L’arco de lo essilio
He had to get away from Severn. Severn loved him too much. The thing was obvious once said, but it frightened him and left him at a loss for his next step. This apartment over the beautiful piazza, appointed with such care, was becoming a trap, and he had a horrible sense that Severn might be happy to keep him here forever, tending him and showing him off to friends like a tame falcon. The morning with the sculptor had acquired a bitter coloring in his memory. It seemed that Severn had only wanted him and the sculptor displayed to each other, that each had his place in Severn’s collection. Even the sculptor’s illness could be made into a charge: what baseness, to use a dying man so!
People came easily to love Keats. He’d been lucky past counting to fall ill among fri
