Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classi - Henry James [12]
Kate stays in character to the end. She is not squeamish; she is resolute and matter-of-fact. She holds to her rationale that the deception brought Milly a degree of solace in her fight for life. After all, Kate remarks on an earlier occasion, “Who does Milly have but us?” Kate wonders, in the final scene with Densher after Milly has died and after Densher has received notice from Milly’s New York attorneys of the bequest of her fortune, why he hadn’t simply denied to Milly the truth of Lord Mark’s vengeful revelation. Susan Stringham at the time had also urged Densher to deny Lord Mark’s accusation, which had devastated Milly and caused her to “turn her face to the wall.” Densher is shocked by the suggestion. This is the one thing he could not do. He could only seek Milly’s forgiveness in his final interview with her. Kate presses him to tell her what actually happened—did Milly, in fact, forgive him? Densher is vague—all he can recall is that the encounter lasted about twenty minutes and ended when she grew tired and asked him to leave her. Densher assumes that he was forgiven, but he assumed all along that his moral responsibility was mitigated by the fact that his role was passive and because he was motivated by kindliness. He has, in fact, deceived himself repeatedly. The meeting with Sir Luke Strett in Venice, for example, shows Densher at his self-righteous worst. Sir Luke tells him that Milly would like to see him, and Densher grandly imagines that Sir Luke thinks highly of him and sees him as someone seeking only to comfort Milly. This manifest self-deception makes us wonder about Densher’s state of mind.
Densher presents Kate with a choice between having Milly’s money without him or him without the money. But she cannot have both. Kate has failed the tests that Densher has devised for her, and apparently she now finds herself back where she started: having to choose between love and money. But will Densher be able to carry out his grand gesture? Will he be able to resist Kate’s stronger will and her greater capacity for life? Densher is the quintessential loser thrust into circumstances he does not fully understand. James still has sympathy for Densher even if this troubled soul’s spiritual transformation falls short. Densher, in his moral confusions and hesitations, is truer to life and more credible without the full moral awakening. Though polarities of good and evil are often implied in the novel, James endows his characters with a mixture of motives and with nuanced qualities that prevent us from making easy moral judgments. James’s characters are vividly alive, struggling in their imperfect ways to realize their destinies in a world that lacks moral clarity. For James, there is a sense of foreboding in the air. The cash nexus is the spirit of the new post-Victorian age. Everywhere in The Wings of the Dove, from the thrusting commercialism of London to the dilapidation and fading glory of Venice, there is the sense that the old order is passing and the higher values of Western civilization are under assault.
Kate, with her quick perception, recognizes in the novel’s final scene that something fundamental has happened. Densher has changed; he is no longer a reliable ally. She believes that Densher has fallen in love with a ghost; he has become enamored of Milly’s memory. Just when Kate’s scheme has apparently brilliantly succeeded, the whole effort has in fact fallen apart. Densher’s equivocal attempt to absolve himself from blame and his quixotic attitude toward Milly’s money have doomed Kate’s best-laid plans. Densher assures her that he is still ready to marry her “in an hour.” Kate asks, “As we were?” The “as we were” means what exactly—as they were in the old days before Milly came on the scene? As they were before Densher’s renounces Milly’s money? “As we were,” he replies. Kate, ever clear-headed and decisive, gives a firm shake of the head and turns to the door, declaring, “We shall never be again as we were!” (p. 492).
There are in Wings few of the “big scenes