Page 792 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

concerned her and the eclipse of which had made life resem-
ble an attempt to play whist with an imperfect pack of cards,
the truth of things, their mutual relations, their meaning,
and for the most part their horror, rose before her with a
kind of architectural vastness. She remembered a thousand
trifles; they started to life with the spontaneity of a shiver.
She had thought them trifles at the time; now she saw that
they had been weighted with lead. Yet even now they were
trifles after all, for of what use was it to her to understand
them? Nothing seemed of use to her to-day. All purpose,
all intention, was suspended; all desire too save the single
desire to reach her much-embracing refuge. Gardencourt
had been her starting point, and to those muffled chambers
it was at least a temporary solution to return. She had gone
forth in her strength; she would come back in her weakness,
and if the place had been a rest to her before, it would be a
sanctuary now. She envied Ralph his dying, for if one were
thinking of rest that was the most perfect of all. To cease ut-
terly, to give it all up and not know anything more-this idea
was as sweet as the vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in
a darkened chamber, in a hot land.
She had moments indeed in her journey from Rome
which were almost as good as being dead. She sat in her
corner, so motionless, so passive, simply with the sense of
being carried, so detached from hope and regret, that she
recalled to herself one of those Etruscan figures couched
upon the receptacle of their ashes. There was nothing to re-
gret now-that was all over. Not only the time of her folly, but
the time of her repentance was far. The only thing to regret

792 The Portrait of a Lady