The Reverberator. Генри Джеймс

Flack’s appearance was not so much a property of his own as a prejudice or a fixed liability of those who looked at him: whoever they might be what they saw mainly in him was that they had seen him before. And, oddly enough, this recognition carried with it in general no ability to remember—that is to recall—him: you couldn’t conveniently have prefigured him, and it was only when you were conscious of him that you knew you had already somehow paid for it. To carry him in your mind you must have liked him very much, for no other sentiment, not even aversion, would have taught you what distinguished him in his group: aversion in especial would have made you aware only of what confounded him. He was not a specific person, but had beyond even Delia Dosson, in whom we have facially noted it, the quality of the sample or advertisement, the air of representing a “line of goods” for which there is a steady popular demand. You would scarce have expected him to be individually designated: a number, like that of the day’s newspaper, would have served all his, or at least all your purpose, and you would have vaguely supposed the number high—somewhere up in the millions. As every copy of the newspaper answers to its name, Miss Dosson’s visitor would have been quite adequately marked as “young commercial American.” Let me add that among the accidents of his appearance was that of its sometimes striking other young commercial Americans as fine. He was twenty-seven years old and had a small square head, a light grey overcoat and in his right forefinger a curious natural crook which might have availed, under pressure, to identify him. But for the convenience of society he ought always to have worn something conspicuous—a green hat or a yellow necktie. His undertaking was to obtain material in Europe for an American “society-paper.”

      If it be objected to all this that when Francie Dosson at last came in she addressed him as if she easily placed him, the answer is that she had been notified by her father—and more punctually than was indicated by the manner of her response. “Well, the way you DO turn up,” she said, smiling and holding out her left hand to him: in the other hand, or the hollow of her slim right arm, she had a lumpish parcel. Though she had made him wait she was clearly very glad to see him there; and she as evidently required and enjoyed a great deal of that sort of indulgence. Her sister’s attitude would have told you so even if her own appearance had not. There was that in her manner to the young man—a perceptible but indefinable shade—which seemed to legitimate the oddity of his having asked in particular for her, asked as if he wished to see her to the exclusion of her father and sister: the note of a special pleasure which might have implied a special relation. And yet a spectator looking from Mr. George Flack to Miss Francie Dosson would have been much at a loss to guess what special relation could exist between them. The girl was exceedingly, extraordinarily pretty, all exempt from traceable likeness to her sister; and there was a brightness in her—a still and scattered radiance—which was quite distinct from what is called animation. Rather tall than short, fine slender erect, with an airy lightness of hand and foot, she yet gave no impression of quick movement, of abundant chatter, of excitable nerves and irrepressible life—no hint of arriving at her typical American grace in the most usual way. She was pretty without emphasis and as might almost have been said without point, and your fancy that a little stiffness would have improved her was at once qualified by the question of what her softness would have made of it. There was nothing in her, however, to confirm the implication that she had rushed about the deck of a Cunarder with a newspaper-man. She was as straight as a wand and as true as a gem; her neck was long and her grey eyes had colour; and from the ripple of her dark brown hair to the curve of her unaffirmative chin every line in her face was happy and pure. She had a weak pipe of a voice and inconceivabilities of ignorance.

      Delia got up, and they came out of the little reading-room—this young lady remarking to her sister that she hoped she had brought down all the things. “Well, I had a fiendish hunt for them—we’ve got so many,” Francie replied with a strange want of articulation. “There were a few dozens of the pocket-handkerchiefs I couldn’t find; but I guess I’ve got most of them and most of the gloves.”

      “Well, what are you carting them about for?” George Flack enquired, taking the parcel from her. “You had better let me handle them. Do you buy pocket-handkerchiefs by the hundred?”

      “Well, it only makes fifty apiece,” Francie yieldingly smiled. “They ain’t really nice—we’re going to change them.”

      “Oh I won’t be mixed up with that—you can’t work that game on these Frenchmen!” the young man stated.

      “Oh with Francie they’ll take anything back,” Delia Dosson declared. “They just love her, all over.”

      “Well, they’re like me then,” said Mr. Flack with friendly cheer. “I’LL take her back if she’ll come.”

      “Well, I don’t think I’m ready quite yet,” the girl replied. “But I hope very much we shall cross with you again.”

      “Talk about crossing—it’s on these boulevards we want a life-preserver!” Delia loudly commented. They had passed out of the hotel and the wide vista of the Rue de la Paix stretched up and down. There were many vehicles.

      “Won’t this thing do? I’ll tie it to either of you,” George Flack said, holding out his bundle. “I suppose they won’t kill you if they love you,” he went on to the object of his preference.

      “Well, you’ve got to know me first,” she answered, laughing and looking for a chance, while they waited to pass over.

      “I didn’t know you when I was struck.” He applied his disengaged hand to her elbow and propelled her across the street. She took no notice of his observation, and Delia asked her, on the other side, whether their father had given her that money. She replied that he had given her loads—she felt as if he had made his will; which led George Flack to say that he wished the old gentleman was HIS father.

      “Why you don’t mean to say you want to be our brother!” Francie prattled as they went down the Rue de la Paix.

      “I should like to be Miss Delia’s, if you can make that out,” he laughed.

      “Well then suppose you prove it by calling me a cab,” Miss Delia returned. “I presume you and Francie don’t take this for a promenade-deck.”

      “Don’t she feel rich?” George Flack demanded of Francie. “But we do require a cart for our goods”; and he hailed a little yellow carriage, which presently drew up beside the pavement. The three got into it and, still emitting innocent pleasantries, proceeded on their way, while at the Hotel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham Mr. Dosson wandered down into the court again and took his place in his customary chair.

      II

      The court was roofed with glass; the April air was mild; the cry of women selling violets came in from the street and, mingling with the rich hum of Paris, seemed to bring with it faintly the odour of the flowers. There were other odours in the place, warm succulent and Parisian, which ranged from fried fish to burnt sugar; and there were many things besides: little tables for the post-prandial coffee; piles of luggage inscribed (after the initials or frequently the name) R. P. Scudamore or D. Jackson Hodge, Philadelphia Pa., or St. Louis Mo.; rattles of unregarded bells, flittings of tray-bearing waiters, conversations with the second-floor windows of admonitory landladies, arrivals of young women with coffinlike bandboxes covered with black oil-cloth and depending from a strap, sallyings-forth of persons staying and arrivals just afterwards of other persons to see them; together with vague prostrations on benches of tired heads of American families. It was to this last element that Mr. Dosson himself in some degree contributed, but it must be added that he had not the extremely bereft and exhausted appearance of certain of his fellows. There was an air of ruminant resignation, of habitual accommodation in him; but you would have guessed that he was enjoying a holiday rather than aching for a truce, and he was not so enfeebled but that he was able to get up from time to time and stroll through the porte cochere to have a look at the street.

      He gazed up and down for five minutes with his hands in his pockets, and then came back; that appeared to content him; he asked for little and had no restlessness that these small excursions wouldn’t assuage. He looked at the heaped-up luggage, at the tinkling bells, at the young women from the lingere, at the repudiated visitors, at everything but the other American parents. Something