Middlemarch

CHAPTER LXIV.

Chapter LXIV centers on Lydgate’s deepening financial crisis and the resulting marital fracture with Rosamond. Pressed by mounting debts and the approach of Christmas, Lydgate proposes drastic expense cuts and ultimately the sale of their home to the wealthy young Plymdales, but Rosamond secretly opposes the plan and maneuvers to block it by misleading Mrs. Plymdale about available housing. The chapter contrasts Lydgate’s anguish over wasted intellectual ambition with Rosamond’s determination to preserve their social position, deepening the alienation between them.

Gentlemen’s Debate on Power and Obligation

The chapter opens with an epigraph in which two gentlemen debate the nature of power and obligation, arguing that power is relative, that force is “twain in one” (cause requires effect, action requires a passive element), and that command can only exist alongside obedience. This framing motif introduces the chapter’s themes of mutual dependence, marital authority, and reciprocal obligation that will play out between Lydgate and Rosamond.

Lydgate’s Severe Financial Distress

Although Lydgate is inclined toward openness about his affairs, he recognizes that even Mr. Farebrother could not provide the immediate relief he requires. With year-end bills arriving from tradesmen, Dover threatening a hold on his furniture, and income limited to slow dribbling payments from patients who must not be offended—his handsome fees from Freshitt Hall and Lowick Manor having already been absorbed—he calculates that nothing less than a thousand pounds would free him from actual embarrassment and leave a residue that would give him “time to look about him.”

Lydgate’s Bitterness Over Wasted Ambition

The pressure of Christmas intensifies Lydgate’s sordid cares until he can think unbrokenly of almost nothing else. Though naturally good-tempered, with intellectual activity, kind heart, and strong frame that would normally protect him from petty irritations, he now suffers the worst kind of irritation: the second consciousness beneath his annoyances of wasted energy and degrading preoccupation, summed up in his bitter inward murmur that this is what he must think of, while that is what he might have been thinking of. His discontent is harder to bear than the grand literary kind because a grand existence in thought and effective action lies around him while his self narrows into the miserable isolation of egoistic fears and vulgar anxieties, and there is no escape from sordidness for the majority except by being free from money-craving and all its base hopes and temptations.

Lydgate and Rosamond Clash Over Expense Cuts

Writhing under the idea of the “vile yoke” of debt has put Lydgate into a bitter, moody state that continually widens Rosamond’s alienation. He proposes cutting expenses—doing with only one servant and one horse—and takes blame upon himself for marrying too expensively, appealing to their mutual love to help them pull along. Rosamond argues that living poorly would be injurious to his professional position; Lydgate grows angry at her didactic tone and firmly insists that questions of his practice are for him alone to judge, telling her their income will likely be under four hundred and that they must re-arrange their lives accordingly.

Lydgate Proposes Selling Their Home

Lydgate identifies one resource that could free them from their present difficulty: young Ned Plymdale, who is about to marry the rich Miss Sophy Toller, will need a good house, and Lydgate is sure the Plymdales would gladly take their house with most of its furniture and pay handsomely for the lease. He proposes to employ Trumbull to speak to Plymdale about it, noting that Trumbull has a decent smaller house to let at thirty pounds a year compared to their current ninety.

Rosamond Secretly Opposes the House Sale

Rosamond leaves his knee, walks to the other end of the room, and returns with tears biting her under-lip, deeply hurt that after bearing to send back the plate and have Dover take an inventory of the furniture, Lydgate would now propose parting with the house. She suggests instead a sale and leaving Middlemarch altogether, or appealing to Sir Godwin Lydgate. Lydgate angrily defends his plan as the only thing he can do and admits he likes it better than making a fool of himself begging where it is useless, in a tone Rosamond recognizes as a kind of clutch on her arm. She walks out in silence with an intense determination to hinder what Lydgate intends, while he, cooling, fears that the fracture between them has begun and that any movement might make it fatal. After the outburst he inwardly tries to excuse her and blames the hard circumstances partly his fault; when at breakfast she mildly asks whether he has spoken to Trumbull yet, he reads it as a sign she has withdrawn her inward opposition and kisses her head caressingly.