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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"Roderick Hudson"

He obeyed, and
for some moments stood gazing. Roderick, with his back turned, stood
before an extemporized pedestal, ardently shaping a formless mass
of clay. Before him sat Christina Light, in a white dress, with her
shoulders bare, her magnificent hair twisted into a classic coil, and
her head admirably poised. Meeting Rowland's gaze, she smiled a little,
only with her deep gray eyes, without moving. She looked divinely
beautiful.



CHAPTER V. Christina
The brilliant Roman winter came round again, and Rowland enjoyed it,
in a certain way, more deeply than before. He grew at last to feel that
sense of equal possession, of intellectual nearness, which it belongs
to the peculiar magic of the ancient city to infuse into minds of a
cast that she never would have produced. He became passionately,
unreasoningly fond of all Roman sights and sensations, and to breathe
the Roman atmosphere began to seem a needful condition of being. He
could not have defined and explained the nature of his great love, nor
have made up the sum of it by the addition of his calculable pleasures.


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