Middlemarch Ch. 20: The Honeymoon's Bitter

Summary

Two hours before Naumann sees her at the Vatican, Dorothea sobs alone in her Via Sistina boudoir while Casaubon stays at the library. She cannot shape a grievance; she accuses herself of spiritual poverty. She married for duty, expected his mind to tower above hers, and meets Rome as visible history: ruins, basilicas, and colossi in a sordid present, St. Peter's red drapery spreading like a disease of the retina. Bright tourists picnic on the past; she has no defense and drives to the Campagna to escape the masquerade of ages. Tantripp and the courier have shown her galleries and ruins, but without knowledge that breathes a soul into history Rome jars her like an electric shock.

Casaubon remains learned; his chronology still works. Yet the light has changed: you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. Courtship treated small samples as guarantees; marriage concentrates expectation on the present, and she feels she is exploring an enclosed basin. What was fresh to her is worn out to him; large vistas in his mind are anterooms leading nowhere. He offers measured courtesy at sights; she asks if he cares, and he cites cognoscenti on Raphael, Cupid and Psyche, and fish-deities she once hoped to understand from the same high ground. She would have kissed his coat-sleeve; he reaches her a chair instead.

At breakfast Casaubon speaks of seeing Rome as a bride and living henceforth as a happy wife. She tries cheer, then begs him to sift his notes and begin the book that would make his knowledge useful to the world. She ends in tears offering to write to his dictation. He flushes and delivers a speech about ignorant onlookers and scrupulous explorers, seeing her as a spy on his unfinished labor. Both are shocked. On a wedding journey meant to isolate them as each other's world, small explosions feel like catastrophe.

Neither can speak again; Dorothea drives with him to the Vatican in silence and wanders the museum listlessly until Naumann sees her brooding by the marble. Eliot notes how ordinary this marital disillusion is, yet how confounding on a honeymoon. Dorothea's reaching toward fullest truth still survives the anger: there is clearly something better than despondency ahead.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Naming the Light Change

The same partner can remain competent while the marriage feels smaller because courtship and continuity run on different clocks. Dorothea meets a learned Casaubon in Rome but feels trapped in an enclosed basin while he offers proverbs about happy wives.

Before you blame your character for discontent, ask whether the light changed after the door-sill, not whether you failed to appreciate enough.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Dorothea Brooke

She sobs in the Via Sistina while he stays at the library, and she cannot shape a grievance, so she calls herself spiritually poor. The marriage she chose as duty has met an ordinary afternoon. Self-blame protects the ideal a little longer. If the fault is her soul, the scholar can remain large.

Continue this thoughtThe Lamp-Holder Fantasy

Coming Up in Chapter 21

Will Ladislaw calls while Casaubon is away. Dorothea, still marked by tears, receives him with open sympathy; his smile and an offhand remark about German scholarship will shake her faith in her husband's life work..

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Chapter 20

The Honeymoon's Bitter Reality

“A child forsaken, waking suddenly, Whose gaze afeard on all things round doth rove, And seeth only that it cannot see The meeting eyes of love.” Two hours later, Dorothea was seated in an inner room or boudoir of a handsome apartment in the Via Sistina. I am sorry to add that she was sobbing bitterly, with such abandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled by pride on her own account and thoughtfulness for others will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone. And Mr. Casaubon was certain to remain away for some…

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The Honeymoon's Bitter Reality

Summary

Why This Matters