Oh, What Could Have Been!

I feel for poor Dorothea, even though she pretty much asked for her situation as she is young and inexperienced and wouldn’t listen; all her dreams and plans for the future with Mr Casaubon have come crashing down.  It was all very well enjoying his company when he came to dinner at their family home as a guest of her uncle, then the brief courtship thereafter.  She’s finding it a different story spending day in and day out with him! Her future is panning out before her now and it is looking very empty indeed.  She should have listened to her sister Celia, for she can see him for the dried up bore that he is (along with other Middlemarchers).

Honeymooning on the continent Dorothea is currently in Italy, not an appreciator of art she finds herself looking at the fresco’s and sculptures but not really taking them in.  Her new husband is spending most of the daylight hours in the Vatican’s library studying and taking notes, leaving Dorothea to amuse herself.  After just five weeks of marriage they have already quarrelled.  How she much be feeling!  I can remember being young, the excitement of being asked out on a date, only to find that when you do meet again they’re not quite as tall as you remember or even as good looking.  That horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realise that they are not what you want………..

I often think of the paper boy that I used to ‘fancy’ when I did a paper round.  He wore a silver bomber jacket – which were all the rage back then.  I was shy but I still managed to flirt around him, to the point he one day plucked up the courage and followed me on my round and asked me out.  Up close he was quite spotty, I got scared and said ‘er, no it’s alright’ and walked off! I never saw him again, and even now it amazes me that I could have been so blunt and rude and I often wonder what could have been (mind you, looking at my track record since, he unknowingly made a lucky escape!!).

Mr Casaubon’s second cousin, an artist, is also in Italy.  He and Dorothea met briefly before their marriage and the meeting didn’t go so well.  Dorothea was bluntly honest stating that she could not see the beauty in art, Will took it as an insult to his talent.  However, the second meeting in Italy has gone a little better – and he’s not too happy about his boorish cousin’s treatment of this young and attractive woman….. hmmmm what’s going to happen here I wonder ….. a muse perhaps?

PS only eight days until my birthday (and Tanya, I STILL haven't opened my present though the suspense is driving me mad!)