Narcissa, or the Road to Rome; In Verona — Inside the Classic

Dreaming and Waking: Two Modes of Perception

The book's first part is titled 'Dreaming,' and Narcissa's consciousness is saturated with imagined fabrics, colors, and stories. She 'had made a romance about every scrap of silk or satin' in a crazy-quilt, inventing a 'long, trailing robe, trimmed with filmy lace' from a pink scrap. Yet the narrator undercuts these fantasies: 'It never occurred to Narcissa that she needed no fine clothes to set off her beauty; in truth, she never dreamed that she had any beauty.' Her self-image is shaped by the community's verdict that she is 'pindlin'-lookin'.'

In contrast, the second excerpt introduces Bije Green, a boy 'used to cheerful conversation' who finds Miss Duty's monosyllabic 'H'm!' stifling. His perception is concrete: he sees Betsy Garlick's 'red-and-white' cheeks and thinks of a 'snow-apple,' and her pink calico gown seems 'all of a flutter.' Where Narcissa abstracts, Bije fixates on physical details—milk-pails that 'twinkle' like silver, a girl who 'toss[es] her curls.' The narrative shifts between these two modes, suggesting that dreaming and waking are not opposites but complementary ways of engaging with a world that offers both tansy bushes and witch-grass.

Objects as Anchors of Desire and Disappointment

Richards uses everyday objects to crystallize her characters' longings. For Narcissa, the tansy bush is a touchstone: she 'liked to pluck a leaf and crush it in her hands, to bring out the keen, wholesome smell.' The minister's wife's black straw bonnet with a green velvet bow becomes a symbol of inaccessible elegance. Even the crazy-quilt, a patchwork of donated scraps, serves as a canvas for her imagination—each piece 'a romance.'

For Bije, the milk-pail transforms under Betsy's hands into 'pure silver,' and the witch-grass he hoes becomes an emblem of pointless labor. His sister Delilah 'was always saying that there was use for everything; Bije wished she were here, to tell him the use of witch-grass.' The objects are never merely functional; they carry emotional weight. Miss Duty's 'frosty glance' and the 'gormin' round' dismissal further show how domestic tools and routines can become instruments of social control, shaping what characters can dream or say.

Voice and Silence: The Weight of Unspoken Things

Dialogue in these excerpts is sparse but loaded. Miss Duty's 'H'm!' is a recurring refrain, a verbal gate that shuts down Bije's attempts at 'cheerful conversation.' When he ventures 'Nice day!' the response is a 'H'm!' that 'did not encourage further remarks.' The narrator notes that 'jawing never did no good that he could make out, though he didn't know but he'd ruther be jawed than hear nothing at all from get up to go to bed.' This economy of speech contrasts sharply with Narcissa's internal monologue, which is rich with imagined dialogues and stories.

Silence also governs the encounter between Bije and Betsy. He stares 'with no knowledge that his mouth was open'; she returns 'a calm survey which took him all in' before disappearing. No words are exchanged. The narrative voice itself oscillates between lyrical description and dry, ironic commentary—as when it notes that Bije 'had never heard of such a thing' as witch-grass after seeing Betsy. This interplay of voiced and unvoiced, said and implied, creates a texture where much of the emotional life happens below the surface of conversation.

Readers will find that Richards's novel rewards attention to its small, precise details: the 'crooked flagstones,' the 'gold buttons' of an imaginary dress, the 'twinkle' of a milk-pail. The story moves between Narcissa's interior world and Bije's more earthbound perspective, but both characters are shaped by the same rural landscape and its taciturn inhabitants. Rather than a straightforward romance, the book offers a study in how people use imagination, objects, and silence to navigate lives of limited means and even more limited expression.

Sometimes I wonder if Narcissa’s yearning for Rome is really about the road at all, but about the wanting. There’s a quiet echo of that in John Burnet of Barns: A Romance — Text and Context, where the Borders hills hold their own version of longing. Both feel less like escapes and more like a pause, waiting for the self to catch up with the dream.