Journal Article

'First Shock of Complete Perception': The Opening Episode of The Golden Bowl, Volume 2

Cohn, Dorrit

2001

Overview

Yet this momentary expression acquires essential importance for her: \"while it lasted it had been written large\" (2: 15); it takes on \"an historic value-beyond the importance of momentary expressions in general\" (2: 16); and \"this immense little memory\" becomes \"as it were the key to everything\" (2: 42, 15). Since it is Amerigo's only apparent reaction to her having broken the habit of waiting for him at her father's house, this look gives away the fact that he is wondering whether she suspects his relationship to Charlotte. [...] she has not been suspicious; Amerigo's expression makes her so.2 Though the impression created by Amerigo's facial aspect as he enters the room is temporarily effaced by his embraces, it is revived the next morning.

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press