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The Europeans
The Europeans
James, Henry
Published: 1878
Type(s): Novels
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org
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About James:
Henry James, son of theologian Henry James Sr. and brother of the philosopher and psy-
chologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an American-born author and literary
critic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He spent much of his life in Europe and be-
came a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for novels, novellas
and short stories based on themes of consciousness and morality.
James significantly contributed to the criticism of fiction, particularly in his insistence
that writers be allowed the greatest freedom possible in presenting their view of the world.
His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and possibly unreliable narrators
in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to narrative fiction. An ex-
traordinarily productive writer, he published substantive books of travel writing, biography,
autobiography and visual arts criticism.
Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for James:
• Hawthorne (1879)
• Daisy Miller (1879)
• The Bostonians (1886)
• Wings of the Dove (1902)
• The Ambassadors (1903)
• The Golden Bowl (1904)
Copyright: This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70.
Cette oeuvre est disponible pour les pays où le droit d'auteur est de 70 ans après mort de
l'auteur.
Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks.
Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes.
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Chapter 1
A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from the windows of
a gloomy-looking inn, is at no time an object of enlivening suggestion; and the spectacle is
not at its best when the mouldy tombstones and funereal umbrage have received the ineffec-
tual refreshment of a dull, moist snow-fall. If, while the air is thickened by this frosty
drizzle, the calendar should happen to indicate that the blessed vernal season is already six
weeks old, it will be admitted that no depressing influence is absent from the scene. This
fact was keenly felt on a certain 12th of May, upwards of thirty years since, by a lady who
stood looking out of one of the windows of the best hotel in the ancient city of Boston. She
had stood there for half an hour—stood there, that is, at intervals; for from time to time she
turned back into the room and measured its length with a restless step. In the chimney-
place was a red-hot fire which emitted a small blue flame; and in front of the fire, at a table,
sat a young man who was busily plying a pencil. He had a number of sheets of paper cut in-
to small equal squares, and he was apparently covering them with pictorial
designs—strange-looking figures. He worked rapidly and attentively, sometimes threw back
his head and held out his drawing at arm's-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding hum-
ming and whistling. The lady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts were
voluminous. She never dropped her eyes upon his work; she only turned them, occasionally,
as she passed, to a mirror suspended above the toilet-table on the other side of the room.
Here she paused a moment, gave a pinch to her waist with her two hands, or raised these
members—they were very plump and pretty—to the multifold braids of her hair, with a
movement half caressing, half corrective. An attentive observer might have fancied that
during these periods of desultory self-inspection her face forgot its melancholy; but as soon
as she neared the window again it began to proclaim that she was a very ill-pleased woman.
And indeed, in what met her eyes there was little to be pleased with. The window-panes
were battered by the sleet; the head-stones in the grave-yard beneath seemed to be holding
themselves askance to keep it out of their faces. A tall iron railing protected them from the
street, and on the other side of the railing an assemblage of Bostonians were trampling
about in the liquid snow. Many of them were looking up and down; they appeared to be
waiting for something. From time to time a strange vehicle drew near to the place where
they stood,—such a vehicle as the lady at the window, in spite of a considerable acquaint-
ance with human inventions, had never seen before: a huge, low omnibus, painted in bril-
liant colors, and decorated apparently with jangling bells, attached to a species of groove in
the pavement, through which it was dragged, with a great deal of rumbling, bouncing and
scratching, by a couple of remarkably small horses. When it reached a certain point the
people in front of the grave-yard, of whom much the greater number were women, carrying
satchels and parcels, projected themselves upon it in a compact body—a movement suggest-
ing the scramble for places in a life-boat at sea—and were engulfed in its large interior.
Then the life-boat—or the life-car, as the lady at the window of the hotel vaguely designated
it—went bumping and jingling away upon its invisible wheels, with the helmsman (the man
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at the wheel) guiding its course incongruously from the prow. This phenomenon was re-
peated every three minutes, and the supply of eagerly-moving women in cloaks, bearing
reticules and bundles, renewed itself in the most liberal manner. On the other side of the
grave-yard was a row of small red brick houses, showing a series of homely, domestic-look-
ing backs; at the end opposite the hotel a tall wooden church-spire, painted white, rose high
into the vagueness of the snow-flakes. The lady at the window looked at it for some time; for
reasons of her own she thought it the ugliest thing she had ever seen. She hated it, she des-
pised it; it threw her into a state of irritation that was quite out of proportion to any sens-
ible motive. She had never known herself to care so much about church-spires.
She was not pretty; but even when it expressed perplexed irritation her face was most in-
teresting and agreeable. Neither was she in her first youth; yet, though slender, with a
great deal of extremely well-fashioned roundness of contour—a suggestion both of maturity
and flexibility—she carried her three and thirty years as a light-wristed Hebe might have
carried a brimming wine-cup. Her complexion was fatigued, as the French say; her mouth
was large, her lips too full, her teeth uneven, her chin rather commonly modeled; she had a
thick nose, and when she smiled—she was constantly smiling—the lines beside it rose too
high, toward her eyes. But these eyes were charming: gray in color, brilliant, quickly glan-
cing, gently resting, full of intelligence. Her forehead was very low—it was her only hand-
some feature; and she had a great abundance of crisp dark hair, finely frizzled, which was
always braided in a manner that suggested some Southern or Eastern, some remotely for-
eign, woman. She had a large collection of ear-rings, and wore them in alternation; and they
seemed to give a point to her Oriental or exotic aspect. A compliment had once been paid
her, which, being repeated to her, gave her greater pleasure than anything she had ever
heard. "A pretty woman?" some one had said. "Why, her features are very bad." "I don't
know about her features," a very discerning observer had answered; "but she carries her
head like a pretty woman." You may imagine whether, after this, she carried her head less
becomingly.
She turned away from the window at last, pressing her hands to her eyes. "It 's too hor-
rible!" she exclaimed. "I shall go back—I shall go back!" And she flung herself into a chair
before the fire.
"Wait a little, dear child," said the young man softly, sketching away at his little scraps of
paper.
The lady put out her foot; it was very small, and there was an immense rosette on her
slipper. She fixed her eyes for a while on this ornament, and then she looked at the glowing
bed of anthracite coal in the grate. "Did you ever see anything so hideous as that fire?" she
demanded. "Did you ever see anything so—so affreux as—as everything?" She spoke English
with perfect purity; but she brought out this French epithet in a manner that indicated that
she was accustomed to using French epithets.
"I think the fire is very pretty," said the young man, glancing at it a moment. "Those little
blue tongues, dancing on top of the crimson embers, are extremely picturesque. They are
like a fire in an alchemist's laboratory."
"You are too good-natured, my dear," his companion declared.
The young man held out one of his drawings, with his head on one side. His tongue was
gently moving along his under-lip. "Good-natured—yes. Too good-natured—no."
"You are irritating," said the lady, looking at her slipper.
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He began to retouch his sketch. "I think you mean simply that you are irritated."
"Ah, for that, yes!" said his companion, with a little bitter laugh. "It 's the darkest day of
my life—and you know what that means."
"Wait till to-morrow," rejoined the young man.
"Yes, we have made a great mistake. If there is any doubt about it to-day, there certainly
will be none to-morrow. Ce sera clair, au moins!"
The young man was silent a few moments, driving his pencil. Then at last, "There are no
such things as mistakes," he affirmed.
"Very true—for those who are not clever enough to perceive them. Not to recognize one's
mistakes—that would be happiness in life," the lady went on, still looking at her pretty foot.
"My dearest sister," said the young man, always intent upon his drawing, "it 's the first
time you have told me I am not clever."
"Well, by your own theory I can't call it a mistake," answered his sister, pertinently
enough.
The young man gave a clear, fresh laugh. "You, at least, are clever enough, dearest sis-
ter," he said.
"I was not so when I proposed this."
"Was it you who proposed it?" asked her brother.
She turned her head and gave him a little stare. "Do you desire the credit of it?"
"If you like, I will take the blame," he said, looking up with a smile.
"Yes," she rejoined in a moment, "you make no difference in these things. You have no
sense of property."
The young man gave his joyous laugh again. "If that means I have no property, you are
right!"
"Don't joke about your poverty," said his sister. "That is quite as vulgar as to boast about
it."
"My poverty! I have just finished a drawing that will bring me fifty francs!"
"Voyons," said the lady, putting out her hand.
He added a touch or two, and then gave her his sketch. She looked at it, but she went on
with her idea of a moment before. "If a woman were to ask you to marry her you would say,
'Certainly, my dear, with pleasure!' And you would marry her and be ridiculously happy.
Then at the end of three months you would say to her, 'You know that blissful day when I
begged you to be mine!'"
The young man had risen from the table, stretching his arms a little; he walked to the
window. "That is a description of a charming nature," he said.
"Oh, yes, you have a charming nature; I regard that as our capital. If I had not been con-
vinced of that I should never have taken the risk of bringing you to this dreadful country."
"This comical country, this delightful country!" exclaimed the young man, and he broke
into the most animated laughter.
"Is it those women scrambling into the omnibus?" asked his companion. "What do you
suppose is the attraction?"
"I suppose there is a very good-looking man inside," said the young man.
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