Chapter VII

As Anne’s temper cooled her conscience woke; an officious and persistent instinct drove her towards an apology. The unfortunate part of leading a self-controlled existence is the small amount of margin left for outbreaks. Anne found that she had used hers up; she was forced to sit down after dinner and in her neat, formal handwriting tell Toby how sorry she was. She hoped that Toby would accept her apology (which was ample) by return, and she could then forget the incident. She was sorry, of course, or she wouldn’t have said so, but she still felt that she had more to forgive Toby than Toby had to forgive her. Toby acted very unexpectedly. He sent an answer back by the porter, but it merely thanked Anne for her letter and informed her that he was going off for a few days’ motoring and would let her know when he returned. So that she was left with the incident on her hands. It was just what Anne had wanted, complete loneliness and silence. She knew no one in Rome and she could do what she liked; but she couldn’t do it now with a clear conscience. She had done a wrong to an old friend, a friend who had thrown up all his interests to seek her out in Rome and offer her the consolation of his enduring affection.

The absence of Norman was, as she had known it would be, the absence of everything. Before her marriage Anne had had many interests, but she had not kept them up. In the first instance Norman hadn’t wanted her to keep them; he had wanted to absorb her into himself, and he had succeeded. Later, when his hold on her inner life relaxed, Anne had not had the singleness of purpose to detach herself from his interests. She read his subjects, entertained his friends, studied his tastes as if they were her religion. All the people she knew, except her own relations, she knew to suit Norman. She no more thought of having a special friend than it occurred to her to have a separate banking account. She took what Norman took, and it wasn’t very easy for her now to make a life for herself out of what Norman had left. This was partly why she hungered so to minister to him still. She felt it was all she was fit for.

When she looked back on her marriage she saw that the main point of difference between herself and Norman had been that Norman wanted her most when he was most her lover—then and then only he had given her all he had; but the less Anne wanted him as a lover, the more her love involved and encircled his whole being, until there was no hidden place in Anne’s heart without its response to his needs. She loved him more and more, so that in the course of time his happiness had really become hers. Even the feeling he had for Nina reacted upon Anne until she had found for the girl a living tenderness. Instead of being a perpetual torture to her to see them happy together, it was the reward of her sacrifice. To ask her, as Toby did, to cut herself off from them, was to ask her to block up the only channel to her nature which led to the open sea. She wouldn’t see too much of them; no young married people like a perpetual third. When she got back to London she would find an occupation. Research work (she had done a good deal of looking up references for Norman and she was an accurate observer) would interest her still. Her relations would help her to find something to do. They were political and important people and though they were very angry with her now, their anger was merely the sign of a perturbed affection which didn’t know what other course to take.

Then Anne would have Toby. She would have him far more really and solidly than she used to have him, even (she had to admit it to herself) than she quite wanted to have him, but she owed it to his friendship to make him a generous return.

The great thing was not to let yourself think you were a peculiar sufferer. Sufferings are not peculiar and very few people can honestly say that there is no one in their acquaintance worse off than themselves. Anne told herself that she was neither old, ill, nor penniless, and extremely fortunate to be in Rome. This reminder sent her forth to the Vatican, which she hadn’t seen nearly enough. On her way through the hall the porter handed her two letters. She was so afraid when she saw them that she could hardly return his friendly greeting. They were from Norman and Nina. Up till now they had satisfied themselves with a rain of friendly post cards. Now they would tell Anne what they really felt. She wanted to know this more than anything in the world, but it frightened her to have to find out. She took a shrieking tram at the door, which creaked and fumbled its clamorous way through the heart of Rome. It was towards sunset, but the golden air still shone relentlessly like the flashing of a lifted sword. Anne walked the length of the Piazza San Pietro between the fountains and obelisks, as if it was eternity. Time and space hardened for her into the fixity of an endless procession. On and on she went, with the huge façade confronting her, swallowing up the light and measureless dome. The swallows had already begun their sunset game above the square. They tossed their velvety black bodies into the shining air like practised tumblers certain of applause. Their infallible, swift wings weaved fantastic patterns to and fro across the leaping fountains. Anne sat on the steps of St. Peter’s and watched them for half an hour. They made no mistakes and never stayed longer than they meant; she could not find courage to open her letters in their company. She turned away from them at last, climbed the hill behind St. Peter’s, and entered the Vatican doors. The courtyard was cool and shady, there was hardly anyone there beyond the goldfish and a custodian or two. Anne hesitated a moment and then passed the Belvedere room into the alcove of the Laocoön. It is a very terrible statue and requires on the part of the beholder a certain courage. The struggle is hopeless as far as the main figure is concerned. He is very strong and in agony, and he will never get out of the deadly grip; but by his enormous efforts he may in time release his entrapped children. He _may_ release them, but in his expression there is only determination, not hope. After Anne had watched the statue for a few moments she read her letters.

Nina’s was far the longest, and she read it first. It was a beautiful, honest, happy letter. The colour came into Anne’s face as she read it, and the warmth back into her heart. “Why, Anne, you ought to have told me,” Nina wrote, “what it was like! If I’d known—my dear—I could _never_ have taken him from you! My only excuse is that I didn’t know—how could I? But I see now what you are—only how could you ever do it? And how can you bear to see or think of me again? I keep telling myself what you were like to me in Rome and I have your letter—dear, dear Anne—I do want you again if you are quite sure you _can_ want us? I can’t say ‘me’ any more because I’m not ‘me’ now.” So she knew that too—she knew everything! Anne, who had also given up being “me” and must now (if she was to live at all) re-assume that fictitious creature—winced as she read this particular passage. It was an odd sensation, like the return of the dead, to find their places filled. Only the dead escape the mockery of these returns.

Norman’s letter was very different. He could not tell Anne what he felt. She could bear it perhaps, but he couldn’t. He wrote of bathing on the Lido and spoke of their hotel, but it ended with a marvellous suggestion. “I’m so glad,” he wrote, “to hear that old Toby’s turned up. Won’t you and he join us the end of the month at a little place above Garda called Madonna di Campiglio? It’s one of those flowery Dolomite valleys you’ve always loved. It would be fun to see old Toby again, and he and Nina could really get to know each other. It would be awfully jolly to have you both.” He hadn’t been able to go on. Anne wasn’t afraid any more after she had read Norman’s letter. She was happy. As she turned her eyes back to the Laocoön again she felt almost certain that one of the sons—the weakest and furthest away from that strangling hold—was going to escape. A custodian came up to her and told her apologetically that the doors were going to shut. He hadn’t liked to disturb the Signora, but it was practically closing time when she entered; it was unfortunate since she had paid a lire. Anne shook her head and smiled. She said she didn’t mind paying the lire. She had seen what she wanted to see. The custodian, emboldened by her graciousness, observed that he would never choose to look at the Laocoön himself, it was in his opinion not at all gay. He recommended the Apollo in the next alcove, to take, as it were, the taste out of the Signora’s mouth. Anne consented to the Apollo a little doubtfully. The shadows were growing dark about him, and he stood out against them startlingly white and beautiful. Anne shivered as she looked at him. Apollo was so formidably young and splendid that his beauty was a cruel thing. It was more difficult to get away from it than from the grip of the Laocoön.