Collected Stories by Henry James
Winterbourne replied that he certainly should; and the state of mind of Daisy’s mamma struck him as so unprecedented in the annals of parental vigilance that he gave up as utterly irrelevant the attempt to place her upon her guard.
After this Daisy was never at home, and Winterbourne ceased to meet her at the houses of their common acquaintance, because, as he perceived, these shrewd people had quite made up their minds that she was going too far. They ceased to invite her, and they intimated that they desired to express to observant Europeans the great truth that, though Miss Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her behaviour was not representative – was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal. Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turned towards her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all. He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon her ostracism or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible little organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced. He asked himself whether Daisy’s defiance came from the consciousness of innocence or from her being, essentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding oneself to a belief in Daisy’s ‘innocence’ came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry. As I have already had occasion to relate, he was angry at finding himself reduced to chopping logic about this young lady; he was vexed at his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her eccentricities were generic, national, and how far they were personal. From either view of them he had somehow missed her, and now it was too late. She was ‘carried away’ by Mr Giovanelli.
A few days after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered her in that beautiful abode of flowering desolation known as the Palace of the Caesars. The early Roman spring had filled the air with bloom and perfume, and the rugged surface of the Palatine was muffled with tender verdure. Daisy was strolling along the top of one of those great mounds of ruin that are embanked with mossy marble and paved with monumental inscriptions. It seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as just then. He stood looking off at the enchanting harmony of line and colour that remotely encircles the city, inhaling the softly humid odours and feeling the freshness of the year and the antiquity of the place reaffirm themselves in mysterious interfusion. It seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty; but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her. Giovanelli was at her side, and Giovanelli, too, wore an aspect of even unwonted brilliancy.
‘Well,’ said Daisy, ‘I should think you would be lonesome!’
‘Lonesome?’ asked Winterbourne.
‘You are always going round by yourself. Can’t you get any one to walk with you?’
‘I am not so fortunate,’ said Winterbourne, ‘as your companion.’
Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterbourne with distinguished politeness; he listened with a deferential air to his remarks; he laughed, punctiliously, at his pleasantries; he seemed disposed to testify to his belief that Winterbourne was a superior young man. He carried himself in no degree like a jealous wooer; he had obviously a great deal of tact; he had no objection to your expecting a little humility of him. It even seemed to Winterbourne at times that Giovanelli would find a certain mental relief in being able to have a private understanding with him – to say to him, as an intelligent man, that, bless you, he knew how extraordinary was this young lady, and didn’t flatter himself with delusive – or at least too delusive – hopes of matrimony and dollars. On this occasion he strolled away from his companion to pluck a sprig of almond-blossom, which he carefully arranged in his button-hole.
‘I know why you say that,’ said Daisy, watching Giovanelli. ‘Because you think I go round too much with him!’ And she nodded at her attendant.
‘Every one thinks so – if you care to know,’ said Winterbourne.
‘Of course I care to know!’ Daisy exclaimed seriously. ‘But I don’t believe it. They are only pretending to be shocked. They don’t really care a straw what I do. Besides, I don’t go round so much.’
‘I think you will find they do care. They will show it – disagreeably.’
Daisy looked at him a moment. ‘How – disagreeably?’
‘Haven’t you noticed anything?’ Winterbourne asked.
‘I have noticed you. But I noticed you were as stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you.’
‘You will find I am not so stiff as several others,’ said Winterbourne, smiling.
‘How shall I find it?’
‘By going to see the others.’
‘What will they do to me?’
‘They will give you the cold shoulder. Do you know what that means?’
Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to colour. ‘Do you mean as Mrs Walker did the other night?’
‘Exactly!’ said Winterbourne.
She looked away at Giovanelli, who was decorating himself with his almond-blossom. Then looking back at Winterbourne – ‘I shouldn’t think you would let people be so unkind!’ she said.
‘How can I help it?’ he asked.
‘I should think you would say something.’
‘I do say something.’ And he paused a moment. ‘I say that your mother tells me that she believes you are engaged.’
‘Well, she does,’ said Daisy very simply.
Winterbourne began to laugh. ‘And does Randolph believe it?’ he asked.
‘I guess Randolph doesn’t believe anything,’ said Daisy. Randolph’s scepticism excited Winterbourne to farther hilarity, and he observed that Giovanelli was coming back to them. Daisy, observing it too, addressed herself again to her countryman. ‘Since you have mentioned it,’ she said, ‘I am engaged.’ … Winterbourne looked at her; he had stopped laughing. ‘You don’t believe it!’ she added.
He was silent a moment; and then, ‘Yes, I believe it!’ he said.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she answered. ‘Well, then – I am not!’
The young girl and her cicerone were on their way to the gate of the enclosure, so that Winterbourne, who had but lately entered, presently took leave of them. A week afterwards he went to dine at a beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud-curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalise it. When, on his return from the villa (it was eleven o’clock), Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Colosseum, it occurred to him, as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches, near which, as he observed, an open carriage – one of the little Roman street-cabs – was stationed. Then he passed in among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade; the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron’s famous lines, out of ‘Manfred’; but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmosphere was there, certainly; but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma. Winterbourne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The great cross in the centre was covered with shadow; it was only as he drew near it that he made it out distinctly. Then he saw that two persons were stationed upon the low steps which formed its base. One of these was a woman, seated; her companion was standing in front of her.
Pres
‘Let us hope he is not very hungry,’ responded the ingenious Giovanelli. ‘He will have to take me first; you will serve for dessert!’
Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror; and, it must be added, with a sort of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy’s behaviour and the riddle had become easy to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect. He stood there looking at her – looking at her companion, and not reflecting that though he saw them vaguely, he himself must have been more brightly visible. He felt angry with himself that he had bothered so much about the right way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller. Then, as he was going to advance again, he checked himself; not from the fear that he was doing her injustice, but from a sense of the danger of appearing unbecomingly exhilarated by this sudden revulsion from cautious criticism. He turned away towards the entrance of the place; but as he did so he heard Daisy speak again.
‘Why, it was Mr Winterbourne! He saw me – and he cuts me!’
What a clever little reprobate she was, and how smartly she played an injured innocence! But he wouldn’t cut her. Winterbourne came forward again, and went towards the great cross. Daisy had got up; Giovanelli lifted his hat. Winterbourne had now begun to think simply of the craziness, from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young girl lounging away the evening in this nest of malaria. What if she were a clever little reprobate? that was no reason for her dying of the perniciosa. ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked, almost brutally.
Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, looked at him a moment. Then – ‘All the evening,’ she answered gently … ‘I never saw anything so pretty.’
‘I am afraid,’ said Winterbourne, ‘that you will not think Roman fever very pretty. This is the way people catch it. I wonder,’ he added, turning to Giovanelli, ‘that you, a native Roman, should countenance such a terrible indiscretion.’
‘Ah,’ said the handsome native, ‘for myself, I am not afraid.’
‘Neither am I – for you! I am speaking for this young lady.’
Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winterbourne’s rebuke with docility. ‘I told the Signorina it was a grave indiscretion; but when was the Signorina ever prudent?’
‘I never was sick, and I don’t mean to be!’ the Signorina declared. ‘I don’t look like much, but I’m healthy! I was bound to see the Colosseum by moonlight; I shouldn’t have wanted to go home without that; and we have had the most beautiful time, haven’t we, Mr Giovanelli? If there has been any danger, Eugenio can give me some pills. He has got some splendid pills.’
‘I should advise you,’ said Winterbourne, ‘to drive home as fast as possible and take one!’
‘What you say is very wise,’ Giovanelli rejoined. ‘I will go and make sure the carriage is at hand.’ And he went forward rapidly.
Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept looking at her; she seemed not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing; Daisy chattered about the beauty of the place. ‘Well, I have seen the Colosseum by moonlight!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s one good thing.’ Then, noticing Winterbourne’s silence, she asked him why he didn’t speak. He made no answer; he only began to laugh. They passed under one of the dark archways; Giovanelli was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped a moment, looking at the young American. ‘Did you believe I was engaged the other day?’ she asked.
‘It doesn’t matter what I believed the other day,’ said Winterbourne, still laughing.
‘Well, what do you believe now?’
‘I believe that it makes very little difference whether you are engaged or not!’
He felt the young girl’s pretty eyes fixed upon him through the thick gloom of the archway; she was apparently going to answer. But Giovanelli hurried her forward. ‘Quick, quick,’ he said; ‘if we get in by midnight we are quite safe.’
Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and the fortunate Italian placed himself beside her. ‘Don’t forget Eugenio’s pills!’ said Winterbourne, as he lifted his hat.
‘I don’t care,’ said Daisy, in a little strange tone, ‘whether I have Roman fever or not!’ Upon this the cab-driver cracked his whip, and they rolled away over the desultory patches of the antique pavement.
Winterbourne – to do him justice, as it were – mentioned to no one that he had encountered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum with a gentleman; but nevertheless, a couple of days later, the fact of her having been there under these circumstances was known to every member of the little American circle, and commented on accordingly. Winterbourne reflected that they had of course known it at the hotel, and that, after Daisy’s return, there had been an exchange of jokes between the porter and the cab-driver. But the young man was conscious at the same moment that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the little American flirt should be ‘talked about’ by low-minded menials. These people, a day or two later, had serious information to give: the little American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, when the rumour came to him, immediately went to the hotel for more news. He found that two or three charitable friends had preceded him, and that they were being entertained in Mrs Miller’s salon by Randolph.
‘It’s going round at night,’ said Randolph – ‘that’s what made her sick. She’s always going round at night. I shouldn’t think she’d want to – it’s so plaguey dark. You can’t see anything here at night, except when there’s a moon. In America there’s always a moon!’ Mrs Miller was invisible; she was now, at least, giving her daughter the advantage of her society. It was evident that Daisy was dangerously ill.
Winterbourne went often to ask for news of her, and once he saw Mrs Miller, who, though deeply alarmed, was – rather to his surprise – perfectly composed, and, as it appeared, a most efficient and judicious nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr Davis, but Winterbourne paid her the compliment of saying to himself that she was not, after all, such a monstrous goose. ‘Daisy spoke of you the other day,’ she said to him. ‘Half the time she doesn’t know what she’s saying, but that time I think she did. She gave me a message; she told me to tell you. She told me to tell you that she never was engaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure I am very glad; Mr Giovanelli hasn’t been near us since she was taken ill. I thought he was so much of a gentleman; but I don’t call that very polite! A lady told me that he was afraid I was angry with him for taking Daisy round at night. Well, so I am; but I suppose he knows I’m a lady. I would scorn to scold him. Anyway, she says she’s not engaged. I don’t know why she wanted you to know; but she said to me three times – “Mind you tell Mr Winterbourne.” And then she told me to ask if you remembered the time you went to that castle, in Switzerland. But I said I wouldn’t give any such messages as that. Only, if she is not engaged, I’m sure I’m glad to know it.’
But, as Winterbourne had said, it mattered very little. A week after this the poor girl died; it had been a terrible case of the fever. Daisy’s grave was in the little Protestant cemetery, in an angle of the wall of imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses and the thick spring-flowers. Winterbourne stood there beside it, with a number of other mourners; a number larger than the scandal excited by the young lady’s career would have led you to expect. Near him stood Giovanelli, who came nearer still before Winterbourne turned away. Giovanelli was very pale; on this occasion he had no flower in his button-hole; he seemed to wish to say something. At last he said, ‘She was the most beautiful young lady I ever saw, and the most amiable.’ And then he added in a moment, ‘And she was the most innocent.’
Winterbourne looked at him and presently repeated his words, ‘And the most innocent?’
‘The most
Winterbourne felt sore and angry. ‘Why the devil,’ he asked, ‘did you take her to that fatal place?’
Mr Giovanelli’s urbanity was apparently imperturbable. He looked on the ground a moment, and then he said, ‘For myself, I had no fear; and she wanted to go.’
‘That was no reason!’ Winterbourne declared.
The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. ‘If she had lived, I should have got nothing. She would never have married me, I am sure.’
‘She would never have married you?’
‘For a moment I hoped so. But no. I am sure.’
Winterbourne listened to him; he stood staring at the raw protuberance among the April daisies. When he turned away again Mr Giovanelli, with his light slow step, had retired.
Winterbourne almost immediately left Rome; but the following summer he again met his aunt, Mrs Costello, at Vevey. Mrs Costello was fond of Vevey. In the interval Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy Miller and her mystifying manners. One day he spoke of her to his aunt – said it was on his conscience that he had done her injustice.
‘I am sure I don’t know,’ said Mrs Costello. ‘How did your injustice affect her?’
‘She sent me a message before her death which I didn’t understand at the time. But I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one’s esteem.’
‘Is that a modest way,’ asked Mrs Costello, ‘of saying that she would have reciprocated one’s affection?’
Winterbourne offered no answer to this question; but he presently said, ‘You were right in that remark that you made last summer. I was booked to make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign parts.’
Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva, whence there continue to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report that he is ‘studying’ hard – an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady.
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE