ABSTRACT
The movement from impression to inner focus happens so easily, partly through a special effect of the narrative. Much of The Ambassadors is spent in waiting. Strether arrives in England and waits for Waymarsh, a wait which is filled by the encounter with Miss Gostrey, introducing the all too necessary ficelle who will be his accomplice, helping him draw out all of the implications of his enquiry. Arrived in Paris he will wait for Chad, a wait which guarantees him a period of reflection. People go missing: one will wait again for Chad. One will wait for Miss Gostrey: the ficelle goes missing at a crucial moment precisely so that certain questions cannot be put and explanations precipitated. Hence Strether must fall back on his own intellectual and imaginative resources. There are other periods of waiting, creating those gaps which are necessary to that accumulation of moments of awareness which will feed the inward turn. Every absence enters into the process of evaluation in which Strether shapes both the understanding of others and of himself. Hence an inner space opens where observation, impression, speculation prepare for the next stage. Hypotheses are revised; strong impressions qualify the presuppositions that may have been derived at second hand or merely from the habitual cast of mind that Woollett has provided.
