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 utterly,
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.
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