Middlemarch Chapter 20

In which the young Dorothea, newly married and immersed in the grandeur and contradictions of Rome, finds her idealistic hopes quietly undermined by the sober reality of her husband's scholarly life and their growing emotional distance. As she struggles with feelings of loneliness and misunderstanding, a poignant unrest settles over her spirit, foreshadowing the complex workings of duty, affection, and disillusionment in married life.