Romola · Chapter
XXVII: The Young Wife explained
Romola waits anxiously for Tito's return, feeling the growing distance between them.
What happens
Romola waits anxiously for Tito's return, feeling the growing distance between them. She reflects on their marriage, her father's death, and her efforts to subdue her nature to her husband's. When Tito arrives, he is cold and distant, and reveals he is wearing chain-armour due to threats. Romola is alarmed and questions him, but Tito deflects her concerns, asking her to keep it a secret. She struggles with her fear and disappointment, trying to reconcile her love for Tito with her growing sense of his unworthiness.
Themes in this chapter
Duty vs. Personal Desire
Romola feels a 'sacramental obligation' to fulfill her father's wish for the library, while also desiring a more perfect union with Tito, creating an internal conflict.
Love and Selfishness
Romola labors to subdue her nature to her husband's, while Tito's self-absorption and secret fears cause him to behave coldly, highlighting the imbalance in their relationship.
Betrayal and Deception
Tito's secret fears and the hidden chain-armour create an 'alienation already begun' between him and Romola, built on his concealed past and current deceptions.
Characters to notice
- Romola de' Bardi
Feels the growing distance from Tito, struggles with her disappointment in marriage, and tries to suppress her own impulses to please him.
- Tito Melema
Returns home cold and distant, reveals he is wearing chain-armour due to threats, and asks Romola to keep it a secret.
- Bardo de' Bardi
Recently deceased; Romola feels guilt over her hope for a new life with Tito and is committed to fulfilling his wish for the library catalogue.
- Bernardo del Nero
Advanced money to secure Bardo's library from creditors, accepting a lien on the collection as security.
Key passages
“The terrible resurrection of secret fears, which, if Romola had known them, would have alienated her from him forever, caused him to feel an alienation already begun between them—caused him to feel a certain repulsion towards a woman from whose mind he was in danger.”
Tito's hidden anxieties, which would destroy Romola's love if she knew of them, are already creating a rift between them and making him recoil from her.
Highlights the theme of betrayal and deception, and the growing distance in their marriage.
“Romola was labouring, as a loving woman must, to subdue her nature to her husband's. The great need of her heart compelled her to strangle, with desperate resolution, every rising impulse of suspicion, pride, and resentment; she felt equal to any self-infliction that would save her from ceasing to love.”
Romola is desperately trying to suppress her own feelings and doubts to keep loving Tito, willing to endure any pain to avoid losing that love.
Illustrates Romola's internal struggle and the theme of love and selfishness.
“It belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate power of some strong unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities beyond its own horizon.”
A person with a great soul, when not consumed by a powerful feeling, will question their own perceptions and acknowledge that there may be more to a situation than they can see.
Reflects Romola's self-doubt as she tries to interpret her disappointment in her marriage.