Chapter 23

CHAPTER XXIII

Madame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett's arrival
at the invitation of this lady--Mrs. Touchett offering her for a
month the hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini--the judicious
Madame Merle spoke to Isabel afresh about Gilbert Osmond and
expressed the hope she might know him; making, however, no such
point of the matter as we have seen her do in recommending the
girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason of this was
perhaps that Isabel offered no resistance whatever to Madame
Merle's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a
multitude of friends, both among the natives of the country and
its heterogeneous visitors. She had mentioned to Isabel most of
the people the girl would find it well to "meet"--of course, she
said, Isabel could know whomever in the wide world she would--and
had placed Mr. Osmond near the top of the list. He was an old
friend of her own; she had known him these dozen years; he was
one of the cleverest and most agreeable men--well, in Europe
simply. He was altogether above the respectable average; quite
another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer--far from it,
and the effect he produced depended a good deal on the state of
his nerves and his spirits. When not in the right mood he could
fall as low as any one, saved only by his looking at such hours
rather like a demoralised prince in exile. But if he cared or was
interested or rightly challenged--just exactly rightly it had to
be--then one felt his cleverness and his distinction. Those
qualities didn't depend, in him, as in so many people, on his not
committing or exposing himself. He had his perversities--which
indeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the men really
worth knowing--and didn't cause his light to shine equally for
all persons. Madame Merle, however, thought she could undertake
that for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too
easily, and dull people always put him out; but a quick and
cultivated girl like Isabel would give him a stimulus which was
too absent from his life. At any rate he was a person not to miss.
One shouldn't attempt to live in Italy without making a friend of
Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than any one
except two or three German professors. And if they had more
knowledge than he it was he who had most perception and taste--
being artistic through and through. Isabel remembered that her
friend had spoken of him during their plunge, at Gardencourt, into
the deeps of talk, and wondered a little what was the nature of
the tie binding these superior spirits. She felt that Madame
Merle's ties always somehow had histories, and such an impression
was part of the interest created by this inordinate woman.