Because of Maisie, nothing would ever be the same again.

ii

In the last week of April they had gone, Jerrold and Maisie, Eliot and
Colin, to Taormina.  In the last week in May Jerrold and Eliot took
Maisie up to Como on their way home.  They found Sir Charles and Lady
Durham there waiting for her.  They had left Colin by himself at
Taormina.

From the first moment of landing Colin had fallen in love with Sicily and refused to be taken away from it.  He was aware that his recovery was now in his own hands, and that he would not be free from his malady so long as he was afraid to be alone.  He had got to break himself of his habit of dependence on other people.  And here in Taormina he had come upon the place that he could bear to be alone in.  There was freedom in his surrender to its enchantment and in the contemplation of its beauty there was peace.  And with peace and freedom he had found his indestructible self; he had come to the end of its long injury.

One day, sitting out on the balcony of his hotel, he wrote to Anne.

“Don’t imagine because I’ve got well here away from you that it wasn’t you who made me well.  In the first place, I should never have gone away if you hadn’t made me go.  You knew what you were about when you sent me here.  I know now what Jerrold meant when he wanted to get away by himself after Father died.  He said he wanted to grow a new memory.  Well, that’s what I’ve done here.

“It seemed to happen all at once.  One day I’d left them all and gone out for a walk by myself.  It came over me that between me and being well, perfectly well, there was nothing but myself, that I was really hanging on to my illness for some sort of protection that it gave me, just as I’d hung on to you.  I’d been thinking about it all the time, filling my mind with my illness, hanging on to the very fear of it; to save myself, I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself.  And suddenly, out there, I let go.  And the beauty of the place got me.  I can’t describe the beauty, except that there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, a clear gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming over everything like gold water.  I seemed to remember it as if I’d been here before, a long, steady memory, not just a flash.  It was like finding something you’d lost, or when a musical phrase you’ve been looking for suddenly comes back to you.  It was the most utter, indescribable peace and satisfaction.  And somehow this time joined on to the times at Wyck when we were all there and happy together; and the beastly time in between slipped through.  It just dropped out, as if it had never happened, and I got a sense of having done with it forever.  I can’t tell you what it was like.  But I think it means I’m well.