Story summary
Resumo de Confiança
- 8 min de leitura
- 10 parts
- Áudio em breve
A young American sketches a stranger in Siena, then finds that his close friend hopes to marry her.
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Confiança em resumo
Resumo: 8 min de leitura
- Tempo de leitura
- Cerca de 4 h 55 min3 h 50 min fast, 5 h 50 min slow
- Duração
- 69.700 palavras
- Nível na biblioteca
- Médio longer sentences, everyday words
- Primeira publicação
- 1879by Henry James
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo leva para ler os clássicos · Atualizado
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Confiança in short
Confidence follows a simple chain of events with complicated results. A young man sketches a girl in Siena and meets her again at Baden, where his best friend asks him to judge her. His judgment is wrong, his friend runs away, and years pass before the three meet again in Paris.
What Confiança is about
What do you do when a stranger you sketched on a terrace in Siena walks back into your life as the woman your best friend hopes to marry? That is the question Bernard Longueville faces in Confidence, a comic novel of manners by Henry James.
Bernard, clever and idle, is asked by his rich, earnest friend Gordon Wright to study Angela Vivian as if she were an experiment. You will meet five vivid talkers, follow a friendship under strain, and see why careful judgment and honest love so often disagree.
Para quem é. This book will delight readers who love sharp conversation, comedy of manners and the shifting loyalties of friends. If you enjoy European travel and love stories driven by character, you will feel at home.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A sketch in Siena starts everything
Bernard Longueville, a young American of leisure, lingers in Siena. He meant to stay two days and has stayed five. He is clever, handsome and good company.
On his last morning he sketches a quiet terrace by the city wall. A young woman in a gray dress with a crimson petticoat leans on the parapet and gazes at the hills. Bernard decides she improves his picture, so he adds her and asks her to stay still for five minutes. She answers him sharply and teases him for taking such a liberty.
When he offers the sketch to her mother, the daughter argues that giving it away makes things worse. The mother accepts it with many thanks and calls her daughter strange, clever and, above all, good. At Baden, Angela will not acknowledge the meeting, and Bernard follows her wishes.
A moment of boldness can quietly set the terms for years to come.
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A friend asks for an unusual favor
Two months later Bernard is in Venice, still saying he will leave Italy.
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Baden brings the Vivians back
At the Kursaal in Baden-Baden, Bernard finds Gordon sitting beside two ladies.
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Gordon confesses his puzzle and his rejection
On a ramble through the forest, Gordon tells Bernard the whole story.
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Bernard's verdict and Gordon's sudden flight
With Gordon gone, Bernard sees much of Angela.
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Years apart and a surprising marriage
Bernard travels east for more than two years and enjoys it less than he expects.
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A beach in Normandy and a declaration in Paris
Bernard wanders along the Normandy coast to a little seaside resort.
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Judging people is harder than it looks
The center of the book is a failure of judgment.
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Friendship, loyalty and what we owe each other
The second theme is the bond between two very different men.
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A comedy told through talk
James tells the story through conversation.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Bernard Longueville A clever, charming American with no profession, who enjoys watching others and has trouble reading his own heart.
- Gordon Wright Bernard's rich, honest friend, a patron of science, who wants to marry with his eyes open and cannot read the woman he loves.
- Angela Vivian A beautiful, proud and quick-witted young woman who resists being studied and hides her feelings behind teasing.
- Mrs. Vivian Angela's anxious, scrupulous mother, who loves her daughter deeply and worries about money, propriety and the right marriage.
- Blanche Evers A pretty young flirt who chatters constantly and craves an audience, and who may be more serious than she seems.
- Captain Lovelock A handsome English gambler with an auburn beard and no money, who follows Blanche wherever she goes.
How it ends (spoiler)
Bernard and Angela marry quietly in Paris. Angela's clever efforts succeed, and Gordon and Blanche reconcile, since each had loved the other all along. Captain Lovelock goes back to England. Gordon and Blanche travel to Egypt for a voyage up the Nile, and Gordon writes Bernard the longest letter he has ever sent, which reaches Bernard in the middle of his honeymoon.
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Dúvidas sobre Confiança
What is Confidence by Henry James about?
It follows Bernard Longueville, who is asked by his friend Gordon Wright to study Angela Vivian, the woman Gordon hopes to marry. Bernard's judgment, and his own growing feelings, complicate the friendship across several years and countries.
Who are the main characters in Confidence?
The main figures are Bernard Longueville, his friend Gordon Wright, Angela Vivian and her mother, and a talkative young woman named Blanche Evers. Captain Lovelock, an English gambler who admires Blanche, plays a smaller but important role.
Where is Confidence set?
The story moves from Siena in Italy to Baden-Baden in Germany, then to New York, a Normandy beach resort and Paris. Each place gives a different mood, from quiet terraces to the lively gaming gardens of the spa town.
When was Confidence written and is it a true story?
Henry James wrote it in the late 1870s as a work of fiction. The people and events are invented, though James draws on his own observation of Americans traveling and living in Europe.
What is the main message of Confidence?
The book suggests that trust in one's own judgment can mislead, and that reasoning about people is no substitute for understanding them. It shows that honest feeling and plain speech are the surest guides in friendship and love.
Cite esta edição
James, Henry. Confidence. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/confidence.
James, H. (2026). Confidence. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/confidence (Original work published 1879)
James, Henry. Confidence. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/confidence.
@book{james2026confidence,
author = {James, Henry},
title = {Confidence},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/confidence},
note = {First published 1879}
}
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