think it’s grotesque. With the poor old father it’s different; he has his identity, and it’s rather a massive one. He represents a great financial house, and that, in our day, is as good as anything else. For an American, at any rate, that will do very well. But I persist in thinking your cousin very lucky to have a chronic malady so long as he doesn’t die of it. It’s much better than the snuff-boxes. If he weren’t ill, you say, he’d do something?—he’d take his father’s place in the house. My poor child, I doubt it; I don’t think he’s at all fond of the house. However, you know him better than I, though I used to know him rather well, and he may have the benefit of the doubt. The worst case, I think, is a friend of mine, a countryman of ours, who lives in Italy (where he also was brought before he knew better), and who is one of the most delightful men I know. Some day you must know him. I’ll bring you together and then you’ll see what I mean. He’s Gilbert Osmond—he lives in Italy; that’s all one can say about him or make of him. He’s exceedingly clever, a man made to be distinguished; but, as I tell you, you exhaust the description when you say he’s Mr Osmond who lives tout bêtement7 in Italy. No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no future, no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please—paints in water- colours; like me, only better than I. His painting’s pretty bad; on the whole I’m rather glad of that. Fortunately he’s very indolent, so indolent that it amounts to a sort of position; He can say, “Oh, I do nothing; I’m too deadly lazy. You can do nothing to-day unless you get up at five o’clock in the morning.” In that way he becomes a sort of exception; you feel he might do something if he’d only rise early. He never speaks of his painting—to people at large; he’s too clever for that. But he has a little girl—a dear little girl; he does speak of her. He’s devoted to her, and if it were a career to be an excellent father he’d be very distinguished. But I’m afraid that’s no better than the snuff-boxes; perhaps not even so good. Tell me what they do in America,’ pursued Madame Merle, who, it must be observed parenthetically, did not deliver herself all at once of these reflexions, which are presented in a cluster for the convenience of the reader. She talked of Florence, where Mr Osmond lived and where Mrs Touchett occupied a mediaeval palace; she talked of Rome, where she herself had a little pied-à-terre with some rather good old damask. She talked of places, of people and even, as the phrase is, of ‘subjects’; and from time to time she talked of their kind old host and of the prospect of his recovery. From the first she had thought this prospect small, and Isabel had been struck with the positive, discriminating, competent way in which she took the measure of his remainder of life. One evening she announced definitely that he wouldn’t live.
‘Sir Matthew Hope told me so as plainly as was proper,’ she said; ‘standing there, near the fire, before dinner. He makes himself very agreeable, the great doctor. I don’t mean his saying that has anything to do with it. But he says such things with great tact. I had told him I felt ill at my ease, staying here at such a time; it seemed to me so indiscreet—it wasn’t as if I could nurse. ‘You must remain, you must remain,’ he answered; ‘your office will come later.’ Wasn’t that a very delicate way of saying both that poor Mr Touchett would go and that I might be of some use as a consoler? In fact, however, I shall not be of the slightest use. Your aunt will console herself; she, and she alone, knows just how much consolation she’ll require. It would be a very delicate matter for another person to undertake to administer the dose. With your cousin it will be different; he’ll miss his father immensely. But I should never presume to condole with Mr Ralph; we’re not on those terms.’ Madame Merle had alluded more than once to some undefined incongruity in her relations with Ralph Touchett; so Isabel took this occasion of asking her if they were not good friends.
‘Perfectly, but he doesn’t like me.’
‘What have you done to him?’
‘Nothing whatever. But one has no need of a reason for that.’
‘For not liking you? I think one has need of a very good reason.’
‘You’re very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day you begin.’
‘Begin to dislike you? I shall never begin.’