The Tragic Muse. Генри Джеймс

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СКАЧАТЬ which she exclaimed, "Oh I say, well go!" and got up abruptly, asking for her jacket. He said something about the carriage and its order to come back for them, and she replied, "Well, it can go away again. I don't want a carriage," she added: "I want to walk"—and in a moment she was out of the place, with the people at the tables turning round again and the caissière swaying in her high seat. On the pavement of the boulevard she looked up and down; there were people at little tables by the door; there were people all over the broad expanse of the asphalt; there was a profusion of light and a pervasion of sound; and everywhere, though the establishment at which they had been dining was not in the thick of the fray, the tokens of a great traffic of pleasure, that night-aspect of Paris which represents it as a huge market for sensations. Beyond the Boulevard des Capucines it flared through the warm evening like a vast bazaar, and opposite the Café Durand the Madeleine rose theatrical, a high artful décor before the footlights of the Rue Royale. "Where shall we go, what shall we do?" Mrs. Dallow asked, looking at her companion and somewhat to his surprise, as he had supposed she wanted but to go home.

      "Anywhere you like. It's so warm we might drive instead of going indoors. We might go to the Bois. That would be agreeable."

      "Yes, but it wouldn't be walking. However, that doesn't matter. It's mild enough for anything—for sitting out like all these people. And I've never walked in Paris at night. It would amuse me."

      Nick hesitated. "So it might, but it isn't particularly recommended to ladies."

      "I don't care for that if it happens to suit me."

      "Very well then, we'll walk to the Bastille if you like."

      Julia hesitated, on her side, still looking about. "It's too far; I'm tired; we'll sit here." And she dropped beside an empty table on the "terrace" of M. Durand. "This will do; it's amusing enough and we can look at the Madeleine—that's respectable. If we must have something we'll have a madère—is that respectable? Not particularly? So much the better. What are those people having? Bocks? Couldn't we have bocks? Are they very low? Then I shall have one. I've been so wonderfully good—I've been staying at Versailles: je me dois bien cela."

      She insisted, but pronounced the thin liquid in the tall glass very disgusting when it was brought. Nick was amazed, reflecting that it was not for such a discussion as this that his mother had left him with hands in his pockets. He had been looking out, but as his eloquence flowed faster he turned to his friend, who had dropped upon a sofa with her face to the window. She had given her jacket and gloves to her maid, but had kept on her hat; and she leaned forward a little as she sat, clasping her hands together in her lap and keeping her eyes on him. The lamp, in a corner, was so thickly veiled that the room was in tempered obscurity, lighted almost equally from the street and the brilliant shop-fronts opposite. "Therefore why be sapient and solemn about it, like an editorial in a newspaper?" Nick added with a smile.

      She continued to look at him after he had spoken, then she said: "If you don't want to stand you've only to say so. You needn't give your reasons."

      "It's too kind of you to let me off that! And then I'm a tremendous fellow for reasons; that's my strong point, don't you know? I've a lot more besides those I've mentioned, done up and ready for delivery. The odd thing is that they don't always govern my behaviour. I rather think I do want to stand."

      "Then what you said just now was a speech," Julia declared.

      "A speech?"

      "The 'rot,' the humbug of the hustings."

      "No, those great truths remain, and a good many others. But an inner voice tells me I'm in for it. And it will be much more graceful to embrace this opportunity, accepting your co-operation, than to wait for some other and forfeit that advantage."

      "I shall be very glad to help you anywhere," she went on.

      "Thanks awfully," he returned, still standing there with his hands in his pockets. "You'd do it best in your own place, and I've no right to deny myself such a help."

      Julia calmly considered. "I don't do it badly."

      "Ah you're so political!"

      "Of course I am; it's the only decent thing to be. But I can only help you if you'll help yourself. I can do a good deal, but I can't do everything. If you'll work I'll work with you; but if you're going into it with your hands in your pockets I'll have nothing to do with you." Nick instantly changed the position of these members and sank into a seat with his elbows on his knees. "You're very clever, but you must really take a little trouble. Things don't drop into people's mouths."

      "I'll try—I'll try. I've a great incentive," he admitted.

      "Of course you have."

      "My mother, my poor mother." Julia breathed some vague sound and he went on: "And of course always my father, dear good man. My mother's even more political than you."

      "I daresay she is, and quite right!" said Mrs. Dallow.

      "And she can't tell me a bit more than you can what she thinks, what she believes, what she wants."

      "Pardon me, I can tell you perfectly. There's one thing I always immensely want—to keep out a Tory."

      "I see. That's a great philosophy."

      "It will do very well. And I desire the good of the country. I'm not ashamed of that."

      "And can you give me an idea of what it is—the good of the country?"

      "I know perfectly what it isn't. It isn't what the Tories want to do."

      "What do they want to do?"

      "Oh it would take me long to tell you. All sorts of trash."

      "It would take you long, and it would take them longer! All they want to do is to prevent us from doing. On our side we want to prevent them from preventing us. That's about as clearly as we all see it. So on both sides it's a beautiful, lucid, inspiring programme."

      "I don't believe in you," Mrs. Dallow replied to this, leaning back on her sofa.

      "I hope not, Julia, indeed!" He paused a moment, still with his face toward her and his elbows on his knees; then he pursued: "You're a very accomplished woman and a very zealous one; but you haven't an idea, you know—not to call an idea. What you mainly want is to be at the head of a political salon; to start one, to keep it up, to make it a success."

      "Much you know me!" Julia protested; but he could see, through the dimness, that her face spoke differently.

      "You'll have it in time, but I won't come to it," Nick went on.

      "You can't come less than you do."

      "When I say you'll have it I mean you've already got it. That's why I don't come."

      "I don't think you know what you mean," said Mrs. Dallow. "I've an idea that's as good as any of yours, any of those you've treated me to this evening, it seems to me—the simple idea that one ought to do something or other for one's country."

      "'Something or other' certainly covers all the ground. There's one thing one can always do for one's country, which is not to be afraid."

      "Afraid of what?"

      Nick Dormer waited a little, as if his idea amused him, but he presently said, "I'll tell you another time. It's very well to talk so glibly of standing," he added; "but it isn't absolutely foreign to the question СКАЧАТЬ