THE EUROPEANS
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by HENRY JAMES
CHAPTER I
A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city,
seen from the windows of a gloomy-looking inn, is at no
time an object of enlivening suggestion; and the spectacle
is not at its best when the mouldy tombstones and funereal
umbrage have received the ineffectual refreshment of a dull,
moist snow-fall. If, while the air is thickened by this
frosty drizzle, the calendar should happen to indicate that
the blessed vernal season is already six weeks old, it will be
admitted that no depressing influence is absent from the scene.
This fact was keenly felt on a certain 12th of May, upwards of
thirty years since, by a lady who stood looking out of one of
the windows of the best hotel in the ancient city of Boston.
She had stood there for half an hour--stood there, that is,
at intervals; for from time to time she turned back into
the room and measured its length with a restless step.
In the chimney-place was a red-hot fire which emitted
a small blue flame; and in front of the fire, at a table,
sat a young man who was busily plying a pencil.
He had a number of sheets of paper cut into small equal squares,
and he was apparently covering them with pictorial designs--
strange-looking figures. He worked rapidly and attentively,
sometimes threw back his head and held out his drawing at
arm's-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding humming and whistling.
The lady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts
were voluminous. She never dropped her eyes upon his work;
she only turned them, occasionally, as she passed, to a mirror
suspended above the toilet-table on the other side of the room.
Here she paused a moment, gave a pinch to her waist with her
two hands, or raised these members--they were very plump and pretty--
to the multifold braids of her hair, with a movement half caressing,
half corrective. An attentive observer might have fancied
that during these periods of desultory self-inspection her face
forgot its melancholy; but as soon as she neared the window again
it began to proclaim that she was a very ill-pleased woman.
And indeed, in what met her eyes there was little to be
pleased with. The window-panes were battered by the sleet;
