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Bostonians, The
Chapter 3
Henry James
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       _ VOLUME I. BOOK FIRST. CHAPTER III.
       When he had told her that if she would take him as he was he should be
       very happy to dine with her, she excused herself a moment and went to
       give an order in the dining-room. The young man, left alone, looked
       about the parlour--the two parlours which, in their prolonged, adjacent
       narrowness, formed evidently one apartment--and wandered to the windows
       at the back, where there was a view of the water; Miss Chancellor having
       the good fortune to dwell on that side of Charles Street toward which,
       in the rear, the afternoon sun slants redly, from an horizon indented at
       empty intervals with wooden spires, the masts of lonely boats, the
       chimneys of dirty "works," over a brackish expanse of anomalous
       character, which is too big for a river and too small for a bay. The
       view seemed to him very picturesque, though in the gathered dusk little
       was left of it save a cold yellow streak in the west, a gleam of brown
       water, and the reflexion of the lights that had begun to show themselves
       in a row of houses, impressive to Ransom in their extreme modernness,
       which overlooked the same lagoon from a long embankment on the left,
       constructed of stones roughly piled. He thought this prospect, from a
       city-house, almost romantic; and he turned from it back to the interior
       illuminated now by a lamp which the parlour-maid had placed on a table
       while he stood at the window as to something still more genial and
       interesting. The artistic sense in Basil Ransom had not been highly
       cultivated; neither (though he had passed his early years as the son of
       a rich man) was his conception of material comfort very definite; it
       consisted mainly of the vision of plenty of cigars and brandy and water
       and newspapers, and a cane-bottomed arm-chair of the right inclination,
       from which he could stretch his legs. Nevertheless it seemed to him he
       had never seen an interior that was so much an interior as this queer
       corridor-shaped drawing-room of his new-found kinswoman; he had never
       felt himself in the presence of so much organised privacy or of so many
       objects that spoke of habits and tastes. Most of the people he had
       hitherto known had no tastes; they had a few habits, but these were not
       of a sort that required much upholstery. He had not as yet been in many
       houses in New York, and he had never before seen so many accessories.
       The general character of the place struck him as Bostonian; this was, in
       fact, very much what he had supposed Boston to be. He had always heard
       Boston was a city of culture, and now there was culture in Miss
       Chancellor's tables and sofas, in the books that were everywhere, on
       little shelves like brackets (as if a book were a statuette), in the
       photographs and watercolours that covered the walls, in the curtains
       that were festooned rather stiffly in the doorways. He looked at some of
       the books and saw that his cousin read German; and his impression of the
       importance of this (as a symptom of superiority) was not diminished by
       the fact that he himself had mastered the tongue (knowing it contained a
       large literature of jurisprudence) during a long, empty, deadly summer
       on the plantation. It is a curious proof of a certain crude modesty
       inherent in Basil Ransom that the main effect of his observing his
       cousin's German books was to give him an idea of the natural energy of
       Northerners. He had noticed it often before; he had already told himself
       that he must count with it. It was only after much experience he made
       the discovery that few Northerners were, in their secret soul, so
       energetic as he. Many other persons had made it before that. He knew
       very little about Miss Chancellor; he had come to see her only because
       she wrote to him; he would never have thought of looking her up, and
       since then there had been no one in New York he might ask about her.
       Therefore he could only guess that she was a rich young woman; such a
       house, inhabited in such a way by a quiet spinster, implied a
       considerable income. How much? he asked himself; five thousand, ten
       thousand, fifteen thousand a year? There was richness to our panting
       young man in the smallest of these figures. He was not of a mercenary
       spirit, but he had an immense desire for success, and he had more than
       once reflected that a moderate capital was an aid to achievement. He had
       seen in his younger years one of the biggest failures that history
       commemorates, an immense national _fiasco_, and it had implanted in his
       mind a deep aversion to the ineffectual. It came over him, while he
       waited for his hostess to reappear, that she was unmarried as well as
       rich, that she was sociable (her letter answered for that) as well as
       single; and he had for a moment a whimsical vision of becoming a partner
       in so flourishing a firm. He ground his teeth a little as he thought of
       the contrasts of the human lot; this cushioned feminine nest made him
       feel unhoused and underfed. Such a mood, however, could only be
       momentary, for he was conscious at bottom of a bigger stomach than all
       the culture of Charles Street could fill.
       Afterwards, when his cousin had come back and they had gone down to
       dinner together, where he sat facing her at a little table decorated in
       the middle with flowers, a position from which he had another view,
       through a window where the curtain remained undrawn by her direction
       (she called his attention to this--it was for his benefit), of the
       dusky, empty river, spotted with points of light--at this period, I say,
       it was very easy for him to remark to himself that nothing would induce
       him to make love to such a type as that. Several months later, in New
       York, in conversation with Mrs. Luna, of whom he was destined to see a
       good deal, he alluded by chance to this repast, to the way her sister
       had placed him at table, and to the remark with which she had pointed
       out the advantage of his seat.
       "That's what they call in Boston being very 'thoughtful,'" Mrs. Luna
       said, "giving you the Back Bay (don't you hate the name?) to look at,
       and then taking credit for it."
       This, however, was in the future; what Basil Ransom actually perceived
       was that Miss Chancellor was a signal old maid. That was her quality,
       her destiny; nothing could be more distinctly written. There are women
       who are unmarried by accident, and others who are unmarried by option;
       but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being.
       She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of
       August is sultry. She was so essentially a celibate that Ransom found
       himself thinking of her as old, though when he came to look at her (as
       he said to himself) it was apparent that her years were fewer than his
       own. He did not dislike her, she had been so friendly; but, little by
       little, she gave him an uneasy feeling--the sense that you could never
       be safe with a person who took things so hard. It came over him that it
       was because she took things hard she had sought his acquaintance; it had
       been because she was strenuous, not because she was genial; she had had
       in her eye--and what an extraordinary eye it was!--not a pleasure, but a
       duty. She would expect him to be strenuous in return; but he
       couldn't--in private life, he couldn't; privacy for Basil Ransom
       consisted entirely in what he called "laying off." She was not so plain
       on further acquaintance as she had seemed to him at first; even the
       young Mississippian had culture enough to see that she was refined. Her
       white skin had a singular look of being drawn tightly across her face;
       but her features, though sharp and irregular, were delicate in a fashion
       that suggested good breeding. Their line was perverse, but it was not
       poor. The curious tint of her eyes was a living colour; when she turned
       it upon you, you thought vaguely of the glitter of green ice. She had
       absolutely no figure, and presented a certain appearance of feeling
       cold. With all this, there was something very modern and highly
       developed in her aspect; she had the advantages as well as the drawbacks
       of a nervous organisation. She smiled constantly at her guest, but from
       the beginning to the end of dinner, though he made several remarks that
       he thought might prove amusing, she never once laughed. Later, he saw
       that she was a woman without laughter; exhilaration, if it ever visited
       her, was dumb. Once only, in the course of his subsequent acquaintance
       with her, did it find a voice; and then the sound remained in Ransom's
       ear as one of the strangest he had heard.
       She asked him a great many questions, and made no comment on his
       answers, which only served to suggest to her fresh inquiries. Her
       shyness had quite left her, it did not come back; she had confidence
       enough to wish him to see that she took a great interest in him. Why
       should she? he wondered, He couldn't believe he was one of _her_ kind;
       he was conscious of much Bohemianism--he drank beer, in New York, in
       cellars, knew no ladies, and was familiar with a "variety" actress.
       Certainly, as she knew him better, she would disapprove of him, though,
       of course, he would never mention the actress, nor even, if necessary,
       the beer. Ransom's conception of vice was purely as a series of special
       cases, of explicable accidents. Not that he cared; if it were a part of
       the Boston character to be inquiring, he would be to the last a
       courteous Mississippian. He would tell her about Mississippi as much as
       she liked; he didn't care how much he told her that the old ideas in the
       South were played out. She would not understand him any the better for
       that; she would not know how little his own views could be gathered from
       such a limited admission. What her sister imparted to him about her
       mania for "reform" had left in his mouth a kind of unpleasant
       aftertaste; he felt, at any rate, that if she had the religion of
       humanity--Basil Ransom had read Comte, he had read everything--she would
       never understand him. He, too, had a private vision of reform, but the
       first principle of it was to reform the reformers. As they drew to the
       close of a meal which, in spite of all latent incompatibilities, had
       gone off brilliantly, she said to him that she should have to leave him
       after dinner, unless perhaps he should be inclined to accompany her. She
       was going to a small gathering at the house of a friend who had asked a
       few people, "interested in new ideas," to meet Mrs. Farrinder.
       "Oh, thank you," said Basil Ransom. "Is it a party? I haven't been to a
       party since Mississippi seceded."
       "No; Miss Birdseye doesn't give parties. She's an ascetic."
       "Oh, well, we have had our dinner," Ransom rejoined, laughing.
       His hostess sat silent a moment, with her eyes on the ground; she looked
       at such times as if she were hesitating greatly between several things
       she might say, all so important that it was difficult to choose.
       "I think it might interest you," she remarked presently. "You will hear
       some discussion, if you are fond of that. Perhaps you wouldn't agree,"
       she added, resting her strange eyes on him.
       "Perhaps I shouldn't--I don't agree with everything," he said, smiling
       and stroking his leg.
       "Don't you care for human progress?" Miss Chancellor went on.
       "I don't know--I never saw any. Are you going to show me some?"
       "I can show you an earnest effort towards it. That's the most one can be
       sure of. But I am not sure you are worthy."
       "Is it something very Bostonian? I should like to see that," said Basil
       Ransom.
       "There are movements in other cities. Mrs. Farrinder goes everywhere;
       she may speak to-night."
       "Mrs. Farrinder, the celebrated----?"
       "Yes, the celebrated; the great apostle of the emancipation of women.
       She is a great friend of Miss Birdseye."
       "And who is Miss Birdseye?"
       "She is one of our celebrities. She is the woman in the world, I
       suppose, who has laboured most for every wise reform. I think I ought to
       tell you," Miss Chancellor went on in a moment, "she was one of the
       earliest, one of the most passionate, of the old Abolitionists."
       She had thought, indeed, she ought to tell him that, and it threw her
       into a little tremor of excitement to do so. Yet, if she had been afraid
       he would show some irritation at this news, she was disappointed at the
       geniality with which he exclaimed:
       "Why, poor old lady--she must be quite mature!"
       It was therefore with some severity that she rejoined:
       "She will never be old. She is the youngest spirit I know. But if you
       are not in sympathy, perhaps you had better not come," she went on.
       "In sympathy with what, dear madam?" Basil Ransom asked, failing still,
       to her perception, to catch the tone of real seriousness. "If, as you
       say, there is to be a discussion, there will be different sides, and of
       course one can't sympathise with both."
       "Yes, but every one will, in his way--or in her way--plead the cause of
       the new truths. If you don't care for them, you won't go with us."
       "I tell you I haven't the least idea what they are! I have never yet
       encountered in the world any but old truths--as old as the sun and moon.
       How can I know? But _do_ take me; it's such a chance to see Boston."
       "It isn't Boston--it's humanity!" Miss Chancellor, as she made this
       remark, rose from her chair, and her movement seemed to say that she
       consented. But before she quitted her kinsman to get ready, she observed
       to him that she was sure he knew what she meant; he was only pretending
       he didn't.
       "Well, perhaps, after all, I have a general idea," he confessed; "but
       don't you see how this little reunion will give me a chance to fix it?"
       She lingered an instant, with her anxious face. "Mrs. Farrinder will fix
       it!" she said; and she went to prepare herself.
       It was in this poor young lady's nature to be anxious, to have scruple
       within scruple and to forecast the consequences of things. She returned
       in ten minutes, in her bonnet, which she had apparently assumed in
       recognition of Miss Birdseye's asceticism. As she stood there drawing on
       her gloves--her visitor had fortified himself against Mrs. Farrinder by
       another glass of wine--she declared to him that she quite repented of
       having proposed to him to go; something told her that he would be an
       unfavourable element.
       "Why, is it going to be a spiritual _seance_?" Basil Ransom asked.
       "Well, I have heard at Miss Birdseye's some inspirational speaking."
       Olive Chancellor was determined to look him straight in the face as she
       said this; her sense of the way it might strike him operated as a
       cogent, not as a deterrent, reason.
       "Why, Miss Olive, it's just got up on purpose for me!" cried the young
       Mississippian, radiant, and clasping his hands. She thought him very
       handsome as he said this, but reflected that unfortunately men didn't
       care for the truth, especially the new kinds, in proportion as they were
       good-looking. She had, however, a moral resource that she could always
       fall back upon; it had already been a comfort to her, on occasions of
       acute feeling, that she hated men, as a class, anyway. "And I want so
       much to see an old Abolitionist; I have never laid eyes on one," Basil
       Ransom added.
       "Of course you couldn't see one in the South; you were too afraid of
       them to let them come there!" She was now trying to think of something
       she might say that would be sufficiently disagreeable to make him cease
       to insist on accompanying her; for, strange to record--if anything, in a
       person of that intense sensibility, be stranger than any other--her
       second thought with regard to having asked him had deepened with the
       elapsing moments into an unreasoned terror of the effect of his
       presence. "Perhaps Miss Birdseye won't like you," she went on, as they
       waited for the carriage.
       "I don't know; I reckon she will," said Basil Ransom good-humouredly. He
       evidently had no intention of giving up his opportunity.
       From the window of the dining-room, at that moment, they heard the
       carriage drive up. Miss Birdseye lived at the South End; the distance
       was considerable, and Miss Chancellor had ordered a hackney-coach, it
       being one of the advantages of living in Charles Street that stables
       were near. The logic of her conduct was none of the clearest; for if she
       had been alone she would have proceeded to her destination by the aid of
       the street-car; not from economy (for she had the good fortune not to be
       obliged to consult it to that degree), and not from any love of
       wandering about Boston at night (a kind of exposure she greatly
       disliked), but by reason of a theory she devotedly nursed, a theory
       which bade her put off invidious differences and mingle in the common
       life. She would have gone on foot to Boylston Street, and there she
       would have taken the public conveyance (in her heart she loathed it) to
       the South End. Boston was full of poor girls who had to walk about at
       night and to squeeze into horse-cars in which every sense was
       displeased; and why should she hold herself superior to these? Olive
       Chancellor regulated her conduct on lofty principles, and this is why,
       having to-night the advantage of a gentleman's protection, she sent for
       a carriage to obliterate that patronage. If they had gone together in
       the common way she would have seemed to owe it to him that she should be
       so daring, and he belonged to a sex to which she wished to be under no
       obligations. Months before, when she wrote to him, it had been with the
       sense, rather, of putting _him_ in debt. As they rolled toward the South
       End, side by side, in a good deal of silence, bouncing and bumping over
       the railway-tracks very little less, after all, than if their wheels had
       been fitted to them, and looking out on either side at rows of red
       houses, dusky in the lamp-light, with protuberant fronts, approached by
       ladders of stone; as they proceeded, with these contemplative
       undulations, Miss Chancellor said to her companion, with a concentrated
       desire to defy him, as a punishment for having thrown her (she couldn't
       tell why) into such a tremor:
       "Don't you believe, then, in the coming of a better day--in its being
       possible to do something for the human race?"
       Poor Ransom perceived the defiance, and he felt rather bewildered; he
       wondered what type, after all, he _had_ got hold of, and what game was
       being played with him. Why had she made advances, if she wanted to pinch
       him this way? However, he was good for any game--that one as well as
       another--and he saw that he was "in" for something of which he had long
       desired to have a nearer view. "Well, Miss Olive," he answered, putting
       on again his big hat, which he had been holding in his lap, "what
       strikes me most is that the human race has got to bear its troubles."
       "That's what men say to women, to make them patient in the position they
       have made for them."
       "Oh, the position of women!" Basil Ransom exclaimed. "The position of
       women is to make fools of men. I would change my position for yours any
       day," he went on. "That's what I said to myself as I sat there in your
       elegant home."
       He could not see, in the dimness of the carriage, that she had flushed
       quickly, and he did not know that she disliked to be reminded of certain
       things which, for her, were mitigations of the hard feminine lot. But
       the passionate quaver with which, a moment later, she answered him
       sufficiently assured him that he had touched her at a tender point.
       "Do you make it a reproach to me that I happen to have a little money?
       The dearest wish of my heart is to do something with it for others--for
       the miserable."
       Basil Ransom might have greeted this last declaration with the sympathy
       it deserved, might have commended the noble aspirations of his
       kinswoman. But what struck him, rather, was the oddity of so sudden a
       sharpness of pitch in an intercourse which, an hour or two before, had
       begun in perfect amity, and he burst once more into an irrepressible
       laugh. This made his companion feel, with intensity, how little she was
       joking. "I don't know why I should care what you think," she said.
       "Don't care--don't care. What does it matter? It is not of the slightest
       importance."
       He might say that, but it was not true; she felt that there were reasons
       why she should care. She had brought him into her life, and she should
       have to pay for it. But she wished to know the worst at once. "Are you
       against our emancipation?" she asked, turning a white face on him in the
       momentary radiance of a street-lamp.
       "Do you mean your voting and preaching and all that sort of thing?" He
       made this inquiry, but seeing how seriously she would take his answer,
       he was almost frightened, and hung fire. "I will tell you when I have
       heard Mrs. Farrinder."
       They had arrived at the address given by Miss Chancellor to the
       coachman, and their vehicle stopped with a lurch. Basil Ransom got out;
       he stood at the door with an extended hand, to assist the young lady.
       But she seemed to hesitate; she sat there with her spectral face. "You
       hate it!" she exclaimed, in a low tone.
       "Miss Birdseye will convert me," said Ransom, with intention; for he had
       grown very curious, and he was afraid that now, at the last, Miss
       Chancellor would prevent his entering the house. She alighted without
       his help, and behind her he ascended the high steps of Miss Birdseye's
       residence. He had grown very curious, and among the things he wanted to
       know was why in the world this ticklish spinster had written to him. _