James_-_The_Bostonians(1).pdf

The Bostonians

James, Henry

Published: 1886

Type(s): Novels

Source: http://www.gutenberg.org

About James:

Henry James, son of theologian Henry James Sr. and brother of the philosopher and psy-

chologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an American-born author and literary

critic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He spent much of his life in Europe and be-

came a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for novels, novellas

and short stories based on themes of consciousness and morality.

James significantly contributed to the criticism of fiction, particularly in his insistence

that writers be allowed the greatest freedom possible in presenting their view of the world.

His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and possibly unreliable narrators

in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to narrative fiction. An ex-

traordinarily productive writer, he published substantive books of travel writing, biography,

autobiography and visual arts criticism.

Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks for James:

• The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

• The Turn of the Screw (1898)

• Hawthorne (1879)

• A Bundle of Letters (1879)

• Daisy Miller (1879)

• Wings of the Dove (1902)

• The American Scene (1907)

• The Golden Bowl (1904)

• The Ambassadors (1903)

• Washington Square (1881)

Cette oeuvre est disponible pour les pays où le droit d'auteur est de 70 ans après mort de

l'auteur.

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Part 1

Chapter 1

"Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that. About ten; that is

exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven.

She didn't tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn't know whether she is or

not, and she wouldn't for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive

Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don't know what to make of

them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at any rate."

These words were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who

entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was

already absorbed in a book. The gentleman had not even needed to sit down to become inter-

ested: apparently he had taken up the volume from a table as soon as he came in, and,

standing there, after a single glance round the apartment, had lost himself in its pages. He

threw it down at the approach of Mrs. Luna, laughed, shook hands with her, and said in an-

swer to her last remark, "You imply that you do tell fibs. Perhaps that is one."

"Oh no; there is nothing wonderful in my being glad to see you," Mrs. Luna rejoined,

"when I tell you that I have been three long weeks in this unprevaricating city."

"That has an unflattering sound for me," said the young man. "I pretend not to

prevaricate."

"Dear me, what's the good of being a Southerner?" the lady asked. "Olive told me to tell

you she hoped you will stay to dinner. And if she said it, she does really hope it. She is will-

ing to risk that."

"Just as I am?" the visitor inquired, presenting himself with rather a work-a-day aspect.

Mrs. Luna glanced at him from head to foot, and gave a little smiling sigh, as if he had

been a long sum in addition. And, indeed, he was very long, Basil Ransom, and he even

looked a little hard and discouraging, like a column of figures, in spite of the friendly face

which he bent upon his hostess's deputy, and which, in its thinness, had a deep dry line, a

sort of premature wrinkle, on either side of the mouth. He was tall and lean, and dressed

throughout in black; his shirt-collar was low and wide, and the triangle of linen, a little

crumpled, exhibited by the opening of his waistcoat, was adorned by a pin containing a

small red stone. In spite of this decoration the young man looked poor—as poor as a young

man could look who had such a fine head and such magnificent eyes. Those of Basil Ransom

were dark, deep, and glowing; his head had a character of elevation which fairly added to

his stature; it was a head to be seen above the level of a crowd, on some judicial bench or

political platform, or even on a bronze medal. His forehead was high and broad, and his

thick black hair, perfectly straight and glossy, and without any division, rolled back from it

in a leonine manner. These things, the eyes especially, with their smouldering fire, might

have indicated that he was to be a great American statesman; or, on the other hand, they

might simply have proved that he came from Carolina or Alabama. He came, in fact, from

Mississippi, and he spoke very perceptibly with the accent of that country. It is not in my

power to reproduce by any combination of characters this charming dialect; but the initiated

reader will have no difficulty in evoking the sound, which is to be associated in the present

instance with nothing vulgar or vain. This lean, pale, sallow, shabby, striking young man,

with his superior head, his sedentary shoulders, his expression of bright grimness and hard

enthusiasm, his provincial, distinguished appearance, is, as a representative of his sex, the

most important personage in my narrative; he played a very active part in the events I have

undertaken in some degree to set forth. And yet the reader who likes a complete image, who

desires to read with the senses as well as with the reason, is entreated not to forget that he

prolonged his consonants and swallowed his vowels, that he was guilty of elisions and inter-

polations which were equally unexpected, and that his discourse was pervaded by

something sultry and vast, something almost African in its rich, basking tone, something

that suggested the teeming expanse of the cotton-field. Mrs. Luna looked up at all this, but

saw only a part of it; otherwise she would not have replied in a bantering manner, in an-

swer to his inquiry: "Are you ever different from this?" Mrs. Luna was familiar—intolerably

familiar.

Basil Ransom coloured a little. Then he said: "Oh yes; when I dine out I usually carry a

six-shooter and a bowie-knife." And he took up his hat vaguely—a soft black hat with a low

crown and an immense straight brim. Mrs. Luna wanted to know what he was doing. She

made him sit down; she assured him that her sister quite expected him, would feel as sorry

as she could ever feel for anything—for she was a kind of fatalist, anyhow—if he didn't stay

to dinner. It was an immense pity—she herself was going out; in Boston you must jump at

invitations. Olive, too, was going somewhere after dinner, but he mustn't mind that; per-

haps he would like to go with her. It wasn't a party—Olive didn't go to parties; it was one of

those weird meetings she was so fond of.

"What kind of meetings do you refer to? You speak as if it were a rendezvous of witches on

the Brocken."

"Well, so it is; they are all witches and wizards, mediums, and spirit-rappers, and roaring

radicals."

Basil Ransom stared; the yellow light in his brown eyes deepened. "Do you mean to say

your sister's a roaring radical?"

"A radical? She's a female Jacobin—she's a nihilist. Whatever is, is wrong, and all that

sort of thing. If you are going to dine with her, you had better know it."

"Oh, murder!" murmured the young man vaguely, sinking back in his chair with his arms

folded. He looked at Mrs. Luna with intelligent incredulity. She was sufficiently pretty; her

hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack with

her vivacity; and from beneath the stiff little plaits of her petticoat a small fat foot pro-

truded, resting upon a stilted heel. She was attractive and impertinent, especially the latter.

He seemed to think it was a great pity, what she had told him; but he lost himself in this

consideration, or, at any rate, said nothing for some time, while his eyes wandered over Mrs.

Luna, and he probably wondered what body of doctrine she represented, little as she might

partake of the nature of her sister. Many things were strange to Basil Ransom; Boston espe-

cially was strewn with surprises, and he was a man who liked to understand. Mrs. Luna

was drawing on her gloves; Ransom had never seen any that were so long; they reminded

him of stockings, and he wondered how she managed without garters above the elbow.

"Well, I suppose I might have known that," he continued, at last.

"You might have known what?"

"Well, that Miss Chancellor would be all that you say. She was brought up in the city of

reform."

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