III

Now, as the sun was setting, the clouds had broken into little pink
bubbles, lying idly here and there upon the sky. Higher, near the top of
the window, they were large pink cushions, three fat ones, lying
sedately against the blue. During three months now Henry Fitzgeorge
Strether had been confronted with the new scene, the new urgency on his
part to respond to it. At first he had refused absolutely to make any
response; behind him, around him, above him, below him, were still the
old conditions; but they were the old conditions viewed, for some reason
unknown to him, at a distance, and at a distance that was ever
increasing. With every day something here in this new and preposterous
world struck his attention, and with every fresh lure was he drawn more
certainly from his old consciousness. At first he had simply rebelled;
then, very slowly, his curiosity had begun to stir. It had stirred at
first through food and touch; very pleasant this, very pleasant that.

Milk, sleep, light things that he could hold very tightly with his
hands. Now, upon this March afternoon, he watched the pink clouds with a
more intent gaze than he had given to them before. Their colour and
shape bore some reference to the life that he had left. They were "like"
a little to those other things. There, too, shadowed against the wall,
was his Friend, his Friend, now the last link with everything that he
knew.

At first, during the first week, he had demanded again and again to be
taken back, and always he had been told to wait, to wait and see what
was going to happen. So long as his Friend was there, he knew that he
was not completely abandoned, and that this was only a temporary
business, with its strange limiting circumstances, the way that one was