The Marriages
By Henry James
()
About this ebook
Henry James
Henry James (1843–1916) was an American writer, highly regarded as one of the key proponents of literary realism, as well as for his contributions to literary criticism. His writing centres on the clash and overlap between Europe and America, and The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as his most notable work.
Read more from Henry James
The Europeans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roderick Hudson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beast in the Jungle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Badass Prepper's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Prepare Yourself for the Worst Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry James: The Complete Novellas and Tales (Centaur Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gothic Novel Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bostonians Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Golden Bowl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oxford Book of American Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Gothic Classics: 60+ Books in One Volume Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Daily Henry James: A Year of Quotes from the Work of the Master Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/550 Feminist Masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Turn of the Screw and Other Short Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bushcraft Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Survival Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsItalian Hours: “The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.” Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wings of the Dove Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/530 Occult & Supernatural masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest American Short Stories (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best Short Stories and Novellas of Henry James Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Masterpieces of Occult & Supernatural Fiction Vol. 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Marriages
Related ebooks
The Marriages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories written by a British American – Volume XI Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLord Greywell's Dilemma Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pilgrim's Inn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bad Boy: A gritty, edge-of-your-seat gangland thriller from Gillian Godden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmethyst The Story of a Beauty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBedding Lord Ned Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Arden's Redemption Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5More Lives Than One Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassage of Shadows: The Victorian Gothic Collection, #3 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5133. Fire On The Snow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmbersil: The Legacy of Mr Harrison Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Will, a Wish, a Wedding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maiden in the Tower: A Fairy Tale Retold Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mistress At Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Poor Wise Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove at Second Sight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForbidden Visions: The Dream World Chronicles, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House at Pritchard Place: A New Orleans Paranormal Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnintended Duchess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeauty And The Baron Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Billionaire's Virgin Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Haven House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cursed Canvases: A Light-Hearted Regency Fantasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Playing with Fire Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An Everyday Girl: A Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBless His Cursed Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSerena Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Two: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Other Miss Derwent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Classics For You
The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Scarlet Letter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lathe Of Heaven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Marriages
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Marriages - Henry James
THE MARRIAGES
by Henry James
I
Won’t you stay a little longer?
the hostess asked while she held the girl’s hand and smiled. It’s too early for every one to go—it’s too absurd.
Mrs. Churchley inclined her head to one side and looked gracious; she flourished about her face, in a vaguely protecting sheltering way, an enormous fan of red feathers. Everything in her composition, for Adela Chart, was enormous. She had big eyes, big teeth, big shoulders, big hands, big rings and bracelets, big jewels of every sort and many of them. The train of her crimson dress was longer than any other; her house was huge; her drawing-room, especially now that the company had left it, looked vast, and it offered to the girl’s eyes a collection of the largest sofas and chairs, pictures, mirrors, clocks, that she had ever beheld. Was Mrs. Churchley’s fortune also large, to account for so many immensities? Of this Adela could know nothing, but it struck her, while she smiled sweetly back at their entertainer, that she had better try to find out. Mrs. Churchley had at least a high-hung carriage drawn by the tallest horses, and in the Row she was to be seen perched on a mighty hunter. She was high and extensive herself, though not exactly fat; her bones were big, her limbs were long, and her loud hurrying voice resembled the bell of a steamboat. While she spoke to his daughter she had the air of hiding from Colonel Chart, a little shyly, behind the wide ostrich fan. But Colonel Chart was not a man to be either ignored or eluded.
Of course every one’s going on to something else,
he said. I believe there are a lot of things to-night.
"And where are you going?" Mrs. Churchley asked, dropping her fan and turning her bright hard eyes on the Colonel.
Oh I don’t do that sort of thing!
—he used a tone of familiar resentment that fell with a certain effect on his daughter’s ear. She saw in it that he thought Mrs. Churchley might have done him a little more justice. But what made the honest soul suppose her a person to look to for a perception of fine shades? Indeed the shade was one it might have been a little difficult to seize—the difference between going on
and coming to a dinner of twenty people. The pair were in mourning; the second year had maintained it for Adela, but the Colonel hadn’t objected to dining with Mrs. Churchley, any more than he had objected at Easter to going down to the Millwards’, where he had met her and where the girl had her reasons for believing him to have known he should meet her. Adela wasn’t clear about the occasion of their original meeting, to which a certain mystery attached. In Mrs. Churchley’s exclamation now there was the fullest concurrence in Colonel Chart’s idea; she didn’t say Ah yes, dear friend, I understand!
but this was the note of sympathy she plainly wished to sound. It immediately made Adela say to her Surely you must be going on somewhere yourself.
Yes, you must have a lot of places,
the Colonel concurred, while his view of her shining raiment had an invidious directness. Adela could read the tacit implication: You’re not in sorrow, in desolation.
Mrs. Churchley turned away from her at this and just waited before answering. The red fan was up again, and this time it sheltered her from Adela. "I’ll give everything up—for you, were the words that issued from behind it.
Do stay a little. I always think this is such a nice hour. One can really talk," Mrs. Churchley went on. The Colonel laughed; he said it wasn’t fair. But their hostess pressed his daughter.