Madame de Mauves

In this story James' international theme takes a tragic and even perverse turn, as the marriage of a somewhat puritanical American woman and an easy-living, pagan Frenchman leads to despair and suicide. Whether an affair between Longmore and Euphemia (suggested by the amoral Richard and his equally cynical sister Madame de Clairin) would have made any difference is doubtful, but things couldn't have turned out much worse under any circumstances. Longmore is somewhat typical of James' male protagonists, hesitant about taking action and entering fully into life. Even at the end of the story he can't decide whether to return to Euphemia. This paralysis of the will affects many of James' central characters, but Longmore is extreme even by Jamesian standards in his uncertainty and indecision. The final lesson seems to be that American idealism and European sophistication can make for a dangerous, even lethal mixture. James would write many more fictions about the clash of America and Europe, leading to the ultimate synthesis in The Golden Bowl. In that much later novel, a marriage similar to the one in Madame de Mauves is saved by the kind of careful diplomacy that neither spouse in the earlier story is capable of.