Colm Toibin
Costa award winner and globe trotting author Colm Tóibín ponders the transgressions of Serena Merle
At the very end of The Portrait Of A Lady, Mrs Touchett asks Isabel Archer about Madame Merle, mysterious Madame Merle. And she says to her, “Do you still like Serena Merle, she went on." And Isabel replies, “Not as I once did. But it doesn’t matter, for she’s going to America.” And then this reply by Mrs Touchett gives me infinite pleasure. Mrs Touchett simply, you can imagine her looking at Isabel and saying, “To America? She must have done something very bad.”
