The first one took place in the country, at a little tea-party, one
snowy night. It must have been some seventeen years ago. My friend
Latouche, going to spend Christmas with his mother, had persuaded me to
go with him, and the good lady had given in our honor the entertainment
of which I speak. To me it was really entertaining; I had never been in
the depths of New England at that season. It had been snowing all day,
and the drifts were knee-high. I wondered how the ladies had made their
way to the house; but I perceived that at Grimwinter a conversazione
offering the attraction of two gentlemen from New York was felt to be
worth an effort.
Mrs. Latouche, in the course of the evening, asked me if I “didn’t want
to” show the photographs to some of the young ladies. The photographs
were in a couple of great portfolios, and had been brought home by her
son, who, like myself, was lately returned from Europe. I looked round
and was struck with the fact that most of the young ladies were
provided with an object of interest more absorbing than the most
vivid sun-picture. But there was a person standing alone near the
mantelshelf, and looking round the room with a small gentle smile which
seemed at odds, somehow, with her isolation. I looked at her a moment,
and then said, “I should like to show them to that young lady.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Latouche, “she is just the person. She doesn’t care
for flirting; I will speak to her.”
I rejoined that if she did not care for flirting, she was, perhaps,
not just the person; but Mrs. Latouche had already gone to propose the
photographs to her.
“She’s delighted,” she said, coming back. “She is just the person, so
quiet and so bright.” And then she told me the young lady was, by name,
Miss Caroline Spencer, and with this she introduced me.
Miss Caroline Spencer was not exactly a beauty, but she was a charming
little figure. She must have been close upon thirty, but she was made
almost like a little girl, and she had the complexion of a child. She
had a very pretty head, and her hair was arranged as nearly as possible
like the hair of a Greek bust, though indeed it was to be doubted if she
had ever seen a Greek bust. She was “artistic,” I suspected, so far as
Grimwinter allowed such tendencies. She had a soft, surprised eye, and
thin lips, with very pretty teeth. Round her neck she wore what ladies
call, I believe, a “ruche,” fastened with a very small pin in pink
coral, and in her hand she carried a fan made of plaited straw and
adorned with pink ribbon. She wore a scanty black silk dress. She spoke
with a kind of soft precision, showing her white teeth between her
narrow but tender-looking lips, and she seemed extremely pleased, even
a little fluttered, at the prospect of my demonstrations. These went
forward very smoothly, after I had moved the portfolios out of their
corner and placed a couple of chairs near a lamp. The photographs were
usually things I knew,--large views of Switzerland, Italy, and Spain,
landscapes, copies of famous buildings, pictures, and statues. I said
what I could about them, and my companion, looking at them as I
held them up, sat perfectly still, with her straw fan raised to her
underlip. Occasionally, as I laid one of the pictures down, she said
very softly, “Have you seen that place?” I usually answered that I had
seen it several times (I had been a great traveller), and then I felt
that she looked at me askance for a moment with her pretty eyes. I had
asked her at the outset whether she had been to Europe; to this she
answered, “No, no, no,” in a little quick, confidential whisper. But
after that, though she never took her eyes off the pictures, she said
so little that I was afraid she was bored. Accordingly, after we had
finished one portfolio, I offered, if she desired it, to desist. I felt
that she was not bored, but her reticence puzzled me, and I wished to
make her speak. I turned round to look at her, and saw that there was a
faint flush in each of her cheeks. She was waving her little fan to
and fro. Instead of looking at me she fixed her eyes upon the other
portfolio, which was leaning against the table.
“Won’t you show me that?” she asked, with a little tremor in her voice.
I could almost have believed she was agitated.
“With pleasure,” I answered, “if you are not tired.”
“No, I am not tired,” she affirmed. “I like it--I love it.”
And as I took up the other portfolio she laid her hand upon it, rubbing
it softly.
“And have you been here too?” she asked.
On my opening the portfolio it appeared that I had been there. One of
the first photographs was a large view of the Castle of Chillon, on the
Lake of Geneva.
“Here,” I said, “I have been many a time. Is it not beautiful?” And I
pointed to the perfect reflection of the rugged rocks and pointed towers
in the clear still water. She did not say, “Oh, enchanting!” and push it
away to see the next picture. She looked awhile, and then she asked
if it was not where Bonnivard, about whom Byron wrote, was confined. I
assented, and tried to quote some of Byron’s verses, but in this attempt
I succeeded imperfectly.
She fanned herself a moment, and then repeated the lines correctly, in
a soft, flat, and yet agreeable voice. By the time she had finished she
was blushing. I complimented her and told her she was perfectly equipped
for visiting Switzerland and Italy. She looked at me askance again, to
see whether I was serious, and I added, that if she wished to recognize
Byron’s descriptions she must go abroad speedily; Europe was getting
sadly dis-Byronized.
“How soon must I go?” she asked.
“Oh, I will give you ten years.”
“I think I can go within ten years,” she answered very soberly.
“Well,” I said, “you will enjoy it immensely; you will find it very
charming.” And just then I came upon a photograph of some nook in a
foreign city which I had been very fond of, and which recalled tender
memories. I discoursed (as I suppose) with a certain eloquence; my
companion sat listening, breathless.
“Have you been _very_ long in foreign lands?” she asked, some time after
I had ceased.
“Many years,” I said.
“And have you travelled everywhere?”
“I have travelled a great deal. I am very fond of it; and, happily, I
have been able.”
Again she gave me her sidelong gaze. “And do you know the foreign
languages?”
“After a fashion.”
“Is it hard to speak them?”
“I don’t believe you would find it hard,” I gallantly responded.
“Oh, I shouldn’t want to speak; I should only want to listen,” she
said. Then, after a pause, she added, “They say the French theatre is so
beautiful.”
“It is the best in the world.”
“Did you go there very often?”
“When I was first in Paris I went every night.”
“Every night!” And she opened her clear eyes very wide. “That to me
is:--” and she hesitated a moment--“is very wonderful.” A few minutes
later she asked, “Which country do you prefer?”
“There is one country I prefer to all others. I think you would do the
same.”
She looked at me a moment, and then she said softly, “Italy?”
“Italy,” I answered softly, too; and for a moment we looked at each
other. She looked as pretty as if, instead of showing her photographs, I
had been making love to her. To increase the analogy, she glanced away,
blushing. There was a silence, which she broke at last by saying,--
“That is the place which, in particular, I thought of going to.”
“Oh, that’s the place, that’s the place!” I said.
She looked at two or three photographs in silence. “They say it is not
so dear.”
“As some other countries? Yes, that is not the least of its charms.”
“But it is all very dear, is it not?”
“Europe, you mean?”
“Going there and travelling. That has been the trouble. I have very
little money. I give lessons,” said Miss Spencer.
“Of course one must have money,” I said, “but one can manage with a
moderate amount.”
“I think I should manage. I have laid something by, and I am always
adding a little to it. It’s all for that.” She paused a moment, and then
went on with a kind of suppressed eagerness, as if telling me the story
were a rare, but a possibly impure satisfaction, “But it has not been
only the money; it has been everything. Everything has been against it
I have waited and waited. It has been a mere castle in the air. I am
almost afraid to talk about it. Two or three times it has been a little
nearer, and then I have talked about it and it has melted away. I have
talked about it too much,” she said hypocritically; for I saw that such
talking was now a small tremulous ecstasy. “There is a lady who is a
great friend of mine; she does n’t want to go; I always talk to her
about it. I tire her dreadfully. She told me once she didn’t know what
would become of me. I should go crazy if I did not go to Europe, and I
should certainly go crazy if I did.”
“Well,” I said, “you have not gone yet, and nevertheless you are not
crazy.”
She looked at me a moment, and said, “I am not so sure. I don’t think of
anything else. I am always thinking of it. It prevents me from thinking
of things that are nearer home, things that I ought to attend to. That
is a kind of craziness.”
“The cure for it is to go,” I said.
“I have a faith that I shall go. I have a cousin in Europe!” she
announced.
We turned over some more photographs, and I asked her if she had always
lived at Grimwinter.
“Oh, no, sir,” said Miss Spencer. “I have spent twenty-three months in
Boston.”
I answered, jocosely, that in that case foreign lands would probably
prove a disappointment to her; but I quite failed to alarm her.
“I know more about them than you might think,” she said, with her shy,
neat little smile. “I mean by reading; I have read a great deal I have
not only read Byron; I have read histories and guidebooks. I know I
shall like it.”
“I understand your case,” I rejoined. “You have the native American
passion,--the passion for the picturesque. With us, I think it is
primordial,--antecedent to experience. Experience comes and only shows
us something we have dreamt of.”
“I think that is very true,” said Caroline Spencer. “I have dreamt of
everything; I shall know it all!”
“I am afraid you have wasted a great deal of time.”
“Oh, yes, that has been my great wickedness.”
The people about us had begun to scatter; they were taking their leave.
She got up and put out her hand to me, timidly, but with a peculiar
brightness in her eyes.
“I am going back there,” I said, as I shook hands with her. “I shall
look out for you.”
“I will tell you,” she answered, “if I am disappointed.”
And she went away, looking delicately agitated, and moving her little
straw fan.