Page:Out of due time, Ward, 1906.djvu/267

 PART IV.

I.

come now to a part of my story which I am unable to tell. I have tried to write briefly, and then tried to write at length the history of those first months at Rome. I can get no definite idea of them, I can get no clear aspect of them from any angle. I have tried to see them as Paul saw them, as Marcelle felt them, as George pondered on them in later years, as I went through them myself, and I cannot get any clearer. All that came afterwards was in the making then, but I don't know how it was done.

At first nothing could spoil the joy of being in Rome. I retain vivid impressions of certain hours of intense enjoyment at the beginning, but their setting is incoherent and confused in my memory. I remember one day, quite early in the time of our stay, when we three, Marcelle, George and I, went to the Vatican, and chose the sculpture for our morning's work. I forget where I left them—I think among the Roman Emperors—and I made my way alone to the Belvedere.

And there I set to work to understand the four great things enshrined there. Marcelle could not endure my slow rumination over art. She saw more than I did, but she saw it in a flash, and then soon wearied, after a few ecstatic moments. I only gradually saw, and then became slowly but absolutely intoxicated. What seemed horribly dull and school-girl-like to her, was to me the necessary process. I 257