516
PARTISAN REVIEW
afternoon so that I sqould not have to be there at nightfall. I offset
my shrinking in this respect by insisting to myself that the day itself was
overcast and dull. But when I entered the gates of Vallombrosa, the sky
became suddenly clear. I looked up: it was almost cloudless; before me
the
thin~ing
branches and the angles of the slate-covered roof were distinct
and a little bleak in the emptied October light; and I recognized, against
my intelligence, that each of my last entrances there had been marked by
some ,discontinuity of weather or of the appearance of things on the
grounds.
Discomfited, I became self-conscious: like an explorer in an unknown
terrain, I scanned the place carefully for changes, without, I told myself,
noticing any; then I dropped my eyes to the driveway, where I saw that
it had recently been raining there, though that had not
been
the case
outside. There were hoof-marks of horses in the muddy gravel, and what
looked like the sharp narrow tracks of a carriage.
I rang the bell and saw as I waited a croquet-set in a long wooden
box which I had not noticed before. I felt a little dizzy for a moment,
but told myself it was perfectly natural that the visiting girl cousin should
have brought it out.-Then a brisk and definite step; an accurate hand on
the latch; the door opened, and I found myself confronted with a woman
I had never seen--the mother of the girl, no doubt. She bore some resemb–
lance to Ellen: her long nose was a little beakish and her jawbones some–
what stood out; but she was blonder and rather taller, 'lllld, though she,
too, had the squarish shoulders, she was not so chunky as Ellen; her
eyes, though they were green, were bluish and did not have the intelli–
gence and animation of Ellen's.
"Oh, how do you do," she said
in
a cordial but formal manner, as if,
though she did not know me, she knew about me and had expected my
visit. I came into the familiar hallway. "Won't you leave your coat and
hat
h~re
?"
she said. I noticed, as I was taking the n off, that she gave a
sharp glance at my clothes-the glance of a woman who is certain that
she knows what is correct and what is not, who is severely and unremit–
tingly critical of everyone with whom she has to do and who is not in
the habit of hesitating to make her disapproval felt. But any surprise she
may have felt at the unconventionality of
my
clothes could have been
nothing to the shock I received when she turned to lead me into the living–
room. She was wearing a kind of bustle, a built-out ruffle at the back of
her skirt that looked like one of the ruffle-like crests on that elaborate
and poisonous jellyfish called the Portuguese man-of-war. She had also
a jacket buttoned closely in front, with two little tails that stuck out above
the ruffle; and on her dress, which was silk and mauve, were several
fringes of lace; at the bottom of the skirt, at the throat and on the sleeves
that came just beyond her elbows. It must have been the kind of thing
that was in fashion in the middle of the eighties ; but the dress was so
handsome and so naturally worn that it did not seem obsolete. Her hair
was done up high toward the back of her head, and she was wearing black
onyx earrings.
