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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. 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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 |