the foaming cataract of love

“the foaming cataract of love” is the image for Lavinia’s once-surging feeling for Dieter, and its change into a subterranean current marks a decisive shift in their relationship. His accident reverses their positions: the vulnerable man in the sickroom cannot protect her, and the ambition she had set aside rises again.

The Image and Its Reversal

The expression first presents Lavinia’s love as forceful and moving, like a cataract coursing through her. After Dieter’s injury, that feeling does not simply vanish; it seems to move underground. The image makes emotional change a redirection of force: affection becomes less available to her conscious life, while her desire for money and success fills the space it leaves.

Dieter in the Sickroom

The reversal is sharpened by the difference between the injured Dieter and the man against whose shirtfront Lavinia had wept. Now stitched, bandaged, and lying on pillows, he is someone she does not believe can protect her. Although the doctors expect him to make a complete recovery, the sight of his swollen, discolored face unsettles her. At his bedside she turns away, speaking toward the wall or window rather than looking at him.

Lavinia’s response is also colored by the fear that has haunted her since James’s frozen death: she feels alone and surrounded by wolves. That recurring fear gives the changed relationship a context beyond the immediate accident. Dieter’s helplessness coincides with a return of the isolation she had been unable to quell.

Care, Work, and the Remaining Promise

Lavinia leaves most of Dieter’s care to Goosey, who visits the sickroom each day and sometimes brings a fresh branch. Lavinia herself comes for an hour in the evening, holds Dieter’s hand, and tells him a sketchy account of the day’s business, keeping the details brief so as not to tire him. The gesture preserves tenderness and obligation even as the emotional current has receded.

She still intends to marry Dieter when he is well. She likes him and wants a husband, but work has become more absorbing than ever: Duke is opening foreign markets for the first time. Her continued care and stated intention to marry therefore coexist with a marked change in what commands her attention.

Narrative Significance

The image captures not a clean break but a reordering. Love remains present as something displaced rather than erased, while money, success, and the expanding business occupy the space it once filled. Dieter’s accident thus alters the balance between intimacy and ambition: Lavinia stays beside him, yet the force drawing her forward now belongs increasingly to work.