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diff --git a/old/pndra10.txt b/old/pndra10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3a989c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pndra10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2316 @@ +*****The Project Gutenberg Etext of Pandora, by Henry James***** +#21 in our series by Henry James + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Proofing was by David, +Jeremy Kwock and Uzma G. + + + + + +PANDORA + +by Henry James + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +It has long been the custom of the North German Lloyd steamers, +which convey passengers from Bremen to New York, to anchor for +several hours in the pleasant port of Southampton, where their human +cargo receives many additions. An intelligent young German, Count +Otto Vogelstein, hardly knew a few years ago whether to condemn this +custom or approve it. He leaned over the bulwarks of the Donau as +the American passengers crossed the plank--the travellers who embark +at Southampton are mainly of that nationality--and curiously, +indifferently, vaguely, through the smoke of his cigar, saw them +absorbed in the huge capacity of the ship, where he had the +agreeable consciousness that his own nest was comfortably made. To +watch from such a point of vantage the struggles of those less +fortunate than ourselves--of the uninformed, the unprovided, the +belated, the bewildered--is an occupation not devoid of sweetness, +and there was nothing to mitigate the complacency with which our +young friend gave himself up to it; nothing, that is, save a natural +benevolence which had not yet been extinguished by the consciousness +of official greatness. For Count Vogelstein was official, as I +think you would have seen from the straightness of his back, the +lustre of his light elegant spectacles, and something discreet and +diplomatic in the curve of his moustache, which looked as if it +might well contribute to the principal function, as cynics say, of +the lips--the active concealment of thought. He had been appointed +to the secretaryship of the German legation at Washington and in +these first days of the autumn was about to take possession of his +post. He was a model character for such a purpose--serious civil +ceremonious curious stiff, stuffed with knowledge and convinced +that, as lately rearranged, the German Empire places in the most +striking light the highest of all the possibilities of the greatest +of all the peoples. He was quite aware, however, of the claims to +economic and other consideration of the United States, and that this +quarter of the globe offered a vast field for study. + +The process of inquiry had already begun for him, in spite of his +having as yet spoken to none of his fellow-passengers; the case +being that Vogelstein inquired not only with his tongue, but with +his eyes--that is with his spectacles--with his ears, with his nose, +with his palate, with all his senses and organs. He was a highly +upright young man, whose only fault was that his sense of comedy, or +of the humour of things, had never been specifically disengaged from +his several other senses. He vaguely felt that something should be +done about this, and in a general manner proposed to do it, for he +was on his way to explore a society abounding in comic aspects. +This consciousness of a missing measure gave him a certain mistrust +of what might be said of him; and if circumspection is the essence +of diplomacy our young aspirant promised well. His mind contained +several millions of facts, packed too closely together for the light +breeze of the imagination to draw through the mass. He was +impatient to report himself to his superior in Washington, and the +loss of time in an English port could only incommode him, inasmuch +as the study of English institutions was no part of his mission. On +the other hand the day was charming; the blue sea, in Southampton +Water, pricked all over with light, had no movement but that of its +infinite shimmer. Moreover he was by no means sure that he should +be happy in the United States, where doubtless he should find +himself soon enough disembarked. He knew that this was not an +important question and that happiness was an unscientific term, such +as a man of his education should be ashamed to use even in the +silence of his thoughts. Lost none the less in the inconsiderate +crowd and feeling himself neither in his own country nor in that to +which he was in a manner accredited, he was reduced to his mere +personality; so that during the hour, to save his importance, he +cultivated such ground as lay in sight for a judgement of this delay +to which the German steamer was subjected in English waters. +Mightn't it be proved, facts, figures and documents--or at least +watch--in hand, considerably greater than the occasion demanded? + +Count Vogelstein was still young enough in diplomacy to think it +necessary to have opinions. He had a good many indeed which had +been formed without difficulty; they had been received ready-made +from a line of ancestors who knew what they liked. This was of +course--and under pressure, being candid, he would have admitted it +--an unscientific way of furnishing one's mind. Our young man was a +stiff conservative, a Junker of Junkers; he thought modern democracy +a temporary phase and expected to find many arguments against it in +the great Republic. In regard to these things it was a pleasure to +him to feel that, with his complete training, he had been taught +thoroughly to appreciate the nature of evidence. The ship was +heavily laden with German emigrants, whose mission in the United +States differed considerably from Count Otto's. They hung over the +bulwarks, densely grouped; they leaned forward on their elbows for +hours, their shoulders kept on a level with their ears; the men in +furred caps, smoking long-bowled pipes, the women with babies hidden +in remarkably ugly shawls. Some were yellow Germans and some were +black, and all looked greasy and matted with the sea-damp. They +were destined to swell still further the huge current of the Western +democracy; and Count Vogelstein doubtless said to himself that they +wouldn't improve its quality. Their numbers, however, were +striking, and I know not what he thought of the nature of this +particular evidence. + +The passengers who came on board at Southampton were not of the +greasy class; they were for the most part American families who had +been spending the summer, or a longer period, in Europe. They had a +great deal of luggage, innumerable bags and rugs and hampers and +sea-chairs, and were composed largely of ladies of various ages, a +little pale with anticipation, wrapped also in striped shawls, +though in prettier ones than the nursing mothers of the steerage, +and crowned with very high hats and feathers. They darted to and +fro across the gangway, looking for each other and for their +scattered parcels; they separated and reunited, they exclaimed and +declared, they eyed with dismay the occupants of the forward +quarter, who seemed numerous enough to sink the vessel, and their +voices sounded faint and far as they rose to Vogelstein's ear over +the latter's great tarred sides. He noticed that in the new +contingent there were many young girls, and he remembered what a +lady in Dresden had once said to him--that America was the country +of the Madchen. He wondered whether he should like that, and +reflected that it would be an aspect to study, like everything else. +He had known in Dresden an American family in which there were three +daughters who used to skate with the officers, and some of the +ladies now coming on board struck him as of that same habit, except +that in the Dresden days feathers weren't worn quite so high. + +At last the ship began to creak and slowly bridge, and the delay at +Southampton came to an end. The gangway was removed and the vessel +indulged in the awkward evolutions that were to detach her from the +land. Count Vogelstein had finished his cigar, and he spent a long +time in walking up and down the upper deck. The charming English +coast passed before him, and he felt this to be the last of the old +world. The American coast also might be pretty--he hardly knew what +one would expect of an American coast; but he was sure it would be +different. Differences, however, were notoriously half the charm of +travel, and perhaps even most when they couldn't be expressed in +figures, numbers, diagrams or the other merely useful symbols. As +yet indeed there were very few among the objects presented to sight +on the steamer. Most of his fellow-passengers appeared of one and +the same persuasion, and that persuasion the least to be mistaken. +They were Jews and commercial to a man. And by this time they had +lighted their cigars and put on all manner of seafaring caps, some +of them with big ear-lappets which somehow had the effect of +bringing out their peculiar facial type. At last the new voyagers +began to emerge from below and to look about them, vaguely, with +that suspicious expression of face always to be noted in the newly +embarked and which, as directed to the receding land, resembles that +of a person who begins to perceive himself the victim of a trick. +Earth and ocean, in such glances, are made the subject of a sweeping +objection, and many travellers, in the general plight, have an air +at once duped and superior, which seems to say that they could +easily go ashore if they would. + +It still wanted two hours of dinner, and by the time Vogelstein's +long legs had measured three or four miles on the deck he was ready +to settle himself in his sea-chair and draw from his pocket a +Tauchnitz novel by an American author whose pages, he had been +assured, would help to prepare him for some of the oddities. On the +back of his chair his name was painted in rather large letters, this +being a precaution taken at the recommendation of a friend who had +told him that on the American steamers the passengers--especially +the ladies--thought nothing of pilfering one's little comforts. His +friend had even hinted at the correct reproduction of his coronet. +This marked man of the world had added that the Americans are +greatly impressed by a coronet. I know not whether it was +scepticism or modesty, but Count Vogelstein had omitted every +pictured plea for his rank; there were others of which he might have +made use. The precious piece of furniture which on the Atlantic +voyage is trusted never to flinch among universal concussions was +emblazoned simply with his title and name. It happened, however, +that the blazonry was huge; the back of the chair was covered with +enormous German characters. This time there can be no doubt: it +was modesty that caused the secretary of legation, in placing +himself, to turn this portion of his seat outward, away from the +eyes of his companions--to present it to the balustrade of the deck. +The ship was passing the Needles--the beautiful uttermost point of +the Isle of Wight. Certain tall white cones of rock rose out of the +purple sea; they flushed in the afternoon light and their vague +rosiness gave them a human expression in face of the cold expanse +toward which the prow was turned; they seemed to say farewell, to be +the last note of a peopled world. Vogelstein saw them very +comfortably from his place and after a while turned his eyes to the +other quarter, where the elements of air and water managed to make +between them so comparatively poor an opposition. Even his American +novelist was more amusing than that, and he prepared to return to +this author. In the great curve which it described, however, his +glance was arrested by the figure of a young lady who had just +ascended to the deck and who paused at the mouth of the +companionway. + +This was not in itself an extraordinary phenomenon; but what +attracted Vogelstein's attention was the fact that the young person +appeared to have fixed her eyes on him. She was slim, brightly +dressed, rather pretty; Vogelstein remembered in a moment that he +had noticed her among the people on the wharf at Southampton. She +was soon aware he had observed her; whereupon she began to move +along the deck with a step that seemed to indicate a purpose of +approaching him. Vogelstein had time to wonder whether she could be +one of the girls he had known at Dresden; but he presently reflected +that they would now be much older than that. It was true they were +apt to advance, like this one, straight upon their victim. Yet the +present specimen was no longer looking at him, and though she passed +near him it was now tolerably clear she had come above but to take a +general survey. She was a quick handsome competent girl, and she +simply wanted to see what one could think of the ship, of the +weather, of the appearance of England, from such a position as that; +possibly even of one's fellow-passengers. She satisfied herself +promptly on these points, and then she looked about, while she +walked, as if in keen search of a missing object; so that Vogelstein +finally arrived at a conviction of her real motive. She passed near +him again and this time almost stopped, her eyes bent upon him +attentively. He thought her conduct remarkable even after he had +gathered that it was not at his face, with its yellow moustache, she +was looking, but at the chair on which he was seated. Then those +words of his friend came back to him--the speech about the tendency +of the people, especially of the ladies, on the American steamers to +take to themselves one's little belongings. Especially the ladies, +he might well say; for here was one who apparently wished to pull +from under him the very chair he was sitting on. He was afraid she +would ask him for it, so he pretended to read, systematically +avoiding her eye. He was conscious she hovered near him, and was +moreover curious to see what she would do. It seemed to him strange +that such a nice-looking girl--for her appearance was really +charming--should endeavour by arts so flagrant to work upon the +quiet dignity of a secretary of legation. At last it stood out that +she was trying to look round a corner, as it were--trying to see +what was written on the back of his chair. "She wants to find out +my name; she wants to see who I am!" This reflexion passed through +his mind and caused him to raise his eyes. They rested on her own-- +which for an appreciable moment she didn't withdraw. The latter +were brilliant and expressive, and surmounted a delicate aquiline +nose, which, though pretty, was perhaps just a trifle too hawk-like. +It was the oddest coincidence in the world; the story Vogelstein had +taken up treated of a flighty forward little American girl who +plants herself in front of a young man in the garden of an hotel. +Wasn't the conduct of this young lady a testimony to the +truthfulness of the tale, and wasn't Vogelstein himself in the +position of the young man in the garden? That young man--though +with more, in such connexions in general, to go upon--ended by +addressing himself to his aggressor, as she might be called, and +after a very short hesitation Vogelstein followed his example. "If +she wants to know who I am she's welcome," he said to himself; and +he got out of the chair, seized it by the back and, turning it +round, exhibited the superscription to the girl. She coloured +slightly, but smiled and read his name, while Vogelstein raised his +hat. + +"I'm much obliged to you. That's all right," she remarked as if the +discovery had made her very happy. + +It affected him indeed as all right that he should be Count Otto +Vogelstein; this appeared even rather a flippant mode of disposing +of the fact. By way of rejoinder he asked her if she desired of him +the surrender of his seat. + +"I'm much obliged to you; of course not. I thought you had one of +our chairs, and I didn't like to ask you. It looks exactly like one +of ours; not so much now as when you sit in it. Please sit down +again. I don't want to trouble you. We've lost one of ours, and +I've been looking for it everywhere. They look so much alike; you +can't tell till you see the back. Of course I see there will be no +mistake about yours," the young lady went on with a smile of which +the serenity matched her other abundance. "But we've got such a +small name--you can scarcely see it," she added with the same +friendly intention. "Our name's just Day--you mightn't think it WAS +a name, might you? if we didn't make the most of it. If you see +that on anything, I'd be so obliged if you'd tell me. It isn't for +myself, it's for my mother; she's so dependent on her chair, and +that one I'm looking for pulls out so beautifully. Now that you sit +down again and hide the lower part it does look just like ours. +Well, it must be somewhere. You must excuse me; I wouldn't disturb +you." + +This was a long and even confidential speech for a young woman, +presumably unmarried, to make to a perfect stranger; but Miss Day +acquitted herself of it with perfect simplicity and self-possession. +She held up her head and stepped away, and Vogelstein could see that +the foot she pressed upon the clean smooth deck was slender and +shapely. He watched her disappear through the trap by which she had +ascended, and he felt more than ever like the young man in his +American tale. The girl in the present case was older and not so +pretty, as he could easily judge, for the image of her smiling eyes +and speaking lips still hovered before him. He went back to his +book with the feeling that it would give him some information about +her. This was rather illogical, but it indicated a certain amount +of curiosity on the part of Count Vogelstein. The girl in the book +had a mother, it appeared, and so had this young lady; the former +had also a brother, and he now remembered that he had noticed a +young man on the wharf--a young man in a high hat and a white +overcoat--who seemed united to Miss Day by this natural tie. And +there was some one else too, as he gradually recollected, an older +man, also in a high hat, but in a black overcoat--in black +altogether--who completed the group and who was presumably the head +of the family. These reflexions would indicate that Count +Vogelstein read his volume of Tauchnitz rather interruptedly. +Moreover they represented but the loosest economy of consciousness; +for wasn't he to be afloat in an oblong box for ten days with such +people, and could it be doubted he should see at least enough of +them? + +It may as well be written without delay that he saw a great deal of +them. I have sketched in some detail the conditions in which he +made the acquaintance of Miss Day, because the event had a certain +importance for this fair square Teuton; but I must pass briefly over +the incidents that immediately followed it. He wondered what it was +open to him, after such an introduction, to do in relation to her, +and he determined he would push through his American tale and +discover what the hero did. But he satisfied himself in a very +short time that Miss Day had nothing in common with the heroine of +that work save certain signs of habitat and climate--and save, +further, the fact that the male sex wasn't terrible to her. The +local stamp sharply, as he gathered, impressed upon her he estimated +indeed rather in a borrowed than in a natural light, for if she was +native to a small town in the interior of the American continent one +of their fellow-passengers, a lady from New York with whom he had a +good deal of conversation, pronounced her "atrociously" provincial. +How the lady arrived at this certitude didn't appear, for Vogelstein +observed that she held no communication with the girl. It was true +she gave it the support of her laying down that certain Americans +could tell immediately who other Americans were, leaving him to +judge whether or no she herself belonged to the critical or only to +the criticised half of the nation. Mrs. Dangerfield was a handsome +confidential insinuating woman, with whom Vogelstein felt his talk +take a very wide range indeed. She convinced him rather effectually +that even in a great democracy there are human differences, and that +American life was full of social distinctions, of delicate shades, +which foreigners often lack the intelligence to perceive. Did he +suppose every one knew every one else in the biggest country in the +world, and that one wasn't as free to choose one's company there as +in the most monarchical and most exclusive societies? She laughed +such delusions to scorn as Vogelstein tucked her beautiful furred +coverlet--they reclined together a great deal in their elongated +chairs--well over her feet. How free an American lady was to choose +her company she abundantly proved by not knowing any one on the +steamer but Count Otto. + +He could see for himself that Mr. and Mrs. Day had not at all her +grand air. They were fat plain serious people who sat side by side +on the deck for hours and looked straight before them. Mrs. Day had +a white face, large cheeks and small eyes: her forehead was +surrounded with a multitude of little tight black curls; her lips +moved as if she had always a lozenge in her mouth. She wore +entwined about her head an article which Mrs. Dangerfield spoke of +as a "nuby," a knitted pink scarf concealing her hair, encircling +her neck and having among its convolutions a hole for her perfectly +expressionless face. Her hands were folded on her stomach, and in +her still, swathed figure her little bead-like eyes, which +occasionally changed their direction, alone represented life. Her +husband had a stiff grey beard on his chin and a bare spacious upper +lip, to which constant shaving had imparted a hard glaze. His +eyebrows were thick and his nostrils wide, and when he was +uncovered, in the saloon, it was visible that his grizzled hair was +dense and perpendicular. He might have looked rather grim and +truculent hadn't it been for the mild familiar accommodating gaze +with which his large light-coloured pupils--the leisurely eyes of a +silent man--appeared to consider surrounding objects. He was +evidently more friendly than fierce, but he was more diffident than +friendly. He liked to have you in sight, but wouldn't have +pretended to understand you much or to classify you, and would have +been sorry it should put you under an obligation. He and his wife +spoke sometimes, but seldom talked, and there was something vague +and patient in them, as if they had become victims of a wrought +spell. The spell however was of no sinister cast; it was the +fascination of prosperity, the confidence of security, which +sometimes makes people arrogant, but which had had such a different +effect on this simple satisfied pair, in whom further development of +every kind appeared to have been happily arrested. + +Mrs. Dangerfield made it known to Count Otto that every morning +after breakfast, the hour at which he wrote his journal in his +cabin, the old couple were guided upstairs and installed in their +customary corner by Pandora. This she had learned to be the name of +their elder daughter, and she was immensely amused by her discovery. +"Pandora"--that was in the highest degree typical; it placed them in +the social scale if other evidence had been wanting; you could tell +that a girl was from the interior, the mysterious interior about +which Vogelstein's imagination was now quite excited, when she had +such a name as that. This young lady managed the whole family, even +a little the small beflounced sister, who, with bold pretty innocent +eyes, a torrent of fair silky hair, a crimson fez, such as is worn +by male Turks, very much askew on top of it, and a way of galloping +and straddling about the ship in any company she could pick up--she +had long thin legs, very short skirts and stockings of every tint-- +was going home, in elegant French clothes, to resume an interrupted +education. Pandora overlooked and directed her relatives; +Vogelstein could see this for himself, could see she was very active +and decided, that she had in a high degree the sentiment of +responsibility, settling on the spot most of the questions that +could come up for a family from the interior. + +The voyage was remarkably fine, and day after day it was possible to +sit there under the salt sky and feel one's self rounding the great +curves of the globe. The long deck made a white spot in the sharp +black circle of the ocean and in the intense sea-light, while the +shadow of the smoke-streamers trembled on the familiar floor, the +shoes of fellow-passengers, distinctive now, and in some cases +irritating, passed and repassed, accompanied, in the air so +tremendously "open," that rendered all voices weak and most remarks +rather flat, by fragments of opinion on the run of the ship. +Vogelstein by this time had finished his little American story and +now definitely judged that Pandora Day was not at all like the +heroine. She was of quite another type; much more serious and +strenuous, and not at all keen, as he had supposed, about making the +acquaintance of gentlemen. Her speaking to him that first afternoon +had been, he was bound to believe, an incident without importance +for herself; in spite of her having followed it up the next day by +the remark, thrown at him as she passed, with a smile that was +almost fraternal: "It's all right, sir! I've found that old +chair." After this she hadn't spoken to him again and had scarcely +looked at him. She read a great deal, and almost always French +books, in fresh yellow paper; not the lighter forms of that +literature, but a volume of Sainte-Beuve, of Renan or at the most, +in the way of dissipation, of Alfred de Musset. She took frequent +exercise and almost always walked alone, apparently not having made +many friends on the ship and being without the resource of her +parents, who, as has been related, never budged out of the cosy +corner in which she planted them for the day. + +Her brother was always in the smoking-room, where Vogelstein +observed him, in very tight clothes, his neck encircled with a +collar like a palisade. He had a sharp little face, which was not +disagreeable; he smoked enormous cigars and began his drinking early +in the day: but his appearance gave no sign of these excesses. As +regards euchre and poker and the other distractions of the place he +was guilty of none. He evidently understood such games in +perfection, for he used to watch the players, and even at moments +impartially advise them; but Vogelstein never saw the cards in his +hand. He was referred to as regards disputed points, and his +opinion carried the day. He took little part in the conversation, +usually much relaxed, that prevailed in the smoking-room, but from +time to time he made, in his soft flat youthful voice, a remark +which every one paused to listen to and which was greeted with roars +of laughter. Vogelstein, well as he knew English, could rarely +catch the joke; but he could see at least that these must be choice +specimens of that American humour admired and practised by a whole +continent and yet to be rendered accessible to a trained +diplomatist, clearly, but by some special and incalculable +revelation. The young man, in his way, was very remarkable, for, as +Vogelstein heard some one say once after the laughter had subsided, +he was only nineteen. If his sister didn't resemble the dreadful +little girl in the tale already mentioned, there was for Vogelstein +at least an analogy between young Mr. Day and a certain small +brother--a candy-loving Madison, Hamilton or Jefferson--who was, in +the Tauchnitz volume, attributed to that unfortunate maid. This was +what the little Madison would have grown up to at nineteen, and the +improvement was greater than might have been expected. + +The days were long, but the voyage was short, and it had almost come +to an end before Count Otto yielded to an attraction peculiar in its +nature and finally irresistible, and, in spite of Mrs. Dangerfield's +emphatic warning, sought occasion for a little continuous talk with +Miss Pandora. To mention that this impulse took effect without +mentioning sundry other of his current impressions with which it had +nothing to do is perhaps to violate proportion and give a false +idea; but to pass it by would be still more unjust. The Germans, as +we know, are a transcendental people, and there was at last an +irresistible appeal for Vogelstein in this quick bright silent girl +who could smile and turn vocal in an instant, who imparted a rare +originality to the filial character, and whose profile was delicate +as she bent it over a volume which she cut as she read, or presented +it in musing attitudes, at the side of the ship, to the horizon they +had left behind. But he felt it to be a pity, as regards a possible +acquaintance with her, that her parents should be heavy little +burghers, that her brother should not correspond to his conception +of a young man of the upper class, and that her sister should be a +Daisy Miller en herbe. Repeatedly admonished by Mrs. Dangerfield, +the young diplomatist was doubly careful as to the relations he +might form at the beginning of his sojourn in the United States. +That lady reminded him, and he had himself made the observation in +other capitals, that the first year, and even the second, is the +time for prudence. One was ignorant of proportions and values; one +was exposed to mistakes and thankful for attention, and one might +give one's self away to people who would afterwards be as a +millstone round one's neck: Mrs. Dangerfield struck and sustained +that note, which resounded in the young man's imagination. She +assured him that if he didn't "look out" he would be committing +himself to some American girl with an impossible family. In +America, when one committed one's self, there was nothing to do but +march to the altar, and what should he say for instance to finding +himself a near relation of Mr. and Mrs. P. W. Day?--since such were +the initials inscribed on the back of the two chairs of that couple. +Count Otto felt the peril, for he could immediately think of a dozen +men he knew who had married American girls. There appeared now to +be a constant danger of marrying the American girl; it was something +one had to reckon with, like the railway, the telegraph, the +discovery of dynamite, the Chassepot rifle, the Socialistic spirit: +it was one of the complications of modern life. + +It would doubtless be too much to say that he feared being carried +away by a passion for a young woman who was not strikingly beautiful +and with whom he had talked, in all, but ten minutes. But, as we +recognise, he went so far as to wish that the human belongings of a +person whose high spirit appeared to have no taint either of +fastness, as they said in England, or of subversive opinion, and +whose mouth had charming lines, should not be a little more +distinguished. There was an effect of drollery in her behaviour to +these subjects of her zeal, whom she seemed to regard as a care, but +not as an interest; it was as if they had been entrusted to her +honour and she had engaged to convey them safe to a certain point; +she was detached and inadvertent, and then suddenly remembered, +repented and came back to tuck them into their blankets, to alter +the position of her mother's umbrella, to tell them something about +the run of the ship. These little offices were usually performed +deftly, rapidly, with the minimum of words, and when their daughter +drew near them Mr. and Mrs. Day closed their eyes after the fashion +of a pair of household dogs who expect to be scratched. + +One morning she brought up the Captain of the ship to present to +them; she appeared to have a private and independent acquaintance +with this officer, and the introduction to her parents had the air +of a sudden happy thought. It wasn't so much an introduction as an +exhibition, as if she were saying to him: "This is what they look +like; see how comfortable I make them. Aren't they rather queer and +rather dear little people? But they leave me perfectly free. Oh I +can assure you of that. Besides, you must see it for yourself." +Mr. and Mrs. Day looked up at the high functionary who thus unbent +to them with very little change of countenance; then looked at each +other in the same way. He saluted, he inclined himself a moment; +but Pandora shook her head, she seemed to be answering for them; she +made little gestures as if in explanation to the good Captain of +some of their peculiarities, as for instance that he needn't expect +them to speak. They closed their eyes at last; she appeared to have +a kind of mesmeric influence on them, and Miss Day walked away with +the important friend, who treated her with evident consideration, +bowing very low, for all his importance, when the two presently +after separated. Vogelstein could see she was capable of making an +impression; and the moral of our little matter is that in spite of +Mrs. Dangerfield, in spite of the resolutions of his prudence, in +spite of the limits of such acquaintance as he had momentarily made +with her, in spite of Mr. and Mrs. Day and the young man in the +smoking-room, she had fixed his attention. + +It was in the course of the evening after the scene with the Captain +that he joined her, awkwardly, abruptly, irresistibly, on the deck, +where she was pacing to and fro alone, the hour being auspiciously +mild and the stars remarkably fine. There were scattered talkers +and smokers and couples, unrecognisable, that moved quickly through +the gloom. The vessel dipped with long regular pulsations; vague +and spectral under the low stars, its swaying pinnacles spotted here +and there with lights, it seemed to rush through the darkness faster +than by day. Count Otto had come up to walk, and as the girl +brushed past him he distinguished Pandora's face--with Mrs. +Dangerfield he always spoke of her as Pandora--under the veil worn +to protect it from the sea-damp. He stopped, turned, hurried after +her, threw away his cigar--then asked her if she would do him the +honour to accept his arm. She declined his arm but accepted his +company, and he allowed her to enjoy it for an hour. They had a +great deal of talk, and he was to remember afterwards some of the +things she had said. There was now a certainty of the ship's +getting into dock the next morning but one, and this prospect +afforded an obvious topic. Some of Miss Day's expressions struck +him as singular, but of course, as he was aware, his knowledge of +English was not nice enough to give him a perfect measure. + +"I'm not in a hurry to arrive; I'm very happy here," she said. "I'm +afraid I shall have such a time putting my people through." + +"Putting them through?" + +"Through the Custom-House. We've made so many purchases. Well, +I've written to a friend to come down, and perhaps he can help us. +He's very well acquainted with the head. Once I'm chalked I don't +care. I feel like a kind of blackboard by this time anyway. We +found them awful in Germany." + +Count Otto wondered if the friend she had written to were her lover +and if they had plighted their troth, especially when she alluded to +him again as "that gentleman who's coming down." He asked her about +her travels, her impressions, whether she had been long in Europe +and what she liked best, and she put it to him that they had gone +abroad, she and her family, for a little fresh experience. Though +he found her very intelligent he suspected she gave this as a reason +because he was a German and she had heard the Germans were rich in +culture. He wondered what form of culture Mr. and Mrs. Day had +brought back from Italy, Greece and Palestine--they had travelled +for two years and been everywhere--especially when their daughter +said: "I wanted father and mother to see the best things. I kept +them three hours on the Acropolis. I guess they won't forget that!" +Perhaps it was of Phidias and Pericles they were thinking, +Vogelstein reflected, as they sat ruminating in their rugs. Pandora +remarked also that she wanted to show her little sister everything +while she was comparatively unformed ("comparatively!" he mutely +gasped); remarkable sights made so much more impression when the +mind was fresh: she had read something of that sort somewhere in +Goethe. She had wanted to come herself when she was her sister's +age; but her father was in business then and they couldn't leave +Utica. The young man thought of the little sister frisking over the +Parthenon and the Mount of Olives and sharing for two years, the +years of the school-room, this extraordinary pilgrimage of her +parents; he wondered whether Goethe's dictum had been justified in +this case. He asked Pandora if Utica were the seat of her family, +if it were an important or typical place, if it would be an +interesting city for him, as a stranger, to see. His companion +replied frankly that this was a big question, but added that all the +same she would ask him to "come and visit us at our home" if it +weren't that they should probably soon leave it. + +"Ah, you're going to live elsewhere?" Vogelstein asked, as if that +fact too would be typical. + +"Well, I'm working for New York. I flatter myself I've loosened +them while we've been away," the girl went on. "They won't find in +Utica the same charm; that was my idea. I want a big place, and of +course Utica--!" She broke off as before a complex statement. + +"I suppose Utica is inferior--?" Vogelstein seemed to see his way to +suggest. + +"Well no, I guess I can't have you call Utica inferior. It isn't +supreme--that's what's the matter with it, and I hate anything +middling," said Pandora Day. She gave a light dry laugh, tossing +back her head a little as she made this declaration. And looking at +her askance in the dusk, as she trod the deck that vaguely swayed, +he recognised something in her air and port that matched such a +pronouncement. + +"What's her social position?" he inquired of Mrs. Dangerfield the +next day. "I can't make it out at all--it's so contradictory. She +strikes me as having much cultivation and much spirit. Her +appearance, too, is very neat. Yet her parents are complete little +burghers. That's easily seen." + +"Oh, social position," and Mrs. Dangerfield nodded two or three +times portentously. "What big expressions you use! Do you think +everybody in the world has a social position? That's reserved for +an infinitely small majority of mankind. You can't have a social +position at Utica any more than you can have an opera-box. Pandora +hasn't got one; where, if you please, should she have got it? Poor +girl, it isn't fair of you to make her the subject of such questions +as that." + +"Well," said Vogelstein, "if she's of the lower class it seems to me +very--very--" And he paused a moment, as he often paused in +speaking English, looking for his word. + +"Very what, dear Count?" + +"Very significant, very representative." + +"Oh dear, she isn't of the lower class," Mrs. Dangerfield returned +with an irritated sense of wasted wisdom. She liked to explain her +country, but that somehow always required two persons. + +"What is she then?" + +"Well, I'm bound to admit that since I was at home last she's a +novelty. A girl like that with such people--it IS a new type." + +"I like novelties"--and Count Otto smiled with an air of +considerable resolution. He couldn't however be satisfied with a +demonstration that only begged the question; and when they +disembarked in New York he felt, even amid the confusion of the +wharf and the heaps of disembowelled baggage, a certain acuteness of +regret at the idea that Pandora and her family were about to vanish +into the unknown. He had a consolation however: it was apparent +that for some reason or other--illness or absence from town--the +gentleman to whom she had written had not, as she said, come down. +Vogelstein was glad--he couldn't have told you why--that this +sympathetic person had failed her; even though without him Pandora +had to engage single-handed with the United States Custom-House. +Our young man's first impression of the Western world was received +on the landing-place of the German steamers at Jersey City--a huge +wooden shed covering a wooden wharf which resounded under the feet, +an expanse palisaded with rough-hewn piles that leaned this way and +that, and bestrewn with masses of heterogeneous luggage. At one +end; toward the town, was a row of tall painted palings, behind +which he could distinguish a press of hackney-coachmen, who +brandished their whips and awaited their victims, while their voices +rose, incessant, with a sharp strange sound, a challenge at once +fierce and familiar. The whole place, behind the fence, appeared to +bristle and resound. Out there was America, Count Otto said to +himself, and he looked toward it with a sense that he should have to +muster resolution. On the wharf people were rushing about amid +their trunks, pulling their things together, trying to unite their +scattered parcels. They were heated and angry, or else quite +bewildered and discouraged. The few that had succeeded in +collecting their battered boxes had an air of flushed indifference +to the efforts of their neighbours, not even looking at people with +whom they had been fondly intimate on the steamer. A detachment of +the officers of the Customs was in attendance, and energetic +passengers were engaged in attempts to drag them toward their +luggage or to drag heavy pieces toward them. These functionaries +were good-natured and taciturn, except when occasionally they +remarked to a passenger whose open trunk stared up at them, +eloquent, imploring, that they were afraid the voyage had been +"rather glassy." They had a friendly leisurely speculative way of +discharging their duty, and if they perceived a victim's name +written on the portmanteau they addressed him by it in a tone of old +acquaintance. Vogelstein found however that if they were familiar +they weren't indiscreet. He had heard that in America all public +functionaries were the same, that there wasn't a different tenue, as +they said in France, for different positions, and he wondered +whether at Washington the President and ministers, whom he expected +to see--to HAVE to see--a good deal of, would be like that. + +He was diverted from these speculations by the sight of Mr. and Mrs. +Day seated side by side upon a trunk and encompassed apparently by +the accumulations of their tour. Their faces expressed more +consciousness of surrounding objects than he had hitherto +recognised, and there was an air of placid expansion in the +mysterious couple which suggested that this consciousness was +agreeable. Mr. and Mrs. Day were, as they would have said, real +glad to get back. At a little distance, on the edge of the dock, +our observer remarked their son, who had found a place where, +between the sides of two big ships, he could see the ferry-boats +pass; the large pyramidal low-laden ferry-boats of American waters. +He stood there, patient and considering, with his small neat foot on +a coil of rope, his back to everything that had been disembarked, +his neck elongated in its polished cylinder, while the fragrance of +his big cigar mingled with the odour of the rotting piles, and his +little sister, beside him, hugged a huge post and tried to see how +far she could crane over the water without falling in. Vogelstein's +servant was off in search of an examiner; Count Otto himself had got +his things together and was waiting to be released, fully expecting +that for a person of his importance the ceremony would be brief. + +Before it began he said a word to young Mr. Day, raising his hat at +the same time to the little girl, whom he had not yet greeted and +who dodged his salute by swinging herself boldly outward to the +dangerous side of the pier. She was indeed still unformed, but was +evidently as light as a feather. + +"I see you're kept waiting like me. It's very tiresome," Count Otto +said. + +The young American answered without looking behind him. "As soon as +we're started we'll go all right. My sister has written to a +gentleman to come down." + +"I've looked for Miss Day to bid her good-bye," Vogelstein went on; +"but I don't see her." + +"I guess she has gone to meet that gentleman; he's a great friend of +hers." + +"I guess he's her lover!" the little girl broke out. "She was +always writing to him in Europe." + +Her brother puffed his cigar in silence a moment. "That was only +for this. I'll tell on you, sis," he presently added. + +But the younger Miss Day gave no heed to his menace; she addressed +herself only, though with all freedom, to Vogelstein. "This is New +York; I like it better than Utica." + +He had no time to reply, for his servant had arrived with one of the +dispensers of fortune; but as he turned away he wondered, in the +light of the child's preference, about the towns of the interior. +He was naturally exempt from the common doom. The officer who took +him in hand, and who had a large straw hat and a diamond breastpin, +was quite a man of the world, and in reply to the Count's formal +declarations only said, "Well, I guess it's all right; I guess I'll +just pass you," distributing chalk-marks as if they had been so many +love-pats. The servant had done some superfluous unlocking and +unbuckling, and while he closed the pieces the officer stood there +wiping his forehead and conversing with Vogelstein. "First visit to +our country, sir?--quite alone--no ladies? Of course the ladies are +what we're most after." It was in this manner he expressed himself, +while the young diplomatist wondered what he was waiting for and +whether he ought to slip something into his palm. But this +representative of order left our friend only a moment in suspense; +he presently turned away with the remark quite paternally uttered, +that he hoped the Count would make quite a stay; upon which the +young man saw how wrong he should have been to offer a tip. It was +simply the American manner, which had a finish of its own after all. +Vogelstein's servant had secured a porter with a truck, and he was +about to leave the place when he saw Pandora Day dart out of the +crowd and address herself with much eagerness to the functionary who +had just liberated him. She had an open letter in her hand which +she gave him to read and over which he cast his eyes, thoughtfully +stroking his beard. Then she led him away to where her parents sat +on their luggage. Count Otto sent off his servant with the porter +and followed Pandora, to whom he really wished to address a word of +farewell. The last thing they had said to each other on the ship +was that they should meet again on shore. It seemed improbable +however that the meeting would occur anywhere but just here on the +dock; inasmuch as Pandora was decidedly not in society, where +Vogelstein would be of course, and as, if Utica--he had her sharp +little sister's word for it--was worse than what was about him +there, he'd be hanged if he'd go to Utica. He overtook Pandora +quickly; she was in the act of introducing the representative of +order to her parents, quite in the same manner in which she had +introduced the Captain of the ship. Mr. and Mrs. Day got up and +shook hands with him and they evidently all prepared to have a +little talk. "I should like to introduce you to my brother and +sister," he heard the girl say, and he saw her look about for these +appendages. He caught her eye as she did so, and advanced with his +hand outstretched, reflecting the while that evidently the +Americans, whom he had always heard described as silent and +practical, rejoiced to extravagance in the social graces. They +dawdled and chattered like so many Neapolitans. + +"Good-bye, Count Vogelstein," said Pandora, who was a little flushed +with her various exertions but didn't look the worse for it. "I +hope you'll have a splendid time and appreciate our country." + +"I hope you'll get through all right," Vogelstein answered, smiling +and feeling himself already more idiomatic. + +"That gentleman's sick that I wrote to," she rejoined; "isn't it too +bad? But he sent me down a letter to a friend of his--one of the +examiners--and I guess we won't have any trouble. Mr. Lansing, let +me make you acquainted with Count Vogelstein," she went on, +presenting to her fellow-passenger the wearer of the straw hat and +the breastpin, who shook hands with the young German as if he had +never seen him before. Vogelstein's heart rose for an instant to +his throat; he thanked his stars he hadn't offered a tip to the +friend of a gentleman who had often been mentioned to him and who +had also been described by a member of Pandora's family as Pandora's +lover. + +"It's a case of ladies this time," Mr. Lansing remarked to him with +a smile which seemed to confess surreptitiously, and as if neither +party could be eager, to recognition. + +"Well, Mr. Bellamy says you'll do anything for HIM," Pandora said, +smiling very sweetly at Mr. Lansing. "We haven't got much; we've +been gone only two years." + +Mr. Lansing scratched his head a little behind, with a movement that +sent his straw hat forward in the direction of his nose. "I don't +know as I'd do anything for him that I wouldn't do for you," he +responded with an equal geniality. "I guess you'd better open that +one"--and he gave a little affectionate kick to one of the trunks. + +"Oh mother, isn't he lovely? It's only your sea-things," Pandora +cried, stooping over the coffer with the key in her hand. + +"I don't know as I like showing them," Mrs. Day modestly murmured. + +Vogelstein made his German salutation to the company in general, and +to Pandora he offered an audible good-bye, which she returned in a +bright friendly voice, but without looking round as she fumbled at +the lock of her trunk. + +"We'll try another, if you like," said Mr. Lansing good-humouredly. + +"Oh no it has got to be this one! Good-bye, Count Vogelstein. I +hope you'll judge us correctly!" + +The young man went his way and passed the barrier of the dock. Here +he was met by his English valet with a face of consternation which +led him to ask if a cab weren't forthcoming. + +"They call 'em 'acks 'ere, sir," said the man, "and they're beyond +everything. He wants thirty shillings to take you to the inn." + +Vogelstein hesitated a moment. "Couldn't you find a German?" + +"By the way he talks he IS a German said the man; and in a moment +Count Otto began his career in America by discussing the tariff of +hackney-coaches in the language of the fatherland. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +He went wherever he was asked, on principle, partly to study +American society and partly because in Washington pastimes seemed to +him not so numerous that one could afford to neglect occasions. At +the end of two winters he had naturally had a good many of various +kinds--his study of American society had yielded considerable fruit. +When, however, in April, during the second year of his residence, he +presented himself at a large party given by Mrs. Bonnycastle and of +which it was believed that it would be the last serious affair of +the season, his being there (and still more his looking very fresh +and talkative) was not the consequence of a rule of conduct. He +went to Mrs. Bonnycastle's simply because he liked the lady, whose +receptions were the pleasantest in Washington, and because if he +didn't go there he didn't know what he should do; that absence of +alternatives having become familiar to him by the waters of the +Potomac. There were a great many things he did because if he didn't +do them he didn't know what he should do. It must be added that in +this case even if there had been an alternative he would still have +decided to go to Mrs. Bonnycastle's. If her house wasn't the +pleasantest there it was at least difficult to say which was +pleasanter; and the complaint sometimes made of it that it was too +limited, that it left out, on the whole, more people than it took +in, applied with much less force when it was thrown open for a +general party. Toward the end of the social year, in those soft +scented days of the Washington spring when the air began to show a +southern glow and the Squares and Circles (to which the wide empty +avenues converged according to a plan so ingenious, yet so +bewildering) to flush with pink blossom and to make one wish to sit +on benches--under this magic of expansion and condonation Mrs. +Bonnycastle, who during the winter had been a good deal on the +defensive, relaxed her vigilance a little, became whimsically +wilful, vernally reckless, as it were, and ceased to calculate the +consequences of an hospitality which a reference to the back files +or even to the morning's issue of the newspapers might easily prove +a mistake. But Washington life, to Count Otto's apprehension, was +paved with mistakes; he felt himself in a society founded on +fundamental fallacies and triumphant blunders. Little addicted as +he was to the sportive view of existence, he had said to himself at +an early stage of his sojourn that the only way to enjoy the great +Republic would be to burn one's standards and warm one's self at the +blaze. Such were the reflexions of a theoretic Teuton who now +walked for the most part amid the ashes of his prejudices. + +Mrs. Bonnycastle had endeavoured more than once to explain to him +the principles on which she received certain people and ignored +certain others; but it was with difficulty that he entered into her +discriminations. American promiscuity, goodness knew, had been +strange to him, but it was nothing to the queerness of American +criticism. This lady would discourse to him a perte de vue on +differences where he only saw resemblances, and both the merits and +the defects of a good many members of Washington society, as this +society was interpreted to him by Mrs. Bonnycastle, he was often at +a loss to understand. Fortunately she had a fund of good humour +which, as I have intimated, was apt to come uppermost with the April +blossoms and which made the people she didn't invite to her house +almost as amusing to her as those she did. Her husband was not in +politics, though politics were much in him; but the couple had taken +upon themselves the responsibilities of an active patriotism; they +thought it right to live in America, differing therein from many of +their acquaintances who only, with some grimness, thought it +inevitable. They had that burdensome heritage of foreign +reminiscence with which so many Americans were saddled; but they +carried it more easily than most of their country-people, and one +knew they had lived in Europe only by their present exultation, +never in the least by their regrets. Their regrets, that is, were +only for their ever having lived there, as Mrs. Bonnycastle once +told the wife of a foreign minister. They solved all their problems +successfully, including those of knowing none of the people they +didn't wish to, and of finding plenty of occupation in a society +supposed to be meagrely provided with resources for that body which +Vogelstein was to hear invoked, again and again, with the mixture of +desire and of deprecation that might have attended the mention of a +secret vice, under the name of a leisure-class. When as the warm +weather approached they opened both the wings of their house-door, +it was because they thought it would entertain them and not because +they were conscious of a pressure. Alfred Bonnycastle all winter +indeed chafed a little at the definiteness of some of his wife's +reserves; it struck him that for Washington their society was really +a little too good. Vogelstein still remembered the puzzled feeling- +-it had cleared up somewhat now--with which, more than a year +before, he had heard Mr. Bonnycastle exclaim one evening, after a +dinner in his own house, when every guest but the German secretary +(who often sat late with the pair) had departed Hang it, there's +only a month left; let us be vulgar and have some fun--let us invite +the President." + +This was Mrs. Bonnycastle's carnival, and on the occasion to which I +began my chapter by referring the President had not only been +invited but had signified his intention of being present. I hasten +to add that this was not the same august ruler to whom Alfred +Bonnycastle's irreverent allusion had been made. The White House +had received a new tenant--the old one was then just leaving it--and +Count Otto had had the advantage, during the first eighteen months +of his stay in America, of seeing an electoral campaign, a +presidential inauguration and a distribution of spoils. He had been +bewildered during those first weeks by finding that at the national +capital in the houses he supposed to be the best, the head of the +State was not a coveted guest; for this could be the only +explanation of Mr. Bonnycastle's whimsical suggestion of their +inviting him, as it were, in carnival. His successor went out a +good deal for a President. + +The legislative session was over, but this made little difference in +the aspect of Mrs. Bonnycastle's rooms, which even at the height of +the congressional season could scarce be said to overflow with the +representatives of the people. They were garnished with an +occasional Senator, whose movements and utterances often appeared to +be regarded with a mixture of alarm and indulgence, as if they would +be disappointing if they weren't rather odd and yet might be +dangerous if not carefully watched. Our young man had come to +entertain a kindness for these conscript fathers of invisible +families, who had something of the toga in the voluminous folds of +their conversation, but were otherwise rather bare and bald, with +stony wrinkles in their faces, like busts and statues of ancient +law-givers. There seemed to him something chill and exposed in +their being at once so exalted and so naked; there were frequent +lonesome glances in their eyes, as if in the social world their +legislative consciousness longed for the warmth of a few comfortable +laws ready-made. Members of the House were very rare, and when +Washington was new to the inquiring secretary he used sometimes to +mistake them, in the halls and on the staircases where he met them, +for the functionaries engaged, under stress, to usher in guests and +wait at supper. It was only a little later that he perceived these +latter public characters almost always to be impressive and of that +rich racial hue which of itself served as a livery. At present, +however, such confounding figures were much less to be met than +during the months of winter, and indeed they were never frequent at +Mrs. Bonnycastle's. At present the social vistas of Washington, +like the vast fresh flatness of the lettered and numbered streets, +which at this season seemed to Vogelstein more spacious and vague +than ever, suggested but a paucity of political phenomena. Count +Otto that evening knew every one or almost every one. There were +often inquiring strangers, expecting great things, from New York and +Boston, and to them, in the friendly Washington way, the young +German was promptly introduced. It was a society in which +familiarity reigned and in which people were liable to meet three +times a day, so that their ultimate essence really became a matter +of importance. + +"I've got three new girls," Mrs. Bonnycastle said. "You must talk +to them all." + +"All at once?" Vogelstein asked, reversing in fancy a position not +at all unknown to him. He had so repeatedly heard himself addressed +in even more than triple simultaneity. + +"Oh no; you must have something different for each; you can't get +off that way. Haven't you discovered that the American girl expects +something especially adapted to herself? It's very well for Europe +to have a few phrases that will do for any girl. The American girl +isn't ANY girl; she's a remarkable specimen in a remarkable species. +But you must keep the best this evening for Miss Day." + +"For Miss Day!"--and Vogelstein had a stare of intelligence. "Do +you mean for Pandora?" + +Mrs. Bonnycastle broke on her side into free amusement. "One would +think you had been looking for her over the globe! So you know her +already--and you call her by her pet name?" + +"Oh no, I don't know her; that is I haven't seen her or thought of +her from that day to this. We came to America in the same ship." + +"Isn't she an American then?" + +"Oh yes; she lives at Utica--in the interior." + +"In the interior of Utica? You can't mean my young woman then, who +lives in New York, where she's a great beauty and a great belle and +has been immensely admired this winter." + +"After all," said Count Otto, considering and a little disappointed, +"the name's not so uncommon; it's perhaps another. But has she +rather strange eyes, a little yellow, but very pretty, and a nose a +little arched?" + +"I can't tell you all that; I haven't seen her. She's staying with +Mrs. Steuben. She only came a day or two ago, and Mrs. Steuben's to +bring her. When she wrote to me to ask leave she told me what I +tell you. They haven't come yet." + +Vogelstein felt a quick hope that the subject of this correspondence +might indeed be the young lady he had parted from on the dock at New +York, but the indications seemed to point another way, and he had no +wish to cherish an illusion. It didn't seem to him probable that +the energetic girl who had introduced him to Mr. Lansing would have +the entree of the best house in Washington; besides, Mrs. +Bonnycastle's guest was described as a beauty and belonging to the +brilliant city. + +"What's the social position of Mrs. Steuben?" it occurred to him to +ask while he meditated. He had an earnest artless literal way of +putting such a question as that; you could see from it that he was +very thorough. + +Mrs. Bonnycastle met it, however, but, with mocking laughter. "I'm +sure I don't know! What's your own?"--and she left him to turn to +her other guests, to several of whom she repeated his question. +Could they tell her what was the social position of Mrs. Steuben? +There was Count Vogelstein who wanted to know. He instantly became +aware of course that he oughtn't so to have expressed himself. +Wasn't the lady's place in the scale sufficiently indicated by Mrs. +Bonnycastle's acquaintance with her? Still there were fine degrees, +and he felt a little unduly snubbed. It was perfectly true, as he +told his hostess, that with the quick wave of new impressions that +had rolled over him after his arrival in America the image of +Pandora was almost completely effaced; he had seen innumerable +things that were quite as remarkable in their way as the heroine of +the Donau, but at the touch of the idea that he might see her and +hear her again at any moment she became as vivid in his mind as if +they had parted the day before: he remembered the exact shade of +the eyes he had described to Mrs. Bonnycastle as yellow, the tone of +her voice when at the last she expressed the hope he might judge +America correctly. HAD he judged America correctly? If he were to +meet her again she doubtless would try to ascertain. It would be +going much too far to say that the idea of such an ordeal was +terrible to Count Otto; but it may at least be said that the thought +of meeting Pandora Day made him nervous. The fact is certainly +singular, but I shall not take on myself to explain it; there are +some things that even the most philosophic historian isn't bound to +account for. + +He wandered into another room, and there, at the end of five +minutes, he was introduced by Mrs. Bonnycastle to one of the young +ladies of whom she had spoken. This was a very intelligent girl who +came from Boston and showed much acquaintance with Spielhagen's +novels. "Do you like them?" Vogelstein asked rather vaguely, not +taking much interest in the matter, as he read works of fiction only +in case of a sea-voyage. The young lady from Boston looked pensive +and concentrated; then she answered that she liked SOME of them VERY +much, but that there were others she didn't like--and she enumerated +the works that came under each of these heads. Spielhagen is a +voluminous writer, and such a catalogue took some time; at the end +of it moreover Vogelstein's question was not answered, for he +couldn't have told us whether she liked Spielhagen or not. + +On the next topic, however, there was no doubt about her feelings. +They talked about Washington as people talk only in the place +itself, revolving about the subject in widening and narrowing +circles, perching successively on its many branches, considering it +from every point of view. Our young man had been long enough in +America to discover that after half a century of social neglect +Washington had become the fashion and enjoyed the great advantage of +being a new resource in conversation. This was especially the case +in the months of spring, when the inhabitants of the commercial +cities came so far southward to escape, after the long winter, that +final affront. They were all agreed that Washington was +fascinating, and none of them were better prepared to talk it over +than the Bostonians. Vogelstein originally had been rather out of +step with them; he hadn't seized their point of view, hadn't known +with what they compared this object of their infatuation. But now +he knew everything; he had settled down to the pace; there wasn't a +possible phase of the discussion that could find him at a loss. +There was a kind of Hegelian element in it; in the light of these +considerations the American capital took on the semblance of a +monstrous mystical infinite Werden. But they fatigued Vogelstein a +little, and it was his preference, as a general thing, not to engage +the same evening with more than one newcomer, one visitor in the +freshness of initiation. This was why Mrs. Bonnycastle's expression +of a wish to introduce him to three young ladies had startled him a +little; he saw a certain process, in which he flattered himself that +he had become proficient, but which was after all tolerably +exhausting, repeated for each of the damsels. After separating from +his judicious Bostonian he rather evaded Mrs. Bonnycastle, +contenting himself with the conversation of old friends, pitched for +the most part in a lower and easier key. + +At last he heard it mentioned that the President had arrived, had +been some half-hour in the house, and he went in search of the +illustrious guest, whose whereabouts at Washington parties was never +indicated by a cluster of courtiers. He made it a point, whenever +he found himself in company with the President, to pay him his +respects, and he had not been discouraged by the fact that there was +no association of ideas in the eye of the great man as he put out +his hand presidentially and said, "Happy to meet you, sir." Count +Otto felt himself taken for a mere loyal subject, possibly for an +office-seeker; and he used to reflect at such moments that the +monarchical form had its merits it provided a line of heredity for +the faculty of quick recognition. He had now some difficulty in +finding the chief magistrate, and ended by learning that he was in +the tea-room, a small apartment devoted to light refection near the +entrance of the house. Here our young man presently perceived him +seated on a sofa and in conversation with a lady. There were a +number of people about the table, eating, drinking, talking; and the +couple on the sofa, which was not near it but against the wall, in a +shallow recess, looked a little withdrawn, as if they had sought +seclusion and were disposed to profit by the diverted attention of +the others. The President leaned back; his gloved hands, resting on +either knee, made large white spots. He looked eminent, but he +looked relaxed, and the lady beside him ministered freely and +without scruple, it was clear, to this effect of his comfortably +unbending. Vogelstein caught her voice as he approached. He heard +her say "Well now, remember; I consider it a promise." She was +beautifully dressed, in rose-colour; her hands were clasped in her +lap and her eyes attached to the presidential profile. + +"Well, madam, in that case it's about the fiftieth promise I've +given to-day." + +It was just as he heard these words, uttered by her companion in +reply, that Count Otto checked himself, turned away and pretended to +be looking for a cup of tea. It wasn't usual to disturb the +President, even simply to shake hands, when he was sitting on a sofa +with a lady, and the young secretary felt it in this case less +possible than ever to break the rule, for the lady on the sofa was +none other than Pandora Day. He had recognised her without her +appearing to see him, and even with half an eye, as they said, had +taken in that she was now a person to be reckoned with. She had an +air of elation, of success; she shone, to intensity, in her rose- +coloured dress; she was extracting promises from the ruler of fifty +millions of people. What an odd place to meet her, her old shipmate +thought, and how little one could tell, after all, in America, who +people were! He didn't want to speak to her yet; he wanted to wait +a little and learn more; but meanwhile there was something +attractive in the fact that she was just behind him, a few yards +off, that if he should turn he might see her again. It was she Mrs. +Bonnycastle had meant, it was she who was so much admired in New +York. Her face was the same, yet he had made out in a moment that +she was vaguely prettier; he had recognised the arch of her nose, +which suggested a fine ambition. He took some tea, which he hadn't +desired, in order not to go away. He remembered her entourage on +the steamer; her father and mother, the silent senseless burghers, +so little "of the world," her infant sister, so much of it, her +humorous brother with his tall hat and his influence in the smoking- +room. He remembered Mrs. Dangerfield's warnings--yet her +perplexities too--and the letter from Mr. Bellamy, and the +introduction to Mr. Lansing, and the way Pandora had stooped down on +the dirty dock, laughing and talking, mistress of the situation, to +open her trunk for the Customs. He was pretty sure she had paid no +duties that day; this would naturally have been the purpose of Mr. +Bellamy's letter. Was she still in correspondence with that +gentleman, and had he got over the sickness interfering with their +reunion? These images and these questions coursed through Count +Otto's mind, and he saw it must be quite in Pandora's line to be +mistress of the situation, for there was evidently nothing on the +present occasion that could call itself her master. He drank his +tea and as; he put down his cup heard the President, behind him, +say: "Well, I guess my wife will wonder why I don't come home." + +"Why didn't you bring her with you?" Pandora benevolently asked. + +"Well, she doesn't go out much. Then she has got her sister staying +with her--Mrs. Runkle, from Natchez. She's a good deal of an +invalid, and my wife doesn't like to leave her." + +"She must be a very kind woman"--and there was a high mature +competence in the way the girl sounded the note of approval. + +"Well, I guess she isn't spoiled--yet." + +"I should like very much to come and see her," said Pandora. + +"Do come round. Couldn't you come some night?" the great man +responded. + +"Well, I'll come some time. And I shall remind you of your +promise." + +"All right. There's nothing like keeping it up. Well," said the +President, "I must bid good-bye to these bright folks." + +Vogelstein heard him rise from the sofa with his companion; after +which he gave the pair time to pass out of the room before him. +They did it with a certain impressive deliberation, people making +way for the ruler of fifty millions and looking with a certain +curiosity at the striking pink person at his side. When a little +later he followed them across the hall, into one of the other rooms, +he saw the host and hostess accompany the President to the door and +two foreign ministers and a judge of the Supreme Court address +themselves to Pandora Day. He resisted the impulse to join this +circle: if he should speak to her at all he would somehow wish it +to be in more privacy. She continued nevertheless to occupy him, +and when Mrs. Bonnycastle came back from the hall he immediately +approached her with an appeal. "I wish you'd tell me something more +about that girl--that one opposite and in pink." + +"The lovely Day--that's what they call her, I believe? I wanted you +to talk with her." + +"I find she is the one I've met. But she seems to be so different +here. I can't make it out," said Count Otto. + +There was something in his expression that again moved Mrs. +Bonnycastle to mirth. "How we do puzzle you Europeans! You look +quite bewildered." + +"I'm sorry I look so--I try to hide it. But of course we're very +simple. Let me ask then a simple earnest childlike question. Are +her parents also in society?" + +"Parents in society? D'ou tombez-vous? Did you ever hear of the +parents of a triumphant girl in rose-colour, with a nose all her +own, in society?" + +"Is she then all alone?" he went on with a strain of melancholy in +his voice. + +Mrs. Bonnycastle launched at him all her laughter. + +"You're too pathetic. Don't you know what she is? I supposed of +course you knew." + +"It's exactly what I'm asking you." + +"Why she's the new type. It has only come up lately. They have had +articles about it in the papers. That's the reason I told Mrs. +Steuben to bring her." + +"The new type? WHAT new type, Mrs. Bonnycastle?" he returned +pleadingly--so conscious was he that all types in America were new. + +Her laughter checked her reply a moment, and by the time she had +recovered herself the young lady from Boston, with whom Vogelstein +had been talking, stood there to take leave. This, for an American +type, was an old one, he was sure; and the process of parting +between the guest and her hostess had an ancient elaboration. Count +Otto waited a little; then he turned away and walked up to Pandora +Day, whose group of interlocutors had now been re-enforced by a +gentleman who had held an important place in the cabinet of the late +occupant of the presidential chair. He had asked Mrs. Bonnycastle +if she were "all alone"; but there was nothing in her present +situation to show her for solitary. She wasn't sufficiently alone +for our friend's taste; but he was impatient and he hoped she'd give +him a few words to himself. She recognised him without a moment's +hesitation and with the sweetest smile, a smile matching to a shade +the tone in which she said: "I was watching you. I wondered if you +weren't going to speak to me." + +"Miss Day was watching him!" one of the foreign ministers exclaimed; +"and we flattered ourselves that her attention was all with us." + +"I mean before," said the girl, "while I was talking with the +President." + +At which the gentlemen began to laugh, one of them remarking that +this was the way the absent were sacrificed, even the great; while +another put on record that he hoped Vogelstein was duly flattered. + +"Oh I was watching the President too," said Pandora. "I've got to +watch HIM. He has promised me something." + +"It must be the mission to England," the judge of the Supreme Court +suggested. "A good position for a lady; they've got a lady at the +head over there." + +"I wish they would send you to my country," one of the foreign +ministers suggested. "I'd immediately get recalled." + +"Why perhaps in your country I wouldn't speak to you! It's only +because you're here," the ex-heroine of the Donau returned with a +gay familiarity which evidently ranked with her but as one of the +arts of defence. "You'll see what mission it is when it comes out. +But I'll speak to Count Vogelstein anywhere," she went on. "He's an +older friend than any right here. I've known him in difficult +days." + +"Oh yes, on the great ocean," the young man smiled. "On the watery +waste, in the tempest!" + +"Oh I don't mean that so much; we had a beautiful voyage and there +wasn't any tempest. I mean when I was living in Utica. That's a +watery waste if you like, and a tempest there would have been a +pleasant variety." + +"Your parents seemed to me so peaceful!" her associate in the other +memories sighed with a vague wish to say something sympathetic. + +"Oh you haven't seen them ashore! At Utica they were very lively. +But that's no longer our natural home. Don't you remember I told +you I was working for New York? Well, I worked--l had to work hard. +But we've moved." + +Count Otto clung to his interest. "And I hope they're happy." + +"My father and mother? Oh they will be, in time. I must give them +time. They're very young yet, they've years before them. And +you've been always in Washington?" Pandora continued. "I suppose +you've found out everything about everything." + +"Oh no--there are some things I CAN'T find out." + +"Come and see me and perhaps I can help you. I'm very different +from what I was in that phase. I've advanced a great deal since +then." + +"Oh how was Miss Day in that phase?" asked a cabinet minister of the +last administration. + +"She was delightful of course," Count Otto said. + +"He's very flattering; I didn't open my mouth!" Pandora cried. +"Here comes Mrs. Steuben to take me to some other place. I believe +it's a literary party near the Capitol. Everything seems so +separate in Washington. Mrs. Steuben's going to read a poem. I +wish she'd read it here; wouldn't it do as well?" + +This lady, arriving, signified to her young friend the necessity of +their moving on. But Miss Day's companions had various things to +say to her before giving her up. She had a vivid answer for each, +and it was brought home to Vogelstein while he listened that this +would be indeed, in her development, as she said, another phase. +Daughter of small burghers as she might be she was really brilliant. +He turned away a little and while Mrs. Steuben waited put her a +question. He had made her half an hour before the subject of that +inquiry to which Mrs. Bonnycastle returned so ambiguous an answer; +but this wasn't because he failed of all direct acquaintance with +the amiable woman or of any general idea of the esteem in which she +was held. He had met her in various places and had been at her +house. She was the widow of a commodore, was a handsome mild soft +swaying person, whom every one liked, with glossy bands of black +hair and a little ringlet depending behind each ear. Some one had +said that she looked like the vieux jeu, idea of the queen in +Hamlet. She had written verses which were admired in the South, +wore a full-length portrait of the commodore on her bosom and spoke +with the accent of Savannah. She had about her a positive strong +odour of Washington. It had certainly been very superfluous in our +young man to question Mrs. Bonnycastle about her social position. + +"Do kindly tell me," he said, lowering his voice, "what's the type +to which that young lady belongs? Mrs. Bonnycastle tells me it's a +new one." + +Mrs. Steuben for a moment fixed her liquid eyes on the secretary of +legation. She always seemed to be translating the prose of your +speech into the finer rhythms with which her own mind was familiar. +"Do you think anything's really new?" she then began to flute. "I'm +very fond of the old; you know that's a weakness of we Southerners." +The poor lady, it will be observed, had another weakness as well. +"What we often take to be the new is simply the old under some novel +form. Were there not remarkable natures in the past? If you doubt +it you should visit the South, where the past still lingers." + +Vogelstein had been struck before this with Mrs. Steuben's +pronunciation of the word by which her native latitudes were +designated; transcribing it from her lips you would have written it +(as the nearest approach) the Sooth. But at present he scarce +heeded this peculiarity; he was wondering rather how a woman could +be at once so copious and so uninforming. What did he care about +the past or even about the Sooth? He was afraid of starting her +again. He looked at her, discouraged and helpless, as bewildered +almost as Mrs. Bonnycastle had found him half an hour before; looked +also at the commodore, who, on her bosom, seemed to breathe again +with his widow's respirations. "Call it an old type then if you +like," he said in a moment. "All I want to know is what type it IS! +It seems impossible," he gasped, "to find out." + +"You can find out in the newspapers. They've had articles about it. +They write about everything now. But it isn't true about Miss Day. +It's one of the first families. Her great-grandfather was in the +Revolution." Pandora by this time had given her attention again to +Mrs. Steuben. She seemed to signify that she was ready to move on. +"Wasn't your great-grandfather in the Revolution?" the elder lady +asked. "I'm telling Count Vogelstein about him." + +"Why are you asking about my ancestors?" the girl demanded of the +young German with untempered brightness. "Is that the thing you +said just now that you can't find out? Well, if Mrs. Steuben will +only be quiet you never will." + +Mrs. Steuben shook her head rather dreamily. "Well, it's no trouble +for we of the Sooth to be quiet. There's a kind of languor in our +blood. Besides, we have to be to-day. But I've got to show some +energy to-night. I've got to get you to the end of Pennsylvania +Avenue." + +Pandora gave her hand to Count Otto and asked him if he thought they +should meet again. He answered that in Washington people were +always meeting again and that at any rate he shouldn't fail to wait +upon her. Hereupon, just as the two ladies were detaching +themselves, Mrs. Steuben remarked that if the Count and Miss Day +wished to meet again the picnic would be a good chance--the picnic +she was getting up for the following Thursday. It was to consist of +about twenty bright people, and they'd go down the Potomac to Mount +Vernon. The Count answered that if Mrs. Steuben thought him bright +enough he should be delighted to join the party; and he was told the +hour for which the tryst was taken. + +He remained at Mrs. Bonnycastle's after every one had gone, and then +he informed this lady of his reason for waiting. Would she have +mercy on him and let him know, in a single word, before he went to +rest--for without it rest would be impossible--what was this famous +type to which Pandora Day belonged? + +"Gracious, you don't mean to say you've not found out that type +yet!" Mrs. Bonnycastle exclaimed with a return of her hilarity. +"What have you been doing all the evening? You Germans may be +thorough, but you certainly are not quick!" + +It was Alfred Bonnycastle who at last took pity on him. "My dear +Vogelstein, she's the latest freshest fruit of our great American +evolution. She's the self-made girl!" + +Count Otto gazed a moment. "The fruit of the great American +Revolution? Yes, Mrs. Steuben told me her great-grandfather--" but +the rest of his sentence was lost in a renewed explosion of Mrs. +Bonnycastle's sense of the ridiculous. He bravely pushed his +advantage, such as it was, however, and, desiring his host's +definition to be defined, inquired what the self-made girl might be. + +"Sit down and we'll tell you all about it," Mrs. Bonnycastle said. +"I like talking this way, after a party's over. You can smoke if +you like, and Alfred will open another window. Well, to begin with, +the self-made girl's a new feature. That, however, you know. In +the second place she isn't self-made at all. We all help to make +her--we take such an interest in her." + +"That's only after she's made!" Alfred Bonnycastle broke in. "But +it's Vogelstein that takes an interest. What on earth has started +you up so on the subject of Miss Day?" + +The visitor explained as well as he could that it was merely the +accident of his having crossed the ocean in the steamer with her; +but he felt the inadequacy of this account of the matter, felt it +more than his hosts, who could know neither how little actual +contact he had had with her on the ship, how much he had been +affected by Mrs. Dangerfield's warnings, nor how much observation at +the same time he had lavished on her. He sat there half an hour, +and the warm dead stillness of the Washington night--nowhere are the +nights so silent--came in at the open window, mingled with a soft +sweet earthy smell, the smell of growing things and in particular, +as he thought, of Mrs. Steuben's Sooth. Before he went away he had +heard all about the self-made girl, and there was something in the +picture that strongly impressed him. She was possible doubtless +only in America; American life had smoothed the way for her. She +was not fast, nor emancipated, nor crude, nor loud, and there wasn't +in her, of necessity at least, a grain of the stuff of which the +adventuress is made. She was simply very successful, and her +success was entirely personal. She hadn't been born with the silver +spoon of social opportunity; she had grasped it by honest exertion. +You knew her by many different signs, but chiefly, infallibly, by +the appearance of her parents. It was her parents who told her +story; you always saw how little her parents could have made her. +Her attitude with regard to them might vary in different ways. As +the great fact on her own side was that she had lifted herself from +a lower social plane, done it all herself, and done it by the simple +lever of her personality, it was naturally to be expected that she +would leave the authors of her mere material being in the shade. +Sometimes she had them in her wake, lost in the bubbles and the foam +that showed where she had passed; sometimes, as Alfred Bonnycastle +said, she let them slide altogether; sometimes she kept them in +close confinement, resorting to them under cover of night and with +every precaution; sometimes she exhibited them to the public in +discreet glimpses, in prearranged attitudes. But the general +characteristic of the self-made girl was that, though it was +frequently understood that she was privately devoted to her kindred, +she never attempted to impose them on society, and it was striking +that, though in some of her manifestations a bore, she was at her +worst less of a bore than they. They were almost always solemn and +portentous, and they were for the most part of a deathly +respectability. She wasn't necessarily snobbish, unless it was +snobbish to want the best. She didn't cringe, she didn't make +herself smaller than she was; she took on the contrary a stand of +her own and attracted things to herself. Naturally she was possible +only in America--only in a country where whole ranges of competition +and comparison were absent. The natural history of this interesting +creature was at last completely laid bare to the earnest stranger, +who, as he sat there in the animated stillness, with the fragrant +breath of the Western world in his nostrils, was convinced of what +he had already suspected, that conversation in the great Republic +was more yearningly, not to say gropingly, psychological than +elsewhere. Another thing, as he learned, that you knew the self- +made girl by was her culture, which was perhaps a little too +restless and obvious. She had usually got into society more or less +by reading, and her conversation was apt to be garnished with +literary allusions, even with familiar quotations. Vogelstein +hadn't had time to observe this element as a developed form in +Pandora Day; but Alfred Bonnycastle hinted that he wouldn't trust +her to keep it under in a tete-a-tete. It was needless to say that +these young persons had always been to Europe; that was usually the +first place they got to. By such arts they sometimes entered +society on the other side before they did so at home; it was to be +added at the same time that this resource was less and less +valuable, for Europe, in the American world, had less and less +prestige and people in the Western hemisphere now kept a watch on +that roundabout road. All of which quite applied to Pandora Day-- +the journey to Europe, the culture (as exemplified in the books she +read on the ship), the relegation, the effacement, of the family. +The only thing that was exceptional was the rapidity of her march; +for the jump she had taken since he left her in the hands of Mr. +Lansing struck Vogelstein, even after he had made all allowance for +the abnormal homogeneity of the American mass, as really +considerable. It took all her cleverness to account for such +things. When she "moved" from Utica--mobilised her commissariat-- +the battle appeared virtually to have been gained. + +Count Otto called the next day, and Mrs. Steuben's blackamoor +informed him, in the communicative manner of his race, that the +ladies had gone out to pay some visits and look at the Capitol. +Pandora apparently had not hitherto examined this monument, and our +young man wished he had known, the evening before, of her omission, +so that he might have offered to be her initiator. There is too +obvious a connexion for us to fail of catching it between his regret +and the fact that in leaving Mrs. Steuben's door he reminded himself +that he wanted a good walk, and that he thereupon took his way along +Pennsylvania Avenue. His walk had become fairly good by the time he +reached the great white edifice that unfolds its repeated colonnades +and uplifts its isolated dome at the end of a long vista of saloons +and tobacco-shops. He slowly climbed the great steps, hesitating a +little, even wondering why he had come. The superficial reason was +obvious enough, but there was a real one behind it that struck him +as rather wanting in the solidity which should characterise the +motives of an emissary of Prince Bismarck. The superficial reason +was a belief that Mrs. Steuben would pay her visit first--it was +probably only a question of leaving cards--and bring her young +friend to the Capitol at the hour when the yellow afternoon light +would give a tone to the blankness of its marble walls. The Capitol +was a splendid building, but it was rather wanting in tone. +Vogelstein's curiosity about Pandora Day had been much more +quickened than checked by the revelations made to him in Mrs. +Bonnycastle's drawing-room. It was a relief to have the creature +classified; but he had a desire, of which he had not been conscious +before, to see really to the end how well, in other words how +completely and artistically, a girl could make herself. His +calculations had been just, and he had wandered about the rotunda +for only ten minutes, looking again at the paintings, commemorative +of the national annals, which occupy its lower spaces, and at the +simulated sculptures, so touchingly characteristic of early American +taste, which adorn its upper reaches, when the charming women he had +been counting on presented themselves in charge of a licensed guide. +He went to meet them and didn't conceal from them that he had marked +them for his very own. The encounter was happy on both sides, and +he accompanied them through the queer and endless interior, through +labyrinths of bleak bare development, into legislative and judicial +halls. He thought it a hideous place; he had seen it all before and +asked himself what senseless game he was playing. In the lower +House were certain bedaubed walls, in the basest style of imitation, +which made him feel faintly sick, not to speak of a lobby adorned +with artless prints and photographs of eminent defunct Congressmen +that was all too serious for a joke and too comic for a Valhalla. +But Pandora was greatly interested; she thought the Capitol very +fine; it was easy to criticise the details, but as a whole it was +the most impressive building she had ever seen. She proved a +charming fellow tourist; she had constantly something to say, but +never said it too much; it was impossible to drag in the wake of a +cicerone less of a lengthening or an irritating chain. Vogelstein +could see too that she wished to improve her mind; she looked at the +historical pictures, at the uncanny statues of local worthies, +presented by the different States--they were of different sizes, as +if they had been "numbered," in a shop--she asked questions of the +guide and in the chamber of the Senate requested him to show her the +chairs of the gentlemen from New York. She sat down in one of them, +though Mrs. Steuben told her THAT Senator (she mistook the chair, +dropping into another State) was a horrid old thing. + +Throughout the hour he spent with her Vogelstein seemed to see how +it was she had made herself. They walked about, afterwards on the +splendid terrace that surrounds the Capitol, the great marble floor +on which it stands, and made vague remarks--Pandora's were the most +definite--about the yellow sheen of the Potomac, the hazy hills of +Virginia, the far-gleaming pediment of Arlington, the raw confused- +looking country. Washington was beneath them, bristling and +geometrical; the long lines of its avenues seemed to stretch into +national futures. Pandora asked Count Otto if he had ever been to +Athens and, on his admitting so much, sought to know whether the +eminence on which they stood didn't give him an idea of the +Acropolis in its prime. Vogelstein deferred the satisfaction of +this appeal to their next meeting; he was glad--in spite of the +appeal--to make pretexts for seeing her again. He did so on the +morrow; Mrs. Steuben's picnic was still three days distant. He +called on Pandora a second time, also met her each evening in the +Washington world. It took very little of this to remind him that he +was forgetting both Mrs. Dangerfield's warnings and the admonitions- +-long familiar to him--of his own conscience. Was he in peril of +love? Was he to be sacrificed on the altar of the American girl, an +altar at which those other poor fellows had poured out some of the +bluest blood in Germany and he had himself taken oath he would never +seriously worship? He decided that he wasn't in real danger, that +he had rather clinched his precautions. It was true that a young +person who had succeeded so well for herself might be a great help +to her husband; but this diplomatic aspirant preferred on the whole +that his success should be his own: it wouldn't please him to have +the air of being pushed by his wife. Such a wife as that would wish +to push him, and he could hardly admit to himself that this was what +fate had in reserve for him--to be propelled in his career by a +young lady who would perhaps attempt to talk to the Kaiser as he had +heard her the other night talk to the President. Would she consent +to discontinue relations with her family, or would she wish still to +borrow plastic relief from that domestic background? That her +family was so impossible was to a certain extent an advantage; for +if they had been a little better the question of a rupture would be +less easy. He turned over these questions in spite of his security, +or perhaps indeed because of it. The security made them speculative +and disinterested. + +They haunted him during the excursion to Mount Vernon, which took +place according to traditions long established. Mrs. Steuben's +confederates assembled on the steamer and were set afloat on the big +brown stream which had already seemed to our special traveller to +have too much bosom and too little bank. Here and there, however, +he became conscious of a shore where there was something to look at, +even though conscious at the same time that he had of old lost great +opportunities of an idyllic cast in not having managed to be more +"thrown with" a certain young lady on the deck of the North German +Lloyd. The two turned round together to hang over Alexandria, which +for Pandora, as she declared, was a picture of Old Virginia. She +told Vogelstein that she was always hearing about it during the +Civil War, ages before. Little girl as she had been at the time she +remembered all the names that were on people's lips during those +years of reiteration. This historic spot had a touch of the romance +of rich decay, a reference to older things, to a dramatic past. The +past of Alexandria appeared in the vista of three or four short +streets sloping up a hill and lined with poor brick warehouses +erected for merchandise that had ceased to come or go. It looked +hot and blank and sleepy, down to the shabby waterside where +tattered darkies dangled their bare feet from the edge of rotting +wharves. Pandora was even more interested in Mount Vernon--when at +last its wooded bluff began to command the river--than she had been +in the Capitol, and after they had disembarked and ascended to the +celebrated mansion she insisted on going into every room it +contained. She "claimed for it," as she said--some of her turns +were so characteristic both of her nationality and her own style-- +the finest situation in the world, and was distinct as to the shame +of their not giving it to the President for his country-seat. Most +of her companions had seen the house often, and were now coupling +themselves in the grounds according to their sympathies, so that it +was easy for Vogelstein to offer the benefit of his own experience +to the most inquisitive member of the party. They were not to lunch +for another hour, and in the interval the young man roamed with his +first and fairest acquaintance. The breath of the Potomac, on the +boat, had been a little harsh, but on the softly-curving lawn, +beneath the clustered trees, with the river relegated to a mere +shining presence far below and in the distance, the day gave out +nothing but its mildness, the whole scene became noble and genial. + +Count Otto could joke a little on great occasions, and the present +one was worthy of his humour. He maintained to his companion that +the shallow painted mansion resembled a false house, a "wing" or +structure of daubed canvas, on the stage; but she answered him so +well with certain economical palaces she had seen in Germany, where, +as she said, there was nothing but china stoves and stuffed birds, +that he was obliged to allow the home of Washington to be after all +really gemuthlich. What he found so in fact was the soft texture of +the day, his personal situation, the sweetness of his suspense. For +suspense had decidedly become his portion; he was under a charm that +made him feel he was watching his own life and that his +susceptibilities were beyond his control. It hung over him that +things might take a turn, from one hour to the other, which would +make them very different from what they had been yet; and his heart +certainly beat a little faster as he wondered what that turn might +be. Why did he come to picnics on fragrant April days with American +girls who might lead him too far? Wouldn't such girls be glad to +marry a Pomeranian count? And WOULD they, after all, talk that way +to the Kaiser? If he were to marry one of them he should have to +give her several thorough lessons. + +In their little tour of the house our young friend and his companion +had had a great many fellow visitors, who had also arrived by the +steamer and who had hitherto not left them an ideal privacy. But +the others gradually dispersed; they circled about a kind of showman +who was the authorised guide, a big slow genial vulgar heavily- +bearded man, with a whimsical edifying patronising tone, a tone that +had immense success when he stopped here and there to make his +points--to pass his eyes over his listening flock, then fix them +quite above it with a meditative look and bring out some ancient +pleasantry as if it were a sudden inspiration. He made a cheerful +thing, an echo of the platform before the booth of a country fair, +even of a visit to the tomb of the pater patriae. It is enshrined +in a kind of grotto in the grounds, and Vogelstein remarked to +Pandora that he was a good man for the place, but was too familiar. +"Oh he'd have been familiar with Washington," said the girl with the +bright dryness with which she often uttered amusing things. +Vogelstein looked at her a moment, and it came over him, as he +smiled, that she herself probably wouldn't have been abashed even by +the hero with whom history has taken fewest liberties. "You look as +if you could hardly believe that," Pandora went on. "You Germans +are always in such awe of great people." And it occurred to her +critic that perhaps after all Washington would have liked her +manner, which was wonderfully fresh and natural. The man with the +beard was an ideal minister to American shrines; he played on the +curiosity of his little band with the touch of a master, drawing +them at the right moment away to see the classic ice-house where the +old lady had been found weeping in the belief it was Washington's +grave. While this monument was under inspection our interesting +couple had the house to themselves, and they spent some time on a +pretty terrace where certain windows of the second floor opened--a +little rootless verandah which overhung, in a manner, obliquely, all +the magnificence of the view; the immense sweep of the river, the +artistic plantations, the last-century garden with its big box +hedges and remains of old espaliers. They lingered here for nearly +half an hour, and it was in this retirement that Vogelstein enjoyed +the only approach to intimate conversation appointed for him, as was +to appear, with a young woman in whom he had been unable to persuade +himself that he was not absorbed. It's not necessary, and it's not +possible, that I should reproduce this colloquy; but I may mention +that it began--as they leaned against the parapet of the terrace and +heard the cheerful voice of the showman wafted up to them from a +distance--with his saying to her rather abruptly that he couldn't +make out why they hadn't had more talk together when they crossed +the Atlantic. + +"Well, I can if you can't," said Pandora. "I'd have talked quick +enough if you had spoken to me. I spoke to you first." + +"Yes, I remember that"--and it affected him awkwardly. + +"You listened too much to Mrs. Dangerfield." + +He feigned a vagueness. "To Mrs. Dangerfield?" + +"That woman you were always sitting with; she told you not to speak +to me. I've seen her in New York; she speaks to me now herself. +She recommended you to have nothing to do with me." + +"Oh how can you say such dreadful things?" Count Otto cried with a +very becoming blush. + +"You know you can't deny it. You weren't attracted by my family. +They're charming people when you know them. I don't have a better +time anywhere than I have at home," the girl went on loyally. "But +what does it matter? My family are very happy. They're getting +quite used to New York. Mrs. Dangerfield's a vulgar wretch--next +winter she'll call on me." + +"You are unlike any Madchen I've ever seen--I don't understand you," +said poor Vogelstein with the colour still in his face. + +"Well, you never WILL understand me--probably; but what difference +does it make?" + +He attempted to tell her what difference, but I've no space to +follow him here. It's known that when the German mind attempts to +explain things it doesn't always reduce them to simplicity, and +Pandora was first mystified, then amused, by some of the Count's +revelations. At last I think she was a little frightened, for she +remarked irrelevantly, with some decision, that luncheon would be +ready and that they ought to join Mrs. Steuben. Her companion +walked slowly, on purpose, as they left the house together, for he +knew the pang of a vague sense that he was losing her. + +"And shall you be in Washington many days yet?" he appealed as they +went. + +"It will all depend. I'm expecting important news. What I shall do +will be influenced by that." + +The way she talked about expecting news--and important!--made him +feel somehow that she had a career, that she was active and +independent, so that he could scarcely hope to stop her as she +passed. It was certainly true that he had never seen any girl like +her. It would have occurred to him that the news she was expecting +might have reference to the favour she had begged of the President, +if he hadn't already made up his mind--in the calm of meditation +after that talk with the Bonnycastles--that this favour must be a +pleasantry. What she had said to him had a discouraging, a somewhat +chilling effect; nevertheless it was not without a certain ardour +that he inquired of her whether, so long as she stayed in +Washington, he mightn't pay her certain respectful attentions. + +"As many as you like--and as respectful ones; but you won't keep +them up for ever!" + +"You try to torment me," said Count Otto. + +She waited to explain. "I mean that I may have some of my family." + +"I shall be delighted to see them again." + +Again she just hung fire. "There are some you've never seen." + +In the afternoon, returning to Washington on the steamer, Vogelstein +received a warning. It came from Mrs. Bonnycastle and constituted, +oddly enough, the second juncture at which an officious female +friend had, while sociably afloat with him, advised him on the +subject of Pandora Day. + +"There's one thing we forgot to tell you the other night about the +self-made girl," said the lady of infinite mirth. "It's never safe +to fix your affections on her, because she has almost always an +impediment somewhere in the background." + +He looked at her askance, but smiled and said: "I should understand +your information--for which I'm so much obliged--a little better if +I knew what you mean by an impediment." + +"Oh I mean she's always engaged to some young man who belongs to her +earlier phase." + +"Her earlier phase?" + +"The time before she had made herself--when she lived unconscious of +her powers. A young man from Utica, say. They usually have to +wait; he's probably in a store. It's a long engagement." + +Count Otto somehow preferred to understand as little as possible. +"Do you mean a betrothal--to take effect?" + +"I don't mean anything German and moonstruck. I mean that piece of +peculiarly American enterprise a premature engagement--to take +effect, but too complacently, at the end of time." + +Vogelstein very properly reflected that it was no use his having +entered the diplomatic career if he weren't able to bear himself as +if this interesting generalisation had no particular message for +him. He did Mrs. Bonnycastle moreover the justice to believe that +she wouldn't have approached the question with such levity if she +had supposed she should make him wince. The whole thing was, like +everything else, but for her to laugh at, and the betrayal moreover +of a good intention. "I see, I see--the self-made girl has of +course always had a past. Yes, and the young man in the store--from +Utica--is part of her past." + +"You express it perfectly," said Mrs. Bonnycastle. "I couldn't say +it better myself." + +"But with her present, with her future, when they change like this +young lady's, I suppose everything else changes. How do you say it +in America? She lets him slide." + +"We don't say it at all!" Mrs. Bonnycastle cried. "She does nothing +of the sort; for what do you take her? She sticks to him; that at +least is what we EXPECT her to do," she added with less assurance. +"As I tell you, the type's new and the case under consideration. We +haven't yet had time for complete study." + +"Oh of course I hope she sticks to him," Vogelstein declared simply +and with his German accent more audible, as it always was when he +was slightly agitated. + +For the rest of the trip he was rather restless. He wandered about +the boat, talking little with the returning picnickers. Toward the +last, as they drew near Washington and the white dome of the Capitol +hung aloft before them, looking as simple as a suspended snowball, +he found himself, on the deck, in proximity to Mrs. Steuben. He +reproached himself with having rather neglected her during an +entertainment for which he was indebted to her bounty, and he sought +to repair his omission by a proper deference. But the only act of +homage that occurred to him was to ask her as by chance whether Miss +Day were, to her knowledge, engaged. + +Mrs. Steuben turned her Southern eyes upon him with a look of almost +romantic compassion. "To my knowledge? Why of course I'd know! I +should think you'd know too. Didn't you know she was engaged? Why +she has been engaged since she was sixteen." + +Count Otto gazed at the dome of the Capitol. "To a gentleman from +Utica? + +"Yes, a native of her place. She's expecting him soon." + +"I'm so very glad to hear it," said Vogelstein, who decidedly, for +his career, had promise. "And is she going to marry him?" + +"Why what do people fall in love with each other FOR? I presume +they'll marry when she gets round to it. Ah if she had only been +from the Sooth--!" + +At this he broke quickly in: "But why have they never brought it +off, as you say, in so many years?" + +"Well, at first she was too young, and then she thought her family +ought to see Europe--of course they could see it better WITH her-- +and they spent some time there. And then Mr. Bellamy had some +business difficulties that made him feel as if he didn't want to +marry just then. But he has given up business and I presume feels +more free. Of course it's rather long, but all the while they've +been engaged. It's a true, true love," said Mrs. Steuben, whose +sound of the adjective was that of a feeble flute. + +"Is his name Mr. Bellamy?" the Count asked with his haunting +reminiscence. "D. F. Bellamy, so? And has he been in a store?" + +"I don't know what kind of business it was: it was some kind of +business in Utica. I think he had a branch in New York. He's one +of the leading gentlemen of Utica and very highly educated. He's a +good deal older than Miss Day. He's a very fine man--I presume a +college man. He stands very high in Utica. I don't know why you +look as if you doubted it." + +Vogelstein assured Mrs. Steuben that he doubted nothing, and indeed +what she told him was probably the more credible for seeming to him +eminently strange. Bellamy had been the name of the gentleman who, +a year and a half before, was to have met Pandora on the arrival of +the German steamer; it was in Bellamy's name that she had addressed +herself with such effusion to Bellamy's friend, the man in the straw +hat who was about to fumble in her mother's old clothes. This was a +fact that seemed to Count Otto to finish the picture of her +contradictions; it wanted at present no touch to be complete. Yet +even as it hung there before him it continued to fascinate him, and +he stared at it, detached from surrounding things and feeling a +little as if he had been pitched out of an overturned vehicle, till +the boat bumped against one of the outstanding piles of the wharf at +which Mrs. Steuben's party was to disembark. There was some delay +in getting the steamer adjusted to the dock, during which the +passengers watched the process over its side and extracted what +entertainment they might from the appearance of the various persons +collected to receive it. There were darkies and loafers and +hackmen, and also vague individuals, the loosest and blankest he had +ever seen anywhere, with tufts on their chins, toothpicks in their +mouths, hands in their pockets, rumination in their jaws and diamond +pins in their shirt-fronts, who looked as if they had sauntered over +from Pennsylvania Avenue to while away half an hour, forsaking for +that interval their various slanting postures in the porticoes of +the hotels and the doorways of the saloons. + +"Oh I'm so glad! How sweet of you to come down!" It was a voice +close to Count Otto's shoulder that spoke these words, and he had no +need to turn to see from whom it proceeded. It had been in his ears +the greater part of the day, though, as he now perceived, without +the fullest richness of expression of which it was capable. Still +less was he obliged to turn to discover to whom it was addressed, +for the few simple words I have quoted had been flung across the +narrowing interval of water, and a gentleman who had stepped to the +edge of the dock without our young man's observing him tossed back +an immediate reply. + +"I got here by the three o'clock train. They told me in K Street +where you were, and I thought I'd come down and meet you." + +"Charming attention!" said Pandora Day with the laugh that seemed +always to invite the whole of any company to partake in it; though +for some moments after this she and her interlocutor appeared to +continue the conversation only with their eyes. Meanwhile +Vogelstein's also were not idle. He looked at her visitor from head +to foot, and he was aware that she was quite unconscious of his own +proximity. The gentleman before him was tall, good-looking, well- +dressed; evidently he would stand well not only at Utica, but, +judging from the way he had planted himself on the dock, in any +position that circumstances might compel him to take up. He was +about forty years old; he had a black moustache and he seemed to +look at the world over some counter-like expanse on which he invited +it all warily and pleasantly to put down first its idea of the terms +of a transaction. He waved a gloved hand at Pandora as if, when she +exclaimed "Gracious, ain't they long!" to urge her to be patient. +She was patient several seconds and then asked him if he had any +news. He looked at her briefly, in silence, smiling, after which he +drew from his pocket a large letter with an official-looking seal +and shook it jocosely above his head. This was discreetly, covertly +done. No one but our young man appeared aware of how much was +taking place--and poor Count Otto mainly felt it in the air. The +boat was touching the wharf and the space between the pair +inconsiderable. + +"Department of State?" Pandora very prettily and soundlessly mouthed +across at him. + +"That's what they call it." + +"Well, what country?" + +"What's your opinion of the Dutch?" the gentleman asked for answer. + +"Oh gracious!" cried Pandora. + +"Well, are you going to wait for the return trip?" said the +gentleman. + +Our silent sufferer turned away, and presently Mrs. Steuben and her +companion disembarked together. When this lady entered a carriage +with Miss Day the gentleman who had spoken to the girl followed +them; the others scattered, and Vogelstein, declining with thanks a +"lift" from Mrs. Bonnycastle, walked home alone and in some +intensity of meditation. Two days later he saw in a newspaper an +announcement that the President had offered the post of Minister to +Holland to Mr. D. F. Bellamy of Utica; and in the course of a month +he heard from Mrs. Steuben that Pandora, a thousand other duties +performed, had finally "got round" to the altar of her own nuptials. +He communicated this news to Mrs. Bonnycastle, who had not heard it +but who, shrieking at the queer face he showed her, met it with the +remark that there was now ground for a new induction as to the self- +made girl. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Pandora, by Henry James + diff --git a/old/pndra10.zip b/old/pndra10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..af8ebd2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pndra10.zip |