
 stretched at his length on the never-trodden moss, of 
 pulling his hat over his eyes and lounging away the 
 hours in perfect immobility. Rowland was some 
 times the associate of these walks, for if his friend 
 never directly proposed it he yet as little visibly 
 resented it; and the only way at present to treat him 
 was as a graceful, an almost genial, a certainly harm 
 less eccentric, with whom one assumed that all things 
 were well and held one s tongue about the prosperity 
 he had forfeited, or maintained to any questioner 
 much rejoicing, for the time, there were none that 
 such were the interlunar swoons of the true as dis 
 tinguished from the false artist, and that the style 
 
 472 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 of genius was as much in them as in the famous 
 Homeric nod. His interest in Mary s relations with 
 her cousin had lost meanwhile none of its point, 
 though mystified as he was on all sides he found 
 nothing penetrable here. After their arrival at Engel- 
 thal Roderick appeared to care more for her society 
 than he had done hitherto, and this revival of appetite 
 could n t fail to come home to their friend. They sat 
 together and strolled together, and she often read 
 aloud to him. One day, on their arrival at luncheon, 
 after he had been lying half the morning at her feet 
 in the shadow of a rock, Rowland asked him what she 
 had been reading. 
 
 "I don t know," Roderick said; "I don t heed the 
 sense." Mary heard this and Rowland looked at 
 her, but it only made her look hard at Roderick. "I 
 listen to Mary," he continued, "for the sake of her 
 voice. It s soothing and stupefying it s really 
 demoralising." At this the girl coloured and turned 
 away. 
 
 Rowland, as we know, had speculated much, in the 
 interest of his ultimate chance, had asked himself if 
 her constancy had been proof; and that demand, on 
 her lips, which had brought about his own departure 
 for Switzerland had seemed almost equivalent to a 
 confession that she needed his help to keep her faith. 
 He had, in his high modesty, not risked the sup 
 position that Mary could contrast him with Roderick 
 to the advantage of his personal charm; but his con 
 sciousness of duty done had a hand to hold out for any 
 such stray grain of enthusiasm as might have crumbled 
 away from her estimate of his companion. I some 
 
 473 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 day she had declared in a sudden burst of bitterness 
 that she was completely disillusioned and that she 
 gave up her recreant lover our friend s expectation 
 would have gone half-way to meet her. And certainly, 
 if her troubled spirit had taken this course, no gener 
 ous critic, he reasoned, would have pronounced her 
 vain. She had been offered an extent of cold shoulder 
 on which few girls could have schooled themselves to 
 rest their eyes so long. There were girls indeed the 
 beauty of whose nature, like that of Burd Helen in the 
 ballad, lay in clinging to the man of their love through 
 bush and brier and in bowing their head to all hard 
 usage. That behaviour had of course a grace of its 
 own, but Rowland was far from seeing it as proper to 
 Mary Garland. She asked something for what she 
 gave, and he was yet to make out what had been 
 given her. She believed in the conquests of ambition, 
 and would surely never long persuade herself that it 
 was as interesting to see them missed even help 
 lessly and pathetically as to see them strenuously 
 reached. Rowland passed, before he had done, an 
 angry day; for he had not been able to stifle a sense 
 that she had in a manner how did he like to put it? 
 "transferred her esteem" to him. And yet here 
 she was throwing herself back into Roderick s arms 
 at his slightest overture so that a fatuous man 
 (which, thank goodness, he was n t) might almost 
 have called her a coquette, or at least have asked her 
 what she " meant." He stated to himself that his 
 position was abject and that all the philosophy he 
 could bring to bear upon it would make it neither 
 honourable nor comfortable. He would go away and 
 
 474 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 rut it short. He did n t go away; he simply took a 
 long walk, made an absence of hours, and on his 
 return found Mary sitting out in the moonlight with 
 their friend. 
 
 Communing with himself during the restless 
 ramble in question, he had determined that he would 
 at last cease to observe, to heed or to care for what 
 these two young persons might do or might not do 
 together. Nevertheless some three days afterwards, 
 the opportunity presenting itself, he deliberately 
 broached the subject with Roderick. He felt it incon 
 sistent and faint-hearted; it was an allowance to 
 fingers that itched to handle forbidden fruit. But he 
 said to himself that it was really more logical to 
 return to the question than to drop it, for they had 
 formerly discussed these mysteries sharply enough. 
 Was n t it perfectly reasonable that he should wish to 
 know the sequel to the situation Roderick had then 
 delineated ? Roderick had made him promises, and 
 it was to be expected that he should wish to ascertain 
 how the promises had been kept. So he took occasion 
 to break ground on the morrow of the day just men 
 tioned. " I imagine you re not sorry at present to 
 have allowed yourself to be dissuaded from putting an 
 end to your affair with your cousin." He liked some 
 how calling their engagement an affair. 
 
 Roderick eyed him with the vague and absent 
 look lately habitual to his face. "Dissuaded ?" 
 
 " Don t you remember that in Rome you wished to 
 break off, and that I urged you to hold fast, on the 
 contrary thin as your link appeared to have be 
 come ? I wanted you to see what would come, for 
 
 475 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 you, of your taking no first step. If I m not mis 
 taken you re now reconciled to your having let 
 things alone." 
 
 "Oh yes," said Roderick, "I remember what you 
 said; you made it a kind of personal favour to your 
 self that I should not clear anything up. I consented, 
 but afterwards, when I thought of it, your attitude 
 struck me as having its oddity. Had it ever been 
 seen before ? a man asking another man to gratify 
 him, in such a case I mean the case of such an 
 attractive girl by still blocking the way." 
 
 "Well, my view was about as selfish as another," 
 said Rowland. "One man puts his selfishness into 
 this thing, and one into that. It would n t at all 
 have suited me to see your cousin in low spirits." 
 
 " But you liked her you admired her, eh ? So 
 you intimated." 
 
 "I admire her extremely." 
 
 "It was your originality then to do you justice 
 you Ve a great deal of a certain sort to wish 
 her happiness secured in just that fashion. Many 
 a man would have liked better himself to make the 
 woman he admired happy, and would have wel 
 comed her low spirits as an opening for sympathy. 
 You were very quaint and unexpected though 
 I m bound to say very reasonable and even very 
 charming about it." 
 
 "So be it!" said Rowland. "The question is 
 Are n t you glad I was all those interesting things ? 
 Are n t you finding much of your old feeling for 
 your cousin now come back to you ?" 
 
 "I don t pretend to say. When she arrived in 
 
 47 6 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rome I discovered I had ceased to care for her, and 
 I honestly proposed that we should have no hum 
 bug about it. If you, on the contrary, thought there 
 was something to be gained by having a little hum 
 bug I was willing to try it! I don t see that the situ 
 ation is really changed. Mary is all she ever was 
 all the cardinal virtues, and if possible more than 
 all. But she does n t, poor dear, in the least interest 
 me so what s a fellow to do ? Nothing does in 
 terest me not really of course, and how can 
 I pretend she s a brilliant exception ? The only 
 difference is that I don t care now whether she in 
 terests me or not. Of course marrying such a use 
 less lout as I am is out of the question for any 
 woman, and I should pay Mary a poor compliment 
 to assume that she s in a hurry to celebrate our 
 nuptials." 
 
 "Oh, you 11 do you re in love!" Rowland not 
 very logically answered. It must be confessed that 
 this assertion was made for the sole purpose of 
 hearing his companion deny it. 
 
 But it quite failed of its aim. Roderick gave a 
 liberal shrug of his shoulders and an irresponsible 
 toss of his head. "Call it what you please! I m past 
 caring for the names of things." 
 
 Rowland had not only failed of logic, he had also 
 failed of candour. He believed not the least little 
 rnite that Roderick was in love; he had only argued 
 the false to learn the true. The "true " was then that 
 this troubled youth was again, despite everything, in 
 some degree under a charm, and that one could n t be 
 so ministered to without either liking it or hating it. 
 
 477 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Roderick might say what he would, he did n t hate 
 it. So it came round to her having, behind every 
 thing, an insidious art. Rowland liked, for his part, 
 to think of her insidious art. Since she had asked 
 him as a favour to herself, at any rate, to come with 
 them to Switzerland, he thought she might by this 
 time have let him know if he seemed to have done 
 her a service. The days passed without her doing 
 so, and at last he walked away to an isolated emi 
 nence some five miles from the inn and murmured 
 to the silent rocks that she was ungrateful. Listen 
 ing nature appeared not to contradict him, so that 
 on the morrow he asked the girl with a touch of 
 melancholy malice whether it struck her that his 
 deflexion from his other plan had been attended 
 with brilliant results. 
 
 "Why, we re delighted you re with us!" she 
 simply answered. 
 
 He was anything but satisfied with this; it seemed 
 to imply that she had forgotten how she had put it 
 to him that he would particularly oblige her. 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 m afraid your kindness has been 
 a great charge upon you then. You wanted very 
 much to do something else." 
 
 " I wanted above all things to do what you would 
 like, and I made no sacrifice. But if I had made an 
 immense one it would be more than made up to me 
 
 47 8 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 by any assurance that I ve helped Roderick to better 
 conditions." 
 
 She was silent a while, and then, "Why do you 
 ask me ?" she said. "You re able to judge quite as 
 well as I." 
 
 Rowland cast about him; he desired to justify 
 himself in the most veracious manner. "The truth 
 is I m 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 tranquillity and security." 
 
 " I don t know why that should be," she returned : 
 "I ve certainly done nothing to make you so much 
 my friend. If you were to tell me you intend to leave 
 us to-morrow I m afraid that I should n t venture 
 to ask you to stay. But whether you go or stay, let 
 us not talk of Roderick." 
 
 "Then that," said Rowland, "doesn t answer 
 my question. Is he better?" 
 
 "No!" she brought out, and turned away. 
 
 He was careful not to tell her he intended to leave 
 them. 
 
XXIV 
 
 ONE day shortly after this, as the two young men sat 
 at the inn door watching the sunset, which on that 
 evening was very rich and clear, Rowland made an 
 attempt to sound his companion s actual sentiment 
 touching Christina Light. "I wonder where she is," 
 he permitted himself to begin, "and what sort of a 
 life she s leading her Prince." 
 
 Roderick at first made no response. He was watch 
 ing a figure on the summit of some distant rocks 
 opposite. The figure was apparently descending into 
 the valley, and in relief against the crimson screen 
 of the western sky it looked gigantic. "Christina 
 Light ?" he at last repeated, as if rousing himself 
 from a reverie. "Where she is? It s rum how 
 little I care!" 
 
 "Have you completely got over caring?" 
 
 To this he made no direct reply; he sat brood 
 ing a while. "She s a fearful fraud!" he presently 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " She s certainly not a mere child of nature. But 
 she had elements of interest." 
 
 "She didn t at all come up to my original idea 
 of her," Roderick pursued. 
 
 " In what manner then did she fall away from it ?" 
 
 "Oh, don t ask me or remind me!" Roderick 
 cried. "What s the use of going into it now? It 
 was only three months ago, but it seems like ten 
 
 480 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 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 gave me pleasure extraor 
 dinary pleasure; and when an artist, such a one as I 
 was, receives extraordinary pleasure, you know !" 
 And he paused again. " You never saw her as I did, 
 you never heard her in her great moments. But 
 there s no help in talking about that! At first she 
 would n t regard me seriously; she only chaffed me and 
 made light of me and kept me off. Then at last I 
 forced her to admit I was a great man. She told me 
 she believed that, and it gave me more extraordinary 
 pleasure than anything else. A great man was what 
 she was looking for, and we agreed to find our happi 
 ness for life in each other. To please me she pro 
 mised not to marry till I should say I was prepared 
 - so far as I could be prepared to see her. I was 
 of course not in a marrying way myself, but it was 
 a stiff dose which I kept begging off from to 
 have to think of another man s 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 some blest idea shaping itself in 
 the block. You ve seen how she kept her promise. 
 When I learned it, it was as if my block had sud 
 denly split and turned rotten. She died for me, like 
 that!" And he snapped his fingers. "Was it wounded 
 vanity, disappointed desire, betrayed confidence ? 
 I m sure I don t know. I make the beastly mistakes, 
 and you find the proper names for them." 
 
 Rowland, after an instant, could but temporise. 
 "The poor girl did the best she could." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "That that was her best then was exactly the grand 
 sell! I ve hardly thought of her these two months, 
 but you see, and I m in fact myself surprised to find, 
 how little I Ve forgiven her." 
 
 "Well, you may probably take it that you re 
 avenged. I can t think of her as very happy." 
 
 "Ah, I can t pity her!" said Roderick. After which 
 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 s this mighty 
 man," he finally demanded, " and what s he coming 
 down on us for ? We re small people here, and we 
 can t keep company with giants." 
 
 "Wait till we meet him on our own level," said 
 Rowland, " and perhaps he 11 not overtop us." 
 
 "He s like me," Roderick rejoined; "he ll have 
 passed for ten minutes for bigger than he is." At this 
 moment the figure sank beneath the horizon and 
 became invisible in the uncertain light. Suddenly 
 he went on: "I should like to see her once more 
 simply to look at her." 
 
 "I wouldn t advise it," his companion observed. 
 
 "It was the wonderful nature of her beauty that 
 did it!" Roderick kept on. "It was all her beauty 
 so fitful, so alive, so subject to life, yet so always there 
 and so interesting and so splendid. In comparison 
 the rest was nothing. What befooled me was to think 
 of it as my own property and possession somehow 
 bought and paid for. I had mastered it and made it 
 mine; no one else had studied it as I had, no one else 
 so understood it. What does that stick of a Casamas- 
 sima know about it at this hour ? There were things I 
 
 482 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 could say of her, things I could say to her because 
 I know, or at least did know that made her more 
 beautiful, put her into possession of more of her value. 
 Therefore 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 n t advise it," Rowland felt himself too 
 meagrely repeat. 
 
 "That s right, my dear fellow," his friend re 
 turned. " 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 stop 
 ping to stare at them. He was the giant they had seen 
 so strikingly presented. When this was made appar 
 ent Roderick was seized with high amusement; it was 
 the first time he had laughed for ever so many weeks. 
 Singleton, who carried a knapsack and walking-staff, 
 received from Rowland the friendliest welcome. He 
 was still the same almost irritating little image of 
 happy diligence, and if in the way of luggage his 
 knapsack contained nothing but a comb and a second 
 shirt, he extracted 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 grati 
 tude for Rowland s appreciation he presently tele 
 graphed 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 
 
 483 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 great logs. Even with Roderick hovering moodily 
 apart they made a sympathetic little circle, and they 
 turned over Singleton s drawings while he perched in 
 the chimney-corner, blushing and explaining, with his 
 feet on the rounds of his chair. He had been pedes- 
 trianising for six weeks, and he was glad to rest a while 
 at Engelthal. It was no empty interval, however, for 
 he sallied forth every morning, his utensils on his back, 
 in search of material for new studies. Roderick s 
 ironic sense of him, after the first evening, had spent 
 itself, and he might have been listening, as under a 
 sombre spell, to the hum of some prosperous work 
 shop from which he had been discharged for in 
 competence. Singleton, who was not in the secret of 
 his personal misfortunes, still treated him, with ro 
 mantic reverence, as the rising star of American art. 
 Roderick had said to Rowland at first that their friend 
 reminded him of some curious insect with a remark 
 able mechanical instinct in its antennae; but as the 
 days went by it was apparent that the modest land- 
 scapist s successful method 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 
 the little painter s bent back, on the hot hillsides, 
 protruding from beneath a white umbrella. One day 
 he wandered up a long slope and overtook him as he 
 sat at work; Singleton related the incident after 
 wards to Rowland, who, since giving him in Rome 
 a hint of the other s aberrations, had strictly kept his 
 own counsel. 
 
 "Are you always just like this?" Roderick had 
 asked in almost sepulchral accents. 
 
 484 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Like this?" Singleton, startled, had repeated 
 with a guilty blink. 
 
 " You remind me of a watch that never runs down. 
 If one listens hard one hears you always at it. Tic- 
 tic-tic, tic-tic-tic." 
 
 "Oh, I see," Singleton had returned while he 
 beamed ingenuously. "I m very regular." 
 
 "You re very regular, yes. And I suppose you find 
 it very pleasant to be very regular?" 
 
 Singleton had hereupon turned and smiled more 
 brightly, sucking the water from his camel s-hair 
 brush. Then with a quickened sense of his indebted 
 ness to a Providence that had endowed him with 
 intrinsic facilities: "Oh, most delightful!" he had 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Roderick had stood looking at him a moment. 
 "Damnation!" was the single word that then had 
 fallen from him; with which he had turned his back. 
 
 Later in the week our two friends took together one 
 of their longest rambles. They had walked before in 
 a dozen different directions, but had not yet crossed 
 a charming little wooded pass which shut in their 
 valley on one side and descended into the vale of 
 Engelberg. In coming from Lucerne they had ap 
 proached their inn by this path, and then, feeling 
 that they knew it, had neglected it for more untrodden 
 ways. But at last the list of these was exhausted, and 
 Rowland proposed the walk to Engelberg as a novelty. 
 The place is half bleak and half pastoral; a huge 
 white monastery rises abruptly from the green floor of 
 the valley and contributes to the somewhat spare con 
 cert of blue-green and blue-grey the diversion of a 
 
 485 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 sharp discord. Hard by is a group of chalets and inns, 
 with the usual appurtenances of a prosperous Swiss 
 resort lean brown guides in baggy homespun loaf 
 ing under carved wooden galleries, stacks of alpen 
 stocks in every doorway, sun-scorched Englishmen 
 without shirt-collars. The companions sat a while at 
 the door of an inn and discussed a pint of wine, and 
 then Roderick, whose light, elegant legs never gave 
 way, whatever else in him did, announced his intention 
 of climbing to a certain rocky pinnacle which overhung 
 the valley and, according to the testimony of one of 
 the guides, commanded a view of the Lake of Lucerne. 
 To go and come back was only a matter of an hour, 
 but Rowland, with the prospect of his homeward 
 march before him, confessed to a preference for loung 
 ing on his bench or, at most, strolling a trifle further 
 and paying a visit to the monastery. Roderick went 
 off alone, and the elder man took after a little the 
 direction of the monasterial church. It was remark 
 able, like most of the churches of Catholic Switzer 
 land, for a coarse floridity, but one was free to view 
 this, if one would, as brave romantic character. 
 Rowland lingered a quarter of an hour under the 
 influence of that suggestion. While he was near the 
 high altar another visitor or two appeared to have 
 come in at the west door, but he gave no heed and was 
 presently engaged in deciphering a curious old Ger 
 man epitaph on one of the mural tablets. At last he 
 turned away, wondering if its syntax or its theology 
 were the more uncomfortable, and, to his infinite sur 
 prise, found himself confronted with Prince and 
 Princess Casamassima. 
 
 486 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 The surprise on Christina s part, for an instant, 
 was equal, and its first effect might have been to 
 make her seek, for the time, the refuge of assumed 
 unconsciousness. The Prince, however, saluted 
 gravely, and then Christina, in silence, put out her 
 hand. Rowland immediately asked if they were stay 
 ing at Engelberg, but Christina only looked at him 
 hard, and still without speaking. The Prince answered 
 his questions and related that they had been making 
 a month s tour in Switzerland, that at Lucerne his 
 wife had been somewhat obstinately indisposed, and 
 that the physician had recommended a week s trial 
 of the tonic air and goat s milk of Engelberg. The 
 scenery, said the Prince, was stupendous, but the life 
 was terribly sad and they had three days more! 
 It was a blessing, he urbanely added, to see a good 
 Roman face. 
 
 Christina s odd attitude, her voluntary silence and 
 her inscrutable gaze, seemed to Rowland at first to 
 promise, a little alarmingly, or even boringly, some 
 new "line"; but he then perceived that she was really 
 moved by the sight of him and was afraid of betraying 
 herself. "Do let us leave this Swiss hideousness," 
 she said; "the whole place seems horribly to jodel* 
 at us!" They passed slowly to the door, and when 
 they stood outside, in the sunny coolness of the valley, 
 she turned more frankly to her old acquaintance. 
 "It is a blessing, you know such a meeting. I m 
 too delighted to see you." She glanced about her and 
 observed against the wall of the church a large stone 
 seat. She looked at her companion a moment, and he 
 smiled more intensely, Rowland thought, than the 
 
 487 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 occasion demanded. " I should like to sit here a little 
 and speak to this good friend alone." 
 
 "At your pleasure, car a mia," said the Prince. 
 
 The tone of each was measured, to Rowland s ear; 
 but that of Christina was not imperceptibly dry and 
 that of her husband irreproachably urbane. Rowland 
 remembered how the Cavaliere had told him that 
 Mrs. Light s candidate had, in his way, the inner as 
 well as the outer marks of the grand seigneur, and our 
 friend wondered how he relished a certain curtness. 
 He was, comparatively speaking, an Italian of the 
 undemonstrative type, but Rowland nevertheless 
 divined that, like other potentates, great and small, 
 before him, he had had to look concessions in the 
 face. "Shall I come back ?" he imperturbably asked. 
 
 "In half an hour," said Christina. 
 
 In the clear outer light Rowland s first impres 
 sion of her was that her beauty had received some 
 strange accession, affecting him after the manner 
 of a musical composition better "given," to his sense, 
 than ever before. And yet in three months she could 
 hardly have changed; the change was in Rowland s 
 own vision of her, in which that last interview on 
 the eve of her marriage had sown the seeds of a new 
 appreciation. 
 
 "How came you to be in this queer place?" she 
 asked. "Are you making a stay ?" 
 
 " I m staying at Engelthal, some ten miles away. 
 I walked over." 
 
 "Then you re alone ?" 
 
 "I m with Roderick Hudson/ 
 
 "Is he here with you now?" 
 488 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 "He went half an hour ago to climb a rock for a 
 
 view." 
 
 "And his mother and and the promessa 
 where are they ?" 
 
 "They also are at Engelthal." 
 
 She had a pause. "What then are you all doing 
 there?" 
 
 "What are you doing here?" Rowland returned. 
 
 "Counting the minutes till my week s over. I 
 hate mountains; they always strike me as great 
 rough lumps and chunks of Nature hopeless con 
 fessions of her stupidity. I m sure Miss Garland 
 likes them." 
 
 " She s very fond of them, I believe." 
 
 "You believe don t you know? But I think 
 I ve given up trying to imitate Miss Garland," said 
 Christina. 
 
 "You surely need imitate no one." 
 
 "Don t say that," she said gravely. "So you ve 
 walked ten miles this morning ? And you re to 
 walk back again ?" 
 
 "Back again to dinner." 
 
 "And Mr. Hudson too?" 
 
 "Mr. Hudson especially. He s a great walker." 
 
 "You men are happy!" Christina cried. "I be 
 lieve I should enjoy the mountains if I could do such 
 things. It s sitting still and having them scowl down 
 at you. The Prince never walks. He only goes on 
 a mule. He was carried up the Faulhorn in a palan 
 quin." 
 
 "In a palanquin ?" 
 
 " In one of those machines a chatse-a-porteurs 
 
 489 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 like a woman." And then when Rowland had 
 received this information in silence, since it was 
 equally unbecoming to be either amused or shocked: 
 "Is Mr. Hudson to join you again? Will he come 
 to this spot ?" 
 
 "I shall soon begin to expect him." 
 
 "What shall you do when you leave Switzerland ?" 
 she continued. "Shall you go back to Rome?" 
 
 " I rather doubt it. My plans are very uncertain." 
 
 "They depend upon Mr. Hudson, eh?" 
 
 "In a great measure." 
 
 "I want you to tell me about him. Is he still in 
 that perverse state of mind that distressed you so 
 much?" 
 
 Rowland looked at her mistrustfully, making no 
 answer. He was indisposed, instinctively, to tell her 
 Roderick was out of sorts; it was so possible she 
 might offer to try to bring him round. She immedi 
 ately perceived his hesitation. 
 
 "I see no reason why we shouldn t be frank," 
 she said. " I should think we were excellently placed 
 for that sort of thing. You remember that formerly 
 I cared very little what I said, don t you ? Well, I 
 care absolutely not at all now. I say what I please, 
 I do what I please! How did Mr. Hudson receive 
 the news of my marriage ?" 
 
 "Very badly," said Rowland. 
 
 "With rage and reproaches?" And as he hesi 
 tated again: "With silent contempt?" 
 
 "I can tell you but little. He spoke to me on the 
 subject, but I stopped him. I told him it was none 
 of his business nor of mine." 
 
 490 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "That was an excellent answer," Christina ob 
 served. "Yet it was a little your business, after those 
 sublime protestations I treated you to. I was really 
 very fine that morning, eh ?" 
 
 "You do yourself injustice," said Rowland. "I 
 should be at liberty now to believe you were insin 
 
 cere/ 
 
 "What does it matter now whether I was insin 
 cere or not ? I can t conceive of anything matter 
 ing less. I was very fine is n t it true ?" 
 
 "You know what I think of you," he replied. 
 And for fear of being forced to betray his suspicion 
 of the influence brought to bear upon her crisis he 
 took refuge in a commonplace. " I hope your mother s 
 well." 
 
 "My mother s in the enjoyment of superb health, 
 and may be seen every evening in the Casino at the 
 Baths of Lucca confiding to every new-comer that 
 she has married her daughter tremendously." 
 
 Rowland was anxious for news of Mrs. Light s 
 companion, and the natural course was frankly to in 
 quire about him. "And the dear Cavaliere s well ?" 
 
 Christina hesitated, but she betrayed no other 
 embarrassment. "The dear Cavaliere has retired 
 to his native city of Ancona, upon a pension, for the 
 rest of his natural life. Poverino!" 
 
 "I ve a great regard for him," said Rowland 
 gravely, at the same time that he privately wondered 
 if Poverino s pension were paid by Prince Casamas- 
 sima for services rendered in connexion with his 
 marriage. "And what do you do," he continued, 
 "on leaving this place?" 
 
 49 i 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "We go to Italy we go to Naples." She rose 
 and stood silent some minutes, looking down the 
 valley. The figure of Prince Casamassima appeared 
 in the distance, balancing his white umbrella. As 
 her eyes took it in Rowland could feel he saw 
 something deeper in the strange expression that had 
 lurked in her face while he talked to her. Was it 
 pure imagination, or did they grow harder with this 
 view, and was the bitterness so suggested the out 
 ward mark of her sacrificed ideal ? When she pre 
 sently afterwards turned them on himself they showed 
 to Rowland as almost tragic. There was a new dread 
 in his sympathy; he wished to give her a proof 
 of friendship, and yet it seemed to him that she had 
 now fixed her face in a direction where friendship 
 was powerless to interpose. She half read his feel 
 ings apparently, and she had a beautiful sad smile. 
 "I hope we may never meet again!" she said. And 
 as Rowland appeared to protest: "You ve seen 
 me at my best. I wish to tell you solemnly, I was 
 sincere. I know the whole look of it s against me," 
 she went on quickly. "There s a great deal I can t 
 tell you. Perhaps you Ve guessed it; I care very 
 little. You know at any rate I did my best. It wouldn t 
 serve; I was beaten and broken; they were stronger 
 than I. Now it s another affair!" 
 
 " It seems to me you ve a large opportunity for 
 happiness yet," he vaguely remarked, seeming fool 
 ish even to himself. 
 
 "Happiness ? I mean to cultivate delight; I mean 
 to go in for passing my time. You remember I told 
 you that I was in part the world s and the devil s. 
 
 492 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Now they Ve taken me all. It was their choice; may 
 they never repent!" 
 
 " I shall hear of you," said Rowland. 
 
 " You 11 hear of me. And whatever you do hear, 
 remember this: I was sincere!" 
 
 Prince Casamassima had approached, and Row 
 land looked at him with a good deal of simple com 
 passion as a part of that "world" against which 
 Christina had launched her mysterious menace. It 
 was obvious that he was what is called a well-meaning 
 person, and that he could not in the nature of things 
 be a positively bad husband; but his distinguished 
 inoffensiveness only deepened the infelicity of Chris 
 tina s situation by depriving her defiant attitude of 
 the sanction of relative justice. So long as she had 
 been free to choose she had esteemed him; but from 
 the moment she was forced to marry him she had 
 detested him. Rowland read in the young man s elas 
 tic Italian mask a profound consciousness of all this; 
 and as he found there also a record of other curious 
 things of pride, of temper, of bigotry, of an im 
 mense heritage of more or less aggressive traditions 
 - he reflected that the matrimonial conjunction 
 of his two companions might be sufficiently prolific 
 in incident. 
 
 "You re going to Naples?" he inquired byway 
 of conversation. 
 
 "We re going to Paris," Christina interposed 
 slowly and softly. "We re going to London. We re 
 going to Vienna. We re going to St. Petersburg. 
 We may even go to China." 
 
 The Prince dropped his eyes and fretted the earth 
 493 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 with the point of his umbrella. While he engaged 
 Rowland s attention Christina turned away, and 
 when our friend observed her again a fresh impres 
 sion was reflected in her face. She had noticed 
 something concealed from his own sight by the angle 
 of the church wall. In a moment Roderick stepped 
 upon the scene. 
 
 He stopped short, astonished; his face and figure 
 were jaded, his garments dusty. He looked at Chris 
 tina from head to foot, and then, slowly, his cheek 
 flushed and his eyes darkened. Christina returned 
 this unadorned recognition, and for some moments 
 there was a singular silence. "You don t look well!" 
 she said at last. 
 
 Roderick answered nothing; he only kept his 
 attention on her as if she had been some striking 
 object in the picture. " I don t see that you re less 
 wonderful, you know," he presently remarked. 
 
 She turned away with a smile and stood a while 
 gazing down the valley; Roderick then simply stared 
 at her husband. Christina put out her hand to Row 
 land. "Farewell," she said. "If you re near me in 
 future don t try to see me." And after a pause, in 
 a lower tone: "I was sincere!" She addressed her 
 self again to Roderick and asked him some com 
 monplace about his walk; but his answer, barely 
 articulate, was all in his eyes. Rowland at first had 
 expected an outbreak of reproach, but it was evi 
 dent that the danger was every moment diminish 
 ing. He was forgetting everything but her beauty, 
 and as she stood there and let him feast upon it Row 
 land was sure she acted with intention. "I won t 
 
 494 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 say good-bye to you" she rang out clear; "we 
 shall meet again!" And she moved gravely away. 
 The Prince took courteous leave of Rowland; upon 
 Roderick he bestowed a bow of exaggerated civility. 
 The latter appeared not to notice; he w T as watch 
 ing Christina as she passed over the grass. His eyes 
 followed her until she reached the door of her inn. 
 Here she stopped and looked back at him. 
 
XXV 
 
 ON the homeward walk that evening he preserved 
 an ominous silence, and early on the morrow, say 
 ing nothing of his intentions, he started off alone: 
 Rowland saw him measure with light elastic steps 
 the rugged path to Engelberg. He was absent all 
 day and gave no account of himself on his return, 
 simply saying he was impossibly tired and going to 
 bed early. When he had left the room Mary Gar 
 land drew near to their friend. 
 
 "I wish to ask you a question," she said. " What 
 happened to Roderick yesterday at Engelberg ? " 
 
 " You Ve discovered that something did happen ? " 
 
 " I m sure of it. Was it anything disagreeable ? " 
 
 "I don t know how at the present moment he 
 judges it. He met Princess Casamassima." 
 
 "Thank you!" said Mary; and she turned away. 
 
 The conversation had been brief, but it had not 
 been the first exchange of words important far be 
 yond its duration. Mary s question had at any rate 
 for Rowland a great and particular sign being 
 the first she had ever asked him which Roderick 
 himself could have answered better. Therefore she 
 had betrayed as not before how little she "got out " 
 of the latter. Rowland ventured to think this fact 
 marked an era. 
 
 The next morning was sultry, and the air, usually 
 so fresh at those altitudes, was oppressively heavy. 
 
 496 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland lounged on the grass a while, near Sin 
 gleton, who was at work under his white umbrella 
 within view of the house; and then in quest of cool 
 ness he wandered away to the rocky ridge whence 
 the view was across to the Jungfrau. To-day, how 
 ever, the white summits were invisible; their heads 
 were muffled in sullen clouds and the valleys be 
 neath them curtained in dun-coloured mist. Row 
 land had a book in his pocket, which he took out 
 and opened. But his page remained unturned; his 
 own thoughts were more absorbing. His interview 
 with Christina had left him all vibrating, and he was 
 haunted with the memory of her almost blameless 
 bitterness and of something sinister in this fresh 
 physiognomy she had chosen to present. These 
 things were immensely appealing, and he thought 
 with richly renewed impatience of Roderick s having 
 again become acquainted with them. It required 
 little ingenuity to make it probable that certain 
 visible marks in him had also appealed to Chris 
 tina. His consummate indifference, his supreme 
 defiance, would make him a magnificent trophy, 
 and she had announced with sufficient distinctness 
 that she had said good-bye to scruples. It was her 
 fancy at present to treat the world as a garden of 
 pleasure, and if hitherto she had played with Rod 
 erick s passion on its stem there was little doubt 
 that she would now pluck it with a more merciless 
 hand and drain it of its acrid sweetness. And why 
 in the name of common consistency though indeed 
 it was the only consistency to have looked for 
 need Roderick have gone marching back to destruc- 
 
 497 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 tion ? Rowland s meditations, even when they began 
 in rancour, often brought him comfort; but on this 
 occasion they hurt him as if they had been sharp- 
 cornered objects bumped against in darkness. He 
 recognised a sudden collapse of his moral energy; 
 a current that had been flowing for two years with 
 a breadth of its own seemed at last to submit to 
 shrinkage and thinness. He looked away at the sal 
 low vapours on the mountains; their dreariness 
 had an analogy with the stale residuum of his own 
 generosity. At last he had arrived at the very limit 
 of the deference a sane man might pay to other 
 people s folly; nay, rather, he had transgressed it, 
 he had been befooled on a gigantic scale. He turned 
 to his book and tried to woo back patience, but it 
 gave him cold comfort and he tossed it angrily away. 
 He pulled his hat over his eyes and tried to wonder 
 dispassionately if atmospheric conditions might n t 
 have to do with his gloom. He remained some time 
 in this attitude, but was finally roused from it by 
 an odd sense that although he had heard nothing 
 some one had approached him. He looked up and 
 saw Roderick standing before him on the turf. His 
 mood made the spectacle unwelcome, and for a mo 
 ment he felt himself ungraciously glare. Roderick s 
 face, on the other hand, took up, even before he 
 spoke, something that evidently figured to him as 
 their old relation. It was if he had come back to him 
 and that, after a moment, made our friend sit up. 
 "I should like you to do me a favour," the young 
 man presently said. "I should like you to lend me 
 some money." 
 
 498 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "How much do you wish ?" Rowland asked. 
 
 "Well, say a thousand francs." 
 
 Rowland considered. "I don t wish to be indis 
 creet, but may I ask you what you propose to do 
 with a thousand francs ?" 
 
 "To go to Interlaken." 
 
 "And why should you go to Interlaken ?" 
 
 The answer came at once. "Because that wo 
 man s to be there." 
 
 Rowland broke into laughter, but his friend re 
 mained serenely grave. " You Ve forgiven her then ?" 
 said Rowland. 
 
 Roderick, before answering, dropped upon the 
 grass. But then, beside his companion, he spoke 
 with emphasis. "Not a bit!" 
 
 "I don t understand." 
 
 "Neither do I. I only know that her beauty has 
 the same extraordinary value as ever and that it 
 has waked me up amazingly. Besides, she has asked 
 
 me to come." 
 
 "She has asked you ?" 
 
 "Yesterday, in so many words." 
 
 "Ah, the cruel creature!" cried Rowland, who 
 was thinking of Mary Garland. 
 
 "Well," said Roderick, "I m perfectly willing to 
 take her for that." 
 
 " But why need you take her for anything ? Why, in 
 the name of common sense, did you go back to her ?" 
 
 "Why did I find her standing there like a goddess 
 who had just stepped out of her cloud ? Why did 
 I look at her at all ? Before I knew where I was the 
 spell was cast." 
 
 4Q9 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland, who had been sitting erect, threw him 
 self back on the grass and lay for some time staring 
 up at the sky. At last, raising himself again, "Are 
 you perfectly serious ?" he demanded. 
 
 "Deadly serious." 
 
 "Your idea s to remain at Interlaken some time ?" 
 
 "Indefinitely!" said Roderick; and it seemed to 
 his companion that the tone in which he spoke this 
 made it immensely well worth hearing. 
 
 "And your mother and cousin meanwhile are to 
 remain here ? It will soon be getting very cold, you 
 know." 
 
 " It does n t seem much like it to-day." 
 
 "Very true; but to-day s a day by itself." 
 
 "There s nothing to prevent their going back to 
 Lucerne. I quite depend upon your taking charge 
 of them." 
 
 At this Rowland threw himself at his length again, 
 and then again, after reflexion, faced his interlocu 
 tor. "How would you express," he asked, "the 
 nature of the profit that you expect to derive from 
 your excursion ?" 
 
 "I see no need of expressing it. I shall express 
 it by going. The case is simply that that appeals 
 to me as an interest, and I find myself so delighted to 
 recognise an interest that I have n t it in my heart 
 to dash it away. As I say, she has waked me up, 
 and it s possible that something may come of that. 
 She makes me live again though I admit there J s 
 a strange pain in the act of coming to life. But at 
 least it s movement, and what else, or who else, for 
 so many weeks, has moved me ?" 
 
 500 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Of this again Rowland considered. "You really 
 feel then on the way ?" 
 
 " Don t ask too much. I only know that she makes 
 my heart beat, makes me see visions." 
 
 "You feel at least encouraged?" 
 
 "I feel excited." 
 
 "You re really looking better," Rowland went on 
 after a moment. 
 
 " I m glad to hear it. Now that I ve answered 
 your questions, therefore, please give me the money." 
 
 Rowland shook his head. "For that dire purpose 
 I can t!" 
 
 "You can t?" 
 
 " It s impossible. Your idea s too great a folly. 
 I can t help you to it." 
 
 Roderick flushed a little, and his eyes lighted. 
 "I 11 borrow what money I can then from Mary!" 
 This was not viciously said; it had simply the ring 
 of passionate resolution. 
 
 Instantly it brought Rowland to terms. He took 
 a bunch of keys from his pocket and tossed it upon 
 the grass. "The little brass one opens my dressing- 
 case. You 11 find money in it." 
 
 Roderick let the keys lie; something seemed to 
 have struck him; he looked askance at his friend. 
 "You re awfully considerate of Mary!" 
 
 " You certainly are not. Your proposal s an out- 
 rage." 
 
 " Very likely. It s proof the more of my desire." 
 
 "If you ve so much steam on, then, use it for 
 something else! You say you re awake again. I m 
 delighted to believe it; only be so in the best sense. 
 
 501 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Is n t it very plain ? If you ve the energy to desire 
 you ve also the energy to reason and to judge. If you 
 can care to go you can also care to stay, and, staying 
 being the more profitable course, the inspiration, on 
 that side, for a man who has his self-confidence to 
 win back again, should be greater." 
 
 Roderick plainly failed to relish this lesson, and his 
 face darkened as he listened to its echo. " I think, 
 my dear man, you re making a mistake." 
 
 Well, Rowland would at least drive his mistake 
 home. "Do you believe that hanging about the 
 Princess, on such terms, will do you any good ? Do 
 you believe it won t ? In either case you should keep 
 away from her. If it won t, it s your duty; and if it 
 will, you can get on without it." 
 
 "Do me good ?" cried Roderick. "What do I want 
 of good what should I do with good ? I want 
 what she gives me, call it by what name you will. I 
 want to ask no questions, but to take what comes and 
 let it fill the impossible hours! But I did n t come to 
 you to discuss the matter." 
 
 " I ve not the least desire to discuss it," said Row 
 land. "I simply protest." 
 
 Roderick meditated a moment. "I ve never yet 
 thought twice about accepting any favour of you, but 
 this one sticks in my throat." 
 
 " It s not a favour. I lend you the money only 
 under compulsion." 
 
 "Well, then, I 11 take it only under compulsion!" 
 And, springing to his feet, Roderick marched away. 
 
 His words were ambiguous; Rowland lay on the 
 grass wondering what they meant. Half an hour had 
 
 502 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 not elapsed before he reappeared, heated with rapid 
 walking and wiping his forehead. He flung himself 
 down, and the difference between his perversity and 
 his sincerity was somehow vivid in his eyes. 
 
 "I Ve done my best!" he said. "My mother s out 
 of money; she s expecting next week some circular 
 notes from London. She had only ten francs in her 
 pocket. Mary Garland gave me every sou she pos 
 sessed in the world. It makes exactly thirty-four 
 francs. That s not enough." 
 
 "You asked Mary Garland ?" Rowland cried. 
 
 "Yes, I asked her." 
 
 "And told her your purpose ?" 
 
 " I named no names. But she knew." 
 
 " What then did she say ? " 
 
 "Not a syllable. She simply emptied her purse." 
 
 Rowland turned over and buried his face in his 
 arms. He felt a movement of irrepressible elation and 
 barely stifled a cry of joy. Now, surely, Roderick had 
 shattered the last link in the chain that bound Mary 
 to him, and after this she would be free ! When he 
 recovered his posture Roderick was still sitting there 
 and had not touched the keys that lay on the grass. 
 
 "I don t know what s the matter with me," said 
 this young man, "but I Ve an insurmountable aver 
 sion to taking your money." 
 
 "The matter, I suppose, is that you Ve a grain of 
 reason left." 
 
 "No, it s not that. It s a kind of brute instinct. I 
 find it extremely provoking!" He sat there for some 
 time with his head in his hands and his eyes on the 
 ground. His expression had turned hard his^diffi- 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 culty was clearly greater than he had expected. 
 "You ve succeeded in making this thing uncom 
 monly unpleasant!" he at last exclaimed. 
 
 "I m sorry," said Rowland, "but I can t see it in 
 any other way." 
 
 "That I believe, but what I resent is that the range 
 of your vision should pretend to be the limit of my 
 action. You can t feel for me nor judge for me, and 
 there are certain things you know nothing about. I 
 have suffered, sir!" Roderick went on with increasing 
 emphasis and with the reawakened ring of his fine old 
 Virginian pomposity. " I ve suffered damnable tor 
 ments. Have I been such a placid, contented, com 
 fortable creature these last six months that when I 
 find a chance to forget my misery I should take such 
 pains not to profit by it ? You ask too much, it seems 
 to me for a man who himself has no occasion to 
 play the hero. I don t say that invidiously; it s your 
 disposition, and you can t help it. But decidedly 
 there are certain things you know nothing about." 
 
 Rowland listened to this outbreak with open eyes, 
 and Roderick, if he had been less intent upon his own 
 unhappy cause, would probably have perceived that 
 he turned pale. "These things what are they?" 
 Rowland asked. 
 
 "Why, they re women, principally, and what 
 relates to women. Women for you, by what I can 
 make out, scarce have an existence. You ve no 
 imagination of them, no sense of them, nothing in 
 you to be touched by them." 
 
 "That s a funny charge," said Rowland gravely. 
 
 "I don t make it without evidence." 
 504 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Then with what evidence ?" 
 
 Roderick hesitated. " The way you treated Chris 
 tina Light. I call that grossly obtuse." 
 
 "Obtuse?" Rowland repeated, frowning. 
 
 "Thick-skinned, beneath your good fortune." 
 
 "My good fortune?" 
 
 "There it is it s all news to you! You had 
 pleased her, interested her. I don t say she was dying 
 of love for you, but she liked you so much that she 
 would have been glad if you could have become a 
 little aware of it." 
 
 "We II let this pass!" Rowland said after a silence. 
 
 " Oh, I don t insist. I ve only her own word for 
 
 it." 
 
 "Her own word ?" 
 
 "You ve noticed, at least, I suppose, that she s 
 not in general afraid to speak. I never repeated it, 
 not because I was jealous, but because I was curious 
 to see how long your ignorance would last if left to 
 itself." 
 
 "I frankly confess it would have lasted for ever. 
 And yet I don t at all hold my insensibility proved." 
 
 "Oh, don t say that," cried Roderick, "or I shall 
 begin to suspect what I must do you the justice to 
 say I never have suspected that you take yourself 
 even more seriously than we, your good friends, take 
 you. Upon my word, w r hen I think of all this, your 
 protest, as you call it, against the vivacity of my 
 attention to that young lady strikes me as having its 
 absurd side. There s something monstrous in a man s 
 pretending to lay down the law to a state of sensibility 
 with which he s unacquainted in his expecting of 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 a fellow a kind of sacrifice that it has been so easy for 
 him not to have the occasion to make, and of which 
 he does n t understand the very terms." 
 
 "Oh, oh!" cried Rowland. 
 
 "It s very easy to exclaim," Roderick went on; 
 "but you must remember that there are such things 
 as nerves and needs and senses and desires and a rest 
 less demon within, a demon that may sleep sometimes 
 for a day, or for six months, but that sooner or later 
 starts up and thumps at your ribs till you listen to him. 
 If you can t conceive it, take it on trust and let a poor 
 visionary devil live his life as he can!" 
 
 These words affected his sad auditor as something 
 heard in a dream; it was impossible they had been 
 actually spoken so supreme an expression were 
 they of the high insolence of egotism. Reality was 
 somehow never so consistent and complete. But 
 Roderick sat there balancing his beautiful head, and 
 the echoes of his ugly mistake still lingered along the 
 half-muffled mountain-side. Rowland suddenly felt 
 the cup of his own ordeal full to overflowing, and his 
 long-gathered bitterness surged into the simple clear 
 passion of pain at wasted kindness. But he spoke 
 without violence, and Roderick was probably at first 
 far from measuring the depths beneath his tone. 
 
 "You re incredibly ungrateful, I think, and you re 
 talking arrogant nonsense. What do you know about 
 my needs and senses and my imagination ? How do 
 you know whether I ve loved or suffered ? If I ve 
 held my tongue and not troubled you with my com 
 plaints, you find it the most natural thing in the world 
 to put a belittling construction on my silence! I ve 
 
 506 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 loved quite as well as you; indeed I think I may say 
 rather better, since I Ve been constant. I Ve been 
 willing to give more than I received. I Ve not for 
 saken one mistress because I thought another more 
 beautiful, nor given up the other and believed all 
 manner of evil about her because I had n t my way 
 with her. I Ve been a good friend to Christina Light, 
 and it seems to me my friendship does her quite as 
 much honour as your love!" 
 
 "Your love your suffering your silence 
 your friendship!" cried Roderick. "I declare I don t 
 understand!" 
 
 "I dare say not. You re not used to having to, in 
 the least, where I m concerned; you re not used to 
 hearing me talk of my feelings or even to remembering 
 that such things are possible, such luxuries thinkable 
 to me. You re altogether too much taken up with 
 your interests. Be as much so as you like or as you 
 must; I Ve always respected your right. Only when 
 I have kept myself in durance on purpose to leave you 
 an open field, don t, by way of thanking me, come and 
 call me an idiot." 
 
 " Oh, you claim then that you Ve made sacrifices ?" 
 
 "Several! You Ve never suspected it ?" 
 
 "If I had, do you suppose I would have allowed 
 them ?" Roderick magnificently demanded. 
 
 "They were sacrifices to friendship, and they were 
 easily, eagerly, rejoicingly made. Only I don t enjoy 
 having them thrown back in my teeth." 
 
 This was in all the conditions a sufficiently gener 
 ous speech; but Roderick scanned it as he might 
 have scanned the total of an account not presented in 
 
 57 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 items. "Come, be more definite," he said. "Let me 
 know where it is the shoe has pinched." 
 
 Rowland frowned; if he would n t take generosity 
 he should have full justice. "It s a perpetual sacri 
 fice then to live with a remorseless egotist!" 
 
 "I m a remorseless egotist ?" Roderick returned. 
 
 "Did it never occur to you ?" 
 
 "An egotist to whom you have made perpetual 
 sacrifices ?" He repeated the words in a singular tone; 
 a tone that denoted neither exactly indignation nor 
 incredulity, but (strange as it might seem) a sudden 
 violent curiosity for news about himself. 
 
 "You re selfish," said Rowland; "you think only 
 of yourself and believe only in your own history. You 
 regard other people only as they play into your own 
 hands. You ve always been very frank about it, and 
 the thing seemed so mixed up with the nature of your 
 genius and the very breath of your life that often one 
 was willing to take the evil with the good and to be 
 thankful that, considering your great talent, you were 
 no worse. But if one was to believe in you as I ve 
 done one was to pay a tax on one s faith!" 
 
 Roderick leaned his elbows on his knees, clasped 
 his hands together and crossed them shadewise over 
 his eyes. In this attitude for a moment he sat looking 
 coldly at his friend. " So I ve made you very un 
 comfortable ?" he went on. 
 
 "Extremely so." 
 
 "I ve been eager, grasping, obstinate, vain, un 
 grateful, indifferent, cruel?" 
 
 " I ve accused you mentally of all these things 
 with the particular exception of vanity." 
 
 508 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "You Ve therefore often hated me ?" 
 
 "Never. I should have parted company with you 
 before coming to that/ 
 
 " But you Ve wanted to part company, to bid me 
 go on my way and be hanged ?" 
 
 " Repeatedly. Then I Ve had patience and for 
 given you." 
 
 "Forgiven me, eh ? Suffering all the while ?" 
 
 "Yes, you may call it suffering." 
 
 Roderick thought a moment. "Why did you 
 never tell me all this before ?" 
 
 "Because my affection was always stronger than 
 my resentment; because I preferred to err on the side 
 of kindness; because I had myself in a measure 
 launched you in the world and thrown you among 
 temptations; and because nothing short of your un 
 warrantable aggression just now could have made me, 
 with this effect of harshness, break my silence." 
 
 Roderick picked up a blade of long grass and began 
 to bite it; Rowland was puzzled by his expression and 
 manner. They were strangely detached and as if 
 unnaturally quiet. "I must have been horrible," he 
 presently resumed. 
 
 "I m not talking for your entertainment," his 
 companion declared. 
 
 "Of course not. For my edification!" And as he 
 spoke the air seemed colder for his breath. 
 
 " I ve spoken for my own relief," Rowland went 
 on, "and so that you need never again go so utterly 
 astray as you Ve done this morning." 
 
 "It has been a terrible mistake then ?" What his 
 tone represented was doubtless no direct purpose of 
 
 509 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 irony, but irresponsible, void of positive compunction, 
 it jarred at moments almost like an insult. Rowland 
 answered nothing. "And all this time," Roderick 
 continued, "you Ve been in love? Tell me then, 
 please if you don t mind with whom." 
 
 Rowland felt the temptation to give him a palpable 
 pang. " With whom but with the nearest ?" 
 
 "The nearest ?" Roderick maintained his cold, 
 large stare, which seemed so to neglect and overshoot 
 the near. But then he brought it down. "You mean 
 with poor Mary ?" 
 
 "I mean with Miss Garland." 
 
 At the tone, suddenly, he coloured; something had 
 touched him somewhere. He gave, however, at first, 
 under control, the least possible sign. "How ex 
 traordinary! But I see. Heaven forgive us!" 
 
 Rowland took notice of the " us," while his com 
 panion, for further comment, simply fell back on the 
 turf and lay for some time staring at the sky. At last 
 he sprang to his feet, and Rowland rose also, con 
 scious for the first time, with any sharpness, in all 
 their intercourse, of having made an impression on 
 him. He had driven in, as it were, a nail, and found in 
 the tap of his hammer, for once in a way, a sensation. 
 
 "For how long has this been?" the young man 
 went on. 
 
 "Since I first knew her." 
 
 "Two years! And you Ve never told her ?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "You Ve told no one?" 
 
 "You re the first person." 
 
 "Why then have you been silent?" 
 510 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "Because of your engagement." 
 
 " But you ve done your best to keep that up." 
 
 "That s another matter!" 
 
 "It s very wonderful," Roderick presently con 
 tinued. " It s like something in a bad novel." 
 
 "We need n t expatiate on it," said Rowland. "All 
 I wished to do was to rebut your charge that I ve 
 enjoyed any special immunity." 
 
 But still his friend pondered. "All these months, 
 while I was going my way! I wish you had some time 
 mentioned it." 
 
 "I acted as was necessary, and that s the end of 
 the matter." 
 
 "You ve a very high opinion of her?" 
 
 "The highest." 
 
 "I remember now your occasionally expressing it 
 and my being struck with it. But I never dreamed you 
 were in love with her. It s a pity," Roderick added, 
 "that she does n t care for you." 
 
 Rowland had made his point and had no wish to 
 prolong the conversation; but he would have liked 
 to hear more of this, and he remained silent. 
 
 "You hope, I suppose, that she may some day be 
 moved ?" Roderick enquired. 
 
 "I should n t have offered to say so; but since you 
 ask me, I do." 
 
 "Well, I don t believe it, you know. She idolises 
 me, and if she never were to see me again she would 
 idolise my memory." 
 
 This might be vivid insight and it might be deep 
 fatuity. Rowland turned away; he could n t trust 
 himself to speak. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "My indifference, my neglect of her, must have 
 seemed to you too base," his companion pursued. 
 "Altogether I must have appeared simply hideous/" 
 
 "Do you really care," Rowland was prompted to 
 ask, "for what you may have appeared ?" 
 
 " Certainly. I ve been damnably stupid. Is n t 
 an artist supposed to be a man of fine perceptions ? 
 I have n t, as it turns out, had one" 
 
 "Well, you ve a beautiful one now, and we can 
 start afresh." 
 
 "And yet," said Roderick, "though you ve suf 
 fered, in a degree, I don t believe you ve suffered so 
 much as some other men would have done." 
 
 "Very likely not. In such matters quantitative 
 analysis is difficult." 
 
 Roderick picked up his stick and stood looking at 
 the ground. "I must nevertheless have seemed hid 
 eous," he repeated "hideous." He turned away 
 frowning, and Rowland offered no contradiction. 
 
 They were both silent a while, and at last Roderick 
 gave a long, subdued exhalation, the discharge of a 
 consciousness too suddenly overloaded, and began to 
 move off. 
 
 "Where are you going?" Rowland then de 
 manded. 
 
 "Oh, I don t care! To walk, to look about, to com 
 mune with nature. You ve given me an idea, and 
 I nowadays have so few that I m taking this one with 
 me. I don t quite know what I can do with it, but per 
 haps I shall find out. Leave me to try though 
 I ve already been so stupid." This seemed a salutary 
 impulse, yet Rowland felt a nameless doubt. " That, 
 
 512 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 you know, damns me more than anything," Roderick 
 went on. "Certainly I can shut up shop now." 
 
 Rowland s immediate, his personal relief had 
 dropped after speaking; yet at sight of the way such 
 a character could hang together he still felt justified. 
 It was egotism always the shock of taste, the hu 
 miliation of a proved blunder, the sense, above all, of 
 a flagrant want of grace; but never a hint of simple 
 sorrow for pain inflicted. He let the poor boy go and 
 for some moments stood watching him; then of a 
 sudden he yielded to an impulse all inconsequent, 
 a desire to stop him, to have another word with him, 
 not to lose sight of him. He called out, and Roderick 
 turned. "I should like to go with you," said our 
 friend. 
 
 "Oh, I m fit only to be alone. It s awful!" 
 
 "You had better not think of it at all," Rowland 
 cried, "than think in that way." 
 
 "There J s only one way. I ve been grotesque!" 
 And he broke off and marched away, taking long 
 steps and swinging his stick. Rowland still watched 
 him and in another instant called to him again. Rod 
 erick stopped and looked back in silence; after which, 
 abruptly turning, he disappeared below the crest of 
 a hill. 
 
XXVI 
 
 ROWLAND passed the remainder of the day as best 
 he could. He could scarce have said whether he were 
 exalted or depressed; he felt, uneasily, placed in the 
 wrong in spite of his excellent cause. Roderick made 
 no appearance at luncheon; but of this, with his 
 passion for mooning away the hours on far-off moun 
 tain-sides, he had almost made a habit. Mrs. Hud 
 son s face, at the noonday repast, showed how his 
 sharp demand for money had unsealed the fountains 
 of her distress. Little Singleton consumed an enor 
 mous and well-earned meal. Mary Garland, Row 
 land observed, had not contributed her scanty assist 
 ance to her kinsman s pursuit of the Princess Casa- 
 massima without an effort that had ploughed deep. 
 She had clearly, in fact, been ravaged by it, and she 
 looked so ill and remained so silent that, the repast 
 over, Rowland expressed to her the fear that she was 
 seriously unwell. They had come out upon the grass 
 in front of the inn. 
 
 "I ve a bad headache that s all." And then 
 suddenly, looking about at the menacing sky and 
 motionless air, "It s this horrible day!" she said. 
 
 He that afternoon tried to write a letter to his 
 cousin Cecilia, but his head and his heart were alike 
 heavy, and he traced upon the paper but a single 
 line. " I believe there s such a thing as being too 
 reasonable. Yet when once the habit s formed what 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 is one to do ?" He had occasion to use his keys, and 
 he felt for them in his pockets; they were missing, 
 and he remembered that he had left them lying on 
 the hill-top where he had had his talk with Rod 
 erick. He went forth in search of them and found 
 them where he had thrown them. He flung him 
 self down in the same place again; he felt it impos 
 sible to walk. He was conscious that his mood had 
 greatly changed since the morning; his extraordin 
 ary acute sense of his rights had been replaced by 
 the familiar chronic sense of his duties. His duties, 
 however, now seemed only to defy him; he turned 
 over and buried his face in his arms. He lay so a 
 long time, thinking of many things; the sum of 
 them all was that Roderick had beaten him. At last 
 he was startled by an extraordinary sound, which 
 defined itself the next instant as a portentous growl 
 of thunder. He got up and saw that the whole face 
 of the sky had altered. The clouds that had hung 
 motionless all day were moving from their stations 
 and getting into position for a battle. The wind was 
 rising, the turbid vapours growing dark and thick. 
 It was a striking spectacle, but Rowland judged 
 best to observe it briefly, as a storm was evidently 
 imminent. He took the path to the inn and found 
 Singleton still at his post, profiting by the last of the 
 rapidly-failing light to finish his study and yet at 
 the same time making rapid notes of the actual con 
 dition of the clouds. 
 
 "We re going to have the biggest show the Alps 
 can give," the little painter gleefully cried. " I should 
 like awfully to do it." 
 
 515 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland adjured him to pack up his tools and 
 decamp, and then repaired to the house. The air by 
 this time had become densely dark, and the thunder 
 was incessant and deafening; in the midst of it the 
 lightning flashed and vanished as the treble shrills 
 upon the bass. The innkeeper and his servants, won 
 dering and blinking, pale in the frequent flare, had 
 pressed to the doorway, and, as Rowland approached, 
 the group divided to let some one pass from within. 
 Mrs. Hudson, her face white and convulsed, wav 
 ing her arms, came out as if, on some alarm of a 
 flood, she were walking in the water breast-high. 
 
 "My boy, my boy, where s my boy?" she cried. 
 " Mr. Mallet, why are you here without him ? Bring 
 him straight home to me!" 
 
 "Has no one seen Mr. Hudson ?" Rowland asked 
 of the others. "Has he not returned ?" 
 
 Each one shook his head and looked grave, and 
 Rowland represented to the poor lady, and by the 
 same urgency to himself, that Roderick would of 
 course have sought asylum in some secure chalet. 
 
 "Go and find him, go and find him !" she none 
 the less imperiously quavered. "Don t stand there 
 and talk, or my reason will give way!" It was now 
 as dark as evening, and Rowland could just dis 
 tinguish the figure of Singleton scampering home 
 with his box and easel. "And where s Mary?" 
 Mrs. Hudson went on; "what in mercy s name has 
 become of her? Mr. Mallet, why did you ever bring 
 us here?" 
 
 There came a huge white glare, under which, for 
 thirty seconds, all nature stood still and Rowland, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 making out a slight figure on the top of an eminence 
 near the house, recognised the younger woman, urged 
 forth by her anxiety and almost insanely exposed. He 
 sprang out to join her, but in a moment he met her 
 coming back. He seized her hand and hurried her 
 to the house, where, as soon as she stepped into the 
 covered gallery, Mrs. Hudson fell upon her with 
 frantic lamentations. 
 
 " Did you see anything nothing ? Tell Mr. 
 Mallet he must go and find him, with some men, 
 some lights, some wraps, some wine. Go, go, go, 
 sir! In mercy, go!" 
 
 Rowland, thus assaulted by the terrors of others, 
 threw himself back with force on his own argument. 
 He had offered it in all sincerity; nothing was more 
 probable than that Roderick had found shelter in 
 a herdsman s cabin. These were numerous on the 
 neighbouring mountains, and the storm had given 
 fair warning of its approach. Mary stood there at 
 first without a word, only looking hard at him. He 
 expected she would try to soothe her cousin. "Could 
 you find him?" she suddenly asked. "Would it be 
 of use?" 
 
 The question struck him as a flash intenser than 
 when the jaws of the night opened to the whiteness 
 of a thousand teeth. It shattered his dream that he 
 weighed in the scale. But before he could answer 
 the tempest was in possession and the rain, about 
 them, like the sound of the deeps about a ship s sides. 
 Every one fell back into the house. There had been 
 no time to light lamps, and in the little uncarpeted 
 parlour, in the unnatural darkness, Rowland felt 
 
 517 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Mary s hand on his arm. He imputed for a moment 
 a meaning to it, some attenuation of her vain chal 
 lenge, an assurance that she accepted, for Roderick, 
 whatever he thought probable. But, nevertheless, 
 thought Rowland, the cry had come, her passion 
 had spoken; her first impulse had been to sacrifice 
 him. He had been uncertain before; here at least 
 was the comfort of certainty. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that the certainty 
 did little to enliven the gloom of that formidable 
 evening. There was a noisy crowd everywhere 
 noisy even beyond the uproar without; lodgers 
 and servants, chattering, shuffling, bustling, voci 
 ferating; breaking in, as he felt, upon the dignity 
 of the storm. It was some time, in the confusion, 
 before a lamp was lighted, and the first thing it showed 
 him when swung from the ceiling was the closed 
 eyes of Mrs. Hudson, carried away in a faint by 
 two stout maid-servants and with Mary Garland 
 forcing a passage. He rendered what help he could, 
 but when they had laid their companion on her bed 
 Mary motioned him away. 
 
 "I think you make her worse," was all the girl s 
 comment. 
 
 He could but betake himself then to his own room. 
 The partitions in Swiss mountain-inns are thin, and 
 he heard Mrs. Hudson s wail three doors away. The 
 rage of the weather, for all its violence, was slow to 
 abate; it held its own for two long hours. With the 
 drop of the thunder the rush of water continued, and 
 night had come on impenetrably black. Rowland 
 thought of Mary Garland s question in the porch, 
 
 518 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 but he thought still more that, although the fetid 
 interior of a high-nestling chalet may offer a con 
 venient refuge from an Alpine tempest, there was 
 no possible music in the universe so sweet as the 
 sound of Roderick s voice. At midnight, from his 
 window, through the ebb of the tide, he made out 
 a star and immediately went below and out into the 
 gallery. The rain had ceased, the cloud-masses 
 showed gaps and the gaps cold points of light. In 
 a few minutes he heard a step behind him and, 
 turning, saw Mary Garland. He asked about Mrs. 
 Hudson and learned that she was sleeping, exhausted 
 by her long tension. Mary s eyes kept sounding 
 the night, but she said nothing to cast doubt on the 
 idea of Roderick s having found a refuge. Rowland 
 noticed it and knew this assurance then for a matter 
 as to which he would be held responsible. There 
 was something she further wished to learn, and a 
 question presently revealed it. "What made him 
 start on a long walk so suddenly?" she asked. "I 
 saw him at eleven o clock, and then he meant to go 
 to Engelberg and sleep." 
 
 "On his way to Interlaken!" Rowland said. 
 
 "Yes," she answered under cover of the darkness. 
 
 "We had some talk," said Rowland, "and he 
 seemed, for the day, to have given up Interlaken." 
 
 "Did you dissuade him?" 
 
 "Not exactly. We discussed another question, 
 which for the time appeared to have superseded his 
 plan." 
 
 Mary was silent; after which, "May I ask whether 
 your discussion was violent?" she went on. 
 
 519 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 "I m afraid it was easy for neither of us." 
 
 "And Roderick left you in in irritation ?" 
 
 "I offered him my company on his walk, but he 
 would n t have me." 
 
 Mary paced to the end of the gallery and came 
 back. " If he had gone to Engelberg he would have 
 reached the hotel before the storm began." 
 
 Rowland felt himself suddenly break out. "Oh, 
 if you like, he can start for Interlaken as soon as he 
 comes back!" 
 
 But it was as if she were unconscious of his re 
 mark. "Will he come back early?" she pursued. 
 
 "We may suppose so." 
 
 "He 11 know how anxious we are, and he 11 start 
 with the first light." 
 
 He was on the point of declaring that Roderick s 
 readiness to throw himself into the feelings of others 
 made this extremely probable; but he checked him 
 self and said simply: "I expect him at sunrise." 
 
 She gave again, into the darkness round her, a long, 
 strained stare and then went into the house. Row 
 land, it must be averred, in spite of his determina 
 tion not to worry, found no sleep that night. When 
 the early dawn began to tremble in the east he came 
 forth again into the open air. The storm had com 
 pletely cleared it, and the day gave promise of cloud 
 less splendour. He watched the first sun-shafts 
 slowly reach higher and remembered that if Rod 
 erick should not be back to breakfast there were 
 two points to be made. One was the heaviness of 
 the soil on the mountain-sides, saturated with the 
 rain, which would make him walk slowly; the other 
 
 520 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was the fact that, speaking without irony, he was 
 not remarkable for his divination of the conven 
 ience of others. Breakfast at the inn was early, 
 and Roderick had not then reappeared. Rowland 
 admitted with this that he was worrying. Neither 
 Mrs. Hudson nor her companion had left their 
 apartment; Rowland had a mental vision of the 
 two women sitting there face to face and listening; 
 he had no desire to see them in fact. There were 
 a couple of men who hung about the inn as guides 
 for going up the Titlis; Rowland sent each of them 
 forth in a different direction to ask for news wher 
 ever news might be gathered. Then he called Sam 
 Singleton, whose peregrinations had made him a 
 prime rambler and whose zeal and sympathy were 
 now unbounded, and the two started together to 
 ascertain what they might. By the time they had 
 lost sight of the inn they were obliged to confess that 
 decidedly their friend had had time to come back. 
 
 Ours, poor man, wandered about for several hours, 
 but found only the sunny stillness of the mountain 
 sides. Before long he had parted company with Sin 
 gleton, who, to his suggestion that separation would 
 extend their search, assented with fixed eyes that re 
 flected his own dire obsession. The day was magni 
 ficent, the sun everywhere; the storm had lashed 
 the lower slopes into a deeper flush of autumnal 
 colour and the snow-peaks reared themselves above 
 the near horizon in shining blocks and sharp inci 
 sions. He made his way to several far-perched huts, 
 but most of them were empty and some of them 
 closed. He thumped at their low foul doors with 
 
 521 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 nervous savage anger; he challenged the stupid 
 silence to speak to him of his friend. Some of these 
 places had evidently not been open for months. The 
 silence everywhere was horrible; it mocked at his 
 impatience, it was charged with cruelty and danger. 
 In the midst of it, at the door of one of the cabins, 
 quite alone, sat a hideous cretin who grinned at 
 him over a vast goitre when, hardly knowing what 
 he did, he put vain questions. This creature s family 
 was scattered on the mountain; he could give no 
 help toward finding them. Rowland climbed into 
 the awkward places Roderick loved; he looked 
 down into ugly chasms from narrow steep-drop 
 ping ledges; and he was to consider afterwards, 
 uneasily, how little he had heeded his foothold. But 
 the sun, as I have said, was everywhere; it illumined 
 the depths and heights in presence of which, not 
 knowing where to turn next, he halted and lingered, 
 and showed him nothing but the stony Alpine void 
 nothing so human even as a catastrophe or a trace. 
 At noon he paused in his quest and sat down on 
 a stone; the conviction pressed him hard that the 
 worst now conceivable was true. He stopped look 
 ing; he was afraid to go on. He sat there for an 
 hour, sick to his innermost soul. Without his know 
 ing why, several things, chiefly trivial, that had hap 
 pened during the last two years and that he had 
 quite forgotten, lived again before him and breathed 
 their mortal chill into his face. He was roused at 
 last by the sound of a stone dislodged near by, which 
 rattled down the mountain. In a moment, on a 
 rough slope opposite, he beheld a figure cautiously 
 
 522 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 descending a figure which was not Roderick s. 
 It was Singleton s, who had seen him and begun to 
 beckon. 
 
 "Come down come down!" cried this com 
 panion, steadily making his own way down. Row 
 land saw that as he moved, and even as he selected 
 his foothold and watched his steps, he was looking 
 at something at the bottom of the cliff. This was 
 a great rugged wall that sloped backward from the 
 perpendicular, and the descent, though difficult, was 
 with care sufficiently practicable. 
 
 "What do you see?" Rowland managed to call. 
 
 Singleton stopped, looked across at him and 
 seemed to hesitate; then, "Come down come 
 down!" he simply repeated. 
 
 Rowland s course was also precipitous, and he 
 attacked it so dizzily that he marvelled, later on, he 
 had not broken his neck. It was a ten minutes 
 headlong scramble. Half-way down he saw some 
 thing that for a minute did make him reel; he saw 
 what Singleton had seen. In the gorge below a vague 
 white mass lay tumbled upon the stones. He let 
 himself go, blindly, fiercely, to where Singleton, 
 reaching the rocky bottom of the ravine first, had 
 bounded forward and fallen upon his knees. Row 
 land overtook him, and his own legs gave way for 
 horror. The thing that yesterday was his friend 
 lay before him as the chance of the last breath had 
 left it, and out of it Roderick s face stared open- 
 eyed at the sky. 
 
 He had fallen from a great height, but he was sin 
 gularly little disfigured. The rain had spent its tor- 
 
 523 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 rents upon him, and his clothes and hair were as wet 
 as if the billows of the ocean had flung him upon the 
 strand. An attempt to move him would attest some 
 fatal fracture, some horrible physical dishonour, but 
 what Rowland saw on first looking at him was only 
 a noble expression of life. The eyes were the eyes of 
 death, but in a short time, when he had closed them, 
 the whole face seemed to revive. The rain had washed 
 away all blood; it was as if violence, having wrought 
 her ravage, had stolen away in shame. Roderick s 
 face might have shamed her; it was indescribably, 
 and all so innocently, fair. 
 
 Then Singleton spoke as for the time of his life. 
 "He was the most beautiful of men!" 
 
 They looked up through their dismay at the cliff 
 from which he had unmistakeably fallen and which 
 lifted its blank and stony face above him, with no 
 care now but to drink the sunshine on which his eyes 
 were closed; and Rowland had thus a wild outbreak 
 of pity and anguish. His friend put round him a sup 
 porting arm, and the pair gasped together, for a long 
 minute, in their pain, like guilty creatures discovered. 
 At last they spoke of carrying their comrade home. 
 "There must be three or four men," Rowland said, 
 "and they must be brought fast. I haven t the least 
 idea where we are." 
 
 "We re at about three hours walk from the inn. 
 It s I who must go for help," Singleton insisted; "I 
 can easily find my way." 
 
 "Remember then whom you 11 have to face!" said 
 Rowland. 
 
 "I remember," the little artist answered. "There 
 524 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 was nothing I could ever do for him before; I 11 do 
 what I can now." 
 
 He went off and Rowland remained alone. He 
 watched in the flesh for seven long hours, but the 
 vigil of his spirit was a thing that would never cease. 
 The most rational of men wandered and lost himself 
 in the dark places of passion, lashed his " conduct " 
 with a scourge of steel, accusing it of cruelty and in 
 justice: he would have lain down there in Roderick s 
 place to unsay the words that had yesterday driven 
 him forth on his ramble of despair. Roderick had 
 been fond of saying that there are such things as 
 necessary follies, and he, of all men, was now proving 
 it. The great gaunt wicked cliff above them became 
 almost company to him, as the chance-saved photo 
 graph of a murderer might become for a shipwrecked 
 castaway a link with civilisation: it had but done its 
 part too, and what were they both, in their stupidity, 
 he and it, but dumb agents of fate ? He tried at any 
 rate to understand what had hideously happened. 
 Not that it offered one healing touch; before the 
 absoluteness, the grim majesty, of the fact explan 
 ations and suppositions had only an effect of con- 
 tributive meanness. Roderick s stricken state had 
 driven him, in the mere motion of flight, higher and 
 further than he knew; he had outstayed supposeably 
 the first menace of the storm and perhaps even found 
 a dark distraction in watching it. Perhaps he had 
 simply lost himself. The tempest had overtaken him, 
 and when he tried to return it had been too late. He 
 had attempted to descend the cliff in the treacherous 
 gloom, he had made the inevitable slip, and whether 
 
 525 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 he had fallen fifty feet or three hundred little mattered 
 now. Even if it had not been far, it had been far 
 enough. Now that all was over Rowland understood 
 how up to the brim, for two years, his personal world 
 had been filled. It looked to him at present as void 
 and blank and sinister as a theatre bankrupt and 
 closed. 
 
 Singleton came back with four men one of them 
 the landlord of the inn. They had formed a rude bier 
 of the frame of a chaise-a-porteurs> and by taking a 
 very roundabout course homeward were able to follow 
 a tolerably level path and carry their burden with due 
 decency. To Rowland it seemed as if the little pro 
 cession would never reach the inn, yet as they drew 
 near it he would have given his right hand for a longer 
 holding-ofF. The few lingerers came forward to do 
 them silent solemn homage, and in the doorway, 
 clinging together, appeared the two bereaved women. 
 Mrs. Hudson tottered forward with outstretched 
 hands, divided between yearning and terror; but 
 before she reached her son Mary Garland had rushed 
 past her and, in the face of the staring, pitying, awe- 
 stricken crowd, had flung herself, with the magni 
 ficent movement of one whose rights were supreme 
 and with a loud tremendous cry, upon the senseless 
 vestige of all she had cherished. 
 
 That cry still lives in Rowland s ears. It interposes 
 persistently against the consciousness that when he 
 sometimes very rarely sees her, she is inscrut 
 ably civil to him; against the reflection that during 
 the awful journey back to America, made of course 
 with his assistance, she had used him, with the last 
 
 526 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 rigour of consistency, as a character definitely ap 
 pointed to her use. She lives with Mrs. Hudson under 
 the New England elms, where he also visits his 
 cousin Cecilia more frequently than of old. When he 
 calls on Mary he never sees the elder lady. Cecilia, who, 
 having her shrewd impression that he comes for the 
 young person, the still young person, of interest at the 
 other house as much as for any one else, fails to show 
 as unduly flattered, and in fact pronounces him, at 
 each reappearance, the most restless of mortals. But 
 he always says to her in answer: "No, I assure you 
 I m the most patient!" And then he talks to her of 
 Roderick, of whose history she never wearies and 
 whom he never elsewhere names. 
 
 THE END 
 
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