f his
imagination impresses her, and for a moment she is startled; a light
threatens to break on her:

These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad,

she says, with a sudden and great seriousness. And when he goes panting
on, 'Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more,"' ... she breaks in,
'What do you mean?' half-doubting whether this was not a real voice that
he heard. Then, almost directly, she recovers herself, convinced of the
vanity of his fancy. Nor does she understand herself any better than
him. She never suspects that these deeds _must_ be thought after these
ways; that her facile realism,

A little water clears us of this deed,

will one day be answered by herself, 'Will these hands ne'er be clean?'
or that the fatal commonplace, 'What's done is done,' will make way for
her last despairing sentence, 'What's done cannot be undone.'

Hence the development of her character--perhaps it would be more
strictly accurate to say, the change in her state of mind--is both
inevitable, and the opposite of the development we traced in Macbeth.
When the murder has been done, the discovery of its hideousness, first
reflected in the faces of her guests, comes to Lady Macbeth with the
shock of a sudden disclosure, and at once her nature begins to sink. The
first intimation of the change is given when, in the scene of the
discovery, she faints.[229] When next we see her, Queen of Scotland, the
glory of her dream has faded. She enters, disillusioned, and weary with
want of sleep: she has thrown away everything and gained nothing:

Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Henceforth she has no initiative: the stem of her being seems to be cut
through. Her husband, physically the stronger, maddened by pangs he had
foreseen, but still flaming with life, comes into the foreground, and
she retires. Her will remains, and she does her best to help him; but he
rarely needs her help. Her chief anxiety appears to be that he should
not betray his misery. He plans the murder of Banquo without her
knowledge (not in order to spare her, I think, for he never shows love
of this quality, but merely because he does not need her now); and even
when she is told vaguely of his intention she appears but little
interested. In the sudden emergenc