Middlemarch

The chapter is set in Rome, placed precisely: George IV still reigns, Wellington is Prime Minister, Mr. Vincy is mayor of the old corporation. Romanticism has not yet penetrated ordinary life; long-haired German artists at Rome are still a curiosity. One fine morning Will Ladislaw has just turned his back on the Belvedere Torso in the Vatican when his friend, the painter Adolf Naumann, seizes his arm: "Come here, quick! else she will have changed her pose." They pass quickly toward the hall where the reclining Ariadne (then called the Cleopatra) lies in marble. There, against a pedestal, stands a breathing blooming girl in Quakerish gray, her long cloak thrown back, one beautiful ungloved hand pillowing her cheek. She is gazing dreamily at a streak of sunlight on the floor — not looking at the sculpture, probably not thinking of it. Naumann is captivated by the antithesis: ancient marble beauty beside living beauty with "the consciousness of Christian centuries in its bosom." He wants to paint her — she should be dressed as a nun. He notices her wedding ring, wonders if the sallow old Geistlicher is her husband or her father. Will says flatly: she is married to his second cousin. "The Geistlicher?" Naumann asks. "He looks more like an uncle — a more useful sort of relation." Will grows irritated. He refuses to help Naumann approach her, and they argue about painting versus language. Will insists that "painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection" — you cannot paint a woman's voice, her breathing, her change from moment to moment. "This woman — how would you paint her voice, pray? But her voice is much diviner than anything you have seen of her." Naumann is delighted: "I see, I see. You are jealous." Will tells him not to call Mrs. Casaubon his aunt again. They almost quarrel. Left alone, Will is conscious of being irritated by ridiculously small causes, half of his own creation. He did not know what to make of the feeling, but something had happened to him with regard to her.