Sure, I haven't finished reading The Portrait of a Lady. But I enjoy putting my in-progress analysis into writing. And now, in chapter 19, especially in the part where Isabel encounters Madame Merme, I do think I have to take a significant break. This is a very important chapter, because it is here that Isabel has a lot of input to build her personality. She even admits to find someone she really admires, and cares to imitate. By 'imitate' here I mean the Isabellian sense of the word (implied in the following paragraphs). Coming is the my humble explication of the part, with now and then discussion about my general interpretation of what Mr. James wants to do with this novel, in the light of my reading of the novel so far, :).
In this chapter Madame Merme appears all of a sudden as a graceful woman who plays the piano very beautifully. Her appearance on the screen shows a mystery. What is more mysterious that someone playing the piano very beautifully seen from behind? We even hears Mrs. Touchett saying that M. Merme likes to be mysterious.
One thing that really interests Isabel is the Madame's ability to use her reasons well without leaving her emotional touch. In a 20th century expression, we can probably say that the Madame was from Venus but has visited Mars so frequently that she masters Martian codes of conduct. Later in this part, we will see how she reasonably analyzes Mrs. Touchett's flaws as being too not spiritual (or too shallow?) in her virtues (p. 198-199) and how she puts an emotional touch in analyzing Ralph and his father escaping the fact that they are Americans.
Another thing that is of great importance for Isabel is the Madame's talents, aptitudes, and accomplishments without being to absorbed every time she exercises any of those qualities. She is good at various thing or, in Ralph's words, “she plays everything beautifully.” She plays the piano very well, and likes painting with water color, not to mention her ability to appreciate paintings, including her friend's, Mr. Osmond's, works. However, the noteworthy part is when Isabel says that “she [is] never preoccupied, she never force[s] too hard.” All those capabilities don't seem to alienate her. If Isabel does dream of having an ideal freedom, Madame Merme could be the best example of someone who has freedom without being occupied by the freedom, because being so absorbed in freedom means not free.
We can also see how Madame Merme always tries to avoid staying in the melancholia of the past and shows great interest in new things. Isabel finds it difficult to make the Madame excitedly interested in what she tells her, because Madame Merme herself has been in those situations and when she tells Isabel about it, she doesn't use “the tone of triumph of of boastfulness” but tells them “like a grave confessions.” In stead of boring Isabel with her never-ending stories of her youth, she times and times again asks Isabel to tell about herself and about America. She is eager to know contemporaneity.
All this quality is so delightful for Isabel, and she considers her imitate worthy. Up to this chapter, this is the first time that Isabel shows an open eagerness to be influenced by someone. With Madame Merme, Isabel thinks she “needn't be afraid of becoming too pliable”. This is so noteworthy because so far, she has tried to be very free. Even a prospect of marriage with someone who promises her freedom and adventures seems to her a confinement—well, all she wants is a first-hand experience. In her previous conversation with Miss Stackpole, Isabel states that her idea of happiness is “[a] swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can't see”—which, sorry, sounds too Nitzschean, so analogous to Nitzsche's imagery of freedom of thought and experiment as “sailing in the stormy sea” (I hope I can write a separate post on it :D).
Mrs. Touchett, in a very inexplicit manner, reveals her motif of taking up Isabel with her: to educate her. She says that she has brought Isabel out of America and “wish[es] to do the best” for her, and make her acquainted with the Madame, “who has no faults”, is a very good way to educate her. She probably wants to “Mrs. Touchettize” Isabel, considering that she has the smartness and other qualities that the young Mrs. Touchett has. However, it apparently shows that Isabel is not that malleable. Isabel, at this point, is enlightened enough to choose what she thinks right and whom she lets herself to be influenced by. It might explain why Isabel always presents herself in some kind of alertness in every conversation with Mrs. Touchett, despite the fact that Mrs. Touchett is the one who has brought her to Europe and who, for most people, should have been seen with awe. Isabel shows an air of ungratefulness in those coversations with Mrs. Touchett. She even says, in regards with Madame Merme, that she “like[s] her better than ... [Mrs. Touchett's] desccription of her”. She persists on seeing things through her own perspectives. She is not at all in the shadows of Mrs. Touchett, who should have been her matron.
If there are things that Isabel found rather disagreeable in Madame Merme, they are her idea of identity and her being “not natural” in her behavior. To Madame Merme, one always has a “shell”. By “shell”, the Madame means “the whole envelope of circumstances”, which includes a nationality, appearance, a house, etc. To Isabel, who is in the euphoria of her freedom, this idea is somewhat unacceptable and she sees this shell as a limit. Here is the point where Isabel starts seeing her more like a “sparring partner” than an idol. Therefore, it is no wonder how the narrator sees the Madame's departure from the court optimistically as “the beginning of a friendship”. And Madame Merme's confession of her unrealized dreams, although doesn't seem very bad to Isabel, should be counted as something that is also of importance in Isabel's personality building. In addition to this, the Madame's being too cultivated and not natural in her behavior. To Isabel, the Madame's “nature [has] been too much overlaid by custom and her angles too much smoothed [...] too flexible, too supple; [...] too finished, too civilized”. All these don't seem to suit Isabel's idea of happiness which lies in uncertainty, adventure, instability (as the sentence I quoted two paragraphs ago says).
I see now how Isabel has gone through several stages of analysis and value search. At first, she finds the quality of Mrs. Touchett as someone independent but then she finds that she is too free and not loyal to the husband she has chosen. She has also observes how Ralph and Miss Stackpole are in different poles in terms of nationality and she herself doesn't openly subscribe to either Ralph's or Miss Stackpole's ideas of identity. In this chapter, Isabel learns a lot about freedom and behavior towards herself and others from Madame Merme. And the unconcluded discussion about identity between Isabel and Madame Merme seems to shed a light on the next journey that Isabel will experience, or on the next mosaic pieces that Mr. James put to create a portrait of this very lady.
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