ay be, it does not constitute the situation. That is
there in advance, it exists in general, and the girl comes upon the
scene, like the rest of the people in the book, to illustrate it. The
subject of the book lies in their behaviour; there are no gradual
processes of change and development to be watched in their minds, it
is their action that is significant. By clever management the author
can avoid the necessity of looking inside their motives; these are
betrayed by visible and audible signs. The story proceeds in the
open, point by point; from one scene to another it shows its curve and
resolves the situation. And very ironic and pleasing and unexpected
the resolution proves. It takes everybody by surprise; no one notices
what is happening till it is over, but it begins to happen from the
start. The girl Nanda, supposably a helpless spectator, takes control
of the situation and works it out for her elders. She is the
intelligent and expert and self-possessed one of them all; they have
only to leave everything to her light manipulation, and the
awkwardness--which is theirs, not hers--is surmounted. By the time she
has displayed all her art the story is at an end; her action has
answered the question and provided the issue.

The theme of the book being what it is, an action merely, and an
action strictly limited in its scope, it requires no narrator. In a
dozen scenes or so the characters may set it forth on their own
account, and we have only to look on; nobody need stand by and
expound. The situation involves no more than a small company of
people, and there is no reason for them to straggle far, in space or
time; on the contrary, the compactness of the situation is one of its
special marks. Its point is that it belongs to a little organized
circle, a well-defined incident in their lives. And since the root of
the matter is in their behaviour, in the manner in which they meet or
fail to meet the incident, their behaviour will sufficiently express
what is in their minds; it is not as though the theme of the story lay
in some slow revulsion or displacement of mood, which it would be
necessary to understand before its issue in action could be
appreciated. What do they _do_?--that is the immediate question; what
they think and feel is a matter that is entirely implied in the
answer. Obviously that was not at all the case with Strether. The
workings of his imagination spread over far more ground, ramified
infinitely fur