Study Questions

Memory and Mortality

Youth

• a girlish voice (1)
• a voice as fresh laughed back (1-5)
• "Kids have such silly reasons for doing the most serious things." (100)
• "Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially." (105)

Remembering, forgetting; collective v. individual memory

• We must remember that. (5)
• "After all, it's still the most beautiful view in the world." (5-10)
• "It always will be, to me" (10)
• "...When we first met here we were younger than our girls are now.  You remember?" "Oh, yes, I remember" (10)
•  A full-moon night, they would remember...(10-15)
• Mrs. Slade drew her lids together in retrospect (15)
• so full of old memories (25-30)
• "...it all brings back the past a little too acutely." (40)
• for her also, too many memories rose from the lengthening shadows of those august ruins. (40)
• "I remember that story about a great-aunt of yours, wasn't she?" (50)
• "I--I dare say.  I don't remember." (60)
• "You don't remember? You don't remember going to visit some ruins or other one evening, just after dark, and catching a bad chill!..." (60)
• "...but perhaps you've forgotten what the letter said?" (70-75)
• "No; I know it by heart too." (75)
• "...But I was the girl he was engaged to. Did you happen to remember that?" (85)
• "I'm not trying to excuse myself... I remembered... " (85)
• "I cared for that memory," said Mrs. Ansley. (95)
• It all happened so long ago, as you say; and you must do me the justice to remember that I had no reason to think you'd ever taken it seriously. (95-100)
• "And I remember laughing to myself all that evening at the idea that you were waiting around there in the dark, dodging out of sight, listening for every sound, trying to get in—of course I was upset when I heard you were so ill afterward." (105)

Height, Vertical Relationship; the stairs mediating between high and low?

• two American ladies of ripe but well-cared for middle age moved across the lofty terrace of the Roman restaurant (1)
• looked first at each other, and then down on the outspread glories of the Palatine and the Forum (1)
• As they leaned there a girlish voice echoed up gaily from the stairs leading to the court below. (1-5)
• the two ladies were alone on the air-washed height (5-10)
• would like to spend the end of the afternoon looking down on the view (10-15)
• It was a big drop from being the wife of Delphin Slade to being his widow. (20)
• In living up to such a husband all her faculties had been engaged; now she had only her daughter to live up to (20)
• It seemed as though, to both, there was a relief in laying down their somewhat futile activities in the presence of the vast Memento Mori which faced them. (25)
• She looked straight out at the great accumulated wreckage of passion and splendor at her feet. (35-40)
• Already its golden flank was drowned in purple shadow, and above it the sky curved crystal clear, without light or color. It was the moment when afternoon and evening hang balanced in midheaven. (45)
• "Oh, we're all right up here. Down below, in the Forum, it does get deathly cold, all of a sudden...but not here." (50)
• Aloud she said: "Whenever I look at the Forum from up here, I remember that story about a great-aunt of yours, wasn't she? A dreadfully wicked great-aunt?" (50)
• Mrs. Slade continued to look down on her. She seemed physically reduced by the blow—as if, when she got up, the wind might scatter her like a puff of dust. (95)
• The clear heaven overhead was emptied of all its gold. (100)
• Here and there lights began to twinkle through the foliage at their feet. (100)

Roman Sites and Landscape

• the outspread glories of the Palatine and the Forum (1)
• the stupendous scene at their feet (5)
• the presence of the vast Memento Mori which faced them (25)
• the golden slope of the Palace of the Caesars (25)
• her eyes ranging from the ruins which faced her to the long green hollow of the Forum, the fading glow of the church fronts beyond it, and the outlying immensity of the Colosseum. (35)
• Her gaze turned toward the Colosseum. (45)
• Dusk spread over it, abruptly darkening the Seven Hills. (100)
• Mrs. Ansley stood looking away from her toward the dusky mass of the Colosseum. (115)

Other topics that you can think about:

• Great-Aunt Harriet's story
• beauty
• happiness
• innocence
• views, lens, perception
• character portrayal
• matrilineage, generations of women, grandmothers, mothers, daughters
• Barbara
• Jenny
• time: time of day, season, meal; how does the light (quality, intensity of light) reflect the plot of the story?
• relationship between men and women (you can compare to George and Evie's relationship in "The Colonel's Lady")
• fear, being afraid
• Roman fever: as an excuse, as cover or protection, as a weapon, as an illness/disease, as a myth, as a threat, as punishment, as a person (cf. "When Roman fever stalked the streets" 30), as illicit desire
• monster v. prude
• history