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THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA
ing sense that she herself might have acted differently. That had
been cleared up in the past, so far as Hyacinth’s intention was concerned; but what was most alive in Pinnie at the present moment
was the passion of repentance, of still further expiation. It sickened
Hyacinth that she should believe these things were still necessary,
and he leaned over her and talked tenderly, with words of comfort
and reassurance. He told her not to think of that dismal, far-off time,
which had ceased long ago to have any consequences for either of
them; to consider only the future, when she should be quite strong
again and he would look after her and keep her all to himself and
take care of her better, far better, than he had ever done before.
He had thought of many things while he sat with Pinnie, watching
the shadows made by the night-lamp – high, imposing shadows of
objects low and mean – and among them he had followed, with an
imagination that went further in that direction than ever before, the
probable consequences of his not having been adopted in his babyhood by the dressmaker. The workhouse and the gutter, ignorance
and cold, fi lth and tatters, nights of huddling under bridges and in
doorways, vermin, starvation and blows, possibly even the vigorous
effl orescence of an inherited disposition to crime – these things,
which he saw with unprecedented vividness, suggested themselves
as his natural portion. Intimacies with a princess, visits to fi ne old
country-houses, intelligent consideration, even, of the best means of
infl icting a scare on the classes of privilege, would in that case not
have been within his compass; and that Pinnie should have rescued
him from such a destiny and put these luxuries within his reach was
an amelioration which really amounted to success, if he could only
have the magnanimity to regard it so.
Her eyes were open and fi xed on him, but the sharp ray the little
dressmaker used to direct into Lomax Place as she plied her needle
at the window had completely left them. “Not there – what should
391
HENRY JAMES
I do there?” she inquired, very softly. “Not with the great – the
great —” and her voice failed.
“The great what? What do you mean?”
“You know – you know,” she went on, making another effort.
“Haven’t you been with them? Haven’t they received you?”
“Ah, they won’t separate us, Pinnie; they won’t come between us
as much as that,” said Hyacinth, kneeling by her bed.
“You must be separate – that makes me happier. I knew they
would fi nd you at last.”
“Poor Pinnie, poor Pinnie,” murmured the young man.
“It was only for that – now I’m going,” she went on.
“If you’ll stay with me you needn’t fear,” said Hyacinth, smiling
at her.
“Oh, what would they think?” asked the dressmaker.
“I like you best,” said Hyacinth.
“You have had me always. Now it’s their turn; they have waited.”
“Yes, indeed, they have waited!” Hyacinth exclaimed.
“But they will make it up; they will make up everything!” the
invalid panted. Then she added, “I couldn’t – couldn’t help it!” –
which was the last fl icker of her strength. She gave no further sign
of consciousness, and four days later she ceased to breathe. Hyacinth
was with her, and Lady Aurora, but neither of them could recognise
the moment.
Hyacinth and Mr Vetch carried her bier, with the help of Eustache Poupin and Paul Muniment. Lady Aurora was at the funeral,
and Madame Poupin as well, and twenty neighbours from Lomax
Place; but the most distinguished person (in appearance at least) in
the group of mourners was Millicent Henning, the grave yet brilliant beauty of whose countenance, the high propriety of whose
demeanour, and the fi ne taste and general style of whose black ‘costume’ excited no little attention. Mr Vetch had his idea; he had been
392
THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA
nursing it ever since Hyacinth’s return from Medley, and three days
after Pinnie had been consigned to the earth he broached it to his
young friend. The funeral had been on a Friday, and Hyacinth had
mentioned to him that he should return to Mr Crookenden’s on the
Monday morning. This was Sunday night, and Hyacinth had been
out for a walk, neither with Millicent Henning nor with Paul Muniment, but alone, after the manner of old days. When he came in
he found the fi ddler waiting for him, and burning a tallow candle,
in the blighted show-room. He had three or four little papers in
his hand, which exhibited some jottings of his pencil, and Hyacinth
guessed, what was the truth but not all the truth, that he had come
to speak to him about business. Pinnie had left a little will, of which
she had appointed her old friend executor; this fact had already become known to our hero, who thought such an arrangement highly
natural. Mr Vetch informed him of the purport of this simple and
judicious document, and mentioned that he had been looking into
the dressmaker’s ‘affairs’. They consisted, poor Pinnie’s affairs, of the
furniture of the house in Lomax Place, of the obligation to pay the
remainder of a quarter’s rent, and of a sum of money in the savingsbank. Hyacinth was surprised to learn that Pinnie’s economies had
produced fruit at this late day (things had gone so ill with her in
recent years, and there had been often such a want of money in the
house), until Mr Vetch explained to him, with eager clearness, that
he himself had watched over the little hoard, accumulated during
the period of her comparative prosperity, with the stiff determination that it should be sacrifi ced only in case of desperate necessity.
Work had become scarce with Pinnie, but she could still do it when
it came, and the money was to be kept for the very possible period
when she should be helpless. Mercifully enough, she had not lived
to see that day, and the sum in the bank had survived her, though
diminished by more than half. She had left no debts but the matter
393
HENRY JAMES
of the house and those incurred during her illness. Of course the fi ddler had known – he hastened to give his young friend this assurance – that Pinnie, had she become infi rm, would have been able to
count absolutely upon him for the equivalent, in her old age, of the
protection she had given him in his youth. But what if an accident
had overtaken Hyacinth? What if he had incurred some nasty penalty for his revolutionary dabblings, which, little dangerous as they
might be to society, were quite capable, in a country where authority, though good-natured, liked occasionally to make an example, to
put him on the wrong side of a prison-wall? At any rate, for better
or worse, by pinching and scraping, she had saved a little, and of
that little, after everything was paid off, a fraction would still be left.
Everything was bequeathed to Hyacinth – everything but a couple
of plated candlesticks and the old ‘cheffonier’, which had been so
handsome in its day; these Pinnie begged Mr Vetch to accept in recognition of services beyond all price. The furniture, everything he
didn’t want for his own use, Hyacinth could sell in a lump, and with
the proceeds he could wipe out old scores. The sum of money would
remain to him; it amounted, in its reduced condition, to about thirty-seven pounds. In mentioning this fi gure Mr Vetch appeared to
imply that Hyacinth would be master of a very pretty little fortune.
Even to the young man himself, in spite of his recent initiations, it
seemed far from contemptible; it represented sudden possibilities
of still not returning to old Crookenden’s. It represented them, that
is, till, presently, he remembered the various advances made him
by the fi ddler, and refl ected that by the time these had been repaid
there would hardly be twenty pounds left. That, however, was a far
larger sum than he had ever had in his pocket at once. He thanked
the old man for his information, and remarked – and there was no
hypocrisy in the speech – that he was very sorry Pinnie had not
given herself the benefi t of the whole of the little fund in her life-
394
THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA
time. To this her executor replied that it had yielded her an interest
far beyond any other investment; for he was persuaded she believed
she should never live to enjoy it, and this faith was rich in pictures,
visions of the effect such a windfall would produce in Hyacinth’s
career.
“What effect did she mean – do you mean?” Hyacinth inquired.
As soon as he had spoken he felt that he knew what the old man
would say (it would be a reference to Pinnie’s belief in his reunion
with his ‘relations’, and the facilities that thirty-seven pounds would
afford him for cutting a fi gure among them); and for a moment
Mr Vetch looked at him as if exactly that response were on his lips.
At the end of the moment, however, he replied, quite differently –
“She hoped you would go abroad and see the world.” The fi ddler
watched his young friend; then he added, “She had a particular wish
that you should go to Paris.”
Hyacinth had turned pale at this suggestion, and for a moment
he said nothing. “Ah, Paris!” he murmured, at last.
“She would have liked you even to take a little run down to Italy.”
“Doubtless that would be pleasant. But there is a limit to what
one can do with twenty pounds.”
“How do you mean, with twenty pounds?” the old man asked,
lifting his eyebrows, while the wrinkles in his forehead made deep
shadows in the candlelight.
“That’s about what will remain, after I have settled my account
with you.”
“How do you mean, your account with me? I shall not take any
of your money.”
Hyacinth’s eyes wandered over his interlocutor’s suggestive
rustiness. “I don’t want to be ungracious, but suppose you should
lose your powers.”
395
HENRY JAMES
“My dear boy, I shall have one of the resources that was open to
Pinnie. I shall look to you to be the support of my old age.”
“You may do so with perfect safety, except for that danger you
just mentioned, of my being imprisoned or hanged.”
“It’s precisely because I think it will be less if you go abroad that
I urge you to take this chance. You will see the world, and you will
like it better. You will think society, even as it is, has some good
points,” said Mr Vetch.
“I have never liked it better than the last few months.”
“Ah well, wait till you see Paris!”
“Oh, Paris – Paris,” Hyacinth repeated, vaguely, staring into
the turbid fl ame of the candle as if he made out the most brilliant
scenes there; an attitude, accent and expression which the fi ddler
interpreted both as the vibration of a latent hereditary chord and
a symptom of the acute sense of opportunity.
BOOK
FOURTH
XXIX
The boulevard was all alive, brilliant with illuminations, with
the variety and gaiety of the crowd, the dazzle of shops and cafés
seen through uncovered fronts or immense lucid plates, the fl amboyant porches of theatres and the fl ashing lamps of carriages, the
far-spreading murmur of talkers and strollers, the uproar of pleasure and prosperity, the general magnifi cence of Paris on a perfect
evening in June. Hyacinth had been walking about all day – he
had walked from rising till bed-time every day of the week that had
elapsed since his arrival – and now an extraordinary fatigue, which,
however, was not without its delight (there was a kind of richness,
a sweet satiety, in it), a tremendous lassitude had fallen upon him,
and he settled himself in a chair beside a little table in front of Tortoni’s, not so much to rest from it as to enjoy it. He had seen so much,
felt so much, learned so much, thrilled and throbbed and laughed
and sighed so much, during the past several days, that he was conscious at last of the danger of becoming incoherent to himself, of the
need of balancing his accounts.
To-night he came to a full stop; he simply sat at the door of the
most dandifi ed café in Paris and felt his pulse and took stock of his
impressions. He had been intending to visit the Variétés theatre,
which blazed through intermediate lights and through the thin foliage of trees not favoured by the asphalt, on the other side of the great
avenue. But the impression of Chaumont – he relinquished that, for
the present; it added to the luxury of his situation to refl ect that he
399
HENRY JAMES
should still have plenty of time to see the succиs du jour. The same
effect proceeded from his determination to order a marquise, when
the waiter, whose superior shirt-front and whisker emerged from
the long white cylinder of an apron, came to take his commands.
He knew the decoction was expensive – he had learnt as much at
the moment he happened to overhear, for the fi rst time, a mention
of it; which had been the night before, in his place in a stall, during an entr’acte, at the Comйdie Franзaise. A gentleman beside him,
a young man in evening-dress, conversing with an acquaintance in
the row behind, recommended the latter to refresh himself with
the article in question after the play: there was nothing like it, the
speaker remarked, of a hot evening, in the open air, when one was
thirsty. The waiter brought Hyacinth a tall glass of champagne, in
which a pine-apple ice was in solution, and our hero felt that he had
hoped for a sensation no less delicate when he looked for an empty
table on Tortoni’s terrace. Very few tables were empty, and it was his
belief that the others were occupied by high celebrities; at any rate
they were just the types he had had a prevision of and had wanted
most to meet, when the extraordinary opportunity to come abroad
with his pocket full of money (it was more extraordinary, even, than
his original meeting with the Princess) became real to him in Lomax
Place. He knew about Tortoni’s from his study of the French novel,
and as he sat there he had a vague sense of fraternising with Balzac
and Alfred de Musset; there were echoes and reminiscences of their
works in the air, confounding themselves with the indefi nable exhalations, the strange composite odour, half agreeable, half impure,
of the boulevard. ‘Splendid Paris, charming Paris’ – that refrain, the
fragment of an invocation, a beginning without an end, hummed
itself perpetually in Hyacinth’s ears; the only articulate words that
got themselves uttered in the hymn of praise which his imagination
had been offering to the French capital from the fi rst hour of his
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