The Bostonians

Verena, it is decided, is “firm enough in her faith” (235) to meet with Basil. Olive will visit Mrs. Burrage at noon because Basil is visiting Verena at 11, so Olive can be sure he leaves in a timely fashion. However, when she leaves to visit Mrs. Burrage, Basil is still there.

Mrs. Burrage’s note contained a large check. Olive believes money to be “a tremendous force” (236) for their cause. Once she arrives at Mrs. Burrage’s house, Mrs. Burrage expresses a desire for Verena to stay with her and to marry her son. Though Mrs. Burrage claims to care for their cause, Olive notes that Mrs. Burrage lives “the very opposite way from all earnest and improving things” (237). Mrs. Burrage wonders whether Olive understands the “immense advantages and rewards there would be for her in striking an alliance with the house of Burrage” (237), and Olive imagines taking what the Burrages offer and then discarding the family.

Olive claims Verena “is absolutely free” (238) and asks why Mrs. Burrage is consulting her. Mrs. Burrage answers that that her son is trying to marry “the very person in the world [Olive] wants[s] most to keep unmarried” (238). This truth, stated so flatly, irritates Olive. Her greatest concern is now that the Burrages will “take too fond a possession” of Verena (240), and she feels “a presentiment of jealousy” (240).

Olive thinks about the “social pedestal” (240) such a connection would allow Verena. However, she worries that Verena is “susceptible of deterioration” (241) in the face of being “over-indulge[d]” and “flatter[ed]” (241). Annoyed, Mrs. Burrage frightens Olive by suggesting that if Verena marries her son, she can avoid Basil Ransom. Because Verena is beautiful, she will have many suitors—the best Olive can do is to marry her off to someone “safer” (243) so she can avoid becoming “prey to adventurers, to exploiters, or to people who […] would shut her up altogether” (243).

Olive knows “there [is] a detestable wisdom in her hostess’s advice” (243). As she leaves, she admits to herself that Basil is the greater “menace” (245). When she returns to their lodging, she discovers that Verena has gone out with Basil.

Basil begs Verena to go to Central Park with him, making her “uneasy,” for he has “a peculiar effect upon her” (246). In Cambridge, the decision to go out had been hers, and there was the “pretext” of showing him the college (246).

Basil seems to have visited with the purpose of telling her he believes her ideas to be “balderdash” (246). She sees him “a scoffer of scoffers” (247) who believes “he might laugh at her all day without her taking offence” (247). He complains that if she does not go out with him, she will leave having given him “nothing but this stiff little talk in a boarding-house parlour” (248). His poverty prevents him from being able to propose to her, so the best he can hope for is to “take possession” of her for one day (248).

Verena is too “good-natured” not to appreciate that he has sacrificed a day of work for her (250). She agrees to go but wants to come home before Olive. Basil asks whether Olive is the only one who can go out. Verena’s reply—that Olive’s going out “proves that she trusts me” (252)—causes even her to be “alarmed” (252).

Once in the Park, Verena is glad she went. Her trip out with Basil is “different” from her trip with Mr. Burrage because “it was more free, more intense, more full of amusing incident and opportunity” (253). However, when Basil “joke[s] about […] the emancipation of women” (254), Verena grows “weary and sad” (254). She is put off by his “bitterness” (254) and his “aggressive and unmerciful” (254) attitude. Verena finds herself hoping “that something really bad had happened to him” (255) so she can “forgive him for so much contempt and brutality” (255).

Verena finds it “harsh, almost cruel” (255) for him to have taken her out specifically to mock her beliefs; however, she cannot help listening, for “it was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborne” (255). She stays despite feeling “anxiety” (255) over the fact that Olive must have returned home by now. Knowing she is causing Olive pain convinces Verena that this is the last time she can “ever sit by Mr. Ransom and hear him express himself in a manner that interfered so with her life” (256).

Verena tells Basil he is “the only person in this country” who feels the way he does (256), but Basil believes many people privately agree with him. He also believes that she is “made for love” (257) and that “in the presence of a man she should really care for” (257), the “false, flimsy structure” (257) of her beliefs would crumble. When Verena suggests he write down his ideas, Basil tells her he has tried to publish articles but that “editors are a mean, timorous lot” (259). Thinking of his work being rejected, Verena feels “a strange pity and sadness, a sense of injustice” (259).

Basil does not want to “destroy” women, only “save” his “own sex” (259) from “the most damnable feminisation” (260). Their “whole generation is womanised” (260), leading to “mediocrity” (260). Verena is appalled, but hides her feelings.

When Verena declares there has to be a place for women in society, Basil replies that he believes they should stay “at home” (261). Verena wonders what will happen to women who do not marry. Basil is “perfectly ready to advocate a man’s having a half a dozen wives” (261) and declares that women should spend their time “making society agreeable” (261).

Basil then asserts his displeasure that Verena is associated “with all these rantings and ravings” (262). He insists the beliefs were “imposed” on her and that she “accepted them” because of “the sweetness of [her] nature” (262). She always seeks to “please some one” (262), whether it be her parents or Olive. He claims she is but a puppet on a string.

Verena walks away and Basil follows. His comments are “far beyond what Olive could have imagined as the very worst possible” (263). When she asks if he finds women “quite inferior” (263), he agrees they are inferior “[f]or public, civic uses” (263) but not for “the realm of family life and the domestic affections” (263).

Verena refuses to let him escort her home. As she walks away, she is glad “that Mr. Ransom was on the wrong side” (266) because she would be attracted to him otherwise. Once home, she tells Olive where she was and asks what Mrs. Burrage wanted. Mrs. Burrage wants Verena to stay with her, but Verena insists she wants to return to Boston. She begs Olive, “sobbing” (266), to “take [her] away” (266).