The Awkward Age - Henry James (ap literature book list .txt) š
- Author: Henry James
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Mr. Longdon had fallen while she talked into something that might have been taken for a conscious temporary submission to her; he had uncrossed his fidgety legs and, thrusting them out with the feet together, sat looking very hard before him, his chin sunk on his breast and his hands, clasped as they met, rapidly twirling their thumbs. So he remained for a time that might have given his young friend the sense of having made herself right for him so far as she had been wrong. He still had all her attention, just as previously she had had his, but, while he now simply gazed and thought, she watched him with a discreet solicitude that would almost have represented him as a near relative whom she supposed unwell. At the end he looked round, and then, obeying some impulse that had gathered in her while they sat mute, she put out to him the tender hand she might have offered to a sick child. They had been talking about frankness, but she showed a frankness in this instance that made him perceptibly colour. To that in turn, however, he responded only the more completely, taking her hand and holding it, keeping it a long minute during which their eyes met and something seemed to clear up that had been too obscure to be dispelled by words. Finally he brought out as if, though it was what he had been thinking of, her gesture had most determined him: āI wish immensely youād get married!ā
His tone betrayed so special a meaning that the words had a sound of suddenness; yet there was always in Nandaās face that odd preparedness of the young person who has unlearned surprise through the habit, in company, of studiously not compromising her innocence by blinking at things said. āHow CAN I?ā she asked, but appearing rather to take up the proposal than to put it by.
āCanāt you, CANāT you?ā He spoke pressingly and kept her hand. She shook her head slowly, markedly; on which he continued: āYou donāt do justice to Mr. Mitchy.ā She said nothing, but her look was there and it made him resume: āImpossible?ā
āImpossible.ā At this, letting her go, Mr. Longden got up; he pulled out his watch. āWe must go back.ā She had risen with him and they stood face to face in the faded light while he slipped the watch away. āWell, that doesnāt make me wish it any less.ā
āItās lovely of you to wish it, but I shall be one of the people who donāt. I shall be at the end,ā said Nanda, āone of those who havenāt.ā
āNo, my child,ā he returned gravelyāāyou shall never be anything so sad.ā
āWhy notāif YOUāVE been?ā He looked at her a little, quietly, and then, putting out his hand, passed her own into his arm. āExactly because I have.ā
IIIāWould youā the Duchess said to him the next day, ābe for five minutes awfully kind to my poor little niece?ā The words were spoken in charming entreaty as he issued from the house late on the Sunday afternoonāthe second evening of his stay, which the next morning was to bring to an endāand on his meeting the speaker at one of the extremities of the wide cool terrace. There was at this point a subsidiary flight of steps by which she had just mounted from the grounds, one of her purposes being apparently to testify afresh to the anxious supervision of little Aggie she had momentarily suffered herself to be diverted from. This young lady, established in the pleasant shade on a sofa of light construction designed for the open air, offered the image of a patience of which it was a questionable kindness to break the spell. It was that beautiful hour when, toward the close of the happiest days of summer, such places as the great terrace at Mertle present to the fancy a recall of the banquet-hall desertedādeserted by the company lately gathered at tea and now dispersed, according to affinities and combinations promptly felt and perhaps quite as promptly criticised, either in quieter chambers where intimacy might deepen or in gardens and under trees where the stillness knew the click of balls and the good humour of games. There had been chairs, on the terrace, pushed about; there were ungathered teacups on the level top of the parapet; the servants in fact, in the manner of āhandsā mustered by a whistle on the deck of a ship, had just arrived to restore things to an order soon again to be broken. There were scattered couples in sight below and an idle group on the lawn, out of the midst of which, in spite of its detachment, somebody was sharp enough sometimes to cry āOut!ā The high daylight was still in the sky, but with just the foreknowledge already of the long golden glow in which the many-voiced caw of the rooks would sound at once sociable and sad. There was a great deal all about to be aware of and to look at, but little Aggie had her eyes on a book over which her pretty head was bent with a docility visible even from afar. āIāve a friendādown there by the lakeāto go back to,ā the Duchess went on, āand Iām on my way to my room to get a letter that Iāve promised to show him. I shall immediately bring it down and then in a few minutes be able to relieve you,āI donāt leave her alone too muchāone doesnāt, you know, in a house full of people, a child of that age. Besidesāāand Mr. Longdonās interlocutress was even more confidingāāI do want you so very intensely to know her. You, par exemple, youāre what I SHOULD like to give her.ā Mr. Longdon looked the noble lady, in acknowledgement of her appeal, straight in the face, and who can tell whether or no she acutely guessed from his expression that he recognised this particular juncture as written on the page of his doom?āwhether she heard him inaudibly say āAh here it is: I knew it would have to come!ā She would at any rate have been astute enough, had this miracle occurred, quite to complete his sense for her own understanding and suffer it to make no difference in the tone in which she still confronted him. āOh I take the bull by the hornsāI know you havenāt wanted to know me. If you had youād have called on meāIāve given you plenty of hints and little coughs. Now, you see, I donāt cough any moreāI just rush at you and grab you. You donāt call on meāso I call on YOU. There isnāt any indecency moreover that I wonāt commit for my child.ā
Mr. Longdonās impenetrability crashed like glass at the elbow-touch of this large handsome practised woman, who walked for him, like some brazen pagan goddess, in a cloud of queer legend. He looked off at her child, who, at a distance and not hearing them, had not moved. āI know sheās a great friend of Nandaās.ā
āHas Nanda told you that?ā
āOftenātaking such an interest in her.ā
āIām glad she thinks so thenāthough really her interests are so various. But come to my baby. I donāt make HER come,ā she explained as she swept him along, ābecause I want you just to sit down by her there and keep the place, as one may sayā!ā
āWell, for whom?ā he demanded as she stopped. It was her step that had checked itself as well as her tongue, and again, suddenly, they stood quite consciously and vividly opposed. āCan I trust you?ā the Duchess brought out. Again then she took herself up. āBut as if I werenāt already doing it! Itās because I do trust you so utterly that I havenāt been able any longer to keep my hands off you. The person I want the place for is none other than Mitchy himself, and half my occupation now is to get it properly kept for him. Lord Pethertonās immensely kind, but Lord Petherton canāt do everything. I know you really like our hostā!ā
Mr. Longdon, at this, interrupted her with a certain coldness. āHow, may I ask, do you know it?ā
But with a brazen goddess to deal withā! This personage had to fix him but an instant. āBecause, you dear honest man, youāre here. You wouldnāt be if you hated him, for you donāt practically condoneā!ā
This time he broke in with his eyes on the child. āI feel on the contrary, I assure you, that I condone a great deal.ā
āWell, donāt boast of your cynicism,ā she laughed, ātill youāre sure of all it covers. Let the right thing for you be,ā she went on, āthat Nanda herself wants it.ā
āNanda herself?ā He continued to watch little Aggie, who had never yet turned her head. āIām afraid I donāt understand you.ā
She swept him on again. āIāll come to you presently and explain. I MUST get my letter for Petherton; after which Iāll give up Mitchy, whom I was going to find, and since Iāve broken the iceāif it isnāt too much to say to such a polar bear!āIāll show you le fond de ma pensee. Baby darling,ā she said to her niece, ākeep Mr. Longdon. Show him,ā she benevolently suggested, āwhat youāve been reading.ā Then again to her fellow guest, as arrested by this very question: āCaro signore, have YOU a possible book?ā
Little Aggie had got straight up and was holding out her volume, which Mr. Longdon, all courtesy for her, glanced at. āStories from English History. Oh!ā
His ejaculation, though vague, was not such as to prevent the girl from venturing gently: āHave you read it?ā
Mr. Longdon, receiving her pure little smile, showed he felt he had never so taken her in as at this moment, as well as also that she was a person with whom he should surely get on. āI think I must have.ā
Little Aggie was still more encouraged, but not to the point of keeping anything back. āIt hasnāt any author. Itās anonymous.ā
The Duchess borrowed, for another question to Mr. Longdon, not a little of her gravity. āIs it all right?ā
āI donāt knowāāhis answer was to Aggie. āThere have been some horrid things in English history.ā
āOh horridāHAVENāT there?ā Aggie, whose speech had the prettiest faintest foreignness, sweetly and eagerly quavered.
āWell, darling, Mr. Longdon will recommend to you some nice historical workāfor we love history, donāt we?āthat leaves the horrors out. We like to know,ā the Duchess explained to the authority she invoked, āthe cheerful happy RIGHT things. There are so many, after all, and this is the place to remember them. A tantot.ā
As she passed into the house by the nearest of the long windows that stood open Mr. Longdon placed himself beside her little charge, whom he treated, for the next ten minutes, with an exquisite courtesy. A person who knew him well would, if present at the scene, have found occasion in it to be freshly aware that he was in his quiet way master of two distinct kinds of urbanity, the kind that added to distance and the kind that diminished it. Such an analyst would furthermore have noted, in respect to the aunt and the niece,
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