Page 493 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Chapter 35

Isabel, when she strolled in the Cascine with her lover, felt
no impulse to tell him how little he was approved at Palazzo
Crescentini. The discreet opposition offered to her mar-
riage by her aunt and her cousin made on the whole no great
impression upon her; the moral of it was simply that they
disliked Gilbert Osmond. This dislike was not alarming to
Isabel; she scarcely even regretted it; for it served mainly
to throw into higher relief the fact, in every way so hon-
ourable, that she married to please herself. One did other
things to please other people; one did this for a more per-
sonal satisfaction; and Isabel’s satisfaction was confirmed
by her lover’s admirable good conduct. Gilbert Osmond was
in love, and he had never deserved less than during these
still, bright days, each of them numbered, which preceded
the fulfilment of his hopes, the harsh criticism passed upon
him by Ralph Touchett. The chief impression produced on
Isabel’s spirit by this criticism was that the passion of love
separated its victim terribly from every one but the loved
object. She felt herself disjoined from every one she had ever
known before-from her two sisters, who wrote to express a
dutiful hope that she would be happy, and a surprise, some-
what more vague, at her not having chosen a consort who
was the hero of a richer accumulation of anecdote; from
Henrietta, who, she was sure, would come out, too late, on

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