diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2720-0.txt | 2723 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2720-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 50472 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2720-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 82685 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2720-h/2720-h.htm | 2798 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2720-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31720 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/penbr10.txt | 2719 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/penbr10.zip | bin | 0 -> 48051 bytes |
10 files changed, 8256 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2720-0.txt b/2720-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85b8c27 --- /dev/null +++ b/2720-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2723 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pension Beaurepas, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Pension Beaurepas + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: July 29, 2019 [eBook #2720] +[This file was first posted July 3, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENSION BEAUREPAS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1886 Macmillan and Co. edition. Scanned by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofing by Emma Hair, Francine Smith and +Matthew Garrish. + + [Picture: Public domain cover] + + + + + + THE PENSION BEAUREPAS + + +CHAPTER I. + + +I was not rich—on the contrary; and I had been told the Pension Beaurepas +was cheap. I had, moreover, been told that a boarding-house is a capital +place for the study of human nature. I had a fancy for a literary +career, and a friend of mine had said to me, “If you mean to write you +ought to go and live in a boarding-house; there is no other such place to +pick up material.” I had read something of this kind in a letter +addressed by Stendhal to his sister: “I have a passionate desire to know +human nature, and have a great mind to live in a boarding-house, where +people cannot conceal their real characters.” I was an admirer of _La +Chartreuse de Parme_, and it appeared to me that one could not do better +than follow in the footsteps of its author. I remembered, too, the +magnificent boarding-house in Balzac’s Père Goriot,—the “_pension +bourgeoise des deux sexes et autres_,” kept by Madame Vauquer, _née_ De +Conflans. Magnificent, I mean, as a piece of portraiture; the +establishment, as an establishment, was certainly sordid enough, and I +hoped for better things from the Pension Beaurepas. This institution was +one of the most esteemed in Geneva, and, standing in a little garden of +its own, not far from the lake, had a very homely, comfortable, sociable +aspect. The regular entrance was, as one might say, at the back, which +looked upon the street, or rather upon a little _place_, adorned like +every place in Geneva, great or small, with a fountain. This fact was +not prepossessing, for on crossing the threshold you found yourself more +or less in the kitchen, encompassed with culinary odours. This, however, +was no great matter, for at the Pension Beaurepas there was no attempt at +gentility or at concealment of the domestic machinery. The latter was of +a very simple sort. Madame Beaurepas was an excellent little old +woman—she was very far advanced in life, and had been keeping a pension +for forty years—whose only faults were that she was slightly deaf, that +she was fond of a surreptitious pinch of snuff, and that, at the age of +seventy-three, she wore flowers in her cap. There was a tradition in the +house that she was not so deaf as she pretended; that she feigned this +infirmity in order to possess herself of the secrets of her lodgers. But +I never subscribed to this theory; I am convinced that Madame Beaurepas +had outlived the period of indiscreet curiosity. She was a philosopher, +on a matter-of-fact basis; she had been having lodgers for forty years, +and all that she asked of them was that they should pay their bills, make +use of the door-mat, and fold their napkins. She cared very little for +their secrets. “J’en ai vus de toutes les couleurs,” she said to me. +She had quite ceased to care for individuals; she cared only for types, +for categories. Her large observation had made her acquainted with a +great number, and her mind was a complete collection of “heads.” She +flattered herself that she knew at a glance where to pigeon-hole a +new-comer, and if she made any mistakes her deportment never betrayed +them. I think that, as regards individuals, she had neither likes nor +dislikes; but she was capable of expressing esteem or contempt for a +species. She had her own ways, I suppose, of manifesting her approval, +but her manner of indicating the reverse was simple and unvarying. “Je +trouve que c’est déplacé”—this exhausted her view of the matter. If one +of her inmates had put arsenic into the _pot-au-feu_, I believe Madame +Beaurepas would have contented herself with remarking that the proceeding +was out of place. The line of misconduct to which she most objected was +an undue assumption of gentility; she had no patience with boarders who +gave themselves airs. “When people come _chez moi_, it is not to cut a +figure in the world; I have never had that illusion,” I remember hearing +her say; “and when you pay seven francs a day, _tout compris_, it +comprises everything but the right to look down upon the others. But +there are people who, the less they pay, the more they take themselves +_au sérieux_. My most difficult boarders have always been those who have +had the little rooms.” + +Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman of some forty odd years; and +the two ladies, with the assistance of a couple of thick-waisted, +red-armed peasant women, kept the house going. If on your exits and +entrances you peeped into the kitchen, it made very little difference; +for Célestine, the cook, had no pretension to be an invisible functionary +or to deal in occult methods. She was always at your service, with a +grateful grin she blacked your boots; she trudged off to fetch a cab; she +would have carried your baggage, if you had allowed her, on her broad +little back. She was always tramping in and out, between her kitchen and +the fountain in the place, where it often seemed to me that a large part +of the preparation for our dinner went forward—the wringing out of towels +and table-cloths, the washing of potatoes and cabbages, the scouring of +saucepans and cleansing of water-bottles. You enjoyed, from the +doorstep, a perpetual back-view of Célestine and of her large, loose, +woollen ankles, as she craned, from the waist, over into the fountain and +dabbled in her various utensils. This sounds as if life went on in a +very make-shift fashion at the Pension Beaurepas—as if the tone of the +establishment were sordid. But such was not at all the case. We were +simply very _bourgeois_; we practised the good old Genevese principle of +not sacrificing to appearances. This is an excellent principle—when you +have the reality. We had the reality at the Pension Beaurepas: we had it +in the shape of soft short beds, equipped with fluffy _duvets_; of +admirable coffee, served to us in the morning by Célestine in person, as +we lay recumbent on these downy couches; of copious, wholesome, succulent +dinners, conformable to the best provincial traditions. For myself, I +thought the Pension Beaurepas picturesque, and this, with me, at that +time was a great word. I was young and ingenuous: I had just come from +America. I wished to perfect myself in the French tongue, and I +innocently believed that it flourished by Lake Leman. I used to go to +lectures at the Academy, and come home with a violent appetite. I always +enjoyed my morning walk across the long bridge (there was only one, just +there, in those days) which spans the deep blue out-gush of the lake, and +up the dark steep streets of the old Calvinistic city. The garden faced +this way, toward the lake and the old town; and this was the pleasantest +approach to the house. There was a high wall, with a double gate in the +middle, flanked by a couple of ancient massive posts; the big rusty +_grille_ contained some old-fashioned iron-work. The garden was rather +mouldy and weedy, tangled and untended; but it contained a little +thin-flowing fountain, several green benches, a rickety little table of +the same complexion, and three orange-trees, in tubs, which were +deposited as effectively as possible in front of the windows of the +_salon_. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +As commonly happens in boarding-houses, the rustle of petticoats was, at +the Pension Beaurepas, the most familiar form of the human tread. There +was the usual allotment of economical widows and old maids, and to +maintain the balance of the sexes there were only an old Frenchman and a +young American. It hardly made the matter easier that the old Frenchman +came from Lausanne. He was a native of that estimable town, but he had +once spent six months in Paris, he had tasted of the tree of knowledge; +he had got beyond Lausanne, whose resources he pronounced inadequate. +Lausanne, as he said, “_manquait d’agréments_.” When obliged, for +reasons which he never specified, to bring his residence in Paris to a +close, he had fallen back on Geneva; he had broken his fall at the +Pension Beaurepas. Geneva was, after all, more like Paris, and at a +Genevese boarding-house there was sure to be plenty of Americans with +whom one could talk about the French metropolis. M. Pigeonneau was a +little lean man, with a large narrow nose, who sat a great deal in the +garden, reading with the aid of a large magnifying glass a volume from +the _cabinet de lecture_. + +One day, a fortnight after my arrival at the Pension Beaurepas, I came +back, rather earlier than usual from my academic session; it wanted half +an hour of the midday breakfast. I went into the salon with the design +of possessing myself of the day’s _Galignani_ before one of the little +English old maids should have removed it to her virginal bower—a +privilege to which Madame Beaurepas frequently alluded as one of the +attractions of the establishment. In the salon I found a new-comer, a +tall gentleman in a high black hat, whom I immediately recognised as a +compatriot. I had often seen him, or his equivalent, in the hotel +parlours of my native land. He apparently supposed himself to be at the +present moment in a hotel parlour; his hat was on his head, or, rather, +half off it—pushed back from his forehead, and rather suspended than +poised. He stood before a table on which old newspapers were scattered, +one of which he had taken up and, with his eye-glass on his nose, was +holding out at arm’s-length. It was that honourable but extremely +diminutive sheet, the _Journal de Genève_, a newspaper of about the size +of a pocket-handkerchief. As I drew near, looking for my _Galignani_, +the tall gentleman gave me, over the top of his eye-glass, a somewhat +solemn stare. Presently, however, before I had time to lay my hand on +the object of my search, he silently offered me the _Journal de Genève_. + +“It appears,” he said, “to be the paper of the country.” + +“Yes,” I answered, “I believe it’s the best.” + +He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm’s-length, as if it had been +a looking-glass. “Well,” he said, “I suppose it’s natural a small +country should have small papers. You could wrap it up, mountains and +all, in one of our dailies!” + +I found my _Galignani_, and went off with it into the garden, where I +seated myself on a bench in the shade. Presently I saw the tall +gentleman in the hat appear in one of the open windows of the salon, and +stand there with his hands in his pockets and his legs a little apart. +He looked very much bored, and—I don’t know why—I immediately began to +feel sorry for him. He was not at all a picturesque personage; he looked +like a jaded, faded man of business. But after a little he came into the +garden and began to stroll about; and then his restless, unoccupied +carriage, and the vague, unacquainted manner in which his eyes wandered +over the place, seemed to make it proper that, as an older resident, I +should exercise a certain hospitality. I said something to him, and he +came and sat down beside me on my bench, clasping one of his long knees +in his hands. + +“When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off?” he inquired. +“That’s what I call it—the little breakfast and the big breakfast. I +never thought I should live to see the time when I should care to eat two +breakfasts. But a man’s glad to do anything over here.” + +“For myself,” I observed, “I find plenty to do.” + +He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, deliberate, kind-looking +eye. “You’re getting used to the life, are you?” + +“I like the life very much,” I answered, laughing. + +“How long have you tried it?” + +“Do you mean in this place?” + +“Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty much the same all over.” + +“I have been in this house only a fortnight,” I said. + +“Well, what should you say, from what you have seen?” my companion asked. + +“Oh,” said I, “you can see all there is immediately. It’s very simple.” + +“Sweet simplicity, eh? I’m afraid my two ladies will find it too +simple.” + +“Everything is very good,” I went on. “And Madame Beaurepas is a +charming old woman. And then it’s very cheap.” + +“Cheap, is it?” my friend repeated meditatively. + +“Doesn’t it strike you so?” I asked. I thought it very possible he had +not inquired the terms. But he appeared not to have heard me; he sat +there, clasping his knee and blinking, in a contemplative manner, at the +sunshine. + +“Are you from the United States, sir?” he presently demanded, turning his +head again. + +“Yes, sir,” I replied; and I mentioned the place of my nativity. + +“I presumed,” he said, “that you were American or English. I’m from the +United States myself; from New York city. Many of our people here?” + +“Not so many as, I believe, there have sometimes been. There are two or +three ladies.” + +“Well,” my interlocutor declared, “I am very fond of ladies’ society. I +think when it’s superior there’s nothing comes up to it. I’ve got two +ladies here myself; I must make you acquainted with them.” + +I rejoined that I should be delighted, and I inquired of my friend +whether he had been long in Europe. + +“Well, it seems precious long,” he said, “but my time’s not up yet. We +have been here fourteen weeks and a half.” + +“Are you travelling for pleasure?” I asked. + +My companion turned his head again and looked at me—looked at me so long +in silence that I at last also turned and met his eyes. + +“No, sir,” he said presently. “No, sir,” he repeated, after a +considerable interval. + +“Excuse me,” said I, for there was something so solemn in his tone that I +feared I had been indiscreet. + +He took no notice of my ejaculation; he simply continued to look at me. +“I’m travelling,” he said, at last, “to please the doctors. They seemed +to think they would like it.” + +“Ah, they sent you abroad for your health?” + +“They sent me abroad because they were so confoundedly muddled they +didn’t know what else to do.” + +“That’s often the best thing,” I ventured to remark. + +“It was a confession of weakness; they wanted me to stop plaguing them. +They didn’t know enough to cure me, and that’s the way they thought they +would get round it. I wanted to be cured—I didn’t want to be +transported. I hadn’t done any harm.” + +I assented to the general proposition of the inefficiency of doctors, and +asked my companion if he had been seriously ill. + +“I didn’t sleep,” he said, after some delay. + +“Ah, that’s very annoying. I suppose you were overworked.” + +“I didn’t eat; I took no interest in my food.” + +“Well, I hope you both eat and sleep now,” I said. + +“I couldn’t hold a pen,” my neighbour went on. “I couldn’t sit still. I +couldn’t walk from my house to the cars—and it’s only a little way. I +lost my interest in business.” + +“You needed a holiday,” I observed. + +“That’s what the doctors said. It wasn’t so very smart of them. I had +been paying strict attention to business for twenty-three years.” + +“In all that time you have never had a holiday?” I exclaimed with horror. + +My companion waited a little. “Sundays,” he said at last. + +“No wonder, then, you were out of sorts.” + +“Well, sir,” said my friend, “I shouldn’t have been where I was three +years ago if I had spent my time travelling round Europe. I was in a +very advantageous position. I did a very large business. I was +considerably interested in lumber.” He paused, turned his head, and +looked at me a moment. “Have you any business interests yourself?” I +answered that I had none, and he went on again, slowly, softly, +deliberately. “Well, sir, perhaps you are not aware that business in the +United States is not what it was a short time since. Business interests +are very insecure. There seems to be a general falling-off. Different +parties offer different explanations of the fact, but so far as I am +aware none of their observations have set things going again.” I +ingeniously intimated that if business was dull, the time was good for +coming away; whereupon my neighbour threw back his head and stretched his +legs a while. “Well, sir, that’s one view of the matter certainly. +There’s something to be said for that. These things should be looked at +all round. That’s the ground my wife took. That’s the ground,” he added +in a moment, “that a lady would naturally take;” and he gave a little dry +laugh. + +“You think it’s slightly illogical,” I remarked. + +“Well, sir, the ground I took was, that the worse a man’s business is, +the more it requires looking after. I shouldn’t want to go out to take a +walk—not even to go to church—if my house was on fire. My firm is not +doing the business it was; it’s like a sick child, it requires nursing. +What I wanted the doctors to do was to fix me up, so that I could go on +at home. I’d have taken anything they’d have given me, and as many times +a day. I wanted to be right there; I had my reasons; I have them still. +But I came off all the same,” said my friend, with a melancholy smile. + +I was a great deal younger than he, but there was something so simple and +communicative in his tone, so expressive of a desire to fraternise, and +so exempt from any theory of human differences, that I quite forgot his +seniority, and found myself offering him paternal I advice. “Don’t think +about all that,” said I. “Simply enjoy yourself, amuse yourself, get +well. Travel about and see Europe. At the end of a year, by the time +you are ready to go home, things will have improved over there, and you +will be quite well and happy.” + +My friend laid his hand on my knee; he looked at me for some moments, and +I thought he was going to say, “You are very young!” But he said +presently, “_You_ have got used to Europe any way!” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +At breakfast I encountered his ladies—his wife and daughter. They were +placed, however, at a distance from me, and it was not until the +_pensionnaires_ had dispersed, and some of them, according to custom, had +come out into the garden, that he had an opportunity of making me +acquainted with them. + +“Will you allow me to introduce you to my daughter?” he said, moved +apparently by a paternal inclination to provide this young lady with +social diversion. She was standing with her mother, in one of the paths, +looking about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at the homely +characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeonneau was hovering near, +hesitating apparently between the desire to be urbane and the absence of +a pretext. “Mrs. Ruck—Miss Sophy Ruck,” said my friend, leading me up. + +Mrs. Ruck was a large, plump, light-coloured person, with a smooth fair +face, a somnolent eye, and an elaborate coiffure. Miss Sophy was a girl +of one-and-twenty, very small and very pretty—what I suppose would have +been called a lively brunette. Both of these ladies were attired in +black silk dresses, very much trimmed; they had an air of the highest +elegance. + +“Do you think highly of this pension?” inquired Mrs. Ruck, after a few +preliminaries. + +“It’s a little rough, but it seems to me comfortable,” I answered. + +“Does it take a high rank in Geneva?” Mrs. Ruck pursued. + +“I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame,” I said, smiling. + +“I should never dream of comparing it to a New York boarding-house,” said +Mrs. Ruck. + +“It’s quite a different style,” her daughter observed. + +Miss Ruck had folded her arms; she was holding her elbows with a pair of +white little hands, and she was tapping the ground with a pretty little +foot. + +“We hardly expected to come to a pension,” said Mrs. Ruck. “But we +thought we would try; we had heard so much about Swiss pensions. I was +saying to Mr. Ruck that I wondered whether this was a favourable +specimen. I was afraid we might have made a mistake.” + +“We knew some people who had been here; they thought everything of Madame +Beaurepas,” said Miss Sophy. “They said she was a real friend.” + +“Mr. and Mrs. Parker—perhaps you have heard her speak of them,” Mrs. Ruck +pursued. + +“Madame Beaurepas has had a great many Americans; she is very fond of +Americans,” I replied. + +“Well, I must say I should think she would be, if she compares them with +some others.” + +“Mother is always comparing,” observed Miss Ruck. + +“Of course I am always comparing,” rejoined the elder lady. “I never had +a chance till now; I never knew my privileges. Give me an American!” +And Mrs. Ruck indulged in a little laugh. + +“Well, I must say there are some things I like over here,” said Miss +Sophy, with courage. And indeed I could see that she was a young woman +of great decision. + +“You like the shops—that’s what you like,” her father affirmed. + +The young lady addressed herself to me, without heeding this remark. “I +suppose you feel quite at home here.” + +“Oh, he likes it; he has got used to the life!” exclaimed Mr. Ruck. + +“I wish you’d teach Mr. Ruck,” said his wife. “It seems as if he +couldn’t get used to anything.” + +“I’m used to you, my dear,” the husband retorted, giving me a humorous +look. + +“He’s intensely restless,” continued Mrs. Ruck. + +“That’s what made me want to come to a pension. I thought he would +settle down more.” + +“I don’t think I _am_ used to you, after all,” said her husband. + +In view of a possible exchange of conjugal repartee I took refuge in +conversation with Miss Ruck, who seemed perfectly able to play her part +in any colloquy. I learned from this young lady that, with her parents, +after visiting the British Islands, she had been spending a month in +Paris, and that she thought she should have died when she left that city. +“I hung out of the carriage, when we left the hotel,” said Miss Ruck, “I +assure you I did. And mother did, too.” + +“Out of the other window, I hope,” said I. + +“Yes, one out of each window,” she replied promptly. “Father had hard +work, I can tell you. We hadn’t half finished; there were ever so many +places we wanted to go to.” + +“Your father insisted on coming away?” + +“Yes; after we had been there about a month he said he had enough. He’s +fearfully restless; he’s very much out of health. Mother and I said to +him that if he was restless in Paris he needn’t hope for peace anywhere. +We don’t mean to leave him alone till he takes us back.” There was an +air of keen resolution in Miss Ruck’s pretty face, of lucid apprehension +of desirable ends, which made me, as she pronounced these words, direct a +glance of covert compassion toward her poor recalcitrant father. He had +walked away a little with his wife, and I saw only his back and his +stooping, patient-looking shoulders, whose air of acute resignation was +thrown into relief by the voluminous tranquillity of Mrs. Ruck. “He will +have to take us back in September, any way,” the young girl pursued; “he +will have to take us back to get some things we have ordered.” + +“Have you ordered a great many things?” I asked jocosely. + +“Well, I guess we have ordered _some_. Of course we wanted to take +advantage of being in Paris—ladies always do. We have left the principal +things till we go back. Of course that is the principal interest, for +ladies. Mother said she should feel so shabby if she just passed +through. We have promised all the people to be back in September, and I +never broke a promise yet. So Mr. Ruck has got to make his plans +accordingly.” + +“And what are his plans?” + +“I don’t know; he doesn’t seem able to make any. His great idea was to +get to Geneva; but now that he has got here he doesn’t seem to care. +It’s the effect of ill health. He used to be so bright; but now he is +quite subdued. It’s about time he should improve, any way. We went out +last night to look at the jewellers’ windows—in that street behind the +hotel. I had always heard of those jewellers’ windows. We saw some +lovely things, but it didn’t seem to rouse father. He’ll get tired of +Geneva sooner than he did of Paris.” + +“Ah,” said I, “there are finer things here than the jewellers’ windows. +We are very near some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe.” + +“I suppose you mean the mountains. Well, we have seen plenty of +mountains at home. We used to go to the mountains every summer. We are +familiar enough with the mountains. Aren’t we, mother?” the young lady +demanded, appealing to Mrs. Ruck, who, with her husband, had drawn near +again. + +“Aren’t we what?” inquired the elder lady. + +“Aren’t we familiar with the mountains?” + +“Well, I hope so,” said Mrs. Ruck. + +Mr. Ruck, with his hands in his pockets, gave me a sociable +wink.—“There’s nothing much you can tell them!” he said. + +The two ladies stood face to face a few moments, surveying each other’s +garments. “Don’t you want to go out?” the young girl at last inquired of +her mother. + +“Well, I think we had better; we have got to go up to that place.” + +“To what place?” asked Mr. Ruck. + +“To that jeweller’s—to that big one.” + +“They all seemed big enough; they were too big!” And Mr. Ruck gave me +another wink. + +“That one where we saw the blue cross,” said his daughter. + +“Oh, come, what do you want of that blue cross?” poor Mr. Ruck demanded. + +“She wants to hang it on a black velvet ribbon and tie it round her +neck,” said his wife. + +“A black velvet ribbon? No, I thank you!” cried the young lady. “Do you +suppose I would wear that cross on a black velvet ribbon? On a nice +little gold chain, if you please—a little narrow gold chain, like an +old-fashioned watch-chain. That’s the proper thing for that blue cross. +I know the sort of chain I mean; I’m going to look for one. When I want +a thing,” said Miss Ruck, with decision, “I can generally find it.” + +“Look here, Sophy,” her father urged, “you don’t want that blue cross.” + +“I do want it—I happen to want it.” And Sophy glanced at me with a +little laugh. + +Her laugh, which in itself was pretty, suggested that there were various +relations in which one might stand to Miss Ruck; but I think I was +conscious of a certain satisfaction in not occupying the paternal one. +“Don’t worry the poor child,” said her mother. + +“Come on, mother,” said Miss Ruck. + +“We are going to look about a little,” explained the elder lady to me, by +way of taking leave. + +“I know what that means,” remarked Mr. Ruck, as his companions moved +away. He stood looking at them a moment, while he raised his hand to his +head, behind, and stood rubbing it a little, with a movement that +displaced his hat. (I may remark in parenthesis that I never saw a hat +more easily displaced than Mr. Ruck’s.) I supposed he was going to say +something querulous, but I was mistaken. Mr. Ruck was unhappy, but he +was very good-natured. “Well, they want to pick up something,” he said. +“That’s the principal interest, for ladies.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Mr. Ruck distinguished me, as the French say. He honoured me with his +esteem, and, as the days elapsed, with a large portion of his confidence. +Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his conversation was not +cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over +the financial prostration of our common country. “No, sir, business in +the United States is not what it once was,” he found occasion to remark +several times a day. “There’s not the same spring—there’s not the same +hopeful feeling. You can see it in all departments.” He used to sit by +the hour in the little garden of the pension, with a roll of American +newspapers in his lap and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of his +long legs and reading the _New York Herald_. He paid a daily visit to +the American banker’s, on the other side of the Rhône, and remained there +a long time, turning over the old papers on the green velvet table in the +middle of the Salon des Étrangers, and fraternising with chance +compatriots. But in spite of these diversions his time hung heavily upon +his hands. I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk; but he had +a mortal horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own taste for it as’ a +morbid form of activity. “You’ll kill yourself, if you don’t look out,” +he said, “walking all over the country. I don’t want to walk round that +way; I ain’t a postman!” Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few resources. +His wife and daughter, on the other hand, it was to be supposed, were +possessed of a good many that could not be apparent to an unobtrusive +young man. They also sat a great deal in the garden or in the salon, +side by side, with folded hands, contemplating material objects, and were +remarkably independent of most of the usual feminine aids to +idleness—light literature, tapestry, the use of the piano. They were, +however, much fonder of locomotion than their companion, and I often met +them in the Rue du Rhône and on the quays, loitering in front of the +jewellers’ windows. They might have had a cavalier in the person of old +M. Pigeonneau, who possessed a high appreciation of their charms, but +who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was deprived of the +pleasures of intimacy. He knew no English, and Mrs. Ruck and her +daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable mistrust of the beautiful tongue +which, as the old man endeavoured to impress upon them, was pre-eminently +the language of conversation. + +“They have a _tournure de princesse_—a _distinction supreme_,” he said to +me. “One is surprised to find them in a little pension, at seven francs +a day.” + +“Oh, they don’t come for economy,” I answered. “They must be rich.” + +“They don’t come for my _beaux yeux_—for mine,” said M. Pigeonneau, +sadly. “Perhaps it’s for yours, young man. Je vous recommande la mère.” + +I reflected a moment. “They came on account of Mr. Ruck—because at +hotels he’s so restless.” + +M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. “Of course he is, with such a wife +as that—a _femme superbe_. Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection—a +miraculous _fraïcheur_. I like those large, fair, quiet women; they are +often, _dans l’intimité_, the most agreeable. I’ll warrant you that at +heart Madame Ruck is a finished coquette.” + +“I rather doubt it,” I said. + +“You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez pas!” + +“It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake.” + +“You young Americans are droll,” said M. Pigeonneau; “you never have +anything at stake! But the little one, for example; I’ll warrant you +she’s not cold. She is admirably made.” + +“She is very pretty.” + +“‘She is very pretty!’ Vous dites cela d’un ton! When you pay +compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, I hope that’s not the way you do it.” + +“I don’t pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck.” + +“Ah, decidedly,” said M. Pigeonneau, “you young Americans are droll!” + +I should have suspected that these two ladies would not especially +commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a _maîtresse de salon_, +which she in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them wanting +in a certain flexibility of deportment. But I should have gone quite +wrong; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with her new +pensionnaires. “I have no observation whatever to make about them,” she +said to me one evening. “I see nothing in those ladies which is at all +_déplacé_. They don’t complain of anything; they don’t meddle; they take +what’s given them; they leave me tranquil. The Americans are often like +that. Often, but not always,” Madame Beaurepas pursued. “We are to have +a specimen to-morrow of a very different sort.” + +“An American?” I inquired. + +“Two _Américaines_—a mother and a daughter. There are Americans and +Americans: when you are _difficiles_, you are more so than any one, and +when you have pretensions—ah, _per exemple_, it’s serious. I foresee +that with this little lady everything will be serious, beginning with her +_café au lait_. She has been staying at the Pension Chamousset—my +_concurrent_, you know, farther up the street; but she is coming away +because the coffee is bad. She holds to her coffee, it appears. I don’t +know what liquid Madame Chamousset may have invented, but we will do the +best we can for her. Only, I know she will make me _des histoires_ about +something else. She will demand a new lamp for the salon; _vous alles +voir cela_. She wishes to pay but eleven francs a day for herself and +her daughter, _tout compris_; and for their eleven francs they expect to +be lodged like princesses. But she is very ‘ladylike’—isn’t that what +you call it in English? Oh, _pour cela_, she is ladylike!” + +I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this ladylike person, who was +arriving at her new residence as I came in from a walk. She had come in +a cab, with her daughter and her luggage; and, with an air of perfect +softness and serenity, she was disputing the fare as she stood among her +boxes, on the steps. She addressed her cabman in a very English accent, +but with extreme precision and correctness. “I wish to be perfectly +reasonable, but I don’t wish to encourage you in exorbitant demands. +With a franc and a half you are sufficiently paid. It is not the custom +at Geneva to give a _pour-boire_ for so short a drive. I have made +inquiries, and I find it is not the custom, even in the best families. I +am a stranger, yes, but I always adopt the custom of the native families. +I think it my duty toward the natives.” + +“But I am a native, too, _moi_!” said the cabman, with an angry laugh. + +“You seem to me to speak with a German accent,” continued the lady. “You +are probably from Basel. A franc and a half is sufficient. I see you +have left behind the little red bag which I asked you to hold between +your knees; you will please to go back to the other house and get it. +Very well, if you are impolite I will make a complaint of you to-morrow +at the administration. Aurora, you will find a pencil in the outer +pocket of my embroidered satchel; please to write down his number,—87; do +you see it distinctly?—in case we should forget it.” + +The young lady addressed as “Aurora”—a slight, fair girl, holding a large +parcel of umbrellas—stood at hand while this allocution went forward, but +she apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking about her, in a +listless manner, at the front of the house, at the corridor, at Célestine +tucking up her apron in the doorway, at me as I passed in amid the +disseminated luggage; her mother’s parsimonious attitude seeming to +produce in Miss Aurora neither sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the +two ladies were placed on the same side of the table as myself, below +Mrs. Ruck and her daughter, my own position being on the right of Mr. +Ruck. I had therefore little observation of Mrs. Church—such I learned +to be her name—but I occasionally heard her soft, distinct voice. + +“White wine, if you please; we prefer white wine. There is none on the +table? Then you will please to get some, and to remember to place a +bottle of it always here, between my daughter and myself.” + +“That lady seems to know what she wants,” said Mr. Ruck, “and she speaks +so I can understand her. I can’t understand every one, over here. I +should like to make that lady’s acquaintance. Perhaps she knows what _I_ +want, too; it seems hard to find out. But I don’t want any of their sour +white wine; that’s one of the things I don’t want. I expect she’ll be an +addition to the pension.” + +Mr. Ruck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church that evening in the +parlour, being presented to her by his wife, who presumed on the rights +conferred upon herself by the mutual proximity, at table, of the two +ladies. I suspected that in Mrs. Church’s view Mrs. Ruck presumed too +far. The fugitive from the Pension Chamousset, as M. Pigeonneau called +her, was a little fresh, plump, comely woman, looking less than her age, +with a round, bright, serious face. She was very simply and frugally +dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. Ruck’s companions, and she had +an air of quiet distinction which was an excellent defensive weapon. She +exhibited a polite disposition to listen to what Mr. Ruck might have to +say, but her manner was equivalent to an intimation that what she valued +least in boarding-house life was its social opportunities. She had +placed herself near a lamp, after carefully screwing it and turning it +up, and she had opened in her lap, with the assistance of a large +embroidered marker, an octavo volume, which I perceived to be in German. +To Mrs. Ruck and her daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her +economical attire and her expensive culture. The two younger ladies, +however, had begun to fraternise very freely, and Miss Ruck presently +went wandering out of the room with her arm round the waist of Miss +Church. It was a very warm evening; the long windows of the salon stood +wide open into the garden, and, inspired by the balmy darkness, M. +Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beaurepas, a most obliging little woman, who +lisped and always wore a huge cravat, declared they would organise a +_fête de nuit_. They engaged in this undertaking, and the fête developed +itself, consisting of half-a-dozen red paper lanterns, hung about on the +trees, and of several glasses of _sirop_, carried on a tray by the +stout-armed Célestine. As the festival deepened to its climax I went out +into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau was master of ceremonies. + +“But where are those charming young ladies,” he cried, “Miss Ruck and the +new-comer, _l’aimable transfuge_? Their absence has been remarked, and +they are wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. _Voyez_ I have +selected a glass of syrup—a generous glass—for Mademoiselle Ruck, and I +advise you, my young friend, if you wish to make a good impression, to +put aside one which you may offer to the other young lady. What is her +name? Miss Church. I see; it’s a singular name. There is a church in +which I would willingly worship!” + +Mr. Ruck presently came out of the salon, having concluded his interview +with Mrs. Church. Through the open window I saw the latter lady sitting +under the lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. Ruck, established, +empty-handed, in an arm-chair near her, gazed at her with an air of +fascination. + +“Well, I told you she would know what I want,” said Mr. Ruck. “She says +I want to go up to Appenzell, wherever that is; that I want to drink whey +and live in a high latitude—what did she call it?—a high altitude. She +seemed to think we ought to leave for Appenzell to-morrow; she’d got it +all fixed. She says this ain’t a high enough lat—a high enough altitude. +And she says I mustn’t go too high either; that would be just as bad; she +seems to know just the right figure. She says she’ll give me a list of +the hotels where we must stop, on the way to Appenzell. I asked her if +she didn’t want to go with as, but she says she’d rather sit still and +read. I expect she’s a big reader.” + +The daughter of this accomplished woman now reappeared, in company with +Miss Ruck, with whom she had been strolling through the outlying parts of +the garden. + +“Well,” said Miss Ruck, glancing at the red paper lanterns, “are they +trying to stick the flower-pots into the trees?” + +“It’s an illumination in honour of our arrival,” the other young girl +rejoined. “It’s a triumph over Madame Chamousset.” + +“Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset,” I ventured to suggest, “they have +put out their lights; they are sitting in darkness, lamenting your +departure.” + +She looked at me, smiling; she was standing in the light that came from +the house. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, who had been awaiting his chance, +advanced to Miss Ruck with his glass of syrup. “I have kept it for you, +Mademoiselle,” he said; “I have jealously guarded it. It is very +delicious!” + +Miss Ruck looked at him and his syrup, without any motion to take the +glass. “Well, I guess it’s sour,” she said in a moment; and she gave a +little shake of her head. + +M. Pigeonneau stood staring with his syrup in his hand; then he slowly +turned away. He looked about at the rest of us, as if to appeal from +Miss Ruck’s insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected tribute on a +bench. + +“Won’t you give it to me?” asked Miss Church, in faultless French. +“J’adore le sirop, moi.” + +M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and presented the glass with a +very low bow. “I adore good manners,” murmured the old man. + +This incident caused me to look at Miss Church with quickened interest. +She was not strikingly pretty, but in her charming irregular face there +was something brilliant and ardent. Like her mother, she was very simply +dressed. + +“She wants to go to America, and her mother won’t let her,” said Miss +Sophy to me, explaining her companion’s situation. + +“I am very sorry—for America,” I answered, laughing. + +“Well, I don’t want to say anything against your mother, but I think it’s +shameful,” Miss Ruck pursued. + +“Mamma has very good reasons; she will tell you them all.” + +“Well, I’m sure I don’t want to hear them,” said Miss Ruck. “You have +got a right to go to your own country; every one has a right to go to +their own country.” + +“Mamma is not very patriotic,” said Aurora Church, smiling. + +“Well, I call that dreadful,” her companion declared. “I have heard that +there are some Americans like that, but I never believed it.” + +“There are all sorts of Americans,” I said, laughing. + +“Aurora’s one of the right sort,” rejoined Miss Ruck, who had apparently +become very intimate with her new friend. + +“Are you very patriotic?” I asked of the young girl. + +“She’s right down homesick,” said Miss Sophy; “she’s dying to go. If I +were you my mother would have to take me.” + +“Mamma is going to take me to Dresden.” + +“Well, I declare I never heard of anything so dreadful!” cried Miss Ruck. +“It’s like something in a story.” + +“I never heard there was anything very dreadful in Dresden,” I +interposed. + +Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. “Well, I don’t believe _you_ are a good +American,” she replied, “and I never supposed you were. You had better +go in there and talk to Mrs. Church.” + +“Dresden is really very nice, isn’t it?” I asked of her companion. + +“It isn’t nice if you happen to prefer New York,” said Miss Sophy. “Miss +Church prefers New York. Tell him you are dying to see New York; it will +make him angry,” she went on. + +“I have no desire to make him angry,” said Aurora, smiling. + +“It is only Miss Ruck who can do that,” I rejoined. “Have you been a +long time in Europe?” + +“Always.” + +“I call that wicked!” Miss Sophy declared. + +“You might be in a worse place,” I continued. “I find Europe very +interesting.” + +Miss Ruck gave a little laugh. “I was saying that you wanted to pass for +a European.” + +“Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian.” + +Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. “Well, you had better not come home,” +she said. “No one will speak to you.” + +“Were you born in these countries?” I asked of her companion. + +“Oh, no; I came to Europe when I was a small child. But I remember +America a little, and it seems delightful.” + +“Wait till you see it again. It’s just too lovely,” said Miss Sophy. + +“It’s the grandest country in the world,” I added. + +Miss Ruck began to toss her head. “Come away, my dear,” she said. “If +there’s a creature I despise it’s a man that tries to say funny things +about his own country.” + +“Don’t you think one can be tired of Europe?” Aurora asked, lingering. + +“Possibly—after many years.” + +“Father was tired of it after three weeks,” said Miss Ruck. + +“I have been here sixteen years,” her friend went on, looking at me with +a charming intentness, as if she had a purpose in speaking. “It used to +be for my education. I don’t know what it’s for now.” + +“She’s beautifully educated,” said Miss Ruck. “She knows four +languages.” + +“I am not very sure that I know English.” + +“You should go to Boston!” cried Miss Sophy. “They speak splendidly in +Boston.” + +“C’est mon rêve,” said Aurora, still looking at me. + +“Have you been all over Europe,” I asked—“in all the different +countries?” + +She hesitated a moment. “Everywhere that there’s a _pension_. Mamma is +devoted to _pensions_. We have lived, at one time or another, in every +_pension_ in Europe.” + +“Well, I should think you had seen about enough,” said Miss Ruck. + +“It’s a delightful way of seeing Europe,” Aurora rejoined, with her +brilliant smile. “You may imagine how it has attached me to the +different countries. I have such charming souvenirs! There is a +_pension_ awaiting us now at Dresden,—eight francs a day, without wine. +That’s rather dear. Mamma means to make them give us wine. Mamma is a +great authority on _pensions_; she is known, that way, all over Europe. +Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at Piacenza,—four +francs a day. We made economies.” + +“Your mother doesn’t seem to mingle much,” observed Miss Ruck, glancing +through the window at the scholastic attitude of Mrs. Church. + +“No, she doesn’t mingle, except in the native society. Though she lives +in _pensions_, she detests them.” + +“Why does she live in them, then?” asked Miss Sophy, rather resentfully. + +“Oh, because we are so poor; it’s the cheapest way to live. We have +tried having a cook, but the cook always steals. Mamma used to set me to +watch her; that’s the way I passed my _jeunesse_—my _belle jeunesse_. We +are frightfully poor,” the young girl went on, with the same strange +frankness—a curious mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism. +“Nous n’avons pas le sou. That’s one of the reasons we don’t go back to +America; mamma says we can’t afford to live there.” + +“Well, any one can see that you’re an American girl,” Miss Ruck remarked, +in a consolatory manner. “I can tell an American girl a mile off. +You’ve got the American style.” + +“I’m afraid I haven’t the American _toilette_,” said Aurora, looking at +the other’s superior splendour. + +“Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that.” + +“Yes,” said Aurora, with a laugh, “my dress was cut in France—at +Avranches.” + +“Well, you’ve got a lovely figure, any way,” pursued her companion. + +“Ah,” said the young girl, “at Avranches, too, my figure was admired.” +And she looked at me askance, with a certain coquetry. But I was an +innocent youth, and I only looked back at her, wondering. She was a +great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss Ruck would not have said +that. “I try to be like an American girl,” she continued; “I do my best, +though mamma doesn’t at all encourage it. I am very patriotic. I try to +copy them, though mamma has brought me up _à la française_; that is, as +much as one can in _pensions_. For instance, I have never been out of +the house without mamma; oh, never, never. But sometimes I despair; +American girls are so wonderfully frank. I can’t be frank, like that. I +am always afraid. But I do what I can, as you see. Excusez du peu!” + +I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as most of her +unexpatriated sisters; there was something almost comical in her +despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the +American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination; +there was something dainty about it, and yet it was decidedly audacious. + +The young ladies began to stroll about the garden again, and I enjoyed +their society until M. Pigeonneau’s festival came to an end. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Mr. Ruck did not take his departure for Appenzell on the morrow, in spite +of the eagerness to witness such an event which he had attributed to Mrs. +Church. He continued, on the contrary, for many days after, to hang +about the garden, to wander up to the banker’s and back again, to engage +in desultory conversation with his fellow-boarders, and to endeavour to +assuage his constitutional restlessness by perusal of the American +journals. But on the morrow I had the honour of making Mrs. Church’s +acquaintance. She came into the salon, after the midday breakfast, with +her German octavo under her arm, and she appealed to me for assistance in +selecting a quiet corner. + +“Would you very kindly,” she said, “move that large fauteuil a little +more this way? Not the largest; the one with the little cushion. The +fauteuils here are very insufficient; I must ask Madame Beaurepas for +another. Thank you; a little more to the left, please; that will do. +Are you particularly engaged?” she inquired, after she had seated +herself. “If not, I should like to have some conversation with you. It +is some time since I have met a young American of your—what shall I call +it?—your affiliations. I have learned your name from Madame Beaurepas; I +think I used to know some of your people. I don’t know what has become +of all my friends. I used to have a charming little circle at home, but +now I meet no one I know. Don’t you think there is a great difference +between the people one meets and the people one would like to meet? +Fortunately, sometimes,” added my interlocutress graciously, “it’s quite +the same. I suppose you are a specimen, a favourable specimen,” she went +on, “of young America. Tell me, now, what is young America thinking of +in these days of ours? What are its feelings, its opinions, its +aspirations? What is its _ideal_?” I had seated myself near Mrs. +Church, and she had pointed this interrogation with the gaze of her +bright little eyes. I felt it embarrassing to be treated as a favourable +specimen of young America, and to be expected to answer for the great +republic. Observing my hesitation, Mrs. Church clasped her hands on the +open page of her book and gave an intense, melancholy smile. “_Has_ it +an ideal?” she softly asked. “Well, we must talk of this,” she went on, +without insisting. “Speak, for the present, for yourself simply. Have +you come to Europe with any special design?” + +“Nothing to boast of,” I said. “I am studying a little.” + +“Ah, I am glad to hear that. You are gathering up a little European +culture; that’s what we lack, you know, at home. No individual can do +much, of coarse. But you must not be discouraged; every little counts.” + +“I see that you, at least, are doing your part,” I rejoined gallantly, +dropping my eyes on my companion’s learned volume. + +“Yes, I frankly admit that I am fond of study. There is no one, after +all, like the Germans. That is, for facts. For opinions I by no means +always go with them. I form my opinions myself. I am sorry to say, +however,” Mrs. Church continued, “that I can hardly pretend to diffuse my +acquisitions. I am afraid I am sadly selfish; I do little to irrigate +the soil. I belong—I frankly confess it—to the class of absentees.” + +“I had the pleasure, last evening,” I said, “of making the acquaintance +of your daughter. She told me you had been a long time in Europe.” + +Mrs. Church smiled benignantly. “Can one ever be too long? We shall +never leave it.” + +“Your daughter won’t like that,” I said, smiling too. + +“Has she been taking you into her confidence? She is a more sensible +young lady than she sometimes appears. I have taken great pains with +her; she is really—I may be permitted to say it—superbly educated.” + +“She seemed to me a very charming girl,” I rejoined. “And I learned that +she speaks four languages.” + +“It is not only that,” said Mrs. Church, in a tone which suggested that +this might be a very superficial species of culture. “She has made what +we call _de fortes études_—such as I suppose you are making now. She is +familiar with the results of modern science; she keeps pace with the new +historical school.” + +“Ah,” said I, “she has gone much farther than I!” + +“You doubtless think I exaggerate, and you force me, therefore, to +mention the fact that I am able to speak of such matters with a certain +intelligence.” + +“That is very evident,” I said. “But your daughter thinks you ought to +take her home.” I began to fear, as soon as I had uttered these words, +that they savoured of treachery to the young lady, but I was reassured by +seeing that they produced on her mother’s placid countenance no symptom +whatever of irritation. + +“My daughter has her little theories,” Mrs. Church observed; “she has, I +may say, her illusions. And what wonder! What would youth be without its +illusions? Aurora has a theory that she would be happier in New York, in +Boston, in Philadelphia, than in one of the charming old cities in which +our lot is cast. But she is mistaken, that is all. We must allow our +children their illusions, must we not? But we must watch over them.” + +Although she herself seemed proof against discomposure, I found something +vaguely irritating in her soft, sweet positiveness. + +“American cities,” I said, “are the paradise of young girls.” + +“Do you mean,” asked Mrs. Church, “that the young girls who come from +those places are angels?” + +“Yes,” I said, resolutely. + +“This young lady—what is her odd name?—with whom my daughter has formed a +somewhat precipitate acquaintance: is Miss Ruck an angel? But I won’t +force you to say anything uncivil. It would be too cruel to make a +single exception.” + +“Well,” said I, “at any rate, in America young girls have an easier lot. +They have much more liberty.” + +My companion laid her hand for an instant on my arm. “My dear young +friend, I know America, I know the conditions of life there, so well. +There is perhaps no subject on which I have reflected more than on our +national idiosyncrasies.” + +“I am afraid you don’t approve of them,” said I, a little brutally. + +Brutal indeed my proposition was, and Mrs. Church was not prepared to +assent to it in this rough shape. She dropped her eyes on her book, with +an air of acute meditation. Then, raising them, “We are very crude,” she +softly observed—“we are very crude.” Lest even this delicately-uttered +statement should seem to savour of the vice that she deprecated, she went +on to explain. “There are two classes of minds, you know—those that hold +back, and those that push forward. My daughter and I are not pushers; we +move with little steps. We like the old, trodden paths; we like the old, +old world.” + +“Ah,” said I, “you know what you like; there is a great virtue in that.” + +“Yes, we like Europe; we prefer it. We like the opportunities of Europe; +we like the _rest_. There is so much in that, you know. The world seems +to me to be hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, without knowing where +it is going. ‘Whither?’ I often ask, in my little quiet way. But I have +yet to learn that any one can tell me.” + +“You’re a great conservative,” I observed, while I wondered whether I +myself could answer this inquiry. + +Mrs. Church gave me a smile which was equivalent to a confession. “I +wish to retain a _little_—just a little. Surely, we have done so much, +we might rest a while; we might pause. That is all my feeling—just to +stop a little, to wait! I have seen so many changes. I wish to draw in, +to draw in—to hold back, to hold back.” + +“You shouldn’t hold your daughter back!” I answered, laughing and getting +up. I got up, not by way of terminating our interview, for I perceived +Mrs. Church’s exposition of her views to be by no means complete, but in +order to offer a chair to Miss Aurora, who at this moment drew near. She +thanked me and remained standing, but without at first, as I noticed, +meeting her mother’s eye. + +“You have been engaged with your new acquaintance, my dear?” this lady +inquired. + +“Yes, mamma, dear,” said the young girl, gently. + +“Do you find her very edifying?” + +Aurora was silent a moment; then she looked at her mother. “I don’t +know, mamma; she is very fresh.” + +I ventured to indulge in a respectful laugh. “Your mother has another +word for that. But I must not,” I added, “be crude.” + +“Ah, vous m’en voulez?” inquired Mrs. Church. “And yet I can’t pretend I +said it in jest. I feel it too much. We have been having a little +social discussion,” she said to her daughter. “There is still so much to +be said.” “And I wish,” she continued, turning to me, “that I could give +you our point of view. Don’t you wish, Aurora, that we could give him +our point of view?” + +“Yes, mamma,” said Aurora. + +“We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point of view, don’t we, +dearest?” mamma demanded. + +“Very fortunate, indeed, mamma.” + +“You see we have acquired an insight into European life,” the elder lady +pursued. “We have our place at many a European fireside. We find so +much to esteem—so much to enjoy. Do we not, my daughter?” + +“So very much, mamma,” the young girl went on, with a sort of inscrutable +submissiveness. I wondered at it; it offered so strange a contrast to +the mocking freedom of her tone the night before; but while I wondered I +was careful not to let my perplexity take precedence of my good manners. + +“I don’t know what you ladies may have found at European firesides,” I +said, “but there can be very little doubt what you have left there.” + +Mrs. Church got up, to acknowledge my compliment. “We have spent some +charming hours. And that reminds me that we have just now such an +occasion in prospect. We are to call upon some Genevese friends—the +family of the Pasteur Galopin. They are to go with us to the old library +at the Hôtel de Ville, where there are some very interesting documents of +the period of the Reformation; we are promised a glimpse of some +manuscripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, you know, of +Calvin. Here, of course, one can only speak of Calvin under one’s +breath, but some day, when we are more private,” and Mrs. Church looked +round the room, “I will give you my view of him. I think it has a touch +of originality. Aurora is familiar with, are you not, my daughter, +familiar with my view of Calvin?” + +“Yes, mamma,” said Aurora, with docility, while the two ladies went to +prepare for their visit to the Pasteur Galopin. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +“She has demanded a new lamp; I told you she would!” This communication +was made me by Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later. “And she has +asked for a new _tapis de lit_, and she has requested me to provide +Célestine with a pair of light shoes. I told her that, as a general +thing, cooks are not shod with satin. That poor Célestine!” + +“Mrs. Church may be exacting,” I said, “but she is a clever little +woman.” + +“A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn’t be too clever. +C’est déplacé. I don’t like the type.” + +“What type do you call Mrs. Church’s?” + +“Mon Dieu,” said Madame Beaurepas, “c’est une de ces mamans comme vous en +avez, qui promènent leur fille.” + +“She is trying to marry her daughter? I don’t think she’s of that sort.” + +But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. “She is trying it in her +own way; she does it very quietly. She doesn’t want an American; she +wants a foreigner. And she wants a _mari sérieux_. But she is +travelling over Europe in search of one. She would like a magistrate.” + +“A magistrate?” + +“A _gros bonnet_ of some kind; a professor or a deputy.” + +“I am very sorry for the poor girl,” I said, laughing. + +“You needn’t pity her too much; she’s a sly thing.” + +“Ah, for that, no!” I exclaimed. “She’s a charming girl.” + +Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. “She has hooked you, eh? But the +mother won’t have you.” + +I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation. “She’s a charming +girl, but she is a little odd. It’s a necessity of her position. She is +less submissive to her mother than she has to pretend to be. That’s in +self-defence; it’s to make her life possible.” + +“She wishes to get away from her mother,” continued Madame Beaurepas. +“She wishes to _courir les champs_.” + +“She wishes to go to America, her native country.” + +“Precisely. And she will certainly go.” + +“I hope so!” I rejoined. + +“Some fine morning—or evening—she will go off with a young man; probably +with a young American.” + +“Allons donc!” said I, with disgust. + +“That will be quite America enough,” pursued my cynical hostess. “I have +kept a boarding-house for forty years. I have seen that type.” + +“Have such things as that happened _chez vous_?” I asked. + +“Everything has happened _chez moi_. But nothing has happened more than +once. Therefore this won’t happen here. It will be at the next place +they go to, or the next. Besides, here there is no young American _pour +la partie_—none except you, Monsieur. You are susceptible, but you are +too reasonable.” + +“It’s lucky for you I am reasonable,” I answered. “It’s thanks to that +fact that you escape a scolding!” + +One morning, about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at the +_pension_, after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of this +meal with a fellow-student, at an ancient eating-house in the collegiate +quarter. On separating from my friend, I took my way along that charming +public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of immense +elevation, overhanging a portion of the lower town. There are spreading +trees and well-worn benches, and over the tiles and chimneys of the +_ville basse_ there is a view of the snow-crested Alps. On the other +side, as you turn your back to the view, the promenade is overlooked by a +row of tall, sober-faced _hôtels_, the dwellings of the local +aristocracy. I was very fond of the place, and often resorted to it to +stimulate my sense of the picturesque. Presently, as I lingered there on +this occasion, I became aware that a gentleman was seated not far from +where I stood, with his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was +brilliant and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his lap. He was +not reading, however; he was staring before him in gloomy contemplation. +I don’t know whether I recognised first the newspaper or its proprietor; +one, in either case, would have helped me to identify the other. One was +the New _York Herald_; the other, of course, was Mr. Ruck. As I drew +nearer, he transferred his eyes from the stony, high-featured masks of +the gray old houses on the other side of the terrace, and I knew by the +expression of his face just how he had been feeling about these +distinguished abodes. He had made up his mind that their proprietors +were a dusky, narrow-minded, unsociable company; plunging their roots +into a superfluous past. I endeavoured, therefore, as I sat down beside +him, to suggest something more impersonal. + +“That’s a beautiful view of the Alps,” I observed. + +“Yes,” said Mr. Ruck, without moving, “I’ve examined it. Fine thing, in +its way—fine thing. Beauties of nature—that sort of thing. We came up +on purpose to look at it.” + +“Your ladies, then, have been with you?” + +“Yes; they are just walking round. They’re awfully restless. They keep +saying I’m restless, but I’m as quiet as a sleeping child to them. It +takes,” he added in a moment, drily, “the form of shopping.” + +“Are they shopping now?” + +“Well, if they ain’t, they’re trying to. They told me to sit here a +while, and they’d just walk round. I generally know what that means. +But that’s the principal interest for ladies,” he added, retracting his +irony. “We thought we’d come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs. Church +seemed to think it a dead loss that we shouldn’t see the cathedral, +especially as we hadn’t seen many yet. And I had to come up to the +banker’s any way. Well, we certainly saw the cathedral. I don’t know as +we are any the better for it, and I don’t know as I should know it again. +But we saw it, any way. I don’t know as I should want to go there +regularly; but I suppose it will give us, in conversation, a kind of hold +on Mrs. Church, eh? I guess we want something of that kind. Well,” Mr. +Ruck continued, “I stepped in at the banker’s to see if there wasn’t +something, and they handed me out a Herald.” + +“I hope the Herald is full of good news,” I said. + +“Can’t say it is. D—d bad news.” + +“Political,” I inquired, “or commercial?” + +“Oh, hang politics! It’s business, sir. There ain’t any business. It’s +all gone to,”—and Mr. Ruck became profane. “Nine failures in one day. +What do you say-to that?” + +“I hope they haven’t injured you,” I said. + +“Well, they haven’t helped me much. So many houses on fire, that’s all. +If they happen to take place in your own street, they don’t increase the +value of your property. When mine catches, I suppose they’ll write and +tell me—one of these days, when they’ve got nothing else to do. I didn’t +get a blessed letter this morning; I suppose they think I’m having such a +good time over here it’s a pity to disturb me. If I could attend to +business for about half an hour, I’d find out something. But I can’t, +and it’s no use talking. The state of my health was never so +unsatisfactory as it was about five o’clock this morning.” + +“I am very sorry to hear that,” I said, “and I recommend you strongly not +to think of business.” + +“I don’t,” Mr. Ruck replied. “I’m thinking of cathedrals; I’m thinking +of the beauties of nature. Come,” he went on, turning round on the bench +and leaning his elbow on the parapet, “I’ll think of those mountains over +there; they _are_ pretty, certainly. Can’t you get over there?” + +“Over where?” + +“Over to those hills. Don’t they run a train right up?” + +“You can go to Chamouni,” I said. “You can go to Grindelwald and Zermatt +and fifty other places. You can’t go by rail, but you can drive.” + +“All right, we’ll drive—and not in a one-horse concern, either. Yes, +Chamouni is one of the places we put down. I hope there are a few nice +shops in Chamouni.” Mr. Ruck spoke with a certain quickened emphasis, +and in a tone more explicitly humorous than he commonly employed. I +thought he was excited, and yet he had not the appearance of excitement. +He looked like a man who has simply taken, in the face of disaster, a +sudden, somewhat imaginative, resolution not to “worry.” He presently +twisted himself about on his bench again and began to watch for his +companions. “Well, they _are_ walking round,” he resumed; “I guess +they’ve hit on something, somewhere. And they’ve got a carriage waiting +outside of that archway too. They seem to do a big business in archways +here, don’t they. They like to have a carriage to carry home the +things—those ladies of mine. Then they’re sure they’ve got them.” The +ladies, after this, to do them justice, were not very long in appearing. +They came toward us, from under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had +somewhat invidiously alluded, slowly and with a rather exhausted step and +expression. My companion looked at them a moment, as they advanced. +“They’re tired,” he said softly. “When they’re tired, like that, it’s +very expensive.” + +“Well,” said Mrs. Ruck, “I’m glad you’ve had some company.” Her husband +looked at her, in silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected that +this gracious observation on the lady’s part was prompted by a restless +conscience. + +Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straightforward air of defiance. +“It would have been more proper if _we_ had had the company. Why didn’t +you come after us, instead of sitting there?” she asked of Mr. Ruck’s +companion. + +“I was told by your father,” I explained, “that you were engaged in +sacred rites.” Miss Ruck was not gracious, though I doubt whether it was +because her conscience was better than her mother’s. + +“Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so sacred as ladies’ society,” +replied Miss Ruck, in the manner of a person accustomed to giving neat +retorts. + +“I suppose you refer to the Cathedral,” said her mother. “Well, I must +say, we didn’t go back there. I don’t know what it may be of a Sunday, +but it gave me a chill.” + +“We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop,” observed the young girl, +with a serenity that was superior to bravado. + +Her father looked at her a while; then turned about again, leaning on the +parapet, and gazed away at the “hills.” + +“Well, it was certainly cheap,” said Mrs. Ruck, also contemplating the +Alps. + +“We are going to Chamouni,” said her husband. “You haven’t any occasion +for lace at Chamouni.” + +“Well, I’m glad to hear you have decided to go somewhere,” rejoined his +wife. “I don’t want to be a fixture at a boarding-house.” + +“You can wear lace anywhere,” said Miss Ruck, “if you pat it on right. +That’s the great thing, with lace. I don’t think they know how to wear +lace in Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine; but I mean to keep it +till I get home.” + +Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to her elaborately-appointed +little person; there was a great deal of very new-looking detail in Miss +Ruck’s appearance. Then, in a tone of voice quite out of consonance with +his facial despondency, “Have you purchased a great deal?” he inquired. + +“I have purchased enough for you to make a fuss about.” + +“He can’t make a fuss about that,” said Mrs. Ruck. + +“Well, you’ll see!” declared the young girl with a little sharp laugh. + +But her father went on, in the same tone: “Have you got it in your +pocket? Why don’t you put it on—why don’t you hang it round you?” + +“I’ll hang it round _you_, if you don’t look out!” cried Miss Sophy. + +“Don’t you want to show it to this gentleman?” Mr. Ruck continued. + +“Mercy, how you do talk about that lace!” said his wife. + +“Well, I want to be lively. There’s every reason for it; we’re going to +Chamouni.” + +“You’re restless; that’s what’s the matter with you.” And Mrs. Ruck got +up. + +“No, I ain’t,” said her husband. “I never felt so quiet; I feel as +peaceful as a little child.” + +Mrs. Ruck, who had no sense whatever of humour, looked at her daughter +and at me. “Well, I hope you’ll improve,” she said. + +“Send in the bills,” Mr. Ruck went on, rising to his feet. “Don’t +hesitate, Sophy. I don’t care what you do now. In for a penny, in for a +pound.” + +Miss Ruck joined her mother, with a little toss of her head, and we +followed the ladies to the carriage. “In your place,” said Miss Sophy to +her father, “I wouldn’t talk so much about pennies and pounds before +strangers.” + +Poor Mr. Ruck appeared to feel the force of this observation, which, in +the consciousness of a man who had never been “mean,” could hardly fail +to strike a responsive chord. He coloured a little, and he was silent; +his companions got into their vehicle, the front seat of which was +adorned with a large parcel. Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a little poke with +his umbrella, and then, turning to me with a rather grimly penitential +smile, “After all,” he said, “for the ladies that’s the principal +interest.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Old M. Pigeonneau had more than once proposed to me to take a walk, but I +had hitherto been unable to respond to so alluring an invitation. It +befell, however, one afternoon, that I perceived him going forth upon a +desultory stroll, with a certain lonesomeness of demeanour that attracted +my sympathy. I hastily overtook him, and passed my hand into his +venerable arm, a proceeding which produced in the good old man so jovial +a sense of comradeship that he ardently proposed we should bend our steps +to the English Garden; no locality less festive was worthy of the +occasion. To the English Garden, accordingly, we went; it lay beyond the +bridge, beside the lake. It was very pretty and very animated; there was +a band playing in the middle, and a considerable number of persons +sitting under the small trees, on benches and little chairs, or strolling +beside the blue water. We joined the strollers, we observed our +companions, and conversed on obvious topics. Some of these last, of +course, were the pretty women who embellished the scene, and who, in the +light of M. Pigeonneau’s comprehensive criticism, appeared surprisingly +numerous. He seemed bent upon our making up our minds as to which was +the prettiest, and as this was an innocent game I consented to play at +it. + +Suddenly M. Pigeonneau stopped, pressing my arm with the liveliest +emotion. “La voilà, la voilà, the prettiest!” he quickly murmured, +“coming toward us, in a blue dress, with the other.” It was at the other +I was looking, for the other, to my surprise, was our interesting +fellow-pensioner, the daughter of a vigilant mother. M. Pigeonneau, +meanwhile, had redoubled his exclamations; he had recognised Miss Sophy +Ruck. “Oh, la belle rencontre, nos aimables convives; the prettiest girl +in the world, in effect!” + +We immediately greeted and joined the young ladies, who, like ourselves, +were walking arm in arm and enjoying the scene. + +“I was citing you with admiration to my friend even before I had +recognised you,” said M. Pigeonneau to Miss Ruck. + +“I don’t believe in French compliments,” remarked this young lady, +presenting her back to the smiling old man. + +“Are you and Miss Ruck walking alone?” I asked of her companion. “You +had better accept of M. Pigeonneau’s gallant protection, and of mine.” + +Aurora Church had taken her hand out of Miss Ruck’s arm; she looked at +me, smiling, with her head a little inclined, while, upon her shoulder, +she made her open parasol revolve. “Which is most improper—to walk alone +or to walk with gentlemen? I wish to do what is most improper.” + +“What mysterious logic governs your conduct?” I inquired. + +“He thinks you can’t understand him when he talks like that,” said Miss +Ruck. “But I do understand you, always!” + +“So I have always ventured to hope, my dear Miss Ruck.” + +“Well, if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be much loss,” rejoined this young lady. + +“Allons, en marche!” cried M. Pigeonneau, smiling still, and +undiscouraged by her inhumanity. “Let as make together the tour of the +garden.” And he imposed his society upon Miss Ruck with a respectful, +elderly grace which was evidently unable to see anything in her +reluctance but modesty, and was sublimely conscious of a mission to place +modesty at its ease. This ill-assorted couple walked in front, while +Aurora Church and I strolled along together. + +“I am sure this is more improper,” said my companion; “this is +delightfully improper. I don’t say that as a compliment to you,” she +added. “I would say it to any man, no matter how stupid.” + +“Oh, I am very stupid,” I answered, “but this doesn’t seem to me wrong.” + +“Not for you, no; only for me. There is nothing that a man can do that +is wrong, is there? _En morale_, you know, I mean. Ah, yes, he can +steal; but I think there is nothing else, is there?” + +“I don’t know. One doesn’t know those things until after one has done +them. Then one is enlightened.” + +“And you mean that you have never been enlightened? You make yourself +out very good.” + +“That is better than making one’s self out bad, as you do.” + +The young girl glanced at me a moment, and then, with her charming smile, +“That’s one of the consequences of a false position.” + +“Is your position false?” I inquired, smiling too at this large formula. + +“Distinctly so.” + +“In what way?” + +“Oh, in every way. For instance, I have to pretend to be a _jeune +fille_. I am not a jeune fille; no American girl is a jeune fille; an +American girl is an intelligent, responsible creature. I have to pretend +to be very innocent, but I am not very innocent.” + +“You don’t pretend to be very innocent; you pretend to be—what shall I +call it?—very wise.” + +“That’s no pretence. I am wise.” + +“You are not an American girl,” I ventured to observe. + +My companion almost stopped, looking at me; there was a little flush in +her cheek. “Voilà!” she said. “There’s my false position. I want to be +an American girl, and I’m not.” + +“Do you want me to tell you?” I went on. “An American girl wouldn’t talk +as you are talking now.” + +“Please tell me,” said Aurora Church, with expressive eagerness. “How +would she talk?” + +“I can’t tell you all the things an American girl would say, but I think +I can tell you the things she wouldn’t say. She wouldn’t reason out her +conduct, as you seem to me to do.” + +Aurora gave me the most flattering attention. “I see. She would be +simpler. To do very simple things that are not at all simple—that is the +American girl!” + +I permitted myself a small explosion of hilarity. “I don’t know whether +you are a French girl, or what you are,” I said, “but you are very +witty.” + +“Ah, you mean that I strike false notes!” cried Aurora Church, sadly. +“That’s just what I want to avoid. I wish you would always tell me.” + +The conversational union between Miss Ruck and her neighbour, in front of +us, had evidently not become a close one. The young lady suddenly turned +round to us with a question: “Don’t you want some ice-cream?” + +“_She_ doesn’t strike false notes,” I murmured. + +There was a kind of pavilion or kiosk, which served as a café, and at +which the delicacies procurable at such an establishment were dispensed. +Miss Ruck pointed to the little green tables and chairs which were set +out on the gravel; M. Pigeonneau, fluttering with a sense of dissipation, +seconded the proposal, and we presently sat down and gave our order to a +nimble attendant. I managed again to place myself next to Aurora Church; +our companions were on the other side of the table. + +My neighbour was delighted with our situation. “This is best of all,” +she said. “I never believed I should come to a café with two strange +men! Now, you can’t persuade me this isn’t wrong.” + +“To make it wrong we ought to see your mother coming down that path.” + +“Ah, my mother makes everything wrong,” said the young girl, attacking +with a little spoon in the shape of a spade the apex of a pink ice. And +then she returned to her idea of a moment before: “You must promise to +tell me—to warn me in some way—whenever I strike a false note. You must +give a little cough, like that—ahem!” + +“You will keep me very busy, and people will think I am in a +consumption.” + +“_Voyons_,” she continued, “why have you never talked to me more? Is +that a false note? Why haven’t you been ‘attentive?’ That’s what +American girls call it; that’s what Miss Ruck calls it.” + +I assured myself that our companions were out of earshot, and that Miss +Ruck was much occupied with a large vanilla cream. “Because you are +always entwined with that young lady. There is no getting near you.” + +Aurora looked at her friend while the latter devoted herself to her ice. +“You wonder why I like her so much, I suppose. So does mamma; elle s’y +perd. I don’t like her particularly; je n’en suis pas folle. But she +gives me information; she tells me about America. Mamma has always tried +to prevent my knowing anything about it, and I am all the more curious. +And then Miss Ruck is very fresh.” + +“I may not be so fresh as Miss Ruck,” I said, “but in future, when you +want information, I recommend you to come to me for it.” + +“Our friend offers to take me to America; she invites me to go back with +her, to stay with her. You couldn’t do that, could you?” And the young +girl looked at me a moment. “_Bon_, a false note I can see it by your +face; you remind me of a _maître de piano_.” + +“You overdo the character—the poor American girl,” I said. “Are you +going to stay with that delightful family?” + +“I will go and stay with any one that will take me or ask me. It’s a +real _nostalgie_. She says that in New York—in Thirty-Seventh Street—I +should have the most lovely time.” + +“I have no doubt you would enjoy it.” + +“Absolute liberty to begin with.” + +“It seems to me you have a certain liberty here,” I rejoined. + +“Ah, _this_? Oh, I shall pay for this. I shall be punished by mamma, +and I shall be lectured by Madame Galopin.” + +“The wife of the pasteur?” + +“His _digne épouse_. Madame Galopin, for mamma, is the incarnation of +European opinion. That’s what vexes me with mamma, her thinking so much +of people like Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame Galopin—mamma calls +that being in European society. European society! I’m so sick of that +expression; I have heard it since I was six years old. Who is Madame +Galopin—who thinks anything of her here? She is nobody; she is perfectly +third-rate. If I like America better than mamma, I also know Europe +better.” + +“But your mother, certainly,” I objected, a trifle timidly, for my young +lady was excited, and had a charming little passion in her eye—“your +mother has a great many social relations all over the Continent.” + +“She thinks so, but half the people don’t care for us. They are not so +good as we, and they know it—I’ll do them that justice—and they wonder +why we should care for them. When we are polite to them, they think the +less of us; there are plenty of people like that. Mamma thinks so much +of them simply because they are foreigners. If I could tell you all the +dull, stupid, second-rate people I have had to talk to, for no better +reason than that they were _de leur pays_!—Germans, French, Italians, +Turks, everything. When I complain, mamma always says that at any rate +it’s practice in the language. And she makes so much of the English, +too; I don’t know what that’s practice in.” + +Before I had time to suggest an hypothesis, as regards this latter point, +I saw something that made me rise, with a certain solemnity, from my +chair. This was nothing less than the neat little figure of Mrs. +Church—a perfect model of the _femme comme il faut_—approaching our table +with an impatient step, and followed most unexpectedly in her advance by +the pre-eminent form of Mr. Ruck. She had evidently come in quest of her +daughter, and if she had commanded this gentleman’s attendance, it had +been on no softer ground than that of his unenvied paternity to her +guilty child’s accomplice. My movement had given the alarm, and Aurora +Church and M. Pigeonneau got up; Miss Ruck alone did not, in the local +phrase, derange herself. Mrs. Church, beneath her modest little bonnet, +looked very serious, but not at all fluttered; she came straight to her +daughter, who received her with a smile, and then she looked all round at +the rest of us, very fixedly and tranquilly, without bowing. I must do +both these ladies the justice to mention that neither of them made the +least little “scene.” + +“I have come for you, dearest,” said the mother. + +“Yes, dear mamma.” + +“Come for you—come for you,” Mrs. Church repeated, looking down at the +relics of our little feast. “I was obliged to ask Mr. Ruck’s assistance. +I was puzzled; I thought a long time.” + +“Well, Mrs. Church, I was glad to see you puzzled once in your life!” +said Mr. Ruck, with friendly jocosity. “But you came pretty straight for +all that. I had hard work to keep up with you.” + +“We will take a cab, Aurora,” Mrs. Church went on, without heeding this +pleasantry—“a closed one. Come, my daughter.” + +“Yes, dear mamma.” The young girl was blushing, yet she was still +smiling; she looked round at us all, and, as her eyes met mine, I thought +she was beautiful. “Good-bye,” she said to us. “I have had a _lovely +time_.” + +“We must not linger,” said her mother; “it is five o’clock. We are to +dine, you know, with Madame Galopin.” + +“I had quite forgotten,” Aurora declared. “That will be charming.” + +“Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, ma am?” asked Mr. Ruck. + +Mrs. Church hesitated a moment, with her serene little gaze. “Do you +prefer, then, to leave your daughter to finish the evening with these +gentlemen?” + +Mr. Ruck pushed back his hat and scratched the top of his head. “Well, I +don’t know. How would you like that, Sophy?” + +“Well, I never!” exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs. Church marched off with her +daughter. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +I had half expected that Mrs. Church would make me feel the weight of her +disapproval of my own share in that little act of revelry in the English +Garden. But she maintained her claim to being a highly reasonable +woman—I could not but admire the justice of this pretension—by +recognising my irresponsibility. I had taken her daughter as I found +her, which was, according to Mrs. Church’s view, in a very equivocal +position. The natural instinct of a young man, in such a situation, is +not to protest but to profit; and it was clear to Mrs. Church that I had +had nothing to do with Miss Aurora’s appearing in public under the +insufficient chaperonage of Miss Ruck. Besides, she liked to converse, +and she apparently did me the honour to believe that of all the members +of the Pension Beaurepas I had the most cultivated understanding. I +found her in the salon a couple of evenings after the incident I have +just narrated, and I approached her with a view of making my peace with +her, if this should prove necessary. But Mrs. Church was as gracious as +I could have desired; she put her marker into her book, and folded her +plump little hands on the cover. She made no specific allusion to the +English Garden; she embarked, rather, upon those general considerations +in which her refined intellect was so much at home. + +“Always at your studies, Mrs. Church,” I ventured to observe. + +“Que voulez-vous? To say studies is to say too much; one doesn’t study +in the parlour of a boarding-house. But I do what I can; I have always +done what I can. That is all I have ever claimed.” + +“No one can do more, and you seem to have done a great deal.” + +“Do you know my secret?” she asked, with an air of brightening +confidence. And she paused a moment before she imparted her secret—“To +care only for the _best_! To do the best, to know the best—to have, to +desire, to recognise, only the best. That’s what I have always done, in +my quiet little way. I have gone through Europe on my devoted little +errand, seeking, seeing, heeding, only the best. And it has not been for +myself alone; it has been for my daughter. My daughter has had the best. +We are not rich, but I can say that.” + +“She has had you, madam,” I rejoined finely. + +“Certainly, such as I am, I have been devoted. We have got something +everywhere; a little here, a little there. That’s the real secret—to get +something everywhere; you always can if you are devoted. Sometimes it +has been a little music, sometimes a little deeper insight into the +history of art; every little counts you know. Sometimes it has been just +a glimpse, a view, a lovely landscape, an impression. We have always +been on the look-out. Sometimes it has been a valued friendship, a +delightful social tie.” + +“Here comes the ‘European society,’ the poor daughter’s bugbear,” I said +to myself. “Certainly,” I remarked aloud—I admit, rather perversely—“if +you have lived a great deal in pensions, you must have got acquainted +with lots of people.” + +Mrs. Church dropped her eyes a moment; and then, with considerable +gravity, “I think the European pension system in many respects +remarkable, and in some satisfactory. But of the friendships that we +have formed, few have been contracted in establishments of this kind.” + +“I am sorry to hear that!” I said, laughing. + +“I don’t say it for you, though I might say it for some others. We have +been interested in European homes.” + +“Oh, I see!” + +“We have the _éntree_ of the old Genevese society I like its tone. I +prefer it to that of Mr. Ruck,” added Mrs. Church, calmly; “to that of +Mrs. Ruck and Miss Ruck—of Miss Ruck especially.” + +“Ah, the poor Rucks haven’t any tone at all,” I said “Don’t take them +more seriously than they take themselves.” + +“Tell me this,” my companion rejoined, “are they fair examples?” + +“Examples of what?” + +“Of our American tendencies.” + +“‘Tendencies’ is a big word, dear lady; tendencies are difficult to +calculate. And you shouldn’t abuse those good Rucks, who have been very +kind to your daughter. They have invited her to go and stay with them in +Thirty-Seventh Street.” + +“Aurora has told me. It might be very serious.” + +“It might be very droll,” I said. + +“To me,” declared Mrs. Church, “it is simply terrible. I think we shall +have to leave the Pension Beaurepas. I shall go back to Madame +Chamousset.” + +“On account of the Rucks?” I asked. + +“Pray, why don’t they go themselves? I have given them some excellent +addresses—written down the very hours of the trains. They were going to +Appenzell; I thought it was arranged.” + +“They talk of Chamouni now,” I said; “but they are very helpless and +undecided.” + +“I will give them some Chamouni addresses. Mrs. Ruck will send a _chaise +à porteurs_; I will give her the name of a man who lets them lower than +you get them at the hotels. After that they _must_ go.” + +“Well, I doubt,” I observed, “whether Mr. Ruck will ever really be seen +on the Mer de Glace—in a high hat. He’s not like you; he doesn’t value +his European privileges. He takes no interest. He regrets Wall Street, +acutely. As his wife says, he is very restless, but he has no curiosity +about Chamouni. So you must not depend too much on the effect of your +addresses.” + +“Is it a frequent type?” asked Mrs. Church, with an air of self-control. + +“I am afraid so. Mr. Ruck is a broken-down man of business. He is +broken down in health, and I suspect he is broken down in fortune. He +has spent his whole life in buying and selling; he knows how to do +nothing else. His wife and daughter have spent their lives, not in +selling, but in buying; and they, on their side, know how to do nothing +else. To get something in a shop that they can put on their backs—that +is their one idea; they haven’t another in their heads. Of course they +spend no end of money, and they do it with an implacable persistence, +with a mixture of audacity and of cunning. They do it in his teeth and +they do it behind his back; the mother protects the daughter, and the +daughter eggs on the mother. Between them they are bleeding him to +death.” + +“Ah, what a picture!” murmured Mrs. Church. “I am afraid they are +very-uncultivated.” + +“I share your fears. They are perfectly ignorant; they have no +resources. The vision of fine clothes occupies their whole imagination. +They have not an idea—even a worse one—to compete with it. Poor Mr. +Ruck, who is extremely good-natured and soft, seems to me a really tragic +figure. He is getting bad news every day from home; his business is +going to the dogs. He is unable to stop it; he has to stand and watch +his fortunes ebb. He has been used to doing things in a big way, and he +feels mean, if he makes a fuss about bills. So the ladies keep sending +them in.” + +“But haven’t they common sense? Don’t they know they are ruining +themselves?” + +“They don’t believe it. The duty of an American husband and father is to +keep them going. If he asks them how, that’s his own affair. So, by way +of not being mean, of being a good American husband and father, poor Ruck +stands staring at bankruptcy.” + +Mrs. Church looked at me a moment, in quickened meditation. “Why, if +Aurora were to go to stay with them, she might not even be properly fed!” + +“I don’t, on the whole, recommend,” I said, laughing, “that your daughter +should pay a visit to Thirty-Seventh Street.” + +“Why should I be subjected to such trials—so sadly _éprouvée_? Why +should a daughter of mine like that dreadful girl?” + +“_Does_ she like her?” + +“Pray, do you mean,” asked my companion, softly, “that Aurora is a +hypocrite?” + +I hesitated a moment. “A little, since you ask me. I think you have +forced her to be.” + +Mrs. Church answered this possibly presumptuous charge with a tranquil, +candid exultation. “I never force my daughter!” + +“She is nevertheless in a false position,” I rejoined. “She hungers and +thirsts to go back to her own country; she wants ‘to come’ out in New +York, which is certainly, socially speaking, the El Dorado of young +ladies. She likes any one, for the moment, who will talk to her of that, +and serve as a connecting-link with her native shores. Miss Ruck +performs this agreeable office.” + +“Your idea is, then, that if she were to go with Miss Ruck to America she +would drop her afterwards.” + +I complimented Mrs. Church upon her logical mind, but I repudiated this +cynical supposition. “I can’t imagine her—when it should come to the +point—embarking with the famille Ruck. But I wish she might go, +nevertheless.” + +Mrs. Church shook her head serenely, and smiled at my inappropriate zeal. +“I trust my poor child may never be guilty of so fatal a mistake. She is +completely in error; she is wholly unadapted to the peculiar conditions +of American life. It would not please her. She would not sympathise. +My daughter’s ideal is not the ideal of the class of young women to which +Miss Ruck belongs. I fear they are very numerous; they give the +tone—they give the tone.” + +“It is you that are mistaken,” I said; “go home for six months and see.” + +“I have not, unfortunately, the means to make costly experiments. My +daughter has had great advantages—rare advantages—and I should be very +sorry to believe that _au fond_ she does not appreciate them. One thing +is certain: I must remove her from this pernicious influence. We must +part company with this deplorable family. If Mr. Ruck and his ladies +cannot be induced to go to Chamouni—a journey that no traveller with the +smallest self-respect would omit—my daughter and I shall be obliged to +retire. We shall go to Dresden.” + +“To Dresden?” + +“The capital of Saxony. I had arranged to go there for the autumn, but +it will be simpler to go immediately. There are several works in the +gallery with which my daughter has not, I think, sufficiently +familiarised herself; it is especially strong in the seventeenth century +schools.” + +As my companion offered me this information I perceived Mr. Ruck come +lounging in, with his hands in his pockets, and his elbows making acute +angles. He had his usual anomalous appearance of both seeking and +avoiding society, and he wandered obliquely toward Mrs. Church, whose +last words he had overheard. “The seventeenth century schools,” he said, +slowly, as if he were weighing some very small object in a very +large-pair of scales. “Now, do you suppose they _had_ schools at that +period?” + +Mrs. Church rose with a good deal of precision, making no answer to this +incongruous jest. She clasped her large volume to her neat little bosom, +and she fixed a gentle, serious eye upon Mr. Ruck. + +“I had a letter this morning from Chamouni,” she said. + +“Well,” replied Mr. Ruck, “I suppose you’ve got friends all over.” + +“I have friends at Chamouni, but they are leaving. To their great +regret.” I had got up, too; I listened to this statement, and I +wondered. I am almost ashamed to mention the subject of my agitation. I +asked myself whether this was a sudden improvisation, consecrated by +maternal devotion; but this point has never been elucidated. “They are +giving up some charming rooms; perhaps you would like them. I would +suggest your telegraphing. The weather is glorious,” continued Mrs. +Church, “and the highest peaks are now perceived with extraordinary +distinctness.” + +Mr. Ruck listened, as he always listened, respectfully. “Well,” he said, +“I don’t know as I want to go up Mount Blank. That’s the principal +attraction, isn’t it?” + +“There are many others. I thought I would offer you an—an exceptional +opportunity.” + +“Well,” said Mr. Ruck, “you’re right down friendly. But I seem to have +more opportunities than I know what to do with. I don’t seem able to +take hold.” + +“It only needs a little decision,” remarked Mrs. Church, with an air +which was an admirable example of this virtue. “I wish you good-night, +sir.” And she moved noiselessly away. + +Mr. Ruck, with his long legs apart, stood staring after her; then he +transferred his perfectly quiet eyes to me. “Does she own a hotel over +there?” he asked. “Has she got any stock in Mount Blank?” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The next day Madame Beaurepas handed me, with her own elderly fingers, a +missive, which proved to be a telegram. After glancing at it, I informed +her that it was apparently a signal for my departure; my brother had +arrived in England, and proposed to me to meet him there; he had come on +business, and was to spend but three weeks in Europe. “But my house +empties itself!” cried the old woman. “The famille Ruck talks of leaving +me, and Madame Church _nous fait la révérence_.” + +“Mrs. Church is going away?” + +“She is packing her trunk; she is a very extraordinary person. Do you +know what she asked me this morning? To invent some combination by which +the famille Ruck should move away. I informed her that I was not an +inventor. That poor famille Ruck! ‘Oblige me by getting rid of them,’ +said Madame Church, as she would have asked Célestine to remove a dish of +cabbage. She speaks as if the world were made for Madame Church. I +intimated to her that if she objected to the company there was a very +simple remedy; and at present _elle fait ses paquets_.” + +“She really asked you to get the Rucks out of the house?” + +“She asked me to tell them that their rooms had been let, three months +ago, to another family. She has an _aplomb_!” + +Mrs. Church’s aplomb caused me considerable diversion; I am not sure that +it was not, in some degree, to laugh over it at my leisure that I went +out into the garden that evening to smoke a cigar. The night was dark +and not particularly balmy, and most of my fellow-pensioners, after +dinner, had remained in-doors. A long straight walk conducted from the +door of the house to the ancient grille that I have described, and I +stood here for some time, looking through the iron bars at the silent +empty street. The prospect was not entertaining, and I presently turned +away. At this moment I saw, in the distance, the door of the house open +and throw a shaft of lamplight into the darkness. Into the lamplight +there stepped the figure of a female, who presently closed the door +behind her. She disappeared in the dusk of the garden, and I had seen +her but for an instant, but I remained under the impression that Aurora +Church, on the eve of her departure, had come out for a meditative +stroll. + +I lingered near the gate, keeping the red tip of my cigar turned toward +the house, and before long a young lady emerged from among the shadows of +the trees and encountered the light of a lamp that stood just outside the +gate. It was in fact Aurora Church, but she seemed more bent upon +conversation than upon meditation. She stood a moment looking at me, and +then she said,— + +“Ought I to retire—to return to the house?” + +“If you ought, I should be very sorry to tell you so,” I answered. + +“But we are all alone; there is no one else in the garden.” + +“It is not the first time that I have been alone with a young lady. I am +not at all terrified.” + +“Ah, but I?” said the young girl. “I have never been alone—” then, +quickly, she interrupted herself. “Good, there’s another false note!” + +“Yes, I am obliged to admit that one is very false.” + +She stood looking at me. “I am going away to-morrow; after that there +will be no one to tell me.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +“That will matter little,” I presently replied. “Telling you will do no +good.” + +“Ah, why do you say that?” murmured Aurora Church. + +I said it partly because it was true; but I said it for other reasons as +well, which it was hard to define. Standing there bare-headed, in the +night air, in the vague light, this young lady looked extremely +interesting; and the interest of her appearance was not diminished by a +suspicion on my own part that she had come into the garden knowing me to +be there. I thought her a charming girl, and I felt very sorry for her; +but, as I looked at her, the terms in which Madame Beaurepas had ventured +to characterise her recurred to me with a certain force. I had professed +a contempt for them at the time, but it now came into my head that +perhaps this unfortunately situated, this insidiously mutinous young +creature, was looking out for a preserver. She was certainly not a girl +to throw herself at a man’s head, but it was possible that in her +intense—her almost morbid-desire to put into effect an ideal which was +perhaps after all charged with as many fallacies as her mother affirmed, +she might do something reckless and irregular—something in which a +sympathetic compatriot, as yet unknown, would find his profit. The +image, unshaped though it was, of this sympathetic compatriot, filled me +with a sort of envy. For some moments I was silent, conscious of these +things, and then I answered her question. “Because some things—some +differences are felt, not learned. To you liberty is not natural; you +are like a person who has bought a repeater, and, in his satisfaction, is +constantly making it sound. To a real American girl her liberty is a +very vulgarly-ticking old clock.” + +“Ah, you mean, then,” said the poor girl, “that my mother has ruined me?” + +“Ruined you?” + +“She has so perverted my mind, that when I try to be natural I am +necessarily immodest.” + +“That again is a false note,” I said, laughing. + +She turned away. “I think you are cruel.” + +“By no means,” I declared; “because, for my own taste, I prefer you +as—as—” + +I hesitated, and she turned back. “As what?” + +“As you are.” + +She looked at me a while again, and then she said, in a little reasoning +voice that reminded me of her mother’s, only that it was conscious and +studied, “I was not aware that I am under any particular obligation to +please you!” And then she gave a clear laugh, quite at variance with her +voice. + +“Oh, there is no obligation,” I said, “but one has preferences. I am +very sorry you are going away.” + +“What does it matter to you? You are going yourself.” + +“As I am going in a different direction that makes all the greater +separation.” + +She answered nothing; she stood looking through the bars of the tall gate +at the empty, dusky street. “This grille is like a cage,” she said, at +last. + +“Fortunately, it is a cage that will open.” And I laid my hand on the +lock. + +“Don’t open it,” and she pressed the gate back. “If you should open it I +would go out—and never return.” + +“Where should you go?” + +“To America.” + +“Straight away?” + +“Somehow or other. I would go to the American consul. I would beg him +to give me money—to help me.” + +I received this assertion without a smile; I was not in a smiling humour. +On the contrary, I felt singularly excited, and I kept my hand on the +lock of the gate. I believed (or I thought I believed) what my companion +said, and I had—absurd as it may appear—an irritated vision of her +throwing herself upon consular sympathy. It seemed to me, for a moment, +that to pass out of that gate with this yearning, straining, young +creature, would be to pass into some mysterious felicity. If I were only +a hero of romance, I would offer, myself, to take her to America. + +In a moment more, perhaps, I should have persuaded myself that I was one, +but at this juncture I heard a sound that was not romantic. It proved to +be the very realistic tread of Célestine, the cook, who stood grinning at +us as we turned about from our colloquy. + +“I ask _bien pardon_,” said Célestine. “The mother of Mademoiselle +desires that Mademoiselle should come in immediately. M. le Pasteur +Galopin has come to make his adieux to _ces dames_.” + +Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was a touching one. Then she +slowly departed with Célestine. + +The next morning, on coming into the garden, I found that Mrs. Church and +her daughter had departed. I was informed of this fact by old M. +Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree, having his coffee at a little +green table. + +“I have nothing to envy you,” he said; “I had the last glimpse of that +charming Miss Aurora.” + +“I had a very late glimpse,” I answered, “and it was all I could possibly +desire.” + +“I have always noticed,” rejoined M. Pigeonneau, “That your desires are +more moderate than mine. Que voulez-vous? I am of the old school. Je +crois que la race se perd. I regret the departure of that young girl: +she had an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme d’esprit. For the +mother, I can console myself. I am not sure that _she_ was a femme +d’esprit, though she wished to pass for one. Round, rosy, _potelée_, she +yet had not the temperament of her appearance; she was a _femme austère_. +I have often noticed that contradiction in American ladies. You see a +plump little woman, with a speaking eye, and the contour and complexion +of a ripe peach, and if you venture to conduct yourself in the smallest +degree in accordance with these _indices_, you discover a species of +Methodist—of what do you call it?—of Quakeress. On the other hand, you +encounter a tall, lean, angular person, without colour, without grace, +all elbows and knees, and you find it’s a nature of the tropics! The +women of duty look like coquettes, and the others look like alpenstocks! +However, we have still the handsome Madame Ruck—a real _femme de Rubens_, +_celle-là_. It is very true that to talk to her one must know the +Flemish tongue!” + +I had determined, in accordance with my brother’s telegram, to go away in +the afternoon; so that, having various duties to perform, I left M. +Pigeonneau to his international comparisons. Among other things, I went +in the course of the morning to the banker’s, to draw money for my +journey, and there I found Mr. Ruck, with a pile of crumpled letters in +his lap, his chair tipped back, and his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe +of the green plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that he had +got better news from home; whereupon he gave me a look in which, +considering his provocation, the absence of irritation was conspicuous. + +He took up his letters in his large hand, and crushing them together, +held it out to me. “That epistolary matter,” he said, “is worth about +five cents. But I guess,” he added, rising, “I have taken it in by this +time.” When I had drawn my money I asked him to come and breakfast with +me at the little _brasserie_, much favoured by students, to which I used +to resort in the old town. “I couldn’t eat, sir,” he said, “I—couldn’t +eat. Bad news takes away the appetite. But I guess I’ll go with you, so +that I needn’t go to table down there at the pension. The old woman down +there is always accusing me of turning up my nose at her food. Well, I +guess I shan’t turn up my nose at anything now.” + +We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. Ruck made the lightest +possible breakfast. But if he ate very little, he talked a great deal; +he talked about business, going into a hundred details in which I was +quite unable to follow him. His talk was not angry nor bitter; it was a +long, meditative, melancholy monologue; if it had been a trifle less +incoherent I should almost have called it philosophic. I was very sorry +for him; I wanted to do something for him, but the only thing I could do +was, when we had breakfasted, to see him safely back to the Pension +Beaurepas. We went across the Treille and down the Corraterie, out of +which we turned into the Rue du Rhône. In this latter street, as all the +world knows, are many of those brilliant jewellers’ shops for which +Geneva is famous. I always admired their glittering windows, and never +passed them without a lingering glance. Even on this occasion, +pre-occupied as I was with my impending departure, and with my +companion’s troubles, I suffered my eyes to wander along the precious +tiers that flashed and twinkled behind the huge clear plates of glass. +Thanks to this inveterate habit, I made a discovery. In the largest and +most brilliant of these establishments I perceived two ladies, seated +before the counter with an air of absorption, which sufficiently +proclaimed their identity. I hoped my companion would not see them, but +as we came abreast of the door, a little beyond, we found it open to the +warm summer air. Mr. Ruck happened to glance in, and he immediately +recognised his wife and daughter. He slowly stopped, looking at them; I +wondered what he would do. The salesman was holding up a bracelet before +them, on its velvet cushion, and flashing it about in an irresistible +manner. + +Mr. Ruck said nothing, but he presently went in, and I did the same. + +“It will be an opportunity,” I remarked, as cheerfully as possible, “for +me to bid good-bye to the ladies.” + +They turned round when Mr. Ruck came in, and looked at him without +confusion. “Well, you had better go home to breakfast,” remarked his +wife. Miss Sophy made no remark, but she took the bracelet from the +attendant and gazed at it very fixedly. Mr. Ruck seated himself on an +empty stool and looked round the shop. + +“Well, you have been here before,” said his wife; “you were here the +first day we came.” + +Miss Ruck extended the precious object in her hands towards me. “Don’t +you think that sweet?” she inquired. + +I looked at it a moment. “No, I think it’s ugly.” + +She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. “Well, I don’t believe you have +any taste.” + +“Why, sir, it’s just lovely,” said Mrs. Ruck. + +“You’ll see it some day on me, any way,” her daughter declared. + +“No, he won’t,” said Mr. Ruck, quietly. + +“It will be his own fault, then,” Miss Sophy observed. + +“Well, if we are going to Chamouni we want to get something here,” said +Mrs. Ruck. “We may not have another chance.” + +Mr. Ruck was still looking round the shop, whistling in a very low tone. +“We ain’t going to Chamouni. We are going to New York city, straight.” + +“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said Mrs. Ruck. “Don’t you suppose we +want to take something home?” + +“If we are going straight back I must have that bracelet,” her daughter +declared, “Only I don’t want a velvet case; I want a satin case.” + +“I must bid you good-bye,” I said to the ladies. “I am leaving Geneva in +an hour or two.” + +“Take a good look at that bracelet, so you’ll know it when you see it,” +said Miss Sophy. + +“She’s bound to have something,” remarked her mother, almost proudly. + +Mr. Ruck was still vaguely inspecting the shop; he was still whistling a +little. “I am afraid he is not at all well,” I said, softly, to his +wife. + +She twisted her head a little, and glanced at him. + +“Well, I wish he’d improve!” she exclaimed. + +“A satin case, and a nice one!” said Miss Ruck to the shopman. + +I bade Mr. Ruck good-bye. “Don’t wait for me,” he said, sitting there on +his stool, and not meeting my eye. “I’ve got to see this thing through.” + +I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when, an hour later, I left it +with my luggage, the family had not returned. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENSION BEAUREPAS*** + + +******* This file should be named 2720-0.txt or 2720-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/2/2720 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/2720-0.zip b/2720-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6219ea8 --- /dev/null +++ b/2720-0.zip diff --git a/2720-h.zip b/2720-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ee5773 --- /dev/null +++ b/2720-h.zip diff --git a/2720-h/2720-h.htm b/2720-h/2720-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47f36b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/2720-h/2720-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2798 @@ +<!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" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Pension Beaurepas, by Henry James</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + span.red { color: red; } + body {background-color: #ffffc0; } + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pension Beaurepas, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Pension Beaurepas + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: July 29, 2019 [eBook #2720] +[This file was first posted July 3, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENSION BEAUREPAS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1886 Macmillan and Co. edition. +Scanned by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofing by +Emma Hair, Francine Smith and Matthew Garrish.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Public domain cover" +title= +"Public domain cover" + src="images/cover.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>THE PENSION BEAUREPAS</h1> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p>I was not rich—on the contrary; and I had been told the +Pension Beaurepas was cheap. I had, moreover, been told +that a boarding-house is a capital place for the study of human +nature. I had a fancy for a literary career, and a friend +of mine had said to me, “If you mean to write you ought to +go and live in a boarding-house; there is no other such place to +pick up material.” I had read something of this kind +in a letter addressed by Stendhal to his sister: “I have a +passionate desire to know human nature, and have a great mind to +live in a boarding-house, where people cannot conceal their real +characters.” I was an admirer of <i>La Chartreuse de +Parme</i>, and it appeared to me that one could not do better +than follow in the footsteps of its author. I remembered, +too, the magnificent boarding-house in Balzac’s Père +Goriot,—the “<i>pension bourgeoise des deux sexes et +autres</i>,” kept by Madame Vauquer, <i>née</i> De +Conflans. Magnificent, I mean, as a piece of portraiture; +the establishment, as an establishment, was certainly sordid +enough, and I hoped for better things from the Pension +Beaurepas. This institution was one of the most esteemed in +Geneva, and, standing in a little garden of its own, not far from +the lake, had a very homely, comfortable, sociable aspect. +The regular entrance was, as one might say, at the back, which +looked upon the street, or rather upon a little <i>place</i>, +adorned like every place in Geneva, great or small, with a +fountain. This fact was not prepossessing, for on crossing +the threshold you found yourself more or less in the kitchen, +encompassed with culinary odours. This, however, was no +great matter, for at the Pension Beaurepas there was no attempt +at gentility or at concealment of the domestic machinery. +The latter was of a very simple sort. Madame Beaurepas was +an excellent little old woman—she was very far advanced in +life, and had been keeping a pension for forty years—whose +only faults were that she was slightly deaf, that she was fond of +a surreptitious pinch of snuff, and that, at the age of +seventy-three, she wore flowers in her cap. There was a +tradition in the house that she was not so deaf as she pretended; +that she feigned this infirmity in order to possess herself of +the secrets of her lodgers. But I never subscribed to this +theory; I am convinced that Madame Beaurepas had outlived the +period of indiscreet curiosity. She was a philosopher, on a +matter-of-fact basis; she had been having lodgers for forty +years, and all that she asked of them was that they should pay +their bills, make use of the door-mat, and fold their +napkins. She cared very little for their secrets. +“J’en ai vus de toutes les couleurs,” she said +to me. She had quite ceased to care for individuals; she +cared only for types, for categories. Her large observation +had made her acquainted with a great number, and her mind was a +complete collection of “heads.” She flattered +herself that she knew at a glance where to pigeon-hole a +new-comer, and if she made any mistakes her deportment never +betrayed them. I think that, as regards individuals, she +had neither likes nor dislikes; but she was capable of expressing +esteem or contempt for a species. She had her own ways, I +suppose, of manifesting her approval, but her manner of +indicating the reverse was simple and unvarying. “Je +trouve que c’est déplacé”—this +exhausted her view of the matter. If one of her inmates had +put arsenic into the <i>pot-au-feu</i>, I believe Madame +Beaurepas would have contented herself with remarking that the +proceeding was out of place. The line of misconduct to +which she most objected was an undue assumption of gentility; she +had no patience with boarders who gave themselves airs. +“When people come <i>chez moi</i>, it is not to cut a +figure in the world; I have never had that illusion,” I +remember hearing her say; “and when you pay seven francs a +day, <i>tout compris</i>, it comprises everything but the right +to look down upon the others. But there are people who, the +less they pay, the more they take themselves <i>au +sérieux</i>. My most difficult boarders have always +been those who have had the little rooms.”</p> +<p>Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman of some forty odd +years; and the two ladies, with the assistance of a couple of +thick-waisted, red-armed peasant women, kept the house +going. If on your exits and entrances you peeped into the +kitchen, it made very little difference; for Célestine, +the cook, had no pretension to be an invisible functionary or to +deal in occult methods. She was always at your service, +with a grateful grin she blacked your boots; she trudged off to +fetch a cab; she would have carried your baggage, if you had +allowed her, on her broad little back. She was always +tramping in and out, between her kitchen and the fountain in the +place, where it often seemed to me that a large part of the +preparation for our dinner went forward—the wringing out of +towels and table-cloths, the washing of potatoes and cabbages, +the scouring of saucepans and cleansing of water-bottles. +You enjoyed, from the doorstep, a perpetual back-view of +Célestine and of her large, loose, woollen ankles, as she +craned, from the waist, over into the fountain and dabbled in her +various utensils. This sounds as if life went on in a very +make-shift fashion at the Pension Beaurepas—as if the tone +of the establishment were sordid. But such was not at all +the case. We were simply very <i>bourgeois</i>; we +practised the good old Genevese principle of not sacrificing to +appearances. This is an excellent principle—when you +have the reality. We had the reality at the Pension +Beaurepas: we had it in the shape of soft short beds, equipped +with fluffy <i>duvets</i>; of admirable coffee, served to us in +the morning by Célestine in person, as we lay recumbent on +these downy couches; of copious, wholesome, succulent dinners, +conformable to the best provincial traditions. For myself, +I thought the Pension Beaurepas picturesque, and this, with me, +at that time was a great word. I was young and ingenuous: I +had just come from America. I wished to perfect myself in +the French tongue, and I innocently believed that it flourished +by Lake Leman. I used to go to lectures at the Academy, and +come home with a violent appetite. I always enjoyed my +morning walk across the long bridge (there was only one, just +there, in those days) which spans the deep blue out-gush of the +lake, and up the dark steep streets of the old Calvinistic +city. The garden faced this way, toward the lake and the +old town; and this was the pleasantest approach to the +house. There was a high wall, with a double gate in the +middle, flanked by a couple of ancient massive posts; the big +rusty <i>grille</i> contained some old-fashioned iron-work. +The garden was rather mouldy and weedy, tangled and untended; but +it contained a little thin-flowing fountain, several green +benches, a rickety little table of the same complexion, and three +orange-trees, in tubs, which were deposited as effectively as +possible in front of the windows of the <i>salon</i>.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p>As commonly happens in boarding-houses, the rustle of +petticoats was, at the Pension Beaurepas, the most familiar form +of the human tread. There was the usual allotment of +economical widows and old maids, and to maintain the balance of +the sexes there were only an old Frenchman and a young +American. It hardly made the matter easier that the old +Frenchman came from Lausanne. He was a native of that +estimable town, but he had once spent six months in Paris, he had +tasted of the tree of knowledge; he had got beyond Lausanne, +whose resources he pronounced inadequate. Lausanne, as he +said, “<i>manquait +d’agréments</i>.” When obliged, for +reasons which he never specified, to bring his residence in Paris +to a close, he had fallen back on Geneva; he had broken his fall +at the Pension Beaurepas. Geneva was, after all, more like +Paris, and at a Genevese boarding-house there was sure to be +plenty of Americans with whom one could talk about the French +metropolis. M. Pigeonneau was a little lean man, with a +large narrow nose, who sat a great deal in the garden, reading +with the aid of a large magnifying glass a volume from the +<i>cabinet de lecture</i>.</p> +<p>One day, a fortnight after my arrival at the Pension +Beaurepas, I came back, rather earlier than usual from my +academic session; it wanted half an hour of the midday +breakfast. I went into the salon with the design of +possessing myself of the day’s <i>Galignani</i> before one +of the little English old maids should have removed it to her +virginal bower—a privilege to which Madame Beaurepas +frequently alluded as one of the attractions of the +establishment. In the salon I found a new-comer, a tall +gentleman in a high black hat, whom I immediately recognised as a +compatriot. I had often seen him, or his equivalent, in the +hotel parlours of my native land. He apparently supposed +himself to be at the present moment in a hotel parlour; his hat +was on his head, or, rather, half off it—pushed back from +his forehead, and rather suspended than poised. He stood +before a table on which old newspapers were scattered, one of +which he had taken up and, with his eye-glass on his nose, was +holding out at arm’s-length. It was that honourable +but extremely diminutive sheet, the <i>Journal de +Genève</i>, a newspaper of about the size of a +pocket-handkerchief. As I drew near, looking for my +<i>Galignani</i>, the tall gentleman gave me, over the top of his +eye-glass, a somewhat solemn stare. Presently, however, +before I had time to lay my hand on the object of my search, he +silently offered me the <i>Journal de Genève</i>.</p> +<p>“It appears,” he said, “to be the paper of +the country.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” I answered, “I believe it’s the +best.”</p> +<p>He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm’s-length, +as if it had been a looking-glass. “Well,” he +said, “I suppose it’s natural a small country should +have small papers. You could wrap it up, mountains and all, +in one of our dailies!”</p> +<p>I found my <i>Galignani</i>, and went off with it into the +garden, where I seated myself on a bench in the shade. +Presently I saw the tall gentleman in the hat appear in one of +the open windows of the salon, and stand there with his hands in +his pockets and his legs a little apart. He looked very +much bored, and—I don’t know why—I immediately +began to feel sorry for him. He was not at all a +picturesque personage; he looked like a jaded, faded man of +business. But after a little he came into the garden and +began to stroll about; and then his restless, unoccupied +carriage, and the vague, unacquainted manner in which his eyes +wandered over the place, seemed to make it proper that, as an +older resident, I should exercise a certain hospitality. I +said something to him, and he came and sat down beside me on my +bench, clasping one of his long knees in his hands.</p> +<p>“When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes +off?” he inquired. “That’s what I call +it—the little breakfast and the big breakfast. I +never thought I should live to see the time when I should care to +eat two breakfasts. But a man’s glad to do anything +over here.”</p> +<p>“For myself,” I observed, “I find plenty to +do.”</p> +<p>He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, deliberate, +kind-looking eye. “You’re getting used to the +life, are you?”</p> +<p>“I like the life very much,” I answered, +laughing.</p> +<p>“How long have you tried it?”</p> +<p>“Do you mean in this place?”</p> +<p>“Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty much +the same all over.”</p> +<p>“I have been in this house only a fortnight,” I +said.</p> +<p>“Well, what should you say, from what you have +seen?” my companion asked.</p> +<p>“Oh,” said I, “you can see all there is +immediately. It’s very simple.”</p> +<p>“Sweet simplicity, eh? I’m afraid my two +ladies will find it too simple.”</p> +<p>“Everything is very good,” I went on. +“And Madame Beaurepas is a charming old woman. And +then it’s very cheap.”</p> +<p>“Cheap, is it?” my friend repeated +meditatively.</p> +<p>“Doesn’t it strike you so?” I asked. I +thought it very possible he had not inquired the terms. But +he appeared not to have heard me; he sat there, clasping his knee +and blinking, in a contemplative manner, at the sunshine.</p> +<p>“Are you from the United States, sir?” he +presently demanded, turning his head again.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” I replied; and I mentioned the place +of my nativity.</p> +<p>“I presumed,” he said, “that you were +American or English. I’m from the United States +myself; from New York city. Many of our people +here?”</p> +<p>“Not so many as, I believe, there have sometimes +been. There are two or three ladies.”</p> +<p>“Well,” my interlocutor declared, “I am very +fond of ladies’ society. I think when it’s +superior there’s nothing comes up to it. I’ve +got two ladies here myself; I must make you acquainted with +them.”</p> +<p>I rejoined that I should be delighted, and I inquired of my +friend whether he had been long in Europe.</p> +<p>“Well, it seems precious long,” he said, +“but my time’s not up yet. We have been here +fourteen weeks and a half.”</p> +<p>“Are you travelling for pleasure?” I asked.</p> +<p>My companion turned his head again and looked at +me—looked at me so long in silence that I at last also +turned and met his eyes.</p> +<p>“No, sir,” he said presently. “No, +sir,” he repeated, after a considerable interval.</p> +<p>“Excuse me,” said I, for there was something so +solemn in his tone that I feared I had been indiscreet.</p> +<p>He took no notice of my ejaculation; he simply continued to +look at me. “I’m travelling,” he said, at +last, “to please the doctors. They seemed to think +they would like it.”</p> +<p>“Ah, they sent you abroad for your health?”</p> +<p>“They sent me abroad because they were so confoundedly +muddled they didn’t know what else to do.”</p> +<p>“That’s often the best thing,” I ventured to +remark.</p> +<p>“It was a confession of weakness; they wanted me to stop +plaguing them. They didn’t know enough to cure me, +and that’s the way they thought they would get round +it. I wanted to be cured—I didn’t want to be +transported. I hadn’t done any harm.”</p> +<p>I assented to the general proposition of the inefficiency of +doctors, and asked my companion if he had been seriously ill.</p> +<p>“I didn’t sleep,” he said, after some +delay.</p> +<p>“Ah, that’s very annoying. I suppose you +were overworked.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t eat; I took no interest in my +food.”</p> +<p>“Well, I hope you both eat and sleep now,” I +said.</p> +<p>“I couldn’t hold a pen,” my neighbour went +on. “I couldn’t sit still. I +couldn’t walk from my house to the cars—and +it’s only a little way. I lost my interest in +business.”</p> +<p>“You needed a holiday,” I observed.</p> +<p>“That’s what the doctors said. It +wasn’t so very smart of them. I had been paying +strict attention to business for twenty-three years.”</p> +<p>“In all that time you have never had a holiday?” I +exclaimed with horror.</p> +<p>My companion waited a little. “Sundays,” he +said at last.</p> +<p>“No wonder, then, you were out of sorts.”</p> +<p>“Well, sir,” said my friend, “I +shouldn’t have been where I was three years ago if I had +spent my time travelling round Europe. I was in a very +advantageous position. I did a very large business. I +was considerably interested in lumber.” He paused, +turned his head, and looked at me a moment. “Have you +any business interests yourself?” I answered that I +had none, and he went on again, slowly, softly, +deliberately. “Well, sir, perhaps you are not aware +that business in the United States is not what it was a short +time since. Business interests are very insecure. +There seems to be a general falling-off. Different parties +offer different explanations of the fact, but so far as I am +aware none of their observations have set things going +again.” I ingeniously intimated that if business was +dull, the time was good for coming away; whereupon my neighbour +threw back his head and stretched his legs a while. +“Well, sir, that’s one view of the matter +certainly. There’s something to be said for +that. These things should be looked at all round. +That’s the ground my wife took. That’s the +ground,” he added in a moment, “that a lady would +naturally take;” and he gave a little dry laugh.</p> +<p>“You think it’s slightly illogical,” I +remarked.</p> +<p>“Well, sir, the ground I took was, that the worse a +man’s business is, the more it requires looking +after. I shouldn’t want to go out to take a +walk—not even to go to church—if my house was on +fire. My firm is not doing the business it was; it’s +like a sick child, it requires nursing. What I wanted the +doctors to do was to fix me up, so that I could go on at +home. I’d have taken anything they’d have given +me, and as many times a day. I wanted to be right there; I +had my reasons; I have them still. But I came off all the +same,” said my friend, with a melancholy smile.</p> +<p>I was a great deal younger than he, but there was something so +simple and communicative in his tone, so expressive of a desire +to fraternise, and so exempt from any theory of human +differences, that I quite forgot his seniority, and found myself +offering him paternal I advice. “Don’t think +about all that,” said I. “Simply enjoy +yourself, amuse yourself, get well. Travel about and see +Europe. At the end of a year, by the time you are ready to +go home, things will have improved over there, and you will be +quite well and happy.”</p> +<p>My friend laid his hand on my knee; he looked at me for some +moments, and I thought he was going to say, “You are very +young!” But he said presently, “<i>You</i> have +got used to Europe any way!”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p>At breakfast I encountered his ladies—his wife and +daughter. They were placed, however, at a distance from me, +and it was not until the <i>pensionnaires</i> had dispersed, and +some of them, according to custom, had come out into the garden, +that he had an opportunity of making me acquainted with them.</p> +<p>“Will you allow me to introduce you to my +daughter?” he said, moved apparently by a paternal +inclination to provide this young lady with social +diversion. She was standing with her mother, in one of the +paths, looking about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at +the homely characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeonneau +was hovering near, hesitating apparently between the desire to be +urbane and the absence of a pretext. “Mrs. +Ruck—Miss Sophy Ruck,” said my friend, leading me +up.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ruck was a large, plump, light-coloured person, with a +smooth fair face, a somnolent eye, and an elaborate +coiffure. Miss Sophy was a girl of one-and-twenty, very +small and very pretty—what I suppose would have been called +a lively brunette. Both of these ladies were attired in +black silk dresses, very much trimmed; they had an air of the +highest elegance.</p> +<p>“Do you think highly of this pension?” inquired +Mrs. Ruck, after a few preliminaries.</p> +<p>“It’s a little rough, but it seems to me +comfortable,” I answered.</p> +<p>“Does it take a high rank in Geneva?” Mrs. Ruck +pursued.</p> +<p>“I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame,” I said, +smiling.</p> +<p>“I should never dream of comparing it to a New York +boarding-house,” said Mrs. Ruck.</p> +<p>“It’s quite a different style,” her daughter +observed.</p> +<p>Miss Ruck had folded her arms; she was holding her elbows with +a pair of white little hands, and she was tapping the ground with +a pretty little foot.</p> +<p>“We hardly expected to come to a pension,” said +Mrs. Ruck. “But we thought we would try; we had heard +so much about Swiss pensions. I was saying to Mr. Ruck that +I wondered whether this was a favourable specimen. I was +afraid we might have made a mistake.”</p> +<p>“We knew some people who had been here; they thought +everything of Madame Beaurepas,” said Miss Sophy. +“They said she was a real friend.”</p> +<p>“Mr. and Mrs. Parker—perhaps you have heard her +speak of them,” Mrs. Ruck pursued.</p> +<p>“Madame Beaurepas has had a great many Americans; she is +very fond of Americans,” I replied.</p> +<p>“Well, I must say I should think she would be, if she +compares them with some others.”</p> +<p>“Mother is always comparing,” observed Miss +Ruck.</p> +<p>“Of course I am always comparing,” rejoined the +elder lady. “I never had a chance till now; I never +knew my privileges. Give me an American!” And +Mrs. Ruck indulged in a little laugh.</p> +<p>“Well, I must say there are some things I like over +here,” said Miss Sophy, with courage. And indeed I +could see that she was a young woman of great decision.</p> +<p>“You like the shops—that’s what you +like,” her father affirmed.</p> +<p>The young lady addressed herself to me, without heeding this +remark. “I suppose you feel quite at home +here.”</p> +<p>“Oh, he likes it; he has got used to the life!” +exclaimed Mr. Ruck.</p> +<p>“I wish you’d teach Mr. Ruck,” said his +wife. “It seems as if he couldn’t get used to +anything.”</p> +<p>“I’m used to you, my dear,” the husband +retorted, giving me a humorous look.</p> +<p>“He’s intensely restless,” continued Mrs. +Ruck.</p> +<p>“That’s what made me want to come to a +pension. I thought he would settle down more.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think I <i>am</i> used to you, after +all,” said her husband.</p> +<p>In view of a possible exchange of conjugal repartee I took +refuge in conversation with Miss Ruck, who seemed perfectly able +to play her part in any colloquy. I learned from this young +lady that, with her parents, after visiting the British Islands, +she had been spending a month in Paris, and that she thought she +should have died when she left that city. “I hung out +of the carriage, when we left the hotel,” said Miss Ruck, +“I assure you I did. And mother did, too.”</p> +<p>“Out of the other window, I hope,” said I.</p> +<p>“Yes, one out of each window,” she replied +promptly. “Father had hard work, I can tell +you. We hadn’t half finished; there were ever so many +places we wanted to go to.”</p> +<p>“Your father insisted on coming away?”</p> +<p>“Yes; after we had been there about a month he said he +had enough. He’s fearfully restless; he’s very +much out of health. Mother and I said to him that if he was +restless in Paris he needn’t hope for peace anywhere. +We don’t mean to leave him alone till he takes us +back.” There was an air of keen resolution in Miss +Ruck’s pretty face, of lucid apprehension of desirable +ends, which made me, as she pronounced these words, direct a +glance of covert compassion toward her poor recalcitrant +father. He had walked away a little with his wife, and I +saw only his back and his stooping, patient-looking shoulders, +whose air of acute resignation was thrown into relief by the +voluminous tranquillity of Mrs. Ruck. “He will have +to take us back in September, any way,” the young girl +pursued; “he will have to take us back to get some things +we have ordered.”</p> +<p>“Have you ordered a great many things?” I asked +jocosely.</p> +<p>“Well, I guess we have ordered <i>some</i>. Of +course we wanted to take advantage of being in Paris—ladies +always do. We have left the principal things till we go +back. Of course that is the principal interest, for +ladies. Mother said she should feel so shabby if she just +passed through. We have promised all the people to be back +in September, and I never broke a promise yet. So Mr. Ruck +has got to make his plans accordingly.”</p> +<p>“And what are his plans?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know; he doesn’t seem able to make +any. His great idea was to get to Geneva; but now that he +has got here he doesn’t seem to care. It’s the +effect of ill health. He used to be so bright; but now he +is quite subdued. It’s about time he should improve, +any way. We went out last night to look at the +jewellers’ windows—in that street behind the +hotel. I had always heard of those jewellers’ +windows. We saw some lovely things, but it didn’t +seem to rouse father. He’ll get tired of Geneva +sooner than he did of Paris.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” said I, “there are finer things here +than the jewellers’ windows. We are very near some of +the most beautiful scenery in Europe.”</p> +<p>“I suppose you mean the mountains. Well, we have +seen plenty of mountains at home. We used to go to the +mountains every summer. We are familiar enough with the +mountains. Aren’t we, mother?” the young lady +demanded, appealing to Mrs. Ruck, who, with her husband, had +drawn near again.</p> +<p>“Aren’t we what?” inquired the elder +lady.</p> +<p>“Aren’t we familiar with the mountains?”</p> +<p>“Well, I hope so,” said Mrs. Ruck.</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck, with his hands in his pockets, gave me a sociable +wink.—“There’s nothing much you can tell +them!” he said.</p> +<p>The two ladies stood face to face a few moments, surveying +each other’s garments. “Don’t you want to +go out?” the young girl at last inquired of her mother.</p> +<p>“Well, I think we had better; we have got to go up to +that place.”</p> +<p>“To what place?” asked Mr. Ruck.</p> +<p>“To that jeweller’s—to that big +one.”</p> +<p>“They all seemed big enough; they were too +big!” And Mr. Ruck gave me another wink.</p> +<p>“That one where we saw the blue cross,” said his +daughter.</p> +<p>“Oh, come, what do you want of that blue cross?” +poor Mr. Ruck demanded.</p> +<p>“She wants to hang it on a black velvet ribbon and tie +it round her neck,” said his wife.</p> +<p>“A black velvet ribbon? No, I thank you!” +cried the young lady. “Do you suppose I would wear +that cross on a black velvet ribbon? On a nice little gold +chain, if you please—a little narrow gold chain, like an +old-fashioned watch-chain. That’s the proper thing +for that blue cross. I know the sort of chain I mean; +I’m going to look for one. When I want a +thing,” said Miss Ruck, with decision, “I can +generally find it.”</p> +<p>“Look here, Sophy,” her father urged, “you +don’t want that blue cross.”</p> +<p>“I do want it—I happen to want it.” +And Sophy glanced at me with a little laugh.</p> +<p>Her laugh, which in itself was pretty, suggested that there +were various relations in which one might stand to Miss Ruck; but +I think I was conscious of a certain satisfaction in not +occupying the paternal one. “Don’t worry the +poor child,” said her mother.</p> +<p>“Come on, mother,” said Miss Ruck.</p> +<p>“We are going to look about a little,” explained +the elder lady to me, by way of taking leave.</p> +<p>“I know what that means,” remarked Mr. Ruck, as +his companions moved away. He stood looking at them a +moment, while he raised his hand to his head, behind, and stood +rubbing it a little, with a movement that displaced his +hat. (I may remark in parenthesis that I never saw a hat +more easily displaced than Mr. Ruck’s.) I supposed he +was going to say something querulous, but I was mistaken. +Mr. Ruck was unhappy, but he was very good-natured. +“Well, they want to pick up something,” he +said. “That’s the principal interest, for +ladies.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<p>Mr. Ruck distinguished me, as the French say. He +honoured me with his esteem, and, as the days elapsed, with a +large portion of his confidence. Sometimes he bored me a +little, for the tone of his conversation was not cheerful, +tending as it did almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over +the financial prostration of our common country. “No, +sir, business in the United States is not what it once +was,” he found occasion to remark several times a +day. “There’s not the same +spring—there’s not the same hopeful feeling. +You can see it in all departments.” He used to sit by +the hour in the little garden of the pension, with a roll of +American newspapers in his lap and his high hat pushed back, +swinging one of his long legs and reading the <i>New York +Herald</i>. He paid a daily visit to the American +banker’s, on the other side of the Rhône, and +remained there a long time, turning over the old papers on the +green velvet table in the middle of the Salon des +Étrangers, and fraternising with chance compatriots. +But in spite of these diversions his time hung heavily upon his +hands. I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk; +but he had a mortal horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own +taste for it as’ a morbid form of activity. +“You’ll kill yourself, if you don’t look +out,” he said, “walking all over the country. I +don’t want to walk round that way; I ain’t a +postman!” Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few +resources. His wife and daughter, on the other hand, it was +to be supposed, were possessed of a good many that could not be +apparent to an unobtrusive young man. They also sat a great +deal in the garden or in the salon, side by side, with folded +hands, contemplating material objects, and were remarkably +independent of most of the usual feminine aids to +idleness—light literature, tapestry, the use of the +piano. They were, however, much fonder of locomotion than +their companion, and I often met them in the Rue du Rhône +and on the quays, loitering in front of the jewellers’ +windows. They might have had a cavalier in the person of +old M. Pigeonneau, who possessed a high appreciation of their +charms, but who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was +deprived of the pleasures of intimacy. He knew no English, +and Mrs. Ruck and her daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable +mistrust of the beautiful tongue which, as the old man +endeavoured to impress upon them, was pre-eminently the language +of conversation.</p> +<p>“They have a <i>tournure de princesse</i>—a +<i>distinction supreme</i>,” he said to me. +“One is surprised to find them in a little pension, at +seven francs a day.”</p> +<p>“Oh, they don’t come for economy,” I +answered. “They must be rich.”</p> +<p>“They don’t come for my <i>beaux +yeux</i>—for mine,” said M. Pigeonneau, sadly. +“Perhaps it’s for yours, young man. Je vous +recommande la mère.”</p> +<p>I reflected a moment. “They came on account of Mr. +Ruck—because at hotels he’s so restless.”</p> +<p>M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. “Of course he +is, with such a wife as that—a <i>femme superbe</i>. +Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection—a miraculous +<i>fraïcheur</i>. I like those large, fair, quiet +women; they are often, <i>dans l’intimité</i>, the +most agreeable. I’ll warrant you that at heart Madame +Ruck is a finished coquette.”</p> +<p>“I rather doubt it,” I said.</p> +<p>“You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez +pas!”</p> +<p>“It is a matter in which I have nothing at +stake.”</p> +<p>“You young Americans are droll,” said M. +Pigeonneau; “you never have anything at stake! But the +little one, for example; I’ll warrant you she’s not +cold. She is admirably made.”</p> +<p>“She is very pretty.”</p> +<p>“‘She is very pretty!’ Vous dites cela +d’un ton! When you pay compliments to Mademoiselle +Ruck, I hope that’s not the way you do it.”</p> +<p>“I don’t pay compliments to Mademoiselle +Ruck.”</p> +<p>“Ah, decidedly,” said M. Pigeonneau, “you +young Americans are droll!”</p> +<p>I should have suspected that these two ladies would not +especially commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a +<i>maîtresse de salon</i>, which she in some degree aspired +to be, she would have found them wanting in a certain flexibility +of deportment. But I should have gone quite wrong; Madame +Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with her new +pensionnaires. “I have no observation whatever to +make about them,” she said to me one evening. +“I see nothing in those ladies which is at all +<i>déplacé</i>. They don’t complain of +anything; they don’t meddle; they take what’s given +them; they leave me tranquil. The Americans are often like +that. Often, but not always,” Madame Beaurepas +pursued. “We are to have a specimen to-morrow of a +very different sort.”</p> +<p>“An American?” I inquired.</p> +<p>“Two <i>Américaines</i>—a mother and a +daughter. There are Americans and Americans: when you are +<i>difficiles</i>, you are more so than any one, and when you +have pretensions—ah, <i>per exemple</i>, it’s +serious. I foresee that with this little lady everything +will be serious, beginning with her <i>café au +lait</i>. She has been staying at the Pension +Chamousset—my <i>concurrent</i>, you know, farther up the +street; but she is coming away because the coffee is bad. +She holds to her coffee, it appears. I don’t know +what liquid Madame Chamousset may have invented, but we will do +the best we can for her. Only, I know she will make me +<i>des histoires</i> about something else. She will demand +a new lamp for the salon; <i>vous alles voir cela</i>. She +wishes to pay but eleven francs a day for herself and her +daughter, <i>tout compris</i>; and for their eleven francs they +expect to be lodged like princesses. But she is very +‘ladylike’—isn’t that what you call it in +English? Oh, <i>pour cela</i>, she is ladylike!”</p> +<p>I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this ladylike person, who +was arriving at her new residence as I came in from a walk. +She had come in a cab, with her daughter and her luggage; and, +with an air of perfect softness and serenity, she was disputing +the fare as she stood among her boxes, on the steps. She +addressed her cabman in a very English accent, but with extreme +precision and correctness. “I wish to be perfectly +reasonable, but I don’t wish to encourage you in exorbitant +demands. With a franc and a half you are sufficiently +paid. It is not the custom at Geneva to give a +<i>pour-boire</i> for so short a drive. I have made +inquiries, and I find it is not the custom, even in the best +families. I am a stranger, yes, but I always adopt the +custom of the native families. I think it my duty toward +the natives.”</p> +<p>“But I am a native, too, <i>moi</i>!” said the +cabman, with an angry laugh.</p> +<p>“You seem to me to speak with a German accent,” +continued the lady. “You are probably from +Basel. A franc and a half is sufficient. I see you +have left behind the little red bag which I asked you to hold +between your knees; you will please to go back to the other house +and get it. Very well, if you are impolite I will make a +complaint of you to-morrow at the administration. Aurora, +you will find a pencil in the outer pocket of my embroidered +satchel; please to write down his number,—87; do you see it +distinctly?—in case we should forget it.”</p> +<p>The young lady addressed as “Aurora”—a +slight, fair girl, holding a large parcel of +umbrellas—stood at hand while this allocution went forward, +but she apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking +about her, in a listless manner, at the front of the house, at +the corridor, at Célestine tucking up her apron in the +doorway, at me as I passed in amid the disseminated luggage; her +mother’s parsimonious attitude seeming to produce in Miss +Aurora neither sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the +two ladies were placed on the same side of the table as myself, +below Mrs. Ruck and her daughter, my own position being on the +right of Mr. Ruck. I had therefore little observation of +Mrs. Church—such I learned to be her name—but I +occasionally heard her soft, distinct voice.</p> +<p>“White wine, if you please; we prefer white wine. +There is none on the table? Then you will please to get +some, and to remember to place a bottle of it always here, +between my daughter and myself.”</p> +<p>“That lady seems to know what she wants,” said Mr. +Ruck, “and she speaks so I can understand her. I +can’t understand every one, over here. I should like +to make that lady’s acquaintance. Perhaps she knows +what <i>I</i> want, too; it seems hard to find out. But I +don’t want any of their sour white wine; that’s one +of the things I don’t want. I expect she’ll be +an addition to the pension.”</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church that evening in +the parlour, being presented to her by his wife, who presumed on +the rights conferred upon herself by the mutual proximity, at +table, of the two ladies. I suspected that in Mrs. +Church’s view Mrs. Ruck presumed too far. The +fugitive from the Pension Chamousset, as M. Pigeonneau called +her, was a little fresh, plump, comely woman, looking less than +her age, with a round, bright, serious face. She was very +simply and frugally dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. +Ruck’s companions, and she had an air of quiet distinction +which was an excellent defensive weapon. She exhibited a +polite disposition to listen to what Mr. Ruck might have to say, +but her manner was equivalent to an intimation that what she +valued least in boarding-house life was its social +opportunities. She had placed herself near a lamp, after +carefully screwing it and turning it up, and she had opened in +her lap, with the assistance of a large embroidered marker, an +octavo volume, which I perceived to be in German. To Mrs. +Ruck and her daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her +economical attire and her expensive culture. The two +younger ladies, however, had begun to fraternise very freely, and +Miss Ruck presently went wandering out of the room with her arm +round the waist of Miss Church. It was a very warm evening; +the long windows of the salon stood wide open into the garden, +and, inspired by the balmy darkness, M. Pigeonneau and +Mademoiselle Beaurepas, a most obliging little woman, who lisped +and always wore a huge cravat, declared they would organise a +<i>fête de nuit</i>. They engaged in this +undertaking, and the fête developed itself, consisting of +half-a-dozen red paper lanterns, hung about on the trees, and of +several glasses of <i>sirop</i>, carried on a tray by the +stout-armed Célestine. As the festival deepened to +its climax I went out into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau was +master of ceremonies.</p> +<p>“But where are those charming young ladies,” he +cried, “Miss Ruck and the new-comer, <i>l’aimable +transfuge</i>? Their absence has been remarked, and they +are wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. <i>Voyez</i> +I have selected a glass of syrup—a generous glass—for +Mademoiselle Ruck, and I advise you, my young friend, if you wish +to make a good impression, to put aside one which you may offer +to the other young lady. What is her name? Miss +Church. I see; it’s a singular name. There is a +church in which I would willingly worship!”</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck presently came out of the salon, having concluded his +interview with Mrs. Church. Through the open window I saw +the latter lady sitting under the lamp with her German octavo, +while Mrs. Ruck, established, empty-handed, in an arm-chair near +her, gazed at her with an air of fascination.</p> +<p>“Well, I told you she would know what I want,” +said Mr. Ruck. “She says I want to go up to +Appenzell, wherever that is; that I want to drink whey and live +in a high latitude—what did she call it?—a high +altitude. She seemed to think we ought to leave for +Appenzell to-morrow; she’d got it all fixed. She says +this ain’t a high enough lat—a high enough +altitude. And she says I mustn’t go too high either; +that would be just as bad; she seems to know just the right +figure. She says she’ll give me a list of the hotels +where we must stop, on the way to Appenzell. I asked her if +she didn’t want to go with as, but she says she’d +rather sit still and read. I expect she’s a big +reader.”</p> +<p>The daughter of this accomplished woman now reappeared, in +company with Miss Ruck, with whom she had been strolling through +the outlying parts of the garden.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Miss Ruck, glancing at the red paper +lanterns, “are they trying to stick the flower-pots into +the trees?”</p> +<p>“It’s an illumination in honour of our +arrival,” the other young girl rejoined. +“It’s a triumph over Madame Chamousset.”</p> +<p>“Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset,” I ventured +to suggest, “they have put out their lights; they are +sitting in darkness, lamenting your departure.”</p> +<p>She looked at me, smiling; she was standing in the light that +came from the house. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, who had been +awaiting his chance, advanced to Miss Ruck with his glass of +syrup. “I have kept it for you, Mademoiselle,” +he said; “I have jealously guarded it. It is very +delicious!”</p> +<p>Miss Ruck looked at him and his syrup, without any motion to +take the glass. “Well, I guess it’s +sour,” she said in a moment; and she gave a little shake of +her head.</p> +<p>M. Pigeonneau stood staring with his syrup in his hand; then +he slowly turned away. He looked about at the rest of us, +as if to appeal from Miss Ruck’s insensibility, and went to +deposit his rejected tribute on a bench.</p> +<p>“Won’t you give it to me?” asked Miss +Church, in faultless French. “J’adore le sirop, +moi.”</p> +<p>M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and presented the glass +with a very low bow. “I adore good manners,” +murmured the old man.</p> +<p>This incident caused me to look at Miss Church with quickened +interest. She was not strikingly pretty, but in her +charming irregular face there was something brilliant and +ardent. Like her mother, she was very simply dressed.</p> +<p>“She wants to go to America, and her mother won’t +let her,” said Miss Sophy to me, explaining her +companion’s situation.</p> +<p>“I am very sorry—for America,” I answered, +laughing.</p> +<p>“Well, I don’t want to say anything against your +mother, but I think it’s shameful,” Miss Ruck +pursued.</p> +<p>“Mamma has very good reasons; she will tell you them +all.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m sure I don’t want to hear +them,” said Miss Ruck. “You have got a right to +go to your own country; every one has a right to go to their own +country.”</p> +<p>“Mamma is not very patriotic,” said Aurora Church, +smiling.</p> +<p>“Well, I call that dreadful,” her companion +declared. “I have heard that there are some Americans +like that, but I never believed it.”</p> +<p>“There are all sorts of Americans,” I said, +laughing.</p> +<p>“Aurora’s one of the right sort,” rejoined +Miss Ruck, who had apparently become very intimate with her new +friend.</p> +<p>“Are you very patriotic?” I asked of the young +girl.</p> +<p>“She’s right down homesick,” said Miss +Sophy; “she’s dying to go. If I were you my +mother would have to take me.”</p> +<p>“Mamma is going to take me to Dresden.”</p> +<p>“Well, I declare I never heard of anything so +dreadful!” cried Miss Ruck. “It’s like +something in a story.”</p> +<p>“I never heard there was anything very dreadful in +Dresden,” I interposed.</p> +<p>Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. “Well, I +don’t believe <i>you</i> are a good American,” she +replied, “and I never supposed you were. You had +better go in there and talk to Mrs. Church.”</p> +<p>“Dresden is really very nice, isn’t it?” I +asked of her companion.</p> +<p>“It isn’t nice if you happen to prefer New +York,” said Miss Sophy. “Miss Church prefers +New York. Tell him you are dying to see New York; it will +make him angry,” she went on.</p> +<p>“I have no desire to make him angry,” said Aurora, +smiling.</p> +<p>“It is only Miss Ruck who can do that,” I +rejoined. “Have you been a long time in +Europe?”</p> +<p>“Always.”</p> +<p>“I call that wicked!” Miss Sophy declared.</p> +<p>“You might be in a worse place,” I +continued. “I find Europe very +interesting.”</p> +<p>Miss Ruck gave a little laugh. “I was saying that +you wanted to pass for a European.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian.”</p> +<p>Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. “Well, you had +better not come home,” she said. “No one will +speak to you.”</p> +<p>“Were you born in these countries?” I asked of her +companion.</p> +<p>“Oh, no; I came to Europe when I was a small +child. But I remember America a little, and it seems +delightful.”</p> +<p>“Wait till you see it again. It’s just too +lovely,” said Miss Sophy.</p> +<p>“It’s the grandest country in the world,” I +added.</p> +<p>Miss Ruck began to toss her head. “Come away, my +dear,” she said. “If there’s a creature I +despise it’s a man that tries to say funny things about his +own country.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you think one can be tired of +Europe?” Aurora asked, lingering.</p> +<p>“Possibly—after many years.”</p> +<p>“Father was tired of it after three weeks,” said +Miss Ruck.</p> +<p>“I have been here sixteen years,” her friend went +on, looking at me with a charming intentness, as if she had a +purpose in speaking. “It used to be for my +education. I don’t know what it’s for +now.”</p> +<p>“She’s beautifully educated,” said Miss +Ruck. “She knows four languages.”</p> +<p>“I am not very sure that I know English.”</p> +<p>“You should go to Boston!” cried Miss Sophy. +“They speak splendidly in Boston.”</p> +<p>“C’est mon rêve,” said Aurora, still +looking at me.</p> +<p>“Have you been all over Europe,” I +asked—“in all the different countries?”</p> +<p>She hesitated a moment. “Everywhere that +there’s a <i>pension</i>. Mamma is devoted to +<i>pensions</i>. We have lived, at one time or another, in +every <i>pension</i> in Europe.”</p> +<p>“Well, I should think you had seen about enough,” +said Miss Ruck.</p> +<p>“It’s a delightful way of seeing Europe,” +Aurora rejoined, with her brilliant smile. “You may +imagine how it has attached me to the different countries. +I have such charming souvenirs! There is a <i>pension</i> +awaiting us now at Dresden,—eight francs a day, without +wine. That’s rather dear. Mamma means to make +them give us wine. Mamma is a great authority on +<i>pensions</i>; she is known, that way, all over Europe. +Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at +Piacenza,—four francs a day. We made +economies.”</p> +<p>“Your mother doesn’t seem to mingle much,” +observed Miss Ruck, glancing through the window at the scholastic +attitude of Mrs. Church.</p> +<p>“No, she doesn’t mingle, except in the native +society. Though she lives in <i>pensions</i>, she detests +them.”</p> +<p>“Why does she live in them, then?” asked Miss +Sophy, rather resentfully.</p> +<p>“Oh, because we are so poor; it’s the cheapest way +to live. We have tried having a cook, but the cook always +steals. Mamma used to set me to watch her; that’s the +way I passed my <i>jeunesse</i>—my <i>belle +jeunesse</i>. We are frightfully poor,” the young +girl went on, with the same strange frankness—a curious +mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism. +“Nous n’avons pas le sou. That’s one of +the reasons we don’t go back to America; mamma says we +can’t afford to live there.”</p> +<p>“Well, any one can see that you’re an American +girl,” Miss Ruck remarked, in a consolatory manner. +“I can tell an American girl a mile off. You’ve +got the American style.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I haven’t the American +<i>toilette</i>,” said Aurora, looking at the other’s +superior splendour.</p> +<p>“Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see +that.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Aurora, with a laugh, “my dress +was cut in France—at Avranches.”</p> +<p>“Well, you’ve got a lovely figure, any way,” +pursued her companion.</p> +<p>“Ah,” said the young girl, “at Avranches, +too, my figure was admired.” And she looked at me +askance, with a certain coquetry. But I was an innocent +youth, and I only looked back at her, wondering. She was a +great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss Ruck would not have +said that. “I try to be like an American girl,” +she continued; “I do my best, though mamma doesn’t at +all encourage it. I am very patriotic. I try to copy +them, though mamma has brought me up <i>à la +française</i>; that is, as much as one can in +<i>pensions</i>. For instance, I have never been out of the +house without mamma; oh, never, never. But sometimes I +despair; American girls are so wonderfully frank. I +can’t be frank, like that. I am always afraid. +But I do what I can, as you see. Excusez du peu!”</p> +<p>I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as most of her +unexpatriated sisters; there was something almost comical in her +despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed +to me, the American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, +it had a fascination; there was something dainty about it, and +yet it was decidedly audacious.</p> +<p>The young ladies began to stroll about the garden again, and I +enjoyed their society until M. Pigeonneau’s festival came +to an end.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p>Mr. Ruck did not take his departure for Appenzell on the +morrow, in spite of the eagerness to witness such an event which +he had attributed to Mrs. Church. He continued, on the +contrary, for many days after, to hang about the garden, to +wander up to the banker’s and back again, to engage in +desultory conversation with his fellow-boarders, and to endeavour +to assuage his constitutional restlessness by perusal of the +American journals. But on the morrow I had the honour of +making Mrs. Church’s acquaintance. She came into the +salon, after the midday breakfast, with her German octavo under +her arm, and she appealed to me for assistance in selecting a +quiet corner.</p> +<p>“Would you very kindly,” she said, “move +that large fauteuil a little more this way? Not the +largest; the one with the little cushion. The fauteuils +here are very insufficient; I must ask Madame Beaurepas for +another. Thank you; a little more to the left, please; that +will do. Are you particularly engaged?” she inquired, +after she had seated herself. “If not, I should like +to have some conversation with you. It is some time since I +have met a young American of your—what shall I call +it?—your affiliations. I have learned your name from +Madame Beaurepas; I think I used to know some of your +people. I don’t know what has become of all my +friends. I used to have a charming little circle at home, +but now I meet no one I know. Don’t you think there +is a great difference between the people one meets and the people +one would like to meet? Fortunately, sometimes,” +added my interlocutress graciously, “it’s quite the +same. I suppose you are a specimen, a favourable +specimen,” she went on, “of young America. Tell +me, now, what is young America thinking of in these days of +ours? What are its feelings, its opinions, its +aspirations? What is its <i>ideal</i>?” I had +seated myself near Mrs. Church, and she had pointed this +interrogation with the gaze of her bright little eyes. I +felt it embarrassing to be treated as a favourable specimen of +young America, and to be expected to answer for the great +republic. Observing my hesitation, Mrs. Church clasped her +hands on the open page of her book and gave an intense, +melancholy smile. “<i>Has</i> it an ideal?” she +softly asked. “Well, we must talk of this,” she +went on, without insisting. “Speak, for the present, +for yourself simply. Have you come to Europe with any +special design?”</p> +<p>“Nothing to boast of,” I said. “I am +studying a little.”</p> +<p>“Ah, I am glad to hear that. You are gathering up +a little European culture; that’s what we lack, you know, +at home. No individual can do much, of coarse. But +you must not be discouraged; every little counts.”</p> +<p>“I see that you, at least, are doing your part,” I +rejoined gallantly, dropping my eyes on my companion’s +learned volume.</p> +<p>“Yes, I frankly admit that I am fond of study. +There is no one, after all, like the Germans. That is, for +facts. For opinions I by no means always go with +them. I form my opinions myself. I am sorry to say, +however,” Mrs. Church continued, “that I can hardly +pretend to diffuse my acquisitions. I am afraid I am sadly +selfish; I do little to irrigate the soil. I belong—I +frankly confess it—to the class of absentees.”</p> +<p>“I had the pleasure, last evening,” I said, +“of making the acquaintance of your daughter. She +told me you had been a long time in Europe.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church smiled benignantly. “Can one ever be +too long? We shall never leave it.”</p> +<p>“Your daughter won’t like that,” I said, +smiling too.</p> +<p>“Has she been taking you into her confidence? She +is a more sensible young lady than she sometimes appears. I +have taken great pains with her; she is really—I may be +permitted to say it—superbly educated.”</p> +<p>“She seemed to me a very charming girl,” I +rejoined. “And I learned that she speaks four +languages.”</p> +<p>“It is not only that,” said Mrs. Church, in a tone +which suggested that this might be a very superficial species of +culture. “She has made what we call <i>de fortes +études</i>—such as I suppose you are making +now. She is familiar with the results of modern science; +she keeps pace with the new historical school.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” said I, “she has gone much farther +than I!”</p> +<p>“You doubtless think I exaggerate, and you force me, +therefore, to mention the fact that I am able to speak of such +matters with a certain intelligence.”</p> +<p>“That is very evident,” I said. “But +your daughter thinks you ought to take her home.” I +began to fear, as soon as I had uttered these words, that they +savoured of treachery to the young lady, but I was reassured by +seeing that they produced on her mother’s placid +countenance no symptom whatever of irritation.</p> +<p>“My daughter has her little theories,” Mrs. Church +observed; “she has, I may say, her illusions. And +what wonder! What would youth be without its illusions? +Aurora has a theory that she would be happier in New York, in +Boston, in Philadelphia, than in one of the charming old cities +in which our lot is cast. But she is mistaken, that is +all. We must allow our children their illusions, must we +not? But we must watch over them.”</p> +<p>Although she herself seemed proof against discomposure, I +found something vaguely irritating in her soft, sweet +positiveness.</p> +<p>“American cities,” I said, “are the paradise +of young girls.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean,” asked Mrs. Church, “that the +young girls who come from those places are angels?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” I said, resolutely.</p> +<p>“This young lady—what is her odd name?—with +whom my daughter has formed a somewhat precipitate acquaintance: +is Miss Ruck an angel? But I won’t force you to say +anything uncivil. It would be too cruel to make a single +exception.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said I, “at any rate, in America +young girls have an easier lot. They have much more +liberty.”</p> +<p>My companion laid her hand for an instant on my arm. +“My dear young friend, I know America, I know the +conditions of life there, so well. There is perhaps no +subject on which I have reflected more than on our national +idiosyncrasies.”</p> +<p>“I am afraid you don’t approve of them,” +said I, a little brutally.</p> +<p>Brutal indeed my proposition was, and Mrs. Church was not +prepared to assent to it in this rough shape. She dropped +her eyes on her book, with an air of acute meditation. +Then, raising them, “We are very crude,” she softly +observed—“we are very crude.” Lest even +this delicately-uttered statement should seem to savour of the +vice that she deprecated, she went on to explain. +“There are two classes of minds, you know—those that +hold back, and those that push forward. My daughter and I +are not pushers; we move with little steps. We like the +old, trodden paths; we like the old, old world.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” said I, “you know what you like; there +is a great virtue in that.”</p> +<p>“Yes, we like Europe; we prefer it. We like the +opportunities of Europe; we like the <i>rest</i>. There is +so much in that, you know. The world seems to me to be +hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, without knowing where it +is going. ‘Whither?’ I often ask, in my little +quiet way. But I have yet to learn that any one can tell +me.”</p> +<p>“You’re a great conservative,” I observed, +while I wondered whether I myself could answer this inquiry.</p> +<p>Mrs. Church gave me a smile which was equivalent to a +confession. “I wish to retain a +<i>little</i>—just a little. Surely, we have done so +much, we might rest a while; we might pause. That is all my +feeling—just to stop a little, to wait! I have seen so many +changes. I wish to draw in, to draw in—to hold back, +to hold back.”</p> +<p>“You shouldn’t hold your daughter back!” I +answered, laughing and getting up. I got up, not by way of +terminating our interview, for I perceived Mrs. Church’s +exposition of her views to be by no means complete, but in order +to offer a chair to Miss Aurora, who at this moment drew +near. She thanked me and remained standing, but without at +first, as I noticed, meeting her mother’s eye.</p> +<p>“You have been engaged with your new acquaintance, my +dear?” this lady inquired.</p> +<p>“Yes, mamma, dear,” said the young girl, +gently.</p> +<p>“Do you find her very edifying?”</p> +<p>Aurora was silent a moment; then she looked at her +mother. “I don’t know, mamma; she is very +fresh.”</p> +<p>I ventured to indulge in a respectful laugh. “Your +mother has another word for that. But I must not,” I +added, “be crude.”</p> +<p>“Ah, vous m’en voulez?” inquired Mrs. +Church. “And yet I can’t pretend I said it in +jest. I feel it too much. We have been having a +little social discussion,” she said to her daughter. +“There is still so much to be said.” “And +I wish,” she continued, turning to me, “that I could +give you our point of view. Don’t you wish, Aurora, +that we could give him our point of view?”</p> +<p>“Yes, mamma,” said Aurora.</p> +<p>“We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point of +view, don’t we, dearest?” mamma demanded.</p> +<p>“Very fortunate, indeed, mamma.”</p> +<p>“You see we have acquired an insight into European +life,” the elder lady pursued. “We have our +place at many a European fireside. We find so much to +esteem—so much to enjoy. Do we not, my +daughter?”</p> +<p>“So very much, mamma,” the young girl went on, +with a sort of inscrutable submissiveness. I wondered at +it; it offered so strange a contrast to the mocking freedom of +her tone the night before; but while I wondered I was careful not +to let my perplexity take precedence of my good manners.</p> +<p>“I don’t know what you ladies may have found at +European firesides,” I said, “but there can be very +little doubt what you have left there.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church got up, to acknowledge my compliment. +“We have spent some charming hours. And that reminds +me that we have just now such an occasion in prospect. We +are to call upon some Genevese friends—the family of the +Pasteur Galopin. They are to go with us to the old library +at the Hôtel de Ville, where there are some very +interesting documents of the period of the Reformation; we are +promised a glimpse of some manuscripts of poor Servetus, the +antagonist and victim, you know, of Calvin. Here, of +course, one can only speak of Calvin under one’s breath, +but some day, when we are more private,” and Mrs. Church +looked round the room, “I will give you my view of +him. I think it has a touch of originality. Aurora is +familiar with, are you not, my daughter, familiar with my view of +Calvin?”</p> +<p>“Yes, mamma,” said Aurora, with docility, while +the two ladies went to prepare for their visit to the Pasteur +Galopin.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p>“She has demanded a new lamp; I told you she +would!” This communication was made me by Madame +Beaurepas a couple of days later. “And she has asked +for a new <i>tapis de lit</i>, and she has requested me to +provide Célestine with a pair of light shoes. I told +her that, as a general thing, cooks are not shod with +satin. That poor Célestine!”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Church may be exacting,” I said, “but +she is a clever little woman.”</p> +<p>“A lady who pays but five francs and a half +shouldn’t be too clever. C’est +déplacé. I don’t like the +type.”</p> +<p>“What type do you call Mrs. Church’s?”</p> +<p>“Mon Dieu,” said Madame Beaurepas, +“c’est une de ces mamans comme vous en avez, qui +promènent leur fille.”</p> +<p>“She is trying to marry her daughter? I +don’t think she’s of that sort.”</p> +<p>But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. +“She is trying it in her own way; she does it very +quietly. She doesn’t want an American; she wants a +foreigner. And she wants a <i>mari +sérieux</i>. But she is travelling over Europe in +search of one. She would like a magistrate.”</p> +<p>“A magistrate?”</p> +<p>“A <i>gros bonnet</i> of some kind; a professor or a +deputy.”</p> +<p>“I am very sorry for the poor girl,” I said, +laughing.</p> +<p>“You needn’t pity her too much; she’s a sly +thing.”</p> +<p>“Ah, for that, no!” I exclaimed. +“She’s a charming girl.”</p> +<p>Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. “She has +hooked you, eh? But the mother won’t have +you.”</p> +<p>I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation. +“She’s a charming girl, but she is a little +odd. It’s a necessity of her position. She is +less submissive to her mother than she has to pretend to +be. That’s in self-defence; it’s to make her +life possible.”</p> +<p>“She wishes to get away from her mother,” +continued Madame Beaurepas. “She wishes to <i>courir +les champs</i>.”</p> +<p>“She wishes to go to America, her native +country.”</p> +<p>“Precisely. And she will certainly go.”</p> +<p>“I hope so!” I rejoined.</p> +<p>“Some fine morning—or evening—she will go +off with a young man; probably with a young American.”</p> +<p>“Allons donc!” said I, with disgust.</p> +<p>“That will be quite America enough,” pursued my +cynical hostess. “I have kept a boarding-house for +forty years. I have seen that type.”</p> +<p>“Have such things as that happened <i>chez +vous</i>?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Everything has happened <i>chez moi</i>. But +nothing has happened more than once. Therefore this +won’t happen here. It will be at the next place they +go to, or the next. Besides, here there is no young +American <i>pour la partie</i>—none except you, +Monsieur. You are susceptible, but you are too +reasonable.”</p> +<p>“It’s lucky for you I am reasonable,” I +answered. “It’s thanks to that fact that you +escape a scolding!”</p> +<p>One morning, about this time, instead of coming back to +breakfast at the <i>pension</i>, after my lectures at the +Academy, I went to partake of this meal with a fellow-student, at +an ancient eating-house in the collegiate quarter. On +separating from my friend, I took my way along that charming +public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of +immense elevation, overhanging a portion of the lower town. +There are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and over the +tiles and chimneys of the <i>ville basse</i> there is a view of +the snow-crested Alps. On the other side, as you turn your +back to the view, the promenade is overlooked by a row of tall, +sober-faced <i>hôtels</i>, the dwellings of the local +aristocracy. I was very fond of the place, and often +resorted to it to stimulate my sense of the picturesque. +Presently, as I lingered there on this occasion, I became aware +that a gentleman was seated not far from where I stood, with his +back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was brilliant and +distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his lap. He was not +reading, however; he was staring before him in gloomy +contemplation. I don’t know whether I recognised +first the newspaper or its proprietor; one, in either case, would +have helped me to identify the other. One was the New +<i>York Herald</i>; the other, of course, was Mr. Ruck. As +I drew nearer, he transferred his eyes from the stony, +high-featured masks of the gray old houses on the other side of +the terrace, and I knew by the expression of his face just how he +had been feeling about these distinguished abodes. He had +made up his mind that their proprietors were a dusky, +narrow-minded, unsociable company; plunging their roots into a +superfluous past. I endeavoured, therefore, as I sat down +beside him, to suggest something more impersonal.</p> +<p>“That’s a beautiful view of the Alps,” I +observed.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Mr. Ruck, without moving, +“I’ve examined it. Fine thing, in its +way—fine thing. Beauties of nature—that sort of +thing. We came up on purpose to look at it.”</p> +<p>“Your ladies, then, have been with you?”</p> +<p>“Yes; they are just walking round. They’re +awfully restless. They keep saying I’m restless, but +I’m as quiet as a sleeping child to them. It +takes,” he added in a moment, drily, “the form of +shopping.”</p> +<p>“Are they shopping now?”</p> +<p>“Well, if they ain’t, they’re trying +to. They told me to sit here a while, and they’d just +walk round. I generally know what that means. But +that’s the principal interest for ladies,” he added, +retracting his irony. “We thought we’d come up +here and see the cathedral; Mrs. Church seemed to think it a dead +loss that we shouldn’t see the cathedral, especially as we +hadn’t seen many yet. And I had to come up to the +banker’s any way. Well, we certainly saw the +cathedral. I don’t know as we are any the better for +it, and I don’t know as I should know it again. But +we saw it, any way. I don’t know as I should want to +go there regularly; but I suppose it will give us, in +conversation, a kind of hold on Mrs. Church, eh? I guess we +want something of that kind. Well,” Mr. Ruck +continued, “I stepped in at the banker’s to see if +there wasn’t something, and they handed me out a +Herald.”</p> +<p>“I hope the Herald is full of good news,” I +said.</p> +<p>“Can’t say it is. D—d bad +news.”</p> +<p>“Political,” I inquired, “or +commercial?”</p> +<p>“Oh, hang politics! It’s business, +sir. There ain’t any business. It’s all +gone to,”—and Mr. Ruck became profane. +“Nine failures in one day. What do you say-to +that?”</p> +<p>“I hope they haven’t injured you,” I +said.</p> +<p>“Well, they haven’t helped me much. So many +houses on fire, that’s all. If they happen to take +place in your own street, they don’t increase the value of +your property. When mine catches, I suppose they’ll +write and tell me—one of these days, when they’ve got +nothing else to do. I didn’t get a blessed letter +this morning; I suppose they think I’m having such a good +time over here it’s a pity to disturb me. If I could +attend to business for about half an hour, I’d find out +something. But I can’t, and it’s no use +talking. The state of my health was never so unsatisfactory +as it was about five o’clock this morning.”</p> +<p>“I am very sorry to hear that,” I said, “and +I recommend you strongly not to think of business.”</p> +<p>“I don’t,” Mr. Ruck replied. +“I’m thinking of cathedrals; I’m thinking of +the beauties of nature. Come,” he went on, turning +round on the bench and leaning his elbow on the parapet, +“I’ll think of those mountains over there; they +<i>are</i> pretty, certainly. Can’t you get over +there?”</p> +<p>“Over where?”</p> +<p>“Over to those hills. Don’t they run a train +right up?”</p> +<p>“You can go to Chamouni,” I said. “You +can go to Grindelwald and Zermatt and fifty other places. +You can’t go by rail, but you can drive.”</p> +<p>“All right, we’ll drive—and not in a +one-horse concern, either. Yes, Chamouni is one of the +places we put down. I hope there are a few nice shops in +Chamouni.” Mr. Ruck spoke with a certain quickened +emphasis, and in a tone more explicitly humorous than he commonly +employed. I thought he was excited, and yet he had not the +appearance of excitement. He looked like a man who has +simply taken, in the face of disaster, a sudden, somewhat +imaginative, resolution not to “worry.” He +presently twisted himself about on his bench again and began to +watch for his companions. “Well, they <i>are</i> +walking round,” he resumed; “I guess they’ve +hit on something, somewhere. And they’ve got a +carriage waiting outside of that archway too. They seem to +do a big business in archways here, don’t they. They +like to have a carriage to carry home the things—those +ladies of mine. Then they’re sure they’ve got +them.” The ladies, after this, to do them justice, +were not very long in appearing. They came toward us, from +under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had somewhat invidiously +alluded, slowly and with a rather exhausted step and +expression. My companion looked at them a moment, as they +advanced. “They’re tired,” he said +softly. “When they’re tired, like that, +it’s very expensive.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Mrs. Ruck, “I’m glad +you’ve had some company.” Her husband looked at +her, in silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected that +this gracious observation on the lady’s part was prompted +by a restless conscience.</p> +<p>Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straightforward air +of defiance. “It would have been more proper if +<i>we</i> had had the company. Why didn’t you come +after us, instead of sitting there?” she asked of Mr. +Ruck’s companion.</p> +<p>“I was told by your father,” I explained, +“that you were engaged in sacred rites.” Miss +Ruck was not gracious, though I doubt whether it was because her +conscience was better than her mother’s.</p> +<p>“Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so sacred as +ladies’ society,” replied Miss Ruck, in the manner of +a person accustomed to giving neat retorts.</p> +<p>“I suppose you refer to the Cathedral,” said her +mother. “Well, I must say, we didn’t go back +there. I don’t know what it may be of a Sunday, but +it gave me a chill.”</p> +<p>“We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop,” +observed the young girl, with a serenity that was superior to +bravado.</p> +<p>Her father looked at her a while; then turned about again, +leaning on the parapet, and gazed away at the +“hills.”</p> +<p>“Well, it was certainly cheap,” said Mrs. Ruck, +also contemplating the Alps.</p> +<p>“We are going to Chamouni,” said her +husband. “You haven’t any occasion for lace at +Chamouni.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m glad to hear you have decided to go +somewhere,” rejoined his wife. “I don’t +want to be a fixture at a boarding-house.”</p> +<p>“You can wear lace anywhere,” said Miss Ruck, +“if you pat it on right. That’s the great +thing, with lace. I don’t think they know how to wear +lace in Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine; but I mean +to keep it till I get home.”</p> +<p>Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to her +elaborately-appointed little person; there was a great deal of +very new-looking detail in Miss Ruck’s appearance. +Then, in a tone of voice quite out of consonance with his facial +despondency, “Have you purchased a great deal?” he +inquired.</p> +<p>“I have purchased enough for you to make a fuss +about.”</p> +<p>“He can’t make a fuss about that,” said Mrs. +Ruck.</p> +<p>“Well, you’ll see!” declared the young girl +with a little sharp laugh.</p> +<p>But her father went on, in the same tone: “Have you got +it in your pocket? Why don’t you put it on—why +don’t you hang it round you?”</p> +<p>“I’ll hang it round <i>you</i>, if you don’t +look out!” cried Miss Sophy.</p> +<p>“Don’t you want to show it to this +gentleman?” Mr. Ruck continued.</p> +<p>“Mercy, how you do talk about that lace!” said his +wife.</p> +<p>“Well, I want to be lively. There’s every +reason for it; we’re going to Chamouni.”</p> +<p>“You’re restless; that’s what’s the +matter with you.” And Mrs. Ruck got up.</p> +<p>“No, I ain’t,” said her husband. +“I never felt so quiet; I feel as peaceful as a little +child.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Ruck, who had no sense whatever of humour, looked at her +daughter and at me. “Well, I hope you’ll +improve,” she said.</p> +<p>“Send in the bills,” Mr. Ruck went on, rising to +his feet. “Don’t hesitate, Sophy. I +don’t care what you do now. In for a penny, in for a +pound.”</p> +<p>Miss Ruck joined her mother, with a little toss of her head, +and we followed the ladies to the carriage. “In your +place,” said Miss Sophy to her father, “I +wouldn’t talk so much about pennies and pounds before +strangers.”</p> +<p>Poor Mr. Ruck appeared to feel the force of this observation, +which, in the consciousness of a man who had never been +“mean,” could hardly fail to strike a responsive +chord. He coloured a little, and he was silent; his +companions got into their vehicle, the front seat of which was +adorned with a large parcel. Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a +little poke with his umbrella, and then, turning to me with a +rather grimly penitential smile, “After all,” he +said, “for the ladies that’s the principal +interest.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<p>Old M. Pigeonneau had more than once proposed to me to take a +walk, but I had hitherto been unable to respond to so alluring an +invitation. It befell, however, one afternoon, that I +perceived him going forth upon a desultory stroll, with a certain +lonesomeness of demeanour that attracted my sympathy. I +hastily overtook him, and passed my hand into his venerable arm, +a proceeding which produced in the good old man so jovial a sense +of comradeship that he ardently proposed we should bend our steps +to the English Garden; no locality less festive was worthy of the +occasion. To the English Garden, accordingly, we went; it +lay beyond the bridge, beside the lake. It was very pretty +and very animated; there was a band playing in the middle, and a +considerable number of persons sitting under the small trees, on +benches and little chairs, or strolling beside the blue +water. We joined the strollers, we observed our companions, +and conversed on obvious topics. Some of these last, of +course, were the pretty women who embellished the scene, and who, +in the light of M. Pigeonneau’s comprehensive criticism, +appeared surprisingly numerous. He seemed bent upon our +making up our minds as to which was the prettiest, and as this +was an innocent game I consented to play at it.</p> +<p>Suddenly M. Pigeonneau stopped, pressing my arm with the +liveliest emotion. “La voilà, la voilà, +the prettiest!” he quickly murmured, “coming toward +us, in a blue dress, with the other.” It was at the +other I was looking, for the other, to my surprise, was our +interesting fellow-pensioner, the daughter of a vigilant +mother. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, had redoubled his +exclamations; he had recognised Miss Sophy Ruck. “Oh, +la belle rencontre, nos aimables convives; the prettiest girl in +the world, in effect!”</p> +<p>We immediately greeted and joined the young ladies, who, like +ourselves, were walking arm in arm and enjoying the scene.</p> +<p>“I was citing you with admiration to my friend even +before I had recognised you,” said M. Pigeonneau to Miss +Ruck.</p> +<p>“I don’t believe in French compliments,” +remarked this young lady, presenting her back to the smiling old +man.</p> +<p>“Are you and Miss Ruck walking alone?” I asked of +her companion. “You had better accept of M. +Pigeonneau’s gallant protection, and of mine.”</p> +<p>Aurora Church had taken her hand out of Miss Ruck’s arm; +she looked at me, smiling, with her head a little inclined, +while, upon her shoulder, she made her open parasol +revolve. “Which is most improper—to walk alone +or to walk with gentlemen? I wish to do what is most +improper.”</p> +<p>“What mysterious logic governs your conduct?” I +inquired.</p> +<p>“He thinks you can’t understand him when he talks +like that,” said Miss Ruck. “But I do +understand you, always!”</p> +<p>“So I have always ventured to hope, my dear Miss +Ruck.”</p> +<p>“Well, if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be much +loss,” rejoined this young lady.</p> +<p>“Allons, en marche!” cried M. Pigeonneau, smiling +still, and undiscouraged by her inhumanity. “Let as +make together the tour of the garden.” And he imposed +his society upon Miss Ruck with a respectful, elderly grace which +was evidently unable to see anything in her reluctance but +modesty, and was sublimely conscious of a mission to place +modesty at its ease. This ill-assorted couple walked in +front, while Aurora Church and I strolled along together.</p> +<p>“I am sure this is more improper,” said my +companion; “this is delightfully improper. I +don’t say that as a compliment to you,” she +added. “I would say it to any man, no matter how +stupid.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I am very stupid,” I answered, “but +this doesn’t seem to me wrong.”</p> +<p>“Not for you, no; only for me. There is nothing +that a man can do that is wrong, is there? <i>En +morale</i>, you know, I mean. Ah, yes, he can steal; but I +think there is nothing else, is there?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. One doesn’t know those +things until after one has done them. Then one is +enlightened.”</p> +<p>“And you mean that you have never been +enlightened? You make yourself out very good.”</p> +<p>“That is better than making one’s self out bad, as +you do.”</p> +<p>The young girl glanced at me a moment, and then, with her +charming smile, “That’s one of the consequences of a +false position.”</p> +<p>“Is your position false?” I inquired, smiling too +at this large formula.</p> +<p>“Distinctly so.”</p> +<p>“In what way?”</p> +<p>“Oh, in every way. For instance, I have to pretend +to be a <i>jeune fille</i>. I am not a jeune fille; no +American girl is a jeune fille; an American girl is an +intelligent, responsible creature. I have to pretend to be +very innocent, but I am not very innocent.”</p> +<p>“You don’t pretend to be very innocent; you +pretend to be—what shall I call it?—very +wise.”</p> +<p>“That’s no pretence. I am wise.”</p> +<p>“You are not an American girl,” I ventured to +observe.</p> +<p>My companion almost stopped, looking at me; there was a little +flush in her cheek. “Voilà!” she +said. “There’s my false position. I want +to be an American girl, and I’m not.”</p> +<p>“Do you want me to tell you?” I went on. +“An American girl wouldn’t talk as you are talking +now.”</p> +<p>“Please tell me,” said Aurora Church, with +expressive eagerness. “How would she talk?”</p> +<p>“I can’t tell you all the things an American girl +would say, but I think I can tell you the things she +wouldn’t say. She wouldn’t reason out her +conduct, as you seem to me to do.”</p> +<p>Aurora gave me the most flattering attention. “I +see. She would be simpler. To do very simple things +that are not at all simple—that is the American +girl!”</p> +<p>I permitted myself a small explosion of hilarity. +“I don’t know whether you are a French girl, or what +you are,” I said, “but you are very witty.”</p> +<p>“Ah, you mean that I strike false notes!” cried +Aurora Church, sadly. “That’s just what I want +to avoid. I wish you would always tell me.”</p> +<p>The conversational union between Miss Ruck and her neighbour, +in front of us, had evidently not become a close one. The +young lady suddenly turned round to us with a question: +“Don’t you want some ice-cream?”</p> +<p>“<i>She</i> doesn’t strike false notes,” I +murmured.</p> +<p>There was a kind of pavilion or kiosk, which served as a +café, and at which the delicacies procurable at such an +establishment were dispensed. Miss Ruck pointed to the +little green tables and chairs which were set out on the gravel; +M. Pigeonneau, fluttering with a sense of dissipation, seconded +the proposal, and we presently sat down and gave our order to a +nimble attendant. I managed again to place myself next to +Aurora Church; our companions were on the other side of the +table.</p> +<p>My neighbour was delighted with our situation. +“This is best of all,” she said. “I never +believed I should come to a café with two strange men! +Now, you can’t persuade me this isn’t +wrong.”</p> +<p>“To make it wrong we ought to see your mother coming +down that path.”</p> +<p>“Ah, my mother makes everything wrong,” said the +young girl, attacking with a little spoon in the shape of a spade +the apex of a pink ice. And then she returned to her idea +of a moment before: “You must promise to tell me—to +warn me in some way—whenever I strike a false note. +You must give a little cough, like that—ahem!”</p> +<p>“You will keep me very busy, and people will think I am +in a consumption.”</p> +<p>“<i>Voyons</i>,” she continued, “why have +you never talked to me more? Is that a false note? +Why haven’t you been ‘attentive?’ +That’s what American girls call it; that’s what Miss +Ruck calls it.”</p> +<p>I assured myself that our companions were out of earshot, and +that Miss Ruck was much occupied with a large vanilla +cream. “Because you are always entwined with that +young lady. There is no getting near you.”</p> +<p>Aurora looked at her friend while the latter devoted herself +to her ice. “You wonder why I like her so much, I +suppose. So does mamma; elle s’y perd. I +don’t like her particularly; je n’en suis pas +folle. But she gives me information; she tells me about +America. Mamma has always tried to prevent my knowing +anything about it, and I am all the more curious. And then +Miss Ruck is very fresh.”</p> +<p>“I may not be so fresh as Miss Ruck,” I said, +“but in future, when you want information, I recommend you +to come to me for it.”</p> +<p>“Our friend offers to take me to America; she invites me +to go back with her, to stay with her. You couldn’t +do that, could you?” And the young girl looked at me a +moment. “<i>Bon</i>, a false note I can see it by +your face; you remind me of a <i>maître de +piano</i>.”</p> +<p>“You overdo the character—the poor American +girl,” I said. “Are you going to stay with that +delightful family?”</p> +<p>“I will go and stay with any one that will take me or +ask me. It’s a real <i>nostalgie</i>. She says +that in New York—in Thirty-Seventh Street—I should +have the most lovely time.”</p> +<p>“I have no doubt you would enjoy it.”</p> +<p>“Absolute liberty to begin with.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me you have a certain liberty here,” +I rejoined.</p> +<p>“Ah, <i>this</i>? Oh, I shall pay for this. +I shall be punished by mamma, and I shall be lectured by Madame +Galopin.”</p> +<p>“The wife of the pasteur?”</p> +<p>“His <i>digne épouse</i>. Madame Galopin, +for mamma, is the incarnation of European opinion. +That’s what vexes me with mamma, her thinking so much of +people like Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame +Galopin—mamma calls that being in European society. +European society! I’m so sick of that expression; I +have heard it since I was six years old. Who is Madame +Galopin—who thinks anything of her here? She is +nobody; she is perfectly third-rate. If I like America +better than mamma, I also know Europe better.”</p> +<p>“But your mother, certainly,” I objected, a trifle +timidly, for my young lady was excited, and had a charming little +passion in her eye—“your mother has a great many +social relations all over the Continent.”</p> +<p>“She thinks so, but half the people don’t care for +us. They are not so good as we, and they know +it—I’ll do them that justice—and they wonder +why we should care for them. When we are polite to them, +they think the less of us; there are plenty of people like +that. Mamma thinks so much of them simply because they are +foreigners. If I could tell you all the dull, stupid, +second-rate people I have had to talk to, for no better reason +than that they were <i>de leur pays</i>!—Germans, French, +Italians, Turks, everything. When I complain, mamma always +says that at any rate it’s practice in the language. +And she makes so much of the English, too; I don’t know +what that’s practice in.”</p> +<p>Before I had time to suggest an hypothesis, as regards this +latter point, I saw something that made me rise, with a certain +solemnity, from my chair. This was nothing less than the +neat little figure of Mrs. Church—a perfect model of the +<i>femme comme il faut</i>—approaching our table with an +impatient step, and followed most unexpectedly in her advance by +the pre-eminent form of Mr. Ruck. She had evidently come in +quest of her daughter, and if she had commanded this +gentleman’s attendance, it had been on no softer ground +than that of his unenvied paternity to her guilty child’s +accomplice. My movement had given the alarm, and Aurora +Church and M. Pigeonneau got up; Miss Ruck alone did not, in the +local phrase, derange herself. Mrs. Church, beneath her +modest little bonnet, looked very serious, but not at all +fluttered; she came straight to her daughter, who received her +with a smile, and then she looked all round at the rest of us, +very fixedly and tranquilly, without bowing. I must do both +these ladies the justice to mention that neither of them made the +least little “scene.”</p> +<p>“I have come for you, dearest,” said the +mother.</p> +<p>“Yes, dear mamma.”</p> +<p>“Come for you—come for you,” Mrs. Church +repeated, looking down at the relics of our little feast. +“I was obliged to ask Mr. Ruck’s assistance. I +was puzzled; I thought a long time.”</p> +<p>“Well, Mrs. Church, I was glad to see you puzzled once +in your life!” said Mr. Ruck, with friendly jocosity. +“But you came pretty straight for all that. I had +hard work to keep up with you.”</p> +<p>“We will take a cab, Aurora,” Mrs. Church went on, +without heeding this pleasantry—“a closed one. +Come, my daughter.”</p> +<p>“Yes, dear mamma.” The young girl was +blushing, yet she was still smiling; she looked round at us all, +and, as her eyes met mine, I thought she was beautiful. +“Good-bye,” she said to us. “I have had a +<i>lovely time</i>.”</p> +<p>“We must not linger,” said her mother; “it +is five o’clock. We are to dine, you know, with +Madame Galopin.”</p> +<p>“I had quite forgotten,” Aurora declared. +“That will be charming.”</p> +<p>“Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, ma +am?” asked Mr. Ruck.</p> +<p>Mrs. Church hesitated a moment, with her serene little +gaze. “Do you prefer, then, to leave your daughter to +finish the evening with these gentlemen?”</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck pushed back his hat and scratched the top of his +head. “Well, I don’t know. How would you +like that, Sophy?”</p> +<p>“Well, I never!” exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs. Church +marched off with her daughter.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<p>I had half expected that Mrs. Church would make me feel the +weight of her disapproval of my own share in that little act of +revelry in the English Garden. But she maintained her claim +to being a highly reasonable woman—I could not but admire +the justice of this pretension—by recognising my +irresponsibility. I had taken her daughter as I found her, +which was, according to Mrs. Church’s view, in a very +equivocal position. The natural instinct of a young man, in +such a situation, is not to protest but to profit; and it was +clear to Mrs. Church that I had had nothing to do with Miss +Aurora’s appearing in public under the insufficient +chaperonage of Miss Ruck. Besides, she liked to converse, +and she apparently did me the honour to believe that of all the +members of the Pension Beaurepas I had the most cultivated +understanding. I found her in the salon a couple of +evenings after the incident I have just narrated, and I +approached her with a view of making my peace with her, if this +should prove necessary. But Mrs. Church was as gracious as +I could have desired; she put her marker into her book, and +folded her plump little hands on the cover. She made no +specific allusion to the English Garden; she embarked, rather, +upon those general considerations in which her refined intellect +was so much at home.</p> +<p>“Always at your studies, Mrs. Church,” I ventured +to observe.</p> +<p>“Que voulez-vous? To say studies is to say too +much; one doesn’t study in the parlour of a +boarding-house. But I do what I can; I have always done +what I can. That is all I have ever claimed.”</p> +<p>“No one can do more, and you seem to have done a great +deal.”</p> +<p>“Do you know my secret?” she asked, with an air of +brightening confidence. And she paused a moment before she +imparted her secret—“To care only for the +<i>best</i>! To do the best, to know the best—to +have, to desire, to recognise, only the best. That’s +what I have always done, in my quiet little way. I have +gone through Europe on my devoted little errand, seeking, seeing, +heeding, only the best. And it has not been for myself +alone; it has been for my daughter. My daughter has had the +best. We are not rich, but I can say that.”</p> +<p>“She has had you, madam,” I rejoined finely.</p> +<p>“Certainly, such as I am, I have been devoted. We +have got something everywhere; a little here, a little +there. That’s the real secret—to get something +everywhere; you always can if you are devoted. Sometimes it +has been a little music, sometimes a little deeper insight into +the history of art; every little counts you know. Sometimes +it has been just a glimpse, a view, a lovely landscape, an +impression. We have always been on the look-out. +Sometimes it has been a valued friendship, a delightful social +tie.”</p> +<p>“Here comes the ‘European society,’ the poor +daughter’s bugbear,” I said to myself. +“Certainly,” I remarked aloud—I admit, rather +perversely—“if you have lived a great deal in +pensions, you must have got acquainted with lots of +people.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church dropped her eyes a moment; and then, with +considerable gravity, “I think the European pension system +in many respects remarkable, and in some satisfactory. But +of the friendships that we have formed, few have been contracted +in establishments of this kind.”</p> +<p>“I am sorry to hear that!” I said, laughing.</p> +<p>“I don’t say it for you, though I might say it for +some others. We have been interested in European +homes.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I see!”</p> +<p>“We have the <i>éntree</i> of the old Genevese +society I like its tone. I prefer it to that of Mr. +Ruck,” added Mrs. Church, calmly; “to that of Mrs. +Ruck and Miss Ruck—of Miss Ruck especially.”</p> +<p>“Ah, the poor Rucks haven’t any tone at +all,” I said “Don’t take them more seriously +than they take themselves.”</p> +<p>“Tell me this,” my companion rejoined, “are +they fair examples?”</p> +<p>“Examples of what?”</p> +<p>“Of our American tendencies.”</p> +<p>“‘Tendencies’ is a big word, dear lady; +tendencies are difficult to calculate. And you +shouldn’t abuse those good Rucks, who have been very kind +to your daughter. They have invited her to go and stay with +them in Thirty-Seventh Street.”</p> +<p>“Aurora has told me. It might be very +serious.”</p> +<p>“It might be very droll,” I said.</p> +<p>“To me,” declared Mrs. Church, “it is simply +terrible. I think we shall have to leave the Pension +Beaurepas. I shall go back to Madame Chamousset.”</p> +<p>“On account of the Rucks?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Pray, why don’t they go themselves? I have +given them some excellent addresses—written down the very +hours of the trains. They were going to Appenzell; I +thought it was arranged.”</p> +<p>“They talk of Chamouni now,” I said; “but +they are very helpless and undecided.”</p> +<p>“I will give them some Chamouni addresses. Mrs. +Ruck will send a <i>chaise à porteurs</i>; I will give her +the name of a man who lets them lower than you get them at the +hotels. After that they <i>must</i> go.”</p> +<p>“Well, I doubt,” I observed, “whether Mr. +Ruck will ever really be seen on the Mer de Glace—in a high +hat. He’s not like you; he doesn’t value his +European privileges. He takes no interest. He regrets +Wall Street, acutely. As his wife says, he is very +restless, but he has no curiosity about Chamouni. So you +must not depend too much on the effect of your +addresses.”</p> +<p>“Is it a frequent type?” asked Mrs. Church, with +an air of self-control.</p> +<p>“I am afraid so. Mr. Ruck is a broken-down man of +business. He is broken down in health, and I suspect he is +broken down in fortune. He has spent his whole life in +buying and selling; he knows how to do nothing else. His +wife and daughter have spent their lives, not in selling, but in +buying; and they, on their side, know how to do nothing +else. To get something in a shop that they can put on their +backs—that is their one idea; they haven’t another in +their heads. Of course they spend no end of money, and they +do it with an implacable persistence, with a mixture of audacity +and of cunning. They do it in his teeth and they do it +behind his back; the mother protects the daughter, and the +daughter eggs on the mother. Between them they are bleeding +him to death.”</p> +<p>“Ah, what a picture!” murmured Mrs. Church. +“I am afraid they are very-uncultivated.”</p> +<p>“I share your fears. They are perfectly ignorant; +they have no resources. The vision of fine clothes occupies +their whole imagination. They have not an idea—even a +worse one—to compete with it. Poor Mr. Ruck, who is +extremely good-natured and soft, seems to me a really tragic +figure. He is getting bad news every day from home; his +business is going to the dogs. He is unable to stop it; he +has to stand and watch his fortunes ebb. He has been used +to doing things in a big way, and he feels mean, if he makes a +fuss about bills. So the ladies keep sending them +in.”</p> +<p>“But haven’t they common sense? Don’t +they know they are ruining themselves?”</p> +<p>“They don’t believe it. The duty of an +American husband and father is to keep them going. If he +asks them how, that’s his own affair. So, by way of +not being mean, of being a good American husband and father, poor +Ruck stands staring at bankruptcy.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church looked at me a moment, in quickened +meditation. “Why, if Aurora were to go to stay with +them, she might not even be properly fed!”</p> +<p>“I don’t, on the whole, recommend,” I said, +laughing, “that your daughter should pay a visit to +Thirty-Seventh Street.”</p> +<p>“Why should I be subjected to such trials—so sadly +<i>éprouvée</i>? Why should a daughter of +mine like that dreadful girl?”</p> +<p>“<i>Does</i> she like her?”</p> +<p>“Pray, do you mean,” asked my companion, softly, +“that Aurora is a hypocrite?”</p> +<p>I hesitated a moment. “A little, since you ask +me. I think you have forced her to be.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church answered this possibly presumptuous charge with a +tranquil, candid exultation. “I never force my +daughter!”</p> +<p>“She is nevertheless in a false position,” I +rejoined. “She hungers and thirsts to go back to her +own country; she wants ‘to come’ out in New York, +which is certainly, socially speaking, the El Dorado of young +ladies. She likes any one, for the moment, who will talk to +her of that, and serve as a connecting-link with her native +shores. Miss Ruck performs this agreeable +office.”</p> +<p>“Your idea is, then, that if she were to go with Miss +Ruck to America she would drop her afterwards.”</p> +<p>I complimented Mrs. Church upon her logical mind, but I +repudiated this cynical supposition. “I can’t +imagine her—when it should come to the +point—embarking with the famille Ruck. But I wish she +might go, nevertheless.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church shook her head serenely, and smiled at my +inappropriate zeal. “I trust my poor child may never +be guilty of so fatal a mistake. She is completely in +error; she is wholly unadapted to the peculiar conditions of +American life. It would not please her. She would not +sympathise. My daughter’s ideal is not the ideal of +the class of young women to which Miss Ruck belongs. I fear +they are very numerous; they give the tone—they give the +tone.”</p> +<p>“It is you that are mistaken,” I said; “go +home for six months and see.”</p> +<p>“I have not, unfortunately, the means to make costly +experiments. My daughter has had great +advantages—rare advantages—and I should be very sorry +to believe that <i>au fond</i> she does not appreciate +them. One thing is certain: I must remove her from this +pernicious influence. We must part company with this +deplorable family. If Mr. Ruck and his ladies cannot be +induced to go to Chamouni—a journey that no traveller with +the smallest self-respect would omit—my daughter and I +shall be obliged to retire. We shall go to +Dresden.”</p> +<p>“To Dresden?”</p> +<p>“The capital of Saxony. I had arranged to go there +for the autumn, but it will be simpler to go immediately. +There are several works in the gallery with which my daughter has +not, I think, sufficiently familiarised herself; it is especially +strong in the seventeenth century schools.”</p> +<p>As my companion offered me this information I perceived Mr. +Ruck come lounging in, with his hands in his pockets, and his +elbows making acute angles. He had his usual anomalous +appearance of both seeking and avoiding society, and he wandered +obliquely toward Mrs. Church, whose last words he had +overheard. “The seventeenth century schools,” +he said, slowly, as if he were weighing some very small object in +a very large-pair of scales. “Now, do you suppose +they <i>had</i> schools at that period?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church rose with a good deal of precision, making no +answer to this incongruous jest. She clasped her large +volume to her neat little bosom, and she fixed a gentle, serious +eye upon Mr. Ruck.</p> +<p>“I had a letter this morning from Chamouni,” she +said.</p> +<p>“Well,” replied Mr. Ruck, “I suppose +you’ve got friends all over.”</p> +<p>“I have friends at Chamouni, but they are leaving. +To their great regret.” I had got up, too; I listened +to this statement, and I wondered. I am almost ashamed to +mention the subject of my agitation. I asked myself whether +this was a sudden improvisation, consecrated by maternal +devotion; but this point has never been elucidated. +“They are giving up some charming rooms; perhaps you would +like them. I would suggest your telegraphing. The +weather is glorious,” continued Mrs. Church, “and the +highest peaks are now perceived with extraordinary +distinctness.”</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck listened, as he always listened, respectfully. +“Well,” he said, “I don’t know as I want +to go up Mount Blank. That’s the principal +attraction, isn’t it?”</p> +<p>“There are many others. I thought I would offer +you an—an exceptional opportunity.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Ruck, “you’re right +down friendly. But I seem to have more opportunities than I +know what to do with. I don’t seem able to take +hold.”</p> +<p>“It only needs a little decision,” remarked Mrs. +Church, with an air which was an admirable example of this +virtue. “I wish you good-night, sir.” And +she moved noiselessly away.</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck, with his long legs apart, stood staring after her; +then he transferred his perfectly quiet eyes to me. +“Does she own a hotel over there?” he asked. +“Has she got any stock in Mount Blank?”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<p>The next day Madame Beaurepas handed me, with her own elderly +fingers, a missive, which proved to be a telegram. After +glancing at it, I informed her that it was apparently a signal +for my departure; my brother had arrived in England, and proposed +to me to meet him there; he had come on business, and was to +spend but three weeks in Europe. “But my house +empties itself!” cried the old woman. “The +famille Ruck talks of leaving me, and Madame Church <i>nous fait +la révérence</i>.”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Church is going away?”</p> +<p>“She is packing her trunk; she is a very extraordinary +person. Do you know what she asked me this morning? +To invent some combination by which the famille Ruck should move +away. I informed her that I was not an inventor. That +poor famille Ruck! ‘Oblige me by getting rid of +them,’ said Madame Church, as she would have asked +Célestine to remove a dish of cabbage. She speaks as +if the world were made for Madame Church. I intimated to +her that if she objected to the company there was a very simple +remedy; and at present <i>elle fait ses paquets</i>.”</p> +<p>“She really asked you to get the Rucks out of the +house?”</p> +<p>“She asked me to tell them that their rooms had been +let, three months ago, to another family. She has an +<i>aplomb</i>!”</p> +<p>Mrs. Church’s aplomb caused me considerable diversion; I +am not sure that it was not, in some degree, to laugh over it at +my leisure that I went out into the garden that evening to smoke +a cigar. The night was dark and not particularly balmy, and +most of my fellow-pensioners, after dinner, had remained +in-doors. A long straight walk conducted from the door of +the house to the ancient grille that I have described, and I +stood here for some time, looking through the iron bars at the +silent empty street. The prospect was not entertaining, and +I presently turned away. At this moment I saw, in the +distance, the door of the house open and throw a shaft of +lamplight into the darkness. Into the lamplight there +stepped the figure of a female, who presently closed the door +behind her. She disappeared in the dusk of the garden, and +I had seen her but for an instant, but I remained under the +impression that Aurora Church, on the eve of her departure, had +come out for a meditative stroll.</p> +<p>I lingered near the gate, keeping the red tip of my cigar +turned toward the house, and before long a young lady emerged +from among the shadows of the trees and encountered the light of +a lamp that stood just outside the gate. It was in fact +Aurora Church, but she seemed more bent upon conversation than +upon meditation. She stood a moment looking at me, and then +she said,—</p> +<p>“Ought I to retire—to return to the +house?”</p> +<p>“If you ought, I should be very sorry to tell you +so,” I answered.</p> +<p>“But we are all alone; there is no one else in the +garden.”</p> +<p>“It is not the first time that I have been alone with a +young lady. I am not at all terrified.”</p> +<p>“Ah, but I?” said the young girl. “I +have never been alone—” then, quickly, she +interrupted herself. “Good, there’s another +false note!”</p> +<p>“Yes, I am obliged to admit that one is very +false.”</p> +<p>She stood looking at me. “I am going away +to-morrow; after that there will be no one to tell me.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<p>“That will matter little,” I presently +replied. “Telling you will do no good.”</p> +<p>“Ah, why do you say that?” murmured Aurora +Church.</p> +<p>I said it partly because it was true; but I said it for other +reasons as well, which it was hard to define. Standing +there bare-headed, in the night air, in the vague light, this +young lady looked extremely interesting; and the interest of her +appearance was not diminished by a suspicion on my own part that +she had come into the garden knowing me to be there. I +thought her a charming girl, and I felt very sorry for her; but, +as I looked at her, the terms in which Madame Beaurepas had +ventured to characterise her recurred to me with a certain +force. I had professed a contempt for them at the time, but +it now came into my head that perhaps this unfortunately +situated, this insidiously mutinous young creature, was looking +out for a preserver. She was certainly not a girl to throw +herself at a man’s head, but it was possible that in her +intense—her almost morbid-desire to put into effect an +ideal which was perhaps after all charged with as many fallacies +as her mother affirmed, she might do something reckless and +irregular—something in which a sympathetic compatriot, as +yet unknown, would find his profit. The image, unshaped +though it was, of this sympathetic compatriot, filled me with a +sort of envy. For some moments I was silent, conscious of +these things, and then I answered her question. +“Because some things—some differences are felt, not +learned. To you liberty is not natural; you are like a +person who has bought a repeater, and, in his satisfaction, is +constantly making it sound. To a real American girl her +liberty is a very vulgarly-ticking old clock.”</p> +<p>“Ah, you mean, then,” said the poor girl, +“that my mother has ruined me?”</p> +<p>“Ruined you?”</p> +<p>“She has so perverted my mind, that when I try to be +natural I am necessarily immodest.”</p> +<p>“That again is a false note,” I said, +laughing.</p> +<p>She turned away. “I think you are +cruel.”</p> +<p>“By no means,” I declared; “because, for my +own taste, I prefer you as—as—”</p> +<p>I hesitated, and she turned back. “As +what?”</p> +<p>“As you are.”</p> +<p>She looked at me a while again, and then she said, in a little +reasoning voice that reminded me of her mother’s, only that +it was conscious and studied, “I was not aware that I am +under any particular obligation to please you!” And +then she gave a clear laugh, quite at variance with her +voice.</p> +<p>“Oh, there is no obligation,” I said, “but +one has preferences. I am very sorry you are going +away.”</p> +<p>“What does it matter to you? You are going +yourself.”</p> +<p>“As I am going in a different direction that makes all +the greater separation.”</p> +<p>She answered nothing; she stood looking through the bars of +the tall gate at the empty, dusky street. “This +grille is like a cage,” she said, at last.</p> +<p>“Fortunately, it is a cage that will open.” +And I laid my hand on the lock.</p> +<p>“Don’t open it,” and she pressed the gate +back. “If you should open it I would go out—and +never return.”</p> +<p>“Where should you go?”</p> +<p>“To America.”</p> +<p>“Straight away?”</p> +<p>“Somehow or other. I would go to the American +consul. I would beg him to give me money—to help +me.”</p> +<p>I received this assertion without a smile; I was not in a +smiling humour. On the contrary, I felt singularly excited, +and I kept my hand on the lock of the gate. I believed (or +I thought I believed) what my companion said, and I +had—absurd as it may appear—an irritated vision of +her throwing herself upon consular sympathy. It seemed to +me, for a moment, that to pass out of that gate with this +yearning, straining, young creature, would be to pass into some +mysterious felicity. If I were only a hero of romance, I +would offer, myself, to take her to America.</p> +<p>In a moment more, perhaps, I should have persuaded myself that +I was one, but at this juncture I heard a sound that was not +romantic. It proved to be the very realistic tread of +Célestine, the cook, who stood grinning at us as we turned +about from our colloquy.</p> +<p>“I ask <i>bien pardon</i>,” said +Célestine. “The mother of Mademoiselle desires +that Mademoiselle should come in immediately. M. le Pasteur +Galopin has come to make his adieux to <i>ces +dames</i>.”</p> +<p>Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was a touching +one. Then she slowly departed with Célestine.</p> +<p>The next morning, on coming into the garden, I found that Mrs. +Church and her daughter had departed. I was informed of +this fact by old M. Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree, +having his coffee at a little green table.</p> +<p>“I have nothing to envy you,” he said; “I +had the last glimpse of that charming Miss Aurora.”</p> +<p>“I had a very late glimpse,” I answered, +“and it was all I could possibly desire.”</p> +<p>“I have always noticed,” rejoined M. Pigeonneau, +“That your desires are more moderate than mine. Que +voulez-vous? I am of the old school. Je crois que la +race se perd. I regret the departure of that young girl: +she had an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme +d’esprit. For the mother, I can console myself. +I am not sure that <i>she</i> was a femme d’esprit, though +she wished to pass for one. Round, rosy, +<i>potelée</i>, she yet had not the temperament of her +appearance; she was a <i>femme austère</i>. I have +often noticed that contradiction in American ladies. You +see a plump little woman, with a speaking eye, and the contour +and complexion of a ripe peach, and if you venture to conduct +yourself in the smallest degree in accordance with these +<i>indices</i>, you discover a species of Methodist—of what +do you call it?—of Quakeress. On the other hand, you +encounter a tall, lean, angular person, without colour, without +grace, all elbows and knees, and you find it’s a nature of +the tropics! The women of duty look like coquettes, and the +others look like alpenstocks! However, we have still the handsome +Madame Ruck—a real <i>femme de Rubens</i>, +<i>celle-là</i>. It is very true that to talk to her +one must know the Flemish tongue!”</p> +<p>I had determined, in accordance with my brother’s +telegram, to go away in the afternoon; so that, having various +duties to perform, I left M. Pigeonneau to his international +comparisons. Among other things, I went in the course of +the morning to the banker’s, to draw money for my journey, +and there I found Mr. Ruck, with a pile of crumpled letters in +his lap, his chair tipped back, and his eyes gloomily fixed on +the fringe of the green plush table-cloth. I timidly +expressed the hope that he had got better news from home; +whereupon he gave me a look in which, considering his +provocation, the absence of irritation was conspicuous.</p> +<p>He took up his letters in his large hand, and crushing them +together, held it out to me. “That epistolary +matter,” he said, “is worth about five cents. +But I guess,” he added, rising, “I have taken it in +by this time.” When I had drawn my money I asked him +to come and breakfast with me at the little <i>brasserie</i>, +much favoured by students, to which I used to resort in the old +town. “I couldn’t eat, sir,” he said, +“I—couldn’t eat. Bad news takes away the +appetite. But I guess I’ll go with you, so that I +needn’t go to table down there at the pension. The +old woman down there is always accusing me of turning up my nose +at her food. Well, I guess I shan’t turn up my nose +at anything now.”</p> +<p>We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. Ruck made the +lightest possible breakfast. But if he ate very little, he +talked a great deal; he talked about business, going into a +hundred details in which I was quite unable to follow him. +His talk was not angry nor bitter; it was a long, meditative, +melancholy monologue; if it had been a trifle less incoherent I +should almost have called it philosophic. I was very sorry +for him; I wanted to do something for him, but the only thing I +could do was, when we had breakfasted, to see him safely back to +the Pension Beaurepas. We went across the Treille and down +the Corraterie, out of which we turned into the Rue du +Rhône. In this latter street, as all the world knows, +are many of those brilliant jewellers’ shops for which +Geneva is famous. I always admired their glittering +windows, and never passed them without a lingering glance. +Even on this occasion, pre-occupied as I was with my impending +departure, and with my companion’s troubles, I suffered my +eyes to wander along the precious tiers that flashed and twinkled +behind the huge clear plates of glass. Thanks to this +inveterate habit, I made a discovery. In the largest and +most brilliant of these establishments I perceived two ladies, +seated before the counter with an air of absorption, which +sufficiently proclaimed their identity. I hoped my +companion would not see them, but as we came abreast of the door, +a little beyond, we found it open to the warm summer air. +Mr. Ruck happened to glance in, and he immediately recognised his +wife and daughter. He slowly stopped, looking at them; I +wondered what he would do. The salesman was holding up a +bracelet before them, on its velvet cushion, and flashing it +about in an irresistible manner.</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck said nothing, but he presently went in, and I did the +same.</p> +<p>“It will be an opportunity,” I remarked, as +cheerfully as possible, “for me to bid good-bye to the +ladies.”</p> +<p>They turned round when Mr. Ruck came in, and looked at him +without confusion. “Well, you had better go home to +breakfast,” remarked his wife. Miss Sophy made no +remark, but she took the bracelet from the attendant and gazed at +it very fixedly. Mr. Ruck seated himself on an empty stool +and looked round the shop.</p> +<p>“Well, you have been here before,” said his wife; +“you were here the first day we came.”</p> +<p>Miss Ruck extended the precious object in her hands towards +me. “Don’t you think that sweet?” she +inquired.</p> +<p>I looked at it a moment. “No, I think it’s +ugly.”</p> +<p>She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. “Well, I +don’t believe you have any taste.”</p> +<p>“Why, sir, it’s just lovely,” said Mrs. +Ruck.</p> +<p>“You’ll see it some day on me, any way,” her +daughter declared.</p> +<p>“No, he won’t,” said Mr. Ruck, quietly.</p> +<p>“It will be his own fault, then,” Miss Sophy +observed.</p> +<p>“Well, if we are going to Chamouni we want to get +something here,” said Mrs. Ruck. “We may not +have another chance.”</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck was still looking round the shop, whistling in a very +low tone. “We ain’t going to Chamouni. We +are going to New York city, straight.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said Mrs. +Ruck. “Don’t you suppose we want to take +something home?”</p> +<p>“If we are going straight back I must have that +bracelet,” her daughter declared, “Only I don’t +want a velvet case; I want a satin case.”</p> +<p>“I must bid you good-bye,” I said to the +ladies. “I am leaving Geneva in an hour or +two.”</p> +<p>“Take a good look at that bracelet, so you’ll know +it when you see it,” said Miss Sophy.</p> +<p>“She’s bound to have something,” remarked +her mother, almost proudly.</p> +<p>Mr. Ruck was still vaguely inspecting the shop; he was still +whistling a little. “I am afraid he is not at all +well,” I said, softly, to his wife.</p> +<p>She twisted her head a little, and glanced at him.</p> +<p>“Well, I wish he’d improve!” she +exclaimed.</p> +<p>“A satin case, and a nice one!” said Miss Ruck to +the shopman.</p> +<p>I bade Mr. Ruck good-bye. “Don’t wait for +me,” he said, sitting there on his stool, and not meeting +my eye. “I’ve got to see this thing +through.”</p> +<p>I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when, an hour later, +I left it with my luggage, the family had not returned.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENSION BEAUREPAS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2720-h.htm or 2720-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/2/2720 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/2720-h/images/cover.jpg b/2720-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..013b8cf --- /dev/null +++ b/2720-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..665eb40 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #2720 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2720) diff --git a/old/penbr10.txt b/old/penbr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db9c8ff --- /dev/null +++ b/old/penbr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2719 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Pension Beaurepas, by Henry James +#35 in our series by Henry James + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Title: The Pension Beaurepas + +Author: Henry James + +July, 2001 [Etext #2720] + + +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Pension Beaurepas, by Henry James +******This file should be named penbr10.txt or penbr10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, penbr11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, penbr10a.txt + + +This etext was scanned by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1886 Macmillan and Co. edition. Proofing was by Emma +Hair, Francine Smith and Matthew Garrish. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text +files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly +from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an +assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few +more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we +don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +We would prefer to send you this information by email. + +****** + +To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser +to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by +author and by title, and includes information about how +to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also +download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This +is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, +for a more complete list of our various sites. + +To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any +Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror +sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed +at http://promo.net/pg). + +Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. + +Example FTP session: + +ftp metalab.unc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext01, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + +*** + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** + +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure +in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand. + + + + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was scanned by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1886 Macmillan and Co. edition. Proofing was by Emma +Hair, Francine Smith and Matthew Garrish. + + + + + +The Pension Beaurepas + +by Henry James + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +I was not rich--on the contrary; and I had been told the Pension +Beaurepas was cheap. I had, moreover, been told that a boarding- +house is a capital place for the study of human nature. I had a +fancy for a literary career, and a friend of mine had said to me, "If +you mean to write you ought to go and live in a boarding-house; there +is no other such place to pick up material." I had read something of +this kind in a letter addressed by Stendhal to his sister: "I have a +passionate desire to know human nature, and have a great mind to live +in a boarding-house, where people cannot conceal their real +characters." I was an admirer of La Chartreuse de Parme, and it +appeared to me that one could not do better than follow in the +footsteps of its author. I remembered, too, the magnificent +boarding-house in Balzac's Pere Goriot,--the "pension bourgeoise des +deux sexes et autres," kept by Madame Vauquer, nee De Conflans. +Magnificent, I mean, as a piece of portraiture; the establishment, as +an establishment, was certainly sordid enough, and I hoped for better +things from the Pension Beaurepas. This institution was one of the +most esteemed in Geneva, and, standing in a little garden of its own, +not far from the lake, had a very homely, comfortable, sociable +aspect. The regular entrance was, as one might say, at the back, +which looked upon the street, or rather upon a little place, adorned +like every place in Geneva, great or small, with a fountain. This +fact was not prepossessing, for on crossing the threshold you found +yourself more or less in the kitchen, encompassed with culinary +odours. This, however, was no great matter, for at the Pension +Beaurepas there was no attempt at gentility or at concealment of the +domestic machinery. The latter was of a very simple sort. Madame +Beaurepas was an excellent little old woman--she was very far +advanced in life, and had been keeping a pension for forty years-- +whose only faults were that she was slightly deaf, that she was fond +of a surreptitious pinch of snuff, and that, at the age of seventy- +three, she wore flowers in her cap. There was a tradition in the +house that she was not so deaf as she pretended; that she feigned +this infirmity in order to possess herself of the secrets of her +lodgers. But I never subscribed to this theory; I am convinced that +Madame Beaurepas had outlived the period of indiscreet curiosity. +She was a philosopher, on a matter-of-fact basis; she had been having +lodgers for forty years, and all that she asked of them was that they +should pay their bills, make use of the door-mat, and fold their +napkins. She cared very little for their secrets. "J'en ai vus de +toutes les couleurs," she said to me. She had quite ceased to care +for individuals; she cared only for types, for categories. Her large +observation had made her acquainted with a great number, and her mind +was a complete collection of "heads." She flattered herself that she +knew at a glance where to pigeon-hole a new-comer, and if she made +any mistakes her deportment never betrayed them. I think that, as +regards individuals, she had neither likes nor dislikes; but she was +capable of expressing esteem or contempt for a species. She had her +own ways, I suppose, of manifesting her approval, but her manner of +indicating the reverse was simple and unvarying. "Je trouve que +c'est deplace"--this exhausted her view of the matter. If one of her +inmates had put arsenic into the pot-au-feu, I believe Madame +Beaurepas would have contented herself with remarking that the +proceeding was out of place. The line of misconduct to which she +most objected was an undue assumption of gentility; she had no +patience with boarders who gave themselves airs. "When people come +chez moi, it is not to cut a figure in the world; I have never had +that illusion," I remember hearing her say; "and when you pay seven +francs a day, tout compris, it comprises everything but the right to +look down upon the others. But there are people who, the less they +pay, the more they take themselves au serieux. My most difficult +boarders have always been those who have had the little rooms." + +Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman of some forty odd years; +and the two ladies, with the assistance of a couple of thick-waisted, +red-armed peasant women, kept the house going. If on your exits and +entrances you peeped into the kitchen, it made very little +difference; for Celestine, the cook, had no pretension to be an +invisible functionary or to deal in occult methods. She was always +at your service, with a grateful grin she blacked your boots; she +trudged off to fetch a cab; she would have carried your baggage, if +you had allowed her, on her broad little back. She was always +tramping in and out, between her kitchen and the fountain in the +place, where it often seemed to me that a large part of the +preparation for our dinner went forward--the wringing out of towels +and table-cloths, the washing of potatoes and cabbages, the scouring +of saucepans and cleansing of water--bottles. You enjoyed, from the +doorstep, a perpetual back-view of Celestine and of her large, loose, +woollen ankles, as she craned, from the waist, over into the fountain +and dabbled in her various utensils. This sounds as if life went on +in a very make-shift fashion at the Pension Beaurepas--as if the tone +of the establishment were sordid. But such was not at all the case. +We were simply very bourgeois; we practised the good old Genevese +principle of not sacrificing to appearances. This is an excellent +principle--when you have the reality. We had the reality at the +Pension Beaurepas: we had it in the shape of soft short beds, +equipped with fluffy duvets; of admirable coffee, served to us in the +morning by Celestine in person, as we lay recumbent on these downy +couches; of copious, wholesome, succulent dinners, conformable to the +best provincial traditions. For myself, I thought the Pension +Beaurepas picturesque, and this, with me, at that time was a great +word. I was young and ingenuous: I had just come from America. I +wished to perfect myself in the French tongue, and I innocently +believed that it flourished by Lake Leman. I used to go to lectures +at the Academy, and come home with a violent appetite. I always +enjoyed my morning walk across the long bridge (there was only one, +just there, in those days) which spans the deep blue out-gush of the +lake, and up the dark steep streets of the old Calvinistic city. The +garden faced this way, toward the lake and the old town; and this was +the pleasantest approach to the house. There was a high wall, with a +double gate in the middle, flanked by a couple of ancient massive +posts; the big rusty grille contained some old-fashioned iron-work. +The garden was rather mouldy and weedy, tangled and untended; but it +contained a little thin--flowing fountain, several green benches, a +rickety little table of the same complexion, and three orange-trees, +in tubs, which were deposited as effectively as possible in front of +the windows of the salon. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +As commonly happens in boarding-houses, the rustle of petticoats was, +at the Pension Beaurepas, the most familiar form of the human tread. +There was the usual allotment of economical widows and old maids, and +to maintain the balance of the sexes there were only an old Frenchman +and a young American. It hardly made the matter easier that the old +Frenchman came from Lausanne. He was a native of that estimable +town, but he had once spent six months in Paris, he had tasted of the +tree of knowledge; he had got beyond Lausanne, whose resources he +pronounced inadequate. Lausanne, as he said, "manquait d'agrements." +When obliged, for reasons which he never specified, to bring his +residence in Paris to a close, he had fallen back on Geneva; he had +broken his fall at the Pension Beaurepas. Geneva was, after all, +more like Paris, and at a Genevese boarding-house there was sure to +be plenty of Americans with whom one could talk about the French +metropolis. M. Pigeonneau was a little lean man, with a large narrow +nose, who sat a great deal in the garden, reading with the aid of a +large magnifying glass a volume from the cabinet de lecture. + +One day, a fortnight after my arrival at the Pension Beaurepas, I +came back, rather earlier than usual from my academic session; it +wanted half an hour of the midday breakfast. I went into the salon +with the design of possessing myself of the day's Galignani before +one of the little English old maids should have removed it to her +virginal bower--a privilege to which Madame Beaurepas frequently +alluded as one of the attractions of the establishment. In the salon +I found a new-comer, a tall gentleman in a high black hat, whom I +immediately recognised as a compatriot. I had often seen him, or his +equivalent, in the hotel parlours of my native land. He apparently +supposed himself to be at the present moment in a hotel parlour; his +hat was on his head, or, rather, half off it--pushed back from his +forehead, and rather suspended than poised. He stood before a table +on which old newspapers were scattered, one of which he had taken up +and, with his eye-glass on his nose, was holding out at arm's-length. +It was that honourable but extremely diminutive sheet, the Journal de +Geneve, a newspaper of about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. As I +drew near, looking for my Galignani, the tall gentleman gave me, over +the top of his eye-glass, a somewhat solemn stare. Presently, +however, before I had time to lay my hand on the object of my search, +he silently offered me the Journal de Geneve. + +"It appears," he said, "to be the paper of the country." + +"Yes," I answered, "I believe it's the best." + +He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm's-length, as if it had +been a looking-glass. "Well," he said, "I suppose it's natural a +small country should have small papers. You could wrap it up, +mountains and all, in one of our dailies!" + +I found my Galignani, and went off with it into the garden, where I +seated myself on a bench in the shade. Presently I saw the tall +gentleman in the hat appear in one of the open windows of the salon, +and stand there with his hands in his pockets and his legs a little +apart. He looked very much bored, and--I don't know why--I +immediately began to feel sorry for him. He was not at all a +picturesque personage; he looked like a jaded, faded man of business. +But after a little he came into the garden and began to stroll about; +and then his restless, unoccupied carriage, and the vague, +unacquainted manner in which his eyes wandered over the place, seemed +to make it proper that, as an older resident, I should exercise a +certain hospitality. I said something to him, and he came and sat +down beside me on my bench, clasping one of his long knees in his +hands. + +"When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off?" he inquired. +"That's what I call it--the little breakfast and the big breakfast. +I never thought I should live to see the time when I should care to +eat two breakfasts. But a man's glad to do anything over here." + +"For myself," I observed, "I find plenty to do." + +He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, deliberate, kind- +looking eye. "You're getting used to the life, are you?" + +"I like the life very much," I answered, laughing. + +"How long have you tried it?" + +"Do you mean in this place?" + +"Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty much the same all +over." + +"I have been in this house only a fortnight," I said. + +"Well, what should you say, from what you have seen?" my companion +asked. + +"Oh," said I, "you can see all there is immediately. It's very +simple." + +"Sweet simplicity, eh? I'm afraid my two ladies will find it too +simple." + +"Everything is very good," I went on. "And Madame Beaurepas is a +charming old woman. And then it's very cheap." + +"Cheap, is it?" my friend repeated meditatively. + +"Doesn't it strike you so?" I asked. I thought it very possible he +had not inquired the terms. But he appeared not to have heard me; he +sat there, clasping his knee and blinking, in a contemplative manner, +at the sunshine. + +"Are you from the United States, sir?" he presently demanded, turning +his head again. + +"Yes, sir," I replied; and I mentioned the place of my nativity. + +"I presumed," he said, "that you were American or English. I'm from +the United States myself; from New York city. Many of our people +here?" + +"Not so many as, I believe, there have sometimes been. There are two +or three ladies." + +"Well," my interlocutor declared, "I am very fond of ladies' society. +I think when it's superior there's nothing comes up to it. I've got +two ladies here myself; I must make you acquainted with them." + +I rejoined that I should be delighted, and I inquired of my friend +whether he had been long in Europe. + +"Well, it seems precious long," he said, "but my time's not up yet. +We have been here fourteen weeks and a half." + +"Are you travelling for pleasure?" I asked. + +My companion turned his head again and looked at me--looked at me so +long in silence that I at last also turned and met his eyes. + +"No, sir," he said presently. "No, sir," he repeated, after a +considerable interval. + +"Excuse me," said I, for there was something so solemn in his tone +that I feared I had been indiscreet. + +He took no notice of my ejaculation; he simply continued to look at +me. "I'm travelling," he said, at last, "to please the doctors. +They seemed to think they would like it." + +"Ah, they sent you abroad for your health?" + +"They sent me abroad because they were so confoundedly muddled they +didn't know what else to do." + +"That's often the best thing," I ventured to remark. + +"It was a confession of weakness; they wanted me to stop plaguing +them. They didn't know enough to cure me, and that's the way they +thought they would get round it. I wanted to be cured--I didn't want +to be transported. I hadn't done any harm." + +I assented to the general proposition of the inefficiency of doctors, +and asked my companion if he had been seriously ill. + +"I didn't sleep," he said, after some delay. + +"Ah, that's very annoying. I suppose you were overworked." + +"I didn't eat; I took no interest in my food." + +"Well, I hope you both eat and sleep now," I said. + +"I couldn't hold a pen," my neighbour went on. "I couldn't sit +still. I couldn't walk from my house to the cars--and it's only a +little way. I lost my interest in business." + +"You needed a holiday," I observed. + +"That's what the doctors said. It wasn't so very smart of them. I +had been paying strict attention to business for twenty-three years." + +"In all that time you have never had a holiday?" I exclaimed with +horror. + +My companion waited a little. "Sundays," he said at last. + +"No wonder, then, you were out of sorts." + +"Well, sir," said my friend, "I shouldn't have been where I was three +years ago if I had spent my time travelling round Europe. I was in a +very advantageous position. I did a very large business. I was +considerably interested in lumber." He paused, turned his head, and +looked at me a moment. "Have you any business interests yourself?" +I answered that I had none, and he went on again, slowly, softly, +deliberately. "Well, sir, perhaps you are not aware that business in +the United States is not what it was a short time since. Business +interests are very insecure. There seems to be a general falling- +off. Different parties offer different explanations of the fact, but +so far as I am aware none of their observations have set things going +again." I ingeniously intimated that if business was dull, the time +was good for coming away; whereupon my neighbour threw back his head +and stretched his legs a while. "Well, sir, that's one view of the +matter certainly. There's something to be said for that. These +things should be looked at all round. That's the ground my wife +took. That's the ground," he added in a moment, "that a lady would +naturally take;" and he gave a little dry laugh. + +"You think it's slightly illogical," I remarked. + +"Well, sir, the ground I took was, that the worse a man's business +is, the more it requires looking after. I shouldn't want to go out +to take a walk--not even to go to church--if my house was on fire. +My firm is not doing the business it was; it's like a sick child, it +requires nursing. What I wanted the doctors to do was to fix me up, +so that I could go on at home. I'd have taken anything they'd have +given me, and as many times a day. I wanted to be right there; I had +my reasons; I have them still. But I came off all the same," said my +friend, with a melancholy smile. + +I was a great deal younger than he, but there was something so simple +and communicative in his tone, so expressive of a desire to +fraternise, and so exempt from any theory of human differences, that +I quite forgot his seniority, and found myself offering him paternal +I advice. "Don't think about all that," said I. "Simply enjoy +yourself, amuse yourself, get well. Travel about and see Europe. At +the end of a year, by the time you are ready to go home, things will +have improved over there, and you will be quite well and happy." + +My friend laid his hand on my knee; he looked at me for some moments, +and I thought he was going to say, "You are very young!" But he said +presently, "YOU have got used to Europe any way!" + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + +At breakfast I encountered his ladies--his wife and daughter. They +were placed, however, at a distance from me, and it was not until the +pensionnaires had dispersed, and some of them, according to custom, +had come out into the garden, that he had an opportunity of making me +acquainted with them. + +"Will you allow me to introduce you to my daughter?" he said, moved +apparently by a paternal inclination to provide this young lady with +social diversion. She was standing with her mother, in one of the +paths, looking about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at the +homely characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeonneau was +hovering near, hesitating apparently between the desire to be urbane +and the absence of a pretext. "Mrs. Ruck--Miss Sophy Ruck," said my +friend, leading me up. + +Mrs. Ruck was a large, plump, light-coloured person, with a smooth +fair face, a somnolent eye, and an elaborate coiffure. Miss Sophy +was a girl of one-and-twenty, very small and very pretty--what I +suppose would have been called a lively brunette. Both of these +ladies were attired in black silk dresses, very much trimmed; they +had an air of the highest elegance. + +"Do you think highly of this pension?" inquired Mrs. Ruck, after a +few preliminaries. + +"It's a little rough, but it seems to me comfortable," I answered. + +"Does it take a high rank in Geneva?" Mrs. Ruck pursued. + +"I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame," I said, smiling. + +"I should never dream of comparing it to a New York boarding-house," +said Mrs. Ruck. + +"It's quite a different style," her daughter observed. + +Miss Ruck had folded her arms; she was holding her elbows with a pair +of white little hands, and she was tapping the ground with a pretty +little foot. + +"We hardly expected to come to a pension," said Mrs. Ruck. "But we +thought we would try; we had heard so much about Swiss pensions. I +was saying to Mr. Ruck that I wondered whether this was a favourable +specimen. I was afraid we might have made a mistake." + +"We knew some people who had been here; they thought everything of +Madame Beaurepas," said Miss Sophy. "They said she was a real +friend." + +"Mr. and Mrs. Parker--perhaps you have heard her speak of them," Mrs. +Ruck pursued. + +"Madame Beaurepas has had a great many Americans; she is very fond of +Americans," I replied. + +"Well, I must say I should think she would be, if she compares them +with some others." + +"Mother is always comparing," observed Miss Ruck. + +"Of course I am always comparing," rejoined the elder lady. "I never +had a chance till now; I never knew my privileges. Give me an +American!" And Mrs. Ruck indulged in a little laugh. + +"Well, I must say there are some things I like over here," said Miss +Sophy, with courage. And indeed I could see that she was a young +woman of great decision. + +"You like the shops--that's what you like," her father affirmed. + +The young lady addressed herself to me, without heeding this remark. +"I suppose you feel quite at home here." + +"Oh, he likes it; he has got used to the life!" exclaimed Mr. Ruck. + +"I wish you'd teach Mr. Ruck," said his wife. "It seems as if he +couldn't get used to anything." + +"I'm used to you, my dear," the husband retorted, giving me a +humorous look. + +"He's intensely restless," continued Mrs. Ruck. + +"That's what made me want to come to a pension. I thought he would +settle down more." + +"I don't think I AM used to you, after all," said her husband. + +In view of a possible exchange of conjugal repartee I took refuge in +conversation with Miss Ruck, who seemed perfectly able to play her +part in any colloquy. I learned from this young lady that, with her +parents, after visiting the British Islands, she had been spending a +month in Paris, and that she thought she should have died when she +left that city. "I hung out of the carriage, when we left the +hotel," said Miss Ruck, "I assure you I did. And mother did, too." + +"Out of the other window, I hope," said I. + +"Yes, one out of each window," she replied promptly. "Father had +hard work, I can tell you. We hadn't half finished; there were ever +so many places we wanted to go to." + +"Your father insisted on coming away?" + +"Yes; after we had been there about a month he said he had enough. +He's fearfully restless; he's very much out of health. Mother and I +said to him that if he was restless in Paris he needn't hope for +peace anywhere. We don't mean to leave him alone till he takes us +back." There was an air of keen resolution in Miss Ruck's pretty +face, of lucid apprehension of desirable ends, which made me, as she +pronounced these words, direct a glance of covert compassion toward +her poor recalcitrant father. He had walked away a little with his +wife, and I saw only his back and his stooping, patient-looking +shoulders, whose air of acute resignation was thrown into relief by +the voluminous tranquillity of Mrs. Ruck. "He will have to take us +back in September, any way," the young girl pursued; "he will have to +take us back to get some things we have ordered." + +"Have you ordered a great many things?" I asked jocosely. + +"Well, I guess we have ordered SOME. Of course we wanted to take +advantage of being in Paris--ladies always do. We have left the +principal things till we go back. Of course that is the principal +interest, for ladies. Mother said she should feel so shabby if she +just passed through. We have promised all the people to be back in +September, and I never broke a promise yet. So Mr. Ruck has got to +make his plans accordingly." + +"And what are his plans?" + +"I don't know; he doesn't seem able to make any. His great idea was +to get to Geneva; but now that he has got here he doesn't seem to +care. It's the effect of ill health. He used to be so bright; but +now he is quite subdued. It's about time he should improve, any way. +We went out last night to look at the jewellers' windows--in that +street behind the hotel. I had always heard of those jewellers' +windows. We saw some lovely things, but it didn't seem to rouse +father. He'll get tired of Geneva sooner than he did of Paris." + +"Ah," said I, "there are finer things here than the jewellers' +windows. We are very near some of the most beautiful scenery in +Europe." + +"I suppose you mean the mountains. Well, we have seen plenty of +mountains at home. We used to go to the mountains every summer. We +are familiar enough with the mountains. Aren't we, mother?" the +young lady demanded, appealing to Mrs. Ruck, who, with her husband, +had drawn near again. + +"Aren't we what?" inquired the elder lady. + +"Aren't we familiar with the mountains?" + +"Well, I hope so," said Mrs. Ruck. + +Mr. Ruck, with his hands in his pockets, gave me a sociable wink.-- +"There's nothing much you can tell them!" he said. + +The two ladies stood face to face a few moments, surveying each +other's garments. "Don't you want to go out?" the young girl at last +inquired of her mother. + +"Well, I think we had better; we have got to go up to that place." + +"To what place?" asked Mr. Ruck. + +"To that jeweller's--to that big one." + +"They all seemed big enough; they were too big!" And Mr. Ruck gave +me another wink. + +"That one where we saw the blue cross," said his daughter. + +"Oh, come, what do you want of that blue cross?" poor Mr. Ruck +demanded. + +"She wants to hang it on a black velvet ribbon and tie it round her +neck," said his wife. + +"A black velvet ribbon? No, I thank you!" cried the young lady. "Do +you suppose I would wear that cross on a black velvet ribbon? On a +nice little gold chain, if you please--a little narrow gold chain, +like an old-fashioned watch-chain. That's the proper thing for that +blue cross. I know the sort of chain I mean; I'm going to look for +one. When I want a thing," said Miss Ruck, with decision, "I can +generally find it." + +"Look here, Sophy," her father urged, "you don't want that blue +cross." + +"I do want it--I happen to want it." And Sophy glanced at me with a +little laugh. + +Her laugh, which in itself was pretty, suggested that there were +various relations in which one might stand to Miss Ruck; but I think +I was conscious of a certain satisfaction in not occupying the +paternal one. "Don't worry the poor child," said her mother. + +"Come on, mother," said Miss Ruck. + +"We are going to look about a little," explained the elder lady to +me, by way of taking leave. + +"I know what that means," remarked Mr. Ruck, as his companions moved +away. He stood looking at them a moment, while he raised his hand to +his head, behind, and stood rubbing it a little, with a movement that +displaced his hat. (I may remark in parenthesis that I never saw a +hat more easily displaced than Mr. Ruck's.) I supposed he was going +to say something querulous, but I was mistaken. Mr. Ruck was +unhappy, but he was very good-natured. "Well, they want to pick up +something," he said. "That's the principal interest, for ladies." + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + +Mr. Ruck distinguished me, as the French say. He honoured me with +his esteem, and, as the days elapsed, with a large portion of his +confidence. Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his +conversation was not cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively +to a melancholy dirge over the financial prostration of our common +country. "No, sir, business in the United States is not what it once +was," he found occasion to remark several times a day. "There's not +the same spring--there's not the same hopeful feeling. You can see +it in all departments." He used to sit by the hour in the little +garden of the pension, with a roll of American newspapers in his lap +and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of his long legs and +reading the New York Herald. He paid a daily visit to the American +banker's, on the other side of the Rhone, and remained there a long +time, turning over the old papers on the green velvet table in the +middle of the Salon des Etrangers, and fraternising with chance +compatriots. But in spite of these diversions his time hung heavily +upon his hands. I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk; +but he had a mortal horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own +taste for it as' a morbid form of activity. "You'll kill yourself, +if you don't look out," he said, "walking all over the country. I +don't want to walk round that way; I ain't a postman!" Briefly +speaking, Mr. Ruck had few resources. His wife and daughter, on the +other hand, it was to be supposed, were possessed of a good many that +could not be apparent to an unobtrusive young man. They also sat a +great deal in the garden or in the salon, side by side, with folded +hands, contemplating material objects, and were remarkably +independent of most of the usual feminine aids to idleness--light +literature, tapestry, the use of the piano. They were, however, much +fonder of locomotion than their companion, and I often met them in +the Rue du Rhone and on the quays, loitering in front of the +jewellers' windows. They might have had a cavalier in the person of +old M. Pigeonneau, who possessed a high appreciation of their charms, +but who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was deprived of the +pleasures of intimacy. He knew no English, and Mrs. Ruck and her +daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable mistrust of the beautiful +tongue which, as the old man endeavoured to impress upon them, was +pre-eminently the language of conversation. + +"They have a tournure de princesse--a distinction supreme," he said +to me. "One is surprised to find them in a little pension, at seven +francs a day." + +"Oh, they don't come for economy," I answered. "They must be rich." + +"They don't come for my beaux yeux--for mine," said M. Pigeonneau, +sadly. "Perhaps it's for yours, young man. Je vous recommande la +mere." + +I reflected a moment. "They came on account of Mr. Ruck--because at +hotels he's so restless." + +M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. "Of course he is, with such a +wife as that--a femme superbe. Madame Ruck is preserved in +perfection--a miraculous fraicheur. I like those large, fair, quiet +women; they are often, dans l'intimite, the most agreeable. I'll +warrant you that at heart Madame Ruck is a finished coquette." + +"I rather doubt it," I said. + +"You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez pas!" + +"It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake." + +"You young Americans are droll," said M. Pigeonneau; "you never have +anything at stake! But the little one, for example; I'll warrant you +she's not cold. She is admirably made." + +"She is very pretty." + +"'She is very pretty!' Vous dites cela d'un ton! When you pay +compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, I hope that's not the way you do +it." + +"I don't pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck." + +"Ah, decidedly," said M. Pigeonneau, "you young Americans are droll!" + +I should have suspected that these two ladies would not especially +commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a maitresse de salon, +which she in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them +wanting in a certain flexibility of deportment. But I should have +gone quite wrong; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with +her new pensionnaires. "I have no observation whatever to make about +them," she said to me one evening. "I see nothing in those ladies +which is at all deplace. They don't complain of anything; they don't +meddle; they take what's given them; they leave me tranquil. The +Americans are often like that. Often, but not always," Madame +Beaurepas pursued. "We are to have a specimen to-morrow of a very +different sort." + +"An American?" I inquired. + +"Two Americaines--a mother and a daughter. There are Americans and +Americans: when you are difficiles, you are more so than any one, +and when you have pretensions--ah, per exemple, it's serious. I +foresee that with this little lady everything will be serious, +beginning with her cafe au lait. She has been staying at the Pension +Chamousset--my concurrent, you know, farther up the street; but she +is coming away because the coffee is bad. She holds to her coffee, +it appears. I don't know what liquid Madame Chamousset may have +invented, but we will do the best we can for her. Only, I know she +will make me des histoires about something else. She will demand a +new lamp for the salon; vous alles voir cela. She wishes to pay but +eleven francs a day for herself and her daughter, tout compris; and +for their eleven francs they expect to be lodged like princesses. +But she is very 'ladylike'--isn't that what you call it in English? +Oh, pour cela, she is ladylike!" + +I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this ladylike person, who was +arriving at her new residence as I came in from a walk. She had come +in a cab, with her daughter and her luggage; and, with an air of +perfect softness and serenity, she was disputing the fare as she +stood among her boxes, on the steps. She addressed her cabman in a +very English accent, but with extreme precision and correctness. "I +wish to be perfectly reasonable, but I don't wish to encourage you in +exorbitant demands. With a franc and a half you are sufficiently +paid. It is not the custom at Geneva to give a pour-boire for so +short a drive. I have made inquiries, and I find it is not the +custom, even in the best families. I am a stranger, yes, but I +always adopt the custom of the native families. I think it my duty +toward the natives." + +"But I am a native, too, moi!" said the cabman, with an angry laugh. + +"You seem to me to speak with a German accent," continued the lady. +"You are probably from Basel. A franc and a half is sufficient. I +see you have left behind the little red bag which I asked you to hold +between your knees; you will please to go back to the other house and +get it. Very well, if you are impolite I will make a complaint of +you to-morrow at the administration. Aurora, you will find a pencil +in the outer pocket of my embroidered satchel; please to write down +his number,--87; do you see it distinctly?--in case we should forget +it." + +The young lady addressed as "Aurora"--a slight, fair girl, holding a +large parcel of umbrellas--stood at hand while this allocution went +forward, but she apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking +about her, in a listless manner, at the front of the house, at the +corridor, at Celestine tucking up her apron in the doorway, at me as +I passed in amid the disseminated luggage; her mother's parsimonious +attitude seeming to produce in Miss Aurora neither sympathy nor +embarrassment. At dinner the two ladies were placed on the same side +of the table as myself, below Mrs. Ruck and her daughter, my own +position being on the right of Mr. Ruck. I had therefore little +observation of Mrs. Church--such I learned to be her name--but I +occasionally heard her soft, distinct voice. + +"White wine, if you please; we prefer white wine. There is none on +the table? Then you will please to get some, and to remember to +place a bottle of it always here, between my daughter and myself." + +"That lady seems to know what she wants," said Mr. Ruck, "and she +speaks so I can understand her. I can't understand every one, over +here. I should like to make that lady's acquaintance. Perhaps she +knows what _I_ want, too; it seems hard to find out. But I don't +want any of their sour white wine; that's one of the things I don't +want. I expect she'll be an addition to the pension." + +Mr. Ruck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church that evening in the +parlour, being presented to her by his wife, who presumed on the +rights conferred upon herself by the mutual proximity, at table, of +the two ladies. I suspected that in Mrs. Church's view Mrs. Ruck +presumed too far. The fugitive from the Pension Chamousset, as M. +Pigeonneau called her, was a little fresh, plump, comely woman, +looking less than her age, with a round, bright, serious face. She +was very simply and frugally dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. +Ruck's companions, and she had an air of quiet distinction which was +an excellent defensive weapon. She exhibited a polite disposition to +listen to what Mr. Ruck might have to say, but her manner was +equivalent to an intimation that what she valued least in boarding- +house life was its social opportunities. She had placed herself near +a lamp, after carefully screwing it and turning it up, and she had +opened in her lap, with the assistance of a large embroidered marker, +an octavo volume, which I perceived to be in German. To Mrs. Ruck +and her daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her economical +attire and her expensive culture. The two younger ladies, however, +had begun to fraternise very freely, and Miss Ruck presently went +wandering out of the room with her arm round the waist of Miss +Church. It was a very warm evening; the long windows of the salon +stood wide open into the garden, and, inspired by the balmy darkness, +M. Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beaurepas, a most obliging little +woman, who lisped and always wore a huge cravat, declared they would +organise a fete de nuit. They engaged in this undertaking, and the +fete developed itself, consisting of half-a-dozen red paper lanterns, +hung about on the trees, and of several glasses of sirop, carried on +a tray by the stout-armed Celestine. As the festival deepened to its +climax I went out into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau was master of +ceremonies. + +"But where are those charming young ladies," he cried, "Miss Ruck and +the new-comer, l'aimable transfuge? Their absence has been remarked, +and they are wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. Voyez I have +selected a glass of syrup--a generous glass--for Mademoiselle Ruck, +and I advise you, my young friend, if you wish to make a good +impression, to put aside one which you may offer to the other young +lady. What is her name? Miss Church. I see; it's a singular name. +There is a church in which I would willingly worship!" + +Mr. Ruck presently came out of the salon, having concluded his +interview with Mrs. Church. Through the open window I saw the latter +lady sitting under the lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. Ruck, +established, empty-handed, in an arm-chair near her, gazed at her +with an air of fascination. + +"Well, I told you she would know what I want," said Mr. Ruck. "She +says I want to go up to Appenzell, wherever that is; that I want to +drink whey and live in a high latitude--what did she call it?--a high +altitude. She seemed to think we ought to leave for Appenzell to- +morrow; she'd got it all fixed. She says this ain't a high enough +lat--a high enough altitude. And she says I mustn't go too high +either; that would be just as bad; she seems to know just the right +figure. She says she'll give me a list of the hotels where we must +stop, on the way to Appenzell. I asked her if she didn't want to go +with as, but she says she'd rather sit still and read. I expect +she's a big reader." + +The daughter of this accomplished woman now reappeared, in company +with Miss Ruck, with whom she had been strolling through the outlying +parts of the garden. + +"Well," said Miss Ruck, glancing at the red paper lanterns, "are they +trying to stick the flower-pots into the trees?" + +"It's an illumination in honour of our arrival," the other young girl +rejoined. "It's a triumph over Madame Chamousset." + +"Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset," I ventured to suggest, "they +have put out their lights; they are sitting in darkness, lamenting +your departure." + +She looked at me, smiling; she was standing in the light that came +from the house. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, who had been awaiting his +chance, advanced to Miss Ruck with his glass of syrup. "I have kept +it for you, Mademoiselle," he said; "I have jealously guarded it. It +is very delicious!" + +Miss Ruck looked at him and his syrup, without any motion to take the +glass. "Well, I guess it's sour," she said in a moment; and she gave +a little shake of her head. + +M. Pigeonneau stood staring with his syrup in his hand; then he +slowly turned away. He looked about at the rest of us, as if to +appeal from Miss Ruck's insensibility, and went to deposit his +rejected tribute on a bench. + +"Won't you give it to me?" asked Miss Church, in faultless French. +"J'adore le sirop, moi." + +M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and presented the glass with a +very low bow. "I adore good manners," murmured the old man. + +This incident caused me to look at Miss Church with quickened +interest. She was not strikingly pretty, but in her charming +irregular face there was something brilliant and ardent. Like her +mother, she was very simply dressed. + +"She wants to go to America, and her mother won't let her," said Miss +Sophy to me, explaining her companion's situation. + +"I am very sorry--for America," I answered, laughing. + +"Well, I don't want to say anything against your mother, but I think +it's shameful," Miss Ruck pursued. + +"Mamma has very good reasons; she will tell you them all." + +"Well, I'm sure I don't want to hear them," said Miss Ruck. "You +have got a right to go to your own country; every one has a right to +go to their own country." + +"Mamma is not very patriotic," said Aurora Church, smiling. + +"Well, I call that dreadful," her companion declared. "I have heard +that there are some Americans like that, but I never believed it." + +"There are all sorts of Americans," I said, laughing. + +"Aurora's one of the right sort," rejoined Miss Ruck, who had +apparently become very intimate with her new friend. + +"Are you very patriotic?" I asked of the young girl. + +"She's right down homesick," said Miss Sophy; "she's dying to go. If +I were you my mother would have to take me." + +"Mamma is going to take me to Dresden." + +"Well, I declare I never heard of anything so dreadful!" cried Miss +Ruck. "It's like something in a story." + +"I never heard there was anything very dreadful in Dresden," I +interposed. + +Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. "Well, I don't believe YOU are a +good American," she replied, "and I never supposed you were. You had +better go in there and talk to Mrs. Church." + +"Dresden is really very nice, isn't it?" I asked of her companion. + +"It isn't nice if you happen to prefer New York," said Miss Sophy. +"Miss Church prefers New York. Tell him you are dying to see New +York; it will make him angry," she went on. + +"I have no desire to make him angry," said Aurora, smiling. + +"It is only Miss Ruck who can do that," I rejoined. "Have you been a +long time in Europe?" + +"Always." + +"I call that wicked!" Miss Sophy declared. + +"You might be in a worse place," I continued. "I find Europe very +interesting." + +Miss Ruck gave a little laugh. "I was saying that you wanted to pass +for a European." + +"Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian." + +Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. "Well, you had better not come +home," she said. "No one will speak to you." + +"Were you born in these countries?" I asked of her companion. + +"Oh, no; I came to Europe when I was a small child. But I remember +America a little, and it seems delightful." + +"Wait till you see it again. It's just too lovely," said Miss Sophy. + +"It's the grandest country in the world," I added. + +Miss Ruck began to toss her head. "Come away, my dear," she said. +"If there's a creature I despise it's a man that tries to say funny +things about his own country." + +"Don't you think one can be tired of Europe?" Aurora asked, +lingering. + +"Possibly--after many years." + +"Father was tired of it after three weeks," said Miss Ruck. + +"I have been here sixteen years," her friend went on, looking at me +with a charming intentness, as if she had a purpose in speaking. "It +used to be for my education. I don't know what it's for now." + +"She's beautifully educated," said Miss Ruck. "She knows four +languages." + +"I am not very sure that I know English." + +"You should go to Boston!" cried Miss Sophy. "They speak splendidly +in Boston." + +"C'est mon reve," said Aurora, still looking at me. + +"Have you been all over Europe," I asked--"in all the different +countries?" + +She hesitated a moment. "Everywhere that there's a pension. Mamma +is devoted to pensions. We have lived, at one time or another, in +every pension in Europe." + +"Well, I should think you had seen about enough," said Miss Ruck. + +"It's a delightful way of seeing Europe," Aurora rejoined, with her +brilliant smile. "You may imagine how it has attached me to the +different countries. I have such charming souvenirs! There is a +pension awaiting us now at Dresden,--eight francs a day, without +wine. That's rather dear. Mamma means to make them give us wine. +Mamma is a great authority on pensions; she is known, that way, all +over Europe. Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at +Piacenza,--four francs a day. We made economies." + +"Your mother doesn't seem to mingle much," observed Miss Ruck, +glancing through the window at the scholastic attitude of Mrs. +Church. + +"No, she doesn't mingle, except in the native society. Though she +lives in pensions, she detests them." + +"Why does she live in them, then?" asked Miss Sophy, rather +resentfully. + +"Oh, because we are so poor; it's the cheapest way to live. We have +tried having a cook, but the cook always steals. Mamma used to set +me to watch her; that's the way I passed my jeunesse--my belle +jeunesse. We are frightfully poor," the young girl went on, with the +same strange frankness--a curious mixture of girlish grace and +conscious cynicism. "Nous n'avons pas le sou. That's one of the +reasons we don't go back to America; mamma says we can't afford to +live there." + +"Well, any one can see that you're an American girl," Miss Ruck +remarked, in a consolatory manner. "I can tell an American girl a +mile off. You've got the American style." + +"I'm afraid I haven't the American toilette," said Aurora, looking at +the other's superior splendour. + +"Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that." + +"Yes," said Aurora, with a laugh, "my dress was cut in France--at +Avranches." + +"Well, you've got a lovely figure, any way," pursued her companion. + +"Ah," said the young girl, "at Avranches, too, my figure was +admired." And she looked at me askance, with a certain coquetry. +But I was an innocent youth, and I only looked back at her, +wondering. She was a great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss +Ruck would not have said that. "I try to be like an American girl," +she continued; "I do my best, though mamma doesn't at all encourage +it. I am very patriotic. I try to copy them, though mamma has +brought me up a la francaise; that is, as much as one can in +pensions. For instance, I have never been out of the house without +mamma; oh, never, never. But sometimes I despair; American girls are +so wonderfully frank. I can't be frank, like that. I am always +afraid. But I do what I can, as you see. Excusez du peu!" + +I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as most of her +unexpatriated sisters; there was something almost comical in her +despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the +American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination; +there was something dainty about it, and yet it was decidedly +audacious. + +The young ladies began to stroll about the garden again, and I +enjoyed their society until M. Pigeonneau's festival came to an end. + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + +Mr. Ruck did not take his departure for Appenzell on the morrow, in +spite of the eagerness to witness such an event which he had +attributed to Mrs. Church. He continued, on the contrary, for many +days after, to hang about the garden, to wander up to the banker's +and back again, to engage in desultory conversation with his fellow- +boarders, and to endeavour to assuage his constitutional restlessness +by perusal of the American journals. But on the morrow I had the +honour of making Mrs. Church's acquaintance. She came into the +salon, after the midday breakfast, with her German octavo under her +arm, and she appealed to me for assistance in selecting a quiet +corner. + +"Would you very kindly," she said, "move that large fauteuil a little +more this way? Not the largest; the one with the little cushion. +The fauteuils here are very insufficient; I must ask Madame Beaurepas +for another. Thank you; a little more to the left, please; that will +do. Are you particularly engaged?" she inquired, after she had +seated herself. "If not, I should like to have some conversation +with you. It is some time since I have met a young American of your- +-what shall I call it?--your affiliations. I have learned your name +from Madame Beaurepas; I think I used to know some of your people. I +don't know what has become of all my friends. I used to have a +charming little circle at home, but now I meet no one I know. Don't +you think there is a great difference between the people one meets +and the people one would like to meet? Fortunately, sometimes," +added my interlocutress graciously, "it's quite the same. I suppose +you are a specimen, a favourable specimen," she went on, "of young +America. Tell me, now, what is young America thinking of in these +days of ours? What are its feelings, its opinions, its aspirations? +What is its IDEAL?" I had seated myself near Mrs. Church, and she +had pointed this interrogation with the gaze of her bright little +eyes. I felt it embarrassing to be treated as a favourable specimen +of young America, and to be expected to answer for the great +republic. Observing my hesitation, Mrs. Church clasped her hands on +the open page of her book and gave an intense, melancholy smile. +"HAS it an ideal?" she softly asked. "Well, we must talk of this," +she went on, without insisting. "Speak, for the present, for +yourself simply. Have you come to Europe with any special design?" + +"Nothing to boast of," I said. "I am studying a little." + +"Ah, I am glad to hear that. You are gathering up a little European +culture; that's what we lack, you know, at home. No individual can +do much, of coarse. But you must not be discouraged; every little +counts." + +"I see that you, at least, are doing your part," I rejoined +gallantly, dropping my eyes on my companion's learned volume. + +"Yes, I frankly admit that I am fond of study. There is no one, +after all, like the Germans. That is, for facts. For opinions I by +no means always go with them. I form my opinions myself. I am sorry +to say, however," Mrs. Church continued, "that I can hardly pretend +to diffuse my acquisitions. I am afraid I am sadly selfish; I do +little to irrigate the soil. I belong--I frankly confess it--to the +class of absentees." + +"I had the pleasure, last evening," I said, "of making the +acquaintance of your daughter. She told me you had been a long time +in Europe." + +Mrs. Church smiled benignantly. "Can one ever be too long? We shall +never leave it." + +"Your daughter won't like that," I said, smiling too. + +"Has she been taking you into her confidence? She is a more sensible +young lady than she sometimes appears. I have taken great pains with +her; she is really--I may be permitted to say it--superbly educated." + +"She seemed to me a very charming girl," I rejoined. "And I learned +that she speaks four languages." + +"It is not only that," said Mrs. Church, in a tone which suggested +that this might be a very superficial species of culture. "She has +made what we call de fortes etudes--such as I suppose you are making +now. She is familiar with the results of modern science; she keeps +pace with the new historical school." + +"Ah," said I, "she has gone much farther than I!" + +"You doubtless think I exaggerate, and you force me, therefore, to +mention the fact that I am able to speak of such matters with a +certain intelligence." + +"That is very evident," I said. "But your daughter thinks you ought +to take her home." I began to fear, as soon as I had uttered these +words, that they savoured of treachery to the young lady, but I was +reassured by seeing that they produced on her mother's placid +countenance no symptom whatever of irritation. + +"My daughter has her little theories," Mrs. Church observed; "she +has, I may say, her illusions. And what wonder! What would youth be +without its illusions? Aurora has a theory that she would be happier +in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, than in one of the charming +old cities in which our lot is cast. But she is mistaken, that is +all. We must allow our children their illusions, must we not? But +we must watch over them." + +Although she herself seemed proof against discomposure, I found +something vaguely irritating in her soft, sweet positiveness. + +"American cities," I said, "are the paradise of young girls." + +"Do you mean," asked Mrs. Church, "that the young girls who come from +those places are angels?" + +"Yes," I said, resolutely. + +"This young lady--what is her odd name?--with whom my daughter has +formed a somewhat precipitate acquaintance: is Miss Ruck an angel? +But I won't force you to say anything uncivil. It would be too cruel +to make a single exception." + +"Well," said I, "at any rate, in America young girls have an easier +lot. They have much more liberty." + +My companion laid her hand for an instant on my arm. "My dear young +friend, I know America, I know the conditions of life there, so well. +There is perhaps no subject on which I have reflected more than on +our national idiosyncrasies." + +"I am afraid you don't approve of them," said I, a little brutally. + +Brutal indeed my proposition was, and Mrs. Church was not prepared to +assent to it in this rough shape. She dropped her eyes on her book, +with an air of acute meditation. Then, raising them, "We are very +crude," she softly observed--"we are very crude." Lest even this +delicately-uttered statement should seem to savour of the vice that +she deprecated, she went on to explain. "There are two classes of +minds, you know--those that hold back, and those that push forward. +My daughter and I are not pushers; we move with little steps. We +like the old, trodden paths; we like the old, old world." + +"Ah," said I, "you know what you like; there is a great virtue in +that." + +"Yes, we like Europe; we prefer it. We like the opportunities of +Europe; we like the REST. There is so much in that, you know. The +world seems to me to be hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, +without knowing where it is going. 'Whither?' I often ask, in my +little quiet way. But I have yet to learn that any one can tell me." + +"You're a great conservative," I observed, while I wondered whether I +myself could answer this inquiry. + +Mrs. Church gave me a smile which was equivalent to a confession. "I +wish to retain a LITTLE--just a little. Surely, we have done so +much, we might rest a while; we might pause. That is all my feeling- +-just to stop a little, to wait! I have seen so many changes. I wish +to draw in, to draw in--to hold back, to hold back." + +"You shouldn't hold your daughter back!" I answered, laughing and +getting up. I got up, not by way of terminating our interview, for I +perceived Mrs. Church's exposition of her views to be by no means +complete, but in order to offer a chair to Miss Aurora, who at this +moment drew near. She thanked me and remained standing, but without +at first, as I noticed, meeting her mother's eye. + +"You have been engaged with your new acquaintance, my dear?" this +lady inquired. + +"Yes, mamma, dear," said the young girl, gently. + +"Do you find her very edifying?" + +Aurora was silent a moment; then she looked at her mother. "I don't +know, mamma; she is very fresh." + +I ventured to indulge in a respectful laugh. "Your mother has +another word for that. But I must not," I added, "be crude." + +"Ah, vous m'en voulez?" inquired Mrs. Church. "And yet I can't +pretend I said it in jest. I feel it too much. We have been having +a little social discussion," she said to her daughter. "There is +still so much to be said." "And I wish," she continued, turning to +me, "that I could give you our point of view. Don't you wish, +Aurora, that we could give him our point of view?" + +"Yes, mamma," said Aurora. + +"We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point of view, don't we, +dearest?" mamma demanded. + +"Very fortunate, indeed, mamma." + +"You see we have acquired an insight into European life," the elder +lady pursued. "We have our place at many a European fireside. We +find so much to esteem--so much to enjoy. Do we not, my daughter?" + +"So very much, mamma," the young girl went on, with a sort of +inscrutable submissiveness. I wondered at it; it offered so strange +a contrast to the mocking freedom of her tone the night before; but +while I wondered I was careful not to let my perplexity take +precedence of my good manners. + +"I don't know what you ladies may have found at European firesides," +I said, "but there can be very little doubt what you have left +there." + +Mrs. Church got up, to acknowledge my compliment. "We have spent +some charming hours. And that reminds me that we have just now such +an occasion in prospect. We are to call upon some Genevese friends-- +the family of the Pasteur Galopin. They are to go with us to the old +library at the Hotel de Ville, where there are some very interesting +documents of the period of the Reformation; we are promised a glimpse +of some manuscripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, you +know, of Calvin. Here, of course, one can only speak of Calvin under +one's breath, but some day, when we are more private," and Mrs. +Church looked round the room, "I will give you my view of him. I +think it has a touch of originality. Aurora is familiar with, are +you not, my daughter, familiar with my view of Calvin?" + +"Yes, mamma," said Aurora, with docility, while the two ladies went +to prepare for their visit to the Pasteur Galopin. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + +"She has demanded a new lamp; I told you she would!" This +communication was made me by Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later. +"And she has asked for a new tapis de lit, and she has requested me +to provide Celestine with a pair of light shoes. I told her that, as +a general thing, cooks are not shod with satin. That poor +Celestine!" + +"Mrs. Church may be exacting," I said, "but she is a clever little +woman." + +"A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn't be too clever. +C'est deplace. I don't like the type." + +"What type do you call Mrs. Church's?" + +"Mon Dieu," said Madame Beaurepas, "c'est une de ces mamans comme +vous en avez, qui promenent leur fille." + +"She is trying to marry her daughter? I don't think she's of that +sort." + +But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. "She is trying it in +her own way; she does it very quietly. She doesn't want an American; +she wants a foreigner. And she wants a mari serieux. But she is +travelling over Europe in search of one. She would like a +magistrate." + +"A magistrate?" + +"A gros bonnet of some kind; a professor or a deputy." + +"I am very sorry for the poor girl," I said, laughing. + +"You needn't pity her too much; she's a sly thing." + +"Ah, for that, no!" I exclaimed. "She's a charming girl." + +Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. "She has hooked you, eh? But +the mother won't have you." + +I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation. "She's a +charming girl, but she is a little odd. It's a necessity of her +position. She is less submissive to her mother than she has to +pretend to be. That's in self-defence; it's to make her life +possible." + +"She wishes to get away from her mother," continued Madame Beaurepas. +"She wishes to courir les champs." + +"She wishes to go to America, her native country." + +"Precisely. And she will certainly go." + +"I hope so!" I rejoined. + +"Some fine morning--or evening--she will go off with a young man; +probably with a young American." + +"Allons donc!" said I, with disgust. + +"That will be quite America enough," pursued my cynical hostess. "I +have kept a boarding-house for forty years. I have seen that type." + +"Have such things as that happened chez vous?" I asked. + +"Everything has happened chez moi. But nothing has happened more +than once. Therefore this won't happen here. It will be at the next +place they go to, or the next. Besides, here there is no young +American pour la partie--none except you, Monsieur. You are +susceptible, but you are too reasonable." + +"It's lucky for you I am reasonable," I answered. "It's thanks to +that fact that you escape a scolding!" + +One morning, about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at +the pension, after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of +this meal with a fellow-student, at an ancient eating-house in the +collegiate quarter. On separating from my friend, I took my way +along that charming public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a +shady terrace, of immense elevation, overhanging a portion of the +lower town. There are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and +over the tiles and chimneys of the ville basse there is a view of the +snow-crested Alps. On the other side, as you turn your back to the +view, the promenade is overlooked by a row of tall, sober-faced +hotels, the dwellings of the local aristocracy. I was very fond of +the place, and often resorted to it to stimulate my sense of the +picturesque. Presently, as I lingered there on this occasion, I +became aware that a gentleman was seated not far from where I stood, +with his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was brilliant +and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his lap. He was not +reading, however; he was staring before him in gloomy contemplation. +I don't know whether I recognised first the newspaper or its +proprietor; one, in either case, would have helped me to identify the +other. One was the New York Herald; the other, of course, was Mr. +Ruck. As I drew nearer, he transferred his eyes from the stony, +high-featured masks of the gray old houses on the other side of the +terrace, and I knew by the expression of his face just how he had +been feeling about these distinguished abodes. He had made up his +mind that their proprietors were a dusky, narrow-minded, unsociable +company; plunging their roots into a superfluous past. I +endeavoured, therefore, as I sat down beside him, to suggest +something more impersonal. + +"That's a beautiful view of the Alps," I observed. + +"Yes," said Mr. Ruck, without moving, "I've examined it. Fine thing, +in its way--fine thing. Beauties of nature--that sort of thing. We +came up on purpose to look at it." + +"Your ladies, then, have been with you?" + +"Yes; they are just walking round. They're awfully restless. They +keep saying I'm restless, but I'm as quiet as a sleeping child to +them. It takes," he added in a moment, drily, "the form of +shopping." + +"Are they shopping now?" + +"Well, if they ain't, they're trying to. They told me to sit here a +while, and they'd just walk round. I generally know what that means. +But that's the principal interest for ladies," he added, retracting +his irony. "We thought we'd come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs. +Church seemed to think it a dead loss that we shouldn't see the +cathedral, especially as we hadn't seen many yet. And I had to come +up to the banker's any way. Well, we certainly saw the cathedral. I +don't know as we are any the better for it, and I don't know as I +should know it again. But we saw it, any way. I don't know as I +should want to go there regularly; but I suppose it will give us, in +conversation, a kind of hold on Mrs. Church, eh? I guess we want +something of that kind. Well," Mr. Ruck continued, "I stepped in at +the banker's to see if there wasn't something, and they handed me out +a Herald." + +"I hope the Herald is full of good news," I said. + +"Can't say it is. D-d bad news." + +"Political," I inquired, "or commercial?" + +"Oh, hang politics! It's business, sir. There ain't any business. +It's all gone to,"--and Mr. Ruck became profane. "Nine failures in +one day. What do you say-to that?" + +"I hope they haven't injured you," I said. + +"Well, they haven't helped me much. So many houses on fire, that's +all. If they happen to take place in your own street, they don't +increase the value of your property. When mine catches, I suppose +they'll write and tell me--one of these days, when they've got +nothing else to do. I didn't get a blessed letter this morning; I +suppose they think I'm having such a good time over here it's a pity +to disturb me. If I could attend to business for about half an hour, +I'd find out something. But I can't, and it's no use talking. The +state of my health was never so unsatisfactory as it was about five +o'clock this morning." + +"I am very sorry to hear that," I said, "and I recommend you strongly +not to think of business." + +"I don't," Mr. Ruck replied. "I'm thinking of cathedrals; I'm +thinking of the beauties of nature. Come," he went on, turning round +on the bench and leaning his elbow on the parapet, "I'll think of +those mountains over there; they ARE pretty, certainly. Can't you +get over there?" + +"Over where?" + +"Over to those hills. Don't they run a train right up?" + +"You can go to Chamouni," I said. "You can go to Grindelwald and +Zermatt and fifty other places. You can't go by rail, but you can +drive." + +"All right, we'll drive--and not in a one-horse concern, either. +Yes, Chamouni is one of the places we put down. I hope there are a +few nice shops in Chamouni." Mr. Ruck spoke with a certain quickened +emphasis, and in a tone more explicitly humorous than he commonly +employed. I thought he was excited, and yet he had not the +appearance of excitement. He looked like a man who has simply taken, +in the face of disaster, a sudden, somewhat imaginative, resolution +not to "worry." He presently twisted himself about on his bench +again and began to watch for his companions. "Well, they ARE walking +round," he resumed; "I guess they've hit on something, somewhere. +And they've got a carriage waiting outside of that archway too. They +seem to do a big business in archways here, don't they. They like to +have a carriage to carry home the things--those ladies of mine. Then +they're sure they've got them." The ladies, after this, to do them +justice, were not very long in appearing. They came toward us, from +under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had somewhat invidiously alluded, +slowly and with a rather exhausted step and expression. My companion +looked at them a moment, as they advanced. "They're tired," he said +softly. "When they're tired, like that, it's very expensive." + +"Well," said Mrs. Ruck, "I'm glad you've had some company." Her +husband looked at her, in silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I +suspected that this gracious observation on the lady's part was +prompted by a restless conscience. + +Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straightforward air of +defiance. "It would have been more proper if WE had had the company. +Why didn't you come after us, instead of sitting there?" she asked of +Mr. Ruck's companion. + +"I was told by your father," I explained, "that you were engaged in +sacred rites." Miss Ruck was not gracious, though I doubt whether it +was because her conscience was better than her mother's. + +"Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so sacred as ladies' +society," replied Miss Ruck, in the manner of a person accustomed to +giving neat retorts. + +"I suppose you refer to the Cathedral," said her mother. "Well, I +must say, we didn't go back there. I don't know what it may be of a +Sunday, but it gave me a chill." + +"We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop," observed the young +girl, with a serenity that was superior to bravado. + +Her father looked at her a while; then turned about again, leaning on +the parapet, and gazed away at the "hills." + +"Well, it was certainly cheap," said Mrs. Ruck, also contemplating +the Alps. + +"We are going to Chamouni," said her husband. "You haven't any +occasion for lace at Chamouni." + +"Well, I'm glad to hear you have decided to go somewhere," rejoined +his wife. "I don't want to be a fixture at a boarding-house." + +"You can wear lace anywhere," said Miss Ruck, "if you pat it on +right. That's the great thing, with lace. I don't think they know +how to wear lace in Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine; but I +mean to keep it till I get home." + +Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to her elaborately- +appointed little person; there was a great deal of very new-looking +detail in Miss Ruck's appearance. Then, in a tone of voice quite out +of consonance with his facial despondency, "Have you purchased a +great deal?" he inquired. + +"I have purchased enough for you to make a fuss about." + +"He can't make a fuss about that," said Mrs. Ruck. + +"Well, you'll see!" declared the young girl with a little sharp +laugh. + +But her father went on, in the same tone: "Have you got it in your +pocket? Why don't you put it on--why don't you hang it round you?" + +"I'll hang it round YOU, if you don't look out!" cried Miss Sophy. + +"Don't you want to show it to this gentleman?" Mr. Ruck continued. + +"Mercy, how you do talk about that lace!" said his wife. + +"Well, I want to be lively. There's every reason for it; we're going +to Chamouni." + +"You're restless; that's what's the matter with you." And Mrs. Ruck +got up. + +"No, I ain't," said her husband. "I never felt so quiet; I feel as +peaceful as a little child." + +Mrs. Ruck, who had no sense whatever of humour, looked at her +daughter and at me. "Well, I hope you'll improve," she said. + +"Send in the bills," Mr. Ruck went on, rising to his feet. "Don't +hesitate, Sophy. I don't care what you do now. In for a penny, in +for a pound." + +Miss Ruck joined her mother, with a little toss of her head, and we +followed the ladies to the carriage. "In your place," said Miss +Sophy to her father, "I wouldn't talk so much about pennies and +pounds before strangers." + +Poor Mr. Ruck appeared to feel the force of this observation, which, +in the consciousness of a man who had never been "mean," could hardly +fail to strike a responsive chord. He coloured a little, and he was +silent; his companions got into their vehicle, the front seat of +which was adorned with a large parcel. Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a +little poke with his umbrella, and then, turning to me with a rather +grimly penitential smile, "After all," he said, "for the ladies +that's the principal interest." + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + +Old M. Pigeonneau had more than once proposed to me to take a walk, +but I had hitherto been unable to respond to so alluring an +invitation. It befell, however, one afternoon, that I perceived him +going forth upon a desultory stroll, with a certain lonesomeness of +demeanour that attracted my sympathy. I hastily overtook him, and +passed my hand into his venerable arm, a proceeding which produced in +the good old man so jovial a sense of comradeship that he ardently +proposed we should bend our steps to the English Garden; no locality +less festive was worthy of the occasion. To the English Garden, +accordingly, we went; it lay beyond the bridge, beside the lake. It +was very pretty and very animated; there was a band playing in the +middle, and a considerable number of persons sitting under the small +trees, on benches and little chairs, or strolling beside the blue +water. We joined the strollers, we observed our companions, and +conversed on obvious topics. Some of these last, of course, were the +pretty women who embellished the scene, and who, in the light of M. +Pigeonneau's comprehensive criticism, appeared surprisingly numerous. +He seemed bent upon our making up our minds as to which was the +prettiest, and as this was an innocent game I consented to play at +it. + +Suddenly M. Pigeonneau stopped, pressing my arm with the liveliest +emotion. "La voila, la voila, the prettiest!" he quickly murmured, +"coming toward us, in a blue dress, with the other." It was at the +other I was looking, for the other, to my surprise, was our +interesting fellow-pensioner, the daughter of a vigilant mother. M. +Pigeonneau, meanwhile, had redoubled his exclamations; he had +recognised Miss Sophy Ruck. "Oh, la belle rencontre, nos aimables +convives; the prettiest girl in the world, in effect!" + +We immediately greeted and joined the young ladies, who, like +ourselves, were walking arm in arm and enjoying the scene. + +"I was citing you with admiration to my friend even before I had +recognised you," said M. Pigeonneau to Miss Ruck. + +"I don't believe in French compliments," remarked this young lady, +presenting her back to the smiling old man. + +"Are you and Miss Ruck walking alone?" I asked of her companion. +"You had better accept of M. Pigeonneau's gallant protection, and of +mine." + +Aurora Church had taken her hand out of Miss Ruck's arm; she looked +at me, smiling, with her head a little inclined, while, upon her +shoulder, she made her open parasol revolve. "Which is most +improper--to walk alone or to walk with gentlemen? I wish to do what +is most improper." + +"What mysterious logic governs your conduct?" I inquired. + +"He thinks you can't understand him when he talks like that," said +Miss Ruck. "But I do understand you, always!" + +"So I have always ventured to hope, my dear Miss Ruck." + +"Well, if I didn't, it wouldn't be much loss," rejoined this young +lady. + +"Allons, en marche!" cried M. Pigeonneau, smiling still, and +undiscouraged by her inhumanity. "Let as make together the tour of +the garden." And he imposed his society upon Miss Ruck with a +respectful, elderly grace which was evidently unable to see anything +in her reluctance but modesty, and was sublimely conscious of a +mission to place modesty at its ease. This ill-assorted couple +walked in front, while Aurora Church and I strolled along together. + +"I am sure this is more improper," said my companion; "this is +delightfully improper. I don't say that as a compliment to you," she +added. "I would say it to any man, no matter how stupid." + +"Oh, I am very stupid," I answered, "but this doesn't seem to me +wrong." + +"Not for you, no; only for me. There is nothing that a man can do +that is wrong, is there? En morale, you know, I mean. Ah, yes, he +can steal; but I think there is nothing else, is there?" + +"I don't know. One doesn't know those things until after one has +done them. Then one is enlightened." + +"And you mean that you have never been enlightened? You make +yourself out very good." + +"That is better than making one's self out bad, as you do." + +The young girl glanced at me a moment, and then, with her charming +smile, "That's one of the consequences of a false position." + +"Is your position false?" I inquired, smiling too at this large +formula. + +"Distinctly so." + +"In what way?" + +"Oh, in every way. For instance, I have to pretend to be a jeune +fille. I am not a jeune fille; no American girl is a jeune fille; an +American girl is an intelligent, responsible creature. I have to +pretend to be very innocent, but I am not very innocent." + +"You don't pretend to be very innocent; you pretend to be--what shall +I call it?--very wise." + +"That's no pretence. I am wise." + +"You are not an American girl," I ventured to observe. + +My companion almost stopped, looking at me; there was a little flush +in her cheek. "Voila!" she said. "There's my false position. I +want to be an American girl, and I'm not." + +"Do you want me to tell you?" I went on. "An American girl wouldn't +talk as you are talking now." + +"Please tell me," said Aurora Church, with expressive eagerness. +"How would she talk?" + +"I can't tell you all the things an American girl would say, but I +think I can tell you the things she wouldn't say. She wouldn't +reason out her conduct, as you seem to me to do." + +Aurora gave me the most flattering attention. "I see. She would be +simpler. To do very simple things that are not at all simple--that +is the American girl!" + +I permitted myself a small explosion of hilarity. "I don't know +whether you are a French girl, or what you are," I said, "but you are +very witty." + +"Ah, you mean that I strike false notes!" cried Aurora Church, sadly. +"That's just what I want to avoid. I wish you would always tell me." + +The conversational union between Miss Ruck and her neighbour, in +front of us, had evidently not become a close one. The young lady +suddenly turned round to us with a question: "Don't you want some +ice-cream?" + +"SHE doesn't strike false notes," I murmured. + +There was a kind of pavilion or kiosk, which served as a cafe, and at +which the delicacies procurable at such an establishment were +dispensed. Miss Ruck pointed to the little green tables and chairs +which were set out on the gravel; M. Pigeonneau, fluttering with a +sense of dissipation, seconded the proposal, and we presently sat +down and gave our order to a nimble attendant. I managed again to +place myself next to Aurora Church; our companions were on the other +side of the table. + +My neighbour was delighted with our situation. "This is best of +all," she said. "I never believed I should come to a cafe with two +strange men! Now, you can't persuade me this isn't wrong." + +"To make it wrong we ought to see your mother coming down that path." + +"Ah, my mother makes everything wrong," said the young girl, +attacking with a little spoon in the shape of a spade the apex of a +pink ice. And then she returned to her idea of a moment before: +"You must promise to tell me--to warn me in some way--whenever I +strike a false note. You must give a little cough, like that--ahem!" + +"You will keep me very busy, and people will think I am in a +consumption." + +"Voyons," she continued, "why have you never talked to me more? Is +that a false note? Why haven't you been 'attentive?' That's what +American girls call it; that's what Miss Ruck calls it." + +I assured myself that our companions were out of earshot, and that +Miss Ruck was much occupied with a large vanilla cream. "Because you +are always entwined with that young lady. There is no getting near +you." + +Aurora looked at her friend while the latter devoted herself to her +ice. "You wonder why I like her so much, I suppose. So does mamma; +elle s'y perd. I don't like her particularly; je n'en suis pas +folle. But she gives me information; she tells me about America. +Mamma has always tried to prevent my knowing anything about it, and I +am all the more curious. And then Miss Ruck is very fresh." + +"I may not be so fresh as Miss Ruck," I said, "but in future, when +you want information, I recommend you to come to me for it." + +"Our friend offers to take me to America; she invites me to go back +with her, to stay with her. You couldn't do that, could you?" And +the young girl looked at me a moment. "Bon, a false note I can see +it by your face; you remind me of a maitre de piano." + +"You overdo the character--the poor American girl," I said. "Are you +going to stay with that delightful family?" + +"I will go and stay with any one that will take me or ask me. It's a +real nostalgie. She says that in New York--in Thirty-Seventh Street- +-I should have the most lovely time." + +"I have no doubt you would enjoy it." + +"Absolute liberty to begin with." + +"It seems to me you have a certain liberty here," I rejoined. + +"Ah, THIS? Oh, I shall pay for this. I shall be punished by mamma, +and I shall be lectured by Madame Galopin." + +"The wife of the pasteur?" + +"His digne epouse. Madame Galopin, for mamma, is the incarnation of +European opinion. That's what vexes me with mamma, her thinking so +much of people like Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame Galopin-- +mamma calls that being in European society. European society! I'm +so sick of that expression; I have heard it since I was six years +old. Who is Madame Galopin--who thinks anything of her here? She is +nobody; she is perfectly third-rate. If I like America better than +mamma, I also know Europe better." + +"But your mother, certainly," I objected, a trifle timidly, for my +young lady was excited, and had a charming little passion in her eye- +-"your mother has a great many social relations all over the +Continent." + +"She thinks so, but half the people don't care for us. They are not +so good as we, and they know it--I'll do them that justice--and they +wonder why we should care for them. When we are polite to them, they +think the less of us; there are plenty of people like that. Mamma +thinks so much of them simply because they are foreigners. If I +could tell you all the dull, stupid, second-rate people I have had to +talk to, for no better reason than that they were de leur pays!-- +Germans, French, Italians, Turks, everything. When I complain, mamma +always says that at any rate it's practice in the language. And she +makes so much of the English, too; I don't know what that's practice +in." + +Before I had time to suggest an hypothesis, as regards this latter +point, I saw something that made me rise, with a certain solemnity, +from my chair. This was nothing less than the neat little figure of +Mrs. Church--a perfect model of the femme comme il faut--approaching +our table with an impatient step, and followed most unexpectedly in +her advance by the pre-eminent form of Mr. Ruck. She had evidently +come in quest of her daughter, and if she had commanded this +gentleman's attendance, it had been on no softer ground than that of +his unenvied paternity to her guilty child's accomplice. My movement +had given the alarm, and Aurora Church and M. Pigeonneau got up; Miss +Ruck alone did not, in the local phrase, derange herself. Mrs. +Church, beneath her modest little bonnet, looked very serious, but +not at all fluttered; she came straight to her daughter, who received +her with a smile, and then she looked all round at the rest of us, +very fixedly and tranquilly, without bowing. I must do both these +ladies the justice to mention that neither of them made the least +little "scene." + +"I have come for you, dearest," said the mother. + +"Yes, dear mamma." + +"Come for you--come for you," Mrs. Church repeated, looking down at +the relics of our little feast. "I was obliged to ask Mr. Ruck's +assistance. I was puzzled; I thought a long time." + +"Well, Mrs. Church, I was glad to see you puzzled once in your life!" +said Mr. Ruck, with friendly jocosity. "But you came pretty straight +for all that. I had hard work to keep up with you." + +"We will take a cab, Aurora," Mrs. Church went on, without heeding +this pleasantry--"a closed one. Come, my daughter." + +"Yes, dear mamma." The young girl was blushing, yet she was still +smiling; she looked round at us all, and, as her eyes met mine, I +thought she was beautiful. "Good-bye," she said to us. "I have had +a LOVELY TIME." + +"We must not linger," said her mother; "it is five o'clock. We are +to dine, you know, with Madame Galopin." + +"I had quite forgotten," Aurora declared. "That will be charming." + +"Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, ma am?" asked Mr. +Ruck. + +Mrs. Church hesitated a moment, with her serene little gaze. "Do you +prefer, then, to leave your daughter to finish the evening with these +gentlemen?" + +Mr. Ruck pushed back his hat and scratched the top of his head. +"Well, I don't know. How would you like that, Sophy?" + +"Well, I never!" exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs. Church marched off with her +daughter. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + +I had half expected that Mrs. Church would make me feel the weight of +her disapproval of my own share in that little act of revelry in the +English Garden. But she maintained her claim to being a highly +reasonable woman--I could not but admire the justice of this +pretension--by recognising my irresponsibility. I had taken her +daughter as I found her, which was, according to Mrs. Church's view, +in a very equivocal position. The natural instinct of a young man, +in such a situation, is not to protest but to profit; and it was +clear to Mrs. Church that I had had nothing to do with Miss Aurora's +appearing in public under the insufficient chaperonage of Miss Ruck. +Besides, she liked to converse, and she apparently did me the honour +to believe that of all the members of the Pension Beaurepas I had the +most cultivated understanding. I found her in the salon a couple of +evenings after the incident I have just narrated, and I approached +her with a view of making my peace with her, if this should prove +necessary. But Mrs. Church was as gracious as I could have desired; +she put her marker into her book, and folded her plump little hands +on the cover. She made no specific allusion to the English Garden; +she embarked, rather, upon those general considerations in which her +refined intellect was so much at home. + +"Always at your studies, Mrs. Church," I ventured to observe. + +"Que voulez-vous? To say studies is to say too much; one doesn't +study in the parlour of a boarding-house. But I do what I can; I +have always done what I can. That is all I have ever claimed." + +"No one can do more, and you seem to have done a great deal." + +"Do you know my secret?" she asked, with an air of brightening +confidence. And she paused a moment before she imparted her secret-- +"To care only for the BEST! To do the best, to know the best--to +have, to desire, to recognise, only the best. That's what I have +always done, in my quiet little way. I have gone through Europe on +my devoted little errand, seeking, seeing, heeding, only the best. +And it has not been for myself alone; it has been for my daughter. +My daughter has had the best. We are not rich, but I can say that." + +"She has had you, madam," I rejoined finely. + +"Certainly, such as I am, I have been devoted. We have got something +everywhere; a little here, a little there. That's the real secret-- +to get something everywhere; you always can if you are devoted. +Sometimes it has been a little music, sometimes a little deeper +insight into the history of art; every little counts you know. +Sometimes it has been just a glimpse, a view, a lovely landscape, an +impression. We have always been on the look-out. Sometimes it has +been a valued friendship, a delightful social tie." + +"Here comes the 'European society,' the poor daughter's bugbear," I +said to myself. "Certainly," I remarked aloud--I admit, rather +perversely--"if you have lived a great deal in pensions, you must +have got acquainted with lots of people." + +Mrs. Church dropped her eyes a moment; and then, with considerable +gravity, "I think the European pension system in many respects +remarkable, and in some satisfactory. But of the friendships that we +have formed, few have been contracted in establishments of this +kind." + +"I am sorry to hear that!" I said, laughing. + +"I don't say it for you, though I might say it for some others. We +have been interested in European homes." + +"Oh, I see!" + +"We have the entree of the old Genevese society I like its tone. I +prefer it to that of Mr. Ruck," added Mrs. Church, calmly; "to that +of Mrs. Ruck and Miss Ruck--of Miss Ruck especially." + +"Ah, the poor Rucks haven't any tone at all," I said "Don't take them +more seriously than they take themselves." + +"Tell me this," my companion rejoined, "are they fair examples?" + +"Examples of what?" + +"Of our American tendencies." + +"'Tendencies' is a big word, dear lady; tendencies are difficult to +calculate. And you shouldn't abuse those good Rucks, who have been +very kind to your daughter. They have invited her to go and stay +with them in Thirty-Seventh Street." + +"Aurora has told me. It might be very serious." + +"It might be very droll," I said. + +"To me," declared Mrs. Church, "it is simply terrible. I think we +shall have to leave the Pension Beaurepas. I shall go back to Madame +Chamousset." + +"On account of the Rucks?" I asked. + +"Pray, why don't they go themselves? I have given them some +excellent addresses--written down the very hours of the trains. They +were going to Appenzell; I thought it was arranged." + +"They talk of Chamouni now," I said; "but they are very helpless and +undecided." + +"I will give them some Chamouni addresses. Mrs. Ruck will send a +chaise a porteurs; I will give her the name of a man who lets them +lower than you get them at the hotels. After that they MUST go." + +"Well, I doubt," I observed, "whether Mr. Ruck will ever really be +seen on the Mer de Glace--in a high hat. He's not like you; he +doesn't value his European privileges. He takes no interest. He +regrets Wall Street, acutely. As his wife says, he is very restless, +but he has no curiosity about Chamouni. So you must not depend too +much on the effect of your addresses." + +"Is it a frequent type?" asked Mrs. Church, with an air of self- +control. + +"I am afraid so. Mr. Ruck is a broken-down man of business. He is +broken down in health, and I suspect he is broken down in fortune. +He has spent his whole life in buying and selling; he knows how to do +nothing else. His wife and daughter have spent their lives, not in +selling, but in buying; and they, on their side, know how to do +nothing else. To get something in a shop that they can put on their +backs--that is their one idea; they haven't another in their heads. +Of course they spend no end of money, and they do it with an +implacable persistence, with a mixture of audacity and of cunning. +They do it in his teeth and they do it behind his back; the mother +protects the daughter, and the daughter eggs on the mother. Between +them they are bleeding him to death." + +"Ah, what a picture!" murmured Mrs. Church. "I am afraid they are +very-uncultivated." + +"I share your fears. They are perfectly ignorant; they have no +resources. The vision of fine clothes occupies their whole +imagination. They have not an idea--even a worse one--to compete +with it. Poor Mr. Ruck, who is extremely good-natured and soft, +seems to me a really tragic figure. He is getting bad news every day +from home; his business is going to the dogs. He is unable to stop +it; he has to stand and watch his fortunes ebb. He has been used to +doing things in a big way, and he feels mean, if he makes a fuss +about bills. So the ladies keep sending them in." + +"But haven't they common sense? Don't they know they are ruining +themselves?" + +"They don't believe it. The duty of an American husband and father +is to keep them going. If he asks them how, that's his own affair. +So, by way of not being mean, of being a good American husband and +father, poor Ruck stands staring at bankruptcy." + +Mrs. Church looked at me a moment, in quickened meditation. "Why, if +Aurora were to go to stay with them, she might not even be properly +fed!" + +"I don't, on the whole, recommend," I said, laughing, "that your +daughter should pay a visit to Thirty-Seventh Street." + +"Why should I be subjected to such trials--so sadly eprouvee? Why +should a daughter of mine like that dreadful girl?" + +"DOES she like her?" + +"Pray, do you mean," asked my companion, softly, "that Aurora is a +hypocrite?" + +I hesitated a moment. "A little, since you ask me. I think you have +forced her to be." + +Mrs. Church answered this possibly presumptuous charge with a +tranquil, candid exultation. "I never force my daughter!" + +"She is nevertheless in a false position," I rejoined. "She hungers +and thirsts to go back to her own country; she wants 'to come' out in +New York, which is certainly, socially speaking, the El Dorado of +young ladies. She likes any one, for the moment, who will talk to +her of that, and serve as a connecting-link with her native shores. +Miss Ruck performs this agreeable office." + +"Your idea is, then, that if she were to go with Miss Ruck to America +she would drop her afterwards." + +I complimented Mrs. Church upon her logical mind, but I repudiated +this cynical supposition. "I can't imagine her--when it should come +to the point--embarking with the famille Ruck. But I wish she might +go, nevertheless." + +Mrs. Church shook her head serenely, and smiled at my inappropriate +zeal. "I trust my poor child may never be guilty of so fatal a +mistake. She is completely in error; she is wholly unadapted to the +peculiar conditions of American life. It would not please her. She +would not sympathise. My daughter's ideal is not the ideal of the +class of young women to which Miss Ruck belongs. I fear they are +very numerous; they give the tone--they give the tone." + +"It is you that are mistaken," I said; "go home for six months and +see." + +"I have not, unfortunately, the means to make costly experiments. My +daughter has had great advantages--rare advantages--and I should be +very sorry to believe that au fond she does not appreciate them. One +thing is certain: I must remove her from this pernicious influence. +We must part company with this deplorable family. If Mr. Ruck and +his ladies cannot be induced to go to Chamouni--a journey that no +traveller with the smallest self-respect would omit--my daughter and +I shall be obliged to retire. We shall go to Dresden." + +"To Dresden?" + +"The capital of Saxony. I had arranged to go there for the autumn, +but it will be simpler to go immediately. There are several works in +the gallery with which my daughter has not, I think, sufficiently +familiarised herself; it is especially strong in the seventeenth +century schools." + +As my companion offered me this information I perceived Mr. Ruck come +lounging in, with his hands in his pockets, and his elbows making +acute angles. He had his usual anomalous appearance of both seeking +and avoiding society, and he wandered obliquely toward Mrs. Church, +whose last words he had overheard. "The seventeenth century +schools," he said, slowly, as if he were weighing some very small +object in a very large-pair of scales. "Now, do you suppose they HAD +schools at that period?" + +Mrs. Church rose with a good deal of precision, making no answer to +this incongruous jest. She clasped her large volume to her neat +little bosom, and she fixed a gentle, serious eye upon Mr. Ruck. + +"I had a letter this morning from Chamouni," she said. + +"Well," replied Mr. Ruck, "I suppose you've got friends all over." + +"I have friends at Chamouni, but they are leaving. To their great +regret." I had got up, too; I listened to this statement, and I +wondered. I am almost ashamed to mention the subject of my +agitation. I asked myself whether this was a sudden improvisation, +consecrated by maternal devotion; but this point has never been +elucidated. "They are giving up some charming rooms; perhaps you +would like them. I would suggest your telegraphing. The weather is +glorious," continued Mrs. Church, "and the highest peaks are now +perceived with extraordinary distinctness." + +Mr. Ruck listened, as he always listened, respectfully. "Well," he +said, "I don't know as I want to go up Mount Blank. That's the +principal attraction, isn't it?" + +"There are many others. I thought I would offer you an--an +exceptional opportunity." + +"Well," said Mr. Ruck, "you're right down friendly. But I seem to +have more opportunities than I know what to do with. I don't seem +able to take hold." + +"It only needs a little decision," remarked Mrs. Church, with an air +which was an admirable example of this virtue. "I wish you good- +night, sir." And she moved noiselessly away. + +Mr. Ruck, with his long legs apart, stood staring after her; then he +transferred his perfectly quiet eyes to me. "Does she own a hotel +over there?" he asked. "Has she got any stock in Mount Blank?" + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + + +The next day Madame Beaurepas handed me, with her own elderly +fingers, a missive, which proved to be a telegram. After glancing at +it, I informed her that it was apparently a signal for my departure; +my brother had arrived in England, and proposed to me to meet him +there; he had come on business, and was to spend but three weeks in +Europe. "But my house empties itself!" cried the old woman. "The +famille Ruck talks of leaving me, and Madame Church nous fait la +reverence." + +"Mrs. Church is going away?" + +"She is packing her trunk; she is a very extraordinary person. Do +you know what she asked me this morning? To invent some combination +by which the famille Ruck should move away. I informed her that I +was not an inventor. That poor famille Ruck! 'Oblige me by getting +rid of them,' said Madame Church, as she would have asked Celestine +to remove a dish of cabbage. She speaks as if the world were made +for Madame Church. I intimated to her that if she objected to the +company there was a very simple remedy; and at present elle fait ses +paquets." + +"She really asked you to get the Rucks out of the house?" + +"She asked me to tell them that their rooms had been let, three +months ago, to another family. She has an APLOMB!" + +Mrs. Church's aplomb caused me considerable diversion; I am not sure +that it was not, in some degree, to laugh over it at my leisure that +I went out into the garden that evening to smoke a cigar. The night +was dark and not particularly balmy, and most of my fellow- +pensioners, after dinner, had remained in-doors. A long straight +walk conducted from the door of the house to the ancient grille that +I have described, and I stood here for some time, looking through the +iron bars at the silent empty street. The prospect was not +entertaining, and I presently turned away. At this moment I saw, in +the distance, the door of the house open and throw a shaft of +lamplight into the darkness. Into the lamplight there stepped the +figure of a female, who presently closed the door behind her. She +disappeared in the dusk of the garden, and I had seen her but for an +instant, but I remained under the impression that Aurora Church, on +the eve of her departure, had come out for a meditative stroll. + +I lingered near the gate, keeping the red tip of my cigar turned +toward the house, and before long a young lady emerged from among the +shadows of the trees and encountered the light of a lamp that stood +just outside the gate. It was in fact Aurora Church, but she seemed +more bent upon conversation than upon meditation. She stood a moment +looking at me, and then she said, - + +"Ought I to retire--to return to the house?" + +"If you ought, I should be very sorry to tell you so," I answered. + +"But we are all alone; there is no one else in the garden." + +"It is not the first time that I have been alone with a young lady. +I am not at all terrified." + +"Ah, but I?" said the young girl. "I have never been alone--" then, +quickly, she interrupted herself. "Good, there's another false +note!" + +"Yes, I am obliged to admit that one is very false." + +She stood looking at me. "I am going away to-morrow; after that +there will be no one to tell me." + + + +CHAPTER X. + + + +"That will matter little," I presently replied. "Telling you will do +no good." + +"Ah, why do you say that?" murmured Aurora Church. + +I said it partly because it was true; but I said it for other reasons +as well, which it was hard to define. Standing there bare-headed, in +the night air, in the vague light, this young lady looked extremely +interesting; and the interest of her appearance was not diminished by +a suspicion on my own part that she had come into the garden knowing +me to be there. I thought her a charming girl, and I felt very sorry +for her; but, as I looked at her, the terms in which Madame Beaurepas +had ventured to characterise her recurred to me with a certain force. +I had professed a contempt for them at the time, but it now came into +my head that perhaps this unfortunately situated, this insidiously +mutinous young creature, was looking out for a preserver. She was +certainly not a girl to throw herself at a man's head, but it was +possible that in her intense--her almost morbid-desire to put into +effect an ideal which was perhaps after all charged with as many +fallacies as her mother affirmed, she might do something reckless and +irregular--something in which a sympathetic compatriot, as yet +unknown, would find his profit. The image, unshaped though it was, +of this sympathetic compatriot, filled me with a sort of envy. For +some moments I was silent, conscious of these things, and then I +answered her question. "Because some things--some differences are +felt, not learned. To you liberty is not natural; you are like a +person who has bought a repeater, and, in his satisfaction, is +constantly making it sound. To a real American girl her liberty is a +very vulgarly-ticking old clock." + +"Ah, you mean, then," said the poor girl, "that my mother has ruined +me?" + +"Ruined you?" + +"She has so perverted my mind, that when I try to be natural I am +necessarily immodest." + +"That again is a false note," I said, laughing. + +She turned away. "I think you are cruel." + +"By no means," I declared; "because, for my own taste, I prefer you +as--as--" + +I hesitated, and she turned back. "As what?" + +"As you are." + +She looked at me a while again, and then she said, in a little +reasoning voice that reminded me of her mother's, only that it was +conscious and studied, "I was not aware that I am under any +particular obligation to please you!" And then she gave a clear +laugh, quite at variance with her voice. + +"Oh, there is no obligation," I said, "but one has preferences. I am +very sorry you are going away." + +"What does it matter to you? You are going yourself." + +"As I am going in a different direction that makes all the greater +separation." + +She answered nothing; she stood looking through the bars of the tall +gate at the empty, dusky street. "This grille is like a cage," she +said, at last. + +"Fortunately, it is a cage that will open." And I laid my hand on +the lock. + +"Don't open it," and she pressed the gate back. "If you should open +it I would go out--and never return." + +"Where should you go?" + +"To America." + +"Straight away?" + +"Somehow or other. I would go to the American consul. I would beg +him to give me money--to help me." + +I received this assertion without a smile; I was not in a smiling +humour. On the contrary, I felt singularly excited, and I kept my +hand on the lock of the gate. I believed (or I thought I believed) +what my companion said, and I had--absurd as it may appear--an +irritated vision of her throwing herself upon consular sympathy. It +seemed to me, for a moment, that to pass out of that gate with this +yearning, straining, young creature, would be to pass into some +mysterious felicity. If I were only a hero of romance, I would +offer, myself, to take her to America. + +In a moment more, perhaps, I should have persuaded myself that I was +one, but at this juncture I heard a sound that was not romantic. It +proved to be the very realistic tread of Celestine, the cook, who +stood grinning at us as we turned about from our colloquy. + +"I ask bien pardon," said Celestine. "The mother of Mademoiselle +desires that Mademoiselle should come in immediately. M. le Pasteur +Galopin has come to make his adieux to ces dames." + +Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was a touching one. Then she +slowly departed with Celestine. + +The next morning, on coming into the garden, I found that Mrs. Church +and her daughter had departed. I was informed of this fact by old M. +Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree, having his coffee at a little +green table. + +"I have nothing to envy you," he said; "I had the last glimpse of +that charming Miss Aurora." + +"I had a very late glimpse," I answered, "and it was all I could +possibly desire." + +"I have always noticed," rejoined M. Pigeonneau, "That your desires +are more moderate than mine. Que voulez-vous? I am of the old +school. Je crois que la race se perd. I regret the departure of +that young girl: she had an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme +d'esprit. For the mother, I can console myself. I am not sure that +SHE was a femme d'esprit, though she wished to pass for one. Round, +rosy, potelee, she yet had not the temperament of her appearance; she +was a femme austere. I have often noticed that contradiction in +American ladies. You see a plump little woman, with a speaking eye, +and the contour and complexion of a ripe peach, and if you venture to +conduct yourself in the smallest degree in accordance with these +indices, you discover a species of Methodist--of what do you call +it?--of Quakeress. On the other hand, you encounter a tall, lean, +angular person, without colour, without grace, all elbows and knees, +and you find it's a nature of the tropics! The women of duty look +like coquettes, and the others look like alpenstocks! However, we +have still the handsome Madame Ruck--a real femme de Rubens, celle- +la. It is very true that to talk to her one must know the Flemish +tongue!" + +I had determined, in accordance with my brother's telegram, to go +away in the afternoon; so that, having various duties to perform, I +left M. Pigeonneau to his international comparisons. Among other +things, I went in the course of the morning to the banker's, to draw +money for my journey, and there I found Mr. Ruck, with a pile of +crumpled letters in his lap, his chair tipped back, and his eyes +gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green plush table-cloth. I +timidly expressed the hope that he had got better news from home; +whereupon he gave me a look in which, considering his provocation, +the absence of irritation was conspicuous. + +He took up his letters in his large hand, and crushing them together, +held it out to me. "That epistolary matter," he said, "is worth +about five cents. But I guess," he added, rising, "I have taken it +in by this time." When I had drawn my money I asked him to come and +breakfast with me at the little brasserie, much favoured by students, +to which I used to resort in the old town. "I couldn't eat, sir," he +said, "I--couldn't eat. Bad news takes away the appetite. But I +guess I'll go with you, so that I needn't go to table down there at +the pension. The old woman down there is always accusing me of +turning up my nose at her food. Well, I guess I shan't turn up my +nose at anything now." + +We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. Ruck made the +lightest possible breakfast. But if he ate very little, he talked a +great deal; he talked about business, going into a hundred details in +which I was quite unable to follow him. His talk was not angry nor +bitter; it was a long, meditative, melancholy monologue; if it had +been a trifle less incoherent I should almost have called it +philosophic. I was very sorry for him; I wanted to do something for +him, but the only thing I could do was, when we had breakfasted, to +see him safely back to the Pension Beaurepas. We went across the +Treille and down the Corraterie, out of which we turned into the Rue +du Rhone. In this latter street, as all the world knows, are many of +those brilliant jewellers' shops for which Geneva is famous. I +always admired their glittering windows, and never passed them +without a lingering glance. Even on this occasion, pre-occupied as I +was with my impending departure, and with my companion's troubles, I +suffered my eyes to wander along the precious tiers that flashed and +twinkled behind the huge clear plates of glass. Thanks to this +inveterate habit, I made a discovery. In the largest and most +brilliant of these establishments I perceived two ladies, seated +before the counter with an air of absorption, which sufficiently +proclaimed their identity. I hoped my companion would not see them, +but as we came abreast of the door, a little beyond, we found it open +to the warm summer air. Mr. Ruck happened to glance in, and he +immediately recognised his wife and daughter. He slowly stopped, +looking at them; I wondered what he would do. The salesman was +holding up a bracelet before them, on its velvet cushion, and +flashing it about in an irresistible manner. + +Mr. Ruck said nothing, but he presently went in, and I did the same. + +"It will be an opportunity," I remarked, as cheerfully as possible, +"for me to bid good-bye to the ladies." + +They turned round when Mr. Ruck came in, and looked at him without +confusion. "Well, you had better go home to breakfast," remarked his +wife. Miss Sophy made no remark, but she took the bracelet from the +attendant and gazed at it very fixedly. Mr. Ruck seated himself on +an empty stool and looked round the shop. + +"Well, you have been here before," said his wife; "you were here the +first day we came." + +Miss Ruck extended the precious object in her hands towards me. +"Don't you think that sweet?" she inquired. + +I looked at it a moment. "No, I think it's ugly." + +She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. "Well, I don't believe you +have any taste." + +"Why, sir, it's just lovely," said Mrs. Ruck. + +"You'll see it some day on me, any way," her daughter declared. + +"No, he won't," said Mr. Ruck, quietly. + +"It will be his own fault, then," Miss Sophy observed. + +"Well, if we are going to Chamouni we want to get something here," +said Mrs. Ruck. "We may not have another chance." + +Mr. Ruck was still looking round the shop, whistling in a very low +tone. "We ain't going to Chamouni. We are going to New York city, +straight." + +"Well, I'm glad to hear that," said Mrs. Ruck. "Don't you suppose we +want to take something home?" + +"If we are going straight back I must have that bracelet," her +daughter declared, "Only I don't want a velvet case; I want a satin +case." + +"I must bid you good-bye," I said to the ladies. "I am leaving +Geneva in an hour or two." + +"Take a good look at that bracelet, so you'll know it when you see +it," said Miss Sophy. + +"She's bound to have something," remarked her mother, almost proudly. + +Mr. Ruck was still vaguely inspecting the shop; he was still +whistling a little. "I am afraid he is not at all well," I said, +softly, to his wife. + +She twisted her head a little, and glanced at him. + +"Well, I wish he'd improve!" she exclaimed. + +"A satin case, and a nice one!" said Miss Ruck to the shopman. + +I bade Mr. Ruck good-bye. "Don't wait for me," he said, sitting +there on his stool, and not meeting my eye. "I've got to see this +thing through." + +I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when, an hour later, I left +it with my luggage, the family had not returned. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Pension Beaurepas, by Henry James + diff --git a/old/penbr10.zip b/old/penbr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8565889 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/penbr10.zip |
