James Daisy Miller (Annotated)

Enriched Edition. Victorian Romance
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-80-268-8821-5
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 122 Seiten

Daisy Miller portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a sophisticated compatriot of hers. His pursuit of her is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates when they meet in Switzerland and Italy.

Henry James (1843-1916) was an American-British writer who spent most of his writing career in Britain. James is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, English people, and continental Europeans - examples of such novels include The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove.

Autoren/Hrsg.

James, Henry

E-Artnow

Weitere Mitwirkende

Marrowick, Orson

Leseproben

Scene Second

Table of Contents

(Mrs. Costello, Miss Durant, Charles Reverdy. They come out of the hotel as Mme. de Katkoff passes into it, looking at her attentively.)

Reverdy. (Who carries a camp-stool.) That’s the biggest swell in the house—a Russian princess!

Mrs. Costello. A Russian princess is nothing very great. We have found one at every hotel.

Reverdy. Well, this is the best of them all. You would notice her anywhere.

Mrs. Costello. The best bred people are the people you notice least.

Reverdy. She’s very quiet, any way. She speaks to no one.

Mrs. Costello. You mean by that that no one speaks to her.

Reverdy. (Aside.) The old lady’s snappish this morning: hanged if I’ll stand it! (Aloud.) No one speaks to her, because no one ventures to.

Miss Durant. You ventured to, I think, and she didn’t answer you. That’s what you mean by her being quiet!

Reverdy. She dropped her fan, and I picked it up and gave it to her. She thanked me with a smile that was a poem in itself: she didn’t need to speak!

Mrs. Costello. You needn’t mind waiting on Russian princesses. Your business is to attend to us—till my nephew comes.

Reverdy. (Looking at his watch.) As I understand you, he’s already due.

Mrs. Costello. He’s a quarter an hour late. We are waiting breakfast.

Miss Durant. I’m afraid the delay will bring on one of your headaches.

Mrs. Costello. I have one already, so it doesn’t matter!

Reverdy. (Aside.) Very convenient, those headaches! (Aloud.) Won’t you sit down, at least? (Offering camp-stool.) You know I don’t come out for three minutes without our little implement.

Mrs. Costello. I don’t care for that; I’ll sit on a bench.

Reverdy. (Aside.) She insists on my bringing it, and yet she won’t use it! (The ladies seat themselves, and he places himself between them, astride the camp-stool. He continues, aloud.) If Mr. Winterbourne is already due, my holiday has legally begun.

Miss Durant. You won’t lose anything by waiting. After he comes you will be at perfect liberty.

Reverdy. Oh yes, after that you won’t look at me, I suppose! Miss Durant is counting very much on Mr. Winterbourne.

Mrs. Costello. And I am counting very much on Miss Durant. You are to be very nice to him, you know.

Miss Durant. That will depend on how I like him.

Mrs. Costello. That’s not what I brought you to Europe for—to make conditions. Besides, Frederick’s a perfect gentleman.

Miss Durant. You seem to wish me to promise to marry him. I must wait till he asks me, you know.

Reverdy. He will ask you if Mrs. Costello bids him. He is evidently in excellent training.

Mrs. Costello. I haven’t seen him for ten years: at that time he was a model nephew.

Reverdy. I shouldn’t wonder if he were to turn out a regular “hard" one. That would be a jolly lark!

Mrs. Costello. That’s not his reputation. Moreover, he has been brought up in Geneva, the most moral city in Europe.

Reverdy. You can’t tell anything from that. Here am I, brought up in New York—and we all know what New York is. Yet where can you find a more immaculate young man? I haven’t a fault—I’m ashamed of myself!

Miss Durant. If Mr. Winterbourne is a little wild, I shan’t like him any the less. Some faults are very charming.

Reverdy. Tell me what they are, and I’ll try and acquire them.

Mrs. Costello. My dear Alice, I’m startled by your sentiments. I have tried to form your taste ...

Miss Durant. Yes, but you have only cultivated my dislikes. Those are a few of my preferences.

Reverdy. Tell us a few more of them—they sound awfully spicy!

Miss Durant. I’m very fond of a certain indifference. I like men who are not always running after you with a campstool, and who don’t seem to care whether you like them or not.

Mrs. Costello. If you like rude men, they are very easily found. If I didn’t know you were a very nice girl, I should take you for—I don’t know what!

Reverdy. Miss Durant’s remarks are addressed to me, and between you two ladies it’s hard to know what to do. You want me to be always at your elbow, and you make a great point of the camp-stool. Will you have it a little, for a change? (Getting up and offering it. Mrs. Costello refuses with a gesture.) I don’t offer it to Miss Alice; we have heard what she think of it!

Miss Durant. I didn’t speak of that piece of furniture: I spoke of the person who carries it.

Reverdy. The person who carries the camp-stool? Is that what I’ve come to be known by? Look here, my dear friends, you ought to engage a courier.

Mrs. Costello. To cheat us out of our eyes? Thank you very much!

Reverdy. A courier with a gorgeous satchel, and a feather in his hat—like those ladies from Schenectady!

Mrs. Costello. So that he might smoke in our faces, as he does in theirs, and have his coffee with us after dinner, as he does with them? They have ruined a good servant.

Miss Durant. They treat him as an equal; they make him their companion.

Reverdy. But they give him handsome wages—which is more than you do me!

Miss Durant. I have no doubt they give him little tokens of affection, and locks of their hair. But that makes them only the more dreadful!

Mrs. Costello. I’m glad to see, my dear, that your taste is coming back to you!

Reverdy. Oh, if taste consists in demolishing Miss Daisy Miller, she can take the prize.

Miss Durant. Demolishing her? I should be sorry to take that trouble. I think her very vulgar: that’s all!

Mrs. Costello. Miss Daisy Miller? Is that her distinguished name?

Reverdy. (Aside.) Ah, we can’t all be named Costello!

Mrs. Costello. They are the sort of Americans that one does one’s duty by not accepting.

Reverdy. Ah, you don’t accept her?

Mrs. Costello. I would if I could—but I can’t. One should let Europeans know—

Reverdy. One should let them know?

Mrs. Costello. That we are not all like that.

Reverdy. They can see it for themselves: she’s charmingly pretty.

Miss Durant. You are extremely impertinent.

Reverdy. (Aside.) I put in one that time. (Aloud.) I can’t help it; she’s lovely.

Mrs. Costello. And is the mamma lovely, too? Has any one ever seen the mamma?

Reverdy. She’s sick in bed—she’s always sick.

Miss Durant. The courier sits with her, and gives her her medicine.

Reverdy. I hope you call that devoted, then?

Mrs. Costello. It doesn’t matter, because the head of the family is the little boy. He orders the dinner; he has the best seat in the carriage.

Reverdy. He’s the most amusing little specimen. He has the heart of a patriot in the body of a—(Hesitates for a word.)

Miss Durant. In the body of a grasshopper!

Reverdy. He hops a good deal, or, rather, I should say, he flies; for there is a good deal of the spread-eagle about him.

Miss Durant. He leaves his toys all over the hotel; I suppose you would say his plumes.

Reverdy. Well, he’s a dauntless American infant; a child of nature and of freedom.

Mrs. Costello. Oh, nature and freedom! We have heard too much of them.

Reverdy. Wait till you are stopped at the New York custom-house! The youthful Miller and I have struck up a friendship: he introduced me to his sister.

Mrs. Costello. You don’t mean to say you spoke to her!

Reverdy. Spoke to her? Yes, indeed—and she answered me.

Miss Durant. She was not like the Russian princess!

Reverdy. No, she’s as little as possible like the Russian princess; but she’s very charming in another style. As soon as Mr. Winterbourne arrives (and you must excuse me for saying that he takes a deuce of a time about it), I shall console myself for the loss of your society by plunging into that of the Millers.

Mrs. Costello. You won’t lose us, Mr. Reverdy: you can console yourself with me.

Reverdy. Oh, thank youl Mrs. Costello. Frederick will devote himself to Alice.

Miss Durant. We had better wait till he comes! I have no patience with his delay.

Mrs. Costello. Neither have I, my dear; but I may as well take the opportunity of remarking that a young lady shouldn’t seem too eager ...

Miss Durant. Too eager?

Mrs. Costello. For the arrival of a gentleman.

Miss Durant. I see what you mean—more reserve. But simply before you ...

Reverdy. And before me, please. Am I nobody?

Miss Durant. Nobody at all!

Reverdy. Well, I don’t care, for I descry in the distance the adorable Miss Miller!

Miss Durant. I’m glad she’s in the...