44 pages • 1 hour read
The Marble Faun
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Chapters 46-ConclusionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 46 Summary: “A Walk on the Campagna”
On a bright, springlike day in February, Kenyon takes a walk in the countryside (the campagna) outside Rome, starting from the Appian Way. Coming upon a series of ancient tomb ruins, he finds a half-buried and headless Grecian statue of Venus. Kenyon believes this to be an important artistic discovery and that “forgotten beauty had come back, as beautiful as ever” (308). He wonders if the discovery is an omen that he will find Hilda.
Just then Kenyon hears voices and sees a peasant man and woman approaching and greeting him.
Chapter 47 Summary: “The Peasant and Contadina”
The peasants are none other than Donatello and Miriam. They explain that they are dressed for Carnival and that they discovered the statue of Venus a few days ago. Donatello has rediscovered his youth in the campagna, and he and Miriam have enjoyed great happiness together. Miriam assures Kenyon that Hilda is safe and will return in two days; she instructs Kenyon to go to an appointed place in the Corso in Rome. In the meantime, Miriam insists they forget their sorrows and enjoy the Carnival season.
Miriam now reveals the secrets of her ancestry and family background and how she “wandered […] into crime” (312). Having lost her mother at an early age, Miriam was contracted to marry an older man whom she didn’t love. At the same time, Miriam became involved in a “terrible event,” and, though innocent of crime, was suspected of being an accomplice. She ran away from home and was believed to have committed suicide. Instead, she went to Rome and surrounded herself with her new friends, which gave her “almost her first experience of happiness” (313). It was then that she met Brother Antonio in the catacomb.
Chapter 48 Summary: “A Scene in the Corso”
Chapter 49 Summary: “A Frolic of the Carnival”
Kenyon meets Donatello and Miriam in the crowd and urges Miriam to tell him something about Hilda’s whereabouts. She asks him to let them enjoy the moment. The three friends link their hands together and walk through the festive crowd before saying farewell.
A rosebud flung from a balcony hits Kenyon. Looking up, he sees Hilda, radiant with beauty. That night, the Virgin’s lamp burns again, and the doves return to Hilda’s tower.
Chapter 50 Summary: “Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello”
Hilda and Kenyon visit the Pantheon and the tomb of Raphael together. Kenyon expounds his new ideas about good and evil, which Miriam introduced him to. These ideas shock Hilda, and she asks him to stop. She admits, however, that she has no wisdom of her own and needs guidance.
Kenyon and Hilda plan to marry and to return to America. Before going home, Miriam gives Hilda an Etruscan bracelet. The gift makes her cry because of Miriam’s and Donatello’s uncertain future, but being a “hopeful soul,” she sees “sunlight on the mountaintops” (336).
Conclusion Summary
Hawthorne explains that many readers wrote to him asking for clarification about certain aspects of the plot, so he has added this postscript for the new edition. He makes the following points:
(1)The Marble Faun was intended to have magical and fantastical elements that remove it from everyday reality—for instance, the fact that Donatello has faun-like characteristics.
(2) The papal government suspected Miriam of having a part in some plot or political intrigue in addition to the murder of Brother Antonio and was therefore watching her closely. Fortunately, she had a relative, Luca Barboni, who worked for the Vatican, and the packet she entrusted to Hilda contained an appeal to Barboni for help in escaping to another country.
(3) In view of this, when Hilda showed up at the Palazzo Cenci with the packet containing information about Miriam, the authorities detained her. During the time she was missing, Hilda was at a convent being watched over by religious sisters and a priest.
(4) The person in the carriage with Miriam in Chapter 43 was Barboni. The reason Donatello was in Rome dressed as a penitent was that he intended to give himself up to the police.
(5) Donatello is now imprisoned in a dungeon in the Castel Sant’Angelo and Miriam is at large. Whether Donatello had the furry ears of a faun will remain a mystery.
Chapter 46-Conclusion Analysis
The novel’s journey culminates in Carnival, and Hawthorne exploits the symbolic dimension of this season. Carnival is the period of festivity preceding Lent, the penitential season in Christianity; it has traditionally involved extravagant merriment with feasting, open-air revelry, and costumes and masks. Donatello and Miriam’s costumes serve a double purpose as both a means of hiding from the law and a symbol that they are spiritually changed. Having passed through a period of remorse at Monte Beni, Donatello emerges in the Roman campagna not only happier but also emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually deeper. While the “sweet and delightful characteristics” of the faun return to him (315), he also shows “profound sympathy” and “serious thought.” This reflects Miriam’s and Kenyon’s idea that sin and suffering purify and ennoble the soul.
The fact that the joy of Carnival leads to the penitence of Lent suggests that Miriam and Donatello, after their initial joy at reuniting, will enter a period of serious moral reflection and atonement for their sin. For the moment, however, the friends rejoice in the season and enjoy one another’s company. Like the wine made at Donatello’s estate, which rapidly flattens if not drunk, this emphasizes the need to enjoy the good things of life while they last. Hawthorne also stresses the sense of homecoming and the fact that the novel has come full circle by giving the final chapter the same title as the first: “Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello.”
Hawthorne’s Conclusion (really a postscript) reflects the fact that the novel’s ending dissatisfied many early readers, who wanted greater clarity about what happened to the characters. Hawthorne provides this by placing himself in the narrative, “interviewing” Hilda and Kenyon and tying up loose ends. However, Hawthorne still leaves some things vague, such as the nature of Miriam’s early crime and the final fate of her and of Donatello. The question of whether Donatello was really a faun is also left tantalizingly in the air.
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By Nathaniel Hawthorne
