Page 405 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Chapter 27

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young wom-
an’s response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyze her
feelings as she trod the pavement of the Forum or to num-
ber her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of Saint
Peter’s. It is enough to say that her impression was such as
might have been expected of a person of her freshness and
her eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here
was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the
sunshine. She had an imagination that kindled at the men-
tion of great deeds, and wherever she turned some great
deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her, but
moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that
she talked less than usual, and Ralph Touchett, when he
appeared to be looking listlessly and awkwardly over her
head, was really dropping on her an intensity of observa-
tion. By her own measure she was very happy; she would
even have been willing to take these hours for the happiest
she was ever to know. The sense of the terrible human past
was heavy to her, but that of something altogether contem-
porary would suddenly give it wings that it could wave in
the blue. Her consciousness was so mixed that she scarce-
ly knew where the different parts of it would lead her, and
she went about in a repressed ecstasy of contemplation, see-
ing often in the things she looked at a great deal more than

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