The Marble Faun

“He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in his face.”

Hilda comments that she cannot guess Donatello’s age but that he instead appears timeless and eternally young. Donatello is a quasi-mythical character who seems to transcend ordinary reality, recalling an idyllic state of mankind at the beginning of time.

“I am glad to have my lifetime while you live; and where you are, be it in cities or fields, I would fain be there too.”

Donatello professes his love for Miriam, which is at first unrequited. The line is prophetic in that Donatello will indeed stick with Miriam, even though it leads to a violent confrontation between him and Brother Antonio.

“I forgot that you were a Faun. You cannot suffer deeply; therefore you can but half enjoy.”

Miriam shows a somewhat condescending attitude toward Donatello at first, regarding him as simpleminded and not capable of a fully human experience of life. That will change shortly, however, as Donatello commits a murder in Miriam’s defense and lives with the consequences. The line foreshadows the novel’s central idea that suffering has redemptive value and contributes to a fully human life.

“If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good. You ought to be afraid of me.”

Miriam warns Donatello not to pursue her romantically; evil in the form of Brother Antonio plagues her, and Donatello could be easily sucked into this situation. This is in fact what happens, and Donatello’s infatuation with Miriam proves fateful for him. The line shows Miriam’s concern for Donatello’s safety and happiness.

“I fear nothing! I love always!”

Donatello declares his unconditional love for and loyalty to Miriam, reflective of his simple and unintellectual nature. The line suggests that, despite his simplicity, he possesses courage and is ready to defend Miriam. This proves to be the case when he confronts Brother Antonio.

“It was a glimpse far backward into Arcadian life, or, further still, into the Golden Age, before mankind was burdened with sin and sorrow, and before pleasure had been darkened with those shadows that bring it into high relief, and make it happiness.”

Hawthorne comments on the scene of Donatello and Miriam frolicking together in the Borghese grounds—a scene of pure, carefree bliss. Through this scene Hawthorne evokes both the biblical paradise and Arcadia, the ideal Golden Age of Greek myth.

“His lips were drawn apart so as to disclose his set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal rage, which we seldom see except in persons of the simplest and rudest natures.”

Inflamed with jealousy of Brother Antonio, Donatello shows a different and unaccustomed side of his nature—one that is fierce and animalistic. This shows the darker side of Donatello’s unsophistication and harmony with nature; in a sense, he is just a step up from the jungle and a sort of noble savage. The quote foreshadows his violent murder of Brother Antonio.

“Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!”

Hawthorne devotes so much of The Marble Faun to describing scenes and history of Rome that it resembles a travelogue. Throughout, Hawthorne shows a complex attitude toward the city: admiring its beauty and importance yet also wary of the corruption in its past and its present physical decay. Rome is a mirror for human civilization as a whole, containing both its glorious and sordid aspects.

“Signorina, what you drink, I drink.”

Donatello says this to Miriam after she states her intention to drink from the Fountain of Trevi for good luck, demonstrating his steadfast attachment to her. Yet the line is also symbolic and prophetic: Donatello will join Miriam’s involvement with Brother Antonio and thus share Miriam’s dire fate.

“There are sermons in stones, and especially in the stones of Rome.”

Throughout the novel, the friends try to draw moral lessons from Roman history. Kenyon and Hilda are looking at a column depicting Emperor Trajan’s misdeeds. The column foreshadows Donatello’s murder of Brother Antonio and refers to the fact that Roman history is repeating itself.

“It seems to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous emptiness under our feet, except what the evil within us digs.”

Hilda explains that the pervasive corruption and eventual fall of Rome were not inevitable; they were the result of evil deeds that the Romans freely chose. Unknowingly, Hilda is warning Miriam about the evil deed she and Donatello are about to commit.

“Was it horror?—or extasy? Or both in one?”

Hawthorne’s comment highlights the paradoxical mixture of emotions Miriam feels while Donatello is holding Brother Antonio over the precipice. She is horrified at what is happening, yet she feels joy and approval in the destruction of her persecutor and perhaps joy at Donatello’s courage and passion. The quote points to the complexity of human psychology and moral life.

“The deed knots us together, for time and eternity, like the coil of a serpent!”

Miriam tells Donatello that the murder unites them in guilt. Just as Brother Antonio claimed that Miriam united herself to him by rescuing him, so now Miriam and Donatello are united in having murdered Antonio. Hawthorne comments further that the union is “closer than a marriage bond” and that the couple must protect each other from prosecution (128). This union founded on evil is in a sense abrogated by Donatello and Miriam’s “marriage,” founded on virtue and repentance.

“I have a great weight here!”

In a powerfully symbolic moment, Donatello places his hand, which is intertwined with Miriam’s, to his chest. He describes his sense of guilt as a “weight” that burdens his heart. The gesture also implies that Miriam is part of this weight that burdens Donatello and that they both share the guilt.

“Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!”

Hilda implies that Miriam’s (and Donatello’s) crime has a larger—indeed, universal—scope related to original sin. The guilt of sinners affects the innocent so that they too feel involved with evil. This is in part because Hilda must keep the crime a secret and not tell the police, causing her to feel complicit in the act.

“We all of us, as we grow older, lose somewhat of our proximity to nature. It is the price we pay for experience.”

When Donatello discovers that the animals around Monte Beni do not gather around him as they used to, he has a fit of grief. Kenyon comforts him by saying that all people experience such an estrangement from nature as they become more involved with corrupt civilization—a quintessential theme of Romanticism.

“When I go back to my dear native land, the clouds along the horizon will be my only gallery of art.”

Inspired by the landscape around Monte Beni, Kenyon dreams of returning to America and appreciating anew the landscape there. The quote reflects the importance of the natural landscape to American artists of Hawthorne’s generation, who saw nature as possessing a spiritual dimension, as Kenyon does here.

“O, my poor Faun, how art thou changed!”

Kenyon comments with dismay on the change in Donatello’s personality since returning to Monte Beni. Whereas before he was happy and carefree, now he dwells on dark thoughts of sin and death. Donatello’s change speaks to the universal experience of mankind falling from innocence.

“Ah, why should not there be a woman to listen to the prayers of women? A mother in heaven for all motherless girls like me?”

Praying in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Hilda sees an image of the Virgin Mary. The thought strikes her that the mother of Jesus is an intercessor in heaven for troubled women. For Hilda, Mary becomes a motherly confidante. This reflects a surprising turn for the Protestant Hilda toward a distinctly Catholic religious symbol.

“If religion had a material home, was it not here?”

In St. Peter’s, Hilda feels increasingly drawn to Catholicism. She feels that this religious system furnishes a rich array of symbols and spiritual aids to draw believers to God. Feeling alone and not knowing where to turn, these symbols give her something to hold onto.

“You need no mercy, and therefore know not how to show any.”

Kenyon says this to Hilda when she resists the idea that the murder of Brother Antonio had any extenuating circumstances or that any good might come from it. Kenyon sees this as evidence of Hilda’s moral inflexibility and inability to sympathize with sinners. Although Kenyon is in love with Hilda, he tells her honestly what he regards as a moral failing in her.

“Miriam loved me well, and I failed her at her sorest need.”

Hilda’s moral inflexibility begins to soften; she recognizes that Miriam needed her in a period of great distress and that she (Hilda) rejected her. This realization shows growth and change in Hilda as she takes account of the moral complexity of life.

“Thus it is, that, bad as the world is said to have grown, innocence continues to make a paradise around itself, and keep it still unfallen.”

Hawthorne comments on Hilda’s appearance as she walks through rough and disreputable parts of Rome to deliver Miriam’s packet. Hilda’s natural virtue shines amid the corruption and decay around her, and her independence gives her a “gentle fearlessness” of any danger as well as a blindness to evil. This quality is important to Hilda’s portrayal as it gives dimension to her otherwise reserved and pious nature. The quote plays on the contrast of good and evil that runs throughout the book.