Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval1 sufficiently2 replete3 with incident. It is not, however, during this interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the incidents just narrated4. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the smaller of the numerous rooms devoted5 by Mrs. Touchett to social uses, and there was that in her expression and attitude which would have suggested that she was expecting a visitor. The tall window was open, and though its green shutters6 were partly drawn7 the bright air of the garden had come in through a broad interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume. Our young woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her; she gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for attention she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her thought to catch a glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned8. She wished rather to forestall9 his arrival by a process of conjecture10, and to judge by the expression of her face this attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively11 more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse12 of the year she had spent in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space and surveyed much of mankind, and was therefore now, in her own eyes, a very different person from the frivolous13 young woman from Albany who had begun to take the measure of Europe on the lawn at Gardencourt a couple of years before. She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect14, instead of fluttering their wings nervously15 about the present, they would have evoked16 a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have been the more numerous. With several of the images that might have been projected on such a field we are already acquainted. There would be for instance the conciliatory Lily, our heroine’s sister and Edmund Ludlow’s wife, who had come out from New York to spend five months with her relative. She had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence17 and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic18 triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her sister was with her Isabel had confined her movements to a narrow circle. Lily and the babies had joined her in Switzerland in the month of July, and they had spent a summer of fine weather in an Alpine19 valley where the flowers were thick in the meadows and the shade of great chestnuts20 made a resting-place for such upward wanderings as might be undertaken by ladies and children on warm afternoons. They had afterwards reached the French capital, which was worshipped, and with costly21 ceremonies, by Lily, but thought of as noisily vacant by Isabel, who in these days made use of her memory of Rome as she might have done, in a hot and crowded room, of a phial of something pungent22 hidden in her handkerchief.
Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and wonderments not allayed23 at that altar; and after her husband had joined her found further chagrin24 in his failure to throw himself into these speculations25. They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund Ludlow, as he had always done before, declined to be surprised, or distressed26, or mystified, or elated, at anything his sister-in-law might have done or have failed to do. Mrs. Ludlow’s mental motions were sufficiently various. At one moment she thought it would be so natural for that young woman to come home and take a house in New York — the Rossiters’, for instance, which had an elegant conservatory27 and was just round the corner from her own; at another she couldn’t conceal28 her surprise at the girl’s not marrying some member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have said, she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She had taken more satisfaction in Isabel’s accession of fortune than if the money had been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just the proper setting for her sister’s slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent29 figure. Isabel had developed less, however, than Lily had thought likely — development, to Lily’s understanding, being somehow mysteriously connected with morning-calls and evening-parties. Intellectually, doubtless, she had made immense strides; but she appeared to have achieved few of those social conquests of which Mrs. Ludlow had expected to admire the trophies30. Lily’s conception of such achievements was extremely vague; but this was exactly what she had expected of Isabel — to give it form and body. Isabel could have done as well as she had done in New York; and Mrs. Ludlow appealed to her husband to know whether there was any privilege she enjoyed in Europe which the society of that city might not offer her. We know ourselves that Isabel had made conquests — whether inferior or not to those she might have effected in her native land it would be a delicate matter to decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of complacency that I again mention that she had not rendered these honourable31 victories public. She had not told her sister the history of Lord Warburton, nor had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond’s state of mind; and she had had no better reason for her silence than that she didn’t wish to speak. It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking deep, in secret, of romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily’s advice as she would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily knew nothing of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her sister’s career a strange anti-climax — an impression confirmed by the fact that Isabel’s silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct proportion to the frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this happened very often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost her courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people.
Our young lady’s courage, however, might have been taken as reaching its height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver things than spending the winter in Paris — Paris had sides by which it so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose — and her close correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate32 such flights. She had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale33; she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her, as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made separation an occasion of violent hilarity34, and then she walked back into the foggy London street. The world lay before her — she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet35; she chose simply to walk back from Euston Square to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon had already closed in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown air, looked weak and red; our heroine was unattended and Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly. But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment36 of its dangers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of gathering37 dusk in the London streets — the moving crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring38 stalls, the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. She made her way down to Rome without touching39 at Florence — having gone first to Venice and then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished40 this journey without other assistance than that of her servant, for her natural protectors were not now on the ground. Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering41 cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr. Bantling that he would soon come over to see her. Isabel wrote to Mrs. Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough. Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the thing or one didn’t, and what one “would” have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant42, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things. Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so frank as it pretended. She easily forgave her niece for not stopping at Florence, because she took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in question there than formerly43. She watched of course to see if he would now find a pretext44 for going to Rome, and derived45 some comfort from learning that he had not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not been a fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they should make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that her friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two ladies accordingly embarked46 on this expedition, and spent three months in Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in these countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among the most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose47 and reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup after cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess circulating incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel’s invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl’s uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact48 that might have been expected of her, effacing49 herself and accepting the position of a companion whose expenses were profusely50 paid. The situation, however, had no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair on their travels would not have been able to tell you which was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on acquaintance states meagrely the impression she made on her friend, who had found her from the first so ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy51 of three months Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed52 her promise of relating her history from her own point of view — a consummation the more desirable as Isabel had already heard it related from the point of view of others. This history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though originally so plausible53, who had taken advantage, years before, of her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those who knew her only now would find it difficult to believe); it abounded54 so in startling and lamentable55 incidents that her companion wondered a person so eprouvee could have kept so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle’s she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle56 of the virtuoso57, or blanketed and bridled58 like the “favourite” of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after all something of a public performer, condemned59 to emerge only in character and in costume. She had once said that she came from a distance, that she belonged to the “old, old” world, and Isabel never lost the impression that she was the product of a different moral or social clime from her own, that she had grown up under other stars.
She believed then that at bottom she had a different morality. Of course the morality of civilised persons has always much in common; but our young woman had a sense in her of values gone wrong or, as they said at the shops, marked down. She considered, with the presumption60 of youth, that a morality differing from her own must be inferior to it; and this conviction was an aid to detecting an occasional flash of cruelty, an occasional lapse from candour, in the conversation of a person who had raised delicate kindness to an art and whose pride was too high for the narrow ways of deception61. Her conception of human motives62 might, in certain lights, have been acquired at the court of some kingdom in decadence63, and there were several in her list of which our heroine had not even heard. She had not heard of everything, that was very plain; and there were evidently things in the world of which it was not advantageous64 to hear. She had once or twice had a positive scare; since it so affected65 her to have to exclaim, of her friend, “Heaven forgive her, she doesn’t understand me!” Absurd as it may seem this discovery operated as a shock, left her with a vague dismay in which there was even an element of foreboding. The dismay of course subsided66, in the light of some sudden proof of Madame Merle’s remarkable67 intelligence; but it stood for a high-water-mark in the ebb68 and flow of confidence. Madame Merle had once declared her belief that when a friendship ceases to grow it immediately begins to decline — there being no point of equilibrium69 between liking70 more and liking less. A stationary71 affection, in other words, was impossible — it must move one way or the other. However that might be, the girl had in these days a thousand uses for her sense of the romantic, which was more active than it had ever been. I do not allude72 to the impulse it received as she gazed at the Pyramids in the course of an excursion from Cairo, or as she stood among the broken columns of the Acropolis and fixed73 her eyes upon the point designated to her as the Strait of Salamis; deep and memorable74 as these emotions had remained. She came back by the last of March from Egypt and Greece and made another stay in Rome. A few days after her arrival Gilbert Osmond descended75 from Florence and remained three weeks, during which the fact of her being with his old friend Madame Merle, in whose house she had gone to lodge76, made it virtually inevitable77 that he should see her every day. When the last of April came she wrote to Mrs. Touchett that she should now rejoice to accept an invitation given long before, and went to pay a visit at Palazzo Crescentini, Madame Merle on this occasion remaining in Rome. She found her aunt alone; her cousin was still at Corfu. Ralph, however, was expected in Florence from day to day, and Isabel, who had not seen him for upwards78 of a year, was prepared to give him the most affectionate welcome.
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1
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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replete
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| adj.饱满的，塞满的；n.贮蜜蚁 | |
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narrated
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| v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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forestall
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| vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止 | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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munificence
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| n.宽宏大量，慷慨给与 | |
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forensic
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| adj.法庭的，雄辩的 | |
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alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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allayed
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| v.减轻，缓和( allay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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trophies
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| n.（为竞赛获胜者颁发的）奖品( trophy的名词复数 )；奖杯；（尤指狩猎或战争中获得的）纪念品；（用于比赛或赛跑名称）奖 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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regale
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| v.取悦，款待 | |
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hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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46
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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48
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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effacing
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| 谦逊的 | |
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profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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51
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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53
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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56
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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virtuoso
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| n.精于某种艺术或乐器的专家，行家里手 | |
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bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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69
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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70
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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71
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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72
allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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73
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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74
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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75
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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76
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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77
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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78
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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