She has depths and depths, and all of them bad - interpreting Henry James

In a fortuitous coincidence, D. G. Myers just wrote a piece about stories with “onlooker narrators,” like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, a “secondary character who also participates in events.”  I have just read three Henry James stories in a row that feature clever variations on the device.  Myers suggests I look at What Maisie Knew (1897) as well, which I will do once I read it.  Now I will keep things simple.  No, one of the stories is “The Figure in the Carpet” (1896).  There is no way to keep that one simple.

The literary critic in “The Figure in the Carpet” is at first an active character but recedes into the onlooker role for most of the story.  The tutor in “The Pupil” (1892) is placed in what should be the position of an onlooker, but his seemingly peripheral story turns out to be the meaningful one.  The cold Jamesian fish who narrates “Louisa Pallant” (1888) is the purest onlooker of the three, except James creates the possibility that his role is something else, even if he does not realize it.

I want to start with the one that is least famous, “Louisa Pallant,” because it is the easiest to deal with.  The narrator meets his old flame, Louisa, at a European spa.  She jilted him long ago (“She had not treated me well and we had never really made it up,” 193).  Now Louisa has an appealing daughter and the narrator has a rich nephew who coincidentally joins them at the spa.

The romance between the youngsters is inevitable.  The mother eventually breaks it up by telling the nephew something about her daughter so terrible that he immediately flees her.  The narrator never learns what was said, from Louisa or from his nephew.  This is where the “onlooker” device is important.  He never learns what was said so neither do I.

Everything he and I learn comes from his conversations with the mother.  Some samples:

‘Do you really mean she is bad?’ I added.

Mrs. Pallant made no immediate answer to this…  (213)

We were silent a moment, after which I resumed:  ‘Then she doesn’t know you hate her?’

‘I don’t know what she knows.  She has depths and depths, and all of them bad.  Besides, I don’t hate her in the least, I pity her simply, for what I have made of her.  But I pity still more the man who may find himself married to her.’  (218)

I am emphasizing the word “bad” because I can only guess what it means – character, presumably, but also behavior?  Who knows.  Whatever the mother tells the nephew is enough to run him off without looking back.

The motive of the mother is an open question.  The truth about the daughter’s character is open, given the various possible motives.  The narrator’s interpretation of the mother’s motive is open – does he think the same thing I do?

We sat there some time longer, while I thought over what she had said to me and she apparently did the same.  I confess that even close to her side, with the echo of her passionate, broken voice still in the air, some queer ideas came into my head.  Was the comedy on her side and not on the girl’s, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman at poor Linda’s expense?  (218)

For example, is the mother pursuing greater riches, or a title for her daughter?  Is she revenging herself on the narrator for past crimes – or expiating her own sins?

I hardly expect answers to all of these questions.  What is surprising about James is that he does not answer any of them, that he is able to keep a series of incompatible interpretations alive at the end of the story.  The plot does not close off readings but rather causes them to branch.  You probably knew this about James already.  I did not, not until I saw it in this minor story.

Page numbers refer to Complete Stories: 1884-1891, Library of America.