Chapter 9

The Countess Olenska told him to come "after five." At half past five, Newland Archer rang her bell. The rented house stood far down West Twenty-third Street.

Its old walls were losing their paint. A giant climbing plant choked the weak iron balcony. A balcony was a raised platform outside an upper window.

It was certainly a strange part of town to settle in. Her nearest neighbours were small dress-makers, people who stuffed dead birds, and "people who wrote." Further down the untidy street stood a broken old wooden house at the end of a stone path.

A writer called Winsett lived there. Archer met him now and then. Winsett invited nobody home, but once he pointed out the house.

Archer wondered if learned men lived so poorly in other capital cities.

Madame Olenska's own house looked almost the same, except for a little fresher paint around the windows. Archer studied its poor little front. The Polish Count, he said to himself, robbed her of her money and of her dreams as well.

The young man's day was not a good one. He ate lunch with the Wellands, hoping afterward to carry May off for a walk in the Park.

He wanted her alone. He wanted to praise her beauty and ask for an earlier wedding.

But Mrs. Welland reminded him firmly that the round of family visits was not half done. And when he hinted at an earlier wedding day, she raised her eyebrows in quiet blame and sighed. "Twelve dozen of everything," she said. "All sewn by hand..."

They packed into the family landau and rolled from one family doorstep to the next. Afterward, Archer felt like a trapped wild animal on show.

Perhaps his books about human groups caused this hard view of family feeling.

But the Wellands did not expect the wedding until the next autumn. He pictured his life between now and then, and something cold and damp settled on his spirit.

"Tomorrow," Mrs. Welland called after him, "we'll do the Chiverses and the Dallases." Archer understood that she was going through their two families in the order of the alphabet. And they were only in its first quarter.

All day he meant to tell May that the Countess Olenska asked him to call that afternoon. It was really a command. But in their few minutes alone, he had more pressing things to say. Besides, it felt a little foolish to speak of it at all.

He knew that May, more than anything, wanted him to be kind to her cousin. That very wish pushed the announcement of their engagement forward. And an odd thought followed. Without the Countess's arrival, he might be, if not free, at least less firmly tied.

But May chose it this way. So he felt free to call on her cousin without telling May.

As he stood at Madame Olenska's door, he felt, more than anything, curious. The tone of her call puzzled him. He decided that she was less simple than she seemed.

A dark, foreign-looking maid opened the door. A bright cloth covered her neck. Archer guessed she came from Sicily. She welcomed him with all her white teeth.

To his questions she only shook her head, understanding nothing. Then she led him through the narrow hall into a low sitting room, lit by the fire.

The room was empty, and she left him there a long time. Did she go to find the Countess? Perhaps she misunderstood him. The only clock in sight had stopped.

He knew that the people of the south talked with their hands and faces. But her signs and smiles told him nothing, and he felt ashamed of that.

At last she returned with a lamp. By then Archer put together a few Italian words from Dante and Petrarch. They brought out her answer. "La signora è fuori, ma verrà subito." He took this to mean, "She's out — but you'll soon see."

The lamp showed a room unlike any he knew. Its charm was faded and full of shadows. The Countess called her few things "bits of wreckage."

Here they were, he supposed. Small thin tables of dark wood stood about. A fine little Greek figure of dark metal sat on the shelf above the fire. A length of red cloth was nailed over the stained wallpaper, behind two Italian-looking pictures in old frames.

Newland Archer was proud of his knowledge of Italian art. His boyhood was filled with Ruskin.

He read all the newest writers: John Addington Symonds, Vernon Lee's "Euphorion," and the essays of P. G. Hamerton. He also read a wonderful new book, "The Renaissance," by Walter Pater.

He talked easily about Botticelli. He spoke of Fra Angelico as if looking down on him a little. But these pictures confused him. They were like nothing he was used to looking at — and therefore able to see — in Italy.

Perhaps the strange, empty house also troubled his eyes. No one seemed to expect him.

He felt sorry now that he never told May Welland about the Countess's request. What if she came by to see her cousin? She would find him waiting alone in the dark by a lady's fire, in what looked like private closeness.

But he was here now, and he meant to wait. He sank into a chair and stretched his feet toward the fire.

It was odd to be called in that commanding way, and then forgotten. Yet Archer felt more curious than hurt. The air of the room was unlike any air he ever breathed. He stopped thinking about himself and felt only the sense of adventure.

He knew rooms hung with red cloth, and pictures "of the Italian school." So what was different here?

This was Medora Manson's tired rented house. It held dried grass and common little Rogers figures. Yet a few well-chosen things made it private and "foreign." It quietly suggested old romantic scenes.

He tried to work out the trick. Was it the grouped chairs and tables? Was it the two Jacqueminot roses beside him? People always bought at least twelve roses.

Perhaps it was the faint smell of a far-off market. Turkish coffee and dried roses filled the air.

His mind wandered to what May's sitting room would look like.

Mr. Welland already had his eye on a new house in East Thirty-ninth Street. It stood far away and used ugly green-yellow stone.

Young builders chose that stone against the usual brown building stone. It covered New York like cold chocolate sauce. But the water pipes were perfect.

Archer wanted to travel first, and put off the question of a house. The Wellands approved of a long trip to Europe after the wedding, perhaps even a winter in Egypt. But they were firm. A house must be waiting when the couple came home.

The young man felt that his fate was settled. Each evening, he would climb that green-yellow doorstep. He would enter a hall painted like old Pompeii, then see shining yellow wood. His imagination stopped there.

The sitting room had a wide window over the street. He could not picture May changing it. She gladly accepted her parents' purple and yellow silk.

She accepted false Buhl tables, copies of a costly French style. She accepted gold glass cases full of modern Saxe figures. Why would her own house differ?

He had one comfort. She would probably let him arrange his library as he pleased. That meant, of course, plain "sincere" furniture in the new Eastlake style, and the new bookcases without glass doors.

The maid came in again. She closed the curtains, pushed back a burning log, and said in a comforting voice, "Verrà — verrà."

When she was gone, Archer stood up and began to walk about. Should he wait any longer? He was starting to look foolish. Perhaps he misunderstood Madame Olenska. Perhaps she never invited him at all.

Then, down the stones of the quiet street, came the sharp ring of a horse's steps. It stopped before the house, and he heard a carriage door open. He parted the curtains and looked out into the early dark.

A street lamp faced him. In its light he saw Julius Beaufort's neat English brougham, pulled by a big red-brown horse. The banker was climbing down and helping out Madame Olenska.

Beaufort stood with his hat in his hand, saying something. The lady seemed to say no. Then they shook hands. He jumped into his carriage while she went up the steps.

When she entered the room, she showed no surprise at finding Archer there. Surprise seemed the feeling she felt least of all.

"How do you like my funny house?" she asked. "To me it's like heaven."

As she spoke, she untied her little hat and threw it aside with her long coat. She stood looking at him with slow, thoughtful eyes.

"You've arranged it beautifully," he answered. He heard how flat the words were. His burning wish to be simple and striking locked him in the usual polite phrases.

"Oh, it's a poor little place. My relations look down on it. But at any rate it's less grey and sad than the van der Luydens'."

The words gave him a small electric shock. Few daring spirits ever called the great van der Luyden home sad. Those who entered it felt cold there — still, they spoke of it as "handsome." But suddenly he was glad that she said aloud what they all secretly felt.

"It's lovely — what you've done here," he said again.

"I like the little house," she said. "But I suppose what I like best is having it here, in my own country and my own town. And then, being alone in it." She spoke the last words so low that he hardly heard them. In his awkwardness, he picked them up.

"You like so much to be alone?"

"Yes. As long as my friends keep me from feeling lonely." She sat down near the fire. "Nastasia will bring the tea soon," she said, and signed him back to his armchair. "I see you've already chosen your corner."

She leaned back, folded her arms behind her head, and looked at the fire under half-closed eyes.

"This is the hour I like best — don't you?"

His hurt pride spoke for him. "I was afraid you'd forgotten the hour," he said. "Beaufort must be very interesting company."

She looked amused. "Why — did you wait long? Mr. Beaufort took me to see a number of houses. It seems they will not allow me to stay in this one." She seemed to drop both Beaufort and Archer from her mind.

"I've never seen a city so set against living in 'des quartiers excentriques,'" she said. She meant the odd, out-of-the-way streets. "What does it matter where one lives? I'm told this street is respectable."

"It's not fashionable."

"Fashionable! Do you all think so much of that? Why not make one's own fashions? But I suppose I've lived too independently. At any rate, I want to do what you all do — I want to feel cared for and safe."

He was touched, as on the evening before, when she spoke of her need of a guiding hand.

"That's what your friends want you to feel," he said, with a bite in his voice. "New York is a terribly safe place."

"Yes, isn't it? One feels that," she cried, missing the laugh hidden in his words. "Being here is like — like being taken on a holiday. A holiday for a good little girl who has done all her lessons."

She meant it kindly, but it did not quite please him. He could be light about New York himself. He disliked hearing anyone else take the same tone.

Did she really not see what a powerful engine New York was, and how nearly it crushed her? The Lovell Mingotts' dinner for her nearly died. The family saved it at the last minute, with social odds and ends. That dinner showed how narrow her escape was.

But either she never saw her danger, or the success of the van der Luyden evening washed it away. Archer believed the first idea. Her New York, he guessed, was still one flat picture, with no lines drawn in it. The thought troubled him.

"Last night," he said, "New York laid itself out for you. The van der Luydens do nothing by halves."

"No — how kind they are! It was such a nice party. Everyone seems to have such respect for them."

The words were far too small. They fit a tea party at the dear old Miss Lannings', not the van der Luydens'.

"The van der Luydens," said Archer, "are the most powerful influence in New York society." Even as he spoke, he felt like a man making a speech. "Sadly — because of her health — they almost never open their doors."

She took her hands from behind her head and looked at him thoughtfully.

"Isn't that perhaps the reason?"

"The reason — ?"

"For their great influence. They make themselves so rare."

His face went a little red, and he stared at her. Then he suddenly felt how deep the remark went. With one light touch she pricked the van der Luydens, and down they came. He laughed, and let them fall.

Nastasia set the tea tray on a low table, with Japanese cups without handles and little covered dishes.

"But you'll explain these things to me," Madame Olenska said. "You'll tell me all I ought to know." She leaned forward to hand him his cup.

"No, you are the one teaching me," he said. "You open my eyes to things I looked at so long that I stopped seeing them."

She took a small gold case from a chain on her arm and held it out to him. It held cigarettes, thin paper rolls of leaf for smoking. She took one herself. Long paper strips for lighting them lay on the shelf above the fire.

"Ah, then we can both help each other. But I want help so much more. You must tell me just what to do."

An answer was on the tip of his tongue — "Don't be seen driving about the streets with Beaufort."

But the air of the room was her air, and he was being drawn deep into it. Advice of that sort would sound wrong here. It would be like talking to someone buying rose oil in far-off Samarkand. Would you warn such a person to keep snow boots ready for a New York winter?

New York seemed much farther away than Samarkand. If they were truly to help each other, she was already giving the first help. She was making him look at his own city from outside, like a stranger.

Seen this way, New York was like a city in the wrong end of a telescope. A telescope is a long glass tube that makes far things look near — the wrong end makes them tiny instead. New York looked troublingly small and distant. But then, from Samarkand, it would.

A flame jumped from the logs, and she bent over the fire. She stretched her thin hands so close that a faint ring of light shone about her nails. The firelight turned the loose rings of her dark hair red-brown, and made her pale face paler.

"There are plenty of people to tell you what to do," Archer said. Even as he spoke, he felt a small dark wish to be in their place.

"Oh — all my aunts? And my dear old Granny?" She weighed the idea fairly, without anger.

"They're all a little cross with me for setting up a house of my own. Poor Granny especially — she wanted to keep me with her. But I had to be free..."

This light way of speaking of the terrible old Catherine struck him. And another thought moved him. What life gives a woman this hunger for even the loneliest freedom? But the idea of Beaufort still ate at him.

"I think I understand how you feel," he said. "Still, your family can advise you. They can explain the differences, and show you the way."

She lifted her thin black eyebrows. "Is New York really so hard to find one's way in? I thought it was all straight up and down — like Fifth Avenue. And with all the cross streets numbered!"

She seemed to guess that he did not quite like this. Then came the rare smile that lit her whole face. "If you knew how I like it for just that — the straight-up-and-down-ness, and the big honest labels on everything!"

He saw his chance. "Everything may be labelled — but everybody is not."

"Perhaps. Maybe I make things too simple — but you'll warn me if I do." She turned from the fire to look at him. "Only two people here make me feel as if they understood me and could explain things to me. You, and Mr. Beaufort."

The joining of those two names hit Archer like a small blow. Then he quickly set his feelings in order. He understood her, felt with her, and felt sorry for her. She lived so close to the powers of evil, he thought, that she still breathed more freely in their air.

But she felt that Archer understood her too. So his task was plain. He must make her see Beaufort as he really was, with all the man stood for — and hate it.

He answered gently, "I understand. But just at first, don't let go of your old friends' hands. I mean the older women — your Granny Mingott, Mrs. Welland, Mrs. van der Luyden. They like and admire you. They want to help you."

She shook her head and sighed. "Oh, I know — I know! But they help only if they hear nothing unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in those very words, when I tried...."

"Does no one here want to know the truth, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people, who only ask you to pretend!" She lifted her hands to her face. He saw her thin shoulders shake as she cried.

"Madame Olenska! — Oh, don't, Ellen," he cried, jumping up and bending over her. He drew down one of her hands and held it. He rubbed it warm, the way one comforts a child, and said soft, low words.

But in a moment she freed herself. She looked up at him with wet eyes.

"Does no one cry here, either? I suppose there's no need to, in heaven," she said. She laughed, put her loosened hair back in place, and bent over the tea things.

One thing burned itself into his mind. He called her "Ellen," called her so twice, and she never noticed it. Far down the wrong end of the telescope, he saw the faint white figure of May Welland, in New York.

Suddenly Nastasia put her head in at the door and said something in her rich Italian.

Madame Olenska, a hand still at her hair, cried a quick yes — "Già — già." Then the Duke of St. Austrey entered. He was guiding a very large lady in a great black wig, red feathers, and flowing furs. A wig is a covering of false hair.

"My dear Countess, I've brought an old friend of mine to see you — Mrs. Struthers. She wasn't asked to the party last night, and she wants to know you."

The Duke smiled warmly at them all. Madame Olenska moved toward the strange pair with a soft word of welcome. She seemed to have no idea how oddly matched they were, or what a liberty the Duke took. To be fair, as Archer saw, the Duke did not know it either.

"Of course I want to know you, my dear," cried Mrs. Struthers. Her round, rolling voice matched her bold feathers and her bold wig.

"I want to know everybody who's young and interesting and lovely. And the Duke tells me you like music — didn't you, Duke? You play the piano yourself, I believe? Well, do you want to hear Sarasate play tomorrow evening at my house?"

She rolled on. "You know I have something going on every Sunday evening. Sunday is the day when New York doesn't know what to do with itself. So I say to it, 'Come and be amused.' The Duke thought Sarasate would tempt you, and you'll find a number of your friends there."

Madame Olenska's face grew bright with pleasure. "How kind! How good of the Duke to think of me!" She pushed a chair up to the tea table, and Mrs. Struthers settled into it with delight. "Of course I shall be too happy to come."

"That's all right, my dear. And bring your young gentleman with you." Mrs. Struthers held out a free and easy hand to Archer.

"I can't put a name to you — but I'm sure I've met you. I've met everybody, here, or in Paris, or in London. All the foreign-service men come to me — aren't you in the foreign service? You like music too? Duke, be sure to bring him."

The Duke said "Rather!" from somewhere deep in his beard. Archer drew back with a stiff, circular bow. He felt like a self-conscious schoolboy among careless older people who never once looked at him.

He was not sorry that his visit ended this way. He only wished it ended sooner, and spared him a certain waste of feeling.

He went out into the winter night. New York grew vast and near again, and May Welland was the loveliest woman in it. He turned into his flower shop to send her the daily box of lilies-of-the-valley. To his shame, he found he forgot to send them that morning.

He wrote a word on his card and waited for an envelope, a paper cover for a letter. He glanced about the flower-filled shop as he waited. His eye fell on a cluster of yellow roses. He never saw any so golden before, so like the sun. His first thought was to send them to May instead of the lilies.

But they did not look like her. There was something too rich, too strong, in their fire-bright beauty.

Then his mood turned, all at once. Almost without knowing what he did, he signed to the shopkeeper. The man laid the roses in another long box. Archer slipped his card into a second envelope, and on it he wrote the name of the Countess Olenska.

Then, just as he was turning away, he drew the card out again. He left the empty envelope lying on the box.

"They'll go at once?" he asked, pointing to the roses.

The shopkeeper promised him that they would.