waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the
servants, the foreign tourists, were lounging about and staring. It was
not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came
tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded
parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a
soberly elegant traveling costume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination
and, as our ancestors used to say, sensibility; as he looked at her
dress and, on the great staircase, her little rapid, confiding step, he
felt as if there were something romantic going forward. He could have
believed he was going to elope with her. He passed out with her among
all the idle people that were assembled there; they were all looking
at her very hard; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him.
Winterbourne’s preference had been that they should be conveyed to
Chillon in a carriage; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the
little steamer; she declared that she had a passion for steamboats.
There was always such a lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw such
lots of people. The sail was not long, but Winterbourne’s companion
found time to say a great many things. To the young man himself their
little excursion was so much of an escapade--an adventure--that, even
allowing for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of
seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that,
in this particular, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely
animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all
excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those
of anyone else; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor when she
felt that people were looking at her. People continued to look at her
a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty
companion’s distinguished air. He had been a little afraid that she
would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and even, perhaps, desire to move about
the boat a good deal. But he quite forgot his fears; he sat smiling,
with his eyes upon her face, while, without moving from her place, she
delivered herself of a great number of original reflections. It was the
most charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea
that she was “common”; but was she so, after all, or was he simply
getting used to her commonness? Her conversation was chiefly of what
metaphysicians term the objective cast, but every now and then it took a
subjective turn.
“What on EARTH are you so grave about?” she suddenly demanded, fixing
her agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne’s.
“Am I grave?” he asked. “I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear.”
“You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that’s a grin, your
ears are very near together.”
“Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?”
“Pray do, and I’ll carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of our
journey.”
“I never was better pleased in my life,” murmured Winterbourne.
She looked at him a moment and then burst into a little laugh. “I like
to make you say those things! You’re a queer mixture!”
In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective element decidedly
prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, rustled her skirts
in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and
a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, and turned a singularly
well-shaped ear to everything that Winterbourne told her about the
place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal antiquities and
that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon
her. They had the good fortune to have been able to walk about without
other companionship than that of the custodian; and Winterbourne
arranged with this functionary that they should not be hurried--that
they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodian
interpreted the bargain generously--Winterbourne, on his side, had been
generous--and ended by leaving them quite to themselves. Miss Miller’s
observations were not remarkable for logical consistency; for anything
she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext. She found a great many
pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for asking Winterbourne
sudden questions about himself--his family, his previous history, his
tastes, his habits, his intentions--and for supplying information upon
corresponding points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits,
and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and
indeed the most favorable account.
“Well, I hope you know enough!” she said to her companion, after he had
told her the history of the unhappy Bonivard. “I never saw a man that
knew so much!” The history of Bonivard had evidently, as they say, gone
into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to say that she
wished Winterbourne would travel with them and “go round” with them;
they might know something, in that case. “Don’t you want to come
and teach Randolph?” she asked. Winterbourne said that nothing
could possibly please him so much, but that he had unfortunately other
occupations. “Other occupations? I don’t believe it!” said Miss Daisy.
“What do you mean? You are not in business.” The young man admitted that
he was not in business; but he had engagements which, even within a day
or two, would force him to go back to Geneva. “Oh, bother!” she said; “I
don’t believe it!” and she began to talk about something else. But a few
moments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty design of an
antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly, “You don’t mean to say
you are going back to Geneva?”
“It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva
tomorrow.”
“Well, Mr. Winterbourne,” said Daisy, “I think you’re horrid!”
“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things!” said Winterbourne--“just at the
last!”
“The last!” cried the young girl; “I call it the first. I have half a
mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone.” And
for the next ten minutes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor
Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him
the honor to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements. His
companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of
Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she opened fire upon the mysterious
charmer in Geneva whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for
granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller
know that there was a charmer in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the
existence of such a person, was quite unable to discover, and he was
divided between amazement at the rapidity of her induction and amusement
at the frankness of her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an
extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. “Does she never allow
you more than three days at a time?” asked Daisy ironically. “Doesn’t
she give you a vacation in summer? There’s no one so hard worked but
they can get leave to go off somewhere at this season. I suppose, if you
stay another day, she’ll come after you in the boat. Do wait over
till Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her arrive!”
Winterbourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed in
the temper in which the young lady had embarked. If he had missed the
personal accent, the personal accent was now making its appearance.
It sounded very distinctly, at last, in her telling him she would stop
“teasing” him if he would promise her solemnly to come down to Rome in
the winter.
“That’s not a difficult promise to make,” said Winterbourne. “My aunt
has taken an apartment in Rome for the winter and has already asked me
to come and see her.”
“I don’t want you to come for your aunt,” said Daisy; “I want you to
come for me.” And this was the only allusion that the young man was ever
to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at
any rate, he would certainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing.
Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the dusk;
the young girl was very quiet.
In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Costello that he had spent
the afternoon at Chillon with Miss Daisy Miller.
“The Americans--of the courier?” asked this lady.
“Ah, happily,” said Winterbourne, “the courier stayed at home.”
“She went with you all alone?”
“All alone.”
Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling bottle. “And that,” she
exclaimed, “is the young person whom you wanted me to know!”
PART II
Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion
to Chillon, went to Rome toward the end of January. His aunt had been
established there for several weeks, and he had received a couple of
letters from her. “Those people you were so devoted to last summer at
Vevey have turned up here, courier and all,” she wrote. “They seem to
have made several acquaintances, but the courier continues to be the
most intime. The young lady, however, is also very intimate with some
third-rate Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way that makes
much talk. Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez’s--Paule Mere--and
don’t come later than the 23rd.”
In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on arriving in Rome,
would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller’s address at the American
banker’s and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy. “After what
happened at Vevey, I think I may certainly call upon them,” he said to
Mrs. Costello.
“If, after what happens--at Vevey and everywhere--you desire to keep
up the acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course a man may know
everyone. Men are welcome to the privilege!”
“Pray what is it that happens--here, for instance?” Winterbourne
demanded.
“The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As to what happens
further, you must apply elsewhere for information. She has picked up
half a dozen of the regular Roman fortune hunters, and she takes them
about to people’s houses. When she comes to a party she brings with her
a gentleman with a good deal of manner and a wonderful mustache.”
“And where is the mother?”
“I haven’t the least idea. They are very dreadful people.”
Winterbourne meditated a moment. “They are very ignorant--very innocent
only. Depend upon it they are not bad.”
“They are hopelessly vulgar,” said Mrs. Costello. “Whether or no being
hopelessly vulgar is being ‘bad’ is a question for the metaphysicians.
They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life
that is quite enough.”
The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful
mustaches checked Winterbourne’s impulse to go straightway to see her.
He had, perhaps, not definitely flattered himself that he had made an
ineffaceable impression upon her heart, but he was annoyed at hearing
of a state of affairs so little in harmony with an image that had lately
flitted in and out of his own meditations; the image of a very pretty
girl looking out of an old Roman window and asking herself urgently
when Mr. Winterbourne would arrive. If, however, he determined to wait a
little before reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her consideration,
he went very soon to call upon two or three other friends. One of these
friends was an American lady who had spent several winters at Geneva,
where she had placed her children at school. She was a very accomplished
woman, and she lived in the Via Gregoriana. Winterbourne found her in a
little crimson drawing room on a third floor; the room was filled with
southern sunshine. He had not been there ten minutes when the servant
came in, announcing “Madame Mila!” This announcement was presently
followed by the entrance of little Randolph Miller, who stopped in the
middle of the room and stood staring at Winterbourne. An instant later
his pretty sister crossed the threshold; and then, after a considerable
interval, Mrs. Miller slowly advanced.
“I know you!” said Randolph.
“I’m sure you know a great many things,” exclaimed Winterbourne, taking
him by the hand. “How is your education coming on?”
Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with her hostess, but when
she heard Winterbourne’s voice she quickly turned her head. “Well, I
declare!” she said.
“I told you I should come, you know,” Winterbourne rejoined, smiling.
“Well, I didn’t believe it,” said Miss Daisy.
“I am much obliged to you,” laughed the young man.
“You might have come to see me!” said Daisy.
“I arrived only yesterday.”
“I don’t believe that!” the young girl declared.
Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to her mother, but this lady
evaded his glance, and, seating herself, fixed her eyes upon her son.
“We’ve got a bigger place than this,” said Randolph. “It’s all gold on
the walls.”
Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. “I told you if I were to bring
you, you would say something!” she murmured.
“I told YOU!” Randolph exclaimed. “I tell YOU, sir!” he added jocosely,
giving Winterbourne a thump on the knee. “It IS bigger, too!”
Daisy had entered upon a lively conversation with her hostess;
Winterbourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother. “I
hope you have been well since we parted at Vevey,” he said.
Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him--at his chin. “Not very well,
sir,” she answered.
“She’s got the dyspepsia,” said Randolph. “I’ve got it too. Father’s got
it. I’ve got it most!”
This announcement, instead of embarrassing Mrs. Miller, seemed to
relieve her. “I suffer from the liver,” she said. “I think it’s this
climate; it’s less bracing than Schenectady, especially in the winter
season. I don’t know whether you know we reside at Schenectady. I was
saying to Daisy that I certainly hadn’t found any one like Dr. Davis,
and I didn’t believe I should. Oh, at Schenectady he stands first; they
think everything of him. He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing
he wouldn’t do for me. He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia,
but he was bound to cure it. I’m sure there was nothing he wouldn’t
try. He was just going to try something new when we came off. Mr. Miller
wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote to Mr. Miller that
it seems as if I couldn’t get on without Dr. Davis. At Schenectady he
stands at the very top; and there’s a great deal of sickness there, too.
It affects my sleep.”
Winterbourne had a good deal of pathological gossip with Dr. Davis’s
patient, during which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her own
companion. The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with
Rome. “Well, I must say I am disappointed,” she answered. “We had heard
so much about it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn’t help
that. We had been led to expect something different.”
“Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond of it,” said
Winterbourne.
“I hate it worse and worse every day!” cried Randolph.
“You are like the infant Hannibal,” said Winterbourne.
“No, I ain’t!” Randolph declared at a venture.
“You are not much like an infant,” said his mother. “But we have seen
places,” she resumed, “that I should put a long way before Rome.” And in
reply to Winterbourne’s interrogation, “There’s Zurich,” she concluded,
“I think Zurich is lovely; and we hadn’t heard half so much about it.”
“The best place we’ve seen is the City of Richmond!” said Randolph.
“He means the ship,” his mother explained. “We crossed in that ship.
Randolph had a good time on the City of Richmond.”
“It’s the best place I’ve seen,” the child repeated. “Only it was turned
the wrong way.”
“Well, we’ve got to turn the right way some time,” said Mrs. Miller with
a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at
least found some gratification in Rome, and she declared that Daisy
was quite carried away. “It’s on account of the society--the society’s
splendid. She goes round everywhere; she has made a great number of
acquaintances. Of course she goes round more than I do. I must say they
have been very sociable; they have taken her right in. And then she
knows a great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there’s nothing like Rome.
Of course, it’s a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knows
plenty of gentlemen.”
By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winterbourne. “I’ve
been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were!” the young girl announced.
“And what is the evidence you have offered?” asked Winterbourne, rather
annoyed at Miss Miller’s want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer
who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at
Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He
remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American
women--the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom--were at
once the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense
of indebtedness.
“Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey,” said Daisy. “You wouldn’t do
anything. You wouldn’t stay there when I asked you.”
“My dearest young lady,” cried Winterbourne, with eloquence, “have I
come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches?”
“Just hear him say that!” said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a
bow on this lady’s dress. “Did you ever hear anything so quaint?”
“So quaint, my dear?” murmured Mrs. Walker in the tone of a partisan of
Winterbourne.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Daisy, fingering Mrs. Walker’s ribbons. “Mrs.
Walker, I want to tell you something.”
“Mother-r,” interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words, “I
tell you you’ve got to go. Eugenio’ll raise--something!”
“I’m not afraid of Eugenio,” said Daisy with a toss of her head. “Look
here, Mrs. Walker,” she went on, “you know I’m coming to your party.”
“I am delighted to hear it.”
“I’ve got a lovely dress!”
“I am very sure of that.”
“But I want to ask a favor--permission to bring a friend.”
“I shall be happy to see any of your friends,” said Mrs. Walker, turning
with a smile to Mrs. Miller.
“Oh, they are not my friends,” answered Daisy’s mamma, smiling shyly in
her own fashion. “I never spoke to them.”
“It’s an intimate friend of mine--Mr. Giovanelli,” said Daisy without
a tremor in her clear little voice or a shadow on her brilliant little
face.
Mrs. Walker was silent a moment; she gave a rapid glance at
Winterbourne. “I shall be glad to see Mr. Giovanelli,” she then said.
“He’s an Italian,” Daisy pursued with the prettiest serenity. “He’s a
great friend of mine; he’s the handsomest man in the world--except Mr.
Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to know some
Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans. He’s tremendously
clever. He’s perfectly lovely!”
It was settled that this brilliant personage should be brought to Mrs.
Walker’s party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave. “I
guess we’ll go back to the hotel,” she said.
“You may go back to the hotel, Mother, but I’m going to take a walk,”
said Daisy.
“She’s going to walk with Mr. Giovanelli,” Randolph proclaimed.
“I am going to the Pincio,” said Daisy, smiling.
“Alone, my dear--at this hour?” Mrs. Walker asked. The afternoon was
drawing to a close--it was the hour for the throng of carriages and of
contemplative pedestrians. “I don’t think it’s safe, my dear,” said Mrs.
Walker.
“Neither do I,” subjoined Mrs. Miller. “You’ll get the fever, as sure as
you live. Remember what Dr. Davis told you!”
“Give her some medicine before she goes,” said Randolph.
The company had risen to its feet; Daisy, still showing her pretty
teeth, bent over and kissed her hostess. “Mrs. Walker, you are too
perfect,” she said. “I’m not going alone; I am going to meet a friend.”
“Your friend won’t keep you from getting the fever,” Mrs. Miller
observed.
“Is it Mr. Giovanelli?” asked the hostess.
Winterbourne was watching the young girl; at this question his attention
quickened. She stood there, smiling and smoothing her bonnet ribbons;
she glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced and smiled, she
answered, without a shade of hesitation, “Mr. Giovanelli--the beautiful
Giovanelli.”
“My dear young friend,” said Mrs. Walker, taking her hand pleadingly,
“don’t walk off to the Pincio at this hour to meet a beautiful Italian.”
“Well, he speaks English,” said Mrs. Miller.
“Gracious me!” Daisy exclaimed, “I don’t to do anything improper.
There’s an easy way to settle it.” She continued to glance at
Winterbourne. “The Pincio is only a hundred yards distant; and if Mr.
Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends, he would offer to walk with
me!”
Winterbourne’s politeness hastened to affirm itself, and the young girl
gave him gracious leave to accompany her. They passed downstairs
before her mother, and at the door Winterbourne perceived Mrs. Miller’s
carriage drawn up, with the ornamental courier whose acquaintance he had
made at Vevey seated within. “Goodbye, Eugenio!” cried Daisy; “I’m going
to take a walk.” The distance from the Via Gregoriana to the beautiful
garden at the other end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact, rapidly
traversed. As the day was splendid, however, and the concourse of
vehicles, walkers, and loungers numerous, the young Americans found
their progress much delayed. This fact was highly agreeable to
Winterbourne, in spite of his consciousness of his singular situation.
The slow-moving, idly gazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon
the extremely pretty young foreign lady who was passing through it upon
his arm; and he wondered what on earth had been in Daisy’s mind when
she proposed to expose herself, unattended, to its appreciation. His own
mission, to her sense, apparently, was to consign her to the hands
of Mr. Giovanelli; but Winterbourne, at once annoyed and gratified,
resolved that he would do no such thing.
“Why haven’t you been to see me?” asked Daisy. “You can’t get out of
that.”
“I have had the honor of telling you that I have only just stepped out
of the train.”
“You must have stayed in the train a good while after it stopped!” cried
the young girl with her little laugh. “I suppose you were asleep. You
have had time to go to see Mrs. Walker.”
“I knew Mrs. Walker--” Winterbourne began to explain.
“I know where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so.
Well, you knew me at Vevey. That’s just as good. So you ought to have
come.” She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle
about her own affairs. “We’ve got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio
says they’re the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter,
if we don’t die of the fever; and I guess we’ll stay then. It’s a great
deal nicer than I thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I was
sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going round
all the time with one of those dreadful old men that explain about the
pictures and things. But we only had about a week of that, and now
I’m enjoying myself. I know ever so many people, and they are all so
charming. The society’s extremely select. There are all kinds--English,
and Germans, and Italians. I think I like the English best. I like their
style of conversation. But there are some lovely Americans. I never saw
anything so hospitable. There’s something or other every day. There’s
not much dancing; but I must say I never thought dancing was everything.
I was always fond of conversation. I guess I shall have plenty at Mrs.
Walker’s, her rooms are so small.” When they had passed the gate of the
Pincian Gardens, Miss Miller began to wonder where Mr. Giovanelli might
be. “We had better go straight to that place in front,” she said, “where
you look at the view.”
“I certainly shall not help you to find him,” Winterbourne declared.
“Then I shall find him without you,” cried Miss Daisy.
“You certainly won’t leave me!” cried Winterbourne.
She burst into her little laugh. “Are you afraid you’ll get lost--or run
over? But there’s Giovanelli, leaning against that tree. He’s staring at
the women in the carriages: did you ever see anything so cool?”
Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with
folded arms nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfully poised
hat, a glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his buttonhole. Winterbourne
looked at him a moment and then said, “Do you mean to speak to that
man?”
“Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don’t suppose I mean to communicate
by signs?”
“Pray understand, then,” said Winterbourne, “that I intend to remain
with you.”
Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubled
consciousness in her face, with nothing but the presence of her charming
eyes and her happy dimples. “Well, she’s a cool one!” thought the young
man.
“I don’t like the way you say that,” said Daisy. “It’s too imperious.”
“I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main point is to give you an
idea of my meaning.”
The young girl looked at him more gravely, but with eyes that were
prettier than ever. “I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me,
or to interfere with anything I do.”
“I think you have made a mistake,” said Winterbourne. “You should
sometimes listen to a gentleman--the right one.”
Daisy began to laugh again. “I do nothing but listen to gentlemen!” she
exclaimed. “Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one?”