An International Episode | Page 3

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AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE
By Henry James


PART I
Four years ago--in 1874--two young Englishmen had occasion to go
to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and,
arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with
the fervid temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they
climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey
passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and

bumping, took their course through Broadway. The midsummer aspect
of New York is not, perhaps, the most favorable one; still, it is not
without its picturesque and even brilliant side. Nothing could well
resemble less a typical English street than the interminable avenue, rich
in incongruities, through which our two travelers advanced--looking
out on each side of them at the comfortable animation of the sidewalks,
the high-colored, heterogeneous architecture, the huge white marble
facades glittering in the strong, crude light, and bedizened with gilded
lettering, the multifarious awnings, banners, and streamers, the
extraordinary number of omnibuses, horsecars, and other democratic
vehicles, the vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big straw
hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the modish young persons on
the pavement, the general brightness, newness, juvenility, both of
people and things. The young men had exchanged few observations;
but in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to
Washington-- in the very shadow, indeed, projected by the image of the
--one of them remarked to the other, "It seems a
rum-looking place."
"Ah, very odd, very odd," said the other, who was the clever man of the
two.
"Pity it's so beastly hot," resumed the first speaker after a pause.
"You know we are in a low latitude," said his friend.
"I daresay," remarked the other.
"I wonder," said the second speaker presently, "if they can give one a
bath?"
"I daresay not," rejoined the other.
"Oh, I say!" cried his comrade.
This animated discussion was checked by their arrival at the hotel,
which had been recommended to them by an American gentleman
whose acquaintance they made--with whom, indeed, they became very

intimate--on the steamer, and who had proposed to accompany them to
the inn and introduce them, in a friendly way, to the proprietor. This
plan, however, had been defeated by their friend's finding that his
"partner" was awaiting him on the wharf and that his commercial
associate desired him instantly to come and give his attention to certain
telegrams received from St. Louis. But the two Englishmen, with
nothing but their national prestige and personal graces to recommend
them, were very well received at the hotel, which had an air of
capacious hospitality. They found that a bath was not unattainable, and
were indeed struck with the facilities for prolonged and reiterated
immersion with which their apartment was supplied. After bathing a
good deal--more, indeed, than they had ever done before on a single
occasion--they made their way into the dining room of the hotel, which
was a spacious restaurant, with a fountain in the middle, a great many
tall plants in ornamental tubs, and an array of French waiters. The first
dinner on land, after a sea voyage, is, under any circumstances, a
delightful occasion, and there was something particularly agreeable in
the circumstances in which our young Englishmen found themselves.
They were extremely good natured young men; they were more
observant than they appeared; in a sort of inarticulate, accidentally
dissimulative fashion, they were highly appreciative. This was, perhaps,
especially the case with the elder, who was also, as I have said, the man
of talent. They sat down at a little table, which was a very different
affair from the great clattering seesaw in the saloon of the steamer. The
wide doors and windows of the restaurant stood open, beneath large
awnings, to a wide pavement, where there were other plants in tubs,
and rows of spreading trees, and beyond which there was a large shady
square, without any palings, and with marble-paved walks. And above
the vivid verdure rose other facades of white marble and of pale
chocolate-colored stone, squaring themselves against