This a tale of hared and jealousy and the meagre nourishment one can derive from such a diet. It is one of Henry James's best. Some say it is autobiographical, some say it is not, but it is without a doubt, unforgettable.

Justin Court was an expatriate who spent his youth in New England and his maturity in France. Now a striving artist in Paris, Amelia North a fellow American commissions him to paint a portrait without reference to an actual person or photograph. She simply wants un belle homme aged 35 from memory.Justin turns her down so then she asks him if he knows the artist Maria Helena and as it happens he knows her very well. At first Maria is sceptical but then decides to take the commission and paint from her memory the finest gentleman and the worst friend the world has ever seen.