There is first the reaction upon and inculpation of Miriam,
whose glance had confirmed Donatello's murderous intent; only a glance,
yet enough to involve her in the doom of change and separation--of sin
in short--which falls upon the Faun. And in Hilda's case, it is the
simple consciousness of another's guilt, which is "almost the same as if
she had participated" in it. The mutual relations of these persons, who
are made to represent the whole of society, afford matter for infinite
meditation, the artistic and moral abstract of which the author has
given.
But with this main theme is joined a very marvellous and intricate study
of the psychology of Beatrice Cenci's story, in a new form. Miriam is a
different woman placed in the same circumstances which made the Cenci
tragedy. In the "French and Italian Note-Books," Hawthorne describes the
look he caught sight of in Guido's picture,--that "of a being
unhumanized by some terrible fate, and gazing out of a remote and
inaccessible region, where she was frightened to be alone, but where no
human sympathy could reach her." It was of this single insight that both
Miriam and Hilda were born to his mind. He reproduces this description,
slightly modified, in the romance (Vol. I. Chap. XXIII.): "It was the
intimate consciousness of her father's guilt that threw its shadow over
her, and frightened her into" this region. Now, in the chapter called
"Beatrice," quite early in the story, he brings out between Miriam and
Hilda a discussion of Beatrice and her history.
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