The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Henry James published this novel in 1881. It had appeared in serial form simultaneously in magazines on both sides of the Atlantic the prior year. (Exactly the same year that The Brothers Karamazov was appearing serially in Russia.) I read the revised text James prepared for the 1906 New York Edition of his complete fiction. (Page numbers refer to the paperback edition published by Oxford World’s Classics in 1998)

The lady of the title, the main character, is Isabel Archer. She’s introduced as a young woman, living in Albany, recently orphaned by the death of her father; her mother having died several years before. Isabel is pretty, intelligent, and independent, determined to make her own path in life. Her estranged aunt, Lydia Touchett, also American but living in Europe, visits to check in on Isabel and her two sisters, and, taking an interest in Isabel, takes her back to England with the intention of showing her Europe and giving her a social education.

The first long section of the novel takes place at the English estate called Gardencourt where Aunt Lydia lives, sometimes, with Isabel’s uncle. Mrs. Touchett mostly lives apart from her husband at her own house in Florence. At Gardencourt, Isabel meets her uncle: also American, wealthy, a banker, but elderly and infirm; and a cousin, American-born Ralph Touchett, who suffers from tuberculosis. There’s also a neighbor, Lord Warburton, extremely wealthy, who quickly becomes a suitor for Isabel. He proposes to her on p. 125. She turns him down. Two more characters arrive from America a little later: Henrietta Stackpole, a journalist friend of Isabel’s who publishes travelogue letters in the newspaper back home; and Caspar Goodwood, another suitor of Isabel’s who she knew in Albany and who has now followed her to England to pursue his interest. He proposes to her on p. 177, or rather, reiterates a standing proposal. She turns him down, too.

The first section ends with the uncle’s death. As he’s dying another important character is introduced: a friend of Mrs. Touchett’s from Florence (but also American) named Madame Merle. Madame Merle is a widow, opinionated and strong-willed, she plays the piano better than Isabel. Isabel is attracted to her, perhaps seeing her as something of a model for herself. Significant to the plot, just before the senior Mr. Touchett dies, Ralph persuades his father to halve his intended inheritance and give the other half to Isabel. Ralph has been charmed by his cousin and wants to give her the ability to follow her imagination. Suddenly, Isabel is not only pretty and smart and independent, she’s also wealthy.

A short interlude follows where Mrs. Touchett takes Isabel to Paris where they hang out with more ex-pat Americans and a quick visit to Ralph who’s staying in San Remo for his health. The second part of the novel begins at p. 249 at Mrs. Touchett’s home in Florence. (The novel is divided into 55 chapters with no section breaks marked by James, but it divides naturally into three parts.) Once Isabel has arrived, Madame Merle is eager to introduce her to a friend of hers, Gabriel Osmond (American), a single father raising a young girl named Pansy, his wife having died some time ago. It’s telling that there are no good marriages in the novel, only estranged partners, widows, widowers, and single people. Of course Osmond falls in love with Isabel. His declaration of love, not quite a proposal, comes on p. 335.

And here the novel begins to shift. We’ve already seen how eager Madame Merle is for Isabel to marry her friend Osmond and has been conniving to bring them together. There are hints, also, of mysterious histories for both Madame Merle and Gabriel Osmond, some of the warnings coming from Gabriel’s sister, Ann, who married an Italian and is known as the Countess Gemini. We know that Isabel’s other friends don’t approve of Osmond. There’s even a warning dropped much earlier when Ralph and his father are discussing the inheritance that giving Isabel her own money will both allow her freedom in choosing a husband, but will also make her a target for philanderers. There’s also a sudden jar in the timeline: the novel has been progressing month by month through the course of a year, suddenly, at p. 345, we’ve jumped ahead a year and discover that Isabel has agreed to marry Osmond.

Then, at the beginning of section three, p. 385, there’s another time jump, the scene shifts from Florence to Rome, and we discover that the wedding has taken place, three years earlier. The marriage is shown to be a poor one. Gabriel stiffles Isabel’s thoughts and opinions, he discourages her independence, he restricts her friends. The novel, which has been closely following Isabel, turns away from her here and begins what seems to be a long digression focused on two minor figures, as though James wishes to hide something about Isabel’s story. Ned Rosier, a character from the earlier interlude in Paris, shows up to court Osmond’s daughter, Pansy. Ned engages Madame Merle to use her influence and Madame Merle shows her duplicity. She pretends to help Ned but instead works against him.

Meanwhile, Lord Warburton, and Ralph Touchett, Henrietta Stackpole, and even Caspar Goodwood arrive in Rome. Lord Warburton is identified as a possible match for young Pansy. Madame Merle and Gabriel would much prefer Pansy marry the rich and well-positioned Warburton than the poor-ish nobody Ned Rosier. Ralph’s health has continued to decline. Caspar Goodwood has not given up his love for Isabel and seeing her bad marriage hopes to rescue her. The possibility of divorce arises.

But Lord Warburton’s interest in Pansy fades. Her father stashes her in a convent at least until Ned is out of the picture. Ralph’s health requires he return to England immediately and Isabel sends Caspar and Henrietta to accompany him back to Gardencourt. Finally, Osmond’s sister, the Countess Gemini tells Isabel the truth about her brother and Madame Merle (p. 575). I won’t spoil the secret here, although it isn’t too hard to guess and doesn’t really matter that much to the story, merely proving what we already know about their bad characters and filling in some of the motivation for their schemes. In the closing scenes Isabel is called back to Gardencourt as Ralph is dying. Gabriel in a last act of perversity forbids her to go but she defies him and goes anyway. At Gardencourt, Mrs. Touchett is there. Henrietta Stackpole is there. Lord Warburton is there, now engaged to an Englishwoman. Ralph dies, touchingly. Caspar Goodwood encourages Isabel, forcefully, to leave Osmond and stay with him. Isabel refuses, just as forcefully. In the final pages she returns to Rome and her unhappy marriage. But in the very last sentences Henrietta tells Caspar, “Just you wait!” leaving the ending ambiguous as to whether she will or won’t finally leave Osmond.

If that seems like a lot of plot remember that the novel is over 600 pages and I’ve given nearly all of it. In truth there are long passages, especially in the first section where it seem as though nothing is happening, although the pace does pick up at the end. Many of the scenes take place as quiet conversations in a drawing room, or while strolling the grounds of the house. None of the characters have work to do, so there’s lots of time for taking tea. They visit museums, or explore the Roman ruins. They attend the opera.

Like many nineteenth century novels, James conceives the novel as a faux-biography. Mostly the narrator is off-stage, but occasionally the “biographer” will intrude in a way that seems self-consciously humorous. He writes of his fictional character, “Of what Isabel then said no report has remained” (p. 47). Or, “Our heroine’s biographer can scarcely tell why…” (p. 129). Or, this one, when Henrietta Stackpole is leaving a message at a hotel, “It is our privilege to look over her shoulder, and if we exercise it we may read the brief query…” (p. 489).

The style is Victorian. The milieu is upper class. And though all the characters save Lord Warburton are American, it seems very English. The characters all speak in quips and epigrams, and they all speak the same way. No one speaks forthrightly, they contradict and qualify every statement. But the language is brilliant, and fun to read.

In a preface written for the revised 1906 edition, James says that he began his novel with the character of Isabel. Other characters appeared in his imagination around her. And then he looked for something for her to do. Other writers might begin with a story and then invent characters to act it out, James began with a character and then invented a story in order to reveal the character. Thus, the title, The Portrait of a Lady, is apt: a character study revealed through fiction rather than paint.

But what is there for a woman to do in nineteenth century America and Europe? She couldn’t start a business, or study law, or pursue a career. Some women became novelists and we have the model of Henrietta as a journalist. Or Isabel might become an actress or a soprano, but that would require talent, not just will. She’s not likely to commit a murder and can’t go to war as nineteenth century men do in The Brothers Karamazov (1880) and War and Peace (1869). Ralph Touchett could take over his father’s bank, if his health permitted. Caspar Goodwood owns cotton mills. Lord Warburton could enter politics. But for Isabel, as she wished to “affront her destiny,” as James says in his Preface, and for James as he searched for a plot in which to show the character of the woman he had invented, there were few options beyond making a good marriage, presenting her with prospects, and letting her make her choice.

So, the novel begins just as one expects. The ingenue enters. She’s charming and pretty. She’s intelligent enough for men to think she’s special. Soon she has suitors. Will she marry the handsome rich English Lord, or the square-jawed American industrialist? Of shouldn’t she rather marry the sickly but sweet cousin, who seems to be the one who most truly loves her for herself? She rejects them all and then is presented with yet another suitor. But here, where the novel turns darker, James reveals something we hadn’t yet seen. It isn’t only Gabriel Osmond’s and Madame Merle’s conspiracy that dooms Isabel, it’s also her own character. Her independence is also stubbornness, and arrogance. She refuses to take the advice of her friends, nearly breaking entirely with poor Ralph when he attempts to steer her away from Osmond. She’s smart but not smart enough to question for herself the stories Osmond and Madame Merle tell, or the full story they keep declining to tell, stories that don’t quite add up. She’s trusting but too trusting. And her portrait contains a stroke that romanticizes suffering and perhaps unconsciously causes her to seek suffering for herself.

But Isabel’s trap is also a trap laid for her by James, and by the bars of nineteenth century society. James has Isabel say when Ralph chides her for not reaching higher than marriage, “There’s nothing higher for a girl than to marry a–a person she likes” (p. 372). And later, when unhappily married, and at a loss, James has Isabel think to herself, “She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action” (p. 414). What is a girl to do, indeed?

James’ writing career came in three acts. The first act, up through 1887, when he was 44, contains the popular short story Daisy Miller, the novel Washington Square, this novel, The Bostonians, and others. For act two, up to 1900, he took a break from long novels and wrote stories, novellas and plays. The Aspern Papers, which I read recently, is from 1887. The Turn of the Screw is from 1898. His plays were not successful. After 1900, act three, he returned to the novel and wrote The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl. In 1913 he published two autobiographical works. He died in 1916.

I didn’t appreciate The Ambassadors when I read it 30 years ago. But I liked this novel very much, and I enjoyed The Aspern Papers as well. I’m enticed now to read another. And while I was at the bookstore a few days ago picking up a biography of Tchaikovsky that I had ordered I happened to see a book turned face out in the Literary Criticism section called, Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece. So I bought that and will read it, too.