Chapter XXI
Hire facounde eke full womanly and plain,
No contrefeted termes had she
To semen wise.
CHAUCER.
It was in that way Dorothea came to be sobbing as soon
as she was securely alone. But she was presently roused by
a knock at the door, which made her hastily dry her eyes
before saying, "Come in." Tantripp had brought a card, and
said that there was a gentleman waiting in the lobby. The
courier had told him that only Mrs. Casaubon was at home,
but he said he was a relation of Mr. Casaubon's: would she
see him?
"Yes," said Dorothea, without pause; "show him into the
salon." Her chief impressions about young Ladislaw were that
when she had seen him at Lowick she had been made aware of
Mr. Casaubon's generosity towards him, and also that she had
been interested in his own hesitation about his career. She
was alive to anything that gave her an opportunity for
active sympathy, and at this moment it seemed as if the
visit had come to shake her out of her self-absorbed
discontent — to remind her of her husband's goodness, and
make her feel that she had now the right to be his helpmate
in all kind deeds. She waited a minute or two, but when she
passed into the next room there were just signs enough that
she had been crying to make her open face look more youthful
and appealing than usual. She met Ladislaw with that
exquisite smile of good-will which is unmixed with vanity,
and held out her hand to him. He was the elder by several
years, but at that
moment he looked much the younger,
for his transparent complexion flushed suddenly, and he
spoke with a shyness extremely unlike the ready indifference
of his manner with his male companion, while Dorothea became
all the calmer with a wondering desire to put him at ease.
"I was not aware that you and Mr. Casaubon were in Rome,
until this morning, when I saw you in the Vatican Museum,"
he said. "I knew you at once — but — I mean, that I concluded
Mr. Casaubon's address would be found at the Poste Restante,
and I was anxious to pay my respects to him and you as early
as possible."
"Pray sit down. He IS not here now, but he will be glad
to hear of you, I am sure," said Dorothea, seating herself
unthinkingly between the fire and the light of the tall
window, and pointing to a chair opposite, with the quietude
of a benignant matron. The signs of girlish sorrow in her
face were only the more striking. "Mr. Casaubon is much
engaged; but you will leave your address — will you not? — and
he will write to you."
"You are very good," said Ladislaw, beginning to lose
his diffidence in the interest with which he was observing
the signs of weeping which had altered her face. " My
address is on my card. But if you will allow me I will call
again to-morrow at an hour when Mr. Casaubon is likely to be
at home."
"He goes to read in the Library of the Vatican every
day, and you can hardly see him except by an appointment.
Especially now. We are about to leave Rome, and he is very
busy. He is usually away almost from breakfast till dinner.
But I am sure he will wish you to dine with us."
Will Ladislaw was struck mute for a few moments. He had
never been fond of Mr. Casaubon, and if it had not been for
the sense of obligation, would have laughed at him as a Bat
of erudition. But the idea of this dried-up pedant, this
elaborator of small explanations about as important as the
surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor's back
chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to
marry him, and then passing his honeymoon away from her,
groping
after his mouldy futilities (Will was given to
hyperbole) — this sudden picture stirred him with a sort of
comic disgust: he was divided between the impulse to laugh
aloud and the equally unseasonable impulse to burst into
scornful invective.
For an instant he felt that the struggle, was causing a
queer contortion of his mobile features, but with a good
effort he resolved it into nothing more offensive than a
merry smile.
Dorothea wondered; but the smile was irresistible, and
shone back from her face too. Will Ladislaw's smile was
delightful, unless you were angry with him beforehand: it
was a gush of inward light illuminating the transparent skin
as well as the eyes, and playing about every curve and line
as if some Ariel were touching them with a new charm, and
banishing forever the traces of moodiness. The reflection
of that smile could not but have a little merriment in it
too, even under dark eyelashes still moist, as Dorothea said
inquiringly, "Something amuses you?"
"Yes," said Will, quick in finding resources. "I am
thinking of the sort of figure I cut the first time I saw
you, when you annihilated my poor sketch with your
criticism."
"My criticism?" said Dorothea, wondering still more.
"Surely not. I always feel particularly ignorant about
painting."
"I suspected you of knowing so much, that you knew how
to say just what was most cutting. You said — I dare say you
don't remember it as I do — that the relation of my sketch to
nature was quite hidden from you. At least, you implied
that." Will could laugh now as well as smile.
"That was really my ignorance," said Dorothea, admiring
Will's good-humor. "I must have said so only because I
never could see any beauty in the pictures which my uncle
told me all judges thought very fine. And I have gone about
with just the same ignorance in Rome. There are
comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At
first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with
frescos, or with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe — like a
child present at great ceremonies where there are grand
robes and processions; I feel myself in the presence of some
higher life than
my own. But when I begin to examine
the pictures one by on the life goes out of them, or else is
something violent and strange to me. It must be my own
dulness. I am seeing so much all at once, and not
understanding half of it. That always makes one feel
stupid. It is painful to be told that anything is very fine
and not be able to feel that it is fine — something like
being blind, while people talk of the sky."
"Oh, there is a great deal in the feeling for art which
must be acquired," said Will. (It was impossible now to
doubt the directness of Dorothea's confession.) " Art is an
old language with a great many artificial affected styles,
and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing
them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of all
sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my
enjoyment to pieces I should find it made up of many
different threads. There is something in daubing a little
one's self, and having an idea of the process."
"You mean perhaps to be a painter?" said Dorothea, with
a new direction of interest. "You mean to make painting
your profession? Mr. Casaubon will like to hear that you
have chosen a profession."
"No, oh no," said Will, with some coldness. "I have
quite made up my mind against it. It is too one-sided a
life. I have been seeing a great deal of the German
artists here: I travelled from Frankfort with one of them.
Some are fine, even brilliant fellows — but I should not
like to get into their way of looking at the world entirely
from the studio point of view."
"That I can understand," said Dorothea, cordially. "And
in Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are
more wanted in the world than pictures. But if you have a
genius for painting, would it not be right to take that as
a guide? Perhaps you might do better things than these — or
different, so that there might not be so many pictures
almost all alike in the same place."
There was no mistaking this simplicity, and Will was won
by it into frankness. "A man must have a very rare genius
to make changes of that sort. I am afraid mine would not
carry me even to the pitch of doing well what has been done
already, at least not so well as to make it worth
while. And I should never succeed in anything by dint of
drudgery. If things don't come easily to me I never get
them."
"I have heard Mr. Casaubon say that he regrets your want
of patience," said Dorothea, gently. She was rather
shocked at this mode of taking all life as a holiday.
"Yes, I know Mr. Casaubon's opinion. He and I differ."
The slight streak of contempt in this hasty reply
offended Dorothea. She was all the more susceptible about
Mr. Casaubon because of her morning's trouble.
"Certainly you differ," she said, rather proudly. "I
did not think of comparing you: such power of persevering
devoted labor as Mr. Casaubon's is not common."
Will saw that she was offended, but this only gave an
additional impulse to the new irritation of his latent
dislike towards Mr. Casaubon. It was too intolerable that
Dorothea should be worshipping this husband: such weakness
in a woman is pleasant to no man but the husband in
question. Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out
of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such
killing is no murder.
"No, indeed," he answered, promptly. "And therefore it
is a pity that it should be thrown away, as so much English
scholarship is, for want of knowing what is being done by
the rest of the world. If Mr. Casaubon read German he
would save himself a great deal of trouble."
"I do not understand you," said Dorothea, startled and
anxious.
"I merely mean," said Will, in an offhand way, "that the
Germans have taken the lead in historical inquiries, and
they laugh at results which are got by groping about in
woods with a pocket-compass while they have made good
roads. When I was with Mr. Casaubon I saw that he deafened
himself in that direction: it was almost against his will
that he read a Latin treatise written by a German. I was
very sorry."
Will only thought of giving a good pinch that would
annihilate that vaunted laboriousness, and was unable to
imagine the mode in which Dorothea would be wounded. Young
Mr.
Ladislaw was not at all deep himself in German
writers; but very little achievement is required in order to
pity another man's shortcomings.
Poor Dorothea felt a pang at the thought that the labor
of her husband's life might be void, which left her no
energy to spare for the question whether this young relative
who was so much obliged to him ought not to have repressed
his observation. She did not even speak, but sat looking at
her hands, absorbed in the piteousness of that thought.
Will, however, having given that annihilating pinch, was
rather ashamed, imagining from Dorothea's silence that he
had offended her still more; and having also a conscience
about plucking the tail-feathers from a benefactor.
"I regretted it especially," he resumed, taking the
usual course from detraction to insincere eulogy, " because
of my gratitude and respect towards my cousin. It would not
signify so much in a man whose talents and character were
less distinguished."
Dorothea raised her eyes, brighter than usual with
excited feeling, and said in her saddest recitative, "How I
wish I had learned German when I was at Lausanne! There
were plenty of German teachers. But now I can be of no
use."
There was a new light, but still a mysterious light, for
Will in Dorothea's last words. The question how she had
come to accept Mr. Casaubon — which he had dismissed when he
first saw her by saying that she must be disagreeable in
spite of appearances — was not now to be answered on any such
short and easy method. Whatever else she might be, she was
not disagreeable. She was not coldly clever and indirectly
satirical, but adorably simple and full of feeling. She was
an angel beguiled. It would be a unique delight to wait and
watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and
soul came forth so directly and ingenuously. The AEolian
harp again came into his mind.
She must have made some original romance for herself in
this marriage. And if Mr. Casaubon had been a dragon who
had carried her off to his lair with his talons simply and
without legal forms, it would have been an unavoidable feat
of heroism to release her and fall at her feet. But he
was something more unmanageable than a dragon: he was a
benefactor with collective society at his back, and he was
at that moment entering the room in all the unimpeachable
correctness of his demeanor, while Dorothea was looking
animated with a newly roused alarm and regret, and Will was
looking animated with his admiring speculation about her
feelings.
Mr. Casaubon felt a surprise which was quite unmixed
with pleasure, but he did not swerve from his usual
politeness of greeting, when Will rose and explained his
presence. Mr. Casaubon was less happy than usual, and this
perhaps made him look all the dimmer and more faded; else,
the effect might easily have been produced by the contrast
of his young cousin's appearance. The first impression on
seeing Will was one of sunny brightness, which added to the
uncertainty of his changing expression. Surely, his very
features changed their form, his jaw looked sometimes large
and sometimes small; and the little ripple in his nose was a
preparation for metamorphosis. When he turned his head
quickly his hair seemed to shake out light, and some persons
thought they saw decided genius in this coruscation. Mr.
Casaubon, on the contrary, stood rayless.
As Dorothea's eyes were turned anxiously on her husband
she was perhaps not insensible to the contrast, but it was
only mingled with other causes in making her more conscious
of that new alarm on his behalf which was the first stirring
of a pitying tenderness fed by the realities of his lot and
not by her own dreams. Yet it was a source of greater
freedom to her that Will was there; his young equality was
agreeable, and also perhaps his openness to conviction. She
felt an immense need of some one to speak to, and she had
never before seen any one who seemed so quick and pliable,
so likely to understand everything.
Mr. Casaubon gravely hoped that Will was passing his
time profitably as well as pleasantly in Rome — had thought
his intention was to remain in South Germany — but begged him
to come and dine to-morrow, when he could converse more at
large: at present he was somewhat weary. Ladislaw
under
stood, and accepting the invitation immediately
took his leave.
Dorothea's eyes followed her husband anxiously, while he
sank down wearily at the end of a sofa, and resting his
elbow supported his head and looked on the floor. A little
flushed, and with bright eyes, she seated herself beside
him, and said —
"Forgive me for speaking so hastily to you this morning.
I was wrong. I fear I hurt you and made the day more
burdensome."
"I am glad that you feel that, my dear," said Mr.
Casaubon. He spoke quietly and bowed. his head a little,
but there was still an uneasy feeling in his eyes as he
looked at her.
"But you do forgive me?" said Dorothea, with a quick
sob. In her need for some manifestation of feeling she was
ready to exaggerate her own fault. Would not love see
returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss
it?
"My dear Dorothea — `who with repentance is not
satisfied, is not of heaven nor earth:' — you do not think me
worthy to be banished by that severe sentence," said Mr.
Casaubon, exerting himself to make a strong statement, and
also to smile faintly.
Dorothea was silent, but a tear which had come up with
the sob would insist on falling.
"You are excited, my dear.. And I also am feeling some
unpleasant consequences of too much mental disturbance,"
said Mr. Casaubon. In fact, he had it in his thought to
tell her that she ought not to have received young Ladislaw
in his absence: but he abstained, partly from the sense that
it would be ungracious to bring a new complaint in the
moment of her penitent acknowledgment, partly because he
wanted to avoid further agitation of himself by speech, and
partly because he was too proud to betray that jealousy of
disposition which was not so exhausted on his scholarly
compeers that there was none to spare in other directions.
There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it
is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp
despondency of uneasy egoism.
"I think it is time for us to dress," he added, looking
at his watch. They both rose, and there was never any
further allusion between them to what had passed on this
day.
But Dorothea remembered it to the last with the
vividness with which we all remember epochs in our
experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new
motive is born. Today she had begun to see that she had
been under a wild illusion in expecting a response to her
feeling from Mr. Casaubon, and she had felt the waking of a
presentiment that there might be a sad consciousness in his
life which made as great a need on his side as on her own.
We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the
world as an udder to feed our supreme selves: Dorothea had
early begun to emerge from that stupidity, but yet it had
been easier to her to imagine how she would devote herself
to Mr. Casaubon, and become wise and strong in his strength
and wisdom, than to conceive with that distinctness which is
no longer reflection but feeling — an idea wrought back to
the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects — that
he had an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and
shadows must always fall with a certain difference.