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something for the Princess that her husband had thus got their son out of the way, not bringing him back to his mother; but everything now, as she vaguely moved about, struck her as meaning so much that the unheard chorus swelled. Yet this above all – her just being there as she was and waiting for him to come in, their freedom to be together there always – was the meaning most disengaged: she stood in the cool twilight and took in all about her where it lurked her reason for what she had done. She knew at last really why – and how she had been inspired and guided, how she had been persistently able, how to her soul all the while it had been for the sake of this end. Here it was then, the moment, the golden fruit that had shone from afar; only what were these things in the fact, for the hand and for the lips, when tested, when tasted – what were they as a reward? Closer than she had ever been to the measure of her course and the full face of her act, she had an instant of the terror that, when there has been suspense, always precedes, on the part of the creature to be paid, the certification of the amount. Amerigo knew it, the amount; he still held it, and the delay in his return, making her heart beat too fast to go on, was like a sudden blinding light on a wild speculation. She had thrown the dice, but his hand was over her cast.

He opened the door however at last – he hadn’t been away ten minutes; and then with her sight of him renewed to intensity she seemed to have a view of the number. His presence alone, as he paused to look at her, somehow made it the highest, and even before he had spoken she had begun to be paid in full. With that consciousness in fact an extraordinary thing occurred; the assurance of her safety so making her terror drop that already within the minute it had been changed to concern for his own anxiety, for everything that was deep in his being and everything that was fair in his face. So far as seeing that she was ‘paid’ went he might have been holding out the money-bag for her to come and take it. But what instantly rose for her between the act and her acceptance was the sense that she must strike him as waiting for a confession. This in turn charged her with a new horror: if that was her proper payment she would go without money. His acknowledgement hung there, too monstrously, at the expense of Charlotte, before whose mastery of the greater style she had just been standing dazzled. All she now knew accordingly was that she should be ashamed to listen to the uttered word; all, that is, but that she might dispose of it on the spot for ever.

‘Isn’t she too splendid?’ she simply said, offering it to explain and to finish.

‘Oh splendid!’ With which he came over to her.

‘That’s our help, you see,’ she added – to point further her moral.

It kept him before her therefore, taking in – or trying to – what she so wonderfully gave. He tried, too clearly, to please her – to meet her in her own way; but with the result only that, close to her, her face kept before him, his hands holding her shoulders, his whole act enclosing her, he presently echoed: ‘ “See”? I see nothing but you.’ And the truth of it had with this force after a moment so strangely lighted his eyes that as for pity and dread of them she buried her own in his breast.

NOTES

In compiling these I have tried to concentrate on those points which will, I hope, enhance the reader’s appreciation and understanding of the novel. It was probably from Balzac that Henry James learned the technique of using historical, artistic, and other references in order to give an extra dimension to his work. (It is particularly noticeable in The Golden Bowl that, once the characters and the main themes are firmly established, the number of references diminishes dramatically.) It is for the sake of this extra dimension that I have gone into such allusions in some detail.

I have also offered translations of all the foreign words and phrases; if good linguists find these superfluous, they need not, of course, refer to them.

PATRICIA CRICK

VOLUME