Beltraffio: Henry James' Secrecy

“The Author of Beltraffio” is one of roughly a dozen stories Henry James wrote about secrets and mysteries. Each of these stories, written in the 1880s and 1890s, concerns the relationship between a famous writer and his sycophantic follower or followers; frequently the story is told in the first person by a disciple of the famous writer. Often this disciple makes an attempt, inevitably frustrated, to penetrate some obscurity surrounding the great writer—to trace his elaborate narrative method, referred to as “the figure in the carpet” or dig out his old love letters. These frustrated attempts pique the reader's curiosity as much if not more than the disciple's; George Corvick of “The Figure in the Carpet” makes an undisclosed but momentous discovery—writes home, “Eureka. Immense”— and then dies before revealing the discovery to the reader. His wife, who says she knows, won't tell. Other narrators allude to people and events in such a way as perpetually to perplex the reader; the narrator of “The Author of Beltraffio,” for instance, has the irksome habit of telling us that the author, Mark Ambient, is so well known that there's no need to describe him. Thus, all of these narratives involving famous writers and their followers seek skillfully to conceal rather than reveal tantalizing mysteries; James seems to want to arouse his reader's curiosity only in order to frustrate it.

“The Author of Beltraffio” deals with several strange riddles: a novel, Beltraffio, whose name suggests “beautiful intrigue” or “beautiful betrayal”1 and a few mysterious characters. The most striking of these characters is the author's small son, who dies in a perversely glamorous way. What is this novel about and what is this son about, the reader wonders at the end of the story. The novel, Beltraffio, has so-called “scandalous” and “impossible” ideas—but we never find out what these ideas are; we are only told that the book