EODEKICK HUDSON 
 
 BY ^^ 
 
 HENEY JAMES, Jr. 
 
 Boston anti ^eiu gork 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, & COMPANY 
 
 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS, CAMBRIDGE 
 i 1891 
 
f'' 
 
 //V/// 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 
 
 Rowland Mallet had made liis arrangements to sail for 
 Europe on the 1st of September, and having in the in- 
 terval 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 reflection that an affectionate farewell 
 might help to exonerate him from the charge of neglect 
 frequently preferred by this lady. It was not that the 
 young man disliked her ; on the contrary he regarded her 
 with a tender admiration, and he 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, and y?en 
 and there accepted the prospect of bachelorhood. { The 
 truth was that, as it will be part of the entertainmefeli. of 
 this narrative to exhibit, Rowland Mallet had an un- 
 comfortably sensitive 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 Tost her 
 husband ; second she had lost her money (or the greater 
 part of it) ; and third she lived at Northampton, Massa- 
 chusetts. Mallet's compassion was really wasted, because 
 Cecilia was a very clever woman and a skilful counter- 
 plotter to adversity. She had made herself a charming 
 home, her economies v/ere not obtrusive, and there was 
 always a cheerful flutter in the folds of her crape. It was 
 
 5 
 
6 liODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 the consciousness of all this that puzzled Mallet whenever 
 lie felt tempted to put in his oar. He bid money and he 
 had time, but he never could decide just how to place these 
 gifts gracefully at Cecilia's service. He no longer felt 
 like^ marrying her; in these eight years that fancy had died 
 • a natural death. And yet her extreme cleverness seemed 
 somehow to make charity difficult and patronage im- 
 possible. He would rather chop ofi his hand than ofi'er 
 her a cheque, a piece of useful furniture, or a black silk 
 dress ; and yet there was much sadness in seeing such a 
 bright proud woman living in such a small dull way. 
 ^[jCecilia 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. Rowland 
 remembered that for him she was all smiles, and sus- 
 pected 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 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 the young man's imagination was able to do ample 
 justice. Cecilia was always gracious, but this evening she 
 was almost joyous. She was in a happy mood, and Mallet 
 imagined there was a private reason for it — a reason quite 
 distinct from her pleasure in receiving her honoured kins- 
 man. 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 situation, listened timorously 
 for the stroke of bedtime, Cecilia insisted on talking more 
 about her visitor than about herself. 
 
KODEEICK HUDSON 7 
 
 " 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 all 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 ? Is not a man like you doing harm when he is not 
 doing positive good 1 " 
 
 " Your compliment is ambiguous," said Eowland. 
 
 "No," answered the widow, "you know what I think 
 of you. You have a turn for doing nice things and behav- 
 ing yourself properly. You have it in the first place in 
 your character. You are an amiable creature. 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, - 
 >J^ i^^owland, not knowing Mr. Hudson, could but half 
 .i^f 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 usefulness. You are in- 
 telligent, you are well-informed, and your benevolence, 
 if one may call it benevolence, would be discriminating. 
 . You are rich and unoccupied, so that it might be abundant. 
 Therefore I say you are a man to do something on a 
 large scale. Bestir yourself, dear Eowland, or v/e 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 am quite willing to follow them 
 however, and if I don't do something on the grand scale it 
 is that my genius is altogether imitative and that I have 
 not recentjyi encountered any very striking models of 
 grandeur. 5 Pray what shall I do? Found an orphan 
 asylum or Build a dormitory for Harvard College 1 1 am 
 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 
 grcmd coup. 1 am holding myself roady for inspiration. 
 I am 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." 
 
8 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 "AVell, I give you till forty," said Cecilia. "It's only 
 a word to the wise — a notification that you are 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 intrenchments. She 
 turned and kissed her cousin and deposited an irrepres- 
 sible tear on his moustache. Then she went and said her 
 prayers to her mother; it was evident she was being 
 admirably brought up. RoAvland 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 U' 
 affirm ; but there had been times when, seeing him accept 
 hardly less deferentially advice even more peremptory than 
 the widow's, you might have asked yourself what had 
 become of his vanity. ISTow, in the sweet-smelling star- 
 light 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 generous. 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 most imperfectly the young man's own personal 
 conception of usefulness. [He was extremely fond of all 
 the arts, and he had an almost passionate enjoyment of 
 pictures. He had seen a great many, and he judged them 
 sagaciously. It had occurred to him some time before 
 that it would be the work of a good citizen to go abroard 
 and with all expedition and secrecy purchase ceri^in 
 valuable specime?is 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 resthetie 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 
 some 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. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 9 
 
 But he imparted none of these visions to Cecilia, and he 
 suddenly swept them away with the 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 something. I shall be better entertained and shall 
 be therefore, I suppose, in a better humour with life. You 
 "may say that that is just the humour a useless man should 
 keep out of. He should cultivate discontent. I did a good 
 many things when I was in Europe before, but I did not 
 spend a winter in Rome. Every one assures me that this 
 is a peculiar refinement of bliss ; most people talk about 
 Home in the same way. It is evidently only a sort of 
 idealized form of loafing : a passive life in Rome, thanks 
 to the number and the quality of one's impressions, takes 
 on a very respectable likness to activity. It is still lotus- 
 eating, only A^ou sit down at table and the lotuses are 
 served up on rococo china. It's all very well, but I have 
 a distinct prevision of this — that if Roman life doesn't do 
 something substantial to make you happier, it increases 
 tenfold your liability to moral misery. It seems to me a 
 rash thing for a sensitive 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 intellectual 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," said Cecilia, 
 with a laugh, "that your nerves were tough — that youv 
 eggs were hard ! " 
 
 " That being stupid, you mean, I might be happy % 
 Upon my word I am not happy ! I am clever enough to 
 want more than I have got. I am 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 with a certain ardour ; even, if you 
 can believe it, with a certain passion. I can't jnst now 
 
10 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 foel ardent and passionate p.hout a hospital or a dormitory. 
 £TDo you know I f-ometimes think that I am a man of 
 genins, half finished 1 The genius has been left out, the 
 faculty of expression is wanting ; but the need for expres- 
 sion remains, find I spend my days groping for the latch of 
 a closed door/j' 
 
 " What an immense number of words," said Cecilia after 
 a pause, " to say you want to fall in love ! I have no 
 doubt 5'ou have as good a genius for that as any one, if you 
 would only trust it." 
 
 " Of course I have thought of that, and I assure you I 
 hold myself ready. But evidently I am not inflammable. 
 Is there in Northampton some perfect epitome of the 
 graces 1 " 
 
 " Of the graces ? " said Cecilia, raising her eyebrows and 
 suppressing too distinct a consciousness of being herself a 
 rosy embodiment of several. " The household virtues are 
 better represented. There are some excellent girls, and 
 there are two or three very pretty ones. I will have them 
 here one by one to ten., if you like." 
 
 " I shovJd particularly like it ; especially as I should 
 give you a chance to see by the profundity of my attention 
 that if I am not happy it's not for want of taking pains." 
 Cecilia was silent a moment ; and then, " On the 
 whole," she resumed, '' I don't think there are any worth 
 asking. There are non,e so very pretty, none so very 
 pleasing." 
 
 " Are you very sure 1 " asked the young man, rising and 
 throwing away his cigar-end. 
 
 " Upon my word," cried Cecilia, " one would suppose I 
 wished to keep you for myself ! Of course I am sure ! 
 But as the penalty of your insinuations, I shall invite the 
 plainest and proriest damsel that can be found and leave 
 you alone with her." 
 
 Eowland 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 Mallet's lips as it 
 would have been on those of many another man ; as a 
 rapid glance at jus antecedents may help to make the 
 reader perceive. His life had been a singular mixture of 
 
EODEKICK HUDSON. 11 
 
 the rough and the smooth. He had sprung from a rigid 
 Puritan stock, and had been brought up to think much more 
 intently of the duties of this life 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 consciousness was not chilled 
 by the menace of long punishment 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 asjhe texture to the spiritual sense 
 of Sundays and week-days. His father was a chip of the 
 
 ^primal Puritan block, a man with 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. Mallet had 
 been a Miss Rowland, the daughter of a retired sea-captain 
 once famous 'on the ships that sailed from Salem and New- 
 buryport. He had brought to port many a ♦jargo 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 maritime 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 superficial 
 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 amateur of an observing 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 Amsterdam, 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 
 
12 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 and in whoso appearance " figure " enjoyod such striking 
 predominance — he would not have had a heavy weight on 
 his conscience if he had 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. Rowhmd Mallet remembered having seen 
 her as a child — an immensely stout white-faced lady, wear- 
 ing a high cap of very stiil 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 of a public 
 promenade along the sea, with arbours and little green 
 tables for the consumption of beer, and a platform, sur- 
 rounded 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 exquisite moral tone it was not that she had 
 inherited her temper from an ancestry with a turn for 
 casuistry. Jonas Mallet at the time of his marriage was 
 conducting with silent shrewdness a small unpromising 
 business. Both his shrewdness and his silence increased 
 with his years, and at the close of his life 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 roughness I just now 
 spoke of in Rowland's life dated from his 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 determined it should be no fault 
 of his if the boy were corrupted by luxury. Rowland 
 therefore, except for a good deal of expensive instruc- 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 13 
 
 tion in foreign tongues and abstruse sciences, received the 
 education 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 str:'ct injunctions to see that he suffered no serious 
 harm, but were as strictly forbidden to wait upon him. ';As 
 no school cculd be found conducted on principles suificiehXiy 
 rigorous, he was attended at home by a master who set a 
 high ]rice on the understanding that he was to illustrate 
 the boauty 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 a boy who had inherited nothing whatever 
 that was to m.ake life easy. He was passive, pliable, frank, 
 extremely slow at his books, and inordinately 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 measurement of the waist, 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 he was never 
 accused of anything more awkward than a manly round- 
 ness. He emerged from childhood a simple, wholesome, 
 round- eyed lad, with no suspicion that a less roundabout 
 course might have been taken to make him happy, but with 
 a vague sense that his young experience was not a fair 
 simple 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 presence in his 
 life, but so intensely gentle a one 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 terminate fatally, and during her long-arrested 
 convalescence she removed the mask which she had worn 
 for years by her husband's order. Rowland spent his days 
 at her side and felt before long as if he had made a new 
 friend. All his impressions at this period were commented 
 upon and interpreted at leisure in the future, and it was 
 only then that he understood that his mother had been for 
 
14 IIUDEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 fifteen years a singularly imhapjty woman. Her marriage 
 had been an immitigable error which she had spent her life 
 in trying to look in the face. She found nothing to oppose 
 to her husband's rigid and consistent will but the ap- 
 pearance of absohico compliance ; her courage sank, and 
 she lived for a while in a sort of spiritual torpor. But at 
 last, as her child emerged from babyhood, she began to 
 feel 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 cultivated from this time 
 forward a little private plot of sentiment, and it was of 
 this secluded precinct that before her death she gave her 
 son the key. Rowland's allowance at college was barely 
 sufficient to maintain him decently, and as soon as he 
 graduated he was taken into his father's counting-house 
 to do small drudgery on a proportionate salary. For three 
 years he earned his living as regularly as the obscure func- 
 tionary 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, and devoted the remainder to various 
 public institutions and local charities. Eowland's third 
 was a very easy competence, and he never felt a moment's 
 jealousy of his fellow-pensioners ; but w^hen one of the 
 Gv-^.tablishments which had figured most advantageously in 
 his father's w^ill 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 claim by process of law. There was a lively 
 tussle, but he gained his case ; immediately after which he 
 made in another (juarter a donation of the contested sum. 
 He cared nothing for the money, but he had felt an angry 
 desire to protest against a destiny which seemed determined 
 to be exclusively salutary. It seemed to him that he 
 should bear a little spoiling. And yet he treated himself 
 to a very modest quantity, and submitted without reserve 
 to the great national discipline which began in 1861. AVhen 
 the Civil "War broke out he immediately obtained a com- 
 mission, and he did his duty for three long years as a citizen 
 soldier. His duty was obscure, but he never lost a certain 
 private satisfaction in remembering that on two or three 
 occasions it had been performed with something of an ideal 
 
EODEEICK HUDSON. • 15 
 
 precision. He had disentangled himself from business, and 
 after the war he felt a profound disinclination to tie the 
 knot again. He had no desire to make money, he had money 
 enough ; and although he knew, and was frequently re- 
 minded, that a young man is the better for a fixed occupation, 
 he could discover no moral advantage in driving a lucra- 
 tive 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 young man 
 who took life in the serious, attentive, reasoning fashion of 
 our friend. It often seemed to Mallet that he wholly 
 lacked the prime requisite of a graceful J! dneur — the simple, 
 sensuous, confident relish of pleasure. He had frequent fits 
 of extreme melancholy, in which he declared that he was 
 neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. I His was 
 neither an irresponsibly contemplative nature nor a 'sturdily 
 practical 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 mixture 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 immensely solid kind on behalf of an idea, or in pro- 
 ducing a masterpiece in one of the arts. Oftenest perhaps 
 he wished he were 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 behaviour in others. On the whole, he had 
 an incorruptible modest}^ With his blooming complexion 
 and his quiet grey eye, 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 undertook to believe that all 
 women were fair, all men were brave, and the world was 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 jiext morning with indifference to her little parlour, 
 not less in its way a monument to her ingenious taste. 
 
16 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 "And by the way," she added as he followed her in, "if 
 I refused |abt night to show you a pretty girl, I can at 
 least show you a pretty boy." 
 
 She threw open a window and pointed to a statuette 
 which occupied a place of honour among the ornaments of 
 the room. Kowland looked at it a moment and then 
 turned to her with an exclamation of surprise. She gave 
 him a rapid glance, perceived that her statuette was of 
 altogether exceptional merit, and then smiled knowingly, 
 as if this were a familiar idea. 
 
 " Who did it 1 w^here did you get it ? " Rowland 
 demanded. 
 
 ** Oh," said Cecilia, adjusting the light, " it's a little 
 thing of Mr. Hudson's." 
 
 *' And who the deuce is Mr. Hudson 1 " 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 drinking 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 Aixpa, 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 represented but the perfection of an attitude. 
 This had been attentively studied — it was exquisitely ren- 
 dered. Rowland demanded more light, dropped his head 
 on this side and that, uttered vague exclamations. He 
 said to himself, as he had said more than once in the 
 Louvre and the Vatican, '* We ugly mortals, what beauti- 
 ful creatures we are ! " ISfothing in a long time had given 
 Tiim so much pleasure. " Hudson — Hudson," he asked 
 again ; " who is Hudson 1 " 
 
 " A young man of this place," said Cecilia. 
 
 " A young man 1 How old ? " 
 
 " I suppose he is three or four and twenty." 
 
 " Of this place, you say — of Northampton, Massachu- 
 setts ] " 
 
RODEKICK HUDSON. 17 
 
 " He lives here, but he comes from Virginia." 
 
 " Is he a sculptor by profession 1 " 
 
 " He is a law-student." 
 
 Rowland burst out laughing. " He has found something 
 in Blackstone that I never did. He makes statues then 
 simply for his pleasure ? " 
 
 Cecilia, with a smile, gave a little toss of her head. 
 " For mine ! " 
 
 " I congratulate you," said Rowland, " I wonder 
 whether he could be induced to do anything for me ? " 
 
 " 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 this affair. 
 He had had it cast at the foundry at Chicopee ; I believe 
 it's a beautiful piece of bronze. He begged me to 
 accept." 
 
 " Upon my word," said Mallet, " he does things hand- 
 somely ! " and he fell to admiring the statue again. 
 
 " So then," said Cecilia, " it's very remarkable 1 " 
 
 "Why, my dear cousin," Rowland answered, "Mr. 
 Hudson of Virginia is an extraordinary — " Then sud- 
 denly stopping — "Is he a great friend of yours ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " A great friend 1 " and Cecilia hesitated. " I regard 
 him as a child ! " 
 
 " Well," said Rowland, " he's a very clever 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 
 likely 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 it wore well. It had the 
 stamp 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. 
 
18 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the evening, as lie was smoking his cigar on the 
 verandah, a light quick step pressed the gravel of the 
 garden path, and in a moment a voung man made his bow 
 to Cecilia. It was rather a nod than a bow, and indicated 
 either that he was an old friend or that he was scantily- 
 versed in the usual social forms. Cecilia, who was sitting 
 noiir the steps, pointed to a neighbouring chair, but the 
 young man seated himself abruptly on a step at her feet 
 and began to fan himself vigorously with his hat, breaking 
 out into a lively objurgation ujDon the hot weather. " I'm 
 dripping wet ! " he said, without ceremony. 
 
 " You walk too fast," said Cecilia. " You do everything 
 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 be slow if I try. There's 
 something inside of me that drives me. A restless 
 fiend ! " 
 
 Cecilia gave a light laugh, and Eowland 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, swing- 
 ing the hammock to and fro and singing a lullaby. When 
 he raised himself she pushed him back and said that the 
 baby must finish its nap. " But I want to see the gentle- 
 man with the fiend inside of him," said Rowland. 
 
 " \"\Tiat is a fiend ? " Bessie demanded. " It's only Mr. 
 Hudson." 
 
 "Very well, I want to see him." 
 
 " Oh, never mind him ! " said Bessie, with the brevity 
 of contempt. 
 
 " You speak as if you didn't like him." 
 
 "I don't! " Bessie afiirmed, putting Rowland to bed 
 again. 
 
 The hammock was swung at the end of the verandah, 
 in the thickest shade of the climbing plants, and this 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 19 
 
 fragment of dialogue had passed unnoticed. Kowland 
 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 was pitched 
 on this occasion in a somewhat plaintive and pettish key. 
 The young man's mood seemed fretful ; he complained of 
 the heat, 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 the person he was in search of . had left 
 Northampton an hour before. 
 
 *' Won't you have a cup of tea 1 " Cecilia asked. " Per- 
 haps that will restore your equanimity." 
 
 " Ay, by keeping me awake all night ! " said Hudson. 
 "At the best, to go down to the office is like getting into 
 a bath with the water frozen. With my ni9rves set on 
 edge by a sleepless night I should sit and shiver at home. 
 That's always charming for my mother." 
 
 " Your mother is well, I hope 1 " 
 
 " Oh, she's as usual." 
 
 "And Miss Garland T' 
 
 " She's as usual too. Every one, everything, is as usual. 
 Nothing ever happens in this benighted town." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; things do happen sometimes," 
 said Cecilia. " Here is a dear cousin of mine arrived on 
 purpose to congratulate you on your statuette." And she 
 called to Rowland to come and be introduced to Mr. 
 Hudson. The young man sprang up with alacrity, and 
 Rowland, coming forward to shake hands, had a good look at 
 him in the light projected from the parlour window. Some- 
 thing seemed to shine out of Hudson's face as a warning 
 against a " compliment " of the idle unpondered sort. 
 
 " Your statuette seems to me very good," Rowland said 
 gravely. " It has given me extreme pleasure." 
 
 " And my cousin knows what is good," said Cecilia. 
 " He is a connoisseur." 
 
 Hudson smiled and stared, "A connoisseur ? " he cried, 
 laughing. " He is the first I have 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 1 I should 
 like to model yours." 
 
 " Pray do," said Cecilia. " It will keep him a while. 
 He is running off to Europe." 
 
 B 2 
 
20 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " Ah, to Europe ! " Hudson exclaimed with a melancholy 
 cadence as thoy sat down. *' Happy man ! " 
 
 But the note seemed to llowland to be struck rather 
 at random, for he perceived ,.q,o echo of it in the boyish 
 garrulity of his later talk. Hudson was a tall slender 
 young fellow, with a singularly mobile and intelligent 
 face. Rowland was struck at first only with its respon- 
 sive vivacity, but in a short time he perceived it was 
 remarkably handsome. 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 structure was an excessive want 
 of breadth. The forehead, though it was high and rounded, 
 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 slim youth 
 could draw indefinitely upon a fund of nervous force which 
 outlasted and outwearied the endurance of many a sturdier 
 temperament. And certainly there was life enough in his 
 eye to furnish an immortality ! It was a generous dark 
 grey eye, in which there came and went a sort of kindling 
 glow which would have made a ruder visage striking, and 
 which gave at times to Hudson's harmonious face an alto- 
 gether extraordinary beauty.'^ There was to Rowland's 
 sympathetic sense a slightly pitiful disparity between the 
 young sculptor's delicate countenance and the shabby 
 gentility of his costume. He was dressed 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 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, as he sat, 
 a pair of yellow kid gloves ; he emphasized his conversation 
 with great dashes and flourishes of a light silver-tipped 
 walking-stick, and he kept constantly taking off and 
 putting on one of those slouched sombreros which are 
 the traditional property of the Virginian or Carolinian 
 of romance. When his hat was on he was very picturesque, 
 in spite of his 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 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 21 
 
 evidently had a natural relish for brilliant accessories and 
 he appropriated what came to his hand. This was visible 
 in his talk, which abounded in the florid and sonorous. In 
 conversation he was a colourist. 
 
 Rowland, who was but a moderate talker, sat by in 
 silence, while Cecilia, who had told him that she desired 
 his opinion upon her friend, used a good deal of character- 
 istic finesse in leading the young man to disclose himself. 
 She perfectly succeeded, and Hudson rattled away for an 
 hour with a volubility in which boyish unconsciousness 
 and manly shrewdness were singularly combined. He gave 
 his opinion on twenty topics, he opened up an endless budget 
 of local gossip, he described his repulsive routine at the 
 office of Messrs. Striker and Spooner, counsellors at law, 
 and he gave with great felicity and gusto an account of 
 the annual boat-race between Harvard and Yale, which he 
 had lately witnessed at Worcester. He had looked at the 
 straining oarsmen and the swaying crowd Avith the eye of 
 the sculptor. Rowland was a good deal amused and not a 
 little interested. Whenever Hudson uttered some peculiarly 
 striking piece of youthful grandiloquence, Cecilia broke into 
 a long, light, familiar laugh. 
 
 "What are you laughing at?" the young man then 
 demanded. " Have I said anything so ridiculous 1 " 
 
 " Go on, go on," Cecilia replied. " You are too delicious ! 
 Show Mr. Mallet how Mr. Striker read the Declaration of 
 Independence on the 4th of July." 
 
 Hudson, like most men with a turn for the plastic arts, 
 was an excellent mimic, and he represented with a great deal 
 of humour the accent and attitude of a pompous country 
 lawyer sustaining the burden of this glorious episode of our 
 national festival. The sonorous twang, the see-saw gestures, 
 the patriotic pronunciation, were vividly reproduced. But 
 Cecilia's manner and the young man's quick response ruffled 
 a little poor Rowland's paternal conscience. He wondered 
 whether his cousin were not sacrificing the faculty of 
 reverence in her clever protege to her need for amusement. 
 Hudson made no serious rejoinder to Rowland's compli- 
 ment on his statuette until he rose to go. J>( 'vl:!;l'l 
 wondered whether he had forgotten it, and supr iiat 
 the oversight was a sign of the natural self-s .-'y '^' 
 genius. But Hudson stood a moment before ]\ id ',oo(i 
 
22 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 night, twirled his sombrero and hesitated for the first 
 time. He gave Rowland a clear penetrating glance, and 
 then, with a wonderfully frank appealing smile — " You 
 really meant," he asked, " what you said a while ago about 
 that thing of mine 1 It is good — essentially good ? " 
 
 " I really meant it," said Rowland, laying a kindly 
 hand on his shoulder. "It is very good indeed. It 
 is, as you say, essentially good." That is the beauty 
 of it." 
 
 Hudson's eyes glowed and expanded ; he looked at 
 Rowland for some time in silence. " I have a notion you 
 really know," he said at last. "But if you don't, it 
 doesn't much matter." 
 
 " My cousin asked me to-day," said Cecilia, "whether I 
 supposed you knew yourself how good it is." 
 
 Hudson stared, blushing a little. " Perhaps not ! " he 
 cried. 
 
 " Yery likely," said Mallet. " I read in a book the 
 other day that great talent in action — in fact the book said 
 genius — is a kind of somnambulism. The artist performs 
 great feats in a dream. We must not 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 dream. It was a very 
 happy one ! " 
 
 " Tell me this," said Rowland. " Did you mean any- 
 thing by your young Water-drinker ? Does he represent 
 an idea ? Is he a symbol ? " 
 
 Hudson raised his eyebrows and gently stroked his 
 hair. " Why, he's youth, you know ; he's innocence, he's 
 health, he's strength, he's curiosity. Yes, he's a good 
 many things." 
 
 " And is the cup also a symbol 1 " 
 
 " The cup is knowledge, pleasure, experience. Anything 
 of that kind!" 
 
 " Well, he's guzzling in earnest," said Rowland. 
 
 Hudson gave a vigorous nod. "Aye, poor fellow, he's 
 thirsty ! " And on this he cried good night, and bounded 
 down the garden path. 
 
 " Well, what do you make of him 1 " asked Cecilia, re- 
 turning a short time afterwards from a visit of investigation 
 as to the sufficiency of Bessie's bedclothes. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 23 
 
 " I confess I like him," said Rowland. " He's crude and 
 immature — but there's stuff in him." 
 
 " He's a strange being," said Cecilia musingly. 
 
 " Who are his people ? what has been his education ? " 
 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 who is 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, a dreadful rake, and made great havoc in their 
 fortune. Everything, 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, prac- 
 tical lad, very different from his brother and in his way I 
 imagine a very fine fellow. When the war broke out he 
 found that the New England blood ran thicker in his veins 
 than the Virginian and immediately obtained a commission. 
 He fell in some Western battle and left his mother incon- 
 solable. 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 
 ct la grdce de Dieu ; he was horribly spoiled. Three or four 
 years ago he graduated at a small college in this neighbour- 
 hood, where I am afraid he had given a good deal more 
 attention 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 is ever admitted to practice I am 
 afraid my friendship will not avail to make me give him 
 my business. Good, bad, or indifferent, the boy is an 
 artist — an artist to his fingers' ends." 
 
 " Why, then," asked Rowland, " doesn't he deliberately 
 tak^ up the chisel % " 
 
24 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " For several reasons. In the first place, I don't think 
 he more than half suspects his talent. The flame is 
 smouldering, but it is never fanned by the breath of 
 criticism. He sees nothing, hears nothing, to help him to 
 self-knowledge. He is hopelessly discontented, but he 
 doesn'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 without their clothes on. Sculp- 
 ture to her mind is an insidious form of immorality, and 
 for a young man of a passionate disposition she considers 
 the law a much safer speculation. Her father was a judge, 
 she has two brothers at the bar, and her elder son had 
 made a very promising beginning in the same line. She 
 wishes the tradition to be kept up. I am pretty sure the 
 law won't make Roderick's fortune, and I am afraid it will 
 spoil his temper." 
 
 " What sort of a temper is it 1 " 
 
 " One to be trusted, on the whole. It is quick, but it is 
 generous. I have known it to breathe flame and fury at 
 ten o'clock in the evening, and soft sweet music early on 
 the moiTOW. It's a very entertaining temper to observe. 
 Fortunately I can observe it dispassionately, for I am the 
 only person in the place he has not quarrelled with." 
 
 " Has he then no society 1 Who is Miss Garland whom 
 you asked about? " 
 
 " A young girl staying with his mother, a sort of far- 
 away cousin ; a good plain girl, but not a person to delight 
 a sculptor's eye. Roderick has a good share of the old 
 Southern arrogance ; he has the aristocratic temperament. 
 He will have nothing to do with the small towns-people ; 
 he says they are ' 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 everything and every one." 
 
 This youthful scofl'er 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 extravagantly, 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 was the wholesome effec"" '^^ 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 25 
 
 Bowland's eulogy of his statuette. Roderick was acutelj 
 sensitive, and Rowland's intelligent praise had sobered 
 him ; he was ruminating the full-flavoured verdict of cul- 
 ture. Rowland took a great fancy to him, to his personal 
 charm and his probable genius. He had an indefinable 
 attraction — the something tender and divine of unspotted, 
 exuberant, confident youth. The next day was Sunday, 
 and Rowland proposed that they should take a long walk 
 and that Roderick should show him the country. The 
 young man assented gleefully, 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 like old friends. Rowland lit a cigar 
 and Roderick refused one with a grimace of extravagant 
 disgust. He thought them vile things ; he didn'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 Roderick'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 likened 
 him to some beautiful, supple, restless, bright-eyed animal, 
 whose motions should have no deeper warrant than the 
 tremulous delicacy of its structure and seem graceful even 
 when they were most inconvenient. 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 broughc 
 the smell of the mown grass across from the elm-dotted 
 river meadows. He sat up beside his companion and 
 
26 EODEIUCK HUDSON. 
 
 looked away at tlie far- spreading view. It seemed to him 
 beautiful, and suddenly a strange feeling of prospective 
 regret took possession of him. Something seemed to tell 
 him that later, in a forei^gn land, he should remember it 
 with longing and regret. 
 
 " It's a wretched business," he said, " this virtual quarrel 
 of ours with our own country, this everlasting impatience 
 to get out of it. Is one's only safety then in flight I This 
 is an American day, an American landscape, an American 
 atmosphere. It certainly has its merits, and some day 
 when I am shivering with ague in classic Italy I shall 
 accuse myself of having slighted them." 
 
 Roderick kindled with a sympathetic glow, and declared 
 that America w^as 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 he was 
 above all an advocate for American art. He didn't see 
 why we shouldn'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, national American 
 artist ! It's inspiring ! " 
 
 Rowland burst out laughing and told him that he liked 
 his practice better than his theory, and that a saner im- 
 pulse 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 companion, who had returned to his cogi- 
 tations. "^At last Rowland delivered himself of the upshot 
 of these reflections. " How should you like," he suddenly 
 demanded, " to go to Rome ? " 
 
 Hudson stared, and %vith a laugh which speedily con- 
 signed our National Individuality to perdition, responded 
 that he should like it reasonably well. "And I should 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 07 
 
 like by the same token," he added, "to go to Athens, to 
 Constantinople, to Damascus, to the holy city of Benares, 
 where there is a golden statue of Brahma twenty-feet 
 tall." 
 
 "No," said Eowland soberly, "if you were to go to 
 Kome you should settle down and work. Athens might 
 help you, but for the present I shouldn't recommend 
 Benares." 
 
 " It will be time to arrange details when I pack my 
 trunk," said Hudson. 
 
 " If you mean to turn sculptor the sooner you pack 
 your trunk the better." 
 
 " Oh, but I'm a practical man ! What is the smallest 
 sum per annum on which one can keep alive the sacred 
 fire?" 
 
 " What is the largest sum at your disposal ? " 
 
 Roderick stroked his light moustache, gave it a twist, 
 and then announced with mock pomposity — " Three hun- 
 dred dollars ! " 
 
 " The money question could be arranged," said Rowland. 
 " There are ways of raising money." 
 
 " I should like to know a few ! I never yet discovered 
 one." 
 
 " One of them consists," said Rowland, " in having a 
 friend with a good deal more than he wants and not being 
 too proud to accept a part of it." 
 
 Roderick stared a moment and his face flushed. " Do 
 you mean — do you mean 1 " . . . . He stammered. He was 
 greatly excited. 
 
 Rowland got up, blushing a little, and Roderick sprang 
 to his feet. " In three words, if you are to be a sculptor 
 you ought to go to Rome and study the antique. To go to 
 Rome you need money. I am fond of fine statues, but 
 unfortunately I can't make them myself. I have to order 
 them. I order a 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 forehead, 
 still gazing at his companion. " You believe in me ! " he 
 cried at last. 
 
 "Allow me to explain," said Rowland. "I believe inl 
 you if you are prepared to work and to wait and to' 
 struggle and to exercise a great many virtues. And then 
 
28 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 I am afraid to say it, lest I should disturb you more than 
 I should help you. You must decide for yourself. I 
 simply offer you an opportunity." 
 
 Hudson stood for some time, profoundly meditative. 
 " You have not seen my other things," he said suddenly. 
 " Come and look at them." 
 
 "NowT' 
 
 "Yes, we will walk home. We will settle the ques- 
 tion." - ' 
 
 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. Rowland felt his companion's 
 arm trembling 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 bordered with high 
 box edges. The mansion had an air of antiquated dignity, 
 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 a morning, in a white 
 apron and a pair of old gloves, engaged in frugal horti- 
 culture. Roderick's studio was behind, in the basement ;• 
 a large empty room, with the paper peeling off the walls. 
 This represented, 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, in moments of sesthetic exasperation. On a board 
 in a corner was a heap o£-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 himself with 
 a strange air of quickened curiosity. 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 per- 
 ceived by the resemblance 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 20 
 
 was a face peculiarly unadapted to sculpture ; but as a 
 piece of modelling it was the best, and it was admirable. 
 It reminded Rowland in its homely veracity, its artless 
 artfulness, of the works of the early Italian Kenaissance. 
 On the pedestal was cut the name^ — Barnaby Striker, Esq. 
 Rowland remembered that this wns the appellation of the 
 legal luminary from whom his companion had undertaken 
 to borrow a reflected ray, and although in the bust there 
 was nothing grossly satirical, it betrayed comically to one 
 who could -relish the secret that the features of the 
 original had often been scanned with an irritated eye. 
 Besides these there were 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 — like an old crusader 
 in a Gothic cathedral. 
 
 Rowland made no haste to pronounce ; too much depended 
 on his judgment. " Upon my word," cried Hudson at last, 
 '• they seem to me very good ! " 
 
 And in truth as Rowland looked he saw they were good. 
 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 it might easily hit the mark. Here and there the 
 mark had been hit with a masterly ring. Rowland turned 
 to his companion, 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 
 speedily kindled a wonderful illumination on Hudson's 
 handsome brow. Rowland said at last simply, " You have 
 only to work ! ' ' 
 
 " I think I know what that means," Roderick answered. 
 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 ^ihe room a moment and his eye encountered on the 
 mantelshelf the vivid physiognomy of Mr. Barnaby Striker. 
 His sn. ile vanished — he stared at it with an air of concen- 
 trated (mmity. " I want to begin," he cried, " and I can't 
 
30 RODERICK HUDSOX. 
 
 make a better beginning than this ! Good-bye, Mr. Bamaby 
 .Striker ! " He strode across the room, seized a hammer 
 that lay at hand, and before Kowhmd 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. 
 Kowland relished neither the destruction of the image nor 
 his companion's look in working it, but as he was about 
 to express his displeasure the door opened and gave passage 
 to a young girl. She came in with a rapid step and startled 
 face, as if she had been alarmed by the noise. Seeing the 
 heap of shattered clay and the hammer in Roderick's hand, 
 she gave a cry of horror. Her voice died away when she 
 perceived that Rowland was a stranger, but she murmured 
 reproachfully, " Why, Roderick, what have you done 1 " 
 
 Roderick gave a joyous kick to the shapeless fragments. 
 " I have driven the money-changers out of the temple ! " 
 he cried. 
 
 The traces retained shape enough to be recognised, and 
 she gave a little moan of pity. She seemed not to under- 
 stand the young man's allegory, but yet to feel that it 
 pointed to some great purpose, which must be an evil one 
 from being expressed in such a lawless fashion, and to 
 perceive that Rowland was in some way accountable for it. 
 She looked at him with a sharp frank mistrust and turned 
 away through the open door. Rowland looked after her 
 with quickened interest. 
 
 III. 
 
 Early on the morrow he received a visit from Jiis new- 
 friend. Roderick was in a state of extreme exhilaration, 
 tempered however by a certain amount of righteous wrath. 
 He had had a domestic struggle, but he had remained 
 master of the situation. He had shaken the dust of Mr. 
 Striker's office from his feet. 
 
 ** I had it out last night with my mother," he saii. " I 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 31 
 
 dreaded the scene, for she takes things terribly hard. She 
 doesn't scold nor storm, and she doesn'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 doesn't trust me ; she never has and she never will. 
 I don't know what I have done to set her against me, 
 but ever since I can remember I have been looked at with 
 tears. The trouble is," he went on, giving a twist to his 
 moustache, " I have been too great a mollycoddle. I have 
 been sprawling all my days by the maternal fireside, and my 
 dear mother has grown used to bullying me. I have made 
 myself cheap ! If I am not in my bed by eleven o'clock, 
 the cook is sent out to explore with a lantern. When I 
 think of it I despise my docility. It's rather a hard fate, 
 to live like a saint and to pass for a sinner. I should like 
 for six months to lead Mrs. Hudson the life some fellows 
 lead their mothers ! " 
 
 " Allow me to believe," said Rowland, " that you would 
 like nothing of the sort. If you have been a good boy, 
 don't spoil it by pretending you don't like it. You have 
 been very happy in spite of your virtues, and there are 
 worse fates in the world than being loved too well. I have 
 not had the pleasure of seeing your mother, but I will lay 
 you a wager that this is where the shoe pinches. She is 
 passionately fond of you, and her hopes, like all intense 
 hopes, keep trembling into fears." Rowland, as he spoke, 
 had an instinctive vision of how this beautiful youth must 
 be loved by his female relatives. 
 
 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 will tell you the per- 
 fect 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 is 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 m-doors 
 to be kissed by the ladies while he made mud-pies m the 
 garden. In fact he was worth fifty of me! When he 
 was brought home from Yicksburg with a piece of shell m 
 his skull, my poor mother began to think she hadn't loved 
 
32 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 him enough. I remember, as she hung round my neck 
 sobbing, before his coffin, she told nie that I must be to 
 her everything that he would have been. I made no ecrd 
 of vows, but I haven't kept them all. I have been very 
 different from Stephen. I have been idle, restless, egotis- 
 tical, discontented. I have done no harm I believe, but 
 I have done no 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 atten- 
 tions of that sort. Judged by that standard I'm no- 
 where." 
 
 Rowland was at a loss what to believe of this account 
 of his friend's domestic circumstances ; it was plaintive, 
 yet it seemed to him rather rough. " You must lose no 
 time in making a masterpiece," he answered ; " then with 
 the proceeds you can do up the whole house." 
 
 " So I have told her ; but she only half believes in the 
 thing. She can see no good in my making statues j they 
 seem to her a snare of the enemy. She would fain see me 
 all my life tethered to the law, like a browsing goat to a 
 stake. In that way I am in sight. * It's a more regular 
 occupation ! ' — that's all I can get out of her. A more 
 regular damnation ! Is it a fact that artists in general are 
 such wicked men ? I never had the pleasure of knowing 
 one, so I couldn't refute her with an example. She had 
 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), who used to 
 drink raw brandy and beat his wife. I promised her 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, as I 
 pleaded my cause, I was most agreeably impressed 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 isn't a cheerful house. I 
 long to be out of it ! " 
 
 " I am extremely sorry to have made such a rumpus." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 33 
 
 said Rowland. " I owe your mother some amends ; will it 
 be possible for me to see her ? " 
 
 " If you will see her, it will smooth matters vastly ; 
 though to tell the truth she will need all her courage to 
 face you, for she considers you an agent of the foul tiend. 
 She doesn't see why you should have come here and set me 
 by the ears : you are made to ruin young law-sludents and 
 desolate doting mothers. I leave it to you personally to 
 answer these charges. You see, what she can't forgive — 
 what she will not really ever forgive — is your taking me off 
 to Rome. Rome is an evil word in my mother's vocabulary, 
 to be said in a whisper, as you'd say 'damnation.' 
 Northampton is in the centre of Christendom and Rome 
 far away in outlying dusk, into which it can do no 
 proper moral man any good to penetrate. And 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? " asked 
 Rowland. 
 
 "To a certainty ! 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 property and kindly consents 
 to regard me as part of it. Our opinions have always 
 been painfully divergent, but I freely forgive him his 
 zealous attempts to unscrew my head-piece 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 
 are 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. ] don't hate him any more ; I am rather "sorry 
 for him. See how you have improved me ! I must have 
 seemed to him wilfully, wickedly stupid, and I am sure he 
 only tolerated me on account of his great regard for my 
 mother. This morning I grasped the bull by the horns. I 
 took an armful of law-books that have been gathering the 
 dust in my room for the last year and a half, and pre- 
 sented 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 
 have learned everything they contain 1 ' says the grervt 
 
 c 
 
34 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Striker, leering over his spectacles ; ' better late than 
 never ! ' ' I have learned nothing that you can teach me,' 
 I cried. ' But I shall tax your patience no longer. I am 
 going to be a sculptor. I am going to Home. 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 didn't know till now how 
 I hated the place ! My compliments to Mr. Spooner, and 
 mv thanks for all you have not made of me ! ' " 
 
 ''I am glad to know you are to see Mr. Striker again," 
 Rowland answered, correcting a primary inclination to 
 smile. " You certainly owe him a respectful farewell, even 
 if he has not understood you. I confess you rather puzzle 
 me. There is another person," he presently added, " whose 
 opinion as to your new career I should like to know. 
 What does Miss Garland think 1 " 
 
 Hudson looked at him keenly, with a slight blush. 
 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 as a very intelligent girl, and I am sure she 
 has opinions." 
 
 The smile on Roderick's mobile face passed rapidly into 
 a frown. " Oh, she thinks what I think ! " he answered. 
 
 Before the two young men separated Rowland attempted 
 to give as harmonious a shape as possible to his companion's 
 future. "I have launched you, as I may say," he said; 
 " and I feel as if I ought to see you into port. I am older 
 than you and know the world better, and it seems well 
 that we should voyage a while together. It's on my con- 
 science 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 prepara- 
 tions to start with me 1 " 
 
 Roderick assented to all this with an air of candid 
 confidence in his friend's wisdom that expressed more than 
 formal pledges. " I have 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 
 am to take with me I carry here ! " and he tapped his 
 forehead. 
 
 '* Happy man ! " murmured Rowland with a sigh, think- 
 
EODEKICK HUDSON. 35 
 
 ing of the light stowage in his own organism, in the region 
 indicated by Pvoderick, and of the heavy one in deposit at 
 his banker's, of bags and boxes. 
 
 ' 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 ex- 
 pected criticism and he was preparing a rejoinder. At last 
 he told her of Roderick's decision and of his own p.art in 
 the matter. Cecilia, besides an extreme surprise, exhibited 
 a certain fine displeasure at his not having asked her 
 advice. 
 
 " AVhat would you have said if I had ? " he demanded. 
 
 " I should have said in the hrst place, ' Oh for pity's 
 sake don't carry ofl: the person in all Northampton who 
 amuses me most ! ' I should have said in the second 
 place, ' Nonsense ! the boy is doing very well. Let well 
 alone ! ' " 
 
 " That in the first five minutes. What would you have 
 said later V 
 
 " That for a man who is generally averse to meddling, 
 you were suddenly rather otlicious." 
 
 Rowland's countenance fell ; he frowned in silence. 
 Cecilia looked at him askance ; gradually the spark of 
 irritation faded from her eye. 
 
 " Excuse my sharpness," she resumed at last. " But I 
 am literally in despair at losing Roderick Hudson. His 
 visits in the evening, for the past year, have kept me alive. 
 They have given a point to a very dull life — a kind of 
 silver- tip to days that seemed made of a baser metal. I 
 don't say he is a phoenix — 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 had a private satisfaction, and he dis- 
 covered that she found it in Hudson's lounging visits and 
 boyish chatter. Now he wondered whether, judiciously 
 viewed, her gain in the matter were not her young friend's 
 loss. It was evident that Cecilia was not judicious, and 
 that her good sense, habitually rigid under the demands 
 
 c 2 
 
3fi EODEMICK HUDSON. 
 
 of domestic economy, indulged itself with a certain agree- 
 able laxity on this particular point. She liked her young 
 friend just as he was ; she humoured him, flattered him, 
 laughed at him, caressed him — did everything but advise 
 him. It was a flirtation without the benefits of a flirtation. 
 She w\as too old to let him fall in love with her, which 
 might have done him good ; and her inclination was to 
 keep him young, so that the nonsense he talked might 
 never transgress a certain line. It was quite conceivable 
 that poor Cecilia should relish a ])astime ; but if one had 
 philanthropically embraced the idea that something con- 
 siderable might be made of Roderick, it was impossible not 
 to see that her friendship was not what might be called 
 tonic. So Rowland reflected, in the glow of an almost crea- 
 tive ardour. There was a later time when he would have 
 been grateful if Hudson's susceptibility to the relaxing 
 influence of lovely women might have Ijeen limited to such 
 inexpensive tribute as he rendered the excellent Cecilia. 
 
 " I only wish to remind you," she went on, " that you 
 are likely to have your hands full." 
 
 " I have . thought of that :.nd I rather like the idea ; 
 liking as I do the man. I told you the other day, you 
 know, that I longed to have something on my hands. 
 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 unim- 
 peachable 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 a great talent answered the question. He is 
 made to do the things that we are the better for 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's no alTectation 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 profit myself. 
 You guarantee us at any rate, I hope, the master- 
 pieces t '■' 
 
 " A master-piece a year," said Rowland, smiling, " for 
 the next quarter of a century." 
 
 "It seems to me that we have a riijht to ask more — to 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 37 
 
 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, it'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 p-oteye 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 convic- 
 tion that the artist is better for leading a quiet life. That 
 is what I shall preach to my iwoiege, as you call him, by 
 example as well as by precept. You evidently believe," 
 he added in a moment, " that he will lead me a dance ! " 
 
 '' No, I prophesy nothing. I only think that circum- 
 stances, with our young man, have a great influence ; 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 it and found it easy on the 
 whole to vegetate. Transplanted to Rome, I fency he will 
 put forth some wonderful flowers. I should like vastly to 
 see the change. You must wiite me about it from stage 
 to stage. I hope with all my heart that the fruit will be 
 23roportionate to the foliage. Don't think me a bird of 
 ill omen ; only remember that you will be held to a strict 
 account." 
 
 " A man should make the most of himself and be helped 
 if he needs help," Rowland answered after a long pause. 
 " Of course when a body begins to expand, there comes in 
 the possibility of bursting ; but I nevertheless approve 
 of a certain tension of one's being. It's what a man is 
 meant-for. ""And then I believe in the essential salubrity 
 of genius— true genius." 
 
 '' Yery good," said Cecilia, with an air of resignation 
 which made Rowland for the moment seem to himself 
 culpably eager. " We will drink then to-day at dinner 
 to the 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 parlour, whicn 
 by the light of a couple of candles he perceived to be Ytrj 
 
38 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 meagrely famished Jind very tenderly aud 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 fippearance. 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 lounging, 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 continually, was a lean, sandy -haired gentleman 
 whom Kowland recognised as the original of the portrait 
 of Mr. Barnaby Striker. At the table, near the candles, 
 busy with a substantial piece of needlework, sat the young 
 girl of whom he had had a moment's (juickened glimpse 
 in Roderick's studio and whom he had learned to be Miss 
 Garland, his companion's kinswoman. This young lady's 
 limpid penetrating gaze was the most effective greeting he 
 received^) Mrs. Hudson rose with a soft, vague sound of 
 distress and stood looking at him shrinkingly and waver- 
 ingly, as if she were sorely temjjted to retreat through 
 the open window. Mr. Striker swung his long leg a trifle 
 defiantly. No one evidently was used to ottering 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 is better I should see you. 
 Perhaps you will take a seat 1 " 
 
 "With this invitation Rowland prepared to comply, and 
 turning, grasped the first chair that offered itself. 
 
 " Not that one," said a full grave voice ; whereupon he 
 perceived that a thick skein of sewing-silk had been sus- 
 pended and entangled 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 countenance 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 answered, 
 " and have the pleasure of holding the skein myself ! " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 39 
 
 For all reply to this sally he received a stare of undis- 
 guised amazement from Miss Garland, who then looked 
 across at Mrs. Hudson with a glance which plainly said 
 " You see he's quite the insinuating foreigner we feared." 
 The elder lady however 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 a kind 
 of dread, almost a terror. She was a small eager woman, 
 with a pale troubled face which added to her apparent ao-e. 
 After looking at her for some minutes Rowland saw that 
 she was still young and that she must have been a very 
 girlish bride. She had been a pretty one too, though she 
 probably had looked terribly frightened at the altar. She 
 was very delicately shaped, and Roderick had come honestly 
 by his physical slimness and elegance. She wore no cap, 
 and her flaxen hair, which was of extraordinary fineness, 
 was smoothed and confined with Puritanic precision. She 
 was excessively shy and evidently very humble-minded ; 
 it was singular to see a woman to whom the experience of 
 life had conveyed such scanty reassurance. Rowland br oran 
 immediately to like her, and to feel imj)atient to persuade 
 her that there was no harm in him. He foresaw that she 
 would be easy to persuade and that a benevolent conversa- 
 tional tone would probably make her pass fluttering from 
 distrust into an opjDressive extreme of confidence. But he 
 had an indefinable sense that the person who was testing 
 that strong young eyesight of hers in the dim candle-light 
 was less readily beguiled from her mysterious feminine 
 preconceptions. [Miss Garland, according to Cecilia's judg- 
 ment, as RowlanH remembered, had not a countenance to 
 inspire a sculptor ; but it seemed to Rowland that her 
 countenance might fairly inspire a man whose relation to 
 the beautiful was amateurish. She was not pretty, as the 
 eye of habit judges prettiness, but when you made the 
 observation you somehow failed to set it down against her, 
 for you had already passed from measuring contours to 
 tracing meanings?) In Mary Garland's face there were 
 many possible ones, and they gave you the more to think 
 about that it was not — like Roderick Hudson's, for instance 
 — a quick and mobile face, over which expression flickered 
 like a candle in a wind. They followed each other slowly, 
 
40 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 distinctly, sincerely, and you might almost have fancied 
 J^hat, as they came and went, they gave her a sort of pain, 
 I She was tall and slender, and had an air of maidenly 
 sl:rength and decision. She had a broad forehead and 
 dark eyebrows, a trifle thicker than those of classic 
 beauties; her grey eye was clear but not brilliant, and her 
 features w^ere bravely irregular."^ Her mouth enabled her 
 smile — which was the principal~^race of her physiognomy 
 — to display itself with magnificent amplitude, Rowland, 
 indeed, had not yet seen this smile in operation ; but some- 
 thing assured him that her rigid gravity had a radiant 
 counterpart. She wore a scanty white dress, and had a 
 nameless rustic, provincial air ; she looked like a distin- 
 guished villager. She was evidently a girl of a great 
 personal force, but she lacked pliancy. She was hemming 
 a kitchen towel with the aid of a large steel thimble. She 
 bent her serious eyes at last on the work again and let 
 Rowland explain himself. 
 
 " I have 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 something 
 more ; but Mr, Striker here interposed, after a prefatory 
 clearance of the throat : 
 
 " I should like to take the liberty of addressing you a 
 simple question ! For how long a period of time have you 
 been acquainted with our young friend 1 " 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 have 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 ofiice 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 langlied, witli a closed mouth 
 and a noiseless shake of all his long person. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson smiled confusedly, at hazard ; Miss Garland 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 41 
 
 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 assist- 
 ance of irony. Then reassured little by little by Rowland's 
 frank smile, she gave him an appealing glance and a timor- 
 ous " Really 1 " 
 
 But before Rowland could respond, iMr. Striker again 
 intervened. "Do I fully apprehend your expression 1" he 
 asked. " Our young friend is to become a great mem ? " 
 
 " A great artist, I hope," said Rowland. 
 
 " This is a new and interesting view," said Mr. Striker, 
 with an assumption of judicial calmness. " We have had 
 hopes for Mr. Roderick, but I confess that if I have rightly 
 understood them they stopped short of greatness. We 
 shouldn't have taken the responsibility of claiming it 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 ornamental ! " Mr. Striker bore his re- 
 calcitrant pupil a grudge ; yet he was evidently trying both 
 to be fair and to respect the susceptibilities of his com- 
 panions. But he was 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 formulated 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 j. 
 cold glance. ^ 
 
 " I am afraid, Mrs. Hudson," Rowland pursued, evading 
 the discussion of Roderick's possible greatness, " that you 
 don't at all thank me for stirring up your son's ambition 
 for objects that lead him so far from home. I suspect 
 I have 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 impolite. *' My cousin is 
 
42 RODERICK TIITDSON. 
 
 no one's enemy," Miss Garland hereupon declared gently, 
 but with that same fine deliberateness with which she had 
 made Kowland relax his grasp of the chair. 
 
 " Does she leave that to you 'i " Rowland ventured to 
 ask with a smile. 
 
 "We are inspired with none but Christian sentiments," 
 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 regrettably 
 omitted, " is the daughter of a minister, the grand-daughter 
 of a minister, the sister of a minister." Kowland bowed 
 deferentially, and the young girl went on with her sewing, 
 with nothing apparently either of embarrassment or elation 
 at the promulgation of these facts. Mr. Striker continued 
 — " Mrs. Hudson, I see, 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 1 " 
 
 The poor lady fixed her eyes appealingly on Rowland's face 
 and seemed to say that Mr. Striker had spoken her desire, 
 though she herself would have expressed it less defiantly. 
 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 view of 
 things in which Roderick Hudson was regarded in a serious 
 light. 
 
 " Do, my dear madam 1 " demanded Rowland. " I don't 
 propose to do anything. He must do for himself. I 
 simply offer him the chance. He is to study, to work — 
 hard I hope." 
 
 " Kot too hard please," murmured Mrs. Hudson, plead- 
 ingly, wheeling about from recent visions of dangerous 
 leisure. " He's not very strong, and I am afraid the 
 climate of Europe is very relaxing." 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " By looking at models and imitating them." 
 
 " At models, eh ] To what kind of models do you 
 refer 1 " 
 
RODKIUCK HUDSON. 43 
 
 " To the antique in the first place." 
 
 " Ah, the antique," repeated Mr. Striker with a joco.se 
 intonation. " Do you hear, madam 'i Boderick is going 
 oiit: to Europe to learn to imitate the antique." 
 
 " I suppose it's all right," said Mrs. Hudson, twisting 
 herself in a sort of delicate anguish. 
 
 "An antique as I understand it," the lawyer continued, 
 "is an image of a pagan deity, with considerable 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 E-owland, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " Mercy ! Truly 1 " asked Mrs. Hudson, borrowing 
 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 Eowland. 
 
 " Does it take three or four years ? " asked Mrs. Hudson 
 imploringly. 
 
 " That depends upon the artist's aptitude. After twenty 
 years a real artist is still stud3dng." 
 
 " Oh, my poor boy ! " moaned Mrs. Hudson, finding the 
 prospect, under every light, still terrible. 
 
 " Now this study of the living model," Mr. Striker pur- 
 sued. " 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 Eome. 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 intermin- 
 able legs. " The same God made us ! " 
 
 " Surely," sighed Mrs. Hudson, but with a questioning 
 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 proposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Miss Garland looked up, and, after a moment's hesitation 
 — " Are the Roman women very beautiful 1" she asked. ^ 
 
 Rowland too, in answering, hesitated; he was looking 
 
44 KOI'EiaCK HUDSON. 
 
 straight at the young girl. " Un the whole I prefer ours," 
 he said. 
 
 She had dropjied her work in her lap; her hands were 
 crossed u})on it, her head thro\\n a little back. She had 
 evidently expected a more impersonal answer, and she was 
 dissatisfied. For an instant she seemed inclined to make 
 a rejoinder, but she slowly picked up her work in silence, 
 and drew her stitches again. 
 
 Kowland had for the second time the feeling that she 
 judged him to be a person of a disagreeably sophisticated 
 tone. He noticed too that the Idtchen towel she was 
 hemming was terribly coarse. And yet his answer had a 
 resonant inward echo, and he i«epeated to himself, " Yes, on 
 the whole I prefer ours." 
 
 " Well, these models," began Mr. Striker. " You put 
 them into an attitude, I suppose 1 " 
 
 " An attitude, exactly." 
 
 " And then you sit down and look at them 1 " 
 
 " You must not 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 attitude on 
 one side, yourself in an attitude too I suppose 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 a sculptor who loves his 
 work there is no time lost. 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 unturned, 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 which I never suspected ! " 
 
 " It is very possible," said Ivowdand with an unresenti'ul 
 smile, " that he will prove some day tn'.; completer artist 
 for some of those Aazy reveries." 
 
 This theory was apparently very grateful to Mrs. Hud- 
 son, 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 
 tiesh and blood wath a- lawyer whose conversational tone 
 betrayed the habit of cross-questioning. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 45 
 
 " My son then," she ventured to ask, " my son has great 
 — what you would call great powers 'i " 
 
 " To my sense very great powers." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Hudson actually smiled, broadly, gleefully, 
 and glanced at Miss Garland as if to invite her to do like- 
 wise. But the young girl's face remained as serious as the 
 eastern sky when the opposite sunset is too feeble to make 
 it glow. " Do you really know ? " she asked, looking at 
 Kowland. 
 
 " One can't know in such a matter save after proof, and 
 proof takes time. But one can believe." 
 
 " And you believe 1 " 
 
 " I believe." 
 
 But even then Miss Garland vouchsafed no smile ; her 
 face became graver tlian ever. 
 
 " Well, well," said Mrs. Hudson, " we must hope that it 
 is 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 feminine imitation of resignation, and that, through 
 some untraceable process of transition, she was now taking 
 more comfort in the opinions of this sophistical stranger 
 than in his own tough dogmas. He rose to his feet, with- 
 out pulling down his waistcoat, but with a wrinkled grin 
 at the inconsistency 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'ni 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 Bow- 
 land more than it amused him. " I suppose you are a very 
 brilliant young man," he went on, " very enlightened, verv 
 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 honourable jirofession in a free country. I 
 didn't go off to the Old World 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 
 of me ! Well, if our young friend is booked for fame and 
 
46 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 fortune I don't suppose liis going to Rome will stop him. 
 But, mind you, it won't help him such a long way either. 
 If you have undertaken to put liim through, there's a thing 
 or two you had bettor 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 ujj 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 doe-sn'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 devilish hard to do ! If your young gentle- 
 man finds things easy 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'll have a first-rate time." 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 w-as 
 strangely pleased himself. There was something touching 
 in their unworldly fears and diffident hopes, something 
 almost terrible in the way i3oor little Mrs. Hudson seemed 
 to flutter and (juiver with intense maternal passion. She 
 put forth one timid conversational venture after another, 
 and asked Rowland a number of questions about himself, 
 his age, his family, his occupations, his tastes, his religious 
 opinions. 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 iiivent something that would prepare her to 
 find him fallible. But he could think of nothing. It only 
 seemed to him that Miss Garland 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 47 
 
 conscientious derogation. Mrs. Hudson talked with low- 
 voiced eagerness about her son. 
 
 " He's very lovable, sir, I assure you. When you come 
 to know him you will lind him very lovable. He's a little 
 spoiled, of course ; he has always done with me as he 
 pleased ; but he's a good boy, I am sure he's a good boy. 
 And every one thinks him very attractive : I am sure he 
 w^ould be noticed anywhere. Don't you think he's very 
 handsome, sir ? He is the very copy of his poor father. 
 I had another — perhaps you have been told. He was 
 killed." And the poor little lady bravely smiled, for fear 
 of doing worse. " He was a very fine boy, but very dif- 
 ferent from Eoderick. Roderick is a little strange ; he 
 has never been an easy boy. Sometimes I feel like the 
 goose — wasn't it a goose, dear? " and startled by the auda- 
 city of her comparison she apjiealed to Miss Garland — 
 " the goose or the hen, who hatched a swan's egg. I have 
 never been able to give him what he needs. I have always 
 thought that in more — 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 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," objected Miss Garland after a pause, "it is like 
 something in a fairy tale." 
 
 " What, pray 1 " 
 
 " Your coming here all unknown, so rich and so polite, 
 and carrying off my cousin in a golden cloud." 
 
 If this was badinage Miss Garland had the best of it, 
 for Rowland almost fell a-musing silently over the question 
 whether there were a possibility of irony in the young 
 lady's lucid glance. Before he withdrew Mrs. Hudson 
 made him tell her again that Roderick's powers were 
 extraordinary. He had inspired her with a clinging, 
 caressing faith in his wisdom. " He will really do great 
 things 'i " she asked — " the very greatest 1 " 
 
 " I see no intrinsic reason why he should not." 
 
 " Well, we shall think of that as we sit here alone," she 
 rejoined. " Mary and I will sit here and talk about it. 
 
4R RODEIilC'K HUDSON. 
 
 So I give him iij)," she went on, as he was going. " I am 
 sure you will l)e the best of friends to liim ; but if you 
 should over forget hiin 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. 
 " JU'Uiember, my dear madam 1 " 
 
 "'J'hat he is allJ have— that he is everything — and that 
 it would be very terrii)le." 
 
 " In 80 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 'I " he asked — to ask 
 her something. 
 
 She looked at him a moment and then, although slie was 
 not shy, she blushed. " Make him do his best," she said. 
 
 Kowland noted the soft intensity with which the words 
 were uttered. " Do you take a great interest in him 1 " he 
 demanded. 
 " ("'ertainly." 
 
 "Then if he will not do his best for you he will not 
 do it for me." She turned away with another blush and 
 I'owland took his leave. 
 
 He walked homeward, thinking of many things. The 
 great Northampton elms inter-arched far above in the dark- 
 ness, but the moon had risen and through scattered aper- 
 tures was hanging the dusky. vault with silver lamps. 
 There seemed to Eowland something intensely serious 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 little New England home, and that 
 he had ventured to disturb so much living security in the 
 interest of a far-away, fantastic hypothesis, he paused, 
 amazed at his temerity- It was true, as Cecilia hr.d 
 said, that for an unoflicious man it was a singular position. 
 There stirred in his mind an odd feeling of annoyance with 
 •iloderick for having so peremptorily taken j^ossession of 
 his mind. As he looked up and down the long vista, and 
 saw the clear white houses glancing here and there in the 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 49 
 
 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 perfect 
 absence of temptation. And as Kowland 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 felt like declaring " 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 moonshine. 
 He had no difficulty in recognising Hudson, who was pre- 
 sumably returning from a visit to Cecilia. Roderick 
 stopped suddenly and stared up at the moon, with 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 swing- 
 ing off into the darkness again, as if his thoughts had 
 lent him wings. He was dreaming of the inspiration of 
 foreign lands — of castled crags and historic landscapes. 
 What a pity after all, thought Rowland, as he went his 
 own way, that he shouldn't have a taste of it ! 
 
 lY. 
 
 It had been a very just remark of Cecilia's that Roderick 
 would change with a change in his circumstances. Row- 
 land had telegraphed to New York for another berth on 
 his steamer, and from the hour the answer came Hudson's 
 spirits rose to incalculable heights. He was radiant with 
 good humour, and his_jcharming gaiety seemed the .pledge 
 of a brilliant future. He had forgiven his old enemies 
 
 - D 
 
50 ROI)f:RICK HULSON. 
 
 and forf^^otton liis old gricvunces — he seemed every way 
 recoricilod to a world iu which ho was going to count as an 
 active force. He was inexhaustibly jocose and suggestive, 
 and as Cecilia said, he had suddenly become so good that 
 it was only to be feared he was going to start not for the 
 Old World, but for the Next ! He took long walks with 
 Rowland, who felt more and more the fascination of his 
 brilliant disposition. Rowland returned several times to 
 Mrs. Hudson's, and found the two ladies doing their best 
 to be happy in their companion's happiness, Mary Gar- 
 land, he thought, was succeeding better than her demean- 
 our on his lirst visit had promised. He tried to have some 
 especial 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 a keenly attentive 
 smile. It must be confessed however that if the response 
 was vague, the satisfaction was great, and that Rowland 
 after his second visit kept seeing a lui-king reflection of 
 this smile in the most unexpected places. It seemed 
 strange that she should please him so well at so slender 
 a cost ; but please him she did, extraordinarily, and his 
 pleasure 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 happiness — 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 should give up his journey and — wait. 
 He had Roderick to please now, for whom disappointment 
 would be cruel ; but he said to himself that certainly had 
 there been no Roderick in the case the ship should sail 
 without him. He asked Hudson several questions about 
 his cousin, but Roderick, confidential on most points, 
 seemed to have reasons of his own for being reticent on 
 this one. His measured 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 
 become intolerably interesting. He learned from Roderick 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 51 
 
 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 a half-a-dozen daughters, that 
 the family was very poor, and that she had come a couple 
 of months before to pay his mother a long visit. " It is 
 to be a very long one now," he said, "for it is settled that 
 she is to remain while I am away." 
 
 The fermentation of contentment 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 
 carolling softly to himself 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, to let off steam ! " 
 
 "I'll tell you what to do, this lovely weather," said 
 Cecilia. " Give a picnic. It can be as violent as you 
 please, and it will have the merit of leading oft' our over 
 emotion into a safe channel, as well as yours." 
 
 Roderick laughed uproariously at Cecilia's very practical 
 remedy for his sentimental need, but a couple of days later 
 nevertheless 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 mentally 
 applauded. " And we will have Mrs. Striker too," he 
 said, " if she will come, to keep my mother in countenance ; 
 and at any rate we will have Miss Striker — the divine 
 Petronilla ! " The young lady thus denominated formed 
 with Mrs. Hudson, Miss (garland and Cecilia the feminine 
 half of the company. 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 the feasting 
 place ; he knew it well and had passed many a summer 
 afternoon there, lying at his length on the grass and gazing 
 at the blue undulations of the horizon. It was a meadow 
 on the edge of a wood, with mossy rocks protruding through 
 the grass and a little lake on the other side. It was a 
 ^ D 2 
 
52 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 cloiullfsR Aufjust day ; Kowland always remembered it, 
 jiiid tho sct'iu', jiiid every thiii<: tli:it was said and done, with 
 extraordinary distinctness. Roderick surpassed himself in 
 friendly JT)llity, and at one moment, when exhilaration was 
 at the hi^diest, was seen in Mr. Striker's high white hat, 
 drinking cham})agTie from a broken tea-cup to Mr. Striker's 
 health. Miss Striker had her father's pale blue eye; she 
 was dressed as if she had been going to sit for her photo- 
 gra])h, and remained for a long time with Roderick on a 
 little })romontory overhanging the lake. Mrs. Hudson sat 
 all day with 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 twelvemonth later became a convert to Episcopacy 
 and was already cultivating a certain conversational 
 sonority, 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 
 Clecilia afterwards that she would never tell Avhat 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 gipsy 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 
 a stroll in the wood. She hesitated a moment and looked 
 towards Mrs. Hudson, as if for permission to leave her. 
 But Mrs. Hudson was listening to Mr. Striker, who sat 
 gossiping to her with relaxed consistency, his waistcoat 
 unbuttoned and his hat on his nose. 
 
 " You can give your cousin your society at any time," 
 said Rowland. " But me perhaps you will never see 
 again." 
 
 " Why then should we wish to be friends, if nothing is 
 to come of it 1 " she,jisked, 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 Rowland. " If 
 we can be friends for half an hour it's so much gained." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 53 
 
 " Do you expect never to come back to Northampton 
 again ^ 
 
 " ' Never ' is a good deal to say. But I go to Europe 
 for a long stay." 
 
 " Do you prefer it so much to your own country 1 " 
 
 " I will not say that. But I have the misfortune to be 
 a rather idle man, and in Europe the burden of idleness is 
 less heavy than here." 
 
 She was silent for a few minutes ; then at last, " In 
 that then we are better than Europe," she said. To a 
 certain point Rowland agreed with her, but he demurred, 
 to make her say more. 
 
 "Wouldn't it be better," she asked, "to work to get 
 reconciled to America than to go to Europe to get recon- 
 ciled to idleness 1 " 
 
 " Doubtless ; but you know work is hard to find." 
 
 " I come from a little place where every one has plenty," 
 said Mary Garland. "We all work; every one I know 
 works. And really," she added presently, " I look at you 
 with curiosity ; you are the first unoccupied man I ever 
 saw." 
 
 " Don't look at me too hard," said Rowland, smiling. 
 " I shall sink into the earth. What is the name of your 
 little place 1 " 
 
 " West Nazareth," said Mary Garland with her usual 
 directness. "It is not so very little, though it's smaller 
 than Northampton." 
 
 " I wonder whether I could find any work at West 
 Nazareth," Rowland said. 
 
 " You would not like it," Miss Garland declared re- 
 tlectively. " Though there are far finer woods there than 
 this. 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 1 " 
 Then noticing that he had spoken jestingly she glanced at 
 him askance, though with no visible diminution of her 
 g'ravity. \ "Don't you know how to do anything? Have 
 you no profession V 
 
 Rowland shook his head. " Absolutely none." 
 
 "' What do you do all day 1 " 
 
 "Nothing worth relating. That's why I am going to 
 
54 KODKRICK HUDSON. 
 
 Kurojie. Thero at loji.sL if I do iiothiu<( 1 shall see a great 
 deal ; and if_^^ am not a producer I ^^hall at any rate be 
 an ol)servej;:/]^' 
 
 " < 'ant we observe everywhere 1 " 
 
 " Certainly ; and I really think that in that way I make 
 the most of my opportunities. Though I confess," he con- 
 tinued, " that I often remember there are things to be seen 
 here to which I probai)ly have not done justice. I should 
 like, for instance, to see West Nazareth." 
 
 She looked round at him, open-eyed ; not apparently 
 that she exac^tly supposed he was jesting, for the expression 
 of such a desire wjvs not necessarily facetious ; but as if 
 he must have spoken with an ulterior motive. In fact, he 
 had spoken from the simplest of motives. The girl beside 
 him pleased him immensely, and suspecting that her charm 
 was es.sentially her own and not rellected from social cir- 
 cumstance, he wished to give himself the satisfaction of 
 contrasting her with the meagre influences of her education. 
 Miss Carland's second movement was to take him at his 
 word. " Since you are free to do as you please, why don't 
 you go there ? " 
 
 " I am not free to do as I please now. 1 have 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 1 " 
 
 Rowland hesitated for a moment. " 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. 
 
 " \V hat I can. But my power of helping him is veiy 
 small beside his power of helping himself." 
 
 For a moment she was silent again. " You are very 
 generous," she said, almost solemnly. 
 
 "No, I am simply very shrewd. Roderick will repay 
 me. It's a speculation. At first, I think," he added 
 shortly afterwards, "you would not 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 am that." 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 65 
 
 "It was because you are unlike other men — those at 
 least whom I have seen." 
 
 " In what way 1 " 
 iJ^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 am not 
 frivolous." 
 
 " I hope not," said Mary Garland simply. They had 
 reached a point where the wood-path forked and put forth 
 two divergent tracks which lost themselves in a verdurous 
 tangle. The young girl seemed to think that the difficulty 
 of choice between them was a reason for giving them up 
 and turning back. Rowland thought otherwise, and 
 detected agreeable grounds for preference in the left-hand 
 path. As a compromise, they sat down on a fallen log. 
 Looking about him, Howland 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 expressed surprise at his not knowing it ; it 
 was estremely common. He presently brought her a 
 specimen of another delicate plant, with a little blue- 
 streaked flower. " I suppose that's common too," he said, 
 " but I have never seen it — or noticed it at least." She 
 answered that this one was rare, and meditated a moment 
 before she could remember its name. At last she re- 
 called it and expressed surprise at his having found the 
 plant in the woods ; she supposed it grew only in the 
 marshes. Rowland complimented her on her fund of 
 useful information. 
 
 " It's not especially useful," she answered ; " but I like 
 to know the name of plants as I do those of my acquaint- 
 ances. 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 
 mth whom we should not be on speaking terms." 
 
 '' Ap'opos of frivolity," Rowland said, "I am sure you 
 yourself have very little of it, unless at West Nazareth 
 it is 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. 
 
66 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 "No," she replied, deliberating; "they are not theolo- 
 gians, though they are ministers. We don't take a very 
 firm stand upon doctrine ; we are practical rather* We 
 write sermons and preach them, but we do a great deal 
 of hard work besides." 
 
 " And of this hard work what has your share been 1 " 
 
 " The hardest part — doing nothing." 
 
 " What do you call nothing 1 " 
 
 " I taught some small children their lessons once ; I 
 must make the most of that. But I confess I didn't like 
 it. Otherwise, I have only done little things at home, as 
 they turned up." 
 
 " What kind of things 1 " 
 
 " Oh, every kind. If you had seen my home you would 
 understand." 
 
 Rowland would have liked to make her specify ; but he 
 felt a sort of luxurious pleasure in being discreet. " To 
 be happy, I imagine," he contented himself with saying, 
 " you need to be occupied. You need to have something to 
 expend yourself upon." 
 
 "That is not so true as it once was; now that I am 
 older I am sure I am less impatient of leisure. Certainly 
 these two months that I have been with Mrs. Hudson I 
 have had a terrible amount of it. And yet I have liked 
 it ! And now that I am probably to be with her all the 
 while that her son is away, I look forward to more with 
 dreadful resignation." 
 
 "It is settled then that you are to remain with your 
 cousin 1 " 
 
 " It depends upon their writing from home that I may 
 stay. But that is probable. Only I must not forget," she 
 said, rising, " that the groujid for my doing so is that she 
 shall not be left alone." 
 
 " I am glad to know that I shall probably often hear 
 about you. I assure you I shall often think about you ! " 
 These words of Rowland's were half impulsive, half deli- 
 berate. They were the simple truth, and he had asked 
 himself 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. She received it not only, 
 as Rowland foresaw, without a shadow of coquetry, of any 
 apparent thought of listening to it gracefully, but with a 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 57 
 
 slight movement of nervous deprecation which seemed to 
 betray itself in the quickening of her step. Evidently, 
 if Rowland was to take pleasure in hearing about her, it 
 would have to be a highly disinterested pleasure. 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 a levej three 
 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. 
 Rowland soon perceived 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 ringing behind the shrubbery. In a 
 moment, emerging, he found the girl leaning against a tree, 
 with her cousin before her talking 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, saying nothing. " 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 some- 
 thing very like gaiety. " I shall see that he is punctual. 
 He must go ! I owe you an apology for having doubted 
 that he ought to go ! " And in spite of the dusk, Rowland 
 could see that she had even a sweeter smile than he had 
 supposed. 
 
 Roderick was punctual, eagerly punctual, and they went. 
 Rowland for several days was occupied with material cares, 
 and lost sight of his sentimental perplexities. But they 
 only slumbered and they were sharply awakened. 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 
 
58 RODEUICK HUDSON. 
 
 grind the solid blackness of the ocean into phosphorescent 
 foam. They talked on these occasions of everything con- 
 ceivable, and had the air of having no secrets from eiich 
 other. But it was on Roderick's conscience that this air 
 belied him, and he was too frank by nature, moreover, for 
 permanent reticence on any point. 
 
 " I must tell you something," he said at last. " I should 
 like you to know it, and you will be so glad to know it. 
 Besides, it's only a question of time ; three months hence 
 probably you would have guessed it. I am engaged to 
 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 
 Mary Garland ! I never supposed — -I never imagined — " 
 
 " That I was in love with her? " Roderick interrupted. 
 " Neither did I until this last fortnight. But you came 
 and put me into such ridiculous good-humour that I felt 
 an extraordinary desire to tell some woman that I adored 
 her. Mary Garland is a magnificent girl ; you know her 
 too little to do her justice. I have been quietly learning 
 to know her these past three months, and have been fall- 
 ing in love with her without suspecting it. It appeared 
 when I spoke to her that she thought me a charming 
 fellow 1 So the thing was settled. I must of course make 
 some money before we can marry. It's rather awkward, 
 certainly, to engage one's self to a girl whom one is going 
 to leave for yciirs 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 is unnaturally 
 selfish he needs to work for some one else than himself, 
 and I am sure I shall run a smoother and swifter course 
 for knowing that that capital creature is waiting at 
 Northampton for news of my greatness. If ever I am 
 a dull companion and over-addicted to moping, remember 
 in justice to me that I am in love, and that my sweetheart 
 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, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 59 
 
 and then it had turned and delivered him a thumping blow 
 in mid-chest. " Yes," he said, after an attempt at the usual 
 formal conojratulation, " you certainly ought to do better — 
 with Miss Garland waiting for you at Northampton ! " 
 
 Roderick, now that he had broken ground, was elotjuent, 
 and rung a hundred 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 go to bed. Rowland 
 let him ^o alone, and sat there late between sea and 
 
 sky- 
 
 One warm still day, late in the Roman autumn, our two 
 young men were sitting beneath one of the high-stemmed 
 pines of the Yilla 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 of their magical picturesqueness. Roderick 
 declared that he would go nowhere else ; that after the 
 Juno it was a profanation to look at anything but sky and 
 trees. I 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 re- 
 mained 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 conclusions 
 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 the mellow charm of a Roman villa, 
 found a good word to say for the Guercino ; but he chiefly 
 talked of the view from 'the little belvedere on the roof of 
 
60 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 have seen 
 enough for the present ; I have reached the top of the hill. 
 I have 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 at Roderick Hudson's ! 
 The result of it all is that I am 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 1 was looking at Michael Angelo's Moses, 
 I was seized with a kind of defiance — a reaction against 
 all this mere passive enjoyment of grandeur. It was a 
 rousing great success, certainly, that sat there before me, 
 but somehow it was not an inscrutable mystery, and it 
 seemed to me, not perhaps that I should some day do as 
 well, but that at least I might I " 
 
 " As you say, you can but try," said Rowland. ^' Success 
 is only passionate effort." 
 
 " Well, the passion is blazing ; we have been piling on 
 fuel handsomely. It came over me just now that it is 
 exactly three months to a day since I left Northampton. 
 I can't believe it ! " 
 
 " It certainly seems more." 
 
 •* It seems like ten years. What an exquisite ass I 
 was ! " 
 
 " Do you feel so wise now % " 
 
 " Verily ! Don't I look so 1 Surely I haven't the same 
 face. Haven't I a different eye, a different expression, 
 a different voice % " 
 
 " I can hardly say, because I have watched the trans- 
 formation. But it's very likely. You are in the literal 
 sense of the word more civilised. I dare say," added 
 Rowland, " that Miss (^arland would think so." 
 
 " That's not what she would call it ; she would say I am 
 coxru.pted.j^' ' 
 
 Rowland asked few questions about Mary Garland, but 
 he always listened narrowly to his companion's voluntary 
 observations. " Are you very sure ? " he replied. 
 
 " Why, she's a stern moralist, and she would infer fmm 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. (^P 
 
 my appearance that I had become a gilded profligate." 
 E)oderick had in fact a Venetian watch-chain round his 
 neck and a magnificent Roman intaglio on the third finger 
 of his left hand. 
 
 " Shall you think I take a liberty," asked Rowland, " if 
 I say you judge her superficially 1 " 
 
 " 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 rigid virtue in her person." 
 
 " She is a moralist, but not as you imply a narrow one. 
 That's more than a difference in degree ; it's a difference in , 
 kind. I don't know whether I ever mentioned it, but I 
 have a great notion of Miss Garland. There is nothing 
 narrow about her but her experience ; everything else is 
 large. My impression of her is that she is very intelligent, 
 but that she has never had a chance to prove it. Some 
 da}^ or other I am sure she will judge fairly and wisely of 
 everything." 
 
 " Stay a bit ! " cried Roderick ; " you are a better Catholic 
 than the Pope. I shall be content if she judges fairly of 
 nie — of my merits, that is. The rest she must not judge 
 at all. She's a grimly devoted little creature ; may she 
 always remain so ! Changed as I am, I adore her none 
 the less. What becomes of all our emotions, our im- 
 pressions," he went on 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 
 ultimate, that appear to form an intellectuaU era. But 
 others come treading on their heels and sweeping them 
 along, and they all melt like water into water and settle 
 the question of precedence among themselves. 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 ta,ke boarders." 
 
 " I fancy it is our peculiar good luck that we don't see 
 the limits of our minds," said Rowland. " We are young, 
 compared with what we may one day be. That belongs 
 to youth ; it is perhaps the best part of it. They say 
 that old people do find themselves at last face to face 
 
62 KOI>ERICK HUDSON. 
 
 with a solid blaiik 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 long as we can ! " 
 
 " Open doors i " murmured Roderick. " Yes, let us close 
 no doors that open upon Rome. For this, for the mind, is 
 eternal warm weather ! But though my doors may stand 
 open to-day," he presently added, " I shall see no visitors. 
 I want to pause and bieathe ; I want to dream of a statue. 
 I have been working hard for three months ; I have earned 
 a right to a reverie." 
 
 Rowland, on his side, was not without provision for 
 reflection, and they lingered on in gentle desultory gossip. 
 Rowland felt the need for intellectual rest, for 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 
 months as well as his own. As he looked back on these 
 animated weeks he drew a long breath of satisfaction — 
 almost of relief. Roderick so far had justified his con- 
 fidence and flattered his perspicacity ; he was giving a 
 splendid account of himself. He was changed even more 
 than he himself suspected ; he had stepped without 
 faltering into his birthright, and was spending money, 
 intellectually, as lavishly as a young heir who has just 
 won an obstructive lawsuit. Roderick's glance and voice 
 were the same, doubtless, as when they 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 obser- 
 vation and his free appropriation of whatever 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 toilet' 
 with the most unerring tact. His appetite for novelty was 
 insatiable, and for everything characteristically foreign, 
 \>y^ I as it presented itself, he had iin 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 presented a puzzling spectacle to his companion. 
 
EODEPJCK HUDSON. 63 
 
 He had caught instinctively the key-note of the Old World. 
 He observed and enjoyed, he criticised and rhapsodised, but 
 though all things interested him and many delighted him, 
 none surprised him ; he invented short cuts and anticipated 
 the unexpected. Witnessing the rate at which he did 
 intellectual execution on the general spectacle of European 
 ]ife, Rowland at moments felt vaguely uneasy for the 
 future ; the boy was living too fast, he would have said, 
 and giving alarming pledges to ennui in his later yen.rs. 
 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 Rowland questions 
 which this halting dilettante was quite unable to answer, 
 and of which he was equally unable to conceive where he 
 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 his companion's 
 confident coup d'ceil ; Roderick was so much younger than 
 he himself had ever been ! Surely youth and genius hand 
 in hand were the most beautiful sight in the world. 
 Roderick added to this the charm of his more immediately 
 personal qualities. 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 candour, his 
 unclouded frankness, his unfailing impulse to share every 
 emotion and impression with his friend ; all this made 
 coim-adeship a high felicity, 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 Delaporte were the greater artist. 
 They had come down through France to Genoa and Milan, 
 had spent 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, 
 
64 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 absorbing, :ind reflecting, without putting pencil to paper. 
 He looked indefatigably, and certainly saw great things — 
 things greater doubtless 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 vul- 
 garly. 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 
 concej^tions was the colouring of Titian and Paul Veronese. 
 Then one morning the two young men had themselves 
 rowed out to Torcello, and Roderick lay back for a couple 
 of hours watching a brown- breasted gondolier making 
 superb muscular movements, in high relief, against the 
 sky of the Adriatic, and at the end jerked himself up 
 with a violence that nearly swamped the gondola, and 
 declared that the only thing worth living for was to make 
 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 fxom the first — the 
 complete contradiction of Northampton. And indeed Rome 
 is the natural home of those spirits with which we just 
 now claimed fellowship for Roderick — the spirits with a 
 deep relish for the artificial element in life and the infinite 
 superpositions of history. It is the immemorial city of 
 convention ; and in that still recent day the most impressive 
 (convention in all history was visible to men's ey^s~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 under- 
 stand more things than he could express ; he was sure that 
 life must have there for all one's senses an incomparable 
 fineness ; that more interesting things must happen to one 
 there than anywhere else. And he gave Rowland to under- 
 stand that he meant to live freely and largely and be as in- 
 terested as occasion demanded. Rowland saw no reason to 
 regard this as a menace of grossness, because in the first 
 place there was in all dissipation, refine it as one might, a 
 vulgarity which would disqualify it for Roderick's favour : 
 and because in the second the young sculptor was a man 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 6£ 
 
 to regard all things 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 without exceeding the 
 circle of pure delights. Rowland took immense satisfac- 
 tion in his companion's lively desire to transmute all bis 
 impressions into 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 frecjuent long 
 letters to Mary Garland ; when Rowland went with him 
 to post them he thought wistfully of the fortune of the 
 large loosely- written missives, which cost Roderick uncon- 
 scionable 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 beautiful summer 
 sunrise. Rome for the past month had been delicious. 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 advancing. One was a woman of middle 
 age, with a rather 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 hasten the step cf 
 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 an hospitable mood. Beside her walked a 
 little elderly man, tightly buttoned in a shabby black coat, 
 but with a flower in his lajDpet and a pair of soiled light 
 gloves. He was a grotesque-looking personage, and might 
 have passed for a gentleman of the old school reduced by 
 adversity to playing cicerone to foreigners of distinction. 
 He had a little l3lack eye which glittered like a diamond, 
 and rolled about like a ball of quicksilver, and a white 
 moustache, cut short and stiff, like a worn-out brush. He 
 was smiling with extreme urbanity and talking in a low 
 
 E 
 
Gfi liODEiaCK HUDSON. 
 
 mellifluous voice to the lady, who evidently was not listen- 
 int' to him. 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 fantastic 
 aspect. He was combed and decked like a ram for sacri- 
 fice ; 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 stifily and solemnly beside his mistress, 
 with an air of conscious elegance. There was something 
 at first slightly ridiculous in the sight of a young lady 
 gravely appended to an animal of these incongruous attri- 
 butes, and Roderick, with his customary frankness, greeted 
 the spectacle with a confident smile. The young girl per- 
 ceived it and turned her face full upon him, with a gaze 
 intended apparently to enforce greater deference. It was 
 not deference, however, her countenance 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 disdain, the step and carriage of a tired princess — 
 these were the general features of his vision. The young 
 lady was walking slowly and letting her long dress rustle 
 over the gravel ; the young men had time to see her dis- 
 tinctly before she averted her face and went her way. IShe 
 left a vague sweet perfume behind her as she passed. 
 
 " Immortal powers ! " cned Roderick ; *' what a vision ! 
 In the name of transcendent perfection who is she ? " He 
 sprang up and stood looking after her until 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, laugh- 
 ing. " She is certainly most beautiful." 
 
 " BeautifuH She's beauty itself — she's a revelation. 
 I don't believe she is living — she's a phantasm, a vapour, 
 an illusion ! " 
 
 " The poodle," said Rowland, " is certainly alive." 
 
 " Ko, he too may be a grotesque phantom, like the black 
 dog in Faust.' ^ 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 07 
 
 " I hope at least that the young lady has nothing in 
 common with Mephistopheles, She looked dangerous." 
 
 " If beauty is immoral, as people think at Northampton," 
 said Roderick, " she is the incarnation of evil. The mamma 
 and the queer old gentleman moreover are a pledge of her 
 reality. Who are they all 1 " 
 
 " The Prince and Princess Ludovisi and the ^;W^^cy;ess^?^a," 
 suggested Ilowland. 
 
 " There are no such people," said Roderick. " Besides, 
 the little old man is not the papa." Rowland smiled, 
 wondering how he had ascertained these facts, and the 
 young sculptor went on. *' The old man is 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 the State of Maine," said Pvowland. 
 
 "No, she is not an American, I will lay a wager on 
 that. She is 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 position of 
 the head, the brow and the broad fillet across the hair; 
 but the eyes, the mouth, the physiognomy were a vivid 
 portrait of the young girl with the poodle. " I have been 
 wanting a subject," said Roderick ; " there's one made to 
 my hand ! And now for work ! " 
 
 They saw no more of the young girl, though Roderick 
 looked hopefully for some days into the carriages on the 
 Pincian. She had evidently 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 preeminently Roman 
 street which leads from the Corso to the Bridge of 
 
 E 2 
 
68 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 St. Angelo. The black archway which admittf.d you might 
 have served as the portal of the Aiige;tn stables, but you 
 emefged 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 unclean 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 St. Angelo, tipped with its 
 seraphic statue, the dome of St. Peter's and the broad- 
 topped pines of the Yilla Pamfili. The place was crumbling 
 and shabby and melancholy, but the river was delightful, 
 the rent was a trifle and everything was picturesc^ue. 
 Roderick was in the best humour with his quarters from 
 the first, and was certain that the faculty of production 
 would be intenser there in an hour than in twenty years 
 at Northampton. His studio was a large empty room 
 with a vaulted ceiling, covered with vague dark traces of 
 an old fresco which Rowland when he spent an hour with 
 his friend used to stare at vainly for some surviving cohe- 
 rence of floating draperies and clasping arms. Roderick 
 had lodged himself economically 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 
 louoging in Rowland's more luxurious rooms or strolling 
 through streets and churches a,nd gardens. 
 I 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 pictures and prints and odds 
 and ends of curious furniture gave an air of leisurely per- 
 manence. He had the tastes 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 pro- 
 posals for an hereditary " antique.^' In the evening often, 
 under the lamp, amid dropped curtains and the scattered 
 gleam of firelight upon polished carvings and mellow 
 
E0DP:RICK HUDSON. 69 
 
 paintings, the two friends sat with their heads together, 
 criticising intaglios and etchings, water-colour drawings 
 and illuminated missals. E-oderick's quick appreciation of 
 every form of artistic beauty reminded his companion of 
 the tlexible temperament of those Italian artists of the 
 sixteenth century who were indifferently painters and 
 sculptors, sonneteers and engravers. At times when he 
 saw how the young sculptor's day passed in a single 
 sustained pulsation, while his own was broken into a 
 dozen conscious devices for disposing of the hours, and 
 intermingled with sighs, half supj^ressed, some of them, 
 for conscience' sake, over what he failed of in action and 
 missed in possession — he felt a pang of something akin 
 to envy. But Rowland had two substantial aids for giving 
 patience the air of contentment^; he was an in;|uisitive 
 Tenider and' a passionate rider. He plunged into bulky 
 German octavos on Italian history, and he spent long 
 afternoons in the saddle, ranging over the grassy desola- 
 tion of the Campagna. 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 
 opportunity for knowing others. He enjoyed a quiet 
 corner of a drawing-room beside an agreeable woman, 
 and although the machinery of what calls itself society 
 seemed to him to have many superfluous wheels, he ac- 
 cepted invitations and made visits punctiliously, from the 
 conviction that the only way not to be overcome by the 
 ridiculous side of most of such observances is to take them 
 with exaggerated gravity. He introduced Roderick right 
 and left, and suffered him to make his way himself — an 
 enterprise for which Pvoderick very soon displayed an all- 
 suilicieut capacity. Wherever he went he made, not exactly 
 what is called a favourable impression, but what, from a 
 practical point of view, is better — a puzzling 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 
 
70 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 manners on Cecilia's verandah ; that is, they were no 
 manners at all. But it remained as true as before that 
 it would have been impossible on the whole to violate 
 ceremony with less of lasting offence. He interrupted, 
 he contradicted, he spoke to people he had never seen, 
 and left his social creditors without the smallest conversa- 
 tional interest 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 con- 
 sequence thought him insufferably conceited and declared 
 that he ought to wait till he had something to show for 
 his powers before he assumed the airs of a spoiled celebrity. 
 But to Rowland and to most friendly observers this judg- 
 ment was quite beside the mark, and the young man's 
 undiluted naturalness was its own justification. He was 
 impulsive, 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 all possible 
 freedom of action. If Roderick took the words out of 
 your mouth when you were just prepared 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 over- 
 flowing of his own momentary thought and it sprang from 
 his lips without asking leave. There were persons who 
 waited on your periods much more deferentially, that were 
 a hundred times more capable than Roderickof a reflective 
 impertinence. Roderick received from various sources, 
 chiefly feminine, enough finely-adjusted advice to have 
 established him in life as an embodiment of the pro- 
 prieties, 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 appe.:irance 
 enforced these impressions — his handsome face, his radiant 
 
TtODEKICK HUDSON. 71 
 
 imaverted eyes, his childish unmodulated voice. \Af ter- 
 wards, when those who loved him were in tears, there was \ 
 something in all this unspotted comeliness that seemed to ^ 
 lend a mockery to the causes of their sorrow, i 
 
 Certainly, among 'the young men of genilTg who for so 
 many ages have gone up to Rome to test their powers, 
 ^one ever made a fairer beginning than Roderick. He 
 rode his two horses at once with extraordinary good for- 
 tune ; he established the happiest modus vivendi betwixt 
 work ar^d 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 kind of 
 divine facility. He was passionately interested, he was 
 feeling his powers ; now that they had thoroughly kindled 
 in the glowing [esthetic atmosphere of Rome the ardent 
 young fellow should be pardoned for believing that he 
 never was to see the end of them. He enjoyed immeasur- 
 ably, after the chronic obstruction of home, the downright 
 act of production. 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 
 eagerness 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 statue was not to have been foreseen ; it partook 
 really of the miraculous. He never surpassed it after- 
 wards, and a good judge here and there has been known 
 to pronounce it the finest piece of sculpture of our modern 
 time. To Rowland it seemed to justify superbly 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 connoiseur. In 
 his elation he travelled up to Carrara and selected at the 
 quarries the most mcagnificent block of marble he could 
 find, and when it came down to Rome the two young men 
 had a " celebration." They drove out to Albano, break- 
 fasted boisterously (in their respective measure) at the 
 
72 KODEllICK HUDSON. 
 
 inn, and lounged away the day in the sun on the top of 
 Monte Cavo. lloderick's head was full of ideas for other 
 works, which ho described with infinite spirit and eloquence, 
 as vividly as if they were ranged on their pedestals before 
 him. He had an indefatigable fancy ; things he saw in 
 the streets, in the country, things he heard and read, 
 eft'ects he saw just missed or half expressed in the works 
 of others, acted upon his mind as a kind of challenge,, 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 certain 
 of the formulas of the connoisseurs, restrictive or indul- 
 gent, furnished Roderick with a permanent supply of 
 humorous catchwords. But people enough spoke tlatter- 
 ing good sense to make Roderick feel as if he were already 
 half famous. The statue passed formally into Rowland's 
 possession ; it was paid for as if an illustrious name had 
 been chiselled on the pedestal. Poor Roderick owed 
 every franc of the money. It Avas 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 de- 
 generate imago 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 a 
 creature 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 extraordinary, 
 as well as the statue,' which represented an admirably 
 beautiful woman. When the spring began to muffle the 
 rugged old city with its tremulous festoons 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 the lovely Roman May, doing nothing. He looked 
 very contented ; with himself perhaps at times a trifie too 
 obviously. But who could have said without good reason ? 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. "5 
 
 He was " flushed with triumph ; " this classic phrase 
 portrayed him to Rowland's sense. He would lose himself 
 in long reveries and emerge from them with a quickened 
 smile and heightened colour. Rowland grudged him none 
 of his smiles and took an extreme satisfaction in his two 
 statues. 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 very agreeably composed. He 
 thought over his friends and chose four. They were all 
 persons with whom he lived in a certain intimacy. 
 
 YI. 
 
 One of them was an American sculptor of French 
 extraction, or remotely perhaps of Italian, for he rejoiced 
 in the somewhat fervid name of Gloriani. He was a man 
 of forty, he had been living for years in Paris and in 
 Rome, and he now drove a very pretty trade in sculpture 
 of the ornamental and fantastic sort. In his youth he had 
 had money ; but he had spent it recklessly, mnch of it 
 scandalously, and at twenty-six had found himself obliged 
 to make capital oi his talent. This was quite inimitable, 
 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 extraordinary vivacity and frankness, not to call it 
 the impudence, of his opinions. He had a definite, practical 
 scheme of art, and he knew at least what he meant. In 
 this sense he was solid and complete. 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 Gloriani, conscious and compact, imlimitedly 
 intelligent and consummately clever, dogmatic only as to 
 his own duties and at once gracefully deferential and pro- 
 foundly indifferent to those of others, had for Rowland 
 a certain intellectual refreshment quite independent of the 
 
72 r KODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 vcliaracter of his works. These were considered by most 
 people to belong to a very corrupt, and by many to a posi- 
 tively indecent, t-chool. Others thought them tremendously 
 knowing and paid enormous prices for them ; and indeed 
 to be able to point to one of Gloriani's figures in a shady 
 corner of your library was tolerable proof that you were 
 not a fool. Corrupt things they certainly were; in the 
 Hne of sculpture they were (juite the latest fruit of time. 
 
 jjft w^as the artist's opinion that there is no essential dif- 
 ference between beauty and ugliness ; 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 o^ loveliness, and beauty blooms before your eyes in 
 the lap of vileness ; that it is a waste of wit to nurse 
 metaphyi-ical 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 everything may serve, and that a consum- 
 mate 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 savour of a complex 
 imagination? Gloriani's statues were florid and meretri- 
 cious ;• they looked like magnified goldsmith's work. They 
 were extremely elegant, but they had no charm for Ecw- 
 land. He never bought one, but Gloriani was such an 
 independent fellow, and was withal so deluged with orders, 
 that this made no difference in their friendship. The artist 
 miizht have passed for a Frenchman. He was a great 
 talker, and a very pictures^jue one ; he was almost bald ; 
 he had a small bright eye, a broken nose and a moustache 
 with waxed ends. When sometimes he received you at 
 his lodging, he introduced you to a lady w^th a plain face 
 whom he called IMadame 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 lardscapes, chiefly in water- 
 colours ; Rowland had seen one of them in a shop window, 
 had liked it extremely, 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 
 
RODEEICK HUDSON. 75 
 
 and fortune had not yet found him out. PvowLmd took a 
 fancy to him and bought several of his pictures ; Singleton 
 made ffew speeches, but he was grateful. E-owland heard 
 afterwards that when he first came to Rome he painted 
 worthless 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 live. 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 
 was a diminutive attenuated personage ; he looked like a 
 precocious child. He had a high protuberant forehead, a 
 transparent brown eye, a perpetual smile, an extraordinary 
 expression of modesty and patience. He listened much 
 more willingly than he talked, with a little fixed grateful 
 grin ; he blushed when he spoke, and always offered his 
 ideas in a sidelong fashion, as if the presumption were 
 against them. His modesty set them off and they were 
 eminently to the point, jj He was so perfect an example of 
 the little noiseless laborious artist 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, /'Singleton had expressed a fervent admiration for 
 Roderick's productions, but he had not yet met the young 
 m.aster. Roderick was lounging against the chimney-piece 
 when he came in, and Rowland presently introduced him. 
 The little water-colourist stood with folded hands, blushing, 
 smiling and looking up at him as if Roderick had been 
 himself a statue on a pedestal. Singleton began to murmur 
 something about his pleasure, his admiration ; the desire 
 to say something very appreciative gave him almost a look 
 of distress. Roderick looked down at him, surprised, 
 and suddenly burst into a laugh. Singleton paused a 
 moment and then, with an inter.ser smile, went on — 
 " Well, sir, your statues are beautiful, all the same ! " 
 
 Rowland's two other guests were ladies, and one of 
 them, Miss Blanchard, belonged also to the artistic frater- 
 nity. She was an American, she was young, she was 
 pretty, and she 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 
 
7r, RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 a friendly neiglibour in the person of a certain Madame 
 Grandoni, wlio in various social emergencies lent her a 
 protecting wing and had come with her to Rowland's 
 dinner. Miss Ulancliard 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 wayside shrine and a peasant 
 woman with her back turned kneeling before it. She did 
 backs very well, but she was a little weak in faces. Flowers 
 however were her speciality, and though her touch was a 
 little old-fashioned and finical, she painted them with 
 remarkable skill. Her pictures were chietiy bought by 
 the English. Rowland had made her ac piaintance 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 almost intimate. 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, used language at times 
 a trifle superfine, 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 surprised 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 admirable in her combination of beauty 
 and talent, of isolation and self-support. He used some- 
 times to go into the little high-niched ordinary room which 
 served her as a studio, and find her working at a panel six 
 inches square, at an open casement, profiled against the 
 deep blue Roman sky. She received him with a meek-eyed 
 dignity that made her seem like a painted saint on a 
 church-window, receiving the daylight in all her being. 
 The breath of vulgar rumour passed her by with folded 
 wings. And yet Rowland wondered why he did not 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 little airs of exclusiveness. 
 On that evening to which allusion has been made, when 
 
RODKRICK HUDSON. 77 
 
 Rowland was left alone between the starlight and the wav-es 
 with the sudden knowledge that Mary Garland was to be- 
 come another man's wife, he had made after a while the 
 simple resolution to forget her. And every day since, like 
 a famous philosopher who wished to abbreviate his mourn- 
 ing for a faithful servant, he had said to himself in sub- ■ 
 stance — " 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 portend a 
 possible discord. Discord was not to his taste ; he shrank 
 from imperious passions, and the idea of finding himself 
 jealous of an unsuspecting friend was simply disgusting. 
 More than ever, then, the path of good manners was to 
 forget Mary Garland, and he cultivated oblivion, as we > 
 may say, in the person of Miss Blanchard. Her fine 
 temper, he said to himself, was a trifle cold and conscious, 
 her purity prudish perhaps, her culture pedantic. But 
 since he was obliged to give up hopes of Mary Garland, 
 Providence 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 1 Even if Mary Garland had been free, 
 what right had he to assume that he should have pleased . 
 her 1 The actual was good enough. Miss Blanchard had 
 beautiful hair, and if she were a trifle old-maidish, there 
 was nothing like matrimony for curing old-maidishness. 
 
 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 an excessively 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 an attache of the 
 Prussian legation on the Capitoline. Her good sense had 
 been wanting on but a single occasion, that of her second 
 marriage. This occasion was certainly a momentous one, 
 but these are by common consent not test cases. A 
 
78 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 herself and with no for- 
 tune but his fiddle-bow. The marriage was most unhappy, 
 and the Maestro Grandoni was suspected of using the 
 fiddle bow as an instrument of conjugal correction. He 
 had finally run oil with a p-ma donna assolufa, who it 
 was to be 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 wits and given her an inex- 
 haustible store of anecdotes ; but she had beneath her 
 crumpled bodice a deep-welling fund of Teutonic senti- 
 ment, which she communicated only to the objects of her 
 •particufar favour.^ Rowland had a great regard for her, 
 and she repaid It by wishing him to get married. She 
 never saw him without whispering to him that Augusta 
 Blanchard was just the girl. 
 
 It seemed to Rowland a sort of foreshadowing of 
 matrimony to see Augusta Blanchard standing grac?- 
 fuUy on his hearth-rug and blooming behind the central 
 bouquet at his circular dinner-table. The dinner was 
 very prosperous, and Ptoderick amply filled his position 
 as hero of the feast. He had always an air of joyous 
 intentness, 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 showed a 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 79 
 
 twinkle in his eye and an evident disposition to draw 
 Roderick out. Rowland was rather regretful, for he knew 
 that theory was not his friend's strong point and that 
 it was never fair to take his measure from his language, 
 
 " As you have begun with Adam and Eve," said Gloriani, 
 " I suppose you are going straight through the Bible." He 
 Avas 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 don't like pendulous noses. David, the 
 boy David, is rather an exception ; you can think of him 
 and treat him 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 beautiful runner 
 at the Olympic games. After that I shall skip to the New 
 Testament. I mean to make a 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 R^oderick paused a 
 moment to think. This was the first that Rowland had 
 heard of his Christ. 
 
 "More rationalistic, I suppose," suggested Miss Elan- 
 char d. 
 
 " More idealistic ! " cried Roderick. " The perfection of 
 form, you know, to symbolise the perfection of spirit." 
 
 "For a companion-piece," said Miss Blanchard, "you 
 ought to make a Judas." 
 
 " Never ! I mean never to make anything ugly. The 
 Greeks never made anything ugly, and I am a Hellenist ; 
 I am 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, 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 is no use trj-ing to be a Greek," said Gloriani. 
 " If Phidias were to come back he would recommend you 
 to give it up. I am half Italian and half French, and, as 
 a whole, a Yankee. What sort of a Greek should I 
 make? I think the Judas is a capital idea for a statue. 
 
80 HODKRICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 expression in a pendulous nose, my 
 dear sir — especially if one has put it there ! " 
 
 " Very likely," said Roderick. " But it is not the i^ort 
 of expression I care for. 1 care only for perfect beauty. 
 There it is, if you want to know it ! That is as good a 
 profession of faith as another. In future, so far as my 
 things are not positively beautiful you may set them down 
 as failures. For me, it's either that or nothing. It is 
 against the taste of the day, I know ; we have really 
 lost the faculty to understand beauty in the large ideal 
 way. We stand like a race with shrunken muscles, staring 
 helplessly at the w^eights 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 is my notion 
 of my art. I mean to do things that will be simple and 
 vast and infinite. You shall see if they won't be infinite ! 
 Excuse me if I brag a little ; all those Italian fellows in 
 the Renaissance used to brag. There was a sensation 
 once common, I am 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 
 purity. When Phidias and Praxiteles had their statues 
 of goddesses unveiled in the temples of the ^gean, don't 
 you suppose there was a passionate beating of hearts, a 
 thrill of mysterious terror 1 I mean to bring it back ; I 
 mean to thrill the world again ! I mean to produce a 
 Juno that will make you tremble, a Yenus that will make 
 you grow faint." 
 
 " So that when we come and see you," said Madame 
 Grandoni, "we must be sure and bring our smelling- 
 bottles. And pray have a few sofas conveniently placed." 
 
 " Phidias and Praxiteles," Miss Blanchard remarked, 
 " had the advantage of believing in their goddesses. I 
 insist on believing, for myself, that the pagan mythology 
 is not a fiction, 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 81 
 
 and Juno — that's you and I — arrived to-day in a veiy 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 exploded Apollos and Hebes." 
 
 "It won't matter what you call them," said Roderick. 
 " 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 abstract, you know," said Miss Blanchard. 
 
 *' My dear fellow," cried Gloriani, " you are delightfully 
 young ! " 
 
 " I hope you will not grow any older," said Singleton, 
 with a flush of sympathy across his large white forehead. 
 " You can do it if you try." 
 
 "Then there are all the Forces, and Elements, and 
 Mysteries of Nature," Roderick went on. "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 statue of 
 America ! " 
 
 "America — the Mountains — the Moon !" said Gloriani. 
 " You will find it rather hard, I'm afraid, to compress such 
 subjects into classic forms." 
 
 " Oh, there's a way," cried Roderick, " and I shall think 
 it out. My figures shall make no contortions, but they 
 shall mean a tremendous deal." 
 
 " I am sure there are contortions enough in Michael 
 Angelo," said Madame Grandoni ; "perhaps you don't 
 approve of him." 
 
 " Oh, Michael Angelo was not me ! " said Roderick 
 with sublimity. There was a great laugh ; but after all 
 Roderick had done some fine things. 
 
 Rowland had bidden one of the servants to bring him 
 a small portfolio of prints, and had taken out a photograph 
 of Roderick's little statue of the youth drinking. It 
 pleased him to see his friend sitting there in radiant 
 ardour, defending idealism against so knowing an apostle 
 of corruption as Gloriani, and he wished to help the elder 
 artist to be confuted. He silently handed him the 
 photograph. 
 
82 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " Bless me ! " cried Gloriuui, " did he do this 1 " 
 
 " Ages ago," said Roderick. 
 tGloriani looked at the photograph a long time, with 
 evident admiration. 
 
 " It's deucedly pretty," he said at last. " But, my dear 
 young friend, you can't keep this up." 
 
 " I shall do better," said Roderick. 
 
 " You will do worse ! You will become weak. You 
 will have to take to violence, to contortions, to romanticism 
 in self-defence. This sort of thing is like a man trying 
 to lift himself up by the seat of his trousers. He may 
 stand on tiptoe, but he can't do more. Here you stand 
 on tiptoe, very gracefully I admit ; but you can't liy ; 
 there's no use trying." 
 
 " My ' America ' shall answer you ! " said Roderick, 
 shaking towards him a tall glass of champagne 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 'i " he asked. 
 
 "In a square white wooden house at Northampton, 
 Massachusetts," Roderick answered. 
 
 " Dear old white wooden houses ! " said Miss Blanchard. 
 
 " If you could do as well as this there," said Singleton, 
 blushing and smiling, " one might say that really you had 
 only to lose by coming to Rome." 
 
 " Our host is to blame for that," said Roderick. " But 
 I am willing to risk the loss." 
 
 The photograph had been passed to Madame Grandoni. 
 '^ It reminds me," she said, " of 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 Overbeck, 
 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 Schaafgans. He never 
 painted anything so profane as a man taking a drink, for 
 •>none of his people had anything so vulgar as an a^^pfitite. 
 They were aiHingles and edges — they looked like diagrams 
 of human nature. Tliey were figures if you please — but 
 geometrical figures. He would not have agreed with 
 Gloriani any more than you. He used to come and see me 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 83 
 
 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 biscuits and wore a lock of Saint Some- 
 body'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. Schaafgans as a warning against high-flown preten- 
 sions. 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 he 
 had a blotchy red face. Madame had turned washer- 
 woman and used to make him go and fetch the dirty linen. 
 His talent had gone heaven knows where ! 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 am much obliged to you for your story, 
 but I don't mean to fall in love with any one." 
 
 Gloriani had possessed himself of the photograph again, 
 and was looking at it curiously. "It's a happy bit of 
 youth," he said. " But you can't keejD it up — you can't 
 keep it up ! " 
 
 The two sculptors pursued their discussion after dinner 
 in the drawing-room. Rowland left them to have it out 
 in a corner, where Roderick's Eve stood over them in the 
 shaded lamplight, in vague white beauty, like 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 looked round at them. Miss Blanchard at last 
 asked Rowland certain questions about Roderick — who he 
 was, where he came from, whether it was true, as she had 
 
 F 2 
 
84 RODKRICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 are very generous," Miss 
 Blanchard said. The declaration was made with a certain 
 richness of tone, but it brought to Rowland's sense neither 
 delight noi confusion. He had heard the words before; 
 he suddenly remembered the grave sincerity with which 
 Mary Garland hud uttered them as he strolled with her in 
 the woods on the day of Roderick's picnic. They had 
 pleased him then ; now he asked Miss Blanchard whether 
 she would have some tea. 
 
 When the two ladies withdrew he went with them to 
 their hackney-coach. 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 standing 
 before Roderick's statue of Eve, and the young sculptor 
 had lifted up the lamp and was showing different parts 
 of it to his companions. He was talking ardently — the 
 lamplight covered his head and face. Rowland stood 
 looking on, for the group struck him with its picturesque 
 symbolism. Roderick, bearing the lamp and glowing in 
 its radiant circle, seemed the beautiful image of a genius 
 which combined sincerity with power. Gloriani, with his 
 head on one side, pulling his long moustache and looking 
 keenly from half-closed eyes at the lighted marble, repre- 
 sented art with a worldly 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 explanations, might pass for an 
 embodiment of aspiring candour afflicted with feebleness 
 of w'ing?;> In all this, Roderick's was certainly the heau 
 rdle. 
 
 Gloriani turned to Rowland as he came up, and pointed 
 back with his thumb to the statue, with a smile half 
 sardonic, half good-natured. " A pretty thing — a devilish 
 pretty thing," he said. "It's as fresh as 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— 6w^— " 
 
 He was returning to his former refrain, but Pvowland 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 85 
 
 intercepted him. " Oh, he will keep it up," he said. 
 
 smiling, " I will answer for him ! 
 
 Gloriani was not encouraging, but Roderick had listened 
 smiling. He was floating on the tide of his deep self- 
 confidence. 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 fail 1 " 
 
 lUoriani answered imperturbably, patting him kindly on 
 the shoulder. " My dear fellow, passion burns out, in- 
 spiration 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 revelation 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 will show you how to console 
 yourself, " 
 
 " If I break down," said Roderick passionately, " 1 shall 
 stay down. If the Muse deserts me, she shall at least 
 have her infidelity on her conscience ! " 
 
 " You have no business," Rowland said to Gloriani, " to 
 talk lightly of the Muse in this company. Mr. Singleton 
 too has received pledges from 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 Single- 
 ton himself began to Ipiigh nervously ; he was trembling 
 with hope that the great Gloriani would be pleased. " Yes, 
 these are fresh too," Gloriani said; "extraordinarily fresh ! 
 How old are you 1 " 
 
 " Twenty-six, sir," said Singleton. 
 
 " For twenty-six they are 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'll keep it up ! " 
 
 A week after his dinner party, Rowland went into 
 
86 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Roderick's studio and found him sitting before an un- 
 finished piece ot work, with a hanging head and a heavy 
 eye. He might have fancied that the fatal hour foretold 
 by Gloriani had struck. Roderick rose with a sombre 
 yawn and flung down his tools. " It's no use," he said, 
 " I give it up ! " 
 
 " What is it 1 " 
 
 *' I have struck a shallow ! I have been sailing bravely, 
 but for the last day or two my keel has been grinding the 
 bottom." 
 
 " A difficult place 1 " Rowland asked, with a sympathetic 
 inflection, looking vaguely at the roughly modelled figure. 
 
 " Oh, it's not the poor old clay ! " Roderick answered. 
 "■ The difficult place is here ! " And he 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 stupid." 
 
 Rowland was perplexed. He was in the situation of a man 
 who has been riding a blood-horse at a steady elastic galop, 
 and of a sudden feels him stumble and balk. As yet he 
 reflected, he had seen nothing but the sunshine of genius ; 
 he had forgotten that it has its storms. Of course it has ! 
 A.id he felt a flood of comradeship rise in his heart which 
 would float them both safely through the worst weather. 
 " Why, you are tired ! " he said. '' Of course you are 
 tired. You have a right to be." 
 
 " Do you think I have a right to be 1 " Roderick asked, 
 looking at him. 
 
 *' Unquestionably, after all you have done." 
 
 " Well, then, right or wrong, I am tired. I certainly 
 have done a fair winter's work. I want a change." 
 
 Rowland declared that it was certainly high time they 
 should 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 
 Row^land talked of a dozen things they might do. Roderick 
 walked up and down ; he seemed to have something to s;iy 
 which he hesitated to bring out. He hesitated .so rarely 
 that Rowland wondered, and at last asked him what was 
 on his mind. Roderick stopped before him frowning a 
 little. 
 
 " I have such unbounded faith in your good-will," he 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 87 
 
 said, " that I believe nothing I can say would offend 
 yoa." 
 
 "Try it! " said Kowland. 
 
 " Well, then, 1 think my journey will do me more good 
 if I take it alone. I needn'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 have a perpetual feeling 
 that you are expecting something of me, that you are 
 measuring my doings by a terrifically high standard. You 
 are watching me ; I don't want to be watched ! I want 
 to go my own way ; to work when I choose and to loaf 
 when I choose. It is not that I don't know what I owe 
 you : it is not that we are not friends. It is simply that 
 I want a taste of perfect freedom. Therefore I say let us 
 separate." 
 
 Rowland shook him by the hand. " Willingly — do as 
 you desire ! I shall miss you, and I venture to believe 
 you will pass some lonely hours. But I have only one 
 request to make — that if you get into trouble of any kind 
 whatever, you will immediately let me know." 
 
 They began their journey however together, crossing 
 the Alps side by side, mutiled in one rug, on the top of the 
 St. 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 make another statue. At a little mountain- village by 
 the way Roderick declared that he would stop ; he would 
 scramble about a little in the high j^laces 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 dung-hills, breathing the light cool air, 
 and listening to the plash of the fountain and the tinkle 
 of cattle-beils. The coach overtook them, and then Row- 
 land, as he prepared to mount, felt an almost overmastering 
 reluctance. 
 
 " Say the word," he exclaimed, " and I will stop too ! "^ 
 
 Roderick frowned. " Ah, you don't trust me ; you don't 
 think I am able to take care of myself ! That proves that 
 I was right in feeling as if I were watched ! " 
 
 "Watched, mv dear fellow?" said Rowland, "I hope 
 
88 KODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 you may never have anything worse to complain of than 
 being watched in the spirit in which I watch you. But 
 I will spare you even that. Good-bye ! " Standing in his 
 place as the coach rolled away, he looked back at his friend 
 lingering by the roadside. A great snow-moimtain, behind 
 Roderick, was beginning to turn pink in the sunset. The 
 slim and straight young figure waved its hat with a sort of 
 mocking solemnity. Rowland settled himself in his place, 
 reflecting 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 'i 
 
 VII. 
 
 Rowland passed the summer in England, staying with 
 several old friends and two or three new ones. On his 
 arrival he felt it on his conscience to write to Mrs. Hudson 
 and inform her that her son had relieved him of his tute- 
 lage. He felt that she thought of him as an incorruptible 
 Mentor, following Roderick like a shadow, and he washed 
 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 judged lightly, and 
 that Roderick's present achievements were more profitable 
 than his inglorious drudgery at Messrs. Striker & Spooner's. 
 He was now taking a well-earned Jioliday and proposing to 
 see a little of the world. He would work none the worse 
 for this ; every artist needed to knock about and look at 
 things for himself. They had parted company for a couple 
 of months, for Roderick w^as 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 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 89 
 
 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 surprise in 
 the hand of the latter lady. The same post brought also 
 an epistle from Cecilia. The document was voluminous, 
 and we must content ourselves with giving an extract. 
 
 " Your letter was filled with an echo of that brilliant 
 Roman world which made me almost ill with envy. For 
 a week after I got it I thought Northampton really unpar- 
 donably tame. 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 1 My compliments to both of 
 you ; I never saw a trick so prettily played ! And he 
 takes it all very quietly, and doesn't lose his balance nor 
 let it turn his head 1 You judged him then in a day better 
 than I had done in six months, for I really did not expect 
 that 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 vv^hat you tell me, Mr. Striker may 
 now go hang himself. . . . There is one thing, however, 
 to say as a friend, 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 Mary Garland 1 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 news. Mrs. Hudson 
 did, at least ; Miss Mary, 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 verandah, he 
 was quietly preferring his cousin to any one else. ^ Not, 
 indeed, that he was ever at particular pains to make himself 
 agreeable ! I suppose he has picked up a few graces in 
 Rome. But he must not pick up too many ; if he is too 
 polite when he comes back, Miss G. will count him as one 
 
90 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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, 
 and 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 am sure she regards you as our leading philan- 
 thropist. Verily, it's a good thing for a woman to be in 
 love ; Mary Garland has grown almost pretty. 1 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 sujDpose you know, 
 has been for some time unable to use her eyes. She 
 requests me therefore to answer your beautiful letter of 
 the 22nd of June. She thanks you extremely for writing, 
 and wishes me to say that she considers herself under great 
 obligations to you. Your account of her son's progress 
 and 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 photo- 
 graphs 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 magnificent, 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 
 dreadfulh^ shabby. Mr. Striker stood and looked at them 
 the other day full five minutes, and said at last that if 
 Roderick's head had been running on such things it was no 
 wonder he could not learn to draw up a deed. We lead here 
 so quiet and monotonous a life that I am afraid I can tell 
 }'ou nothing that will interest you. Mrs. Hudson requests 
 me to say that the little that might happen to us — more 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 91 
 
 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." 
 
 It is a question whether the reader will know why, but 
 this -letter gave Rowland extraordinary pleasure. He liked 
 its shortness and meagreness, and there seemed to him an 
 exquisite modesty in its saying Dothing from the young girl 
 herself. He delighted in the formal address and con- 
 clusion ; they pleased him as he had been pleased by an 
 angular gesture in some expressive girlish figure in an 
 early painting. The letter renewed that impression of fine 
 feeling combined with an almost rigid simplicity, which 
 Roderick's betrothed had personally given him. And its 
 homely stiffness seemed a vivid reflection of a life con- 
 centrated, as the young girl 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 
 timepiece, marking 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 he was no letter writer, and 
 that in the young sculptor's own phrase he would at any time 
 rather build a monument than write a note. But when a 
 month had passed without news of him, he began to be 
 half anxious and half angry, and wrote him three lines, in 
 the care of a Continental banker, begging him at least to 
 give some sign of life. A week afterwards came an answer 
 — brief, and dated Baden-Baden. " I know I have been a 
 great brute," Roderick wrote, "not to have sent you a 
 word before ; but really I don't know what has got into 
 me. I have lately learned terribly well how to do nothing. 
 I am 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 in a narrative 
 
92 IIODEIIICK HUDSON. 
 
 intended for your formidable eyes. I found Baxter in 
 Switzerland, or rather lie 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,^ tliat Baden-Baden was the place, and 
 that if I knew^whaiTwas good for me I w^ould^ome along 
 with him. It is a wonderful 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 have 
 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 oil: ; you are too devilish 
 generous. I have 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 would satisfy me ; as if I 
 could rush in a rage at a block of unshaped marble, like 
 Michael A. 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 is also 
 some one else ; and to her I don't talk sense, nor, thank 
 Heaven, mean what I say. I confess I need a month's 
 work to recover my self-respect." 
 
 These lines brought Rowland a large perturbation ; the 
 more that what they seemed to point to surprised him. 
 During the nine months of their companionship Roderick 
 had shown so little taste for disorderly doings that Rowland 
 had come to think of these things as a cancelled danger, 
 and it greatly perplexed him to learn that his friend had 
 apparently jn-oved so pliant to opportunity. But Roderick's 
 allusions were ambiguous, and it was possible they might 
 simply mean that he was out of patience with a frivolous 
 way of life, and fretting wholesomely over his absent work. 
 It was a very good thing certainly that idleness should 
 prove on experiment to sit heavily on his conscience. 
 Nevertheless the letter needed to Rowland's mind a key : 
 the key arrived a week later. " In common charity," 
 Roderick wrote, " lend me a hundred pounds ! I have 
 gambled away my last franc — I have made a villanous 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 93 
 
 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. 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 
 looking at folly in the face 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 overlaid with coarse sensations 1 
 Yes, distinctly, he was disappointed. He had accompanied 
 his missive with an urgent recommendation to leave 
 Baden-Baden immediately, and an offer to meet Roderick 
 at any point he would name. The answer came promptly ; 
 it ran as follows : " Send me another fifty pounds ! I have 
 been back to the tables. 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, sitting on one of the battered green benches, 
 Roderick, as he had promised, told his friend everything. 
 He had arrived late the night before ; he looked tired, and 
 yet flushed and excited. He made no professions of peni- 
 tence, but he practised an unmitigated frankness, and his 
 remorse might be taken for granted. He implied in every 
 phrase that he had done with licentious experiments and 
 that he was counting the hours till he should get back to 
 work. We shall not rehearse his confession in detail ; its 
 main outline will be sufficient. He had fallen in with 
 some very idle people, and had discovered the charms of 
 emulation. What could he do 1 He never read books, and 
 he had no studio ; in one way or another he had to pass 
 
94 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 the time. He passed it in dangling about several very 
 pretty women, and reilecting 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 tliat made 
 it smile and play its muscles and part its lips and show 
 its teeth. Attached to these ladies were certain gentlemen 
 who walked about in clouds of fragrance, rose at mid-day, 
 and supped at mid-night. Roderick had found himself in 
 the mood for thinking them very amusing fellows. He 
 was surprised at his own taste, but he let it take its 
 course. It led him to the discovery that to live wnth 
 ladies who expect you to present them with expensive 
 bouquets, to ride with them in the Black Forest on well- 
 looking horses, to arrange parties for the opera on nights 
 when Patti sang and the prices were consequent, to pro- 
 pose light suppers at the Kursaal or drives by moonlight 
 to the Castle, to be always arrayed and anointed, trinketed 
 and gloved — that to move in such society, we say, though 
 it might be a privilege, was a privilege vrith. a penalty 
 attached. But the tables made such things easy ; half the 
 Baden world lived by the tables. lloderick tried them 
 and found them at first a wonderful help. The help 
 however was only momentary, for he soon perceived that 
 to seem to have money, and to have it in fact, exposed 
 a good-looking young man to peculiar liabilities. At 
 this point of his friend's narrative Rowland was re- 
 minded of Madame de Cruchecassee in Thackeray's novel, 
 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 
 under the circumstances a very bad business. lloderick 
 admitted it with bitterness, and then told how much — 
 measured simply financially — it 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 equi- 
 valent 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. 
 
 Rowland frowned. " For heaven's sake," he said, " don't 
 play such dangerous games with your facility. If you have 
 got facility, revere it, respect it, adore it, hoard it — don't 
 speculate on it." And he wondered what his companion, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 95 
 
 up to his knees in debt, would have done if there had been 
 no good-natured Rowhxnd Mallet to lend a helping hand. 
 But he did not express his curiosity audibly, and the con- 
 tingency seemed not to have presented itself to Roderick's 
 imagination. The young sculptor reverted to his late 
 adventures again in the evening, and this time talked of 
 them more objectively, as the phrase is ; more as if they 
 had been the adventures of another person. He related 
 half a dozen droll things that had happened to him, and, 
 as if his responsibility had been disengaged by all this 
 free discussion, he laughed extravagantly at the memory of 
 them. Eowland sat perfectly grave, on principle. Then 
 Roderick began to talk of half a dozen statues that he had 
 in his head, and set forth his ideas with his usual vivid- 
 ness. 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 
 was tremendously statuesque. Rowland at last said that 
 such experiments might pass if one felt one was really the 
 wiser for them. " By the wiser," he added, " I mean the 
 stronger in purpose, in wilL" 
 
 " Oh don't talk about will! " Roderick answered, throw- 
 ing back his head and looking at the stars. This conver- 
 sation also took place in the open air, on the little island 
 in the shooting Rhone, where Jean-Jacques has a monu- 
 ment. " The will, I believe, is the mystery of mysteries. 
 Who can answer for his will 1 who can say beforehand that 
 it's strong? There are all kinds of indefinable currents 
 moving to and fro betweenone's will and one's inclinations. 
 People talk as if the two" things were essentially distinct; 
 on different sides of one's organism, like the heart and the 
 liver. Mine I know are much nearer together. It all 
 depends upon circumstances. I believe there is a certain 
 group of circumstances possible for every man, in which 
 his will is destined to snap like a dry twig." 
 
 i"My dear boy," said Rowland, "don't talk about the 
 wilff being ' destined.' The will is destiny itself. That's 
 the way to look at it." 
 
 "Look at it, my dear Rowland," Roderick answered, 
 " as you find most comfortable. One conviction I have 
 gathered from my summer's experience," he went on — 
 " it's as well to look it frankly in the face— is that I possess 
 
96 RODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 an almost unlimited susceptibility to the influence of a 
 beautiful woman." 
 
 Rowland stared, then strolled away, softly whistling to 
 himself. He was unwilling to admit even to himself 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 before 
 going on to Rome. In Florence Roderick seemed to have 
 won back 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 as a mere sporadic 
 escapade, without roots in his companion's character. They 
 passed a fortnight looking at pictiu-es and exploring for out 
 of the way fragments of fresco and carving, and Roderick 
 recovered all his earlier energy of appreciation and criticism. 
 In Pi-ome he went eagerly to work again, and finished 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 afternoon following their return, on their going 
 together to Saint Peter's, he delivered himself of a lyrical 
 greeting to the great church and to the city in general, 
 in a tone of voice so irrepressibly elevated that it rang 
 through the nave in an almost scandalous fashion and 
 arrested a procession of canons who were marching across 
 to the choir. He began to model a new statue — a female 
 figure of which he had said nothing to Rowland. It re- 
 presented a woman leaning lazily back in her chair, with 
 her head drooping as if she were listening, a vague smile 
 on her lips and a pair of remarkably beautiful arms folded 
 in her lap. With rather less softness of contour it would 
 have resembled the n(5ble statue of Agrippina in the 
 Capitol. Rowland looked at it and was not sure he liked 
 it. " Who is it 1 what does it mean ? " he asked. 
 
 " Anything you please I " said Roderick, with a certain 
 petulance. " I call it ' A Lady Listening.' " 
 
 Rowland then remembered that one of the Baden listeners 
 had been " statuesque," and 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 on his homeward way he was passing across the 
 long shadow of a ruined tower, he perceived a small figure 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 97 
 
 at a short distance, bent over a sketch-book. As he drew 
 near he recognised his friend Singleton. The honest little 
 painter's face was .scorched to fiiime-coloiir 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 little sketch. On 
 Rowland's asking him how he had spent his summer he 
 gave an account of his wanderings which made our poor 
 friend sigh with a sense of more contrasts than one. He 
 had not been out of Italy, but he had been delving deep 
 into the picturesque heart of the lovely land and gathering 
 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, rioting 
 on chiaroscuro, and laying up a treasure of reminiscencosTj 
 He took a devout satisfaction in his hard-earned knowledge 
 and his happy frugality. Rowland went the next day by 
 appointment to look at his sketches, and spent a whole 
 morning turning them over. Singleton talked more thaii 
 he had ever done before, explained them all, and told some 
 comical anecdote about the production of each. 
 
 " Dear me, how I have chattered ! " he said, at last. " I 
 am afraid you would rather have looked at the things in 
 peace and quiet. I didn't know I could talk so much. But 
 somehow I feel very happy ; I feel as if I had improved." 
 
 "■ That you have," said Rowland. " I doubt whether 
 an artist ever got more out of three months. You must 
 feel much more sure of yourself." 
 
 Singleton looked for a long time with great intentness 
 at a knot in the floor. " Yes," he said at last in a liuttered 
 tone, " I feel much more sure of myself. I have got more 
 facility ! " And he lowered his voice as if he were com- 
 municating a secret which it took some courage to impart. 
 '' I hardly like to say it, for fear I should after all be mis- 
 taken. But since it strikes you, perhaps it's true. It's a 
 great happiness ; I would not 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 believe it's good for an artist to 
 be in such brutally high spirits." 
 
 G 
 
98 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Singleton stared for a moment, as if he thought Rowhmd 
 was in earnest ; then suddenly fathoming the kindly jest, 
 he walked about the room agitating his head and laughing 
 intensely to himself. "And Mr. Hudson T' he said, as 
 Rowland was going ; " I hope he is well and happy." 
 
 *' He is very well," said Rowland. " He is back at 
 work again." 
 
 " Ah, there's a man," cried Singleton, '' who has taken 
 his start once for all and doesn't need to stop and ask 
 himself in fear and trembling every month or two whether 
 he is going on. When he stops, it's to rest ! And where 
 did he spend his summer ] " 
 
 •* The greater part of it at Baden-Baden." 
 
 " Ah, that's in the Black Forest," cried Singleton, with 
 profound simplicity. "They say you can make capital 
 studies of trees there." 
 
 " No doubt," said Rowland, with a smile, laying an 
 almost paternal hand on the little artist's stooping shoulder. 
 " Unhappily, trees are not Roderick's line. Nevertheless 
 he tells me that at Baden he made some studies. 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." Singleton declared that he would come 
 delightedly, 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 Howers in the Tyrol. Her com- 
 plexion was somewhat browned, which was very becoming, 
 and her flowers were uncommonly pretty. Gloriani had 
 been in Paris and had come away in high good-humour, 
 finding no one there in the artist-world cleverer than 
 himself. He came in a few days to Roderick's studio, one 
 afternoon when Rowland was present. He examined the 
 new statue with great deference, said it was very promising, 
 and abstained considerately from irritating prophecies. But 
 Rowland fancied he observed certain signs of inward jubi- 
 lation on the clever sculptor's part, and walked away with 
 'him to learn his private opinion. 
 
 *< Certainly; I liked it as well as I said," Gloriani 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 99 
 
 declared, in answer to Rowland's anxious query ; " or 
 rather I liked it a great deal better. I didn'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 couldn't keep up the transcendental style, and he 
 has already broken down. Don't you see it yourself, 
 man 1 " 
 
 "I don't particularly like this new statue," said Row- 
 land, 
 
 " That's because you are a purist. It's deuced clever, 
 it's deuced knowing, it's deuced pretty, but it isn't the 
 topping high art of three 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 congratulate him on having become a 
 practical man." 
 
 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 didn't know what 
 was coming over 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 sort of peremptory flash in his 
 eye, which seemed to implj" that his companion had under- 
 taken to insure him against perplexities and was not ful- 
 filling 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 1 Have we only a season, 
 over before we know it, in which we can call our faculties 
 our own 1 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 statue looks so bad when I come into 
 the studio that I have 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 this sort of thing 
 was the lot of every artist, and that the only remedy was 
 plenty of courage and faith. And he reminded him of 
 Gloriani' s having forewarned him against these sterile 
 moods the year before. 
 
 " Gloriani's an ass 1 " said Roderick, almost fiercelv. He 
 
 G 2"' 
 
100 RDDKKICK IIUDSDN. 
 
 hired a horse and hoiran to ride with Rowland on the 
 CaTn])fi,'na. This deli<,'htfiil amusement restored him in 
 a measure to cheerfulness, b it it seemed to Eowland on 
 the whole not to stimulate his industry. Their rides were 
 always very long, and lioderick insisted on making them 
 longer by dismounting in picturesque spots and stretch- 
 ing himself in the sun among a heap of over-tangled 
 stones. ^ He let the scorching lloman luminary beat down 
 upon him with a bravery which Rowland found it hard to 
 emulated But in this situation Roderick talked so much 
 amusing nonsense that for the sake of his company Row- 
 land consented to be uncomfortable, and often forgot that, 
 though in tliese diversions the days passed quickly, they 
 brought forth neither high art nor low. 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 
 to rapid comnlotifm. One afternoon when it was finished 
 R,ov/land went to look at it and Roderick asked him for 
 his opinion. 
 
 " What do you think yourself 1 " Rowland demanded — 
 not from pusillanimity but from real uncertainly. 
 
 " I think it is curiously bad," Roderick answered. '* It 
 was bad from the first ; it has fundamental vices. I have 
 shufiled them out of sight in a sort of way, but I have not 
 corrected them. I can't— I can't — I can't ! " he cried 
 passionately. "They stare me in the face — they are all 
 I see ! " 
 
 Rowland offered several criticisms of detail and suggested 
 certain practicable changes. But Roderick differed with 
 him on each of these points ; the thing had faults enough, 
 but they were not those faults. Rowland unruffled, con- 
 cluded by saying that whatever its faults might be, he had 
 an idea people in general would like it. 
 
 " I wish to heaven some person in particular would buy 
 it, and take it oft" my hands and out of my sight ! " 
 Roderick cried. ""What am I to do now?" he went on. 
 " I haven't an idea. I think of subjects, but they remain 
 mere lifeless names. They are mere words — they are 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 101 
 
 uttered the words there rang through the studio a load 
 peremptory ring at the outer door. 
 
 Koderick broke into a laugh. "Talk of the devil and 
 you see his horns ! If that's not a customer it oi-ght to 
 be." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The door of the studio was promptly flung open, and 
 a lady advanced to the threshold — a,n imposing voluminous 
 person who quite filled up the doorway. Kowland im- 
 mediately felt that he had seen her before, but he recog- 
 nised 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 Liidovisi gardens a wonderfully beautiful 
 girl strolling in the train of this conspicuous couple. He 
 looked for her now, and in a moment she appeared, follow- 
 ing her companions with the same maidenly majesty as 
 before, 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 
 alertness. The young girl, without 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. Row- 
 land saw that, even with her eyes dropped, her beauty 
 was still dazzling. 
 
 " I trust w^e are at liberty to enter," said the elder lady 
 with urbanity. " We were told that Mr. Hudson had no 
 fixed day, and that we might come at any time. Let us 
 not disturb you." 
 
 Roderick, as one of the newer lights of the Roman art- 
 world, had not hitherto been subject to incursions from 
 inquisitive tourists, and, having no regular reception day, 
 was not versed in the usual arts of hospitality. He said 
 
102 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 nothing, and Rowland, looking at him, saw that he was 
 gazing amazedly at the young girl, and was apparently 
 unconscious of everything else. " By Jove ! " he cried 
 precipitately, "it's that goddess of the ^■illa Ludovisi ! " 
 Kowland, in some confusion, did the honours as he could, 
 but the little old gentleman begged him with the most 
 obsetpiious of smiles to give himself no trouble. " I have 
 been in many a studio ! " he said, with his linger in the 
 air, and a strong Italian accent. 
 
 " We are going about everywhere," said his companion. 
 " I am 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 Roderick was still 
 staring wide-eyed at the beautiful young mistress of the 
 poodle, who by this time had looked up and >vas gazing 
 straight at him. There was nothing bold in her look ; it 
 expressed a kind of languid imperturbable indifference. 
 Her beauty was extraordinary ; it grew^ and grew as the 
 young man observed 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 
 delight and meant that it should surrender itself freely 
 and coldly to admiration. It was not immediately ap- 
 parent however that the young lady found an answering 
 entertainment in the phy.^iognomy of her host ; she turned 
 her head after a moment and looked idly ronnd 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 complimenting her on the 
 beauty of her dog. 
 
 *' Yes, he is very hand^ome," she murmured. " He is 
 a Florentine. The dogs in Florence are handsomer than 
 the people," and on Rowland's caressing him — '* His name 
 is Stenterello," she added. '' Stenterello, give your hand to 
 the gentleman." This order was given in Italian. " Say 
 huoyi giorno a Lei^ 
 
 Stenterello thrust out his paw and gave four short shrill 
 barks ; upon which the elder lady turned round and raised 
 her forelinarer. 
 
 '* My dear, my dear, rememi^er where you are ! Excuse 
 my foolish child," she added, turning to Roderick with 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 103 
 
 an agreeable smile. " She can think of nothing but her 
 poodle." 
 
 " I am teaching him to talk for me," the young girl 
 went on, without heeding her mother ; *' to say little 
 things in society. It will save me a great deal of trouble. 
 Stenterello, love, give a pretty smile and say tanti com- 
 ■plimentil " 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 jirocess. 
 
 "He is a wonderful beast,'' said Eowland. 
 
 "He is not a beast," said the young girl. "A beast is 
 something black and dirty — something you can't touch." 
 
 " He is a very valuable dog," the elder lady explained. 
 " He was presented to my daughter by a Florentine 
 nobleman." 
 
 "It is not for that I care about him. It is for himself. 
 He is better than the Duke ! " 
 
 " My precious love ! " exclaimed the mother in depre- 
 cating accents, but with a significant glance at Rowland 
 which seemed to bespeak his attention to the glory of 
 possessing a daughter who could deal in that light fashion 
 with the aristocracy. 
 
 Rowland remembered that when their unknown visitors 
 had passed before them, a year previous, in the Villa 
 Ludovisi, 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 daughter had come lawfully by her loveliness, but 
 Rowland mentally made the distinction that the mother 
 was silly, and the daughter was not. The mother had a 
 fatuous countenance — a countenance, Rowland suspected, 
 capable of expressing an inordinate degree of fatviity. The 
 young girl, in spite of her childish satisfaction in her 
 poodle, was not a person of a weak understanding. Rowland 
 received an impression that for reasons of her own she 
 was playing a part. What was the part and what were 
 her reasons 1 She was interesting ; Rowland wondered 
 what were her domestic secrets. If her mother were a 
 
104 HODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 daii<^litor of tlu> jL'reat ilopublic it was to be supposed that 
 the yoimg girl was a Hower of the American soil ; but her 
 beauty had a lari^^e lirmness that is uncommon in the some- 
 what relaxed robustness of our western maidenhood. She 
 spoke with a vague foreign accent, as if she had spent her 
 life in strange countries. The little Italian apparently 
 divined Rowland's mute imaginings, for he presently 
 stepped forward, with a bow like a master of ceremonies. 
 " I have not done my duty," he said " in not announcing 
 these h'.dies. Mrs. Light, Miss Light ! " 
 
 Kowland was not materi;illy the wiser for this information, 
 but Koderick was aroused by it to the exercise of some 
 slight civility. He altered the light, pulled forward two 
 or three figures and made an apology for not having more 
 to show. "I don't pretend to have anything of an ex- 
 hibition — I am only a novice." 
 
 ''Indeed?— a novice! For a novice this is very well," 
 Mrs. Light declared. " Cavaliere, we have seen nothing 
 better than this." 
 
 The Cavaliere smiled rapturously. " It is stupendous ! " 
 he murmured. " And Ave have been to all the studios." 
 
 "Not to all— Heaven forbid ! " cried Mrs. Light. " But 
 to a number that I have had pointed out by artistic friends. 
 I delight in studios — I should have been so happy myself 
 to be "a little quiet artist ! And if you are a novice, Mr. 
 Hudson," she went on, " you have already great admirers. 
 Half a dozen people have told us that yours were quite 
 among ^e things to see." This gracious speech went 
 unanswered ; Roderick had already wandered across to 
 the other side of the studio and v/as revolving about 
 Miss Light. " Ah, he's gone to look at my beautiful 
 daughter; he is not the first that has had his head 
 turned," Mrs. Light resumed, lowering her voice to a 
 confidential undertone; a favour w^hich, 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 is fatal to the pictures. And 
 when she goes into the ball-room what do the other women 
 say ? Eh, Cavaliere ? " 
 
 '" She is very beautiful," Rowland said, simply. 
 
 Mrs. Light, who through her long gold-cased glasses was 
 looking a little at everything and at nothing as if she saw 
 
RODKRICK HUDSON. 105 
 
 it, interrupted her random murmurs and exclamations aud 
 surveyed Kowland from head to toot. She looki^d at him 
 all over ; apparently he had not been mentioned to her :is 
 a feature of Eoderick's esta})iishment. It was the gaze, 
 Rowland felt, which the vigilant and ambitious mother 
 of a beautiful daughter has always at her command for 
 well-appointed young men. Her inspection in this case 
 seemed satisfactory. "Are you also an artist?" she in- 
 (]uired with an almost affectionate inflection. It was clear 
 that what she meant was something of this kind ; " Be so 
 good as to assure me without delay that you are really the 
 amiable young man of fortune that you appear." 
 
 But Pvowland answered simply the formal question — not 
 the latent one. '' Dear me, no ; I am only a friend of 
 Mr. Hudson." 
 
 Mrs. Light, with a sigh, returned to the statues, and 
 after mistaking the Adam for a gladiator and the Eve for 
 a gipsy, declared that she could not judge of such things 
 unless she saw them in the marble. Rowland hesitated a 
 moment and then, speaking in the interest 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 make a note 
 of his address. "Ah, you are a patron 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 million- 
 aire to think of such things, eh 1 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 all my jewels, and my shoulders and arms — 
 which were not 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 I was ! Get him to tell 
 you what he made a figure upon. The railroads have 
 brought in the vulgarians. That's what I call it now — 
 the invasion of the vulgarians! What are poor loe to 
 do?" 
 
 Rowland had begun to murmur some remedial proposition 
 
100 KODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 ^vllen 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." 
 
 The Cavaliere gave a little chuckle. " Already 1 " he 
 cried. 
 
 Kowland looked round, equally surprised at the promp- 
 titude of the proposal. Roderick stood planted before the 
 young girl with his arms folded, looking at her as he would 
 have done at the Medicean Venus. He never paid compli- 
 ments, and Rowland, though he had not heard him speak, 
 could imagine the startling distinctness with which he 
 made his request. 
 
 " He saw me a year ago," the young girl went on, " and 
 he has been thinking of me ever since. ' Her tone in 
 speaking was peculiar ; it had a kind of studied inexpres- 
 siveness which was yet not the vulgar device of a drawl. 
 
 " I must make your daughter's bust— that's all madam ! " 
 cried Roderick with warmth, 
 
 " I would rather you should make the poodle's," said 
 the young girl. " Is it very tiresome'^ I have spent half 
 my life sitting for my photograph, in every conceivable 
 attitude and with every conceivable coilfure. I think I 
 have 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 is a matter 
 that one must look at a little. It is not a favour that's 
 to be had for the mere asking," 
 
 "If I don't make her from life," said Roderick with 
 energy, " I will make her from memory, and if the thing's 
 to be done you had better have it done as well as 
 possible." 
 
 "Mamma hesitates," said Miss Light, "because she 
 doesn't know whether you mean she shall pay you for the 
 bust. I can assure you that she will not pay you a 
 sou." 
 
 " My daughter, you forget yourself," said Mrs. Light, 
 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." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 107 
 
 " Of course ! " cried Roderick, impatiently. 
 
 " Dearest mother," interposed the young girl, " how can 
 you carry a marble bust about the world with you 1 Is it 
 not enough to drag the poor original 1 " 
 
 '' My dear, you are nonsensical ! " cried Mrs. Light, 
 almost angrily. 
 
 " You can always sell it," said the young girl, with the 
 same artful artlessness. 
 
 Mrs. Light turned to Rowland, who pitied her, flushed 
 and irritated. " She is very wicked to-day ! " 
 
 The Cavaliere grinned in silence and walked away on 
 tiptoe, Avith 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 have seen Mr. Hudson's things in the marble. Your 
 mother is to come and look at some that I possess." 
 
 " Thank you ; I have no doubt you will see us. I dare 
 say Mr. Hudson is 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 ! " cried 
 Roderick, 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, paying, 
 to Rowland's knowledge, his first compliment. 
 
 " 1 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 1 " 
 
 " We must talk of this some other time," said Mrs. 
 Light. " We are 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 ! " 
 
 " Rhe is certainly very beautiful," said Rowland. " But 
 I am sorry you have undertaken her bust." 
 
 " And why, pray ? " 
 
 " I suspect it will bring trouble with it." 
 
 " What kind of trouble 1 " 
 
 " I hardly know. They are queer people. The mamma, 
 
108 RODEIUCK HUDSON. 
 
 1 suspoct, is a bit of an adveniiress. Heaven knows what 
 the daughter is." 
 
 ** She's a goddess ! " cried Roderick. 
 
 " Just so. She is all the more dangerous." 
 
 " Daujrerous ? What will she do to me 'I 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. Miss Light, if I am not mistaken, is one of the 
 unsafe. A word to the wise ! " 
 
 " Much obliged ! " said Roderick, and he began to whistle 
 a triumphant air, in honour apparently of the advent of 
 his beautiful model. 
 
 In calling this young lady and her mamma queer people 
 Rowland but roughly expressed his sentiment. 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. For a 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 extra- 
 ordinary beauty however had already made observers 
 numerous, and given the habitues of the Pincian plenty 
 to talk about. The echoes of their commentary reached 
 Rowland's ears ; but he had little taste for unsifted rumour, 
 and he desired a veracious informant. He found one in 
 the person of Madame Grandoni, for whom Mrs. Light and 
 her beautiful daughter were a pair of old friends. 
 
 ''I have known the mamma for twenty years," said this 
 judicious critic, "and if you ask any of the people who 
 have been living here as long as I, you will find they 
 remember her well. I have 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 magni- 
 ficent eyes. Ten years ago Mrs. Light disappeared, and 
 has not since been seen in Rome, except for a few days 
 last winter, when she passed through on her way to iSTaples. 
 Then it was you met the trio in the Ludovisi gardens. 
 ■ When I first knew her she was the unmarried but very 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 109 
 
 marriageable dangliter of an old American painter of vei-v 
 bad landscapes, which people used to buy from charity and 
 use for lire-boards. His name was Savage ; it used to 
 make every one laugh, he was such a mild, melancholy, 
 pitiful old gentleman. 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 shouldn'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 tlu^ 
 key in her pocket, and, her beauty helping, 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 ciuite disappeared. Mrs. 
 Light was then a very handsome girl, though by no means 
 so handsome as 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 that his family 
 procured him his place to keep him out of harm's way. 
 He came up to Eome 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 
 shadow of Splint Peter's, her little girl v/as 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 surprising 
 variety of bonnets and a dozen men always in her train. 
 Giacosa dates from this period. He calls himself a Roman, 
 but I have an impression he came up from Ancona with 
 her. He was Vami 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 
 
no RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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, 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, but I consider that old Filomena, my washer- 
 woman, is in essentials a greater one. But certainly after 
 all 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 
 triumphant, 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, 
 w^hich I should have said was just the place for her, and 
 this winter she had laid siege to Rome. She seems very 
 
 prosperous. She has taken a floor in the Palazzo F , 
 
 she keeps her carriage, and Christina and she, between 
 them, must have a pretty milliner's bill. Giacosa has 
 turned up again, looking as if he had been kept in ice at 
 Ancona for her return." 
 
 *' What sort of education," Rowland asked, " do you 
 imagine the mother's adventures to have been for the 
 daughter ? " 
 
 " A strange school ! But Mrs. Light told me in Florence 
 that she had given her child the education of a princess. 
 In other words I suppose she speaks three or four languages 
 and has read several hundred French novels. Christina I 
 suspect is very clever. When I saw her I was amazed at 
 her beauty, and certainly if there is 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 is a beauty of beauties, that her 
 face is her fortune, and that if she plays her cards she 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. Ill 
 
 may marry a duke. If she has not been fatally corrupted 
 she is a very superior girl. My own impression is that 
 she is a mixture of good and bad, of ambition and in- 
 difference. Mrs. Light having failed to make her own 
 fortune in matrimony has transferred her hopes to her 
 daughter and nursed them till they have become a mono- 
 mania. She has a hobby, which she rides in secret ; but 
 some day she will let you see it. I am sure that if you go 
 in some evening unannounced, you will find her scanning 
 the tea-leaves in her cup or telling her daughter's fortune 
 with a greasy pack of cards, kept sacredly for the purpose. 
 She promises her a prince — a reigning prince. But if 
 Mrs. Light is a fool she is a practical one, and lest con- 
 siderations of state should deny her prince 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 must be rather uncomfortable. She is 
 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 restless ambition would 
 be simply grotesque ; but there is something in the girl, 
 as one looks at her, that seems to make it very possible 
 she is marked out for one of those wonderful romantic 
 fortunes that history now and then relates. ' Who, rJter all, 
 was the Empress of the French 1 ' Mrs. Light is for ever 
 saying. ' And beside Christina the Empress is a dowdy ! ' " 
 
 " And what does Christina say 1 " 
 
 " She makes no scruple, as you know, of saying that her 
 mother is an idiot ! What she thinks Heaven knows. I 
 suspect that practically she does not commit herself. She 
 is excessively proud and thinks herself good enough to 
 occupy the highest station in the world ; but she knows 
 that her mother talks nonsense and that even a beautiful 
 girl may look awkward in making unsuccessful advances. 
 So she remains superbly indifferent and lets her mother 
 take the risks. If the Prince is secured, so m^ch the 
 better ; if he is not she need never confess to herself that 
 even a prince has slighted her." 
 
 " Your report is as solid," Rowland said to Mad.ame 
 Grandoni, thanking her, "as if it had been drawn up for 
 the Academy of Sciences ; " and he congratulated himself 
 
112 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 oil havin,f( listened to it when a couple of days later Mrs. 
 Light and lier daughter, attended Ijy the Cavaliere and the 
 poodle, came to his rooms to look at Koderick's statues. 
 It was more comfortable to know just with whom he was 
 dealing. 
 
 Mrs. Light was prodigiously gracious, and showered 
 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 yourselves comfortable. If one 
 of us poor women had half as many easy-chairs and knick- 
 knacks 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 statues ? (Christina love, look at 
 that mosaic table. Mr. Mallet, I could almost beg it from 
 you ! Yes, that Eve is certainly very line. "We needn'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 is Mr. What's-his-name, the young 
 sculptor 1 Why isn't he here to be complimented 1 " 
 
 Christina had remained but for a moment in the chair 
 which 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 herself in 
 the mirror, touching the ornaments and curiosities, glancing 
 at the books and prints. Rowland's sitting-room was en- 
 cumbered with bric-a-brac and she found plenty of 
 occupation. Rowland presently joined her and pointed 
 out some of the objects he most valued. 
 
 "It's an odd jumble," she said frankly. "Some things 
 are very pretty — some are very ugly. But I like ugly 
 things whv3n they have a certain look. Prettiness is 
 terribly vulgar nowadays, and it is not every one that knows 
 just the sort of ugliness that has chic? But chic is getting 
 dreadfully common too. There's a^ hint of it e^'en in 
 Madame Baldi's bonnets. I like looking at people's 
 things," she added in a moment, turning to Rowland and 
 resting her eyes on him. " It helps you to find out their 
 cliaracters," 
 
 " Am I to suppose," asked Rowland smiling, " that you 
 have arrived at any conclusions as to mine 1 " 
 
 " I am rather intriguee ; you have too many things ; one 
 
RODERICK HUDSON^. 113 
 
 seems to contradict another. You are very artistic and 
 yet you are very prosaic ; you have what is called a 
 * catholic ' taste, and yet you are full of obstinate little 
 prejudices and preferences which, if I knew you, I should 
 tind very tiresome. I don't think I like you." 
 
 " You make a great mistake," laughed Rowland ; " I 
 assure you I am very amiable." 
 
 " Yes, I am probably wrong, and if I knew you, I should 
 find out I was wrong, and that would irritate me and make 
 me dislike you more. So you see we are necessarily 
 enemies." 
 
 " No, I don't dislike you ! " 
 
 " Worse and worse ; for you certainly will not like me."' 
 
 " You are very discouraging." 
 
 " I am fond of facing the truth, though some day you 
 will deny even that. Where is that queer friend of 
 yours 'i " 
 
 " You mean Roderick Hudson 1 He is represented by 
 these beautiful works." 
 
 Miss Light looked for some moments at Roderick's 
 statues. " Yes," she said, " they are not so silly as most 
 of the things we have seen. They have no chic, and yet 
 they are beautiful." 
 
 " You describe them perfectly," said Rowland. " They 
 are beautiful, and yet they have no chic. That's it ! " 
 
 " If he will promise to put no chic into my bust, I have 
 a mind to let him make it. A rec^uest made in those 
 terms deserves to be granted." 
 
 " In what terms 1 " 
 
 " Didn't you hear him 1 ' Mademoiselle, you almost 
 satisfy my conception of the beautiful. I must model 
 your bust.' That almost should be rewarded ! He is 
 like me, he likes to face the truth. I think we should 
 get on together." 
 
 The Cavaliere approached Rowland to express the pleasure 
 he had derived from his beautiful "collection." His smile 
 was exquisitely bland, his accent appealing, flattering, in- 
 sinuating. But he gave Rowland an odd sense of looking 
 at a little waxen image adjusted to perform certain gestures 
 and emit certain sounds. It had once contained a soul, but 
 the soul had leaked away. Nevertheless, Rowland reflected, 
 there are more graceless things than mere manner and 
 
 H 
 
114 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 po&tiire, in an old-fasliionod lt;iliiiu. And the Cavaliere too 
 bad soul 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 Koman 
 gentleman. Kowland felt sorry for him ; he hardly knew 
 why. He assured him in a friendly fashion that he must 
 come again ; that his house was always at his service. The 
 Cavaliere bowed down to the ground. " You do me too 
 much honour," he murmured. " If you will allow me — it 
 is not impossible ! " 
 
 Mrs. Light meanwhile had prepared to depart. " If you 
 are not afraid to come and see two c|uiet little women, 
 we shall be most happy 1 " she said. " We have no statues 
 nor pictures — we have nothing but each other. Eh, 
 darling 1 " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Christina. 
 
 " Oh, and the Cavaliere," added her mother. 
 
 " The jwodle please ! " cried the young girl. 
 
 Rowland glanced at the Cavaliere ; he was smiling more 
 blandly than ever, 
 
 A few days later Rowland presented himself, 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 v/hich sat the mistress of 
 the establishment with a piece of embroidery. She re- 
 ceived him very graciously, and then pointing mysteriously 
 to a large screen which was unfolded across the embrasure 
 of one of the deep windows, " I am keeping guard ! " 
 she said. Rowland looked interrogative ; whereupon she 
 beckoned him forward and motioned him to look behind 
 the screen. He obeyed, and for some moments stood 
 gazing. Roderick, with his back turned, stood before an 
 extemporised pedestal, ardently shaj^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 poised. Meeting Row- 
 land's gaze she smiled a little, only in the depths of her 
 lilue-grey eyes, without moving. She looked divinely 
 beautiful. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 115 
 
 IX. 
 
 The brilliant Eoman winter came round again, and 
 Rowland enjoyed it in a certain way more deeply than 
 before. He grew passionately, nnreasoningly fond of all 
 Roman sights and sensations, and to breathe the Roman 
 atmosphere seemed a needful condition of being. He 
 could not have defined and explained the nature of hii^ 
 great 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 may be said is that it brought with 
 it a sort of relaxed acceptance of the present, the actual, 
 the sensuous— of^ life on the terms of the moment. 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 undertone 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 monolopy of a guarantee 
 of immortality, so that if one is indisposed to bargain with 
 her for the pi-ecious 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 that is not foredoomed to 
 moulder and crumble and become dust for the feet and 
 possible malaria for the lungs, of future generations— th§ 
 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 perhaps be said that there is no other place in 
 which one's daily temper has such a mellow serenity, and 
 none at the same time in which acute attacks of depression 
 are more intolerable. Rowland found, in fact, a perfect 
 response to his prevision that to Jive in Rome was an 
 education to the senses and the imagination ; but he some- 
 times wondered whether this were not a questionable gain 
 in case of one's not being prepared to subside into soft 
 dilettantism. His customary tolerance of circumstances 
 
 H A 
 
116 RODE KICK HUDSON. 
 
 seemed sometimes to pivot about by a mysterious inward 
 impulse and look his con>cience in the face. " But after- 
 waids .... r' it seemed to ask, with a long reverbera- 
 tion ; and he could give no answer but a shy affirmation 
 that there was no such thing as to-morrow and that to-d:i} 
 was uncommonly tine. 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 apprehension that things after 
 all might not go so ideally well with Roderick. When he 
 caught himself fidgeting it vexed him, and he rebuked 
 himself for taking things unmanfully hard. If Boderick 
 chofee to follow a crooked path, it was no fault of his ; 
 he had given him, he would continue to give him, all that 
 he had oU'ered him— friendship, sympathy, advice. He 
 had not undertaken to make him over ! 
 
 If Pvowland felt his roots striking and spreiiding in the 
 Roman soil, Roderick also surrendered himself with re- 
 newed liberality to the local influence. More than once 
 he declared to his companion that he meant to live and 
 die within the shadow of St. Feter's, and that he cared 
 little if he should never again draw breath in American 
 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 am 
 absolutely forced." 
 
 "What is your idea of 'force"?" asked Rowland, 
 smiling. " It seems to me you have an excellent reason 
 for going home s-ome day or other/' 
 
 '' Ah, you mean my engagement 1 '' Roderick answered 
 with unaverted eyes. " Yes, there is a little understandii g 
 of that sort at Northampton ! " And he gave a littie 
 vaguely appreciative sigh. "To reconcile Northampton 
 and Rome is rather a problem. Mary had better come 
 out here. Even at the worst I have no intention of 
 giving up Rome for six or eight years, and a union 
 deferred for that length of time would be ratlier absurd." 
 
 " Miss Garland could hardly leave your mother," 
 Rowland observed. 
 
 " Oh, of course my mother should come ! I think I will 
 suggest it in my next letter. It will lake her a year cr 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 117 
 
 two to make up her mind to it, but if she consents it will 
 brighten her up. It's too small and dry a life over there, 
 even for a timid old lady. It is hard to imagine," he 
 added, " any change in Mary being a change for the 
 better ; but I should like her to take a look at the world 
 and have her ideas enlarged a little. One is never so good, 
 I suppose, but that one can improve." 
 
 " If you wish your mother and Miss Garland to come," 
 Rowland suggested, " you had better go home and bring 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, I can't think of leaving Europe for many a day. 
 At present it would quite break the charm. I am just 
 beginning tc profit, to get used to things and take them 
 naturally. 1 am sure the sight of Northampton Main 
 Street would permanently upset me." 
 
 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 foreDodings, might have 
 suffered them to be modified by this declaration. This 
 was the first time since their meeting at Geneva that 
 Roderick 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 aifectionate 
 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 ex- 
 patiate 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 uncommonly hard to explain 
 in the fact of his having fallen in love with his cousin. 
 She was not, as Rowland conceived her, the sort of girl he 
 would have been likely to fancy, and the operation of senti- 
 ment, in all cases so mysterious, was particularly so in this 
 one. Just why it was that Roderick should not in con- 
 sistency have been captivated, his companion would have 
 
118 ROD K KICK HUDSON. 
 
 beeu at a loss to say ; but I think the conviction had its 
 roots in an unformulated 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 fall in love with a woman for whom he himself 
 had been keeping in reserve for years a deeply charac- 
 teristic passion. That if Rowland Mallet happened to be 
 /very much struck with the merits of Roderick's mistress, 
 X the irregularity here was hardly Roderick's, was a view of 
 the c:!.se to which oar virtuous 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 fascinating. JVliss Light, for in- 
 stance, 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 divine tremor, of a lover. There were 
 other women^ — they might have great beauty, they might 
 have small ; perhaps they were generally to be classified as 
 plain — whose triumphs in this line were rare, but immutably 
 permanent. Such a one, conspicuously, was Mary Garland. 
 Upon the doctrine of probabilities it was unlikely that she 
 should have had an equal charm for each of them, and was 
 it not possible therefore that the charm for Roderick had 
 been simply the charm imagined, unquestionably accepted, 
 the general charm of youth, sympathy, kindness — of the 
 present feminine, in short — enhanced indeed by the ad- 
 vantage of an expressive countenance] The charm in 
 this case for Rowland was — the charm! — the mysterious, 
 individual, essential woman. There was an element in 
 the charm, as his companion saw it, which Rowland was 
 obliged to recognise, but which he forbore to linger upon ; 
 the rather important attraction, namely, of reciprocity. 
 As to the girl being in love with Roderick and com- 
 mending her.'- elf by this accident, this was a point with 
 v.^hich his imagination ventured to take no liberties ; 
 partly because it would have been indelicate, and partly 
 ^ because it would have been vain. He contented himself 
 with feeling that she was still as vivid an image in his 
 own memory as she had been five days after he left her, 
 ^and with drifting nearer and nearer to the conviction that 
 at just that crisis any other girl would have answered 
 Roderick's sentimental needs as well. Any other woman, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 119 
 
 indeed, would do so still ! Roderick had confessed as 
 much to him at Geneva in saying that he had been 
 taking at Baden the measure of his susceptibility. 
 
 His extraordinary success in modelling the bust of the 
 beautiful Miss Light was pertinent evidence of this amiable 
 quality. She sat to him repeatedly for a fortnight, and 
 the work was rapidly finished. On one of the last 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 apartment, the studio being 
 pronounced too damp for the fair model. When Rowland 
 presented himself, Christina, still in her white dress, with 
 her shoulders bare, was standing before a mirror readjusting 
 her hair, the arrangement of which on this occasion had 
 apparently not met the young sculptor's approval. He stood 
 beside her, directing the operation with a peremptoriness 
 of tone which seemed to Rowland to denote a considerable 
 advance in intimacy. As Rowland entered, Christina was 
 losTng patience, " Do it yourself then ! " she cried, and 
 with a rapid movement unloosed the great coil of her 
 tresses and let them fall over her shoulders. 
 
 They were magnitiGent, and with her perfect face dividing 
 their rippling flow she looked like some immaculate saint 
 of legend being led to martyrdom. Rowland's eyes pre- 
 sumably betrayed his admiration, but her own manifested 
 no consciousness of it. If Christina was a coquette, as the 
 remarkable timeliness of this incident might have suggested, 
 she was not a superficial one, 
 
 "Hudson's a sculptor," said Rowland, with warmth. 
 " But if I were only a painter ! " 
 
 " Thank Heaven you are not ! " said Christina. " I am 
 having quite enough of this minute inspection of my 
 charms." 
 
 " My dear young man, hands off ! " cried Mrs. Light, 
 coming forward and seizing her daughter's hair. " Christina, 
 love, I am surprised." 
 
 " 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 to make a sketch of^^an old 
 slave-merchant calling attention to the '"points" ot a 
 
120 KODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Circassian beauty, he would have depicted such a smile 
 as Mrs. Light's. " Mamma is not really shocked," added 
 Christina in a moment, as if she had guessed her mother's 
 by- play. "She is only afraid that Mr. Hudson might 
 have injured my hair, and that jjer consequenza, I should 
 sell for less." 
 
 " You unnatural child ! " cried mamma. " You deserve 
 that I should make a fright of you ! " And with half a 
 dozen skilful passes she twisted the tresses into a single 
 pictaresijue braid, placed high on the head, as a kind of 
 coronal. 
 
 " What does your mother do when she wants to do you 
 justice 'i" Kowland asked, observing the admirable line 
 of the young girl's neck. 
 
 " I do her justice when I say she says very improper 
 things. What is one to do with such a thorn in the 
 tiesh % " Mrs. Light demanded. 
 
 " Tlhink of it at your leisure, Mr. Mallet," said Christina, 
 " and when you have discovered something 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 particularly provokes me to 
 make the remarks that my mother so sincerely deplores. 
 \^I noticed it the first time I saw you. I think it's l;ecause 
 your face is so broad. For some reason or other broad 
 faces exasperate me ; they iill me with a kind of rahbia. 
 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 fiir 
 gone. Cela ne tenait qua moi ! But I couldn't ; he was 
 impossible ! He must have measured from ear to ear at 
 least a yard and a half. And he was blond too, which 
 made it worse — as blond as Stenterello ; pure fleece ! So 
 I said to him frankly, ' Many thanks, Herr Graf ; your 
 uniform is magniticent but your face is too fat.' " 
 
 "I am afraid that mine also,'' said Rowland with a 
 smile, " seems just now to have assumed an unpardonable 
 latitude." 
 
 " Oh, I take it you know very well that we are looking 
 for a husband and that none but tremendous swells need 
 apply. Surely before these gentlemen, mamma, I may 
 speak freely; they are disinterested. Mr. Mallet won't 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 121 
 
 do, because, though he is rich, he is 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 't Unless you have millions, you 
 know, you have no chance." 
 
 " I feel like a beggar," said Rowland. 
 
 " Oh, some better girl than I will decide some day, after 
 mature rejection, that on the whole you have enough. 
 Mr. Hudson, of course, is nowhere ; he has nothing but 
 his genius and his beaux yeux." 
 
 Eoderick had stood looking at Christina intently while 
 she delivered herself, softly and slowly, of this surprising 
 nonsense. When she had finished, she turned and looked 
 at him ; their eyes met and he blushed a little. " Let 
 me model you, and he who can may marry you ! " he said, 
 abruptly. 
 
 Mrs. Light, while her daughter talked, had been adding 
 a few touches to her coitt'ure. " She is not so silly as you 
 might suppose," she said to Rowland with dignity. "If 
 you will give me your arm we will go and look at the 
 bust." 
 
 " Does that represent a silly girl 1 " 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 not pretend to judge off-hand." 
 
 " She may be a fool, but you are not sure. Many thanks ! 
 You have seen me half a dozen times. You are either 
 very slow or I am very deep." 
 
 " I am certainly slow," said Rowland. "I don't expect 
 to make up my mind about you within six months." 
 
 " I give you six months if you will promise then a 
 perfectly frank opinion. Mind, I shall not forget ; I shall 
 insist upon it." 
 
 " Well, though I am slow I am tolerably brave," said 
 Rowland. " We shall see." 
 
 Christina looked at the bust with a sigh. " I am 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 working ; he scowled Jind 
 growled, but he never opened his mouth. It is very kind 
 of him not to have represented me yawning." 
 
122 RODEIUCK HUDSON. 
 
 " If I had folt obliged to talk a lot of rubbish to you," 
 said Koderick roundly, " the thing would not have been a 
 tenth so good." 
 
 " Is it good after all 1 Mr. Mallet is a famous connois- 
 .seur ; has he not come here to pronounce 1 " 
 
 The bust was in fact a very happy performance — 
 Roderick had risen to the level of his subject. It was 
 thoroughly a portrait, and not a vague fantasy executed 
 on a graceful theme, as the busts of pretty women in 
 modern sculpture are apt to be. The resemblance was 
 deep and vivid ; there was extreme fidelity of detail, and 
 yet a noble simplicity. One could say of the head that, 
 without idealisation, it was a representation of ideal beauty. 
 Rowland however, as we know, was not fond of exploding 
 into superlatives, and after examining the piece he con- 
 tented himself with suggesting two or three alterations of 
 detail. 
 
 " Ah, how can you be so cruel 1 " demanded Mrs. Light, 
 with soft reproachfulness. " It is surely a wonderful 
 thing ! " 
 
 " 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 bad, and he looked very 
 differently from this." 
 
 " How did Mr. Mallet look 1 " asked Christina. 
 
 " My dear Rowland, " said Roderick, " I am speaking 
 of my seated woman. 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 not have introduced my feet into the bust. But 
 we can hang a pair of slippers round the neck ! " 
 
 " I nevertheless like your statues, Roderick," Rowland 
 rejoined, " better than your jokes. This is admirable. 
 Miss Light, you may be proud ! " 
 
 *' Than you, Mr. Mallet, for the permission," rejoined 
 the young girl. 
 
 " I am dying to see it in the marble, with a red velvet 
 screen behind it," said Mrs. Light. 
 
 " Placed there under the Sassoferrato ! " Christina went 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 123 
 
 on. " I hope you keep well in mind, Mr. Hudson, that 
 you have not a grain of property in your work, and that if 
 mamma chooses she may have it photographed and the 
 copies gold in the Piazza di Spagna at five francs apiece, 
 without your having a sou of the profits." 
 
 " 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 ! " murmured 
 Mrs. Light. 
 
 " It is Mr. Mallet," the young girl answered. " I can't 
 talk a word of sense so long as he is 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 pro- 
 posed oO her visitor that they should adjourn to her boudoir. 
 This was a small room, hardly more spacious than an alcove, 
 opening out of the drawing-room and having no other issue. 
 Here, as they entered, on a divan near the door, Rowland 
 perceived the Cavaliere Giacosa, with his arms folded, his 
 head dropped upon his breast and his eyes closed. 
 
 " Sleeping at his post ! " said Rowland, smiling, 
 
 "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 
 are perishing here with the cold ! You had better go and 
 cool yourself in one of the other rooms." 
 
 " 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, for 
 he was not fond of Mrs. Light, and he found nothing very 
 inspiring in her frank intimation that if he chose he might 
 become "a favourite. He was disgusted with himself for 
 pleasing her; he confounded his fatal urbanity. In the 
 
124 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 courtyard of the palace he overtook the Cavaliere, who had 
 stopped at the porter's lodge to say a word to his 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 and was singing an infantine rhyme to her, and she 
 was staring at him with big soft Roman eyes. On seeing 
 Rowland he put her down with a kiss, and stepped forward 
 with a conscious grin, an unresentful admission that he 
 was sensitive both to chubbiness 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," 
 said the young man, "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 morning or in 
 the evening that I should least intrude ? " 
 
 " Take your own time, Cavaliere; only come some time. 
 I depend uj^on you," said Rowland. 
 
 The Cavaliere thanked him with a humble obeisance. 
 To old Giacosa too, he felt that he was, in Roman phrase, 
 sympathetic ; but the idea of pleasing this extremely re- 
 duced 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, Roderic'.'s 
 
 visits at the Palazzo F 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-humoiir he suffered Rowland to see 
 that she was just now the object uppermost in his thoughts. 
 Rowland, when they talked of her, was rather listener 
 than speaker ; partly because Roderick's own tone was so 
 resonant and exultant, and partly because, when his com 
 panion laughed at him for having called her unsafe, he 
 was too perplexed to defend himself. The impression 
 remained that she was unsafe ; that she was a complex, 
 wilful, passionate, creature who might easily engulph a too 
 confiding spirit in the eddies of her capricious temper. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 1-25 
 
 And yet he strongly felt her charm ; the eddies had a 
 strange fascination ! Roderick, in the glow of that re- 
 newed admiration provoked by the fixed attention of por- 
 trayal, was never weary of descanting on the extraordinary 
 perfection of her beauty, 
 
 " I had no idea of it," he said, " till I began to look 
 at her with an eye to reproducing line for line and 
 curve for curve. Her fiice is the most exijuisite piece 
 of modelling that ever came from creative hands. Not 
 a line without meaning, not a hair's breadth that is 
 not admirably finished. And then her mouth ! It is as 
 if a pair of lips had been shaped to utter pure truth 
 without doing it dishonour ! " Later, after he had been 
 working for a week, he declared that if the girl had 
 been inordinately plain she would still be the most fasci- 
 nating of women. " I have quite forgotten her beauty," 
 he said, " or rather I have ceased to perceive it as 
 something distinct and defined, something independent to 
 the rest of her. She is all one, and all consummately 
 interesting ! 
 
 " What d"oes she do — what does she say, that is so 
 remarkable 1 " Rowland had asked. 
 
 " Say 1 Sometimes nothing — sometimes everything. 
 She is never the same. Sometimes she walks in and takes 
 her place without a word, without a smile, gravely, stifliy, 
 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 ques- 
 tions and pours out the most irresistible nonsense. She is 
 a creature of moods ; you can't count upon her ; she keeps 
 observation on the stretch. And then, bless you, she has 
 seen so much of the world ! Her talk is full of the 
 strangest allusions ! " 
 
 " It is altogether a very singular type of young L^dy." 
 said Rowland, after the visit which I have related at 
 length. " It may be a charm, but it is certainly not the 
 orthodox charm of marriageable maidenhood, the charm 
 of shrinking innocence and soft docilit}^. H)ut American 
 girls are accused of being more knowing 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 
 
120 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 called her a product of the old world, and certainly you 
 were not far wrong." 
 
 " Ah, she lias an atmosphere," said Roderick, in a tone 
 of high appreciation. 
 
 " Young unmarried women should be careful not to 
 have too much ! " 
 
 " Ah, you don't forgive her for hitting you so hard ! A 
 man ought to be llattered at such a girl as that taking so 
 much notice of him." 
 
 " A man is never flattered at a woman's not liking him," 
 said Rowland. 
 
 " Are you sure she doesn't like you 1 That's to the 
 credit of your humility. A fellow of more vanity might, 
 on the evidence, persuade himself that he was in favour." 
 
 " He would have also," said Rowland laughing, " to 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 
 companion's large easy power there was not a larger moral 
 law than for narrow mediocrities like himself, who, yield- 
 ing Nature a meagre interest on her investment (such as it 
 was), had no reason to expect from her this alfectionate 
 laxity as to their accounts. Was it not a part of the eternal 
 fitness of things that Roderick, while rhapsodising about 
 Christina Light, should have it at his command to look at 
 you with eyes of the most guileless and unclouded blue, 
 and to shake off your musty imputations by a toss of his 
 picturesque brown locks 1 Or had he, in fact, no conscience 
 to speak of 1 Happy fellow either way ! 
 
 Our friend Gloriani came, among others, to congratulate 
 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 nose. You are a detestably 
 lucky fellow, my boy ! But you ought not to have 
 squandered such material on a simple bust ; you should 
 have made a great imaginative figure. If I could only 
 have got hold of her I would have put her into a statue in 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 127 
 
 spite of herself. What a pity she is not a ragged Traste- 
 verine whom we might have for a franc an hour ! I have 
 been carrying about in my head for years a delicious design 
 for a fantastic figure, but it has always stayed there for 
 want of a tolerable model. I have seen intimations of the 
 type, but this consummate creature is the perfection of it. 
 As soon as I saw her I said to myself, ' By Jove, there's 
 my statue in the flesh ! ' " 
 
 " What is your subject "? " asked Roderick. 
 I ''Don't take it ill," said Gloriani. "You know I am 
 the very deuce for observation. She would make a magni- 
 ficent Herodias ! "/ 
 
 If Roderick haa taken it ill (which was unlikely, for 
 we know he thought Gloriani an ass and expected little of 
 his wisdom), he might have been soothed by the candid 
 incense of Sam Singleton, who came and sat for an hour 
 in a sort of mental prostration before both bust and artist. 
 But Roderick's attitude in regard to his patient little 
 devotee was one of undisguised, though friendly amuse- 
 ment ; and, indeed, from a strictly plastic point of view the 
 poor fellow's diminutive stature and grotesque physiognomy 
 were a bribe to levity. " Ah, don't envy our friend," 
 Rowland said to Singleton afterwards, on his expressing 
 with a little groan of depreciation of his own paltry per- 
 formances 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 rijiened 
 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 is the handsomest fellow in Rome, he has the 
 most genius, and as a matter of course the most beautiful 
 girl in the world comes and offers to be his model. If that 
 is not completeness where shall we find it 'i " 
 
128 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 X. 
 
 One morning, going into Roderick's studio, Rowland 
 found the young sculptor entertaiuing Miss Blanchard — 
 if this is not too flattering a description of his gracefully 
 passive tolerance of her presence. He had never liked 
 her and never climbed into her sky studio to observe her 
 wonderful manipulation of petals. He had once quoted 
 Tennyson against her — 
 
 " And is there any moral shut 
 Within the busoni 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 projiitia- 
 tory gift — introducing her friend Mr. Leavenworth. Mr. 
 Leavenworth was a tall, expansive, bland gentleman, w4th 
 a carefully 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 no pictures on the walls.^i 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 borax in Pennsylvania. Roderick supposed at 
 first that under the influence of his bereavement he had 
 come to order a tombstone ; but observing the extreme 
 blaudness of his address to Miss Blanchard he credited 
 him with a judicious prevision that by the time the tomb- 
 stone should be completed, a monument of his inconsolability 
 might have become an anachronism. Mr. Leavenworth, 
 however, was disposed to order something. 
 
 " You will find me eager to patronise our indigenous 
 talent," he said. " You may be sure that I have employed 
 a native architect for the large residential structure that 
 
KODEPJCK HUDSON. 129 
 
 I am erecting on the banks of the Ohio. I have sustained 
 a considerable loss ; but are we not told that art is a con- 
 solation ? That's why I have come to you, sir. In a tasteful 
 home, surrounded by the memorials of my wanderings, I 
 hope to recover my moral tone. I ordered in Paris the 
 complete appurtenances of a dining-room. Do you think 
 you could do something for my library ? It is to be filled 
 with well-selected authors, and I think a pure white image 
 in this style " — pointing to one of Eoderick's statues — 
 " standing out against the morocco and gilt, would have a 
 noble effect. The subject I have already fixed upon. I 
 desire an allegorical representation of Culture. Do you 
 think now," asked Mr. Leavenworth, encouragingly, "you 
 could rise to the conception 1 " 
 
 " A most interesting subject for a truly serious mind," 
 remarked Miss Blanchard. 
 
 Roderick looked at her a moment, and then — "The 
 simplest thing I could do," he said, " would be to make 
 a full-length portrait of Miss Blanchard. I could give 
 her a scroll in her hand, and that would do for the 
 allegory." 
 
 Miss Blanchard coloured; the compliment might be 
 ironical ; and there was ever afterwards a reflection 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 colder, more 
 monumental, more impersonal. "If I were to be the 
 happy possessor of a likeness of Miss Blanchard," he 
 added, " I should prefer to have it in no factitious 
 disguise ! " 
 
 Roderick consented to entertain the proposal, and while 
 they were discussing it, Rowland had a little talk with 
 the judicious Augusta. " Who is your friend 1 " he asked. 
 
 " A very worthy man. The architect of his own fortune 
 — which is magnificent. One of nature's gentlemen ! " 
 
 This was a trifle sententious, and Rowland turned to 
 the bust of Miss Light. Like every one else in Rome by 
 this time, Miss Blanchard had an opinion on the young 
 girl's beauty, and in her own fashion she expressed it in 
 a quotable phrase. " She looks half like a Madonna and 
 half like a ballerina ! " 
 
 Mr. Leavenworth and Roderick came to an understanding, 
 
 I 
 
130 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 and the young sculptor good-naturedly promised to do Lis 
 best to rise to his patron's conception. " I£is conception 
 be hanged ! " Koderick exclaimed after he had departed. 
 " His conception is sitting on an india-rubber cushion, 
 with a pen in her ear and the lists of the stock exchange 
 in her hand. I shall have to invent something myself. 
 For the money I ought to be able to ! " 
 
 Mrs. Light meanwhile had fairly established herself in 
 Roman society. " Heaven knows how ! " Madame Grandoni 
 said to Rowland, who had mentioned to her several evidences 
 of the lady's prosperity. " In such a case there is nothing 
 like audacity. A month ago she knew no one but her 
 washerwoman, and now I am told that the cards of Roman 
 princesses are to be seen on her table. She is evidently 
 determined to play a great part, and she has the wit to 
 perceive that, to make remunerative acrjuaintances, you 
 must seem yourself to be worth knowing. You must 
 have striking rooms and a bewildering variety of dresses, 
 you must give dinners and dances and concerts. She is 
 spending a lot of money, and you'll see that in two or 
 three weeks she will take upon herself to open the season 
 by giving a magnificent ball. Of course it is Christina's 
 beauty that floats her. People go to see her because they 
 are curious." 
 
 *'And they go again because they are charmed," said 
 Rowland. "Miss Christina is a very remarkable young 
 woman." 
 
 '' Oh, I know it well ; I had occasion to say so to 
 myself, the other day. She came to see me of her own 
 free will, and for an hour she was deeply interesting. 
 I think she is an actress, but she believes in her part 
 w^hile she is playing it. She took it into her head the 
 other day to believe that she was very unhappy, and she 
 sat there, where you are sitting, and told me a tale of her 
 miseries which brought tears into my eyes. She cried pro- 
 fusely, and 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 
 was an immoral woman. Heaven knows w^hat she meant ! 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 131 
 
 She meant I suppose that she makes debts that 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 in poverty. 
 It was not money she wanted. I might not believe her, 
 but she really cared for serious things. 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 w^hole 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 to be patient and she 
 would be happy yet. About once in two months I expect 
 her to reappear on the same errand, and meanwhile to quite 
 forget my existence. I believe I melted to the point of 
 telling her that I would find some good, kind, quiet 
 husband for her; but she declared, almost with 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 am sure that there is not a man 
 of the kind that might really make a woman happy but 
 would be afraid to marry mademoiselle. Looked at in 
 that way she is 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 that she means, 
 I feel very sorry for her." 
 
 Kowland 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 wondered what arguments Mrs. Light 
 had found effective. 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 is twenty," observers asked, '' to have left 
 all her illusions behind 1 " And the general verdict was 
 that though she was incomparably beautiful she was 
 
 I 2 
 
132 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 intolerably proud. Young ladies to whom the former dis- 
 tinction was not conceded were free to reflect that she was 
 " not at all liked." 
 
 It would have been difficult to guess, however, how they 
 reconciled this conviction with a variety of contradictory 
 evidence, and in especial with the spectacle of Roderick's in- 
 veterate devotion. All Rome might behold that he at least 
 '* liked " Christina Light. Wherever she appeared he was 
 either awaiting her or immediately followed her. He was 
 perpetually 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 hand- 
 some young sculptor and asked each other whether he 
 really supposed that beauties of that quality were meant 
 to give themselves to juvenile artists. But although 
 Christina's deportment, as I have said, was one of superb 
 inexpressiveness, Rowland had derived from Pvoderick no 
 suspicion that he suffered from snubbing, and he was 
 therefore surprised at an incident that occurred one evening 
 at a large musical party. Roderick as usual was in the 
 field, 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 someAvhat 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 soft smile. 
 
 " Will you do me a favour' 1 " she asked. 
 
 " A thousand ! " 
 
 " Not now, but at your earliest convenience. Please 
 remind Mr. Hudson that he is not in a New England 
 village — that it is not the custom in Rome to address one's 
 conversation exclusively, night after night, to the same 
 poor girl, and that " 
 
 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, who 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 133 
 
 burst into joyous laughter. " She has a delightful un- 
 expectedness ! " he cried. '* She must do everything that 
 comes into her head 1 ' ' 
 
 " Had she never asked you before not to talk to her so 
 much 1 " 
 
 " On the contrary, she has often said to me, ' Mind you 
 now, I forbid you to leave me. Here comes that tiresome 
 So-and-so.' She cares as little about the custom as I do. 
 What could be a better proof than her walking up to you 
 with five hundred people looking at her ? Is that the 
 custom for young girls in Rome ] " 
 
 " Why then should she take such a step 1 " 
 
 " Because as she sat there it came into her head. That's 
 reason enough for her ! I have 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 receiving a number of the social potentates 
 of the Roman 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 
 the general attitude of destiny. Her daughter was less 
 overtly jubilant, and distributed her greetings with im- 
 partial frigidity. She had never been so beautiful. 
 Dressed simply in vaporous white, relieved with half a 
 dozen white roses, the perfection of her features and of her 
 person, 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 salutation 
 slowly, gravely, with her eyes on the ground. Rowland 
 fancied that, as he stood before her, her obeisance was 
 slightly exaggerated, as with an intention of irony ; but 
 he smiled philosophically to himself, and reflected as 
 he passed on that if she disliked him he had nothing to 
 i-eproach himself with. He walked about, had a few 
 
134 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 words with Miss Blancliard, 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 enormous bouquet, and his neck encased 
 in a voluminous white handkerchief of the fashion of 
 thirty years ago. His arms were folded, and he was 
 surveying the scene with contracted eyelids, through which 
 you saw the glitter of his intensely dark vivacious pupil. 
 He immediately embarked on an elaborate apology for not 
 having yet manifested as he felt it his sense of the honour 
 Kowland had done him. 
 
 " I am always on service with these ladies, you see," he 
 explained, " and that is a duty to which one would not 
 willingly be faithless for an instant." 
 
 " Evidently," said Rowland, " you are a very devoted 
 friend. Mrs. Light, in her situation, is very happy in 
 having you." 
 
 " We are old friends," said the Cavaliere, gravely. " Old 
 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 beautiful Christina now is 
 perhaps the most beautiful young girl in Europe ! " 
 
 " Very likely," said Rowland. 
 
 " 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 glittered more brightly. 
 Rowland half expected him to proceed with a little flash 
 of long-repressed passion, " And now — and now sir, they 
 treat- me as you observed the other day ! ' ' But the 
 Cavaliere only looked out at him keenly irom among his 
 wrinkles, and seemed to say with all the vividness of the 
 Italian glance, " Oh, I say nothing more. I am not so 
 shallow as to complain ! " 
 
 Evidently the Cavaliere was not shallow, and Rowland 
 repeated respectfully, " You are a devoted friend." 
 
 " That's very true. I am a devoted friend. A man 
 may do himself justice after twenty years ! " 
 
 Rowland after a pause made some remark about the 
 beauty of the ball. It was very brilliant. 
 
 " Stupendous ! ' said the Cavaliere solemnly. " It is a 
 great day. We have four Roman princes, to say nothing 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 135 
 
 of others." And he coimted them over on his fingers and 
 held up his hand triumphantly. " And there she stands, 
 the girl to whom I — I, Giuseppe Giacosa — taught her 
 alphabet and her piano scales ; there she stands in her 
 incomparable beauty, and Roman princes come and bow 
 to her ! Here, in his quiet corner, her old master permits 
 himself to be proud." 
 
 " It is very friendly of him," said Rowland smiling. 
 
 The Cavaliere contracted his lids a little more and gave 
 another keen glance. " It is very natural, signore. The 
 Christina is a good girl ; she remembers my little services. 
 But here comes," he added in a moment, " the young Prince 
 of the Fine Arts. I am sure he has bowed lowest of all." 
 
 Rowland looked round and saw Roderick moving slowly 
 across the room and casting about him his usual luminous, 
 unshrinking looks. He presently joined them, nodded 
 familiarly to the Cavaliere, and immediately demanded of 
 Rowland, " Have you seen her ? " 
 
 " I have seen Miss Light," said Rowland. " She's 
 magnificent." 
 
 " I'm intoxicated with her beauty ! " cried Roderick ; so 
 loud that several persons turned round. 
 
 Rowland saw that he was flushed, and laid his hand on 
 his arm. Roderick was trembling. " If you will go away," 
 Rowland said instantly, " I will go with you." 
 
 " Go away 1 " cried Roderick, almost angrily. " I intend 
 to dance with her ! " 
 
 The Cavaliere had been watching him attentively ; he 
 gently laid his hand on his other arm. " Softly, softly, 
 dear young man," he said. " Let me speak to you as 
 a friend." 
 
 *' Oh, speak even as an enemy and I shall not mind it," 
 Roderick answered frowning. 
 
 " Be very reasonable then and go away." 
 
 " Why the devil should I go away 1 " 
 
 " Because you are 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 Christina. She 
 will not listen to you — she can't." 
 
 " She ' can't ' ? " demanded Roderick. " She is not a 
 person of whom you may say that. She can if she will ; 
 bhe does as she chooses." 
 
13G RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 "Up to a certain point. It would take too long to 
 explain ; I only beg you to believe that if you continue to 
 love Miss Light you will be very unhappy. Have you a 
 princely title 1 have you a princely fortune 1 Otherwise 
 you can never have her." 
 
 And the Cavaliere folded his arms again, like a man who 
 has done his duty. Roderick wiped his forehead and 
 looked askance at Kowland ; he seemed to be guessing his 
 thoughts and they made him blush a little. But he 
 smiled blandly, and addressing the Cavaliere, " I am much 
 obliged to you for the information," he said. " Now that I 
 have obtained it, let me tell you that I am no more in love 
 with Miss Light than you are. My friend here 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 suffer 
 neither those advantages nor those who possess them to 
 diminish my right." 
 
 " If you are not in love, my dear young man," said the 
 Cavaliere with his hand on his heart and an apologetic 
 smile, " so much the better 1 But let me entreat you as an 
 affectionate friend to keep a watch on your emotions. You 
 are young, you are handsome, you have a brilliant genius 
 and a generous heart, but — I may say it almost with 
 authority — Christina is not for you ! " 
 
 Whether Roderick were in love or not, he was nettled 
 by what apparently seemed to him an obtrusive negation 
 of an inspiring possibility. "You speak as if she had 
 made her choice!" he cried. "Yv^ilhout pretending to 
 confidential information on the subject, I am sure she 
 has not." 
 
 "No, but she must make it soon," said the Cavaliere. 
 And raising his forefinger, he laid it against his under lip. 
 " She must choose a name and a fortune — and she will ! " 
 
 " She will do exactly as her inclination prompts ! She 
 will marry the man who pleases her, if he hasn't a dollar ! 
 I know her better than you." 
 
 The Cavaliere turned a little paler than usual and 
 smiled more urbanely. " No, no, my dear young man, 
 you do not know her better than I. You have not watched 
 her day by day for twenty years. I too have admired her. 
 She is a good girl ; she has never said an unkind word to 
 
RODEEICK HUDSON. 137 
 
 me ; the blessed Virgin be thanked ! But she must have 
 a brilliant destiny ; it has been marked out for her and 
 she will submit. You had better believe me ; it may save 
 you much suffering." 
 
 " "We shall see ! " said Roderick, with an excited laugh. 
 
 " Certainly we shall see. But I retire from the dis- 
 cussion," the Cavaliere added. " I have no wish to pro- 
 voke you to attempt to prove to me that I am wrong. You 
 are already excited.^' 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 Boderick patted the air with a grand confidence. " You'll 
 see ! " His gesture might almost have been taken to mean 
 that the state of his relations with the " divinity " was such 
 that they quite dispensed with vain preliminaries. 
 
 The Cavaliere gave an exaggerated shrug. "You will 
 make a great many mourners ! " 
 
 " He has made a mourner already ! " Bowland murmured 
 to himself. This was evidently not the first time that refer- 
 ence had been made between Boderick and the Cavaliere 
 to the young man's possible passion, a,nd Boderick 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 affections were pre- 
 occupied. Bowland hoped silently with some dryness that 
 his motives for reticence were of a finer kind than they 
 seemed to be. He turned away ; it was irritating to look 
 at Boderick' s radiant unscrupulous eagerness. The tide 
 was setting towards the supper-room 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 turning he saw Christina pressing her way for- 
 ward alone. She was looking at no one, and save for the 
 fact of her being alone you would not have supposed she 
 was in her mother's house. As she recognised Bowland 
 she beckoned to him, took his arm, and motioned him to 
 lead her into the supper-room. She said nothing until 
 he had forced a passage a.nd they stood somewhat 
 isolated. 
 
 " Take me into the most out-of-the-way corner you can 
 
138 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 find," she then said, ** and then go and get me a piece of 
 bread." 
 
 "Nothing more? There seems to be everything con- 
 ceivable." 
 
 " A simple roll. Nothing more on your peril. Only 
 bring something for yourself." 
 
 It seemed to Rowland that the embrasure of a window 
 (embrasures in Roman palaces are deep) was a retreat 
 sufficiently obscure for Christina to execute 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 a tete-a-tete an individual for whom she had 
 so little taste. 
 
 " Ah yes, 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 espied you just now you 
 seemed like an intimate friend. But I have not come into 
 this corner to talk nonsense," she went on. " You must 
 not think I always do, eh ? " 
 
 " I have never heard you do anything else," said 
 Rowland, deliberately, having decided that he owed her 
 no compliments. 
 
 " Very good. I like your frankness. It's quite true. 
 You see I am a strange girl. To begin with I am fright- 
 fully egotistical. Don't Hatter yourself you have said any- 
 thing 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 am tired to death of myself ; I would 
 give all I possess to get out of myself ; but somehow at 
 the end I find myself 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 strong, be positive, be 
 imperious, if you will ; only be something — something that 
 in looking at I can forget my detestable self ! ' PerhajDS 
 that is nonsense too. If it is, I can't help it. 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 would 
 understand me." , 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 139 
 
 " I am afraid I should never understand," said Rowland, 
 " why a person should willingly talk nonsense." 
 
 " That proves how little you know about women. But 
 I like your frankness. When I told you the other day 
 that you displeased me I had an idea you were more formal 
 — how do you say it 1 — more guinde. I am very capricious. 
 To-night I like you better." 
 
 " Oh, I am not guinde,'' said Rowland gravely. 
 
 " I beg your pardon then for thinking so. ' ISTow I have 
 an idea that you would make a useful friend — an intimate 
 friend — a friend to whom one could tell everything. For 
 such a friend what wouldn't I give \]j 
 
 Rowland looked at her in some perplexity. Was this 
 touching sincerity or unfathomable coquetry ? Her beauti- 
 ful eyes looked divinely candid ', but then if candour was 
 beautiful, beauty was apt to be subtle, " 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." 
 
 " Yery good. One of the first things one asks of a 
 friend is to judge one not by isolated acts, but by one's 
 whole conduct. I care for your opinion — I don't know 
 why." 
 
 " Nor do I, I confess ! " said Rowland, with a laugh. 
 
 " What do you think of this affair % " she continued, 
 without heeding his laugh. 
 
 " Of your ball ? Why, it's a very grand affair." 
 
 '' It's horrible — that's what it is 1 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 is satisfied ! It is 
 not my doing. I feel weary, I feel angry, I feel like 
 crying. I have twenty minds to escape into my room and 
 lock the door, and let mamma go on with it as she can. 
 By the way," she added in a moment, without a visible 
 reason for the transition, " can you tell me something to 
 read T ' 
 
 Rowland stared at the disconnectedness of the question. 
 
 "Can you recommend me some books?" she repeated. 
 " I know you are a great reader. I have no one else to 
 
140 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 ask. AVe can buy no books. We can make debts for jewel- 
 lery and bonnets and ten-button gloves, but we can't spend 
 a sou for ideas. And yet, though you may not believe it, 
 I like ideas quite as well." 
 
 " I shall be most happy to lend you some books," E,owland 
 said. " I will pick some out to-morrow and send them to 
 you. 
 
 " IS'o novels, please ! I am tired of novels. I can ima- 
 gine better stories for myself than any I read. 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 are great friends ! " 
 
 *' Oh, yes," said Bowland ; " we are great friends." 
 
 " Tell me about him. Come, begin ! " 
 
 "Where shall I begin? You know him for yourself." 
 
 " 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 become a great talker. He says 
 very fine things ; but does he mean all he says 1 " 
 
 " 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 clever ? " 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
 " His talent is really something out of the common 
 way ? " 
 
 " So it seems to me." 
 
 " In short, he is a man of genius 1 " 
 
 " Yes, call it genius." 
 
 " And you found him vegetating in a little village, 
 and took him by the hand and set him on his feet in 
 Rome 1 " 
 
 " Is that the popular legend 1 " asked Rowland. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't be modest. There was no great merit 
 in it ; there would have been none at least on my part in 
 the same circumstances. Real 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 
 
EODEEICK HUDSON. 141 
 
 would behave. It would be excessively amusing. You 
 must find it so to watch Mr. Hudson, eh 1 Tell me this : 
 do you think he is going to be a great man — become famous, 
 have his life written and all that 1 " 
 
 " I don't prophesy, but I have 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 
 is a man of genius," she suddenly resumed. " Don't you 
 think I ought to be extremely flattered to have a man of 
 genius perpetually hanging about 1 He is the first I ever 
 saw, but I should have known he was not a common 
 mortal. There is something strange about him. To begin 
 with, he has no manners. You may say that it's not for 
 me to blame him, for I have none myself. That's very 
 true, but the difference is that I can have them when I 
 wish to (and very charming ones too ; I will show you 
 some day) ; whereas Mr. Hudson will never have them. 
 And yet somehow one sees he is a gentleman. He seems 
 to have something urging, driving, pushing him, making 
 him restless and defiant. You see it in his eyes. They 
 are the finest, by the way, I ever saw. When a person 
 has such eyes as that, you can forgi v^e him his bad manners. 
 I suppose that is what they call 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. Did you 
 ever hear of it ? He was studying law — but not learning 
 it." 
 
 " It appears it was something horrible, eh 1 " 
 
 " Something horrible 1 " 
 
 " This little village. No society, no pleasures, no beauty, 
 no life." 
 
 " You have received a false impression. Northampton 
 is not so gay as Rome, but Roderick had some charming 
 friends." 
 
142 EODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 *' Tell me about them. Who were they 1 " 
 
 " Well, there was my cousin, through whom I made his 
 acquaintance-r-a delightful woman." 
 
 " Young — pretty 1 " 
 
 " Yes, a good deal of both. And very clever." 
 
 " Did he make love to her 'i " 
 
 ♦' Not in the least." 
 
 '' Well, who else 1 " 
 
 " He lived with his mother. She is the best of 
 women." 
 
 "Ah, yes, I know all that one's mother is. But she 
 does not count as society. And who else 1 " 
 
 Kowland hesitated. He wondered whether Christina'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 askance, waiting for 
 his answer. As Roderick had said nothing about his 
 engagement to the Cavaliere, it was probable that with 
 this beautiful girl he had not been more explicit. And 
 yet the thing was announced, it was public ; that other 
 girl was happy in it, proud of it. Rowland felt a kind of 
 dumb anger rising in his heart. He deliberated a moment 
 intently. 
 
 '^ What are you frowning at 1 " Christina asked. 
 
 " There was another person," he answered, " the most 
 important of all — the young girl to whom he is engaged." 
 
 Christina stared a moment, raising her eyebrows. " Ah, 
 Mr. Hudson is engaged t " she said, very simply. " Is she 
 pretty 1 " 
 
 " She is not called a beauty." Rowland meant to practise 
 great brevity, but in a moment he added, " I have seen 
 beauties however who pleased me less." 
 
 " Ah, she pleases you too 1 Why don't they marry 1 " 
 
 " Roderick is waiting till he can afford to marry." 
 
 Christina slowly put out her arm again and looked at 
 the dimple in her elbow. " Ah, he's engaged 1 " she repeated 
 in the same tone. " He never told me." 
 
 Rowland perceived at this moment that the people about 
 them were beginning to return to the dancing-room, and 
 immediately afterwards he saw Roderick making his way 
 towards themselves. Roderick presented himself before 
 Miss Light. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 143 
 
 " I don't claim that you have promised me the cotillon/' 
 he said, " but I consider that you have given me hopes 
 which warrant the confidence that you will dance with 
 me." 
 
 Christina looked at him a moment. " Certainly I have 
 made no promises," she said. " It seemed to me that as 
 the daughter of the house, I should keep myself free, and 
 let it depend on circumstances." 
 
 " I beseech you to dance with me ! " said Koderick, with 
 vehemence. 
 
 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. 
 Mrs. Light hastily approached, leading, rather than led 
 by, a tall slim young man, of an unmistakably Southern 
 physiognomy. "My precious love,'' she cried, "what a 
 place to hide in ! We have been looking for you for 
 twenty minutes; I have chosen a cavalier for you — and 
 chosen well ! " 
 
 The young man disengaged himself, made a ceremonious 
 bow, joined his two hands and murmured with an ecstatic 
 smile, "May I venture to hope, dear signorina, for the 
 honour of your hand 1 " 
 
 " Of course you may ! " said Mrs. Light. " The honour 
 is for us ! " 
 
 Christina hesitated but for a moment, then swept the 
 young man a curtsey as profound as his own salutation. 
 "You are very kind, but you are too late. I have just 
 accepted ! " 
 
 " Ah, my own darling ! " murmured — almost moaned — 
 Mrs. Light. 
 
 Christina and Hoderick exchanged a single glance — 
 a glance brilliant on each side. She passed her hand 
 into his arm ; he tossed his clustering locks and led her 
 away. 
 
 A short time afterwards Rowland saw the young man 
 she had rejected leaning against a doorway. He was ugly, 
 but what is called distinguished-looking. He had a heavy 
 black eye, a sallow complexion, a long thin neck ; his hair 
 was cropped en hrosse. He looked very young, yet ex- 
 tremely bored. He was staring at the ceiling and stroking 
 an imperceptib'^e moustache. Rowland espied the Cavaliere 
 
144 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Giacosa hard by, and having joined him asked him the 
 young man's name. 
 
 " Oh," said the Cavaliere, " he is a jjezzo grosso ! A 
 Neapolitan. Prince Casamassima." 
 
 XI. 
 
 One day on entering Eoderick's lodging (not the modest 
 rooms on the Pdpetta which he had first occuj^ied, but 
 a much more sumptuous apartment on the Corso), Rowland 
 found a letter on the table addressed to himself. It was 
 from Koderick, and consisted of but three lines. " I am 
 gone to Frascati — for meditation. If I am not at home on 
 Friday you had better join me." On Friday he was still 
 absent, and Ptowland went out to Frascati. Here he found 
 his friend living at the inn and spending his days accord- 
 ing to his own account lying under the trees of the Yilla 
 Mondragone and reading Ariosto. He was in a sombre 
 mood ; " meditation " seemed not to have been fruitful. 
 Nothing especially pertinent to our narrative had passed 
 between the two young men since Mrs. Light's ball save 
 a fe:sv words bearing on an incident of that entertainment. 
 Rowland informed Roderick the next day that he had told 
 Miss Light of his engagement. " I don t know whether 
 you will thank me," he had said, " but it is my duty 
 to let you know it. Miss Light perhaps has already 
 done so." 
 
 Roderick looked at him a moment intently, with his 
 colour slowly rising. " Why should I not thank you ? " 
 he asked. " I am 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." 
 
 " A man doesn't gossip about such a matter with 
 strangers," Roderick rejoined, with the ring of irritation 
 in his voice. 
 
 " "With strangers — no ! " said Rowland smiling. 
 
 Roderick continued his work; but after a moment, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 145 
 
 turning round with a frown — " If you supposed I had a 
 reason for being silent, pray why should you have 
 spoken 1 " 
 
 " I did not speak idly, my dear Roderick. I weighed 
 the matter before I spoke, and promised myself to let you 
 know immediately afterwards. It seemed to me that 
 Miss Light had better know that your affections are 
 pledged." 
 
 " The Cavaliere then has put it into your head that I 
 am making love to her 'i " 
 
 " No j in that case I should not have spoken to her 
 first." 
 
 " Do you mean, then, that she is making love to me ? " 
 
 " This is what I mean," said Rowland after a pause. 
 " That girl finds you interesting and she is pleased, even 
 though she may feign indifference, at your finding her so. 
 I said to myself that it might save her some sentimental 
 disappointment to know without delay that you are not at 
 liberty to become indefinitely interested in other women." 
 
 " You seem to have taken the measure of my liberty 
 with extraordinary minuteness ! " cried Roderick. 
 
 "You must do me justice. I am the cause of your 
 separation from Miss Garland, the cause of your being 
 exposed to temptations which she hardly even suspects. 
 How could I ever meet her again," Rowland demanded 
 with much warmth of tone, "if at the end of it all she 
 should be unhappy 1 " 
 
 " I had no idea that she had made such an impression 
 on you ! You are too zealous. I take it she didn't charge 
 you to look after her interests." 
 
 " If anything happens to you I am 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 am not a small boy nor an 
 amiable simpleton 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 
 ner/ous is ridiculous. Dedicate your nerves to some 
 betier cause and believe that if Miss Garland and I have 
 a quarrel we shall settle it between ourselves." 
 
 K 
 
146 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Eowland had found himself wondering shortly before 
 whether possibly his brilliant young friend were without 
 a conscience ; now^t dimly occuried to him that he was 
 without a heart, l^owland as we have already intimated 
 was a man with a moral passion,: and no small part of it 
 had gone forth into this adventure. There had been from 
 the tirst no protestations of friendship on either side, but 
 Kowland had implicitly offered everything that belongs to 
 friendship, and Roderick had apparently as deliberately 
 accepted it. Rowland indeed had taken an exquisite 
 satisfaction in his companion's easy inexpressive assent to 
 his interest in him. " Here is an uncommonly fine thing," 
 he said to himself ; " a nature unconsciously grateful, a 
 man in whom friendship does the thing that love alone 
 generally has the credit of — knocks the bottom out of 
 jjride ! " His reflective judgment of Roderick, as time 
 went on, had indulged in a great many irrepressible 
 vagaries ; but his affection, his sense of something in his 
 companion's whole personality that appealed to his 
 tenderness and charmed his imagination, had never for 
 an instant faltered. He listened to Roderick's last 
 words, and then he smiled as he rarely smiled — with 
 bitterness. 
 
 " 1 don't at all like your telling me I am too zealous," 
 he said. " If I had not been zealous 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 ! You 
 have been a great fool to believe in me." 
 
 " I don't desire to say it, and you don't honestly believe 
 I do ! " said Rowland. " It seems to me I am 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 
 his strangely commingled character — his strength and his 
 weakness, his picturesque personal attractiveness and his 
 urgent egotism, his exalted ardour and his puerile petu- 
 lance.\ It would have made him almost sick however to 
 think^ that on the whole Roderick was not a generous 
 fellow, and he was so far from having ceased to believe in 
 hiin that he felt iust now more than ever that all this was 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 147 
 
 but the painful complexity of genius. 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 essential salubrity of genius. Suddenly he felt an 
 irresistible pity for his companion ; it seemed to him that 
 his beautiful faculty of production was a double-edged 
 instrument, susceptible of being dealt in back-handed 
 blows at its possessor. Genius was priceless, inspired, 
 divine ; but it was also at its hours capricious, sinister, 
 cruel ; and men of genius accordingly were alternately 
 very enviable and very helpless, l It was not the first time 
 he had had a sense of Roderick's standing passive in the 
 clutch of his tepaperament. 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 is because your faults are your o^vn that I 
 heed them." 
 
 Rowland's voice, when he spoke with feeling, had 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 are the best 
 man in the world," he said, " and I am a vile brute. 
 Only," he added in a moment, " you donH understand me / " 
 And he looked at him with eyes of such pure expressive- 
 ness that one might have said (and Rowland did almost 
 say so himself) that it was the fault of one's own grossness 
 if one failed to read to the bottom of that beautiful soul. 
 
 Rowland smiled sadly. " AVhat is it now ? Explain." 
 
 *' Oh, I can't explain ! " cried Roderick impatiently, 
 returning to his work. " I have 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, and 
 he himself had no taste for saying disagreeable things. 
 Nevertheless he saw no sufficient reason to forbear 
 uttering the words he had had on his conscience from 
 
 K 2 
 
148 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 the beginning. " We must do what we can and be thank- 
 ful," he said. " And let me assi;re you of this — that it 
 won't help you to become entangled witli Miss Light." 
 
 - Koderick pressed his hand to his forehead with vehemence 
 and then shook it in the air despairingly ; a gesture that 
 had become frequent with him since he came to Italy. " No, 
 no, it's no use ; you don't understand me ! But I don't 
 blame you. You can't ! " 
 
 *' You think it will help you then?" said Rowland 
 wondering. 
 
 *' I think that when you expect a man to produce beauti- 
 ful 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 1 A mother 
 can't nurse her child unless she follows a certain diet ; an 
 artist can'c bring his visions to maturity unless he has 
 a cei-tain experience. You demand of us to be imaginative, 
 and you deny u.^ the things that feed the imagination. In 
 labour we must be as passionate as the inspired sibyl ; in life 
 we must be mere machines. It won't do ! When you have 
 got an artist to deal with, you must take him as he is, 
 good and bad together. I don't say they are pleasant 
 fellows to know, or easy fellows to live with ; I don't say 
 they satisfy themselves any better than other people. I only 
 >ay that if you want them to produce you must let them 
 conceive. If you want a bird to sing, you must not 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 morality 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 ! " 
 
 Rowland burst out laughing. " I have no wish whatever 
 either to shoot you or to drown you ! " he said. " Why 
 defend yourself with such very big guns against a warning 
 offered you altogether in the interest of your freest develop- 
 ment % Do you really mean that you have an inexorable 
 need of embarking on a flirtation with Miss Light? — a 
 flirtation as to the felicity of which there may be differ- 
 ences of opinion, but which cannot at best, under the 
 circumstances, be called innocent. Your last summer's 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 149 
 
 adventures were more so! As for the terms on which 
 you are to live, I had an idea you had arranged them 
 otherwise ! " 
 
 " I have arranged nothing — thank God ! I don't pretend 
 to arrange. I am young and ardent and inquisitive, and 
 I am preoccupied with that girl. That's enough. I shall 
 go as far as the fancy leads me. I am not afraid. Your 
 genuine artist may be sometimes half a madman, but he's 
 not acoward ! " 
 
 " I see ; it's a speculation. But suppose that in your 
 speculation you should come to grief artistically as well as 
 sentimentally 1 " 
 
 " Come what come will ! 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 reconnoitre 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 
 Eoderick's theory of unlimited experimentation, especially 
 as applied in the case under discussion, as anything but a 
 pernicious illusion. But he saw it was vain to discuss the 
 matter, for inclination was powerfully on Roderick's side. 
 He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, looked at 
 him a moment with troubled eyes, then shook his head 
 mournfully and turned away. 
 
 "I can't work any more," said Roderick. "You have 
 upset me ! I'll go and stroll on the Pincian." And he 
 tossed aside his working-jacket and prepared himself for 
 the street. As he was arranging his cravat before the 
 glass, something occurred to him which made him thought- 
 ful. He stopped a few moments afterwards as they were 
 going out, with his hand on the door-knob. " You did 
 from your own point of view an indiscreet thing," he said, 
 " to tell Miss Light of my engagement." 
 
 Rowland looked at him with a glance which was partly 
 an interrogation, but partly also an admission. 
 
 "If she's the coquette you say," Roderick added, "you 
 have given her a reason the more ! " 
 
 " And that's the girl you propose to devote yourself to ? " 
 cried Rowland. 
 
 " Oh, I don't say it, mind ! I only say that she's the most 
 interesting creature in the world ! The next time you 
 
156 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 mean to render me a service pray give me notice before- 
 hand 1 " 
 
 It was perfectly characteristic of Roderick that a fort- 
 night 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 between 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 charac- 
 teristic of Rowland that he complied with his friend's 
 summons without a moment's hesitation. His cousin 
 Cecilia had once told him that he was the dupe of his 
 perverse benevolence. She put the case with too little 
 favour, or too much, as the reader chooses ; it is certain 
 at lea^t that (he had a constitutional tendency to magna- 
 nimous interpretations^ Nothing happened however to 
 sugrsrest to him that Ke was deluded in thinking that 
 Roderick's secondary impulses were wiser than his primary 
 ones, and that the rounded total of his nature had a har- 
 mony perfectly attuned to the most amiable of its brilliant 
 parts. Roderick's humour, for the time, was pitched in 
 a minor key ; he was lazy, listless, and melancholy, but 
 he had never been so softly submissive. Winter had 
 begun by the calendar, but the weather was divinely 
 mild, and the two young men took long slow strolls on 
 the hills and lounged away the mornings in the villas. The 
 villas at Frascati are delicious places and replete with 
 romantic suggestiveness. Roderick as he had said was 
 meditating, and if a masterpiece was to come of his medita- 
 tions Rowland was perfectly willing to bear him company 
 and coax it along. 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 is worse out here than in Rome," he said, " for here 
 I am face to face with the dead blank of my mind ! There 
 I couldn't think of anything either, but there I found 
 things to make me forget that I needed to think ! " This 
 was as frank an allusion to Christina Light as could have 
 been expected under the circumstances ; it seemed indeed 
 to Rowland surprisingly frank — a pregnant example of his 
 companion's strangely irresponsible way of looking at 
 
xlODERICK HUDSON. 151 
 
 harmful facts. Roderick was sileut sometimes for hours, 
 with a puzzled look on his face and a constant fold between 
 his even eyebrows ; at other times ho talked unceasingly, 
 with a sort of impartial contemplative drawl. Rowland was 
 half a dozen times on the point of asking him what was 
 the matter with him; he was afraid he was going to be 
 ill. Roderick had taken a great fancy to the Villa Mondra- 
 gone and used to declaim fantastic compliments to it as 
 they strolled in the winter sunshine on the great terrace 
 which looks towards Tivoli and the iridescent Sabine moun- 
 tains. He carried his volume of Ariosto in his pocket, and 
 took it out every now and then to spout half a dozen stanzas 
 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 peruse it for a month in disjointed scraps. 
 He had picked up Italian without study, and had a wonder- 
 fully proper accent., though in reading aloud he ruined the 
 sense of half the lines he rolled olf so sonorously. Rowland, 
 who pronounced badly but understood everything, once said 
 to him that Ariosto was not the poet for a man of his craft ; 
 a sculptor should make a companion of Dante. So he lent 
 him the Inferno, which he had brought with him, and 
 advised him to look into it. Roderick took it with some 
 eagerness ; perhaps it would brighten his wits. He re- 
 turned it the next day with disgust ; he had found it 
 intolerably depressing. 
 
 " A sculptor should model as Dante writes — you are 
 right there, ' he said. " But when his genius is in eclipse 
 Dame is a dreadfully smoky lamp. By what perversity of 
 fate," he went on, " has it come about that I am a sculptor 
 at all 1 A sculptor is such a confoundedly special genius ; 
 there are so few subjects he can treat, so few things in 
 life that bear upon his work, so few moods in which he 
 himself is inclined to it." (It may be noted that Rowland 
 had. heard him a dozen times atlirm 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 
 iind colour and attitudes, 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 wan- 
 dering away like a procession of priests in couples, at the 
 
152 KODEKICK IIL'DSON. 
 
 crags and hollows of the Sabine hills, to find my picture 
 begun 1 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 wouldn'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 sculp- 
 tor now ! That's a pretty trade for a fellow who has got 
 his living to make, and yet is so damnably constituted that 
 he can't work to order, and considers that, aesthetically, clock 
 ornaments don't pay ! 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 pii: 
 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 subject and the subject reacts on the imagination. It 
 is a remunerative rate of work, and the intervals are 
 comfortable ! " 
 
 One morning as the two young men were lounging on 
 the sun-warmed grass at the foot of one of the slanting 
 pines of the Villa Mondragone, Roderick delivered him.-eli 
 of a tissue of lugubrious speculations as to the possible 
 mischances of one's 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 hajipened 
 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 dilierent 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 have 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 153 
 
 years. Come, what are you grinning at ? " he went on. 
 " 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 by the thousand — the people 
 of two or three successes ; the poor fellows whose candle 
 burnt out in a night. Some of them groped their way 
 along without 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 1 Who shall assure me 
 that my credit is for an unlimited sum 1 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 Northampton! If 
 you believed so, my dear fellow, you did so at your own 
 risk ! What am I, what are the best of us, but an experi- 
 ment 1 [po I succeed — do I fail 1 It doesn't depend on 
 me ! I am prepared for failure. It won't be a disappoint- 
 ment, simply because I sha'n't survive it. The end of my 
 work shall be tho end of my lifej When I have played 
 my last card, I shall cease to care Tor the game. I am not 
 making vulgar threats of suicide ; for destiny, I trust, 
 won't add insult to injury by putting me to that abomin- 
 able trouble. But I have a conviction that if the hour 
 strikes here," and he tapped his forehead, " I shall dis- 
 appear, dissolve, be carried off in a cloud ! For the past 
 ten days I have had the vision of some such fate perpetu- 
 ally swimming before my eyes. My mind is like a dead 
 calm in the tropics, and my imagination as motionless as 
 the phantom ship in the ' Ancient Mariner ' ! " 
 
 Rowland listened to this fine monologue-, as he often had 
 occasion to listen tolRoderick's flights of eloquence, 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 concluded that neither the 
 glow of purpose nor the chill of despair was of so intense 
 a character as his copiousness of illustration implied.' The 
 moods of an artist, his exultations and depressions, Row- 
 land had often said to himself, were like the pen-flourishes 
 a writing master makes in the air when he begins to set 
 his copy. He may bespatter you with ink, he may hit you 
 in the eye, but he writes a magnificent hand. It was 
 nevertheless true that at present poor Roderick gave 
 
154 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 unprecedented tokens of moral stagnation, and as for 
 genius being held by the precarious tenure he had sketched. 
 Kowland was at a loss to see where he could borrow the 
 authority to contradict him. He sighed to himself and 
 wished that his companion had a tritle more of little Sam 
 Singleton's vulgar steadiness. But then, was Sam Single- 
 ton a man of genius? He answered that such refiecti«;us 
 seemed to him unprofitable, not to say morbid ; that thf- 
 proof of the pudding was in the eating ; that he did not 
 know about bringing a dead genius back to life again, but 
 that he was satisfied that vigorous eflort was a cure for a 
 great many ills that seemed far gone. " Don't bother about 
 your mood," he said, " and don't believe there is any calm 
 so dead that your own lungs can't rufiie it with a breeze. 
 If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it ; set to 
 work and you will feel like it." 
 
 " Set to work and produce abortions ! " cried Roderick 
 with ire. " Preach that to others. Production with me 
 must be either pleasure or nothing. As I said just now, 
 I must either stay in the saddle or not go at all. I won't 
 do second-rate work ; I can't if I would. I have no 
 cleverness apart from inspiration. I am not a Gloriani ! 
 You are right," he added after a while ; "this is unprofit- 
 able 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 sombre 
 fancies. January though it was, the mild stillness seemed 
 to vibrate with faint midsummer sounds. Rowland sat 
 listening to them and w^i><hing that for the sake of their 
 common comfort Roderick's temper had been graced with 
 a certain absent ductility. He was brilliant, but was he, 
 like many brilliant things, brittle 1 Suddenly, to his 
 musing sense, the soft atmospheric hum was overscortd 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 155 
 
 with distincter sounds. He heard voices beyond a mass 
 of shrubbery, at the turn of a neighbouring path. In a 
 moment one of them began to seem familiar, and an 
 instant hiter a large white poodle emerged into view. He 
 was slowly followed by his mistress. Miss Light paused 
 a moment on seeing Kowland and his companion ; but 
 though the former perceived that he was recognised she 
 gave no greeting. Presently she walked directly towards 
 him. He rose and was on the point of waking Roderick, 
 but she laid her finger on her lips and motioned him to 
 forbear. She stood a moment looking at Ptoderick's 
 handsome slumber. ,, 
 
 " What delicious oblivion ! " she said. " Happy man ! 
 Stenterello " — and she pointed to his face — " wake him 
 up ! " 
 
 The poodle extended a long pink tongue and began to 
 lick Roderick's cheek. 
 
 " Why," asked Rowland, " if he is happy ? " 
 
 " Oh, I want companions in misery ! Besides, I want to 
 show off my dog." Roderick roused himself, sat up and 
 stared. By this time Mrs. Light had approached, walking 
 with a gentleman on each side of her. One of these was 
 the Cavaliere Giacosa ; the other was Prince Casamassima. 
 " I should have liked to lie down on the grass and go 
 to sleep," Christina added. " But it would have been 
 unheard of.^' 
 
 " Oh, not quite," said the Prince, in English, in a tone 
 of great precision. '' There was already a Sleeping Beauty 
 in the Wood ! " 
 
 "Charming!" cried Mrs. Light. "Do you hear that, 
 my dear ] " 
 
 " When the Prince says a brilliant thing it would be 
 a pity to lose it," said the young girl. " Your servant, 
 sir ! " And she smiled at him wi'th a grace that might 
 h :ve reassured him if he had thought her compliment 
 ambiguous. 
 
 Roderick meanwhile had risen to his feet, and Mrs. 
 Light began to exclaim on the oddity of their meeting, and 
 to explain that the day was so lovely that she had been 
 charmed with the idea of spending it in the country. 
 And who would ever have thought of finding Mr. Mallet 
 and Mr. Hudson sleeping under a tree ? 
 
15(5 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon ; I was not sleeping," said 
 Rowland. 
 
 " Don't you know that Mr. Mallet is Mr. Hudson's 
 sheep-dog 1 " asked Christina. " He was mounting guard 
 to keep away the wolves." 
 
 " To indifferent purpose, madam ! " said Rowland, 
 indicating the young girl. 
 
 ** Is that the way you spend your time 1 " Christina 
 demanded of Roderick. " I never yet happened to learn 
 what men were doing when they supposed women were not 
 watching them but it was something vastly below their 
 reputation." 
 
 " When, pray," said Roderick, smoothing his ruffled locks, 
 " are women not watching them '( " 
 
 " We shall give you something better to do at any rate. 
 How long have you been here '( It's an age since I have 
 seen you. We consider you an old inhabitant, 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 1 " 
 
 " Ah, that terrace," murmured Mrs. Light, amorously. 
 " I suppose it is magnificent ! " 
 
 " It is four hundred feet long, and paved with marble. 
 And the view is a thousand times more beautiful than this. 
 You see far away the blue, blue sea, and the little smoke of 
 Vesuvio ! " 
 
 "Christina love," cried Mrs. Light forthwith, **the 
 Prince has a terrace four hundred feet long, all paved 
 with marble ! " 
 
 The Cavaliere gave a little cough and began to wipe his 
 eye-glass. 
 
 "Stupendous!" said Christina. "To go from one end 
 to the other the Prince must have out his golden carriage." 
 This was apparently an .'vUusion to one of the other items 
 of the young man's grandeur. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 157 
 
 " You always laugh at me," said the Prince. " I know 
 no more what to say 1 " 
 
 She looked at him with a sad smile and shook her head. 
 " No, no, dear Prince, I don't laugh at you. Heaven 
 forbid ! You are much too serious an affair. I assure you 
 I feel your importance. What did you inform us was the 
 value of the hereditary diamonds of the Princess Casamas- 
 sima i " 
 
 " Ah, you are laughing at me yet ! " said the poor young 
 man, standing rigid and pale. 
 
 " It does not matter," Christina went on. " We have 
 a note of it ; mamma writes all those things down in a 
 little book ! " 
 
 " If you are laughed at, dear Prince, at least it's in 
 company," said Mrs. Light caressingly ; and she took his 
 arm, as if to 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 young 
 girl was turning, as if he had much rather his lot were 
 cast with theirs. 
 
 "Is the villa inhabited?" Christina asked, pointing to 
 the vast melancholy structure which rises above the 
 t^race. 
 
 " Not privately," said Roderick. " It is occupied by a 
 Jesuits' college for little boys." 
 " Can women go in ? " 
 
 " I am afraid not." And Roderick began to laugh. 
 " Fancy the poor little devils looking up from their Latin 
 declensions and seeing Miss Light shining 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 shouldn't scruple to kiss them. But if I 
 can't have that amusement I must have some other. \ We 
 must not stand planted on this enchanting terrace as if 
 we were stakes driven into the earth. We must dance, we 
 must feast, we must do something picturesque. Mamma 
 has arranged I believe that we are to go back to Frascati 
 to lunch at the inn. I decree that we lunch here and send 
 the Cavaliere to the inn to get the provisions ! He can 
 take the carriage, which is waiting below." 
 
 Miss Light carried out this programme with unfaltering 
 
158 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 ardour. The Cavaliere was summoned, and he stood to 
 receive her commands hat in hand, with his eyes cast down, 
 as if she had been a princess addressing her major-domo. 
 She however hiid her hand with friendly grace upon his 
 button-hole and called him a dear good old Cavaliere for 
 being always so obliging. 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-JUjt\_Mallet try to swallow it _fp^l_^ro- 
 priety's sake ! Mr. Hudson will say out like a man thai 
 it's horrible stuff and that he'll be choked first ! Be sure 
 you bring a dish of maccaroni ; the Prince must have the 
 diet of the Neapolitan nobility. But I leave all that to 
 you, my poor dear Cavaliere ; you know what's good ! 
 Only be sure above all you bring a guitar. Mr. Mallei 
 will play us a tune, I will 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 
 looked askance at Eowland ; his little black eye glittered : 
 it seemed to say, " Didn't I tell- you she was a good 
 girl ? " 
 
 The Cavaliere returned with zealous speed, accompanied 
 by one of the servants of the inn, laden with 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, andUhe repast when set forth was pro- 
 nounced a perfect success ; not so good as to fail of the 
 proper picturesqueness, nor yet so bad as to defeat the 
 proper function of repastsr Christina continued to display 
 the most charming animation, and compelled Eowland to 
 reflect privately that, think what one might of her, the 
 harmonious gaiety of a beautiful girl was the most delight- 
 ful sight in nature. Her good-humour was contagious, 
 Roderick, who an hour before had been descanting on mad- 
 ness 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 Piowland on the other side," made 
 the friendliest confidences to each of the young men, and 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 160 
 
 the Cavaliere contributed to the general hilarity by the 
 solemnity of his attention to his plate. As for E-owland, 
 the spirit of kindly mirth prompted him to propose the 
 health of this useful old gentleman. A moment later he 
 wished he had held his tongue, for although the toast was 
 drunk with demonstrative good-will, the Cavaliere received 
 it with various small signs of eager self-eiiacement which 
 suggested to Eowland that his diminished gentility but 
 half relished honours which had a flavour of patronage. 
 To perform punctiliously his mysterious duties towards the 
 two ladies, and to elude or to baffle observation on his own 
 merits — this seemed the Cavaliere s modest programme. 
 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 conversation. 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 lioderick 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 
 in compensation for the discomfort he had inCicted on his 
 modesty. The Cavaliere was a mine of information upon 
 all Roman places and people ; he told Rowland a number 
 of curious anecdotes about the old Villa Mondragone. " If 
 history could always be taught in tliis fashion ! " thought 
 Rowland. " It's the ideal — strolling up and down on the 
 very spot commemorated, hearing out-of-the-way anecdotes 
 from deeply indigenous lips." At last, as they passed, 
 Rowland observed the mournful physiognomy of Prince 
 Casamassima, and glancing towards the other end of the 
 terrace saw that Roderick and Christina had disappeared 
 from view. The young man was sitting upright in au 
 attitude, appa,rently habitual, of ceremonious 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 com- 
 panion. His features were grotesque and his expression 
 was vacuous ; but there was a lurking delicacy in his face 
 which seemed to tell you that nature had been making 
 
160 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Casiimassimas for a great many centuries, and, though ishe 
 adapted her mould to circumstances, had learned to mix 
 her material to an extraordinary fineness and to perforin 
 the whole operation with extreme smoothness. The Prince 
 was stupid, Rowland suspected, but he imagined he was 
 amiable, and he saw that at any rate he had the great 
 (juality of regarding himself in a thoroughly serious light. 
 Rowland touched his companion's arm and pointed to 
 the melancholy nobleman. 
 
 *' Why in the world does he not go after her and insist 
 on being noticed 1 " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, he's very proud ! " said the Cavaliere. 
 ^' That's all very well, but a gentleman who cultivates 
 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 for 
 six hundred years have- married none but the daughters 
 of princes. But he is seriously in love and he would 
 marry her to-morrow." 
 
 " And she will not have him ? " 
 
 *' Ah, she is very proud too ! " The Cavaliere was silent 
 a moment, as if he were measuring the propriety of frank- 
 ness. He seemed to have formed a high opinion of Row- 
 land'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 beauty. But the signorina 
 will receive no favours ; I know her well ! She would 
 rather have her beauty blasted than seem to care about 
 the marriage, and if she ever accepts the Prince it will be 
 only after he has implored her on his knees ! " 
 
 "But she does care about it," said Rowland, "and to 
 bring him to his knees she is working upon his jealousy 
 by pretending to be interested in my friend Hudson. If 
 you said more, you would say that, eh 1 " 
 
 The Cavaliere' s shrewdness exchanged a glance with 
 Rowland's. " By no means. Christina is a singular girl : 
 she has many romantic ideas. She would be quite capable 
 of interesting herself seriously in a remarkable young man 
 like your friend, and doing her utmost to discourage a 
 splendid suitor like the Prince. She would act Fincerely 
 and she would go very far. But it would be unfortunate 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 161 
 
 for the remarkable young man," he added, after a pause, 
 " for at the last she would go back ! '^ 
 
 " A singular girl indeed ! " 
 
 " She would accept the more brilliant parti. I can 
 answer for it." 
 
 " And what would be her motive ? "^ 
 
 "She would be forced. There would be circumstances 
 .... 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 is good ! Look at him now." Rowland 
 looked, and saw that the Prince had left his place by Mrs. 
 Light and was marching restlessly to and fro between the 
 villa and the parapet of the terrace. Every now and then 
 he looked at his watch. " In this country, you know," said 
 the Cavaliere, " a young lady never goes walking alone with 
 a handsome young man. It seems to him very strange." 
 
 " It must seem to him monstrous, and if he overlooks 
 it he must be very much in love." 
 
 " Oh, he will overlook it. He is far gone.*^ 
 
 " Who is this exemplary lover then ; what is he 1 "' 
 
 ** A Neapolitan ; one of the oldest houses in Italy. He 
 is a prince in your English sense of the word, for he has 
 a princely fortune. He is very young ; he is 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, an ecclesiastic, Monsignor B , hurried 
 
 up to Naples, seized him and locked him up. Meantime 
 he has passed his majority and' he can dispose of himself. 
 His relations are moving heaven and earth to prevent his 
 marrying Miss Light, and they have sent us word that he 
 forfeits his property if he takes his wife out of a certain 
 line. I have investigated the question, and I find this is 
 but a fiction to frighten us. He is perfectly free ; but the 
 estates are such that it is no wonder they wish to keep 
 them in their own hands. For Italy, it is an extraordinary 
 case of unincumbered 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 is very prudent and orderly ; I am only afraid that 
 some day he will pull the purse-strings too tight. All 
 these years his affairs have been in the hands of Monsignor 
 
162 RODFJUCK HUDSO>T. 
 
 \vho has inanuged tLem to perfection — paid off 
 
 mortgages, planted forests, opened up mines. It is now 
 a magnificent fortune ; such a fortune 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 young girl 
 who is wandering in yonder boschetto with a penniless artist." 
 
 " He is certainly a phcjinix of princes 1 The signora 
 must be in a state of bliss." 
 
 The Cavaliere looked imperturbably grave. " The signora 
 has a high esteem for his character." 
 
 " His character, by the way," rejoined Rowland, with 
 a smile ; " what sort of a character is it ] " 
 
 " Eh, Prince Casamassima is a veritable prince ! He is 
 a very good young man. He is not brilliant nor witty, but 
 he will not let himtelf be made a fool of. He is a faithful 
 son of the Church — though he does propose to marry a 
 Protestant. He will handle that point after marriage. 
 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 Casamassima 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 is terribly puzzled. But I whisper to him every day, 
 * Pazienza, Signer Principe ! ' " 
 
 " So you firmly believe," said Rowland, in conclusion, 
 " that Miss Light will accept him just in time not to lose 
 him 1. " 
 
 " I count upon it. She would make too perfect a 
 princess to miss her destiny." 
 
 " And you hold that nevertheless in the meanwhile in 
 listening to, say, my friend Hudson, she will have been 
 acting in good faith 1 " 
 
 The Cavaliere lifted his shoulders a trif e, and gave an 
 inscrutable smile. " Eh, dear signore, the Christina is 
 very romantic ! " 
 
 " So much so, you intimate, that e he will eventually 
 pivot round in consequence not of a change of sentiment, 
 but of a mysterious outward pressure 1 " 
 
 " If everything else fails, there is that resource. But 
 it is mysterious, as you say, and you needn't try to guess 
 it. You will never know." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 163 
 
 ''The poor signorina then will suffer ! " 
 
 ** Not too much, I hope." 
 
 " And the remarkable young man 1 You maintain that 
 there is nothing but disappointment 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, to whom her 
 restless protege had not yet returned. " That's right," she 
 said ; "sit down here ; I have something serious to say to 
 you. I am 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," said Rowland, " he seems unhappy." 
 
 " He is just come of age, he bears one of the greatest 
 names in Italy, and owns one of the greatest properties, 
 and he is pining away with love for my daughter." 
 
 "So the Cavaliere tells me." 
 
 " The Cavaliere shouldn't gossip," said Mrs. Light dryly. 
 " Such information should come from me. The Prince is 
 pining, as I say ; he's consumed, he's devoured. It's a real 
 Italian passion : I know what that means ! " And the 
 lady gave a speaking glance, which seemed to coquet for 
 a moment with retrospect. " Meanwhile, if you please, 
 my daughter is hiding in the woods with your dear friend 
 Mr. Hudson. 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 Cavalier to bring the guilty couple back." 
 
 " Never in the world ! My hands are tied. Do you know 
 what Christina 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 walk in the 
 woods till midnight. Fancy the Cavaliere coming back and 
 delivering such a message as that before the Prince 1 Think 
 of a girl wantonly making light of such a chance as hers ! 
 He would marry her to-morrow at six o'clock in the morning.' 
 
 " It is 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 bother ! " 
 
 L 2 
 
164 IIODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 "All, 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 Heaven you would talk 
 with him." 
 
 " I have done my best." 
 " " I wish then you would take him away. You have 
 plenty of money. Do me a favour. Take him to travel. 
 Go to the East — go to Timbnctoo. Then, when Christina 
 is Princess Casamassima," Mrs. Light added in a moment, 
 '* he may come back if he chooses ! " 
 
 "Does she really care for him?" Rowland asked, 
 abruptly. 
 
 " She thinks she does, possibly. She is a living riddle. 
 She must needs follow out every idea that comes into her 
 head. Fortunately most of them don't last long ; but this 
 one may last long enough to give the Prince a fit of disgust. 
 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 a caprice. For 
 I can assure you, sir," Mrs. Light went on, " that if my 
 daughter is the greatest beauty in the world some of the 
 credit is mine." 
 
 Rowland promptly remarked that this was obvious. He 
 saw that the lady's irritated nerves demanded comfort 
 from flattering reminiscence, and he assumed designedly 
 the attitude of a zealous auditor. She began to tell the 
 story of her efforts, her hopes, her dreams, her presenti- 
 ments, her disappointments, in this exalted cause of 
 catching a great husband for her daughter. 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 
 hopes 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 bravely and 
 cheerily, in the light of day. The poor old fetish had 
 been so caressed and manipulated, so thrust in and out of 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 165 
 
 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 disfeatured 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. Row- 
 land observed that Mrs. Light had a real maternal con- 
 science ; she considered that she had been performing a 
 pious duty in bringing up Christina to set her cap for 
 a prince; 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. This con- 
 science upside down presented to Rowland's fancy a sort 
 of physical image ; he was on the point half a dozen times 
 of laughing out. 
 
 " I don't know whether you believe in presentiments," 
 said Mrs. Light, " and I don't care ! I have had one for 
 the last fifteen years. People have laughed at it, but they 
 have not laughed me out of it. It has been everything to 
 me ; I couldn't have lived without it. One must believe 
 in something ! 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 ; for the 
 first two years I could hardly bear to look at her, and I 
 used to spoil my own looks with crying about her. She 
 had an Italian nurse who was very fond of her, and insisted 
 that she would grow up pretty. I couldn't believe her, I 
 used to contradict her, and we were for ever squabbling. 
 I was just a little silly in those days — surely I may say 
 it now — and I was very fond of being amused. If my 
 daughter was ugly, it was not that she resembled her 
 mamma ; I had no lack of amusement. People accused 
 me, I believe, of neglecting my little girl; if I ever did 
 I have made up for it since. One day I went to drive on 
 the Pincio — I was in very low spirits. A certain person 
 — I needn't name him — had trifled with my generous 
 confidence. 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 wander- 
 ing along the path — a little girl of four or five, very 
 
166 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 imita- 
 tion 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 jjair of eyes, what a 
 magnificent head of hair ! If my poor little Christina 
 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 Christina, my 
 own precious child, so disguised by the ridiculous dress 
 which the niu-se had amused herself in making for her, 
 that her own mother had not recognised her ! She knew 
 me, but she said afterw.irds that she had not spoken to me 
 because I looked so angry. Of coarse, my face was sad ! 
 I rushed with my child to the carriage, drove home post- 
 haste, pulled olf her rags, and, as I may say, wrapped her 
 up in cotton. 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 wouldn't believe them ; they would 
 make you smile ! Nothing was spe.red ; if I had been 
 told that she must have a bath every morning of molten 
 pearls I would have found means to give it to her. She 
 never raised a finger for herself, she breathed nothing but 
 perfumes, she walked upon velvet. She never was out of 
 my sight, and from that day to this I have never said a 
 sharp 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 
 play her cards. She had masters, professors, every educa- 
 tional advantage. They told me she was a little prodigy. 
 She speaks French, Italian, German, better than most 
 
PtODERICK HUDSON. 167 
 
 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 is meant to be something finer than a 
 princesse de thedtre.' I had a passionate belief that she 
 might marry absolutely whom she chose, that she might 
 be a princess out and out. I have 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 it ! I have raised money on that girl's face ! 
 I have taken her to the Jews and bidden her put up her 
 veil, and asked if the mother of that young lady was not 
 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 aristocrat. 
 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 kissing-games with 
 people who now stand on the steps of thrones ! I have 
 gone so far as to think at times that those childish 
 kisses were a sign — a symbol — a pledge ! You ma}^ laugh 
 at me if you like, but haven't such things happened again 
 and again without half so good a cause, and doesn't history 
 notoriously repeat itself 1 There was a little Spanish girl 
 at a second-rate English boarding-school thirty years ago ! 
 .... The Empress certainly is a pretty woman ; but 
 what is my Christina, pray? I have dreamt of it some- 
 times, every night for a month. I won't tell you I have 
 been to consult those old women who advertise in the 
 newspapers ; you'll call me an old imbecile. Imbecile, if 
 you please ! I have 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 
 
168 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 is 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 con- 
 cessions to the popular fury. The best thing, if one would 
 be prudent, seems to be a nobleman of the highest possible 
 rank 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 will nail him," he said to Mrs. 
 Light. " You have played a dangerous game with your 
 daughter ; it would be a pity not to win 1 But there is 
 hope for you yet ; here she comes at last ! 
 
 Christina reappeared as he spoke these words, strolling 
 beside her companion with the same indifferent tread with 
 A which she had departed. Rodeiick- 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 which he had not seen there for a week. 
 
 " Bless my soul, how they are 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 1 Am I ruined for ever ? Dear 
 Prince, you are looking at me as if I had committed the 
 unpardonable sin ! " 
 
 " I myself," said the Prince, " would never have ven- 
 tured to ask you to walk with me alone in the country for 
 an hour ! " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 169 
 
 " The more fool you, dear Prince, as the vulgar say ! 
 Our walk has been charming. I hope you, on your side, 
 have enjoyed each other's society.'^ 
 
 " My dear daughter," said JVJrs. Light, taking the arm 
 of her predestined son-in-law, " I shall have something 
 serious to say to you when we reach home. We will go 
 back to the carriage." 
 
 '' Something serious ! Decidedly, it is the Inquisition. 
 Mr. Hudson, stand firm, and let us agree to make no 
 confessions without conferring previously 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 am at your service. I see our good humour is gone. 
 And I only wanted to be amiable ! It is very discouraging. 
 Cavaliere, you alone look as if you had a little of the milk 
 of human kindness left; from your dear old stupid face, 
 at least, there is 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. 
 
 Rowland found himself aroused from sleep early the 
 next morning, to see Roderick standing before him, dressed 
 for departure, with his bag in his hand. " I am off," he 
 said. "I am back to work. I have an idea. I must 
 strike while the iron is hot ! Farewell ! " And he 
 departed by the first train. Rowland went alone by the 
 next. 
 
170 KODEIIICK HUDSON. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Rowland went very often to the Coliseum ; he was 
 never tired of inspecting this monament. 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 ranged 
 along the line of the ancient parapet. It seemed to him 
 that he had seen her before, but he was unable to localise 
 her face. Passing her again he perceived that one of the 
 little red-legged French soldiers who were at that time on 
 guard there had approached her and was gallantly making 
 himself agreeable. She smiled brilliantly, and Kowland 
 recognised the smile (it had always pleased him) of a 
 certain comely Assunta who sometimes opened the door 
 for Mrs. Light's visitors. He wondered what she was 
 doing alone in the Coliseum, and conjectured that Assunta 
 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 a l^oudoir. 
 In other words, she had an appointment with her lover, 
 who would do well from present appearances to be punctual. 
 It was a long time since Rowland had ascended to the ruinous 
 upper tiers of the great circus, and as the day w is radiant 
 and the distant views promised to be particularly clear he 
 determined to give himself this pleasure. The custodian 
 unlocked the great wooden wicket, and he climbed through 
 the winding shafts where the eager Roman crowds had bil- 
 lowed and trampled, not pausing till he reached the highest 
 accessible point of the ruin. The views were as fine as he 
 had supposed ; the lights on the Sabine mountains had 
 never been more lovely. He gazed to his satisfaction and 
 retraced his steps. In a moment he paused again on an 
 abutment somewhat lower, from which the glance dropped 
 dizzily into the interior. There are accidents of rugged- 
 ness in the upper portions of the Coliseum which offer a 
 very fair imitation of the mighty excrescences in the face 
 of an Alpine cliff. In those days a multitude of delicate 
 flowers and sprays of wild herbage had found a friendly 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 171 
 
 soil in the hoary crevices, and they bloomed and nodded 
 amid the antique masonry as naturally as if it were the 
 boulders of a mountain. Kowland was turning away when 
 he heard a sound of voices rising up from below. He had 
 but to step slightly forward to find himself overlooking 
 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 airy adventurers was a lady, thickly veiled, 
 so that even if he had not been placed directly above her 
 Rowland could not have seen her face. The other was a 
 young man whose face was also invisible, but who presently 
 gave a toss of his clustering locks which was equivalent to 
 a master's signature. A moment's reflection 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 on her own errand. Rowland's discoveries made him 
 hesitate. Should he retire as noiselessly as possible, or 
 should he call out a friendly good morning 1 While he 
 was debating the question he found himself hearing his 
 friend's words. They were of such a nature as to make 
 him unwilling to retreat, and yet to make it awkward to 
 be discovered in a position where it would be apparent 
 that he had been an auditor, 
 
 "If what you say is true," said Christina, with her 
 usual soft deliberateness — it made her words rise with 
 peculiar distinctness to Rowland's ear — "you are simply 
 weak. I am sorry ! I hoped — I really believed — you 
 were not." 
 
 " No, I am not weak," answered Roderick with vehe- 
 mence ; " I maintain that I am not weak ! I am incomplete 
 perhaps ; but I can't help that. Weakness is a man's own 
 fault ! " 
 
 " Ihcomplete then ! " said Christina with a laugh. " It's 
 '-fdk\i,' same thing, so long as it keeps you from splendid 
 •achievement. Is it written then that I shall really never 
 know what I have so often dreamed of 1 " 
 
 "'What have you dreamed of 1 " 
 
 "A man whom I can perfectly respect," cried the 
 young girl with a sudden flame. " A man whom I can 
 Tinres^Ti^edly admire ! I meet one, as I have met more 
 
172 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 than one before, whom I fondly believe to be cast in a 
 larger 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 imagination at last may 
 rest ; or it may wander if it will, yet never need to wander 
 far from the deeps where one's heart is anchored. 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 ! " cried Roderick. 
 
 "Ah, but so little! It tiickers and trembles and 
 sputters ; it goes out, you tell me, for whole weeks to- 
 gether. From your own account it's highly probable that 
 you are a failure." 
 
 " I say those things sometimes myself, but when I hear 
 you say them they make me feel as if I could do all sorts 
 of great things." 
 
 *' Ah, the man who is strong with what I call strength," 
 Christina replied, " would neither rise nor fall by anything 
 I could say ! I am a poor weak woman ; I have no strength 
 myself, and I can give no strength. I am a miserable 
 medley of vanity and folly. I am silly, I am ignorant, 
 I am affected, I am false. I am the fruit of a horrible 
 education sown on a worthless soil. I am 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 which would do something towards 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 perdition. I don't know what you think of me for 
 saying 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 1 I 
 innocently imagined that your eyes declared you ^c^.r^ 
 strong. But your voice condemns you ; I always wondered 
 at it ; it's not the voice of a conqueror ! " 
 
 " Give me something to conquer," cried Roderick, " 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. Rowland was too 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 173 
 
 interested to think of moving. ** You pretend to such 
 devotion," she went on, " and yet I am sure you have 
 never really chosen between me and that person in 
 America." 
 
 " Do me the favour not to speak of her," said Roderick 
 imploringly. 
 
 " Why not 1 I say no ill of her, and I think all kinds 
 of good. I am certain she is a far better girl than I, and 
 far more likely to make you happy." 
 
 " This is happiness, this present palpable moment," said 
 Roderick ; " though you have such a genius for saying the 
 things that torture me ! " 
 
 " It's greater happiness than you deserve then ! You 
 have never chosen, I say ; you have been afraid to choose. 
 You have never really looked in the face the fact that you 
 are false, that you have broken your faith. You have never 
 looked at it and seen that it was hideous, and yet said, 
 ' No matter, 1 will brave the penalty, I will bear the 
 shame ! ' You have closed your eyes ; you have 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 
 escaping trouble. You have faltered and drifted, you have 
 gone on from accident to accident, and I am sure that at 
 this present moment you can't tell what it is you really 
 desire ! " 
 
 Roderick was sitting with his knees drawn up and bent, 
 and his hands clasped round his legs. He bent his head 
 and rested his forehead on his knees. 
 
 Christina went on with a sort of infernal calmness. " I 
 believe that really you don't greatly care for your friend 
 in America any more than you do for me 1 You are one 
 of the men who care only for themselves and for what they 
 can make of themselves. That's very well when they can 
 make something 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 feeling one's self 
 ground in the mill of a third-rate talent ! If you have 
 doubts about yourself I can't reassure you ; I have too 
 many doubts myself about everything in this weary world. 
 YYou have gone up like a rocket in your profession they 
 
174 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 toll me ; are you going to come down like the stick ?__ I 
 don't pretend to know ; I repeat frankly what I have 
 said before— that all modern sculpture teems 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 certainly I am duly sensible — 
 that at times you feel terribly small, why, I can only 
 answer, * Ah then, my poor friend, I am afraid you are 
 small I ' The language I should like to hear, from 
 a certain person, would be the language of absolute 
 decision." 
 
 Roderick raised his head, but he said nothing ; he 
 seemed to be exchanging a long glance with his companion. 
 The result of it was to make him fling himself b;\ck with 
 an inarticulate murmur. Rowland, admonished by the 
 silence, was on the point of turning away, but he was 
 arrested by a gesture of the young girl. She pointed 
 for a moment into the blue air. Roderick followed the 
 direction of her gesture. 
 
 " Is that little flower we see outlined against that dark 
 niche," she asked, " as intensely blue as it looks through 
 my veil 1 " 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, which sprouted 
 from the top of an immense fragment of wall some twenty 
 feet from Christina's place. 
 
 Roderick turned his head and looked at it without 
 an.-wering. At last glancing round, " Put up your veil ! " 
 he said, Christina complied. " Does it look as blue now } " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Ah, what a lovely colour ! " she murmured, leaning 
 her head on one side. 
 
 " Should you like to have it ? " 
 
 She stared a moment and then broke into a loud laugh. 
 
 " Should you like to have it 1 " he repeated in a ringing 
 voice. 
 
 " Don't look as if you would eat me up," she answered. 
 "It's harmless if I say yes 1 " 
 
 Roderick rose to his feet and stood looking at the little 
 
RODEKICK HUDSON. 175 
 
 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 will bring it to you," he said. 
 
 She seized his arm. " Are you crazy ? Do you mean to 
 kill yourself]" 
 
 " I shall not kill myself . Sit down ! " 
 
 " Excuse me. Not till you do 1 " and she grasped his arm 
 with both hands. 
 
 Roderick shook her off and pointed with a violent gesture 
 to her former place. " Go there 1 " he cried fiercely. 
 
 •' You can never, never ! " she murmured beseechingly, 
 clasping her hands. " I implore you ! " 
 
 Roderick turned and looked at her, and then in a voice 
 which Rowland had never heard him use, a voice almost 
 thunderous, a voice which awakened the echoes of the 
 mighty ruin, he repeated, " Sit down ! " She hesitated a 
 moment, and then she dropped on the ground and buried 
 her face in her hands. 
 
 Rowland had seen all this, and he saw what followed. 
 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 glance 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 support. Rowland had ob- 
 served this, and yet for a moment he had hesitated. If 
 the thing were possible he felt a sudden admiring glee at 
 the thought of Roderick's doing it. It would be finely 
 done, it would be gallant, it would have a sort of masculine 
 eloquence as an answer to Christina's sinister 'persiflage. 
 But it was not possible ! Rowland left his place with 
 a bound and scrambled down some neighbouring steps, and 
 
176 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 the next moment a stronger pair of hands than Christina's 
 were laid upon Roderick's shoulder. 
 
 He turned, staring, pale and angry. Christina rose, 
 ])ale and staring too, but beautiful in her wonder and 
 alarm. " My dear Roderick," said Rowland, " I am 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, and 
 then closed his eyes, as if with a spasm of retarded dizzi- 
 ness. " I won't resist you," he said. " But I have made 
 you obey," he added, turning to Christina. " Am I weak 
 nowT' 
 
 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 helj)ed her back into the corridor ; Roderick followed 
 after a short interval. Of course, as they were descending 
 the steps, came questions for Rowland to answer, and more 
 or less surprise. Where had he come from ? how happened 
 he to have appeared at just that moment? Rowland 
 answered that he had been rambling overhead and that, 
 looking out of an aperture, he had seen a gentleman prepar- 
 ing to undertake a preposterous gymnastic feat and a lady 
 swooning away in consequence. Interference seemed justi- 
 fiable and he had made it as prompt as possible. Roderick 
 was far from hancjinor his head like a man who has been 
 caught in the perpetration of an extravagant folly ; but 
 if he held it more erect than usual Rowland believed that 
 this was much less because he had made a show of personal 
 daring than because he had tnumphantly 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, apparently occupied with her own 
 thoughts. She betrayed no sense of the privacy of her 
 interview with Roderick needing an explanation ; she 
 seemed to imply that Rowland had 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 
 Constantine, and Rowland suspected that after she had got 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 177 
 
 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 ceremony of de- 
 nouncing himself to Roderick. lie preferred however to 
 let him know that he had overheard a portion of his talk 
 with Christina. 
 
 " Of coarse it seems to you," Roderick said, " a proof 
 that I am thoroughly infatuated." 
 
 " Miss Light seemed to me to know very well how far 
 she could go," Rowland answered. "She was twisting you 
 round her finger. I don't think she exactly meant to defy 
 you ; but your preposterous attemjot 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 is making 
 a fool of me." 
 
 " And what do you expect to come of it ? " 
 
 " Nothing good ! " And Roderick put his hands into his 
 pockets and looked as if he had announced 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 will not tell me again I am weak ! " 
 
 " Are you very sure you are not weak ^ " 
 
 " I may be, 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 a reverie 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 tremor now. I will go 
 — I will go and sit in the sun on the Pincio ! " 
 
 " Promise me this first," said Rowland 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 work- 
 ing doggedly at the statue ordered by Mr. Leavenworth. 
 To Rowland's eye he had made a very fair beginning, but 
 
178 RODEPJCK HUDSON. 
 
 he had himself insisted from the tirst that he liked neither 
 his subject nor his patron, and that it was impossible to 
 feel any warmth of interest in a work which was to be in- 
 corporated into the ponderous personality of Mr. Leaven- 
 worth. It was all against the grain ; he wrought without 
 love. Nevertheless after a fashion he wrought, and the 
 figure grew beneath his hands. Miss Blanchard's friend 
 was ordering works of art on every side, and his purveyors 
 were in many cases persons whom Roderick declared it was 
 an infamy to be associated with. 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. It seemed to 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 confrere who had 
 in Mr. Leavenworth's opinion a prodigious eye for colour. 
 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 c.me 
 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 Roderick the sense of 
 suffocating beneath an immense feather-bed, and the worst 
 of the matter was that the good gentleman's placid vanity 
 had an integument impenetrable to sarcastic shaftsT] 
 Roderick admitted that in thinking over the tribulations 
 of struggling genius the danger of dying of too much 
 attention had never occurred to him. 
 
 The deterring effect of the episode of the Coliseum w^s 
 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 there was in his 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 179 
 
 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 more than 
 once that he ought to fraternise a trifle more with the 
 other artists, and he had always answered that he had not 
 the smallest objection to fraternising : let them come ! 
 But they came 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 an ineffable 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 little Singleton ; but he took an 
 exclusively facetious 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 agreed with characteristic modesty that brilliant 
 fellows like Hudson might consent to receive homage but 
 could hardly be expected to render it. Roderick never 
 acknowledged applause, and apparently failed to observe 
 whether poor Singleton spoke in admiration or in blame. 
 Roderick's taste as to companions was singularly. capricious. 
 There were very good fellows that were disposed to cultivate 
 him who bored him to death ; and there were others in 
 whom even Rowland's good-nature was unable to discover 
 a pretext for tolerance in whom he appeared to find the 
 highest social qualities. He gave the most fantastic reason-s 
 for his likes and dislikes. He would declare he could not 
 speak a civil word to a man who brushed his hair in a 
 certain fashion, and he would explain his unaccountable 
 fancy for an individual of imperceptible merit 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 fun of it, and think poor P 
 
 is a very dull fellow. It's very possible ; I don't ask you 
 to admire him. But for reasons of my own I like to see 
 him aboat. The old fellow left her for three days with her 
 face uncovered and placed a looking-glass opposite to her, 
 so that she could see, as he said, if her gown was a fit ! " 
 
 M 2 
 
180 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 His relish for an odd flavour in his friends had led him 
 to make the acquaintance of 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 others, with a crazy fellow who had come to Rome 
 as an emissary of one of the Central American republics, 
 to drive some ecclesiastical bargain with the papal govern- 
 ment. 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 flam- 
 boyant curricle and negro lackeys were for several weeks 
 one of the striking ornaments of the Pincian. He spoke 
 a queer jargon of Italian, Spanish, French, and English, 
 humorously relieved with scraps of ecclesiastical Latin, 
 and to those who inquired of Roderick what he found to 
 interest him in this pretentious jackanapes, the latter 
 would reply, looking at his interlocutor with his lucid 
 blue eyes, that it was worth any sacrifice to hear him 
 talk nonsense ! 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 Roderick flung 
 himself into an arm-chair and chattered for an hour. The 
 friends of the Costa Rican envoy were as amusing as him- 
 self, and in very much the same line. The mistress of the 
 house had worn a yellow satin dress and gold heels on her 
 slippers, and at the close of the entertainment had sent 
 for a pair of castanets, tucked up her petticoats and danced 
 a fandango, while the gentlemen sat cross-legged on the 
 floor. *' It Avas 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 1 My illusions are all 
 broken-winded ; they won't carry me twenty paces ! I 
 can't laugh and forget ; 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 heaute 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 181 
 
 anywhere now. Not at the bottom of champagne 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 is 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 popinjciys. 
 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 statues, which shone vaguely across 
 the room in the dim lamplight. 
 
 "Yes, do tell us," said Rowland, "what to hold on 
 by ! " 
 
 " Those things of mine were tolerably good," he answered. 
 " But my idea was better — and that's what I mean ! " 
 
 Rowland said nothing. He was willing to wait for 
 Roderick to complete the circle of his metamorphoses, but 
 he had no desire to oflSciate as chorus to the play. 
 
 "You think I have 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." 
 
 " Excuse me from taking any view at all," said Roav- 
 lond. 
 
 " You have given me up, then 1 " 
 
 " No, I have merely suspended judgment. I am wait- 
 ing." 
 
 Roderick looked at him a moment. " What are you 
 waiting for ? " 
 
 Rowland made an angry gesture. " Oh, miserable boy ! 
 When you have hit your mark and made people care for 
 you, you shouldn't twist your weapon about at that rate 
 in their vitals. Allow me to say I am sleepy. Good 
 night ! " 
 
182 KODEIIICK HUDSON. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 \ Some days afterwards it happened that Rowland, on a long 
 afternoon ramble, took his way through one of the quiet 
 corners of the Trastevere. He was particularly fond of this 
 part of Kome, though he could hardly have expressed the 
 charm he found in it. As you pass away from the dusky 
 swarming purlieus of the Ghetto, you einerge intcja 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 Koman type to the 
 doorways. There are few monuments here, but no part 
 of Rome seemed more historic, in the sense of being 
 weighted with a ponderous past, blighted with the melan- 
 choly 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 fascina- 
 tion^ The church of St. Cecilia has one of these sunny 
 waste-looking courts ; the edifice seems abandoned to 
 silence and the charity of chance devotion. 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 were women. One 
 was at her 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 momentary 
 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 attitude, with her hands 
 in her lap ; she seemed to be tired. She was dressed very 
 simply, as if for walking and escaping observation. When 
 he had greeted her he glanced back at her companion and 
 recognised the faithful Assunta. 
 
 Christina smiled. " Are you looking for Mr. Hudson ] 
 He is not here I am happy to say." 
 
TvODERICK HUDSON. 183 
 
 " If he were here one might understand," said llowland. 
 *' This is a strange place to find you alone." 
 
 " Not at all ! 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 carriage. I get horribly restless ; I must move ; 1 
 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 tradge about everywhere ; 
 there is nothing I like so much. I hope you will con- 
 gratulate me on the simplicity of my tastes." 
 
 "I congmtulate you on your wisdom. To live in Rome 
 and not to walk about would, I think, be poor pleasure. 
 But you are terribly far from home, and I am afraid you 
 are tired." 
 
 " A little — enough to sit here a while." 
 " Might I offer you my company while you rest 1 " 
 "If you will promise to amuse me. I am in dismal 
 spirits." 
 
 Saying he would do what he could, llowland brought a 
 chair and placed it near her. He was not in love with her ; 
 he disapproved of her ; he distrusted her ; and yet he felt 
 it a kind of privilege to watch her and he found a peculiar 
 excitement in talking to her. /The background of her 
 nature, as he would have called it, was large and mysteri- 
 ous, and it emitted strange fantastic gleams and flashes. 
 Watching for these rather quickened one's pulses. More- 
 over it was not a disadvantage to talk to a girl who 
 mide one keep guard on one's composure ; it diminished 
 one's usual liability to utter something less than revised 
 wisdom. 
 
 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 are about it 
 say a few dozen more ! " she said. " 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 often envies good Catholics," said llowland. 
 " Oh, speak to me of that ; I have been through that 
 
184 KODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 too ! 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 yeai:a.old. 1 read the Imitation and the Life 
 of :St. CatJcerlne. 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 miracle would have carried me straight 
 into the cloister, 1 had the real religious passion. It 
 passed away, and as I sat here jusG 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 called a want of 
 veracity, and this epitome of her religious experience failed 
 to strike him as absolutely historical. But the tr^iit was 
 not disagreeable, for 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 iniiuite capacity for extemporised reminiscence 
 adapted to the mood of the hour. She liked to idealise 
 herself, to take interesting and picturesque attitudes to 
 her own imagination ; and the vivacity and spontaneity 
 of her character gave her really a starting-point in experi- 
 ence, so that the many-coloured flowers of fiction which 
 blossomed in her talk were not so much perversions as 
 sympathetic exaggerations of factj And Rowland felt that 
 whatever she said of herself might have been, under the 
 imagined circumstances ; energy was there, audacity, the 
 restless questioning temperament. " I am afraid I am 
 sadly prosaic," he said, " for in these many months now that 
 I have been in Rome I have never ceased for a moment 
 to look at Catholicism simjDly 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 'I " asked Christina, looking at 
 him. " Are you religious ? " 
 I " I am very old fashioned. I believe in God." 
 
 Christina let her beautiful eyes wander a while and then 
 gave a little sigh. " You are much to be envied ! " 
 
 " You, I imagine, in that line have nothing to envy me." 
 
 " Yes, I have. Rest ! " 
 
 " Yon are too young to say that." 
 
 '• I am not young ; I have never been young ! My 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 185 
 
 mother took care of that. I was a little wrinkled old 
 woman at ten." 
 
 " I am afraid," said Rowland, in a moment, " that you 
 are fond of painting yourself in dark colours." 
 
 She looked at him a while in silence. " Do you wish to 
 win my eternal gratitude 'i Prove to me that I am better 
 than I suppose." 
 
 " I should have first to know what you really suppose." 
 She shook her head. " It wouldn't do ! [You would be 
 horrified to learn even the things I imagine about myself, 
 and shocked at the knowledge of evil displayed in my very 
 mistakes.'^ 
 
 " Well,"then," said Rowland, " I will ask no questions. 
 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 Hatter me ? I thought you and 
 I had fallen from the first into rather a truth-speaking 
 vein." 
 
 " Oh, I have not given it up ! " said Rowland ; and he 
 determined, since he had the credit of homely directness, 
 to push his advantage farther. The opportunity sBemed 
 excellent. But while he was hesitating how to begin, 
 the young girl said, bending forward and clasping her 
 hands in her lap, " Please tell me about your religion." 
 
 " Tell you about it 1 I can't ! " said Rowland, with a 
 good deal of emphasis. 
 
 She flushed a little. " Is it such a mighty mystery it can- 
 not be put into words nor communicated to my base ears 1 " 
 '•' It is simply a sentiment that makes part of my life, 
 and I can't detach myself from it sufficiently to talk 
 about it." 
 
 " Religion, it seems to me, should be eloquent and 
 aggressive. It should wish to make converts, to persuade 
 and illumine, to take possession ! " 
 
 " One's religion takes the colour of one's general dis- 
 position. I am not aggressive, and certainly I am not 
 eloquent." 
 
 " Well, I am sure I shouldn't greatly care for anything 
 you might say," Christina rejoined. " It would be sure 
 to be half-hearted. You are not in the least contented." 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 " Oh, I am an observer ! " 
 
18() RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " No one is absolutely contented, I suppose — but I 
 assure you I complain of nothing." 
 
 " kSo much the worse for your honesty ! To begin with, 
 you are in love." 
 
 " You would not have me complain of that ! " 
 " And it doesn't go well. There are grievous obstacles. 
 So much i know ! You needn't protest ; I ask no questions. 
 You will tell no one — me least of all. Why does one never 
 see you 1 " 
 
 " Why, if I came to see you," said Rowland, de- 
 liberating, " it wouldn't be, it couldn't be, for a trivial 
 reason — because I had not been in a month, because I was 
 passing, because I admire you. It would be because I 
 should have something very particular to say. I have not 
 come because I have been slow in making up my mind to 
 say it." 
 
 " You are simply cruel. Something particular, in this 
 ocean of inanities? In common charity, speak! " 
 " I doubt whether you will like it." 
 
 "Oh, I hope to Heaven it's not some tribute to my 
 charms ! " 
 
 " It may be called a tribute to your reasonableness. That 
 is one of your charms you know. You perhaps remember 
 that I gave you a hint of it the other day at Frascati." 
 
 *' Has it been hanging lire all this time 1 Explode ! I 
 promise not to stoj) my ears." 
 
 "It relates to my friend Hudson." And Rowland 
 paused. She was looking at him expectantly ; her face 
 gave no sign. " I am rather disturbed in mind about him. 
 He seems to me at times to be in a discouraging way." 
 He paused again, but Christina said nothing. " The case 
 is simply this," he went on. " It was by my advice he 
 gave up his work at home and went in for an artist's life. 
 I made him burn his ships. I brought him to Rome, I 
 launched him in the world, and I have undertaken to 
 answer to — to his mother for his doing well. It is not 
 such smooth sailing as it might be, and I am inclined to put 
 up prayers for fair winds. If he is to succeed, he must 
 work — very quietly and very hard. It is not news to you 
 I imagine that Hudson is a great admirer of yours." 
 
 Christina remained silent ; she turned away her eyes 
 with an air, not of confusion, but of deep deliberation. 
 
RODEEICK HUDSON. 187 
 
 Surprising frankness had as a general thing struck Kow- 
 land as the key-note of her character, but she had more 
 than once given him a suggestion of an unfathomable power 
 of calculation, and her silence now had something which 
 it is hardly extravagant to call portentous. He had of 
 course asked himself how far it was questionable taste 
 to inform an unprotected girl, for the needs of a cause, 
 that another man admired her ; the thing superficially had 
 an uncomfortable analogy with treating the young lady 
 as a catspaw. But he decided that even rigid discretion 
 is not bound to take such a person at more than her own 
 valuation, and Christina presently reassured him as to the 
 limits of her susceptibility. " Mr. Hudson is in love 
 with me ! " she said. 
 
 Rowland flinched a trifle. Then — "Am I," he asked, 
 "from this point of view of mine, to be glad or sorry ^ " 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " Why, is Hudson to be happy or unhappy 1 " 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " You wish him to be great 
 in his profession 1 And for that you consider that he must 
 be happy in his life 1 " 
 
 " 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 r\ 
 
 " He would at least do himself justice." 
 
 " And by that you mean a great deal 1 " 
 
 " A great deal.'"' 
 
 Christina sank back in her chair and rested her eyes on 
 the cracked and polished slabs of the pavement. At last, 
 looking up, " You have not forgotten, I suppose, that you 
 told me he was engaged to be married ^ " 
 
 " By no means." 
 
 " He is 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 1 " 
 
 " What I desire is this. That your great influence with 
 him should be exerted for his good, that it should help 
 ]iim and not retard him. Understand me. You probably 
 know that your admirers have rather a restless time of it. 
 I can answer for t^yo of them. You don't know your own 
 
188 RODERICK HUDSON, 
 
 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 are really being frank, I 
 wonder whether I might not say the great word." 
 
 *' You needn't ; I know it. I am a horrible coquette." 
 
 " No, not a horrible one, since I am making an appeal 
 to your generosity. I am pretty sure you can't imagine 
 yourself marrying my friend." 
 
 ' " There's nothing I can't imagine ! That is mv 
 difficulty ! " ^ 
 
 Rowland's brow contracted impatiently. " I cant 
 imagine it then ! " 
 
 Christina flushed faintly ; then very gently — " I am 
 not so bad as you think," she said. 
 
 " It is not a question of badness ; it is a question of 
 whether circumstances don't make the thing an extreme 
 improbability." 
 
 " Worse and worse. I can be bullied, then, or 
 bribed ? " 
 
 " You are not so candid as you pretend to be. My 
 feeling is this. Hudson, as I understand him, does not 
 need, as an artist, the stimulus of strong emotion, of 
 passion. He is better without it ; he is emotional and 
 passionate enough when he is left to himself. The sooner 
 passion is at rest therefore the sooner he will 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 strongly 
 suspect you don't, and therefore I suggest most respectfully 
 that you leave him alone." 
 
 " If I leave him alone he will go on like a new clock, 
 ehV 
 
 " He will do better. He will have no excuses or 
 pretexts." 
 
 " Oh, he makes me a pretext, does he 1 I am much 
 obliged ! " cried Christina, with a laugh. *' What is he 
 doing now 1 " 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " No, not all. But you are a part of it, and I turn to 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 189 
 
 you because you are a more tangible, sensible, responsible 
 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 gentleness. 
 At last, without moving, " If I were to marry him," she 
 asked, " what would have become of his Jiancee ? " 
 
 " I am bound to suppose that she would have become 
 extremely unhappy." 
 
 Christina said nothing more, and Rowland, to let her 
 make her reflections, left his place and strolled 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 sympathy for 
 her mistress. Rowland presently seated himself again 
 near Christina. 
 
 " What do you think of your friend's infidelity to that 
 young girl in the little village 'i " she asked suddenly, 
 looking at him. 
 
 " I don't like it." 
 
 " "Was he very much in love with her? " 
 
 " He asked her to marry him. You may judge." 
 
 " Is she rich ? " 
 
 " No, she is poor." 
 
 " Is she very much in love with him ? " 
 
 " I know her too little to say." 
 
 She paused again, and then resumed — " You have settled 
 in your mind then that I will never seriously listen to 
 himT' 
 
 " I shall think it unlikely until the contrary is proved." 
 
 " How shall it be proved 1 How do you know what 
 passes between us '? " 
 
 " I can judge, of course, but from appearances ; but, 
 like you, I am no observer. Hudson has not at all the 
 air of a happy lover ! " 
 
 " If he is depressed there is a reason. He has a 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 1 " 
 
 The humility of her tone combined with her beauty as 
 she made this remark was inexpressibly touching, and 
 
100 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Rowland had an uncomfortable sense of being put at a 
 disadvantage. " There are doubtless many good things 
 you might do if you had proper opportunity," he said. 
 " But you seem to be sailing with a current which leaves 
 you little leisure for quiet benevolence. You live in the 
 whirl and hurry of a world into which a poor artist can 
 hardly find it to his advantage to follow you." 
 
 " Jn plain English I am odiously frivolous. You put 
 it very generously." 
 
 " I won't hesitate to say all my thought," said Rowland. 
 " For better or worse you seem to me to belong both by 
 character and by circumstance to what is called the world, 
 the great world. You are made to ornament it magni- 
 ficently. You are 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 make 
 him a member of the great world." 
 
 Rowland smiled. "That is very true." 
 
 "If, as it is," Christina continued in a moment, "you 
 take a low view of me — no, you needn't protest — I wonder 
 what you would think if you knew certain things." 
 
 " What things do you mean 1 " 
 
 " Well, for example how I was brought up. I have had 
 a horrible education. There must be some good in me, 
 since I have perceived it, since I have turned and judged 
 my circumstances." 
 
 "My dear Miss Light!" Rowland murmured remon- 
 strantly. 
 
 She gave a little quick laugh. "You don't want to 
 hear ! you don't want to have to think about that ! " 
 
 " Have I a right to 1 You needn'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 1 " 
 
 " Very likely," said Rowland. " I hope she consents." 
 
 " I forget. But tell me," she continued, " shall you 
 consider — admitting your proposition — that in ceasing to 
 be nice to Mr. Hudson, so that he may go about his busi- 
 ness, I do something magnanimous, heroic, sublime — some- 
 thing with a fine name like that 1 " 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. 191 
 
 Eowland, 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 not please her, and besides it would not express his 
 meaning. 
 
 " You do something I shall greatly respect," he contented 
 himself with saying. 
 
 She made no answer, and in a moment she beckoned to 
 her maid. " What have I to do to-day 1 " she asked. 
 
 Assunta meditated. " Eh, it's a very busy day ! For- 
 tunately I have a better memory than the signorina," she 
 said, turning to Rowland. She began to count on her 
 fingers, " We have 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 is 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 murmured appre- 
 ciatively. " I must have a quantity — at least a hundred. 
 Nothing but buds, eh 1 You must sew them in a kind of 
 immense apron, down the front of my dress. Packed tight 
 together, eh ? It will be delightfully barbarous. And 
 then twenty more or so for my hair. They go very well 
 with powder ; don't you think so 1 " And she turned to 
 Rowland. " I am going en Pompadour." 
 
 " Going where? " 
 
 " To the Spanish Embassy, or whatever it is." 
 
 " All down the front, signorina ? Bio huono I You 
 must give me time ! " Assunta cried. 
 
 " Yes, we will go ! " And she left her place. She 
 walked slowly to the door of the church, looking at the 
 pavement, and Rowland could not guess whether she was 
 thinking of her apron of moss-rosebuds or of her oppor- 
 tunity for moral sublimity. Before reaching the door she 
 turned away and stood gazing at an old picture, indis- 
 tinguishable with blackness, over an altar. At last they 
 passed out into the court. Glancing at her in the open 
 air, Rowland was startled ; he thought he saw the traces 
 
192 RODEPJCK HUDSON. 
 
 of hastily suppressed tears. They had lost time, she said, 
 and they miust 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 Kowland for his confidence in her " reasonable- 
 ness." " It's really very comfortable to be expected to do 
 something good, after all the liorrid things one has been 
 used to doing — instructed, commanded, forced to do ! I 
 will think over what you have said to me." In that 
 deserted quarter coaches are rare, and there was some 
 delay in Assunta's procuring 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 harm him ? " 
 
 " You make me feel very brutal," said Rowland. 
 
 " And he is such a fine fellow that it would be really 
 a great pity, eh 1 " 
 
 " 1 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 will think of what 
 you have said to me. Farewell." The two women stepped 
 into the carriage and it rolled away. Rowland stood for 
 some minutes looking after it, and then went his way with 
 a sigh. If this expressed general mistrust, he ought three 
 days afterwards to have been reassured. He received by 
 the post a note containing these words : — 
 
 " I have done it. Begin and 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 signorino had gone to Naples. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 193 
 
 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 have had all kinds of hopes and fears, but 
 hitherto, in writing to you, I have resolutely put the hopes 
 foremost. Now, however, my pride has forsaken me, and 
 I should like hugely to give expression to a little com- 
 fortable 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 * salubrity of 
 genius,' I feel my ears tingle. If this is salubrity, give 
 me raging disease ! I am pestered to death ; I go about 
 with a chronic heartache ; there are moments when I could 
 shed salt tears. There's a pretty portrait of the most 
 placid of men . I v/ish I could make you understand ; or 
 rather I wish you could make me ! I don't understand a 
 jot ; it's a hideous, mocking mystery ; I give it up ! I 
 don't in the least give it up, you know ; I am incapable 
 of giving it up. I sit holding my head by the hour, rack- 
 ing my brain, wondering what to invent. You told me 
 at Northampton that I took the thing too easily ; you would 
 tell me now perhaps that I take it too hard. I do, alto- 
 gether ; but it can't be helped. Without flattering myself 
 I may say I am sympathetic. Many another man, before 
 this, would have cast his perplexities to the winds, and 
 declared that Master Hudson must lie on his bed as he 
 had made it. Some men perhaps would even say that I 
 am making a mighty ado about nothing, that I have only 
 to give him rope and he will tire himself out. But he tugs 
 at his rope altogether too hard for me to hold it comfort- 
 ably ! I certainly never pretended the thing was anything 
 
194 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 but an experiment ; I promised nothing, I answered for 
 nothing ; I only said that the case was hopeful, and it 
 would be a shame not to give him a chance. I have done 
 mv best, and if the machine is running down I have 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 generous. I am fond of the poor devil, and 
 I can't give him up. As for understanding him, that's 
 another matter ; nowadays I don't believe even you would. 
 One's wits are sadly pestered over here, I assure you, and 
 I am in the way of seeing more than one peculiar specimen 
 of human nature. Roderick and Miss Light, between 
 
 them ! Haven't I already told you about 
 
 Miss Light ? Last winter everything was perfection. 
 Roderick struck out bravely, did really great things, and 
 proved himself as I supposed thoroughly solid. He was 
 strong, he was first rate ; I felt perfectly secure, and paid 
 myself all kinds of compliments. We had passed at a 
 bound into the open sea and left danger behind. But in 
 the summer I began to be uneasy, though I succeeded in 
 not being alarmed. When he came back to Rome, however, 
 I saw that the tide had turned, and that we were close 
 upon the rocks. It is in fact another case of Ulysses and 
 the Sirens ; only Roderick refuses to be tied to the mast. 
 [He is the most extraordinary being, the strangest mixture 
 of qualities. I don't understand so much force going with 
 so much weakness — such a brilliant gift being subject to 
 such lapses. The poor fellow is incomplete, and it is really 
 not his own fault ; Nature has given him his faculty out 
 of hand and bidden him be hanged with it j]) I never knew 
 a man harder to advise or assist, if he is not in the mood 
 for listening. I suppose there is some key or other to his 
 character, but I try in vain to find it ; and yet I can't 
 believe that Providence is so cruel as to have turned the 
 lock and thrown the key away. He perplexes me to death, 
 and though he tires out my patience he still fascinates me. 
 Sometimes I think he has not a grain of conscience, and 
 sometimes I think .that in a way he has an excess. He 
 takes things at once too easily and too hard ; he is both 
 boo lax and too tense, too reckless and too ambitious, too 
 cold and too passionate. He has developed faster even 
 than you prophesied, and for good and evil alike he takes 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 195 
 
 up a formidable space. There's too much of him for me, 
 at any rate. Yes, he is hard ; there is no mistake about 
 that. He's inflexible, he's brittle ; and though he has plenty 
 of spirit, plenty of soul, he hasn't what I call a heart. He 
 has something that Miss Garland took for one, and I am 
 pretty sure she's 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 
 is no judge at all ! I think it is established that in 
 the lonsr run esrotism 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 will do nothing beneath it, and while 
 he is waiting for inspiration, his imagination, his nerves, 
 "his senses must have something to amuse them. This is 
 a highly philosophic way of saying that he has taken to 
 riotous living and has just been spending a month at 
 Naples — a city where ' pleasure ' is actively cultivated — in 
 very bad company. Are they all like that, all the men 
 of genius 'i There are a great many artists here who 
 hammer away at their trade with exemplary industry ; in 
 fact I am surprised 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. It is in the 
 matter of quantity that he has broken down. Nothing 
 comes out of the bottle ; he turns it upside down ; it's no 
 use ! 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 was concerned. But I keep thinking of 
 those two praying, trusting neighbours of yours, and I feel 
 uncommonly like a swindler. If his working mood came 
 on but once in five years I would willingly wait for it 
 and keep him on his legs somehow in the intervals ; but 
 that would be a sorry account to present to them ! Five 
 years of this sort of thing moreover would effectually settle 
 the question. I wish he were less of a genius and more 
 of a charlatan ! 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 personal 
 charm, his handsome head, his careless step, his look as 
 of a nervous nineteenth-century Apollo, and you will 
 
 N 2 
 
106 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 understand that there is mi^'hty little comfort in seeing 
 him go to the bad. He was tolerably foolish last summer 
 at Baden-Baden, but he got on his feet and for a while he 
 was steady. Then he began to waver again and at last 
 toppled over. Now, literally, he's lying prone ! He came 
 into my room last night miserably tipsy. I assure you it 
 didn't amuse me. . . . About Miss Light it's a long story. 
 She is one of the great beauties of all time, and worth 
 coming barefoot to Rome like the pilgrims of old to see. 
 Her complexion, her glance, her step, her dusky tresses, may 
 have been seen before in a goddess, but never in a woman. 
 And you may take this for truth, because I am not in love 
 with her. On the contrary ! Her education has been 
 simply infernal. She is corrupt, perverse, as proud as a 
 potentate, and a coquette of the first magnitude ; but she 
 is generous and intelligent, and if you set rightly to work 
 you may enlist her imagination in a good cause as well as 
 in a bad one. The other day I tried to bring it over to 
 my side. I happened to have some talk with her to which 
 it was 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, w^ith a single word, she 
 packed him off to Naples to drown his sorrow in debauchery. 
 I have come to the conclusion that she is more dangerous 
 in her virtuous moods than in her vicious ones, and that 
 she probably has a way of turning her back which is the 
 most provoking thing in the world. She is an actress, she 
 couldn't forego doing the thing dramatically, and it was the 
 dramatic touch that made it fatal. I wished her of course 
 to let him down easily ; but she desired to have the curtain 
 drop on an attitude, and her attitudes have the property 
 of depriving inflammable young artists of their reason. . . . 
 Roderick made an admirable bust of her at the beginning 
 of the winter, and a dozen women came rushing to him to 
 bS done, mutatis mutandis, in the same style. They were 
 all great ladies and ready to take him by the hand, but he 
 told them all their faces didn't interest him and sent them 
 away vowing his destruction." 
 
 At this stage of his long burst of confidence Rowland 
 had pau^ed and put by his letter. He kept it three days 
 and then read it over. He was disposed at first to destroy 
 
RODEKICK HUDSON. 197 
 
 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 these few lines — 
 
 " I unburdened myself the other day of this monstrous 
 load of perplexity ; I think it did me good, and I will let 
 it stand. I was in a melancholy muddle, and I was trying 
 to wriggle out of it. You know I like discussion in a 
 quiet way, and there is no one with whom I can have it 
 as quietly as with you, most sagacious of cousins ! There 
 is an excellent old lady with whom I often chat and who 
 talks very much to the point. But Madame Grandoni has 
 disliked Roderick 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 am half ashamed of my letter, for 
 I have a faith in my friend that is 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 of the ulti- 
 mate future seemed blasphemy. I walked back to his 
 lodging with him, and he was as mild as midsummer 
 moonlight. He has that ineffable something 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. Roderick sub- 
 mitted with extreme ill grace to being bored, and he was 
 now evidently in a state of high exasperation. (He had 
 lately begun a representation of a lazzarone lounging in 
 the sun ; an image of serene, irresponsible, sensuous life. 
 The real lazzarone, he had admi(tted, 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 
 unhurrying gaze to the figure. 
 
 ''Something in the style of the Dying Gladiator?" ho 
 sympathetically observed. 
 
198 KODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 " Oh no," said Roderick seriously, " he is not dying, he 
 is only drunk ! " 
 
 " Ah, but intoxication, you know," Mr. Leavenworth 
 rejoined, " is not a proper subject for sculpture. Sculpture 
 should not deal with transitory attitudes." 
 
 *' Lying dead drunk is not a transitory attitude ! 
 Nothing is more permanent, more sculpturesque, more 
 monumental ! " 
 
 " An entertaining paradox," said Mr. Leavenworth, " if 
 we had time to exercise our wits upon it. I remember at 
 Florence an intoxicated figure by Michael Angelo which 
 seemed to me a deplorable aberration of a great mind. 
 I myself touch licjuor 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. " I think 
 I will make a figure in that position." 
 
 "■ A Bacchus realistically treated ! My dear young 
 friend, never trille with your lofty mission. Spotless 
 marble should represent virtue, not vice ! " And Mr. 
 Leavenworth placidly waved his hand, as if to exercise 
 the spirit of levity, while his glance journeyed with 
 leisurely benignity to another object — a marble replica 
 of the bust of Christina. "An ideal head I presume," he 
 went on ; "a fanciful representation of one of the pagan 
 goddesses — a -Diana, a Flora, a naiad or dryad 1 I often 
 regret that our American artists should not boldly cast off 
 that extinct nomenclature." 
 
 " She is neither a naiad nor a dryad," said Roderick, 
 " and her name is as good as yours or mine." 
 
 " You call her — 1 " Mr. Leavenworth blandly inquired. 
 
 " Christina Light," Rowland interposed in charity. 
 
 " Ah. our great American beauty ! Not a pagan goddess 
 — an American, Christian lady ! Yes, I have had the 
 pleasure of conversing with Miss Light. Her conversa- 
 tional powers are not remarkable, but her beauty is of 
 a high 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, 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. 199 
 
 and others distinguished by similar titles. But for beauty- 
 grace and elegance my fair countrywoman left them all 
 nowhere. What woman can compare with a truly refined 
 American lady ? The duchesses the other night had no 
 attractions for my eyes ; they looked coarse 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 ! " Boderick murmured. 
 
 Mr. Leavenworth stared, as if this were unpatriotic ; 
 then he resumed, almost severely — " 1 suppose you have 
 heard the news about our fair countrywoman." 
 
 " What news 1 " Boderick had stood with his back turned, 
 fiercely poking at his lazzarone ; but at Mr. Leavenworth's 
 last words he faced quickly about. 
 
 " It'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 marriage from various 
 great lords. I was extremely happy to learn this circum- 
 stance, and to know that they all had been left sighing. 
 She has not been dazzled by their titles and their gilded 
 coronets. She has judged them simply as men, and found 
 them wanting. One of them however, a young Neapolitan 
 prince I believe, has after a long probation succeeded in 
 making himself acceptable. Miss Light has at last said 
 yes, and the engagement has just been announced. I am 
 not generally a reporter of the gossip of the passing hour, 
 but the fact was alluded to an hour ago by a lady with 
 whom I was conversing, and |here in Europe these conven- ^ 
 tional futilities usurp the lion's f^hare of one's attention."! 
 I therefore retained the circumstance in my mind. Yes, ^ 
 I regret that Miss Light should marry one of these used-up 
 foreigners. Americans should stand by each other. If 
 she wanted a brilliant match we could have organised it for 
 her. If she wanted a fine fellow — a fine sharp enterprising 
 modern man — I would have undertaken to find him for her 
 without going out of my native city — Columbus, Ohio. 
 And if she wanted a big fortune, I would have found her 
 twenty that she would have had hard work to spend; 
 
200 RODEPJCK HUDSON. 
 
 money down — not tied up in fever-stricken lands and worm- 
 eatenVillas ! What is the name of the young man 1 Prince 
 Castaway, 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 eloijuence 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," Mr. Leavenworth thought- 
 fully resumed, " is certainly a very degraded one in these 
 countries. I doubt whether a European princess can com- 
 mand the respect which in our country is exhibited towards 
 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 'i " 
 
 Though Mr. Leavenworth had not observed Roderick's 
 emotion it was not lost upon Rowland, who was making 
 sundry uncomfortable reflections upon it. He saw that 
 it had instantly become one with the acute irritation 
 produced by the poor gentleman's oppressive personality, 
 and that an explosion of some sort was imminent. Mr. 
 Leavenworth, with calm unconsciousness, proceeded to fire 
 the mine. 
 
 " And now for our Culture ! " he said in the same sonor- 
 ous tones, demanding with a gesture the unveiling of the 
 figure, which stood somewhat apart, mufiled in a great sheet, 
 
 Roderick stood looking at him for a moment with concen- 
 trated rancour, and then strode to the statue and twitched 
 off the cover. Mr. Leavenworth 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 forehead, however, 
 strikes me as not sufficiently intellectual. In the statue 
 of Culture, you know, that should be the great point. The 
 eye should instinctively seek the forehead. Couldn't you 
 elevate it a little 1 " 
 
 Roderick, for all answer, tossed the sheet back over the 
 statue. " Oblige me, sir," he said, " oblige me ! Never 
 mention that thing again." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 201 
 
 " Never mention it ? "Why, my dear sir " 
 
 " Never mention it. It's an abomination ! " 
 
 " An abomination 1 My Culture ! " 
 
 " Yours, indeed ! " cried Roderick. " It's none of mine. 
 I disown it." 
 
 "Disown it, if you please," said Mr. Leavenworth, 
 sternly, " but finish it first ! " 
 
 " I would rather smash it ! " cried Roderick. 
 
 " This is folly, sir. You must keep your engagements." 
 
 " I made no engagement. A sculptor isn't a tailor. Did 
 you ever hear of inspiration ? Mine is dead ! And it's 
 no laughing matter. You yourself killed it." 
 
 '' I — I — killed your inspiration 1 " cried Mr. Leavenworth, 
 with the accent of righteous wrath. " You are a very 
 ungrateful young man ! If ever I have been encouraging 
 to any one, I have been so to you ! " 
 
 " I appreciate your good intentions and I don't wish to 
 be uncivil. But your encouragement is — superfluous. I 
 can't work for you !• ' ' 
 
 " I call this ill-humour, my good sir ! " said Mr. Leaven- 
 worth, as if he had found the damning word. 
 
 '* Oh, I'm in an infernal humour ! " Roderick answered. 
 
 " Pray, sir, is it my inopportune allusion to Miss Light's 
 marriage 1 " 
 
 "It's your inopportune everything! I don't say that 
 to ofi^end you ; I beg your pardon if it does. I say it by 
 way of making our rupture complete, irretrievable ! " 
 
 Rowland had stood by in silence, but he now interfered. 
 "Listen to me," he said, laying his hand on Roderick's 
 arm. " You are standing on the edge of a gulf. If you 
 suffer this accident to put you out, you take your plunge. 
 It's no matter that you don't like your work ; you will do 
 the wisest thing you ever did if you make the effort of 
 will necessary for finishing it. Destroy the statue then, 
 if you like, but make the effort. I speak the truth ! " 
 
 Roderick looked at him with eyes that still inexorableness 
 made almost tender. " You, too 1 " he simply said. 
 
 Rowland felt that 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. Leavenworth had departed 
 
202 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 — presumably in a manner sufficiently majestic. Roderick 
 was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in 
 his hands. 
 
 Rowland made one more attempt. " You won't mind 
 me, eh ? " 
 
 " Be so good as not to mind me ! " 
 
 " There's one more point — that you shouldn't go to Mrs. 
 Light's for a month." 
 
 " I shall go there this evening." 
 
 " That too is an utter folly." 
 
 " There are such things as necessary follies." 
 
 " You are not reflecting ; you are speaking in passion." 
 
 ** Why then do you make me speak 1 " 
 
 Rowland meditated a moment. " Is it also necessary 
 that you should lose the beist friend you have % " 
 
 Roderick looked up. " That's for you to settle ! " 
 
 His best friend clapped on his hat and strode away ; in 
 a moment the door closed behind him. 
 
 XYI. 
 
 Rowland walked hard for a couple of hours. He passed 
 up the Corso, out of the Porta del Popolo and into the 
 Yilla Borghese, of which he made a complete circuit. The 
 keenness of his irritation subsided, but it left him with an 
 intolerable weight on his heart. When dusk had fallen he 
 found himself near the lodging of his friend Madame 
 Grandoni. He frequently paid her a visit during the hour 
 which preceded 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 ten minutes when he heard the jingle 
 of the door-bell and then a rustling and murmuring in the 
 hall. The door of the little parlour opened, but before 
 the visitor appeared he had recognised her voice. Christina 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 203 
 
 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 flickering firelight. 
 
 " They told me you were here," she said simply, as she 
 took a seat. 
 
 " And yet you came in 1 It is very brave," said Row- 
 land. 
 
 " You are the brave one when one thinks of it ! Where 
 is the padrona 'i " 
 
 " Occupied for the moment. But she is coming." 
 
 " How soon ? " 
 
 " I have already waited ten minutes ; I expect her from 
 moment to moment." 
 
 " Meanwhile, we are alone ? " And she glanced into the 
 dusky corners of the room. 
 
 " Unless Stenterello counts," said Rowland. 
 
 " Oh, he knows my secrets — unfortunate brute ! " She 
 sat silent awhile, looking into the firelight. Then at last, 
 glancing at Rowland, " Come ! say something pleasant ! " 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " I have been very happy to hear of your engage- 
 ment." 
 
 " No, 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 St. Cecilia's." 
 
 " I offended you then," said Rowland. " I was afraid 
 I had." 
 
 " Ah, it occurred to you 1 Why haven't I seen you 
 since 1 " 
 
 " Really I don't know." And he began to hesitate for 
 an explanation. " I have called — but you have never been 
 at home." 
 
 " You were careful to choose the wrong times. You havo 
 a way with a poor girl ! You sit down and inform her 
 that she is a person with whom a respectable young man 
 can't associate without contamination; your friend is a 
 very nice fellow, you are very careful of his morals, you 
 wish him to know none but nice people, and you beg me 
 therefore to desist. You request me to take these sugges- 
 tions' to heart and to act upon them as promptly as pos- 
 sible. They are not particularly flattering to my vanity. 
 
204 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Vanity however is a sin, and I listen submissively, 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. ' Voyons,' I say to myself, ' it isn't particularly 
 charming to hear oneself made out such a low person, but 
 it is worth thinking over ; there is 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 oneself. That is what 
 Saint Catherine did, and Saint Theresa, and all the others, 
 and they are 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 not be spiteful, nor passionate, 
 nor vengeful, nor anything that is supposed to be particu- 
 larly feminine. I was a better girl than you made out — 
 better at least than you thought ; but I would let the 
 difference 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 didn't seem to be thinking, and then at last 
 I did it ! Santo Dio ! " 
 
 " My dear Miss Light, my dear Miss Light 1 " said 
 Rowland pleadingly. 
 
 " Since then," the young girl went on, " I have been wait- 
 ing for the ineffable joys. They haven't yet turned up ! '' 
 
 " Pray listen to me ! " Rowland urged. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing, nothing has come of it. I have 
 passed the dreariest month of my life ! " 
 
 " You are a very terrible young woman ! " cried Rowland. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ^ " 
 
 " A good many things. We will talk them over. But, 
 first, forgive me if I have offended 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." 
 
 '' Really I don't understand ! " 
 
 Christina rose and moved for a moment about the room. 
 Then turning suddenly, " You don't believe in me ! " she 
 cried, " not a grain ! I don't know" what I would not give 
 to force you to believe in me ! " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 206 
 
 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. 
 " But you shall believe in me yet," murmured Christina as 
 she passed towards her hostess. 
 
 Madame Grandoni turned tenderly to Christina. " I 
 must give you a very solemn kiss, my dear ; you are the 
 heroine of the hour. You have 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 askance at 
 Kowland. 
 
 " That's a pretty state of mind," said the old lady, 
 " for a young person who is going to become a princess." 
 
 Christina shrugged her shoulders. " Every one expects 
 me to go into ecstasies over that ! Could anything be 
 more vulgar ? They may chuckle by themselves ! Will you 
 let me stay to dinner ] " 
 
 " If you can dine on a risotto. But I imagine you are 
 expected at home." 
 
 " You are right. Prince Casamassima dines there 
 enfamille. But I am not in his family yet ! " 
 
 " Do you know you are very wicked ? I have half a 
 mind not to keep you." 
 
 Christina dropped her eyes reflectively. " I beg you 
 will let me stay," she said. " If you wish to cure me of 
 my wickedness you must be very patient and kind with 
 me. It will be worth the trouble. You must show con- 
 fidence in me." And she gave another glance at Bowland. 
 Then suddenly, in a different tone, "I don't know what 
 I am saying i " she cried. " I am weary, I am 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 mulf ; but at last she burst into uncontrollable 
 sobs and flung her arms upon 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 sympathy with his mistress. 
 
20n RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Rowland vented liis confusion in dealing a rap with his 
 stick at the animal's unmelodious muzzle, and then rapidly 
 left the house. He saw Mrs. Light's carriage waiting at 
 the door, and heard afterwards that Christina went 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, incurably disgusted. 
 Reflective benevolence stood prudently aside, and for the 
 time touched the source of his irritation with no softening 
 side-lights. 
 
 It was the middle of March, and by the middle of 
 March in Florence the spring is already warm and deep. 
 He had an infinite relish for the place and the season, but 
 as he strolled by the Aruo and paused here and there in 
 the great galleries they failed to soothe his irritation. He 
 was sore at heart, and as the days went by the soreness 
 deepened rather than healed. He felt as if he had a 
 complaint against fortune ; good-natured as he was, his 
 good-nature this time quite declined to let it pass. He 
 had tried to be wise, he had tried to be kind, he had en- 
 gaged in an estimable enterprise; but his wisdom, his 
 kindness, his energy, had been thrown back in his face. 
 He was disappointed, and his disappointment had an angry 
 spark in it. 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 
 discontent. He went to the Pitti Palace, and Raphael's 
 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 mountains were divine, but there 
 seemed to be something horribly invidious and unwelcome 
 in the fact. He felt, in a word, like a man who has been 
 cruelly defrauded and who wishes to have his revenge. 
 Life owed him, he thought, a compensation, and he should 
 be restless and resentful until he found it. He knew — or 
 he seemed to know^ — where he should lind it ; but he hardly 
 told himself, and thought of the thing under mental pro- 
 test, as a man in want of money may think of certain funds 
 that he holds in trust. In his melancholy meditations the 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 207 
 
 idea of something better than all this, something that 
 might softly, richly interpose, something that might re- 
 concile him to the future, something that might make 
 one's tenure of life strong and zealous instead of mechani- 
 cal and uncertain — the idea of concrete compensation in 
 a word — shaped itself sooner or later into the image of 
 Mary Garland. 
 
 rVery 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 but the lightest of glimpses two years before ; 
 very odd that so deep an impression should have been made 
 by so lightly pressed an instrument. We must admit the 
 oddity, and remark simply in explanation that his senti- 
 ment apparently belonged to that species of emotion of 
 which by the testimony of the poets the very name and 
 essence are oddity. One night he slept but half an hour ; 
 he found his thoughts taking a turn which excited him 
 portentously. He walked up and down his room half the 
 night. It looked out on the Arno ; the noise of the river 
 came in at the open window; he felt like dressing and 
 going down into the streets. Towards morning he flung 
 himself into a chair ; though he was wide awake he was 
 less excited. It seemed to him that he saw his idea from 
 the outside, that he judged it and condemned it ; yet it 
 stood there before him, very distinct, and in a certain way 
 imperious. During the day he tried to banish it and for- 
 get it ; but it fascinated, haunted, at moments frightened 
 him. He tried to amuse himself, paid visits, resorted to 
 several violent devices for diverting his thoughts. If on 
 the morrow he had committed a crime, the persons whom 
 he had seen that day would have testified that he had 
 talked strangely and had not seemed like himself. He 
 felt certainly very unlike himself; long afterwards, in 
 retrospect, he used to reflect that during those days he 
 had for a while been literally beside himself. His idea 
 persisted ; it clung to him like a sturdy beggar. The 
 sense of the matter, roughly expressed, was this. ^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 descensus Averni. For forty-eight hours 
 there swam before Rowland's eyes a vision of Roderick, 
 graceful and beautiful as he passed, plunging like a diver 
 
208 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 into a misty gulf. The gulf was destruction, annihilation, 
 death ; but if death wore decreed, why should not the 
 agony be brief? Beyond this vision there faintly glimmered 
 another, as in the children's game of the magic lantern a 
 picture is superposed on the white wall before the last one 
 has tjuite 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 if one were present it was a charity 
 to lend a hand to pile up the fuel and make the flames do 
 their work tjuickly and the smoke muffle up the victim. 
 With all deference to your charity, this was perhaps an 
 obligation you would especially feel if you had a rever- 
 sionary interest in something the victim was to leave 
 behind him. 
 
 ' One morning in the midst of all this Rowland walked 
 heedlessly out of one of the city gates and found himself 
 on the road to FJBsole. It was a completely lovely day ; 
 the March sun felt like May, as the English poet of Florence 
 says ; the thick-blossomed shrubs and vines that hung over 
 the walls of villa and podere flung their odorous promise 
 into the warm still air. Rowland followed the winding 
 climbing 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 little square before the cathedral, 
 and rested awhile in the massive, dusky church ; then 
 climbed higher, to the Franciscan convent which is poised 
 on the very apex of the great hill. He rang at the little 
 gateway ; a shabby, senile, red-faced brother admitted him 
 with almost maudlin friendliness. There was a dreary chill 
 in the chapel and the corridors, 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 in it before, and he was very fond of it. 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 into the nakedly 
 romantic gorge beneath. It was just noon when Rowland 
 went in, and after roaming about awhile he flung himself 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. Aoo) 
 
 in the sun on 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, and yet he had not passed 
 back through the convent. One of the monks, in his faded 
 snuff-coloured robe, came wandering out into the garden, 
 reading his greasy little breviary. Suddenly he came 
 towards the bench on which Rowland had stretched 
 himself, and paused a moment attentively. Rowland was 
 lingering there still ; he was sitting with his head in his 
 hands and his elbows on his knees. He seemed not to have 
 heard the sandaled tread of the good brother, but as the 
 monk remained watching him he at last looked up. It was 
 not the ignoble old man who had admitted him, but a pale 
 gaunt personage, of a graver and more ascetic, and yet of a 
 benignant aspect. Rowland's face bore the traces of extreme 
 trouble. The frate kept his finger in his little book and 
 folded his arms picturesquely across his breast. It can 
 hardly be determined whether his attitude, as he bent his 
 sympathetic Italian eye upon Rowland, was a happy in- 
 cident or the result of an exquisite spiritual discernment. 
 To Rowland, at any rate, under the emotion of that 
 moment, it seemed blessedly opportune. He rose and 
 approached the monk, laying his hand on his arm. 
 
 " My brother," he said, " did you ever see the Devil % " 
 
 The fratQ gazed gravely and crossed himself. " Heaven 
 forbid ! " 
 
 " 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 Rowland stooped and 
 picked up his hat, which had rolled away into a bed of 
 cyclamen in vague symbolism of an actual physical tussle. 
 
 " You have been tempted, my brother % " asked the friar 
 tenderly, 
 
 "Hideously!'^ 
 
 '^ And you have resisted — and conquered I " 
 
 " I believe I have conquered." 
 
 " The blessed Saint Francis be praised ! It is well done. 
 If you like we will offer a mass for you." 
 
 " I am not a Catholic," said Rowland. 
 
 The frate smiled with dignity. " That is a reason the 
 more." 
 
 " Put it's for you then to choose. Shake hands with me," 
 
 
 
210 KODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 fraie crossed 
 himself, opened his book, and wandered away in relief 
 against the western sky. llowland passed back into the 
 convent and paused long enough in the chapel to look for 
 the alms-box. He had had what is vulgarly called a great 
 scare ; ho believed very poignantly for the time in the 
 Devil, and he felt an irresistible need to subscribe to any 
 institution which engaged to keep him at a distance. 
 ^ The next day he returned to Rome, and the day after 
 that he went in search of Roderick. He found him on the 
 Pincian, with his back turned to the crowd, looking at the 
 sunset. " I went to Florence," Rowland said, " and I 
 thought of going farther ; but I came back on purpose to 
 give you another piece of advice. Decidedly, you won't 
 leave Rome? " 
 
 " Never ! " said Roderick. 
 
 "The only chance that I see then of a revival of your 
 sense of responsibility to — to those various sacred things 
 you have 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 T ' 
 
 '• Tell me this ; I have often wondered, but till now 
 I have forborne to ask. You are still engaged to your 
 cousin % " 
 
 Roderick frowned darkly, but assented. 
 
 " Wouldn't it give you pleasure then to see her % " 
 
 Roderick turned away and for some moments answered 
 nothing. " Pleasure ! " ho said at last huskily. " Pain 
 will do as well I " 
 
 " I regard you as a sick man," Rowland continued. 
 " In such a case Miss Garland would say that her place is 
 at your side." 
 
 Roderick looked at liim some time askance, mistrust- 
 fully. " Is this a deep-laid snare 'i " he asked slowly. 
 
 Rowland had come back with all his patience rekindled, 
 but these words gave it an almost fatal chill. " Heaven 
 
 - \ 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 211 
 
 forgive you!" he cried bitterly. "My idea has been 
 simply this — try in decency to understand it. I have 
 tried to befriend you, to help you, to inspire you with 
 confidence, and I have failed. I took you from the hands 
 of your mother and that girl, 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 it to say 
 that one could never know how Roderick would take a 
 thing. It had happened more than once that when hit 
 hard deservedly he had received the blow with touching 
 gentleness. On the other hand he had often resented the 
 softest 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 reflect." 
 And he walked up and down awhile reflecting. At last he 
 stopped, with a look in his face that Rowland had not seen 
 all the winter. It was strikingly beautiful. 
 
 " How strange it is," he said, " that the simplest devices 
 are the last that occur to one ! " And he broke into a light 
 laugh. " To see Mary Garland is just what I want. And 
 my mother — my mother can't hurt me now ! " 
 
 " You will write then ? " 
 
 " I will telegraph. 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, informing 
 him that the two ladies were to sail immediately for 
 Leghorn in one of the small steamers which ply between 
 that port and New York. They would arrive therefore in 
 less than a month. Rowland passed this month of ex- 
 pectation in no very serene frame of mind. His suggestion 
 had had its source in the deepest places of his agitated 
 conscience; but there was something intolerable in the 
 thought of the suffering to which the event would pro- 
 bably subject those undefended women. They had scraped 
 together their scanty funds, and embarked at twenty-four 
 hours' notice upon the dreadful sea to journey tremulously 
 to shores darkened by the shadow of deeper alarms. He 
 could only promise himself to be their devoted friend and 
 servant. Preoccupied as he was he was able to observe 
 
 o 2 
 
212 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 that expectation, with Jloderic-k, took a form which seemed 
 singular even amcnig his characteristic singularities. If 
 redemption — Kodorick seemed to reason — was to arrive 
 with his mother and his athaneed bride, these last moments 
 of error should be doubly erratic. He did nothing ; but in- 
 action, with him, took on an unwonted air of gentle gaiety, 
 He laughed and whistled and went often to Mrs. Light's ; 
 though liowland failed to guess in what fashion present 
 circumstances had modified his relations with Christina. 
 The month ebbed away and Kowland daily expected to 
 hear from Roderick that he had gone to Leghorn to meet 
 the ship. He heard nothing, and late one evening, not 
 having seen his friend in three or four days, he stopped at 
 Koderick's lodging to assure himself that he had gone at 
 last. 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 coming 
 into collision. While he did so he heard another footstep 
 behind him, and turning round found that Roderick him- 
 self had just overtaken him. At the same moment a 
 woman's figure advanced from w^ithin, into the light of 
 the street-lamp, and a face, half startled, glanced at him 
 out of the darkness. He gave a cry — it was the face of 
 Mary Garland. Her glance flew past him to Roderick, 
 and in a second a startled exclamation broke from her 
 own lips. It made Rowland turn again. Roderick stood 
 there, pale, apparently trying to speak, but saying nothing. 
 His lips were parted, and he was wavering slightly with 
 a strange movement — the movement of a man who has 
 drunk too much. Then Rowland's eyes met Miss Gar- 
 land's again, and her own, which had rested a moment 
 on Roderick's, were formidable. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 213 
 
 XVII. 
 
 How it occurred that Roderick had failed to be at 
 Leghorn at the moment of his mother's arrival was never 
 clearly ascertained ; for he undertook to give no elaborate 
 explanation of his fault. He never indulged in professions 
 (touching personal 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 unprecedentedly 
 fine season the voyage of the two ladies had been surpris- 
 ingly 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 letting the 
 time slip, and it was accompanied with a silent inquiry 
 -- whether she had done so unconsciously or maliciously. He 
 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 young lady of mysterious impulses. 
 Rowland heard in due time the story of the adventures of 
 the two ladies from Northampton. Mary Garland's wish, at 
 Leghorn, on finding they were left to their o^vn devices, had 
 been to telegraph to Roderick and await an answer ; for she 
 knew that their arrival was a trifle premature. But Mrs. 
 Hudson's maternal heart had taken the alarm. Roderick's 
 sending for them was, to her imagination, a confession of 
 illness, and his not being at Leghorn, a proof of it ; an 
 hour's delay was therefore cruel both to herself and to 
 him. She insisted on immediate departure ; and, unskilled 
 as they were in the mysteries of foreign (or even of 
 domestic) travel, they had hurried in trembling eagerness 
 to Rome. They had arrived late in the evening, and 
 knowing nothing of inns had got into a cab and proceeded 
 to Roderick's lodgingo At the door poor Mrs. Hudson's 
 trepidation had overcome her and she had sat quaking and 
 
214 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 crying in the vehicle. Mary had bravely gone in, groped 
 her way up the dusky staircase, reached Koderick's door 
 and, with the assistance of such acquaintance with the 
 Italian tongue as she had culled from a phrase-book during 
 the calm hours of the voyage, had 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 with his hat on his ear per 
 divertirsi. 
 
 These things Rowland learned during a visit he paid the 
 two ladies the evening after their arrival. Mrs. Hudson 
 spoke of them at great length, and with an air of clinging 
 confidence in Rowland which told him that he was now 
 enshrined in her innermost favour. But her fright was 
 over, though she was still catching her breath a little, like 
 a person dragged ashore out of waters uncomfortably deep. 
 She was excessively bewildered and confused, and seemed 
 more than ever to demand a tender handling from her 
 friends. Before her companion Rowland was distinctly 
 -eoescious that he trembled. He wondered extremely what 
 was going on in this young lady's mind ; what was her 
 silent commentary on the incidents of the night before. 
 He wondered all the more because he immediately per- 
 ceived that she was now an altered woman and that the 
 ditt'erence was not an injury. She was older, easier, more 
 free, she had more of the manner of society. She had 
 more beauty as well, inasmuch as her beauty before had 
 been the quality of her expression, and the sources from 
 which this beauty was fed had in these two years evidently 
 not wasted themselves. Rowland felt almost instantly — 
 he could hardly have said why ; it was in her voice, in her 
 tone, in the air — that a total change had passed over her 
 attitude towards himself. She triiiited 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. 
 Rowland made the most of this dim illumination to try to 
 detect the afterglow of that frightened 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, seeing Roderick instantly perceive what had 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 215 
 
 happened, had given him a silent blessing. If Roderick 
 had been drinking, its gravity sobered him on the spot ; in 
 a single moment he collected his wits. The next moment, 
 with a ringing jovial cry, he was folding the young girl in 
 his arms, and the next he was beside his mother's carriage, 
 half smothered in her sobs and caresses. Rowland had 
 recommended an hotel close at hand and had then discreetly 
 retired. Koderick was at this time doing his part superbly, 
 and Mary Garland's brow was serene. It was serene now, 
 twenty-four hours later; but nevertheless her alarm had 
 lasted an appreciable moment. What had become of it 1 
 It had dropped down deep into her memory, and it was 
 lying there for the present in the shade. But from one 
 day to another, Rowland said to himself, it would hold up 
 its head — it would begin to watch and listen — it would 
 stand there confronting him. Meanwhile he made the 
 most of the hours — he passed them in the consciousness of 
 being near her. The two ladies had spent the day within 
 doors, resting from the fatigues of travel. The younger 
 traveller, Rowland suspected, was not so fatigued as she 
 suffered it to be assumed. She had remained with Mrs. 
 Hudson to attend to her personal wants, which the latter 
 seemed to think now that she was in a foreign land with a 
 southern climate and a Catholic religion would forthwith 
 become very complex and formidable, though as yet 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. 
 jBut the sense of novelty was evidently strong upon Mary, 
 and the light of expectation was in her eye. She was rest- 
 less and excited ; she moved about the room and went 
 often to the window; she was observing keenly; she 
 watched the Italian servants as they came and went ; she 
 had already had a long colloquy with the French chamber- 
 maid, who had expounded her views on the Roman question ; 
 she noted the small differences in the furniture, in the 
 cookery, in the sounds that came in from the street. Row- 
 land was sure that she observed to good purpose, that she 
 only needed opportunity, and that she would gather impres- 
 sions as thickly clustered as the purple bunches of a vintage. 
 He wished immensely he might have a hand in it ; he 
 wished he might show her Rome. That of course would 
 
216 KODEIiICK HUDSON. 
 
 be Roderick's oflSce. But he promised himself at least to 
 take advantage of off-hours. 
 
 "It behoves you to appreciate your good fortune," he 
 said to her. " To be young and elastic, and yet old enough 
 and wise enough to discriminate and reflect, and to come 
 to Italy for the hrst time — that is one of the greatest 
 pleasures that life has to offer us. It is but right to 
 remind you of it, so that you may make the most of 
 your chances and may not accuse yourself later of having 
 wasted the precious season." 
 
 Mary looked at him, smiling intently, and went to the 
 window again. " I expect to enjoy it," she said. " Don't 
 be afraid ; I am not wasteful." 
 
 " I am afraid we are not qualified, you know," said 
 Mrs. Hudson. " We are told that you must know so 
 much, that you must have read so many books. Our taste 
 has not been cultivated. When I was a young lady at 
 school I remember I had a medal Vith a pink ribbon for 
 ' proficiency in ancient history ' — the seven kings, or is it 
 the seven hills'? and Quintus Curtius and Julius Csesar, 
 and — and that period, you know. I believe I have my 
 medal somewhere in a drawer now, but I have forgotten 
 all about the kings. But after Roderick came to Italy wo 
 tried to learn something about it. Last winter Mary used 
 to read Corinne to me in the evenings, and in the mornings 
 she used to read another book to herself. What was it, 
 Mary, that book that was so long, you know — in fifteen 
 volumes ? " 
 
 " It was Sismondi's Italian Republics,'^ said Mary 
 simply. 
 
 Kowland could not help laughing ; whereupon Mary 
 blushed. "Did you finish it?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, and began another — a shorter one — Eoscoe's Leo 
 the Tenth.'' 
 
 " Did you find them interesting % " 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 "Do you like history?" 
 
 " Some of it." 
 
 " That's a woman's answer ! And do you like art ? " 
 
 She paused a moment. " I have never seen it ! " 
 
 " You have great advantages now, my dear, with 
 lioderick and Mr. Mallet," said Mrs. Hudson. *' I am 
 
RODERICK HUDSON- 217 
 
 sure no young lady ever had such advantages. You como 
 straight to the highest authorities. Roderick, I suppose, 
 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 about it." 
 
 " One learns a good deal about it here by simply living," 
 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 didn't see much 
 of it last evening as we drove from the station. But the 
 streets were so dark, and we were so frightened ! But we 
 ■are very easy now ; are we not, Mary 1 " 
 
 " I am very happy," said Mary gravely, wandering back 
 to the window again. 
 
 Roderick came in at this moment and kissed his mother, 
 and then went over and joined his betrothed. Rowland 
 sat with Mrs. Hudson, who evidently had a word which 
 she deemed of some value for his private ear. She followed 
 Roderick with intensely earnest eyes. 
 
 " I wish to tell you, sir," she said, " now very grateful 
 — how very thankful — what a happy mother I am ! I feel 
 as if I owed it all to you. To find my poor boy so hand- 
 some, so prosperous, so elegant, so famous — and ever to 
 have doubted of you ! What must you think of me 'i 
 You are our guardian angel, sir. I often say so to Mary." 
 
 Rowland wore in response to this speech a rather in- 
 scrutable countenance. He could only murmur that he 
 was glad she found Roderick looking well. He had of 
 course promptly asked himself whether it would be the 
 best policy just to give her a word of warning — turn the 
 handle of the door through which, later, disappointment 
 might enter. But he had determined to say nothing, and 
 simply to wait for Roderick to find effective inspiration in 
 those confidently expectant eyes. It was to be supposed 
 that he was seeking for it now ; he remained some time at 
 the window with his cousin. But at last he turned away 
 and came over to the fireside with a contraction of the 
 eyebrows which seemed to intimate that the young girl's, 
 influence was for the moment at least not soothing. She 
 presently followed him, and for an instant Rowland observed 
 
218 RODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 her watching him as if she thou^j^ht him strange. "Strange 
 enough," thought Rowhmd, " he may seem to her if he 
 will ! " Eoderick directed his glance to his friend with a 
 certain peremptory air whicli — roughly interpreted — was 
 equivalent to a re(|uest to share the intellectual expense 
 of entertaining the ladies. "Heaven help us!" Rowland 
 cried within himself ; " is he already tired of them 1 " 
 
 " To-morrow of course we must begin to put you through 
 the mill," Eoderick 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. Hudson. 
 " 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 is inexhaustible ; he has nothing under the 
 sun to do. Have you, Rowland? If you had seen the 
 big hole I have been making in it ! Where will you go 
 fir^? 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. ]\Iiss Garland, I hope you 
 are impatient to see Saint Peter's." 
 
 "I should like to go first to Roderick's studio," said 
 Miss Garland. 
 
 "It's a very nasty place," said Roderick. -'But do 
 what 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 what there is ! What makes you look so 
 odd 1 " 
 
 This inquiry 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 face," said Roderick. "What has 
 happened to it these two years ? It has changed its 
 expression." 
 
 "Your mother has prayed a great deal," said Mary, 
 simply. 
 
 " I didn't suppos of course it was from doing anything 
 bad ! It makes you a very good face — very interesting^ 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. .219 
 
 very solemn. It has very fine lines in it ; something 
 might be done with it." And Rowland 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 tiash all his old alacrity had come to him. " I 
 suppose a man may admire^his own mother !• " he cried. 
 "If you please, madam, you will sit to me for that head. 
 I see it, I see it ! I will 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 would probably do something 
 eminently original. She gave her promise at last after 
 many soft inarticulate protests and a frightened petition 
 that she might be allowed to keep her knitting. 
 
 Rowland returned the next day, with plenty of zeal for 
 the part Roderick had assigned to him. It had been 
 arranged that they should go to Saint Peter's. Roderick 
 was in high good-humour, and in the carriage was watching 
 his 'mother__with a fine mixture of filial and professional 
 interest. ^Irs. Hudson looked up mistrustfully at the tall 
 shabby ho uses, and grasped the side of the barouche in her 
 hand, as if she were in a sail-boat in dangerous waters. 
 Rowland sat opposite to Miss Garland. She was totally 
 oblivious of her companions ; from the moment the 
 carriage left the hotel she sat gazing wide-eyed and ab- 
 sorbed at the objects about them.*; If Rowland had felt 
 disposed he might have made a joke of her intense serious- 
 ness. 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 vast 
 yellow facade of the church. Inside the church Roderick 
 gave his arm to his mother, and Rowland constituted 
 himself the especial guide of the younger lady. He 
 walked with her slowly everywhere and made the entire 
 circuit, telling her all he knew of the history of the 
 building. This was a great deal, but she listened atten- 
 tively, keeping her eyes fixed on the dome. To Rowland 
 bimself it had never seemed so radiantly sublime as at 
 these moments; he felt almost as if he had designed it 
 
220 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Jiimself and had a ri^'ht to be proud of it. He left Mary 
 (jiarland a while on the stops of the choir, where she had 
 seated herself to rest, and went to join their companions. 
 Mrs. Hudson was watching a great circle of tattered 
 contadini, who were kneeling before the imago of Saint 
 Peter. The fashion of their tatters fascinated her ; sho 
 stood gazing at them in a sort of terrified pity, and could 
 not be induced to look at anything else. Rowland went 
 back to Mary and sat down beside her. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of Europe ? " he asked 
 smiling. 
 
 " I think it's dreadful I " she said abruptly. 
 
 " Dreadful ? " 
 
 " I feel so strangely — I could almost cry." 
 
 " How is it that you foel 1 " 
 
 " So sorry for the poor past, that seems to have died 
 here in my heart in an hour ! " 
 
 ".But, siirely, you are pleased — you are interested." 
 )" I am overwhelmed. Here in a single hour everything 
 is changed. It is as if a wall in my mind had been 
 knocked down at a stroke. Before me lies an immense 
 new world, and it makes the old one, the poor little 
 narrow familiar one I have always known, seem pitiful." 
 
 " But you didn't come to Rome to keep your eyes 
 fastened on that narrow little world. Forget it, turn 
 your back on it and enjoy all this." 
 
 " I want to enjoy it ; but as I sat here just now, looking 
 up at that golden mist in the dome, I seemed to sec in it 
 the vague shapes of certain people and things at home. 
 To enjoy, as you say, as these things demand of one to 
 enjoy them, is to break with one's past. And breaking 
 is a pain ! " 
 
 " Don't mind the pain, and it will cease to trouble you. 
 Enjoy ,^ enjoy ; it is your duty, i^ours especially ' " 
 
 " Why mine especially ? " 
 
 " Because I am very sure that you have a mind formed 
 to do justice to everything interesting and beautiful. You 
 are extremely intelligent." 
 
 " You don't know," said the girl simply. 
 
 " In that matter one feels. I really think that I know 
 better than you. I don't want to seem patronising, but 1 
 suspect that you are a capital subject for development. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 I " 
 
 " Change for the better ! " cried Rowland. 
 
 " How can one tell 1 As one stands one knows the 
 worst. It seems to me very frightful to develop," she 
 added, with her complete smile. 
 
 " 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 is better to take it by the hand." 
 
 " Is this what you call life 1 " she asked. 
 
 " What do you mean by ' this ' 1 " 
 
 " Saint Peter's — all this splendour, all Rome — pictures, 
 ruins, statues, beggars, monks." 
 
 "It is not all of it, but it is a large part of it. All these 
 things are impregnated with life ; they are the results of 
 an old and complex civilisation." 
 
 " An old and complex civilisation : I am afraid I don't 
 like that." ' 
 
 " Don't conclude on that point just yet. Wait till you 
 have tested it. While you wait you will see an immense 
 liumber of very beautiful things — things that you are 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 have a right to count upon it." , 
 
 Mary gazed awhile aloft into the dome. " I am not sure 
 T understand that," she said, nodding upward. 
 
 " I hope at least that at a cursory glance it pleases you," 
 said Rowland. " You needn't be afraid to tell the truth. 
 What strikes some people is that it is so remarkably 
 small." 
 
 " Oh, it's large enough ; it's very wonderful. There are 
 things in Rome then," she added in a moment, turning and 
 looking at him, " that are very, very beautiful ? " 
 
 " Lots of them." 
 
 " Some of the most beautiful things in the .vorld 1 " 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
 " What are they 1 which things have most beauty 1 " 
 
 " That is according to taste. I should say the antique 
 sculpture." 
 
< 
 
 222 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " How long will it take to seo 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 in the midst of 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 are to be an artist's wife." 
 
 " I have thought of that," she said. " It may be that 
 I shall always live here, among the most beautiful things 
 in the world ! " 
 
 " Very possibly ! I should like to see you ten years 
 hence." 
 
 " I dare say I shall seem greatly altered. But I am 
 sure of one thing." 
 
 "Of whatr' 
 
 " That for the most part I shall be quite the same. I 
 ask nothing better than to believe the fine things you say 
 about my understanding, but even if they are true it 
 won't matter. I shall be what I was made, what I am 
 now — a young woman from the country ! The fruit of a 
 civilisation not old and complex, but new and simple." 
 
 "1 am delighted to hear it ; that's an excellent basis." 
 
 " Perhaps if you show me anything more you will 
 grow rather tired of my basis. Therefore I warn 
 
 you." 
 
 " I am not frightened. I should like extremely to make 
 a request of you. Bo what you are, be what you choose ; 
 but do, sometimes, as I tell you." 
 
 If Rowland was not frightened, neither perhaps was his 
 companion ; but she seemed at least slightly disturbed. 
 She proposed that they should join the others. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson spoke under her breath ; she could not be 
 accused of the want of reverence sometimes attributed to 
 Protestants in tho 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 ISTorth- 
 ampton as bright at that ! I think it's so heathenish ; but 
 Roderick cays he thinks it's sublime." 
 
 Roderick had evidently, grown a trifle perverse. " It'sl 
 sublimer than anything that your religion asks you to do I " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 223 
 
 " 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 am speaking of ceremonies, of 
 forms. It is in my line, you know, to make much of forms. 
 I think this is a very beautiful one. Couldn't you do it 1 " 
 he demanded, looking at his cousin. 
 
 She looked back at him intently and then shook her 
 head. " I think not ! " 
 
 " Why not r' 
 
 '' I don't know ; I couldn't ! " 
 
 During this little discussion our four friends were 
 standing near the venerable image of Saint Peter, 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 he 
 is as good as any one ! And here is another. Oh, what 
 a beautiful person ! " 
 
 A young lady had approached the sacred effigy, after 
 having wandered away from a group of companions. She 
 kissed the brazen toe, touched it with her forehead, and 
 turned round facing our friends. Rowland then recognised 
 Christina Light. He was stupefied at this indication that 
 she had suddenly embraced the Catholic faith, for it was 
 but a few weeks before that she had treated him to a 
 passionate profession of indifference. Had she entered the 
 church to put herself en o^egle with what was expected of a 
 Princess Casamassima ? While Rowland was mentally 
 asking these questions she was approaching him and his 
 friends on her way to the great altar. At first she did 
 not perceive them. 
 
 Mary Garland had been gazing at 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 Roderick, but she 
 gave him no bow ; she looked at Mrs. Hudson, she looked 
 
224 KODEIIICK HUDSON. 
 
 at Mary Garland. At Mary Garland slie looked fixedly, 
 pijercin<;ly, frt)ni head to foot, the slow pace at which she 
 advancv^d' making it possil)le. Then suddenly, as if she 
 had perceived Koderick for the first time, she gave him a 
 charming nod, 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. 
 
 " Wily, Koderick know s her ! " cried Mrs. Hudson in an 
 awe-struck whisper. " I supposed she was some great 
 princess." 
 
 " She is — almost ! " said Kowland. " She is the most 
 beautiful girl in Europe, and Roderick has made lier 
 bust." 
 
 " Her bust 1 Dear, dear ! " murmured Mrs. Hudson, 
 vaguely shocked. " What a strange bonnet ! " 
 
 " She has very strange eyes," said Mary, turning 
 away. 
 
 The two ladies, with Eowland, began to descend towards 
 the door of the chui-ch. On their way they passed Mrs. 
 Light, the Cavaliere and the poodle, and Rowland informed 
 his companions of the relation in which these personages 
 stood to Rodericks young lady. 
 
 " Think of it, Mary ! " said Mrs. Hudson. What splendid 
 people he must know ! Ko wonder he found Northampton 
 dull ! " 
 
 " I like the sad little old gentleman," said Maryc 
 
 " Why do you call him sad ? " Rowland asked, struck 
 with the observation. 
 
 " He seems so ! " she answered simply. 
 
 As they Avere reaching the door they were overtaken by 
 Roderick, whose interview Avith Miss Light had perceptibly 
 brightened his eye. " So you are acquainted with prin- 
 cesses ? " said his mother softly as they passed into the 
 portico. 
 
 " Miss Light is not a princess ! " said Roderick curtly. 
 
 " But ]Mr. Mallet says so," urged Mrs. Hudson, rather 
 disappointed. 
 
 " I meant that she was going to be," said Rowland. 
 
 "It's by no means certain that she is even going to 
 be ! " Roderick answered. 
 
 " Ah," said Rowland. " I give it up ! " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 225 
 
 XVITI. 
 
 Roderick almost immediately demanded 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 in these days 
 had become too precious a commodity. 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 fatigued her, and she was glad to 
 purchase immunity from sight-seeing by a regular afternoon 
 drive. It became natural in this way that Mary Garland 
 having her mornings free, Rowland should propose to be 
 her cicerone. He could not find it in his heart to accuse 
 Roderick of neglect of a girl who was united to him by a 
 double bond, for it was natural that the inspirations of 
 a man of genius should be both capricious and imperious ; 
 but of course he wondered how Mary felt, as the young 
 man's promised wife, on being so summarily handed over 
 to another man to be entertained. However she felt, he 
 was certain he should learn very little about it. There 
 had been between them none but indirect allusions to her 
 intended 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 delightful aspect through the 
 lovely month of May, and the ineli'able charm of Rome at 
 that period seemed but the radiant sympathy of nature 
 with his happy opportunity. The weather was divine; 
 each particular morning, as he walked from his lodging to 
 Mrs. Hudson's modest inn, seemed to have a blessing upon 
 it. The elder lady had usually gone off to the studio, 
 and he found Mary sitting alone at the open window, turn- 
 ing the leaves of some book of artistic or antiquarian 
 reference that he had given her. She always had a smile, 
 she was always eager, alert, responsive. She might be 
 grave by nature, she might be sad by circumstance, she 
 
 P 
 
226 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 might have secret doubts aud pangs, but she was essentially 
 young and strong and fresh and able to enjoy. Her enjoy- 
 ment was not especially demonstrative, but it was curiously 
 diligent. Kowland felt that it was not amusement and 
 sensation that she coveted, but knowledge — 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 in 
 
 , her modest fashion at the moment ; but she 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 breathless at their side and begged 
 them for the secret. TRowland took a high satisfaction in 
 observing that she never mistook the second-best for the 
 best, and that when she was in the presence of a master- 
 
 \ piece she recognised the importance of the occasion. She 
 said many things which he thought very profound — that is 
 if they really had the fine intention he suspected. This 
 point he usually tried to ascertain ; but he was obliged to 
 proceed cautiously, for in her mistrustful shyness it seemed 
 to her that cross-examination must necessarily be ironical. 
 She wished to know just where she was going — what she 
 would 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 thought, for passing ideas 
 to drop in and out at their pleasure, but had made much 
 of a few long visits from guests cherished and honoured — 
 guests whose presence was a solemnity. ''"But it was even 
 more because Mary was conscious of assort of growing 
 ^elf-respect, a sense of devoting her life not to her own 
 ends, but to those of another whose life would be large 
 and brilliant. She had been brought up to think a great 
 deal of " nature " and nature's innocent laws ; but now 
 Rowland had talked to her ingeniously of culture; her 
 fresh imagination aad responded, and she was pursuing this 
 mysterious object into retreats where the need for some 
 intellectual effort gave her an air of charming tension. 
 She wished to be very sure, to take only the best, knowing 
 it to be the best. There was something exquisite in her 
 pious desire to improve herself, and Rowland encouraged 
 it none the less that its fruits were not for him. In spite 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 227 
 
 of h(3r lurking rigidity and angularity it was very evident 
 that she had a native sense of beauty which only asked to 
 become pliable, and in which already at moments she lost 
 herself delightedly. For all that she was not demonstrative, 
 that her manner was simple and her small-talk of no very 
 ample flow ; for all that, as she has said, she was a young 
 woman from the country, and the country was "West Naza- 
 reth, and West Nazareth was in its way a stubborn little 
 fact, she was feeling the direct influence of the great 
 amenities of the world, and they were shaping her with 
 a divinely intelligent touch, i" Oh, exquisite virtue of 
 circumstance ! " cried Rowland to himself, " 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 unappreciated faculties!" When he said 
 to Mary Garland that he wished he might see her ten 
 years hence, he was paying mentally an equal compliment 
 to circumstance and to the girl herself. Capacity was 
 there, it could be freely trusted ; observation would have 
 but to sow its generous seed. " A superior woman " — the 
 idea had harsh associations, but he watched it imaging 
 itself in the vagueness of the future with a kind of 
 hopeless confidence. 
 
 \They went a great deal to Saint Peter's, and Mary con- 
 fessed very speedily that to climb the long low yellow 
 steps, beneath the huge florid fagade, and then, pushing the 
 ponderous leathern apron of the door, find oneself a mere 
 sentient point in that brilliant immensity, was a sen- 
 sation of which the keenness never failed to renew itself fj 
 In those days the hospitality of the Vatican 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 Rowland had with his companion 
 a great deal of talk, and found himself expounding sesthe- 
 tics a perte de vue. He discovered that she made notes 
 of her likes and dislikes in a new-looking little memoran- 
 dum book, and he wondered to what extent she reported 
 his own discourse. These were charming hours. The 
 galleries had been so cold all winter that Rowland bad 
 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 marble 
 
 p 2 
 
228 TIODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 coolness of the long image-bordered vistas made them a 
 delightful refnge. The great herd of tourists had almost 
 departed, and our two friends often found themselves for 
 half an hour at a time in solo and tranquil possession 
 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 some- 
 times 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 statues. Once, 
 when they were standing before that noblest of sculptured 
 portraits, the so-called Demosthenes, in the Braccio Nuovo, 
 she made the only spontaneous allusion to her plighted 
 faith that had yet fallen from her lips. " I am so 
 glad," she said, " that Roderick is a sculptor and not 
 a painter." 
 
 The allusion resided almost exclusively in the extreme 
 earnestness with which the words were uttered. Rowland 
 asked her the reason of her gladness. 
 
 " It's not that painting is not fine," she said, " but that 
 sculpture is finer. It is more manly ! " 
 
 Rowland tried at times to make her talk about herself, 
 but in this she had little skill. She seemed to him so 
 much older, so much more pliant to social uses than when 
 he had seen her at home, that he wished to make her tell 
 him what she had been doing all those two years. He 
 began by telling her that she was very different. " It 
 appears, then," she said, " that after all one can grow in 
 America ! " 
 
 " Unquestionably, if one has a motive. Your growth 
 then was unconscious ? You did not watch yourself and 
 water your roots 1 " 
 
 She paid no heed to his question. " I am willing to 
 grant," she said, " that Europe is more delightful than 
 I supposed ; and I don't admit that I had thought meanly 
 of its charms. But you must admit that America is better 
 than you had supposed." 
 
 "I have not a fault to find with the country which 
 produced you ! " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 229 
 
 " And yet you want me to change— to assimilate Europe 
 I suppose you would call it." 
 
 "I have felt that desire only on general principles. 
 Shall I tell you what I feel now ) America has made you 
 thus far ; let America finish you ! I should like to ship 
 you back without delay and see what becomes of you. 
 That sounds uncivil, and I admit there is a cold intellectual 
 curiosity in it." 
 
 She shook her head. " The charm is broken ; the thread 
 is snapped ! I prefer to remain here." 
 
 Invariably, when he was inclined to make of something 
 they were talking of a direct application to herself, she 
 wholly failed to assist him ; she made no response. 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 satisfaction she denied him, and his only revenge was 
 in making, two or three times afterwards, a softly ironical 
 allusion to what he called by way of jocosity her slyness. 
 He told her that she was what is termed in French a 
 sournoise. " Yery good," she answered, almost indifferently, 
 " and now please tell me again — I have forgotten it^ — what 
 you said an ^architrave ' was." 
 
 It was on the occasion of her asking him a question of 
 this kind that he charged her — still by way of jocosity, 
 but in a tone in which, if she had been curious in the 
 matter, she might have detected a spark of restless ardour 
 — with having an insatiable avidity for facts. " You are 
 always snatching at information," he said ; " you will 
 never consent to have any disinterested conversation." 
 
 She frowned a little, as she always did when he arrested 
 their talk upon something personal. But this time she 
 assented, and said that she knew she was eager for 
 facts. "One must make hay while the sun shines," she 
 added. " I must lay up a store of learning against dark 
 days. After all, I can't believe that I shall be always 
 in Rome." 
 
 He knew he had divined her real motive ; but he felt 
 that if he might have said to her — what it seemed im- 
 possible to say — that fortune possibly had a bitter dis- 
 appointment in store for her, she would have been capable 
 
280 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 of answerinf^ immediately after the first sense of pain, 
 " Say then that I am laying up resources for solitude ! " 
 
 But all the accusations were not his own. He had been 
 waiting once while they talked — they were dili'ering 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 apprehension that she was dry or pedantic. The 
 simple human truth was that the poor fellow was jeaiesus 
 of..ficJLgnce. In preaching science to her he had over-esti- 
 mated his powers of self-effacement. Suddenly, sinking 
 science for the moment, she looked at him very frankly and 
 began to frown. At the same time she let the Murray 
 slide down to the ground, and he was so charmed with 
 this circumstance that he made no movement to pick it 
 up. 
 
 " You are uncommonly inconsistent, Mr. Mallet,' she 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, nothing is more common' than inconsistency." 
 
 " Not of your elaborate kind. That first day that 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 helping me 
 to swim, you stand on the shore — the shore of superior 
 information — and fling pebbles at me ! " 
 
 " Pebbles, my dear young lady ? They are life-preservers ! 
 I must have played my part very ill." 
 
 " Your part 1 What is your part supposed to have 
 beenr' 
 
 He hesitated a moment. "That of usefulness pure and 
 simple." 
 
 " I don't understand you ! " she said ; and picking up 
 her Murray she fairly buried her nose in it. 
 
 That evening he said something to her which she perhaps 
 understood as little. " Do you rememlier my begging you 
 the other day to do occasionally as I told you ? It seemed 
 to me you tacitly consented." 
 
 " Very tacitly I " 
 
 " I have never yet really presumed on your consent. 
 ."But now I should like you to do this : whenever you catch 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 231 
 
 me in tlie 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 ! " 
 
 fOne morning they spent among the ruins of the Palatine, 
 that sunny desolation of crumbling overtangled 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 
 flowering almond-tree and admire the composition of the 
 Campagna. 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 her Hurray lie 
 unopened for an hour, and asked several questions which 
 had no connection with the Consuls and the 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 
 a little pale. 
 
 " Everything," she said, " seems to say that all things 
 are vanity. If one is doing something I suppose one feels 
 a certain strength within one to say otherwise. But if 
 one is idle, surely it is 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 tg-ke refuge in some practical 
 occupation." 
 
 " What occupation ? " 
 
 " I would open a school for those beautiful little beggars ; 
 though I am sadly afraid I should never bring myself to 
 scold them." 
 
 " I have no practical occupation," said Rowland, " and 
 yet I have kept up a certain spirit." 
 
 " I don't call you unoccupied." 
 
 " It is 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 ? " 
 
232 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " I think I may say that it has turned out as well as 
 I expected." 
 
 '' Are you ha})py 1 " 
 
 "Don't I look so?" 
 
 *' So it seems to me. But " — and she hesitated a 
 moment — " I imagine you look happy whether you are so 
 or not." 
 
 " I am like that ancient comic mask that we saw just 
 now in yonder excavated fresco ; I am made to grin." 
 
 " Shall you come back here next winter ? " 
 
 " Very probably." 
 
 " Are you settled here for ever 1 " 
 
 *' ' For ever' is a long time. I live only from year to 
 year." 
 
 " Shall you never marry 1 " 
 
 Rowland gave a laugh. " ' For ever ' — ' never ! ' You 
 handle large ideas. I have not taken a vow of celibacy." 
 
 " Shouldn't you like to marry 1 " 
 
 " I should like it immensely." 
 
 To this she made no rejoinder ; but presently she asked, 
 " Why don't you write a book 1 " 
 
 Rowland laughed — this time more freely. " A book ! 
 What book should I write 1 " 
 
 " A history ; something about art or antiquities." 
 y " I have neither the learning nor the talent." 
 
 She made no attempt to contradict him; she simply 
 said she had supposed otherwise. " You ought at any 
 rate," she continued in a moment, " to do something 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 have 
 lived — a great deal for ws." 
 
 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 reflections, 
 speaking with due solemnity. " You ought to be made to 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 233 
 
 know very well what we all feel. Mrs. Hudson tells me 
 that she has told you what she feels. Of course Roderick 
 has expressed himself. I have been wanting to thank you 
 too ; I do, from my heart." 
 
 Rowland made no answer ; his face at this moment 
 resembled the tragic mask much more than the comic. 
 But Mary was not looking at him ; she had taken up her 
 eternal Murray. 
 
 In the afternoon she usually drove with Mrs. Hudson, 
 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 pre- 
 sent 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 Row- 
 land's vision, as the weeks elapsed, the benefits to proceed 
 from the presence of the two ladies remained shrouded in 
 mystery. Roderick was peculiarly inscrutable. He was 
 preoccupied with his work 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 did not of necessity imply 
 disaffection, for he evidently found it a deep personal 
 luxury to lounge away the hours in an atmosphere so 
 charged with feminine tenderness. He was not alert, he 
 suggested nothing in the way of excursions (Rowland was 
 the prime mover in such as were attempted), but he con- 
 formed passively at least to the tranquil temper of the 
 two women and made no harsh comments nor sombre 
 allusions. Rowland wondered whether he had after all 
 done his 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 ; wherever 
 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 
 
234 RODERICK HUDSOK. 
 
 it has so long been afraid to toiieh is an inanimate terror 
 compounded of straw and saw-dust, and that it is even a 
 safe audacity to tickle its nose. As to whether the love- 
 knot of whicli Mary Garland had the keeping still held 
 firm, who should pronounce 1 The young girl, as we know, 
 did not wear it on her sleeve. She always sat at the 
 table, near the candles, with a 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 it was not the least becoming. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 There occurred at last a couple of days during which 
 Rowland was unable to go to the hotel. Late in the 
 evening of the second Roderick came into his room. In 
 a few moments he announced that he had finished the bust 
 of his mother 
 
 "And it's magnificent " he declared. "It's one of 
 the best things I have done." 
 
 "I am delighted to hear it," said Rowland. "Never 
 again talk to me about your inspiration being dead." 
 
 " Why not 1 This may be its last kick ! I feel very 
 tired. But it's a masterpiece, though I do say it. They 
 tell us we owe so much to our parents. Well, I have paid 
 the filial debt handsomely ! " He walked up and down 
 the room a few moments, with the purpose of his visit 
 evidently still hanging 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 Rowland with his head 
 high and his brilliant glance unclouded. " Your invention 
 is 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 fancied that Roderick had no more 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 235 
 
 surprises for him ; but he was now staring at him 
 wide-eyed. 
 
 " They bore me ! " Roderick went on. 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " cried Rowland. 
 
 " Listen, listen 1 " said Roderick with perfect gentleness. 
 " I am not complaining of them ; I am simply stating 
 a fact. I am very sorry for them; I am greatly dis- 
 appointed." 
 
 " Have you given them a fair trial 1 " 
 
 " Shouldn't you say so ? It seems to me I have behaved 
 beautifully." 
 
 " You have done very well ; I have been building great 
 hopes on it." 
 
 " I have done too well then. 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 1 
 Another week of it and I shall begin to hate them. I 
 shall want to poison them." 
 
 " Miserable boy ! " cried Rowland. '^ They are the most 
 perfect of women ! " 
 
 " Yery likely ! But t-hey mean no more to me than & 
 Bible text means to an atheist ! " 
 
 " I can say this," said Rowland in a moment. " I don't 
 pretend to understand the state of your relations with 
 Miss Garland." 
 
 Roderick shrugged his shoulders and let his hands drop 
 at his sides. " She adores me ! That's the state of my 
 relations." And he smiled strangely. 
 
 " Have you broken off your engagement V 
 
 " Broken it off 1 You can't break a ray of moonshine." 
 
 " Have you absolutely no affection for her 1" 
 
 Roderick placed his hand on his heart and held it there 
 a moment. " Dead — dead — dead ! " he said at last. 
 
 " I wonder," Rowland observed presently, " if you really 
 know what a charming girl she is. She's an awfully 
 charming girl." 
 
 " Evidently— or I should not have cared for her ! " 
 
 " Don't you care for her now then ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't force a fellow to say rude things ! " 
 
 '' Well, I canhonly say that you don't know what you 
 are giving up." 
 
236 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Roderick gave a quickened glance. *' Do you know so 
 well?" 
 
 " You must admit that you have allowed me time to 
 find out ! " 
 
 Koderick smiled, I may almost say sympathetically. 
 " Well, you haven't wasted it ! " 
 
 Rowland's thoui^hts 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 presump- 
 tion to make it possi])le. Rowland tried to summon 
 presumption to his aid ; but whether it should come or not 
 it was to find conscience there before it. Conscience had 
 only three words, but they were cogent. " For her sake 
 — for her sake," it dumbly murmured, and Rowland re- 
 sumed his argument. " I don't know what I wouldn't 
 do," he said, " rather than that JVIiss Garland should be 
 ill-used." 
 
 " There is one thing to be said," Roderick answered 
 reflectively. '' She is very strong." 
 
 "Well then, if she's strong, believe that with a longer 
 chance, a better chance, she will still regain your aftec- 
 tion." 
 
 " Do you know what you ask \ " cried Roderick. '' Make 
 love to a girl I hate? " 
 
 " You hate ? " 
 
 " As her lover I should hate her ! Do you really urge 
 my marrying a woman who would bore me to death ? I 
 shouldn't be long in letting her know it, and then pray 
 where would she be ? " Roderick asked impatiently. 
 
 Rowland walked the length of the room a couple of 
 times and then stopped suddenly. " Go your way then ! 
 Say all this to her, not to me ! " 
 
 " To her % I am afraid of her ; I want you to 
 help me." 
 
 "My dear Roderick," said Rowland with an eloquent 
 smile, " I can't help you any more ! " 
 
 Roderick frowned, hesitated a moment, and then took 
 his hat. " Oh well," he said, " I am not so afraid of her 
 as all that ! " And he turned as if to depart. 
 
 " Sto]) ! '' cried Rowland, as he laid his hand on the 
 door. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 237 
 
 Roderick paused and stood waiting with his irritated 
 brow. 
 
 " Come back ; sit down there and listen to me. 
 Of anything you say in your present state of mind 
 you will live most 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, under these circumstances. You are blind, you 
 are deaf, you are 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 
 instantly." 
 
 " And where shall I go '? " 
 
 "Go to some place where you may be alone with your 
 mother and your cousin." 
 
 " Alone ? You will not come 1 " 
 
 " Oh, if you wish it I will come." 
 
 Roderick, inclining his head a little, looked at his friend 
 askance. " I don't understand you," he said ; " I wish you 
 liked Mary either a little less or a little more." 
 
 Rowland felt himself colouring, but he paid no heed to 
 this speech. " You ask me to help you,'' he went on. " On 
 these present terms I can do nothing. But if you will be 
 perfectly quiet with regard to Miss Garland for a couple 
 of months, and meanwhile leave Rome, leave Italy, I will 
 do what I can to * help you,' as you say, in the event of 
 your still wishing to be liberated." 
 
 " I must do without your help then ! Your terms 
 are impossible. I will leave Rome at the time I have 
 always intended — at the end of June. My rooms and my 
 mother's are taken till then ; all my arrangements are 
 made accordingly. Then I will go — not before." 
 
 " You are not frank," said Rowland. " Your real reason 
 for staying has nothing to do with your rooms." 
 
 Roderick's face betrayed neither embarrassment nor 
 resentment. " If I am not frank, 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 are right, I have a motive. On the 
 twenty-fourth of June, Christina Light is to be married. ^ 
 
238 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 I take an immense interest in all that concerns her, and 
 I wish to be present at her marriage." 
 
 " But you said the other day at Saint Peter's that it 
 was by no means certain it would take place." 
 
 " Apparently I was wrong ; I am told that the invitations 
 are going out." 
 
 Rowland felt that it would bo vain to remonstrate, and 
 that the only thing for him was to make the best bargain 
 possible. " If I offer no farther opposition to your waiting 
 for Christina's marriage," he said, " will you promise, mean- 
 while and afterwards, for a certain period, to defer to my 
 judgment — to say or do nothing that may give the alarm 
 to Miss Garland '] " 
 
 " For a certain period 1 What period ? " Roderick 
 demanded. 
 
 " Ah, don't screw me down so ! Don't you understand 
 that I have taken you away from her, that I suffer in 
 every nerve in consequence, and that I must do what I 
 can to give you back 1 ' ' 
 
 " Do what you can then," said Roderick, putting out his 
 hand. " Do what you can ! " His tone and his hand- shake 
 seemed to constitute a promise, and upon this they parted. 
 
 Roderick's bust of his mother, whether or no it were a 
 discharge of what he called the filial debt, was at least an 
 admirable production. Rowland at the time it was finished 
 met Gloriani one evening, and this unscrupulous genius 
 immediately began to ask questions about it. " I am told 
 our high-flying friend has come down," he said. " He has 
 been doing a queer little old woman." 
 
 " A queer little old woman ! " Rowland exclaimed. " My 
 dear sir, she is Hudson's mother." 
 
 " All the more reason for her being queer ! It is a bust 
 for terra-cotta, eh ? " 
 
 " By no means ; it is for marble." 
 
 " That's a pity. It was described to me as a charming 
 piece of quaintness : a little demure, thin-lipped old lady, 
 with her head on one side and the pretties't wrinkles in 
 the world — a sort of fairy godmother." 
 
 " Go and see it, and judge for yourself," said Rowland. 
 
 " No, I see I shall be disappointed. It's quite the other 
 thing, the sort of thing they put into the campo-santos. I 
 wish that crazy boy would listen to me for ten minutes ! " 
 
RODERICK PIUDSON. 289 
 
 But a day or two later Rowland met him again in tlie 
 street, and, as they were near, proposed they should 
 adjourn to Roderick's studio. He consented, and on enter- 
 ing they found the young master. Roderick's demeanour 
 to Gloriani was never conciliatory, and on this occasion 
 blank indifference was apparently all he had to offer. But 
 Gloriani, like a genuine connoisseur, cared nothing for 
 his manners ; he cared only for his skill. In the bust of 
 Mrs. Hudson there was something almost touching ; it was 
 an exquisite example of a ruling sense of beauty. The poor 
 lady's small neat timorous face had certainly no great 
 character, but Roderick had produced its sweetness, its 
 mildness, its minuteness, its still maternal passion, with the 
 most unerring art. The thing was perfectly unflattered 
 and yet admirably tender; it was the poetry of fidelity. 
 Gloriani stood looking at it a long time intently. Roderick 
 wandered away into the neighbouring room. 
 
 " I give it up ! " said the sculptor at last. " I don't 
 understand it." 
 
 " But you like it ^ " said Rowland. 
 
 " Like it 1 It's a pearl of pearls. Tell me this," he 
 added ; " is he very fond of his mother — is he a very 
 good son 1 " And he gave Rowland a sharp look. 
 
 " Why, she adores him," said Rowland, smiling. 
 
 " That's not an answer ! But it's none of my business. 
 Only if I, in his place, being suspected of having — what 
 shall I call it 1 — a cold heart, managed to do that piece of 
 work, oh, oh ! I should be called a pretty lot of names. 
 Charlatan, poseur, arrangeur ! But he can do as he chooses ! 
 My dear young man, I know yoa don't like me," he went 
 on as Roderick came back. " It's a pity ; you are strong 
 enough not to care about me at all. You are very 
 strong." 
 
 "Not at all," said Roderick curtly. "I am very 
 weak ! " 
 
 " I told you last year that you wouldn't keep it up. 
 I was a great ass. You will ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon — I won't ! " retorted Roderick. 
 
 " 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, 
 but I should like to say now that I believe in you." 
 
240 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Roderick stood looking at him for a moment with a 
 strange hardness in his face. It flushed slowly, and two 
 glittering angry tears filled his eyes. It was the first time 
 Rowland had ever seen them there ; he saw them but once 
 again. Poor Gloriani, he was sure, had never in his life 
 spoken with less of the mocking spirit ; but to Roderick 
 there was evidently a touch of sarcasm in his profession of 
 faith. He turned away, muttering a passionate impreca- 
 tion. Gloriani was accustomed to deal with complex pro- 
 blems, but this time he was hopelessly puzzled. " What's 
 the matter with him 1 " he asked simply. 
 
 Rowland gave a sad smile and touched his forehead. 
 '* Genius, I suppose." 
 
 Gloriani sent another parting, lingering look at the 
 bust of Mrs. Hudson. "Well, it's deuced perfect, it's 
 deuced simple ; I do believe in him ! " he said. " But I 
 am glad I am not a genius. It makes," he added 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 temporary 
 tranquillity for Mary Garland ; but his own humour in 
 these days was not especially peaceful. He was attempting 
 in a certain sense to lead the ideal life, and he found it at 
 the least not easy. The days passed, but brought with 
 them no ofiicial- invitation to Christina Light's wedding. 
 He occasionally met her, and he occasionally met Prince 
 Casamassima; but the two were always se^mrate ; they 
 were apparently taking their happiness in the inexpressive 
 and isolated manner proper to peoj^le of social eminence. 
 Rov^land continued to see Madame Grandoni, for whom he 
 felt a contirmed esteem. He had always talked to her 
 with frankness, but now he made her a confidant of all 
 his hidden dejection. Roderick and Roderick's concerns 
 had been a common theme with him, and it was in the 
 natural course to talk of Mrs. Hudson's arrival and Mary 
 Garland's fine smile. Madame Grandoni was an intelligent 
 listener, and she lost no time in putting his case for him 
 in a nutshell. "At one moment you tell me the girl is 
 plain," she said ; " the next you tell me she is pretty. I 
 will invite them, and I shall see for myself. But one 
 thing is very clear ; you are in love with her ! '' 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 241 
 
 Kowland for all answer glanced round to see that no 
 one heard her. 
 
 "More than that," she added, "you have been in lovo 
 with her these two years. There was that certain some- 
 thing about you !....! knew you were of what wo 
 Germans call a subjective turn of mind ; but you had 
 a touch of it more than was natural. Why didn't you 
 tell me at once 1 You would have saved me a groat deal 
 of trouble. And poor Augusta Blanch ard too ! " And 
 herewith. Madame Grandoni communicated a pertinent 
 fact : Augusta 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. 
 Rowland, who had been lately reproaching himself with 
 a failure of attention to Miss Blanchard 's doings, made 
 some such observation. 
 
 " But you did not nnd it so ! " cried his hostess. " 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 
 vv^as not a matter of course — or it needn't have been — that 
 she should be willing to become a sort of superior table- 
 ornament. She would have accepted you if you had 
 tried." 
 
 "You are supposing the insupposable," said Rowland. 
 " She never gave me a particle of encouragement." 
 
 " What would you have had her do ? The poor girl 
 did her best, and I am sure that when she accepted 
 Mr. Leavenworth she thought of you." 
 
 " She thought of the pleasure her marriage would give 
 me." 
 
 " Ay, pleasure indeed ! She is a thoroughly good girl, 
 but she has her little grain of feminine spite, as well as 
 the rest. Well, he is 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? — jNIiss Garland. 
 If I like her I will forgive you ; if I don't I shall always 
 bear you a grudge." 
 
 Rowland answered that he was sorry to forfeit any 
 advantage she might offer him, but that his exculpatory 
 
242 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 passion for Miss Garland was a figment of her fancy. 
 Miss Garland was engaged to another man— he himself 
 had no claims. 
 
 '' Well, then," said Madame Grandoni, " if I like her we 
 will have it that you ouglit to he in love with her. If you 
 fail in this it will be a double misdemeanour. The man 
 she has acce[)ted doesn't care a straw for her. Leave me 
 alone and I will tell her what I think of the man she 
 hasn't ! " 
 
 As to Christina Light's marriage Madame Grandoni 
 could say nothing positive. The young girl of late had 
 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 not pretend to treat as a solemnity. It 
 was for Prince Casamassima to do that. " It is what they 
 call a marriage of reason," she once said. "That meano 
 you know a marriage of madness ! " 
 
 " What have you said in the way of advice ] " Kowland 
 said. 
 
 " 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. But the marriage in 
 itself is an excellent marriage. It's not only brilliant, but 
 it's safe. I think Christina is quite capable of making it 
 a means of misery ; but there is no position that would be 
 sacred to her. Casamassima is an irreproachable young 
 man ; there is nothing against him but that he is a prince. 
 It is not often, I fancy, that a prince 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 are in a dreadful 
 fright about the fever, but they are dying to see the 
 wedding, and if the day were fixed, they would make their 
 arrangements to wait for it. I think it very passible 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, with simply the legal witnesses." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 243 
 
 " It is true, then, that she has become a Catholic ? " 
 
 " So she tells me. One day she got up in the depths of 
 despair ; at her wits' end, I suppose, in other words, for a 
 new sensation. Suddenly it occurred to her that the 
 Catholic Church might after all hold the key — might give 
 her what she wanted ; she sent for a priest ; he happened to 
 be a clever man and he contrived to interest her. She put 
 on a black dress and a black veil, and, looking handsomer 
 than ever, she rustled into the Catholic church. The 
 Prince, who is very devout and who had her heresy sorely 
 on his conscience, was thrown into an ecstasy. May she 
 never have a caprice that pleases him less ! " 
 
 Rowland had already asked Madame Grandoni what to 
 her perception was the present state of matters between 
 Christina and Roderick ; and he now repeated his question 
 with some earnestness of apprehension. "The girl is so 
 deucedly dramatic," he said, " that I don't know what coup 
 de thedtre she may have in store for us. Such a stroke was 
 her turning Catholic ; such a stroke would be her some 
 day making her curtsey to a disappointed world as Princess 
 Casamassima, married enfamille. She might do— she may 
 do — something that would make even more starers ! I am 
 prepared for anything."^ 
 
 " You mean that she might run away with your sculptor, 
 eh ?" 
 
 " I am prepared for anything ! " 
 
 " Do you mean that he's ready % ' 
 
 " Do you think that she is % " 
 
 " They're a precious pair ! This is what I think. Yon 
 by no means exhaust the subject when you say that 
 Christina is dramatic. It's my belief that in the course 
 of her life she will do a certain number of things from 
 disinterested passion. She's immeasurably proud, and if 
 that is' often a fault in a good woman, it may be a merit 
 in a naughty one. 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 estimate she may 
 have made of herself grows vague she needs to do some- 
 thing to give it a definite impressive form. What she will 
 do in such a case will be better or worse, according to her 
 opportunity ; but I imagine it will generally l)e something 
 
 Q 2 
 
244 IIODEPJCK HUDSON. 
 
 that will drive her mother to despair ; something of the 
 sort usually termed ' unworldly.' " 
 
 liowland, as he was taking his leave, after some farther 
 exchange of opinions, rendered Christina the tribute of a 
 deeply meditative sigh. " She has bothered me half to 
 death," he said, " but somehow I can't manage as I ought 
 to hate her. I admire her half the time and a good part 
 of the rest I pity her." 
 
 '' I think as a general thing I pity her ! " said Madame 
 Grandoni. 
 
 This enlightened woman came the next day to call upon 
 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 allusions to her for the next thirty- 
 six hours. " To think of her being a foreigner ! " she would 
 exclaim, after much intent reflection, over her knitting ; 
 " she speaks so beautifully ! " Then in a little while, 
 " She wasn't so much dressed as you might have expected. 
 Did you notice how easy it was in the waist 1 I wonder 
 if that's the fashion V Or, " She's very old to wear a 
 hat ; I should never dare to wear a 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 are hereditary." Or, " She's certainly not 
 handsome, but she looks wonderfully clever. I wonder 
 why she doesn't have something done to her teeth." 
 Rowland also received a summons to Madame Grandoni's 
 tea-drinking, and went betimes, as he had been requested. 
 He was eagerly desirous to lend his mute applause to Mary 
 Garland's debut in the Roman social world. The two ladies 
 had arrived with Roderick, silent and careless, in atten- 
 dance. 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 easy assembly, like all Madame 
 Grandoni's parties, and in the course of the evening there 
 was some excellent music. People played and sang for 
 Madame Grandoni on easy terms who elsewhere were not 
 to be heard for the asking. She was herself a superior 
 musician, and singers found it a privilege to perform to 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 245 
 
 her accompaniment. Rowland talked to various persons, 
 but for the first time in his life his attention visibly wan- 
 dered ; he could not keep his eyes ofl: Mary Garland. 
 Madame Grandoni had said that he sometimes spoke of 
 her as pretty and sometimes as plain ; to-night if he had 
 had occasion to describe her appearance he would have 
 called her beautiful. She was dressed more than he had 
 ever seen hef"; it was becoming, and gave her a deeper 
 colour and a brighter presence. 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 apprecia- \ 
 tion of Miss Blanchard's classic contour, but that somehow j. 
 to-night it impressed him hardly more than an effigy 1 
 stamped upon a coin of low value. Roderick could not 1 
 be accused of rancour, for he had approached Mr. l^eaven- 
 worth with unstudied familiarity, and, lounging against the 
 wall with hands in pockets, was discoursing to him with 
 candid serenity. Now that he had done him an imper- 
 tinence he evidently found him less intolerable. Mr. 
 Leavenworth stood stirring his tea and silently opening 
 and shutting his mouth, without looking at the young 
 sculptor, like a large drowsy dog snapping at flies. Row- 
 land had found it disagreeable to be told Miss Blanchard 
 would have married him for the asking, and he would have 
 felt some embarrassment in going to speak to her if his 
 modesty had not found incredulity so easy. 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. 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 that matter there could ever be an acceptable 
 pis-aller. He congratulated Miss Blanchard upon her 
 engagement, and she received his good wishes with a 
 touch of primness. But she was always a trifle piim, 
 even when she was quoting Mrs. Browning and George 
 Sand, and this harmless defect did not prevent her respond- 
 ing on this occasion that Mr. Leavenworth had a " glorious 
 heart," Rowland wished to manifest an extreme regard, 
 but towards the end of the talk his zeal relaxed and he 
 fell a-thinking that a certain natural ease in a woman was 
 
246 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 the most delightful thing in the world. There was Christina 
 Light, who had too much, and here was Miss Blanchard, 
 who had too little, and there was Mary Garland, who hud 
 just the right amount. 
 
 He went to Madame Grandoni in an adjoining room, 
 where she was pouring out tea. 
 
 "I will make you an excellent cup," she said, "because 
 I have forgiven you." 
 
 He looked at her, answering nothing ; but he swallowed 
 his tea with great gusto and a slight deepening of his 
 colour ; by all of which one would have known that he 
 was gratified. In a moment he intimated that, in so far 
 as he had sinned, he had forgiven himself. 
 
 " She is a delightful creature/' said Madame Grandoni. 
 " She has all sorts of qualities. I have taken a great 
 fancy to her; she must let me make a friend of her." 
 
 " She is very plain," said Rowland slowly, " very simple, 
 very ignorant." 
 
 " Which, being interpreted, means, * She is very hand- 
 some, very subtle, and has read hundreds of volumes on 
 winter evenings in the country.' " 
 
 " You are a veritable sorcere3S," cried Rowland ; " you 
 frighten me away ! " As he was turning 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 intelligence. 
 
 " There is the sorceress ! " said Madame Grandoni. 
 "The sorceress and her necromantic poodle ! " And she 
 hastened back to the post of hospitality. 
 
 Rowland followed her and found Christina Light stand- 
 ing in the middle of the drawing-room and looking about 
 in perplexity. Her poodle, sitting on his haunches and 
 gazing at the company, had apparently been expressing a 
 sympathetic displeasure at the absence of a welcome. But 
 in a moment Madame Grandoni had come to the young 
 girl's relief and Christina had tenderly kissed her hostess. 
 
 " I had no idea," said Christina, surveying the assembly, 
 " that you had such a lot of grand people, or I would not 
 have come in. The servant said nothing ; he took me for 
 an invitee. I came to spend a neighbourly half-hour ; you 
 know I haven't many left ! It was too dismally dreary 
 at home. I hoped I should find you alone, and. 1 brought 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 247 
 
 Stenterello to play with the cat. I don't know that if 
 I had known about all this I should have dared to come 
 in ; but since I have stumbled into the midst of it I beg 
 you to let me stay. I am not dressed, but am I very 
 hideous? I will sit in a corner and no one will notice me. 
 My dear sweet lady, do let me stay ! Pray, why didn't 
 A'ou ask mel I never have been to a little party like this. 
 They must be very charming. No dancing — tea and 
 conversation 1 No tea, thank you ; but if you could spare 
 a biscuit for Stenterello ; a sweet biscuit please. Really, 
 why didn't you ask me 1 Do you have these things often '? 
 Madame Grandoni, it's very unkind ! " And the young 
 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," 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 are welcome to stay, my dear," said 
 Madame Grandoni, " and at the risk of displeasing you I 
 must confess that if I didn't invite you it was because you 
 are too grand. Your dress will do very well, with its 
 fifty flounces, and there is no need of your going into a 
 corner. Indeed, since you are here, I propose to have the 
 glory of it. You must remain where my people can see 
 you." 
 
 " They are evidently determined to do that by the way 
 they stare. Do they think I intend to dance a tarantella ? 
 Who are they all ; do I know them 1 " [^And lingering in 
 the middle of the room, with her arm passed into Madame 
 Grandoni' s, she let her eyes wander slowly from group to 
 group. They were of course observing her. Standing in 
 the little circle of lamplight, with the hood of an Eastern 
 burnous shot w^ith silver threads falling back from her 
 beautiful head, one hand gathering together its voluminous 
 shimmering folds and the other playing with the silken 
 top-knot on the uplifted head of ner poodle, she was a 
 figure of radiant picturesqueness. ; She seemed to be a sort 
 of extemporised tableau vivant. "Rowland's position made 
 it decoming for him to speak to her without delay. As 
 she looked at him he saw that, judging by the light of her 
 
248 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 beautiful eyes, she was in a humoisr of which she had not 
 yet treated him to a speciincu. In a simpler person he 
 Avould have called it ex.juisite kindness ; but in this young 
 lady's deportment the llower was one thing and the perfume 
 another. '' Tell me about these people," she said to him. 
 '* I had no idea there wore so many people in Rome I have 
 not seen. What are they all talking about 1 It's all very 
 rlever, I suppose, and <|uite beyond me. There is Miss 
 Blanchard sitting as usual in prohle against a dark object. 
 kShe is like a head on a postage stamp. And there is that 
 nice little old lady in black, Mrs. Hudson. What a dear 
 little woman for a mother ! Comme elle est yroiyreite I And 
 the other, the Jiancce, of course she's here. Ah, I see ! " 
 She paused ; she was looking intently at Mary Garland. 
 Rowland measured the intentness 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 am sure she is a kind of 
 saint. I wish very much you would introduce me. No, 
 on second thoughts I would rather you didn't. I will 
 speak to her bravely myself, as a friend of her — what do 
 you call it in English? — ]iqt promesso." 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. He stationed himself upon it on his 
 haunches with upright vigilance. Chri.stina crossed the 
 room with the step and smile of a ministering angel, and 
 introduced herself to the young lady from Northampton. 
 She had once told Rowland that she would shoAV him some 
 day how gracious her manners could be ; she was now re- 
 deeming 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 
 Rowland with a nameless apprehension, and after a 
 moment he preferred to turn away. In doing so he noticed 
 Roderick. The young sculptor was standing planted en 
 the train of a lady's dress, gazing across at Christina's 
 movements with undisguised earnestness. There were 
 several more pieces of music ; Rowland sat in a corner 
 and listened to them. When they were over several 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 2'i9 
 
 people begr.n to take their leave, Mrs. Hudson among tlie 
 number. Kowland saw her come up to Madame Grandoni, 
 clinging shyly to Mary Garland's arm. Mary had a 
 brilliant eye and a deep colour in her cheek. The two 
 ladies looked about for Roderick, but Roderick had his 
 back turned. He had approached Christina, who, with an 
 absent air, was sitting alone, where she had taken her 
 place near her innocent rival, looking at the guests pass 
 out of the room. Christina's eye, like Mary's, was bright, 
 but her cheek was pale. 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 and joined his mother in bidding good night to 
 Madame Grandoni. Christina in a moment met Rowland's 
 glance and immediately beckoned him to come to her. He 
 was familiar with her spontaneity of movement 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. It was a humble, touching, appealing glance, which 
 threw into wonderful relief the nobleness of her beauty. 
 " How many more metamorphoses," he asked himself, " am 
 I to be treated to before we have done V 
 
 " I want to tell you," said Christina, " I have taken 
 an immense fancy to Miss Garland. Aren't you glad 1 " 
 
 " Delighted ! " exclaimed poor Rowland, 
 
 "Ah, you don't believe it," she said with soft dignity. 
 
 " Is it so hard to believe ? " 
 
 " Not that people in general should admire her, but that 
 I should. But I want to tell you ; I want to tell some 
 one, and I can't tell Miss Garland herself. She thinks me 
 already 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 haven't repose. I am trembling now ; if 
 I could ask you to feel my arm, you would 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 is 
 extremely handsome and she doesn't know it." 
 
250 KODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " She is not generally thought handsome," said Row- 
 land. 
 
 " Evidently ! That's the vulgarity of the human mind. 
 Her head has great character, great natural style. If a 
 'A'oman is not to be a brilliant beauty in the regular way, 
 she will choose if she's wise to look like that. She will 
 not be thought pretty by people in general, and desecrated, 
 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 iind it one of the delightful things 
 of life to look at her. That lot is as good as another ! 
 Then she has a beautiful character ! " 
 
 " You found that out soon ! " said Rowland, smiling. 
 
 " How long did it take you ? I found it out before I 
 ever spoke to her. I met her the other day in Saint 
 Peter's; I knew it then. I knew it — do you want to 
 know how long I have known it % " 
 
 " Really," said Rowland, " I didn't mean to cross- 
 examine you." 
 
 "Do you remember mamma's ball in December'? We 
 had some talk and you then mentioned her — not by name. 
 You said but three words, but I saw you admired her, 
 and I knew that if you admired her she must have a 
 beautiful character. That's what you require ! " 
 
 " Upon my word," cried Rowland, " 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 doesn't like her." 
 
 "Did he tell you so?" The question left Rowland's 
 lips before he could stay it, which he would have done 
 on a moment's reflection. 
 
 Christina looked at him intently. " No ! " she said at 
 last. " That would have been dishonourable, wouldn't it % 
 But I know it from my knowledge of him. He doesn't like 
 perfection ; he is not bent upon being safe, in his likings ; 
 he is willing to risk something ! Poor fellow, he risks too 
 much ! " 
 
 Rowland was silent ; he did not 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 251 
 
 him go and fetch her burnous. He obeyed, gathered it 
 up in his teeth, and returned with great solemnity, dragging 
 it along the ^oor. 
 
 "I do her justice. I do her full justice," she went on 
 with soft earnestness. " I like to say that, I like to be 
 able to say it. She is full of intelligence and courage and 
 devotion. She doesn't do me a grain of justice; but that 
 is jno harm. There is something so fine in the aversions of ' 
 a good woman ! ' ' 
 
 " If you would give Miss Garland a chance," said Eow- 
 land, " I am 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 frowned 
 as if I had said something disgusting. She looks very 
 handsome when she frowns." Christina rose with these 
 words and began to gather her mantle about her. " I 
 don t often like women," she went on. " In fact I generally 
 detest them. But I should like to know that one well. 
 I should like to have a friendship with her ; I have never 
 had one ; they must be very delightful. But I sha'n't 
 have one now — not if she can help it ! Ask her what 
 she thinks of me ; see what she will 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, isn't 
 it? VVe please the people we don't care for, we displease^ 
 those we do ! But I appreciate her, I do her justice ; that's 
 the. most important thing. It's because I have imagination. 
 She has none. Never mind ; it's her only fault. I do 
 her justice ; I understand 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, the living splendour of which at 
 this moment was something transcendent. " 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 Grandoni, grasped her two hands and held out 
 her forehead 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." 
 
252 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " Beantiful verily ! " Rowland answered. " But it was 
 no accident." 
 
 " What was it, then 1 " 
 
 " It was a plan. She wished to see Mary Garland. Slie 
 knew she was to be here." 
 
 -'How so?" 
 
 " By Roderick evidently." 
 r** And why did she wish to see Mary Garland ? " 
 
 " Heaven knows ! I give it np ! " 
 
 " Ah, the wicked girl ! " murniiired Madame Grandoni. 
 
 " No," said Rowland ; " don't say ttiat 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 Yilla 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 almost to themselves. Mrs. Hudson 
 had confessed 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, looking 
 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 perplexities of circumstance. 
 His cousin was wandering in another direction, and though 
 she was consulting her catalogue Rowland fancied it was 
 from habit ; she too was preoccupied. He joined her, and 
 she presentlv sat down on a divan rather wearily and 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. ^53 
 
 closed her Murray. Then he asked her abruptly Low 
 Christina had pleased her. 
 
 She started the least bit at the question, and he felt 
 that she had been thinking of Christina. 
 
 " I don't like her ! " she said dryly. 
 
 " What do you think of her 1 " 
 
 " I think she's false." This was said without petulance 
 or bitterness, but with a very positive air. 
 
 " But she wished to please you ; she tried," Rowland 
 rejoined in a moment. 
 
 " I think not. She wished to please herself ! " 
 
 Rowland felt himself at liberty to say no more. No 
 allusion to Christina had passed between them since the 
 day they met her at Saint Peter's, but he knew that 
 she knew by that infallible sixth sense of a woman who 
 loves that this strange and beautiful girl had the power to 
 injure her. To what extent she had the will INIary was 
 uncertain ; but last night's interview apparently had not 
 reassured her. It was under these circumstances equally 
 unbecoming for Rowland either to depreciate or to defend 
 Christina, and he had to content himself with simply 
 having verified the girl'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 aesthetic curiosity, on his companion's part, had 
 folded its wings. Curiosity of another sort had taken 
 its place. Mary was longing, he was sure, to question him 
 about Christina ; but she found a dozen reasons for hesita- 
 ting. 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 somo minutes, as she sat 
 scratching the brilliant pavement with the point of her 
 umbrella, it was to be supposed that her pride and her 
 anxiety held an earnest debate. At last anxiety won. 
 
 " A propos of Miss Light," she asked, " do you know her 
 well % " 
 
 " I can hardly say that. But I have seen her re- 
 peatedly." 
 
 " Do you like her ? " 
 
 " Yes and no. I think I am sorry for her." 
 
254 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Mary had spoken with her eyes on the pavement. At 
 this she looked up. *' Sorry for her ? Why I " 
 
 " Well — she is unhappy." 
 
 " What are her miseries 1 " 
 
 " Well — she has a horrible mother and she has had a 
 most injurious education." 
 
 For a moment Mary was silent. Then, " Isn't she very 
 beautiful 1 " she asked. 
 
 " Don't you think so 1 " 
 
 " That's measured by what men think I She is extremely 
 clever too." 
 
 " Oh, yes — speaking as men think ! " 
 
 " She has beautiful dresses." 
 
 " Any number of them." 
 
 " And beautiful manners." 
 
 " Yes — sometimes." 
 
 " And plenty of money." 
 
 " Money enough apparently." 
 
 " And she receives groat admiration." 
 
 " Very true." 
 
 "And she is to marry a prince." 
 
 " So they say." 
 
 Mary rose and turned to rejoin her companions, comment- 
 ing these admissions with a pregnant silence. " Poor Miss 
 Light ! " she said at last simply. And in this it seemed to 
 Kowland there was a touch of serious mockery. 
 
 Very late on the following evoning his servant brought 
 him the card of a visitor. He was surprised at a visit 
 at such an hour, but it may be said that when he read 
 the inscription — Cavaliere Giuseppe Giacosa — his surprise 
 abated. He had had an unformulated conviction that 
 there was to be a sequel to the apparition at INIadame 
 Grandoni's ; the Cavaliere had come to usher it in. 
 
 He had come evidently on a portentous errand. He 
 was as pale as ashes and prodigiously serious ; his little cold 
 black eye had grown ardent, and he had left his insinuating 
 smile at home. He saluted Rowland however with his 
 usual expressiveness. 
 
 *' You have more than once done me the honour to invite 
 me to call upon you," he said. " I am ashamed of my 
 long delay and I can only say to you frankly that my time 
 this winter has not been my own." Rowland assented, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 255 
 
 ungrudgingly, fumbled for the Italian correlative of the 
 adage " Better late than never," begged him to be seated, 
 and offered him a cigar. The Cavaliere sniffed impercep- 
 tibly the fragrant weed, and then declared that if his kind 
 host would allow him he would reserve it for consumption 
 at another time. He apparently desired to intimate that 
 the solemnity of his errand left him no breath for idle 
 smoke-puffings. "I must confess," he observed, "that 
 even now I come on business not of my own — or my own 
 at least only in a secondary sense. I have been dispatched 
 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 be happy," Rowland said. 
 
 " Well then, dear sir, Casa Light is in commotion. The 
 signora is in trouble — in terrible trouble." For a moment 
 Rowland expected to hear that the signora's trouble was of 
 a nature that a loan of five thousand francs would assuage. 
 But the Cavaliere continued — " Miss Light has committed 
 a great crime ; she has plunged a dagger into the heart of 
 her mother." 
 
 " A dagger ! " cried Rowland. 
 
 The Cavaliere patted the air an instant with his finger- 
 tips. " I speak figuratively. She has broken off her 
 marriage." 
 
 " Broken it off 1 " 
 
 " Short ! She has turned the Prince from the door." 
 And the Cavaliere, when he had made this announcement, 
 folded his arms and bent upon Rowland his intense inscrut- 
 able gaze. It seemed to Rowland that he detected in the 
 polished depths of it a fantastic gleam of irony or of 
 triumph ; but superficially at least Giacosa did nothing to 
 discredit his character as a sympathetic representative of 
 Mrs. Light's affliction. 
 
 Ptowland heard his news with a kind of fierce disgust ; 
 it seemed the sinister counterpart of Christina's preter- 
 natural mildness at Madame Grandoni's assembly. 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 with Mary Garland. 
 If she had not seen Mary, she would have let things stand. 
 It was monstrous to suppose that she could have sacrificed 
 
25C RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 so brilliant a fortune to a mere movement of jealousy, to a 
 refined impulse of feminine devilry, to a desire to frighten 
 poor Mary from her security by again appearing in the 
 field. Yet Rowland remembered his first impression of 
 her ; she was *' dangerous," and she had measured in each 
 direction the perturbing effect of her rupture. She was 
 smiling her sweetest smile at it ! For half an hour Kow- 
 land simply detested her — he longed to denounce her to 
 her face. Of course, all he could say to Giacosa was that 
 he was extremely sorry. " But I am not surprised," he 
 added. 
 
 " You are not surprised 1 " 
 
 " With Miss Light everything is possible. Isn't that 
 true ? " 
 
 Another ripple seemed to play for an instant in the 
 current of the old man's irony, but he made no answer. 
 *' It was a magnificent marriage," he said at last. " I do 
 not respect many people, but I respect Prince Casamas- 
 sima." 
 
 "I should judge him indeed to be a very honourable 
 young man," said Rowland. 
 
 " Eh, young as he is, he is made of the old stuff. And 
 now perhaps he's blowing his brains out. He is the last 
 of his house ; it's a great house. But Miss Light will 
 have put an end to it ! " 
 
 " Is that the view she takes of it 1 " 
 
 This time unmistakably the Cavaliore smiled, but still 
 in that very out-of-the-way place. " You have observed 
 Miss Light with attention," he said, " and this brings me 
 to my errand. Mrs. Light has a high opinion of your 
 wdsdom, of your kindness, and she has reason to believe 
 you have great influence with her daughter." 
 
 " I — with her daughter ? Kot a grain ! " 
 
 " That is possibly your modesty. Mrs. Light believes 
 that something may yet be done and that Christina will 
 listen to you. She begs you to come and see her before 
 it is 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 fioor, 
 m brief, but intense retlection. Then looking up, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 257 
 
 "Unfortunately," he said, "she has no man near her 
 whom she respects ; she has no father ! " 
 
 " And such a finished fool of a mother ! " Rowland 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 handsome woman — dis- 
 hevelled, in tears, in despair, in dishabille ! " Rowland 
 reflected a moment, not on the attractions of Mrs. Light 
 under the circumstances indicated by the Cavaliere, but 
 on the satisfaction he should take in accusing Christina to 
 her face of having struck a cruel blow. 
 
 " I must add," said the Cavaliere, " that Mrs. Light 
 desires also to speak to you on the subject of Mr. 
 Hudson." 
 
 " She considers 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 assented deferentially. " Mrs. Light is 
 equally helpless. She would leave Rome to-morrow, but 
 Christina would not budge. An order from the Pope would 
 do nothing. A bull in council would do nothing." 
 
 " She is a remarkable young lady ! " said Rowland, with 
 bitterness. 
 
 But the Cavaliere rose and responded coldly, " She has 
 a great spirit.'^ And it seemed to Rowland that her great 
 spirit, for mysterious reasons, gave him more pleasure than 
 the distressing use she made of it gave him pain. He was 
 on the point of charging him with his inconsistency, when 
 Giacof;a went on — " 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 con- 
 trary?" 
 
 " Miss Light, notwithstanding her great spirit, will call 
 Prince Casamassima back." 
 
 " Heaven grant it ! " said Rowland. 
 I don't know," said the Cavaliere, solemnly, " that 
 Heaven will have much to do with it." 
 
258 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Rowland gave him a questioning look, but he laid his 
 finger on his lips. And with Rowland's promise to present 
 himself on the morrow at Casa Light, he shortly afterwards 
 departed. He left Rowland revolving many things : 
 Christina's magnanimity, Christina's perversity, Roderick's 
 contingent fortune, Mary Garland's certain trouble, and 
 the Cavaliere's own tine ambiguities. 
 
 Rowland's promise to the Cavaliere obliged him to dis- 
 engage himself from an excursion which he had arranged 
 with the two ladies from Northampton. Before going to 
 Casa Light he repaired in person to Mrs. Hudson's hotol 
 to make his excuses. 
 
 He found Roderick's mother sitting with tearful eyes, 
 staring at an open note that lay in her lap. At the window 
 sat Mary Garland, who turned upon him as he came in, a 
 gaze both anxious and familiar. Mrs. Hudson quickly rose 
 and came to him holding out the note. 
 
 " In pity's name what is the matter with my boy 1 If 
 he is ill, I entreat you to take me to him ! " 
 
 " He is not ill, to my knowledge," said Rowland. " What 
 have you there 1 " 
 
 " A note — a dreadful note. He tells us we are not to 
 see him for a week. If I could only go to his room 1 But 
 I am afraid, I am afraid ! " 
 
 " I imagine there is no need of going to his room. What 
 is the occasion, may I ask, of his note 1 " 
 
 " He was to have gone with us on this drive to — what 
 is the place 1 — 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 
 awful thing. Oh, dear, I'm so excited ! Would you mind 
 reading it 1 " 
 
 Rowland took the note and glanced at its half-dozen 
 lines. " I cannot go to Cervara," they ran ; " I have some- 
 thing else to do. This will occupy me perhaps a week, 
 and you will not see me. Don't miss me — learn not to 
 miss me. H. H." 
 
 "Why, it means," Rowland explained, "that he has 
 taken up a piece of work, and that it is all-absorbing. 
 That's very good news." This explanation was not sin- 
 cere ; but he had not the courage not to offer it as a stop- 
 gap. But he found he needed all his courage to support it, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 259 
 
 for Mary had left her place and approached him, formidably 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 " He does not work in the evening," said Mrs. Hudson. 
 " Can't he come for five minutes 1 Why does he write 
 such a cruel cold note to his poor mother — to poor Mary '{ 
 What have we done that he acts so strangely 1 It's this 
 wicked, infectious, heathenish place ! " And the poor lady's 
 suppressed mistrust of the Eternal City broke out passion- 
 ately. " Oh, dear Mr. Mallet," she went on, " I am sure 
 he has the fever, and he's already delirious ! " 
 
 " I am very sure it's not that," said Mary softly. 
 
 She was still looking at Rowland ; 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 he to be 
 ashamed of? For a moment 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 him- 
 self ; he felt so impatient to have his three words with 
 Christina. He grasped his hat. 
 
 " I will see what it is ! " he cried. And then he was 
 glad he had not abdicated, for as he turned away he 
 glanced again at Mary, and saw that, though her eyes were 
 full of trouble, they were not hard and accusing, but 
 charged with appealing 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, cer- 
 tain strongly odorous flowers had been scattered. Roderick 
 was lying C)n his divan in a white dressing-gown, staring 
 up at the frescoed ceiling. The room was deliciously cool, 
 and filled with the moist sweet fragrance of the circum- 
 jacent roses and violets. All this seemed highly fantastic, 
 and 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 are not ill." 
 
 Roderick lay motionless except that he slightly turned 
 his head towards his friend. He was smelling a large white 
 
 E 2 
 
260 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 rose, which he continued to present to his novse. In the 
 darkness of the room he looked exceedingly pale, but his 
 handsome eyes had an extraordinary brilliancy. He let 
 them rest for some time on Kowland, lying there like a 
 lihuddist in an intellectual swoon, whose perception 
 should be slowly ebbing back to temporal matters. " Oh, 
 I am not ill," he said at last. " I have never been better." 
 
 " Your note nevertheless and your absence have very 
 naturally alarmed your mother. 1 advise you to go to 
 her directly and reassure her." 
 
 " Go to her 1 Going to her would be worse than staying 
 away. Staying away at present is a kindness." And he in- 
 haled deeply his huge rose, looking up over it at Kowland. 
 " My presence in fact would be indecent." 
 
 "Indecent? Pray explain." 
 
 " Why, you see, as regards Mary Garland. I am divinely 
 happy ! Doesn't it strike you 'i You ought to agree with 
 me. You wish me to spare her feelings ; I spare them by 
 staying away. Last night I heard something " 
 
 " I heard it too," said Rowland with brevity. " And 
 it's in honour of this piece of news that you have taken 
 to your bed in this fashion 1 " 
 
 " Extremes meet ! I can't get up for joy." 
 
 " May I inquire how you heard your joyous news 1 — 
 from Miss Light herself 1 " 
 
 " By no means. It was brought me by her maid, who 
 is in my service as well." 
 
 " Casamassima's loss then is to a certaipty 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 am 
 keeping very quiet, but I can't help being happy. I shall 
 wait a while ; I shall bide my time." 
 
 " And then ? " 
 
 " And then that incomparable girl 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 ani now on 
 my way to Mrs. Light's." 
 
 " I congratulate you, I envy you ! " Roderick murmured 
 imperturbably. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 261 
 
 "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 1 shall not speak in 
 your interest." 
 
 Roderick looked at him for a moment with a lazy 
 radiance in his eyes. " Pray don't ! " he simply answered. 
 
 " You deserve I should tell her you are a very shabby 
 fellow." 
 
 " My dear Rowland, the comfort with you is that I 
 can trust you. You are incapable of doing anything 
 disloyal." 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " Can I go and flaunt my felicity in their faces 1 Wait 
 till I get used to it a trifle. I have done them a villainous 
 wrong, but I can at least forbear to add insult to injury. 
 I may be an arrant fool, but for the moment I have taken 
 it into my head to be prodigiously pleased. I shouldn't 
 be able to conceal it ; my pleasure would offend them ; so 
 I lock myself up as a dangerous character." 
 
 " Well, I can only hope that your pleasure may never 
 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 shipwreck of her hopes he were 
 her single floating spar. Rowland greatly pitied her, for 
 there is something respectable in passionate grief, even in 
 a very bad cause ; and as pity is akin to love he felt rather 
 more tolerant of her fantastic pretensions than he had 
 done hitherto. 
 
 " Speak to her, plead with her, command her ! " she 
 cried, pressing and shaking his hands. " She'll not heed 
 us, no more than if we were a pair of running fountains. 
 Perhaps she will listen to you ; she always liked you." 
 
 " She always disliked me," said Rowland. " But that 
 
262 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 doesn't matter now. I have come here simply because 
 you sent for me — not because I can help you. I can't 
 advise your daughter." 
 
 " Oh cruel, deadly man ! You must advise her ; you 
 sha'n't leave this house till you have advised her ! " the poor 
 woman passionately retorted. " Look at me in my misery 
 and refuse to help me ! You needn't be afraid, I know I'm 
 a fright, I haven't an idea what I have on. If this goes 
 on she and I may both as well turn scarecrows. If ever 
 a woman was desperate, frantic, heart-broken, such a 
 woman speaks to you now ! I can't begin to tell you. To_ 
 have nourished a serpent, sir, all these years ! to have 
 lavished one's self upon a viper that turns and stings her 
 own poor 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 myvself 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 woman, sir, and the Lord knows all about me. 
 With His own hand He had given me his reward ! I would 
 have lain down in the dust and let her walk over me ; T 
 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 isn't a creature here 
 that I can look to — not one of them all that I have faith 
 in. But I always admired you. I said to Christina the 
 first time I saw you that you were a perfect gentleman, 
 and very different from some ! 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 hasn't 
 a word to throw to me in my agony ! Oh, the money alone 
 that I have put into this thing would melt the heart of a 
 Turk ! " 
 
 During this frenzied outbreak Rowland had had time 
 to look round the room and to see the Cavaliere sitting in 
 a corner, like a major-domo on tne divan of an ante- 
 chamber, pale, rigid, inscrutable. 
 
 "I have it at heart to tell you," Rowland said, "that 
 if you consider my friend Hudson — " 
 
 Mrs. Light gave a toss of her head and hands. " Oh, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 263 
 
 it's not that ! She told me last night to bother her no 
 longer with Hudson. Hudson forsooth 1 She didn't care 
 a button for Hudson. I almost wish she did ; then perhaps 
 one might understand it. But she doesn't care for any- 
 thing in the wide world except to do her own hard wicked 
 will and to crush me and shame me with her cruelty." 
 
 " Ah, then," said Rowland, " I am as much at sea as 
 you, and my presence here is 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 Prince 
 Casamassima. This is simply impossible." 
 
 Mrs. Light burst into angry tears. " Because the poor 
 boy is a prince, eh 1 because he's of a great family and has 
 an' income of millions, eh ^ That's why you grudge him 
 and hate him. I knew there were vulgar people of that 
 way of feeling, but I didn't expect it of you. Make an 
 effort, Mr. Mallet ; rise to the occasion ; forgive the poor 
 fellow his advantages. Be just, be reasonable ! It's not 
 his fault, and it's not mine. He's the best, the kindest 
 young man in the world, and the most correct and moral 
 and virtuous ! If he were standing 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 1 Do you suppose I would give Christina 
 to a vicious person ? do you suppose I would sacrifice my 
 precious child, little comfort- as I have in her, to a man 
 against whose character a syllable' could be breathed 1 
 Casamassima is only too good, he's a saint of saints, he's 
 stupidly good ! There isn't such another in the length 
 and breadth of Europe. What he has been through m 
 this house not a common peasant would endure. Christina 
 has treated him as you wouldn't treat a dogo He has 
 been insulted, outraged, persecuted ! He has been driven 
 hither and thither till he didn'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 hand- 
 kerchief, 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 isn'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. 
 
264 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 and take all that was given him, and only want the girl 
 the more 1 I was his confidant ; I know everything. He 
 used to beg my own forgiveness for Christina. What do 
 you say to that 1 1 seized him once and kissed him, I did I 
 To find that and to find all the rest with it, and to believe 
 that it was a gift straight from the pitying angels of 
 Heaven, and then to see it dashed away before your 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," said 
 Rowland, 
 
 Mrs. Light looked at him hard, slowly drying her eyes. 
 The intensity of her grief and anger 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 am sorry your heart is 
 not so tender as your conscience. My compliments to 
 your conscience 1 It must give you great happiness. 
 Heaven help me ! Since you fail us we are indeed driven 
 to the wall. But I have fought my own battles before 
 and I have never lost courage ; and I don't see why I 
 should break down now. Cavaliere, come here ! ' ' 
 
 Giacosa rose at her summons and advanced with his 
 usual deferential alacrity. He shook hands with Rowland 
 in silence. 
 
 " Mr. Mallet refuses to say a word," Mrs. Light went 
 on. " Time presses, every moment is precious. Heaven 
 knows what that poor boy may be doing. If at this 
 moment a clever woman should get hold of him she 
 might be as ugly as she could ! It's horrible to think 
 of it." 
 
 The Cavaliere fixed his eyes on Rowland, and his look, 
 which the night before had been singular, was now most 
 extraordinary in its mixture of fine anxiety — an anxiety 
 which seemed to plead against the young man's reluctance 
 — and mocking exultation. 
 
 Suddenly and vaguely Rowland felt the presence of a 
 new element in the drama that was going on before him. 
 He looked from the Cavaliere to Mrs. Light, whose eyes 
 were now quite dry and were fixed in stony hardness on 
 the floor. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 265 
 
 " If you could bring yourself," the Cavaliere said, in a 
 low, soft, tenderly-urgent voice, " to address 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. The dear signora first, and 
 then Christina herself. Christina in particular. Me too I 
 might take the liberty to add ! " 
 
 There was to Rowland something acutely touching in 
 this humble petition. He had always felt a sort of 
 imaginative tenderness for poor little unexplained Giacosa, 
 and these words seemed a supreme manifestation of the 
 mysterious obliquity of his life. All of a sudden as he 
 watched the Cavaliere something occurred to him ; it was 
 something very odd and it stayed his glance suddenly from 
 again turning to Mrs. Light. His idea embarrassed him, 
 and to carry off his embarrasment, he repeated that it was 
 folly to suppose that his words would have any weight with 
 Christina. 
 
 The Cavaliere stepped forward and laid two fingers on 
 Rowland's breast. " Do you wish to know the truth % 
 You are the only man whose words she remembers." 
 
 Rowland was going from surprise to surprise. " I will 
 say what I can ! " he said. By this time he had ventured 
 to glance at Mrs. Light. She was looking at him askance, 
 as if upon this she were suddenly mistrusting his motives. 
 "If you fail," she said sharply, "we have something 
 else ! But please to lose no time." 
 
 She had hardly spoken when the sound of a short sharp 
 growl caused the company to turn. Christina's fleecy 
 poodle stood in the middle of the great drawing-room 
 with his muzzle lowered, in pompous defiance of the three 
 conspirators against the comfort of his mistress. This 
 young lady's claims for him seemed justified; he was an 
 animal of amazing shrewdness. He had preceded Christina 
 as a sort of vanguard of defence, and she now slowly 
 advanced from a neighbouring room. 
 
 " You will be so good as to listen to Mr. Mallet," her 
 mother said in a terrible voice, " and to reflect carefully on 
 what he says. I suppose you will admit that he is dis- 
 interested. In half an hour you shall hear from me again ! " 
 And passing her hand through the Cavaliere' s arm she 
 swept rapidly out of the room. 
 
266 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 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 very soon perceived that it had only changed its 
 character, and that if it was a trifle less brilliant than 
 usual it was admirably touching and noble. The clouded 
 light of her eyes, the magnificent gravity of her features, 
 the conscious erectness of her head, might have belonged 
 to a deposed sovereign or a condemned martyr. " 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 persecute me ? " 
 
 " I have as little power to do one as I have desire to do 
 the other. I came in great part to ask you a question. 
 First, is your decision irrevocable ? " 
 
 Christina's two hands had been hanging clasped in front 
 of her; she separated them and flung them apart by an 
 admirable gesture. 
 
 " Would you have done this if you had not seen Mary 
 Garland?" 
 
 She looked at him with quickened attention ; then sud- 
 denly, ''This is interesting ! " she cried. "Let us have it 
 out." And she flung herself into a chair and pointed to 
 another. 
 
 " You don't answer my question," Rowland said. 
 
 " You have no right that I know of to ask it. But it's 
 a very clever one ; so clever that it deserves an answer. 
 Very likely I should not." 
 
 " Last night when I said that to myself I was extremely 
 angry." 
 
 " Oh dear, and you are not angry now 1 " 
 
 " I am less angry." 
 
 " How very tiresome ! But you can say something at least." 
 
 "If I were to say what is uppermost in my mind I 
 should say that face to face with you it is never possible 
 to condemn you." 
 
 ''Perche?" 
 
 " You know, yourself ! But I can at least say now 
 what I felt last night. It seemed to me that you had 
 consciously cruelly dealt a blow at that poor girl. Do you 
 understand ? " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 267 
 
 " Wait a moment ! " And with her eyes fixed on him 
 she inclined her head on one side meditatively. Then a 
 cold brilliant smile covered her face, and she made a 
 gesture of negation. " I see your train of reasoning, but 
 it's quite wrong. I meant no harm to Miss Garland ; I 
 should be extremely s.orry to make her suffer. Tell me 
 you believe that." 
 
 This was said with ineffable candour. Rowland heard 
 himself answering, " I believe it ! " 
 
 " And yet in a sense your supposition was true," Christina 
 continued. " I took into my head, as I told you, to be 
 greatly struck with the fiancee, and I frankly confess I 
 was jealous of her. What I envied her was simply her 
 character ! I said to myself, ' She in my place wouldn't 
 marry Casamassima.' I could not help saying it, and I 
 said it so often that I found a kind of inspiration in it. 
 I hated the idea of being worse than she — of doing some- 
 thing that she would not do. I might be bad by nature, 
 but I needn't be by intention. The end of it all was that 
 I found it impossible not to tell the Prince that I was his 
 very humble servant, but that decidedly I could not marry 
 him." 
 
 " Are you sure it was only of Miss Garland's character 
 that you were jealous, not of — not of — " 
 
 " Speak out, I beg you. We are talking philosophy ! " 
 
 " Not of her affection i6r her cousin % " 
 
 " Sure is a good deal to ask. Still, I think I may say 
 it ! 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 feel it % " 
 
 " And what is the other reason % " 
 
 " Excuse me ; that is my own affair." 
 
 Rowland was puzzled, baffled, charmed, inspired. " 1 
 have promised your mother," he presently went on, " to 
 say something in favour of Prince Casamassima." 
 
 She shook her head sadly. " Prince Casamassima needs 
 nothing that you can say for him. He is a magnificent 
 'parti. I know it perfectly,'' 
 
 " You know also of the extreme affliction of your 
 mother % " 
 
 " Her affliction is demonstrative. She has been abusing 
 me for the last twenty-four hoars as if I were the vilest of 
 
«68 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 the vile." To see Chri.stina sit there in the purity of her 
 beauty and say this, might have made one bow one's head 
 with a kind of awo. *' I have failed of respect to her at 
 other times, but 1 have not done so now. Since we are 
 talking philosophy," she pursued, with a gentle smile, " I 
 may say it's a simple matter ! I don't love that excellent 
 Prince. It's very true however that making up one's mind 
 that one doesn't love a Prince is rather a complicated 
 operation ! I spoke just now of inspiration. The inspira- 
 tion has been groat, but — I frankly confess it — the decision 
 has been hard. Shall I tell you 1 " she demanded, with 
 sudden ardour ; " will you understand me 'i It was on the 
 one side the world, the splendid, beautiful, powerful, inter- 
 esting world. I know what that is ; I have tasted of the 
 cup, I know 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 see mine. You 
 should see some fine things ! I should like to be a princess, 
 and I think I should be a very good one ; I would play 
 my part well. I am fond of luxury, I am fond of a great 
 society, I am fond of being looked at. I am corrupt, cor- 
 rupting, corruption ! Ah, what a pity that couldn't be 
 too I Mercy of Heaven ! " There was a passionate tremor 
 iu her voice ; she covered her face with her hands and sat 
 motionless. Rowland saw that an intense agitation, hitherto 
 successfully repressed, underlay the exquisite archness of 
 her manner, and he could easily believe that her battle 
 had been fierce. She rose quickly and turned away, walked 
 a few paces and stopped. In a moment she was facing him 
 again with tears in her eyes and a flush in her cbeeks. 
 ' But you needn't tliink I am afraid ! " she said. " I have 
 chosen, and I shall hold to it. I have something here, 
 here, here / " and she patted her heart. " It's my own. I 
 shall not part with it. Is it what you call an ideal 1 I don't 
 know ; I don't care 1 It is brighter than the Casamassima 
 diamonds ! " 
 
 "You say that certain things are your own affair," 
 Rowland presently rejoined ; " but I must nevertheless 
 make an attempt to learn what all this means — what it 
 promises for my friend Hudson. Is there any hope for 
 him 1 " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 269 
 
 ♦* This is' a point I can't discuss with you minutely. I 
 like him very much." 
 
 " Would you marry him if he were to ask you 1 " 
 
 *' He has asked me." 
 
 " And if he asks again 1 " 
 
 " I shall marry no one just now." 
 
 " Roderick," said Rowland, " has great hopes." 
 
 " Does he know of my rupture with the Prince 1 " 
 
 " He is making a great holiday of it." 
 
 Christina pulled her poodle towards her and began to 
 smooth his silky fleece. " I like him very much," she 
 repeated ; " much more than I used to. Since you told 
 me all that about him at St. Cecilia's I have felt a great 
 friendship for him. There is something very fine about 
 him ; he is not afraid of anything. He is not afraid of 
 failure ; he is not afraid of ruin or death." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Rowland, bitterly ; " he is incon- 
 veniently picturesque." 
 
 " Picturesque, yes ; that's what lie is. I am very sorry 
 for him." 
 
 " Your mother told me just now that you had said that 
 you didn't care a button for him." 
 
 '* Very likely ! I meant as a lover. One doesn't want 
 a lover one pities, and one doesn't want — of all things m 
 the world — a picturesque husband! I should like Mr. 
 Hudson as something else. I wish he were my brother, 
 so that he could never t:alk to me of marriage. Then I 
 could adore him. I would nurse him, I would wait on 
 him and save him ail disagreeable rubs and shocks. I am 
 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 told him all this ? " 
 " 1 suppose so ; I have told him five hundred things 1 
 If it will please you I will tell him again." 
 
 " Oh, Heaven forbid ! " cried poor Rowland with a 
 groan. 
 
 He was lingering there, weighing his sympathy against 
 his irritation and feeling it sink in the scale, when _ the 
 curtain of a distant doorway was lifted and Mrs. Light 
 passed across the room. She stopped half-way and gave 
 our interlocutors a flushed and menacing look. It found 
 
270 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 apparently little to reassure her, and she moved away with 
 a passionate toss of her drapery. Rowland thought with 
 horror of the sinister compulsion to which the young girl 
 was apparently still to be subjected. In this ethereal flight 
 of her moral nature there was a certain painful effort and 
 tension of wing ; but 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 it seemed 
 gross to make farther demands upon it on Roderick's 
 behalf. 
 
 Rowland took up his hat. " You asked a while ago if 
 I had come to help you," he said. "If I knew how I 
 might help you I should bo particularly glad." 
 
 She stood silent a moment, reflecting. Then at last 
 looking up, " You remember your promising six months 
 ago to tell me what you should finally think of me 1 I 
 should like you to tell me now." 
 
 He could hardly help smiling. Madame Grandoni had 
 insisted on the fact that Christina 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 perceived his 
 smile, and her blush, which was beautiful, made her fault 
 venial. 
 
 " You are an excellent girl ! " he said, very positively ; 
 and then gave her his hand in farewell. 
 
 There was a great chain of rooms in Mrs. Light's apart- 
 ment, the pride and joy of the hostess on festal evenings, 
 through which the departing visitor passed before reaching 
 the door. In one of the first of these Rowland found 
 himself waylaid and arrested by the distracted mistress 
 of the house. 
 
 " Well, well 1 " she cried seizing his arm. " Has she 
 listened you — have you moved her '] " 
 
 " In Heaven's name, dear madam," Rowland begged, 
 " leave the poor girl alone ! She is behaving very well ! " 
 
 " Behaving very well 1 Is that all you have to tell 
 me ? I don't believe you said a proper word to her. You 
 are conspiring together to kill me ! " 
 
 Rowland tried to soothe her, to remonstrate, to persuade 
 her that it was ecjually cruel and unwise to try to force 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 271 
 
 matters. But she answered him only with harsh lamenta- 
 tions and imprecations, and ended by telling him that her 
 daughter was her own property and that his interference 
 was insolent and scandalous. Her disappointment seemed 
 really to have blighted her wits, and hio only- possible 
 rejoinder was to take a summary departure. 
 
 A moment later he came upon the Cavaliere, who was 
 sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his 
 hands, so buried in thought that Rowland had to call 
 him before he roused himself. Giacosa looked at him a 
 moment keenly, and then gave an interrogative shake of 
 the head. 
 
 Rowland gave a shake negative, to which the Cavaliere 
 responded by a long melancholy sigh. " But her mother 
 is determined to put on the screw," said Rowland. 
 
 " It seems that it must be ! " 
 
 " Do you consider that it must be ^ " 
 
 " I don't differ with Mrs. Light ! " 
 
 '• It will be a great cruelty ! " 
 
 The Cavaliere gave a tragic shrug. " Eh ! it isn't an 
 easy world." 
 
 " You should do nothing to make it harder then." 
 
 " What will you have 1 It's a magnificent marriage." 
 
 " You disappoint me, Cavaliere," said Rowland. " I 
 imagined you appreciated the great elevation of Christina's 
 attitude. She doesn't love the Prince ; she has let the 
 matter stand or fall by that." 
 
 The old man grasped him by the hand and stood a 
 moment with averted eyes. At last, looking at him, ho 
 held up two fingers. 
 
 " I have two hearts," he said ; " one for myself, one 
 for the world. This one is furious with the blessed ragazza 
 — the other is enchanted with her ! One suffers horribly 
 at what the other does." 
 
 " I don't understand double people, Cavaliere," Rowland 
 said, " and I don't pretend to understand you. But I have 
 guessed you are going to play some secret card." 
 
 "That card is Mrs. Light's, not mine," said the 
 Cavaliere. 
 
 " It's a menace, at any rate ? " 
 
 " The sword of Damocles ! It hangs by a hair. Christina 
 is to be given ten minutes to recant, under penalty of 
 
272 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 feeling it fall. On the blade there is something written — 
 in strange characters. Don't scratch your head ; you will 
 not make it out." 
 
 " I think I have guessed it," said Rowland after a com- 
 prehensive silence. The Cavaliere looked at him blankly 
 but intently, and Rowland added, ''Though there are 
 some signs indeed I don't understand.' 
 
 " Puzzle them out at your leisure," said the Cavaliere, 
 shaking his hand. " I hear Mrs. Light ; I must go to 
 ray post. I wish you were a Catholic ; I would beg you 
 to step into the first church you come to and pray for 
 us the next half-hour. 
 
 " For ' us ' ? For whom ? " 
 
 " For all of us. At any rate remember this — I delight 
 in the Christina ! " 
 
 Rowland heard the rustle of Mrs. Light's dress ; he 
 turned away, and the Cavaliere went as he said to his 
 post. Rowland for the next couple of days kept thinking 
 of the sword of Damocles. 
 
 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 the two ladies from North 
 ampton, but as Roderick's absence continued, he was able 
 to be neither comforting nor comforted. Mary's apprehen- 
 sive face seemed to him an image of his own state of mind. 
 He was deeply depressed, he felt that there was a storm 
 in the air, and he wished it would come and wash away 
 their troubles. On the afternoon of the third day he went 
 into Saint Peter's, his frequent resort whenever the outer 
 world was disagreeable. From a heart-ache 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 273 
 
 shadow of one of the piers. He saw it was that of an 
 artist hastily transferring to his sketch-book a memento of 
 some fleeting variation in the scenery of the basilica ; and 
 in a moment he perceived that the artist was little Sam 
 Singleton. 
 
 Singleton pocketed his sketch-book with a guilty air, 
 as if it cost his modesty a pang to be detected in this 
 greedy culture of opportunity. 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 perhaps no drinking-vessel, 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 the ingenuous little artist, and 
 heard presently with regret that he was to leave Rome on 
 the morrow. Singleton had come to bid farewell to Saint 
 Peter's, and he was gathering a few last impressions. He 
 had earned a pocketful of money and he 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, New York — had been writing him peremptory 
 letters and appealing to him as a son, brother, and fellow- 
 citizen. He would have been grateful for another year in 
 Rome, but he submitted to destiny the more patiently that 
 he had laid up treasure which in Buffalo would seem in- 
 finite. 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 T' Rowland inquired, 
 looking down the splendid avenue of the nave. 
 
 " Well, it will depend upon the views — upon the attitude 
 — of my family," Singleton replied. " Oh I think I shall 
 get on ; I think it can be done. If I find it can be done 
 I shall really be quite proud of it ; as an artist of course I 
 mean, you know. Do you know I have some nine hundred 
 sketches? I shall live in my portfolio. And so long as 
 one is not in Ptome, pray what does it matter where one is ? 
 
 s 
 
274 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 But how I shall envy all you Romans — you and Mr. 
 Gloriani — and Mr. Hudson especially." 
 
 " Don't envy Hudson ; he has nothing to envy." 
 
 Singleton chuckled at what he considered a harmless 
 jest. " Yes, he's going to be the great man of our time ! 
 And I say, Mr. Mallet, isn't it a mighty comfort that it's 
 we who have turned him out ? " 
 
 " Between ourselves," murmured Rowland, " he has 
 disappointed me." 
 
 Singleton stared open-mouthed. " Dear me, what did 
 you expect % " 
 
 "Verily," said Rowland to himself, "what did I 
 expect ? " 
 
 " I confess," cried Singleton, " I can't judge him ra- 
 tionally. He fascinates me; he's the sort of man one 
 makes one's hero of." 
 
 " Strictly speaking he is not a hero," Rowland re- 
 marked. 
 
 Singleton looked intensely grave, and with almost tearful 
 eyes, '* Is there anything amiss — anything out of the way 
 about him ? " he timidly asked. Then as Rowland hesi- 
 tated to reply he quickly added, " Please, if there is, don't 
 tell me ! I want to know no 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 radiant relief, as beautiful and unspotted 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 sentimental 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 present, she said, and 
 begged to confer with him before he departed. 
 
 This summons obliged Rowland to separate from Single- 
 ton, to whom he bade farewell. He followed the messenger, 
 and presently found Madame Grandoni occupying a liberal 
 area on the steps of the tribune, behind the great altar, 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 275 
 
 where, spreading a shawl on the polished red marble, she 
 had comfortably seated herself. He suspected that she 
 had something especial to impart, and she lost no time in 
 bringing forth her treasure. 
 
 " Don't shout very loud," she said, " remember that we 
 are in church ; there's a limit to the noise one may make 
 even in Saint Peter's. Christina Light was married this 
 morning to Prince Casamassima." 
 
 Rowland did not shout at all ; he gave a deep short 
 murmur. " Married — this morning ? " 
 
 " Married this morning, at seven o'clock, le plus tran- 
 quilleinent du monde, before three or four persons. The 
 young couple left Pome an hour afterwards." 
 
 For some moments this seemed to him really terrible ; 
 the dark little drama of which he had caught a glimpse 
 had played itself out. He had believed that Christina 
 would resist ; that she had succumbed was a proof that 
 the pressure had been cruel. Rowland's imagination fol- 
 lowed her forth with an irresistible tremor into the world 
 towards which she was rolling away with her unappreciated 
 husband and her stitled ideal ; but it must be confessed 
 that if the first impulse of his compassion was for Chris- 
 tina, the second was for Prince Casamassima. Madame 
 Grandoni acknowledged an extreme curiosity as to the 
 secret springs of these strange doings — Casamassima's 
 sudden dismissal, his still more sudden recall, the hurried 
 private marriage. " Listen," said Rowland presently, " 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." 
 
 " y^ell," said Rowland, " I desire to harm no one ; but 
 certain suppositions have taken shape in my mind which 
 serve as the answers to two or three riddles." 
 
 " It is very true," Madame Grandoni replied, " that the 
 Cavaliere, as he stands, has always needed to be ex- 
 plained." 
 
 " He is explained by the hypothesis that three-and- 
 twenty years ago, at Ancona, Mrs. Light had a lover." 
 
 " I see. Ancona was dull, Mrs. Light was lively, and 
 — three-and-twenty years ago, perhaps — the Cavaliere was 
 
 s 2 
 
276 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 fascinating. Doubtless it would be fairer to say that he 
 was fascinated. Poor Giacosa ! " 
 
 " He has had his compensation," Rowland said. " He 
 has been passionately fond of Christina." 
 
 " Naturally. But has Christina never wondered why ? " 
 
 " If she had been near guessing, her mother's shabby 
 treatment of him would have put her off the scent. Mrs. 
 Light's conscience has apparently told her that she could 
 expiate an hour's too great kindness by twenty years' con- 
 tempt. So she kept her secret. But what is the profit of 
 having a secret unless you can make some use of it 1 The 
 day at last came when she could turn hers to account ; 
 she could let the skeleton out of the closet and create 
 a panic." 
 ? " 1 don't understand." 
 
 " Neither do I, morally," said Rowland. "I only con- 
 ceive that there was a horrible fabulous scene. The poor 
 Cavaliere stood outside, at the door, white as a corpse and 
 as dumb. The mother and daughter had it out together. 
 Mrs. Light burnt her ships. When she came out she had 
 three lines of writing in her daughter's hand, which the 
 Cavaliere was despatched with to the Prince. They over- 
 took the young man in time, and when he reappeared he 
 was delighted to dispense with farther waiting. I don't 
 know what he thought of the look in his bride's face ; but 
 that is how I roughly reconstruct history." 
 
 " Christina was forced to decide then that she could not 
 afford not to be a princess 1 " 
 
 " She had to knock under to a revelation — to humiliation. 
 She was assured 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 conditions, and the formal rupture — the 
 rupture that the world would hear of and pry into — -would 
 then proceed from the Prince and not from her." 
 
 " That's all nonsense ! " said Madame Grandoni. " What 
 would the world care 1 " 
 
 ** It is nonsense to us, yes ; but not to the proudest girl 
 in the world, deeply wounded in her pride and not stopping 
 to calculate probabilities, but mufiiling her shame with an 
 almost sensuous relief in a splendour that stood within her 
 grasp and would cover everything. Is it not possible that 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 277 
 
 the late Mr. Light had made an outbreak before wit- 
 nesses who are still living 1 — that the child's coming 
 into the world was in itself a scandal? Say Light had 
 quarrelled with his wife and was virtually separated from 
 her." 
 
 " Certainly her marriage now," said Madame Grandoni, 
 less analytically, " has the advantage that it takes her 
 away from her dear parents ! " 
 
 This lady's farther comments upon the event are not 
 immediately pertinent to our history ; there were some 
 other comments of which Rowland had a deeply oppressive 
 foreboding. He called on the evening of the morrow upon 
 Mrs. Hudson, and found Roderick with the two ladies. 
 Their companion had apparently but lately entered, and 
 Rowland afterwards learned that it was his first appearance 
 since the writing of the note which had so distressed his 
 mother. He had flung himself upon a sofa, where he sat 
 with his chin upon his breast, staring before him with a 
 sinister spark in his eye. He fixed his gaze on Rowland, 
 but gave him no greeting. He had evidently been saying 
 something to startle his companions ; Mrs. Hudson had 
 gone and seated herself, timidly and imploringly, on the 
 edge of the sofa, trying to take his hand. Mary was 
 applying herself to a piece of needlework with conscious 
 intentness. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson gave Rowland on his entrance a touching 
 look of gratitude. " Oh, we have such blessed news ! " she 
 said. " Roderick is ready to leave Rome." 
 
 "It's not blessed news; it's cursed news!" cried 
 Roderick, 
 
 "Oh, but we are very glad, my son, and I am sure you 
 will be when you get away. You are looking most dread- 
 fully thin ; isn't he, Mr. Mallet ? It's plain enough you 
 need a change. I am sure we will go wherever you like. 
 Where should you like to go 1 " 
 
 Roderick turned his head slowly and looked at her. He 
 had let her take his hand, which she pressed tenderly 
 between her own. He gazed at her for some time in 
 silence. " Poor mother ! " he said at last, very incon- 
 clusively. 
 
 " My own dear son ! " murmured Mrs. Hudson in all the 
 innocence of her trust. 
 
278 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 *' I don't care a straw where you go ! I don't care a 
 straw for anything ! " 
 
 " Oh, my dear hoy, you must not say that before all of 
 us here —before Mary, before Mr. Mallet! " 
 
 " Mary — Mr. Mallet i " Roderick repeated, almost 
 savagely. He released himself from the clasp of his 
 mother's hand and turned away, leaning his elbows on 
 his knees and holding his head in his hands. There was 
 a silence ; Kowland said nothing, because he was watching 
 the girl. " Why should I stand on ceremony with Mary 
 and Mr. Mallet 1 " Roderick presently added. " Mary pre- 
 tends to believe I am a fine fellow, and if she believes it 
 as she ought, nothing I can say will alter her opinion. 
 Mallet knows I am a hopeless humbug ; so I needn't mince 
 my words with him." 
 
 " Ah, my dear, don't use such dreadful language ! " said 
 Mrs. Hudson. " Aren't we all devoted to you, and proud 
 of you, and waiting only to hear what you want, so that 
 we may do it 1 " 
 
 Roderick got up and began to walk about the room ; he 
 was evidently perfectly reckless. Rowdand observed with 
 anxiety that Mrs. Hudson, who did not know on what 
 delicate ground she was treading, was disposed to chide 
 him endearingly, as a mere expression of tenderness. He 
 foresaw that she would bring down the hovering thunder- 
 bolt on her head. 
 
 " In God's name," Roderick cried, " don't remind me of 
 my obligations ! It's intolerable to me, and I don't believe 
 it's pleasant to Mallet. I know they are tremendous — I 
 know I shall never repay them. I am bankrupt ! Do you 
 know what that means ? " 
 
 The poor lady sat staring in dismay, and Rowland angrily 
 interfered. " Don't talk such stuff to your mother ! " he 
 cried. " Don't you see you are frightening her 1 " 
 
 " Frightening her 1 she may as well be frightened first 
 as last. Do I frighten you, mother 1 " 
 
 " Oh, Roderick, what do you mean 1 " whimpered the 
 poor lady. " Mr. Mallet, what does he mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that I am an angry, savage, disappointed, 
 miserable man ! " Roderick went on. " I mean that I 
 can't do a stroke of work nor think a profitable thought ! 
 I mean that I am in a state of helpless rage and grief and 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 279 
 
 sh<ame ! 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 am so 
 immensely well aware of : not with all it multiplied a 
 thousand times and repeated 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 ago I was a mighty fine fellow ; but do you know 
 what has become of me now ? I have gone to the 
 devil ! " 
 
 There was something in the ring of Roderick's voice, 
 as he uttered these words, which sent them home with 
 convincing force. 
 
 He was not talking for effect, or the mere personal plea- 
 sure 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 pas- 
 sionately, 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, came straight to 
 Roderick and laid her hand on his arm, looking at him 
 with all her tormented heart in her eyes. He made no 
 movement to disengage himself ; he simply shook his head 
 several times in dogged negation of her healing powers. 
 Rowland had been living for the past month in such in- 
 tolerable expectancy of disaster that now that the ice was 
 broken and the fatal plunge taken his foremost feeling was 
 almost elation. But in a moment his conservative instincts 
 corrected it. 
 
 "I really don't perceive," he said, "the profit of your 
 talking in just this way at just this time. Don't you see 
 how you are 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 
 
280 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 m.y amusement 1 Here we all are in the same boat ; we 
 might as well understand each other ! These women 
 must know^ that I am not to be counted on. That sounds 
 remarkably cool, no doubt, and I certainly don't deny your 
 right to be disgusted with me." 
 
 " Will you keep what you have got to say till another 
 time," said Mary, "and let me hear it alone?" 
 
 " Oh, I will let you hear it as often as you please ; but 
 what's the use of keeping it? I am in the humour now; 
 it won't keep ! It's a very simple matter — it isn't worth 
 keeping. I am a failure, that's all ; I am not a hrst-rate 
 man. I am 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, struck apjmrently in some unwonted fashion 
 with her gesture, drew her towards him again and went on 
 in a somewhat different tone. " It's hardly worth while 
 we should have any private talk about this, Mary," he 
 said. " The thing would be comfortable for neither of us. 
 It's better after all that it be said once for all and dis- 
 missed. There are things I can't talk to you about. Can 
 I, at least 1 You are such a curious creature ! " _ 
 
 " I can imagine nothing you shouldn't talk to me about," 
 said Mary. 
 
 " You are not afraid 1 " he demanded sharply, looking 
 at her. 
 
 She turned away abruptly, with lowered eyes, hesitating 
 a moment. " Anything you think I should hear, I will 
 hear," she said. And then she returned to her place at 
 the window and took up her work. 
 
 " I have had a great blow," said Roderick. " I was a 
 great ass, but it doesn't make the blow any easier to 
 bear." 
 
 " Mr. Mallet, tell me what Roderick means ! " said Mrs. 
 Hudson, who had found her voice, in a tone more per- 
 emptory than Rowland had ever heard her use. 
 
 " He ought to have told you before," said Roderick. 
 " Really, Rowland, if you will allow me to say so, you 
 ought! You could have given a much better account of 
 all this than I myself ; better especially 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 281 
 
 of pain. But you always want to keep things so quiet ! 
 Allow me to say that it's very weak of you." 
 
 "Speaking too well of you is a fault that's easily 
 mended ! " said Rowland with a laugh. 
 
 " Oh, what is it, sir ; what is it ? " groaned Mrs. Hudson 
 insistently. 
 
 " It's what Roderick says. He's a failure ! " 
 
 Mary Garland, on hearing this declaration, gave Rowland 
 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 those large, clear looks of his which 
 seemed to express a stoical pleasure in Rowland's frank- 
 ness, and which set his companion wondering again, as 
 he had so often done before, at the extraordinary incon- 
 gruities of his temperament. *' My dear mother," Roderick 
 said, " if you had had eyes that were not blinded by this 
 sad maternal vanity you would have seen all this for your- 
 self ; you would have seen that I am anything but 
 prosperous." 
 
 " Is it anything about money 1 " cried Mrs. Hudson. 
 " Oh, do write to Mr. Striker ! " 
 
 " Money 1 " said Roderick. " I have not a cent of 
 money ; I am bankrupt ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Mallet, how could you let him 1 " asked Mrs. 
 Hudson terribly. 
 
 " Everything I have is at his service," said Rowland, 
 feeling ill. 
 
 " Of course Mr. Mallet will help you, my son ! " cried 
 the poor lady eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, leave Mr. Mallet alone ! " said Roderick. " I have 
 squeezed him dry ; it's not my fault if he has anything 
 left ! " 
 
 " Roderick, what have you done with all your money 1 " 
 his mother demanded. 
 
 " Thrown it away ! It was no such great amount. I 
 have done nothing this winter." 
 
 " You have done nothing 1 " 
 
282 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 "'I have done no work ! Why in the world didn't you 
 ^uess it and spare me all this 1 Couldn't you see I was 
 idle, distracted, debauched 1 " 
 
 " Debauched, my dear son 1 " Mrs. Hudson repeated. 
 
 " That's over for the present ! But couldn't you see — 
 couldn't Mary see — that I was in a damnably bad way ? " 
 
 " I have no doubt Miss Garland saw," said Kowland. 
 
 " Mary has said nothing ! " cried Mrs. Hudson. 
 
 " Oh, she's a fine creature ! " Rowland said. 
 
 " Have you done anything that will hurt poor Mary ? " 
 Mrs. Hudson asked. 
 
 "I have only been thinking night and day of another 
 woman ! " 
 
 Mrs. Hudson dropped helplessly into her seat again. 
 " Oh, dear, dear, hadn't we better go home 1 " 
 
 " Not to get out of her way ! " Roderick said. " She 
 has started on a career of her own, and she doesn't care a 
 straw 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 fine state, eh ? I don't pretend to be 
 giving you good news ; but I am telling the simple, literal 
 truth, so that you may know why I have gone to the dogs. 
 She pretended to care greatly for all this, and to be willing 
 to make any sacrifice in return ; she had a magnificent 
 chance, for she was being forced into a mercenary marriage 
 with a man she detested. She led me to believe that she 
 M'ould 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 that 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 
 that her infernal coquetry and falsity could suggest." 
 
 "Oh, I say, this is too much ! " Rowland broke out. 
 
 " Do you defend her 1 " Roderick cried, with a renewal 
 of his passion. " Do you pretend to say that she gave me 
 no hopes 1 " He had been speaking with growing bitter- 
 ness, quite losing sight of his mother's pain and bewilder- 
 ment in the passionate joy of publishing 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 game, this extra- 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 283 
 
 ordinary insensibility to the injurious effects of his eloquence 
 was a capital example) 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. N The great and characteristic 
 point with him was the perfect exclusiveness of his emotions. 
 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. All this to Rowland was 
 ancient history, but his perception of it stirred within 
 him afresh at the sight of Koderick'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 Roderick's present desperation was 
 so peremptory that it imposed itself on one's sympathies. 
 " Do you pretend to say," he went on, " that she didn't 
 lead me along to the very edge of fulfilment and stupefy 
 me with all that she suffered me to believe, all. that she 
 solemnly promised % 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 
 ravenous flirt, and why a flirt is a flirt is more than I can 
 tell you. 1 can't understand playing with those matters ; 
 for me they are serious, whether I take them up or lay 
 them down. I don't see what's in your head, Rowland, 
 to attempt to defend that woman ; you were the first to 
 cry out against her ! You told me she was dangerous, and 
 I pooh-poohed you. You were right ; you are always 
 right. She is as cold and false and heartless as she 
 is beautiful, and she has sold her heartless beauty to the 
 highest bidder. I hope he knows what he gets ! " 
 
 "Oh, my son," cried Mrs. Hudson, plaintively, "how 
 could you ever care for such a dreadful creature % " 
 
 " It would take long to tell you, dear mother ! " 
 
 Rowland's lately-deepened sympathy and compassion for 
 Christina was still throbbing in his mind, and he felt 
 that, in loyalty to it, he must say a word for her. " You 
 believed in her too much at first," he declared, "and you 
 believe in her too little now." 
 
 Roderick looked at him with eyes almost lurid. " She's 
 
284 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 an angel then after all ? — that's what yon want to prove ! " 
 ho cried. " That's consoling for me who have lost her ! 
 You are always right I say ; but my dear fellow, in mercy 
 be wrong for once ! " 
 
 " Oh yes, Mr. Mallet, be merciful ! " said Mrs. Hudson 
 in a tone which for all its gentleness made Rowland stare. 
 The poor fellow's stare 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 suddenly generated animosity. There was no space 
 in Mrs. Hudson's tiny maternal mind for complications of 
 feeling, and one emotion existed only by turning another 
 over tiat and perching on top of it. She was evidently not 
 following Koderick at all in his dusky aberrations. Sitting 
 ■without, in dismay, she only saw that all was darkness 
 and trouble, and as Roderick's glory had now quite out- 
 stripped her powers of imagination and lifted him beyond 
 her jurisdiction, so that he had become a thing too precious 
 and sacred for blame, she found it infinitely comfortable 
 to lay the burden of their common affliction upon Rowlands 
 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. " Hadn't you 
 better forget all this, my dear?" Mrs. Hudson said to 
 her son. " Hadn't you better just quietly attend to your 
 work 1 " 
 
 *' Work, madam 1 " cried Roderick. " My work's over. 
 I can't work — I haven'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 am sure you have made a beautiful likeness of your 
 poor little mother," said Mrs. Hudson coaxingly. 
 
 " I had done nothing before, and I have done nothing 
 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 ! " Roderick had 
 been wandering among formidable abstractions and allu- 
 sions too dark to penetrate. But here was a concrete fact, 
 lucidly stated, and poor Mrs. Hudson for a moment looked 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 285 
 
 it in the face. She repeated her son's words a third time 
 with a gasping murmur and then suddenly she burst into 
 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 leaned her head on his 
 shoulder and sobbed broken-heartedly. She said not a 
 word, she made no attempt to scold ; but the desolation 
 of her tears was overwhelming. It lasted some time — too 
 long for Rowland's courage. He had stood silent, wishing 
 simply to appear very respectful ; but the elation that was 
 mentioned a while since had utterly ebbed and he found 
 his situation intolerable. He was reduced to the vulgar 
 expedient of leaving the room. 
 
 The next day, while he was at home, the servant 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 the 
 motive of it. Roderick's countenance threw no light upon 
 it ; but Roderick's luminous visage had never had any 
 power of projecting its radiance. He had not been in 
 Rowland's rooms for several weeks, and he immediately 
 began to look at those of his own works that adorned 
 them. 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. Her 
 success however may be measured by the fact that Row- 
 land's whole attention centred in the fear of seeing her 
 begin to weep. She told him that she had come to him 
 for practical advice ; she took leave to remind him that 
 she was a stranger in the land. Where were they to go, 
 please ? What where they to do ? Rowland glanced at 
 Roderick, but Roderick had his back turned and with his 
 head on one side, like a tourist in a church, was gazing at 
 his splendid ' Adam.' 
 
 " Roderick says he doesn't know, he doesn't care," Mrs. 
 Hudson said ; " he leaves it entirely to you." 
 
 Many another man, in Rowland's place, would have 
 greeted this information with an irate and sarcastic laugh, 
 and told his visitors that he thanked them infinitely for 
 
286 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 their confidence, but that really as things stood now they 
 must settle these little matters between themselves ; many 
 another man might have so comjjorted himself, even if, 
 like Kowland, he had been in love with Mary (rarland 
 and pressingly conscious that her destiny was also part 
 of the question. But Rowland swallowed all hilarity and 
 all sarcasm, and entered into Mrs. Hudson's dilemma. His 
 wits, however, were but indifferently at his command ; they 
 were dulled by his sense of the singular change that had 
 taken place in the attitude of this bewildered woman. Her 
 visit was evidently intended as a formal reminder of for- 
 gotten vows. Mrs. Hudson was doubtless too sincerely 
 humble a person to suppose that if he had had the wicked 
 levity to break faith with her, her imponderable presence 
 would operate as a chastisement. But by some diminutive 
 logical process of her own she had convinced herself that 
 she had been weakly trustful, and that she had suffered 
 Rowland 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 have very little money to spend," she 
 said as Rowland remained silent. " Roderick tells me 
 that he has debts and 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 am sure I don't 
 know ; I never heard of anything so dreadful ! My house 
 is all I have. But that is all Roderick will say. We must 
 be very economical." 
 
 Before this speech was finished Mrs. Hudson's voice had 
 begun to quaver softly, and her face, which had no capacity 
 for the expression of a privileged consciousness, to look as 
 humbly appealing as before. Rowland turned to Roderick 
 and spoke like a schoolmaster. " Come away from those 
 statues and sit down here and listen to me ! " 
 
 Roderick started, but obeyed with the most graceful 
 docility, choosing a stiff-backed antique chair. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 287 
 
 " What do you propose to your mother to do ? " Rowland 
 asked. 
 
 "Propose]" said Roderick absently. "Oh, I propose 
 nothing." 
 
 The tone, the glance, the gesture with which this was 
 said were horribly irritating, and for an instant an impre- 
 cation rose to Rowland's lips. But he had checked it, and 
 he was afterwards glad he had done so. " You must do 
 something," he said. " Choose, select, decide ! " 
 
 " My dear Rowland, how you talk ! " Roderick cried. 
 " The very point of the matter is that I can't do anything. 
 I will do as I'm told, but I don't call that doing. We 
 must leave Rome, I suppose, though I don't see why. We 
 have got no money, and you have to pay money on the 
 railroads." 
 
 Mrs. Hudson surreptitiously wrung her hands. " Listen 
 to him, please ! " she cried. " Not leave Rome, when we 
 have staid here later than any respectable family ever did 
 before ! It's this dreadful place that has made us so 
 unhappy. Roderick's so fearfully relaxed ! " 
 
 "It's very true that I'm relaxed!" said Roderick 
 serenely. " If I had not come to Rome I shouldn't have 
 risen, and if I had not risen I shouldn't have fallen." 
 
 " Fallen — fallen ! " murmured Mrs. Hudson. " Just 
 hear him ! " 
 
 "I will do anything you say, Rowland," Roderick 
 added. " I will do anything you want. I have 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, didn'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 his statue, got up again and went back to 
 look at it. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson fixed her eyes upon the floor in silence. 
 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 con- 
 science. He looked at Rowland with his frank and radiant 
 eye as if there had never been a difference of opinion 
 
288 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 between them ; as if each had ever been for both, unalter- 
 ably, and both for each. 
 
 Kowland had received a few days before a letter from 
 a lady of his acquaintance, a worthy Scotswoman 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-fioored rooms, 
 with ceilings vaulted and frescoed, and barred windows 
 commanding the loveliest view in the world. She was a 
 needy and thrifty spinster, who never hesitated to declare 
 that the lovely view w^as all very well, but that for her 
 own part she lived in the villa for cheapness, and that if 
 she had a clear three hundred pounds a year she would go 
 and really enjoy life near her sister, a baronet's lady at 
 Glasgow. She was now proposing to make a visit to that 
 delectable city, and she desired to turn an honest penny 
 by sub-letting for a few weeks her historic Italian chambers. 
 The terms on which she occupied them enabled her to ask 
 a rent almost jocosely small, and she begged Rowland to 
 do what she called a little genteel advertising for her. 
 Would he say a good word for her rooms to his numerous 
 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 tahles-dliote and 
 have a cook of her own, amenable possibly to instruction 
 in the NorthamjDton mysteries. He had touched a tender 
 chord ; Mrs. Hudson became almost cheerful. Her senti- 
 ments upon the tahle-d'hote system and upon foreign 
 household habits generally were remarkable, and if we 
 had space for it would repay analysis ; and the idea of 
 reclaiming a lost soul to culinary orthodoxy quite lightened 
 the burden of her depression. While Rowland set forth 
 his case Roderick slowly walked through the rooms with 
 his hands in his pockets. Rowland waited for him to 
 manifest an interest in their discussion, but he had no 
 attention for his friend's pictures. Rowland was- a practical 
 man ; he possessed conspicuously what is called 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 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 289 
 
 his advice with great frigidity, looking hard at the floor 
 and sighing, like a person well on her guard against an 
 optimism which might be but an escape from penalties. 
 But she had nothing better to propose, and Rowland re- 
 ceived her permission to write to his friend that she would 
 take the rooms. 
 
 Roderick assented to this decision without either sighs 
 or smiles. " A Florentine villa is a good thing 1 " he said. 
 *' I am at your service." 
 
 " I am sure I hope you will recover your tone there," 
 moaned his mother, gathering her shawl together. 
 
 Roderick laid one hand on her arm and with the other 
 pointed to Rowland's statues. " This is my tone just now. 
 Once upon a time I did those things, and they are devilish 
 good ! " 
 
 Mrs. Hudson gazed at them vaguely, and Rowland said, 
 " That's a capital tone ! " 
 
 " They are atrociously good ! " said Roderick. 
 
 Rowland solemnly shrugged his shoulders ; it seemed to 
 him that he had nothing more to say. But as the others 
 were going, a last light pulsation of the sense of undis- 
 charged duty led him to address to Roderick a few words 
 of parting advice. " You will iind the Villa Pandolfini 
 very delightful, very comfortable," he said. " You ought 
 to be very contented there. Whether you work or whether 
 you do what you are doing now, it's a place for an artist 
 to be happy in. I hope you will work." 
 
 " I hope I may ! " said Roderick, with a magnificent 
 smile. 
 
 " When we meet again try and have something to show 
 me." 
 
 " When we meet again ? Where the deuce are you 
 going "i " Roderick demanded. 
 
 " Oh, I hardly know ; over the Alps." 
 
 " Over the Alps ! You are going to leave me ? " 
 
 Rowland had certainly meant to leave him, but his 
 resolution was not proof against this single ejaculation. 
 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 
 
 T 
 
290 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 were the oddest ! Such as they were, Rowland asked 
 himself why he shouldn'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 
 world shall I get through the next six months without 
 
 your' 
 
 " How will you get through them with mel That's the 
 question." 
 
 " I don't pretend to say ; the future is a dead blank. 
 But without you it's not a blank — it's certain damna- 
 tion ! " 
 
 " Mercy, mercy ! " murmured ]Mrs. Hudson. 
 Rowland made an eii'ort to turn this precious symptom 
 of a positive desire to account. *' If I go with you, will 
 you try to work 1 " 
 
 Roderick up to this moment had been looking as unper- 
 turbed as if the deep agitation of the day before were a 
 thing of the remote past. But at these words his face 
 changed formidabl}^ ; 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 
 you'll drive me mad ! Do you suppose I am trying not to 
 work 1 Do you suppose I stand rotting here for the fun 
 of it 1 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 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 incurable weakness; he drank deep, only, of the 
 satisfaction of not separating from Mary Garland. If the 
 future was a blank to Roderick it was hardly less so to 
 himself. He had at moments a sharp foreboding of im- 
 pending calamity. He paid it no especial deference, but 
 it made him feel indisposed to take the future into his 
 account. On his going to take leave of Madame Grandoni, 
 this lady asked when he would come back to Rome, and 
 he answered that he would return either never or for ever. 
 When she asked him what he meant, he said he really 
 couldn't tell her, and he parted from her with much 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 291 
 
 genuine emotion ; the more so doubtless tliat she blessed 
 him in a quite loving maternal fashion and told him 
 she honestly believed him to be the best fellow in. the 
 world. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Villa Pandolfini stood directly upon a small grass- 
 grown piazza, on the top of a hill which sloped straight 
 from one of the gates of Florence. It offered to the outer 
 world a long rather low facade, 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, it had a great cool grey cortile, 
 with high light arches around it, heavily-corniced doors of 
 majestic altitude opening out of it, and a beautiful mediaeval 
 well on one side of it. Mrs. Hudson's rooms opened into 
 a small garden supported on immense substructions which 
 were planted on the farther side of the hill as it 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 la^ndscape 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 and make it an ideal refuge for unsuccessful lives. 
 Mrs. Hudson had a stunted brown-faced Maddalena who 
 wore a crimson handkerchief passed over her coarse black 
 locks and tied under her sharp pertinacious chin, and a 
 smile which was as brilliant as a prolonged flash of light- 
 ning. She smiled at everything in life, especially the 
 things that displeased her and that kept her talent for 
 mendacity in healthy exercise. A glance, a word, a motion 
 was sufficient to make her show her teeth at you like a 
 cheerful she-wolf. This inexpugnable smile constituted 
 her whole vocabulary in her dealings with her melancholy 
 mistress to whom she had been bequeathed by the late 
 
 T 2 
 
292 RODERICK IIUOSON. 
 
 occupant of the apartment :ind who, to Rowland's satis- 
 faction, promised to be diverted from lier maternal sorrows 
 by the still deeper perplexities of Maddalena'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 live minutes' walk 
 in the sharp black shadow-strip projected by winding 
 flower-topped walls to join his friends. The life at the 
 Villa Pandolfini, when it had fairly defined itself, was 
 tranquil and monotonous, but it might have borrowed 
 from exquisite circumstance an absorbing charm. If a 
 sensible shadow rested updn it, this was because it had an 
 inherent vice ; it feigned a light-heartedness which it very 
 scantily felt. Roderick had lost no time in giving the 
 full measure of his uncompromising chagrin, and as he 
 was the central figure of the little group, as he held its 
 heart-strings all in his own hand, it reflected faithfully the 
 eclipse of his genius. No one had ventured upon the cheerful 
 commonplace of saying that the change of air and of scene 
 would restore his spirits ; this would have had, under the 
 circumstances, altogether too silly a sound. The change in 
 question had done nothing of the sort, and his companions 
 had at least the comfort of their perspicacity. An essential 
 spring had dried up within him, and there was no visible 
 spiritual law for making it flow again. He was rarely 
 violent, he expressed little of the irritation and ennui that 
 he must have constantly felt ; it was as if he believed that 
 a spiritual miracle for his redemption was just barely pos- 
 sible and was therefore 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 urbanity 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 wind- 
 pipe and other people's. Roderick had long silences, tits of 
 profound lethargy, almost of stupefaction. He used to sit 
 in the garden by the hour, with his head thrown back, his 
 legs outstretched, his hands in his pockets and his eyes 
 fastened upon the blinding summer sky. He would gather 
 a dozen books about him, tumble them out on the ground, 
 take one into his lap, and leixve it with the pages unturned. 
 These moods would alternate with hours of extreme restless- 
 
RODEEICK HUDSON. 293 
 
 ness during which he mysteriously absented himself. He 
 bore the heat of the Italian summer like a salamander, and 
 used to start off at high 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 many of these occasions Row- 
 land bore him company, for they were the times when he 
 was most like his former self. Before Michael Angelo's 
 statues and the pictures of the early Tuscans he quite 
 forgot his own infelicities and picked up the thread of his 
 old aesthetic loquacity. He found in Florence some of his 
 Roman friends and went down in the evening to meet 
 them. More than once he asked Mary Garland to go with 
 him into the town, where he showed her the things he 
 most cared for. He had some 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 never was touched. His eye was heavy 
 and his hand cold, and his mother put up a secret prayer 
 that he might be induced to see a doctor. But on a certain 
 occasion, when her prayer became articulate, he had a great 
 outburst of anger, and begged her to know once for all 
 that his health was better than it had ever been. On the 
 whole, and most of the time, he was a sad spectacle ; he 
 looked so hopelessly idle. If he was not querulous and 
 bitter it was because he had taken an extraordinary vow 
 not to be ; a vow heroic for him, a vow which those who 
 knew him well had the tenderness to appreciate. Talking 
 with him was like skating on thin ice, and his com- 
 panions had a constant mental vision of spots designated 
 *' dangerous." 
 
 This was a difficult time for Rowland ; he said to himself 
 that he would endure it to the end, but that he must never 
 try it again. Mrs. Hudson divided her time between look- 
 ing 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 turning her eyes much 
 more directly upon Rowland, in the mutest, the feeblest, 
 the most intolerable reproachfulness. She never phrased 
 her accusations, but he felt that in the unillumined void 
 of the poor lady's mind they loomed up like vaguely-out- 
 lined monsters. Her demeanour caused him the acutest 
 
294 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 suffering, and if at the outset of his experiment he had 
 seen, how dimly soever, one of those plaintive eye-beams 
 in the opposite scale, the brilliancy of Koderick's promises 
 would have counted for little. These punctual messengers 
 made their way to the softest spot in his conscience and 
 kept it chronically aching. If Mrs. Hudson had been 
 voluble and vulgar he would have borne even a less valid 
 persecution with greater fortitude. But somehow, neat 
 and noiseless and dismally lady-like as she sat there, keep- 
 in t^ her grievance green with her soft- dropping tears, her 
 displeasure conveyed an overwhelming imputation of bru- 
 tality. He felt like .a reckless trustee who has speculated 
 with the widow's mite, and is haunted with the retlection of 
 ruin that he sees in her tearful eyes. He did everything con- 
 ceivable to be polite to Mrs. Hudson and to treat her with 
 distinguished deference. Perhaps his exasperated nerves 
 made him overshoot the mark, and rendered his civilities 
 too grimly perfunctory. She seemed capable of believing 
 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 his 
 constancy. Women are said by some authorities to be 
 cruel ; I know not how true this is, but it may at least 
 be pertinent to remark that Mrs. Hudson was intensely 
 feminine. It often seemed to Rowland that he had too 
 decidedly forfeited his freedom, and that there w^as some- 
 thing grotesque in a man of his age being put into a 
 corner. 
 
 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 himself drifting to 
 Florence. Yet her help was rendered as unconsciously 
 and indirectly as before ; he had made no apologies and 
 she had offered to remit no penalties. After that distress- 
 ing scene in Rome which had immediately preceded their 
 departure, it was of course impossible that there should 
 not be on the girl's part some frankness of allusion to 
 Roderick's sad condition. She had been present, the 
 reader will remember, during only half of his uncom- 
 promising confession of his errors, and Rowland had not 
 seen her confronted with any absolute proof of Rowland's 
 passion for Christina Light. But he knew that she knew far 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 295 
 
 too much for her happiness ; Roderick had told him, shortly 
 after their settlement at the Villa Paudoliini, that he had 
 had a " tremendous talk " with his cousin. Rowland asked 
 no questions about it ; he preferred not to know what had 
 passed between them. If their interview had been purely 
 painful 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 unshaped idea, 
 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 whose lightest 
 motions were an effectual bribe to patience. Had there 
 been a formal rupture I Rowland wondered, yet without 
 asking ; and he thought it very possible that if there had 
 not been, it was because Roderick had so completely bidden 
 farewell to forms. It hardly mattered, however, for if 
 Mary of her own movement had withdrawn her hand, her 
 heart had by no means recovered its liberty. It was very 
 certain to Rowland's mind that if she had given him up 
 she had by no means ceased to care for him passionately, 
 and that to exhaust her charity for his weaknesses Roderick 
 would have as the phrase is a long row to hoe. She spoke 
 of Roderick as she might have done of a person suffering 
 from a serious malady which demanded much tenderness ; 
 but if Rowland had found it possible to accuse her of 
 dishonesty he would have said now that she believed 
 appreciably less than she pretended in her victim's being 
 an involuntary patient. There are women whose love is 
 care-taking and patronising, 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 
 Rowland to believe that Mary Garland was one of these, 
 for he held that such women were only males in petticoats, 
 and he was convinced that this young lady's nature was 
 typically girlish. That she was a very different woman 
 from Christina Light did not 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 disrelish of a 
 man who lacked the virile will, it was very certain that 
 Mary was not a person 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 
 
296 KODKKICK HUDSON. 
 
 character, of tlie sulnlety of her luiiid, of her troublous 
 faculty of seeing everything in a dozen dillerent lights. 
 Mary had never pretended not to be simple ; but Rowland 
 had a theory tliat she had really a more multitudinous 
 sense of human things, a more delicate imagination and 
 a finer instinct of character. She did you the honours of 
 her mind with a grace far less regal, but was not that 
 faculty of quite as remarkable a construction 1 If in poor 
 Christina's strangely commingled nature there was circle 
 within circle and depth beneath depth, it was to be believed 
 that the object of Kowland's preference, though she did not 
 amuse herself with dropping stones into her soul and waiting 
 to hear them fall, laid (juite as many sources of spiritual lite 
 under contribution. She had believed Koderick was a fine 
 fellow when she bade him farewell beneath the Northampton 
 elms, and this belief, to her young, strenuous, concentrated 
 imagination, had meant many things. If it was to grow 
 cold, it would be because disenchantment had become total 
 and won the battle at each successive point. 
 
 Even in her face and carriage she had something of the 
 preoccupied and wearied look of a person who is watching 
 at a sick-bed; Rodericks broken fortunes, his dead ambi- 
 tions were a cruel burden to the heart of a girl who had 
 believed that he possessed " genius," and who supposed 
 that genius was to one's spiritual economy what a large 
 bank account was to one's domestic. And yet with Mary 
 Rowland never tasted, as with Mrs. Hudson, of that acrid 
 under-current — that impertinent implication that he had 
 defrauded her of happiness. Was this justice in the girl, 
 or was it mercy t The answer would have been difficult, 
 for she had almost let Rowland feel before leaving Rome 
 that she liked him well enough to forgive him an injury. 
 It was partly, Rowland fancied, that there were occasional 
 lapses, deep and sweet, in her sense of injury. When on 
 arriving at Florence she saw the place Rowland had brought 
 them to in their trouble, she had given him a look and said 
 a few words to him that had seemed not only a remission 
 of guilt but a positive reward. 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 Italian 
 sky. Mary had felt on the spot the sovereign charm of 
 the place; it was reflected in her intelligent eyes, and 
 
BODERICK HUDSON. 297 
 
 Rowland immediately accused himself of not having done 
 the villa justice. Mary fell in love on the spot with 
 Florence, and used to look down wistfully at the towered 
 city from their terraced garden. Roderick having now no 
 pretext for not being her cicerone, Rowland was no longer 
 at liberty, as he had been in Rome, to propose frequent 
 excursions to her. Roderick's own invitations however 
 were not frequent, and Rowland more than once ventured 
 to introduce her to a gallery or a church. These expeditions 
 were not so blissful to his sense as the rambles they had 
 taken together in Rome, for his companion only half 
 surrendered herself to her enjoyment, and seemed to have 
 but a divided attention at her command. Often, when she 
 had begun with looking intently at a picture, her silence 
 after an interval made him turn and glance at her. He 
 usually found that if she was looking at the picture still 
 she was not seeing it. Her eyes were fixed, but her 
 thoughts were wandering, and an image more vivid than 
 any "that Raphael or Titian had drawn had superposed 
 itself upon the canvas. 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 travellers, and the 
 dense little city gave forth its aesthetic aroma with a larger 
 frankness, as the nightingale sings when the listeners have 
 departed. The churches were deliciously cool, but the 
 grey streets were stifling, and the great dove-tailed poly- 
 gons of pavement were hot to the lingering tread. Row- 
 land, who suffered from a high temperature, would have 
 found all this uncomfortable in solitude ; but Florence had 
 never charmed him so completely as during these mid- 
 summer strolls with his preoccupied companion. One 
 evening they had arranged to go on the morrow to the 
 Academy. Mary kept her appointment, but as soon as 
 she appeared Rowland saw that something painful had 
 befallen her. She was doing her best to look at her ease, 
 but her face bore the marks of tears. Rowland told 
 her that he was afraid she was ill, and that if she pre- 
 ferred to give up the visit to Florence he would submit 
 with what grace he might. She hesitated a moment, 
 and then said she preferred to adhere to their plan. 
 
298 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " I am not well," she presently added, " but it's a moral 
 malady, and in such cases 1 consider your company an 
 assistance." 
 
 " But if I am to be your doctor," said Rowland, *' you 
 must tell me how your illness came about." 
 
 " I can tell you very little. It came about with Mrs. 
 Hudson being unjust to me — for the first time in her life. 
 And now I am already better ! " 
 
 I mention this incident because it confirmed an impres- 
 sion of Rowland's from which he had derived a certain 
 consolation. He knew that Mrs. Hudson considered her 
 son's ill-regulated passion for Christina Light a very regret- 
 table affair, but he suspected that her manifest compassion 
 had been all for Roderick, and not in the least for her 
 companion. She was fond of the young girl, but she had 
 valued her primarily during the last two years as a kind 
 of assistant priestess at Roderick's shrine. Roderick had 
 paid her the compliment of asking her to become his wife, 
 but that poor Mary had any rights in consec^uence, J\lrs. 
 Hudson was quite incapable of perceiving. Her sentiment 
 on the subject was of course not rigidly formulated, but she 
 was unprepared to regard her companion in the least as a 
 victim. Roderick was very unhappy ; that was enough, 
 and jSIary's duty was to join her patience and her prayers 
 to those of a disinterested parent. Roderick might fall 
 in love with whom he pleased ; no doubt that women trained 
 in the mysterious Roman arts were only too proud and too 
 happy to make it easy for him ; and it was very presuming 
 in a plain second cousin to feel any personal resentment. 
 Mrs. Hudson's philosophy was of too narrow a scope to 
 suggest that a mother may forgive where a mistress cannot, 
 and she thought it a charge upon her own mortgaged 
 charity that Mary should not accommodate herself to the 
 position of a handmaid without wages. She was ready to 
 hold her breath so that Roderick might sigh at his ease, 
 and she was capable of seeing her young kinswoman gasp 
 for air without a tremor of compassion. Mary now 
 apparently had given some intimat on of her belief that 
 *if constancy is the flower of devotion, reciprocity is the 
 guarantee of constancy, and Mrs. Hudson had denounced 
 this as a very arrogant doctrine. That Mary had found it 
 hard to reason with Mrs. Hudson, that she suflered deeply 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. 299 
 
 from the elder lady's moral parsimony, and that in short 
 he had companionship in misfortune — all this made Row- 
 land tind a certain luxury in his discomfort. 
 
 The party at Villa Pandoltini used to sit in the garden 
 in the evenings, which Rowland almost always spent with 
 them. Their entertainment was in the heavily perfumed air, 
 in the dim, far starlight, in the crenelated tower of a 
 neighbouring villa, which loomed vaguely above them 
 through the warm darkness, and in such conversation as 
 depressing reflections permitted. Roderick, clad always in 
 white, roamed about like a restless ghost, silent for the 
 most part, but making from time to time a brief obser- 
 vation characterised by the most fantastic cynicism. 
 Roderick's contributions to the conversation were indeed 
 always so fantastic that though half the time they wearied 
 him unspeakably Rowland made an effort to treat them 
 humorously. With Rowland alone Roderick talked a 
 great deal more — often about the things that had formerly 
 interested him. He talked as well as ever or even better ; 
 but his talk always ended in a torrent of groans and curses. 
 When this current set in Rowland straightway turned his 
 back and stopped his ears, and Roderick now witnessed 
 these movements with perfect indifference. When the 
 latter was absent from the star-lit circle in the garden, 
 as often happened, Rowland knew nothing of his where- 
 abouts ; he supposed him to be in Florence, but he never 
 learned what he did there. All this was not enlivening; 
 yet with an even, muffled tread the days followed each 
 other and brought the month of August to a close. One 
 particular evening at this time was enchanting ; there was 
 a perfect moon, looking so extraordinarily large that it 
 made everything its light fell upon seem small ; the heat 
 was tempered by a soft west wind, and the wind was 
 laden with the odours of the early harvest. The hills, 
 the vale of the Arno, the shrunken river, the domes of 
 Florence, were not so much lighted as obscured by the 
 dense moonshine. Rowland had found the two ladies 
 alone at the villa, and he had sat with them for an hour. 
 He felt hushed by the solemn splendour of the scene, but 
 he risked the remark that whatever life might yet have in 
 store for either of them this was a night that they would 
 never forget. 
 
SCO RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " It's a night to remember when one is dying ! " Mary 
 Garland exchiimod. 
 
 "Oh, Mary, how can you!" murmured Mrs. Hudson, 
 to whom this savoured of profanity, and to whose shrinking 
 sense indeed the accumulated loveliness of the hour seemed 
 to have something shameless and defiant. 
 
 They were silent after this for some time, but at last 
 Rowland addressed certain idle words to the young girl. 
 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 a look which gave a sort of spectral 
 solemnity to the sad weak meaning of her eyes. She had the 
 air for the moment of a little old malevolent fairy. Mar}-, 
 Rowland perceived in an instant, was not absolutely 
 motionless ; a tremor passed through her figure. She was 
 crying, or on the point of crying, and she could not trust 
 herself to speak. Rowland left his place and wandered 
 to another part of the garden, wondering at the motive of 
 her sudden tears. Of women's weeping in general he had 
 a sovereign dread, but this somehow gave him a certain 
 pleasure. When he returned to his place Mary had raised 
 her head and brushed away her grief. She came away 
 from Mrs, Hudson, and they stood for a short time leaning 
 against the parapet. 
 
 " It seems to you very strange, I suppose," said Row- 
 land, " that there should be any trouble 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 enjoyment as they 
 do here. Here it is such a mixture ; one doesn'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 not made to sufi:er but to enjoy. This place has under- 
 mined my stoicism, but — shall I tell you i I feel as if I 
 were saying something sinful — I love it ! " 
 
 "If it is sinful, I absolve you — in so far as I have 
 power. We are made both to suffer and to enjoy, 1 
 suppose. As you say, it's a mixture ! Just now and 
 
EODEKICK HUDSON. 301 
 
 her^, it seems a peculiarly strange one. But we must 
 take things in turn.". 
 
 His words had a singular aptness, for he had hardly- 
 uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, 
 evidently in his darkest mood. He stood for a moment 
 gazing hard at the view. 
 
 " 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 1 " he cried ; 
 " of course it's beautiful ! Everything is beautiful ; every- 
 thing is insolent, defiant, atrocious with beauty. Nothing 
 is ugly but me — me and my poor dead brain ! " 
 
 " Oh my dearest son," pleaded poor Mrs. Hudson, " don't 
 you feel any better 1 ' ' 
 
 Roderick made no immediate answer ; but at last he 
 spoke in a different voice. " I came expressly to tell you 
 that you needn'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 have given it a chance. Haven't I, eh.1 Haven't I, 
 Rowland 1 It's no use ; the thing'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." 
 
 " I feel strongly inclined," said Rowland, gravely, "-to 
 go and get my revolver." 
 
 "■ Oh, mercy on us, what language ! " cried Mrs. 
 Hudson. 
 
 " Why not 1 " 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 prefer. 
 Take me back to Northampton." 
 
 " Roderick, will you really come 1 " cried his mother. 
 
 " Oh yes, I'll go ! I might as well be there as anywhere 
 — reverting to idiocy and living upon alms. I can do 
 nothing with all this ; perhaps I should really like North- 
 ampton. If I am to vegetate for the rest of my days, I 
 can do it there better than here.'' 
 
 "Oh, come home, come home," Mrs. Hudson said, "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 ! " 
 
302 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson iluiig herself upon his neck for gratitude. 
 ** We will go to-morrow ! " she cried. " The Lord is very 
 good to me ! " 
 
 Mary Garland said nothing to this ; but she looked at 
 Rowland, and her eyes seemed to contain a kind of alarmed 
 appeal. Rowland observed it with exultation, but even 
 without it he would have broken into an eager protest. 
 
 " Are you serious, Roderick 'i " he demanded. 
 
 " Serious 1 of course not ! How can a man with a crack 
 in his brain be serious 1 how can a d — d fool reason 1 But 
 I am not jesting, either ; I can no more make jokes than 
 utter oracles ! " 
 
 " Are you willing to go home 1 " 
 
 " Willing 1 God forbid ! I am simply amenable to 
 force ; if my mother chooses to take me I won't resist. 
 I can't ! I have come to that ! ''" 
 
 " Let me resist then," said RowLand. " Go home in this 
 state? 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 that 
 was almost comical in its effect. " You are a queer fellosv ! 
 I should think I would disgust you horribly." 
 
 " Stay another year," Rowland simply said. 
 
 *' Doing nothing 1 " 
 
 " You shall do something. I am responsible for your 
 doing something." 
 
 " To whom are you responsible 1 " 
 
 Rowland, before replying, glanced at Mary Garland, 
 and his glance made her speak quickly. " Not to me ! " 
 
 " I am responsible to myself," Rowland declared. 
 
 " My poor dear fellow ! " said Roderick. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Mallet, aren't you satisfied 1 " cried Mrs. 
 Hudson, in the tone in which Niobe may have addressed 
 the avenging archers after she had seen her eldest- born 
 fall. "It's out of all nature keeping him here. When 
 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 Row- 
 land 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 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. 303 
 
 cried, " where everything mocks and reproaches and tor- 
 ments and eludes me ! Take me out of this land of 
 imjjossible beauty and put me in the midst of ugliness. 
 Set me down where nature is coarse and Hat, and men and 
 manners are vulgar. There must be something awfully 
 ugly in Germany. Pack me off there ! " 
 
 Kowland 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 find a fine tonic climate, 
 plenty of fresh milk, and several very inexpensive pensions. 
 Switzerland of course was not ugly, but one could not 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 Mary was 
 weary of waiting for E-oderick to come to his senses, that 
 the faith which had borne him company on the tortuous 
 march he was leading it, had begun to believe it had gone 
 far enough. This theory was not vitiated by something 
 she said to him on the day before that on which Mrs. 
 
 Hudson had arranged 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 have 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 for a moment at the ground ; and then, 
 
 with sudden earnestness, " I want you to come with us ! " 
 
 she said. 
 
 It need hardly be added that after this Rowland went 
 
 with them. 
 
304 KODRKICK HUDSON. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Rowland had a very friendly memory of a little moun- 
 tain-inn, accessible with moderate trouble from Lucerne, 
 where he had once spent a blissful ten days. He had at 
 that time been trudging, knapsack on back, over half 
 Switzerland, and not being a particularly light weight 
 on his legs it was no shame to him to confess that he was 
 mortally tired. The inn of which I speak presented 
 striking analogies with a cow-stable ; but in spite of this 
 circumstance it was crowded with hungry tourists. 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 grotesque against the evening 
 sky. Rowland had seen grander places in Switzerland 
 that pleased him less, and whenever afterwards he wished 
 to think of Alpine opportunities at their best he recalled 
 this grassy concave among the higher ridges, and the 
 August days he spent there, resting deliciously at his 
 length in the lea of a sun-warmed boulder, with the light 
 cool air stirring about his temples, the wafted odours of 
 the pines in his nostrils, the tinkle of the cattle-bells in 
 his ears, the vast progression of the mountain-shadows be- 
 fore his eyes, and a volume of Wordsworth in his pocket. 
 His face, on the Swiss hill-sides, had been scorched to a 
 brilliant hue, and his bed was a pallet in a loft, which he 
 shared w^ith a German botanist of colossal stature- — every 
 inch of him quaking at an open window. These had been 
 drawbacks to felicity, but Rowland hardly cared whether 
 or how he was lodged, for he spent the livelong da}^ under 
 the sky, on the crest of a slope that looked at the Jung- 
 frau. He remembered all this on leaving Florence 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 com- 
 panions established themselves under his guidance in the 
 grassy valley. , 
 
 He had crossed the Saint Gothard Pass with them, in 
 
RODEKICK HUDSON. 305 
 
 the same vehicle. During the journey from Florence, and 
 especially during this portion of it, the cloud that hung 
 over the little party had been almost dissipated, and they 
 had looked at each other, in the close intimacy of the 
 train and the posting-carriage, without either retributive 
 or argumentative glances. It was impossible not to enjoy 
 the magnificent scenery of the Apennines and the Italian 
 Alps, and there was a tacit agreement among the travellers 
 to abstain from sombre allusions. The effect of this delicate 
 compact seemed excellent ; it ensured them a week's in- 
 tellectual sunshine. Roderick sat and gazed out of the 
 window with a fascinated stare and with a perfect docility 
 of attitude. He concerned himself not a particle about the 
 itinerary or about any of the wayside arrangements; he 
 took no trouble and he gave none. He assented to every- 
 thing that was proposed, talked very little, and led for a 
 week a perfectly contemplative life. His mother rarely 
 removed her eyes from him ; and if a while before this 
 would greatly have irritated him, he now seemed perfectly 
 unconscious of her observation and profoundly 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 with striped awnings. 
 They agreed it was the earthly paradise, and they 23assed 
 the mornings strolling through the cedarn alleys of classic 
 villas, and the evenings floating in the moonlight in a 
 circle of outlined mountains, to the music of silver-trickling 
 oars. One day, in the afternoon, the two young men took 
 a long stroll together. They followed the winding footway 
 tha.t led towards Como, close to the lake-side, past the 
 gates of villas and the walls of vineyards, through little 
 hamlets propped on a dozen arches, and bathing their feet 
 and their pendant tatters, the grey-green ripple ; past 
 frescoed walls and crumbling campaniles and grassy village 
 piazzas and the mouth of soft ravines that wound upward 
 through belts of swinging vine and vaporous olive and 
 splendid chestnut, to high ledges where white chapels 
 gleamed amid the paler boskage, and bare clilf- surfaces, 
 with their blistered lips, drank in the liquid light. It 
 all was consummately picturesque ; it was the Italy that 
 we know from the steel engravings in old keepsakes and 
 
 u 
 
306 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 annuals, from the vignettes on music-sheets and the drop- 
 curtains at theatres ; an Italy that we can never confess 
 ourselves — in spite of our own changes and of Italy's — 
 that we have ceased to believed Kowland and Roderick 
 turned aside from the little paved footway that clambered 
 and dipi)ed and wound and doubled beside the lake, 
 and stretched themselves idly beneath a tig-tree on a 
 grassy promontory. KowLind had never known any- 
 thing so divinely soothing as the dreamy softness of 
 that early autumn afternoon. The iridescent mountains 
 shut him in ; the little 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. 
 
 Eoderick lay observing it all with his arms thrown back 
 and his hands under his head. *' This suits me," he said : 
 " I could be happy here and forget everything. Why not 
 stay here for ever ? " He kept his position for a long time 
 and seemed lost in his thoughts. Kowland spoke to him, 
 but he made vague answers ; at last he closed his eyes. 
 It seemed to Rowland also a place to stay in for ever ; a 
 place for perfect oblivion of the disagreeable. Suddenly 
 Roderick turned over on his face and buried it in his 
 arms. There had been something passionate in his move- 
 ment ; but Rowland was nevertheless surprised when he at 
 last jerked himself back into a sitting posture, to perceive 
 the trace of tears in his eyes. Roderick turned to his 
 friend, stretching his two hands out towards the lake and 
 mountains, and shaking them with an eloquent gesture, as 
 if his heart had been 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 1 " said Rowland. 
 
 *' 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 am glad to hear it," said Rowland. " Death of that 
 sort is 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 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. 307 
 
 bushel of tears. For one hour of what I have been I 
 would give up anything I may be ! " 
 
 " Never mind what you have been ; be something 
 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 have lain here. Something in my heart seems 
 suddenly to open and let in a flood of beauty and desire. 
 I know what I have 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 and his aspiration dead. Say that 
 he trembled in every nerve with a sense of the beauty and 
 sweetness of life ; that he rebelled and protested and 
 struggled ; that he was buried alive, \yith his eyes open 
 and his heart beating to madness ; that he clung to every 
 blade of grass and every wayside thorn as he passed ; that 
 it was the most pitiful spectacle you ever beheld ; that it 
 was a scandal, an outrage, a murder ! " 
 
 " Good heavens man, are you insane 1 " Ptowland cried. 
 
 "I have 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 am 
 bidding farewell to Italy, to beauty, to honour, to life I 
 I only want to assure you that I know what I lose. I 
 know it in every pulse of my heart ! Here, where these 
 things are all loveliest, I take leave of them. Good-bye, 
 charming world ! " 
 
 During their passage of the Saint Gothard Roderick 
 absented" himself much of the time from the carriage, and 
 rambled far in -advance, along the zigzags of the road. 
 He displayed an extraordinary activity; his light weight 
 and slender figure made him an excellent pedestrian, and 
 his friends frequently saw him skirting the edge of plunging 
 chasms, loosening the stones on long steep slopes or lifting 
 himself against the sky from the top of rocky pinnacles. 
 Mary Garland walked a great deal, but she remained near 
 the carriage to be with Mrs. Hudson. Rowland remained 
 near it to be with Mrs. Hudson's companion. He trudged 
 bv her side up that magnificent ascent from Italy, and 
 found himself regretting that the Alps were so low and 
 that their trudging was not to last a week. She was 
 
 u 2 
 
308 T?ODET!ICK HUDSON. 
 
 exhilarated ; slie liked to walk ; in the way of mountains, 
 until within the last few weeks, she had seen nothing 
 greater than Mount Holyoke, and she found that the Alps 
 amply justiiied their reputation. Kowland knew that she 
 loved natural things, l)ut he was struck afresh with the 
 vivacity of her observation of them, and with her know- 
 ledge of plants and rocks. At that season the wild flowers 
 had mostly departed, but a few of them lingered, and Mary 
 never failed to espy them in their outlying corners. They 
 interested her greatly ; she was charmed when they were 
 old friends and charmed even more when they were new. 
 She displayed a very light foot in going in quest of them 
 and had soon covered the front seat of the carriage with 
 a tangle of strange vegetation. ' Rowland of course, was 
 alert in her service, and he gathered for her several 
 botanical specimens which at first seemed inaccessible. 
 One of these indeed had at first appeared easier of capture 
 than his attempt attested, and he had paused a moment at 
 the base of the little peak on which it grew, measuring 
 the risk of farther j^ursuit. Suddenly as he stood there 
 he remembered Roderick's defiance of danger and of 
 Christina Light, at the Coliseum, and he was seized with 
 a strong desire to test the courage 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 approach it she called to him eagerly to stop ; the thing 
 was impossible ! Poor Rowland, whose passion had been 
 terribly underfed, enjoyed immensely the thought of having 
 her care for three minutes what .should become of him. He 
 was the least brutal of men, but for a moment he was 
 perfectly indilferent to her suffering. 
 
 I can get the flower," he called to her. " Will y 
 
 ou 
 
 trust me 'i 
 
 " I don't want it ; I would rather not have it ! " she 
 cried. 
 
 '' Will you trust me ? " he repeated looking at her. 
 
 She looked at him and then at the flower ; he wondered 
 whether she would shriek and swoon as Christina had 
 done. " I wish it were something better ! " she said 
 simply ; and then stood watching him while he began to 
 clamber. Rowland was not a trained acrobat and his 
 enterprise was ditiicult; but he kept his wits about him, 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 809 
 
 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 and then he contrived to descend. Th(?re 
 was more than one chance for an ugly fall, but he evaded 
 them all. 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 ho offered Mary the flower, and she 
 was visibly paie. She had watched him without moving. 
 All this had passed without the knowledge of Mrs. Hudson, 
 who was dozing beneath the hood of the carriage. Mary's 
 eyes did not perhaps display that ardent admiration which 
 was formerly conferred by the queen of beauty at a tourna- 
 ment ; but they expressed something in which Rowland 
 found his reward. " Why did you do that T' she asked 
 gravely. 
 
 He hesitated. He felt that it was physically possible 
 to say, " Because I love you ! " but it was not morally 
 possible. He lowered his pitch and answered simply, 
 '' Because I wanted to do something for you." 
 
 " Supj^ose you had fallen ? " """ 
 
 " I believed I should not fall. And you believed it 
 I think." 
 
 " I believed nothing. I simply trusted you, as you 
 asked me." 
 
 " Qiwd erat demonstrandum ! " cried Rowland. " I think 
 you know Latin." 
 
 When our four friends were established in wh?.t I have 
 called their grassy valley there was a good deal of scram- 
 bling 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 exhilara- 
 tion. Mrs. Hudson was obliged to intermit her suspicions 
 of the deleterious atmosphere of the Old World and to 
 acknowledge the superior purity of the breezes of Engelthal. 
 She was certainly more placid than she had been in Italy ; 
 having always lived in the country she had missed in Rome 
 and Florence that social solitude mitigated by bushes and 
 rocks which is so dear to the true New England tempera- 
 ment. The little unpainted inn at Engelthal, with its 
 ]3lank partitions, 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 
 
310 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 in her native land ; and tlie l^eautif ul historic chambers 
 of the Villa Pandolfini passed from her memory without 
 a regret and without having,' in the least modified her ideal 
 of a satisfactory habitation. Roderick had changed his 
 sky, but he had not changed his mind ; his humour was 
 still that of which he had given Rowland a glimpse in 
 that sharp outbreak on the Lake of Como. He kept his 
 despair to himself and he went doggedly about the ordinary 
 business of life ; but it was easy to see that his spirit was 
 mortally heavy and that he lived and moved and talked 
 simply from the force of habit. In that sad half -hour 
 among the Italian olives there had been such a fierce 
 sincerity in his tone that Rowland began to abdicate the 
 critical attitude. He began to feel that it was perfectly 
 idle to appeal to his comrade's will ; there was no will 
 left ; its place was a mocking vacancy. This view of the 
 case indeed was occasionally contravened by certain in- 
 dications on Roderick's part of the surviving faculty of 
 resistance to disagreeable obligation : one might still have 
 said, if one had been disposed to be didactic at any hazard, 
 that there was a method in his madness, that his moral 
 energy had its sleeping and its waking hours, and that in 
 an attractive cause it was capable of rising with the da-vvn. 
 But on the other hand, pleasure in this case was quite at 
 one with effort ; evidently the greatest bliss in life for 
 Roderick would have been an inspiration. And then it 
 was impossible not to feel tenderly to a despair which had 
 so ceased to be aggressive— not to forgive much apathy 
 to a temper which had turned its rough side inward. 
 Roderick said frankly that Switzerland made him less 
 miserable than Italy, and the Alps seemed less to mock at 
 his idle hands than the Apennines. He indulge^ in long 
 rambles, generally alone, and was very fond of climbing 
 into dizzy places where no sound could overtake him, and 
 there, flinging himself on the never-trodden moss, of 
 pulling his hat over his eyes and lounging away the hours 
 in perfect immobility. Rowland sometimes walked with 
 him ; though Roderick never invited him he seemed 
 properly grateful for his society. Rowland now made it 
 a rule to treat him as a perfectly sane man, to assume 
 that all things were well with him, and never to allude to 
 the prosperity he had parted with or to the work he was 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 31 1 
 
 rot doing. He would have still said, had you questioned 
 him, that Roderick's condition was only a lugubrious 
 interlude. It might last yet for many a weary hour ; but 
 it was a long lane that had no turning. Rowland's interest 
 in Mary's relations with her cousin was still a very lively 
 one, and perplexed as he was on all sides he found nothing 
 penetrable here. After their arrival at Engelthal, 
 Roderick appeared to care for the young girl's society 
 rather more than he had done hitherto, and of this revival 
 of ardour Rowland could not fail to make a note. They 
 sat together and strolled together, and she often read 
 aloud to him. One day on their coming to lunch, 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. She looked 
 at Roderick sharply and with a little blush. " I listen 
 to Mary," Roderick continued, " for the sake of her voice. 
 It's stupefyingly sweet ! " At this Mary's blush deepened, 
 and she looked away. 
 
 Rowland, in Florence, as we know, had suffered his ima- 
 gination to wander in the direction of certain conjectures 
 which the reader may deem unflattering to her constancy. 
 He had asked himself whether her faith in Roderick had 
 not languished, and that demand of hers which had brought 
 about his own departure for Switzerland had seemed almost 
 equivalent to a confession that she needed his help to be 
 constant. Rowland was essentially a modest man, and he 
 did not risk the supposition that Mary had contrasted him 
 with Roderick to his own advantage ; but he had a certain 
 consciousness of duty resolutely done which allowed itself 
 to fancy at moments that it might be not unnaturally 
 rewarded by the bestowal of such stray grains of enthi^- 
 siasm as had crumbled away from her estimate of his 
 companion. If some day she had declared in a sudden 
 burst of passion that she was completely disillusioned and 
 that she gave up her recreant lover, Rowland's expectation 
 would have gone halfway to meet her. And certainly if 
 her passion had taken this course no generous critic would 
 utterly condemn her. She had been neglected, ignored, 
 forsaken, treated with a contempt which no girl of a fine 
 temper could endure. There were girls, indeed, whose 
 
31-2 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 fineness, like that of Burd Helen in the ballad, lay iq 
 clin<,nng to the man of their love through thick and thin 
 and in bowing their head t6 all hard usage. This attitude 
 had often an exquisite beauty of its own, but Rowland 
 thought that he had solid reason to believe it never could 
 be Mary Garland's. She was not a passive creature ; she 
 was not soft and meek and grateful for chance bounties. 
 With all her reserve of manner she was proud and eager ; 
 she asked much and she wanted what she asked ; she 
 believed in fine things and she never could long persuade 
 herself that fine things missed were as beautiful as fine 
 things achieved. Once Rowland passed an angry day. He 
 had dreamed — it was the most insubstantial of dreams — 
 that she had given him the right to believe that she looked 
 to him to transmute her discontent. And yet here she 
 was throwing herself back into Roderick's arms at his 
 lightest overture, and betraying his own half fearful, half 
 shameful hopes ! Rowland^ declared to himself that his 
 position was detestable and that all the philosophy he could 
 bring to bear upon it would make it neither honourable 
 nor comfortable. He would go away and make an end of 
 it. He did not go away ; he simply took a long walk, 
 stayed away from the inn all day, and on his return found 
 Mary sitting out in the moonlight with Roderick. 
 
 Rowland, communing with himself during the restless 
 ramble in question, 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. Never- 
 theless some three days afterwards, the opportunity pre- 
 senting itself, he deliberately broached the subject with 
 Roderick. He knew this was inconsistent and faint-hearted ; 
 it was an indulgence to the 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 very sharply. 
 Was it not perfectly reasonable that he should wish to 
 know the sequel of the situation which Roderick had then 
 delineated 1 Roderick had made him promises, and it was 
 to be expected that he should wish to ascertain how the 
 promises had been kept. Rowland could not say to himself 
 that if the promises had been extorted for Mary's sake, his 
 present attention to them was equally disinterested ; and 
 
RODERICK HUDSON 313 
 
 so lie had to admit that he was indeed faint-hearted. He 
 may perhaps be deemed too rigid a casuist, but I have 
 repeated more than once that he was solidly burdened with 
 a conscience. 
 
 "I imagine," he said to Eoderick, "that you are not 
 sorry at present to have allowed yourself to be dissuaded 
 from putting an end to your affair with your cousin." 
 
 Eoderick eyed him with the vague and absent look which 
 had lately become habitual to his face and repeated — 
 " Dissuaded 1 " 
 
 " Don't you remember that in Rome you wished to break 
 off your engagement, and that I urged you to hold to it, 
 though it seemed to hang by so slender a thread 1 I wished 
 you to see what would come of it. If I am not mistaken 
 you are now reconciled to it," 
 
 "Oh yes," said Eoderick, "I remember what you said; 
 you made it a kind of personal favour to yourself that I 
 should remain faithful. I consented, but afterwards, when 
 I thought of it, your attitude greatly amused me. Had 
 it ever been seen before 1 — a man asking another man 
 to gratif V him by not suspending his attentions to a pretty 
 girl!" 
 
 " It was as selfish as anything else," said Eowland. 
 " One man puts his selfishness ir.io one thing, and one 
 into another. It would have been a great bore to me to 
 see your cousin in low spirits." 
 
 " But you liked her — you admired her, eh 1 So you 
 intimated." 
 
 " I admire her extremely." 
 
 " It was your originality then — to do you justice you 
 have 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 welcomed her low spirits as an opening 
 for sympathy. You were very incongruous about it." 
 
 " So be it ! " said Rowland. " The question is, Ai^e you 
 not glad I was incongruous ? Are you not finding that 
 you do care for your cousin after all ? " 
 
 " I don't pretend to say. When she arrived in Rome I 
 found I didn't care for her, and I honestly proposed that 
 we should have no humbug about it. If you on the con- 
 trary thought there Avas something to be gained by having 
 
314 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 a little liuiri])ng I was willing to try it ! I don't see that 
 the situation is really changed. Mary is all that she ever 
 was — more than all. But I don't care for her ! I don't 
 care for anything, and I don't tind myself insj)ired to make 
 an exception in her favour. The only difference is that I 
 don't care now whether I care for her or not. Of course 
 marrying such a useless lout as I am is out of the 
 question for any woman, and I should pay Mary a poor 
 compliment to assume that she is in a hurry to celebrate 
 our nuptials." 
 
 '• Oh you'll do — you're in love ! " said Rowland, not very 
 logically. It must be confessed at any cost that this asser- 
 tion was made for the sole purpose of hearing Roderick 
 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 1 I am past caring for the names 
 of thnigs.' 
 
 Rowland had not only been illogical, he had also been 
 slightly disingenuous. He did not believe that his com- 
 panion was in love ; he had argued the false to learn the 
 true. The truth was that Roderick was again in some 
 degree under a charm and that he found a healing virtue 
 in the company of a woman of tact. He had said shortly 
 before that her voice was sweet to his ear ; and this was a 
 happy sign. If her voice was sweet it was probably that 
 her glance was not amiss, that her touch had a quiet magic, 
 and that her whole personal presence had learned the art of 
 not being irritating. So Rowland reasoned, and invested 
 Mary Crarland with the subtlest merits. 
 
 It was true that she herself helped him- little to definite 
 conclusions and that he remained in puzzled doubt as to 
 whether these happy touches were still a matter of the 
 heart or had become simply a matter of the con'^cience. 
 He watched for signs that she took a pleasure in Rodericks 
 favour again ; but it seemed to him that she was on her 
 guard against interpreting it too largely. It was now her 
 turn — he fancied that he sometimes gathered from certain 
 nameless indications of glance and tone and gesture — it was 
 now her turn to be indifferent, to care for other things. 
 Again and again Rowland asked himself what these things 
 were that she might be supposed to care for, to the injury of 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 315 
 
 ideal constancy ; and again, havings designated them, he 
 divided them into two portions. ^One was that larger 
 experience in general which had come to her with her 
 arrival in Europe ; the vague sense, borne in upon her 
 imagination, that there were more things one might do ^ 
 with one's life than youth and ignorance and Northampton 
 had dreamt of ; the revision of old pledges in the light of 
 new emotions^ The other was the experience in especial 
 of Rowland's— what % Here Rowland always paused, in 
 perfect sincerity, to measure afresh his possible claim to the 
 young girl's regard. What might he call it % It had been 
 more than civility and yet it had been less than devo- 
 tion. It had spoken of a desire to serve, but it had said 
 nothing of a hope of reward. Nevertheless Rowlagad's 
 fancy hovered about the idea that it was recompensable, 
 and his reflections ended in a reverie w^hich perhaps did not 
 define it, but at least on each occasion added a little to its 
 volume. Since Mary had asked him as a sort of favour to 
 herself to come with them to Switzerland, he thought it 
 possible she might let him know whether he seemed to 
 hav3 done her a service. The days passed without her 
 doing so, and at last Rowland walked away to an isolated 
 eminence some five miles from the inn and murmured to 
 the silent rocks that she was ungrateful. Listening nature 
 appeared not to contradict him, so that on the morrow he 
 asked the young girl with a touch of melancholy malice 
 whether it struck her that his deflection from his other 
 plan had been attended with brilliant results. 
 
 "Why, we are delighted that you are with us ! " she 
 answered. 
 
 He was anything but satisfied with this ; it seemed to 
 imply that she had forgotten that she had formally asked 
 him to come. He reminded her of her request and recalled 
 the place and time. " That evening on the terrace, late, 
 after Mrs. Hudson had gone to bed and Roderick being 
 absent." 
 
 She perfectly remembered, but the memory seemed to 
 trouble her. " I am afraid your kindness has been a great 
 charge upon you," she said. "You wanted very much to 
 do something else." 
 
 " I wanted above all things to oblige you, and I made 
 no sacrifice. But if I had made an immense one it would 
 
316 KODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 be more taan made up to me by any assurance that I have 
 helped iloderick into a better condition." 
 
 IShe was silent a moment, and then, " "Why do you ask 
 me?" she said. "You are able to judge quite as well 
 as I." 
 
 Kowland blushed ; he desired to justify himself in the 
 most veracious manner. '' The truth is," he said, " that 
 I am afraid I care only in the second place for Roderick's 
 holding up his head. What I care for in the first place 
 is your happiness." 
 
 " I don't know why that should be," she answered. " I 
 have certainly done nothing to make you so much my 
 friend. If you were to tell me you intended to leave us 
 to-morrow, I am afraid that I should not venture to ask 
 you to stay. But whether you go or stay, let us not talk 
 of Roderick ! " 
 
 •'But that," said Rovv'land, "does not answer my 
 question. Is he better % " 
 
 " No ! " she said, and turned away. 
 
 He was careful not to tell her that he intended to 
 leave them. 
 
 XXIY. 
 
 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 present sentiment touching Chris- 
 tina Light. " I wonder w^here she is," he said, " and what 
 sort of a life she is leading her prince." 
 
 Roderick at first made no response. He was w\atching 
 a figure on the summit of some distant rocks opposite to 
 them. The figure was apparently descending into the 
 valley, and in relief against the crimson screen of the 
 western sky it looked gigantic. " Christina Light % " 
 Roderick at last repeated, as if arousing himself from a 
 reverie. " Where she is % It's extraordinary how little 
 I care I " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 317 
 
 " Have you completely got over it 1 " 
 
 To this Roderick made no direct reply ; he sat brooding 
 a while. " She's a humbug ! " he presently exclaimed. 
 
 " Possibly ! " said Kowland. " But I have known worse 
 ones." 
 
 " She disappointed me ! " Roderick continued in the same 
 tone. 
 
 "■ Had she really given you up 1 " 
 
 "Oh, don't remind me !" Roderick cried. "Why the 
 devil should I think of it 1 It was only three months ago, 
 but it seems like ten years." His friend said nothing more, 
 and after a while he went on of his own accord. " I be- 
 lieved there was a future in it all ! She pleased me — 
 pleased me ; and when an artist — such as I was — is pleased, 
 you know ! " And he paused again. " You never saw her 
 as I did ; you never heard her in her great moments. But 
 there is no use talking about that ! At first she wouldn't 
 regard me seriously ; she chaffed me and made light of me. 
 But at last I forced her to admit I was a great man. Think 
 of that, sir ! Christina Light called me a great man. A 
 great man was what she was looking for, and we agreed to 
 hnd our happiness for life in each other. To please me 
 she promised not to marry till I should give her leave. I 
 was not in a marrying waj'- myself, but it was damnation 
 to think of another man possessing her. To spare my 
 sensibilities she promised to turn off her prince, and the 
 idea of her doing so made me as happy as to see a perfect 
 statue shaping itself in the block. You have seen how she 
 kept her promise ! When I learned it, it was as if the 
 statue had suddenly cracked and turned hideous. She 
 died for me, like that ! " And he snapped his fingers. 
 *' Was it wounded vanity, disappointed desire, betrayed 
 confidence ? I am sure I don't know ; you will certainly 
 have some good name for it." 
 
 "The poor girl did the best she could," said Rowland. 
 
 " If that was her best, so much the worse for her ! I 
 have hardly thought of her these two months, but I have 
 not forgiven her." 
 
 " Well, you may believe that you are avenged. I can't 
 think of her as happy." 
 
 " I don't pity her ! " said Roderick. Then he relapsed 
 into silence, and the two sat watching the colossal figure 
 
318 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 as it made its way downwurd along the jagged silhouette 
 of the rocks. " Who is this mighty man," cried Roderick 
 at last, " and what is he coming down upon us for 'i We 
 are small people here, and we can't undertake to keep 
 company with giants." 
 
 '• W^iit till we meet himonourow^n level," said Rowland, 
 " and perhaps he will not overtop us." 
 
 " He's like me," Roderick rejoined ; " for ten minutes he 
 will have passed for a great man ! " At this moment the 
 tigure sank beneath the horizon-line and became invisible 
 in the uncertain light. Suddenly Roderick said, " I should 
 like to see her once more — simply to look at her." 
 
 " I would not advise it," said Rowland. 
 
 " It was her beauty that did it ! " Roderick went on. 
 " It was all her beauty ; in comparison, the rest was 
 nothing. What befooled me was to think of it as my own 
 property ! And I had made it mine — no one else had 
 studied it as I had, no one else understood it. What does 
 that stick of a Casamassima know about it at this hour ? 
 I should like to see it just once more ; it's the only thing 
 in the world of which I can say so." 
 
 " I would not advise it," Rowland repeated. 
 
 " That's right, my dear fellow,'' said Roderick ; " don't 
 advise ! That's no use now." 
 
 The dusk meanwhile had thickened, and they had not 
 perceived a figure approaching them across the open space 
 in front of the house. Suddenly it stepped into the circle 
 of light projected from the door and windows, and they 
 beheld little Sam Singleton stopping to stare at them. He 
 was the giant whom they had seen descending along the 
 rocks. When this was made apparent Roderick was 
 seized with a fit of intense hilarity — it w^as the first time 
 he had laughed in three months. Singleton, who carried 
 a knapsack and walking-staff, received from Rowland the 
 friendliest welcome. He was in the serenest possible 
 humour, and if in the way of luggage his knapsack con- 
 tained nothing but a comb and a second shirt, he produced 
 from it a dozen admirable sketches. He had been trudg- 
 ing over half Switzerland and making everywhere the most 
 vivid pictorial notes. They were mos^.ly in a box at 
 Interlaken, and in gratitude for Rowland's appreciation 
 he presently telegraphed for his box, which according to 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 319 
 
 the excellent Swiss method was punctually delivered by 
 post. The nights were cold, and our friends, with three 
 or four other chance sojourners, sat in- doors over a fire 
 of great logs. Even with Roderick sitting moodily in the 
 outer shadow they made a sympathetic little circle, and 
 they turned over Singleton's drawings, while he perched 
 in the chimney-corner, blushing and explaining, with his 
 feet on the rounds of the chair. He had been pede.'tri- 
 anising for six weeks, and he was glad to rest a while at 
 Engelthal. It was an economic repose however, for he 
 sallied forth every morning with his sketching tools on 
 his back, in search of material for new studies. Roderick's 
 hilarity, after the first evening, had subsided, and he 
 watched the little painter's serene activity with a gravity 
 that w\as almost portentous. Singleton, who was not in 
 the secret of his personal misfortunes, still treated him 
 with timid frankness as the rising star of American art. 
 Roderick had said to Rowland at first that Singleton re- 
 minded him of some curious little insect with a remarkable 
 mechanical instinct in its antennce ; but as the days went 
 by it was apparent that the modest landscapist's unflagging 
 industry grew to have an oppressive meaning for him. It 
 pointed a moral, and Roderick used to sit and con the 
 moral as he saw it figured in Singleton's bent back, on the 
 hot hill-sides, protruding from beneath his white umbrella. 
 One day he wandered up a long slope and overtook him 
 as he sat at work ; Singleton related the incident after- 
 wards to Rowland, who, after giving him in Rome a 
 hint of Roderick's aberrations, had strictly kept his own 
 counsel. 
 
 " Are you always like this 1 " said Roderick, in almost 
 sepulchral accents. 
 
 "Like this?" repeated Singleton, blinking confusedly, 
 with an alarmed conscience. 
 
 '•' You remind me of a watch that never runs down. If 
 one listens hard one hears you always- — tic-tic, tic-tic." 
 
 " Oh, I see," said Singleton, beaming ingenuously. " I 
 am very equable." 
 
 " You are very equable, yes. And do you find it 
 pleasant to be equable ? " 
 
 Singleton turned and smiled more brightly, while he 
 sucked the water from his camel's-hair brush. Then, with 
 
320 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 a quickened sense of his indebtedness to a Providence that 
 hid endowed him with intrinsic facilities, "Oh, delightful!" 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 Koderick stood looking at him a moment. " Damnation ! " 
 he said at last solemnly, and turned his back. 
 
 Later in the week Kowland and Koderick took a long 
 walk. They had walked before in a dozen different direc- 
 tions, but they 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 approached their inn by this path, and feeling that 
 they knew it had hitherto neglected it in favour of un- 
 trodden 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 complicates its picturesqueness with an element rare 
 in Swiss scenery?* Hard by is a group of chalets and inns, 
 with the usual appurtenances of a prosperous Swiss resort 
 — lean brown guides in baggy homespun, lounging under 
 carved wooden galleries, stacks of alpenstocks in every 
 doorway, sun- scorched Englishmen without shirt-collars. 
 Our two friends sat a while at the door of an inn, dis- 
 cussing a pint of wine, and then Roderick, Avho was inde- 
 fatigable, 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, v/ith the prospect of 
 his homeward trudge before him, confessed to a preference 
 for lounging on his bench ox, at jnost, strolling a trifle 
 farther and taking a look at the monastery. Roderick 
 went off alone, and his companion after a while bent his 
 steps to the monasterial church. It was remarkable, like 
 most of the churches of Catholic Switzerland, for a hideous 
 style of devotional ornament ; but it had a certain cold 
 and musty picturesqueness, and Rowland lingered there 
 with some tenderness for Alpine piety. While he was 
 near the high-altar some people came in at the west door ; 
 but he did not notice them, and wixs presently engaged in 
 deciphering a curious old German epitaph on one of the 
 miu-al tablets. At last he turned away, wondering whether 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 321 
 
 its syntax or its theology were the more uncomfortable, 
 and, to his infinite surprise, found himself confronted with 
 Prince and Princess Casamassima. 
 
 The surprise on Christina's part, for an instant, was equal, 
 and at first she seemed disposed to turn away without 
 letting it give place to a greeting. The Prince however 
 saluted gravely, and then Christina in silence put out her 
 hand. Rowland immediately asked whether they were 
 allying at Engelberg, but Christina only looked at him 
 without speaking. The Prince answered his questions, and 
 related that they had been making a month's tour in Swit- 
 zerland, that at Lucerne his wife had been somewhat obsti- 
 nately 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 attitude, her solemn silence and her penetrating 
 gaze, seemed to Rowland at first to savour of affectation ; 
 but he presently perceived that she was deeply agitated 
 and was afraid of betraying herself. " Do let us leave 
 this hideous edifice," she said ; " there are things here that 
 set one's teeth on edge." They moved slowly to the door, 
 and when they stood outside, in the sunny coolness of the 
 valley, she turned to Rowland and said, " I am extremely 
 glad to see you." Then she glanced about her and observed 
 against the wall of the church an old stone seat. She 
 looked at Prince Casamassima a moment, and he smiled 
 more intensely, Rowland thought, than the occasion de- 
 manded. " I wish to sit here," she said, " and speak to 
 this old acquaintance — alone." 
 
 "At your pleasure, dear friend," said the Prince. 
 
 The tone of each was measured, to Rowland's ear; but 
 that of Christina was dry and that of her husband was 
 splendidly urbane. Rowland remembered that the Cavaliere 
 had told him that Mrs. Light's candidate was a prince 
 indeed, and our friend wondered how he relished a peremp- 
 tory accent. Casamassima was an Italian of the unde- 
 monstrative type, but Rowland nevertheless divined that, 
 like other princes before him, he had made the acquaintance 
 of the thing called compromise. " Shall I come back ? " 
 he asked, with the same smile. 
 
 X 
 
322 T^ODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " In half an hour," said Christina. 
 
 In the clear outer light, Rowland's first impression of 
 her was that she was more benutifnl than ever. And yet 
 in three months she could hardly have changed ; the change 
 was in Rowland's own vision of her, which that last inter- 
 view on the eve of her marriage had made unprecedentedly 
 tender. 
 
 " How came you here 1 " she asked. *' Are you staying 
 in this place 1 " 
 
 *' I am staying at Engelthal, some ten miles away ; I 
 walked over." 
 
 " Are you alone 1 " 
 
 " I am with Roderick Hudson." 
 
 " Is he here with you ] " 
 
 " He went half an hour ago to climb a rock for a 
 view." 
 
 " And his mother and — and the jwomessa — where are 
 they 1 " 
 
 ""They also are at Engelthal." 
 
 " What do you do there T ' . 
 
 " What do you do here ? " said Rowland, smiling. 
 
 " I count the minutes till my week is over. I hate 
 mountains ; they depress me to death. I am sure Miss 
 Garland likes them." 
 
 " She is very fond of them, I believe." 
 
 " You believe — don't you know ? But I have given up 
 trying to imitate Miss Garland," said Christina. 
 
 " You surely need imitate no one." 
 
 "Don't say that," she said, gravely. "So you have 
 walked ten miles this morning ? And you are to walk 
 back again 1 ' ' 
 
 " Back again to dinner." 
 
 " And Mr. Hudson too 1 " 
 
 " Mr. Hudson esjDecially. He is a great walker." 
 
 " You men are happy ! " Christina cried. " I believe 
 I should enjoy the mountains if I could do such things. 
 It is sitting still and having them scowl down at you I 
 Prince Casamassima never walks. He only goes on a 
 mule. He was carried up the Faulhorn in a palanquin." 
 
 " In a palanquin ? " said Rowland. 
 
 " In one of those machines — a chaise d, j^orteurs — like 
 a woman." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 32^ 
 
 Rowland received this information in silence ; it was 
 equally unbecoming to be either amused or shocked. 
 
 " Is Mr. Hudson to join you again 1 Will he come 
 here 1 " Christina asked. 
 
 "I shall soon begin to expect him." ■ 
 
 " What shall you do when you leave Switzerland 1 " 
 Christina continued. " Shall you go back to Rome 1 " 
 
 *' I rather doubt it. My plans are very uncertain." 
 
 " They depend upon Mr. Hudson, eh 1 " 
 
 *' In a great measure." 
 
 " I want you to tell me about him. Is he still in that 
 perverse state of mind that afflicted you so much *? " 
 
 Rowland looked at her mistrustfully, without answering. 
 He was indisposed, instinctively, to tell her that Roderick 
 was unhappy ; it was possible she might offer to try to 
 cure him. She immediately perceived his hesitation. 
 
 "I see no reason why we should not 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 1 said, don't you 1 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 1 " 
 
 « Yery badly," said Rowland. 
 
 " With rage and reproaches 'i " And as Rowland hesi- 
 tated again — " AYith silent contempt 1 " 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " That was an excellent answer ! " said Christina softly. 
 " 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 insincere." 
 
 " What does it matter now whether I was insincere or 
 not ? I can't conceive of anything mattering less. I was 
 very fine — -isn't it true 1 " 
 
 " You know what I think of you," said Rowland. And 
 for fear of being forced to betray his suspicion of the cause 
 of her change he took refuge in a commonplace. " I hope 
 your mother is well." 
 
 " My mother is in the enjoyment of superb health, and 
 
 X 2 
 
324 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 may be seen every eveniug at the Casino at the Baths of 
 Lucca confiding to every new-comer that she has married 
 her daughter to a pearl of a prince.' '' 
 
 Ilowland was anxious for news of Mrs. Light's com- 
 panion, and the natural course was frankly to incjuire 
 about him. "And the Cavaliere Giacosa is welU " he 
 asked. 
 
 Christina hesitated, but she betrayed no other embar- 
 rassment. " The Cavaliere Giacosa has retired to his native 
 city of Ancona, upon a pension, for the rest of his natural 
 life. He is a very good old man ! " 
 
 " I have a great regard for him," said Ilowland gravely, 
 at the same time that he privately wondered whether 
 the Cavaliere' s pension was paid by Prince Casamassima 
 for services rendered in connection with his marriage. 
 " And what do you do," he continued, " on leaving this 
 place % " 
 
 " We go to Italy — we go to Naples." She rose and 
 stood silent for a moment, looking down the valley. The 
 figure of Prince Casamassima appeared in the distance, 
 balancing his white umbrella. As her eyes rested upon it 
 Ilowland imagined that he saw something deeper in the 
 strange expression which had lurked in her face while he 
 talked to her. At first he had been dazzled by her bloom- 
 ing beauty, to which the lapse of weeks had only added 
 splendour ; then he had seen a heavier ray in the light of 
 her eye — a sinister intimation of sadness and bitterness. 
 It was the outward mark of her sacrificed ideal. Her eyes 
 grew cold as she looked at her husband, and when after 
 a moment she turned them upon Rowland they struck him 
 as intensely tragical. He felt a singular mixture of 
 sympathy and dread ; he wished to give her a proof of 
 friendship, and yet it seemed to him that she had now 
 turned her face in a direction where friendship was power- 
 less to interpose. She half read his feelings apparently 
 and she gave a beautiful sad smile. "I hope we may 
 never meet again ! " she said. And as Ilowland gave her 
 a protesting look — " You have seen me at my best. I 
 wish to tell you solemnly, I was sincere ! I know appear- 
 ances are against me," she went on quickly. " There is a 
 great deal I can't tell you. Perhaps you have guessed it ; 
 I care very little. You know at any rate I did my best. 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 325 
 
 It wouldn't serve ; I was beaten and broken ; they were 
 stronger than I. Now it's another aft'air ! " 
 
 "It seems to me you have a large chance for happi- 
 ness yet," said Eowland vaguely. 
 
 " Happiness ? I mean to cultivate rapture ; I mean to 
 go in for bliss ineffable ! You remember I told you that 
 I was in part the world's and the devil's. Now they have 
 taken me all. It was their choice ; may they never 
 repent ! " 
 
 " I shall hear of you," said Rowland. 
 
 ''IZou will hear of me. And whatever you do hear, 
 remember this : I was sincere ! " 
 
 Prince Casamassima had approached, and Rowland 
 looked at him with a good deal of simple compassion as 
 a part of that "world" against which Christina had 
 launched her mysterious menace. It was obvious that 
 be was a good fellow and that he could not in the nature 
 of things be a positively bad husband ; but his distin- 
 guished inoffensiveness only deepened the infelicity of 
 Christina'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 elastic 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 immense heritage of more or less aggres- 
 sive traditions — he reflected that the matrimonial con- 
 junction of his two companions might be sufficiently 
 prolific in incident. 
 
 " You are going to Naples % " Rowland said to the Prince 
 by of way conversation, 
 
 " We are going to Paris," Christina interposed slowly 
 and softly. "We are going to London. We are going to 
 Vienna. We are going to St. Petersburg." 
 
 Prince Casamassima dropped his eyes and fretted the 
 earth with the point of his umbrella. While he 
 engaged Rowland's attention Christina turned away. 
 When Rowland glanced at her again he saw a change pass 
 over her face ; she was observing something that was con- 
 cealed from his own eyes by the angle of the church wall. 
 In a moment Roderick stepped into sight. 
 
326 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 He stopped short, astonished ; his face and fiiinrewoe 
 jaded, his garments dusty. He looked at Christina from 
 head to foot, and then, slowly, his cheek flushed and his 
 eye expanded. Christina returned his gaze, and for some 
 moments there was a singular silence. " You don't look 
 well 1 " Christina said at last. 
 
 Roderick answered nothing ; he only looked and looked, 
 as if she had been a statue. " You are no less beautiful ! " 
 he presently cried. 
 
 She turned away with a smile and stood a while gazing 
 down the valley ; Koderick stared at Prince Casamassima. 
 Christina then put out her hand to Rowland. " Farewell," 
 she said. "If you are near me in future, don't try to see 
 me ! " And then after a pause, in a lower tone — " I vxis 
 sincere ! " She addressed herself again to Roderick and 
 asked him some commonplace about his walk. But he said 
 nothing ; he only looked at her. Rowland at first had 
 expected an outbreak of reproach, but it was evident that 
 the danger was every moment diminishing. He was for- 
 getting everything but her beauty, and as she stood there 
 and let him feast upon it Rowland was sure that she knew 
 it. "I won't say farewell to you," she said; "we shall 
 meet again ! " And she moved gravely away. Prince 
 Casamassima took leave courteously of Rowland ; upon 
 Roderick he bestowed a bow of exaggerated civility. 
 Roderick appeared not to see it ; he was watching Chris- 
 tina 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. 
 
 XXY. 
 
 On the homeward walk that evening Roderick preserved 
 an ominous silence, and early on the morrow, saying nothing 
 of his intentions, he started off alone ; Rowland saw him 
 striding with light elastic steps along the rugged path to 
 Engelberg. He was absent all day and gave no account of 
 
KODERICK HUDSON. 327 
 
 himself on his return. He said lie was deadly tired, and 
 he went to bed early. When he had left the room Mary 
 Garland drew near to Rowland. 
 
 " I wish to ask you a question," she said. " What 
 happened to Roderick yesterday at Engelberg 1 " 
 
 "You have discovered that something happened 1 " 
 
 " I am sure of it. Was it something painful 1 " 
 
 " I don't know how at the present moment he judges it. 
 He met the Princess Casamassima." 
 
 "Thank you ! " said Mary simply, and turned away. 
 
 The conversation had been brief, but like many small 
 things it furnished Rowland with food for reflection. 
 When one is looking for symptoms one easily finds tliem. 
 This was the first time Mary Garland had asked Rowland 
 a question which it was in Roderick's power to answer, 
 the first time she had frankly betrayed Roderick's reti- 
 cence. Rowland ventured to think it marked an era. 
 
 The next morning was sultry, and the air, usually so fresh 
 at those altitudes, was oppressively heavy. Rowland 
 lounged on the grass a w^hile, near Singleton, who was at 
 work under his white umbrella within view of the house ; and 
 then in quest of coolness he wandered away to the rocky 
 ridge whence you looked across at the Jungfrau. To-day 
 however the white summits were invisible ; their heads 
 were muffled in sullen clouds and the valleys beneath them 
 curtained in dun-coloured mist. Rowland had a book in his 
 pocket and he took it out and opened it. But his page 
 remained unturned ; his own thoughts were more absorb- 
 ing. His interview with Christnia Light had made a great 
 impression upon him, and he was haunted with the memory 
 of her almost blameless bitterness and of all that was tragic 
 and fatal in her latest transformation. These things were 
 immensely appealing, and Rowland thought with infinite 
 impatience of Roderick's having again become acquainted 
 with them. It required little imagination to apprehend 
 that the young sculptor's condition had also appealed to 
 Christina. His consummate indifference, his supreme de- 
 fiance, would make him a magnificent trophy, and Christina 
 had announced with sufficient distinctness that she had 
 Sciid 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 Roderick's passion on its stem, there 
 
328 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 was little doubt that now she would pluck it with an 
 unfalteriug hand and drain it of its acrid sweetness. And 
 why the deuce need Pvoderick have gone marching back 
 to destruction] Rowland's meditations, even when they 
 began in rancour, often brought him comfort ; but on this 
 occasion they ushered in a (juite peculiar quality of unrest. 
 He felt conscious of a sudden collapse in his moral energy ; 
 a current that had been flowing for two years with liquid 
 strength seemed at last to pause and stagnate. Kowland 
 looked away at the sallow vapours on the mountains ; their 
 dreariness had an analogy with the stale residuum of his 
 own generosity. At last he had arrived at the uttermost 
 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 
 whether atmospheric conditions had not something to do 
 with his ill- humour. He remained some time in this 
 attitude, but was finally aroused from it by a singular 
 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 un- 
 welcome, and for a moment he felt like speaking roughly, 
 Roderick stood looking at him with an expression of 
 countenance which had of late become rare. There was 
 an unfamiliar spark in his eye and a certain imperious 
 alertness in his carriage. Confirmed habit, with Rowland, 
 came speedily to the front. " What is it now ] " he asked 
 himself, and invited Roderick to sit down. Roderick had 
 evidently something particular to say, and if he remained 
 silent for a time it was not because he was ashamed of it. 
 
 " I should like you to do me a favour," he said at last. 
 " Lend me some money." 
 
 " How much do you wish ] " Rowland asked. 
 
 " Say a thousand francs." 
 
 Rowland hesitated a moment. " I don't wish to be 
 indiscreet, but may I ask you what you propose to do 
 with a thousand francs 1 " 
 
 " To go to Interlaken." 
 
 " And why are you going to Interlaken 1 " 
 
rODERICK HUDSON. 320 
 
 Roderick replied without a shadow of wavering, " Because 
 that woman is to be there." 
 
 Rowland burst out laughing, but Roderick remained 
 serenely grave. " You have forgiven her then 1 " said 
 Rowland. 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! " 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 *' Neither do I. I only know that she is incomparably 
 beautiful, and that she has waked me up amazingly. 
 Besides, she asked me to come." 
 
 " She asked you 1 " 
 
 " Yesterday, in so many words." 
 
 " Ah, the shameless jade ! " 
 
 " Exactly. I am willing to take her for that." 
 
 " 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 ? 
 Before I knew where I was, the spell was wrought." 
 
 Rowland, who had been sitting erect, threw himself 
 back on the grass and lay for some time staring up at 
 the sky. At last, raising himself, "Are you perfectly 
 serious ? " he asked. 
 
 '' Deadly serious." 
 
 " Your idea is to remain at Interlaken some time 1 " 
 
 " Indefinitely ! " said Roderick ; and it seemed to his 
 companion that the tone in which he said 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 doesn't seem much like it to-day." 
 
 " Yery true ; but to-day is a day by itself." 
 
 " There is nothing to prevent their going back to 
 Lucerne. I depend upon your taking charge of them." 
 
 At this moment Rowland reclined upon the grass again ; 
 and again after reflection he faced his friend. " How 
 would you express," he asked, " the character of the profit 
 that you expect to derive from your excursion ? " 
 
 " I see no need of expressing it. The proof of the pudding 
 is in the eating ! The case is simply this. I desire im- 
 mensely to be near Christina Light, and it is such a huge 
 refreshment to find myself again desiring something, that 
 
330 KODEKICK HUDSON. 
 
 I propose to drift with the current. As I say, she has 
 waked me up, aud it is possible that something may come 
 of it. She makes me feel as if I were alive again. This 
 sort of thing," and he glanced down at the inn, " I call 
 death ! " 
 
 " That I am very grateful to hear. You really feel as 
 if you might do something 1 " 
 
 " Don't ask too much. I only know that she makes my 
 heart beat, makes me see visions." 
 
 " You feel encouraged ? " 
 
 *'I feel excited." 
 
 " You are really looking better." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it. Now that I have answered your 
 questions, please to give me the money." 
 
 Rowland' shook his head. *' For that purpose I can't ! " 
 
 " You can't 1 " 
 
 " It's impossible. Your plan is pure folly. I can't help 
 yon in it." 
 
 Roderick flushed a little, and his eye expanded. " I will 
 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," he 
 said. " You will find money in it." 
 
 Roderick let the keys lie ; something seemed to have 
 struck him ; he looked askance at his friend. " You are 
 awfully considerate of Mary ! " 
 
 " You certainly are not. Your proposal is an outrage." 
 
 " Very likely. It's proof the more of my desire." 
 
 " If you have so much steam on then, use it for 
 something else ! You say you are aw\ake again. I am 
 delighted ; only be so in the best sense. Isn't it very 
 plain 1 If you have the energy to desire, you have 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 did not relish this simple logic, and 
 his eye grew angry as he listened to its echo. •' Oh, the 
 devil ! " he cried. 
 
EODERICK HUDSON. 33i 
 
 But Rowland gave him more of it. " Do you believe 
 that hanging about Christina Light will do you any good i 
 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 1 " cried Roderick. " What do I want of 
 ' good ' — what should I do with ' good ' 1 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 didn't come to discuss the 
 matter." 
 
 " I have not the least desire to discuss it," said Rowland. 
 " I simply protest." 
 
 Roderick meditated a moment. " I have never yet 
 thought twice about accepting any favour of you," he 
 said at last ; " but this one sticks in my throat." 
 
 "It is not a favour; I lend you the money only under 
 compulsion." 
 
 " Well then, I will take it only under compulsion ! " 
 Roderick exclaimed. And he sprang up abruptly and 
 marched away. 
 
 His words were ambiguous ; Rowland lay on the grass 
 wondering what they meant. Half an hour had not elapsed 
 before Roderick reappeared, heated with rapid walking and 
 wiping his forehead. He flung himself down and looked 
 at his friend with an eye which expressed something purer 
 than bravado and yet baser than conviction. 
 
 " I have done my best ! " he said. " My mother is out 
 of money ; she is expecting next week some circular notes 
 from London. She had only ten francs in her pocket. 
 Mary Garland gave me every sou she possessed in the 
 world. It makes exactly thirty-four francs. That's not 
 enough." 
 
 " You asked Mary Garland ? " cried Rowland. 
 
 " I asked her." 
 
 " And told her your purpose 1 " 
 
 " I named no names. But she knew ! " 
 
 " What did she say 1 " 
 
 " 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 he barely 
 stilled a cry of joy. Now, surely, Roderick had shattered 
 
332 ROUEPJCK HUDSON. 
 
 the last link in the chain that bound Mary to him, and 
 after this she would be free! .... When he turned 
 about again, Roderick was still sitting there, and he had 
 not touched the keys which lay on the grass. 
 
 " I don't know what is the matter with me," said 
 Roderick, '• but I have an insurmountable aversion to 
 taking your money." 
 
 "The matter, I suppose, is that you have a grain of 
 wisdom 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 lips were compressed, and he was evidently, 
 in fact, in a state of high disgust. " You have succeeded 
 in making this thing uncommonly unpleasant ! " he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Rowland, " but I can't see it in any 
 other way." 
 
 " That I believe, and I resent the range of your vision 
 pretending to be the limit of my action. You can't feel 
 for me or 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 ring of 
 his fine old Virginian pomposity in his tone. " I have 
 suffered damnable torments. Have 1 been such a placid, 
 contented, comfortable man this last six mouths that when 
 I find a chance to forget my misery I should take such 
 pains not to profit by it ? You ask too much, 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 eloquence, 
 would probably have perceived that he turned pale. " These 
 things — what are they ? " Rowland asked. 
 
 " They are women, principally, and what relates to 
 women. Women for you, by what I can make out, mean 
 nothing. You have no imagination — no sensibility, nothing 
 to be touched ! " 
 
 " That's a serious charge," said Rowland gravely. 
 " I don't make it without proof ! " 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 333 
 
 " And what is your proof ^ " 
 
 Roderick hesitated a moment. " The way yon treated 
 Christina Light. I call that grossly obtuse." 
 
 *' Obtuse 1 " 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. I don't say she was dying of love for you, but she 
 took a fancy to you." 
 
 " We will let this pass ! " said Rowland, after a silence. 
 
 " Oh, I don't insist. I have only her own word for it," 
 
 " Her own word ? " 
 
 " You noticed, at least, I suppose, that she was not 
 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 it were left to itself." 
 
 " I frankly confess it would have lasted for ever. And 
 yet I don't consider that my insensibility is proved." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that," cried Roderick, " or I shall begin 
 to suspect — what I must do you the justice to say that I 
 never have suspected — that you too have a grain of conceit ! 
 Upon my word when I think of all this, your protest, as 
 you call it, against my following Christina Light seems to 
 me thoroughly offensive. There is something monstrous 
 in a man's pretending to lay down the law to a sort of 
 emotion with which he is quite unacquainted — in his asking 
 a fellow to give up a lovely woman for conscience' sake 
 when he has never had the impulse to strike a blow for 
 one for passion's ! " 
 
 " 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 senses and imagination and a restless demon within 
 that may sleep sometimes for a day, or for six months, 
 but that sooner or later wakes up and thumps at your ribs 
 till you listen to him ! If you can't understand it, take 
 it on trust and let a poor visionary devil live his life as 
 he can ! " 
 
 Roderick's words seemed at first to Rowland like some- 
 thing heard in a dream ; it was impossible they had been 
 actually spoken — so supreme an expression were they of 
 the insolence of egotism. Reality was never so consistent 
 
.334 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 as that ! But Roderick sat there bahmcing his beautiful 
 he.id, and the echoes of his strident accent still lingered 
 along the half-muilled mountain-side. Kowland suddenly- 
 felt that the cup of his chagrin was full to overflowing, 
 and his long-gathered bitterness surged into the simple 
 wholesome passion of anger for wasted kindness. But 
 he spoke without violence, and Roderick was probably at 
 first far from measuring the force that lay beneath his 
 words. 
 
 " You are incredibly ungrateful," he said. " You are 
 talking arrogant nonsense. What do you know about my 
 senses and my imagination 1 How do you know whether 
 1 have loved or suffered 1 If I have held my tongue and 
 not troubled you with my complaints, you find it the most 
 natural thing in the world to put an ignoble construction 
 on my silence ! I loved quite as well as you ; indeed I 
 think I may say rather better. I have been constant. I 
 have been willing to give more than I received. I have 
 not forsaken one mistress because I thought another more 
 beautiful, nor given up the other and believed all manner 
 of evil about her because I had not my way with her. 
 I have 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 suiiering — your silence — -your friend- 
 ship ! " cried Roderick. " I declare I don't understand ! " 
 
 " I dare say not. You are not used to understanding 
 such things — you are not used to hearing me talk of my 
 feelings. You are altogether too much taken up with 
 your own. Be as much so as you please ; I have 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." 
 
 *'0h, you claim then that you have made sacrifices'?" 
 
 '* Several ! You have never suspected it 1 " 
 
 " If I had do you suppose I would have allowed it 1 " 
 cried Roderick. 
 
 " They were the sacrifices of friendship and they were 
 easily made ; only I don't enjoy having them thrown back 
 in my teeth." 
 
 This was under the circumstances a sufficiently generous 
 speech ; but Roderick was not in the humour to take it 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 335 
 
 generously, "Come, be more definite," he said. " Let me 
 know where it is the shoe has pinched." 
 
 RowLxnd frowned ; if Roderick would not take i^^enerosity 
 he should have full justice. " It's a perpetual sacrifice 
 to live with a transcendent egotist ! " 
 
 '* I am an egotist 1 " cried Roderick. 
 
 " Did it never occur to you 1 " 
 
 " An egotist to whom you have made perpetual sacri- 
 fices ? " He repeated the words in a singular tone ; a tone 
 that denoted neither exactly indignation nor incredulity, 
 but (strange as it may seem) a sudden violent curiosity for 
 news about himself. 
 
 '*You are selfish," said Rowland; "you think only of 
 yourself and believe only in yourself. You regard other 
 people only as they play into your own hands. You have 
 always been very frank about it, and the things seemed 
 so mixed up with the temper of your genius and the very 
 structure of your mind that often one was willing to take 
 the evil with the good and to be thankful that considering 
 your great talent yoii were no worse. But if one believed 
 in you as I have done one paid 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 have made you very uncomfortable ? " he 
 went on. 
 
 " Extremely so." 
 
 " I have been eager, grasping, obstinate, vain, ungrate- 
 ful, indifferent, cruel? " 
 
 " I have accused you mentally of all these things — with 
 the exception of vanity." 
 
 " You have often hated me 1 " 
 
 " Never. I should have parted company with you 
 before coming to that." 
 
 " But you have wanted to part company, to bid me go 
 on my way and be hanged ? " 
 
 " Repeatedly. Then I have had patience and forgiven 
 you." 
 
 " Forgiven me, eh 1 Suffering all the while 1 " 
 
 " Yes, you may call it suffering." 
 
 " Why did you never tell me all this before 1 " 
 
 " Because my affection was always stronger than my 
 
336 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 resentment ; because I preferred to err on the side of kind- 
 ness because I had myself in a measure launched you in 
 the world and thrown you among temptations; and because 
 nothing short of your unwarrantable aggression just now 
 could have made me say those painful things." 
 
 Ptoderick picked up a blade of long grass and began to 
 bite it; Rowland was puzzled Ijy his expression and manner. 
 They seemed strangely cynical ; there was something re- 
 volting in his deei)ening calmness. " I must have been 
 hideous," Roderick presently resumed. 
 
 " I am not talking for your entertainment," said 
 Ptowland. 
 
 " Of course not. For my edification ! " As Roderick 
 said these words there was not a ray of warmth in his 
 brilliant eye. 
 
 "I have spoken for my own relief," Rowland went on, 
 " and so that you need never again go so utterly astray as 
 you have done this morning." 
 
 *' It has been a terrible mistake then 1 " What his tone 
 expressed was not wilful mockery, but a kind of persistent 
 irresponsibility which Rowland found equally exasperating. 
 He answered nothing. " And all this time," Roderick 
 continued, " you have been in love 1 Tell me the woman/' 
 
 Rowland felt an immense desire to give him a visible 
 palpable pang. " Her name is jNIary Garland," he said. 
 
 Apparently he succeeded. The surprise was great ; 
 Roderick coloured as he had never done. ** Mary Garland 1 
 Heaven forgive us I " 
 
 Rowland observed the " us ; " Roderick threw himself 
 back on the turf. The latter lay for some time staring at 
 the sky. At last he sprang to his feet and Rowland rose 
 also, rejoicing keenly, it must be confessed, in his com- 
 panion's confusion. 
 
 " For how lone: has this been ] " Roderick demanded. 
 
 " Since I first knew her." 
 
 " Two years ! And you have never told her 1 " 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " You have told no one 1 " 
 
 " You are the first person." 
 
 " Why have you been silent 1 " 
 
 " Because of your engagement." 
 
 " But you have done your best to keep that up." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 337 
 
 " That's another matter ! " 
 
 " It's very strange ! " said Ptoderick presently. " It's 
 like something in a novel." 
 
 " We needn't expatiate on it," said Rowland " All I 
 wished to do was to rebut your charge that I am an 
 abnormal being." 
 
 But still Roderick pondered. " All these months, while 
 I was going my way ! I wish you had mentioned it," 
 
 *' T acted as was necessary, and that's the end of it." 
 
 ■' You have a very high opinion of her 'i " 
 
 '' 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 she doesn't care for you ! " 
 
 Rowland had made his point and he had no wish to 
 prolong the conversation ; but he had a desire to hear 
 more of this and he remained silent. 
 
 " You hope, I suppose, that some day she may 1 " 
 Roderick asked. 
 
 " I shouldn't have offered to say so ; but since you ask 
 me, I do." 
 
 " I don't believe it. ' 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 profound 
 fatuity.' Rowland turned away; he could not trust himself 
 to speat. 
 
 " My indifference, my neglect of her, must have seemed 
 to you horrible. Altogether I must have appeared simply 
 hideous." 
 
 "Do you really care," Rowland asked, "what you 
 appeared 1 " 
 
 " Certainly. I have been damnably stupid. Isn't an 
 artist supposed to be a man of perceptions ^ I am hugely 
 disgusted." 
 
 " Well, you understand now, and we can start afresh." 
 
 " And yet," said Roderick, " though you have suffered, 
 in a degree, I don't believe you have suffered so much as 
 some other men would have done." 
 
 " Yery likely not. In such matters quantitative analysis 
 is difficult." 
 
 Roderick picked up his stick and stood looking at the 
 ground, " IS'everthele.'-s, I must have seemed hideous,"' 
 
 Y 
 
338 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 he repeated— " hideous." lie turned away frowning, and 
 Rowhmd offered no contradiction. 
 
 They were both silent for some time, and at hii^t 
 Eoderick gave a heavy sigh and began to walk away. 
 " Where are you going 'i " Rowland then asked. 
 
 " Oh, I don't care ! To walk ; you have given me 
 something to think of." This seemed a salutary impulse, 
 and yet Rowland felt a nameless perplexity. "To have 
 been so stupid damns me more than anything ! " Roderick 
 went on. " Certainly I can shut up shop now." 
 
 [Rowland felt in no smiling humour, and yet in spite 
 of himself he could almost have smiled at the very con- 
 sistency of the fellow. It w^as egotism still — aesthetic dis- 
 gust at the graceless contour of his conduct, but never a hint 
 of simple sorrow for the pain he had given^ Rowland let him 
 go, and for some moments stood watching him. Suddenly 
 Rowland became conscious of a singular and most illogical 
 impulse — a desire to stop him, to have another word with 
 him— not to lose sight of him. He called him and Roderick 
 turned. " I should like to go with you," said Rowland. 
 
 " I am fit only to be alone. I am damned ! " 
 
 " You had better not think of it at all," Rowland cried, 
 " than think in that way." 
 
 " There is only one way. I have been hideous ! " And 
 he broke off and marched away with his long elastic step, 
 swinging his stick. Rowland w^atched him, and at the end 
 of a moment called to him. Roderick stopped and looked 
 at him in silence, and then abruptly turned and disappeared 
 below the crest of a hill. 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 Rowland passed the remainder of the day as best he 
 could. He was half exasperated, half depressed ; he had 
 an iusufl'erable feeling of having been placed in the wrong 
 in spite of his excellent cause. Roderick did not come 
 home to lunch ; but of this, with his passion for brooding 
 
EODEPJCK HUDSON. 339 
 
 away the hours on far-off mountain sides, he had almost 
 made a habit. Mrs. Hudson appeared at the noonday- 
 repast with a face which showed that Roderick's demand 
 for money had unsealed the fountains of her distress. 
 Little Singleton consumed an enormous and well-earned 
 meal. Mary Garland, Ptowland observed, had not con- 
 tributed her scanty assistance to her kinsman's pursuit of 
 the Princess Casamassima without an effort. The effort 
 was visible in her pale face and her silence ; she looked so 
 ill that when they left the table Rowland felt almost 
 bound to remark upon it. They had come out upon the 
 grass in front of the inn. 
 
 "I have a headache," she said. And then suddenly, 
 looking about at the menacing sky and motionless air, 
 " It's this horrible day ! " 
 
 Rowland 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 be- 
 lieve there is such a thing as being too reasonable. But 
 when once the habit is formed, what 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 Roderick. He went forth in search of them and 
 found them where he had thrown them. He flung himself 
 down in the same place again ; he felt indisposed to walk. 
 He was conscious that his mood had greatly changed since 
 the morning ; his extraordinary acute sense of his rights 
 had been replaced by the familiar chronic sense of his duties. 
 Only, his duties now seemed impracticable ; 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 ; it took him a moment to perceive 
 that it was a portentous growl of thunder. He aroused 
 himself 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 were 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 his way down to the inn and found 
 
 Y 2 
 
340 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 Singleton still at his post, profiting by the last of the 
 rapid -failing light to finish his study, and yet at the same 
 time taking rapid notes of the actual condition of the clouds, 
 
 *' We are going to have a most interesting storm ! " the 
 little painter gleefully cried. " I should like awfully to 
 do it." 
 
 Kowland adjured him to pack up his tools and decamp, 
 and repaired to the house. The air by this time had be- 
 come tremendously dark, and the thunder was incessant 
 and deafening ; in the midst of it the lightning flashed and 
 vanished, like the treble shrilling upon the bass. The inn- 
 keeper and his servants had crowded to the doorway and 
 were looking at the scene with faces which seemed a proof 
 that it was unprecedented. As Rowland approached, the 
 group divided to let some one pass within, and Mrs. 
 Hudson came forth, as white as a corpse and trembling 
 in every limb. 
 
 " My boy, my boy, where is my boy ? " she cried. " Mr. 
 Mallet, why are you here without him ? Bring him to 
 me ! " 
 
 " Has no one seen Mr. Hudson 1 " Eow^land asked of the 
 others. " Has he not returned ? " 
 
 Each one shook his head and looked grave, and Eowland 
 attempted to reassure Mrs. Hudson by saying that of 
 course he had taken refuge in a chalet. 
 
 " Go and find him, go and find him ! " she cried, insanely. 
 " Don't stand there and talk, or I shall drop dead ! " It 
 was now as dark as evening, and Rowland could just dis- 
 tinguish the figure of Singleton scampering homeward with 
 his box and easel. "And where is 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 prodigious flash of lightning, and the 
 limitless tumult about them turned clearer than mid- 
 summer noonday. The brightness lasted long enough to 
 enable Rowland to see a woman's figure on the top of an 
 eminence near the house. It w^as Mary Garland, question- 
 ing the lurid darkness for Roderick. Rowland sprang out 
 to interrupt her vigil, 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. 
 
HODERICK HUDSON. 341 
 
 "Did you see anythiDg — nothing V she cried. "Tell 
 Mr. Mallet he must go and find him, with some men, some 
 lights, some wrappings. Go, go, go, sir ! In mercy, go ! " 
 
 Rowland was extremely perturbed by the poor lady's 
 vociferous folly, for he deemed her anxiety superfluous. He 
 had oifered his suggestion with sincerity ; nothing was 
 more probable than that Roderick had found shelter in a 
 herdsman's cabin. These were numerous on the neighbour- 
 ing mountains, and the storm had given fair w^arning of 
 its approach, Mary stood there very pale, sa3ang nothing, 
 only looking at him. He expected that she would try to 
 soothe her cousin. " Could you find him 1 " she suddenly 
 asked. " Would it be of use ? " 
 
 The question seemed to him a flash intenser than the 
 lightning that was raking in the sky before them. It 
 shattered his dream that he weighed in the scale ! But 
 before he could answer, the full fury of the storm was upon 
 them ; the rain descended in sounding torrents. 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 Mary's hand upon his arm. For a 
 moment it had an eloquent pressure ; it seemed to be a 
 retractation of her senseless challenge, an assurance that 
 she believed, for Roderick, what he believed. But never- 
 theless, thought Rowland, the cry had come, her heart 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 in ques- 
 tion did little to enliven the gloom of that formidable 
 evening. There was a noisy crowd about him in the room 
 — noisy even with the accompaniment of the continual 
 thunder-peals ; lodgers and servants, chattering, shuffling, 
 bustling, annoying him equally by making too light of the 
 tempest and by vociferating their alarm. In the disorder 
 it was some time before a lamp was lighted, and the first 
 thing he saw as it was swung from the ceiling was the 
 white face of Mrs. Hudson who was being carried out of 
 the room in a swoon by two stout maid-servants, with 
 Mary Garland forcing a passage. He rendered what help 
 he could, but when they laid the poor woman on her bed 
 Mary motioned him away. 
 
342 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 " T think you make lior worse," she said. 
 
 Eowland went to liis own room. The partitions in Swiss 
 monntain-inns are thin, and from time to time he heard Mrs, 
 Hudson'moaning three doors off. Considering its great fury 
 the storm took long to expend itself; it was upwards of 
 three hours before the thunder ceased. But even then the 
 rain continued to fall heavily, and the night, which had 
 come on, was impenetrably black. This lasted till near mid- 
 night. Rowland thought of Mary Garland's question in the 
 porch, but he thoiight even more that, although the fetid 
 interior of a high-nestling chalet may offer a convenient 
 refuge from an Alpine tempest, there was no possible 
 music in the universe so sweet as the sound of Roderick's 
 voice. At midnight, through his dripping window-pane, 
 he saw a star, and he immediately went down stairs and 
 out into the gallery. The rain had ceased, the cloud- 
 masses were dissevered here and there, and several stars 
 were visible. 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 fruitless lamentations. Mary kept scanning the 
 darkness, but she said nothing to cast doubt on Roderick's 
 having found a refuge. Rowland noticed it. " This also 
 have I guaranteed!" he said to himself. There was 
 something that Mary wished to learn and a question 
 presently revealed it. " What made him start on a long 
 walk so suddenly 1 " she asked. " I saw him at eleven 
 o'clock, and then he meant to go to Engelberg and 
 sleep." 
 
 "On his way to Interlakon ! " 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 superseded his plan." 
 
 I\Iary was silent. Then — " May I ask whether your 
 discussion was violent ? " she said. 
 
 ** I am afraid it was agreeable to neither of us." 
 
 "And Roderick left you in — in irritation? " 
 
 " I offered him my companv on his walk. He declined 
 it." 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 343 
 
 Mary paced slowly to the end of the gallery and then 
 came back. " Tf he had gone to Engelberg," she said, " he 
 would have reached the hotel before the storm began." 
 
 Eowland felt a sudden explosion of ferocity. "Oh, if 
 you like," he cried, " he can start for Interlaken as soon as 
 he comes back ! " 
 
 But she did not even notice his anger. " Will he come 
 back early 1 " she went on. 
 
 " We may suppose so." 
 
 " He will know how anxious we are and he will start 
 with the first light," said Mary. 
 
 Rowland 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 himself and said 
 simply, "I expect him at sunrise." 
 
 Mary bent her eyes once more upon the irresponsive dark- 
 ness, and then in silence went into the house. Rowland, 
 it must be averred, in spite of his resolution not to be 
 nervous, 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 completely cleared the atmosphere 
 and the day gave promise of cloudless splendour. Rowland 
 watched the early sun-shafts slowly reaching higher, and 
 remembered that if Roderick did not come back to break- 
 fast there were two things to be taken into account. One 
 was the heaviness of the soil on the mountain-sides, saturated 
 with the rain, which would make him walk slowly ; the 
 other was the fact that, speaking without irony, he was 
 not remarkable for throwing himself into the sentiments 
 of others. Breakfast at the inn was early, and by break- 
 fast-time Roderick had not reappeared. Then Rowland 
 admitted that he was nervous. Neither Mrs. Hudson nor 
 her companion had left their apartment ; Rowland had a 
 mental vision of the two women sitting there looking at 
 each other and listening; he had no desire to see them 
 more closely. 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 
 of Roderick at every chalet door within a morning's walk. 
 Then he called Sam Singleton, whose peregrinations had 
 made him an excellent mountaineer and whose zeal and 
 sympathy were now unbounded, and the two started 
 
344 RODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 together on a journey of research. V>y the time they had 
 lost sight of the inn Eowland was obliged to confess that 
 decidedly Roderick had had time to come back. 
 
 He wandered about for several hours, but he found only 
 the sunny stillness of the mountain-sides. Before long he 
 parted company with Singleton, who to his suggestion that 
 separation would multiply their powers, assented with a 
 silent frightened look which reflected too vividly his own 
 rapidly-dawning thought. The day was magnificent ; the 
 sun was everywhere ; the storm had lashed the lower slopes 
 into a deeper flush of autumnal colour, and the snow-peaks 
 reared themselves against the near horizon in shining 
 blocks and incisive peaks. Rowland made his way to 
 several chalets, but most of them were empty. He 
 thumped at their low foul doors with a kind of nervous 
 savage anger ; he challenged the stupid silence to tell him 
 something about his friend. Some of these places had 
 evidently not been open for months. The silence every- 
 where was horrible ; it seemed to mock at his impatience 
 and to be a conscious symbol of calamity. In the midst 
 of it, at the door of one of the cabins, quite alone, sat a 
 hideous cretin who grinned at Rowland over his goitre 
 when, hardly knowing what he did, he questioned him. 
 This creature's family was scattered on the mountain-sides ; 
 he could give Rowland no help to find them. Rowland 
 climbed into many awkward places, and skirted intently 
 and peeringly many an ugly chasm and steep-dropping 
 ledge. But the sun, as I have said, was everywhere ; it 
 illumined the deep places over 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 death. At noon he paused in his quest and sat 
 down on a stone ; the conviction was pressing upon him 
 that the worst that was now possible was true. He 
 stopped looking; he was afraid to go on. He sat there 
 for an hour, sick to the depths of his soul. Without his 
 knowing why, several things, chiefly trivial, that had hap- 
 pened during the last two years and that he had quite 
 forgotten, became vividly present to his mind. He was 
 aroused at last by the sound of a stone dislodged near by, 
 which rattled down the mountain. In a moment, on a 
 steep rocky slope opposite to him, he beheld a figure 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 345 
 
 cautiously def^cending — a figure which was not Roderick. 
 It was Singleton, who had seen him and began to beckon 
 to him. 
 
 " Come down — come down ! " cried the painter, steadily 
 making his own way down. Rowland 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 clilf. This was a great rugged wall which sloped back- 
 ward from the perpendicular, and the descent, thou^-h 
 difficult, was with care sufficiently practicable. 
 
 '* What do you see ? " cried Rowland. 
 
 Singleton stopped, looked across at him and seemed to 
 hesitate ; then, '' Come down — come down ! " he simply 
 repeated. 
 
 Rowland's course w^as also a deep descent, and he 
 attacked it so precipitately that he afterwards marvelled 
 he had not broken his neck. It was a ten minutes' head- 
 long scramble. Half-way down he saw something that 
 made him dizzy ; he saw what Singleton had seen. In the 
 gorge below them a vague white mass lay tumbled upon 
 the stones. He let himself go, blindly, fiercely. Singleton 
 had reached the rocky bottom of the ravine before him, 
 and had bounded forward and fallen upon his knees. 
 Rowland overtook him and his own legs bent under him. 
 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 upward open-eyed at the sky. 
 
 He had fallen from a great height, but he was singularly 
 little disfigured. The rain had spent its torrents 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 show some hideous fracture, some 
 horrible physical dishonour, but what Rowland saw on 
 first looking at him was only a strangely serene expres- 
 sion of life. The eyes were those of a dead man, but in 
 a short time, when Rowland had closed them, the whole 
 face seemed to awake. The rain had washed away all 
 blood ; it was as if Violence, having done her work, had 
 stolen away in shame. Roderick's face might have shamed 
 her ; it looked admirably handsome. 
 
 " He was a beautiful fellow ! " said Singleton. 
 
 They looked up through their horror at the cliff from 
 
346 llODERICK HUDSON. 
 
 which he had apparently 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 then 
 llowland had an immense outbreak of pity and anguish. 
 At last they spoke of carrying him back to the inn. 
 " There must be three or four men," Ptowland said, " and 
 they must be brought here quickly. I have not the leajt 
 idea where we are." 
 
 " We are at about three hours' walk from home," said 
 Singleton. " I will go for help ; I can find my way," 
 
 " Ptemember whom you will have to face ! " said Ptowland. 
 
 " I remember," the excellent fellow answered. " There 
 was nothing I could ever do for him in life ; I will do w^iat 
 I can now." 
 
 He went off, and Powland stayed there alone. He 
 watched for seven long hours, and his vigil was for ever 
 memorable. The most rational of men was for an hour 
 the most passionate. He reviled himself with transcendent 
 bitterness, he accused himself of cruelty and injustice, he 
 would have lain down there in Poderick's place to unsay 
 the words that had yesterday driven him forth on his 
 lonely ramble. Roderick had been fond of saying that 
 there are such things as necessary follies, and Powland 
 was now proving it. At last he grew almost used to the 
 dumb exultation of the cliff above him, and he tried to 
 understand w-hat had happened. Not that it helped him ; 
 before the absoluteness of the fact one hypothesis after 
 another lost its interest. Poderick's passionate walk had 
 carried him farther and higher than he knew ; he had 
 outstayed supposably the first menace of the storm and 
 perhaps even found a defiant entertainment in watching it. 
 Perhaps he had simply lost himself. The tempest had 
 overtaken him and when he tried to return it was too late. 
 He had attempted to descend the cliff in the darkness, he 
 had made the inevitable slip, and whether he had fallen 
 fifty feet or three hundred little mattered now. The con- 
 dition of his body indicated the shorter fall. Now that 
 all was over Powland understood how exclusively, for two 
 years, Poderick had filled his life. His occupation was 
 gone. 
 
 Singleton came back with four men — one of them the 
 landlord of the inn. They had formed a sort of rude 
 
RODERICK HUDSON. 347 
 
 bier of tlie frame of a chaise ci j^orteurs, and by taking a 
 very round-about course homeward were able to follow a 
 tolerably level path and carry their burden with a certain 
 decency. To Kowland it seemed as if the little procession 
 would never reach the inn ; but as they drew near it he 
 would have given his right hand for a longer delay. The 
 people of the hotel came forward to meet them in a little 
 silent solemn convoy. In the doorway, clinging together, 
 appeared the two bereaved women. Mrs. Hudson tottered 
 forward with outstretched hands and the expression of a 
 blind person ; 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 magnificent 
 movement of one whose rights were supreme and with a 
 loud tremendous cry, upon the senseless vestige of her 
 love. 
 
 That cry still lives in Rowland's ears. It interposes 
 persistently against the reflection that when he sometimes 
 — very rarely — sees her, she is unreservedly kind to him ; 
 against the memory that during the dreary journey back 
 to America, made of course with his assistance, there was 
 a great frankness in her gratitude, a great gratitude in her 
 frankness. Mary Garland lives with Mrs. Hudson, at 
 Northampton, where Rowland visits his cousin Cecilia 
 more frequently than of old. When he calls upon Mary 
 he never sees Mrs. Hudson. Cecilia, who having her 
 shrewd impression that he comes to see the young lady 
 at the other house as much as to see herself, does not 
 feel obliged to seem unduly flattered, calls him whenever 
 he reappears the most restless of mortals. But he always 
 says to her in answer, "No, I assure you I am the most 
 patient ! " 
 
 THE END. ' -' ' 
 
CLAY. SONS. AND TAYI.OR, 
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