Confrontation in the Alps — Washington Square

For six months abroad Dr. Sloper never mentions Morris, partly by design and partly because art and antiquity occupy him. Catherine remains docile on the road, silent at sights, never complaining, never sighing audibly, and her father compares her intelligence to a bundle of shawls except that she stays reliably in the carriage. He assumes she writes to Morris, but her letters travel inside Mrs. Penniman's packets, so he unknowingly delivers the correspondence he condemns. Catherine once would have warned him; now a sore spot from his earlier contempt keeps her silent. Late one August day in a wild Alpine valley they lose their path while crossing a pass. As cold red light fills the gorge and her father wanders off to a height, Catherine sits alone thinking Morris seems very far away.

When he returns he asks abruptly whether she has given him up; she answers no. He inquires about the letters, about twice a month, then says in a low voice that he is very angry. In that desolate place he admits he has been raging inwardly for six months and warns he is not a good man, smooth outside but passionate and hard within. He asks whether she would like to be left there to starve and says that is how Morris will leave her. For the first time Catherine answers with force that he ought not to say such things because they are not true. He turns toward the carriage and she follows, hearts beating, until they regain the road in near dark.

Afterward they barely speak for days, yet the scene does not destroy her feeling for him; she files his confession as another subtlety of a clever man. He waits six months more, then on their last night in Liverpool, after dinner in a musty sitting-room, he asks what she means to do about Townsend when they reach home. She says they will probably marry and that Morris still writes beautifully about marriage among other topics. Her father requests definite notice before she leaves him, mocks his own loss of his only child, and says he has fattened the sheep for Morris before he kills it by taking her abroad. Catherine turns to the blank door while he sends her to bed. The European experiment meant to erase Morris has hardened Catherine's secrecy and shown her the full force of her father's contempt.