The Europeans
Henry James
Paperback
(Independently published, July 19, 2020)
A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from the windows ofa gloomy-looking inn, is at no time an object of enlivening suggestion; and the spectacle isnot at its best when the mouldy tombstones and funereal umbrage have received theineffectual refreshment of a dull, moist snow-fall. If, while the air is thickened by this frostydrizzle, the calendar should happen to indicate that the blessed vernal season is already sixweeks old, it will be admitted that no depressing influence is absent from the scene. Thisfact was keenly felt on a certain 12th of May, upwards of thirty years since, by a lady whostood looking out of one of the windows of the best hotel in the ancient city of Boston. Shehad stood there for half an hour—stood there, that is, at intervals; for from time to time sheturned back into the room and measured its length with a restless step. In the chimneyplace was a red-hot fire which emitted a small blue flame; and in front of the fire, at a table,sat a young man who was busily plying a pencil. He had a number of sheets of paper cutinto small equal squares, and he was apparently covering them with pictorial designs—strange-looking figures. He worked rapidly and attentively, sometimes threw back his headand held out his drawing at arm’s-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding humming andwhistling. The lady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts werevoluminous. She never dropped her eyes upon his work; she only turned them,occasionally, as she passed, to a mirror suspended above the toilet-table on the other sideof the room. Here she paused a moment, gave a pinch to her waist with her two hands, orraised these members—they were very plump and pretty—to the multifold braids of herhair, with a movement half caressing, half corrective. An attentive observer might havefancied that during these periods of desultory self-inspection her face forgot itsmelancholy; but as soon as she neared the window again it began to proclaim that she wasa very ill-pleased woman. And indeed, in what met her eyes there was little to be pleasedwith. The window-panes were battered by the sleet; the head-stones in the grave-yardbeneath seemed to be holding themselves askance to keep it out of their faces. A tall ironrailing protected them from the street, and on the other side of the railing an assemblage ofBostonians were trampling about in the liquid snow. Many of them were looking up anddown; they appeared to be waiting for something.