The Bostonians

Basil lets himself into the house the next day but finds everyone out except Miss Birdseye, who is sitting on the veranda looking at the bay. Basil helps her with her medicine. Miss Birdseye believes Basil is “a great addition” to their cause (282). Though uncomfortable lying, Basil lets her believe this rather than “give a shock to her optimism” (283).

Olive and Verena return, and Olive looks at him with “horror” (283). Verena blushes and asks why he is there. She also reminds Olive that Basil knew they were there because of a letter she wrote him.

Basil intends to stay for a month. Olive runs into the house, and Basil asks Verena if he can speak with her alone. He can see that she is “afraid of him” (285) and takes this as encouragement. When he implores her not to “spoil” his “poor little holiday” (286), she agrees to go to the garden with him. She learns that his article, conveying “a good many of the opinions” he shared with her in New York (287), was accepted for publication. He now believes in himself and his future.

Finding Olive in her room, Verena falls to her knees and confesses that Basil visited her in Cambridge. Olive is distraught that Verena “deceived” her (289). Verena tells her that Basil has asked her to marry him and that he has come to Cape Cod to try to make her “know him better” (289). When Olive suggests Verena leave on the next train, Verena insists leaving will not help. Olive is worried that Verena will fall in love with him; Verena assures her she cannot love a man who wants her to give up her work. Olive begs Verena not to “desert” her, and Verena begs Olive for “help” (291).

Basil spends a month in Marmion, to the frustration of Olive, who believed Verena was over him. Olive’s consolation is that Verena is direct with her about her feelings—though Verena does not want to marry Basil, whose ideas are “unspeakably false and horrible” (292), she still likes him “better than any gentleman” she has seen (292). Olive fears that Verena is “not sincere” (293) but that the “treachery was as yet unwitting” (293).

Verena concedes that she and Basil would “be terribly poor” (294); Olive does not know how a man can promise to support a woman based on one article that has yet to be published. She fears that Basil does not love Verena, and that he seeks to destroy her voice. She rails against the fact that “[a] man had only to whistle for her” (295), and Verena would “kneel at his feet” (295). She knows she cannot force Verena not to marry Basil without harming their friendship. Had Olive known earlier that Verena and Basil had seen each other in Cambridge, she would have refused to bring her to New York.

Basil now demands that Verena give him an hour a day to walk together in the gardens. He avoids Olive and does not go back to the house.

Verena has not told Olive that what Basil said to her in New York has “sunk into her soul and worked and fermented there” (299). She now sees “herself afresh” (299), and she “like[s] herself better than in the old exaggerated glamour of the lecture-lamps” (299). Though deeply in love with Basil, she struggles between “her desire to keep on pleasing others” (300) and the new desire to “please herself” (300). She feels sorry for Olive but also believes her “grasp too pinching, too terrible” (301).

The quickness with which she abandons her cause shows Basil that she was not meant “to spend half her life ranting (no matter how prettily) in public” (302). Verena wonders why she has this gift, as it seems “a great waste, a violation of nature” (303) not to use it. Basil assures her that she will use it with him and her friends. The narrator notes that “[i]t is to be feared […] that Verena was easily satisfied” (304).

When Verena regrets hurting Olive, Basil grows “angry” (304), asking why the feelings of “a morbid old maid” (304) matter more than his. He decides he owes Olive nothing because “[c]hivalry was forbearance and generosity with regard to the weak; and there was nothing weak about Miss Olive” (305).

Verena is to speak at the Boston Music Hall on a tour called “A Woman’s Reason” (305). Basil speaks of it “with ridicule” (305), for “the dearest wish of his heart” (306) is to “squelch” her career (306).

One day Dr. Prance summons them because Miss Birdseye is dying and wants to see them. When they arrive, Verena cries, thinking of Miss Birdseye’s sacrifices. Miss Birdseye is delighted that Verena has made Basil sympathize with their cause, for “to bring round a Southerner” (309) gives her hope.

Miss Birdseye looks back on the years and sees progress. She believes we “mustn’t think there’s no progress” just because we cannot see it (310). In the presence of Miss Birdseye’s “nobleness” (310), Verena feels a “wave of contrition, of shame” (310). Basil quietly leaves.

Basil sees Dr. Prance the next morning and learns that Miss Birdseye passed away. She is buried at the cemetery in Marmion, which has a view of the bay she loved.

Verena sends Basil a note telling him she cannot see him because she “wishe[s] to be very quiet and think things over” (312). She suggests he leave for a few days, and he reluctantly does. Upon his return, she tells him that she cannot marry him.

Olive goes for a walk that afternoon, and it is “the saddest, the most wounding [day] of her life” (316). She feels Verena is “not to be trusted for an hour” (316). Though the night before, Verena told Olive she wanted ten minutes with Basil to reject his proposal, Olive knows Verena will spend the entire day with Basil because they hired a boat. She sees Verena “as the victim of an atrocious spell” (317) and blames Basil. Her two years with Verena have “rested on an illusion” (319): She knows that Verena has meant more to her than she has to Verena and that Verena’s enthusiasm was the result of her being “sympathetic and young” (319).

When Olive returns, Verena is sitting in the dark. Olive senses “shame for her weakness” (321). She sits with Verena in silence, holding her hand. In the morning, Basil visits to see Verena but is surprised when Olive tells him Verena has left. Enjoying his discomfort, she refuses to tell him where Verena has gone. Basil promises to find her, and Olive laughs.

Mrs. Luna receives Basil at Olive’s house. She is annoyed that he has not visited her since Olive was in New York. He tells her she wrote so many letters as to be “crushing” and that “when a man’s crushed, it’s all over” (324). Mrs. Luna informs him that she is returning to Europe and that she is glad she will never see him again.

Basil wants her to tell him where Verena is, but Mrs. Luna does not know because Olive has “hidden her away” (326). Mrs. Luna believes that despite his flaws, Basil “deserved a better fate than to be jilted and thrown over by a girl of that class” (326). It occurs to her that with her upcoming Music Hall engagement, which has been advertised all over Boston, Verena has reached such a level of success that Basil may seem like “very small game” (327). If Verena has “cast him off” (327), Mrs. Luna should “hold on” (327). She tells him that maybe she will not go to Europe after all.

Mr. Pardon enters. He also wants to know where Verena is, for people who read his newspaper are curious to hear more about her. He is delighted when Mrs. Luna expresses distaste for the event, for a “protest from this house would be a charming note” for the paper (330). The three discuss the fact that Olive has made sure nobody knows where Verena will be until right before the speech. Mr. Pardon informs them that “[e]very seat in the house is sold” (331). When he asks Mrs. Luna whether she believes Verena is a “genius” (331), Mrs. Luna, irritated that Basil is still interested in Verena, says that Verena is “a vulgar idiot” (332).

As he walks around Boston waiting for the speech to begin, Basil sees Verena “immensely advertised” (333). He buys a ticket and goes inside. Mrs. Farrinder and the Burrages sit in a row of chairs for Verena’s “sponsors and patrons” (334). Basil finds the photographs of Verena sold by vendors to be tasteless “puffery” (335).

He leaves the great room and finds himself in a hallway. In front of one of the doors is a policeman, and Basil intuits that Olive hired the officer to keep him away. He believes Verena will not go on stage because she senses he is there. When Basil gives the officer his card so he can be presented to Verena, the officer confirms that he is “the very man [Olive] wants to keep out” (337).

The officer notices that the organ music has been playing for too long and that the speech is delayed. Basil is certain that Verena has sent someone to keep the music going. The only reason he can imagine Verena delaying is that she knows he is there.

They hear people calling for Verena. Mr. Pardon appears, wondering why she is taking so long. They then hear applause, but it is only in response to Dr. Tarrant announcing Verena will be out soon. Olive’s agent, Mr. Filer, attempts to force his way into their room, but Olive and Verena have locked themselves inside. Dr. Tarrant reports Verena is just nervous and will be out in a few minutes.

Verena opens the door: she has seen Basil in the audience and wants to speak with him. Inside the room, Olive has buried her head in Mrs. Tarrant’s lap. Verena’s voice seems to beg Basil “to spare her” (343) because “so long as he should protest she was submissive” (343).

Basil asks her to go away with him, and Verena pleads with him to leave. Basil refuses to let her go on stage because those in the room care about her only “to gape and grin and babble” (343). He claims she is his and “not theirs” (343). When Mr. Filer protests that “[t]he city of Boston is under this roof” (343), Basil retorts, “The city of Boston be damned!” (343). Mrs. Tarrant says Basil is selfish, and Basil does not deny it.

When Verena asks if they can give people their money back, Mrs. Tarrant and Olive are distraught. Olive begs Basil to “[l]et her appear this once, just this once” (344), but Basil again refuses. Olive will “do anything” (345) if Basil will let Verena go out.

Alone with Basil, Verena says she was ready to speak until he arrived. She wants him to leave so she can perform; after that, she will do what he wants. It seems “loyalty to her cause” (346) has “fallen from her as soon as she felt him near” (346).

He refuses. When he wraps a cloak around her, telling her they are going to take the train to New York and be married the next day, she asks that he let her “soothe” the crowd (347). He tells her to keep her “soothing words” for him (347).

Outside the room, Mrs. Tarrant sobs. Verena tells her she “can’t help it” (348). Olive’s expression is “a thing to remain with [Basil] forever” (348)—it is as if she would have met death “like the heroine that she was” (348). When Mrs. Farrinder chastises Olive on her way out, Olive rushes by to speak on the platform, “offering herself to be trampled to death and torn to pieces” (348). Verena cries out for Olive, but Basil forces her away, concealing her face with the cloak. Olive quiets the crowd into a “respectful hush” (349), and Basil is “relieved” that “even when exasperated, a Boston audience is not ungenerous” (349). Verena says she is “glad” (349), but she is crying under her hood, tears that “were not the last she was destined to shed” (350).