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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Author Of Beltraffio
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21770]
+Last Updated: September 18, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO.
+
+By Henry James
+
+1885
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+Much as I wished to see him, I had kept my letter of introduction for
+three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about meeting
+him,--conscious of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was tormented
+by strangers, and especially by my country-people, and not exempt from
+the suspicion that he had the irritability as well as the brilliancy of
+genius. Moreover, the pleasure, if it should occur (for I could scarcely
+believe it was near at hand), would be so great that I wished to think
+of it in advance, to feel that it was in my pocket, not to mix it with
+satisfactions more superficial and usual In the little game of new
+sensations that I was playing with my ingenuous mind, I wished to keep
+my visit to the author of _Beltraffio_ as a trump card. It was three
+years after the publication of that fascinating work, which I had read
+over five times, and which now, with my riper judgment, I admire on the
+whole as much as ever. This will give you about the date of my first
+visit (of any duration) to England; for you will not have forgotten
+the commotion--I may even say the scandal--produced by Mark Ambient’s
+masterpiece. It was the most complete presentation that had yet been
+made of the gospel of art; it was a kind of aesthetic war-cry. People
+had endeavored to sail nearer to “truth” in the cut of their sleeves
+and the shape of their sideboards; but there had not as yet been, among
+English novels, such an example of beauty of execution and genuineness
+of substance. Nothing had been done in that line from the point of view
+of art for art This was my own point of view, I may mention, when I
+was twenty-five; whether it is altered now I won’t take upon myself
+to say--especially as the discerning reader will be able to judge for
+himself. I had been in England, briefly, a twelvemonth before the time
+to which I began by alluding, and had learned then that Mr. Ambient was
+in distant lands--was making a considerable tour in the East: so there
+was nothing to do but to keep my letter till I should be in London
+again. It was of little use to me to hear that his wife had not left
+England, and, with her little boy, their only child, was spending the
+period of her husband’s absence--a good many months--at a small place
+they had down in Surrey. They had a house in London which was let. All
+this I learned, and also that Mrs. Ambient was charming (my friend the
+American poet, from whom I had my introduction, had never seen her, his
+relations with the great man being only epistolary); but she was
+not, after all, though she had lived so near the rose, the author of
+_Beltraffio_, and I did not go down into Surrey to call on her. I went
+to the Continent, spent the following winter in Italy, and returned to
+London in May. My visit to Italy opened my eyes to a good many things,
+but to nothing more than the beauty of certain pages in the works of
+Mark Ambient I had every one of his productions in my portmanteau,--they
+are not, as you know, very numerous, but he had preluded to _Beltraffio_
+by some exquisite things,--and I used to read them over in the evening
+at the inn. I used to say to myself that the man who drew those
+characters and wrote that style understood what he saw and knew what he
+was doing. This is my only reason for mentioning my winter in Italy.
+He had been there much in former years, and he was saturated with what
+painters call the “feeling” of that classic land. He expressed the
+charm of the old hill-cities of Tuscany, the look of certain lonely
+grass-grown places which, in the past, had echoed with life; he
+understood the great artists, he understood the spirit of the
+Renaissance, he understood everything. The scene of one of his earlier
+novels was laid in Borne, the scene of another in Florence, and I moved
+through these cities in company with the figures whom Mark Ambient had
+set so vividly upon their feet. This is why I was now so much happier
+even than before in the prospect of making his acquaintance.
+
+At last, when I had dallied with this privilege long enough, I
+despatched to him the missive of the American poet He had already gone
+out of town; he shrank from the rigor of the London “season” and it was
+his habit to migrate on the first of June. Moreover, I had heard that
+this year he was hard at work on a new book, into which some of his
+impressions of the East were to be wrought, so that he desired nothing
+so much as quiet days. This knowledge, however, did not prevent me--_cet
+âge est sans pitié_--from sending with my friend’s letter a note of my
+own, in which I asked Mr. Ambient’s leave to come down and see him for
+an hour or two, on a day to be designated by himself. My proposal was
+accompanied with a very frank expression of my sentiments, and the
+effect of the whole projectile was to elicit from the great man the
+kindest possible invitation. He would be delighted to see me, especially
+if I should turn up on the following Saturday and would remain till
+the Monday morning. We would take a walk over the Surrey commons, and
+I could tell him all about the other great man, the one in America. He
+indicated to me the best train, and it may be imagined whether on
+the Saturday afternoon I was punctual at Waterloo. He carried his
+benevolence to the point of coming to meet me at the little station at
+which I was to alight, and my heart beat very fast as I saw his
+handsome face, surmounted with a soft wide-awake, and which I knew by
+a photograph long since enshrined upon my mantelshelf, scanning the
+carriage windows as the train rolled up. He recognized me as infallibly
+as I had recognized him; he appeared to know by instinct how a young
+American of an æsthetic turn would look when much divided between
+eagerness and modesty. He took me by the hand, and smiled at me, and
+said: “You must be--a--_you_, I think!” and asked if I should mind going
+on foot to his house, which would take but a few minutes. I remember
+thinking it a piece of extraordinary affability that he should give
+directions about the conveyance of my bag, and feeling altogether very
+happy and rosy, in fact quite transported, when he laid his hand on my
+shoulder as we came out of the station.
+
+I surveyed him, askance, as we walked together; I had already--I had
+indeed instantly--seen that he was a delightful creature. His face is
+so well known that I need n’t describe it; he looked to me at once
+an English gentleman and a man of genius, and I thought that a happy
+combination. There was just a little of the Bohemian in his appearance;
+you would easily have guessed that he belonged to the guild of artists
+and men of letters. He was addicted to velvet jackets, to cigarettes,
+to loose shirt-collars, to looking a little dishevelled. His features,
+which were fine, but not perfectly regular, are fairly enough
+represented in his portraits; but no portrait that I have seen gives any
+idea of his expression. There were so many things in it, and they chased
+each other in and out of his face. I have seen people who were grave and
+gay in quick alternation; but Mark Ambient was grave and gay at one and
+the same moment. There were other strange oppositions and contradictions
+in his slightly faded and fatigued countenance. He seemed both young and
+old, both anxious and indifferent. He had evidently had an active past,
+which inspired one with curiosity, and yet it was impossible not to be
+more curious still about his future. He was just enough above middle
+height to be spoken of as tall, and rather lean and long in the flank.
+He had the friendliest, frankest manner possible, and yet I could see
+that he was shy. He was thirty-eight years old at the time _Beltraffio_
+was published. He asked me about his friend in America, about the length
+of my stay in England, about the last news in London and the people I
+had seen there; and I remember looking for the signs of genius in the
+very form of his questions, and thinking I found it. I liked his voice.
+
+There was genius in his house, too, I thought, when we got there; there
+was imagination in the carpets and curtains, in the pictures and books,
+in the garden behind it, where certain old brown walls were muffled in
+creepers that appeared to me to have been copied from a masterpiece of
+one of the pre-Raphaelites. That was the way many things struck me at
+that time, in England; as if they were reproductions of something that
+existed primarily in art or literature. It was not the picture, the
+poem, the fictive page, that seemed to me a copy; these things were the
+originals, and the life of happy and distinguished people was fashioned
+in their image. Mark Ambient called his house a cottage, and I perceived
+afterwards that he was right; for if it had not been a cottage it must
+have been a villa, and a villa, in England at least, was not a place in
+which one could fancy him at home. But it was, to my vision, a cottage
+glorified and translated; it was a palace of art, on a slightly reduced
+scale,--it was an old English demesne. It nestled under a cluster of
+magnificent beeches, it had little creaking lattices that opened out of,
+or into, pendent mats of ivy, and gables, and old red tiles, as well
+as a general aspect of being painted in water-colors and inhabited by
+people whose lives would go on in chapters and volumes. The lawn seemed
+to me of extraordinary extent, the garden-walls of incalculable height,
+the whole air of the place delightfully still, private, proper to
+itself. “My wife must be somewhere about,” Mark Ambient said, as we went
+in. “We shall find her perhaps; we have got about an hour before dinner.
+She may be in the garden. I will show you my little place.”
+
+We passed through the house, and into the grounds, as I should have
+called them, which extended into the rear. They covered but three or
+four acres, but, like the house, they were very old and crooked, and
+full of traces of long habitation, with inequalities of level and little
+steps--mossy and cracked were these--which connected the different parts
+with each other. The limits of the place, cleverly dissimulated, were
+muffled in the deepest verdure. They made, as I remember, a kind of
+curtain at the further end, in one of the folds of which, as it were,
+we presently perceived, from afar, a little group. “Ah, there she is!”
+ said Mark Ambient; “and she has got the boy.” He made this last remark
+in a slightly different tone from any in which he yet had spoken. I
+was not fully aware of it at the time, but it lingered in my ear and I
+afterwards understood it.
+
+“Is it your son?” I inquired, feeling the question not to be brilliant.
+
+“Yes, my only child. He’s always in his mother’s pocket She coddles him
+too much.” It came back to me afterwards, too--the manner in which
+he spoke these words. They were not petulant; they expressed rather a
+sudden coldness, a kind of mechanical submission. We went a few steps
+further, and then he stopped short and called the boy, beckoning to him
+repeatedly.
+
+“Dolcino, come and see your daddy!” There was something in the way he
+stood still and waited that made me think he did it for a purpose. Mrs.
+Ambient had her arm round the child’s waist, and he was leaning against
+her knee; but though he looked up at the sound of his father’s voice,
+she gave no sign of releasing him. A lady, apparently a neighbor,
+was seated near her, and before them was a garden-table, on which a
+tea-service had been placed.
+
+Mark Ambient called again, and Dolcino struggled in the maternal
+embrace, but he was too tightly held, and after two or three fruitless
+efforts he suddenly turned round and buried his head deep in his
+mother’s lap. There was a certain awkwardness in the scene; I thought
+it rather odd that Mrs. Ambient should pay so little attention to her
+husband. But I would not for the world have betrayed my thought, and, to
+conceal it, I observed that it must be such a pleasant thing to have tea
+in the garden. “Ah, she won’t let him come!” said Mark Ambient, with a
+sigh; and we went our way ‘till we reached the two ladies. He mentioned
+my name to his wife, and I noticed that he addressed her as “My dear,”
+ very genially, without any trace of resentment at her detention of
+the child. The quickness of the transition made me vaguely ask myself
+whether he were henpecked,--a shocking conjecture, which I instantly
+dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a wife as I should have expected
+him to have; slim and fair, with a long neck and pretty eyes and an air
+of great refinement. She was a little cold, and a little shy; but she
+was very sweet, and she had a certain look of race, justified by my
+afterwards learning that she was “connected” with two or three great
+families. I have seen poets married to women of whom it was difficult
+to conceive that they should gratify the poetic fancy,--women with dull
+faces and glutinous minds, who were none the less, however, excellent
+wives. But there was no obvious incongruity in Mark Ambient’s union.
+Mrs. Ambient, delicate and quiet, in a white dress, with her beautiful
+child at her side, was worthy of the author of a work so distinguished
+as _Beltraffio_. Bound her neck she wore a black velvet ribbon, of which
+the long ends, tied behind, hung down her back, and to which, in front,
+was attached a miniature portrait of her little boy. Her smooth, shining
+hair was confined in a net She gave me a very pleasant greeting, and
+Dolcino--I thought this little name of endearment delightful--took
+advantage of her getting up to slip away from her and go to his father,
+who said nothing to him, but simply seized him and held him high in his
+arms for a moment, kissing him several times.
+
+I had lost no time in observing that the child, who was not more than
+seven years old, was extraordinarily beautiful He had the face of an
+angel,--the eyes, the hair, the more than mortal bloom, the smile of
+innocence. There was something touching, almost alarming, in his beauty,
+which seemed to be composed of elements too fine and pure for the breath
+of this world. When I spoke to him, and he came and held out his hand
+and smiled at me, I felt a sudden pity for him, as if he had been an
+orphan, or a changeling, or stamped with some social stigma. It was
+impossible to be, in fact, more exempt from these misfortunes, and
+yet, as one kissed him, it was hard to keep from murmuring “Poor little
+devil!” though why one should have applied this epithet to a living
+cherub is more than I can say. Afterwards, indeed, I knew a little
+better; I simply discovered that he was too charming to live, wondering
+at the same time that his parents should not have perceived it, and
+should not be in proportionate grief and despair. For myself, I had no
+doubt of his evanescence, having already noticed that there is a kind of
+charm which is like a death-warrant.
+
+The lady who had been sitting with Mrs. Ambient was a jolly, ruddy
+personage, dressed in velveteen and rather limp feathers, whom I guessed
+to be the vicar’s wife,--our hostess did not introduce me,--and who
+immediately began to talk to Ambient about chrysanthemums. This was a
+safe subject, and yet there was a certain surprise for me in seeing
+the author of _Beltraffio_ even in such superficial communion with the
+Church of England. His writings implied so much detachment from that
+institution, expressed a view of life so profane, as it were, so
+independent, and so little likely, in general, to be thought edifying,
+that I should have expected to find him an object of horror to vicars
+and their ladies--of horror repaid on his own part by good-natured but
+brilliant mockery. This proves how little I knew as yet of the English
+people and their extraordinary talent for keeping up their forms, as
+well as of some of the mysteries of Mark Ambient’s hearth and home.
+I found afterwards that he had, in his study, between smiles and
+cigar-smoke, some wonderful comparisons for his clerical neighbors; but
+meanwhile the chrysanthemums were a source of harmony, for he and the
+vicaress were equally fond of them, and I was surprised at the knowledge
+they exhibited of this interesting plant. The lady’s visit, however, had
+presumably already been long, and she presently got up, saying she must
+go, and kissed Mrs. Ambient Mark started to walk with her to the gate of
+the grounds, holding Dolcino by the hand.
+
+“Stay with me, my darling,” Mrs. Ambient said to the boy, who was
+wandering away with his father.
+
+Mark Ambient paid no attention to the summons, but Dolcino turned round
+and looked with eyes of shy entreaty at his mother. “Can’t I go with
+papa?”
+
+“Not when I ask you to stay with me.”
+
+“But please don’t ask me, mamma,” said the child, in his little clear,
+new voice.
+
+“I must ask you when I want you. Come to me, my darling.” And Mrs.
+Ambient, who had seated herself again, held out her long, slender hands.
+
+Her husband stopped, with his back turned to her, but without releasing
+the child. He was still talking to the vicaress, but this good lady, I
+think, had lost the thread of her attention. She looked at Mrs. Ambient
+and at Dolcino, and then she looked at me, smiling very hard, in an
+extremely fixed, cheerful manner.
+
+“Papa,” said the child, “mamma wants me not to go with you.”
+
+“He’s very tired--he has run about all day. He ought to be quiet till
+he goes to bed. Otherwise he won’t sleep.” These declarations fell
+successively and gravely from Mrs. Ambient’s lips.
+
+Her husband, still without turning round, bent over the boy and looked
+at him in silence. The vicaress gave a genial, irrelevant laugh, and
+observed that he was a precious little pet “Let him choose,” said Mark
+Ambient. “My dear little boy, will you go with me or will you stay with
+your mother?”
+
+“Oh, it’s a shame!” cried the vicar’s lady, with increased hilarity.
+
+“Papa, I don’t think I can choose,” the child answered, making his voice
+very low and confidential. “But I have been a great deal with mamma
+to-day,” he added in a moment.
+
+“And very little with papa! My dear fellow, I think you have chosen!”
+ And Mark Ambient walked off with his son, accompanied by re-echoing but
+inarticulate comments from my fellow-visitor.
+
+His wife had seated herself again, and her fixed eyes, bent upon the
+ground, expressed for a few moments so much mute agitation that I felt
+as if almost any remark from my own lips would be a false note. But Mrs.
+Ambient quickly recovered herself, and said to me civilly enough
+that she hoped I did n’t mind having had to walk from the station. I
+reassured her on this point, and she went on, “We have got a thing that
+might have gone for you, but my husband wouldn’t order it.”
+
+“That gave me the pleasure of a walk with him,” I rejoined.
+
+She was silent a minute, and then she said, “I believe the Americans
+walk very little.”
+
+“Yes, we always run,” I answered laughingly.
+
+She looked at me seriously, and I began to perceive a certain coldness
+in her pretty eyes. “I suppose your distances are so great?”
+
+“Yes; but we break our marches I I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is
+for me to find myself here,” I added. “I have the greatest admiration
+for Mr. Ambient.”
+
+“He will like that. He likes being admired.”
+
+“He must have a very happy life, then. He has many worshippers.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I have seen some of them,” said Mrs. Ambient, looking away,
+very far from me, rather as if such a vision were before her at the
+moment Something in her tone seemed to indicate that the vision was
+scarcely edifying, and I guessed very quickly that she was not in
+sympathy with the author of _Beltraffio_. I thought the fact strange,
+but, somehow, in the glow of my own enthusiasm, I did n’t think it
+important; it only made me wish to be rather explicit about that
+enthusiasm.
+
+“For me, you know,” I remarked, “he is quite the greatest of living
+writers.”
+
+“Of course I can’t judge. Of course he’s very clever,” said Mrs.
+Ambient, smiling a little.
+
+“He’s magnificent, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in each of his books
+that have a perfection that classes them with the greatest things.
+Therefore, for me to see him in this familiar way,--in his habit as he
+lives,--and to find, apparently, the man as delightful as the artist,
+I can’t tell you how much too good to be true it seems, and how great a
+privilege I think it.” I knew that I was gushing, but I could n’t help
+it, and what I said was a good deal less than what I felt. I was by no
+means sure that I should dare to say even so much as this to Ambient
+himself, and there was a kind of rapture in speaking it out to his
+wife which was not affected by the fact that, as a wife, she appeared
+peculiar. She listened to me with her face grave again, and with her
+lips a little compressed, as if there were no doubt, of course, that
+her husband was remarkable, but at the same time she had heard all this
+before and couldn’t be expected to be particularly interested in it.
+There was even in her manner an intimation that I was rather young, and
+that people usually got over that sort of thing. “I assure you that for
+me this is a red-letter day,” I added.
+
+She made no response, until after a pause, looking round her, she said
+abruptly, though gently, “We are very much afraid about the fruit this
+year.”
+
+My eyes wandered to the mossy, mottled, garden walls, where plum-trees
+and pear-trees, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked
+like crucified figures with many arms. “Does n’t it promise well?” I
+inquired.
+
+“No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts.”
+
+Then there was another pause. Mrs. Ambient kept her eyes fixed on the
+opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband’s
+return with the child. “Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?” it occurred
+to me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to
+bring the conversation constantly back to him.
+
+“He’s very fond of plums,” said his wife.
+
+“Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It’s a
+lovely old place,” I continued. “The whole character of it is that
+of certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his
+pictures.”
+
+“It’s a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it”
+
+“Oh, it has got his tone,” I said, laughing, and insisting on my point
+the more that Mrs. Ambient appeared to see in my appreciation of her
+simple establishment a sign of limited experience.
+
+It was evident that I insisted too much. “His tone?” she repeated, with
+a quick look at me, and a slightly heightened color.
+
+“Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient”
+
+“Oh, yes, he has indeed! But I don’t in the least consider that I am
+living in one of his books; I should n’t care for that, at all,” she
+went on, with a smile which had in some degree the effect of converting
+her slightly sharp protest into a joke deficient in point “I am afraid I
+am not very literary,” said Mrs. Ambient. “And I am not artistic.”
+
+“I am very sure you are not ignorant, not stupid,” I ventured to reply,
+with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had been
+both familiar and patronizing. My only consolation was in the reflection
+that it was she, and not I, who had begun it She had brought her
+idiosyncrasies into the discussion.
+
+“Well, whatever I am, I am very different from my husband. If you like
+him, you won’t like me. You need n’t say anything. Your liking me is n’t
+in the least necessary!”
+
+“Don’t defy me!” I exclaimed.
+
+She looked as if she had not heard me, which was the best thing she
+could do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient
+had evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be silent
+without being restless. But at last she spoke; she asked me if there
+seemed to be many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could
+on this point, and we talked a little about London and of some pictures
+it presented at that time of the year. At the end of this I came back,
+irrepressibly, to Mark Ambient.
+
+“Does n’t he like to be there now? I suppose he does n’t find the proper
+quiet for his work. I should think his things had been written, for
+the most part, in a very still place. They suggest a great stillness,
+following on a kind of tumult. Don’t you think so? I suppose London is a
+tremendous place to collect impressions, but a refuge like this, in the
+country, must be much better for working them up. Does he get many of
+his impressions in London, do you think?” I proceeded from point to point
+in this malign inquiry, simply because my hostess, who probably thought
+me a very pushing and talkative young man, gave me time; for when I
+paused--I have not represented my pauses--she simply continued to
+let her eyes wander, and, with her long fair fingers, played with the
+medallion on her neck. When I stopped altogether, however, she was
+obliged to say something, and what she said was that she had not the
+least idea where her husband got his impressions. This made me think
+her, for a moment, positively disagreeable; delicate and proper and
+rather aristocratically dry as she sat there. But I must either have
+lost the impression a moment later, or been goaded by it to further
+aggression, for I remember asking her whether Mr. Ambient were in a good
+vein of work, and when we might look for the appearance of the book on
+which he was engaged. I have every reason now to know that she thought
+me an odious person.
+
+She gave a strange, small laugh as she said, “I am afraid you think I
+know a great deal more about my husband’s work than I do. I haven’t
+the least idea what he is doing,” she added presently, in a slightly
+different, that is a more explanatory, tone, as if she recognized
+in some degree the enormity of her confession. “I don’t read what he
+writes!”
+
+She did not succeed (and would not, even had she tried much harder) in
+making it seem to me anything less than monstrous. I stared at her,
+and I think I blushed. “Don’t you admire his genius? Don’t you admire
+_Beltraffio?_”
+
+She hesitated a moment, and I wondered what she could possibly say. She
+did not speak--I could see--the first words that rose to her lips; she
+repeated what she had said a few minutes before. “Oh, of course he ‘s
+very clever!” And with this she got up; her husband and little boy had
+reappeared. Mrs. Ambient left me and went to meet them; she stopped and
+had a few words with her husband, which I did not hear, and which ended
+in her taking the child by the hand and returning to the house with him.
+Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit
+conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he
+would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my
+visit to him, I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to
+have understood his situation from the first, and to have seen in him
+the signs of things which I learnt only afterwards. This later knowledge
+throws a backward light, and makes me forget that at least on the
+occasion of which I am speaking now (I mean that first afternoon), Mark
+Ambient struck me as a fortunate man. Allowing for this, I think he was
+rather silent and irresponsive as we walked back to the house, though I
+remember well the answer he made to a remark of mine in relation to his
+child.
+
+“That’s an extraordinary little boy of yours,” I said. “I have never
+seen such a child.”
+
+“Why do you call him extraordinary?”
+
+“He’s so beautiful, so fascinating. He’s like a little work of art.”
+
+He turned quickly, grasping my arm an instant. “Oh, don’t call him that,
+or you ‘ll--you ‘ll--!”
+
+And in his hesitation he broke off suddenly, laughing at my surprise.
+But immediately afterwards he added, “You will make his little future
+very difficult.”
+
+I declared that I wouldn’t for the world take any liberties with his
+little future--it seemed to me to hang by threads of such delicacy. I
+should only be highly interested in watching it.
+
+“You Americans are very sharp,” said Ambient “You notice more things
+than we do.”
+
+“Ah, if you want visitors who are not struck with you, you should n’t
+ask me down here!”
+
+He showed me my room, a little bower of chintz, with open windows where
+the light was green, and before he left me he said irrelevantly, “As for
+my little boy, you know, we shall probably kill him between us, before
+wo have done with him!” And he made this assertion as if he
+really believed it, without any appearance of jest, with his fine,
+near-sighted, expressive eyes looking straight into mine.
+
+“Do you mean by spoiling him?”
+
+“No; by fighting for him!”
+
+“You had better give him to me to keep for you,” I said. “Let me remove
+the apple of discord.”
+
+I laughed, of course, but he had the air of being perfectly serious.
+“It would be quite the best thing we could do. I should be quite ready
+to do it.”
+
+“I am greatly obliged to you for your confidence.”
+
+Mark Ambient lingered there, with his hands in his pockets. I felt,
+within a few moments, as if I had, morally speaking, taken several
+steps nearer to him. He looked weary, just as he faced me then, looked
+preoccupied, and as if there were something one might do for him. I was
+terribly conscious of the limits of my own ability, but I wondered what
+such a service might be, feeling at bottom, however, that the only thing
+I could do for him was to like him. I suppose he guessed this, and was
+grateful for what was in my mind; for he went on presently, “I have n’t
+the advantage of being an American. But I also notice a little, and I
+have an idea that--a--” here he smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder,
+“that even apart from your nationality, you are not destitute of
+intelligence! I have only known you half an hour, but--a--” And here he
+hesitated again. “You are very young, after all.”
+
+“But you may treat me as if I could understand you!” I said; and before
+he left me to dress for dinner he had virtually given me a promise that
+he would.
+
+When I went down into the drawing-room--I was very punctual--I found
+that neither my hostess nor my host had appeared. A lady rose from a
+sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at
+her. “I dare say you don’t know me,” she said, with the modern laugh.
+“I am Mark Ambient’s sister.” Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting
+her very low. Her laugh was modern--by which I mean that it consisted
+of the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms,
+serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions;
+but her appearance was--what shall I call it?--mediaeval. She was pale
+and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and
+black hair intertwined with golden fillets and curious chains. She wore
+a faded velvet robe, which clung to her when she moved, fashioned, as
+to the neck and sleeves, like the garments of old Venetians and
+Florentines. She looked pictorial and melancholy, and was so perfect an
+image of a type which I, in my ignorance, supposed to be extinct, that
+while she rose before me I was almost as much startled as if I had seen
+a ghost. I afterwards perceived that Miss Ambient was not incapable
+of deriving pleasure from the effect she produced, and I think this
+sentiment had something to do with her sinking again into her seat, with
+her long, lean, but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic
+manner on her knees, and her mournful eyes addressing themselves to
+me with an intentness which was a menace of what they were destined
+subsequently to inflict upon me. She was a singular, self-conscious,
+artificial creature, and I never, subsequently, more than half
+penetrated her motives and, mysteries. Of one thing I am sure, however:
+that they were considerably less extraordinary than her appearance
+announced. Miss Ambient was a restless, disappointed, imaginative
+spinster, consumed with the love of Michael-Angelesque attitudes and
+mystical robes; but I am pretty sure she had not in her nature those
+depths of unutterable thought which, when you first knew her, seemed
+to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures. Those
+features, in especial, had a misleading eloquence; they rested upon
+you with a far-off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was
+certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; and I
+suspect that a young lady could not really have been so dejected and
+disillusioned as Miss Ambient looked, without having committed a crime
+for which she was consumed with remorse, or parted with a hope which
+she could not sanely have entertained. She had, I believe, the usual
+allowance of vulgar impulses: she wished to be looked at, she wished to
+be married, she wished to be thought original. It costs me something to
+speak in this irreverent manner of Mark Ambient’s sister, but I shall
+have still more disagreeable things to say before I have finished my
+little anecdote, and moreover,--I confess it,--I owe the young lady a
+sort of grudge. Putting aside the curious cast of her face, she had
+no natural aptitude for an artistic development,--she had little real
+intelligence. But her affectations rubbed off on her brother’s renown,
+and as there were plenty of people who disapproved of him totally, they
+could easily point to his sister as a person formed by his influence. It
+was quite possible to regard her as a warning, and she had done him but
+little good with the world at large. He was the original, and she
+was the inevitable imitation. I think he was scarcely aware of the
+impression she produced, beyond having a general idea that she made
+up very well as a Rossetti; he was used to her, and he was sorry for
+her,--wishing she would marry and observing that she did n’t Doubtless I
+take her too seriously, for she did me no harm, though I am bound to add
+that I feel I can only half account for her. She was not so mystical as
+she looked, but she was a strange, indirect, uncomfortable, embarrassing
+woman. My story will give the reader at best so very small a knot to
+untie that I need not hope to excite his curiosity by delaying to
+remark that Mrs. Ambient hated her sister-in-law. This I only found
+out afterwards, when I found out some other things. But I mention it at
+once, for I shall perhaps not seem to count too much on having enlisted
+the imagination of the reader if I say that he will already have guessed
+it Mrs. Ambient was a person of conscience, and she endeavored to behave
+properly to her kinswoman, who spent a month with her twice a year; but
+it required no great insight to discover that the two ladies were made
+of a very different paste, and that the usual feminine hypocrisies must
+have cost them, on either side, much more than the usual effort. Mrs.
+Ambient, smooth-haired, thin-lipped, perpetually fresh, must have
+regarded her crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she
+herself was not a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she
+had in her appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike
+candor, and a well-starched muslin dress.
+
+It was in a garment, and with an expression, of this kind, that she made
+her entrance, after I had exchanged a few words with Miss Ambient. Her
+husband presently followed her, and there being no other company we went
+to dinner. The impression I received from that repast is present to me
+still. There were elements of oddity in my companions, but they were
+vague and latent, and did n’t interfere with my delight It came mainly,
+of course, from Ambient’s talk, which was the most brilliant and
+interesting I had ever heard. I know not whether he laid himself out
+to dazzle a rather juvenile pilgrim from over the sea; but it matters
+little, for it was very easy for him to shine. He was almost better as
+a talker than as a writer; that is, if the extraordinary finish of his
+written prose be really, as some people have maintained, a fault. There
+was such a kindness in him, however, that I have no doubt it gave him
+ideas to see me sit open-mouthed, as I suppose I did. Not so the two
+ladies, who not only were very nearly dumb from beginning to the end
+of the meal, but who had not the air of being struck with such an
+exhibition of wit and knowledge. Mrs. Ambient, placid and detached, met
+neither my eye nor her husband’s; she attended to her dinner, watched
+the servants, arranged the puckers in her dress, exchanged at wide
+intervals a remark with her sister-in-law, and while she slowly rubbed
+her white hands between the courses, looked out of the window at the
+first signs of twilight--the long June day allowing us to dine without
+candles.. Miss Ambient appeared to give little direct heed to her
+brother’s discourse; but on the other hand she was much engaged in
+watching its effect upon me. Her lustreless pupils continued to attach
+themselves to my countenance, and it was only her air of belonging to
+another century that kept them from being importunate. She seemed to
+look at me across the ages, and the interval of time diminished the
+vividness of the performance. It was as if she knew in a general way
+that her brother must be talking very well, but she herself was so rich
+in ideas that she had no need to pick them up, and was at liberty to see
+what would become of a young American when subjected to a high aesthetic
+temperature.
+
+The temperature was æsthetic, certainly, but it was less so than I could
+have desired, for I was unsuccessful in certain little attempts to make
+Mark Ambient talk about himself I tried to put him on the ground of his
+own writings, but he slipped through my fingers every time and shifted
+the saddle to one of his contemporaries. He talked about Balzac and
+Browning, and what was being done in foreign countries, and about his
+recent tour in the East, and the extraordinary forms of life that one
+saw in that part of the world. I perceived that he had reasons for not
+wishing to descant upon literature, and suffered him without protest
+to deliver himself on certain social topics, which he treated with
+extraordinary humor and with constant revelations of that power of
+ironical portraiture of which his books are full. He had a great deal
+to say about London, as London appears to the observer who does n’t fear
+the accusation of cynicism, during the high-pressure time--from April
+to July--of its peculiarities. He flashed his faculty of making the
+fanciful real and the real fanciful over the perfunctory pleasures and
+desperate exertions of so many of his compatriots, among whom there were
+evidently not a few types for which he had little love. London bored him,
+and he made capital sport of it; his only allusion, that I can remember,
+to his own work was his saying that he meant some day to write an
+immense grotesque epic of London society. Miss Ambient’s perpetual gaze
+seemed to say to me: “Do you perceive how artistic we are? Frankly now,
+is it possible to be more artistic than this? You surely won’t deny that
+we are remarkable.” I was irritated by her use of the plural pronoun,
+for she had no right to pair herself with her brother; and moreover, of
+course, I could not see my way to include Mrs. Ambient. But there was
+no doubt that, for that matter, they were all remarkable, and, with
+all allowances, I had never heard anything so artistic. Mark Ambient’s
+conversation seemed to play over the whole field of knowledge and taste,
+and to flood it with light and color.
+
+After the ladies had left us he took me into his study to smoke, and
+here I led him on to talk freely enough about himself. I was bent upon
+proving to him that I was worthy to listen to him, upon repaying him
+for what he had said to me before dinner, by showing him how perfectly
+I understood. He liked to talk; he liked to defend his ideas (not that
+I attacked them); he liked a little perhaps--it was a pardonable
+weakness--to astonish the youthful mind and to feel its admiration
+and sympathy. I confess that my own youthful mind was considerably
+astonished at some of his speeches; he startled me and he made me wince.
+He could not help forgetting, or rather he could n’t know, how little
+personal contact I had had with the school in which he was master; and
+he promoted me at a jump, as it were, to the study of its innermost
+mysteries. My trepidations, however, were delightful; they were just
+what I had hoped for, and their only fault was that they passed away too
+quickly; for I found that, as regards most things, I very soon seized
+Mark Ambient’s point of view. It was the point of view of the artist to
+whom every manifestation of human energy was a thrilling spectacle, and
+who felt forever the desire to resolve his experience of life into a
+literary form. On this matter of the passion for form,--the attempt at
+perfection, the quest for which was to his mind the real search for the
+holy grail,--he said the most interesting, the most inspiring things. He
+mixed with them a thousand illustrations from his own life, from other
+lives that he had known, from history and fiction, and above all from
+the annals of the time that was dear to him beyond all periods,--the
+Italian _cinque-cento_. I saw that in his books he had only said half
+of his thought, and what he had kept back--from motives that I deplored
+when I learnt them later--was the richer part It was his fortune to
+shock a great many people, but there was not a grain of bravado in his
+pages (I have always maintained it, though often contradicted), and at
+bottom the poor fellow, an artist to his fingertips, and regarding a
+failure of completeness as a crime, had an extreme dread of scandal.
+There are people who regret that having gone so far he did not go
+further; but I regret nothing (putting aside two or three of the motives
+I just mentioned), for he arrived at perfection, and I don’t see how you
+can go beyond that The hours I spent in his study--this first one and
+the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so numerous--seem
+to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone which is partly that of
+the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candlelight where we sat and
+smoked, with the dusky, delicate bindings of valuable books; partly that
+of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged with the images
+that came at his command. When we went back to the drawing-room we found
+Miss Ambient alone in possession of it; and she informed us that her
+sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been called by the nurse
+to see Dolcino, who appeared to be a little feverish.
+
+“Feverish! how in the world does he come to be feverish?” Ambient asked.
+“He was perfectly well this afternoon.”
+
+“Beatrice says you walked him about too much--you almost killed him.”
+
+“Beatrice must be very happy--she has an opportunity to triumph!” Mark
+Ambient said, with a laugh of which the bitterness was just perceptible.
+
+“Surely not if the child is ill,” I ventured to remark, by way of
+pleading for Mrs. Ambient.
+
+“My dear fellow, you are not married--you don’t know the nature of
+wives!” my host exclaimed.
+
+“Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers.”
+
+“Beatrice is perfect as a mother,” said Miss Ambient, with a tremendous
+sigh and her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.
+
+“I shall go up and see the child,” her brother went on. “Do you suppose
+he’s asleep?”
+
+“Beatrice won’t let you see him, Mark,” said the young lady, looking at
+me, though she addressed, our companion.
+
+“Do you call that being perfect as a mother?” Ambient inquired.
+
+“Yes, from her point of view.”
+
+“Damn her point of view!” cried the author of _Beltraffio_. And he left
+the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.
+
+I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had
+some conversation, which was begun, I think, by my asking her what the
+point of view of her sister-in-law could be.
+
+“Oh, it’s so very odd,” she said. “But we are so very odd, altogether.
+Don’t you find us so? We have lived so much abroad. Have you people like
+us in America?”
+
+“You are not all alike, surely; so that I don’t think I understand your
+question. We have no one like your brother--I may go so far as that.”
+
+“You have probably more persons like his wife,” said Miss Ambient,
+smiling.
+
+“I can tell you that better when you have told me about her point of
+view.”
+
+“Oh, yes--oh, yes. Well, she does n’t like his ideas. She doesn’t like
+them for the child. She thinks them undesirable.”
+
+Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient’s
+_arcana_, I was particularly in a position to appreciate this
+announcement. But the effect of it was to make me, after staring a
+moment, burst into laughter, which I instantly checked when I remembered
+that there was a sick child above.
+
+“What has that infant to do with ideas?” I asked “Surely, he can’t tell
+one from another. Has he read his father’s novels?”
+
+“He’s very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she
+can’t begin to guard him too early.” Miss Ambient’s head drooped a
+little to one side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then
+suddenly there was a strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile
+that was more joyless than her gravity--a conscious, insincere smile,
+and added, “When one has children, it’s a great responsibility--what one
+writes.”
+
+“Children are terrible critics,” I answered. “I am rather glad I have
+n’t got any.”
+
+“Do you also write then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you
+like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? I don’t write,
+but I think I feel.” To these and various other inquiries and remarks
+the young lady treated me, till we heard her brother’s step in the hall
+again, and Mark Ambient reappeared. He looked flushed and serious, and I
+supposed that he had seen something to alarm him in the condition of his
+child. His sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him a moment
+as if he were a burning ship on the horizon, and simply murmured, “Poor
+old Mark!”
+
+“I hope you are not anxious,” I said.
+
+“No, but I ‘m disappointed. She won’t let me in. She has locked the
+door, and I ‘m afraid to make a noise.” I suppose there might have been
+something ridiculous in a confession of this kind, but I liked my new
+friend so much that for me it did n’t detract from his dignity. “She
+tells me--from behind the door--that she will let me know if he is
+worse.”
+
+“It’s very good of her,” said Miss Ambient
+
+I had exchanged a glance with Mark in which it is possible that he read
+that my pity for him was untinged with contempt, though I know not why
+he should have cared; and as, presently, his sister got up and took her
+bedroom candlestick, he proposed that we should go back to his study. We
+sat there till after midnight; he put himself into his slippers, into an
+old velvet jacket, lighted an ancient pipe, and talked considerably less
+than he had done before.
+
+There were longish pauses in our communion, but they only made me feel
+that we had advanced in intimacy. They helped me, too, to understand my
+friend’s personal situation, and to perceive that it was by no means the
+happiest possible. When his face was quiet, it was vaguely troubled; it
+seemed to me to show that for him, too, life was a struggle, as it has
+been for many another man of genius. At last I prepared to leave him,
+and then, to my ineffable joy, he gave me some of the sheets of his
+forthcoming book,--it was not finished, but he had indulged in the
+luxury, so dear to writers of deliberation, of having it “set up,” from
+chapter to chapter, as he advanced,--he gave me, I say, the early
+pages, the _prémices_, as the French have it, of this new fruit of his
+imagination, to take to my room and look over at my leisure. I was just
+quitting him when the door of his study was noiselessly pushed open, and
+Mrs. Ambient stood before us. She looked at us a moment, with her candle
+in her hand, and then she said to her husband that as she supposed he
+had not gone to bed, she had come down to tell him that Dolcino was more
+quiet and would probably be better in the morning. Mark Ambient made no
+reply; he simply slipped past her in the doorway, as if he were afraid
+she would seize him in his passage, and bounded upstairs, to judge
+for himself of his child’s condition. Mrs. Ambient looked slightly
+discomfited, and for a moment I thought she was going to give chase
+to her husband. But she resigned herself, with a sigh, while her eyes
+wandered over the lamp-lit room, where various books, at which I had
+been looking, were pulled out of their places on the shelves, and the
+fumes of tobacco seemed to hang in mid-air. I bade her good-night, and
+then, without intention, by a kind of fatality, the perversity which had
+already made me insist unduly on talking with her about her husband’s
+achievements, I alluded to the precious proof-sheets with which Ambient
+had intrusted me and which I was nursing there under my arm. “It is the
+opening chapters of his new book,” I said. “Fancy my satisfaction at
+being allowed to carry them to my room!”
+
+She turned away, leaving me to take my candlestick from the table in the
+hall; but before we separated, thinking it apparently a good occasion
+to let me know once for all--since I was beginning, it would seem, to be
+quite “thick” with my host--that there was no fitness in my appealing
+to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she
+remarked to me with her quick, round, well-bred utterance, “I dare say
+you attribute to me ideas that I have n’t got I don’t take that sort
+of interest in my husband’s proof-sheets. I consider his writings most
+objectionable!”
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+I had some curious conversation the next morning with Miss Ambient, whom
+I found strolling in the garden before breakfast The whole place looked
+as fresh and trim, amid the twitter of the birds, as if, an hour
+before, the housemaids had been turned into it with their dustpans and
+feather-brushes, I almost hesitated to light a cigarette, and was doubly
+startled when, in the act of doing so, I suddenly perceived the
+sister of my host, who had, in any case, something of the oddity of
+an apparition, standing before me. She might have been posing for her
+photograph. Her sad-colored robe arranged itself in serpentine folds at
+her feet; her hands locked themselves listlessly together in front; and
+her chin rested upon a cinque-cento ruff. The first thing I did,
+after bidding her good-morning, was to ask her for news of her little
+nephew,--to express the hope that she had heard he was better. She was
+able to gratify this hope, and spoke as if we might expect to see him
+during the day. We walked through the shrubberies together, and she gave
+me a great deal of information about her brother’s ménage, which offered
+me an opportunity to mention to her that his wife had told me, the night
+before, that she thought his productions objectionable.
+
+“She does n’t usually come out with that so soon!” Miss Ambient
+exclaimed, in answer to this piece of gossip. “Poor lady, she saw that
+I am a fanatic.” “Yes, she won’t like you for that. But you must n’t
+mind, if the rest of us like you! Beatrice thinks a work of art ought
+to have a ‘purpose.’ But she’s a charming woman--don’t you think her
+charming?--she’s such a type of the lady.”
+
+“She’s very beautiful,” I answered; while I reflected that though it
+was true, apparently, that Mark Ambient was mismated, it was also
+perceptible that his sister was perfidious. She told me that her
+brother and his wife had no other difference but this one, that she
+thought his writings immoral and his influence pernicious. It was a
+fixed idea; she was afraid of these things for the child. I answered
+that it was not a trifle--a woman’s regarding her husband’s mind as a
+well of corruption, and she looked quite struck with the novelty of my
+remark. “But there has n’t been any of the sort of trouble that there so
+often is among married people,” she said. “I suppose you can judge for
+yourself that Beatrice isn’t at all--well, whatever they call it when a
+woman misbehaves herself. And Mark does n’t make love to other people,
+either. I assure you he does n’t! All the same, of course, from her
+point of view, you know, she has a dread of my brother’s influence on
+the child--on the formation of his character, of his principles. It is
+as if it were a subtle poison, or a contagion, or something that would
+rub off on Dolcino when his father kisses him or holds him on his knee.
+If she could, she would prevent Mark from ever touching him. Every one
+knows it; visitors see it for themselves; so there is no harm in my
+telling you. Isn’t it excessively odd? It comes from Beatrice’s being so
+religious, and so tremendously moral, and all that and then, of course,
+we must n’t forget,” my companion added, unexpectedly, “that some of
+Mark’s ideas are--well, really--rather queer!”
+
+I reflected, as we went into the house, where we found Ambient unfolding
+the _Observer_ at the breakfast-table, that none of them were probably
+quite so queer as his sister. Mrs. Ambient did not appear at breakfast,
+being rather tired with her ministrations, during the night, to Dolcino.
+Her husband mentioned, however, that she was hoping to go to church. I
+afterwards learned that she did go, but I may as well announce without
+delay that he and I did not accompany her. It was while the church-bell
+was murmuring in the distance that the author of _Beltraffio_ led me
+forth for the ramble he had spoken of in his note. I will not attempt to
+say where we went, or to describe what we saw. We kept to the fields
+and copses and commons, and breathed the same sweet air as the nibbling
+donkeys and the browsing sheep, whose woolliness seemed to me, in those
+early days of my acquaintance with English objects, but a part of the
+general texture of the small, dense landscape, which looked as if the
+harvest were gathered by the shears. Everything was full of expression
+for Mark Ambient’s visitor,--from the big, bandy-legged geese, whose
+whiteness was a “note,” amid all the tones of green, as they wandered
+beside a neat little oval pool, the foreground of a thatched and
+whitewashed inn, with a grassy approach and a pictorial sign,--from
+these humble wayside animals to the crests of high woods which let a
+gable or a pinnacle peep here and there, and looked, even at a distance,
+like trees of good company, conscious of an individual profile. I
+admired the hedgerows, I plucked the faint-hued heather, and I was
+forever stopping to say how charming I thought the thread-like footpaths
+across the fields, which wandered, in a diagonal of finer grain, from
+one smooth stile to another. Mark Ambient was abundantly good-natured,
+and was as much entertained with my observations as I was with the
+literary allusions of the landscape. We sat and smoked upon stiles,
+broaching paradoxes in the decent English air; we took short cuts across
+a park or two, where the bracken was deep and my companion nodded to the
+old woman at the gate; we skirted rank covers, which rustled here and
+there as wo passed, and we stretched ourselves at last on a heathery
+hillside, where, if the sun was not too hot, neither was the earth
+too cold, and where the country lay beneath us in a rich blue mist.
+Of course I had already told Ambient what I thought of his new novel,
+having the previous night read every word of the opening chapters before
+I went to bed.
+
+“I am not without hope of being able to make it my best,” he said, as I
+went back to the subject, while we turned up our heels to the sky. “At
+least the people who dislike my prose--and there are a great many of
+them, I believe--will dislike this work most” This was the first time I
+had heard him allude to the people who couldn’t read him,--a class which
+is supposed always to sit heavy upon the consciousness of the man of
+letters. A man organized for literature, as Mark Ambient was,
+must certainly have had the normal proportion of sensitiveness,
+of irritability; the artistic _ego_, capable in some cases of such
+monstrous development, must have been, in his composition, sufficiently
+erect and definite. I will not therefore go so far as to say that he
+never thought of his detractors, or that he had any illusions with
+regard to the number of his admirers (he could never so far have
+deceived himself as to believe he was popular); but I may at least
+affirm that adverse criticism, as I had occasion to perceive later,
+ruffled him visibly but little, that he had an air of thinking it quite
+natural he should be offensive to many minds, and that he very seldom
+talked about the newspapers, which, by the way, were always very stupid
+in regard to the author of _Beltraffio_. Of course he may have thought
+about them--the newspapers--night and day; the only point I wish to make
+is that he did n’t show it; while, at the same time, he did n’t strike
+one as a man who was on his guard. I may add that, as regards his hope
+of making the work on which he was then engaged the best of his books,
+it was only partly carried out. That place belongs, incontestably, to
+_Beltraffio_, in spite of the beauty of certain parts of its successor.
+I am pretty sure, however, that he had, at the moment of which I speak,
+no sense of failure; he was in love with his idea, which was indeed
+magnificent, and though for him, as, I suppose, for every artist, the
+act of execution had in it as much torment as joy, he saw his work
+growing a little every day and filling-out the largest plan he had yet
+conceived. “I want to be truer than I have ever been,” he said, settling
+himself on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head; “I want to
+give an impression of life itself. No, you may say what you will, I have
+always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and rounded
+them off and tucked them in,--done everything to them that life does n’t
+do. I have been a slave to the old superstitions.”
+
+“You a slave, my dear Mark Ambient? You have the freest imagination of
+our day!”
+
+“All the more shame to me to have done some of the things I have! The
+reconciliation of the two women in _Ginistrella_, for instance, which
+could never really have taken place. That sort of thing is ignoble;
+I blush when I think of it! This new affair must be a golden vessel,
+filled with the purest distillation of the actual; and oh, how it
+bothers me, the shaping of the vase--the hammering of the metal! I have
+to hammer it so fine, so smooth; I don’t do more than an inch or two a
+day. And all the while I have to be so careful not to let a drop of the
+liquor escape! When I see the kind of things that Life does, I despair
+of ever catching her peculiar trick. She has an impudence, life! If one
+risked a fiftieth part of the effects she risks! It takes ever so long
+to believe it. You don’t know yet, my dear fellow. It is n’t till one
+has been watching life for forty years that one finds out half of what
+she’s up to! Therefore one’s earlier things must inevitably contain a
+mass of rot. And with what one sees, on one side, with its tongue in its
+cheek, defying one to be real enough, and on the other the _bonnes gens_
+rolling up their eyes at one’s cynicism, the situation has elements of
+the ludicrous which the artist himself is doubtless in a position to
+appreciate better than any one else. Of course one mustn’t bother about
+the _bonnes gens_.” Mark Ambient went on, while my thoughts reverted to
+his ladylike wife, as interpreted by his remarkable sister.
+
+“To sink your shaft deep, and polish the plate through which people look
+into it--that’s what your work consists of,” I remember remarking.
+
+“Ah, polishing one’s plate--that is the torment of execution!” he
+exclaimed, jerking himself up and sitting forward. “The effort to arrive
+at a surface--if you think a surface necessary--some people don’t,
+happily for them! My dear fellow, if you could see the surface I dream
+of, as compared with the one with which I have to content myself. Life
+is really too short for art--one hasn’t time to make one’s shell ideally
+hard. Firm and bright--firm and bright!--the devilish thing has a way,
+sometimes, of being bright without being firm. When I rap it with my
+knuckles it doesn’t give the right sound. There are horrible little
+flabby spots where I have taken the second-best word, because I could
+n’t for the life of me think of the best. If you knew how stupid I am
+sometimes! They look to me now like pimples and ulcers on the brow of
+beauty!”
+
+“That’s very bad--very bad,” I said, as gravely as I could.
+
+“Very bad? It’s the highest social offence I know; it ought--it
+absolutely ought--I’m quite serious--to be capital If I knew I should be
+hanged else, I should manage to find the best word. The people who
+could n’t--some of them don’t know it when they see it--would shut their
+inkstands, and we should n’t be deluged by this flood of rubbish!”
+
+I will not attempt to repeat everything that passed between us, or to
+explain just how it was that, every moment I spent in his company, Mark
+Ambient revealed to me more and more that he looked at all things from
+the standpoint of the artist, felt all life as literary material There
+are people who will tell me that this is a poor way of feeling it, and
+I am not concerned to defend my statement, having space merely to remark
+that there is something to be said for any interest which makes a man
+feel so much. If Mark Ambient did really, as I suggested above, have
+imaginative contact with “all life,” I, for my part, envy him his
+_arriere-pensée_. At any rate it was through the receipt of this
+impression of him that by the time we returned I had acquired the
+feeling of intimacy I have noted. Before we got up for the homeward
+stretch, he alluded to his wife’s having once--or perhaps more than
+once--asked him whether he should like Dolcino to read _Beltraffio_.
+I think he was unconscious at the moment of all that this conveyed to
+me--as well, doubtless, of my extreme curiosity to hear what he had
+replied. He had said that he hoped very much Dolcino would read all his
+works--when he was twenty; he should like him to know what his father
+had done. Before twenty it would be useless; he would n’t understand
+them.
+
+“And meanwhile do you propose to hide them,--to lock them up in a
+drawer?” Mrs. Ambient had inquired.
+
+“Oh, no; we must simply tell him that they are not intended for small
+boys. If you bring him up properly, after that he won t touch them.”
+
+To this Mrs. Ambient had made answer that it would be very awkward when
+he was about fifteen; and I asked her husband if it was his opinion in
+general, then, that young people should not read novels.
+
+“Good ones--certainly not!” said my companion. I suppose I had had other
+views, for I remember saying that, for myself, I was not sure it was bad
+for them, if the novels were “good” enough. “Bad for _them_, I don’t say
+so much!” Ambient exclaimed. “But very bad, I am afraid, for the novel!”
+ That oblique, accidental allusion to his wife’s attitude was followed by
+a franker style of reference as we walked home. “The difference between
+us is simply the opposition between two distinct ways of looking at the
+world, which have never succeeded in getting on together, or making any
+kind of common ménage, since the beginning of time. They have borne all
+sorts of names, and my wife would tell you it’s the difference between
+Christian and Pagan. I may be a pagan, but I don’t like the name; it
+sounds sectarian. She thinks me, at any rate, no better than an ancient
+Greek. It’s the difference between making the most of life and making
+the least, so that you ‘ll get another better one in some other time and
+place. Will it be a sin to make the most of that one too, I wonder; and
+shall we have to be bribed off in the future state, as well as in the
+present? Perhaps I care too much for beauty--I don’t know; I delight
+in it, I adore it, I think of it continually, I try to produce it, to
+reproduce it. My wife holds that we shouldn’t think too much about it
+She’s always afraid of that, always on her guard. I don’t know what she
+has got on her back! And she’s so pretty, too, herself! Don’t you think
+she’s lovely? She was, at any rate, when I married her. At that time I
+was n’t aware of that difference I speak of--I thought it all came to
+the same thing: in the end, as they say. Well, perhaps it will, in the
+end. I don’t know what the end will be. Moreover, I care for seeing
+things as they are; that’s the way I try to show them in my novels. But
+you must n’t talk to Mrs. Ambient about things as they are. She has a
+mortal dread of things as they are.”
+
+“She’s afraid of them for Dolcino,” I said: surprised a moment
+afterwards at being in a position--thanks to Miss Ambient--to be so
+explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n’t have shown
+visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n’t;
+he simply exclaimed, with a tenderness that touched me,--
+
+“Ah, nothing shall ever hurt _him!_” He told me more about his wife
+before we arrived at the gate of his house, and if it be thought that he
+was querulous, I am afraid I must admit that he had some of the foibles
+as well as the gifts of the artistic temperament; adding, however,
+instantly, that hitherto, to the best of my belief, he had very rarely
+complained. “She thinks me immoral--that’s the long and short of it,” he
+said, as we paused outside a moment, and his hand rested on one of
+the bars of his gate; while his conscious, demonstrative, expressive,
+perceptive eyes,--the eyes of a foreigner, I had begun to account them,
+much more than of the usual Englishman,--viewing me now evidently
+as quite a familiar friend, took part in the declaration. “It’s very
+strange, when one thinks it all over, and there’s a grand comicality
+in it which I should like to bring out. She is a very nice woman,
+extraordinarily well behaved, upright and clever, and with a tremendous
+lot of good sense about a good many matters. Yet her conception of a
+novel--she has explained it to me once or twice, and she does n’t do it
+badly, as exposition--is a thing so false that it makes me blush. It is
+a thing so hollow, so dishonest, so lying, in which life is so blinked
+and blinded, so dodged and disfigured, that it makes my ears burn. It’s
+two different ways of looking at the whole affair,” he repeated, pushing
+open the gate. “And they are irreconcilable!” he added, with a sigh.
+We went forward to the house, but on the walk, half way to the door,
+he stopped, and said to me, “If you are going into this kind of
+thing, there’s a fact you should know beforehand; it may save you
+some disappointment. There’s a hatred of art, there’s a hatred of
+literature!” I looked up at the charming house, with its genial color
+and crookedness, and I answered, with a smile, that those evil passions
+might exist, but that I should never have expected to find them there.
+“Oh, it doesn’t matter, after all,” he said, laughing; which I was glad
+to hear, for I was reproaching myself with having excited him.
+
+If I had, his excitement soon passed off, for at lunch he was
+delightful; strangely delightful, considering that the difference
+between himself and his wife was, as he had said, irreconcilable. He
+had the art, by his manner, by his smile, by his natural kindliness, of
+reducing the importance of it in the common concerns of life; and Mrs.
+Ambient, I must add, lent herself to this transaction with a very good
+grace. I watched her, at table, for further illustrations of that fixed
+idea of which Miss Ambient had spoken to me; for, in the light of the
+united revelations of her sister-in-law and her husband, she had come to
+seem to me a very singular personage. I am obliged to say that the signs
+of a fanatical temperament were not more striking in my hostess
+than before; it was only after a while that her air of incorruptible
+conformity, her tapering, monosyllabic correctness, began to appear to
+be themselves a cold, thin flame. Certainly, at first, she looked like a
+woman with as few passions as possible; but if she had a passion at all,
+it would be that of Philistinism. She might have been--for there are
+guardian-spirits, I suppose, of all great principles--the angel of
+propriety. Mark Ambient, apparently, ten years before, had simply
+perceived that she was an angel, without asking himself of what He had
+been quite right in calling my attention to her beauty. In looking for
+the reason why he should have married her, I saw, more than before, that
+she was, physically speaking, a wonderfully cultivated human plant--that
+she must have given him many ideas and images. It was impossible to be
+more pencilled, more garden-like, more delicately tinted and petalled.
+
+If I had had it in my heart to think Ambient a little of a hypocrite
+for appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me during our
+walk, I should instantly have cancelled such a judgment, on reflecting
+that the good news his wife was able to give him about their little
+boy was reason enough for his sudden air of happiness. It may have come
+partly, too, from a certain remorse at having complained to me of the
+fair lady who sat there,--a desire to show me that he was after all
+not so miserable. Dolcino continued to be much better, and he had been
+promised he should come downstairs after he had had his dinner. As soon
+as we had risen from our own meal Ambient slipped away, evidently for
+the purpose of going to his child; and no sooner had I observed this
+than I became aware that his wife had simultaneously vanished. It
+happened that Miss Ambient and I, both at the same moment, saw the tail
+of her dress whisk out of a doorway, which led the young lady to smile
+at me, as if I now knew all the secrets of the Ambients. I passed with
+her into the garden, and we sat down on a dear old bench which rested
+against the west wall of the house. It was a perfect spot for the middle
+period of a Sunday in June, and its felicity seemed to come partly from
+an antique sun-dial which, rising in front of us and forming the centre
+of a small, intricate parterre, measured the moments ever so slowly, and
+made them safe for leisure and talk. The garden bloomed in the suffused
+afternoon, the tall beeches stood still for an example, and, behind and
+above us, a rose-tree of many seasons, clinging to the faded grain of
+the brick, expressed the whole character of the place in a familiar,
+exquisite smell. It seemed to me a place for genius to have every
+sanction, and not to encounter challenges and checks. Miss Ambient asked
+me if I had enjoyed my walk with her brother, and whether we had talked
+of many things.
+
+“Well, of most things,” I said, smiling, though I remembered that we had
+not talked of Miss Ambient.
+
+“And don’t you think some of his theories are very peculiar?”
+
+“Oh, I guess I agree with them all.” I was very particular, for Miss
+Ambient’s entertainment, to guess.
+
+“Do you think art is everything?” she inquired in, a moment.
+
+“In art, of course I do!”
+
+“And do you think beauty is everything?”
+
+“I don’t know about its being everything. But it’s very delightful”
+
+“Of course it is difficult for a woman to know how far to go,” said
+my companion. “I adore everything that gives a charm to life. I am
+intensely sensitive to form. But sometimes I draw back--don’t you see
+what I mean?--I don’t quite see where I shall be landed. I only want
+to be quiet, after all,” Miss Ambient continued, in a tone of stifled
+yearning which seemed to indicate that she had not yet arrived at her
+desire. “And one must be good, at any rate, must not one?” she inquired,
+with a cadence apparently intended for an assurance that my answer would
+settle this recondite question for her. It was difficult for me to
+make it very original, and I am afraid I repaid her confidence with an
+unblushing platitude. I remember, moreover, appending to it an inquiry,
+equally destitute of freshness, and still more wanting perhaps in tact,
+as to whether she did not mean to go to church, as that was an obvious
+way of being good. She replied that she had performed this duty in the
+morning, and that for her, on Sunday afternoon, supreme virtue consisted
+in answering the week’s letters. Then suddenly, without transition, she
+said to me, “It’s quite a mistake about Dolcino being better. I have seen
+him, and he’s not at all right.”
+
+“Surely his mother would know, would n’t she?” I suggested.
+
+She appeared for a moment to be counting the leaves on one of the great
+beeches. “As regards most matters, one can easily say what, in a given
+situation, my sister-in-law would do. But as regards this one, there are
+strange elements at work.”
+
+“Strange elements? Do you mean in the constitution of the child?”
+
+“No, I mean in my sister-in-law’s feelings.”
+
+“Elements of affection, of course; elements of anxiety. Why do you call
+them strange?”
+
+She repeated my words. “Elements of affection, elements of anxiety. She
+is very anxious.”
+
+Miss Ambient made me vaguely uneasy; she almost frightened me, and I
+wished she would go and write her letters. “His father will have seen
+him now,” I said, “and if he is not satisfied he will send for the
+doctor.”
+
+“The doctor ought to have been here this morning. He lives only two
+miles away.”
+
+I reflected that all this was very possibly only a part of the general
+tragedy of Miss Ambient’s view of things; but I asked her why she had
+n’t urged such a necessity upon her sister-in-law. She answered me with
+a smile of extraordinary significance, and told me that I must have very
+little idea of what her relations with Beatrice were; but I must do
+her the justice to add that she went on to make herself a little more
+comprehensible by saying that it was quite reason enough for her sister
+not to be alarmed that Mark would be sure to be. He was always nervous
+about the child, and as they were predestined by nature to take opposite
+views, the only thing for Beatrice was to cultivate a false optimism. If
+Mark were not there, she would not be at all easy. I remembered what
+he had said to me about their dealings with Dolcino,--that between them
+they would put an end to him; but I did not repeat this to Miss Ambient:
+the less so that just then her brother emerged from the house, carrying
+his child in his arms. Close behind him moved his wife, grave and pale;
+the boy’s face was turned over Ambient’s shoulder, towards his mother.
+We got up to receive the group, and as they came near us Dolcino turned
+round. I caught, on his enchanting little countenance, a smile of
+recognition, and for the moment would have been quite content with it.
+Miss Ambient, however, received another impression, and I make haste to
+say that her quick sensibility, in which there was something maternal,
+argues that, in spite of her affectations, there was a strain of
+kindness in her. “It won’t do at all--it won’t do at all,” she said to
+me under her breath. “I shall speak to Mark about the doctor.”
+
+The child was rather white, but the main difference I saw in him was
+that he was even more beautiful than the day before. He had been dressed
+in his festal garments,--a velvet suit and a crimson sash,--and he
+looked like a little invalid prince, too young to know condescension,
+and smiling familiarly on his subjects.
+
+“Put him down, Mark, he’s not comfortable,” Mrs. Ambient said.
+
+“Should you like to stand on your feet, my boy?” his father asked.
+
+“Oh, yes; I ‘m remarkably well,” said the child.
+
+Mark placed him on the ground; he had shining, pointed slippers, with
+enormous bows. “Are you happy now, Mr. Ambient?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I am particularly happy,” Dolcino replied. The words were
+scarcely out of his mouth when his mother caught him up, and in a
+moment, holding him on her knees, she took her place on the bench where
+Miss Ambient and I had been sitting. This young lady said something
+to her brother, in consequence of which the two wandered away into the
+garden together. I remained with Mrs. Ambient; but as a servant had
+brought out a couple of chairs I was not obliged to seat myself beside
+her. Our conversation was not animated, and I, for my part, felt there
+would be a kind of hypocrisy in my trying to make myself agreeable to
+Mrs. Ambient I didn’t dislike her--I rather admired her; but I was
+aware that I differed from her inexpressibly. Then I suspected, what
+I afterwards definitely knew and have already intimated, that the poor
+lady had taken a dislike to me; and this of course was not encouraging.
+She thought me an obtrusive and even depraved young man, whom a perverse
+Providence had dropped upon their quiet lawn to flatter her husband’s
+worst tendencies. She did me the honor to say to Miss Ambient, who
+repeated the speech, that she didn’t know when she had seen her husband
+take such a fancy to a visitor; and she measured, apparently, my evil
+influence by Mark’s appreciation of my society. I had a consciousness,
+not yet acute, but quite sufficient, of all this; but I must say that
+if it chilled my flow of small-talk, it did n’t prevent me from thinking
+that the beautiful mother and beautiful child, interlaced there against
+their background of roses, made a picture such as I perhaps should not
+soon see again. I was free, I supposed, to go into the house and write
+letters, to sit in the drawing-room, to repair to my own apartment and
+take a nap; but the only use I made of my freedom was to linger still in
+my chair and say to myself that the light hand of Sir Joshua might have
+painted Mark Ambient’s wife and son. I found myself looking perpetually
+at Dolcino, and Dolcino looked back at me, and that was enough to
+detain me. When he looked at me he smiled, and I felt it was an absolute
+impossibility to abandon a child who was smiling at one like that. His
+eyes never wandered; they attached themselves to mine, as if among
+all the small incipient things of his nature there was a desire to say
+something to me. If I could have taken him upon my own knee, he perhaps
+would have managed to say it; but it would have been far too delicate a
+matter to ask his mother to give him up, and it has remained a constant
+regret for me that on that Sunday afternoon I did not, even for a
+moment, hold Dolcino in my arms. He had said that he felt remarkably
+well, and that he was especially happy; but though he may have been
+happy, with his charming head pillowed on his mother’s breast, and his
+little crimson silk legs depending from her lap, I did not think he
+looked well. He made no attempt to walk about; he was content to swing
+his legs softly and strike one as languid and angelic.
+
+Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some
+remark about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the
+house. Mark came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the
+child, who immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he
+remained. “I think Ailingham ought to see him,” Ambient said; “I think
+I will walk over and fetch him.”
+
+“That ‘s Gwendolen’s idea, I suppose,” Mrs. Ambient replied, very
+sweetly.
+
+“It’s not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one’s child is ill.”
+
+“I ‘m not ill, papa; I ‘m much better now,” Dolcino remarked.
+
+“Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have
+a great idea of being agreeable, you know.”
+
+The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a
+moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own
+as I watched him. “Do _you_ think me agreeable?” he inquired, with the
+candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to
+me, laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, “Is n’t he adorable?”
+
+“Then why don’t you hop about, if you feel so lusty?” Ambient went on,
+while the boy swung his hand.
+
+“Because mamma is holding me close!”
+
+“Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!” Ambient
+exclaimed, looking at his wife.
+
+She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or
+concession, and after a moment she said, “You can go for Allingham if
+you like, I think myself it would be better. You ought to drive.”
+
+“She says that to get me away,” Ambient remarked to me, laughing; after
+which he started for the doctor’s.
+
+I remained there with Mrs. Ambient, though our conversation had more
+pauses than speeches. The boy’s little fixed white face seemed, as
+before, to plead with me to stay, and after a while it produced still
+another effect, a very curious one, which I shall find it difficult to
+express. Of course I expose myself to the charge of attempting to give
+fantastic reasons for an act which may have been simply the fruit of a
+native want of discretion; and indeed the traceable consequences of that
+perversity were too lamentable to leave me any desire to trifle with the
+question. All I can say is that I acted in perfect good faith, and
+that Dolcino’s friendly little gaze gradually kindled the spark of my
+inspiration. What helped it to glow were the other influences,--the
+silent, suggestive garden-nook, the perfect opportunity (if it was not
+an opportunity for that, it was an opportunity for nothing), and the
+plea that I speak of, which issued from the child’s eyes, and seemed to
+make him say, “The mother that bore me and that presses me here to her
+bosom--sympathetic little organism that I am--has really the kind of
+sensibility which she has been represented to you as lacking; if you
+only look for it patiently and respectfully. How is it possible that she
+should n’t have it? How is it possible that I should have so much of
+it (for I am quite full of it, dear, strange gentleman), if it were not
+also in some degree in her? I am my father’s child, but I am also my
+mother’s, and I am sorry for the difference between them!” So it shaped
+itself before me, the vision of reconciling Mrs. Ambient with her
+husband, of putting an end to their great disagreement The project was
+absurd, of course, for had I not had his word for it--spoken with
+all the bitterness of experience--that the gulf that divided them was
+wellnigh bottomless? Nevertheless, a quarter of an hour after Mark had
+left us, I said to his wife that I could n’t get over what she told
+me the night before about her thinking her husband’s writings
+“objectionable.” I had been so very sorry to hear it, had thought of it
+constantly, and wondered whether it were not possible to make her change
+her mind. Mrs. Ambient gave me rather a cold stare; she seemed to be
+recommending me to mind my own business. I wish I had taken this mute
+counsel, but I did not. I went on to remark that it seemed an immense
+pity so much that was beautiful should be lost upon her.
+
+“Nothing is lost upon me,” said Mrs. Ambient “I know they are very
+beautiful.”
+
+“Don’t you like papa’s books?” Dolcino asked, addressing his mother, but
+still looking at me. Then he added to me, “Won’t you read them to me,
+American gentleman?”
+
+“I would rather tell you some stories of my own,” I said. “I know
+some that are very interesting.” “When will you tell them? To-morrow?”
+ “To-morrow, with pleasure, if that suits you.” Mrs. Ambient was silent
+at this. Her husband, during our walk, had asked me to remain another
+day; my promise to her son was an implication that I had consented, and
+it is not probable that the prospect was agreeable to her. This ought,
+doubtless, to have made me more careful as to what I said next; but all
+I can say is that it did n’t. I presently observed that just after
+leaving her the evening before, and after hearing her apply to her
+husband’s writings the epithet I had already quoted, I had, on going up
+to my room, sat down to the perusal of those sheets of his new book
+which he had been so good as to lend me. I had sat entranced till nearly
+three in the morning. I had read them twice over. “You say you have n’t
+looked at them. I think it ‘s such a pity you should n’t Do let me beg
+you to take them up. They are so very remarkable. I ‘m sure they will
+convert you. They place him in--really--such a dazzling light. All that
+is best in him is there. I have no doubt it’s a great liberty, my saying
+all this; but excuse me, and _do_ read them!”
+
+“Do read them, mamma!” Dolcino repeated; “do read them!”
+
+She bent her head and closed his lips with a kiss. “Of course I know he
+has worked immensely over them,” she said; and after this she made no
+remark, but sat there looking thoughtful, with her eyes on the ground.
+The tone of these last words was such as to leave me no spirit for
+further pressure, and after expressing a fear that her husband had not
+found the doctor at home, I got up and took a turn about the grounds.
+When I came back, ten minutes later, she was still in her place watching
+her boy, who had fallen asleep in her lap. As I drew near she put her
+finger to her lips, and a moment afterwards she rose, holding the
+child, and murmured something about its being better that he should go
+upstairs. I offered to carry him, and held out my hands to take him;
+but she thanked me and turned away with the child seated on her arm, his
+head on her shoulder. “I am very strong,” she said, as she passed into
+the house, and her slim, flexible figure bent backwards with the filial
+weight So I never touched Dolcino.
+
+I betook myself to Ambient’s study, delighted to have a quiet hour to
+look over his books by myself. The windows were open into the garden;
+the sunny stillness, the mild light of the English summer, filled the
+room, without quite chasing away the rich dusky tone which was a part
+of its charm, and which abode in the serried shelves where old
+morocco exhaled the fragrance of curious learning, and in the brighter
+intervals, where medals and prints and miniatures were suspended upon a
+surface of faded stuff. The place had both color and quiet; I thought it
+a perfect room for work, and went so far as to say to myself that, if it
+were mine to sit and scribble in, there was no knowing but that I might
+learn to write as well as the author of _Beltraffio_. This distinguished
+man did not turn up, and I rummaged freely among his treasures. At last
+I took down a book that detained me awhile, and seated myself in a fine
+old leather chair by the window to turn it over. I had been occupied
+in this way for half-an-hour,--a good part of the afternoon had
+waned,--when I became conscious of another presence in the room, and,
+looking up from my quarto, saw that Mrs. Ambient, having pushed open the
+door in the same noiseless way that marked, or disguised, her entrance
+the night before, had advanced across the threshold. On seeing me she
+stopped; she had not, I think, expected to find me. But her hesitation
+was only of a moment; she came straight to her husband’s writing-table
+as if she were looking for something. I got up and asked her if I could
+help her. She glanced about an instant, and then put her hand upon a
+roll of papers which I recognized, as I had placed it in that spot in
+the morning on coming down from my room.
+
+“Is this the new book?” she asked, holding it up. “The very sheets, with
+precious annotations.” “I mean to take your advice;” and she tucked the
+little bundle under her arm. I congratulated her cordially, and
+ventured to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of
+pleasantry. But she was perfectly grave, and turned away from me, as she
+had presented herself, without a smile; after which I settled down to my
+quarto again, with the reflection that Mrs. Ambient was a queer woman.
+My triumph, too, suddenly seemed to me rather vain. A woman who could
+n’t smile in the right place would never understand Mark Ambient. He
+came in at last in person, having brought the doctor back with him. “He
+was away from home,” Mark said, “and I went after him, to where he was
+supposed to be. He had left the place, and I followed him to two or
+three others, which accounts for my delay.” He was now with Mrs. Ambient
+looking at the child, and was to see Mark again before leaving the
+house. My host noticed, at the end of ten minutes, that the proof-sheets
+of his new book had been removed from the table; and when I told him,
+in reply to his question as to what I knew about them, that Mrs. Ambient
+had carried them off to read, he turned almost pale for an instant with
+surprise. “What has suddenly made her so curious?” he exclaimed; and I
+was obliged to tell him that I was at the bottom of the mystery. I had
+had it on my conscience to assure her that she really ought to know
+of what her husband was capable. “Of what I am capable? _Elle ne s’en
+dottie que trop!_” said Ambient, with a laugh; but he took my meddling
+very good-naturedly, and contented himself with adding that he was very
+much afraid she would burn up the sheets, with his emendations, of which
+he had no duplicate. The doctor paid a long visit in the nursery, and
+before he came down I retired to my own quarters, where I remained till
+dinner-time. On entering the drawing-room at this hour, I found Miss
+Ambient in possession, as she had been the evening before.
+
+“I was right about Dolcino,” she said, as soon as she saw me, with a
+strange little air of triumph. “He is really very ill.”
+
+“Very ill! Why, when I last saw him, at four o’clock, he was in fairly
+good form.”
+
+“There has been a change for the worse, very sudden and rapid, and when
+the doctor got here he found diphtheritic symptoms. He ought to have
+been called, as I knew, in the morning, and the child ought n’t to have
+been brought into the garden.”
+
+“My dear lady, he was very happy there,” I answered, much appalled.
+
+“He would be happy anywhere. I have no doubt he is happy now, with his
+poor little throat in a state--” she dropped her voice as her brother
+came in, and Mark let us know that, as a matter of course, Mrs. Ambient
+would not appear. It was true that Dolcino had developed diphtheritic
+symptoms, but he was quiet for the present, and his mother was earnestly
+watching him. She was a perfect nurse, Mark said, and the doctor was
+coming back at ten o’clock. Our dinner was not very gay; Ambient was
+anxious and alarmed, and his sister irritated me by her constant tacit
+assumption, conveyed in the very way she nibbled her bread and sipped
+her wine, of having “told me so.” I had had no disposition to deny
+anything she told me, and I could not see that her satisfaction in being
+justified by the event made poor Dolcino’s throat any better. The truth
+is that, as the sequel proved, Miss Ambient had some of the qualities
+of the sibyl, and had therefore, perhaps, a right to the sibylline
+contortions. Her brother was so preoccupied that I felt my presence
+to be an indiscretion, and was sorry I had promised to remain over the
+morrow. I said to Mark that, evidently, I had better leave them in the
+morning; to which he replied that, on the contrary, if he was to pass
+the next days in the fidgets, my company would be an extreme relief to
+him. The fidgets had already begun for him, poor fellow; and as we
+sat in his study with our cigars after dinner, he wandered to the door
+whenever he heard the sound of the doctor’s wheels. Miss Ambient, who
+shared this apartment with us, gave me at such moments significant
+glances; she had gone upstairs before rejoining us to ask after the
+child His mother and his nurse gave a tolerable account of him; but Miss
+Ambient found his fever high and his symptoms very grave. The doctor
+came at ten o’clock, and I went to bed after hearing from Mark that
+he saw no present cause for alarm. He had made every provision for the
+night, and was to return early in the morning.
+
+I quitted my room at eight o’clock the next day, and, as I came
+downstairs, saw, through the open door of the house, Mrs. Ambient
+standing at the front gate of the grounds, in colloquy with the
+physician. She wore a white dressing-gown, but her shining hair was
+carefully tucked away in its net, and in the freshness of the morning,
+after a night of watching, she looked as much “the type of the lady” as
+her sister-in-law had described her. Her appearance, I suppose, ought to
+have reassured me; but I was still nervous and uneasy, so that I shrank
+from meeting her with the necessary question about Dolcino. None the
+less, however, was I impatient to learn how the morning found him;
+and, as Mrs. Ambient had not seen me, I passed into the grounds by a
+roundabout way, and, stopping at a further gate, hailed the doctor just
+as he was driving away. Mrs. Ambient had returned to the house before he
+got into his gig.
+
+“Excuse me, but as a friend of the family, I should like very much to
+hear about the little boy.”
+
+The doctor, who was a stout, sharp man, looked at me from head to foot,
+and then he said, “I’m sorry to say I have n’t seen him.”
+
+“Have n’t seen him?”
+
+“Mrs. Ambient came down to meet me as I alighted, and told me that he
+was sleeping so soundly, after a restless night, that she did n’t wish
+him disturbed. I assured her I would n’t disturb him, but she said he
+was quite safe now and she could look after him herself.”
+
+“Thank you very much. Are you coming back?”
+
+“No, sir; I ‘ll be hanged if I come back!” exclaimed Dr. Allingham, who
+was evidently very angry. And he started his horse again with the whip.
+
+I wandered back into the garden, and five minutes later Miss Ambient
+came forth from the house to greet me. She explained that breakfast
+would not be served for some time, and that she wished to catch the
+doctor before he went away. I informed her that this functionary had
+come and departed, and I repeated to her what he had told me about his
+dismissal. This made Miss Ambient very serious, very serious indeed,
+and she sank into a bench, with dilated eyes, hugging her elbows with
+crossed arms. She indulged in many ejaculations, she confessed that she
+was infinitely perplexed, and she finally told me what her own last
+news of her nephew had been. She had sat up very late,--after me, after
+Mark,--and before going to bed had knocked at the door of the child’s
+room, which was opened to her by the nurse. This good woman had admitted
+her, and she had found Dolcino quiet, but flushed and “unnatural,” with
+his mother sitting beside his bed. “She held his hand in one of
+hers,” said Miss Ambient, “and in the other--what do you think?--the
+proof-sheets of Mark’s new book! She was reading them there, intently:
+did you ever hear of anything so extraordinary? Such a very odd time to
+be reading an author whom she never could abide!” In her agitation Miss
+Ambient was guilty of this vulgarism of speech, and I was so impressed
+by her narrative that it was only in recalling her words later that I
+noticed the lapse. Mrs. Ambient had looked up from her reading with her
+finger on her lips--I recognized the gesture she had addressed to me in
+the afternoon--and, though the nurse was about to go to rest, had not
+encouraged her sister-in-law to relieve her of any part of her vigil.
+But certainly, then, Dolcino’s condition was far from reassuring,--his
+poor little breathing was most painful; and what change could have taken
+place in him in those few hours that would justify Beatrice in denying
+the physician access to him? This was the moral of Miss Ambient’s
+anecdote, the moral for herself at least. The moral for me, rather, was
+that it _was_ a very singular time for Mrs. Ambient to be going into a
+novelist she had never appreciated, and who had simply happened to be
+recommended to her by a young American she disliked. I thought of her
+sitting there in the sick-chamber in the still hours of the night, after
+the nurse had left her, turning over those pages of genius and wrestling
+with their magical influence.
+
+I must relate very briefly the circumstances of the rest of my visit to
+Mark Ambient,--it lasted but a few hours longer,--and devote but three
+words to my later acquaintance with him. That lasted five years,--till
+his death,--and was full of interest, of satisfaction, and, I may add,
+of sadness. The main thing to be said with regard to it, is that I had
+a secret from him. I believe he never suspected it, though of this I
+am not absolutely sure. If he did, the line he had taken, the line of
+absolute negation of the matter to himself, shows an immense effort of
+the will. I may tell my secret now, giving it for what it is worth, now
+that Mark Ambient has gone, that he has begun to be alluded to as one of
+the famous early dead, and that his wife does not survive him; now, too,
+that Miss Ambient, whom I also saw at intervals during the years that
+followed, has, with her embroideries and her attitudes, her necromantic
+glances and strange intuitions, retired to a Sisterhood, where, as I am
+told, she is deeply immured and quite lost to the world.
+
+Mark came in to breakfast after his sister and I had for some time been
+seated there. He shook hands with me in silence, kissed his sister,
+opened his letters and newspapers, and pretended to drink his coffee.
+But I could see that these movements were mechanical, and I was little
+surprised when, suddenly, he pushed away everything that was before him,
+and, with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table, sat staring
+strangely at the cloth.
+
+“What is the matter, _fratello mio?_” Miss Ambient inquired, peeping from
+behind the urn.
+
+He answered nothing, but got up with a certain violence and strode to
+the window. We rose to our feet, his sister and I, by a common impulse,
+exchanging a glance of some alarm, while he stared for a moment into the
+garden. “In Heaven’s name what has got possession of Beatrice?” he cried
+at last, turning round with an almost haggard face. And he looked from
+one of us to the other; the appeal was addressed to me as well as to his
+sister.
+
+Miss Ambient gave a shrug. “My poor Mark, Beatrice is always--Beatrice!”
+
+“She has locked herself up with the boy--bolted and barred the door; she
+refuses to let me come near him!” Ambient went on.
+
+“She refused to let the doctor see him an hour ago!” Miss Ambient
+remarked, with intention, as they say on the stage.
+
+“Refused to let the doctor see him? By heaven, I ‘ll smash in the
+door!” And Mark brought his fist down upon the table, so that all the
+breakfast-service rang.
+
+I begged Miss Ambient to go up and try to have speech of her
+sister-in-law, and I drew Mark out into the garden. “You ‘re exceedingly
+nervous, and Mrs. Ambient is probably right,” I said to him. “Women
+know; women should be supreme in such a situation. Trust a mother--a
+devoted mother, my dear friend!” With such words as these I tried to
+soothe and comfort him, and, marvellous to relate, I succeeded, with the
+help of many cigarettes, in making him walk about the garden and talk,
+or listen at least to my own ingenious chatter, for nearly an hour.
+At the end of this time Miss Ambient returned to us, with a very rapid
+step, holding her hand to her heart.
+
+“Go for the doctor, Mark, go for the doctor this moment!”
+
+“Is he dying? Has she killed him?” poor Ambient cried, flinging away his
+cigarette.
+
+“I don’t know what she has done! But she’s frightened, and now she wants
+the doctor.”
+
+“He told me he would be hanged if he came back!” I felt myself obliged
+to announce.
+
+“Precisely--therefore Mark himself must go for him, and not a messenger.
+You must see him, and tell him it ‘s to save your child. The trap has
+been ordered--it’s ready.”
+
+“To save him? I ‘ll save him, please God!” Ambient cried, bounding with
+his great strides across the lawn.
+
+As soon as he had gone I felt that I ought to have volunteered in
+his place, and I said as much to Miss Ambient; but she checked me by
+grasping my arm quickly, while we heard the wheels of the dog-cart
+rattle away from the gate. “He’s off--he’s off--and now I can think! To
+get him away--while I think--while I think!”
+
+“While you think of what, Miss Ambient?”
+
+“Of the unspeakable thing that has happened under this roof!”
+
+Her manner was habitually that of such a prophetess of ill that my first
+impulse was to believe I must allow here for a great exaggeration.
+But in a moment I saw that her emotion was real. “Dolcino _is_ dying
+then,--he is dead?”
+
+“It’s too late to save him. His mother has let him die! I tell you that
+because you are sympathetic, because you have imagination,” Miss Ambient
+was good enough to add, interrupting my expression of horror. “That’s
+why you had the idea of making her read Mark’s new book!”
+
+“What has that to do with it? I don’t understand you; your accusation is
+monstrous.”
+
+“I see it all; I’m not stupid,” Miss Ambient went on, heedless of the
+harshness of my tone. “It was the book that finished her; it was that
+decided her!”
+
+“Decided her? Do you mean she has murdered her child?” I demanded,
+trembling at my own words.
+
+“She sacrificed him; she determined to do nothing to make him live. Why
+else did she lock herself up, why else did she turn away the doctor? The
+book gave her a horror; she determined to rescue him,--to prevent him
+from ever being touched. He had a crisis at two o’clock in the morning.
+I know that from the nurse, who had left her then, but whom, for a short
+time, she called back. Dolcino got much worse, but she insisted on the
+nurse’s going back to bed, and after that she was alone with him for
+hours.”
+
+“Do you pretend that she has no pity, that she’s insane?”
+
+“She held him in her arms, she pressed him to her breast, not to see
+him; but she gave him no remedies; she did nothing the doctor ordered.
+Everything is there, untouched. She has had the honesty not even to
+throw the drugs away!”
+
+I dropped upon the nearest bench, overcome with wonder and agitation,
+quite as much at Miss Armbient’s terrible lucidity as at the charge she
+made against her sister-in-law. There was an amazing coherency in her
+story, and it was dreadful to me to see myself figuring in it as so
+proximate a cause.
+
+“You are a very strange woman, and you say strange things.”
+
+“You think it necessary to protest, but you are quite ready to believe
+me. You have received an impression of my sister-in-law, you have
+guessed of what she is capable.”
+
+I do not feel bound to say what concession, on this point, I made to
+Miss Ambient, who went on to relate to me that within the last half-hour
+Beatrice had had a revulsion; that she was tremendously frightened at
+what she had done; that her fright itself betrayed her; and that she
+would now give heaven and earth to save the child. “Let us hope she
+will!” I said, looking at my watch and trying to time poor Ambient;
+whereupon my companion repeated, in a singular tone, “Let us hope so!”
+ When I asked her if she herself could do nothing, and whether she ought
+not to be with her sister-in-law, she replied, “You had better go and
+judge; she is like a wounded tigress!”
+
+I never saw Mrs. Ambient till six months after this, and therefore
+cannot pretend to have verified the comparison. At the latter period she
+was again the type of the lady. “She’ll treat him better after this,” I
+remember Miss Ambient saying, in response to some quick outburst (on my
+part) of compassion for her brother. Although I had been in the house
+but thirty-six hours, this young lady had treated me with extraordinary
+confidence, and there was therefore a certain demand which, as an
+intimate, I might make of her. I extracted from her a pledge that she
+would never say to her brother what she had just said to me; she would
+leave him to form his own theory of his wife’s conduct. She agreed with
+me that there was misery enough in the house, without her contributing a
+new anguish, and that Mrs. Ambient’s proceedings might be explained, to
+her husband’s mind, by the extravagance of a jealous devotion. Poor Mark
+came back with the doctor much sooner than we could have hoped, but we
+knew, five minutes afterwards, that they arrived too late. Poor little
+Dolcino was more exquisitely beautiful in death than he had been in
+life. Mrs. Ambient’s grief was frantic; she lost her head and said
+strange things. As for Mark’s--but I will not speak of that. _Basta_,
+as he used to say. Miss Ambient kept her secret,--I have already had
+occasion to say that she had her good points,--but it rankled in her
+conscience like a guilty participation, and, I imagine, had something
+to do with her retiring ultimately to a Sisterhood. And, _à propos_ of
+consciences, the reader is now in a position to judge of my compunction
+for my effort to convert Mrs. Ambient. I ought to mention that the
+death of her child in some degree converted her. When the new book came
+out--it was long delayed--she read it over as a whole, and her husband
+told me that a few months before her death,--she failed rapidly
+after losing her son, sank into a consumption, and faded away
+at Mentone,--during those few supreme weeks she even dipped into
+_Beltraffio_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Author Of Beltraffio
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21770]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO.
+
+By Henry James
+
+1885
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+Much as I wished to see him, I had kept my letter of introduction for
+three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about meeting
+him,--conscious of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was tormented
+by strangers, and especially by my country-people, and not exempt from
+the suspicion that he had the irritability as well as the brilliancy of
+genius. Moreover, the pleasure, if it should occur (for I could scarcely
+believe it was near at hand), would be so great that I wished to think
+of it in advance, to feel that it was in my pocket, not to mix it with
+satisfactions more superficial and usual In the little game of new
+sensations that I was playing with my ingenuous mind, I wished to keep
+my visit to the author of _Beltraffio_ as a trump card. It was three
+years after the publication of that fascinating work, which I had read
+over five times, and which now, with my riper judgment, I admire on the
+whole as much as ever. This will give you about the date of my first
+visit (of any duration) to England; for you will not have forgotten
+the commotion--I may even say the scandal--produced by Mark Ambient's
+masterpiece. It was the most complete presentation that had yet been
+made of the gospel of art; it was a kind of aesthetic war-cry. People
+had endeavored to sail nearer to "truth" in the cut of their sleeves
+and the shape of their sideboards; but there had not as yet been, among
+English novels, such an example of beauty of execution and genuineness
+of substance. Nothing had been done in that line from the point of view
+of art for art This was my own point of view, I may mention, when I
+was twenty-five; whether it is altered now I won't take upon myself
+to say--especially as the discerning reader will be able to judge for
+himself. I had been in England, briefly, a twelvemonth before the time
+to which I began by alluding, and had learned then that Mr. Ambient was
+in distant lands--was making a considerable tour in the East: so there
+was nothing to do but to keep my letter till I should be in London
+again. It was of little use to me to hear that his wife had not left
+England, and, with her little boy, their only child, was spending the
+period of her husband's absence--a good many months--at a small place
+they had down in Surrey. They had a house in London which was let. All
+this I learned, and also that Mrs. Ambient was charming (my friend the
+American poet, from whom I had my introduction, had never seen her, his
+relations with the great man being only epistolary); but she was
+not, after all, though she had lived so near the rose, the author of
+_Beltraffio_, and I did not go down into Surrey to call on her. I went
+to the Continent, spent the following winter in Italy, and returned to
+London in May. My visit to Italy opened my eyes to a good many things,
+but to nothing more than the beauty of certain pages in the works of
+Mark Ambient I had every one of his productions in my portmanteau,--they
+are not, as you know, very numerous, but he had preluded to _Beltraffio_
+by some exquisite things,--and I used to read them over in the evening
+at the inn. I used to say to myself that the man who drew those
+characters and wrote that style understood what he saw and knew what he
+was doing. This is my only reason for mentioning my winter in Italy.
+He had been there much in former years, and he was saturated with what
+painters call the "feeling" of that classic land. He expressed the
+charm of the old hill-cities of Tuscany, the look of certain lonely
+grass-grown places which, in the past, had echoed with life; he
+understood the great artists, he understood the spirit of the
+Renaissance, he understood everything. The scene of one of his earlier
+novels was laid in Borne, the scene of another in Florence, and I moved
+through these cities in company with the figures whom Mark Ambient had
+set so vividly upon their feet. This is why I was now so much happier
+even than before in the prospect of making his acquaintance.
+
+At last, when I had dallied with this privilege long enough, I
+despatched to him the missive of the American poet He had already gone
+out of town; he shrank from the rigor of the London "season" and it was
+his habit to migrate on the first of June. Moreover, I had heard that
+this year he was hard at work on a new book, into which some of his
+impressions of the East were to be wrought, so that he desired nothing
+so much as quiet days. This knowledge, however, did not prevent me--_cet
+�ge est sans piti�_--from sending with my friend's letter a note of my
+own, in which I asked Mr. Ambient's leave to come down and see him for
+an hour or two, on a day to be designated by himself. My proposal was
+accompanied with a very frank expression of my sentiments, and the
+effect of the whole projectile was to elicit from the great man the
+kindest possible invitation. He would be delighted to see me, especially
+if I should turn up on the following Saturday and would remain till
+the Monday morning. We would take a walk over the Surrey commons, and
+I could tell him all about the other great man, the one in America. He
+indicated to me the best train, and it may be imagined whether on
+the Saturday afternoon I was punctual at Waterloo. He carried his
+benevolence to the point of coming to meet me at the little station at
+which I was to alight, and my heart beat very fast as I saw his
+handsome face, surmounted with a soft wide-awake, and which I knew by
+a photograph long since enshrined upon my mantelshelf, scanning the
+carriage windows as the train rolled up. He recognized me as infallibly
+as I had recognized him; he appeared to know by instinct how a young
+American of an �sthetic turn would look when much divided between
+eagerness and modesty. He took me by the hand, and smiled at me, and
+said: "You must be--a--_you_, I think!" and asked if I should mind going
+on foot to his house, which would take but a few minutes. I remember
+thinking it a piece of extraordinary affability that he should give
+directions about the conveyance of my bag, and feeling altogether very
+happy and rosy, in fact quite transported, when he laid his hand on my
+shoulder as we came out of the station.
+
+I surveyed him, askance, as we walked together; I had already--I had
+indeed instantly--seen that he was a delightful creature. His face is
+so well known that I need n't describe it; he looked to me at once
+an English gentleman and a man of genius, and I thought that a happy
+combination. There was just a little of the Bohemian in his appearance;
+you would easily have guessed that he belonged to the guild of artists
+and men of letters. He was addicted to velvet jackets, to cigarettes,
+to loose shirt-collars, to looking a little dishevelled. His features,
+which were fine, but not perfectly regular, are fairly enough
+represented in his portraits; but no portrait that I have seen gives any
+idea of his expression. There were so many things in it, and they chased
+each other in and out of his face. I have seen people who were grave and
+gay in quick alternation; but Mark Ambient was grave and gay at one and
+the same moment. There were other strange oppositions and contradictions
+in his slightly faded and fatigued countenance. He seemed both young and
+old, both anxious and indifferent. He had evidently had an active past,
+which inspired one with curiosity, and yet it was impossible not to be
+more curious still about his future. He was just enough above middle
+height to be spoken of as tall, and rather lean and long in the flank.
+He had the friendliest, frankest manner possible, and yet I could see
+that he was shy. He was thirty-eight years old at the time _Beltraffio_
+was published. He asked me about his friend in America, about the length
+of my stay in England, about the last news in London and the people I
+had seen there; and I remember looking for the signs of genius in the
+very form of his questions, and thinking I found it. I liked his voice.
+
+There was genius in his house, too, I thought, when we got there; there
+was imagination in the carpets and curtains, in the pictures and books,
+in the garden behind it, where certain old brown walls were muffled in
+creepers that appeared to me to have been copied from a masterpiece of
+one of the pre-Raphaelites. That was the way many things struck me at
+that time, in England; as if they were reproductions of something that
+existed primarily in art or literature. It was not the picture, the
+poem, the fictive page, that seemed to me a copy; these things were the
+originals, and the life of happy and distinguished people was fashioned
+in their image. Mark Ambient called his house a cottage, and I perceived
+afterwards that he was right; for if it had not been a cottage it must
+have been a villa, and a villa, in England at least, was not a place in
+which one could fancy him at home. But it was, to my vision, a cottage
+glorified and translated; it was a palace of art, on a slightly reduced
+scale,--it was an old English demesne. It nestled under a cluster of
+magnificent beeches, it had little creaking lattices that opened out of,
+or into, pendent mats of ivy, and gables, and old red tiles, as well
+as a general aspect of being painted in water-colors and inhabited by
+people whose lives would go on in chapters and volumes. The lawn seemed
+to me of extraordinary extent, the garden-walls of incalculable height,
+the whole air of the place delightfully still, private, proper to
+itself. "My wife must be somewhere about," Mark Ambient said, as we went
+in. "We shall find her perhaps; we have got about an hour before dinner.
+She may be in the garden. I will show you my little place."
+
+We passed through the house, and into the grounds, as I should have
+called them, which extended into the rear. They covered but three or
+four acres, but, like the house, they were very old and crooked, and
+full of traces of long habitation, with inequalities of level and little
+steps--mossy and cracked were these--which connected the different parts
+with each other. The limits of the place, cleverly dissimulated, were
+muffled in the deepest verdure. They made, as I remember, a kind of
+curtain at the further end, in one of the folds of which, as it were,
+we presently perceived, from afar, a little group. "Ah, there she is!"
+said Mark Ambient; "and she has got the boy." He made this last remark
+in a slightly different tone from any in which he yet had spoken. I
+was not fully aware of it at the time, but it lingered in my ear and I
+afterwards understood it.
+
+"Is it your son?" I inquired, feeling the question not to be brilliant.
+
+"Yes, my only child. He's always in his mother's pocket She coddles him
+too much." It came back to me afterwards, too--the manner in which
+he spoke these words. They were not petulant; they expressed rather a
+sudden coldness, a kind of mechanical submission. We went a few steps
+further, and then he stopped short and called the boy, beckoning to him
+repeatedly.
+
+"Dolcino, come and see your daddy!" There was something in the way he
+stood still and waited that made me think he did it for a purpose. Mrs.
+Ambient had her arm round the child's waist, and he was leaning against
+her knee; but though he looked up at the sound of his father's voice,
+she gave no sign of releasing him. A lady, apparently a neighbor,
+was seated near her, and before them was a garden-table, on which a
+tea-service had been placed.
+
+Mark Ambient called again, and Dolcino struggled in the maternal
+embrace, but he was too tightly held, and after two or three fruitless
+efforts he suddenly turned round and buried his head deep in his
+mother's lap. There was a certain awkwardness in the scene; I thought
+it rather odd that Mrs. Ambient should pay so little attention to her
+husband. But I would not for the world have betrayed my thought, and, to
+conceal it, I observed that it must be such a pleasant thing to have tea
+in the garden. "Ah, she won't let him come!" said Mark Ambient, with a
+sigh; and we went our way 'till we reached the two ladies. He mentioned
+my name to his wife, and I noticed that he addressed her as "My dear,"
+very genially, without any trace of resentment at her detention of
+the child. The quickness of the transition made me vaguely ask myself
+whether he were henpecked,--a shocking conjecture, which I instantly
+dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a wife as I should have expected
+him to have; slim and fair, with a long neck and pretty eyes and an air
+of great refinement. She was a little cold, and a little shy; but she
+was very sweet, and she had a certain look of race, justified by my
+afterwards learning that she was "connected" with two or three great
+families. I have seen poets married to women of whom it was difficult
+to conceive that they should gratify the poetic fancy,--women with dull
+faces and glutinous minds, who were none the less, however, excellent
+wives. But there was no obvious incongruity in Mark Ambient's union.
+Mrs. Ambient, delicate and quiet, in a white dress, with her beautiful
+child at her side, was worthy of the author of a work so distinguished
+as _Beltraffio_. Bound her neck she wore a black velvet ribbon, of which
+the long ends, tied behind, hung down her back, and to which, in front,
+was attached a miniature portrait of her little boy. Her smooth, shining
+hair was confined in a net She gave me a very pleasant greeting, and
+Dolcino--I thought this little name of endearment delightful--took
+advantage of her getting up to slip away from her and go to his father,
+who said nothing to him, but simply seized him and held him high in his
+arms for a moment, kissing him several times.
+
+I had lost no time in observing that the child, who was not more than
+seven years old, was extraordinarily beautiful He had the face of an
+angel,--the eyes, the hair, the more than mortal bloom, the smile of
+innocence. There was something touching, almost alarming, in his beauty,
+which seemed to be composed of elements too fine and pure for the breath
+of this world. When I spoke to him, and he came and held out his hand
+and smiled at me, I felt a sudden pity for him, as if he had been an
+orphan, or a changeling, or stamped with some social stigma. It was
+impossible to be, in fact, more exempt from these misfortunes, and
+yet, as one kissed him, it was hard to keep from murmuring "Poor little
+devil!" though why one should have applied this epithet to a living
+cherub is more than I can say. Afterwards, indeed, I knew a little
+better; I simply discovered that he was too charming to live, wondering
+at the same time that his parents should not have perceived it, and
+should not be in proportionate grief and despair. For myself, I had no
+doubt of his evanescence, having already noticed that there is a kind of
+charm which is like a death-warrant.
+
+The lady who had been sitting with Mrs. Ambient was a jolly, ruddy
+personage, dressed in velveteen and rather limp feathers, whom I guessed
+to be the vicar's wife,--our hostess did not introduce me,--and who
+immediately began to talk to Ambient about chrysanthemums. This was a
+safe subject, and yet there was a certain surprise for me in seeing
+the author of _Beltraffio_ even in such superficial communion with the
+Church of England. His writings implied so much detachment from that
+institution, expressed a view of life so profane, as it were, so
+independent, and so little likely, in general, to be thought edifying,
+that I should have expected to find him an object of horror to vicars
+and their ladies--of horror repaid on his own part by good-natured but
+brilliant mockery. This proves how little I knew as yet of the English
+people and their extraordinary talent for keeping up their forms, as
+well as of some of the mysteries of Mark Ambient's hearth and home.
+I found afterwards that he had, in his study, between smiles and
+cigar-smoke, some wonderful comparisons for his clerical neighbors; but
+meanwhile the chrysanthemums were a source of harmony, for he and the
+vicaress were equally fond of them, and I was surprised at the knowledge
+they exhibited of this interesting plant. The lady's visit, however, had
+presumably already been long, and she presently got up, saying she must
+go, and kissed Mrs. Ambient Mark started to walk with her to the gate of
+the grounds, holding Dolcino by the hand.
+
+"Stay with me, my darling," Mrs. Ambient said to the boy, who was
+wandering away with his father.
+
+Mark Ambient paid no attention to the summons, but Dolcino turned round
+and looked with eyes of shy entreaty at his mother. "Can't I go with
+papa?"
+
+"Not when I ask you to stay with me."
+
+"But please don't ask me, mamma," said the child, in his little clear,
+new voice.
+
+"I must ask you when I want you. Come to me, my darling." And Mrs.
+Ambient, who had seated herself again, held out her long, slender hands.
+
+Her husband stopped, with his back turned to her, but without releasing
+the child. He was still talking to the vicaress, but this good lady, I
+think, had lost the thread of her attention. She looked at Mrs. Ambient
+and at Dolcino, and then she looked at me, smiling very hard, in an
+extremely fixed, cheerful manner.
+
+"Papa," said the child, "mamma wants me not to go with you."
+
+"He's very tired--he has run about all day. He ought to be quiet till
+he goes to bed. Otherwise he won't sleep." These declarations fell
+successively and gravely from Mrs. Ambient's lips.
+
+Her husband, still without turning round, bent over the boy and looked
+at him in silence. The vicaress gave a genial, irrelevant laugh, and
+observed that he was a precious little pet "Let him choose," said Mark
+Ambient. "My dear little boy, will you go with me or will you stay with
+your mother?"
+
+"Oh, it's a shame!" cried the vicar's lady, with increased hilarity.
+
+"Papa, I don't think I can choose," the child answered, making his voice
+very low and confidential. "But I have been a great deal with mamma
+to-day," he added in a moment.
+
+"And very little with papa! My dear fellow, I think you have chosen!"
+And Mark Ambient walked off with his son, accompanied by re-echoing but
+inarticulate comments from my fellow-visitor.
+
+His wife had seated herself again, and her fixed eyes, bent upon the
+ground, expressed for a few moments so much mute agitation that I felt
+as if almost any remark from my own lips would be a false note. But Mrs.
+Ambient quickly recovered herself, and said to me civilly enough
+that she hoped I did n't mind having had to walk from the station. I
+reassured her on this point, and she went on, "We have got a thing that
+might have gone for you, but my husband wouldn't order it."
+
+"That gave me the pleasure of a walk with him," I rejoined.
+
+She was silent a minute, and then she said, "I believe the Americans
+walk very little."
+
+"Yes, we always run," I answered laughingly.
+
+She looked at me seriously, and I began to perceive a certain coldness
+in her pretty eyes. "I suppose your distances are so great?"
+
+"Yes; but we break our marches I I can't tell you what a pleasure it is
+for me to find myself here," I added. "I have the greatest admiration
+for Mr. Ambient."
+
+"He will like that. He likes being admired."
+
+"He must have a very happy life, then. He has many worshippers."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have seen some of them," said Mrs. Ambient, looking away,
+very far from me, rather as if such a vision were before her at the
+moment Something in her tone seemed to indicate that the vision was
+scarcely edifying, and I guessed very quickly that she was not in
+sympathy with the author of _Beltraffio_. I thought the fact strange,
+but, somehow, in the glow of my own enthusiasm, I did n't think it
+important; it only made me wish to be rather explicit about that
+enthusiasm.
+
+"For me, you know," I remarked, "he is quite the greatest of living
+writers."
+
+"Of course I can't judge. Of course he's very clever," said Mrs.
+Ambient, smiling a little.
+
+"He's magnificent, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in each of his books
+that have a perfection that classes them with the greatest things.
+Therefore, for me to see him in this familiar way,--in his habit as he
+lives,--and to find, apparently, the man as delightful as the artist,
+I can't tell you how much too good to be true it seems, and how great a
+privilege I think it." I knew that I was gushing, but I could n't help
+it, and what I said was a good deal less than what I felt. I was by no
+means sure that I should dare to say even so much as this to Ambient
+himself, and there was a kind of rapture in speaking it out to his
+wife which was not affected by the fact that, as a wife, she appeared
+peculiar. She listened to me with her face grave again, and with her
+lips a little compressed, as if there were no doubt, of course, that
+her husband was remarkable, but at the same time she had heard all this
+before and couldn't be expected to be particularly interested in it.
+There was even in her manner an intimation that I was rather young, and
+that people usually got over that sort of thing. "I assure you that for
+me this is a red-letter day," I added.
+
+She made no response, until after a pause, looking round her, she said
+abruptly, though gently, "We are very much afraid about the fruit this
+year."
+
+My eyes wandered to the mossy, mottled, garden walls, where plum-trees
+and pear-trees, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked
+like crucified figures with many arms. "Does n't it promise well?" I
+inquired.
+
+"No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts."
+
+Then there was another pause. Mrs. Ambient kept her eyes fixed on the
+opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband's
+return with the child. "Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?" it occurred
+to me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to
+bring the conversation constantly back to him.
+
+"He's very fond of plums," said his wife.
+
+"Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It's a
+lovely old place," I continued. "The whole character of it is that
+of certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his
+pictures."
+
+"It's a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it"
+
+"Oh, it has got his tone," I said, laughing, and insisting on my point
+the more that Mrs. Ambient appeared to see in my appreciation of her
+simple establishment a sign of limited experience.
+
+It was evident that I insisted too much. "His tone?" she repeated, with
+a quick look at me, and a slightly heightened color.
+
+"Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient"
+
+"Oh, yes, he has indeed! But I don't in the least consider that I am
+living in one of his books; I should n't care for that, at all," she
+went on, with a smile which had in some degree the effect of converting
+her slightly sharp protest into a joke deficient in point "I am afraid I
+am not very literary," said Mrs. Ambient. "And I am not artistic."
+
+"I am very sure you are not ignorant, not stupid," I ventured to reply,
+with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had been
+both familiar and patronizing. My only consolation was in the reflection
+that it was she, and not I, who had begun it She had brought her
+idiosyncrasies into the discussion.
+
+"Well, whatever I am, I am very different from my husband. If you like
+him, you won't like me. You need n't say anything. Your liking me is n't
+in the least necessary!"
+
+"Don't defy me!" I exclaimed.
+
+She looked as if she had not heard me, which was the best thing she
+could do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient
+had evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be silent
+without being restless. But at last she spoke; she asked me if there
+seemed to be many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could
+on this point, and we talked a little about London and of some pictures
+it presented at that time of the year. At the end of this I came back,
+irrepressibly, to Mark Ambient.
+
+"Does n't he like to be there now? I suppose he does n't find the proper
+quiet for his work. I should think his things had been written, for
+the most part, in a very still place. They suggest a great stillness,
+following on a kind of tumult. Don't you think so? I suppose London is a
+tremendous place to collect impressions, but a refuge like this, in the
+country, must be much better for working them up. Does he get many of
+his impressions in London, do you think?" I proceeded from point to point
+in this malign inquiry, simply because my hostess, who probably thought
+me a very pushing and talkative young man, gave me time; for when I
+paused--I have not represented my pauses--she simply continued to
+let her eyes wander, and, with her long fair fingers, played with the
+medallion on her neck. When I stopped altogether, however, she was
+obliged to say something, and what she said was that she had not the
+least idea where her husband got his impressions. This made me think
+her, for a moment, positively disagreeable; delicate and proper and
+rather aristocratically dry as she sat there. But I must either have
+lost the impression a moment later, or been goaded by it to further
+aggression, for I remember asking her whether Mr. Ambient were in a good
+vein of work, and when we might look for the appearance of the book on
+which he was engaged. I have every reason now to know that she thought
+me an odious person.
+
+She gave a strange, small laugh as she said, "I am afraid you think I
+know a great deal more about my husband's work than I do. I haven't
+the least idea what he is doing," she added presently, in a slightly
+different, that is a more explanatory, tone, as if she recognized
+in some degree the enormity of her confession. "I don't read what he
+writes!"
+
+She did not succeed (and would not, even had she tried much harder) in
+making it seem to me anything less than monstrous. I stared at her,
+and I think I blushed. "Don't you admire his genius? Don't you admire
+_Beltraffio?_"
+
+She hesitated a moment, and I wondered what she could possibly say. She
+did not speak--I could see--the first words that rose to her lips; she
+repeated what she had said a few minutes before. "Oh, of course he 's
+very clever!" And with this she got up; her husband and little boy had
+reappeared. Mrs. Ambient left me and went to meet them; she stopped and
+had a few words with her husband, which I did not hear, and which ended
+in her taking the child by the hand and returning to the house with him.
+Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit
+conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he
+would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my
+visit to him, I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to
+have understood his situation from the first, and to have seen in him
+the signs of things which I learnt only afterwards. This later knowledge
+throws a backward light, and makes me forget that at least on the
+occasion of which I am speaking now (I mean that first afternoon), Mark
+Ambient struck me as a fortunate man. Allowing for this, I think he was
+rather silent and irresponsive as we walked back to the house, though I
+remember well the answer he made to a remark of mine in relation to his
+child.
+
+"That's an extraordinary little boy of yours," I said. "I have never
+seen such a child."
+
+"Why do you call him extraordinary?"
+
+"He's so beautiful, so fascinating. He's like a little work of art."
+
+He turned quickly, grasping my arm an instant. "Oh, don't call him that,
+or you 'll--you 'll--!"
+
+And in his hesitation he broke off suddenly, laughing at my surprise.
+But immediately afterwards he added, "You will make his little future
+very difficult."
+
+I declared that I wouldn't for the world take any liberties with his
+little future--it seemed to me to hang by threads of such delicacy. I
+should only be highly interested in watching it.
+
+"You Americans are very sharp," said Ambient "You notice more things
+than we do."
+
+"Ah, if you want visitors who are not struck with you, you should n't
+ask me down here!"
+
+He showed me my room, a little bower of chintz, with open windows where
+the light was green, and before he left me he said irrelevantly, "As for
+my little boy, you know, we shall probably kill him between us, before
+wo have done with him!" And he made this assertion as if he
+really believed it, without any appearance of jest, with his fine,
+near-sighted, expressive eyes looking straight into mine.
+
+"Do you mean by spoiling him?"
+
+"No; by fighting for him!"
+
+"You had better give him to me to keep for you," I said. "Let me remove
+the apple of discord."
+
+I laughed, of course, but he had the air of being perfectly serious.
+"It would be quite the best thing we could do. I should be quite ready
+to do it."
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for your confidence."
+
+Mark Ambient lingered there, with his hands in his pockets. I felt,
+within a few moments, as if I had, morally speaking, taken several
+steps nearer to him. He looked weary, just as he faced me then, looked
+preoccupied, and as if there were something one might do for him. I was
+terribly conscious of the limits of my own ability, but I wondered what
+such a service might be, feeling at bottom, however, that the only thing
+I could do for him was to like him. I suppose he guessed this, and was
+grateful for what was in my mind; for he went on presently, "I have n't
+the advantage of being an American. But I also notice a little, and I
+have an idea that--a--" here he smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder,
+"that even apart from your nationality, you are not destitute of
+intelligence! I have only known you half an hour, but--a--" And here he
+hesitated again. "You are very young, after all."
+
+"But you may treat me as if I could understand you!" I said; and before
+he left me to dress for dinner he had virtually given me a promise that
+he would.
+
+When I went down into the drawing-room--I was very punctual--I found
+that neither my hostess nor my host had appeared. A lady rose from a
+sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at
+her. "I dare say you don't know me," she said, with the modern laugh.
+"I am Mark Ambient's sister." Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting
+her very low. Her laugh was modern--by which I mean that it consisted
+of the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms,
+serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions;
+but her appearance was--what shall I call it?--mediaeval. She was pale
+and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and
+black hair intertwined with golden fillets and curious chains. She wore
+a faded velvet robe, which clung to her when she moved, fashioned, as
+to the neck and sleeves, like the garments of old Venetians and
+Florentines. She looked pictorial and melancholy, and was so perfect an
+image of a type which I, in my ignorance, supposed to be extinct, that
+while she rose before me I was almost as much startled as if I had seen
+a ghost. I afterwards perceived that Miss Ambient was not incapable
+of deriving pleasure from the effect she produced, and I think this
+sentiment had something to do with her sinking again into her seat, with
+her long, lean, but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic
+manner on her knees, and her mournful eyes addressing themselves to
+me with an intentness which was a menace of what they were destined
+subsequently to inflict upon me. She was a singular, self-conscious,
+artificial creature, and I never, subsequently, more than half
+penetrated her motives and, mysteries. Of one thing I am sure, however:
+that they were considerably less extraordinary than her appearance
+announced. Miss Ambient was a restless, disappointed, imaginative
+spinster, consumed with the love of Michael-Angelesque attitudes and
+mystical robes; but I am pretty sure she had not in her nature those
+depths of unutterable thought which, when you first knew her, seemed
+to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures. Those
+features, in especial, had a misleading eloquence; they rested upon
+you with a far-off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was
+certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; and I
+suspect that a young lady could not really have been so dejected and
+disillusioned as Miss Ambient looked, without having committed a crime
+for which she was consumed with remorse, or parted with a hope which
+she could not sanely have entertained. She had, I believe, the usual
+allowance of vulgar impulses: she wished to be looked at, she wished to
+be married, she wished to be thought original. It costs me something to
+speak in this irreverent manner of Mark Ambient's sister, but I shall
+have still more disagreeable things to say before I have finished my
+little anecdote, and moreover,--I confess it,--I owe the young lady a
+sort of grudge. Putting aside the curious cast of her face, she had
+no natural aptitude for an artistic development,--she had little real
+intelligence. But her affectations rubbed off on her brother's renown,
+and as there were plenty of people who disapproved of him totally, they
+could easily point to his sister as a person formed by his influence. It
+was quite possible to regard her as a warning, and she had done him but
+little good with the world at large. He was the original, and she
+was the inevitable imitation. I think he was scarcely aware of the
+impression she produced, beyond having a general idea that she made
+up very well as a Rossetti; he was used to her, and he was sorry for
+her,--wishing she would marry and observing that she did n't Doubtless I
+take her too seriously, for she did me no harm, though I am bound to add
+that I feel I can only half account for her. She was not so mystical as
+she looked, but she was a strange, indirect, uncomfortable, embarrassing
+woman. My story will give the reader at best so very small a knot to
+untie that I need not hope to excite his curiosity by delaying to
+remark that Mrs. Ambient hated her sister-in-law. This I only found
+out afterwards, when I found out some other things. But I mention it at
+once, for I shall perhaps not seem to count too much on having enlisted
+the imagination of the reader if I say that he will already have guessed
+it Mrs. Ambient was a person of conscience, and she endeavored to behave
+properly to her kinswoman, who spent a month with her twice a year; but
+it required no great insight to discover that the two ladies were made
+of a very different paste, and that the usual feminine hypocrisies must
+have cost them, on either side, much more than the usual effort. Mrs.
+Ambient, smooth-haired, thin-lipped, perpetually fresh, must have
+regarded her crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she
+herself was not a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she
+had in her appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike
+candor, and a well-starched muslin dress.
+
+It was in a garment, and with an expression, of this kind, that she made
+her entrance, after I had exchanged a few words with Miss Ambient. Her
+husband presently followed her, and there being no other company we went
+to dinner. The impression I received from that repast is present to me
+still. There were elements of oddity in my companions, but they were
+vague and latent, and did n't interfere with my delight It came mainly,
+of course, from Ambient's talk, which was the most brilliant and
+interesting I had ever heard. I know not whether he laid himself out
+to dazzle a rather juvenile pilgrim from over the sea; but it matters
+little, for it was very easy for him to shine. He was almost better as
+a talker than as a writer; that is, if the extraordinary finish of his
+written prose be really, as some people have maintained, a fault. There
+was such a kindness in him, however, that I have no doubt it gave him
+ideas to see me sit open-mouthed, as I suppose I did. Not so the two
+ladies, who not only were very nearly dumb from beginning to the end
+of the meal, but who had not the air of being struck with such an
+exhibition of wit and knowledge. Mrs. Ambient, placid and detached, met
+neither my eye nor her husband's; she attended to her dinner, watched
+the servants, arranged the puckers in her dress, exchanged at wide
+intervals a remark with her sister-in-law, and while she slowly rubbed
+her white hands between the courses, looked out of the window at the
+first signs of twilight--the long June day allowing us to dine without
+candles.. Miss Ambient appeared to give little direct heed to her
+brother's discourse; but on the other hand she was much engaged in
+watching its effect upon me. Her lustreless pupils continued to attach
+themselves to my countenance, and it was only her air of belonging to
+another century that kept them from being importunate. She seemed to
+look at me across the ages, and the interval of time diminished the
+vividness of the performance. It was as if she knew in a general way
+that her brother must be talking very well, but she herself was so rich
+in ideas that she had no need to pick them up, and was at liberty to see
+what would become of a young American when subjected to a high aesthetic
+temperature.
+
+The temperature was �sthetic, certainly, but it was less so than I could
+have desired, for I was unsuccessful in certain little attempts to make
+Mark Ambient talk about himself I tried to put him on the ground of his
+own writings, but he slipped through my fingers every time and shifted
+the saddle to one of his contemporaries. He talked about Balzac and
+Browning, and what was being done in foreign countries, and about his
+recent tour in the East, and the extraordinary forms of life that one
+saw in that part of the world. I perceived that he had reasons for not
+wishing to descant upon literature, and suffered him without protest
+to deliver himself on certain social topics, which he treated with
+extraordinary humor and with constant revelations of that power of
+ironical portraiture of which his books are full. He had a great deal
+to say about London, as London appears to the observer who does n't fear
+the accusation of cynicism, during the high-pressure time--from April
+to July--of its peculiarities. He flashed his faculty of making the
+fanciful real and the real fanciful over the perfunctory pleasures and
+desperate exertions of so many of his compatriots, among whom there were
+evidently not a few types for which he had little love. London bored him,
+and he made capital sport of it; his only allusion, that I can remember,
+to his own work was his saying that he meant some day to write an
+immense grotesque epic of London society. Miss Ambient's perpetual gaze
+seemed to say to me: "Do you perceive how artistic we are? Frankly now,
+is it possible to be more artistic than this? You surely won't deny that
+we are remarkable." I was irritated by her use of the plural pronoun,
+for she had no right to pair herself with her brother; and moreover, of
+course, I could not see my way to include Mrs. Ambient. But there was
+no doubt that, for that matter, they were all remarkable, and, with
+all allowances, I had never heard anything so artistic. Mark Ambient's
+conversation seemed to play over the whole field of knowledge and taste,
+and to flood it with light and color.
+
+After the ladies had left us he took me into his study to smoke, and
+here I led him on to talk freely enough about himself. I was bent upon
+proving to him that I was worthy to listen to him, upon repaying him
+for what he had said to me before dinner, by showing him how perfectly
+I understood. He liked to talk; he liked to defend his ideas (not that
+I attacked them); he liked a little perhaps--it was a pardonable
+weakness--to astonish the youthful mind and to feel its admiration
+and sympathy. I confess that my own youthful mind was considerably
+astonished at some of his speeches; he startled me and he made me wince.
+He could not help forgetting, or rather he could n't know, how little
+personal contact I had had with the school in which he was master; and
+he promoted me at a jump, as it were, to the study of its innermost
+mysteries. My trepidations, however, were delightful; they were just
+what I had hoped for, and their only fault was that they passed away too
+quickly; for I found that, as regards most things, I very soon seized
+Mark Ambient's point of view. It was the point of view of the artist to
+whom every manifestation of human energy was a thrilling spectacle, and
+who felt forever the desire to resolve his experience of life into a
+literary form. On this matter of the passion for form,--the attempt at
+perfection, the quest for which was to his mind the real search for the
+holy grail,--he said the most interesting, the most inspiring things. He
+mixed with them a thousand illustrations from his own life, from other
+lives that he had known, from history and fiction, and above all from
+the annals of the time that was dear to him beyond all periods,--the
+Italian _cinque-cento_. I saw that in his books he had only said half
+of his thought, and what he had kept back--from motives that I deplored
+when I learnt them later--was the richer part It was his fortune to
+shock a great many people, but there was not a grain of bravado in his
+pages (I have always maintained it, though often contradicted), and at
+bottom the poor fellow, an artist to his fingertips, and regarding a
+failure of completeness as a crime, had an extreme dread of scandal.
+There are people who regret that having gone so far he did not go
+further; but I regret nothing (putting aside two or three of the motives
+I just mentioned), for he arrived at perfection, and I don't see how you
+can go beyond that The hours I spent in his study--this first one and
+the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so numerous--seem
+to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone which is partly that of
+the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candlelight where we sat and
+smoked, with the dusky, delicate bindings of valuable books; partly that
+of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged with the images
+that came at his command. When we went back to the drawing-room we found
+Miss Ambient alone in possession of it; and she informed us that her
+sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been called by the nurse
+to see Dolcino, who appeared to be a little feverish.
+
+"Feverish! how in the world does he come to be feverish?" Ambient asked.
+"He was perfectly well this afternoon."
+
+"Beatrice says you walked him about too much--you almost killed him."
+
+"Beatrice must be very happy--she has an opportunity to triumph!" Mark
+Ambient said, with a laugh of which the bitterness was just perceptible.
+
+"Surely not if the child is ill," I ventured to remark, by way of
+pleading for Mrs. Ambient.
+
+"My dear fellow, you are not married--you don't know the nature of
+wives!" my host exclaimed.
+
+"Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers."
+
+"Beatrice is perfect as a mother," said Miss Ambient, with a tremendous
+sigh and her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.
+
+"I shall go up and see the child," her brother went on. "Do you suppose
+he's asleep?"
+
+"Beatrice won't let you see him, Mark," said the young lady, looking at
+me, though she addressed, our companion.
+
+"Do you call that being perfect as a mother?" Ambient inquired.
+
+"Yes, from her point of view."
+
+"Damn her point of view!" cried the author of _Beltraffio_. And he left
+the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.
+
+I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had
+some conversation, which was begun, I think, by my asking her what the
+point of view of her sister-in-law could be.
+
+"Oh, it's so very odd," she said. "But we are so very odd, altogether.
+Don't you find us so? We have lived so much abroad. Have you people like
+us in America?"
+
+"You are not all alike, surely; so that I don't think I understand your
+question. We have no one like your brother--I may go so far as that."
+
+"You have probably more persons like his wife," said Miss Ambient,
+smiling.
+
+"I can tell you that better when you have told me about her point of
+view."
+
+"Oh, yes--oh, yes. Well, she does n't like his ideas. She doesn't like
+them for the child. She thinks them undesirable."
+
+Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient's
+_arcana_, I was particularly in a position to appreciate this
+announcement. But the effect of it was to make me, after staring a
+moment, burst into laughter, which I instantly checked when I remembered
+that there was a sick child above.
+
+"What has that infant to do with ideas?" I asked "Surely, he can't tell
+one from another. Has he read his father's novels?"
+
+"He's very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she
+can't begin to guard him too early." Miss Ambient's head drooped a
+little to one side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then
+suddenly there was a strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile
+that was more joyless than her gravity--a conscious, insincere smile,
+and added, "When one has children, it's a great responsibility--what one
+writes."
+
+"Children are terrible critics," I answered. "I am rather glad I have
+n't got any."
+
+"Do you also write then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you
+like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? I don't write,
+but I think I feel." To these and various other inquiries and remarks
+the young lady treated me, till we heard her brother's step in the hall
+again, and Mark Ambient reappeared. He looked flushed and serious, and I
+supposed that he had seen something to alarm him in the condition of his
+child. His sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him a moment
+as if he were a burning ship on the horizon, and simply murmured, "Poor
+old Mark!"
+
+"I hope you are not anxious," I said.
+
+"No, but I 'm disappointed. She won't let me in. She has locked the
+door, and I 'm afraid to make a noise." I suppose there might have been
+something ridiculous in a confession of this kind, but I liked my new
+friend so much that for me it did n't detract from his dignity. "She
+tells me--from behind the door--that she will let me know if he is
+worse."
+
+"It's very good of her," said Miss Ambient
+
+I had exchanged a glance with Mark in which it is possible that he read
+that my pity for him was untinged with contempt, though I know not why
+he should have cared; and as, presently, his sister got up and took her
+bedroom candlestick, he proposed that we should go back to his study. We
+sat there till after midnight; he put himself into his slippers, into an
+old velvet jacket, lighted an ancient pipe, and talked considerably less
+than he had done before.
+
+There were longish pauses in our communion, but they only made me feel
+that we had advanced in intimacy. They helped me, too, to understand my
+friend's personal situation, and to perceive that it was by no means the
+happiest possible. When his face was quiet, it was vaguely troubled; it
+seemed to me to show that for him, too, life was a struggle, as it has
+been for many another man of genius. At last I prepared to leave him,
+and then, to my ineffable joy, he gave me some of the sheets of his
+forthcoming book,--it was not finished, but he had indulged in the
+luxury, so dear to writers of deliberation, of having it "set up," from
+chapter to chapter, as he advanced,--he gave me, I say, the early
+pages, the _pr�mices_, as the French have it, of this new fruit of his
+imagination, to take to my room and look over at my leisure. I was just
+quitting him when the door of his study was noiselessly pushed open, and
+Mrs. Ambient stood before us. She looked at us a moment, with her candle
+in her hand, and then she said to her husband that as she supposed he
+had not gone to bed, she had come down to tell him that Dolcino was more
+quiet and would probably be better in the morning. Mark Ambient made no
+reply; he simply slipped past her in the doorway, as if he were afraid
+she would seize him in his passage, and bounded upstairs, to judge
+for himself of his child's condition. Mrs. Ambient looked slightly
+discomfited, and for a moment I thought she was going to give chase
+to her husband. But she resigned herself, with a sigh, while her eyes
+wandered over the lamp-lit room, where various books, at which I had
+been looking, were pulled out of their places on the shelves, and the
+fumes of tobacco seemed to hang in mid-air. I bade her good-night, and
+then, without intention, by a kind of fatality, the perversity which had
+already made me insist unduly on talking with her about her husband's
+achievements, I alluded to the precious proof-sheets with which Ambient
+had intrusted me and which I was nursing there under my arm. "It is the
+opening chapters of his new book," I said. "Fancy my satisfaction at
+being allowed to carry them to my room!"
+
+She turned away, leaving me to take my candlestick from the table in the
+hall; but before we separated, thinking it apparently a good occasion
+to let me know once for all--since I was beginning, it would seem, to be
+quite "thick" with my host--that there was no fitness in my appealing
+to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she
+remarked to me with her quick, round, well-bred utterance, "I dare say
+you attribute to me ideas that I have n't got I don't take that sort
+of interest in my husband's proof-sheets. I consider his writings most
+objectionable!"
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+I had some curious conversation the next morning with Miss Ambient, whom
+I found strolling in the garden before breakfast The whole place looked
+as fresh and trim, amid the twitter of the birds, as if, an hour
+before, the housemaids had been turned into it with their dustpans and
+feather-brushes, I almost hesitated to light a cigarette, and was doubly
+startled when, in the act of doing so, I suddenly perceived the
+sister of my host, who had, in any case, something of the oddity of
+an apparition, standing before me. She might have been posing for her
+photograph. Her sad-colored robe arranged itself in serpentine folds at
+her feet; her hands locked themselves listlessly together in front; and
+her chin rested upon a cinque-cento ruff. The first thing I did,
+after bidding her good-morning, was to ask her for news of her little
+nephew,--to express the hope that she had heard he was better. She was
+able to gratify this hope, and spoke as if we might expect to see him
+during the day. We walked through the shrubberies together, and she gave
+me a great deal of information about her brother's m�nage, which offered
+me an opportunity to mention to her that his wife had told me, the night
+before, that she thought his productions objectionable.
+
+"She does n't usually come out with that so soon!" Miss Ambient
+exclaimed, in answer to this piece of gossip. "Poor lady, she saw that
+I am a fanatic." "Yes, she won't like you for that. But you must n't
+mind, if the rest of us like you! Beatrice thinks a work of art ought
+to have a 'purpose.' But she's a charming woman--don't you think her
+charming?--she's such a type of the lady."
+
+"She's very beautiful," I answered; while I reflected that though it
+was true, apparently, that Mark Ambient was mismated, it was also
+perceptible that his sister was perfidious. She told me that her
+brother and his wife had no other difference but this one, that she
+thought his writings immoral and his influence pernicious. It was a
+fixed idea; she was afraid of these things for the child. I answered
+that it was not a trifle--a woman's regarding her husband's mind as a
+well of corruption, and she looked quite struck with the novelty of my
+remark. "But there has n't been any of the sort of trouble that there so
+often is among married people," she said. "I suppose you can judge for
+yourself that Beatrice isn't at all--well, whatever they call it when a
+woman misbehaves herself. And Mark does n't make love to other people,
+either. I assure you he does n't! All the same, of course, from her
+point of view, you know, she has a dread of my brother's influence on
+the child--on the formation of his character, of his principles. It is
+as if it were a subtle poison, or a contagion, or something that would
+rub off on Dolcino when his father kisses him or holds him on his knee.
+If she could, she would prevent Mark from ever touching him. Every one
+knows it; visitors see it for themselves; so there is no harm in my
+telling you. Isn't it excessively odd? It comes from Beatrice's being so
+religious, and so tremendously moral, and all that and then, of course,
+we must n't forget," my companion added, unexpectedly, "that some of
+Mark's ideas are--well, really--rather queer!"
+
+I reflected, as we went into the house, where we found Ambient unfolding
+the _Observer_ at the breakfast-table, that none of them were probably
+quite so queer as his sister. Mrs. Ambient did not appear at breakfast,
+being rather tired with her ministrations, during the night, to Dolcino.
+Her husband mentioned, however, that she was hoping to go to church. I
+afterwards learned that she did go, but I may as well announce without
+delay that he and I did not accompany her. It was while the church-bell
+was murmuring in the distance that the author of _Beltraffio_ led me
+forth for the ramble he had spoken of in his note. I will not attempt to
+say where we went, or to describe what we saw. We kept to the fields
+and copses and commons, and breathed the same sweet air as the nibbling
+donkeys and the browsing sheep, whose woolliness seemed to me, in those
+early days of my acquaintance with English objects, but a part of the
+general texture of the small, dense landscape, which looked as if the
+harvest were gathered by the shears. Everything was full of expression
+for Mark Ambient's visitor,--from the big, bandy-legged geese, whose
+whiteness was a "note," amid all the tones of green, as they wandered
+beside a neat little oval pool, the foreground of a thatched and
+whitewashed inn, with a grassy approach and a pictorial sign,--from
+these humble wayside animals to the crests of high woods which let a
+gable or a pinnacle peep here and there, and looked, even at a distance,
+like trees of good company, conscious of an individual profile. I
+admired the hedgerows, I plucked the faint-hued heather, and I was
+forever stopping to say how charming I thought the thread-like footpaths
+across the fields, which wandered, in a diagonal of finer grain, from
+one smooth stile to another. Mark Ambient was abundantly good-natured,
+and was as much entertained with my observations as I was with the
+literary allusions of the landscape. We sat and smoked upon stiles,
+broaching paradoxes in the decent English air; we took short cuts across
+a park or two, where the bracken was deep and my companion nodded to the
+old woman at the gate; we skirted rank covers, which rustled here and
+there as wo passed, and we stretched ourselves at last on a heathery
+hillside, where, if the sun was not too hot, neither was the earth
+too cold, and where the country lay beneath us in a rich blue mist.
+Of course I had already told Ambient what I thought of his new novel,
+having the previous night read every word of the opening chapters before
+I went to bed.
+
+"I am not without hope of being able to make it my best," he said, as I
+went back to the subject, while we turned up our heels to the sky. "At
+least the people who dislike my prose--and there are a great many of
+them, I believe--will dislike this work most" This was the first time I
+had heard him allude to the people who couldn't read him,--a class which
+is supposed always to sit heavy upon the consciousness of the man of
+letters. A man organized for literature, as Mark Ambient was,
+must certainly have had the normal proportion of sensitiveness,
+of irritability; the artistic _ego_, capable in some cases of such
+monstrous development, must have been, in his composition, sufficiently
+erect and definite. I will not therefore go so far as to say that he
+never thought of his detractors, or that he had any illusions with
+regard to the number of his admirers (he could never so far have
+deceived himself as to believe he was popular); but I may at least
+affirm that adverse criticism, as I had occasion to perceive later,
+ruffled him visibly but little, that he had an air of thinking it quite
+natural he should be offensive to many minds, and that he very seldom
+talked about the newspapers, which, by the way, were always very stupid
+in regard to the author of _Beltraffio_. Of course he may have thought
+about them--the newspapers--night and day; the only point I wish to make
+is that he did n't show it; while, at the same time, he did n't strike
+one as a man who was on his guard. I may add that, as regards his hope
+of making the work on which he was then engaged the best of his books,
+it was only partly carried out. That place belongs, incontestably, to
+_Beltraffio_, in spite of the beauty of certain parts of its successor.
+I am pretty sure, however, that he had, at the moment of which I speak,
+no sense of failure; he was in love with his idea, which was indeed
+magnificent, and though for him, as, I suppose, for every artist, the
+act of execution had in it as much torment as joy, he saw his work
+growing a little every day and filling-out the largest plan he had yet
+conceived. "I want to be truer than I have ever been," he said, settling
+himself on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head; "I want to
+give an impression of life itself. No, you may say what you will, I have
+always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and rounded
+them off and tucked them in,--done everything to them that life does n't
+do. I have been a slave to the old superstitions."
+
+"You a slave, my dear Mark Ambient? You have the freest imagination of
+our day!"
+
+"All the more shame to me to have done some of the things I have! The
+reconciliation of the two women in _Ginistrella_, for instance, which
+could never really have taken place. That sort of thing is ignoble;
+I blush when I think of it! This new affair must be a golden vessel,
+filled with the purest distillation of the actual; and oh, how it
+bothers me, the shaping of the vase--the hammering of the metal! I have
+to hammer it so fine, so smooth; I don't do more than an inch or two a
+day. And all the while I have to be so careful not to let a drop of the
+liquor escape! When I see the kind of things that Life does, I despair
+of ever catching her peculiar trick. She has an impudence, life! If one
+risked a fiftieth part of the effects she risks! It takes ever so long
+to believe it. You don't know yet, my dear fellow. It is n't till one
+has been watching life for forty years that one finds out half of what
+she's up to! Therefore one's earlier things must inevitably contain a
+mass of rot. And with what one sees, on one side, with its tongue in its
+cheek, defying one to be real enough, and on the other the _bonnes gens_
+rolling up their eyes at one's cynicism, the situation has elements of
+the ludicrous which the artist himself is doubtless in a position to
+appreciate better than any one else. Of course one mustn't bother about
+the _bonnes gens_." Mark Ambient went on, while my thoughts reverted to
+his ladylike wife, as interpreted by his remarkable sister.
+
+"To sink your shaft deep, and polish the plate through which people look
+into it--that's what your work consists of," I remember remarking.
+
+"Ah, polishing one's plate--that is the torment of execution!" he
+exclaimed, jerking himself up and sitting forward. "The effort to arrive
+at a surface--if you think a surface necessary--some people don't,
+happily for them! My dear fellow, if you could see the surface I dream
+of, as compared with the one with which I have to content myself. Life
+is really too short for art--one hasn't time to make one's shell ideally
+hard. Firm and bright--firm and bright!--the devilish thing has a way,
+sometimes, of being bright without being firm. When I rap it with my
+knuckles it doesn't give the right sound. There are horrible little
+flabby spots where I have taken the second-best word, because I could
+n't for the life of me think of the best. If you knew how stupid I am
+sometimes! They look to me now like pimples and ulcers on the brow of
+beauty!"
+
+"That's very bad--very bad," I said, as gravely as I could.
+
+"Very bad? It's the highest social offence I know; it ought--it
+absolutely ought--I'm quite serious--to be capital If I knew I should be
+hanged else, I should manage to find the best word. The people who
+could n't--some of them don't know it when they see it--would shut their
+inkstands, and we should n't be deluged by this flood of rubbish!"
+
+I will not attempt to repeat everything that passed between us, or to
+explain just how it was that, every moment I spent in his company, Mark
+Ambient revealed to me more and more that he looked at all things from
+the standpoint of the artist, felt all life as literary material There
+are people who will tell me that this is a poor way of feeling it, and
+I am not concerned to defend my statement, having space merely to remark
+that there is something to be said for any interest which makes a man
+feel so much. If Mark Ambient did really, as I suggested above, have
+imaginative contact with "all life," I, for my part, envy him his
+_arriere-pens�e_. At any rate it was through the receipt of this
+impression of him that by the time we returned I had acquired the
+feeling of intimacy I have noted. Before we got up for the homeward
+stretch, he alluded to his wife's having once--or perhaps more than
+once--asked him whether he should like Dolcino to read _Beltraffio_.
+I think he was unconscious at the moment of all that this conveyed to
+me--as well, doubtless, of my extreme curiosity to hear what he had
+replied. He had said that he hoped very much Dolcino would read all his
+works--when he was twenty; he should like him to know what his father
+had done. Before twenty it would be useless; he would n't understand
+them.
+
+"And meanwhile do you propose to hide them,--to lock them up in a
+drawer?" Mrs. Ambient had inquired.
+
+"Oh, no; we must simply tell him that they are not intended for small
+boys. If you bring him up properly, after that he won t touch them."
+
+To this Mrs. Ambient had made answer that it would be very awkward when
+he was about fifteen; and I asked her husband if it was his opinion in
+general, then, that young people should not read novels.
+
+"Good ones--certainly not!" said my companion. I suppose I had had other
+views, for I remember saying that, for myself, I was not sure it was bad
+for them, if the novels were "good" enough. "Bad for _them_, I don't say
+so much!" Ambient exclaimed. "But very bad, I am afraid, for the novel!"
+That oblique, accidental allusion to his wife's attitude was followed by
+a franker style of reference as we walked home. "The difference between
+us is simply the opposition between two distinct ways of looking at the
+world, which have never succeeded in getting on together, or making any
+kind of common m�nage, since the beginning of time. They have borne all
+sorts of names, and my wife would tell you it's the difference between
+Christian and Pagan. I may be a pagan, but I don't like the name; it
+sounds sectarian. She thinks me, at any rate, no better than an ancient
+Greek. It's the difference between making the most of life and making
+the least, so that you 'll get another better one in some other time and
+place. Will it be a sin to make the most of that one too, I wonder; and
+shall we have to be bribed off in the future state, as well as in the
+present? Perhaps I care too much for beauty--I don't know; I delight
+in it, I adore it, I think of it continually, I try to produce it, to
+reproduce it. My wife holds that we shouldn't think too much about it
+She's always afraid of that, always on her guard. I don't know what she
+has got on her back! And she's so pretty, too, herself! Don't you think
+she's lovely? She was, at any rate, when I married her. At that time I
+was n't aware of that difference I speak of--I thought it all came to
+the same thing: in the end, as they say. Well, perhaps it will, in the
+end. I don't know what the end will be. Moreover, I care for seeing
+things as they are; that's the way I try to show them in my novels. But
+you must n't talk to Mrs. Ambient about things as they are. She has a
+mortal dread of things as they are."
+
+"She's afraid of them for Dolcino," I said: surprised a moment
+afterwards at being in a position--thanks to Miss Ambient--to be so
+explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n't have shown
+visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n't;
+he simply exclaimed, with a tenderness that touched me,--
+
+"Ah, nothing shall ever hurt _him!_" He told me more about his wife
+before we arrived at the gate of his house, and if it be thought that he
+was querulous, I am afraid I must admit that he had some of the foibles
+as well as the gifts of the artistic temperament; adding, however,
+instantly, that hitherto, to the best of my belief, he had very rarely
+complained. "She thinks me immoral--that's the long and short of it," he
+said, as we paused outside a moment, and his hand rested on one of
+the bars of his gate; while his conscious, demonstrative, expressive,
+perceptive eyes,--the eyes of a foreigner, I had begun to account them,
+much more than of the usual Englishman,--viewing me now evidently
+as quite a familiar friend, took part in the declaration. "It's very
+strange, when one thinks it all over, and there's a grand comicality
+in it which I should like to bring out. She is a very nice woman,
+extraordinarily well behaved, upright and clever, and with a tremendous
+lot of good sense about a good many matters. Yet her conception of a
+novel--she has explained it to me once or twice, and she does n't do it
+badly, as exposition--is a thing so false that it makes me blush. It is
+a thing so hollow, so dishonest, so lying, in which life is so blinked
+and blinded, so dodged and disfigured, that it makes my ears burn. It's
+two different ways of looking at the whole affair," he repeated, pushing
+open the gate. "And they are irreconcilable!" he added, with a sigh.
+We went forward to the house, but on the walk, half way to the door,
+he stopped, and said to me, "If you are going into this kind of
+thing, there's a fact you should know beforehand; it may save you
+some disappointment. There's a hatred of art, there's a hatred of
+literature!" I looked up at the charming house, with its genial color
+and crookedness, and I answered, with a smile, that those evil passions
+might exist, but that I should never have expected to find them there.
+"Oh, it doesn't matter, after all," he said, laughing; which I was glad
+to hear, for I was reproaching myself with having excited him.
+
+If I had, his excitement soon passed off, for at lunch he was
+delightful; strangely delightful, considering that the difference
+between himself and his wife was, as he had said, irreconcilable. He
+had the art, by his manner, by his smile, by his natural kindliness, of
+reducing the importance of it in the common concerns of life; and Mrs.
+Ambient, I must add, lent herself to this transaction with a very good
+grace. I watched her, at table, for further illustrations of that fixed
+idea of which Miss Ambient had spoken to me; for, in the light of the
+united revelations of her sister-in-law and her husband, she had come to
+seem to me a very singular personage. I am obliged to say that the signs
+of a fanatical temperament were not more striking in my hostess
+than before; it was only after a while that her air of incorruptible
+conformity, her tapering, monosyllabic correctness, began to appear to
+be themselves a cold, thin flame. Certainly, at first, she looked like a
+woman with as few passions as possible; but if she had a passion at all,
+it would be that of Philistinism. She might have been--for there are
+guardian-spirits, I suppose, of all great principles--the angel of
+propriety. Mark Ambient, apparently, ten years before, had simply
+perceived that she was an angel, without asking himself of what He had
+been quite right in calling my attention to her beauty. In looking for
+the reason why he should have married her, I saw, more than before, that
+she was, physically speaking, a wonderfully cultivated human plant--that
+she must have given him many ideas and images. It was impossible to be
+more pencilled, more garden-like, more delicately tinted and petalled.
+
+If I had had it in my heart to think Ambient a little of a hypocrite
+for appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me during our
+walk, I should instantly have cancelled such a judgment, on reflecting
+that the good news his wife was able to give him about their little
+boy was reason enough for his sudden air of happiness. It may have come
+partly, too, from a certain remorse at having complained to me of the
+fair lady who sat there,--a desire to show me that he was after all
+not so miserable. Dolcino continued to be much better, and he had been
+promised he should come downstairs after he had had his dinner. As soon
+as we had risen from our own meal Ambient slipped away, evidently for
+the purpose of going to his child; and no sooner had I observed this
+than I became aware that his wife had simultaneously vanished. It
+happened that Miss Ambient and I, both at the same moment, saw the tail
+of her dress whisk out of a doorway, which led the young lady to smile
+at me, as if I now knew all the secrets of the Ambients. I passed with
+her into the garden, and we sat down on a dear old bench which rested
+against the west wall of the house. It was a perfect spot for the middle
+period of a Sunday in June, and its felicity seemed to come partly from
+an antique sun-dial which, rising in front of us and forming the centre
+of a small, intricate parterre, measured the moments ever so slowly, and
+made them safe for leisure and talk. The garden bloomed in the suffused
+afternoon, the tall beeches stood still for an example, and, behind and
+above us, a rose-tree of many seasons, clinging to the faded grain of
+the brick, expressed the whole character of the place in a familiar,
+exquisite smell. It seemed to me a place for genius to have every
+sanction, and not to encounter challenges and checks. Miss Ambient asked
+me if I had enjoyed my walk with her brother, and whether we had talked
+of many things.
+
+"Well, of most things," I said, smiling, though I remembered that we had
+not talked of Miss Ambient.
+
+"And don't you think some of his theories are very peculiar?"
+
+"Oh, I guess I agree with them all." I was very particular, for Miss
+Ambient's entertainment, to guess.
+
+"Do you think art is everything?" she inquired in, a moment.
+
+"In art, of course I do!"
+
+"And do you think beauty is everything?"
+
+"I don't know about its being everything. But it's very delightful"
+
+"Of course it is difficult for a woman to know how far to go," said
+my companion. "I adore everything that gives a charm to life. I am
+intensely sensitive to form. But sometimes I draw back--don't you see
+what I mean?--I don't quite see where I shall be landed. I only want
+to be quiet, after all," Miss Ambient continued, in a tone of stifled
+yearning which seemed to indicate that she had not yet arrived at her
+desire. "And one must be good, at any rate, must not one?" she inquired,
+with a cadence apparently intended for an assurance that my answer would
+settle this recondite question for her. It was difficult for me to
+make it very original, and I am afraid I repaid her confidence with an
+unblushing platitude. I remember, moreover, appending to it an inquiry,
+equally destitute of freshness, and still more wanting perhaps in tact,
+as to whether she did not mean to go to church, as that was an obvious
+way of being good. She replied that she had performed this duty in the
+morning, and that for her, on Sunday afternoon, supreme virtue consisted
+in answering the week's letters. Then suddenly, without transition, she
+said to me, "It's quite a mistake about Dolcino being better. I have seen
+him, and he's not at all right."
+
+"Surely his mother would know, would n't she?" I suggested.
+
+She appeared for a moment to be counting the leaves on one of the great
+beeches. "As regards most matters, one can easily say what, in a given
+situation, my sister-in-law would do. But as regards this one, there are
+strange elements at work."
+
+"Strange elements? Do you mean in the constitution of the child?"
+
+"No, I mean in my sister-in-law's feelings."
+
+"Elements of affection, of course; elements of anxiety. Why do you call
+them strange?"
+
+She repeated my words. "Elements of affection, elements of anxiety. She
+is very anxious."
+
+Miss Ambient made me vaguely uneasy; she almost frightened me, and I
+wished she would go and write her letters. "His father will have seen
+him now," I said, "and if he is not satisfied he will send for the
+doctor."
+
+"The doctor ought to have been here this morning. He lives only two
+miles away."
+
+I reflected that all this was very possibly only a part of the general
+tragedy of Miss Ambient's view of things; but I asked her why she had
+n't urged such a necessity upon her sister-in-law. She answered me with
+a smile of extraordinary significance, and told me that I must have very
+little idea of what her relations with Beatrice were; but I must do
+her the justice to add that she went on to make herself a little more
+comprehensible by saying that it was quite reason enough for her sister
+not to be alarmed that Mark would be sure to be. He was always nervous
+about the child, and as they were predestined by nature to take opposite
+views, the only thing for Beatrice was to cultivate a false optimism. If
+Mark were not there, she would not be at all easy. I remembered what
+he had said to me about their dealings with Dolcino,--that between them
+they would put an end to him; but I did not repeat this to Miss Ambient:
+the less so that just then her brother emerged from the house, carrying
+his child in his arms. Close behind him moved his wife, grave and pale;
+the boy's face was turned over Ambient's shoulder, towards his mother.
+We got up to receive the group, and as they came near us Dolcino turned
+round. I caught, on his enchanting little countenance, a smile of
+recognition, and for the moment would have been quite content with it.
+Miss Ambient, however, received another impression, and I make haste to
+say that her quick sensibility, in which there was something maternal,
+argues that, in spite of her affectations, there was a strain of
+kindness in her. "It won't do at all--it won't do at all," she said to
+me under her breath. "I shall speak to Mark about the doctor."
+
+The child was rather white, but the main difference I saw in him was
+that he was even more beautiful than the day before. He had been dressed
+in his festal garments,--a velvet suit and a crimson sash,--and he
+looked like a little invalid prince, too young to know condescension,
+and smiling familiarly on his subjects.
+
+"Put him down, Mark, he's not comfortable," Mrs. Ambient said.
+
+"Should you like to stand on your feet, my boy?" his father asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; I 'm remarkably well," said the child.
+
+Mark placed him on the ground; he had shining, pointed slippers, with
+enormous bows. "Are you happy now, Mr. Ambient?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I am particularly happy," Dolcino replied. The words were
+scarcely out of his mouth when his mother caught him up, and in a
+moment, holding him on her knees, she took her place on the bench where
+Miss Ambient and I had been sitting. This young lady said something
+to her brother, in consequence of which the two wandered away into the
+garden together. I remained with Mrs. Ambient; but as a servant had
+brought out a couple of chairs I was not obliged to seat myself beside
+her. Our conversation was not animated, and I, for my part, felt there
+would be a kind of hypocrisy in my trying to make myself agreeable to
+Mrs. Ambient I didn't dislike her--I rather admired her; but I was
+aware that I differed from her inexpressibly. Then I suspected, what
+I afterwards definitely knew and have already intimated, that the poor
+lady had taken a dislike to me; and this of course was not encouraging.
+She thought me an obtrusive and even depraved young man, whom a perverse
+Providence had dropped upon their quiet lawn to flatter her husband's
+worst tendencies. She did me the honor to say to Miss Ambient, who
+repeated the speech, that she didn't know when she had seen her husband
+take such a fancy to a visitor; and she measured, apparently, my evil
+influence by Mark's appreciation of my society. I had a consciousness,
+not yet acute, but quite sufficient, of all this; but I must say that
+if it chilled my flow of small-talk, it did n't prevent me from thinking
+that the beautiful mother and beautiful child, interlaced there against
+their background of roses, made a picture such as I perhaps should not
+soon see again. I was free, I supposed, to go into the house and write
+letters, to sit in the drawing-room, to repair to my own apartment and
+take a nap; but the only use I made of my freedom was to linger still in
+my chair and say to myself that the light hand of Sir Joshua might have
+painted Mark Ambient's wife and son. I found myself looking perpetually
+at Dolcino, and Dolcino looked back at me, and that was enough to
+detain me. When he looked at me he smiled, and I felt it was an absolute
+impossibility to abandon a child who was smiling at one like that. His
+eyes never wandered; they attached themselves to mine, as if among
+all the small incipient things of his nature there was a desire to say
+something to me. If I could have taken him upon my own knee, he perhaps
+would have managed to say it; but it would have been far too delicate a
+matter to ask his mother to give him up, and it has remained a constant
+regret for me that on that Sunday afternoon I did not, even for a
+moment, hold Dolcino in my arms. He had said that he felt remarkably
+well, and that he was especially happy; but though he may have been
+happy, with his charming head pillowed on his mother's breast, and his
+little crimson silk legs depending from her lap, I did not think he
+looked well. He made no attempt to walk about; he was content to swing
+his legs softly and strike one as languid and angelic.
+
+Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some
+remark about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the
+house. Mark came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the
+child, who immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he
+remained. "I think Ailingham ought to see him," Ambient said; "I think
+I will walk over and fetch him."
+
+"That 's Gwendolen's idea, I suppose," Mrs. Ambient replied, very
+sweetly.
+
+"It's not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one's child is ill."
+
+"I 'm not ill, papa; I 'm much better now," Dolcino remarked.
+
+"Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have
+a great idea of being agreeable, you know."
+
+The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a
+moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own
+as I watched him. "Do _you_ think me agreeable?" he inquired, with the
+candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to
+me, laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, "Is n't he adorable?"
+
+"Then why don't you hop about, if you feel so lusty?" Ambient went on,
+while the boy swung his hand.
+
+"Because mamma is holding me close!"
+
+"Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!" Ambient
+exclaimed, looking at his wife.
+
+She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or
+concession, and after a moment she said, "You can go for Allingham if
+you like, I think myself it would be better. You ought to drive."
+
+"She says that to get me away," Ambient remarked to me, laughing; after
+which he started for the doctor's.
+
+I remained there with Mrs. Ambient, though our conversation had more
+pauses than speeches. The boy's little fixed white face seemed, as
+before, to plead with me to stay, and after a while it produced still
+another effect, a very curious one, which I shall find it difficult to
+express. Of course I expose myself to the charge of attempting to give
+fantastic reasons for an act which may have been simply the fruit of a
+native want of discretion; and indeed the traceable consequences of that
+perversity were too lamentable to leave me any desire to trifle with the
+question. All I can say is that I acted in perfect good faith, and
+that Dolcino's friendly little gaze gradually kindled the spark of my
+inspiration. What helped it to glow were the other influences,--the
+silent, suggestive garden-nook, the perfect opportunity (if it was not
+an opportunity for that, it was an opportunity for nothing), and the
+plea that I speak of, which issued from the child's eyes, and seemed to
+make him say, "The mother that bore me and that presses me here to her
+bosom--sympathetic little organism that I am--has really the kind of
+sensibility which she has been represented to you as lacking; if you
+only look for it patiently and respectfully. How is it possible that she
+should n't have it? How is it possible that I should have so much of
+it (for I am quite full of it, dear, strange gentleman), if it were not
+also in some degree in her? I am my father's child, but I am also my
+mother's, and I am sorry for the difference between them!" So it shaped
+itself before me, the vision of reconciling Mrs. Ambient with her
+husband, of putting an end to their great disagreement The project was
+absurd, of course, for had I not had his word for it--spoken with
+all the bitterness of experience--that the gulf that divided them was
+wellnigh bottomless? Nevertheless, a quarter of an hour after Mark had
+left us, I said to his wife that I could n't get over what she told
+me the night before about her thinking her husband's writings
+"objectionable." I had been so very sorry to hear it, had thought of it
+constantly, and wondered whether it were not possible to make her change
+her mind. Mrs. Ambient gave me rather a cold stare; she seemed to be
+recommending me to mind my own business. I wish I had taken this mute
+counsel, but I did not. I went on to remark that it seemed an immense
+pity so much that was beautiful should be lost upon her.
+
+"Nothing is lost upon me," said Mrs. Ambient "I know they are very
+beautiful."
+
+"Don't you like papa's books?" Dolcino asked, addressing his mother, but
+still looking at me. Then he added to me, "Won't you read them to me,
+American gentleman?"
+
+"I would rather tell you some stories of my own," I said. "I know
+some that are very interesting." "When will you tell them? To-morrow?"
+"To-morrow, with pleasure, if that suits you." Mrs. Ambient was silent
+at this. Her husband, during our walk, had asked me to remain another
+day; my promise to her son was an implication that I had consented, and
+it is not probable that the prospect was agreeable to her. This ought,
+doubtless, to have made me more careful as to what I said next; but all
+I can say is that it did n't. I presently observed that just after
+leaving her the evening before, and after hearing her apply to her
+husband's writings the epithet I had already quoted, I had, on going up
+to my room, sat down to the perusal of those sheets of his new book
+which he had been so good as to lend me. I had sat entranced till nearly
+three in the morning. I had read them twice over. "You say you have n't
+looked at them. I think it 's such a pity you should n't Do let me beg
+you to take them up. They are so very remarkable. I 'm sure they will
+convert you. They place him in--really--such a dazzling light. All that
+is best in him is there. I have no doubt it's a great liberty, my saying
+all this; but excuse me, and _do_ read them!"
+
+"Do read them, mamma!" Dolcino repeated; "do read them!"
+
+She bent her head and closed his lips with a kiss. "Of course I know he
+has worked immensely over them," she said; and after this she made no
+remark, but sat there looking thoughtful, with her eyes on the ground.
+The tone of these last words was such as to leave me no spirit for
+further pressure, and after expressing a fear that her husband had not
+found the doctor at home, I got up and took a turn about the grounds.
+When I came back, ten minutes later, she was still in her place watching
+her boy, who had fallen asleep in her lap. As I drew near she put her
+finger to her lips, and a moment afterwards she rose, holding the
+child, and murmured something about its being better that he should go
+upstairs. I offered to carry him, and held out my hands to take him;
+but she thanked me and turned away with the child seated on her arm, his
+head on her shoulder. "I am very strong," she said, as she passed into
+the house, and her slim, flexible figure bent backwards with the filial
+weight So I never touched Dolcino.
+
+I betook myself to Ambient's study, delighted to have a quiet hour to
+look over his books by myself. The windows were open into the garden;
+the sunny stillness, the mild light of the English summer, filled the
+room, without quite chasing away the rich dusky tone which was a part
+of its charm, and which abode in the serried shelves where old
+morocco exhaled the fragrance of curious learning, and in the brighter
+intervals, where medals and prints and miniatures were suspended upon a
+surface of faded stuff. The place had both color and quiet; I thought it
+a perfect room for work, and went so far as to say to myself that, if it
+were mine to sit and scribble in, there was no knowing but that I might
+learn to write as well as the author of _Beltraffio_. This distinguished
+man did not turn up, and I rummaged freely among his treasures. At last
+I took down a book that detained me awhile, and seated myself in a fine
+old leather chair by the window to turn it over. I had been occupied
+in this way for half-an-hour,--a good part of the afternoon had
+waned,--when I became conscious of another presence in the room, and,
+looking up from my quarto, saw that Mrs. Ambient, having pushed open the
+door in the same noiseless way that marked, or disguised, her entrance
+the night before, had advanced across the threshold. On seeing me she
+stopped; she had not, I think, expected to find me. But her hesitation
+was only of a moment; she came straight to her husband's writing-table
+as if she were looking for something. I got up and asked her if I could
+help her. She glanced about an instant, and then put her hand upon a
+roll of papers which I recognized, as I had placed it in that spot in
+the morning on coming down from my room.
+
+"Is this the new book?" she asked, holding it up. "The very sheets, with
+precious annotations." "I mean to take your advice;" and she tucked the
+little bundle under her arm. I congratulated her cordially, and
+ventured to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of
+pleasantry. But she was perfectly grave, and turned away from me, as she
+had presented herself, without a smile; after which I settled down to my
+quarto again, with the reflection that Mrs. Ambient was a queer woman.
+My triumph, too, suddenly seemed to me rather vain. A woman who could
+n't smile in the right place would never understand Mark Ambient. He
+came in at last in person, having brought the doctor back with him. "He
+was away from home," Mark said, "and I went after him, to where he was
+supposed to be. He had left the place, and I followed him to two or
+three others, which accounts for my delay." He was now with Mrs. Ambient
+looking at the child, and was to see Mark again before leaving the
+house. My host noticed, at the end of ten minutes, that the proof-sheets
+of his new book had been removed from the table; and when I told him,
+in reply to his question as to what I knew about them, that Mrs. Ambient
+had carried them off to read, he turned almost pale for an instant with
+surprise. "What has suddenly made her so curious?" he exclaimed; and I
+was obliged to tell him that I was at the bottom of the mystery. I had
+had it on my conscience to assure her that she really ought to know
+of what her husband was capable. "Of what I am capable? _Elle ne s'en
+dottie que trop!_" said Ambient, with a laugh; but he took my meddling
+very good-naturedly, and contented himself with adding that he was very
+much afraid she would burn up the sheets, with his emendations, of which
+he had no duplicate. The doctor paid a long visit in the nursery, and
+before he came down I retired to my own quarters, where I remained till
+dinner-time. On entering the drawing-room at this hour, I found Miss
+Ambient in possession, as she had been the evening before.
+
+"I was right about Dolcino," she said, as soon as she saw me, with a
+strange little air of triumph. "He is really very ill."
+
+"Very ill! Why, when I last saw him, at four o'clock, he was in fairly
+good form."
+
+"There has been a change for the worse, very sudden and rapid, and when
+the doctor got here he found diphtheritic symptoms. He ought to have
+been called, as I knew, in the morning, and the child ought n't to have
+been brought into the garden."
+
+"My dear lady, he was very happy there," I answered, much appalled.
+
+"He would be happy anywhere. I have no doubt he is happy now, with his
+poor little throat in a state--" she dropped her voice as her brother
+came in, and Mark let us know that, as a matter of course, Mrs. Ambient
+would not appear. It was true that Dolcino had developed diphtheritic
+symptoms, but he was quiet for the present, and his mother was earnestly
+watching him. She was a perfect nurse, Mark said, and the doctor was
+coming back at ten o'clock. Our dinner was not very gay; Ambient was
+anxious and alarmed, and his sister irritated me by her constant tacit
+assumption, conveyed in the very way she nibbled her bread and sipped
+her wine, of having "told me so." I had had no disposition to deny
+anything she told me, and I could not see that her satisfaction in being
+justified by the event made poor Dolcino's throat any better. The truth
+is that, as the sequel proved, Miss Ambient had some of the qualities
+of the sibyl, and had therefore, perhaps, a right to the sibylline
+contortions. Her brother was so preoccupied that I felt my presence
+to be an indiscretion, and was sorry I had promised to remain over the
+morrow. I said to Mark that, evidently, I had better leave them in the
+morning; to which he replied that, on the contrary, if he was to pass
+the next days in the fidgets, my company would be an extreme relief to
+him. The fidgets had already begun for him, poor fellow; and as we
+sat in his study with our cigars after dinner, he wandered to the door
+whenever he heard the sound of the doctor's wheels. Miss Ambient, who
+shared this apartment with us, gave me at such moments significant
+glances; she had gone upstairs before rejoining us to ask after the
+child His mother and his nurse gave a tolerable account of him; but Miss
+Ambient found his fever high and his symptoms very grave. The doctor
+came at ten o'clock, and I went to bed after hearing from Mark that
+he saw no present cause for alarm. He had made every provision for the
+night, and was to return early in the morning.
+
+I quitted my room at eight o'clock the next day, and, as I came
+downstairs, saw, through the open door of the house, Mrs. Ambient
+standing at the front gate of the grounds, in colloquy with the
+physician. She wore a white dressing-gown, but her shining hair was
+carefully tucked away in its net, and in the freshness of the morning,
+after a night of watching, she looked as much "the type of the lady" as
+her sister-in-law had described her. Her appearance, I suppose, ought to
+have reassured me; but I was still nervous and uneasy, so that I shrank
+from meeting her with the necessary question about Dolcino. None the
+less, however, was I impatient to learn how the morning found him;
+and, as Mrs. Ambient had not seen me, I passed into the grounds by a
+roundabout way, and, stopping at a further gate, hailed the doctor just
+as he was driving away. Mrs. Ambient had returned to the house before he
+got into his gig.
+
+"Excuse me, but as a friend of the family, I should like very much to
+hear about the little boy."
+
+The doctor, who was a stout, sharp man, looked at me from head to foot,
+and then he said, "I'm sorry to say I have n't seen him."
+
+"Have n't seen him?"
+
+"Mrs. Ambient came down to meet me as I alighted, and told me that he
+was sleeping so soundly, after a restless night, that she did n't wish
+him disturbed. I assured her I would n't disturb him, but she said he
+was quite safe now and she could look after him herself."
+
+"Thank you very much. Are you coming back?"
+
+"No, sir; I 'll be hanged if I come back!" exclaimed Dr. Allingham, who
+was evidently very angry. And he started his horse again with the whip.
+
+I wandered back into the garden, and five minutes later Miss Ambient
+came forth from the house to greet me. She explained that breakfast
+would not be served for some time, and that she wished to catch the
+doctor before he went away. I informed her that this functionary had
+come and departed, and I repeated to her what he had told me about his
+dismissal. This made Miss Ambient very serious, very serious indeed,
+and she sank into a bench, with dilated eyes, hugging her elbows with
+crossed arms. She indulged in many ejaculations, she confessed that she
+was infinitely perplexed, and she finally told me what her own last
+news of her nephew had been. She had sat up very late,--after me, after
+Mark,--and before going to bed had knocked at the door of the child's
+room, which was opened to her by the nurse. This good woman had admitted
+her, and she had found Dolcino quiet, but flushed and "unnatural," with
+his mother sitting beside his bed. "She held his hand in one of
+hers," said Miss Ambient, "and in the other--what do you think?--the
+proof-sheets of Mark's new book! She was reading them there, intently:
+did you ever hear of anything so extraordinary? Such a very odd time to
+be reading an author whom she never could abide!" In her agitation Miss
+Ambient was guilty of this vulgarism of speech, and I was so impressed
+by her narrative that it was only in recalling her words later that I
+noticed the lapse. Mrs. Ambient had looked up from her reading with her
+finger on her lips--I recognized the gesture she had addressed to me in
+the afternoon--and, though the nurse was about to go to rest, had not
+encouraged her sister-in-law to relieve her of any part of her vigil.
+But certainly, then, Dolcino's condition was far from reassuring,--his
+poor little breathing was most painful; and what change could have taken
+place in him in those few hours that would justify Beatrice in denying
+the physician access to him? This was the moral of Miss Ambient's
+anecdote, the moral for herself at least. The moral for me, rather, was
+that it _was_ a very singular time for Mrs. Ambient to be going into a
+novelist she had never appreciated, and who had simply happened to be
+recommended to her by a young American she disliked. I thought of her
+sitting there in the sick-chamber in the still hours of the night, after
+the nurse had left her, turning over those pages of genius and wrestling
+with their magical influence.
+
+I must relate very briefly the circumstances of the rest of my visit to
+Mark Ambient,--it lasted but a few hours longer,--and devote but three
+words to my later acquaintance with him. That lasted five years,--till
+his death,--and was full of interest, of satisfaction, and, I may add,
+of sadness. The main thing to be said with regard to it, is that I had
+a secret from him. I believe he never suspected it, though of this I
+am not absolutely sure. If he did, the line he had taken, the line of
+absolute negation of the matter to himself, shows an immense effort of
+the will. I may tell my secret now, giving it for what it is worth, now
+that Mark Ambient has gone, that he has begun to be alluded to as one of
+the famous early dead, and that his wife does not survive him; now, too,
+that Miss Ambient, whom I also saw at intervals during the years that
+followed, has, with her embroideries and her attitudes, her necromantic
+glances and strange intuitions, retired to a Sisterhood, where, as I am
+told, she is deeply immured and quite lost to the world.
+
+Mark came in to breakfast after his sister and I had for some time been
+seated there. He shook hands with me in silence, kissed his sister,
+opened his letters and newspapers, and pretended to drink his coffee.
+But I could see that these movements were mechanical, and I was little
+surprised when, suddenly, he pushed away everything that was before him,
+and, with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table, sat staring
+strangely at the cloth.
+
+"What is the matter, _fratello mio?_" Miss Ambient inquired, peeping from
+behind the urn.
+
+He answered nothing, but got up with a certain violence and strode to
+the window. We rose to our feet, his sister and I, by a common impulse,
+exchanging a glance of some alarm, while he stared for a moment into the
+garden. "In Heaven's name what has got possession of Beatrice?" he cried
+at last, turning round with an almost haggard face. And he looked from
+one of us to the other; the appeal was addressed to me as well as to his
+sister.
+
+Miss Ambient gave a shrug. "My poor Mark, Beatrice is always--Beatrice!"
+
+"She has locked herself up with the boy--bolted and barred the door; she
+refuses to let me come near him!" Ambient went on.
+
+"She refused to let the doctor see him an hour ago!" Miss Ambient
+remarked, with intention, as they say on the stage.
+
+"Refused to let the doctor see him? By heaven, I 'll smash in the
+door!" And Mark brought his fist down upon the table, so that all the
+breakfast-service rang.
+
+I begged Miss Ambient to go up and try to have speech of her
+sister-in-law, and I drew Mark out into the garden. "You 're exceedingly
+nervous, and Mrs. Ambient is probably right," I said to him. "Women
+know; women should be supreme in such a situation. Trust a mother--a
+devoted mother, my dear friend!" With such words as these I tried to
+soothe and comfort him, and, marvellous to relate, I succeeded, with the
+help of many cigarettes, in making him walk about the garden and talk,
+or listen at least to my own ingenious chatter, for nearly an hour.
+At the end of this time Miss Ambient returned to us, with a very rapid
+step, holding her hand to her heart.
+
+"Go for the doctor, Mark, go for the doctor this moment!"
+
+"Is he dying? Has she killed him?" poor Ambient cried, flinging away his
+cigarette.
+
+"I don't know what she has done! But she's frightened, and now she wants
+the doctor."
+
+"He told me he would be hanged if he came back!" I felt myself obliged
+to announce.
+
+"Precisely--therefore Mark himself must go for him, and not a messenger.
+You must see him, and tell him it 's to save your child. The trap has
+been ordered--it's ready."
+
+"To save him? I 'll save him, please God!" Ambient cried, bounding with
+his great strides across the lawn.
+
+As soon as he had gone I felt that I ought to have volunteered in
+his place, and I said as much to Miss Ambient; but she checked me by
+grasping my arm quickly, while we heard the wheels of the dog-cart
+rattle away from the gate. "He's off--he's off--and now I can think! To
+get him away--while I think--while I think!"
+
+"While you think of what, Miss Ambient?"
+
+"Of the unspeakable thing that has happened under this roof!"
+
+Her manner was habitually that of such a prophetess of ill that my first
+impulse was to believe I must allow here for a great exaggeration.
+But in a moment I saw that her emotion was real. "Dolcino _is_ dying
+then,--he is dead?"
+
+"It's too late to save him. His mother has let him die! I tell you that
+because you are sympathetic, because you have imagination," Miss Ambient
+was good enough to add, interrupting my expression of horror. "That's
+why you had the idea of making her read Mark's new book!"
+
+"What has that to do with it? I don't understand you; your accusation is
+monstrous."
+
+"I see it all; I'm not stupid," Miss Ambient went on, heedless of the
+harshness of my tone. "It was the book that finished her; it was that
+decided her!"
+
+"Decided her? Do you mean she has murdered her child?" I demanded,
+trembling at my own words.
+
+"She sacrificed him; she determined to do nothing to make him live. Why
+else did she lock herself up, why else did she turn away the doctor? The
+book gave her a horror; she determined to rescue him,--to prevent him
+from ever being touched. He had a crisis at two o'clock in the morning.
+I know that from the nurse, who had left her then, but whom, for a short
+time, she called back. Dolcino got much worse, but she insisted on the
+nurse's going back to bed, and after that she was alone with him for
+hours."
+
+"Do you pretend that she has no pity, that she's insane?"
+
+"She held him in her arms, she pressed him to her breast, not to see
+him; but she gave him no remedies; she did nothing the doctor ordered.
+Everything is there, untouched. She has had the honesty not even to
+throw the drugs away!"
+
+I dropped upon the nearest bench, overcome with wonder and agitation,
+quite as much at Miss Armbient's terrible lucidity as at the charge she
+made against her sister-in-law. There was an amazing coherency in her
+story, and it was dreadful to me to see myself figuring in it as so
+proximate a cause.
+
+"You are a very strange woman, and you say strange things."
+
+"You think it necessary to protest, but you are quite ready to believe
+me. You have received an impression of my sister-in-law, you have
+guessed of what she is capable."
+
+I do not feel bound to say what concession, on this point, I made to
+Miss Ambient, who went on to relate to me that within the last half-hour
+Beatrice had had a revulsion; that she was tremendously frightened at
+what she had done; that her fright itself betrayed her; and that she
+would now give heaven and earth to save the child. "Let us hope she
+will!" I said, looking at my watch and trying to time poor Ambient;
+whereupon my companion repeated, in a singular tone, "Let us hope so!"
+When I asked her if she herself could do nothing, and whether she ought
+not to be with her sister-in-law, she replied, "You had better go and
+judge; she is like a wounded tigress!"
+
+I never saw Mrs. Ambient till six months after this, and therefore
+cannot pretend to have verified the comparison. At the latter period she
+was again the type of the lady. "She'll treat him better after this," I
+remember Miss Ambient saying, in response to some quick outburst (on my
+part) of compassion for her brother. Although I had been in the house
+but thirty-six hours, this young lady had treated me with extraordinary
+confidence, and there was therefore a certain demand which, as an
+intimate, I might make of her. I extracted from her a pledge that she
+would never say to her brother what she had just said to me; she would
+leave him to form his own theory of his wife's conduct. She agreed with
+me that there was misery enough in the house, without her contributing a
+new anguish, and that Mrs. Ambient's proceedings might be explained, to
+her husband's mind, by the extravagance of a jealous devotion. Poor Mark
+came back with the doctor much sooner than we could have hoped, but we
+knew, five minutes afterwards, that they arrived too late. Poor little
+Dolcino was more exquisitely beautiful in death than he had been in
+life. Mrs. Ambient's grief was frantic; she lost her head and said
+strange things. As for Mark's--but I will not speak of that. _Basta_,
+as he used to say. Miss Ambient kept her secret,--I have already had
+occasion to say that she had her good points,--but it rankled in her
+conscience like a guilty participation, and, I imagine, had something
+to do with her retiring ultimately to a Sisterhood. And, _� propos_ of
+consciences, the reader is now in a position to judge of my compunction
+for my effort to convert Mrs. Ambient. I ought to mention that the
+death of her child in some degree converted her. When the new book came
+out--it was long delayed--she read it over as a whole, and her husband
+told me that a few months before her death,--she failed rapidly
+after losing her son, sank into a consumption, and faded away
+at Mentone,--during those few supreme weeks she even dipped into
+_Beltraffio_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO ***
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      The Author of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Author Of Beltraffio
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21770]
+Last Updated: September 18, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO.
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Henry James <br /> <br /> <br /> 1885
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART1"> PART I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART II. </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Much as I wished to see him, I had kept my letter of introduction for
+      three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about meeting him,&mdash;conscious
+      of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was tormented by strangers, and
+      especially by my country-people, and not exempt from the suspicion that he
+      had the irritability as well as the brilliancy of genius. Moreover, the
+      pleasure, if it should occur (for I could scarcely believe it was near at
+      hand), would be so great that I wished to think of it in advance, to feel
+      that it was in my pocket, not to mix it with satisfactions more
+      superficial and usual In the little game of new sensations that I was
+      playing with my ingenuous mind, I wished to keep my visit to the author of
+      <i>Beltraffio</i> as a trump card. It was three years after the
+      publication of that fascinating work, which I had read over five times,
+      and which now, with my riper judgment, I admire on the whole as much as
+      ever. This will give you about the date of my first visit (of any
+      duration) to England; for you will not have forgotten the commotion&mdash;I
+      may even say the scandal&mdash;produced by Mark Ambient&rsquo;s masterpiece. It
+      was the most complete presentation that had yet been made of the gospel of
+      art; it was a kind of aesthetic war-cry. People had endeavored to sail
+      nearer to &ldquo;truth&rdquo; in the cut of their sleeves and the shape of their
+      sideboards; but there had not as yet been, among English novels, such an
+      example of beauty of execution and genuineness of substance. Nothing had
+      been done in that line from the point of view of art for art This was my
+      own point of view, I may mention, when I was twenty-five; whether it is
+      altered now I won&rsquo;t take upon myself to say&mdash;especially as the
+      discerning reader will be able to judge for himself. I had been in
+      England, briefly, a twelvemonth before the time to which I began by
+      alluding, and had learned then that Mr. Ambient was in distant lands&mdash;was
+      making a considerable tour in the East: so there was nothing to do but to
+      keep my letter till I should be in London again. It was of little use to
+      me to hear that his wife had not left England, and, with her little boy,
+      their only child, was spending the period of her husband&rsquo;s absence&mdash;a
+      good many months&mdash;at a small place they had down in Surrey. They had
+      a house in London which was let. All this I learned, and also that Mrs.
+      Ambient was charming (my friend the American poet, from whom I had my
+      introduction, had never seen her, his relations with the great man being
+      only epistolary); but she was not, after all, though she had lived so near
+      the rose, the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>, and I did not go down into
+      Surrey to call on her. I went to the Continent, spent the following winter
+      in Italy, and returned to London in May. My visit to Italy opened my eyes
+      to a good many things, but to nothing more than the beauty of certain
+      pages in the works of Mark Ambient I had every one of his productions in
+      my portmanteau,&mdash;they are not, as you know, very numerous, but he had
+      preluded to <i>Beltraffio</i> by some exquisite things,&mdash;and I used
+      to read them over in the evening at the inn. I used to say to myself that
+      the man who drew those characters and wrote that style understood what he
+      saw and knew what he was doing. This is my only reason for mentioning my
+      winter in Italy. He had been there much in former years, and he was
+      saturated with what painters call the &ldquo;feeling&rdquo; of that classic land. He
+      expressed the charm of the old hill-cities of Tuscany, the look of certain
+      lonely grass-grown places which, in the past, had echoed with life; he
+      understood the great artists, he understood the spirit of the Renaissance,
+      he understood everything. The scene of one of his earlier novels was laid
+      in Borne, the scene of another in Florence, and I moved through these
+      cities in company with the figures whom Mark Ambient had set so vividly
+      upon their feet. This is why I was now so much happier even than before in
+      the prospect of making his acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, when I had dallied with this privilege long enough, I despatched
+      to him the missive of the American poet He had already gone out of town;
+      he shrank from the rigor of the London &ldquo;season&rdquo; and it was his habit to
+      migrate on the first of June. Moreover, I had heard that this year he was
+      hard at work on a new book, into which some of his impressions of the East
+      were to be wrought, so that he desired nothing so much as quiet days. This
+      knowledge, however, did not prevent me&mdash;<i>cet âge est sans pitié</i>&mdash;from
+      sending with my friend&rsquo;s letter a note of my own, in which I asked Mr.
+      Ambient&rsquo;s leave to come down and see him for an hour or two, on a day to
+      be designated by himself. My proposal was accompanied with a very frank
+      expression of my sentiments, and the effect of the whole projectile was to
+      elicit from the great man the kindest possible invitation. He would be
+      delighted to see me, especially if I should turn up on the following
+      Saturday and would remain till the Monday morning. We would take a walk
+      over the Surrey commons, and I could tell him all about the other great
+      man, the one in America. He indicated to me the best train, and it may be
+      imagined whether on the Saturday afternoon I was punctual at Waterloo. He
+      carried his benevolence to the point of coming to meet me at the little
+      station at which I was to alight, and my heart beat very fast as I saw his
+      handsome face, surmounted with a soft wide-awake, and which I knew by a
+      photograph long since enshrined upon my mantelshelf, scanning the carriage
+      windows as the train rolled up. He recognized me as infallibly as I had
+      recognized him; he appeared to know by instinct how a young American of an
+      æsthetic turn would look when much divided between eagerness and modesty.
+      He took me by the hand, and smiled at me, and said: &ldquo;You must be&mdash;a&mdash;<i>you</i>,
+      I think!&rdquo; and asked if I should mind going on foot to his house, which
+      would take but a few minutes. I remember thinking it a piece of
+      extraordinary affability that he should give directions about the
+      conveyance of my bag, and feeling altogether very happy and rosy, in fact
+      quite transported, when he laid his hand on my shoulder as we came out of
+      the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I surveyed him, askance, as we walked together; I had already&mdash;I had
+      indeed instantly&mdash;seen that he was a delightful creature. His face is
+      so well known that I need n&rsquo;t describe it; he looked to me at once an
+      English gentleman and a man of genius, and I thought that a happy
+      combination. There was just a little of the Bohemian in his appearance;
+      you would easily have guessed that he belonged to the guild of artists and
+      men of letters. He was addicted to velvet jackets, to cigarettes, to loose
+      shirt-collars, to looking a little dishevelled. His features, which were
+      fine, but not perfectly regular, are fairly enough represented in his
+      portraits; but no portrait that I have seen gives any idea of his
+      expression. There were so many things in it, and they chased each other in
+      and out of his face. I have seen people who were grave and gay in quick
+      alternation; but Mark Ambient was grave and gay at one and the same
+      moment. There were other strange oppositions and contradictions in his
+      slightly faded and fatigued countenance. He seemed both young and old,
+      both anxious and indifferent. He had evidently had an active past, which
+      inspired one with curiosity, and yet it was impossible not to be more
+      curious still about his future. He was just enough above middle height to
+      be spoken of as tall, and rather lean and long in the flank. He had the
+      friendliest, frankest manner possible, and yet I could see that he was
+      shy. He was thirty-eight years old at the time <i>Beltraffio</i> was
+      published. He asked me about his friend in America, about the length of my
+      stay in England, about the last news in London and the people I had seen
+      there; and I remember looking for the signs of genius in the very form of
+      his questions, and thinking I found it. I liked his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was genius in his house, too, I thought, when we got there; there
+      was imagination in the carpets and curtains, in the pictures and books, in
+      the garden behind it, where certain old brown walls were muffled in
+      creepers that appeared to me to have been copied from a masterpiece of one
+      of the pre-Raphaelites. That was the way many things struck me at that
+      time, in England; as if they were reproductions of something that existed
+      primarily in art or literature. It was not the picture, the poem, the
+      fictive page, that seemed to me a copy; these things were the originals,
+      and the life of happy and distinguished people was fashioned in their
+      image. Mark Ambient called his house a cottage, and I perceived afterwards
+      that he was right; for if it had not been a cottage it must have been a
+      villa, and a villa, in England at least, was not a place in which one
+      could fancy him at home. But it was, to my vision, a cottage glorified and
+      translated; it was a palace of art, on a slightly reduced scale,&mdash;it
+      was an old English demesne. It nestled under a cluster of magnificent
+      beeches, it had little creaking lattices that opened out of, or into,
+      pendent mats of ivy, and gables, and old red tiles, as well as a general
+      aspect of being painted in water-colors and inhabited by people whose
+      lives would go on in chapters and volumes. The lawn seemed to me of
+      extraordinary extent, the garden-walls of incalculable height, the whole
+      air of the place delightfully still, private, proper to itself. &ldquo;My wife
+      must be somewhere about,&rdquo; Mark Ambient said, as we went in. &ldquo;We shall find
+      her perhaps; we have got about an hour before dinner. She may be in the
+      garden. I will show you my little place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We passed through the house, and into the grounds, as I should have called
+      them, which extended into the rear. They covered but three or four acres,
+      but, like the house, they were very old and crooked, and full of traces of
+      long habitation, with inequalities of level and little steps&mdash;mossy
+      and cracked were these&mdash;which connected the different parts with each
+      other. The limits of the place, cleverly dissimulated, were muffled in the
+      deepest verdure. They made, as I remember, a kind of curtain at the
+      further end, in one of the folds of which, as it were, we presently
+      perceived, from afar, a little group. &ldquo;Ah, there she is!&rdquo; said Mark
+      Ambient; &ldquo;and she has got the boy.&rdquo; He made this last remark in a slightly
+      different tone from any in which he yet had spoken. I was not fully aware
+      of it at the time, but it lingered in my ear and I afterwards understood
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it your son?&rdquo; I inquired, feeling the question not to be brilliant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my only child. He&rsquo;s always in his mother&rsquo;s pocket She coddles him
+      too much.&rdquo; It came back to me afterwards, too&mdash;the manner in which he
+      spoke these words. They were not petulant; they expressed rather a sudden
+      coldness, a kind of mechanical submission. We went a few steps further,
+      and then he stopped short and called the boy, beckoning to him repeatedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolcino, come and see your daddy!&rdquo; There was something in the way he
+      stood still and waited that made me think he did it for a purpose. Mrs.
+      Ambient had her arm round the child&rsquo;s waist, and he was leaning against
+      her knee; but though he looked up at the sound of his father&rsquo;s voice, she
+      gave no sign of releasing him. A lady, apparently a neighbor, was seated
+      near her, and before them was a garden-table, on which a tea-service had
+      been placed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Ambient called again, and Dolcino struggled in the maternal embrace,
+      but he was too tightly held, and after two or three fruitless efforts he
+      suddenly turned round and buried his head deep in his mother&rsquo;s lap. There
+      was a certain awkwardness in the scene; I thought it rather odd that Mrs.
+      Ambient should pay so little attention to her husband. But I would not for
+      the world have betrayed my thought, and, to conceal it, I observed that it
+      must be such a pleasant thing to have tea in the garden. &ldquo;Ah, she won&rsquo;t
+      let him come!&rdquo; said Mark Ambient, with a sigh; and we went our way &lsquo;till
+      we reached the two ladies. He mentioned my name to his wife, and I noticed
+      that he addressed her as &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; very genially, without any trace of
+      resentment at her detention of the child. The quickness of the transition
+      made me vaguely ask myself whether he were henpecked,&mdash;a shocking
+      conjecture, which I instantly dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a
+      wife as I should have expected him to have; slim and fair, with a long
+      neck and pretty eyes and an air of great refinement. She was a little
+      cold, and a little shy; but she was very sweet, and she had a certain look
+      of race, justified by my afterwards learning that she was &ldquo;connected&rdquo; with
+      two or three great families. I have seen poets married to women of whom it
+      was difficult to conceive that they should gratify the poetic fancy,&mdash;women
+      with dull faces and glutinous minds, who were none the less, however,
+      excellent wives. But there was no obvious incongruity in Mark Ambient&rsquo;s
+      union. Mrs. Ambient, delicate and quiet, in a white dress, with her
+      beautiful child at her side, was worthy of the author of a work so
+      distinguished as <i>Beltraffio</i>. Bound her neck she wore a black velvet
+      ribbon, of which the long ends, tied behind, hung down her back, and to
+      which, in front, was attached a miniature portrait of her little boy. Her
+      smooth, shining hair was confined in a net She gave me a very pleasant
+      greeting, and Dolcino&mdash;I thought this little name of endearment
+      delightful&mdash;took advantage of her getting up to slip away from her
+      and go to his father, who said nothing to him, but simply seized him and
+      held him high in his arms for a moment, kissing him several times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had lost no time in observing that the child, who was not more than
+      seven years old, was extraordinarily beautiful He had the face of an
+      angel,&mdash;the eyes, the hair, the more than mortal bloom, the smile of
+      innocence. There was something touching, almost alarming, in his beauty,
+      which seemed to be composed of elements too fine and pure for the breath
+      of this world. When I spoke to him, and he came and held out his hand and
+      smiled at me, I felt a sudden pity for him, as if he had been an orphan,
+      or a changeling, or stamped with some social stigma. It was impossible to
+      be, in fact, more exempt from these misfortunes, and yet, as one kissed
+      him, it was hard to keep from murmuring &ldquo;Poor little devil!&rdquo; though why
+      one should have applied this epithet to a living cherub is more than I can
+      say. Afterwards, indeed, I knew a little better; I simply discovered that
+      he was too charming to live, wondering at the same time that his parents
+      should not have perceived it, and should not be in proportionate grief and
+      despair. For myself, I had no doubt of his evanescence, having already
+      noticed that there is a kind of charm which is like a death-warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady who had been sitting with Mrs. Ambient was a jolly, ruddy
+      personage, dressed in velveteen and rather limp feathers, whom I guessed
+      to be the vicar&rsquo;s wife,&mdash;our hostess did not introduce me,&mdash;and
+      who immediately began to talk to Ambient about chrysanthemums. This was a
+      safe subject, and yet there was a certain surprise for me in seeing the
+      author of <i>Beltraffio</i> even in such superficial communion with the
+      Church of England. His writings implied so much detachment from that
+      institution, expressed a view of life so profane, as it were, so
+      independent, and so little likely, in general, to be thought edifying,
+      that I should have expected to find him an object of horror to vicars and
+      their ladies&mdash;of horror repaid on his own part by good-natured but
+      brilliant mockery. This proves how little I knew as yet of the English
+      people and their extraordinary talent for keeping up their forms, as well
+      as of some of the mysteries of Mark Ambient&rsquo;s hearth and home. I found
+      afterwards that he had, in his study, between smiles and cigar-smoke, some
+      wonderful comparisons for his clerical neighbors; but meanwhile the
+      chrysanthemums were a source of harmony, for he and the vicaress were
+      equally fond of them, and I was surprised at the knowledge they exhibited
+      of this interesting plant. The lady&rsquo;s visit, however, had presumably
+      already been long, and she presently got up, saying she must go, and
+      kissed Mrs. Ambient Mark started to walk with her to the gate of the
+      grounds, holding Dolcino by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay with me, my darling,&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient said to the boy, who was
+      wandering away with his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Ambient paid no attention to the summons, but Dolcino turned round
+      and looked with eyes of shy entreaty at his mother. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I go with
+      papa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not when I ask you to stay with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But please don&rsquo;t ask me, mamma,&rdquo; said the child, in his little clear, new
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must ask you when I want you. Come to me, my darling.&rdquo; And Mrs.
+      Ambient, who had seated herself again, held out her long, slender hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband stopped, with his back turned to her, but without releasing
+      the child. He was still talking to the vicaress, but this good lady, I
+      think, had lost the thread of her attention. She looked at Mrs. Ambient
+      and at Dolcino, and then she looked at me, smiling very hard, in an
+      extremely fixed, cheerful manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa,&rdquo; said the child, &ldquo;mamma wants me not to go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very tired&mdash;he has run about all day. He ought to be quiet till
+      he goes to bed. Otherwise he won&rsquo;t sleep.&rdquo; These declarations fell
+      successively and gravely from Mrs. Ambient&rsquo;s lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband, still without turning round, bent over the boy and looked at
+      him in silence. The vicaress gave a genial, irrelevant laugh, and observed
+      that he was a precious little pet &ldquo;Let him choose,&rdquo; said Mark Ambient. &ldquo;My
+      dear little boy, will you go with me or will you stay with your mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s a shame!&rdquo; cried the vicar&rsquo;s lady, with increased hilarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa, I don&rsquo;t think I can choose,&rdquo; the child answered, making his voice
+      very low and confidential. &ldquo;But I have been a great deal with mamma
+      to-day,&rdquo; he added in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And very little with papa! My dear fellow, I think you have chosen!&rdquo; And
+      Mark Ambient walked off with his son, accompanied by re-echoing but
+      inarticulate comments from my fellow-visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife had seated herself again, and her fixed eyes, bent upon the
+      ground, expressed for a few moments so much mute agitation that I felt as
+      if almost any remark from my own lips would be a false note. But Mrs.
+      Ambient quickly recovered herself, and said to me civilly enough that she
+      hoped I did n&rsquo;t mind having had to walk from the station. I reassured her
+      on this point, and she went on, &ldquo;We have got a thing that might have gone
+      for you, but my husband wouldn&rsquo;t order it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That gave me the pleasure of a walk with him,&rdquo; I rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent a minute, and then she said, &ldquo;I believe the Americans walk
+      very little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we always run,&rdquo; I answered laughingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me seriously, and I began to perceive a certain coldness in
+      her pretty eyes. &ldquo;I suppose your distances are so great?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but we break our marches I I can&rsquo;t tell you what a pleasure it is
+      for me to find myself here,&rdquo; I added. &ldquo;I have the greatest admiration for
+      Mr. Ambient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will like that. He likes being admired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have a very happy life, then. He has many worshippers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I have seen some of them,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient, looking away, very
+      far from me, rather as if such a vision were before her at the moment
+      Something in her tone seemed to indicate that the vision was scarcely
+      edifying, and I guessed very quickly that she was not in sympathy with the
+      author of <i>Beltraffio</i>. I thought the fact strange, but, somehow, in
+      the glow of my own enthusiasm, I did n&rsquo;t think it important; it only made
+      me wish to be rather explicit about that enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For me, you know,&rdquo; I remarked, &ldquo;he is quite the greatest of living
+      writers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I can&rsquo;t judge. Of course he&rsquo;s very clever,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient,
+      smiling a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s magnificent, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in each of his books that
+      have a perfection that classes them with the greatest things. Therefore,
+      for me to see him in this familiar way,&mdash;in his habit as he lives,&mdash;and
+      to find, apparently, the man as delightful as the artist, I can&rsquo;t tell you
+      how much too good to be true it seems, and how great a privilege I think
+      it.&rdquo; I knew that I was gushing, but I could n&rsquo;t help it, and what I said
+      was a good deal less than what I felt. I was by no means sure that I
+      should dare to say even so much as this to Ambient himself, and there was
+      a kind of rapture in speaking it out to his wife which was not affected by
+      the fact that, as a wife, she appeared peculiar. She listened to me with
+      her face grave again, and with her lips a little compressed, as if there
+      were no doubt, of course, that her husband was remarkable, but at the same
+      time she had heard all this before and couldn&rsquo;t be expected to be
+      particularly interested in it. There was even in her manner an intimation
+      that I was rather young, and that people usually got over that sort of
+      thing. &ldquo;I assure you that for me this is a red-letter day,&rdquo; I added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no response, until after a pause, looking round her, she said
+      abruptly, though gently, &ldquo;We are very much afraid about the fruit this
+      year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My eyes wandered to the mossy, mottled, garden walls, where plum-trees and
+      pear-trees, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked like
+      crucified figures with many arms. &ldquo;Does n&rsquo;t it promise well?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was another pause. Mrs. Ambient kept her eyes fixed on the
+      opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband&rsquo;s
+      return with the child. &ldquo;Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?&rdquo; it occurred to
+      me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to bring
+      the conversation constantly back to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very fond of plums,&rdquo; said his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It&rsquo;s a
+      lovely old place,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;The whole character of it is that of
+      certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his pictures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it has got his tone,&rdquo; I said, laughing, and insisting on my point the
+      more that Mrs. Ambient appeared to see in my appreciation of her simple
+      establishment a sign of limited experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that I insisted too much. &ldquo;His tone?&rdquo; she repeated, with a
+      quick look at me, and a slightly heightened color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, he has indeed! But I don&rsquo;t in the least consider that I am
+      living in one of his books; I should n&rsquo;t care for that, at all,&rdquo; she went
+      on, with a smile which had in some degree the effect of converting her
+      slightly sharp protest into a joke deficient in point &ldquo;I am afraid I am
+      not very literary,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient. &ldquo;And I am not artistic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very sure you are not ignorant, not stupid,&rdquo; I ventured to reply,
+      with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had been
+      both familiar and patronizing. My only consolation was in the reflection
+      that it was she, and not I, who had begun it She had brought her
+      idiosyncrasies into the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, whatever I am, I am very different from my husband. If you like
+      him, you won&rsquo;t like me. You need n&rsquo;t say anything. Your liking me is n&rsquo;t
+      in the least necessary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t defy me!&rdquo; I exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked as if she had not heard me, which was the best thing she could
+      do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient had
+      evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be silent without
+      being restless. But at last she spoke; she asked me if there seemed to be
+      many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could on this point,
+      and we talked a little about London and of some pictures it presented at
+      that time of the year. At the end of this I came back, irrepressibly, to
+      Mark Ambient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does n&rsquo;t he like to be there now? I suppose he does n&rsquo;t find the proper
+      quiet for his work. I should think his things had been written, for the
+      most part, in a very still place. They suggest a great stillness,
+      following on a kind of tumult. Don&rsquo;t you think so? I suppose London is a
+      tremendous place to collect impressions, but a refuge like this, in the
+      country, must be much better for working them up. Does he get many of his
+      impressions in London, do you think?&rdquo; I proceeded from point to point in
+      this malign inquiry, simply because my hostess, who probably thought me a
+      very pushing and talkative young man, gave me time; for when I paused&mdash;I
+      have not represented my pauses&mdash;she simply continued to let her eyes
+      wander, and, with her long fair fingers, played with the medallion on her
+      neck. When I stopped altogether, however, she was obliged to say
+      something, and what she said was that she had not the least idea where her
+      husband got his impressions. This made me think her, for a moment,
+      positively disagreeable; delicate and proper and rather aristocratically
+      dry as she sat there. But I must either have lost the impression a moment
+      later, or been goaded by it to further aggression, for I remember asking
+      her whether Mr. Ambient were in a good vein of work, and when we might
+      look for the appearance of the book on which he was engaged. I have every
+      reason now to know that she thought me an odious person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave a strange, small laugh as she said, &ldquo;I am afraid you think I know
+      a great deal more about my husband&rsquo;s work than I do. I haven&rsquo;t the least
+      idea what he is doing,&rdquo; she added presently, in a slightly different, that
+      is a more explanatory, tone, as if she recognized in some degree the
+      enormity of her confession. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t read what he writes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not succeed (and would not, even had she tried much harder) in
+      making it seem to me anything less than monstrous. I stared at her, and I
+      think I blushed. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you admire his genius? Don&rsquo;t you admire <i>Beltraffio?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated a moment, and I wondered what she could possibly say. She
+      did not speak&mdash;I could see&mdash;the first words that rose to her
+      lips; she repeated what she had said a few minutes before. &ldquo;Oh, of course
+      he &lsquo;s very clever!&rdquo; And with this she got up; her husband and little boy
+      had reappeared. Mrs. Ambient left me and went to meet them; she stopped
+      and had a few words with her husband, which I did not hear, and which
+      ended in her taking the child by the hand and returning to the house with
+      him. Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit
+      conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he
+      would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my
+      visit to him, I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to have
+      understood his situation from the first, and to have seen in him the signs
+      of things which I learnt only afterwards. This later knowledge throws a
+      backward light, and makes me forget that at least on the occasion of which
+      I am speaking now (I mean that first afternoon), Mark Ambient struck me as
+      a fortunate man. Allowing for this, I think he was rather silent and
+      irresponsive as we walked back to the house, though I remember well the
+      answer he made to a remark of mine in relation to his child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s an extraordinary little boy of yours,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I have never seen
+      such a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you call him extraordinary?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so beautiful, so fascinating. He&rsquo;s like a little work of art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned quickly, grasping my arm an instant. &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t call him that,
+      or you &lsquo;ll&mdash;you &lsquo;ll&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in his hesitation he broke off suddenly, laughing at my surprise. But
+      immediately afterwards he added, &ldquo;You will make his little future very
+      difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I declared that I wouldn&rsquo;t for the world take any liberties with his
+      little future&mdash;it seemed to me to hang by threads of such delicacy. I
+      should only be highly interested in watching it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You Americans are very sharp,&rdquo; said Ambient &ldquo;You notice more things than
+      we do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, if you want visitors who are not struck with you, you should n&rsquo;t ask
+      me down here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He showed me my room, a little bower of chintz, with open windows where
+      the light was green, and before he left me he said irrelevantly, &ldquo;As for
+      my little boy, you know, we shall probably kill him between us, before wo
+      have done with him!&rdquo; And he made this assertion as if he really believed
+      it, without any appearance of jest, with his fine, near-sighted,
+      expressive eyes looking straight into mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean by spoiling him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; by fighting for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better give him to me to keep for you,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Let me remove
+      the apple of discord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed, of course, but he had the air of being perfectly serious. &ldquo;It
+      would be quite the best thing we could do. I should be quite ready to do
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am greatly obliged to you for your confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Ambient lingered there, with his hands in his pockets. I felt, within
+      a few moments, as if I had, morally speaking, taken several steps nearer
+      to him. He looked weary, just as he faced me then, looked preoccupied, and
+      as if there were something one might do for him. I was terribly conscious
+      of the limits of my own ability, but I wondered what such a service might
+      be, feeling at bottom, however, that the only thing I could do for him was
+      to like him. I suppose he guessed this, and was grateful for what was in
+      my mind; for he went on presently, &ldquo;I have n&rsquo;t the advantage of being an
+      American. But I also notice a little, and I have an idea that&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo;
+       here he smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder, &ldquo;that even apart from
+      your nationality, you are not destitute of intelligence! I have only known
+      you half an hour, but&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo; And here he hesitated again. &ldquo;You
+      are very young, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you may treat me as if I could understand you!&rdquo; I said; and before he
+      left me to dress for dinner he had virtually given me a promise that he
+      would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I went down into the drawing-room&mdash;I was very punctual&mdash;I
+      found that neither my hostess nor my host had appeared. A lady rose from a
+      sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at her.
+      &ldquo;I dare say you don&rsquo;t know me,&rdquo; she said, with the modern laugh. &ldquo;I am
+      Mark Ambient&rsquo;s sister.&rdquo; Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting her
+      very low. Her laugh was modern&mdash;by which I mean that it consisted of
+      the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms,
+      serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions; but
+      her appearance was&mdash;what shall I call it?&mdash;mediaeval. She was
+      pale and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and
+      black hair intertwined with golden fillets and curious chains. She wore a
+      faded velvet robe, which clung to her when she moved, fashioned, as to the
+      neck and sleeves, like the garments of old Venetians and Florentines. She
+      looked pictorial and melancholy, and was so perfect an image of a type
+      which I, in my ignorance, supposed to be extinct, that while she rose
+      before me I was almost as much startled as if I had seen a ghost. I
+      afterwards perceived that Miss Ambient was not incapable of deriving
+      pleasure from the effect she produced, and I think this sentiment had
+      something to do with her sinking again into her seat, with her long, lean,
+      but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic manner on her knees,
+      and her mournful eyes addressing themselves to me with an intentness which
+      was a menace of what they were destined subsequently to inflict upon me.
+      She was a singular, self-conscious, artificial creature, and I never,
+      subsequently, more than half penetrated her motives and, mysteries. Of one
+      thing I am sure, however: that they were considerably less extraordinary
+      than her appearance announced. Miss Ambient was a restless, disappointed,
+      imaginative spinster, consumed with the love of Michael-Angelesque
+      attitudes and mystical robes; but I am pretty sure she had not in her
+      nature those depths of unutterable thought which, when you first knew her,
+      seemed to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures.
+      Those features, in especial, had a misleading eloquence; they rested upon
+      you with a far-off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was
+      certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; and I suspect
+      that a young lady could not really have been so dejected and disillusioned
+      as Miss Ambient looked, without having committed a crime for which she was
+      consumed with remorse, or parted with a hope which she could not sanely
+      have entertained. She had, I believe, the usual allowance of vulgar
+      impulses: she wished to be looked at, she wished to be married, she wished
+      to be thought original. It costs me something to speak in this irreverent
+      manner of Mark Ambient&rsquo;s sister, but I shall have still more disagreeable
+      things to say before I have finished my little anecdote, and moreover,&mdash;I
+      confess it,&mdash;I owe the young lady a sort of grudge. Putting aside the
+      curious cast of her face, she had no natural aptitude for an artistic
+      development,&mdash;she had little real intelligence. But her affectations
+      rubbed off on her brother&rsquo;s renown, and as there were plenty of people who
+      disapproved of him totally, they could easily point to his sister as a
+      person formed by his influence. It was quite possible to regard her as a
+      warning, and she had done him but little good with the world at large. He
+      was the original, and she was the inevitable imitation. I think he was
+      scarcely aware of the impression she produced, beyond having a general
+      idea that she made up very well as a Rossetti; he was used to her, and he
+      was sorry for her,&mdash;wishing she would marry and observing that she
+      did n&rsquo;t Doubtless I take her too seriously, for she did me no harm, though
+      I am bound to add that I feel I can only half account for her. She was not
+      so mystical as she looked, but she was a strange, indirect, uncomfortable,
+      embarrassing woman. My story will give the reader at best so very small a
+      knot to untie that I need not hope to excite his curiosity by delaying to
+      remark that Mrs. Ambient hated her sister-in-law. This I only found out
+      afterwards, when I found out some other things. But I mention it at once,
+      for I shall perhaps not seem to count too much on having enlisted the
+      imagination of the reader if I say that he will already have guessed it
+      Mrs. Ambient was a person of conscience, and she endeavored to behave
+      properly to her kinswoman, who spent a month with her twice a year; but it
+      required no great insight to discover that the two ladies were made of a
+      very different paste, and that the usual feminine hypocrisies must have
+      cost them, on either side, much more than the usual effort. Mrs. Ambient,
+      smooth-haired, thin-lipped, perpetually fresh, must have regarded her
+      crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she herself was not
+      a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she had in her
+      appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike candor, and a
+      well-starched muslin dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in a garment, and with an expression, of this kind, that she made
+      her entrance, after I had exchanged a few words with Miss Ambient. Her
+      husband presently followed her, and there being no other company we went
+      to dinner. The impression I received from that repast is present to me
+      still. There were elements of oddity in my companions, but they were vague
+      and latent, and did n&rsquo;t interfere with my delight It came mainly, of
+      course, from Ambient&rsquo;s talk, which was the most brilliant and interesting
+      I had ever heard. I know not whether he laid himself out to dazzle a
+      rather juvenile pilgrim from over the sea; but it matters little, for it
+      was very easy for him to shine. He was almost better as a talker than as a
+      writer; that is, if the extraordinary finish of his written prose be
+      really, as some people have maintained, a fault. There was such a kindness
+      in him, however, that I have no doubt it gave him ideas to see me sit
+      open-mouthed, as I suppose I did. Not so the two ladies, who not only were
+      very nearly dumb from beginning to the end of the meal, but who had not
+      the air of being struck with such an exhibition of wit and knowledge. Mrs.
+      Ambient, placid and detached, met neither my eye nor her husband&rsquo;s; she
+      attended to her dinner, watched the servants, arranged the puckers in her
+      dress, exchanged at wide intervals a remark with her sister-in-law, and
+      while she slowly rubbed her white hands between the courses, looked out of
+      the window at the first signs of twilight&mdash;the long June day allowing
+      us to dine without candles.. Miss Ambient appeared to give little direct
+      heed to her brother&rsquo;s discourse; but on the other hand she was much
+      engaged in watching its effect upon me. Her lustreless pupils continued to
+      attach themselves to my countenance, and it was only her air of belonging
+      to another century that kept them from being importunate. She seemed to
+      look at me across the ages, and the interval of time diminished the
+      vividness of the performance. It was as if she knew in a general way that
+      her brother must be talking very well, but she herself was so rich in
+      ideas that she had no need to pick them up, and was at liberty to see what
+      would become of a young American when subjected to a high aesthetic
+      temperature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The temperature was æsthetic, certainly, but it was less so than I could
+      have desired, for I was unsuccessful in certain little attempts to make
+      Mark Ambient talk about himself I tried to put him on the ground of his
+      own writings, but he slipped through my fingers every time and shifted the
+      saddle to one of his contemporaries. He talked about Balzac and Browning,
+      and what was being done in foreign countries, and about his recent tour in
+      the East, and the extraordinary forms of life that one saw in that part of
+      the world. I perceived that he had reasons for not wishing to descant upon
+      literature, and suffered him without protest to deliver himself on certain
+      social topics, which he treated with extraordinary humor and with constant
+      revelations of that power of ironical portraiture of which his books are
+      full. He had a great deal to say about London, as London appears to the
+      observer who does n&rsquo;t fear the accusation of cynicism, during the
+      high-pressure time&mdash;from April to July&mdash;of its peculiarities. He
+      flashed his faculty of making the fanciful real and the real fanciful over
+      the perfunctory pleasures and desperate exertions of so many of his
+      compatriots, among whom there were evidently not a few types for which he
+      had little love. London bored him, and he made capital sport of it; his
+      only allusion, that I can remember, to his own work was his saying that he
+      meant some day to write an immense grotesque epic of London society. Miss
+      Ambient&rsquo;s perpetual gaze seemed to say to me: &ldquo;Do you perceive how
+      artistic we are? Frankly now, is it possible to be more artistic than
+      this? You surely won&rsquo;t deny that we are remarkable.&rdquo; I was irritated by
+      her use of the plural pronoun, for she had no right to pair herself with
+      her brother; and moreover, of course, I could not see my way to include
+      Mrs. Ambient. But there was no doubt that, for that matter, they were all
+      remarkable, and, with all allowances, I had never heard anything so
+      artistic. Mark Ambient&rsquo;s conversation seemed to play over the whole field
+      of knowledge and taste, and to flood it with light and color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the ladies had left us he took me into his study to smoke, and here
+      I led him on to talk freely enough about himself. I was bent upon proving
+      to him that I was worthy to listen to him, upon repaying him for what he
+      had said to me before dinner, by showing him how perfectly I understood.
+      He liked to talk; he liked to defend his ideas (not that I attacked them);
+      he liked a little perhaps&mdash;it was a pardonable weakness&mdash;to
+      astonish the youthful mind and to feel its admiration and sympathy. I
+      confess that my own youthful mind was considerably astonished at some of
+      his speeches; he startled me and he made me wince. He could not help
+      forgetting, or rather he could n&rsquo;t know, how little personal contact I had
+      had with the school in which he was master; and he promoted me at a jump,
+      as it were, to the study of its innermost mysteries. My trepidations,
+      however, were delightful; they were just what I had hoped for, and their
+      only fault was that they passed away too quickly; for I found that, as
+      regards most things, I very soon seized Mark Ambient&rsquo;s point of view. It
+      was the point of view of the artist to whom every manifestation of human
+      energy was a thrilling spectacle, and who felt forever the desire to
+      resolve his experience of life into a literary form. On this matter of the
+      passion for form,&mdash;the attempt at perfection, the quest for which was
+      to his mind the real search for the holy grail,&mdash;he said the most
+      interesting, the most inspiring things. He mixed with them a thousand
+      illustrations from his own life, from other lives that he had known, from
+      history and fiction, and above all from the annals of the time that was
+      dear to him beyond all periods,&mdash;the Italian <i>cinque-cento</i>. I
+      saw that in his books he had only said half of his thought, and what he
+      had kept back&mdash;from motives that I deplored when I learnt them later&mdash;was
+      the richer part It was his fortune to shock a great many people, but there
+      was not a grain of bravado in his pages (I have always maintained it,
+      though often contradicted), and at bottom the poor fellow, an artist to
+      his fingertips, and regarding a failure of completeness as a crime, had an
+      extreme dread of scandal. There are people who regret that having gone so
+      far he did not go further; but I regret nothing (putting aside two or
+      three of the motives I just mentioned), for he arrived at perfection, and
+      I don&rsquo;t see how you can go beyond that The hours I spent in his study&mdash;this
+      first one and the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so
+      numerous&mdash;seem to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone which is
+      partly that of the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candlelight
+      where we sat and smoked, with the dusky, delicate bindings of valuable
+      books; partly that of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged
+      with the images that came at his command. When we went back to the
+      drawing-room we found Miss Ambient alone in possession of it; and she
+      informed us that her sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been
+      called by the nurse to see Dolcino, who appeared to be a little feverish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Feverish! how in the world does he come to be feverish?&rdquo; Ambient asked.
+      &ldquo;He was perfectly well this afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice says you walked him about too much&mdash;you almost killed him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice must be very happy&mdash;she has an opportunity to triumph!&rdquo;
+       Mark Ambient said, with a laugh of which the bitterness was just
+      perceptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely not if the child is ill,&rdquo; I ventured to remark, by way of pleading
+      for Mrs. Ambient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow, you are not married&mdash;you don&rsquo;t know the nature of
+      wives!&rdquo; my host exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice is perfect as a mother,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient, with a tremendous
+      sigh and her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go up and see the child,&rdquo; her brother went on. &ldquo;Do you suppose
+      he&rsquo;s asleep?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice won&rsquo;t let you see him, Mark,&rdquo; said the young lady, looking at
+      me, though she addressed, our companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call that being perfect as a mother?&rdquo; Ambient inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, from her point of view.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn her point of view!&rdquo; cried the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>. And he
+      left the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had
+      some conversation, which was begun, I think, by my asking her what the
+      point of view of her sister-in-law could be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s so very odd,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But we are so very odd, altogether.
+      Don&rsquo;t you find us so? We have lived so much abroad. Have you people like
+      us in America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not all alike, surely; so that I don&rsquo;t think I understand your
+      question. We have no one like your brother&mdash;I may go so far as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have probably more persons like his wife,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you that better when you have told me about her point of
+      view.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes&mdash;oh, yes. Well, she does n&rsquo;t like his ideas. She doesn&rsquo;t
+      like them for the child. She thinks them undesirable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient&rsquo;s <i>arcana</i>,
+      I was particularly in a position to appreciate this announcement. But the
+      effect of it was to make me, after staring a moment, burst into laughter,
+      which I instantly checked when I remembered that there was a sick child
+      above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has that infant to do with ideas?&rdquo; I asked &ldquo;Surely, he can&rsquo;t tell
+      one from another. Has he read his father&rsquo;s novels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she can&rsquo;t
+      begin to guard him too early.&rdquo; Miss Ambient&rsquo;s head drooped a little to one
+      side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then suddenly there was a
+      strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile that was more joyless
+      than her gravity&mdash;a conscious, insincere smile, and added, &ldquo;When one
+      has children, it&rsquo;s a great responsibility&mdash;what one writes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Children are terrible critics,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I am rather glad I have n&rsquo;t
+      got any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you also write then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you
+      like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? I don&rsquo;t write,
+      but I think I feel.&rdquo; To these and various other inquiries and remarks the
+      young lady treated me, till we heard her brother&rsquo;s step in the hall again,
+      and Mark Ambient reappeared. He looked flushed and serious, and I supposed
+      that he had seen something to alarm him in the condition of his child. His
+      sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him a moment as if he
+      were a burning ship on the horizon, and simply murmured, &ldquo;Poor old Mark!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are not anxious,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I &lsquo;m disappointed. She won&rsquo;t let me in. She has locked the door,
+      and I &lsquo;m afraid to make a noise.&rdquo; I suppose there might have been
+      something ridiculous in a confession of this kind, but I liked my new
+      friend so much that for me it did n&rsquo;t detract from his dignity. &ldquo;She tells
+      me&mdash;from behind the door&mdash;that she will let me know if he is
+      worse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very good of her,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had exchanged a glance with Mark in which it is possible that he read
+      that my pity for him was untinged with contempt, though I know not why he
+      should have cared; and as, presently, his sister got up and took her
+      bedroom candlestick, he proposed that we should go back to his study. We
+      sat there till after midnight; he put himself into his slippers, into an
+      old velvet jacket, lighted an ancient pipe, and talked considerably less
+      than he had done before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were longish pauses in our communion, but they only made me feel
+      that we had advanced in intimacy. They helped me, too, to understand my
+      friend&rsquo;s personal situation, and to perceive that it was by no means the
+      happiest possible. When his face was quiet, it was vaguely troubled; it
+      seemed to me to show that for him, too, life was a struggle, as it has
+      been for many another man of genius. At last I prepared to leave him, and
+      then, to my ineffable joy, he gave me some of the sheets of his
+      forthcoming book,&mdash;it was not finished, but he had indulged in the
+      luxury, so dear to writers of deliberation, of having it &ldquo;set up,&rdquo; from
+      chapter to chapter, as he advanced,&mdash;he gave me, I say, the early
+      pages, the <i>prémices</i>, as the French have it, of this new fruit of
+      his imagination, to take to my room and look over at my leisure. I was
+      just quitting him when the door of his study was noiselessly pushed open,
+      and Mrs. Ambient stood before us. She looked at us a moment, with her
+      candle in her hand, and then she said to her husband that as she supposed
+      he had not gone to bed, she had come down to tell him that Dolcino was
+      more quiet and would probably be better in the morning. Mark Ambient made
+      no reply; he simply slipped past her in the doorway, as if he were afraid
+      she would seize him in his passage, and bounded upstairs, to judge for
+      himself of his child&rsquo;s condition. Mrs. Ambient looked slightly
+      discomfited, and for a moment I thought she was going to give chase to her
+      husband. But she resigned herself, with a sigh, while her eyes wandered
+      over the lamp-lit room, where various books, at which I had been looking,
+      were pulled out of their places on the shelves, and the fumes of tobacco
+      seemed to hang in mid-air. I bade her good-night, and then, without
+      intention, by a kind of fatality, the perversity which had already made me
+      insist unduly on talking with her about her husband&rsquo;s achievements, I
+      alluded to the precious proof-sheets with which Ambient had intrusted me
+      and which I was nursing there under my arm. &ldquo;It is the opening chapters of
+      his new book,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Fancy my satisfaction at being allowed to carry
+      them to my room!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away, leaving me to take my candlestick from the table in the
+      hall; but before we separated, thinking it apparently a good occasion to
+      let me know once for all&mdash;since I was beginning, it would seem, to be
+      quite &ldquo;thick&rdquo; with my host&mdash;that there was no fitness in my appealing
+      to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she
+      remarked to me with her quick, round, well-bred utterance, &ldquo;I dare say you
+      attribute to me ideas that I have n&rsquo;t got I don&rsquo;t take that sort of
+      interest in my husband&rsquo;s proof-sheets. I consider his writings most
+      objectionable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I had some curious conversation the next morning with Miss Ambient, whom I
+      found strolling in the garden before breakfast The whole place looked as
+      fresh and trim, amid the twitter of the birds, as if, an hour before, the
+      housemaids had been turned into it with their dustpans and
+      feather-brushes, I almost hesitated to light a cigarette, and was doubly
+      startled when, in the act of doing so, I suddenly perceived the sister of
+      my host, who had, in any case, something of the oddity of an apparition,
+      standing before me. She might have been posing for her photograph. Her
+      sad-colored robe arranged itself in serpentine folds at her feet; her
+      hands locked themselves listlessly together in front; and her chin rested
+      upon a cinque-cento ruff. The first thing I did, after bidding her
+      good-morning, was to ask her for news of her little nephew,&mdash;to
+      express the hope that she had heard he was better. She was able to gratify
+      this hope, and spoke as if we might expect to see him during the day. We
+      walked through the shrubberies together, and she gave me a great deal of
+      information about her brother&rsquo;s ménage, which offered me an opportunity to
+      mention to her that his wife had told me, the night before, that she
+      thought his productions objectionable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does n&rsquo;t usually come out with that so soon!&rdquo; Miss Ambient exclaimed,
+      in answer to this piece of gossip. &ldquo;Poor lady, she saw that I am a
+      fanatic.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, she won&rsquo;t like you for that. But you must n&rsquo;t mind, if the
+      rest of us like you! Beatrice thinks a work of art ought to have a
+      &lsquo;purpose.&rsquo; But she&rsquo;s a charming woman&mdash;don&rsquo;t you think her charming?&mdash;she&rsquo;s
+      such a type of the lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s very beautiful,&rdquo; I answered; while I reflected that though it was
+      true, apparently, that Mark Ambient was mismated, it was also perceptible
+      that his sister was perfidious. She told me that her brother and his wife
+      had no other difference but this one, that she thought his writings
+      immoral and his influence pernicious. It was a fixed idea; she was afraid
+      of these things for the child. I answered that it was not a trifle&mdash;a
+      woman&rsquo;s regarding her husband&rsquo;s mind as a well of corruption, and she
+      looked quite struck with the novelty of my remark. &ldquo;But there has n&rsquo;t been
+      any of the sort of trouble that there so often is among married people,&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;I suppose you can judge for yourself that Beatrice isn&rsquo;t at all&mdash;well,
+      whatever they call it when a woman misbehaves herself. And Mark does n&rsquo;t
+      make love to other people, either. I assure you he does n&rsquo;t! All the same,
+      of course, from her point of view, you know, she has a dread of my
+      brother&rsquo;s influence on the child&mdash;on the formation of his character,
+      of his principles. It is as if it were a subtle poison, or a contagion, or
+      something that would rub off on Dolcino when his father kisses him or
+      holds him on his knee. If she could, she would prevent Mark from ever
+      touching him. Every one knows it; visitors see it for themselves; so there
+      is no harm in my telling you. Isn&rsquo;t it excessively odd? It comes from
+      Beatrice&rsquo;s being so religious, and so tremendously moral, and all that and
+      then, of course, we must n&rsquo;t forget,&rdquo; my companion added, unexpectedly,
+      &ldquo;that some of Mark&rsquo;s ideas are&mdash;well, really&mdash;rather queer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected, as we went into the house, where we found Ambient unfolding
+      the <i>Observer</i> at the breakfast-table, that none of them were
+      probably quite so queer as his sister. Mrs. Ambient did not appear at
+      breakfast, being rather tired with her ministrations, during the night, to
+      Dolcino. Her husband mentioned, however, that she was hoping to go to
+      church. I afterwards learned that she did go, but I may as well announce
+      without delay that he and I did not accompany her. It was while the
+      church-bell was murmuring in the distance that the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>
+      led me forth for the ramble he had spoken of in his note. I will not
+      attempt to say where we went, or to describe what we saw. We kept to the
+      fields and copses and commons, and breathed the same sweet air as the
+      nibbling donkeys and the browsing sheep, whose woolliness seemed to me, in
+      those early days of my acquaintance with English objects, but a part of
+      the general texture of the small, dense landscape, which looked as if the
+      harvest were gathered by the shears. Everything was full of expression for
+      Mark Ambient&rsquo;s visitor,&mdash;from the big, bandy-legged geese, whose
+      whiteness was a &ldquo;note,&rdquo; amid all the tones of green, as they wandered
+      beside a neat little oval pool, the foreground of a thatched and
+      whitewashed inn, with a grassy approach and a pictorial sign,&mdash;from
+      these humble wayside animals to the crests of high woods which let a gable
+      or a pinnacle peep here and there, and looked, even at a distance, like
+      trees of good company, conscious of an individual profile. I admired the
+      hedgerows, I plucked the faint-hued heather, and I was forever stopping to
+      say how charming I thought the thread-like footpaths across the fields,
+      which wandered, in a diagonal of finer grain, from one smooth stile to
+      another. Mark Ambient was abundantly good-natured, and was as much
+      entertained with my observations as I was with the literary allusions of
+      the landscape. We sat and smoked upon stiles, broaching paradoxes in the
+      decent English air; we took short cuts across a park or two, where the
+      bracken was deep and my companion nodded to the old woman at the gate; we
+      skirted rank covers, which rustled here and there as wo passed, and we
+      stretched ourselves at last on a heathery hillside, where, if the sun was
+      not too hot, neither was the earth too cold, and where the country lay
+      beneath us in a rich blue mist. Of course I had already told Ambient what
+      I thought of his new novel, having the previous night read every word of
+      the opening chapters before I went to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not without hope of being able to make it my best,&rdquo; he said, as I
+      went back to the subject, while we turned up our heels to the sky. &ldquo;At
+      least the people who dislike my prose&mdash;and there are a great many of
+      them, I believe&mdash;will dislike this work most&rdquo; This was the first time
+      I had heard him allude to the people who couldn&rsquo;t read him,&mdash;a class
+      which is supposed always to sit heavy upon the consciousness of the man of
+      letters. A man organized for literature, as Mark Ambient was, must
+      certainly have had the normal proportion of sensitiveness, of
+      irritability; the artistic <i>ego</i>, capable in some cases of such
+      monstrous development, must have been, in his composition, sufficiently
+      erect and definite. I will not therefore go so far as to say that he never
+      thought of his detractors, or that he had any illusions with regard to the
+      number of his admirers (he could never so far have deceived himself as to
+      believe he was popular); but I may at least affirm that adverse criticism,
+      as I had occasion to perceive later, ruffled him visibly but little, that
+      he had an air of thinking it quite natural he should be offensive to many
+      minds, and that he very seldom talked about the newspapers, which, by the
+      way, were always very stupid in regard to the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>.
+      Of course he may have thought about them&mdash;the newspapers&mdash;night
+      and day; the only point I wish to make is that he did n&rsquo;t show it; while,
+      at the same time, he did n&rsquo;t strike one as a man who was on his guard. I
+      may add that, as regards his hope of making the work on which he was then
+      engaged the best of his books, it was only partly carried out. That place
+      belongs, incontestably, to <i>Beltraffio</i>, in spite of the beauty of
+      certain parts of its successor. I am pretty sure, however, that he had, at
+      the moment of which I speak, no sense of failure; he was in love with his
+      idea, which was indeed magnificent, and though for him, as, I suppose, for
+      every artist, the act of execution had in it as much torment as joy, he
+      saw his work growing a little every day and filling-out the largest plan
+      he had yet conceived. &ldquo;I want to be truer than I have ever been,&rdquo; he said,
+      settling himself on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head; &ldquo;I
+      want to give an impression of life itself. No, you may say what you will,
+      I have always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and
+      rounded them off and tucked them in,&mdash;done everything to them that
+      life does n&rsquo;t do. I have been a slave to the old superstitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You a slave, my dear Mark Ambient? You have the freest imagination of our
+      day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the more shame to me to have done some of the things I have! The
+      reconciliation of the two women in <i>Ginistrella</i>, for instance, which
+      could never really have taken place. That sort of thing is ignoble; I
+      blush when I think of it! This new affair must be a golden vessel, filled
+      with the purest distillation of the actual; and oh, how it bothers me, the
+      shaping of the vase&mdash;the hammering of the metal! I have to hammer it
+      so fine, so smooth; I don&rsquo;t do more than an inch or two a day. And all the
+      while I have to be so careful not to let a drop of the liquor escape! When
+      I see the kind of things that Life does, I despair of ever catching her
+      peculiar trick. She has an impudence, life! If one risked a fiftieth part
+      of the effects she risks! It takes ever so long to believe it. You don&rsquo;t
+      know yet, my dear fellow. It is n&rsquo;t till one has been watching life for
+      forty years that one finds out half of what she&rsquo;s up to! Therefore one&rsquo;s
+      earlier things must inevitably contain a mass of rot. And with what one
+      sees, on one side, with its tongue in its cheek, defying one to be real
+      enough, and on the other the <i>bonnes gens</i> rolling up their eyes at
+      one&rsquo;s cynicism, the situation has elements of the ludicrous which the
+      artist himself is doubtless in a position to appreciate better than any
+      one else. Of course one mustn&rsquo;t bother about the <i>bonnes gens</i>.&rdquo; Mark
+      Ambient went on, while my thoughts reverted to his ladylike wife, as
+      interpreted by his remarkable sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To sink your shaft deep, and polish the plate through which people look
+      into it&mdash;that&rsquo;s what your work consists of,&rdquo; I remember remarking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, polishing one&rsquo;s plate&mdash;that is the torment of execution!&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed, jerking himself up and sitting forward. &ldquo;The effort to arrive
+      at a surface&mdash;if you think a surface necessary&mdash;some people
+      don&rsquo;t, happily for them! My dear fellow, if you could see the surface I
+      dream of, as compared with the one with which I have to content myself.
+      Life is really too short for art&mdash;one hasn&rsquo;t time to make one&rsquo;s shell
+      ideally hard. Firm and bright&mdash;firm and bright!&mdash;the devilish
+      thing has a way, sometimes, of being bright without being firm. When I rap
+      it with my knuckles it doesn&rsquo;t give the right sound. There are horrible
+      little flabby spots where I have taken the second-best word, because I
+      could n&rsquo;t for the life of me think of the best. If you knew how stupid I
+      am sometimes! They look to me now like pimples and ulcers on the brow of
+      beauty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very bad&mdash;very bad,&rdquo; I said, as gravely as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very bad? It&rsquo;s the highest social offence I know; it ought&mdash;it
+      absolutely ought&mdash;I&rsquo;m quite serious&mdash;to be capital If I knew I
+      should be hanged else, I should manage to find the best word. The people
+      who could n&rsquo;t&mdash;some of them don&rsquo;t know it when they see it&mdash;would
+      shut their inkstands, and we should n&rsquo;t be deluged by this flood of
+      rubbish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not attempt to repeat everything that passed between us, or to
+      explain just how it was that, every moment I spent in his company, Mark
+      Ambient revealed to me more and more that he looked at all things from the
+      standpoint of the artist, felt all life as literary material There are
+      people who will tell me that this is a poor way of feeling it, and I am
+      not concerned to defend my statement, having space merely to remark that
+      there is something to be said for any interest which makes a man feel so
+      much. If Mark Ambient did really, as I suggested above, have imaginative
+      contact with &ldquo;all life,&rdquo; I, for my part, envy him his <i>arriere-pensée</i>.
+      At any rate it was through the receipt of this impression of him that by
+      the time we returned I had acquired the feeling of intimacy I have noted.
+      Before we got up for the homeward stretch, he alluded to his wife&rsquo;s having
+      once&mdash;or perhaps more than once&mdash;asked him whether he should
+      like Dolcino to read <i>Beltraffio</i>. I think he was unconscious at the
+      moment of all that this conveyed to me&mdash;as well, doubtless, of my
+      extreme curiosity to hear what he had replied. He had said that he hoped
+      very much Dolcino would read all his works&mdash;when he was twenty; he
+      should like him to know what his father had done. Before twenty it would
+      be useless; he would n&rsquo;t understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And meanwhile do you propose to hide them,&mdash;to lock them up in a
+      drawer?&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient had inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no; we must simply tell him that they are not intended for small
+      boys. If you bring him up properly, after that he won t touch them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Mrs. Ambient had made answer that it would be very awkward when he
+      was about fifteen; and I asked her husband if it was his opinion in
+      general, then, that young people should not read novels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good ones&mdash;certainly not!&rdquo; said my companion. I suppose I had had
+      other views, for I remember saying that, for myself, I was not sure it was
+      bad for them, if the novels were &ldquo;good&rdquo; enough. &ldquo;Bad for <i>them</i>, I
+      don&rsquo;t say so much!&rdquo; Ambient exclaimed. &ldquo;But very bad, I am afraid, for the
+      novel!&rdquo; That oblique, accidental allusion to his wife&rsquo;s attitude was
+      followed by a franker style of reference as we walked home. &ldquo;The
+      difference between us is simply the opposition between two distinct ways
+      of looking at the world, which have never succeeded in getting on
+      together, or making any kind of common ménage, since the beginning of
+      time. They have borne all sorts of names, and my wife would tell you it&rsquo;s
+      the difference between Christian and Pagan. I may be a pagan, but I don&rsquo;t
+      like the name; it sounds sectarian. She thinks me, at any rate, no better
+      than an ancient Greek. It&rsquo;s the difference between making the most of life
+      and making the least, so that you &lsquo;ll get another better one in some other
+      time and place. Will it be a sin to make the most of that one too, I
+      wonder; and shall we have to be bribed off in the future state, as well as
+      in the present? Perhaps I care too much for beauty&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know; I
+      delight in it, I adore it, I think of it continually, I try to produce it,
+      to reproduce it. My wife holds that we shouldn&rsquo;t think too much about it
+      She&rsquo;s always afraid of that, always on her guard. I don&rsquo;t know what she
+      has got on her back! And she&rsquo;s so pretty, too, herself! Don&rsquo;t you think
+      she&rsquo;s lovely? She was, at any rate, when I married her. At that time I was
+      n&rsquo;t aware of that difference I speak of&mdash;I thought it all came to the
+      same thing: in the end, as they say. Well, perhaps it will, in the end. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what the end will be. Moreover, I care for seeing things as
+      they are; that&rsquo;s the way I try to show them in my novels. But you must n&rsquo;t
+      talk to Mrs. Ambient about things as they are. She has a mortal dread of
+      things as they are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s afraid of them for Dolcino,&rdquo; I said: surprised a moment afterwards
+      at being in a position&mdash;thanks to Miss Ambient&mdash;to be so
+      explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n&rsquo;t have shown
+      visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n&rsquo;t; he
+      simply exclaimed, with a tenderness that touched me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, nothing shall ever hurt <i>him!</i>&rdquo; He told me more about his wife
+      before we arrived at the gate of his house, and if it be thought that he
+      was querulous, I am afraid I must admit that he had some of the foibles as
+      well as the gifts of the artistic temperament; adding, however, instantly,
+      that hitherto, to the best of my belief, he had very rarely complained.
+      &ldquo;She thinks me immoral&mdash;that&rsquo;s the long and short of it,&rdquo; he said, as
+      we paused outside a moment, and his hand rested on one of the bars of his
+      gate; while his conscious, demonstrative, expressive, perceptive eyes,&mdash;the
+      eyes of a foreigner, I had begun to account them, much more than of the
+      usual Englishman,&mdash;viewing me now evidently as quite a familiar
+      friend, took part in the declaration. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very strange, when one thinks
+      it all over, and there&rsquo;s a grand comicality in it which I should like to
+      bring out. She is a very nice woman, extraordinarily well behaved, upright
+      and clever, and with a tremendous lot of good sense about a good many
+      matters. Yet her conception of a novel&mdash;she has explained it to me
+      once or twice, and she does n&rsquo;t do it badly, as exposition&mdash;is a
+      thing so false that it makes me blush. It is a thing so hollow, so
+      dishonest, so lying, in which life is so blinked and blinded, so dodged
+      and disfigured, that it makes my ears burn. It&rsquo;s two different ways of
+      looking at the whole affair,&rdquo; he repeated, pushing open the gate. &ldquo;And
+      they are irreconcilable!&rdquo; he added, with a sigh. We went forward to the
+      house, but on the walk, half way to the door, he stopped, and said to me,
+      &ldquo;If you are going into this kind of thing, there&rsquo;s a fact you should know
+      beforehand; it may save you some disappointment. There&rsquo;s a hatred of art,
+      there&rsquo;s a hatred of literature!&rdquo; I looked up at the charming house, with
+      its genial color and crookedness, and I answered, with a smile, that those
+      evil passions might exist, but that I should never have expected to find
+      them there. &ldquo;Oh, it doesn&rsquo;t matter, after all,&rdquo; he said, laughing; which I
+      was glad to hear, for I was reproaching myself with having excited him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I had, his excitement soon passed off, for at lunch he was delightful;
+      strangely delightful, considering that the difference between himself and
+      his wife was, as he had said, irreconcilable. He had the art, by his
+      manner, by his smile, by his natural kindliness, of reducing the
+      importance of it in the common concerns of life; and Mrs. Ambient, I must
+      add, lent herself to this transaction with a very good grace. I watched
+      her, at table, for further illustrations of that fixed idea of which Miss
+      Ambient had spoken to me; for, in the light of the united revelations of
+      her sister-in-law and her husband, she had come to seem to me a very
+      singular personage. I am obliged to say that the signs of a fanatical
+      temperament were not more striking in my hostess than before; it was only
+      after a while that her air of incorruptible conformity, her tapering,
+      monosyllabic correctness, began to appear to be themselves a cold, thin
+      flame. Certainly, at first, she looked like a woman with as few passions
+      as possible; but if she had a passion at all, it would be that of
+      Philistinism. She might have been&mdash;for there are guardian-spirits, I
+      suppose, of all great principles&mdash;the angel of propriety. Mark
+      Ambient, apparently, ten years before, had simply perceived that she was
+      an angel, without asking himself of what He had been quite right in
+      calling my attention to her beauty. In looking for the reason why he
+      should have married her, I saw, more than before, that she was, physically
+      speaking, a wonderfully cultivated human plant&mdash;that she must have
+      given him many ideas and images. It was impossible to be more pencilled,
+      more garden-like, more delicately tinted and petalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I had had it in my heart to think Ambient a little of a hypocrite for
+      appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me during our walk,
+      I should instantly have cancelled such a judgment, on reflecting that the
+      good news his wife was able to give him about their little boy was reason
+      enough for his sudden air of happiness. It may have come partly, too, from
+      a certain remorse at having complained to me of the fair lady who sat
+      there,&mdash;a desire to show me that he was after all not so miserable.
+      Dolcino continued to be much better, and he had been promised he should
+      come downstairs after he had had his dinner. As soon as we had risen from
+      our own meal Ambient slipped away, evidently for the purpose of going to
+      his child; and no sooner had I observed this than I became aware that his
+      wife had simultaneously vanished. It happened that Miss Ambient and I,
+      both at the same moment, saw the tail of her dress whisk out of a doorway,
+      which led the young lady to smile at me, as if I now knew all the secrets
+      of the Ambients. I passed with her into the garden, and we sat down on a
+      dear old bench which rested against the west wall of the house. It was a
+      perfect spot for the middle period of a Sunday in June, and its felicity
+      seemed to come partly from an antique sun-dial which, rising in front of
+      us and forming the centre of a small, intricate parterre, measured the
+      moments ever so slowly, and made them safe for leisure and talk. The
+      garden bloomed in the suffused afternoon, the tall beeches stood still for
+      an example, and, behind and above us, a rose-tree of many seasons,
+      clinging to the faded grain of the brick, expressed the whole character of
+      the place in a familiar, exquisite smell. It seemed to me a place for
+      genius to have every sanction, and not to encounter challenges and checks.
+      Miss Ambient asked me if I had enjoyed my walk with her brother, and
+      whether we had talked of many things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of most things,&rdquo; I said, smiling, though I remembered that we had
+      not talked of Miss Ambient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you think some of his theories are very peculiar?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I guess I agree with them all.&rdquo; I was very particular, for Miss
+      Ambient&rsquo;s entertainment, to guess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think art is everything?&rdquo; she inquired in, a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In art, of course I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you think beauty is everything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about its being everything. But it&rsquo;s very delightful&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is difficult for a woman to know how far to go,&rdquo; said my
+      companion. &ldquo;I adore everything that gives a charm to life. I am intensely
+      sensitive to form. But sometimes I draw back&mdash;don&rsquo;t you see what I
+      mean?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t quite see where I shall be landed. I only want to be
+      quiet, after all,&rdquo; Miss Ambient continued, in a tone of stifled yearning
+      which seemed to indicate that she had not yet arrived at her desire. &ldquo;And
+      one must be good, at any rate, must not one?&rdquo; she inquired, with a cadence
+      apparently intended for an assurance that my answer would settle this
+      recondite question for her. It was difficult for me to make it very
+      original, and I am afraid I repaid her confidence with an unblushing
+      platitude. I remember, moreover, appending to it an inquiry, equally
+      destitute of freshness, and still more wanting perhaps in tact, as to
+      whether she did not mean to go to church, as that was an obvious way of
+      being good. She replied that she had performed this duty in the morning,
+      and that for her, on Sunday afternoon, supreme virtue consisted in
+      answering the week&rsquo;s letters. Then suddenly, without transition, she said
+      to me, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite a mistake about Dolcino being better. I have seen him,
+      and he&rsquo;s not at all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely his mother would know, would n&rsquo;t she?&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She appeared for a moment to be counting the leaves on one of the great
+      beeches. &ldquo;As regards most matters, one can easily say what, in a given
+      situation, my sister-in-law would do. But as regards this one, there are
+      strange elements at work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange elements? Do you mean in the constitution of the child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I mean in my sister-in-law&rsquo;s feelings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elements of affection, of course; elements of anxiety. Why do you call
+      them strange?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She repeated my words. &ldquo;Elements of affection, elements of anxiety. She is
+      very anxious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Ambient made me vaguely uneasy; she almost frightened me, and I
+      wished she would go and write her letters. &ldquo;His father will have seen him
+      now,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and if he is not satisfied he will send for the doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor ought to have been here this morning. He lives only two miles
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected that all this was very possibly only a part of the general
+      tragedy of Miss Ambient&rsquo;s view of things; but I asked her why she had n&rsquo;t
+      urged such a necessity upon her sister-in-law. She answered me with a
+      smile of extraordinary significance, and told me that I must have very
+      little idea of what her relations with Beatrice were; but I must do her
+      the justice to add that she went on to make herself a little more
+      comprehensible by saying that it was quite reason enough for her sister
+      not to be alarmed that Mark would be sure to be. He was always nervous
+      about the child, and as they were predestined by nature to take opposite
+      views, the only thing for Beatrice was to cultivate a false optimism. If
+      Mark were not there, she would not be at all easy. I remembered what he
+      had said to me about their dealings with Dolcino,&mdash;that between them
+      they would put an end to him; but I did not repeat this to Miss Ambient:
+      the less so that just then her brother emerged from the house, carrying
+      his child in his arms. Close behind him moved his wife, grave and pale;
+      the boy&rsquo;s face was turned over Ambient&rsquo;s shoulder, towards his mother. We
+      got up to receive the group, and as they came near us Dolcino turned
+      round. I caught, on his enchanting little countenance, a smile of
+      recognition, and for the moment would have been quite content with it.
+      Miss Ambient, however, received another impression, and I make haste to
+      say that her quick sensibility, in which there was something maternal,
+      argues that, in spite of her affectations, there was a strain of kindness
+      in her. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do at all&mdash;it won&rsquo;t do at all,&rdquo; she said to me
+      under her breath. &ldquo;I shall speak to Mark about the doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child was rather white, but the main difference I saw in him was that
+      he was even more beautiful than the day before. He had been dressed in his
+      festal garments,&mdash;a velvet suit and a crimson sash,&mdash;and he
+      looked like a little invalid prince, too young to know condescension, and
+      smiling familiarly on his subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put him down, Mark, he&rsquo;s not comfortable,&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you like to stand on your feet, my boy?&rdquo; his father asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; I &lsquo;m remarkably well,&rdquo; said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark placed him on the ground; he had shining, pointed slippers, with
+      enormous bows. &ldquo;Are you happy now, Mr. Ambient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I am particularly happy,&rdquo; Dolcino replied. The words were
+      scarcely out of his mouth when his mother caught him up, and in a moment,
+      holding him on her knees, she took her place on the bench where Miss
+      Ambient and I had been sitting. This young lady said something to her
+      brother, in consequence of which the two wandered away into the garden
+      together. I remained with Mrs. Ambient; but as a servant had brought out a
+      couple of chairs I was not obliged to seat myself beside her. Our
+      conversation was not animated, and I, for my part, felt there would be a
+      kind of hypocrisy in my trying to make myself agreeable to Mrs. Ambient I
+      didn&rsquo;t dislike her&mdash;I rather admired her; but I was aware that I
+      differed from her inexpressibly. Then I suspected, what I afterwards
+      definitely knew and have already intimated, that the poor lady had taken a
+      dislike to me; and this of course was not encouraging. She thought me an
+      obtrusive and even depraved young man, whom a perverse Providence had
+      dropped upon their quiet lawn to flatter her husband&rsquo;s worst tendencies.
+      She did me the honor to say to Miss Ambient, who repeated the speech, that
+      she didn&rsquo;t know when she had seen her husband take such a fancy to a
+      visitor; and she measured, apparently, my evil influence by Mark&rsquo;s
+      appreciation of my society. I had a consciousness, not yet acute, but
+      quite sufficient, of all this; but I must say that if it chilled my flow
+      of small-talk, it did n&rsquo;t prevent me from thinking that the beautiful
+      mother and beautiful child, interlaced there against their background of
+      roses, made a picture such as I perhaps should not soon see again. I was
+      free, I supposed, to go into the house and write letters, to sit in the
+      drawing-room, to repair to my own apartment and take a nap; but the only
+      use I made of my freedom was to linger still in my chair and say to myself
+      that the light hand of Sir Joshua might have painted Mark Ambient&rsquo;s wife
+      and son. I found myself looking perpetually at Dolcino, and Dolcino looked
+      back at me, and that was enough to detain me. When he looked at me he
+      smiled, and I felt it was an absolute impossibility to abandon a child who
+      was smiling at one like that. His eyes never wandered; they attached
+      themselves to mine, as if among all the small incipient things of his
+      nature there was a desire to say something to me. If I could have taken
+      him upon my own knee, he perhaps would have managed to say it; but it
+      would have been far too delicate a matter to ask his mother to give him
+      up, and it has remained a constant regret for me that on that Sunday
+      afternoon I did not, even for a moment, hold Dolcino in my arms. He had
+      said that he felt remarkably well, and that he was especially happy; but
+      though he may have been happy, with his charming head pillowed on his
+      mother&rsquo;s breast, and his little crimson silk legs depending from her lap,
+      I did not think he looked well. He made no attempt to walk about; he was
+      content to swing his legs softly and strike one as languid and angelic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some remark
+      about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the house. Mark
+      came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the child, who
+      immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he remained. &ldquo;I think
+      Ailingham ought to see him,&rdquo; Ambient said; &ldquo;I think I will walk over and
+      fetch him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That &lsquo;s Gwendolen&rsquo;s idea, I suppose,&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient replied, very sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one&rsquo;s child is ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I &lsquo;m not ill, papa; I &lsquo;m much better now,&rdquo; Dolcino remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have a
+      great idea of being agreeable, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a
+      moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own as I
+      watched him. &ldquo;Do <i>you</i> think me agreeable?&rdquo; he inquired, with the
+      candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to me,
+      laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, &ldquo;Is n&rsquo;t he adorable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you hop about, if you feel so lusty?&rdquo; Ambient went on,
+      while the boy swung his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because mamma is holding me close!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!&rdquo; Ambient exclaimed,
+      looking at his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or concession,
+      and after a moment she said, &ldquo;You can go for Allingham if you like, I
+      think myself it would be better. You ought to drive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says that to get me away,&rdquo; Ambient remarked to me, laughing; after
+      which he started for the doctor&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remained there with Mrs. Ambient, though our conversation had more
+      pauses than speeches. The boy&rsquo;s little fixed white face seemed, as before,
+      to plead with me to stay, and after a while it produced still another
+      effect, a very curious one, which I shall find it difficult to express. Of
+      course I expose myself to the charge of attempting to give fantastic
+      reasons for an act which may have been simply the fruit of a native want
+      of discretion; and indeed the traceable consequences of that perversity
+      were too lamentable to leave me any desire to trifle with the question.
+      All I can say is that I acted in perfect good faith, and that Dolcino&rsquo;s
+      friendly little gaze gradually kindled the spark of my inspiration. What
+      helped it to glow were the other influences,&mdash;the silent, suggestive
+      garden-nook, the perfect opportunity (if it was not an opportunity for
+      that, it was an opportunity for nothing), and the plea that I speak of,
+      which issued from the child&rsquo;s eyes, and seemed to make him say, &ldquo;The
+      mother that bore me and that presses me here to her bosom&mdash;sympathetic
+      little organism that I am&mdash;has really the kind of sensibility which
+      she has been represented to you as lacking; if you only look for it
+      patiently and respectfully. How is it possible that she should n&rsquo;t have
+      it? How is it possible that I should have so much of it (for I am quite
+      full of it, dear, strange gentleman), if it were not also in some degree
+      in her? I am my father&rsquo;s child, but I am also my mother&rsquo;s, and I am sorry
+      for the difference between them!&rdquo; So it shaped itself before me, the
+      vision of reconciling Mrs. Ambient with her husband, of putting an end to
+      their great disagreement The project was absurd, of course, for had I not
+      had his word for it&mdash;spoken with all the bitterness of experience&mdash;that
+      the gulf that divided them was wellnigh bottomless? Nevertheless, a
+      quarter of an hour after Mark had left us, I said to his wife that I could
+      n&rsquo;t get over what she told me the night before about her thinking her
+      husband&rsquo;s writings &ldquo;objectionable.&rdquo; I had been so very sorry to hear it,
+      had thought of it constantly, and wondered whether it were not possible to
+      make her change her mind. Mrs. Ambient gave me rather a cold stare; she
+      seemed to be recommending me to mind my own business. I wish I had taken
+      this mute counsel, but I did not. I went on to remark that it seemed an
+      immense pity so much that was beautiful should be lost upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing is lost upon me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient &ldquo;I know they are very
+      beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you like papa&rsquo;s books?&rdquo; Dolcino asked, addressing his mother, but
+      still looking at me. Then he added to me, &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you read them to me,
+      American gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather tell you some stories of my own,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I know some
+      that are very interesting.&rdquo; &ldquo;When will you tell them? To-morrow?&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;To-morrow, with pleasure, if that suits you.&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient was silent at
+      this. Her husband, during our walk, had asked me to remain another day; my
+      promise to her son was an implication that I had consented, and it is not
+      probable that the prospect was agreeable to her. This ought, doubtless, to
+      have made me more careful as to what I said next; but all I can say is
+      that it did n&rsquo;t. I presently observed that just after leaving her the
+      evening before, and after hearing her apply to her husband&rsquo;s writings the
+      epithet I had already quoted, I had, on going up to my room, sat down to
+      the perusal of those sheets of his new book which he had been so good as
+      to lend me. I had sat entranced till nearly three in the morning. I had
+      read them twice over. &ldquo;You say you have n&rsquo;t looked at them. I think it &lsquo;s
+      such a pity you should n&rsquo;t Do let me beg you to take them up. They are so
+      very remarkable. I &lsquo;m sure they will convert you. They place him in&mdash;really&mdash;such
+      a dazzling light. All that is best in him is there. I have no doubt it&rsquo;s a
+      great liberty, my saying all this; but excuse me, and <i>do</i> read
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do read them, mamma!&rdquo; Dolcino repeated; &ldquo;do read them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bent her head and closed his lips with a kiss. &ldquo;Of course I know he
+      has worked immensely over them,&rdquo; she said; and after this she made no
+      remark, but sat there looking thoughtful, with her eyes on the ground. The
+      tone of these last words was such as to leave me no spirit for further
+      pressure, and after expressing a fear that her husband had not found the
+      doctor at home, I got up and took a turn about the grounds. When I came
+      back, ten minutes later, she was still in her place watching her boy, who
+      had fallen asleep in her lap. As I drew near she put her finger to her
+      lips, and a moment afterwards she rose, holding the child, and murmured
+      something about its being better that he should go upstairs. I offered to
+      carry him, and held out my hands to take him; but she thanked me and
+      turned away with the child seated on her arm, his head on her shoulder. &ldquo;I
+      am very strong,&rdquo; she said, as she passed into the house, and her slim,
+      flexible figure bent backwards with the filial weight So I never touched
+      Dolcino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I betook myself to Ambient&rsquo;s study, delighted to have a quiet hour to look
+      over his books by myself. The windows were open into the garden; the sunny
+      stillness, the mild light of the English summer, filled the room, without
+      quite chasing away the rich dusky tone which was a part of its charm, and
+      which abode in the serried shelves where old morocco exhaled the fragrance
+      of curious learning, and in the brighter intervals, where medals and
+      prints and miniatures were suspended upon a surface of faded stuff. The
+      place had both color and quiet; I thought it a perfect room for work, and
+      went so far as to say to myself that, if it were mine to sit and scribble
+      in, there was no knowing but that I might learn to write as well as the
+      author of <i>Beltraffio</i>. This distinguished man did not turn up, and I
+      rummaged freely among his treasures. At last I took down a book that
+      detained me awhile, and seated myself in a fine old leather chair by the
+      window to turn it over. I had been occupied in this way for half-an-hour,&mdash;a
+      good part of the afternoon had waned,&mdash;when I became conscious of
+      another presence in the room, and, looking up from my quarto, saw that
+      Mrs. Ambient, having pushed open the door in the same noiseless way that
+      marked, or disguised, her entrance the night before, had advanced across
+      the threshold. On seeing me she stopped; she had not, I think, expected to
+      find me. But her hesitation was only of a moment; she came straight to her
+      husband&rsquo;s writing-table as if she were looking for something. I got up and
+      asked her if I could help her. She glanced about an instant, and then put
+      her hand upon a roll of papers which I recognized, as I had placed it in
+      that spot in the morning on coming down from my room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this the new book?&rdquo; she asked, holding it up. &ldquo;The very sheets, with
+      precious annotations.&rdquo; &ldquo;I mean to take your advice;&rdquo; and she tucked the
+      little bundle under her arm. I congratulated her cordially, and ventured
+      to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of pleasantry.
+      But she was perfectly grave, and turned away from me, as she had presented
+      herself, without a smile; after which I settled down to my quarto again,
+      with the reflection that Mrs. Ambient was a queer woman. My triumph, too,
+      suddenly seemed to me rather vain. A woman who could n&rsquo;t smile in the
+      right place would never understand Mark Ambient. He came in at last in
+      person, having brought the doctor back with him. &ldquo;He was away from home,&rdquo;
+       Mark said, &ldquo;and I went after him, to where he was supposed to be. He had
+      left the place, and I followed him to two or three others, which accounts
+      for my delay.&rdquo; He was now with Mrs. Ambient looking at the child, and was
+      to see Mark again before leaving the house. My host noticed, at the end of
+      ten minutes, that the proof-sheets of his new book had been removed from
+      the table; and when I told him, in reply to his question as to what I knew
+      about them, that Mrs. Ambient had carried them off to read, he turned
+      almost pale for an instant with surprise. &ldquo;What has suddenly made her so
+      curious?&rdquo; he exclaimed; and I was obliged to tell him that I was at the
+      bottom of the mystery. I had had it on my conscience to assure her that
+      she really ought to know of what her husband was capable. &ldquo;Of what I am
+      capable? <i>Elle ne s&rsquo;en dottie que trop!</i>&rdquo; said Ambient, with a laugh;
+      but he took my meddling very good-naturedly, and contented himself with
+      adding that he was very much afraid she would burn up the sheets, with his
+      emendations, of which he had no duplicate. The doctor paid a long visit in
+      the nursery, and before he came down I retired to my own quarters, where I
+      remained till dinner-time. On entering the drawing-room at this hour, I
+      found Miss Ambient in possession, as she had been the evening before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was right about Dolcino,&rdquo; she said, as soon as she saw me, with a
+      strange little air of triumph. &ldquo;He is really very ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very ill! Why, when I last saw him, at four o&rsquo;clock, he was in fairly
+      good form.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There has been a change for the worse, very sudden and rapid, and when
+      the doctor got here he found diphtheritic symptoms. He ought to have been
+      called, as I knew, in the morning, and the child ought n&rsquo;t to have been
+      brought into the garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear lady, he was very happy there,&rdquo; I answered, much appalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would be happy anywhere. I have no doubt he is happy now, with his
+      poor little throat in a state&mdash;&rdquo; she dropped her voice as her brother
+      came in, and Mark let us know that, as a matter of course, Mrs. Ambient
+      would not appear. It was true that Dolcino had developed diphtheritic
+      symptoms, but he was quiet for the present, and his mother was earnestly
+      watching him. She was a perfect nurse, Mark said, and the doctor was
+      coming back at ten o&rsquo;clock. Our dinner was not very gay; Ambient was
+      anxious and alarmed, and his sister irritated me by her constant tacit
+      assumption, conveyed in the very way she nibbled her bread and sipped her
+      wine, of having &ldquo;told me so.&rdquo; I had had no disposition to deny anything
+      she told me, and I could not see that her satisfaction in being justified
+      by the event made poor Dolcino&rsquo;s throat any better. The truth is that, as
+      the sequel proved, Miss Ambient had some of the qualities of the sibyl,
+      and had therefore, perhaps, a right to the sibylline contortions. Her
+      brother was so preoccupied that I felt my presence to be an indiscretion,
+      and was sorry I had promised to remain over the morrow. I said to Mark
+      that, evidently, I had better leave them in the morning; to which he
+      replied that, on the contrary, if he was to pass the next days in the
+      fidgets, my company would be an extreme relief to him. The fidgets had
+      already begun for him, poor fellow; and as we sat in his study with our
+      cigars after dinner, he wandered to the door whenever he heard the sound
+      of the doctor&rsquo;s wheels. Miss Ambient, who shared this apartment with us,
+      gave me at such moments significant glances; she had gone upstairs before
+      rejoining us to ask after the child His mother and his nurse gave a
+      tolerable account of him; but Miss Ambient found his fever high and his
+      symptoms very grave. The doctor came at ten o&rsquo;clock, and I went to bed
+      after hearing from Mark that he saw no present cause for alarm. He had
+      made every provision for the night, and was to return early in the
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I quitted my room at eight o&rsquo;clock the next day, and, as I came
+      downstairs, saw, through the open door of the house, Mrs. Ambient standing
+      at the front gate of the grounds, in colloquy with the physician. She wore
+      a white dressing-gown, but her shining hair was carefully tucked away in
+      its net, and in the freshness of the morning, after a night of watching,
+      she looked as much &ldquo;the type of the lady&rdquo; as her sister-in-law had
+      described her. Her appearance, I suppose, ought to have reassured me; but
+      I was still nervous and uneasy, so that I shrank from meeting her with the
+      necessary question about Dolcino. None the less, however, was I impatient
+      to learn how the morning found him; and, as Mrs. Ambient had not seen me,
+      I passed into the grounds by a roundabout way, and, stopping at a further
+      gate, hailed the doctor just as he was driving away. Mrs. Ambient had
+      returned to the house before he got into his gig.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, but as a friend of the family, I should like very much to hear
+      about the little boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, who was a stout, sharp man, looked at me from head to foot,
+      and then he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to say I have n&rsquo;t seen him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have n&rsquo;t seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Ambient came down to meet me as I alighted, and told me that he was
+      sleeping so soundly, after a restless night, that she did n&rsquo;t wish him
+      disturbed. I assured her I would n&rsquo;t disturb him, but she said he was
+      quite safe now and she could look after him herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much. Are you coming back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; I &lsquo;ll be hanged if I come back!&rdquo; exclaimed Dr. Allingham, who
+      was evidently very angry. And he started his horse again with the whip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wandered back into the garden, and five minutes later Miss Ambient came
+      forth from the house to greet me. She explained that breakfast would not
+      be served for some time, and that she wished to catch the doctor before he
+      went away. I informed her that this functionary had come and departed, and
+      I repeated to her what he had told me about his dismissal. This made Miss
+      Ambient very serious, very serious indeed, and she sank into a bench, with
+      dilated eyes, hugging her elbows with crossed arms. She indulged in many
+      ejaculations, she confessed that she was infinitely perplexed, and she
+      finally told me what her own last news of her nephew had been. She had sat
+      up very late,&mdash;after me, after Mark,&mdash;and before going to bed
+      had knocked at the door of the child&rsquo;s room, which was opened to her by
+      the nurse. This good woman had admitted her, and she had found Dolcino
+      quiet, but flushed and &ldquo;unnatural,&rdquo; with his mother sitting beside his
+      bed. &ldquo;She held his hand in one of hers,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient, &ldquo;and in the
+      other&mdash;what do you think?&mdash;the proof-sheets of Mark&rsquo;s new book!
+      She was reading them there, intently: did you ever hear of anything so
+      extraordinary? Such a very odd time to be reading an author whom she never
+      could abide!&rdquo; In her agitation Miss Ambient was guilty of this vulgarism
+      of speech, and I was so impressed by her narrative that it was only in
+      recalling her words later that I noticed the lapse. Mrs. Ambient had
+      looked up from her reading with her finger on her lips&mdash;I recognized
+      the gesture she had addressed to me in the afternoon&mdash;and, though the
+      nurse was about to go to rest, had not encouraged her sister-in-law to
+      relieve her of any part of her vigil. But certainly, then, Dolcino&rsquo;s
+      condition was far from reassuring,&mdash;his poor little breathing was
+      most painful; and what change could have taken place in him in those few
+      hours that would justify Beatrice in denying the physician access to him?
+      This was the moral of Miss Ambient&rsquo;s anecdote, the moral for herself at
+      least. The moral for me, rather, was that it <i>was</i> a very singular
+      time for Mrs. Ambient to be going into a novelist she had never
+      appreciated, and who had simply happened to be recommended to her by a
+      young American she disliked. I thought of her sitting there in the
+      sick-chamber in the still hours of the night, after the nurse had left
+      her, turning over those pages of genius and wrestling with their magical
+      influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must relate very briefly the circumstances of the rest of my visit to
+      Mark Ambient,&mdash;it lasted but a few hours longer,&mdash;and devote but
+      three words to my later acquaintance with him. That lasted five years,&mdash;till
+      his death,&mdash;and was full of interest, of satisfaction, and, I may
+      add, of sadness. The main thing to be said with regard to it, is that I
+      had a secret from him. I believe he never suspected it, though of this I
+      am not absolutely sure. If he did, the line he had taken, the line of
+      absolute negation of the matter to himself, shows an immense effort of the
+      will. I may tell my secret now, giving it for what it is worth, now that
+      Mark Ambient has gone, that he has begun to be alluded to as one of the
+      famous early dead, and that his wife does not survive him; now, too, that
+      Miss Ambient, whom I also saw at intervals during the years that followed,
+      has, with her embroideries and her attitudes, her necromantic glances and
+      strange intuitions, retired to a Sisterhood, where, as I am told, she is
+      deeply immured and quite lost to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark came in to breakfast after his sister and I had for some time been
+      seated there. He shook hands with me in silence, kissed his sister, opened
+      his letters and newspapers, and pretended to drink his coffee. But I could
+      see that these movements were mechanical, and I was little surprised when,
+      suddenly, he pushed away everything that was before him, and, with his
+      head in his hands and his elbows on the table, sat staring strangely at
+      the cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, <i>fratello mio?</i>&rdquo; Miss Ambient inquired, peeping
+      from behind the urn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered nothing, but got up with a certain violence and strode to the
+      window. We rose to our feet, his sister and I, by a common impulse,
+      exchanging a glance of some alarm, while he stared for a moment into the
+      garden. &ldquo;In Heaven&rsquo;s name what has got possession of Beatrice?&rdquo; he cried
+      at last, turning round with an almost haggard face. And he looked from one
+      of us to the other; the appeal was addressed to me as well as to his
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Ambient gave a shrug. &ldquo;My poor Mark, Beatrice is always&mdash;Beatrice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has locked herself up with the boy&mdash;bolted and barred the door;
+      she refuses to let me come near him!&rdquo; Ambient went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She refused to let the doctor see him an hour ago!&rdquo; Miss Ambient
+      remarked, with intention, as they say on the stage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Refused to let the doctor see him? By heaven, I &lsquo;ll smash in the door!&rdquo;
+       And Mark brought his fist down upon the table, so that all the
+      breakfast-service rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I begged Miss Ambient to go up and try to have speech of her
+      sister-in-law, and I drew Mark out into the garden. &ldquo;You &lsquo;re exceedingly
+      nervous, and Mrs. Ambient is probably right,&rdquo; I said to him. &ldquo;Women know;
+      women should be supreme in such a situation. Trust a mother&mdash;a
+      devoted mother, my dear friend!&rdquo; With such words as these I tried to
+      soothe and comfort him, and, marvellous to relate, I succeeded, with the
+      help of many cigarettes, in making him walk about the garden and talk, or
+      listen at least to my own ingenious chatter, for nearly an hour. At the
+      end of this time Miss Ambient returned to us, with a very rapid step,
+      holding her hand to her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go for the doctor, Mark, go for the doctor this moment!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dying? Has she killed him?&rdquo; poor Ambient cried, flinging away his
+      cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what she has done! But she&rsquo;s frightened, and now she wants
+      the doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me he would be hanged if he came back!&rdquo; I felt myself obliged to
+      announce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely&mdash;therefore Mark himself must go for him, and not a
+      messenger. You must see him, and tell him it &lsquo;s to save your child. The
+      trap has been ordered&mdash;it&rsquo;s ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To save him? I &lsquo;ll save him, please God!&rdquo; Ambient cried, bounding with
+      his great strides across the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he had gone I felt that I ought to have volunteered in his
+      place, and I said as much to Miss Ambient; but she checked me by grasping
+      my arm quickly, while we heard the wheels of the dog-cart rattle away from
+      the gate. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s off&mdash;he&rsquo;s off&mdash;and now I can think! To get him
+      away&mdash;while I think&mdash;while I think!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While you think of what, Miss Ambient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the unspeakable thing that has happened under this roof!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner was habitually that of such a prophetess of ill that my first
+      impulse was to believe I must allow here for a great exaggeration. But in
+      a moment I saw that her emotion was real. &ldquo;Dolcino <i>is</i> dying then,&mdash;he
+      is dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too late to save him. His mother has let him die! I tell you that
+      because you are sympathetic, because you have imagination,&rdquo; Miss Ambient
+      was good enough to add, interrupting my expression of horror. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why
+      you had the idea of making her read Mark&rsquo;s new book!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has that to do with it? I don&rsquo;t understand you; your accusation is
+      monstrous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see it all; I&rsquo;m not stupid,&rdquo; Miss Ambient went on, heedless of the
+      harshness of my tone. &ldquo;It was the book that finished her; it was that
+      decided her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decided her? Do you mean she has murdered her child?&rdquo; I demanded,
+      trembling at my own words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sacrificed him; she determined to do nothing to make him live. Why
+      else did she lock herself up, why else did she turn away the doctor? The
+      book gave her a horror; she determined to rescue him,&mdash;to prevent him
+      from ever being touched. He had a crisis at two o&rsquo;clock in the morning. I
+      know that from the nurse, who had left her then, but whom, for a short
+      time, she called back. Dolcino got much worse, but she insisted on the
+      nurse&rsquo;s going back to bed, and after that she was alone with him for
+      hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you pretend that she has no pity, that she&rsquo;s insane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She held him in her arms, she pressed him to her breast, not to see him;
+      but she gave him no remedies; she did nothing the doctor ordered.
+      Everything is there, untouched. She has had the honesty not even to throw
+      the drugs away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dropped upon the nearest bench, overcome with wonder and agitation,
+      quite as much at Miss Armbient&rsquo;s terrible lucidity as at the charge she
+      made against her sister-in-law. There was an amazing coherency in her
+      story, and it was dreadful to me to see myself figuring in it as so
+      proximate a cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a very strange woman, and you say strange things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think it necessary to protest, but you are quite ready to believe me.
+      You have received an impression of my sister-in-law, you have guessed of
+      what she is capable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not feel bound to say what concession, on this point, I made to Miss
+      Ambient, who went on to relate to me that within the last half-hour
+      Beatrice had had a revulsion; that she was tremendously frightened at what
+      she had done; that her fright itself betrayed her; and that she would now
+      give heaven and earth to save the child. &ldquo;Let us hope she will!&rdquo; I said,
+      looking at my watch and trying to time poor Ambient; whereupon my
+      companion repeated, in a singular tone, &ldquo;Let us hope so!&rdquo; When I asked her
+      if she herself could do nothing, and whether she ought not to be with her
+      sister-in-law, she replied, &ldquo;You had better go and judge; she is like a
+      wounded tigress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I never saw Mrs. Ambient till six months after this, and therefore cannot
+      pretend to have verified the comparison. At the latter period she was
+      again the type of the lady. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll treat him better after this,&rdquo; I
+      remember Miss Ambient saying, in response to some quick outburst (on my
+      part) of compassion for her brother. Although I had been in the house but
+      thirty-six hours, this young lady had treated me with extraordinary
+      confidence, and there was therefore a certain demand which, as an
+      intimate, I might make of her. I extracted from her a pledge that she
+      would never say to her brother what she had just said to me; she would
+      leave him to form his own theory of his wife&rsquo;s conduct. She agreed with me
+      that there was misery enough in the house, without her contributing a new
+      anguish, and that Mrs. Ambient&rsquo;s proceedings might be explained, to her
+      husband&rsquo;s mind, by the extravagance of a jealous devotion. Poor Mark came
+      back with the doctor much sooner than we could have hoped, but we knew,
+      five minutes afterwards, that they arrived too late. Poor little Dolcino
+      was more exquisitely beautiful in death than he had been in life. Mrs.
+      Ambient&rsquo;s grief was frantic; she lost her head and said strange things. As
+      for Mark&rsquo;s&mdash;but I will not speak of that. <i>Basta</i>, as he used to
+      say. Miss Ambient kept her secret,&mdash;I have already had occasion to
+      say that she had her good points,&mdash;but it rankled in her conscience
+      like a guilty participation, and, I imagine, had something to do with her
+      retiring ultimately to a Sisterhood. And, <i>à propos</i> of consciences,
+      the reader is now in a position to judge of my compunction for my effort
+      to convert Mrs. Ambient. I ought to mention that the death of her child in
+      some degree converted her. When the new book came out&mdash;it was long
+      delayed&mdash;she read it over as a whole, and her husband told me that a
+      few months before her death,&mdash;she failed rapidly after losing her
+      son, sank into a consumption, and faded away at Mentone,&mdash;during
+      those few supreme weeks she even dipped into <i>Beltraffio</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
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+  </body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2197 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Author Of Beltraffio
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21770]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO.
+
+By Henry James
+
+1885
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+Much as I wished to see him, I had kept my letter of introduction for
+three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about meeting
+him,--conscious of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was tormented
+by strangers, and especially by my country-people, and not exempt from
+the suspicion that he had the irritability as well as the brilliancy of
+genius. Moreover, the pleasure, if it should occur (for I could scarcely
+believe it was near at hand), would be so great that I wished to think
+of it in advance, to feel that it was in my pocket, not to mix it with
+satisfactions more superficial and usual In the little game of new
+sensations that I was playing with my ingenuous mind, I wished to keep
+my visit to the author of _Beltraffio_ as a trump card. It was three
+years after the publication of that fascinating work, which I had read
+over five times, and which now, with my riper judgment, I admire on the
+whole as much as ever. This will give you about the date of my first
+visit (of any duration) to England; for you will not have forgotten
+the commotion--I may even say the scandal--produced by Mark Ambient's
+masterpiece. It was the most complete presentation that had yet been
+made of the gospel of art; it was a kind of aesthetic war-cry. People
+had endeavored to sail nearer to "truth" in the cut of their sleeves
+and the shape of their sideboards; but there had not as yet been, among
+English novels, such an example of beauty of execution and genuineness
+of substance. Nothing had been done in that line from the point of view
+of art for art This was my own point of view, I may mention, when I
+was twenty-five; whether it is altered now I won't take upon myself
+to say--especially as the discerning reader will be able to judge for
+himself. I had been in England, briefly, a twelvemonth before the time
+to which I began by alluding, and had learned then that Mr. Ambient was
+in distant lands--was making a considerable tour in the East: so there
+was nothing to do but to keep my letter till I should be in London
+again. It was of little use to me to hear that his wife had not left
+England, and, with her little boy, their only child, was spending the
+period of her husband's absence--a good many months--at a small place
+they had down in Surrey. They had a house in London which was let. All
+this I learned, and also that Mrs. Ambient was charming (my friend the
+American poet, from whom I had my introduction, had never seen her, his
+relations with the great man being only epistolary); but she was
+not, after all, though she had lived so near the rose, the author of
+_Beltraffio_, and I did not go down into Surrey to call on her. I went
+to the Continent, spent the following winter in Italy, and returned to
+London in May. My visit to Italy opened my eyes to a good many things,
+but to nothing more than the beauty of certain pages in the works of
+Mark Ambient I had every one of his productions in my portmanteau,--they
+are not, as you know, very numerous, but he had preluded to _Beltraffio_
+by some exquisite things,--and I used to read them over in the evening
+at the inn. I used to say to myself that the man who drew those
+characters and wrote that style understood what he saw and knew what he
+was doing. This is my only reason for mentioning my winter in Italy.
+He had been there much in former years, and he was saturated with what
+painters call the "feeling" of that classic land. He expressed the
+charm of the old hill-cities of Tuscany, the look of certain lonely
+grass-grown places which, in the past, had echoed with life; he
+understood the great artists, he understood the spirit of the
+Renaissance, he understood everything. The scene of one of his earlier
+novels was laid in Borne, the scene of another in Florence, and I moved
+through these cities in company with the figures whom Mark Ambient had
+set so vividly upon their feet. This is why I was now so much happier
+even than before in the prospect of making his acquaintance.
+
+At last, when I had dallied with this privilege long enough, I
+despatched to him the missive of the American poet He had already gone
+out of town; he shrank from the rigor of the London "season" and it was
+his habit to migrate on the first of June. Moreover, I had heard that
+this year he was hard at work on a new book, into which some of his
+impressions of the East were to be wrought, so that he desired nothing
+so much as quiet days. This knowledge, however, did not prevent me--_cet
+age est sans pitie_--from sending with my friend's letter a note of my
+own, in which I asked Mr. Ambient's leave to come down and see him for
+an hour or two, on a day to be designated by himself. My proposal was
+accompanied with a very frank expression of my sentiments, and the
+effect of the whole projectile was to elicit from the great man the
+kindest possible invitation. He would be delighted to see me, especially
+if I should turn up on the following Saturday and would remain till
+the Monday morning. We would take a walk over the Surrey commons, and
+I could tell him all about the other great man, the one in America. He
+indicated to me the best train, and it may be imagined whether on
+the Saturday afternoon I was punctual at Waterloo. He carried his
+benevolence to the point of coming to meet me at the little station at
+which I was to alight, and my heart beat very fast as I saw his
+handsome face, surmounted with a soft wide-awake, and which I knew by
+a photograph long since enshrined upon my mantelshelf, scanning the
+carriage windows as the train rolled up. He recognized me as infallibly
+as I had recognized him; he appeared to know by instinct how a young
+American of an aesthetic turn would look when much divided between
+eagerness and modesty. He took me by the hand, and smiled at me, and
+said: "You must be--a--_you_, I think!" and asked if I should mind going
+on foot to his house, which would take but a few minutes. I remember
+thinking it a piece of extraordinary affability that he should give
+directions about the conveyance of my bag, and feeling altogether very
+happy and rosy, in fact quite transported, when he laid his hand on my
+shoulder as we came out of the station.
+
+I surveyed him, askance, as we walked together; I had already--I had
+indeed instantly--seen that he was a delightful creature. His face is
+so well known that I need n't describe it; he looked to me at once
+an English gentleman and a man of genius, and I thought that a happy
+combination. There was just a little of the Bohemian in his appearance;
+you would easily have guessed that he belonged to the guild of artists
+and men of letters. He was addicted to velvet jackets, to cigarettes,
+to loose shirt-collars, to looking a little dishevelled. His features,
+which were fine, but not perfectly regular, are fairly enough
+represented in his portraits; but no portrait that I have seen gives any
+idea of his expression. There were so many things in it, and they chased
+each other in and out of his face. I have seen people who were grave and
+gay in quick alternation; but Mark Ambient was grave and gay at one and
+the same moment. There were other strange oppositions and contradictions
+in his slightly faded and fatigued countenance. He seemed both young and
+old, both anxious and indifferent. He had evidently had an active past,
+which inspired one with curiosity, and yet it was impossible not to be
+more curious still about his future. He was just enough above middle
+height to be spoken of as tall, and rather lean and long in the flank.
+He had the friendliest, frankest manner possible, and yet I could see
+that he was shy. He was thirty-eight years old at the time _Beltraffio_
+was published. He asked me about his friend in America, about the length
+of my stay in England, about the last news in London and the people I
+had seen there; and I remember looking for the signs of genius in the
+very form of his questions, and thinking I found it. I liked his voice.
+
+There was genius in his house, too, I thought, when we got there; there
+was imagination in the carpets and curtains, in the pictures and books,
+in the garden behind it, where certain old brown walls were muffled in
+creepers that appeared to me to have been copied from a masterpiece of
+one of the pre-Raphaelites. That was the way many things struck me at
+that time, in England; as if they were reproductions of something that
+existed primarily in art or literature. It was not the picture, the
+poem, the fictive page, that seemed to me a copy; these things were the
+originals, and the life of happy and distinguished people was fashioned
+in their image. Mark Ambient called his house a cottage, and I perceived
+afterwards that he was right; for if it had not been a cottage it must
+have been a villa, and a villa, in England at least, was not a place in
+which one could fancy him at home. But it was, to my vision, a cottage
+glorified and translated; it was a palace of art, on a slightly reduced
+scale,--it was an old English demesne. It nestled under a cluster of
+magnificent beeches, it had little creaking lattices that opened out of,
+or into, pendent mats of ivy, and gables, and old red tiles, as well
+as a general aspect of being painted in water-colors and inhabited by
+people whose lives would go on in chapters and volumes. The lawn seemed
+to me of extraordinary extent, the garden-walls of incalculable height,
+the whole air of the place delightfully still, private, proper to
+itself. "My wife must be somewhere about," Mark Ambient said, as we went
+in. "We shall find her perhaps; we have got about an hour before dinner.
+She may be in the garden. I will show you my little place."
+
+We passed through the house, and into the grounds, as I should have
+called them, which extended into the rear. They covered but three or
+four acres, but, like the house, they were very old and crooked, and
+full of traces of long habitation, with inequalities of level and little
+steps--mossy and cracked were these--which connected the different parts
+with each other. The limits of the place, cleverly dissimulated, were
+muffled in the deepest verdure. They made, as I remember, a kind of
+curtain at the further end, in one of the folds of which, as it were,
+we presently perceived, from afar, a little group. "Ah, there she is!"
+said Mark Ambient; "and she has got the boy." He made this last remark
+in a slightly different tone from any in which he yet had spoken. I
+was not fully aware of it at the time, but it lingered in my ear and I
+afterwards understood it.
+
+"Is it your son?" I inquired, feeling the question not to be brilliant.
+
+"Yes, my only child. He's always in his mother's pocket She coddles him
+too much." It came back to me afterwards, too--the manner in which
+he spoke these words. They were not petulant; they expressed rather a
+sudden coldness, a kind of mechanical submission. We went a few steps
+further, and then he stopped short and called the boy, beckoning to him
+repeatedly.
+
+"Dolcino, come and see your daddy!" There was something in the way he
+stood still and waited that made me think he did it for a purpose. Mrs.
+Ambient had her arm round the child's waist, and he was leaning against
+her knee; but though he looked up at the sound of his father's voice,
+she gave no sign of releasing him. A lady, apparently a neighbor,
+was seated near her, and before them was a garden-table, on which a
+tea-service had been placed.
+
+Mark Ambient called again, and Dolcino struggled in the maternal
+embrace, but he was too tightly held, and after two or three fruitless
+efforts he suddenly turned round and buried his head deep in his
+mother's lap. There was a certain awkwardness in the scene; I thought
+it rather odd that Mrs. Ambient should pay so little attention to her
+husband. But I would not for the world have betrayed my thought, and, to
+conceal it, I observed that it must be such a pleasant thing to have tea
+in the garden. "Ah, she won't let him come!" said Mark Ambient, with a
+sigh; and we went our way 'till we reached the two ladies. He mentioned
+my name to his wife, and I noticed that he addressed her as "My dear,"
+very genially, without any trace of resentment at her detention of
+the child. The quickness of the transition made me vaguely ask myself
+whether he were henpecked,--a shocking conjecture, which I instantly
+dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a wife as I should have expected
+him to have; slim and fair, with a long neck and pretty eyes and an air
+of great refinement. She was a little cold, and a little shy; but she
+was very sweet, and she had a certain look of race, justified by my
+afterwards learning that she was "connected" with two or three great
+families. I have seen poets married to women of whom it was difficult
+to conceive that they should gratify the poetic fancy,--women with dull
+faces and glutinous minds, who were none the less, however, excellent
+wives. But there was no obvious incongruity in Mark Ambient's union.
+Mrs. Ambient, delicate and quiet, in a white dress, with her beautiful
+child at her side, was worthy of the author of a work so distinguished
+as _Beltraffio_. Bound her neck she wore a black velvet ribbon, of which
+the long ends, tied behind, hung down her back, and to which, in front,
+was attached a miniature portrait of her little boy. Her smooth, shining
+hair was confined in a net She gave me a very pleasant greeting, and
+Dolcino--I thought this little name of endearment delightful--took
+advantage of her getting up to slip away from her and go to his father,
+who said nothing to him, but simply seized him and held him high in his
+arms for a moment, kissing him several times.
+
+I had lost no time in observing that the child, who was not more than
+seven years old, was extraordinarily beautiful He had the face of an
+angel,--the eyes, the hair, the more than mortal bloom, the smile of
+innocence. There was something touching, almost alarming, in his beauty,
+which seemed to be composed of elements too fine and pure for the breath
+of this world. When I spoke to him, and he came and held out his hand
+and smiled at me, I felt a sudden pity for him, as if he had been an
+orphan, or a changeling, or stamped with some social stigma. It was
+impossible to be, in fact, more exempt from these misfortunes, and
+yet, as one kissed him, it was hard to keep from murmuring "Poor little
+devil!" though why one should have applied this epithet to a living
+cherub is more than I can say. Afterwards, indeed, I knew a little
+better; I simply discovered that he was too charming to live, wondering
+at the same time that his parents should not have perceived it, and
+should not be in proportionate grief and despair. For myself, I had no
+doubt of his evanescence, having already noticed that there is a kind of
+charm which is like a death-warrant.
+
+The lady who had been sitting with Mrs. Ambient was a jolly, ruddy
+personage, dressed in velveteen and rather limp feathers, whom I guessed
+to be the vicar's wife,--our hostess did not introduce me,--and who
+immediately began to talk to Ambient about chrysanthemums. This was a
+safe subject, and yet there was a certain surprise for me in seeing
+the author of _Beltraffio_ even in such superficial communion with the
+Church of England. His writings implied so much detachment from that
+institution, expressed a view of life so profane, as it were, so
+independent, and so little likely, in general, to be thought edifying,
+that I should have expected to find him an object of horror to vicars
+and their ladies--of horror repaid on his own part by good-natured but
+brilliant mockery. This proves how little I knew as yet of the English
+people and their extraordinary talent for keeping up their forms, as
+well as of some of the mysteries of Mark Ambient's hearth and home.
+I found afterwards that he had, in his study, between smiles and
+cigar-smoke, some wonderful comparisons for his clerical neighbors; but
+meanwhile the chrysanthemums were a source of harmony, for he and the
+vicaress were equally fond of them, and I was surprised at the knowledge
+they exhibited of this interesting plant. The lady's visit, however, had
+presumably already been long, and she presently got up, saying she must
+go, and kissed Mrs. Ambient Mark started to walk with her to the gate of
+the grounds, holding Dolcino by the hand.
+
+"Stay with me, my darling," Mrs. Ambient said to the boy, who was
+wandering away with his father.
+
+Mark Ambient paid no attention to the summons, but Dolcino turned round
+and looked with eyes of shy entreaty at his mother. "Can't I go with
+papa?"
+
+"Not when I ask you to stay with me."
+
+"But please don't ask me, mamma," said the child, in his little clear,
+new voice.
+
+"I must ask you when I want you. Come to me, my darling." And Mrs.
+Ambient, who had seated herself again, held out her long, slender hands.
+
+Her husband stopped, with his back turned to her, but without releasing
+the child. He was still talking to the vicaress, but this good lady, I
+think, had lost the thread of her attention. She looked at Mrs. Ambient
+and at Dolcino, and then she looked at me, smiling very hard, in an
+extremely fixed, cheerful manner.
+
+"Papa," said the child, "mamma wants me not to go with you."
+
+"He's very tired--he has run about all day. He ought to be quiet till
+he goes to bed. Otherwise he won't sleep." These declarations fell
+successively and gravely from Mrs. Ambient's lips.
+
+Her husband, still without turning round, bent over the boy and looked
+at him in silence. The vicaress gave a genial, irrelevant laugh, and
+observed that he was a precious little pet "Let him choose," said Mark
+Ambient. "My dear little boy, will you go with me or will you stay with
+your mother?"
+
+"Oh, it's a shame!" cried the vicar's lady, with increased hilarity.
+
+"Papa, I don't think I can choose," the child answered, making his voice
+very low and confidential. "But I have been a great deal with mamma
+to-day," he added in a moment.
+
+"And very little with papa! My dear fellow, I think you have chosen!"
+And Mark Ambient walked off with his son, accompanied by re-echoing but
+inarticulate comments from my fellow-visitor.
+
+His wife had seated herself again, and her fixed eyes, bent upon the
+ground, expressed for a few moments so much mute agitation that I felt
+as if almost any remark from my own lips would be a false note. But Mrs.
+Ambient quickly recovered herself, and said to me civilly enough
+that she hoped I did n't mind having had to walk from the station. I
+reassured her on this point, and she went on, "We have got a thing that
+might have gone for you, but my husband wouldn't order it."
+
+"That gave me the pleasure of a walk with him," I rejoined.
+
+She was silent a minute, and then she said, "I believe the Americans
+walk very little."
+
+"Yes, we always run," I answered laughingly.
+
+She looked at me seriously, and I began to perceive a certain coldness
+in her pretty eyes. "I suppose your distances are so great?"
+
+"Yes; but we break our marches I I can't tell you what a pleasure it is
+for me to find myself here," I added. "I have the greatest admiration
+for Mr. Ambient."
+
+"He will like that. He likes being admired."
+
+"He must have a very happy life, then. He has many worshippers."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have seen some of them," said Mrs. Ambient, looking away,
+very far from me, rather as if such a vision were before her at the
+moment Something in her tone seemed to indicate that the vision was
+scarcely edifying, and I guessed very quickly that she was not in
+sympathy with the author of _Beltraffio_. I thought the fact strange,
+but, somehow, in the glow of my own enthusiasm, I did n't think it
+important; it only made me wish to be rather explicit about that
+enthusiasm.
+
+"For me, you know," I remarked, "he is quite the greatest of living
+writers."
+
+"Of course I can't judge. Of course he's very clever," said Mrs.
+Ambient, smiling a little.
+
+"He's magnificent, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in each of his books
+that have a perfection that classes them with the greatest things.
+Therefore, for me to see him in this familiar way,--in his habit as he
+lives,--and to find, apparently, the man as delightful as the artist,
+I can't tell you how much too good to be true it seems, and how great a
+privilege I think it." I knew that I was gushing, but I could n't help
+it, and what I said was a good deal less than what I felt. I was by no
+means sure that I should dare to say even so much as this to Ambient
+himself, and there was a kind of rapture in speaking it out to his
+wife which was not affected by the fact that, as a wife, she appeared
+peculiar. She listened to me with her face grave again, and with her
+lips a little compressed, as if there were no doubt, of course, that
+her husband was remarkable, but at the same time she had heard all this
+before and couldn't be expected to be particularly interested in it.
+There was even in her manner an intimation that I was rather young, and
+that people usually got over that sort of thing. "I assure you that for
+me this is a red-letter day," I added.
+
+She made no response, until after a pause, looking round her, she said
+abruptly, though gently, "We are very much afraid about the fruit this
+year."
+
+My eyes wandered to the mossy, mottled, garden walls, where plum-trees
+and pear-trees, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked
+like crucified figures with many arms. "Does n't it promise well?" I
+inquired.
+
+"No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts."
+
+Then there was another pause. Mrs. Ambient kept her eyes fixed on the
+opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband's
+return with the child. "Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?" it occurred
+to me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to
+bring the conversation constantly back to him.
+
+"He's very fond of plums," said his wife.
+
+"Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It's a
+lovely old place," I continued. "The whole character of it is that
+of certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his
+pictures."
+
+"It's a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it"
+
+"Oh, it has got his tone," I said, laughing, and insisting on my point
+the more that Mrs. Ambient appeared to see in my appreciation of her
+simple establishment a sign of limited experience.
+
+It was evident that I insisted too much. "His tone?" she repeated, with
+a quick look at me, and a slightly heightened color.
+
+"Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient"
+
+"Oh, yes, he has indeed! But I don't in the least consider that I am
+living in one of his books; I should n't care for that, at all," she
+went on, with a smile which had in some degree the effect of converting
+her slightly sharp protest into a joke deficient in point "I am afraid I
+am not very literary," said Mrs. Ambient. "And I am not artistic."
+
+"I am very sure you are not ignorant, not stupid," I ventured to reply,
+with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had been
+both familiar and patronizing. My only consolation was in the reflection
+that it was she, and not I, who had begun it She had brought her
+idiosyncrasies into the discussion.
+
+"Well, whatever I am, I am very different from my husband. If you like
+him, you won't like me. You need n't say anything. Your liking me is n't
+in the least necessary!"
+
+"Don't defy me!" I exclaimed.
+
+She looked as if she had not heard me, which was the best thing she
+could do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient
+had evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be silent
+without being restless. But at last she spoke; she asked me if there
+seemed to be many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could
+on this point, and we talked a little about London and of some pictures
+it presented at that time of the year. At the end of this I came back,
+irrepressibly, to Mark Ambient.
+
+"Does n't he like to be there now? I suppose he does n't find the proper
+quiet for his work. I should think his things had been written, for
+the most part, in a very still place. They suggest a great stillness,
+following on a kind of tumult. Don't you think so? I suppose London is a
+tremendous place to collect impressions, but a refuge like this, in the
+country, must be much better for working them up. Does he get many of
+his impressions in London, do you think?" I proceeded from point to point
+in this malign inquiry, simply because my hostess, who probably thought
+me a very pushing and talkative young man, gave me time; for when I
+paused--I have not represented my pauses--she simply continued to
+let her eyes wander, and, with her long fair fingers, played with the
+medallion on her neck. When I stopped altogether, however, she was
+obliged to say something, and what she said was that she had not the
+least idea where her husband got his impressions. This made me think
+her, for a moment, positively disagreeable; delicate and proper and
+rather aristocratically dry as she sat there. But I must either have
+lost the impression a moment later, or been goaded by it to further
+aggression, for I remember asking her whether Mr. Ambient were in a good
+vein of work, and when we might look for the appearance of the book on
+which he was engaged. I have every reason now to know that she thought
+me an odious person.
+
+She gave a strange, small laugh as she said, "I am afraid you think I
+know a great deal more about my husband's work than I do. I haven't
+the least idea what he is doing," she added presently, in a slightly
+different, that is a more explanatory, tone, as if she recognized
+in some degree the enormity of her confession. "I don't read what he
+writes!"
+
+She did not succeed (and would not, even had she tried much harder) in
+making it seem to me anything less than monstrous. I stared at her,
+and I think I blushed. "Don't you admire his genius? Don't you admire
+_Beltraffio?_"
+
+She hesitated a moment, and I wondered what she could possibly say. She
+did not speak--I could see--the first words that rose to her lips; she
+repeated what she had said a few minutes before. "Oh, of course he 's
+very clever!" And with this she got up; her husband and little boy had
+reappeared. Mrs. Ambient left me and went to meet them; she stopped and
+had a few words with her husband, which I did not hear, and which ended
+in her taking the child by the hand and returning to the house with him.
+Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit
+conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he
+would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my
+visit to him, I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to
+have understood his situation from the first, and to have seen in him
+the signs of things which I learnt only afterwards. This later knowledge
+throws a backward light, and makes me forget that at least on the
+occasion of which I am speaking now (I mean that first afternoon), Mark
+Ambient struck me as a fortunate man. Allowing for this, I think he was
+rather silent and irresponsive as we walked back to the house, though I
+remember well the answer he made to a remark of mine in relation to his
+child.
+
+"That's an extraordinary little boy of yours," I said. "I have never
+seen such a child."
+
+"Why do you call him extraordinary?"
+
+"He's so beautiful, so fascinating. He's like a little work of art."
+
+He turned quickly, grasping my arm an instant. "Oh, don't call him that,
+or you 'll--you 'll--!"
+
+And in his hesitation he broke off suddenly, laughing at my surprise.
+But immediately afterwards he added, "You will make his little future
+very difficult."
+
+I declared that I wouldn't for the world take any liberties with his
+little future--it seemed to me to hang by threads of such delicacy. I
+should only be highly interested in watching it.
+
+"You Americans are very sharp," said Ambient "You notice more things
+than we do."
+
+"Ah, if you want visitors who are not struck with you, you should n't
+ask me down here!"
+
+He showed me my room, a little bower of chintz, with open windows where
+the light was green, and before he left me he said irrelevantly, "As for
+my little boy, you know, we shall probably kill him between us, before
+wo have done with him!" And he made this assertion as if he
+really believed it, without any appearance of jest, with his fine,
+near-sighted, expressive eyes looking straight into mine.
+
+"Do you mean by spoiling him?"
+
+"No; by fighting for him!"
+
+"You had better give him to me to keep for you," I said. "Let me remove
+the apple of discord."
+
+I laughed, of course, but he had the air of being perfectly serious.
+"It would be quite the best thing we could do. I should be quite ready
+to do it."
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for your confidence."
+
+Mark Ambient lingered there, with his hands in his pockets. I felt,
+within a few moments, as if I had, morally speaking, taken several
+steps nearer to him. He looked weary, just as he faced me then, looked
+preoccupied, and as if there were something one might do for him. I was
+terribly conscious of the limits of my own ability, but I wondered what
+such a service might be, feeling at bottom, however, that the only thing
+I could do for him was to like him. I suppose he guessed this, and was
+grateful for what was in my mind; for he went on presently, "I have n't
+the advantage of being an American. But I also notice a little, and I
+have an idea that--a--" here he smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder,
+"that even apart from your nationality, you are not destitute of
+intelligence! I have only known you half an hour, but--a--" And here he
+hesitated again. "You are very young, after all."
+
+"But you may treat me as if I could understand you!" I said; and before
+he left me to dress for dinner he had virtually given me a promise that
+he would.
+
+When I went down into the drawing-room--I was very punctual--I found
+that neither my hostess nor my host had appeared. A lady rose from a
+sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at
+her. "I dare say you don't know me," she said, with the modern laugh.
+"I am Mark Ambient's sister." Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting
+her very low. Her laugh was modern--by which I mean that it consisted
+of the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms,
+serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions;
+but her appearance was--what shall I call it?--mediaeval. She was pale
+and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and
+black hair intertwined with golden fillets and curious chains. She wore
+a faded velvet robe, which clung to her when she moved, fashioned, as
+to the neck and sleeves, like the garments of old Venetians and
+Florentines. She looked pictorial and melancholy, and was so perfect an
+image of a type which I, in my ignorance, supposed to be extinct, that
+while she rose before me I was almost as much startled as if I had seen
+a ghost. I afterwards perceived that Miss Ambient was not incapable
+of deriving pleasure from the effect she produced, and I think this
+sentiment had something to do with her sinking again into her seat, with
+her long, lean, but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic
+manner on her knees, and her mournful eyes addressing themselves to
+me with an intentness which was a menace of what they were destined
+subsequently to inflict upon me. She was a singular, self-conscious,
+artificial creature, and I never, subsequently, more than half
+penetrated her motives and, mysteries. Of one thing I am sure, however:
+that they were considerably less extraordinary than her appearance
+announced. Miss Ambient was a restless, disappointed, imaginative
+spinster, consumed with the love of Michael-Angelesque attitudes and
+mystical robes; but I am pretty sure she had not in her nature those
+depths of unutterable thought which, when you first knew her, seemed
+to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures. Those
+features, in especial, had a misleading eloquence; they rested upon
+you with a far-off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was
+certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; and I
+suspect that a young lady could not really have been so dejected and
+disillusioned as Miss Ambient looked, without having committed a crime
+for which she was consumed with remorse, or parted with a hope which
+she could not sanely have entertained. She had, I believe, the usual
+allowance of vulgar impulses: she wished to be looked at, she wished to
+be married, she wished to be thought original. It costs me something to
+speak in this irreverent manner of Mark Ambient's sister, but I shall
+have still more disagreeable things to say before I have finished my
+little anecdote, and moreover,--I confess it,--I owe the young lady a
+sort of grudge. Putting aside the curious cast of her face, she had
+no natural aptitude for an artistic development,--she had little real
+intelligence. But her affectations rubbed off on her brother's renown,
+and as there were plenty of people who disapproved of him totally, they
+could easily point to his sister as a person formed by his influence. It
+was quite possible to regard her as a warning, and she had done him but
+little good with the world at large. He was the original, and she
+was the inevitable imitation. I think he was scarcely aware of the
+impression she produced, beyond having a general idea that she made
+up very well as a Rossetti; he was used to her, and he was sorry for
+her,--wishing she would marry and observing that she did n't Doubtless I
+take her too seriously, for she did me no harm, though I am bound to add
+that I feel I can only half account for her. She was not so mystical as
+she looked, but she was a strange, indirect, uncomfortable, embarrassing
+woman. My story will give the reader at best so very small a knot to
+untie that I need not hope to excite his curiosity by delaying to
+remark that Mrs. Ambient hated her sister-in-law. This I only found
+out afterwards, when I found out some other things. But I mention it at
+once, for I shall perhaps not seem to count too much on having enlisted
+the imagination of the reader if I say that he will already have guessed
+it Mrs. Ambient was a person of conscience, and she endeavored to behave
+properly to her kinswoman, who spent a month with her twice a year; but
+it required no great insight to discover that the two ladies were made
+of a very different paste, and that the usual feminine hypocrisies must
+have cost them, on either side, much more than the usual effort. Mrs.
+Ambient, smooth-haired, thin-lipped, perpetually fresh, must have
+regarded her crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she
+herself was not a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she
+had in her appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike
+candor, and a well-starched muslin dress.
+
+It was in a garment, and with an expression, of this kind, that she made
+her entrance, after I had exchanged a few words with Miss Ambient. Her
+husband presently followed her, and there being no other company we went
+to dinner. The impression I received from that repast is present to me
+still. There were elements of oddity in my companions, but they were
+vague and latent, and did n't interfere with my delight It came mainly,
+of course, from Ambient's talk, which was the most brilliant and
+interesting I had ever heard. I know not whether he laid himself out
+to dazzle a rather juvenile pilgrim from over the sea; but it matters
+little, for it was very easy for him to shine. He was almost better as
+a talker than as a writer; that is, if the extraordinary finish of his
+written prose be really, as some people have maintained, a fault. There
+was such a kindness in him, however, that I have no doubt it gave him
+ideas to see me sit open-mouthed, as I suppose I did. Not so the two
+ladies, who not only were very nearly dumb from beginning to the end
+of the meal, but who had not the air of being struck with such an
+exhibition of wit and knowledge. Mrs. Ambient, placid and detached, met
+neither my eye nor her husband's; she attended to her dinner, watched
+the servants, arranged the puckers in her dress, exchanged at wide
+intervals a remark with her sister-in-law, and while she slowly rubbed
+her white hands between the courses, looked out of the window at the
+first signs of twilight--the long June day allowing us to dine without
+candles.. Miss Ambient appeared to give little direct heed to her
+brother's discourse; but on the other hand she was much engaged in
+watching its effect upon me. Her lustreless pupils continued to attach
+themselves to my countenance, and it was only her air of belonging to
+another century that kept them from being importunate. She seemed to
+look at me across the ages, and the interval of time diminished the
+vividness of the performance. It was as if she knew in a general way
+that her brother must be talking very well, but she herself was so rich
+in ideas that she had no need to pick them up, and was at liberty to see
+what would become of a young American when subjected to a high aesthetic
+temperature.
+
+The temperature was aesthetic, certainly, but it was less so than I could
+have desired, for I was unsuccessful in certain little attempts to make
+Mark Ambient talk about himself I tried to put him on the ground of his
+own writings, but he slipped through my fingers every time and shifted
+the saddle to one of his contemporaries. He talked about Balzac and
+Browning, and what was being done in foreign countries, and about his
+recent tour in the East, and the extraordinary forms of life that one
+saw in that part of the world. I perceived that he had reasons for not
+wishing to descant upon literature, and suffered him without protest
+to deliver himself on certain social topics, which he treated with
+extraordinary humor and with constant revelations of that power of
+ironical portraiture of which his books are full. He had a great deal
+to say about London, as London appears to the observer who does n't fear
+the accusation of cynicism, during the high-pressure time--from April
+to July--of its peculiarities. He flashed his faculty of making the
+fanciful real and the real fanciful over the perfunctory pleasures and
+desperate exertions of so many of his compatriots, among whom there were
+evidently not a few types for which he had little love. London bored him,
+and he made capital sport of it; his only allusion, that I can remember,
+to his own work was his saying that he meant some day to write an
+immense grotesque epic of London society. Miss Ambient's perpetual gaze
+seemed to say to me: "Do you perceive how artistic we are? Frankly now,
+is it possible to be more artistic than this? You surely won't deny that
+we are remarkable." I was irritated by her use of the plural pronoun,
+for she had no right to pair herself with her brother; and moreover, of
+course, I could not see my way to include Mrs. Ambient. But there was
+no doubt that, for that matter, they were all remarkable, and, with
+all allowances, I had never heard anything so artistic. Mark Ambient's
+conversation seemed to play over the whole field of knowledge and taste,
+and to flood it with light and color.
+
+After the ladies had left us he took me into his study to smoke, and
+here I led him on to talk freely enough about himself. I was bent upon
+proving to him that I was worthy to listen to him, upon repaying him
+for what he had said to me before dinner, by showing him how perfectly
+I understood. He liked to talk; he liked to defend his ideas (not that
+I attacked them); he liked a little perhaps--it was a pardonable
+weakness--to astonish the youthful mind and to feel its admiration
+and sympathy. I confess that my own youthful mind was considerably
+astonished at some of his speeches; he startled me and he made me wince.
+He could not help forgetting, or rather he could n't know, how little
+personal contact I had had with the school in which he was master; and
+he promoted me at a jump, as it were, to the study of its innermost
+mysteries. My trepidations, however, were delightful; they were just
+what I had hoped for, and their only fault was that they passed away too
+quickly; for I found that, as regards most things, I very soon seized
+Mark Ambient's point of view. It was the point of view of the artist to
+whom every manifestation of human energy was a thrilling spectacle, and
+who felt forever the desire to resolve his experience of life into a
+literary form. On this matter of the passion for form,--the attempt at
+perfection, the quest for which was to his mind the real search for the
+holy grail,--he said the most interesting, the most inspiring things. He
+mixed with them a thousand illustrations from his own life, from other
+lives that he had known, from history and fiction, and above all from
+the annals of the time that was dear to him beyond all periods,--the
+Italian _cinque-cento_. I saw that in his books he had only said half
+of his thought, and what he had kept back--from motives that I deplored
+when I learnt them later--was the richer part It was his fortune to
+shock a great many people, but there was not a grain of bravado in his
+pages (I have always maintained it, though often contradicted), and at
+bottom the poor fellow, an artist to his fingertips, and regarding a
+failure of completeness as a crime, had an extreme dread of scandal.
+There are people who regret that having gone so far he did not go
+further; but I regret nothing (putting aside two or three of the motives
+I just mentioned), for he arrived at perfection, and I don't see how you
+can go beyond that The hours I spent in his study--this first one and
+the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so numerous--seem
+to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone which is partly that of
+the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candlelight where we sat and
+smoked, with the dusky, delicate bindings of valuable books; partly that
+of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged with the images
+that came at his command. When we went back to the drawing-room we found
+Miss Ambient alone in possession of it; and she informed us that her
+sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been called by the nurse
+to see Dolcino, who appeared to be a little feverish.
+
+"Feverish! how in the world does he come to be feverish?" Ambient asked.
+"He was perfectly well this afternoon."
+
+"Beatrice says you walked him about too much--you almost killed him."
+
+"Beatrice must be very happy--she has an opportunity to triumph!" Mark
+Ambient said, with a laugh of which the bitterness was just perceptible.
+
+"Surely not if the child is ill," I ventured to remark, by way of
+pleading for Mrs. Ambient.
+
+"My dear fellow, you are not married--you don't know the nature of
+wives!" my host exclaimed.
+
+"Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers."
+
+"Beatrice is perfect as a mother," said Miss Ambient, with a tremendous
+sigh and her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.
+
+"I shall go up and see the child," her brother went on. "Do you suppose
+he's asleep?"
+
+"Beatrice won't let you see him, Mark," said the young lady, looking at
+me, though she addressed, our companion.
+
+"Do you call that being perfect as a mother?" Ambient inquired.
+
+"Yes, from her point of view."
+
+"Damn her point of view!" cried the author of _Beltraffio_. And he left
+the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.
+
+I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had
+some conversation, which was begun, I think, by my asking her what the
+point of view of her sister-in-law could be.
+
+"Oh, it's so very odd," she said. "But we are so very odd, altogether.
+Don't you find us so? We have lived so much abroad. Have you people like
+us in America?"
+
+"You are not all alike, surely; so that I don't think I understand your
+question. We have no one like your brother--I may go so far as that."
+
+"You have probably more persons like his wife," said Miss Ambient,
+smiling.
+
+"I can tell you that better when you have told me about her point of
+view."
+
+"Oh, yes--oh, yes. Well, she does n't like his ideas. She doesn't like
+them for the child. She thinks them undesirable."
+
+Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient's
+_arcana_, I was particularly in a position to appreciate this
+announcement. But the effect of it was to make me, after staring a
+moment, burst into laughter, which I instantly checked when I remembered
+that there was a sick child above.
+
+"What has that infant to do with ideas?" I asked "Surely, he can't tell
+one from another. Has he read his father's novels?"
+
+"He's very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she
+can't begin to guard him too early." Miss Ambient's head drooped a
+little to one side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then
+suddenly there was a strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile
+that was more joyless than her gravity--a conscious, insincere smile,
+and added, "When one has children, it's a great responsibility--what one
+writes."
+
+"Children are terrible critics," I answered. "I am rather glad I have
+n't got any."
+
+"Do you also write then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you
+like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? I don't write,
+but I think I feel." To these and various other inquiries and remarks
+the young lady treated me, till we heard her brother's step in the hall
+again, and Mark Ambient reappeared. He looked flushed and serious, and I
+supposed that he had seen something to alarm him in the condition of his
+child. His sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him a moment
+as if he were a burning ship on the horizon, and simply murmured, "Poor
+old Mark!"
+
+"I hope you are not anxious," I said.
+
+"No, but I 'm disappointed. She won't let me in. She has locked the
+door, and I 'm afraid to make a noise." I suppose there might have been
+something ridiculous in a confession of this kind, but I liked my new
+friend so much that for me it did n't detract from his dignity. "She
+tells me--from behind the door--that she will let me know if he is
+worse."
+
+"It's very good of her," said Miss Ambient
+
+I had exchanged a glance with Mark in which it is possible that he read
+that my pity for him was untinged with contempt, though I know not why
+he should have cared; and as, presently, his sister got up and took her
+bedroom candlestick, he proposed that we should go back to his study. We
+sat there till after midnight; he put himself into his slippers, into an
+old velvet jacket, lighted an ancient pipe, and talked considerably less
+than he had done before.
+
+There were longish pauses in our communion, but they only made me feel
+that we had advanced in intimacy. They helped me, too, to understand my
+friend's personal situation, and to perceive that it was by no means the
+happiest possible. When his face was quiet, it was vaguely troubled; it
+seemed to me to show that for him, too, life was a struggle, as it has
+been for many another man of genius. At last I prepared to leave him,
+and then, to my ineffable joy, he gave me some of the sheets of his
+forthcoming book,--it was not finished, but he had indulged in the
+luxury, so dear to writers of deliberation, of having it "set up," from
+chapter to chapter, as he advanced,--he gave me, I say, the early
+pages, the _premices_, as the French have it, of this new fruit of his
+imagination, to take to my room and look over at my leisure. I was just
+quitting him when the door of his study was noiselessly pushed open, and
+Mrs. Ambient stood before us. She looked at us a moment, with her candle
+in her hand, and then she said to her husband that as she supposed he
+had not gone to bed, she had come down to tell him that Dolcino was more
+quiet and would probably be better in the morning. Mark Ambient made no
+reply; he simply slipped past her in the doorway, as if he were afraid
+she would seize him in his passage, and bounded upstairs, to judge
+for himself of his child's condition. Mrs. Ambient looked slightly
+discomfited, and for a moment I thought she was going to give chase
+to her husband. But she resigned herself, with a sigh, while her eyes
+wandered over the lamp-lit room, where various books, at which I had
+been looking, were pulled out of their places on the shelves, and the
+fumes of tobacco seemed to hang in mid-air. I bade her good-night, and
+then, without intention, by a kind of fatality, the perversity which had
+already made me insist unduly on talking with her about her husband's
+achievements, I alluded to the precious proof-sheets with which Ambient
+had intrusted me and which I was nursing there under my arm. "It is the
+opening chapters of his new book," I said. "Fancy my satisfaction at
+being allowed to carry them to my room!"
+
+She turned away, leaving me to take my candlestick from the table in the
+hall; but before we separated, thinking it apparently a good occasion
+to let me know once for all--since I was beginning, it would seem, to be
+quite "thick" with my host--that there was no fitness in my appealing
+to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she
+remarked to me with her quick, round, well-bred utterance, "I dare say
+you attribute to me ideas that I have n't got I don't take that sort
+of interest in my husband's proof-sheets. I consider his writings most
+objectionable!"
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+I had some curious conversation the next morning with Miss Ambient, whom
+I found strolling in the garden before breakfast The whole place looked
+as fresh and trim, amid the twitter of the birds, as if, an hour
+before, the housemaids had been turned into it with their dustpans and
+feather-brushes, I almost hesitated to light a cigarette, and was doubly
+startled when, in the act of doing so, I suddenly perceived the
+sister of my host, who had, in any case, something of the oddity of
+an apparition, standing before me. She might have been posing for her
+photograph. Her sad-colored robe arranged itself in serpentine folds at
+her feet; her hands locked themselves listlessly together in front; and
+her chin rested upon a cinque-cento ruff. The first thing I did,
+after bidding her good-morning, was to ask her for news of her little
+nephew,--to express the hope that she had heard he was better. She was
+able to gratify this hope, and spoke as if we might expect to see him
+during the day. We walked through the shrubberies together, and she gave
+me a great deal of information about her brother's menage, which offered
+me an opportunity to mention to her that his wife had told me, the night
+before, that she thought his productions objectionable.
+
+"She does n't usually come out with that so soon!" Miss Ambient
+exclaimed, in answer to this piece of gossip. "Poor lady, she saw that
+I am a fanatic." "Yes, she won't like you for that. But you must n't
+mind, if the rest of us like you! Beatrice thinks a work of art ought
+to have a 'purpose.' But she's a charming woman--don't you think her
+charming?--she's such a type of the lady."
+
+"She's very beautiful," I answered; while I reflected that though it
+was true, apparently, that Mark Ambient was mismated, it was also
+perceptible that his sister was perfidious. She told me that her
+brother and his wife had no other difference but this one, that she
+thought his writings immoral and his influence pernicious. It was a
+fixed idea; she was afraid of these things for the child. I answered
+that it was not a trifle--a woman's regarding her husband's mind as a
+well of corruption, and she looked quite struck with the novelty of my
+remark. "But there has n't been any of the sort of trouble that there so
+often is among married people," she said. "I suppose you can judge for
+yourself that Beatrice isn't at all--well, whatever they call it when a
+woman misbehaves herself. And Mark does n't make love to other people,
+either. I assure you he does n't! All the same, of course, from her
+point of view, you know, she has a dread of my brother's influence on
+the child--on the formation of his character, of his principles. It is
+as if it were a subtle poison, or a contagion, or something that would
+rub off on Dolcino when his father kisses him or holds him on his knee.
+If she could, she would prevent Mark from ever touching him. Every one
+knows it; visitors see it for themselves; so there is no harm in my
+telling you. Isn't it excessively odd? It comes from Beatrice's being so
+religious, and so tremendously moral, and all that and then, of course,
+we must n't forget," my companion added, unexpectedly, "that some of
+Mark's ideas are--well, really--rather queer!"
+
+I reflected, as we went into the house, where we found Ambient unfolding
+the _Observer_ at the breakfast-table, that none of them were probably
+quite so queer as his sister. Mrs. Ambient did not appear at breakfast,
+being rather tired with her ministrations, during the night, to Dolcino.
+Her husband mentioned, however, that she was hoping to go to church. I
+afterwards learned that she did go, but I may as well announce without
+delay that he and I did not accompany her. It was while the church-bell
+was murmuring in the distance that the author of _Beltraffio_ led me
+forth for the ramble he had spoken of in his note. I will not attempt to
+say where we went, or to describe what we saw. We kept to the fields
+and copses and commons, and breathed the same sweet air as the nibbling
+donkeys and the browsing sheep, whose woolliness seemed to me, in those
+early days of my acquaintance with English objects, but a part of the
+general texture of the small, dense landscape, which looked as if the
+harvest were gathered by the shears. Everything was full of expression
+for Mark Ambient's visitor,--from the big, bandy-legged geese, whose
+whiteness was a "note," amid all the tones of green, as they wandered
+beside a neat little oval pool, the foreground of a thatched and
+whitewashed inn, with a grassy approach and a pictorial sign,--from
+these humble wayside animals to the crests of high woods which let a
+gable or a pinnacle peep here and there, and looked, even at a distance,
+like trees of good company, conscious of an individual profile. I
+admired the hedgerows, I plucked the faint-hued heather, and I was
+forever stopping to say how charming I thought the thread-like footpaths
+across the fields, which wandered, in a diagonal of finer grain, from
+one smooth stile to another. Mark Ambient was abundantly good-natured,
+and was as much entertained with my observations as I was with the
+literary allusions of the landscape. We sat and smoked upon stiles,
+broaching paradoxes in the decent English air; we took short cuts across
+a park or two, where the bracken was deep and my companion nodded to the
+old woman at the gate; we skirted rank covers, which rustled here and
+there as wo passed, and we stretched ourselves at last on a heathery
+hillside, where, if the sun was not too hot, neither was the earth
+too cold, and where the country lay beneath us in a rich blue mist.
+Of course I had already told Ambient what I thought of his new novel,
+having the previous night read every word of the opening chapters before
+I went to bed.
+
+"I am not without hope of being able to make it my best," he said, as I
+went back to the subject, while we turned up our heels to the sky. "At
+least the people who dislike my prose--and there are a great many of
+them, I believe--will dislike this work most" This was the first time I
+had heard him allude to the people who couldn't read him,--a class which
+is supposed always to sit heavy upon the consciousness of the man of
+letters. A man organized for literature, as Mark Ambient was,
+must certainly have had the normal proportion of sensitiveness,
+of irritability; the artistic _ego_, capable in some cases of such
+monstrous development, must have been, in his composition, sufficiently
+erect and definite. I will not therefore go so far as to say that he
+never thought of his detractors, or that he had any illusions with
+regard to the number of his admirers (he could never so far have
+deceived himself as to believe he was popular); but I may at least
+affirm that adverse criticism, as I had occasion to perceive later,
+ruffled him visibly but little, that he had an air of thinking it quite
+natural he should be offensive to many minds, and that he very seldom
+talked about the newspapers, which, by the way, were always very stupid
+in regard to the author of _Beltraffio_. Of course he may have thought
+about them--the newspapers--night and day; the only point I wish to make
+is that he did n't show it; while, at the same time, he did n't strike
+one as a man who was on his guard. I may add that, as regards his hope
+of making the work on which he was then engaged the best of his books,
+it was only partly carried out. That place belongs, incontestably, to
+_Beltraffio_, in spite of the beauty of certain parts of its successor.
+I am pretty sure, however, that he had, at the moment of which I speak,
+no sense of failure; he was in love with his idea, which was indeed
+magnificent, and though for him, as, I suppose, for every artist, the
+act of execution had in it as much torment as joy, he saw his work
+growing a little every day and filling-out the largest plan he had yet
+conceived. "I want to be truer than I have ever been," he said, settling
+himself on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head; "I want to
+give an impression of life itself. No, you may say what you will, I have
+always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and rounded
+them off and tucked them in,--done everything to them that life does n't
+do. I have been a slave to the old superstitions."
+
+"You a slave, my dear Mark Ambient? You have the freest imagination of
+our day!"
+
+"All the more shame to me to have done some of the things I have! The
+reconciliation of the two women in _Ginistrella_, for instance, which
+could never really have taken place. That sort of thing is ignoble;
+I blush when I think of it! This new affair must be a golden vessel,
+filled with the purest distillation of the actual; and oh, how it
+bothers me, the shaping of the vase--the hammering of the metal! I have
+to hammer it so fine, so smooth; I don't do more than an inch or two a
+day. And all the while I have to be so careful not to let a drop of the
+liquor escape! When I see the kind of things that Life does, I despair
+of ever catching her peculiar trick. She has an impudence, life! If one
+risked a fiftieth part of the effects she risks! It takes ever so long
+to believe it. You don't know yet, my dear fellow. It is n't till one
+has been watching life for forty years that one finds out half of what
+she's up to! Therefore one's earlier things must inevitably contain a
+mass of rot. And with what one sees, on one side, with its tongue in its
+cheek, defying one to be real enough, and on the other the _bonnes gens_
+rolling up their eyes at one's cynicism, the situation has elements of
+the ludicrous which the artist himself is doubtless in a position to
+appreciate better than any one else. Of course one mustn't bother about
+the _bonnes gens_." Mark Ambient went on, while my thoughts reverted to
+his ladylike wife, as interpreted by his remarkable sister.
+
+"To sink your shaft deep, and polish the plate through which people look
+into it--that's what your work consists of," I remember remarking.
+
+"Ah, polishing one's plate--that is the torment of execution!" he
+exclaimed, jerking himself up and sitting forward. "The effort to arrive
+at a surface--if you think a surface necessary--some people don't,
+happily for them! My dear fellow, if you could see the surface I dream
+of, as compared with the one with which I have to content myself. Life
+is really too short for art--one hasn't time to make one's shell ideally
+hard. Firm and bright--firm and bright!--the devilish thing has a way,
+sometimes, of being bright without being firm. When I rap it with my
+knuckles it doesn't give the right sound. There are horrible little
+flabby spots where I have taken the second-best word, because I could
+n't for the life of me think of the best. If you knew how stupid I am
+sometimes! They look to me now like pimples and ulcers on the brow of
+beauty!"
+
+"That's very bad--very bad," I said, as gravely as I could.
+
+"Very bad? It's the highest social offence I know; it ought--it
+absolutely ought--I'm quite serious--to be capital If I knew I should be
+hanged else, I should manage to find the best word. The people who
+could n't--some of them don't know it when they see it--would shut their
+inkstands, and we should n't be deluged by this flood of rubbish!"
+
+I will not attempt to repeat everything that passed between us, or to
+explain just how it was that, every moment I spent in his company, Mark
+Ambient revealed to me more and more that he looked at all things from
+the standpoint of the artist, felt all life as literary material There
+are people who will tell me that this is a poor way of feeling it, and
+I am not concerned to defend my statement, having space merely to remark
+that there is something to be said for any interest which makes a man
+feel so much. If Mark Ambient did really, as I suggested above, have
+imaginative contact with "all life," I, for my part, envy him his
+_arriere-pensee_. At any rate it was through the receipt of this
+impression of him that by the time we returned I had acquired the
+feeling of intimacy I have noted. Before we got up for the homeward
+stretch, he alluded to his wife's having once--or perhaps more than
+once--asked him whether he should like Dolcino to read _Beltraffio_.
+I think he was unconscious at the moment of all that this conveyed to
+me--as well, doubtless, of my extreme curiosity to hear what he had
+replied. He had said that he hoped very much Dolcino would read all his
+works--when he was twenty; he should like him to know what his father
+had done. Before twenty it would be useless; he would n't understand
+them.
+
+"And meanwhile do you propose to hide them,--to lock them up in a
+drawer?" Mrs. Ambient had inquired.
+
+"Oh, no; we must simply tell him that they are not intended for small
+boys. If you bring him up properly, after that he won t touch them."
+
+To this Mrs. Ambient had made answer that it would be very awkward when
+he was about fifteen; and I asked her husband if it was his opinion in
+general, then, that young people should not read novels.
+
+"Good ones--certainly not!" said my companion. I suppose I had had other
+views, for I remember saying that, for myself, I was not sure it was bad
+for them, if the novels were "good" enough. "Bad for _them_, I don't say
+so much!" Ambient exclaimed. "But very bad, I am afraid, for the novel!"
+That oblique, accidental allusion to his wife's attitude was followed by
+a franker style of reference as we walked home. "The difference between
+us is simply the opposition between two distinct ways of looking at the
+world, which have never succeeded in getting on together, or making any
+kind of common menage, since the beginning of time. They have borne all
+sorts of names, and my wife would tell you it's the difference between
+Christian and Pagan. I may be a pagan, but I don't like the name; it
+sounds sectarian. She thinks me, at any rate, no better than an ancient
+Greek. It's the difference between making the most of life and making
+the least, so that you 'll get another better one in some other time and
+place. Will it be a sin to make the most of that one too, I wonder; and
+shall we have to be bribed off in the future state, as well as in the
+present? Perhaps I care too much for beauty--I don't know; I delight
+in it, I adore it, I think of it continually, I try to produce it, to
+reproduce it. My wife holds that we shouldn't think too much about it
+She's always afraid of that, always on her guard. I don't know what she
+has got on her back! And she's so pretty, too, herself! Don't you think
+she's lovely? She was, at any rate, when I married her. At that time I
+was n't aware of that difference I speak of--I thought it all came to
+the same thing: in the end, as they say. Well, perhaps it will, in the
+end. I don't know what the end will be. Moreover, I care for seeing
+things as they are; that's the way I try to show them in my novels. But
+you must n't talk to Mrs. Ambient about things as they are. She has a
+mortal dread of things as they are."
+
+"She's afraid of them for Dolcino," I said: surprised a moment
+afterwards at being in a position--thanks to Miss Ambient--to be so
+explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n't have shown
+visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n't;
+he simply exclaimed, with a tenderness that touched me,--
+
+"Ah, nothing shall ever hurt _him!_" He told me more about his wife
+before we arrived at the gate of his house, and if it be thought that he
+was querulous, I am afraid I must admit that he had some of the foibles
+as well as the gifts of the artistic temperament; adding, however,
+instantly, that hitherto, to the best of my belief, he had very rarely
+complained. "She thinks me immoral--that's the long and short of it," he
+said, as we paused outside a moment, and his hand rested on one of
+the bars of his gate; while his conscious, demonstrative, expressive,
+perceptive eyes,--the eyes of a foreigner, I had begun to account them,
+much more than of the usual Englishman,--viewing me now evidently
+as quite a familiar friend, took part in the declaration. "It's very
+strange, when one thinks it all over, and there's a grand comicality
+in it which I should like to bring out. She is a very nice woman,
+extraordinarily well behaved, upright and clever, and with a tremendous
+lot of good sense about a good many matters. Yet her conception of a
+novel--she has explained it to me once or twice, and she does n't do it
+badly, as exposition--is a thing so false that it makes me blush. It is
+a thing so hollow, so dishonest, so lying, in which life is so blinked
+and blinded, so dodged and disfigured, that it makes my ears burn. It's
+two different ways of looking at the whole affair," he repeated, pushing
+open the gate. "And they are irreconcilable!" he added, with a sigh.
+We went forward to the house, but on the walk, half way to the door,
+he stopped, and said to me, "If you are going into this kind of
+thing, there's a fact you should know beforehand; it may save you
+some disappointment. There's a hatred of art, there's a hatred of
+literature!" I looked up at the charming house, with its genial color
+and crookedness, and I answered, with a smile, that those evil passions
+might exist, but that I should never have expected to find them there.
+"Oh, it doesn't matter, after all," he said, laughing; which I was glad
+to hear, for I was reproaching myself with having excited him.
+
+If I had, his excitement soon passed off, for at lunch he was
+delightful; strangely delightful, considering that the difference
+between himself and his wife was, as he had said, irreconcilable. He
+had the art, by his manner, by his smile, by his natural kindliness, of
+reducing the importance of it in the common concerns of life; and Mrs.
+Ambient, I must add, lent herself to this transaction with a very good
+grace. I watched her, at table, for further illustrations of that fixed
+idea of which Miss Ambient had spoken to me; for, in the light of the
+united revelations of her sister-in-law and her husband, she had come to
+seem to me a very singular personage. I am obliged to say that the signs
+of a fanatical temperament were not more striking in my hostess
+than before; it was only after a while that her air of incorruptible
+conformity, her tapering, monosyllabic correctness, began to appear to
+be themselves a cold, thin flame. Certainly, at first, she looked like a
+woman with as few passions as possible; but if she had a passion at all,
+it would be that of Philistinism. She might have been--for there are
+guardian-spirits, I suppose, of all great principles--the angel of
+propriety. Mark Ambient, apparently, ten years before, had simply
+perceived that she was an angel, without asking himself of what He had
+been quite right in calling my attention to her beauty. In looking for
+the reason why he should have married her, I saw, more than before, that
+she was, physically speaking, a wonderfully cultivated human plant--that
+she must have given him many ideas and images. It was impossible to be
+more pencilled, more garden-like, more delicately tinted and petalled.
+
+If I had had it in my heart to think Ambient a little of a hypocrite
+for appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me during our
+walk, I should instantly have cancelled such a judgment, on reflecting
+that the good news his wife was able to give him about their little
+boy was reason enough for his sudden air of happiness. It may have come
+partly, too, from a certain remorse at having complained to me of the
+fair lady who sat there,--a desire to show me that he was after all
+not so miserable. Dolcino continued to be much better, and he had been
+promised he should come downstairs after he had had his dinner. As soon
+as we had risen from our own meal Ambient slipped away, evidently for
+the purpose of going to his child; and no sooner had I observed this
+than I became aware that his wife had simultaneously vanished. It
+happened that Miss Ambient and I, both at the same moment, saw the tail
+of her dress whisk out of a doorway, which led the young lady to smile
+at me, as if I now knew all the secrets of the Ambients. I passed with
+her into the garden, and we sat down on a dear old bench which rested
+against the west wall of the house. It was a perfect spot for the middle
+period of a Sunday in June, and its felicity seemed to come partly from
+an antique sun-dial which, rising in front of us and forming the centre
+of a small, intricate parterre, measured the moments ever so slowly, and
+made them safe for leisure and talk. The garden bloomed in the suffused
+afternoon, the tall beeches stood still for an example, and, behind and
+above us, a rose-tree of many seasons, clinging to the faded grain of
+the brick, expressed the whole character of the place in a familiar,
+exquisite smell. It seemed to me a place for genius to have every
+sanction, and not to encounter challenges and checks. Miss Ambient asked
+me if I had enjoyed my walk with her brother, and whether we had talked
+of many things.
+
+"Well, of most things," I said, smiling, though I remembered that we had
+not talked of Miss Ambient.
+
+"And don't you think some of his theories are very peculiar?"
+
+"Oh, I guess I agree with them all." I was very particular, for Miss
+Ambient's entertainment, to guess.
+
+"Do you think art is everything?" she inquired in, a moment.
+
+"In art, of course I do!"
+
+"And do you think beauty is everything?"
+
+"I don't know about its being everything. But it's very delightful"
+
+"Of course it is difficult for a woman to know how far to go," said
+my companion. "I adore everything that gives a charm to life. I am
+intensely sensitive to form. But sometimes I draw back--don't you see
+what I mean?--I don't quite see where I shall be landed. I only want
+to be quiet, after all," Miss Ambient continued, in a tone of stifled
+yearning which seemed to indicate that she had not yet arrived at her
+desire. "And one must be good, at any rate, must not one?" she inquired,
+with a cadence apparently intended for an assurance that my answer would
+settle this recondite question for her. It was difficult for me to
+make it very original, and I am afraid I repaid her confidence with an
+unblushing platitude. I remember, moreover, appending to it an inquiry,
+equally destitute of freshness, and still more wanting perhaps in tact,
+as to whether she did not mean to go to church, as that was an obvious
+way of being good. She replied that she had performed this duty in the
+morning, and that for her, on Sunday afternoon, supreme virtue consisted
+in answering the week's letters. Then suddenly, without transition, she
+said to me, "It's quite a mistake about Dolcino being better. I have seen
+him, and he's not at all right."
+
+"Surely his mother would know, would n't she?" I suggested.
+
+She appeared for a moment to be counting the leaves on one of the great
+beeches. "As regards most matters, one can easily say what, in a given
+situation, my sister-in-law would do. But as regards this one, there are
+strange elements at work."
+
+"Strange elements? Do you mean in the constitution of the child?"
+
+"No, I mean in my sister-in-law's feelings."
+
+"Elements of affection, of course; elements of anxiety. Why do you call
+them strange?"
+
+She repeated my words. "Elements of affection, elements of anxiety. She
+is very anxious."
+
+Miss Ambient made me vaguely uneasy; she almost frightened me, and I
+wished she would go and write her letters. "His father will have seen
+him now," I said, "and if he is not satisfied he will send for the
+doctor."
+
+"The doctor ought to have been here this morning. He lives only two
+miles away."
+
+I reflected that all this was very possibly only a part of the general
+tragedy of Miss Ambient's view of things; but I asked her why she had
+n't urged such a necessity upon her sister-in-law. She answered me with
+a smile of extraordinary significance, and told me that I must have very
+little idea of what her relations with Beatrice were; but I must do
+her the justice to add that she went on to make herself a little more
+comprehensible by saying that it was quite reason enough for her sister
+not to be alarmed that Mark would be sure to be. He was always nervous
+about the child, and as they were predestined by nature to take opposite
+views, the only thing for Beatrice was to cultivate a false optimism. If
+Mark were not there, she would not be at all easy. I remembered what
+he had said to me about their dealings with Dolcino,--that between them
+they would put an end to him; but I did not repeat this to Miss Ambient:
+the less so that just then her brother emerged from the house, carrying
+his child in his arms. Close behind him moved his wife, grave and pale;
+the boy's face was turned over Ambient's shoulder, towards his mother.
+We got up to receive the group, and as they came near us Dolcino turned
+round. I caught, on his enchanting little countenance, a smile of
+recognition, and for the moment would have been quite content with it.
+Miss Ambient, however, received another impression, and I make haste to
+say that her quick sensibility, in which there was something maternal,
+argues that, in spite of her affectations, there was a strain of
+kindness in her. "It won't do at all--it won't do at all," she said to
+me under her breath. "I shall speak to Mark about the doctor."
+
+The child was rather white, but the main difference I saw in him was
+that he was even more beautiful than the day before. He had been dressed
+in his festal garments,--a velvet suit and a crimson sash,--and he
+looked like a little invalid prince, too young to know condescension,
+and smiling familiarly on his subjects.
+
+"Put him down, Mark, he's not comfortable," Mrs. Ambient said.
+
+"Should you like to stand on your feet, my boy?" his father asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; I 'm remarkably well," said the child.
+
+Mark placed him on the ground; he had shining, pointed slippers, with
+enormous bows. "Are you happy now, Mr. Ambient?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I am particularly happy," Dolcino replied. The words were
+scarcely out of his mouth when his mother caught him up, and in a
+moment, holding him on her knees, she took her place on the bench where
+Miss Ambient and I had been sitting. This young lady said something
+to her brother, in consequence of which the two wandered away into the
+garden together. I remained with Mrs. Ambient; but as a servant had
+brought out a couple of chairs I was not obliged to seat myself beside
+her. Our conversation was not animated, and I, for my part, felt there
+would be a kind of hypocrisy in my trying to make myself agreeable to
+Mrs. Ambient I didn't dislike her--I rather admired her; but I was
+aware that I differed from her inexpressibly. Then I suspected, what
+I afterwards definitely knew and have already intimated, that the poor
+lady had taken a dislike to me; and this of course was not encouraging.
+She thought me an obtrusive and even depraved young man, whom a perverse
+Providence had dropped upon their quiet lawn to flatter her husband's
+worst tendencies. She did me the honor to say to Miss Ambient, who
+repeated the speech, that she didn't know when she had seen her husband
+take such a fancy to a visitor; and she measured, apparently, my evil
+influence by Mark's appreciation of my society. I had a consciousness,
+not yet acute, but quite sufficient, of all this; but I must say that
+if it chilled my flow of small-talk, it did n't prevent me from thinking
+that the beautiful mother and beautiful child, interlaced there against
+their background of roses, made a picture such as I perhaps should not
+soon see again. I was free, I supposed, to go into the house and write
+letters, to sit in the drawing-room, to repair to my own apartment and
+take a nap; but the only use I made of my freedom was to linger still in
+my chair and say to myself that the light hand of Sir Joshua might have
+painted Mark Ambient's wife and son. I found myself looking perpetually
+at Dolcino, and Dolcino looked back at me, and that was enough to
+detain me. When he looked at me he smiled, and I felt it was an absolute
+impossibility to abandon a child who was smiling at one like that. His
+eyes never wandered; they attached themselves to mine, as if among
+all the small incipient things of his nature there was a desire to say
+something to me. If I could have taken him upon my own knee, he perhaps
+would have managed to say it; but it would have been far too delicate a
+matter to ask his mother to give him up, and it has remained a constant
+regret for me that on that Sunday afternoon I did not, even for a
+moment, hold Dolcino in my arms. He had said that he felt remarkably
+well, and that he was especially happy; but though he may have been
+happy, with his charming head pillowed on his mother's breast, and his
+little crimson silk legs depending from her lap, I did not think he
+looked well. He made no attempt to walk about; he was content to swing
+his legs softly and strike one as languid and angelic.
+
+Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some
+remark about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the
+house. Mark came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the
+child, who immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he
+remained. "I think Ailingham ought to see him," Ambient said; "I think
+I will walk over and fetch him."
+
+"That 's Gwendolen's idea, I suppose," Mrs. Ambient replied, very
+sweetly.
+
+"It's not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one's child is ill."
+
+"I 'm not ill, papa; I 'm much better now," Dolcino remarked.
+
+"Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have
+a great idea of being agreeable, you know."
+
+The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a
+moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own
+as I watched him. "Do _you_ think me agreeable?" he inquired, with the
+candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to
+me, laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, "Is n't he adorable?"
+
+"Then why don't you hop about, if you feel so lusty?" Ambient went on,
+while the boy swung his hand.
+
+"Because mamma is holding me close!"
+
+"Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!" Ambient
+exclaimed, looking at his wife.
+
+She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or
+concession, and after a moment she said, "You can go for Allingham if
+you like, I think myself it would be better. You ought to drive."
+
+"She says that to get me away," Ambient remarked to me, laughing; after
+which he started for the doctor's.
+
+I remained there with Mrs. Ambient, though our conversation had more
+pauses than speeches. The boy's little fixed white face seemed, as
+before, to plead with me to stay, and after a while it produced still
+another effect, a very curious one, which I shall find it difficult to
+express. Of course I expose myself to the charge of attempting to give
+fantastic reasons for an act which may have been simply the fruit of a
+native want of discretion; and indeed the traceable consequences of that
+perversity were too lamentable to leave me any desire to trifle with the
+question. All I can say is that I acted in perfect good faith, and
+that Dolcino's friendly little gaze gradually kindled the spark of my
+inspiration. What helped it to glow were the other influences,--the
+silent, suggestive garden-nook, the perfect opportunity (if it was not
+an opportunity for that, it was an opportunity for nothing), and the
+plea that I speak of, which issued from the child's eyes, and seemed to
+make him say, "The mother that bore me and that presses me here to her
+bosom--sympathetic little organism that I am--has really the kind of
+sensibility which she has been represented to you as lacking; if you
+only look for it patiently and respectfully. How is it possible that she
+should n't have it? How is it possible that I should have so much of
+it (for I am quite full of it, dear, strange gentleman), if it were not
+also in some degree in her? I am my father's child, but I am also my
+mother's, and I am sorry for the difference between them!" So it shaped
+itself before me, the vision of reconciling Mrs. Ambient with her
+husband, of putting an end to their great disagreement The project was
+absurd, of course, for had I not had his word for it--spoken with
+all the bitterness of experience--that the gulf that divided them was
+wellnigh bottomless? Nevertheless, a quarter of an hour after Mark had
+left us, I said to his wife that I could n't get over what she told
+me the night before about her thinking her husband's writings
+"objectionable." I had been so very sorry to hear it, had thought of it
+constantly, and wondered whether it were not possible to make her change
+her mind. Mrs. Ambient gave me rather a cold stare; she seemed to be
+recommending me to mind my own business. I wish I had taken this mute
+counsel, but I did not. I went on to remark that it seemed an immense
+pity so much that was beautiful should be lost upon her.
+
+"Nothing is lost upon me," said Mrs. Ambient "I know they are very
+beautiful."
+
+"Don't you like papa's books?" Dolcino asked, addressing his mother, but
+still looking at me. Then he added to me, "Won't you read them to me,
+American gentleman?"
+
+"I would rather tell you some stories of my own," I said. "I know
+some that are very interesting." "When will you tell them? To-morrow?"
+"To-morrow, with pleasure, if that suits you." Mrs. Ambient was silent
+at this. Her husband, during our walk, had asked me to remain another
+day; my promise to her son was an implication that I had consented, and
+it is not probable that the prospect was agreeable to her. This ought,
+doubtless, to have made me more careful as to what I said next; but all
+I can say is that it did n't. I presently observed that just after
+leaving her the evening before, and after hearing her apply to her
+husband's writings the epithet I had already quoted, I had, on going up
+to my room, sat down to the perusal of those sheets of his new book
+which he had been so good as to lend me. I had sat entranced till nearly
+three in the morning. I had read them twice over. "You say you have n't
+looked at them. I think it 's such a pity you should n't Do let me beg
+you to take them up. They are so very remarkable. I 'm sure they will
+convert you. They place him in--really--such a dazzling light. All that
+is best in him is there. I have no doubt it's a great liberty, my saying
+all this; but excuse me, and _do_ read them!"
+
+"Do read them, mamma!" Dolcino repeated; "do read them!"
+
+She bent her head and closed his lips with a kiss. "Of course I know he
+has worked immensely over them," she said; and after this she made no
+remark, but sat there looking thoughtful, with her eyes on the ground.
+The tone of these last words was such as to leave me no spirit for
+further pressure, and after expressing a fear that her husband had not
+found the doctor at home, I got up and took a turn about the grounds.
+When I came back, ten minutes later, she was still in her place watching
+her boy, who had fallen asleep in her lap. As I drew near she put her
+finger to her lips, and a moment afterwards she rose, holding the
+child, and murmured something about its being better that he should go
+upstairs. I offered to carry him, and held out my hands to take him;
+but she thanked me and turned away with the child seated on her arm, his
+head on her shoulder. "I am very strong," she said, as she passed into
+the house, and her slim, flexible figure bent backwards with the filial
+weight So I never touched Dolcino.
+
+I betook myself to Ambient's study, delighted to have a quiet hour to
+look over his books by myself. The windows were open into the garden;
+the sunny stillness, the mild light of the English summer, filled the
+room, without quite chasing away the rich dusky tone which was a part
+of its charm, and which abode in the serried shelves where old
+morocco exhaled the fragrance of curious learning, and in the brighter
+intervals, where medals and prints and miniatures were suspended upon a
+surface of faded stuff. The place had both color and quiet; I thought it
+a perfect room for work, and went so far as to say to myself that, if it
+were mine to sit and scribble in, there was no knowing but that I might
+learn to write as well as the author of _Beltraffio_. This distinguished
+man did not turn up, and I rummaged freely among his treasures. At last
+I took down a book that detained me awhile, and seated myself in a fine
+old leather chair by the window to turn it over. I had been occupied
+in this way for half-an-hour,--a good part of the afternoon had
+waned,--when I became conscious of another presence in the room, and,
+looking up from my quarto, saw that Mrs. Ambient, having pushed open the
+door in the same noiseless way that marked, or disguised, her entrance
+the night before, had advanced across the threshold. On seeing me she
+stopped; she had not, I think, expected to find me. But her hesitation
+was only of a moment; she came straight to her husband's writing-table
+as if she were looking for something. I got up and asked her if I could
+help her. She glanced about an instant, and then put her hand upon a
+roll of papers which I recognized, as I had placed it in that spot in
+the morning on coming down from my room.
+
+"Is this the new book?" she asked, holding it up. "The very sheets, with
+precious annotations." "I mean to take your advice;" and she tucked the
+little bundle under her arm. I congratulated her cordially, and
+ventured to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of
+pleasantry. But she was perfectly grave, and turned away from me, as she
+had presented herself, without a smile; after which I settled down to my
+quarto again, with the reflection that Mrs. Ambient was a queer woman.
+My triumph, too, suddenly seemed to me rather vain. A woman who could
+n't smile in the right place would never understand Mark Ambient. He
+came in at last in person, having brought the doctor back with him. "He
+was away from home," Mark said, "and I went after him, to where he was
+supposed to be. He had left the place, and I followed him to two or
+three others, which accounts for my delay." He was now with Mrs. Ambient
+looking at the child, and was to see Mark again before leaving the
+house. My host noticed, at the end of ten minutes, that the proof-sheets
+of his new book had been removed from the table; and when I told him,
+in reply to his question as to what I knew about them, that Mrs. Ambient
+had carried them off to read, he turned almost pale for an instant with
+surprise. "What has suddenly made her so curious?" he exclaimed; and I
+was obliged to tell him that I was at the bottom of the mystery. I had
+had it on my conscience to assure her that she really ought to know
+of what her husband was capable. "Of what I am capable? _Elle ne s'en
+dottie que trop!_" said Ambient, with a laugh; but he took my meddling
+very good-naturedly, and contented himself with adding that he was very
+much afraid she would burn up the sheets, with his emendations, of which
+he had no duplicate. The doctor paid a long visit in the nursery, and
+before he came down I retired to my own quarters, where I remained till
+dinner-time. On entering the drawing-room at this hour, I found Miss
+Ambient in possession, as she had been the evening before.
+
+"I was right about Dolcino," she said, as soon as she saw me, with a
+strange little air of triumph. "He is really very ill."
+
+"Very ill! Why, when I last saw him, at four o'clock, he was in fairly
+good form."
+
+"There has been a change for the worse, very sudden and rapid, and when
+the doctor got here he found diphtheritic symptoms. He ought to have
+been called, as I knew, in the morning, and the child ought n't to have
+been brought into the garden."
+
+"My dear lady, he was very happy there," I answered, much appalled.
+
+"He would be happy anywhere. I have no doubt he is happy now, with his
+poor little throat in a state--" she dropped her voice as her brother
+came in, and Mark let us know that, as a matter of course, Mrs. Ambient
+would not appear. It was true that Dolcino had developed diphtheritic
+symptoms, but he was quiet for the present, and his mother was earnestly
+watching him. She was a perfect nurse, Mark said, and the doctor was
+coming back at ten o'clock. Our dinner was not very gay; Ambient was
+anxious and alarmed, and his sister irritated me by her constant tacit
+assumption, conveyed in the very way she nibbled her bread and sipped
+her wine, of having "told me so." I had had no disposition to deny
+anything she told me, and I could not see that her satisfaction in being
+justified by the event made poor Dolcino's throat any better. The truth
+is that, as the sequel proved, Miss Ambient had some of the qualities
+of the sibyl, and had therefore, perhaps, a right to the sibylline
+contortions. Her brother was so preoccupied that I felt my presence
+to be an indiscretion, and was sorry I had promised to remain over the
+morrow. I said to Mark that, evidently, I had better leave them in the
+morning; to which he replied that, on the contrary, if he was to pass
+the next days in the fidgets, my company would be an extreme relief to
+him. The fidgets had already begun for him, poor fellow; and as we
+sat in his study with our cigars after dinner, he wandered to the door
+whenever he heard the sound of the doctor's wheels. Miss Ambient, who
+shared this apartment with us, gave me at such moments significant
+glances; she had gone upstairs before rejoining us to ask after the
+child His mother and his nurse gave a tolerable account of him; but Miss
+Ambient found his fever high and his symptoms very grave. The doctor
+came at ten o'clock, and I went to bed after hearing from Mark that
+he saw no present cause for alarm. He had made every provision for the
+night, and was to return early in the morning.
+
+I quitted my room at eight o'clock the next day, and, as I came
+downstairs, saw, through the open door of the house, Mrs. Ambient
+standing at the front gate of the grounds, in colloquy with the
+physician. She wore a white dressing-gown, but her shining hair was
+carefully tucked away in its net, and in the freshness of the morning,
+after a night of watching, she looked as much "the type of the lady" as
+her sister-in-law had described her. Her appearance, I suppose, ought to
+have reassured me; but I was still nervous and uneasy, so that I shrank
+from meeting her with the necessary question about Dolcino. None the
+less, however, was I impatient to learn how the morning found him;
+and, as Mrs. Ambient had not seen me, I passed into the grounds by a
+roundabout way, and, stopping at a further gate, hailed the doctor just
+as he was driving away. Mrs. Ambient had returned to the house before he
+got into his gig.
+
+"Excuse me, but as a friend of the family, I should like very much to
+hear about the little boy."
+
+The doctor, who was a stout, sharp man, looked at me from head to foot,
+and then he said, "I'm sorry to say I have n't seen him."
+
+"Have n't seen him?"
+
+"Mrs. Ambient came down to meet me as I alighted, and told me that he
+was sleeping so soundly, after a restless night, that she did n't wish
+him disturbed. I assured her I would n't disturb him, but she said he
+was quite safe now and she could look after him herself."
+
+"Thank you very much. Are you coming back?"
+
+"No, sir; I 'll be hanged if I come back!" exclaimed Dr. Allingham, who
+was evidently very angry. And he started his horse again with the whip.
+
+I wandered back into the garden, and five minutes later Miss Ambient
+came forth from the house to greet me. She explained that breakfast
+would not be served for some time, and that she wished to catch the
+doctor before he went away. I informed her that this functionary had
+come and departed, and I repeated to her what he had told me about his
+dismissal. This made Miss Ambient very serious, very serious indeed,
+and she sank into a bench, with dilated eyes, hugging her elbows with
+crossed arms. She indulged in many ejaculations, she confessed that she
+was infinitely perplexed, and she finally told me what her own last
+news of her nephew had been. She had sat up very late,--after me, after
+Mark,--and before going to bed had knocked at the door of the child's
+room, which was opened to her by the nurse. This good woman had admitted
+her, and she had found Dolcino quiet, but flushed and "unnatural," with
+his mother sitting beside his bed. "She held his hand in one of
+hers," said Miss Ambient, "and in the other--what do you think?--the
+proof-sheets of Mark's new book! She was reading them there, intently:
+did you ever hear of anything so extraordinary? Such a very odd time to
+be reading an author whom she never could abide!" In her agitation Miss
+Ambient was guilty of this vulgarism of speech, and I was so impressed
+by her narrative that it was only in recalling her words later that I
+noticed the lapse. Mrs. Ambient had looked up from her reading with her
+finger on her lips--I recognized the gesture she had addressed to me in
+the afternoon--and, though the nurse was about to go to rest, had not
+encouraged her sister-in-law to relieve her of any part of her vigil.
+But certainly, then, Dolcino's condition was far from reassuring,--his
+poor little breathing was most painful; and what change could have taken
+place in him in those few hours that would justify Beatrice in denying
+the physician access to him? This was the moral of Miss Ambient's
+anecdote, the moral for herself at least. The moral for me, rather, was
+that it _was_ a very singular time for Mrs. Ambient to be going into a
+novelist she had never appreciated, and who had simply happened to be
+recommended to her by a young American she disliked. I thought of her
+sitting there in the sick-chamber in the still hours of the night, after
+the nurse had left her, turning over those pages of genius and wrestling
+with their magical influence.
+
+I must relate very briefly the circumstances of the rest of my visit to
+Mark Ambient,--it lasted but a few hours longer,--and devote but three
+words to my later acquaintance with him. That lasted five years,--till
+his death,--and was full of interest, of satisfaction, and, I may add,
+of sadness. The main thing to be said with regard to it, is that I had
+a secret from him. I believe he never suspected it, though of this I
+am not absolutely sure. If he did, the line he had taken, the line of
+absolute negation of the matter to himself, shows an immense effort of
+the will. I may tell my secret now, giving it for what it is worth, now
+that Mark Ambient has gone, that he has begun to be alluded to as one of
+the famous early dead, and that his wife does not survive him; now, too,
+that Miss Ambient, whom I also saw at intervals during the years that
+followed, has, with her embroideries and her attitudes, her necromantic
+glances and strange intuitions, retired to a Sisterhood, where, as I am
+told, she is deeply immured and quite lost to the world.
+
+Mark came in to breakfast after his sister and I had for some time been
+seated there. He shook hands with me in silence, kissed his sister,
+opened his letters and newspapers, and pretended to drink his coffee.
+But I could see that these movements were mechanical, and I was little
+surprised when, suddenly, he pushed away everything that was before him,
+and, with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table, sat staring
+strangely at the cloth.
+
+"What is the matter, _fratello mio?_" Miss Ambient inquired, peeping from
+behind the urn.
+
+He answered nothing, but got up with a certain violence and strode to
+the window. We rose to our feet, his sister and I, by a common impulse,
+exchanging a glance of some alarm, while he stared for a moment into the
+garden. "In Heaven's name what has got possession of Beatrice?" he cried
+at last, turning round with an almost haggard face. And he looked from
+one of us to the other; the appeal was addressed to me as well as to his
+sister.
+
+Miss Ambient gave a shrug. "My poor Mark, Beatrice is always--Beatrice!"
+
+"She has locked herself up with the boy--bolted and barred the door; she
+refuses to let me come near him!" Ambient went on.
+
+"She refused to let the doctor see him an hour ago!" Miss Ambient
+remarked, with intention, as they say on the stage.
+
+"Refused to let the doctor see him? By heaven, I 'll smash in the
+door!" And Mark brought his fist down upon the table, so that all the
+breakfast-service rang.
+
+I begged Miss Ambient to go up and try to have speech of her
+sister-in-law, and I drew Mark out into the garden. "You 're exceedingly
+nervous, and Mrs. Ambient is probably right," I said to him. "Women
+know; women should be supreme in such a situation. Trust a mother--a
+devoted mother, my dear friend!" With such words as these I tried to
+soothe and comfort him, and, marvellous to relate, I succeeded, with the
+help of many cigarettes, in making him walk about the garden and talk,
+or listen at least to my own ingenious chatter, for nearly an hour.
+At the end of this time Miss Ambient returned to us, with a very rapid
+step, holding her hand to her heart.
+
+"Go for the doctor, Mark, go for the doctor this moment!"
+
+"Is he dying? Has she killed him?" poor Ambient cried, flinging away his
+cigarette.
+
+"I don't know what she has done! But she's frightened, and now she wants
+the doctor."
+
+"He told me he would be hanged if he came back!" I felt myself obliged
+to announce.
+
+"Precisely--therefore Mark himself must go for him, and not a messenger.
+You must see him, and tell him it 's to save your child. The trap has
+been ordered--it's ready."
+
+"To save him? I 'll save him, please God!" Ambient cried, bounding with
+his great strides across the lawn.
+
+As soon as he had gone I felt that I ought to have volunteered in
+his place, and I said as much to Miss Ambient; but she checked me by
+grasping my arm quickly, while we heard the wheels of the dog-cart
+rattle away from the gate. "He's off--he's off--and now I can think! To
+get him away--while I think--while I think!"
+
+"While you think of what, Miss Ambient?"
+
+"Of the unspeakable thing that has happened under this roof!"
+
+Her manner was habitually that of such a prophetess of ill that my first
+impulse was to believe I must allow here for a great exaggeration.
+But in a moment I saw that her emotion was real. "Dolcino _is_ dying
+then,--he is dead?"
+
+"It's too late to save him. His mother has let him die! I tell you that
+because you are sympathetic, because you have imagination," Miss Ambient
+was good enough to add, interrupting my expression of horror. "That's
+why you had the idea of making her read Mark's new book!"
+
+"What has that to do with it? I don't understand you; your accusation is
+monstrous."
+
+"I see it all; I'm not stupid," Miss Ambient went on, heedless of the
+harshness of my tone. "It was the book that finished her; it was that
+decided her!"
+
+"Decided her? Do you mean she has murdered her child?" I demanded,
+trembling at my own words.
+
+"She sacrificed him; she determined to do nothing to make him live. Why
+else did she lock herself up, why else did she turn away the doctor? The
+book gave her a horror; she determined to rescue him,--to prevent him
+from ever being touched. He had a crisis at two o'clock in the morning.
+I know that from the nurse, who had left her then, but whom, for a short
+time, she called back. Dolcino got much worse, but she insisted on the
+nurse's going back to bed, and after that she was alone with him for
+hours."
+
+"Do you pretend that she has no pity, that she's insane?"
+
+"She held him in her arms, she pressed him to her breast, not to see
+him; but she gave him no remedies; she did nothing the doctor ordered.
+Everything is there, untouched. She has had the honesty not even to
+throw the drugs away!"
+
+I dropped upon the nearest bench, overcome with wonder and agitation,
+quite as much at Miss Armbient's terrible lucidity as at the charge she
+made against her sister-in-law. There was an amazing coherency in her
+story, and it was dreadful to me to see myself figuring in it as so
+proximate a cause.
+
+"You are a very strange woman, and you say strange things."
+
+"You think it necessary to protest, but you are quite ready to believe
+me. You have received an impression of my sister-in-law, you have
+guessed of what she is capable."
+
+I do not feel bound to say what concession, on this point, I made to
+Miss Ambient, who went on to relate to me that within the last half-hour
+Beatrice had had a revulsion; that she was tremendously frightened at
+what she had done; that her fright itself betrayed her; and that she
+would now give heaven and earth to save the child. "Let us hope she
+will!" I said, looking at my watch and trying to time poor Ambient;
+whereupon my companion repeated, in a singular tone, "Let us hope so!"
+When I asked her if she herself could do nothing, and whether she ought
+not to be with her sister-in-law, she replied, "You had better go and
+judge; she is like a wounded tigress!"
+
+I never saw Mrs. Ambient till six months after this, and therefore
+cannot pretend to have verified the comparison. At the latter period she
+was again the type of the lady. "She'll treat him better after this," I
+remember Miss Ambient saying, in response to some quick outburst (on my
+part) of compassion for her brother. Although I had been in the house
+but thirty-six hours, this young lady had treated me with extraordinary
+confidence, and there was therefore a certain demand which, as an
+intimate, I might make of her. I extracted from her a pledge that she
+would never say to her brother what she had just said to me; she would
+leave him to form his own theory of his wife's conduct. She agreed with
+me that there was misery enough in the house, without her contributing a
+new anguish, and that Mrs. Ambient's proceedings might be explained, to
+her husband's mind, by the extravagance of a jealous devotion. Poor Mark
+came back with the doctor much sooner than we could have hoped, but we
+knew, five minutes afterwards, that they arrived too late. Poor little
+Dolcino was more exquisitely beautiful in death than he had been in
+life. Mrs. Ambient's grief was frantic; she lost her head and said
+strange things. As for Mark's--but I will not speak of that. _Basta_,
+as he used to say. Miss Ambient kept her secret,--I have already had
+occasion to say that she had her good points,--but it rankled in her
+conscience like a guilty participation, and, I imagine, had something
+to do with her retiring ultimately to a Sisterhood. And, _a propos_ of
+consciences, the reader is now in a position to judge of my compunction
+for my effort to convert Mrs. Ambient. I ought to mention that the
+death of her child in some degree converted her. When the new book came
+out--it was long delayed--she read it over as a whole, and her husband
+told me that a few months before her death,--she failed rapidly
+after losing her son, sank into a consumption, and faded away
+at Mentone,--during those few supreme weeks she even dipped into
+_Beltraffio_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Author of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Author Of Beltraffio
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21770]
+Last Updated: September 18, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO.
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Henry James <br /> <br /> <br /> 1885
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART1"> PART I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART II. </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Much as I wished to see him, I had kept my letter of introduction for
+      three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about meeting him,&mdash;conscious
+      of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was tormented by strangers, and
+      especially by my country-people, and not exempt from the suspicion that he
+      had the irritability as well as the brilliancy of genius. Moreover, the
+      pleasure, if it should occur (for I could scarcely believe it was near at
+      hand), would be so great that I wished to think of it in advance, to feel
+      that it was in my pocket, not to mix it with satisfactions more
+      superficial and usual In the little game of new sensations that I was
+      playing with my ingenuous mind, I wished to keep my visit to the author of
+      <i>Beltraffio</i> as a trump card. It was three years after the
+      publication of that fascinating work, which I had read over five times,
+      and which now, with my riper judgment, I admire on the whole as much as
+      ever. This will give you about the date of my first visit (of any
+      duration) to England; for you will not have forgotten the commotion&mdash;I
+      may even say the scandal&mdash;produced by Mark Ambient&rsquo;s masterpiece. It
+      was the most complete presentation that had yet been made of the gospel of
+      art; it was a kind of aesthetic war-cry. People had endeavored to sail
+      nearer to &ldquo;truth&rdquo; in the cut of their sleeves and the shape of their
+      sideboards; but there had not as yet been, among English novels, such an
+      example of beauty of execution and genuineness of substance. Nothing had
+      been done in that line from the point of view of art for art This was my
+      own point of view, I may mention, when I was twenty-five; whether it is
+      altered now I won&rsquo;t take upon myself to say&mdash;especially as the
+      discerning reader will be able to judge for himself. I had been in
+      England, briefly, a twelvemonth before the time to which I began by
+      alluding, and had learned then that Mr. Ambient was in distant lands&mdash;was
+      making a considerable tour in the East: so there was nothing to do but to
+      keep my letter till I should be in London again. It was of little use to
+      me to hear that his wife had not left England, and, with her little boy,
+      their only child, was spending the period of her husband&rsquo;s absence&mdash;a
+      good many months&mdash;at a small place they had down in Surrey. They had
+      a house in London which was let. All this I learned, and also that Mrs.
+      Ambient was charming (my friend the American poet, from whom I had my
+      introduction, had never seen her, his relations with the great man being
+      only epistolary); but she was not, after all, though she had lived so near
+      the rose, the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>, and I did not go down into
+      Surrey to call on her. I went to the Continent, spent the following winter
+      in Italy, and returned to London in May. My visit to Italy opened my eyes
+      to a good many things, but to nothing more than the beauty of certain
+      pages in the works of Mark Ambient I had every one of his productions in
+      my portmanteau,&mdash;they are not, as you know, very numerous, but he had
+      preluded to <i>Beltraffio</i> by some exquisite things,&mdash;and I used
+      to read them over in the evening at the inn. I used to say to myself that
+      the man who drew those characters and wrote that style understood what he
+      saw and knew what he was doing. This is my only reason for mentioning my
+      winter in Italy. He had been there much in former years, and he was
+      saturated with what painters call the &ldquo;feeling&rdquo; of that classic land. He
+      expressed the charm of the old hill-cities of Tuscany, the look of certain
+      lonely grass-grown places which, in the past, had echoed with life; he
+      understood the great artists, he understood the spirit of the Renaissance,
+      he understood everything. The scene of one of his earlier novels was laid
+      in Borne, the scene of another in Florence, and I moved through these
+      cities in company with the figures whom Mark Ambient had set so vividly
+      upon their feet. This is why I was now so much happier even than before in
+      the prospect of making his acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, when I had dallied with this privilege long enough, I despatched
+      to him the missive of the American poet He had already gone out of town;
+      he shrank from the rigor of the London &ldquo;season&rdquo; and it was his habit to
+      migrate on the first of June. Moreover, I had heard that this year he was
+      hard at work on a new book, into which some of his impressions of the East
+      were to be wrought, so that he desired nothing so much as quiet days. This
+      knowledge, however, did not prevent me&mdash;<i>cet âge est sans pitié</i>&mdash;from
+      sending with my friend&rsquo;s letter a note of my own, in which I asked Mr.
+      Ambient&rsquo;s leave to come down and see him for an hour or two, on a day to
+      be designated by himself. My proposal was accompanied with a very frank
+      expression of my sentiments, and the effect of the whole projectile was to
+      elicit from the great man the kindest possible invitation. He would be
+      delighted to see me, especially if I should turn up on the following
+      Saturday and would remain till the Monday morning. We would take a walk
+      over the Surrey commons, and I could tell him all about the other great
+      man, the one in America. He indicated to me the best train, and it may be
+      imagined whether on the Saturday afternoon I was punctual at Waterloo. He
+      carried his benevolence to the point of coming to meet me at the little
+      station at which I was to alight, and my heart beat very fast as I saw his
+      handsome face, surmounted with a soft wide-awake, and which I knew by a
+      photograph long since enshrined upon my mantelshelf, scanning the carriage
+      windows as the train rolled up. He recognized me as infallibly as I had
+      recognized him; he appeared to know by instinct how a young American of an
+      æsthetic turn would look when much divided between eagerness and modesty.
+      He took me by the hand, and smiled at me, and said: &ldquo;You must be&mdash;a&mdash;<i>you</i>,
+      I think!&rdquo; and asked if I should mind going on foot to his house, which
+      would take but a few minutes. I remember thinking it a piece of
+      extraordinary affability that he should give directions about the
+      conveyance of my bag, and feeling altogether very happy and rosy, in fact
+      quite transported, when he laid his hand on my shoulder as we came out of
+      the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I surveyed him, askance, as we walked together; I had already&mdash;I had
+      indeed instantly&mdash;seen that he was a delightful creature. His face is
+      so well known that I need n&rsquo;t describe it; he looked to me at once an
+      English gentleman and a man of genius, and I thought that a happy
+      combination. There was just a little of the Bohemian in his appearance;
+      you would easily have guessed that he belonged to the guild of artists and
+      men of letters. He was addicted to velvet jackets, to cigarettes, to loose
+      shirt-collars, to looking a little dishevelled. His features, which were
+      fine, but not perfectly regular, are fairly enough represented in his
+      portraits; but no portrait that I have seen gives any idea of his
+      expression. There were so many things in it, and they chased each other in
+      and out of his face. I have seen people who were grave and gay in quick
+      alternation; but Mark Ambient was grave and gay at one and the same
+      moment. There were other strange oppositions and contradictions in his
+      slightly faded and fatigued countenance. He seemed both young and old,
+      both anxious and indifferent. He had evidently had an active past, which
+      inspired one with curiosity, and yet it was impossible not to be more
+      curious still about his future. He was just enough above middle height to
+      be spoken of as tall, and rather lean and long in the flank. He had the
+      friendliest, frankest manner possible, and yet I could see that he was
+      shy. He was thirty-eight years old at the time <i>Beltraffio</i> was
+      published. He asked me about his friend in America, about the length of my
+      stay in England, about the last news in London and the people I had seen
+      there; and I remember looking for the signs of genius in the very form of
+      his questions, and thinking I found it. I liked his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was genius in his house, too, I thought, when we got there; there
+      was imagination in the carpets and curtains, in the pictures and books, in
+      the garden behind it, where certain old brown walls were muffled in
+      creepers that appeared to me to have been copied from a masterpiece of one
+      of the pre-Raphaelites. That was the way many things struck me at that
+      time, in England; as if they were reproductions of something that existed
+      primarily in art or literature. It was not the picture, the poem, the
+      fictive page, that seemed to me a copy; these things were the originals,
+      and the life of happy and distinguished people was fashioned in their
+      image. Mark Ambient called his house a cottage, and I perceived afterwards
+      that he was right; for if it had not been a cottage it must have been a
+      villa, and a villa, in England at least, was not a place in which one
+      could fancy him at home. But it was, to my vision, a cottage glorified and
+      translated; it was a palace of art, on a slightly reduced scale,&mdash;it
+      was an old English demesne. It nestled under a cluster of magnificent
+      beeches, it had little creaking lattices that opened out of, or into,
+      pendent mats of ivy, and gables, and old red tiles, as well as a general
+      aspect of being painted in water-colors and inhabited by people whose
+      lives would go on in chapters and volumes. The lawn seemed to me of
+      extraordinary extent, the garden-walls of incalculable height, the whole
+      air of the place delightfully still, private, proper to itself. &ldquo;My wife
+      must be somewhere about,&rdquo; Mark Ambient said, as we went in. &ldquo;We shall find
+      her perhaps; we have got about an hour before dinner. She may be in the
+      garden. I will show you my little place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We passed through the house, and into the grounds, as I should have called
+      them, which extended into the rear. They covered but three or four acres,
+      but, like the house, they were very old and crooked, and full of traces of
+      long habitation, with inequalities of level and little steps&mdash;mossy
+      and cracked were these&mdash;which connected the different parts with each
+      other. The limits of the place, cleverly dissimulated, were muffled in the
+      deepest verdure. They made, as I remember, a kind of curtain at the
+      further end, in one of the folds of which, as it were, we presently
+      perceived, from afar, a little group. &ldquo;Ah, there she is!&rdquo; said Mark
+      Ambient; &ldquo;and she has got the boy.&rdquo; He made this last remark in a slightly
+      different tone from any in which he yet had spoken. I was not fully aware
+      of it at the time, but it lingered in my ear and I afterwards understood
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it your son?&rdquo; I inquired, feeling the question not to be brilliant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my only child. He&rsquo;s always in his mother&rsquo;s pocket She coddles him
+      too much.&rdquo; It came back to me afterwards, too&mdash;the manner in which he
+      spoke these words. They were not petulant; they expressed rather a sudden
+      coldness, a kind of mechanical submission. We went a few steps further,
+      and then he stopped short and called the boy, beckoning to him repeatedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolcino, come and see your daddy!&rdquo; There was something in the way he
+      stood still and waited that made me think he did it for a purpose. Mrs.
+      Ambient had her arm round the child&rsquo;s waist, and he was leaning against
+      her knee; but though he looked up at the sound of his father&rsquo;s voice, she
+      gave no sign of releasing him. A lady, apparently a neighbor, was seated
+      near her, and before them was a garden-table, on which a tea-service had
+      been placed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Ambient called again, and Dolcino struggled in the maternal embrace,
+      but he was too tightly held, and after two or three fruitless efforts he
+      suddenly turned round and buried his head deep in his mother&rsquo;s lap. There
+      was a certain awkwardness in the scene; I thought it rather odd that Mrs.
+      Ambient should pay so little attention to her husband. But I would not for
+      the world have betrayed my thought, and, to conceal it, I observed that it
+      must be such a pleasant thing to have tea in the garden. &ldquo;Ah, she won&rsquo;t
+      let him come!&rdquo; said Mark Ambient, with a sigh; and we went our way &lsquo;till
+      we reached the two ladies. He mentioned my name to his wife, and I noticed
+      that he addressed her as &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; very genially, without any trace of
+      resentment at her detention of the child. The quickness of the transition
+      made me vaguely ask myself whether he were henpecked,&mdash;a shocking
+      conjecture, which I instantly dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a
+      wife as I should have expected him to have; slim and fair, with a long
+      neck and pretty eyes and an air of great refinement. She was a little
+      cold, and a little shy; but she was very sweet, and she had a certain look
+      of race, justified by my afterwards learning that she was &ldquo;connected&rdquo; with
+      two or three great families. I have seen poets married to women of whom it
+      was difficult to conceive that they should gratify the poetic fancy,&mdash;women
+      with dull faces and glutinous minds, who were none the less, however,
+      excellent wives. But there was no obvious incongruity in Mark Ambient&rsquo;s
+      union. Mrs. Ambient, delicate and quiet, in a white dress, with her
+      beautiful child at her side, was worthy of the author of a work so
+      distinguished as <i>Beltraffio</i>. Bound her neck she wore a black velvet
+      ribbon, of which the long ends, tied behind, hung down her back, and to
+      which, in front, was attached a miniature portrait of her little boy. Her
+      smooth, shining hair was confined in a net She gave me a very pleasant
+      greeting, and Dolcino&mdash;I thought this little name of endearment
+      delightful&mdash;took advantage of her getting up to slip away from her
+      and go to his father, who said nothing to him, but simply seized him and
+      held him high in his arms for a moment, kissing him several times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had lost no time in observing that the child, who was not more than
+      seven years old, was extraordinarily beautiful He had the face of an
+      angel,&mdash;the eyes, the hair, the more than mortal bloom, the smile of
+      innocence. There was something touching, almost alarming, in his beauty,
+      which seemed to be composed of elements too fine and pure for the breath
+      of this world. When I spoke to him, and he came and held out his hand and
+      smiled at me, I felt a sudden pity for him, as if he had been an orphan,
+      or a changeling, or stamped with some social stigma. It was impossible to
+      be, in fact, more exempt from these misfortunes, and yet, as one kissed
+      him, it was hard to keep from murmuring &ldquo;Poor little devil!&rdquo; though why
+      one should have applied this epithet to a living cherub is more than I can
+      say. Afterwards, indeed, I knew a little better; I simply discovered that
+      he was too charming to live, wondering at the same time that his parents
+      should not have perceived it, and should not be in proportionate grief and
+      despair. For myself, I had no doubt of his evanescence, having already
+      noticed that there is a kind of charm which is like a death-warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady who had been sitting with Mrs. Ambient was a jolly, ruddy
+      personage, dressed in velveteen and rather limp feathers, whom I guessed
+      to be the vicar&rsquo;s wife,&mdash;our hostess did not introduce me,&mdash;and
+      who immediately began to talk to Ambient about chrysanthemums. This was a
+      safe subject, and yet there was a certain surprise for me in seeing the
+      author of <i>Beltraffio</i> even in such superficial communion with the
+      Church of England. His writings implied so much detachment from that
+      institution, expressed a view of life so profane, as it were, so
+      independent, and so little likely, in general, to be thought edifying,
+      that I should have expected to find him an object of horror to vicars and
+      their ladies&mdash;of horror repaid on his own part by good-natured but
+      brilliant mockery. This proves how little I knew as yet of the English
+      people and their extraordinary talent for keeping up their forms, as well
+      as of some of the mysteries of Mark Ambient&rsquo;s hearth and home. I found
+      afterwards that he had, in his study, between smiles and cigar-smoke, some
+      wonderful comparisons for his clerical neighbors; but meanwhile the
+      chrysanthemums were a source of harmony, for he and the vicaress were
+      equally fond of them, and I was surprised at the knowledge they exhibited
+      of this interesting plant. The lady&rsquo;s visit, however, had presumably
+      already been long, and she presently got up, saying she must go, and
+      kissed Mrs. Ambient Mark started to walk with her to the gate of the
+      grounds, holding Dolcino by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay with me, my darling,&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient said to the boy, who was
+      wandering away with his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Ambient paid no attention to the summons, but Dolcino turned round
+      and looked with eyes of shy entreaty at his mother. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I go with
+      papa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not when I ask you to stay with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But please don&rsquo;t ask me, mamma,&rdquo; said the child, in his little clear, new
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must ask you when I want you. Come to me, my darling.&rdquo; And Mrs.
+      Ambient, who had seated herself again, held out her long, slender hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband stopped, with his back turned to her, but without releasing
+      the child. He was still talking to the vicaress, but this good lady, I
+      think, had lost the thread of her attention. She looked at Mrs. Ambient
+      and at Dolcino, and then she looked at me, smiling very hard, in an
+      extremely fixed, cheerful manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa,&rdquo; said the child, &ldquo;mamma wants me not to go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very tired&mdash;he has run about all day. He ought to be quiet till
+      he goes to bed. Otherwise he won&rsquo;t sleep.&rdquo; These declarations fell
+      successively and gravely from Mrs. Ambient&rsquo;s lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband, still without turning round, bent over the boy and looked at
+      him in silence. The vicaress gave a genial, irrelevant laugh, and observed
+      that he was a precious little pet &ldquo;Let him choose,&rdquo; said Mark Ambient. &ldquo;My
+      dear little boy, will you go with me or will you stay with your mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s a shame!&rdquo; cried the vicar&rsquo;s lady, with increased hilarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa, I don&rsquo;t think I can choose,&rdquo; the child answered, making his voice
+      very low and confidential. &ldquo;But I have been a great deal with mamma
+      to-day,&rdquo; he added in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And very little with papa! My dear fellow, I think you have chosen!&rdquo; And
+      Mark Ambient walked off with his son, accompanied by re-echoing but
+      inarticulate comments from my fellow-visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife had seated herself again, and her fixed eyes, bent upon the
+      ground, expressed for a few moments so much mute agitation that I felt as
+      if almost any remark from my own lips would be a false note. But Mrs.
+      Ambient quickly recovered herself, and said to me civilly enough that she
+      hoped I did n&rsquo;t mind having had to walk from the station. I reassured her
+      on this point, and she went on, &ldquo;We have got a thing that might have gone
+      for you, but my husband wouldn&rsquo;t order it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That gave me the pleasure of a walk with him,&rdquo; I rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent a minute, and then she said, &ldquo;I believe the Americans walk
+      very little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we always run,&rdquo; I answered laughingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me seriously, and I began to perceive a certain coldness in
+      her pretty eyes. &ldquo;I suppose your distances are so great?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but we break our marches I I can&rsquo;t tell you what a pleasure it is
+      for me to find myself here,&rdquo; I added. &ldquo;I have the greatest admiration for
+      Mr. Ambient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will like that. He likes being admired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have a very happy life, then. He has many worshippers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I have seen some of them,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient, looking away, very
+      far from me, rather as if such a vision were before her at the moment
+      Something in her tone seemed to indicate that the vision was scarcely
+      edifying, and I guessed very quickly that she was not in sympathy with the
+      author of <i>Beltraffio</i>. I thought the fact strange, but, somehow, in
+      the glow of my own enthusiasm, I did n&rsquo;t think it important; it only made
+      me wish to be rather explicit about that enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For me, you know,&rdquo; I remarked, &ldquo;he is quite the greatest of living
+      writers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I can&rsquo;t judge. Of course he&rsquo;s very clever,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient,
+      smiling a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s magnificent, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in each of his books that
+      have a perfection that classes them with the greatest things. Therefore,
+      for me to see him in this familiar way,&mdash;in his habit as he lives,&mdash;and
+      to find, apparently, the man as delightful as the artist, I can&rsquo;t tell you
+      how much too good to be true it seems, and how great a privilege I think
+      it.&rdquo; I knew that I was gushing, but I could n&rsquo;t help it, and what I said
+      was a good deal less than what I felt. I was by no means sure that I
+      should dare to say even so much as this to Ambient himself, and there was
+      a kind of rapture in speaking it out to his wife which was not affected by
+      the fact that, as a wife, she appeared peculiar. She listened to me with
+      her face grave again, and with her lips a little compressed, as if there
+      were no doubt, of course, that her husband was remarkable, but at the same
+      time she had heard all this before and couldn&rsquo;t be expected to be
+      particularly interested in it. There was even in her manner an intimation
+      that I was rather young, and that people usually got over that sort of
+      thing. &ldquo;I assure you that for me this is a red-letter day,&rdquo; I added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no response, until after a pause, looking round her, she said
+      abruptly, though gently, &ldquo;We are very much afraid about the fruit this
+      year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My eyes wandered to the mossy, mottled, garden walls, where plum-trees and
+      pear-trees, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked like
+      crucified figures with many arms. &ldquo;Does n&rsquo;t it promise well?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was another pause. Mrs. Ambient kept her eyes fixed on the
+      opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband&rsquo;s
+      return with the child. &ldquo;Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?&rdquo; it occurred to
+      me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to bring
+      the conversation constantly back to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very fond of plums,&rdquo; said his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It&rsquo;s a
+      lovely old place,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;The whole character of it is that of
+      certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his pictures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it has got his tone,&rdquo; I said, laughing, and insisting on my point the
+      more that Mrs. Ambient appeared to see in my appreciation of her simple
+      establishment a sign of limited experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that I insisted too much. &ldquo;His tone?&rdquo; she repeated, with a
+      quick look at me, and a slightly heightened color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, he has indeed! But I don&rsquo;t in the least consider that I am
+      living in one of his books; I should n&rsquo;t care for that, at all,&rdquo; she went
+      on, with a smile which had in some degree the effect of converting her
+      slightly sharp protest into a joke deficient in point &ldquo;I am afraid I am
+      not very literary,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient. &ldquo;And I am not artistic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very sure you are not ignorant, not stupid,&rdquo; I ventured to reply,
+      with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had been
+      both familiar and patronizing. My only consolation was in the reflection
+      that it was she, and not I, who had begun it She had brought her
+      idiosyncrasies into the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, whatever I am, I am very different from my husband. If you like
+      him, you won&rsquo;t like me. You need n&rsquo;t say anything. Your liking me is n&rsquo;t
+      in the least necessary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t defy me!&rdquo; I exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked as if she had not heard me, which was the best thing she could
+      do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient had
+      evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be silent without
+      being restless. But at last she spoke; she asked me if there seemed to be
+      many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could on this point,
+      and we talked a little about London and of some pictures it presented at
+      that time of the year. At the end of this I came back, irrepressibly, to
+      Mark Ambient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does n&rsquo;t he like to be there now? I suppose he does n&rsquo;t find the proper
+      quiet for his work. I should think his things had been written, for the
+      most part, in a very still place. They suggest a great stillness,
+      following on a kind of tumult. Don&rsquo;t you think so? I suppose London is a
+      tremendous place to collect impressions, but a refuge like this, in the
+      country, must be much better for working them up. Does he get many of his
+      impressions in London, do you think?&rdquo; I proceeded from point to point in
+      this malign inquiry, simply because my hostess, who probably thought me a
+      very pushing and talkative young man, gave me time; for when I paused&mdash;I
+      have not represented my pauses&mdash;she simply continued to let her eyes
+      wander, and, with her long fair fingers, played with the medallion on her
+      neck. When I stopped altogether, however, she was obliged to say
+      something, and what she said was that she had not the least idea where her
+      husband got his impressions. This made me think her, for a moment,
+      positively disagreeable; delicate and proper and rather aristocratically
+      dry as she sat there. But I must either have lost the impression a moment
+      later, or been goaded by it to further aggression, for I remember asking
+      her whether Mr. Ambient were in a good vein of work, and when we might
+      look for the appearance of the book on which he was engaged. I have every
+      reason now to know that she thought me an odious person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave a strange, small laugh as she said, &ldquo;I am afraid you think I know
+      a great deal more about my husband&rsquo;s work than I do. I haven&rsquo;t the least
+      idea what he is doing,&rdquo; she added presently, in a slightly different, that
+      is a more explanatory, tone, as if she recognized in some degree the
+      enormity of her confession. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t read what he writes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not succeed (and would not, even had she tried much harder) in
+      making it seem to me anything less than monstrous. I stared at her, and I
+      think I blushed. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you admire his genius? Don&rsquo;t you admire <i>Beltraffio?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated a moment, and I wondered what she could possibly say. She
+      did not speak&mdash;I could see&mdash;the first words that rose to her
+      lips; she repeated what she had said a few minutes before. &ldquo;Oh, of course
+      he &lsquo;s very clever!&rdquo; And with this she got up; her husband and little boy
+      had reappeared. Mrs. Ambient left me and went to meet them; she stopped
+      and had a few words with her husband, which I did not hear, and which
+      ended in her taking the child by the hand and returning to the house with
+      him. Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit
+      conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he
+      would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my
+      visit to him, I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to have
+      understood his situation from the first, and to have seen in him the signs
+      of things which I learnt only afterwards. This later knowledge throws a
+      backward light, and makes me forget that at least on the occasion of which
+      I am speaking now (I mean that first afternoon), Mark Ambient struck me as
+      a fortunate man. Allowing for this, I think he was rather silent and
+      irresponsive as we walked back to the house, though I remember well the
+      answer he made to a remark of mine in relation to his child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s an extraordinary little boy of yours,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I have never seen
+      such a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you call him extraordinary?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so beautiful, so fascinating. He&rsquo;s like a little work of art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned quickly, grasping my arm an instant. &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t call him that,
+      or you &lsquo;ll&mdash;you &lsquo;ll&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in his hesitation he broke off suddenly, laughing at my surprise. But
+      immediately afterwards he added, &ldquo;You will make his little future very
+      difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I declared that I wouldn&rsquo;t for the world take any liberties with his
+      little future&mdash;it seemed to me to hang by threads of such delicacy. I
+      should only be highly interested in watching it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You Americans are very sharp,&rdquo; said Ambient &ldquo;You notice more things than
+      we do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, if you want visitors who are not struck with you, you should n&rsquo;t ask
+      me down here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He showed me my room, a little bower of chintz, with open windows where
+      the light was green, and before he left me he said irrelevantly, &ldquo;As for
+      my little boy, you know, we shall probably kill him between us, before wo
+      have done with him!&rdquo; And he made this assertion as if he really believed
+      it, without any appearance of jest, with his fine, near-sighted,
+      expressive eyes looking straight into mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean by spoiling him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; by fighting for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better give him to me to keep for you,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Let me remove
+      the apple of discord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed, of course, but he had the air of being perfectly serious. &ldquo;It
+      would be quite the best thing we could do. I should be quite ready to do
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am greatly obliged to you for your confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Ambient lingered there, with his hands in his pockets. I felt, within
+      a few moments, as if I had, morally speaking, taken several steps nearer
+      to him. He looked weary, just as he faced me then, looked preoccupied, and
+      as if there were something one might do for him. I was terribly conscious
+      of the limits of my own ability, but I wondered what such a service might
+      be, feeling at bottom, however, that the only thing I could do for him was
+      to like him. I suppose he guessed this, and was grateful for what was in
+      my mind; for he went on presently, &ldquo;I have n&rsquo;t the advantage of being an
+      American. But I also notice a little, and I have an idea that&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo;
+       here he smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder, &ldquo;that even apart from
+      your nationality, you are not destitute of intelligence! I have only known
+      you half an hour, but&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo; And here he hesitated again. &ldquo;You
+      are very young, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you may treat me as if I could understand you!&rdquo; I said; and before he
+      left me to dress for dinner he had virtually given me a promise that he
+      would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I went down into the drawing-room&mdash;I was very punctual&mdash;I
+      found that neither my hostess nor my host had appeared. A lady rose from a
+      sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at her.
+      &ldquo;I dare say you don&rsquo;t know me,&rdquo; she said, with the modern laugh. &ldquo;I am
+      Mark Ambient&rsquo;s sister.&rdquo; Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting her
+      very low. Her laugh was modern&mdash;by which I mean that it consisted of
+      the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms,
+      serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions; but
+      her appearance was&mdash;what shall I call it?&mdash;mediaeval. She was
+      pale and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and
+      black hair intertwined with golden fillets and curious chains. She wore a
+      faded velvet robe, which clung to her when she moved, fashioned, as to the
+      neck and sleeves, like the garments of old Venetians and Florentines. She
+      looked pictorial and melancholy, and was so perfect an image of a type
+      which I, in my ignorance, supposed to be extinct, that while she rose
+      before me I was almost as much startled as if I had seen a ghost. I
+      afterwards perceived that Miss Ambient was not incapable of deriving
+      pleasure from the effect she produced, and I think this sentiment had
+      something to do with her sinking again into her seat, with her long, lean,
+      but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic manner on her knees,
+      and her mournful eyes addressing themselves to me with an intentness which
+      was a menace of what they were destined subsequently to inflict upon me.
+      She was a singular, self-conscious, artificial creature, and I never,
+      subsequently, more than half penetrated her motives and, mysteries. Of one
+      thing I am sure, however: that they were considerably less extraordinary
+      than her appearance announced. Miss Ambient was a restless, disappointed,
+      imaginative spinster, consumed with the love of Michael-Angelesque
+      attitudes and mystical robes; but I am pretty sure she had not in her
+      nature those depths of unutterable thought which, when you first knew her,
+      seemed to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures.
+      Those features, in especial, had a misleading eloquence; they rested upon
+      you with a far-off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was
+      certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; and I suspect
+      that a young lady could not really have been so dejected and disillusioned
+      as Miss Ambient looked, without having committed a crime for which she was
+      consumed with remorse, or parted with a hope which she could not sanely
+      have entertained. She had, I believe, the usual allowance of vulgar
+      impulses: she wished to be looked at, she wished to be married, she wished
+      to be thought original. It costs me something to speak in this irreverent
+      manner of Mark Ambient&rsquo;s sister, but I shall have still more disagreeable
+      things to say before I have finished my little anecdote, and moreover,&mdash;I
+      confess it,&mdash;I owe the young lady a sort of grudge. Putting aside the
+      curious cast of her face, she had no natural aptitude for an artistic
+      development,&mdash;she had little real intelligence. But her affectations
+      rubbed off on her brother&rsquo;s renown, and as there were plenty of people who
+      disapproved of him totally, they could easily point to his sister as a
+      person formed by his influence. It was quite possible to regard her as a
+      warning, and she had done him but little good with the world at large. He
+      was the original, and she was the inevitable imitation. I think he was
+      scarcely aware of the impression she produced, beyond having a general
+      idea that she made up very well as a Rossetti; he was used to her, and he
+      was sorry for her,&mdash;wishing she would marry and observing that she
+      did n&rsquo;t Doubtless I take her too seriously, for she did me no harm, though
+      I am bound to add that I feel I can only half account for her. She was not
+      so mystical as she looked, but she was a strange, indirect, uncomfortable,
+      embarrassing woman. My story will give the reader at best so very small a
+      knot to untie that I need not hope to excite his curiosity by delaying to
+      remark that Mrs. Ambient hated her sister-in-law. This I only found out
+      afterwards, when I found out some other things. But I mention it at once,
+      for I shall perhaps not seem to count too much on having enlisted the
+      imagination of the reader if I say that he will already have guessed it
+      Mrs. Ambient was a person of conscience, and she endeavored to behave
+      properly to her kinswoman, who spent a month with her twice a year; but it
+      required no great insight to discover that the two ladies were made of a
+      very different paste, and that the usual feminine hypocrisies must have
+      cost them, on either side, much more than the usual effort. Mrs. Ambient,
+      smooth-haired, thin-lipped, perpetually fresh, must have regarded her
+      crumpled and dishevelled visitor as a very stale joke; she herself was not
+      a Rossetti, but a Gainsborough or a Lawrence, and she had in her
+      appearance no elements more romantic than a cold, ladylike candor, and a
+      well-starched muslin dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in a garment, and with an expression, of this kind, that she made
+      her entrance, after I had exchanged a few words with Miss Ambient. Her
+      husband presently followed her, and there being no other company we went
+      to dinner. The impression I received from that repast is present to me
+      still. There were elements of oddity in my companions, but they were vague
+      and latent, and did n&rsquo;t interfere with my delight It came mainly, of
+      course, from Ambient&rsquo;s talk, which was the most brilliant and interesting
+      I had ever heard. I know not whether he laid himself out to dazzle a
+      rather juvenile pilgrim from over the sea; but it matters little, for it
+      was very easy for him to shine. He was almost better as a talker than as a
+      writer; that is, if the extraordinary finish of his written prose be
+      really, as some people have maintained, a fault. There was such a kindness
+      in him, however, that I have no doubt it gave him ideas to see me sit
+      open-mouthed, as I suppose I did. Not so the two ladies, who not only were
+      very nearly dumb from beginning to the end of the meal, but who had not
+      the air of being struck with such an exhibition of wit and knowledge. Mrs.
+      Ambient, placid and detached, met neither my eye nor her husband&rsquo;s; she
+      attended to her dinner, watched the servants, arranged the puckers in her
+      dress, exchanged at wide intervals a remark with her sister-in-law, and
+      while she slowly rubbed her white hands between the courses, looked out of
+      the window at the first signs of twilight&mdash;the long June day allowing
+      us to dine without candles.. Miss Ambient appeared to give little direct
+      heed to her brother&rsquo;s discourse; but on the other hand she was much
+      engaged in watching its effect upon me. Her lustreless pupils continued to
+      attach themselves to my countenance, and it was only her air of belonging
+      to another century that kept them from being importunate. She seemed to
+      look at me across the ages, and the interval of time diminished the
+      vividness of the performance. It was as if she knew in a general way that
+      her brother must be talking very well, but she herself was so rich in
+      ideas that she had no need to pick them up, and was at liberty to see what
+      would become of a young American when subjected to a high aesthetic
+      temperature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The temperature was æsthetic, certainly, but it was less so than I could
+      have desired, for I was unsuccessful in certain little attempts to make
+      Mark Ambient talk about himself I tried to put him on the ground of his
+      own writings, but he slipped through my fingers every time and shifted the
+      saddle to one of his contemporaries. He talked about Balzac and Browning,
+      and what was being done in foreign countries, and about his recent tour in
+      the East, and the extraordinary forms of life that one saw in that part of
+      the world. I perceived that he had reasons for not wishing to descant upon
+      literature, and suffered him without protest to deliver himself on certain
+      social topics, which he treated with extraordinary humor and with constant
+      revelations of that power of ironical portraiture of which his books are
+      full. He had a great deal to say about London, as London appears to the
+      observer who does n&rsquo;t fear the accusation of cynicism, during the
+      high-pressure time&mdash;from April to July&mdash;of its peculiarities. He
+      flashed his faculty of making the fanciful real and the real fanciful over
+      the perfunctory pleasures and desperate exertions of so many of his
+      compatriots, among whom there were evidently not a few types for which he
+      had little love. London bored him, and he made capital sport of it; his
+      only allusion, that I can remember, to his own work was his saying that he
+      meant some day to write an immense grotesque epic of London society. Miss
+      Ambient&rsquo;s perpetual gaze seemed to say to me: &ldquo;Do you perceive how
+      artistic we are? Frankly now, is it possible to be more artistic than
+      this? You surely won&rsquo;t deny that we are remarkable.&rdquo; I was irritated by
+      her use of the plural pronoun, for she had no right to pair herself with
+      her brother; and moreover, of course, I could not see my way to include
+      Mrs. Ambient. But there was no doubt that, for that matter, they were all
+      remarkable, and, with all allowances, I had never heard anything so
+      artistic. Mark Ambient&rsquo;s conversation seemed to play over the whole field
+      of knowledge and taste, and to flood it with light and color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the ladies had left us he took me into his study to smoke, and here
+      I led him on to talk freely enough about himself. I was bent upon proving
+      to him that I was worthy to listen to him, upon repaying him for what he
+      had said to me before dinner, by showing him how perfectly I understood.
+      He liked to talk; he liked to defend his ideas (not that I attacked them);
+      he liked a little perhaps&mdash;it was a pardonable weakness&mdash;to
+      astonish the youthful mind and to feel its admiration and sympathy. I
+      confess that my own youthful mind was considerably astonished at some of
+      his speeches; he startled me and he made me wince. He could not help
+      forgetting, or rather he could n&rsquo;t know, how little personal contact I had
+      had with the school in which he was master; and he promoted me at a jump,
+      as it were, to the study of its innermost mysteries. My trepidations,
+      however, were delightful; they were just what I had hoped for, and their
+      only fault was that they passed away too quickly; for I found that, as
+      regards most things, I very soon seized Mark Ambient&rsquo;s point of view. It
+      was the point of view of the artist to whom every manifestation of human
+      energy was a thrilling spectacle, and who felt forever the desire to
+      resolve his experience of life into a literary form. On this matter of the
+      passion for form,&mdash;the attempt at perfection, the quest for which was
+      to his mind the real search for the holy grail,&mdash;he said the most
+      interesting, the most inspiring things. He mixed with them a thousand
+      illustrations from his own life, from other lives that he had known, from
+      history and fiction, and above all from the annals of the time that was
+      dear to him beyond all periods,&mdash;the Italian <i>cinque-cento</i>. I
+      saw that in his books he had only said half of his thought, and what he
+      had kept back&mdash;from motives that I deplored when I learnt them later&mdash;was
+      the richer part It was his fortune to shock a great many people, but there
+      was not a grain of bravado in his pages (I have always maintained it,
+      though often contradicted), and at bottom the poor fellow, an artist to
+      his fingertips, and regarding a failure of completeness as a crime, had an
+      extreme dread of scandal. There are people who regret that having gone so
+      far he did not go further; but I regret nothing (putting aside two or
+      three of the motives I just mentioned), for he arrived at perfection, and
+      I don&rsquo;t see how you can go beyond that The hours I spent in his study&mdash;this
+      first one and the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so
+      numerous&mdash;seem to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone which is
+      partly that of the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candlelight
+      where we sat and smoked, with the dusky, delicate bindings of valuable
+      books; partly that of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged
+      with the images that came at his command. When we went back to the
+      drawing-room we found Miss Ambient alone in possession of it; and she
+      informed us that her sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been
+      called by the nurse to see Dolcino, who appeared to be a little feverish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Feverish! how in the world does he come to be feverish?&rdquo; Ambient asked.
+      &ldquo;He was perfectly well this afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice says you walked him about too much&mdash;you almost killed him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice must be very happy&mdash;she has an opportunity to triumph!&rdquo;
+       Mark Ambient said, with a laugh of which the bitterness was just
+      perceptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely not if the child is ill,&rdquo; I ventured to remark, by way of pleading
+      for Mrs. Ambient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow, you are not married&mdash;you don&rsquo;t know the nature of
+      wives!&rdquo; my host exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice is perfect as a mother,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient, with a tremendous
+      sigh and her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go up and see the child,&rdquo; her brother went on. &ldquo;Do you suppose
+      he&rsquo;s asleep?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrice won&rsquo;t let you see him, Mark,&rdquo; said the young lady, looking at
+      me, though she addressed, our companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call that being perfect as a mother?&rdquo; Ambient inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, from her point of view.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn her point of view!&rdquo; cried the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>. And he
+      left the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had
+      some conversation, which was begun, I think, by my asking her what the
+      point of view of her sister-in-law could be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s so very odd,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But we are so very odd, altogether.
+      Don&rsquo;t you find us so? We have lived so much abroad. Have you people like
+      us in America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not all alike, surely; so that I don&rsquo;t think I understand your
+      question. We have no one like your brother&mdash;I may go so far as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have probably more persons like his wife,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you that better when you have told me about her point of
+      view.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes&mdash;oh, yes. Well, she does n&rsquo;t like his ideas. She doesn&rsquo;t
+      like them for the child. She thinks them undesirable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient&rsquo;s <i>arcana</i>,
+      I was particularly in a position to appreciate this announcement. But the
+      effect of it was to make me, after staring a moment, burst into laughter,
+      which I instantly checked when I remembered that there was a sick child
+      above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has that infant to do with ideas?&rdquo; I asked &ldquo;Surely, he can&rsquo;t tell
+      one from another. Has he read his father&rsquo;s novels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she can&rsquo;t
+      begin to guard him too early.&rdquo; Miss Ambient&rsquo;s head drooped a little to one
+      side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then suddenly there was a
+      strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile that was more joyless
+      than her gravity&mdash;a conscious, insincere smile, and added, &ldquo;When one
+      has children, it&rsquo;s a great responsibility&mdash;what one writes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Children are terrible critics,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I am rather glad I have n&rsquo;t
+      got any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you also write then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you
+      like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? I don&rsquo;t write,
+      but I think I feel.&rdquo; To these and various other inquiries and remarks the
+      young lady treated me, till we heard her brother&rsquo;s step in the hall again,
+      and Mark Ambient reappeared. He looked flushed and serious, and I supposed
+      that he had seen something to alarm him in the condition of his child. His
+      sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him a moment as if he
+      were a burning ship on the horizon, and simply murmured, &ldquo;Poor old Mark!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are not anxious,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I &lsquo;m disappointed. She won&rsquo;t let me in. She has locked the door,
+      and I &lsquo;m afraid to make a noise.&rdquo; I suppose there might have been
+      something ridiculous in a confession of this kind, but I liked my new
+      friend so much that for me it did n&rsquo;t detract from his dignity. &ldquo;She tells
+      me&mdash;from behind the door&mdash;that she will let me know if he is
+      worse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very good of her,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had exchanged a glance with Mark in which it is possible that he read
+      that my pity for him was untinged with contempt, though I know not why he
+      should have cared; and as, presently, his sister got up and took her
+      bedroom candlestick, he proposed that we should go back to his study. We
+      sat there till after midnight; he put himself into his slippers, into an
+      old velvet jacket, lighted an ancient pipe, and talked considerably less
+      than he had done before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were longish pauses in our communion, but they only made me feel
+      that we had advanced in intimacy. They helped me, too, to understand my
+      friend&rsquo;s personal situation, and to perceive that it was by no means the
+      happiest possible. When his face was quiet, it was vaguely troubled; it
+      seemed to me to show that for him, too, life was a struggle, as it has
+      been for many another man of genius. At last I prepared to leave him, and
+      then, to my ineffable joy, he gave me some of the sheets of his
+      forthcoming book,&mdash;it was not finished, but he had indulged in the
+      luxury, so dear to writers of deliberation, of having it &ldquo;set up,&rdquo; from
+      chapter to chapter, as he advanced,&mdash;he gave me, I say, the early
+      pages, the <i>prémices</i>, as the French have it, of this new fruit of
+      his imagination, to take to my room and look over at my leisure. I was
+      just quitting him when the door of his study was noiselessly pushed open,
+      and Mrs. Ambient stood before us. She looked at us a moment, with her
+      candle in her hand, and then she said to her husband that as she supposed
+      he had not gone to bed, she had come down to tell him that Dolcino was
+      more quiet and would probably be better in the morning. Mark Ambient made
+      no reply; he simply slipped past her in the doorway, as if he were afraid
+      she would seize him in his passage, and bounded upstairs, to judge for
+      himself of his child&rsquo;s condition. Mrs. Ambient looked slightly
+      discomfited, and for a moment I thought she was going to give chase to her
+      husband. But she resigned herself, with a sigh, while her eyes wandered
+      over the lamp-lit room, where various books, at which I had been looking,
+      were pulled out of their places on the shelves, and the fumes of tobacco
+      seemed to hang in mid-air. I bade her good-night, and then, without
+      intention, by a kind of fatality, the perversity which had already made me
+      insist unduly on talking with her about her husband&rsquo;s achievements, I
+      alluded to the precious proof-sheets with which Ambient had intrusted me
+      and which I was nursing there under my arm. &ldquo;It is the opening chapters of
+      his new book,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Fancy my satisfaction at being allowed to carry
+      them to my room!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away, leaving me to take my candlestick from the table in the
+      hall; but before we separated, thinking it apparently a good occasion to
+      let me know once for all&mdash;since I was beginning, it would seem, to be
+      quite &ldquo;thick&rdquo; with my host&mdash;that there was no fitness in my appealing
+      to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she
+      remarked to me with her quick, round, well-bred utterance, &ldquo;I dare say you
+      attribute to me ideas that I have n&rsquo;t got I don&rsquo;t take that sort of
+      interest in my husband&rsquo;s proof-sheets. I consider his writings most
+      objectionable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I had some curious conversation the next morning with Miss Ambient, whom I
+      found strolling in the garden before breakfast The whole place looked as
+      fresh and trim, amid the twitter of the birds, as if, an hour before, the
+      housemaids had been turned into it with their dustpans and
+      feather-brushes, I almost hesitated to light a cigarette, and was doubly
+      startled when, in the act of doing so, I suddenly perceived the sister of
+      my host, who had, in any case, something of the oddity of an apparition,
+      standing before me. She might have been posing for her photograph. Her
+      sad-colored robe arranged itself in serpentine folds at her feet; her
+      hands locked themselves listlessly together in front; and her chin rested
+      upon a cinque-cento ruff. The first thing I did, after bidding her
+      good-morning, was to ask her for news of her little nephew,&mdash;to
+      express the hope that she had heard he was better. She was able to gratify
+      this hope, and spoke as if we might expect to see him during the day. We
+      walked through the shrubberies together, and she gave me a great deal of
+      information about her brother&rsquo;s ménage, which offered me an opportunity to
+      mention to her that his wife had told me, the night before, that she
+      thought his productions objectionable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does n&rsquo;t usually come out with that so soon!&rdquo; Miss Ambient exclaimed,
+      in answer to this piece of gossip. &ldquo;Poor lady, she saw that I am a
+      fanatic.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, she won&rsquo;t like you for that. But you must n&rsquo;t mind, if the
+      rest of us like you! Beatrice thinks a work of art ought to have a
+      &lsquo;purpose.&rsquo; But she&rsquo;s a charming woman&mdash;don&rsquo;t you think her charming?&mdash;she&rsquo;s
+      such a type of the lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s very beautiful,&rdquo; I answered; while I reflected that though it was
+      true, apparently, that Mark Ambient was mismated, it was also perceptible
+      that his sister was perfidious. She told me that her brother and his wife
+      had no other difference but this one, that she thought his writings
+      immoral and his influence pernicious. It was a fixed idea; she was afraid
+      of these things for the child. I answered that it was not a trifle&mdash;a
+      woman&rsquo;s regarding her husband&rsquo;s mind as a well of corruption, and she
+      looked quite struck with the novelty of my remark. &ldquo;But there has n&rsquo;t been
+      any of the sort of trouble that there so often is among married people,&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;I suppose you can judge for yourself that Beatrice isn&rsquo;t at all&mdash;well,
+      whatever they call it when a woman misbehaves herself. And Mark does n&rsquo;t
+      make love to other people, either. I assure you he does n&rsquo;t! All the same,
+      of course, from her point of view, you know, she has a dread of my
+      brother&rsquo;s influence on the child&mdash;on the formation of his character,
+      of his principles. It is as if it were a subtle poison, or a contagion, or
+      something that would rub off on Dolcino when his father kisses him or
+      holds him on his knee. If she could, she would prevent Mark from ever
+      touching him. Every one knows it; visitors see it for themselves; so there
+      is no harm in my telling you. Isn&rsquo;t it excessively odd? It comes from
+      Beatrice&rsquo;s being so religious, and so tremendously moral, and all that and
+      then, of course, we must n&rsquo;t forget,&rdquo; my companion added, unexpectedly,
+      &ldquo;that some of Mark&rsquo;s ideas are&mdash;well, really&mdash;rather queer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected, as we went into the house, where we found Ambient unfolding
+      the <i>Observer</i> at the breakfast-table, that none of them were
+      probably quite so queer as his sister. Mrs. Ambient did not appear at
+      breakfast, being rather tired with her ministrations, during the night, to
+      Dolcino. Her husband mentioned, however, that she was hoping to go to
+      church. I afterwards learned that she did go, but I may as well announce
+      without delay that he and I did not accompany her. It was while the
+      church-bell was murmuring in the distance that the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>
+      led me forth for the ramble he had spoken of in his note. I will not
+      attempt to say where we went, or to describe what we saw. We kept to the
+      fields and copses and commons, and breathed the same sweet air as the
+      nibbling donkeys and the browsing sheep, whose woolliness seemed to me, in
+      those early days of my acquaintance with English objects, but a part of
+      the general texture of the small, dense landscape, which looked as if the
+      harvest were gathered by the shears. Everything was full of expression for
+      Mark Ambient&rsquo;s visitor,&mdash;from the big, bandy-legged geese, whose
+      whiteness was a &ldquo;note,&rdquo; amid all the tones of green, as they wandered
+      beside a neat little oval pool, the foreground of a thatched and
+      whitewashed inn, with a grassy approach and a pictorial sign,&mdash;from
+      these humble wayside animals to the crests of high woods which let a gable
+      or a pinnacle peep here and there, and looked, even at a distance, like
+      trees of good company, conscious of an individual profile. I admired the
+      hedgerows, I plucked the faint-hued heather, and I was forever stopping to
+      say how charming I thought the thread-like footpaths across the fields,
+      which wandered, in a diagonal of finer grain, from one smooth stile to
+      another. Mark Ambient was abundantly good-natured, and was as much
+      entertained with my observations as I was with the literary allusions of
+      the landscape. We sat and smoked upon stiles, broaching paradoxes in the
+      decent English air; we took short cuts across a park or two, where the
+      bracken was deep and my companion nodded to the old woman at the gate; we
+      skirted rank covers, which rustled here and there as wo passed, and we
+      stretched ourselves at last on a heathery hillside, where, if the sun was
+      not too hot, neither was the earth too cold, and where the country lay
+      beneath us in a rich blue mist. Of course I had already told Ambient what
+      I thought of his new novel, having the previous night read every word of
+      the opening chapters before I went to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not without hope of being able to make it my best,&rdquo; he said, as I
+      went back to the subject, while we turned up our heels to the sky. &ldquo;At
+      least the people who dislike my prose&mdash;and there are a great many of
+      them, I believe&mdash;will dislike this work most&rdquo; This was the first time
+      I had heard him allude to the people who couldn&rsquo;t read him,&mdash;a class
+      which is supposed always to sit heavy upon the consciousness of the man of
+      letters. A man organized for literature, as Mark Ambient was, must
+      certainly have had the normal proportion of sensitiveness, of
+      irritability; the artistic <i>ego</i>, capable in some cases of such
+      monstrous development, must have been, in his composition, sufficiently
+      erect and definite. I will not therefore go so far as to say that he never
+      thought of his detractors, or that he had any illusions with regard to the
+      number of his admirers (he could never so far have deceived himself as to
+      believe he was popular); but I may at least affirm that adverse criticism,
+      as I had occasion to perceive later, ruffled him visibly but little, that
+      he had an air of thinking it quite natural he should be offensive to many
+      minds, and that he very seldom talked about the newspapers, which, by the
+      way, were always very stupid in regard to the author of <i>Beltraffio</i>.
+      Of course he may have thought about them&mdash;the newspapers&mdash;night
+      and day; the only point I wish to make is that he did n&rsquo;t show it; while,
+      at the same time, he did n&rsquo;t strike one as a man who was on his guard. I
+      may add that, as regards his hope of making the work on which he was then
+      engaged the best of his books, it was only partly carried out. That place
+      belongs, incontestably, to <i>Beltraffio</i>, in spite of the beauty of
+      certain parts of its successor. I am pretty sure, however, that he had, at
+      the moment of which I speak, no sense of failure; he was in love with his
+      idea, which was indeed magnificent, and though for him, as, I suppose, for
+      every artist, the act of execution had in it as much torment as joy, he
+      saw his work growing a little every day and filling-out the largest plan
+      he had yet conceived. &ldquo;I want to be truer than I have ever been,&rdquo; he said,
+      settling himself on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head; &ldquo;I
+      want to give an impression of life itself. No, you may say what you will,
+      I have always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and
+      rounded them off and tucked them in,&mdash;done everything to them that
+      life does n&rsquo;t do. I have been a slave to the old superstitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You a slave, my dear Mark Ambient? You have the freest imagination of our
+      day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the more shame to me to have done some of the things I have! The
+      reconciliation of the two women in <i>Ginistrella</i>, for instance, which
+      could never really have taken place. That sort of thing is ignoble; I
+      blush when I think of it! This new affair must be a golden vessel, filled
+      with the purest distillation of the actual; and oh, how it bothers me, the
+      shaping of the vase&mdash;the hammering of the metal! I have to hammer it
+      so fine, so smooth; I don&rsquo;t do more than an inch or two a day. And all the
+      while I have to be so careful not to let a drop of the liquor escape! When
+      I see the kind of things that Life does, I despair of ever catching her
+      peculiar trick. She has an impudence, life! If one risked a fiftieth part
+      of the effects she risks! It takes ever so long to believe it. You don&rsquo;t
+      know yet, my dear fellow. It is n&rsquo;t till one has been watching life for
+      forty years that one finds out half of what she&rsquo;s up to! Therefore one&rsquo;s
+      earlier things must inevitably contain a mass of rot. And with what one
+      sees, on one side, with its tongue in its cheek, defying one to be real
+      enough, and on the other the <i>bonnes gens</i> rolling up their eyes at
+      one&rsquo;s cynicism, the situation has elements of the ludicrous which the
+      artist himself is doubtless in a position to appreciate better than any
+      one else. Of course one mustn&rsquo;t bother about the <i>bonnes gens</i>.&rdquo; Mark
+      Ambient went on, while my thoughts reverted to his ladylike wife, as
+      interpreted by his remarkable sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To sink your shaft deep, and polish the plate through which people look
+      into it&mdash;that&rsquo;s what your work consists of,&rdquo; I remember remarking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, polishing one&rsquo;s plate&mdash;that is the torment of execution!&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed, jerking himself up and sitting forward. &ldquo;The effort to arrive
+      at a surface&mdash;if you think a surface necessary&mdash;some people
+      don&rsquo;t, happily for them! My dear fellow, if you could see the surface I
+      dream of, as compared with the one with which I have to content myself.
+      Life is really too short for art&mdash;one hasn&rsquo;t time to make one&rsquo;s shell
+      ideally hard. Firm and bright&mdash;firm and bright!&mdash;the devilish
+      thing has a way, sometimes, of being bright without being firm. When I rap
+      it with my knuckles it doesn&rsquo;t give the right sound. There are horrible
+      little flabby spots where I have taken the second-best word, because I
+      could n&rsquo;t for the life of me think of the best. If you knew how stupid I
+      am sometimes! They look to me now like pimples and ulcers on the brow of
+      beauty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very bad&mdash;very bad,&rdquo; I said, as gravely as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very bad? It&rsquo;s the highest social offence I know; it ought&mdash;it
+      absolutely ought&mdash;I&rsquo;m quite serious&mdash;to be capital If I knew I
+      should be hanged else, I should manage to find the best word. The people
+      who could n&rsquo;t&mdash;some of them don&rsquo;t know it when they see it&mdash;would
+      shut their inkstands, and we should n&rsquo;t be deluged by this flood of
+      rubbish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not attempt to repeat everything that passed between us, or to
+      explain just how it was that, every moment I spent in his company, Mark
+      Ambient revealed to me more and more that he looked at all things from the
+      standpoint of the artist, felt all life as literary material There are
+      people who will tell me that this is a poor way of feeling it, and I am
+      not concerned to defend my statement, having space merely to remark that
+      there is something to be said for any interest which makes a man feel so
+      much. If Mark Ambient did really, as I suggested above, have imaginative
+      contact with &ldquo;all life,&rdquo; I, for my part, envy him his <i>arriere-pensée</i>.
+      At any rate it was through the receipt of this impression of him that by
+      the time we returned I had acquired the feeling of intimacy I have noted.
+      Before we got up for the homeward stretch, he alluded to his wife&rsquo;s having
+      once&mdash;or perhaps more than once&mdash;asked him whether he should
+      like Dolcino to read <i>Beltraffio</i>. I think he was unconscious at the
+      moment of all that this conveyed to me&mdash;as well, doubtless, of my
+      extreme curiosity to hear what he had replied. He had said that he hoped
+      very much Dolcino would read all his works&mdash;when he was twenty; he
+      should like him to know what his father had done. Before twenty it would
+      be useless; he would n&rsquo;t understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And meanwhile do you propose to hide them,&mdash;to lock them up in a
+      drawer?&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient had inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no; we must simply tell him that they are not intended for small
+      boys. If you bring him up properly, after that he won t touch them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Mrs. Ambient had made answer that it would be very awkward when he
+      was about fifteen; and I asked her husband if it was his opinion in
+      general, then, that young people should not read novels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good ones&mdash;certainly not!&rdquo; said my companion. I suppose I had had
+      other views, for I remember saying that, for myself, I was not sure it was
+      bad for them, if the novels were &ldquo;good&rdquo; enough. &ldquo;Bad for <i>them</i>, I
+      don&rsquo;t say so much!&rdquo; Ambient exclaimed. &ldquo;But very bad, I am afraid, for the
+      novel!&rdquo; That oblique, accidental allusion to his wife&rsquo;s attitude was
+      followed by a franker style of reference as we walked home. &ldquo;The
+      difference between us is simply the opposition between two distinct ways
+      of looking at the world, which have never succeeded in getting on
+      together, or making any kind of common ménage, since the beginning of
+      time. They have borne all sorts of names, and my wife would tell you it&rsquo;s
+      the difference between Christian and Pagan. I may be a pagan, but I don&rsquo;t
+      like the name; it sounds sectarian. She thinks me, at any rate, no better
+      than an ancient Greek. It&rsquo;s the difference between making the most of life
+      and making the least, so that you &lsquo;ll get another better one in some other
+      time and place. Will it be a sin to make the most of that one too, I
+      wonder; and shall we have to be bribed off in the future state, as well as
+      in the present? Perhaps I care too much for beauty&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know; I
+      delight in it, I adore it, I think of it continually, I try to produce it,
+      to reproduce it. My wife holds that we shouldn&rsquo;t think too much about it
+      She&rsquo;s always afraid of that, always on her guard. I don&rsquo;t know what she
+      has got on her back! And she&rsquo;s so pretty, too, herself! Don&rsquo;t you think
+      she&rsquo;s lovely? She was, at any rate, when I married her. At that time I was
+      n&rsquo;t aware of that difference I speak of&mdash;I thought it all came to the
+      same thing: in the end, as they say. Well, perhaps it will, in the end. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what the end will be. Moreover, I care for seeing things as
+      they are; that&rsquo;s the way I try to show them in my novels. But you must n&rsquo;t
+      talk to Mrs. Ambient about things as they are. She has a mortal dread of
+      things as they are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s afraid of them for Dolcino,&rdquo; I said: surprised a moment afterwards
+      at being in a position&mdash;thanks to Miss Ambient&mdash;to be so
+      explanatory; and surprised even now that Mark should n&rsquo;t have shown
+      visibly that he wondered what the deuce I knew about it But he did n&rsquo;t; he
+      simply exclaimed, with a tenderness that touched me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, nothing shall ever hurt <i>him!</i>&rdquo; He told me more about his wife
+      before we arrived at the gate of his house, and if it be thought that he
+      was querulous, I am afraid I must admit that he had some of the foibles as
+      well as the gifts of the artistic temperament; adding, however, instantly,
+      that hitherto, to the best of my belief, he had very rarely complained.
+      &ldquo;She thinks me immoral&mdash;that&rsquo;s the long and short of it,&rdquo; he said, as
+      we paused outside a moment, and his hand rested on one of the bars of his
+      gate; while his conscious, demonstrative, expressive, perceptive eyes,&mdash;the
+      eyes of a foreigner, I had begun to account them, much more than of the
+      usual Englishman,&mdash;viewing me now evidently as quite a familiar
+      friend, took part in the declaration. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very strange, when one thinks
+      it all over, and there&rsquo;s a grand comicality in it which I should like to
+      bring out. She is a very nice woman, extraordinarily well behaved, upright
+      and clever, and with a tremendous lot of good sense about a good many
+      matters. Yet her conception of a novel&mdash;she has explained it to me
+      once or twice, and she does n&rsquo;t do it badly, as exposition&mdash;is a
+      thing so false that it makes me blush. It is a thing so hollow, so
+      dishonest, so lying, in which life is so blinked and blinded, so dodged
+      and disfigured, that it makes my ears burn. It&rsquo;s two different ways of
+      looking at the whole affair,&rdquo; he repeated, pushing open the gate. &ldquo;And
+      they are irreconcilable!&rdquo; he added, with a sigh. We went forward to the
+      house, but on the walk, half way to the door, he stopped, and said to me,
+      &ldquo;If you are going into this kind of thing, there&rsquo;s a fact you should know
+      beforehand; it may save you some disappointment. There&rsquo;s a hatred of art,
+      there&rsquo;s a hatred of literature!&rdquo; I looked up at the charming house, with
+      its genial color and crookedness, and I answered, with a smile, that those
+      evil passions might exist, but that I should never have expected to find
+      them there. &ldquo;Oh, it doesn&rsquo;t matter, after all,&rdquo; he said, laughing; which I
+      was glad to hear, for I was reproaching myself with having excited him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I had, his excitement soon passed off, for at lunch he was delightful;
+      strangely delightful, considering that the difference between himself and
+      his wife was, as he had said, irreconcilable. He had the art, by his
+      manner, by his smile, by his natural kindliness, of reducing the
+      importance of it in the common concerns of life; and Mrs. Ambient, I must
+      add, lent herself to this transaction with a very good grace. I watched
+      her, at table, for further illustrations of that fixed idea of which Miss
+      Ambient had spoken to me; for, in the light of the united revelations of
+      her sister-in-law and her husband, she had come to seem to me a very
+      singular personage. I am obliged to say that the signs of a fanatical
+      temperament were not more striking in my hostess than before; it was only
+      after a while that her air of incorruptible conformity, her tapering,
+      monosyllabic correctness, began to appear to be themselves a cold, thin
+      flame. Certainly, at first, she looked like a woman with as few passions
+      as possible; but if she had a passion at all, it would be that of
+      Philistinism. She might have been&mdash;for there are guardian-spirits, I
+      suppose, of all great principles&mdash;the angel of propriety. Mark
+      Ambient, apparently, ten years before, had simply perceived that she was
+      an angel, without asking himself of what He had been quite right in
+      calling my attention to her beauty. In looking for the reason why he
+      should have married her, I saw, more than before, that she was, physically
+      speaking, a wonderfully cultivated human plant&mdash;that she must have
+      given him many ideas and images. It was impossible to be more pencilled,
+      more garden-like, more delicately tinted and petalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I had had it in my heart to think Ambient a little of a hypocrite for
+      appearing to forget at table everything he had said to me during our walk,
+      I should instantly have cancelled such a judgment, on reflecting that the
+      good news his wife was able to give him about their little boy was reason
+      enough for his sudden air of happiness. It may have come partly, too, from
+      a certain remorse at having complained to me of the fair lady who sat
+      there,&mdash;a desire to show me that he was after all not so miserable.
+      Dolcino continued to be much better, and he had been promised he should
+      come downstairs after he had had his dinner. As soon as we had risen from
+      our own meal Ambient slipped away, evidently for the purpose of going to
+      his child; and no sooner had I observed this than I became aware that his
+      wife had simultaneously vanished. It happened that Miss Ambient and I,
+      both at the same moment, saw the tail of her dress whisk out of a doorway,
+      which led the young lady to smile at me, as if I now knew all the secrets
+      of the Ambients. I passed with her into the garden, and we sat down on a
+      dear old bench which rested against the west wall of the house. It was a
+      perfect spot for the middle period of a Sunday in June, and its felicity
+      seemed to come partly from an antique sun-dial which, rising in front of
+      us and forming the centre of a small, intricate parterre, measured the
+      moments ever so slowly, and made them safe for leisure and talk. The
+      garden bloomed in the suffused afternoon, the tall beeches stood still for
+      an example, and, behind and above us, a rose-tree of many seasons,
+      clinging to the faded grain of the brick, expressed the whole character of
+      the place in a familiar, exquisite smell. It seemed to me a place for
+      genius to have every sanction, and not to encounter challenges and checks.
+      Miss Ambient asked me if I had enjoyed my walk with her brother, and
+      whether we had talked of many things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of most things,&rdquo; I said, smiling, though I remembered that we had
+      not talked of Miss Ambient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you think some of his theories are very peculiar?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I guess I agree with them all.&rdquo; I was very particular, for Miss
+      Ambient&rsquo;s entertainment, to guess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think art is everything?&rdquo; she inquired in, a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In art, of course I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you think beauty is everything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about its being everything. But it&rsquo;s very delightful&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is difficult for a woman to know how far to go,&rdquo; said my
+      companion. &ldquo;I adore everything that gives a charm to life. I am intensely
+      sensitive to form. But sometimes I draw back&mdash;don&rsquo;t you see what I
+      mean?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t quite see where I shall be landed. I only want to be
+      quiet, after all,&rdquo; Miss Ambient continued, in a tone of stifled yearning
+      which seemed to indicate that she had not yet arrived at her desire. &ldquo;And
+      one must be good, at any rate, must not one?&rdquo; she inquired, with a cadence
+      apparently intended for an assurance that my answer would settle this
+      recondite question for her. It was difficult for me to make it very
+      original, and I am afraid I repaid her confidence with an unblushing
+      platitude. I remember, moreover, appending to it an inquiry, equally
+      destitute of freshness, and still more wanting perhaps in tact, as to
+      whether she did not mean to go to church, as that was an obvious way of
+      being good. She replied that she had performed this duty in the morning,
+      and that for her, on Sunday afternoon, supreme virtue consisted in
+      answering the week&rsquo;s letters. Then suddenly, without transition, she said
+      to me, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite a mistake about Dolcino being better. I have seen him,
+      and he&rsquo;s not at all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely his mother would know, would n&rsquo;t she?&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She appeared for a moment to be counting the leaves on one of the great
+      beeches. &ldquo;As regards most matters, one can easily say what, in a given
+      situation, my sister-in-law would do. But as regards this one, there are
+      strange elements at work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange elements? Do you mean in the constitution of the child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I mean in my sister-in-law&rsquo;s feelings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elements of affection, of course; elements of anxiety. Why do you call
+      them strange?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She repeated my words. &ldquo;Elements of affection, elements of anxiety. She is
+      very anxious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Ambient made me vaguely uneasy; she almost frightened me, and I
+      wished she would go and write her letters. &ldquo;His father will have seen him
+      now,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and if he is not satisfied he will send for the doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor ought to have been here this morning. He lives only two miles
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected that all this was very possibly only a part of the general
+      tragedy of Miss Ambient&rsquo;s view of things; but I asked her why she had n&rsquo;t
+      urged such a necessity upon her sister-in-law. She answered me with a
+      smile of extraordinary significance, and told me that I must have very
+      little idea of what her relations with Beatrice were; but I must do her
+      the justice to add that she went on to make herself a little more
+      comprehensible by saying that it was quite reason enough for her sister
+      not to be alarmed that Mark would be sure to be. He was always nervous
+      about the child, and as they were predestined by nature to take opposite
+      views, the only thing for Beatrice was to cultivate a false optimism. If
+      Mark were not there, she would not be at all easy. I remembered what he
+      had said to me about their dealings with Dolcino,&mdash;that between them
+      they would put an end to him; but I did not repeat this to Miss Ambient:
+      the less so that just then her brother emerged from the house, carrying
+      his child in his arms. Close behind him moved his wife, grave and pale;
+      the boy&rsquo;s face was turned over Ambient&rsquo;s shoulder, towards his mother. We
+      got up to receive the group, and as they came near us Dolcino turned
+      round. I caught, on his enchanting little countenance, a smile of
+      recognition, and for the moment would have been quite content with it.
+      Miss Ambient, however, received another impression, and I make haste to
+      say that her quick sensibility, in which there was something maternal,
+      argues that, in spite of her affectations, there was a strain of kindness
+      in her. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do at all&mdash;it won&rsquo;t do at all,&rdquo; she said to me
+      under her breath. &ldquo;I shall speak to Mark about the doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child was rather white, but the main difference I saw in him was that
+      he was even more beautiful than the day before. He had been dressed in his
+      festal garments,&mdash;a velvet suit and a crimson sash,&mdash;and he
+      looked like a little invalid prince, too young to know condescension, and
+      smiling familiarly on his subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put him down, Mark, he&rsquo;s not comfortable,&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you like to stand on your feet, my boy?&rdquo; his father asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; I &lsquo;m remarkably well,&rdquo; said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark placed him on the ground; he had shining, pointed slippers, with
+      enormous bows. &ldquo;Are you happy now, Mr. Ambient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I am particularly happy,&rdquo; Dolcino replied. The words were
+      scarcely out of his mouth when his mother caught him up, and in a moment,
+      holding him on her knees, she took her place on the bench where Miss
+      Ambient and I had been sitting. This young lady said something to her
+      brother, in consequence of which the two wandered away into the garden
+      together. I remained with Mrs. Ambient; but as a servant had brought out a
+      couple of chairs I was not obliged to seat myself beside her. Our
+      conversation was not animated, and I, for my part, felt there would be a
+      kind of hypocrisy in my trying to make myself agreeable to Mrs. Ambient I
+      didn&rsquo;t dislike her&mdash;I rather admired her; but I was aware that I
+      differed from her inexpressibly. Then I suspected, what I afterwards
+      definitely knew and have already intimated, that the poor lady had taken a
+      dislike to me; and this of course was not encouraging. She thought me an
+      obtrusive and even depraved young man, whom a perverse Providence had
+      dropped upon their quiet lawn to flatter her husband&rsquo;s worst tendencies.
+      She did me the honor to say to Miss Ambient, who repeated the speech, that
+      she didn&rsquo;t know when she had seen her husband take such a fancy to a
+      visitor; and she measured, apparently, my evil influence by Mark&rsquo;s
+      appreciation of my society. I had a consciousness, not yet acute, but
+      quite sufficient, of all this; but I must say that if it chilled my flow
+      of small-talk, it did n&rsquo;t prevent me from thinking that the beautiful
+      mother and beautiful child, interlaced there against their background of
+      roses, made a picture such as I perhaps should not soon see again. I was
+      free, I supposed, to go into the house and write letters, to sit in the
+      drawing-room, to repair to my own apartment and take a nap; but the only
+      use I made of my freedom was to linger still in my chair and say to myself
+      that the light hand of Sir Joshua might have painted Mark Ambient&rsquo;s wife
+      and son. I found myself looking perpetually at Dolcino, and Dolcino looked
+      back at me, and that was enough to detain me. When he looked at me he
+      smiled, and I felt it was an absolute impossibility to abandon a child who
+      was smiling at one like that. His eyes never wandered; they attached
+      themselves to mine, as if among all the small incipient things of his
+      nature there was a desire to say something to me. If I could have taken
+      him upon my own knee, he perhaps would have managed to say it; but it
+      would have been far too delicate a matter to ask his mother to give him
+      up, and it has remained a constant regret for me that on that Sunday
+      afternoon I did not, even for a moment, hold Dolcino in my arms. He had
+      said that he felt remarkably well, and that he was especially happy; but
+      though he may have been happy, with his charming head pillowed on his
+      mother&rsquo;s breast, and his little crimson silk legs depending from her lap,
+      I did not think he looked well. He made no attempt to walk about; he was
+      content to swing his legs softly and strike one as languid and angelic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some remark
+      about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the house. Mark
+      came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the child, who
+      immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he remained. &ldquo;I think
+      Ailingham ought to see him,&rdquo; Ambient said; &ldquo;I think I will walk over and
+      fetch him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That &lsquo;s Gwendolen&rsquo;s idea, I suppose,&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient replied, very sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one&rsquo;s child is ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I &lsquo;m not ill, papa; I &lsquo;m much better now,&rdquo; Dolcino remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have a
+      great idea of being agreeable, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a
+      moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own as I
+      watched him. &ldquo;Do <i>you</i> think me agreeable?&rdquo; he inquired, with the
+      candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to me,
+      laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, &ldquo;Is n&rsquo;t he adorable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you hop about, if you feel so lusty?&rdquo; Ambient went on,
+      while the boy swung his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because mamma is holding me close!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!&rdquo; Ambient exclaimed,
+      looking at his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or concession,
+      and after a moment she said, &ldquo;You can go for Allingham if you like, I
+      think myself it would be better. You ought to drive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says that to get me away,&rdquo; Ambient remarked to me, laughing; after
+      which he started for the doctor&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remained there with Mrs. Ambient, though our conversation had more
+      pauses than speeches. The boy&rsquo;s little fixed white face seemed, as before,
+      to plead with me to stay, and after a while it produced still another
+      effect, a very curious one, which I shall find it difficult to express. Of
+      course I expose myself to the charge of attempting to give fantastic
+      reasons for an act which may have been simply the fruit of a native want
+      of discretion; and indeed the traceable consequences of that perversity
+      were too lamentable to leave me any desire to trifle with the question.
+      All I can say is that I acted in perfect good faith, and that Dolcino&rsquo;s
+      friendly little gaze gradually kindled the spark of my inspiration. What
+      helped it to glow were the other influences,&mdash;the silent, suggestive
+      garden-nook, the perfect opportunity (if it was not an opportunity for
+      that, it was an opportunity for nothing), and the plea that I speak of,
+      which issued from the child&rsquo;s eyes, and seemed to make him say, &ldquo;The
+      mother that bore me and that presses me here to her bosom&mdash;sympathetic
+      little organism that I am&mdash;has really the kind of sensibility which
+      she has been represented to you as lacking; if you only look for it
+      patiently and respectfully. How is it possible that she should n&rsquo;t have
+      it? How is it possible that I should have so much of it (for I am quite
+      full of it, dear, strange gentleman), if it were not also in some degree
+      in her? I am my father&rsquo;s child, but I am also my mother&rsquo;s, and I am sorry
+      for the difference between them!&rdquo; So it shaped itself before me, the
+      vision of reconciling Mrs. Ambient with her husband, of putting an end to
+      their great disagreement The project was absurd, of course, for had I not
+      had his word for it&mdash;spoken with all the bitterness of experience&mdash;that
+      the gulf that divided them was wellnigh bottomless? Nevertheless, a
+      quarter of an hour after Mark had left us, I said to his wife that I could
+      n&rsquo;t get over what she told me the night before about her thinking her
+      husband&rsquo;s writings &ldquo;objectionable.&rdquo; I had been so very sorry to hear it,
+      had thought of it constantly, and wondered whether it were not possible to
+      make her change her mind. Mrs. Ambient gave me rather a cold stare; she
+      seemed to be recommending me to mind my own business. I wish I had taken
+      this mute counsel, but I did not. I went on to remark that it seemed an
+      immense pity so much that was beautiful should be lost upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing is lost upon me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ambient &ldquo;I know they are very
+      beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you like papa&rsquo;s books?&rdquo; Dolcino asked, addressing his mother, but
+      still looking at me. Then he added to me, &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you read them to me,
+      American gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather tell you some stories of my own,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I know some
+      that are very interesting.&rdquo; &ldquo;When will you tell them? To-morrow?&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;To-morrow, with pleasure, if that suits you.&rdquo; Mrs. Ambient was silent at
+      this. Her husband, during our walk, had asked me to remain another day; my
+      promise to her son was an implication that I had consented, and it is not
+      probable that the prospect was agreeable to her. This ought, doubtless, to
+      have made me more careful as to what I said next; but all I can say is
+      that it did n&rsquo;t. I presently observed that just after leaving her the
+      evening before, and after hearing her apply to her husband&rsquo;s writings the
+      epithet I had already quoted, I had, on going up to my room, sat down to
+      the perusal of those sheets of his new book which he had been so good as
+      to lend me. I had sat entranced till nearly three in the morning. I had
+      read them twice over. &ldquo;You say you have n&rsquo;t looked at them. I think it &lsquo;s
+      such a pity you should n&rsquo;t Do let me beg you to take them up. They are so
+      very remarkable. I &lsquo;m sure they will convert you. They place him in&mdash;really&mdash;such
+      a dazzling light. All that is best in him is there. I have no doubt it&rsquo;s a
+      great liberty, my saying all this; but excuse me, and <i>do</i> read
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do read them, mamma!&rdquo; Dolcino repeated; &ldquo;do read them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bent her head and closed his lips with a kiss. &ldquo;Of course I know he
+      has worked immensely over them,&rdquo; she said; and after this she made no
+      remark, but sat there looking thoughtful, with her eyes on the ground. The
+      tone of these last words was such as to leave me no spirit for further
+      pressure, and after expressing a fear that her husband had not found the
+      doctor at home, I got up and took a turn about the grounds. When I came
+      back, ten minutes later, she was still in her place watching her boy, who
+      had fallen asleep in her lap. As I drew near she put her finger to her
+      lips, and a moment afterwards she rose, holding the child, and murmured
+      something about its being better that he should go upstairs. I offered to
+      carry him, and held out my hands to take him; but she thanked me and
+      turned away with the child seated on her arm, his head on her shoulder. &ldquo;I
+      am very strong,&rdquo; she said, as she passed into the house, and her slim,
+      flexible figure bent backwards with the filial weight So I never touched
+      Dolcino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I betook myself to Ambient&rsquo;s study, delighted to have a quiet hour to look
+      over his books by myself. The windows were open into the garden; the sunny
+      stillness, the mild light of the English summer, filled the room, without
+      quite chasing away the rich dusky tone which was a part of its charm, and
+      which abode in the serried shelves where old morocco exhaled the fragrance
+      of curious learning, and in the brighter intervals, where medals and
+      prints and miniatures were suspended upon a surface of faded stuff. The
+      place had both color and quiet; I thought it a perfect room for work, and
+      went so far as to say to myself that, if it were mine to sit and scribble
+      in, there was no knowing but that I might learn to write as well as the
+      author of <i>Beltraffio</i>. This distinguished man did not turn up, and I
+      rummaged freely among his treasures. At last I took down a book that
+      detained me awhile, and seated myself in a fine old leather chair by the
+      window to turn it over. I had been occupied in this way for half-an-hour,&mdash;a
+      good part of the afternoon had waned,&mdash;when I became conscious of
+      another presence in the room, and, looking up from my quarto, saw that
+      Mrs. Ambient, having pushed open the door in the same noiseless way that
+      marked, or disguised, her entrance the night before, had advanced across
+      the threshold. On seeing me she stopped; she had not, I think, expected to
+      find me. But her hesitation was only of a moment; she came straight to her
+      husband&rsquo;s writing-table as if she were looking for something. I got up and
+      asked her if I could help her. She glanced about an instant, and then put
+      her hand upon a roll of papers which I recognized, as I had placed it in
+      that spot in the morning on coming down from my room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this the new book?&rdquo; she asked, holding it up. &ldquo;The very sheets, with
+      precious annotations.&rdquo; &ldquo;I mean to take your advice;&rdquo; and she tucked the
+      little bundle under her arm. I congratulated her cordially, and ventured
+      to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of pleasantry.
+      But she was perfectly grave, and turned away from me, as she had presented
+      herself, without a smile; after which I settled down to my quarto again,
+      with the reflection that Mrs. Ambient was a queer woman. My triumph, too,
+      suddenly seemed to me rather vain. A woman who could n&rsquo;t smile in the
+      right place would never understand Mark Ambient. He came in at last in
+      person, having brought the doctor back with him. &ldquo;He was away from home,&rdquo;
+       Mark said, &ldquo;and I went after him, to where he was supposed to be. He had
+      left the place, and I followed him to two or three others, which accounts
+      for my delay.&rdquo; He was now with Mrs. Ambient looking at the child, and was
+      to see Mark again before leaving the house. My host noticed, at the end of
+      ten minutes, that the proof-sheets of his new book had been removed from
+      the table; and when I told him, in reply to his question as to what I knew
+      about them, that Mrs. Ambient had carried them off to read, he turned
+      almost pale for an instant with surprise. &ldquo;What has suddenly made her so
+      curious?&rdquo; he exclaimed; and I was obliged to tell him that I was at the
+      bottom of the mystery. I had had it on my conscience to assure her that
+      she really ought to know of what her husband was capable. &ldquo;Of what I am
+      capable? <i>Elle ne s&rsquo;en dottie que trop!</i>&rdquo; said Ambient, with a laugh;
+      but he took my meddling very good-naturedly, and contented himself with
+      adding that he was very much afraid she would burn up the sheets, with his
+      emendations, of which he had no duplicate. The doctor paid a long visit in
+      the nursery, and before he came down I retired to my own quarters, where I
+      remained till dinner-time. On entering the drawing-room at this hour, I
+      found Miss Ambient in possession, as she had been the evening before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was right about Dolcino,&rdquo; she said, as soon as she saw me, with a
+      strange little air of triumph. &ldquo;He is really very ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very ill! Why, when I last saw him, at four o&rsquo;clock, he was in fairly
+      good form.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There has been a change for the worse, very sudden and rapid, and when
+      the doctor got here he found diphtheritic symptoms. He ought to have been
+      called, as I knew, in the morning, and the child ought n&rsquo;t to have been
+      brought into the garden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear lady, he was very happy there,&rdquo; I answered, much appalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would be happy anywhere. I have no doubt he is happy now, with his
+      poor little throat in a state&mdash;&rdquo; she dropped her voice as her brother
+      came in, and Mark let us know that, as a matter of course, Mrs. Ambient
+      would not appear. It was true that Dolcino had developed diphtheritic
+      symptoms, but he was quiet for the present, and his mother was earnestly
+      watching him. She was a perfect nurse, Mark said, and the doctor was
+      coming back at ten o&rsquo;clock. Our dinner was not very gay; Ambient was
+      anxious and alarmed, and his sister irritated me by her constant tacit
+      assumption, conveyed in the very way she nibbled her bread and sipped her
+      wine, of having &ldquo;told me so.&rdquo; I had had no disposition to deny anything
+      she told me, and I could not see that her satisfaction in being justified
+      by the event made poor Dolcino&rsquo;s throat any better. The truth is that, as
+      the sequel proved, Miss Ambient had some of the qualities of the sibyl,
+      and had therefore, perhaps, a right to the sibylline contortions. Her
+      brother was so preoccupied that I felt my presence to be an indiscretion,
+      and was sorry I had promised to remain over the morrow. I said to Mark
+      that, evidently, I had better leave them in the morning; to which he
+      replied that, on the contrary, if he was to pass the next days in the
+      fidgets, my company would be an extreme relief to him. The fidgets had
+      already begun for him, poor fellow; and as we sat in his study with our
+      cigars after dinner, he wandered to the door whenever he heard the sound
+      of the doctor&rsquo;s wheels. Miss Ambient, who shared this apartment with us,
+      gave me at such moments significant glances; she had gone upstairs before
+      rejoining us to ask after the child His mother and his nurse gave a
+      tolerable account of him; but Miss Ambient found his fever high and his
+      symptoms very grave. The doctor came at ten o&rsquo;clock, and I went to bed
+      after hearing from Mark that he saw no present cause for alarm. He had
+      made every provision for the night, and was to return early in the
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I quitted my room at eight o&rsquo;clock the next day, and, as I came
+      downstairs, saw, through the open door of the house, Mrs. Ambient standing
+      at the front gate of the grounds, in colloquy with the physician. She wore
+      a white dressing-gown, but her shining hair was carefully tucked away in
+      its net, and in the freshness of the morning, after a night of watching,
+      she looked as much &ldquo;the type of the lady&rdquo; as her sister-in-law had
+      described her. Her appearance, I suppose, ought to have reassured me; but
+      I was still nervous and uneasy, so that I shrank from meeting her with the
+      necessary question about Dolcino. None the less, however, was I impatient
+      to learn how the morning found him; and, as Mrs. Ambient had not seen me,
+      I passed into the grounds by a roundabout way, and, stopping at a further
+      gate, hailed the doctor just as he was driving away. Mrs. Ambient had
+      returned to the house before he got into his gig.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, but as a friend of the family, I should like very much to hear
+      about the little boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, who was a stout, sharp man, looked at me from head to foot,
+      and then he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to say I have n&rsquo;t seen him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have n&rsquo;t seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Ambient came down to meet me as I alighted, and told me that he was
+      sleeping so soundly, after a restless night, that she did n&rsquo;t wish him
+      disturbed. I assured her I would n&rsquo;t disturb him, but she said he was
+      quite safe now and she could look after him herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much. Are you coming back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; I &lsquo;ll be hanged if I come back!&rdquo; exclaimed Dr. Allingham, who
+      was evidently very angry. And he started his horse again with the whip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wandered back into the garden, and five minutes later Miss Ambient came
+      forth from the house to greet me. She explained that breakfast would not
+      be served for some time, and that she wished to catch the doctor before he
+      went away. I informed her that this functionary had come and departed, and
+      I repeated to her what he had told me about his dismissal. This made Miss
+      Ambient very serious, very serious indeed, and she sank into a bench, with
+      dilated eyes, hugging her elbows with crossed arms. She indulged in many
+      ejaculations, she confessed that she was infinitely perplexed, and she
+      finally told me what her own last news of her nephew had been. She had sat
+      up very late,&mdash;after me, after Mark,&mdash;and before going to bed
+      had knocked at the door of the child&rsquo;s room, which was opened to her by
+      the nurse. This good woman had admitted her, and she had found Dolcino
+      quiet, but flushed and &ldquo;unnatural,&rdquo; with his mother sitting beside his
+      bed. &ldquo;She held his hand in one of hers,&rdquo; said Miss Ambient, &ldquo;and in the
+      other&mdash;what do you think?&mdash;the proof-sheets of Mark&rsquo;s new book!
+      She was reading them there, intently: did you ever hear of anything so
+      extraordinary? Such a very odd time to be reading an author whom she never
+      could abide!&rdquo; In her agitation Miss Ambient was guilty of this vulgarism
+      of speech, and I was so impressed by her narrative that it was only in
+      recalling her words later that I noticed the lapse. Mrs. Ambient had
+      looked up from her reading with her finger on her lips&mdash;I recognized
+      the gesture she had addressed to me in the afternoon&mdash;and, though the
+      nurse was about to go to rest, had not encouraged her sister-in-law to
+      relieve her of any part of her vigil. But certainly, then, Dolcino&rsquo;s
+      condition was far from reassuring,&mdash;his poor little breathing was
+      most painful; and what change could have taken place in him in those few
+      hours that would justify Beatrice in denying the physician access to him?
+      This was the moral of Miss Ambient&rsquo;s anecdote, the moral for herself at
+      least. The moral for me, rather, was that it <i>was</i> a very singular
+      time for Mrs. Ambient to be going into a novelist she had never
+      appreciated, and who had simply happened to be recommended to her by a
+      young American she disliked. I thought of her sitting there in the
+      sick-chamber in the still hours of the night, after the nurse had left
+      her, turning over those pages of genius and wrestling with their magical
+      influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must relate very briefly the circumstances of the rest of my visit to
+      Mark Ambient,&mdash;it lasted but a few hours longer,&mdash;and devote but
+      three words to my later acquaintance with him. That lasted five years,&mdash;till
+      his death,&mdash;and was full of interest, of satisfaction, and, I may
+      add, of sadness. The main thing to be said with regard to it, is that I
+      had a secret from him. I believe he never suspected it, though of this I
+      am not absolutely sure. If he did, the line he had taken, the line of
+      absolute negation of the matter to himself, shows an immense effort of the
+      will. I may tell my secret now, giving it for what it is worth, now that
+      Mark Ambient has gone, that he has begun to be alluded to as one of the
+      famous early dead, and that his wife does not survive him; now, too, that
+      Miss Ambient, whom I also saw at intervals during the years that followed,
+      has, with her embroideries and her attitudes, her necromantic glances and
+      strange intuitions, retired to a Sisterhood, where, as I am told, she is
+      deeply immured and quite lost to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark came in to breakfast after his sister and I had for some time been
+      seated there. He shook hands with me in silence, kissed his sister, opened
+      his letters and newspapers, and pretended to drink his coffee. But I could
+      see that these movements were mechanical, and I was little surprised when,
+      suddenly, he pushed away everything that was before him, and, with his
+      head in his hands and his elbows on the table, sat staring strangely at
+      the cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, <i>fratello mio?</i>&rdquo; Miss Ambient inquired, peeping
+      from behind the urn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered nothing, but got up with a certain violence and strode to the
+      window. We rose to our feet, his sister and I, by a common impulse,
+      exchanging a glance of some alarm, while he stared for a moment into the
+      garden. &ldquo;In Heaven&rsquo;s name what has got possession of Beatrice?&rdquo; he cried
+      at last, turning round with an almost haggard face. And he looked from one
+      of us to the other; the appeal was addressed to me as well as to his
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Ambient gave a shrug. &ldquo;My poor Mark, Beatrice is always&mdash;Beatrice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has locked herself up with the boy&mdash;bolted and barred the door;
+      she refuses to let me come near him!&rdquo; Ambient went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She refused to let the doctor see him an hour ago!&rdquo; Miss Ambient
+      remarked, with intention, as they say on the stage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Refused to let the doctor see him? By heaven, I &lsquo;ll smash in the door!&rdquo;
+       And Mark brought his fist down upon the table, so that all the
+      breakfast-service rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I begged Miss Ambient to go up and try to have speech of her
+      sister-in-law, and I drew Mark out into the garden. &ldquo;You &lsquo;re exceedingly
+      nervous, and Mrs. Ambient is probably right,&rdquo; I said to him. &ldquo;Women know;
+      women should be supreme in such a situation. Trust a mother&mdash;a
+      devoted mother, my dear friend!&rdquo; With such words as these I tried to
+      soothe and comfort him, and, marvellous to relate, I succeeded, with the
+      help of many cigarettes, in making him walk about the garden and talk, or
+      listen at least to my own ingenious chatter, for nearly an hour. At the
+      end of this time Miss Ambient returned to us, with a very rapid step,
+      holding her hand to her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go for the doctor, Mark, go for the doctor this moment!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dying? Has she killed him?&rdquo; poor Ambient cried, flinging away his
+      cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what she has done! But she&rsquo;s frightened, and now she wants
+      the doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me he would be hanged if he came back!&rdquo; I felt myself obliged to
+      announce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely&mdash;therefore Mark himself must go for him, and not a
+      messenger. You must see him, and tell him it &lsquo;s to save your child. The
+      trap has been ordered&mdash;it&rsquo;s ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To save him? I &lsquo;ll save him, please God!&rdquo; Ambient cried, bounding with
+      his great strides across the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he had gone I felt that I ought to have volunteered in his
+      place, and I said as much to Miss Ambient; but she checked me by grasping
+      my arm quickly, while we heard the wheels of the dog-cart rattle away from
+      the gate. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s off&mdash;he&rsquo;s off&mdash;and now I can think! To get him
+      away&mdash;while I think&mdash;while I think!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While you think of what, Miss Ambient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the unspeakable thing that has happened under this roof!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner was habitually that of such a prophetess of ill that my first
+      impulse was to believe I must allow here for a great exaggeration. But in
+      a moment I saw that her emotion was real. &ldquo;Dolcino <i>is</i> dying then,&mdash;he
+      is dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too late to save him. His mother has let him die! I tell you that
+      because you are sympathetic, because you have imagination,&rdquo; Miss Ambient
+      was good enough to add, interrupting my expression of horror. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why
+      you had the idea of making her read Mark&rsquo;s new book!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has that to do with it? I don&rsquo;t understand you; your accusation is
+      monstrous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see it all; I&rsquo;m not stupid,&rdquo; Miss Ambient went on, heedless of the
+      harshness of my tone. &ldquo;It was the book that finished her; it was that
+      decided her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decided her? Do you mean she has murdered her child?&rdquo; I demanded,
+      trembling at my own words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sacrificed him; she determined to do nothing to make him live. Why
+      else did she lock herself up, why else did she turn away the doctor? The
+      book gave her a horror; she determined to rescue him,&mdash;to prevent him
+      from ever being touched. He had a crisis at two o&rsquo;clock in the morning. I
+      know that from the nurse, who had left her then, but whom, for a short
+      time, she called back. Dolcino got much worse, but she insisted on the
+      nurse&rsquo;s going back to bed, and after that she was alone with him for
+      hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you pretend that she has no pity, that she&rsquo;s insane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She held him in her arms, she pressed him to her breast, not to see him;
+      but she gave him no remedies; she did nothing the doctor ordered.
+      Everything is there, untouched. She has had the honesty not even to throw
+      the drugs away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dropped upon the nearest bench, overcome with wonder and agitation,
+      quite as much at Miss Armbient&rsquo;s terrible lucidity as at the charge she
+      made against her sister-in-law. There was an amazing coherency in her
+      story, and it was dreadful to me to see myself figuring in it as so
+      proximate a cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a very strange woman, and you say strange things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think it necessary to protest, but you are quite ready to believe me.
+      You have received an impression of my sister-in-law, you have guessed of
+      what she is capable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not feel bound to say what concession, on this point, I made to Miss
+      Ambient, who went on to relate to me that within the last half-hour
+      Beatrice had had a revulsion; that she was tremendously frightened at what
+      she had done; that her fright itself betrayed her; and that she would now
+      give heaven and earth to save the child. &ldquo;Let us hope she will!&rdquo; I said,
+      looking at my watch and trying to time poor Ambient; whereupon my
+      companion repeated, in a singular tone, &ldquo;Let us hope so!&rdquo; When I asked her
+      if she herself could do nothing, and whether she ought not to be with her
+      sister-in-law, she replied, &ldquo;You had better go and judge; she is like a
+      wounded tigress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I never saw Mrs. Ambient till six months after this, and therefore cannot
+      pretend to have verified the comparison. At the latter period she was
+      again the type of the lady. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll treat him better after this,&rdquo; I
+      remember Miss Ambient saying, in response to some quick outburst (on my
+      part) of compassion for her brother. Although I had been in the house but
+      thirty-six hours, this young lady had treated me with extraordinary
+      confidence, and there was therefore a certain demand which, as an
+      intimate, I might make of her. I extracted from her a pledge that she
+      would never say to her brother what she had just said to me; she would
+      leave him to form his own theory of his wife&rsquo;s conduct. She agreed with me
+      that there was misery enough in the house, without her contributing a new
+      anguish, and that Mrs. Ambient&rsquo;s proceedings might be explained, to her
+      husband&rsquo;s mind, by the extravagance of a jealous devotion. Poor Mark came
+      back with the doctor much sooner than we could have hoped, but we knew,
+      five minutes afterwards, that they arrived too late. Poor little Dolcino
+      was more exquisitely beautiful in death than he had been in life. Mrs.
+      Ambient&rsquo;s grief was frantic; she lost her head and said strange things. As
+      for Mark&rsquo;s&mdash;but I will not speak of that. <i>Basta</i>, as he used to
+      say. Miss Ambient kept her secret,&mdash;I have already had occasion to
+      say that she had her good points,&mdash;but it rankled in her conscience
+      like a guilty participation, and, I imagine, had something to do with her
+      retiring ultimately to a Sisterhood. And, <i>à propos</i> of consciences,
+      the reader is now in a position to judge of my compunction for my effort
+      to convert Mrs. Ambient. I ought to mention that the death of her child in
+      some degree converted her. When the new book came out&mdash;it was long
+      delayed&mdash;she read it over as a whole, and her husband told me that a
+      few months before her death,&mdash;she failed rapidly after losing her
+      son, sank into a consumption, and faded away at Mentone,&mdash;during
+      those few supreme weeks she even dipped into <i>Beltraffio</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author Of Beltraffio, by Henry James
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>