Notes

For a man who was never married, Henry James certainly knows how to describe one. In this chapter, ten chapters after she announces her engagement to Caspar Goodwood, James finally gives a full narrative treatment to the marriage. It is another of IsabelÂ’s vigils, so famous in the novel and so important for signaling a change from one state of being into another. Here, she sits up alone in the parlor until four in the morning. She is sent into this state of meditation by two things. First, she canÂ’t get the image of Madame Merle and her husbandÂ’s intimate pose out of her mind. This insight she dwells on but doesnÂ’t come to resolution about. The second thing that keeps her up is the agitation produced in the encounter sheÂ’s had with her husband over the Warburton-Pansy match. It is this agitation that sends her into retrospection on the course of her marriage and which provides Henry James with the narrative excuse for summarizing the marriage thus far.

Table of Contents | Printable Version