“The whole world is like that, without exception, and we are in the world. We live in the midst of other people. It is impossible to isolate one’s self entirely; and isolation brings its own punishment later. We have to attach ourselves to other people: it is impossible always to lead your own existence, without any sense of community.”
“Duco, how you’ve changed! These are the ideas of ordinary society!”
“I have been reflecting more lately.”
“I am just learning how not to reflect.... My darling, how grave you are this morning! And this while I’m lying up against you so deliciously, to rest after all that excitement and the hot journey.”
“Seriously, Cornélie, let us get married.”
She snuggled against him a little nervously, displeased because he persisted and because he was forcibly dissipating her blissful mood:
“You’re a horrid boy. Why need we get married? It would alter nothing in our position. We still shouldn’t trouble about other people. We are living so delightfully here, living for your art. We want nothing more than each other and your art and Rome. I am so very fond of Rome now; I am quite altered. There is something here that is always attracting me afresh. At San Stefano I felt homesick for Rome and for our studio. You must choose a new subject ... and get to work again. When you’re doing nothing, you sit thinking—about social ethics—and that doesn’t suit you at all. It makes you so different. And then such petty, conventional ideas. To get married! Why, in Heaven’s name, should we, Duco? You know my views on marriage. I have had experience: it is better not.”
She had risen and was mechanically looking through some half-finished sketches in a portfolio.
“Your experience,” he repeated. “We know each other too well to be afraid of anything.”
She took the sketches from the portfolio: they were ideas which had occurred to him and which he had jotted down while he was working at The Banners. She examined them and scattered them abroad: