Italy - Farmer

The first mention of Italy in Rebecca is on page 43 during one of the scenes with Maxim and our unnamed narrator in Maxim's car in Monte Carlo. It is after the narrator's first mention of Rebecca to Maxim, stating simply that "you had lost your wife" (du Maurier, 41) whereafter he goes on a small rant about the narrator's idea to bottle memories before saying to her "But for you I should have left long ago, gone on to Italy, and Greece, and further still perhaps" (du Maurier, 43). It is later on that we hear that Maxim keeps this sort of promise, taking the narrator to Italy for their honeymoon after eloping, a trip we hear small tidbits about, but never actually get to see. It is assumed to be a pleasant trip from the clipped comments we as readers get about it, but the comments are all we get. It is one of the only times in the book where the narrator describes her love for Maxim and it is implied they are happy together, but we have no proof of that. In a book all about being watched and the perception of others, this trip to Italy is witheld from the reader and also from everyone else in Maxim's life since they only get the small tidbits the reader does. It becomes easy for the Manderlinians and the reader to be skeptical of Maxim's relationship with the narrator while the narrator defends it because she (the narrator) witholds one of the only moments of happiness between them from us the same way she hides a behavior she deems shameful from the people watching her.