Three From Left field

An Iambic Persuasion

My motivation in attempting this exercise was entirely to participate in Miss Austen’s supreme inventions. Every one of her six novels contains narrative innovation of the highest order. One might think of Sir Bertram returning to find Lovers’ Vows in rehearsal, or Maria slipping through the locked gate into the dangerous world with Henry Crawford, in Mansfield Park. A schoolgirl friend objected to Pride and Prejudice because “nothing happens, it’s all talk”; we were amused since nothing could be further from the truth. For as well as subtle and brilliant talk, the author has the ability, rarely equalled, to devise the most significant events. In Persuasion, Louisa’s fall from the Cobb, Mrs Clay’s elopement with the mysterious Mr Elliot, and most admirably, Frederick Wentworth’s letter, written in haste while interceding with another for Captain Harville, are narrative contrivances of consummate force.

The reduction to iambics is for this admirer a way of entering into these exemplary inventions.

VOLUME ONE

1 Vain baronet, Sir Walter Elliot

Of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire, a fop

And widower, is frequently to be found

Perusing his favourite book, The Baronetage.

A widower of thirteen years, and host

Of splendid drawing rooms and objets d’art,

He has three daughters by his gentle wife:

Elisabeth now twenty-nine, unwed

And mistress of the house, a butterfly;

The youngest, Mary, now of Uppercross

And wife of Charles Musgrove, a sporting man.

And, between these two, the heroine of this tale.

Anne Elliot has an elegance of mind

Exceptional in all her family –

And unappreciated by them. Her bloom

Is somewhat faded by the years and by

A disappointment eight years earlier.

The heir to Kellynch Hall is Sir Walter’s nephew,

William Walter Elliot Esq.

Years earlier it had been hoped that he

Would marry Miss Elizabeth Elliot.

Instead he had married unexpectedly

(And quite without Sir Walter’s being asked)

A rich but socially inferior woman

(Now deceased). Thenceforth Mr Elliot

Had been a stranger, shunning Kellynch Place.

Elizabeth at twenty-nine begins

To feel the chill advance of gusting time

Despite her eminence in the social round.

Meanwhile Sir Walter living elegantly

Has lived continually beyond his means

And must, his lawyer, Mr Shepherd, warns

(Despite his blithe denials of the case)

Take stock. Plans must be made, decisions taken.

2 Lady Russell, Anne’s mother’s closest friend,

And Anne’s long trusted friend and guardian,

Is present at this odious conference.

This Lady Russell has a darker role

In Anne’s affections. Eight long years ago

Anne was in love and gravely courted by

One Frederick Wentworth, young and, at that time,

Without prestige. Against his ardent hopes

Anne was persuaded by this family friend

To give him up. Young Frederick had since then

Become a naval Captain and attained

Some fortune and a general regard,

While in that time Anne had herself acquired

A much enlightened measure of regret.

She has not wavered in regard for him

Nor yet lost Lady Russell as her friend.

3 Retrenchments for Sir Walter are proposed

By Elizabeth: curtailing charities,

Not giving Anne a birthday gift next year –

Sir Walter will not countenance more. But these

Are soon pronounced inadequate. At last

A measure which will meet the case is found:

Sir Walter must remove to cheaper rooms

And rent out Kellynch Hall. He will agree

Provided it appears that he accedes

With generous grace to much repeated pleas

From someone who shows grateful deference.

Bath is preferred to London, for in Bath

Sir Walter’s style will stand in more relief

And he will soon be fêted and receive

A gratifying shower of visiting cards.

And a tenant has been found: an Admiral Croft.

“A navy man?” Sir Walter is unimpressed.

“Such fellows look much older than their years,

What with the climate and the life at sea,

And their appearance is not elegant.”

But Mr Shepherd urges Admiral Croft

Is a man of quality; his wife, what’s more,

Is sister to the Reverend Edward Wentworth.

At this Anne flushes. Edward has a brother –

Captain Frederick Wentworth – whose career

She closely follows in the navy lists

And who will now be seen at Kellynch Hall.

4 Sir Walter meets the Admiral and approves.

“He is a man I would not be ashamed

To be seen with in the street – although his hair

Could do with rearrangement by my man.”

And so it is agreed. Elizabeth

And Mrs Clay, her close (and clinging) friend

Will, with Sir Walter, move to rooms in Bath.

But Lady Russell is alarmed at this,

Since she suspects the widow, Mrs Clay,

Is intent on capturing Sir Walter’s hand.

Anne does not wish to go with them to Bath,

But will however go to Uppercross

Since Mary is (as she is frequently,

Alas) quite indisposed and needs her there.

The transfers are effected. Admiral Croft

Moves in. Sir Walter and Elizabeth

With Mrs Clay are now at Camden Place,

A most desirable address in Bath.

5 At Uppercross Anne found her sister frail.

“I have been so unwell. I cannot speak.

I have not seen a creature all this day.

I thought that you were never going to come.

Except, that is, for Mr Musgrove, who

This morning stopped and shouted from his horse.”

She raised herself a little from the couch.

“And Charles is shooting.” Anne said, “I am sorry –”

“Of course. But someone has to carry on.”

Soon Mary had improved sufficiently

To think they might walk to the Musgrove house

And call on Mrs Musgrove and the girls

(Louisa, thirteen; Henrietta twenty.)

And as they walked she went from strength to strength.

At Uppercross, three miles from Kellynch Hall,

Anne was aware the Crofts must call on them

And she would speak with Mrs Croft, who was

The sister of that centre in her life,

The sailor sailing still far from her shores.

6 This visit happened after several weeks

And Mrs Croft seemed kind, and warmed to Anne

Without – Anne thought – the least awareness of

That great refusal eight long years before.

Instead she startled Anne by suddenly

Remarking, “Now I see that it was you

And not your sister that my brother met

When he was here. Perhaps you have not heard

That he is married.” The gulf that opened then

To swallow Anne was just as quickly closed

When Mrs Croft went on, and it was clear

That it was Edward Wentworth, clergyman,

Who now was happily settled with a wife.

Their visit now was all tranquillity

Until Anne heard the Admiral announce:

“We are expecting soon at Kellynch Hall

A brother of my wife’s, the excellent

Seafarer, Captain Frederick Wentworth. Here,

Round Uppercross, you may have heard his name?”

At which news Mrs Musgrove launched with zeal

Into high praise of his great kindnesses

To her poor Richard who (she sadly said)

Had been a wayward youth at sea – then helped

By Captain Wentworth’s patient monitoring –

But who, alas, had died while making good.

All this was clear from letters he had sent

And which she had preserved (the only ones

Not simply asking them to send him money.)

7 The day of Captain Wentworth’s visit was,

It so transpired, the day when little Charles –

Poor Mary’s eldest boy was carried home

Much bruised. It fell to Anne – since Mary must

By all considerations go with Charles

To welcome Captain Wentworth – to remain

And tend the child, who was declared in need

Of rest – no more – after his collarbone

Had been adjusted by the apothecary.

The child’s devoted parents left at once

Assured that Anne would give him all the care

Which they would do were they not called away.

The child was sleeping calmly in her care;

Alone at Uppercross, Anne thought at length

Of Frederick, half a mile away at most.

Had he desired to see her ever again?

He must, she thought, be quite indifferent

Or else he could – or would – have sought her out.

Mary and Charles were loud with Frederick’s praise.

The party was a great success, with lights

And music, singing, charming courtesies;

Anne Elliot, a slightly fading flower,

Once beautiful, it often had been said,

Heard every word, yet, as she always did

Thought only of those things which might have been.

And Charles, enthusing still, announced that he

Would, on the morrow, breakfast at his father’s

With Captain Wentworth and, perhaps, then shoot.

They looked at little Charles. And Anne felt cold.

Next morning was in shadow still when Charles

Stepped in to say he’d come to fetch the dogs,

That Captain Wentworth would be following,

With Henrietta and Louisa to pay

His compliments. Anne felt the same disquiet

While Mary fussed and was most gratified.

Soon Captain Wentworth occupied the room.

She briefly met his gaze. She heard his voice.

He spoke to Mary sympathetically.

The room seemed overfilled until they left,

The Musgrove sisters having now resolved

To walk out with the sportsmen to the fields.

Anne told herself this time had come and gone;

They had been once more in the same room.

She tried to reason: how absurd it was –

Or would be if she were to countenance

Such agitation. Eight long years had passed.

Eight years! Almost a third of her whole life…

Alas! She found that reason had no power.

Her sister Mary clearly was impressed.

“How gallant Captain Wentworth was with me.

And, by the way, you may be interested –

He said you were so altered he would not

Have known you.” Anne was silent, mortified.

“Altered beyond all knowledge!” Yet she had thought

The Frederick she had seen was quite unchanged.

Of course he must be looking elsewhere now.

She had refused him eight long years ago.

Now it was being said he well might choose

Louisa or Henrietta as a wife.

8 Now circumstance decreed that they must meet

And navigate a passage silently,

Who eight years earlier would have easily found

Ways even in the largest crowd to speak.

At Mrs Musgrove’s, conversation turned

With regularity to matters of the sea

And Captain Wentworth’s sloop The Laconia.

The Musgrove girls would eagerly consult

The shipping lists to find her. Everyone

Seemed quite entranced by naval anecdote.

The Laconia mentioned, Mrs Musgrove said,

Shedding a tear, “Yes that was where our dear

Young Richard found such kind encouragement.”

Admiral and Mrs Croft often extolled

The sailor’s life and courtship while at sea,

Even their wedded happiness on board

Despite the narrow confines of the ship.

“In all our married days I never once

Allowed long separation of our paths.”

And Frederick, jesting with his sister, said

That now he was on shore he must soon find

A partner suited to the life on land –

Although he would demand a resolute mind

And yes – he hoped – sweetness of temperament.

Another member of the present party,

Charles Hayter, cousin of the Musgroves, and

The heir to Winthrop, two miles’ walk away,

Had long aspired to Henrietta’s hand –

Who now was quite distracted by another.

And Charles forlornly found himself marooned

By this Star of the Sea, reflected everywhere:

The centre and cynosure of all eyes!

And all this while Anne felt his cold regard

And quite excessive deference when they did

Speak briefly. Now there was dancing. Anne must play,

While others danced. And someone said, when asked,

“No. Anne has not now danced for many years.”

9 Soon almost every day at Uppercross

Saw Captain Wentworth welcomed by them all

– That is, except Charles Hayter, who demurred.

Charles Hayter had a curacy, and yet

Miss Musgrove seemed to have forgotten him;

His country lanes once peaceful and secure,

Were suddenly encroached by spray and bilge.

And yet a great uncertainty prevailed:

Had Henrietta or Louisa raised

A billowing sail in Captain Wentworth’s sights?

Anne had repeatedly to hear each side

And offer her opinion. Mary was

Convinced that Henrietta won the day,

While Charles had strongly formed the opposite view.

Mary plied Anne incessantly with facts,

The lamentable inferiority

Of poor Charles Hayter and his curacy,

The captain’s clear desirability…

A dinner at the Musgroves should provide

More evidence (which Anne could scarcely need.)

But little Charles seemed still unwell and she,

So eminently suited to the task,

Could care for him. Mary must attend…

Now several days have passed at Uppercross;

The scene is set for something truly strange

And yet so slight as to remain her own:

Anne sits with little Charles. Now read on.

When Captain Wentworth walked into the room

He was surprised to find her there alone.

“I thought the two Miss Musgroves would be here.”

A further awkward silence. Then he said,

“I hope the little boy is better.” Anne

Wished she could leave but could not. Then she turned

And was surprised to see Charles Hayter there.

A stillness like a distant storm at sea

Spread through the room. When Captain Wentworth spoke,

Charles Hayter had retreated to a chair

Assiduously to read the paper. Anne

Was occupied with restless little Charles.

And here it is the strange event transpires.

Walter the younger Musgrove boy ran in;

This two-year-old, stout child looked round,

Then threw his arms about his kneeling aunt.

Anne could not shake him off. “Walter!” she cried,

“You are most troublesome. Stop this at once.”

Charles Hayter murmured – ineffectually

Without abandoning the daily news.

And then the strange symbolic action came.

She felt a burden lifted from her shoulders:

Without a word the Captain, formerly reticent,

Had seized the child and freed the kneeling Anne

And all before she realised with shock

That Frederick Wentworth had secured her release.

10 A very fine November day – the sky,

And glittering fields surrounding Uppercross,

More clear by far than Anne’s sequestered thought.

A long walk is proposed. The Musgrove girls

And Anne and Mary (somewhat peevishly)

Are setting out to see the last leaves fall.

At just this point the gentlemen returned

And joined them willingly, (not the other Charles

Who, ceding Henrietta, quit the field.)

All six stepped out in autumn’s trembling calm;

And Anne beguiled the time, and her disquiet

At his proximity, by summoning

To mind some of the thousand verse accounts

Of autumn and its wasted grandeur. He

Seemed much in converse with Louisa, more

Perhaps than with her sister. Frederick said,

“What glorious weather for the Admiral

And my good sister who have driven out.

She is always at his side.” At which Anne heard

Louisa: “If I loved a man, as she –

Your sister – loves the Admiral, I would too

Ensure that we did everything as one.”

Anne felt distracted from her autumn verse

And said, though no-one seemed to hear, “Are we

Not on a path to Winthrop?” It was so.

The unpretentious house stood in a copse.

But Mary suddenly was quite fatigued

And urged their turning back. So Charles resolved

To walk on further down the winding path

To greet his aunt. Louisa urged the same,

While Henrietta thought they should return.

Lively debate ensued. Mary was firm.

She could not walk back up that hill. She must,

If they insisted on this long descent,

Recover here and wait for their return.

At length it was agreed. Four would remain –

Or walk between the hedgerows still in fruit –

While Charles and Henrietta would descend.

While still disparaging Winthrop, Mary sat

On a convenient stile. Anne stayed nearby.

Louisa thought that nuts might still be found

Along the hedgerows. Captain Wentworth followed.

Mary and Anne sat in a cooling sun

And in the stillness heard Louisa’s voice

Approaching down the hedgerow: “I insisted.

Henrietta wavers easily.

But I persuaded her that Winthrop was

The original purpose of our walk…” Then Anne

Heard Captain Wentworth praising her resolve,

So very admirable in her character.

Their voices faded then returned. Anne heard:

“We always wished that Charles had married Anne.”

“Did she refuse him?” “Yes. Most certainly.

We were at school and so I’m not quite sure.

I think that Lady Russell played some part.”

In time Anne was relieved to hear Charles’ voice.

And following him was Henrietta – but

Now on Charles Hayter’s arm. And Anne observed

Much added charm in Henrietta’s smile.

The autumn colours spread complaisantly

As three distinct groups moved across the field –

With Anne and Mary flanking Charles, each

Upon an arm (except when frequently

Charles waved his stick at nettles in the hedge.)

Crossing the lane and at the opposite stile

The straggling party paused. Approaching them,

A carriage, as it slowed, soon proved to be

The returning Admiral and Mrs Croft.

Mrs Croft cried out immediately,

“Miss Anne, you look quite tired. You must allow us

The pleasure of conveying you to your home.

There is excellent room for three. Indeed if we

Were all like you we comfortably might seat four.”

At first instinctively declining, Anne found

The Crofts would not be easily swayed; she smiled.

And then – again disturbingly – as in

His strong removal of the infant Charles –

She found the Captain had without a word

Assisted her into the waiting carriage.

But all the cheerful way to Uppercross

Anne must endure the friendly Crofts’ debate,

Which of the charming Musgrove girls will Frederick choose?

11 The time approached for Anne to leave her sister

And return to Lady Russell’s, close to Kellynch.

There, since he frequented Uppercross

She might see less, rather than more of him

Who called her coldly from their troubled past.

She thought that she would rather never see

That ghostly Frederick Wentworth at the Hall,

Whose rooms retained such painful memories

And where refusal at the whim of others

Had cast long shadows into every room.

But just before she left her sister’s house,

That Captain, who had been two days away,

Returned, explaining how a letter from his friend,

One Captain Harville, settled now at Lyme,

Had led him there in haste. This long-time friend,

Still unrecovered from a sabre wound,

Had welcomed him, renewing friendship’s bonds.

The warmth of this account, the lure of Lyme

Not twenty miles away, the sea’s great charm,

The sisters’ never having been to Lyme –

Soon led to plans for an excursion there.

Objections from the Musgroves over-ruled,

Plans rapidly advanced. The party was:

Mary and Charles and Henrietta, Anne,

Louisa and Captain Wentworth, the very same

As had most recently climbed Winthrop Hill.

It was agreed that dwindling autumn light

Would mean that they must stay the night in Lyme.

An early breakfast at the Great House; then,

In Mr Musgrove’s coach four ladies; following,

Charles in his curricle with Captain Wentworth.

The charm of Lyme in autumn, its narrow street

In haste to reach the sea, the shuttered rooms,

The eloquent absence of the summer crowds,

The splendours of the Cobb and bay –

All struck them as they reached the view at last.

Accommodation and a meal arranged,

The party set out eagerly to walk.

Anne felt at once the pleasure of release.

While Frederick called on Harville at his house

Within the shadows of an ancient pier,

The others walked on down towards the sea.

When they were joined by Frederick on the Cobb

The Harville family were accompanying

And with them Captain Benwick, a close friend.

This friend had, more than most men, loved and lost

When Fanny, Harville’s sister, passed away,

And Benwick still persisted in her shade.

Anne felt with envious surprise the warmth

And naturalness with which Lyme greeted them:

The Harvilles welcomed her with open arms

And Captain Benwick proved at once to be

A man of generous sensibilities

Who must confide his love of poetry

And in particular (did she not agree?)

The precious legacy of Scott and Byron.

This conversation promised to be long.

To his marked preferences for poetry

Anne added commendations for some prose

And urged that he read certain moralists

– Which names he noted. Time flowed pleasantly.

12 The following day an early morning walk

Found Anne and Henrietta by the sea

Watching the rapid progress of the tide.

While still uncoloured morning light remained,

A second couple met them on the sands:

Louisa, blithe with Captain Wentworth – who,

Anne thought, seemed happily oblivious.

Then at the steps ascending from the beach

A courteous stranger paused to let Anne pass –

And looked intently at her, quite as if

Some secret bond already had been formed.

Perhaps now Captain Wentworth saw this gaze

While glancing there, as if to say, “This man

Is strongly struck by you – and I note too

Some semblance of the former Miss Anne Elliot.”

Then, in a corridor outside her room,

The same man looked at her admiringly;

Again Anne felt fresh curiosity.

At breakfast from the window someone saw

A curricle departing. Mary cried:

“It is the man we saw! I am quite sure.

He was in mourning too. How curious!”

When Captain Wentworth asks, the waiter nods:

“The gentleman is a Mr Elliot,

A man of fortune, here from Sidmouth way

And bound today for Bath, I understand.”

“Bless me!” cried Mary in an ecstasy –

“It must be our cousin Mr Elliot,

Our heir! For he would be in mourning too…”

But Anne was troubled by the paradox:

That Mr Elliot seemed a gentleman,

And most impressive in his bearing, seemed

At odds with the offence from years before,

Felt by her father and Elizabeth –

His strange neglect of them at Kellynch Hall.

But now the cloudless morning offers them

Their final walk in Lyme. They plan to meet

The Harvilles and poor Captain Benwick, who

(As Mary has observed a hundred times)

Appears to have a warm regard for Anne.

Their walk is naturally towards the Cobb –

And is accompanied by the Harville’s praise

For Captain Wentworth’s generosity.

And Captain Benwick seeks out Anne, again

With references to Byron’s ‘dark blue sea’.

But now Louisa, standing on the Cobb,

Is calling out to Frederick just below

That she will leap and be jumped down by him.

Unwillingly – because the ground is hard –

He urges caution, then agrees. She jumps,

Is thrilled and must at once run up the steps

To insist, against all reasoning cries, to jump

And be caught down again. She leaps and falls

And suddenly is lying near the wall.

Lifeless, she was lying near the wall.

There was no wound, no blood, no visible bruise,

And still no signs of life. And Mary screamed,

And screamed, “She is surely dead! She must be dead!”

As Captain Wentworth knelt and taking her –

Louisa – or her shadow – in his arms

And calling, “Will no-one help me?” Henrietta

Fainted, to be held by Anne and Benwick…

Anne replied at once. “Go to him. I

Can manage Henrietta. Here are salts!

For heaven’s sake help him! Go! Rub her hands!”

Next, Charles and Benwick lifted her

And held her hands, as Anne cried, “Find a surgeon!”

Anne found herself required to quieten Mary,

Encourage Charles, calm Captain Wentworth’s fears –

As Benwick hastened for a surgeon. Then

She thought to move Louisa to the inn.

But on their way they met the Harvilles – who

Insisted that the patient be brought home.

The surgeon came. Louisa, still inert,

Had no apparent injury to limbs;

Only her head had been contused. Of course,

The patient must remain and not be moved.

And now the pressing matter must be met:

Someone must go at once to Uppercross

To tell Mr and Mrs Musgrove. Anne

By chance was standing at Louisa’s door

And heard the voice of Captain Wentworth say,

“Musgrove, either you or I must leave

And ride to Uppercross. And Anne must stay –

No-one so right, so capable as Anne.”

Perhaps she did not notice: He said “Anne”

And not “Anne Elliot”, not “Miss Elliot.”

But Mary will not go so quietly.

She has the right, she is Louisa’s sister,

And what is Anne? Is she not just as useful?

(And much more protestations of this kind.)

At length it is resolved in Mary’s favour:

Anne must go. And when the carriage comes

And Wentworth hastens in, he is surprised

To be conveying Anne with Henrietta …

Like fallen leaves disturbed by carriage wheels,

Anxieties rose up and settled back

Repeatedly. Their horses seemed intent

On rapid progress. Anne saw trees and hills,

Remembered from the forward journey, pass

Before they were expected. Dusk grew dark

With sombre shadows, nearing Uppercross.

VOLUME TWO

1 At Uppercross Louisa’s parents grieved.

Next morning Charles arrived with fresh accounts

Where cautious hope was mixed with anxious fears.

And Charles could not speak glowingly enough

About the Harville’s generosity,

And Mrs Harville’s role as zealous nurse.

And, incidentally, Mary was unwell.

Charles Hayter went to Lyme and soon returned

With more encouragement. Louisa’s sense

And intervals of consciousness, it seemed,

Were stronger now with every sombre day.

November gloom surrounded Uppercross

As Anne’s departure neared. At Kellynch Lodge

With Lady Russell she would be once more

Close to the Hall and painful memories.

But hearing Lady Russell’s compliments

On her refreshed complexion – and her form,

She found herself inclined to recollect

Her courteous cousin, Mr Elliot.

For with events at Lyme, Anne had almost

Forgotten Bath. But Lady Russell praised

The suitability of Camden Place

While voicing her regrets that Mrs Clay

Had so persistently attached herself

To both Sir Walter and Elizabeth.

As Anne related the events at Lyme

She felt the strength of Lady Russell’s gaze

At any sound of Captain Wentworth’s name.

And Lady Russell seemed to see confirmed

Her doubts of Captain Wentworth’s probity

In his attachment to Louisa Musgrove.

One morning she spoke gently to her friend:

“Dear Anne, I owe a visit to the Hall,

And wonder: have you the strength to come with me?

It will be quite a trial for both of us.”

Admiral and Mrs Croft were welcoming.

The conversation turned at once to Lyme

And new reports Louisa still improved,

For Captain Wentworth had called yesterday.

He had enquired also of Miss Elliot

Whose help at Lyme had been invaluable.

The Admiral wanted to convey through Anne

His compliments to her father – and to say

That they found Kellynch admirably well

With very little needing serious change

With few exceptions: one, the laundry door!

Which they had now improved quite wondrously.

The Admiral marvelled that the family had

For so long left it opening as it did.

And all those mirrors in the dressing room,

Sir Walter’s most particularly! These had

Been taken down and turned to face the wall.

2 Charles Musgrove and his wife had stayed at Lyme

Far longer than expected. Mary had

Been tolerably well amused: by books,

Excursions, walks, a visit to the church –

The crowd more varied there than Uppercross;

A bathing trip to Charmouth and, while there,

The pleasing recognition of her name

And reference to her father’s eminence.

And all of this augmented by the sense

Of being useful in these dire events.

Louisa was improved but very weak

And quite susceptible to nervous shock.

Anne asked of Captain Benwick. At this ensued

Dispute between Charles Musgrove and his wife

As to that person’s references to Anne.

In Mary’s view he had not said a word.

But Charles recalled: “He often speaks of you

In terms of ‘sweetness’, ‘elegance’ and ‘beauty’ –

(Mary, you must have not been listening.)

He mentions books he reads because of you.”

“Well then,” said Mary, “this is quite remiss,

Since Fanny Harville died not six months past.

And you, dear Lady Russell, would agree.”

“But,” Lady Russell smiled. “I cannot say.

I must meet Captain Benwick to decide;

A friend of Anne’s should be a friend of mine.”

Then Mary spoke of the coincidence

Whereby their cousin Mr Elliot was seen –

But checked her zeal when Lady Russell said,

“I have no time for Mr Elliot,

Who by declining to be cordial

With family and Sir Walter as its head,

Has conjured much disfavour, in my view.”

This was a time of change and interchange:

Louisa still in Lyme, Mary returned,

The Harville children moved to Uppercross,

Charles Hayter back and forth for just as long

As Henrietta was at Louisa’s side.

And Anne heard news of Captain Wentworth’s plans

To visit Plymouth, then to Shropshire where

He hoped to see his brother. Only Anne

Felt pleased to be unchanged at Kellynch Lodge.

Anne next heard from Elizabeth in Bath.

Their cousin, Mr Elliot, had called,

And called again, at Camden Place. He was

Quite courteous and a most agreeable man.

Anne still was not disposed to visit Bath,

Yet more intrigued by Mr Elliot.

But Lady Russell, who had rooms in Bath,

Was, at this news immediately inclined,

Recanting her severe disparagements,

To see this Mr Elliot. She resolved

To go at once to Bath. Anne was conveyed,

Somewhat reluctantly, to Camden Place

While Lady Russell went to Rivers Street.

3 Sir Walter as a man of consequence

Had rented a fine house in Camden Place.

Anne entered it with sinking heart. She feared

A long imprisonment, but was surprised

To find her father and her sister cordial

And glad to see her (having someone new

To whom to show the drapes and furniture.)

And Mrs Clay was almost equally –

If less convincingly – beset with smiles.

All was in excellent spirits. Uppercross

Claimed little interest, Kellynch slightly more;

But soon their questions turned to full accounts

Of Bath and drawing rooms and visitors

And latest styles and dress and porcelain –

And calling cards left by aspiring strangers.

And one more jewel in Bath’s glittering crown

Was Mr Elliot. All had been explained

And soon resolved with such felicity

That several years of mere misapprehension –

For that was all it was – had disappeared.

He never had renounced the family name,

Had ever boasted of the name of Elliot;

Even the circumstances of his marriage

Allowed extenuation. A friend of his,

A Colonel Wallis (most respectable –

Who lived in Marlborough Buildings, and

Had, at his own particular request,

Made their acquaintance) knew the story well.

The wife in question was, it must be said,

Not eminently well connected, but

She was accomplished, rich (although of course

This would have been of little, or no account)

And from the outset had pursued the match.

Anne listened without understanding. Why,

If it were true that Mr Elliot

Were now quite rich – why, after many years

Of severance, should he suddenly return?

She had the sudden notion: could it be

Elizabeth, dismissed so long ago,

Whom now he sees and seeks afresh? Perhaps –

But still Anne felt that there was something strange,

Some secret in this show of courtesy.

She mentioned having seen his face in Lyme;

Elizabeth and her father vaguely heard

But much preferred to talk of him themselves,

The pleasure of appearances – and more,

Their great importance – fuelled a dialogue

In which Sir Walter and Elizabeth

Were loudly seconded by Mrs Clay.

A sudden knock! So late! Quite ten o’clock!

And Mrs Clay cried, “Mr Elliot’s knock,

I’m sure of it!” Sir Walter said, “We knew

He was at Landsdowne Crescent and might call.”

And it was he, the same whom Anne had seen

Except for dress: the mourning suit was gone.

As Anne stood back, the sparkling repartee

And exercises in politeness soared.

At length and with the utmost deference

Sir Walter asked his leave to introduce

His “youngest daughter” (Mary was excised)

At which Anne blushed and Mr Elliot

Betrayed a fleeting startlement to see

She was the woman he had seen in Lyme.

He was the very model of a man

In whom refinement, courtesy and sense

Must counter something close to handsomeness.

He sat with them. They spoke at last of Lyme,

And Mr Elliot voiced his great concern

At all Anne had endured. Had he but known!

Anne was intrigued, perhaps impressed. The hour

Had been more interesting than she might have hoped.

4 At breakfast two dilemmas vied for space.

(Each seemed by turns to trouble Anne the more.)

Did Mr Elliot seek Elizabeth?

Or Mrs Clay her father? Nothing was clear.

Entering, she thought she heard the whispered voice

Of Mrs Clay: “And now that Anne is here,

I feel that I should quit the field,” at which

She heard Elizabeth reassuringly

Say, “Certainly not. I value you too much.”

And then Sir Walter: “Madam, you have seen

So little yet of Bath. You must not leave.”

Her father complimented Anne. “I do believe

You are less thin, your skin greatly improved.

You look decidedly more clear, more fresh –

You have been using Gowlands?” “No, Sir. Nothing.”

“I am surprised. Mrs Clay, on my advice,

Has used it on her freckles – with success,

As, I am sure, you would agree.” (Anne smiled;

She saw no slightest diminution there.)

Anne was quite pleased by Mr Elliot.

They talked of Lyme, both wishing to return,

Of that first passing in the corridor,

Of chance and fortune and coincidence.

Chance also brought Sir Walter stirring news.

The papers told the imminence in Bath

Of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple

With the Honourable Miss Carteret, her daughter.

Thus Camden Place was in a heightened state

Of thrilling and sustained anxiety.

For now Sir Walter’s task was to devise

A means of introduction – all the more

Important for Sir Walter’s high prestige

Since the Dowager was distantly related.

From then on Anne heard constantly the cry,

“Our cousins, the Dalrymples, now in Bath…”

Sir Walter wrote a floridly courteous letter

Explaining and expressing his regrets

At past hiatuses with his esteemed,

Most honourable cousin. The family was extolled

And compliments profusely scattered. Soon

The reward arrived: a hasty, generous scrawl

And Camden Place resounded to the cry

“Our cousins, the Dalrymples, Laura Place.”

Anne felt ashamed to see such sycophancy,

And spoke of it to Mr Elliot –

Who disagreed and urged, “the vital role

Which family and connections must all play

To help divert your father from the claims

Of those who are beneath him.” Here he looked

Towards the chair which Mrs Clay had left.

5 Sir Walter and Elizabeth, obsessed

With calling cards and Bath society,

Were much preoccupied. And, meanwhile, Anne

Sought out a former schoolfriend now in Bath –

Society of a very different kind.

Miss Hamilton – now Mrs Smith – had shown

Much kindness in those long, unhappy days

When Anne was grieving at her mother’s death

And, as a girl of fourteen, far from home.

Miss Hamilton, her elder by three years,

Had left school and soon married (Anne had heard)

A man of fortune who regrettably

Was kind, most generous, but extravagant.

Now Mrs Smith, a widow, was quite poor.

Her husband at his death two years before

Had left his estate dreadfully confused.

And also at this time she had acquired

Rheumatic fever which, for now at least,

Had left her crippled, reliant on a nurse.

She lived, therefore, in straitened circumstance

In lodgings near hot baths and much alone.

Anne made her way, with Lady Russell’s help,

To Westgate Buildings. Anne and Mrs Smith,

After initial awkwardness, remarked

The changes those twelve years had brought to them.

Anne was no more the shy, unformed young girl,

But now a woman of beauty, if not bloom;

Miss Hamilton had sadly been transformed

From youthful, well-grown confidence and health

To be a poor, infirm and helpless widow.

Yet Anne found in her former mentor still

Good sense and cheerfulness despite her state.

They talked with pleasure of the lingering past.

A second visit followed. Mrs Smith

Now spoke with greater openness. Anne grew

In admiration and astonishment.

Her friend had loved the husband who had died;

She had no child; she lived in noisy rooms;

She had been used to affluence. It was gone.

Yet sense and optimism had remained.

She had been fortunate in finding rooms;

Her nurse, a Mrs Rooke, was generous

And acted as a conduit to the world –

Conveying gossip and the vital news

From all the great metropolis of Bath.

“Nurse Rooke has just one other charge these days

– A frivolous and silly, pretty soul,

A Mrs Wallis of the Marlborough Buildings –

And so Nurse Rooke is with me frequently.”

Sir Walter was offended and amazed

To hear that Anne, his daughter, had just been

To Westgate Buildings. “Westgate Buildings! Who

Is Miss Anne Elliot to be loitering there?

A widowed Mrs Smith, you say? And who

Is she? Who was her husband? One of several –

A thousand – Mr Smiths! Upon my word,

Anne, you perplex me greatly. How is it

That places of contagion and foul air,

Which other people shun, you must frequent?”

Elizabeth was loud in her disdain

And wondered whether Lady Russell knew

That Miss Anne Elliot was at Westgate Buildings.

Anne replied that she not only knew

But took her there in her own curricle.

Soon even more offence would be perceived:

An invitation from the Lady Dalrymple

To dine at Laura Place fell on the day

When Anne had pledged to visit Mrs Smith,

A promise she could not – would not postpone.

Sir Walter railed once more: “This Mrs Smith –

A woman without family or name…”

This judgement was observed by Mrs Clay

Who at this juncture rose and left the room;

And it occurred to Anne that Mrs Clay

Was not dissimilar to Mrs Smith

In widowhood and name and family,

But out of kindness did not make the point.

So while Sir Walter went to Laura Place

In splendour with his glittering entourage,

His daughter was in Mrs Smith’s dim room.

Meanwhile the impressive Mr Elliot,

So frequently attending Camden Place,

Continued to preoccupy all minds.

While Lady Russell was convinced that soon,

His mourning over, he would marry Anne,

Anne found him charming and intelligent

But somehow still a shade too plausible.

6 The news from Uppercross was sparse, and Anne,

Two months in Bath, felt exiled, far from home.

From Mary’s hasty note she only knew

That Henrietta was at Uppercross,

Louisa still in Lyme – and little more.

And then a more substantial letter came

And, pleasingly, delivered by the Crofts,

Who must be now in Bath. Her father said

There was no need for Admiral Croft to use

The ploy of carrying letters to gain

An introduction. He would soon enough

Have seen him. “After all, he is my tenant.”

Anne read with eagerness and then surprise:

February 1st

My dearest Anne,

I do not make apology

For my silence since I know in Bath

You have so much to see and do.

Our Christmas has been very dull.

No dinner parties at the House.

The Hayters do not count, of course.

At last the holidays have passed.

The Harville children are still here.

I do not think them nice at all,

Though Mrs Musgrove likes them more

Than any grandchild of her own.

What dreadful weather we have had.

No-one has called, except of course,

Charles Hayter; he seems always here.

The carriage has been sent today

To bring Louisa back at last.

How long it is since Mrs Clay

Attached herself to all at Bath!

When does she ever mean to leave?

And, if she did go, I suppose

That I would not be asked to Bath?

Do tell me what you think of this.

I have been told the Crofts have left

For Bath. They never visit here.

Charles heard this news. It shows in them

Gross inattention. Charles sends love.

Affectionately,

Mary M.

PS. I have been far from well.

The butcher says apparently

There is a sore throat much about.

I dare say I shall catch it. And,

As you well know, sore throats in me

Are worse than in anybody else.

But there was more, another added sheet.

I had a note from Mrs Croft

Most kindly offering to convey

Whatever I might send to you.

– A friendly note addressed to me,

Just as it ought. The Admiral

Does not seem very ill, and Bath

Will do him good. I shall be glad

To have them back near us again.

But to Louisa: here is news

Which will, I am sure, astonish you:

Louisa is to marry – Yes!

But not to whom we all supposed,

But Captain Benwick! And we all thought

That he was set on marrying you!

Mrs Harville agrees with me –

We love Louisa all the more

For having nursed her for so long.

So exhilarating was this news, she feared

She could not answer questions. Fortunately

Her father and Elizabeth had few.

How many carriage horses had the Crofts?

And did they have acquaintances in Bath?

And how was Mary? (though Elizabeth

Seemed not to wait for answers.) Their concern

Reverted to the Lady Dalrymple.

Anne was amazed. Louisa and Captain Benwick?

This was too wonderful to comprehend.

In her own room Anne thought of nothing else

But these events. Had Captain Wentworth known

His friend had won Louisa’s heart? And were

These former friends divided by the match?

Had Captain Wentworth given up and gone?

She felt an overwhelming, senseless joy.

The following week saw Anne, elated still –

– Still curious about these strange events,

Engaged with Lady Russell. She found herself

Hoping to see the Crofts, whom she admired.

One afternoon, on leaving Laura Place,

While crossing Milsom Street to Camden Place

She chanced on Admiral Croft standing alone

In front of some preposterous nautical scene

(Or so he thought) in the window of a shop.

Anne was delighted then to take his arm

And walk with him until their ways must part.

He said he had some news he must divulge –

But first Anne must hear naval rigmarole

With much preliminary speculation. Then

At last he gave the news of Captain Benwick.

“You know James Benwick?” Anne said, “Yes. I do.

We are a little acquainted. And I believe

He is a man of excellent character.”

“A little too piano for my taste,

But still, a man of character, to be sure.”

And finally before their paths diverged,

Anne ascertained that there was no ill-will

Between the friends who well may have been rivals.

7 The very day that Anne met Admiral Croft

Found Frederick Wentworth setting out for Bath.

When Anne next walked she saw him in the street.

Again in Milsom Street – with Mr Elliot,

Elizabeth and primping Mrs Clay –

Anne looked out everywhere for him. But then

It soon began to rain, sufficiently

To make Elizabeth decide to seek

To ride in Lady Dalrymple’s carriage – which

Was standing ready quite close by. The ladies

Sheltered in a store while Mr Elliot

Set off to make enquiries of the groom.

When he returned it was resolved. The barouche

Had room for two. Elizabeth must be one;

Debate ensued to fill the second place.

Who should or should not walk with Mr Elliot

Turned on the vulnerability of boots.

Anne’s were most sound, but Mrs Clay thought hers

More waterproof. Then Mr Elliot

Passed judgement. Anne’s boots were of stouter stuff

And Mrs Clay would travel in the carriage.

Anne thought herself quite pleased to walk and talk

With Mr Elliot in the shimmering rain.

He saw Elizabeth and Mrs Clay

Securely to the carriage then returned.

While he was gone, Anne, looking from the door,

Saw Captain Wentworth. Suddenly she thought

To see if it was raining still outside

– And felt at once her own absurdity.

But as she paused, she was surprised, confused,

Disturbed, as Captain Wentworth stepped indoors.

As Frederick Wentworth entered, he appeared

As startled as was she at seeing him,

And for the first time since they had met again,

More prey to sensibility than she.

She felt delight and agitation, pain –

He spoke to her, broke off, then turned away.

She saw embarrassment, not coldness. Time –

Or else Louise – had affected him.

They spoke of Lyme, of Uppercross, of Bath.

The rain outside was light, yet luminous.

She told him how Elizabeth had gone

With Mrs Clay by carriage; she would walk.

“But in the rain! I am prepared for Bath – ”

And Captain Wentworth offered his umbrella.

Just as their awkwardness seemed to dissolve

In a benign and sunlit showering rain,

Her cousin, Mr Elliot, returned.

He came with eagerness, apologised,

Was most solicitous, his main concern

That they set out before the rain increased.

They then walked off, with no more time to speak

To Captain Wentworth than to say in haste

“Good morning to you”, as she disappeared.

He watched as Anne took Mr Elliot’s arm.

Though nothing could exceed his courtesies

Anne would have much preferred him to desist

And be silent all the way to Camden Place.

She scarcely understood a word he said,

Although she recognised that Mrs Clay

Was censured, Lady Russell praised, and Bath

With its superior persons much admired.

She thought of Captain Wentworth at each step.

For several days she did not see him. Then

From Lady Russell’s carriage he was seen

(But not by Lady Russell, it appeared).

Anne feared her friend’s opinion of him still.

8 A concert in the constellation of

The dazzling Lady Dalrymple approached.

Her protégé, her patronage, her presence

Ensured the Elliots were among the first

To take their place. Anne hoped that here she might

See Captain Wentworth. In the octagon room

He entered suddenly. She spoke. He paused,

So that they stood and talked – the weather, Bath.

“I have scarcely seen you since our day in Lyme.

You must, I fear, have suffered from the shock

The more from its not reaching you at first.”

She assured him she was well. He shook his head.

“That frightful day! We shall not soon forget.”

“You were, I think, a good while still in Lyme?”

“About a fortnight. I could scarcely leave

Until Louisa’s health was much restored –

Since all that mischief had been caused by me:

She was headstrong because I was so weak,

I walked and rode. The more I saw of Lyme

The more I liked.” In this they were agreed.

Just then, to cries of “Lady Dalrymple!”

And entrances and crowding in the room,

Sir Walter and a proud Elizabeth

(And, not too far behind them, Mrs Clay)

Pressed forward. Mr Elliot advanced

And Anne and Captain Wentworth were divided.

But even so she felt such happiness,

Which still persisted as she queued behind

The Viscountess Dalrymple’s spacious back.

She did not see the salon’s brilliant lights;

Her happiness was secret and within.

She held this last hour like an offering;

There had been so much in his gravity,

His tone of voice, his look, his openness:

She heard Louisa Musgrove generously

Dismissed, and Captain Benwick roundly praised.

Her thoughts ran on ahead to fragrant groves:

There had been gentleness and urgency,

And what was this if not the fresh return

Of that past tenderness? Surely he loved.

Yet when they took their seats she looked about

And could not see him. Mr Elliot

Had managed to be seated at her side.

The music was delightful to Anne now

And when one song was in Italian

She rendered it for Mr Elliot

In English. He was flattering. He said,

“Amongst your notable accomplishments

Are many which perhaps you do not know

I am aware of. And in fact, you see,

Before you came to Bath, long years ago,

I had already heard high praise of you.”

This revelation, meant to mystify,

Succeeded. Anne was curious. But he

Would say no more except, most earnestly,

“The name Anne Elliot long has held for me

Much interest and, if I might dare, I would

Wish fervently that it might never change.”

Anne wished she might be free of Mr Elliot;

She looked for Captain Wentworth, then she saw

Him standing in a distant group of men

In conversation, turned away from her.

An interval most opportunely now

Freed her of Mr Elliot for a time.

Anne had remained while others went for tea;

And then she saw the hesitant advance

Of Captain Wentworth, seemingly uncertain,

Hanging back, and then approaching her.

She felt something was wrong. They spoke at last:

He said he felt the music disappointing;

He would be quite relieved to see it end.

But Anne protested – gently, with deference,

And he replied with warmth, and almost smiled.

Then Mr Elliot with familiar ease

Blithely returned and, bowing courteously,

He begged her pardon, “but Miss Carteret

Now needs you for the next Italian song.”

Only a little time was now allowed;

She turned, and was confronted by a cool

And troubled Captain Wentworth. He must leave.

Anne said, “But surely this next song – “ But he:

“Nothing now here is worth my staying for.”

And he was gone. The blow was soft at first –

She recognised the gratifying fact,

His jealousy of Mr Elliot –

But then she felt its heavy weight. How might

These obstacles be ever overcome?

9 The following morning Anne was pleased to leave

To visit Mrs Smith – and doubly so

Because evading Mr Elliot was

Of primary importance to her now.

She felt some admiration of him still,

And yet an unease and suspicion. Had

There been no Captain Wentworth, then perhaps –

But this was not – most thankfully – the case.

At Westgate Buildings Anne gave Mrs Smith

A full description of the concert – who

Was who, who brightest in that galaxy,

Who most absurdly grand. And Mrs Smith,

Despite her situation, seemed to know

The names and character of everyone.

As Anne described the concert, Mrs Smith

Observed the signs of happiness and said,

“I think you were last night with someone who,

In all the world, you find most interesting.”

Anne flushed. She wondered at the prescience,

And how reports of Captain Wentworth could

In all of Bath have reached her here. But then

She heard her friend say, “And is Mr Elliot

Aware of your acquaintance here with me?”

“Mr Elliot! Do you know Mr Elliot?”

“I have been much involved with him. But now

That is long faded. Several years have passed.”

Anne was surprised and cried out, “Had I known,

I would have mentioned you to Mr Elliot.”

“I would like that – because your Mr Elliot

Could be of service to me – if he wished.”

It struck Anne forcefully that Mrs Smith

Had made assumptions which were far from true.

“I would be pleased to help, and speak to him,

But to Mr Elliot as a relative –

No more. For I can say with certainty:

I am not about to marry Mr Elliot –

And I wonder how you could have thought it so.”

“It first occurred to me – as possible,

On hearing how much you were seen with him.

But then Nurse Rooke reported yesterday

That she had heard from Mrs Wallis that

Without a doubt this was the latest news.”

There was a silence. Mrs Smith, it seemed,

Was troubled – questioning what next to say.

“I beg your pardon, dear Miss Elliot

I have been pondering what I ought to tell.

One does not wish to be offensive, or

Make mischief. Yet I believe that I am right

– Now that I see you not attached to him –

To show you Mr Elliot’s true character.

He is a man without a heart or conscience,

Designing, wary and unscrupulous.

He has no concern for others. His soul is black.”

Anne’s obvious astonishment brought a pause,

But then more calmly she went on. “I see

My language startles you. You must allow

For my own injury. Yet facts must speak.

He was the intimate friend of my dear husband

Who trusted him. Their closeness had begun

Before our marriage. I too thought him kind.

In those days Mr Elliot was poor

And my dear Charles greatly assisted him.

My husband was, alas, too generous.”

Anne said, “This is the very period

In Mr Elliot’s life which puzzles me –

His curious treatment of my family,

My father and my sister shunned for years…”

“Ah, yes! I can explain that too. For then

Your ruthless Mr Elliot was intent

To marry into money. (This he did.)

But he suspected that your father was

Convinced Elizabeth should marry him

And he had other far more lucrative plans.

He told me everything. I thought it strange

That it should be your cousin whom I met

Through marrying Charles…” Anne said, “Perhaps you spoke

To him sometimes of me?” “Why, yes. Of course.

I used to boast of my own Anne – and vouch

That you were very different from – ” She checked herself.

“Then that explains something he said last night –

That he had heard of me before we met.”

Anne paused. “But I have interrupted you.”

“These things are cruel, but I must give you proof.”

And asked that Anne reach down an inlaid box

From which she took a letter. Anne felt shame

At once and coloured at its tone. It read:

Dear Smith,

Your kindness empowers me.

At present I have no more need

Being in cash again. Rejoice!

I am rid of that Sir Walter and

His tedious daughter – both returned

To Kellynch whence I am awaited

But I will only visit there

To bring the place under the hammer.

The Baronet is fool enough

To marry again. And if he does

I lose the title and the deeds –

But then, at least, would be left in peace.

Still to be

Yours truly

Wm Elliot.

Anne was dismayed. And Mrs Smith went on:

“Two things quite absolutely dominate

His present plans (this information comes

From Nurse Rooke via Mrs Wallis via

Colonel Wallis, Mr Elliot’s friend.

Now he is rich he wants the baronetcy

And, second, he suspects your Mrs Clay,

A stupid, calculating, pretty woman,

Will manage to entrap your father yet.”

These things seemed shocking – yet did not surprise.

Anne said, “I have distracted you, I fear,

You have not yet explained your husband’s part

In Mr Elliot’s past.” “Poor Charles!” She sighed,

“He was disorganised and generous

And easily influenced. His friend was not

A welcome friend. He led him to excess

And at his death he had lost everything.

One property in the Indies still remained

Which even now might be redeemable

But Mr Elliot, while executor,

Refused to honour Charles on my behalf

And left me languishing in poverty.”

“And yet,” said Anne, “at first you spoke of him

More warmly.” “What was I to do? I thought

From all accounts you were to marry him.”

This possibility seemed frightening now,

The more so since a part of her had been

Impressed, acknowledging his courtesies.

(And might not Lady Russell, admiring too,

Have exercised persuasion once again?)

10 Returning home Anne was relieved to find

That Mr Elliot had already called,

Had stayed and gone – but was to come again

That very evening. Mrs Clay averred

That she had never seen one so intent

To gain an invitation. “And,” she added,

“It is a pleasing wonder to behold

Sir Walter and Mr Elliot so close.”

Elizabeth said, “Yes. Poor Mr Elliot.

He has to visit Thornbery Park, and be

Away from us all day tomorrow – So

I asked him back tonight… He was obliged…”

When Mr Elliot came that evening

Anne exercised more caution than before.

She found his deference to her father odious,

But thought it wise that he not see in her

Such coolness as might lead to some reproach.

Early on Friday morning Anne had planned

To visit Lady Russell with her news

But Mrs Clay was setting out as well

On some philanthropy, so Anne delayed

To see her gone, and then announced her plans.

Elizabeth said, “I have nothing more

To send except my love. Oh, wait! You had best

Return the tiresome book she lent me – and

Pretend I’ve read it. And you need not say

I thought her dress quite hideous at the concert…

That’s all, I think. But, of course, my best love.”

Sir Walter added his felicitations,

And noted Lady Russell should wear rouge.

Next day, loud knocking at the outer door.

Elizabeth cried, “Who could that be? Not

Our cousin, who is at Thornbery Park all day,”

After the usual muffled sounds outside,

Charles and Mary Musgrove were announced.

Their party was, they said at once, all at

The White Hart, at which news Sir Walter waxed

Most welcoming, not having to provide

Accommodation. They were here, it seemed,

For Henrietta’s wedding clothes. The plan

Began with Harville who had business there,

And Mrs Musgrove had a friend in Bath,

While Mary must of course accompany them.

Seating himself, Charles spoke at length to Anne

About his sisters’ marriages. He liked

Both Hayter (though he did not shoot enough)

And Benwick (though he spent too long with books.)

He detailed the expense his father faced.

Their conversation had to be delayed

While Charles was shown about the mirrored rooms

Admiring furniture and porcelain.

Elizabeth invited everyone

To Camden Place – not to a dinner, but

To a smaller, elegant soirée – to meet

The Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret

Who by good fortune were engaged already.

The morning was inviting. Elizabeth

Would see them at the White Hart later that day,

While Anne set out to walk directly there

With Charles and Mary, occupied with thoughts

Of the previous autumn and Louisa’s fall.

She found the Musgroves warmly affectionate

And Mrs Musgrove grateful still to her

For all her help in Lyme. Their heartiness

Delighted Anne, so used to artifice.

The White Hart dining room was busy. Crowds

Came in and out, dispersed and met again.

Mary was at the window looking out.

Anne spoke with Mrs Musgrove. Charles came back,

This time with Captain Harville (smiling) and

(More serious) Captain Wentworth. Startled, Anne

At once recalled his leaving suddenly

Under misapprehensions at the concert.

Now he seemed reluctant to converse.

“Why, Anne!” cried Mary. “There is Mrs Clay,

Standing in the street – I am quite sure –

A gentleman with her. I saw them turn

The corner just now. They seem deep in talk.

Good Heavens! It is Mr Elliot!

The man we saw in mourning clothes in Lyme…”

“No,” Anne cried quickly, “Mr Elliot

Left Bath at nine this morning for the day.

It cannot be. Are you quite sure?” At this

She felt that Captain Wentworth looked at her

And she regretted all she had implied.

Mary called back, “Do come, Anne. But make haste

Or you will be too late. Not Mr Elliot?

As if I don’t know Mr Elliot!”

Perhaps to screen her own embarrassment,

Anne joined her sister. Looking out, she saw

Two figures parting. One was Mrs Clay.

The other without doubt was Mr Elliot.

She tried to speak as if uninterested.

“Yes, it is he. Perhaps he changed his hour

Of setting out – or I may not have heard –

I was not so particularly concerned.”

Charles now announced, “Well, mother, you will be pleased

I have secured a box for tomorrow night.

I know you love a play. But Mary cried,

“Tomorrow night we are engaged. You know

My father asked us, most particularly

To meet his cousin Lady Dalrymple

And her daughter – and Mr Elliot.”

“Phoo! Phoo!” said Charles. “An evening party – not

You will note, dinner. So! The play’s the thing!”

Mary and Charles disputed happily.

So Mrs Musgrove said, “Then put it off.

Go back and change it for the following day.

We would be losing Anne as well, for she

Would also have to be at Camden Place.”

While Captain Wentworth still stood close to her,

Anne added gratefully, “For me such parties

Have no interest. I would prefer the play.

But you are right. Perhaps it were best changed.”

She trembled, conscious that her words were heard.

Then Captain Wentworth walked towards the fire

If only to relinquish it and return

To sit with apparent casualness by Anne.

He said, “You have not been in Bath so long

As to have a taste for parties?” “No.” She smiled.

“I do not like to play at cards.” He said,

“You did not formerly, I know. But time

Makes many changes.” Anne sighed. “I have not

Been changed by time” – then stopped at once,

Fearing these words could well be misconstrued.

He paused, then said, as if involuntarily,

“It is a long time. Eight long years – and more.

What might have been constructed out of words,

What edifice, and what might follow, Anne

Was not to know. For Henrietta then,

At this precise and teetering moment, ran

And, gathering them, urged everyone to leave.

This mobilising was no sooner done

Than, with a blazoning flourish, were announced

Sir Walter Elliot and his eldest daughter.

Their visit, brief as it was luminous,

Brought them in their magnificence to bestow

Their calling cards with much beneficence.

Anne saw that Captain Wentworth had received

Along with others the resplendent news

Sir Walter and Miss Elliot will be at home.

Anne caught his eye and saw him turn away

In what she knew was well-disguised disdain.

That afternoon she watched Elizabeth

Assisted – as it were – by Mrs Clay,

In preparations for the sumptuous

And Bath-transfiguring evening party.

She wondered whether Captain Wentworth would

Attend or not. She thought of little else.

Anne said to Mrs Clay, “We were surprised

To see you near the White Hart pump rooms – and

With Mr Elliot,” and thought she seemed

Disturbed or guilty as she improvised:

“Oh yes! Indeed! Imagine my surprise

To meet with Mr Elliot quite by chance.

It had entirely gone out of my head.”

11 Anne still had not acquainted Lady Russell

With Mrs Smith’s account of Mr Elliot.

All this must wait. For she went back again

Next morning to the White Hart. There she found

The Crofts and Mrs Musgrove, Captain Harville –

Talking with Captain Wentworth. Anne sat down,

Regaled at once by Mrs Musgrove, yet

Distracted by an anxious happiness.

Soon after she arrived she heard him say

“We’ll write the letter we were speaking of

Now, Harville – if you find me pen and paper.”

Materials were at hand; he turned away

And at a separate table seemed engrossed.

While Mrs Musgrove seemed intent to fill

The entire room with loudly whispered facts,

Harville was silent; Anne could not avoid

A mass of trivial notes concerning what

Had happened, when and who said what to whom.

All this related to some circumstance

To do with Henrietta’s wedding – and

The opinion – generally agreed upon –

That long engagements often may be found

To turn out – in the long run – to have been

Too long. Anne looked, and saw him writing still.

She heard these intricate contingencies

While still distracted. Looking round the room,

It seemed to her quite suddenly that she

Had been for many years – and secretly –

Herself engaged. And surely this must be

Absurdly obvious to everyone.

With Captain Harville she began a long

And earnest conversation. They were close

To where a serious Captain Wentworth bent

Over the writing table. “Look,” he said,

Unfolding in his hand a miniature

Which faithfully showed Captain Benwick. “This,”

He said, “was done for my poor sister. She

Was destined not to see it. Now I have

The charge of properly setting it for another.

Wentworth is writing now to expedite

The enterprise (and save me some distress.)

The letter is to Captain Benwick… Ah!

Poor Fanny! She would not” (he shed a tear)

“Have quite so readily forgotten him…”

Anne spoke to him with genuine sympathy:

“I can believe it.” Captain Harville sighed.

“It was not in her nature to forget.”

“Nor any woman’s nature who loved well.

Then Harville smiled. “You claim that for your sex?”

“Yes. Certainly. For we do not forget

As soon as you forget us. This is not

Our merit but our fate. We cannot help it;

We live at home, while you are soon abroad.

The world reclaims you, offering endless change.

Responsibilities distract – whereas,

For us there is no check on memory,

No diminution from the world outside

On our affections, which remain unchanged.”

As Captain Harville warmed to this debate

And, smiling, Anne adduced more argument

Asserting woman’s constancy, they heard

A sound. They turned, but it was nothing more

Than that the writer’s pen had fallen. He

Was reaching for it, close to them. How much

Of constancy protested had he heard?

“Is your letter finished?” Captain Harville asked.

“A few lines more. It is quite delicate.

But five more minutes and I shall be done.”

“There is no hurry.” Captain Harville smiled.

“For I am here in excellent anchorage.”

And then, returning to the fray, he said

With feeling, “Ah, Miss Elliot, I would wish

That you knew how a seafarer must feel

At leaving on the shore his wife and children…”

Anne cried, “I do believe I understand.

The privilege I would claim for my own sex

Is that of loving longest even when

All hope for its fulfilment must seem lost.”

Now Mrs Croft called, “Frederick! You appear

Most diligent but we must leave at last

And hope to see you all again tonight

At Camden Place. We had your sister’s card.”

She smiled at Anne in acknowledgement. “And you,

Dear brother, I hope to see you there as well.”

But Frederick still was much engaged, in haste,

Folding a letter, and did not seem to hear.

Then, having sealed the letter, he looked up.

“Yes. True. We part here. Harville, I shall soon

Be following – that is, if you are ready.”

Anne could not understand what happened next.

She had, from Captain Harville, a cordial

“Good morning. And God bless you,” while from him,

The agitated Captain Wentworth, nothing,

And he was gone without a look or word.

And now as suddenly as he had gone

He had returned. He gave apologies,

Said he had left his gloves, retrieved them, and,

His back to Mrs Musgrove and the rest,

Took from beneath the writing table sheets

An envelope which, with entreating eyes,

He gave to Anne – then left as hastily.

The envelope addressed, also in haste,

To Miss A.E. – though scarcely legible

She held; she opened; no-one noticed her.

Her eyes devoured the following words:

I can no longer listen. I must speak to you

By such means as I find to hand. You pierce my soul.

I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not

That I return too late, that such sweet sentiments

Are gone. I offer you myself with that same heart

Which eight long, endless years ago you almost broke.

Dare not believe that man forgets more easily

Than woman. I have loved you constantly since then.

Unjust I may have been, resentful I have been

But never faithless. You alone have brought me here,

For you alone I think and plan. Can you not know?

You drop your voice but I hear everything you say

And now I hear that you, most excellent creature, do

Allow attachment and some constancy in us;

Believe it to be strong and undiminished in

F.W.

A word, a look will be enough to tell me whether

I enter your father’s house this night, or never again.

An overpowering happiness began

To separate itself from shocked surprise.

When Mary, Charles and Henrietta spoke

And broke upon her web of startlement –

She scarcely knew how to reply or how

To seem herself, and soon was judged unwell.

She said she was a little indisposed

And would go home. They thought her very ill.

She wanted to walk through the streets alone

Where almost certainly she felt she must

Encounter Frederick Wentworth everywhere.

But Mrs Musgrove was alarmed. She said

That while she thought at least she could detect

No evidence of a fall, no injury

Apparent to the head, she thought a chair

Should positively be called. But Anne demurred

And asked to be allowed to walk. Then Charles

In real concern agreed to walk with her

And sacrifice his purchase of a gun.

Reluctantly she agreed. They walked until

In Union Street she heard a rapid step

And Captain Wentworth now was at her side.

She felt the silent glow of certainty.

By great good fortune it occurred to Charles

That Captain Wentworth might accompany Anne

Safely to Camden Place. “She’s been unwell –

And I should see my gunsmith who, I hear,

Has just unpacked a double-barrelled gun

A good deal like the one you used at Winthrop.”

When Captain Wentworth pleasantly agreed

Charles left at once. The rest was happiness.

So much and yet so little now remained

To be explained, for they had careless time

– The unimpeded future – for the task.

They would discuss at length and in their time

His jealousy of Mr Elliot,

His pride which led to dangerous romance

With poor Louisa (whom he could not love),

His flight to Shropshire from this tanglement,

His misery, his exile from her voice…

In time they savoured the minutiae

Of then and now, what was, what might have been,

All (as they walked to Camden Place) – all eased

Into the glow of possibility.

How often they would recollect once more

That turning point, her passionate debate

With Harville, overhead through all that crowd,

That glimmering of hope, its widening beam,

Its manifest ignition into flame…

Now reaching Camden Place and happier

Than anyone within could ever know,

Anne passed through preparations for the night

And reached the spacious daylight of her room.

Card parties, once anathema to her,

That evening seemed a source of great delight.

The players ebbed and flowed and reappeared.

Elizabeth was in her element;

Sir Walter beamed and shone, and Mary laughed.

Lady Dalrymple and her daughter smiled,

While Mr Elliot seemed a distant star

Fading at dawn. And all the while Anne knew

That Captain Frederick Wentworth was at hand.

With Lady Russell Anne grew confident

That her persuasion would come readily.

12 After this resolution in delight

What other lasting shadows could remain?

Sir Walter, while indifferent to Anne,

Found Captain Wentworth now sufficiently

Attractive – both in his appearance, and

His personal wealth – to be worthy to stand beside

A foolish, spendthrift baronet.

Elizabeth affected unconcern.

The case of Mr Elliot was more fraught.

In Lady Russell’s view his courtesy

Had so eclipsed her judgement of all else

That Mrs Smith’s disclosures (now conveyed

To her) at first were scarcely credible.

She had envisaged him as Anne’s ideal

(And vindication of her previous

Persuasions touching Captain Wentworth.) But

The revelations soon to come would show

Her much mistaken. Word reached Camden Place

That Mrs Clay had possibly eloped

And was in London with – of all protectors –

Mr Elliot himself. Questions remained.

Had Mrs Clay abandoned all her plans

Of capturing Sir Walter? Had Mr Elliot

Been so unsettled by the loss of Anne

To ease his path towards the baronetcy,

That he had seen the need to neutralise

The cunning Mrs Clay? But in so doing

Might he himself succumb, and Mrs Clay

Become the wife of William Elliot?

And was there hope that Lady Russell might,

As Anne’s misguided friend, in time become

A welcome visitor and be reconciled

With Captain Wentworth mellowed and fulfilled?

Such questions and concerns were minor now,

Mere noises from the wings, while, in the light,

The principals move downstage, arm in arm

And, holding back the curtain, take their bow.

John Aubrey, Digressor

A limerick is primed in the Air

Yet the Rhyme may be lost on the Stair.

Aubrey’s Lives are like flowers

Overbrimming their Bowers

While Digression at sea sets all Fair.

The Limerick, unsuited at times,

Might yet, through extravagant rhymes,

Serve John Aubrey’s Chief Stress –

Hearsay’s Randomness –

And sail in exceptional Climes.

Unfortunate Edward de Vere!

Bowing low to the Queen (so I hear)

He let forth a Fart

So felt forced to depart

Overseas for many a year.

Returning at last, poor de Vere

Was received by the Queen that same year,

Who, as he bowed low,

Said, “I want you to know

I had forgot the Fart, my Dear.”

Will Shakespeare steps out of his house and

Salutes as he raises his brows and

Says, “Never blotted a line.”

But Ben Jonson quaffs wine

And scorns, “Would he had blotted a thousand.”

The circles of dusk-shadowed thrones

Stand at Avebury’s Greywether Stones

Like sheep in a Frame

(Thus Greywether by name) –

What Amazement to tread in these Zones!

Meeting Cowley, King Charles suggests cards,

But the poet cries, “No! Play at Shards,

That is, dip into Vergil

As a comforting vigil;

Look! Book Four from the greatest of Bards!”

Rising far to the South the pale moon

In December is frosted with Shine.

And as minstrels light fires

Along forest aisle Choirs

The Green Man engenders his Swoon.

Sir John Suckling, the Poet and Wit

Devised Cribbage, and earned much from it.

By secret card Marks

When contesting young Sparks,

He made thousands of pounds with this Fit.

Robert Hooke, who gave Newton advice

On the Inverse Square Law (“Be precise!”)

Watched with Aubrey in tune

An Eclipse of the moon

Which both Savants opined had been Nice.

They agreed that the moon seemed oblate,

All the more so regaining its Weight;

The eclipse having passed,

The Effect seemed to last

With recovery slow at this rate.

And how beautiful was that In-dent

Which the earth shadow cast on its tent

So each night this persists

Even after these Lists

And the Light from the moon appears bent.

All this seemed an Emblem of Memory –

The moon returning more Shimmery –

For its edges were glassed

As if slow days had passed

In the minutes it hid in its Armoury.

Edmund Halley, who lived by the stars

Understood well the Orbit of Mars.

And the Comet he named

Returned and was famed.

He died drinking wine from a vase.

Richard Lovelace, renowned for his Face,

Passing beautiful, worthy of Lace –

But he grew into Sorrows

Which took all his Tomorrows

And all that he Loved lost its Place.

Boys Learn best to twelve years, then it’s Worse,

After which Venus intervenes. Yes!

I have tried to teach Latin

But encountered this Pattern –

His hand on his Codpiece, Alas!

Signs and Wonders abound. Give an Inch

And Superstition takes Miles at a Pinch:

Lady Seymour has dreams

Of nine finches – then, it seems,

Has nine children by Someone named Finch.

In those lost days of calm just before

The cruel, Unjust Civil War,

Every house had its Harper,

Which with Verse was made sharper…

Now our Peace has been swept out the Door.

In that Hypocrite’s Rule without King

They denied every natural thing;

Songs and Maypoles were Banned

All across our poor land

Till King Charles brought again Sprightly Spring.

I never saw Maypoles so tall

As after the Republic’s blest Fall;

And as far as Lands End

Hilltop fires blaze and send

To the King, now restored, loyal Thrall.

A feather remote in the Air –

As I travelled through Stonehenge to stare

And make notes on its graves

And record Stones and Staves –

Still was floating above in that Glare.

I have heard that such Marvels abound

As the man whom an Oak sent to ground;

In his tomb’s winding sheet

He is struck on the feet

Which Blow sends his Brain back to redound.

Weeks before the King’s Indignation

I engendered my rapt Indagation

Amongst Avebury Stone

Which the gods must have thrown

Or cast down in a great Inundation.

The last Abbesse expelled from Connaughty

Was given a life pension. She was haughty;

She then lived in a Henge

And took her revenge

By living to a hundred-and-forty.

All of Wiltshire is like a Mapped Church

Where long Aisles are surrounded by Birch.

What are now Aubrey Graves

Some prefer to call Naves

But none could Surpass my Research.

George Monk, Duke – thinks aloud as we dine:

“On board ship a young man seemed to pine,

‘My sister brought to bed,

I would be there instead –

She’s my Wife and the Infant is mine.’”

He who masters the Mathematick Art

And Whom Algebra crowns with its Spate,

When he sees the moon’s Span,

He sees little more than

Mixed Equations set out, but less Light.

There were smiles at this Whimsical Flight

To thwart a loud and cock-a-hoop Lout:

Trousers stolen by night

Were returned much let out

So next day the Fool feared he’d lost Weight.

When the fairies cry Hattock and Horse

They mean mischief. The Reverend George Morse

Was at Old Lincolns Inn

When he heard their shrill din

And was whisked away, soon to be Norse.

Francis Bacon obtaining a hen

Steps out in the snow-shrouded sun

To test whether snow

Could preserve it or no –

But then falls into Death’s cold ravine.

Be truthful, avoid vain pretension;

Allow Strangeness its adequate mention.

Let my narrative hearth

Meet the long forest path

Of Discursion and endless Invention.

And no matter how much I Digress

There is More I would wish still to stress,

Like a man on his lawn

Seeing forests at dawn

And whose Limits he only must guess.

My friend, Thomas Hobbes, had turned forty

Before he considered Geometry –

As may quite often Happen

Euclid’s Elements fell open

In a library, which encouraged a sortie.

There he studied a Trope which seemed Odd

And throwing it down cried, “By God!

This cannot be true!”

Yet he read the Proof through

And exclaimed, “Here’s my Wholehearted Nod!”

So much so, that I afterwards heard

He was ardent; True Shape was his Creed:

He drew Lines on his thigh,

Or made bedsheets his Sky,

On which Theorems crisscrossed like an Ode.

Aware of the Threat of the Tower

It was Prudent to act in the Hour;

Hobbes withdrew into France

Where he seized every chance

To compose at the Peak of his Power.

There he walked much, purposing to Think.

In the crest of his Staff he brought ink

And a pen. In his book

He would note down each Nook

Before fugitive Thought thought to Shrink.

And my Friend did not read over-much,

For he liked to say, Staying-inTouch

He would, rather than Shaman,

Listen long to a Woman

Who had tended the Sick on their couch.

His Mother had birthed of a sudden,

Fearing Spaniards offshore. Now his Garden

Turned silent and sere

In his ninety-first year

But his Mind’s Voice continued to Louden.

We are still in that fortunate era

When everyone has his own aura;

Thus the Scientist-Seer,

Numbers-Poet with Flare –

While the Specialist is No-One’s Torchbearer.

I had so many ideas to chart,

I would often leave gaps in my Art.

I feared others might use

My fragmentary Muse –

Unconverted still, Head out of Heart.

The Mysterious Pregnancy

Colloquium on Kleist’s The Marquise of O-

Being notes taken by Phoebe L- and Bronwyn K-, to which are added sundry inventions

by them, all for the amusement of their friend, Francesca Z-, traveller, who leaves

only a trail of forwarding addresses.

I.m. William Maidment

Francesca of Patagonia, Gotland or Southern Armenia,
Where are you now? Are you travelling by raft
With a spinnaker of mosquito net in the upper Amazon?
Are you at M- or N-, enjoying the anonymity
Which Kleist gives his story of the Marquise
By transposing its setting ‘from the north to the south’?
We are here in the dim, high-ceilinged Muniment Room

Where in dormitory days we hid from one another
And where in term we sat solemnly to share

The spiralling pleasures of sequences of lectures

On Novalis, the Schlegels, Schellings and Schiller.

A winter sun, evasive behind mist hedges, has risen.

Phoebe is, as usual, behind the defunct tile stove.

Returning for a symposium on Kleist’s novelle

We have resolved to take notes and compile from them

A garland of leaves which we will send to you

At some Poste Restante address which may find you

Sooner or later, depending on the vagaries

Of the El Niño and other Strange Attractors

(To use the term lately so popular over here)

Including rumours reaching us of your pregnancy.

Dearest Fran,

We know that as an admirer of Kleist, and The Marquise of O- in particular, you would have liked the colloquium. Phoebe suggested that we should take notes for you, and it is these which together with sundry additions we send you now. Odyssean Fran, whose whereabouts are always uncertain, when and under what skies may this package ever reach you? Of course we were not able to attend every session of this conference, but in some instances we have included notes compiled by others. Do you remember Felicity? (She is in your hockey photograph, distracted, in the back row.) Felicity took some scrappy notes and also succeeded in distracting us on a few occasions. We have also not resisted the temptation, already familiar to you, to include passages of verse renderings of the story. This was Phoebe’s suggestion, in the form of a challenge, made in a note rather ostentatiously passed along the row to me (as in those days so long ago under raised eyebrows) during a particularly dull paper.

News meanwhile has reached us, via postcards, of your experiences in M-. We read into them something of the uncertainties besetting the Marquise. You do seem determined to sustain that ultimate Kleistian theme, viz. the prodigious disparity between cause and effect. Causation and its strange and devious byways have lost none of their fascination since our discussions, still fondly remembered, in the gymnasium, from our halcyon and salad days. Our pleasure then in the sceptical view, that the billiard ball is ‘not seen to cause’ movement in the one it strikes, suggests now, as our lives diverge increasingly, an extreme case: the red ball is struck; nearby but untouched, the black one moves towards the pocket. And Kleist’s Kant-crisis, causing doubts about the possibilities of certainty in human affairs, seems as pervasive here as ever. But you, Fran, have taught us that the Kleistian perplexity implicit in everything may in fact be enjoyable. Thus we have been mindful of your preference for gossip over discourse, for peripheries over centralities, caprice over gravity, your ‘prodigious appetite for marginalia.’ And our versifications , which have been chiefly a way of reading,

have become the dominant aspect of the colloquium. We have, I hope, been wary of rhetoric (while not quite wringing its neck) and have resisted the frequent spectre of metaphor.

Phoebe sends her affectionate greetings and the injunction not to do anything we would not do, advice which we assume you have already neglected. We think of you often and wonder where you are, white-water rafting down turbulent days. How we admired your boldness of decision in leaving as you did. You were almost as decisive as Count F, though perhaps less restricting, since you are free, or so we like to think, while his destiny was largely determined by one sudden impulse. Still, the ideal is perhaps a marriage of the impetuousness of the Count with the forbearance, patience and serenity of the Marquise, a conjunction which we also like to think you have in some measure achieved.

Our note-taking has been perhaps a less happy conjunction of enthusiasm and distraction; we have seated ourselves near windows too often. We have fallen into Kleistian dreaming. But we send them knowing your readiness to embrace the arbitrary, which figures so frequently in the life and works of Kleist. We enclose also, for good measure, lest you do not have one to hand on your luxury quinquireme, a copy of the excellent translation of The Marquise of O-, which Penguin have brought out as one of their charming little pocket-handkerchief books.

Bronwyn and Phoebe.

¦

Perhaps it could be seen as Kleistian forgetfulness that sometimes we address you directly and sometimes Bronwyn and Phoebe appear in the third person.

Bronwyn and Phoebe have decided to versify The Marquise of O. The occasion is a Colloquium on Kleist and his novella. During and between sessions they begin, interspersing their verse with reports on points of interest in the papers.

At the opening session participants are asked, as an exercise, to begin by summarising the plot. Here are our attempts.

These may prove useful when we get underway on our version in iambics.

We include Felicity’s effort which, it turned out, was largely based on The Oxford Companion to German Literature:

… The heroine of the title, Julietta, Marquise von O…, is a widow, mother of two children, and daughter of the Obrist von G… She finds herself, through the discovery of an inexplicable pregnancy, in a situation of embarrassment and distress; for she experiences not only public scandal and expulsion from her father’s house, but also the protestations of her own innocent heart against a seemingly impossible condition. Her unusual situation causes her to take the equally unusual step of appealing publicly, through a newspaper, to the father of her expected child to confess to his identity, adding that she feels obliged to marry him. To her horror she finds the man who joyfully presents himself to be Graf F…., an officer in the Russian army. He had been of late the object of her gratitude and admiration, for she owed her life to his courageous conduct. It was he who rescued her from rape at the brutal hands of Russian soldiers who had stormed the fortress, of which her father was commandant during an invasion of northern Italy. Reconciled with her parents, but not with the Count, she weds him in fulfilment of her promise. However, a year after the birth of her son she comes to terms with the fallibility of her heroic rescuer, whose image had been shattered by the revelations following her advertisement. Graf F… had taken advantage of a swoon which left her unconscious in his arms at her father’s fortress. Recognizing his devotion and repentance to be true and constant, and resigning her ideal of perfection, Julietta celebrates in a second wedding the fulfilment of earthly happiness in true love and forgiveness.

Phoebe and I rose to the challenge:

The Marquise a virtuous widow finding herself mysteriously pregnant places an advertisement in the paper. Some months before in a dual assault upon her father’s citadel and her own self, after rescuing her from rapacious soldiers, Count F- has himself made her pregnant without her knowledge. After a brush with death and convalescence he has startled the Marquise by returning apparently from the dead. Startlement increases to perplexity when the Count immediately proposes marriage. The Commandant, impressed by the Count’s gallantry, is concerned that he risks his reputation by refusing his commission to Naples. At length the Count is persuaded to wait for an answer from the Marquise until his return from delivering these despatches. Meanwhile, in his absence, disquieting symptoms recur in the Marquise. A doctor and then a midwife confirm her impossible suspicions. Her mother and father are outraged, her father banishes her to V- (after a melodramatic confrontation in which he discharges a pistol). In the serenity at V- the Marquise begins to accept the mystery of the new life she is bearing. She has the idea of placing the advertisement.

The Count climbs the wall and finds Julietta in the garden. He is repulsed. He determines to place an advertisement of his own in reply. The Marquise’s mother visits her and tests her daughter’s innocence by pretending that the groom, Leopardo, has confessed. The Marquise’s abashed perplexity convinces her mother. Reunited they return to M-. The Commandant is persuaded too, and a tearful and passionate reconciliation results. In accordance with the Count’s advertisement – at 11 on the 3rd – they wait. The Count arrives, is contrite. At last the Marquise’s mother realises — ‘how stupid we have been’. The Marquise at first refuses to marry but agrees, on her own conditions. These thaw gradually until, at length, happiness prevails and ‘a whole series of young Russians now followed the first’.

Last night when we arrived at college, we walked along the dim corridors, where little seems to have changed. There is a new carpet square in the large foyer but on walls above the staircase hang the same old pictures. And above the turning in the stairs is the photograph in which you are smiling, front row centre, hockey sticks crossed.

This morning the first thing Phoebe did was to inspect the coffee arrangements. An urn of boiling water, another of coffee, large glass jugs of milk. The coffee she pronounced ‘standard conference grade.’ She promised tomorrow to make us ‘some decent coffee — such as Count F- might have had in Naples.’

We now regale you with several of the first day’s speakers on the much-discussed device of the dash – that odd gap, that prolonged punctuation during which the count impregnates the Marquise. As you well remember, early in the narrative, the Marquise is rescued by an invading rabble by the Count. This is followed by the crucial sentence:

‘She now collapsed in a dead faint. Then – ’

Here is a selection from our notes:

The pregnant pause in the narrative. The dash and concealment.

The dash: ‘She now collapsed in a dead faint. Then — ’

The various uses of anacoluthon in Kleist.

Kleist’s “Kant-crisis”, his letter on the subject to his half-sister, Ulrike. After reading the first book of the Critique, he had known that bolt of lightning, doubt of the rational.

Fainting and loss of consciousness. The Marquise. Other examples in Kleist’s tales.

Humour and irony in Kleist. The sceptical separation of cause and effect is essentially a humorous device.

Kleist and Cole Porter (!) The Count repels the five soldiers attacking the Marquise. She faints.

In olden times a glimpse of stocking

Was looked upon as something shocking.

ie a transition from classic to romantic. ‘Anything goes’ = romanticism. Kleist (1777-1811) at the dawning of Romanticism.

The dash, ‘the most protracted instance of punctuation in literature’:

The Count has rescued the Marquise from the rabble of his own soldiers. Across the dash (near the opening of the story) which famously indicates a lapse of some minutes, the seeds of the story are sown. The Marquise collapsed in a dead faint. During this dash the Count has impregnated the Marquise without her knowledge, having only just rescued her from the rabble.

The dash seen as an emblem of narrative itself, in which the reader supplies essential or additional events.

The sentence which follows the dash: ‘The officer instructed the Marquise’s frightened servants who presently arrived, to send for a doctor; he assured them that she would soon recover, replaced his hat and returned to the fighting.’

Gaps in the narrative through which we see events.

Compare the point in The Defence of Nabokov where the narrative makes a knight’s move.

The dash which marks the impregnation of the Marquise is a companion to the dash with which Sterne ends A Sentimental Journey. In the case of Kleist, the dash masks an unfathomable and base action from which the whole narrative proceeds to its felicitous ending; in Sterne the dash indicates a similar consummation which remains forever devoutly to be wished.

Standard conference quality coffee followed.

We imagine you, Fran, reading this, seated in the bosun’s chair and smoking a large Cheroot.

And here, Fran, is our version of the opening which you so admired.

A widow of unquestioned character

The Marquise of O-, now resident

In leafy M-, in northern Italy,

Finding herself in puzzling circumstance

Placed in the paper this advertisement:

She begged the father of her future child

To make himself now known to her, that she

For all her family’s sake might marry him.

The afternoon’s sessions distract us.

A list could be made of swoons and fainting:

‘In a voice still weak from her recent swoon…’

‘When she heard the pistol shot in her husband’s bedroom and saw her daughter rushing out of it she had fainted away.’

‘On hearing these words the Marquise fainted’

And so on.

But we continue, with a single foray into hendecasyllables which at once we rejected:

Three years before this strange event the husband of the Marquise
To whom she was most tenderly attached had lost his life
While travelling in France. This sudden shock (her mother felt)
Was best assuaged by the expedient of leaving V-,
Her country house and with her children living once again
In her parental home. The Commandant, her father, felt
Delightedly protective of her in this circumstance
But soon this life of comfortable serenity — painting,
The education of her children, care for her parents’ health —
Was suddenly disturbed by war.

It was Phoebe who formulated our criteria: the avoidance where possible of metaphor, extraneous gloss, thickening of texture.

When Russian soldiers fired the citadel,
The Marquise, running from a fierce grenade,
With other members of the household, fled
And in the fitful darkness found herself
Seized by the rabble, borne off and attacked,
When suddenly a Russian officer,
Hearing her cries, beat off these shameless men.

To her he seemed an angel sent from heaven,
And then she fainted. Then she fainted. Then —

And we say nothing of the Russian General’s investigation of the attack on the Marquise by the five soldiers, and their execution.

At daybreak when the fires had been contained
The Russian General came to claim the town
And courteously met the Commandant

(The devoted father of the poor Marquise)
Who praised the bravery of a certain Count
Who had ensured the safety of his daughter.

Meanwhile the Marquise, recovered from her swoon,
Desired to meet and thank her rescuer,
But learnt that with the general exodus
The Count had left.

The Commandant must now vacate the fort
And with his family took a house in town
Preferring to remain at M-. And soon
They were appalled to learn that this same Count
Whom they had never had the chance to thank
Had, leaving M- that very day, been killed.

To learn more details of this sad event
The Commandant went to the post-house. There
He learnt that on the battlefield the Count,
As he was wounded, cried, ‘Julietta!
This bullet now avenges you.’

The Marquise could not be consoled: to think
That when, presumably through modesty,
The Count declined to see her in her room,
She had not gone to him herself! She grieved
For the unfortunate lady he invoked
Who strangely bore her name.

Weeks passed. The Commandant, his wife and son
And the Marquise and her two children, grew
Accustomed to their house at M-. However
The Marquise frequently was indisposed.

And then one day to everyone’s amazement
The footman entered and announced, ‘Count F-.’
The Commandant, his wife and daughter, cried,
‘Count F-?’

Francesca of Rimini, you who can never be reached by telephone there, where are you while we ponder our choice of which session to attend? An impossible choice: 10 a.m. —

Should it be Determination and Determinism : The Search for Engendering Cause or would we venture into Linearity and Perplexity: Narrative Structure in Kleist? Phoebe allowed herself a rueful smile, and I, a grimace. Phoebe went to one and I to the other. Afterwards we thought that perhaps we should have gone for a walk by the lake.

‘Count F- !’

The Count explained that he had suffered wounds
So great that he despaired of life and lay
For months in sombre shadow. All this time
His every thought had been of the Marquise.
Her presence in his mind had been a source
Of such delight and pain as to be quite
Indescribable.

He went on. After his recovery
He had rejoined the army but could not
Restore his peace of mind. Often, he said,
He had been on the point of taking up
His pen, and writing to the Commandant.
Then suddenly he was assigned the task
Of taking messages to Naples, even
Perhaps to Constantinople. Thus
He found himself in M- in transit, being
Unable to resist this meeting, and
To ease his pain asking the Commandant
For his daughter’s hand.

The Count relinquishing the lady’s hand
Explained that, wounded, fearing for his life
He lay for several months until the wounds
At last began to heal, and all this time
His thoughts were always of her.

We came back to our rooms after an evening seminar, On The Unpredictable to find someone had short-sheeted my bed. And I thought for a delicious moment you had returned.

We are getting on well without metaphors! We incline to Flaubert’s Dictionary: ‘Metaphors: Always too many in poetry. Always too many in anybody’s writing.’

The mother of the Marquise said
She still could not begin to understand
That, having left for Naples with despatches,
A man of honour like the Count
Should send these back to Z-, and risk
Disgrace and ruin for no other reason
Than that, in M-, a conversation lasting
At most five minutes should have failed
To win the hand of one he did not know.
Her husband and her son agreed.
The Marquise was dismayed to find herself
The object of impetuosity
And feared the Count could not be swayed
By reason or advice. All were agreed
The Count was over-confident
And seemed accustomed to win ladies’ hearts,
Like fortresses, by storm. The Commandant
Now standing at the casement window saw
The laden carriage of the Count draw up
Outside the house, the horses quiet,
Shaking their harness ready to depart.
He went downstairs and was alarmed to see
The Count sealing a letter which he gave
His adjutant together with
The military despatches he himself
Had been entrusted with. This Count
Was clearly mad, intending to remain
And forfeit honour and career, to win
A widow’s hand.

The Marquise, agitated, looked aside.
‘Why, after all,’ her mother said, ‘you could
Perhaps say that until he has returned
From Naples, you’ll accept no other suitor.’
‘Of course,’ the Marquise said, ‘That I can say
But fear it would not be enough for him
Since all he does he does with urgency.’
‘Let me take care of that,’ her mother cried
Elated at the prospect of intrigue.

Gleaned from the Public Lecture:

The moral worth of an action consists ‘not in the purpose to be attained by it but on the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon’. Consider Count F-’s assault upon the unconscious Marquise in the light of this precept of Kant’s. To what degree does its eventual happy outcome alter in retrospect the moral status of an action?

On reading the first book of Kant’s Critique, Kleist suffered his Kant-crisis. He stands at the threshold of the modern era facing Uncertainty which to him seems to be a dislocation of cause and effect. Like dust in dusk light this uncertainty pervades everything.

Count F- has suffered such a crisis. He has rescued the Marquise, only to find she has fainted and is insensible in his arms. The Categorical Imperative, namely that moral action may be accompanied by pleasure but must not be determined by it, fills the air.

Day Two. An afternoon storm. The Mysterious Pregnancy.

… Despite the Marquise’s pointed questioning of the midwife her parents cannot accept that her conception could be immaculate…

… The characters are the victims of sudden changeability: the Count’s heroism turns to infamy; the Marquise and her mother swoon or faint at critical moments; her father rejects her as abruptly as he receives her after her absence at V-. This teetering of emotions in the balance contains the seeds of Kleist’s humour…

… Like Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, so The Marquise of O- is driven forward by male aggression and ends in serenity. This progression is accompanied by the gestation of the child.

Fran, we see you running before a brisk sou’wester into the Azores, low on provisions, living on ship’s biscuits, strapped to the mast and reading our overlapping verses.

(Hendecasyllables again: a last flutter)

The Count picked up his hat, went to the lady, took her hand
And said, ‘Well, Julietta, this now sets my mind at rest.
And yet — and yet, it was my dearest wish that even now
We should have married.’ ‘Married!’ cried the family in one voice.
‘Married, yes, with all my heart,’ replied the earnest Count
Kissing her hand and bowing low to all the company.

(Fourteeners banished forthwith.)

Weeks passed. The Marquise and her family
Were still as puzzled by this suitor Count
As if they’d found one morning in the grounds,
The relics of a dinosaur.

Weeks passed. They saw no other visitors.
The Marquise felt much puzzled by the Count
A puzzlement as great as might have been
Had fossils of some ancient dinosaur
Been found in her own garden.

Fran, You will note but not deplore / the presence of this dinosaur.

Of course no such device occurs in Kleist. Phoebe — for it was she — may well have been composing these portions in the foyer of the Natural Science Museum adjoining our lecture theatre.

Weeks passed. The days retained a puzzled air.
The Commandant received a courteous note
In which the Count reported his success
In Naples and his hopes of coming home;
He wrote as if the engagement were confirmed.
But once again the Marquise was unwell.
The strange indisposition now returned,
And she could not pretend she did not feel
A change in her figure.

Her mother urged her if she felt unwell
To see the doctor. But for several days
The Marquise felt reluctant, ill at ease.
But then she felt so strange that she agreed,
And so the doctor came.

The doctor claimed that he would stake his life
On this opinion. Standing at the door
About to leave he dropped a glove and stooped.
The Marquise said, ‘But doctor, can you say
How this is possible?’ The doctor smiled,
Drew on his gloves and said, ‘I’m sure, my dear,
You don’t need to be told the facts of life.’

‘Think carefully,’ her mother said again.
‘If you have erred, though that would grieve me greatly,
Still it could be in the end forgiven.
But if to avoid our censure you invent
Some fable which requires the overturn
Of Nature’s laws and dare to reiterate
Blasphemous vows knowing my readiness
To trust you, then that would be worse,
Far worse, and I could never feel the same
About the daughter I had always loved.’

‘Oh may the doors of heaven be one day
As open to me as my heart is now
To you, my dearest mother. I have concealed
Nothing!’ This declaration, uttered with
Such passionate solemnity, so moved
Her mother that she smiled and said,
‘O God, my dear, dear child, how touchingly
You speak. But come, my child, what do you fear?’
She lifted her, and pressing her to her heart,
Said, ‘Are you ill?’ She led her to the bed.
But weeping copiously the Marquise cried
That she was well and there was nothing wrong
Except this strange, incomprehensible
And extraordinary condition. ‘Condition?’
Cried her mother, ‘What condition?’

‘But look! Your cheeks are burning hot. Your limbs
Are trembling. What did the doctor say?’
‘The doctor told me I will have a child.
And this impossibility, dear mother,
Oppresses me with weariness.
Send for the midwife, and, as soon as she
Confirms it is not true, I shall regain
All my composure.’

The midwife was announced. The Marquise lay
Still agitated in her mother’s arms.
Her mother spoke, attempting to explain
The onset of this inexplicable,
Persistent notion which had seized her daughter.
For despite a virtuous widowhood
She felt it necessary to submit
To this examination. Silently
The midwife nodded, and then spoke of heat
And blood and youth, impetuosity,
And, finishing her task, said frequently
She’d seen such cases where a widow thought
She lived sequestered on a desert isle —
But often in these cases (she had found)
The gay corsair who visited by night
At last would come to light. On hearing this
The Marquise fainted. Still her mother, moved
By natural affection sought to bring
Her much-wronged daughter back to life. But then
On seeing her revived she cried aloud,
‘O Julietta will you not confess
And tell us who the father is?’ And when
The Marquise answered only that she thought
She must go mad, her mother rose and said,
‘Go from my sight! I curse the wretched day
I bore you,’ and then left the room.

In our daily transcriptions we have been over-anxious to convey the Marquise to V-, so that the Count could approach her there (and be rebuffed). But we must quickly insert the scene with her father in tears, the discharged pistol, and her banishment to V-.

Her father turned, and would not look at her
And as she tried to follow him, he cried,
‘Leave me. Go from my sight,’ and tried to slam
The door. But when she cried imploringly
He suddenly desisted and, as she
Entered the room he strode across it, still
Refusing to acknowledge her. She fell
And, trembling, clasped his knees, when suddenly
A pistol which he seized went off just as
He snatched it from the wall. The shot passed through
The ceiling. ‘God preserve me,’ cried the Marquise
Rising from her knees, as pale as death,
And fled her father’s room. Reaching her own
She ordered that her carriage should be brought,
Dressed both her children, and began to pack.

Meanwhile Count F, detained in Naples, wrote
A second time to stress the urgency
With which the Marquise should consider all
The circumstances which might still arise
Which could make it imperative for her
To honour any undertaking made
Between them. He for his part, certainly,
As soon as it might fall within his powers,
Would expedite his swift return from Naples.
This letter was sent on to V-.

Not knowing that the Marquise had already gone
In banishment to V-, the Count arrived
In M-, encountering absence everywhere.
The Commandant received him with an air
Of some embarrassment and hastily
Excused himself at once and left his son
To entertain the Count. This son soon told
Of the disgrace his sister had incurred,
Of her removal in the coach to V-,
His father’s disapproval at the thought
That she should still retain her children there —
At which the Count looked anguished and exclaimed,
‘Why were such obstacles put in my way?
Had we but married this might not have been!’
And, hearing this, her brother stared wide-eyed,
Thinking the Count in some way quite deranged.
But vowing now to follow her to V-,
The Count put on his hat and left at once.

Taking a horse he galloped out to V-.
Dismounting at the gate, he saw no-one.
He stared through iron bars at lawn and trees.
The porter suddenly appeared and said
The Marquise was at home to no-one, no-one —
Family or friend.

Pretending to depart, instead he climbed
A low back wall and came upon
The Marquise reading in a little grove.
She looked enchanting, undisturbed.
Her pregnancy was clear and even when
She merely sat and read, she seemed
To be at work protecting one unseen.
He felt enchanted by that form
And by the strange, unrealisable fact
That he was its engenderer.
He spoke. He praised her grace and innocence.
Gently he put an arm about her waist,
But she repulsed him, standing up in haste,
And in alarm escaped behind closed doors.

Vexed with himself to let her slip away
From his very arms, he went to find his horse.
He mounted, feeling great despair.
To cast off all the secrets of his heart
He still had not confessed to her. It was
An abject figure who rode back to M-.

One aspect of the colloquium which has confirmed our thoughts of you, inventive Francesca, has been the readiness of speakers to invent peripheral detail. For instance, in elaborating on the midwife’s reference to the Virgin Mary, we have had a paper largely devoted to paintings of The Annunciation. This speaker attempted to throw light on the Marquise’s perplexity — since in both cases the pregnancy is strange but exemplary, and the male element covert. How well I remember, Francesca, our seeing together the Leonardo in the Uffizi.

Scattered notes from a long day of lectures:

‘Unwittingly I’ve wandered into the moonlight’ — Kleist’s The Prince of Homburg.

Kleist’s technique in this drama relies heavily on mime and interjection. And the frequent use of anacoluthon underlines the psychology. This breaking off in dialogue parallels the breaking off in consciousness of the characters and the sudden changes in fortune, or, in the case of Count F-, a sudden break in moral purpose.

Kleist returns again and again to the same themes. One is that of the ‘unconscious seduction’. A year before the Marquise of O-, in Amphitryon (following Plautus and Molière) Alkmène is bewildered because, in order to possess her, Jupiter has taken the form of her husband. Thus, like the Marquise, in a sense she has had sexual relations without knowledge of the fact. Similarly in The Duel, a later story, the lady Littegard has and has not spent the night with a lover since unknown to him her place has been taken by her maid.

A second theme is that of the fainting or lapse of consciousness or awareness. The Marquise faints at her rescue by the Count (and at other times in the tale). Similar lapses dominate The Prince of Homburg. In this, Kleist’s last play, the anacoluthon has severed the Prince from public purpose, honour and duty. In the moonlit garden as the play begins he is discovered in a kind of reverie half waking, half sleeping, weaving a laurel wreath. He has found a glove which has fallen from the hand of Natalie, the Elector’s niece. He dreams of her and later recognises her as the subject of his dream. This sleepwalker is to lead the cavalry in pursuit of the Swedes; instead he dreams of Natalie. This entails dereliction of duty such as Count F- threatens in his proposal to the Marquise: rather than take despatches to Naples he will wait her reply.

The trance-like determination of action is a means of subverting direct cause and effect relations … Beginnings of Romanticism … Keats’ drowsy numbness … separation of thought and action. It is no surprise that the role of the Prince of Homburg came to be identified with that most lyrical of actors, Gérard Philipe.

The weakening of cause and effect connections facilitates too the sudden reversal of fortune common in Kleist (see The Earthquake in Chile or numerous instances in The Prince of Homburg — the Elector wrongly thought dead, the Prince wrongly thought dead, the Prince wrongly accused). It finds its most gentle expression in The Marquise of O-… Peripeteia, the sudden dazzlement, a gazing into the sun: Count F- stands with the unconscious Marquise in his arms … Mersault in Camus’ L’Etranger under the influence of the Algerian sun kills the Arab whom he passes on the beach.

The trance in Kleist …Mesmer and theories of Animal Magnetism … G.H. Schubert and the two kinds of dreams, the one expressing anxiety the second as revelation of God in Nature….

The following gem from one of today’s papers deserves quotation marks and italics: ‘We find here features of both Classicism and Romanticism. But Kleist resists classification into either school as resolutely as Count F- resists the bewildered protests of the Marquise and her family in his attempts to marry her.’ This sort of forced figure is irritating, is it not?

And you, Fran, were particularly dismissive of such.

Someone spoke about loss of consciousness, so-called Freudian mistakes, webs of bewilderment. We were invited to consider examples from ordinary conversation: ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.’ ‘I was miles away.’ ‘Would you mind repeating that?’ etc.

For Kleist, narrative is a series of bewildering events.

The central motif in The Marquise of O- is the confusion and uncertainty of the Marquise; this embodies the view of narrative itself as an unfolding of the inexplicable.

We are asked to compare the growth of detective fiction from Poe’s The Purloined Letter and mysteries of the locked room: the locked room as the domain of the narrative, and so on.

This idea was, as I recall, sustained at length. But Phoebe and I were remiss at the window. Swans on the lake. Winter trees complicit. Shimmer and shimmy of water.

‘Reader, I Married Him’: Happy Endings in C19 Fiction. Ending of The Marquise of O- the quintessence of the Romantic conclusion: the sly prediction of eventual happiness long forestalled, the lightening of tone and acceleration towards this cadence…

Compare the acceleration at the end of numerous works of Beethoven.

The present tense of exposition. Compare vernacular accounts of recent gossip, “So she comes in and she says …” So, the recounting of narrative in the present tense: “She is sitting in the garden at V- when she hears a noise near the wall, she turns and sees the Count standing beside her…” This highly particular use of the present tense, a kind of present tense of recapitulation is perhaps the tense to which all narrative aspires… Suspension in time … arrested action … apposite to the Kleistian startlement. In the case of The Marquise of O-, so finely modulated is Kleist’s narrative that we recollect it as if entirely in this critical present.

We resume with the chastened Count.

That evening dining in the inn at M-,
Regretting still his failed campaign at V-,
He met Julietta’s brother who at once
Enquired if he had won his sister’s hand.
The Count said curtly that he had not, but
A letter soon would set the matter right.
The Commandant’s son noted from his tone
This strange obsession still was unassuaged.
He rang and asked to have the waiter bring
The news sheet so that its advertisement
Might counsel caution — for it seemed that soon
His sister was to make a different choice.
The Count flushed suddenly, leapt up and cried,
‘At last! I know now what to do,’ and seized
And shook that brother’s hand.

Meanwhile at M-, another argument.
The Commandant now wanted to expunge
All traces of his daughter’s memory
And took her portrait from the wall. Further,
He spoke of ordering his son to V-
To bring his daughter’s children back to M-
Into his care. His wife thought this was wrong.
Her husband was persistent. Tempers frayed.
Then, at breakfast, the advertisement…
The Commandant raged even more. This was,
He said, some sort of ruse. The wicked girl
Was claiming still to be an innocent.

Yet three days later when the groom
Brought in the news sheet still wet from the press
The Commandant was even more amazed.
His wife was almost speechless. But she read:
If the Marquise of O- will be home
At eleven on the morning of the 3rd
In her father’s house at M- the man
Whom she is seeking will present himself.

‘Now, tell me,’ cried his wife, ‘What do you make
Of this?’ ‘Why, she is infamous! So sweet
A face, such eyes, a cherub’s innocence
Behind which lies the cunning of a fox!’
‘But what, in heaven’s name, if this is meant
To be a trick, what can her purpose be?’
‘Her purpose? It is clear that she has planned
To make us welcome her with open arms
Then on that morning, by some cock-and-bull
Contrivance which the two of them devise
Hope I will say, “My dearest little girl,
I did not know, who could have thought, forgive
Our harshness, let us all be friends again.”
I’ll have a bullet ready for the man
Who steps across my threshold on the 3rd,
Or perhaps we’ll have the servants throw him out.’

His wife said that she found herself inclined
To think that of the two alternatives,
One, that their daughter should be quite so base
Or, two, that some strange quirk of fate occurred,
She would reject the first.

Julietta’s mother travelled secretly to V-.

Beneath a palm-tree’s shade they sat. Her mother said,
‘A man has answered your advertisement.’
The Marquise cried in consternation, ‘Who?
Who was it? Who replied? Tell me his name.’
A fringe of sunlight spread across the grass.
‘Why, who else but the very man you sought,
Whom you addressed in your advertisement.’
‘But who was he? What man? What is he like?’
‘My dear, why don’t you try to guess his name?’
‘To guess? But dearest mother, how could I know?’
Gauze shadows moved towards them on the lawn.
The Marquise rose in agitation. ‘Tell
Me his name I beg of you.’ ‘He’s known to us.
He fell down at your father’s feet. He wept,
Confirming everything.’ ‘His name? His name?’
‘Well then, it is our Leopardo, he
Who brought me here today, who even now
Waits in the outer room for you to speak. ’
The Marquise cried in disbelief. ‘The groom!
But how? And when? I cannot understand.
And yet perhaps. O God in Heaven! Once
I fell asleep in midday’s cloudless heat,
And when I woke the shadow of a cloud
Hung over me, and Leopardo stared.’
Her mother fell across her knees. ‘My dear
Forgive me if you can. All this was lies.’

That afternoon in tears of happiness
They travelled back together arm in arm.
The small barouche swayed gently, and they laughed
At Leopardo handsome at the reins.
The Marquise said, ‘But still I wonder who
Will bravely knock upon my father’s door.’

Today’s lecture with its promising title, Post-Coital Amazement: Unconscious Seduction and the Revelations of Confusion turned out to be more confusion than amazement.

To what extent is the authorial voice a knowing one? May — should — there be a suggestion of limited knowledge and this be the source of irony? ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged…’ ‘All families are unhappy families…’ Part of our pleasure in these openings is our trust that the voice, while speaking in universals, is soon to reveal particulars about which we may make our own (and wiser) judgements. Or we might urge that it is precisely the privilege of the reader to allow himself the luxury of doubts, suspicions, alternative complicities… Our pleasure in Kleist’s opening too is that it must soon yield to the pleasures of uncertainty and doubt.

Lunch. We sat outdoors in a walled courtyard perhaps not unlike the grounds at V- where the Marquise sat alone. At any moment the Count might clamber over the wall. We are inside looking out since at one point the wall allows a view of lake, reeds and a few lilies.

When we question the veracity of the authorial voice, when we introduce the inevitable question of irony it is like questioning whether these birds are singing or speaking.

The Count approaches the Marquise by climbing over the wall at V-. She still does not know who is the father of her child. He sees her form “charmingly altered”. Let this stand as a figure for perception of the world in general.

The Count leaving V- is like the forlorn narrator of the Wintereise.

That night he meets her brother in the inn.

He sees the advertisement and resolves

To reply by another.

The same speaker revisits Cole Porter:

After Julietta has run indoors locking the doors behind her the Count stands in frustrated puzzlement. It seems that his only decisive action has been that initial and illicit one; the rest has been a haze of uncertainty, a wash of effects coming long after their initial cause. He meditates:

What is this thing called love,

This funny thing called love?

Who can solve this mystery?

Two more mysteries. This morning’s speaker: ‘A modern painter remarked, “Nothing is abstract for me. Yet there is nothing more abstract than reality.” Can we not sense this paradox prevailing as the Count climbs the wall at V- and sees the Marquise now visibly pregnant, reading alone? Our view of reality is that of the Count’s. He sees potentiality, the future made visible yet incomprehensibly attached to a single past deed which he can scarcely believe happened. The mystery of force-at-a-distance and particularly at a distance in the past.’

We are reluctant to leave these sunlit scenes at V- in which the Count visits and the mother of the Marquise travels secretly to test her daughter’s innocence.

But nearing M- their mood became
More serious. The Commandant must still be told,
He who had been so adamant. His wife
Installed her daughter in her former rooms
And slipped away.
After an hour, quite flushed,

And secretly elated, she returned,
Embraced her daughter once again and said,
‘That doubting Thomas! Why! It took an hour
To tell him what was always obvious,
And now he sits there weeping abject tears.’
‘Who is weeping?’ the Marquise asked. ‘Why, only he
Who has the greatest reason to repent.’
‘My father? All of this on my account?’
‘If I had not been tearful all the while
I should have burst out laughing at him. No!
Do not run to him. He must come to you,
For it was he who wrote the letter, he
Who sent you from this house.’

But even now

They heard his footsteps in the passageway.

‘Oh let me go to him,’ the Marquise cried.
Her mother shook her head. ‘No! He must come
To you. He’s been so stubborn. Why did he make
Such misery for us all? Firing that gun,
Dictating such a letter to you — Why,
He has behaved abominably and so
Must make his peace with you.’ The corridor
Rang heavily to shuffling steps and sobs.

Our style should be as thin as the airmail paper on which it is typed.

No-one in the lecture room. A sound like bellbirds outside. The lake stretching away out of sight. Coffee urn empty. Afternoon staring down the barrel.

Do you remember an inn, Francesca? The inn where so long ago in our salad days Phoebe outdid us all on the garden swing sailing so high that we shouted out thinking her about to execute a complete circle. This morning I woke to find I was dreaming of this swing and had transposed it from our walking tour to the Marquise’s garden at V-.

The Renaissance Annunciations are mentioned again not only because of the obvious associations with mysterious conception in Kleist … but because the paintings speak of an obsessive serenity. Can obsession be serene? The Marquise of O- is the record of an obsession and it is undoubtedly serene.

Another day, another lugubrious speaker:

The tale rests on moral ambiguity, an action initially repugnant which leads through puzzlement and the gentleness of contrition to general felicity. Kleist thereby constructs a drama in which conflict is peripheral or replaced by puzzlement … in the manner of the detective story (which would evolve later in the century) whose enjoyment rests upon a merely token act of violence and the explanation of an apparent impossibility.

In The Marquise of O- Kleist has hit upon a theme which could be said to stand for all literature; namely, the main character discovers in the course of the story something which has once, without her awareness, happened to her.

And in The Theme of Rescue in the Growth of the Novel the speaker invokes Austen. When Harriet Smith and Emma are rescued from vagabonds by Frank Churchill, the incident has a significant consequence: Harriet later refers to her ‘rescuer’. Emma (and we) take this to mean Frank Churchill but in fact she means Mr Knightley who has ‘rescued’ her by asking her to dance after Mr Elton’s refusal to do so.

To the Onlie Begetter of Unexpected Tours Ltd, Francesca, you better than most could pass judgement on the edict that Kleist’s narrative method encourages us to expect the unexpected.

But enough! Let us advance to that point in our Version, where the Reader, encouraged by the sanction Now Read On, is nudged forward by the device, Meanwhile after a restless night…

The night was spent in long drawn-out suspense
And now the dreaded, hoped-for morning came.
The clock rang out the morning hour, eleven
Like someone calling from another room.
The Marquise and her mother sat
Arrayed as for a wedding day.
Their hearts beat loudly like the brittle clock.
The eleventh stroke still echoed in the room
When Leopardo entered and announced the Count.
What consternation! ‘Shut the doors!’
At such a time as this that he should come!
‘We are not at home to him.’ The Marquise rose
And was about to thrust the groom
Into the hall and lock the doors herself
When the Count entered, nobly grave, arrayed
Precisely in the same brave uniform
He had been wearing then so long ago
When he had carried all by force.
The Marquise felt confused and shamed,
She turned, about to leave the room. And yet,
And yet — her mother took her arm, and said,
‘My Julietta, stay. Stay. Who else
Are we expecting here today?’

Sheer confusion
Gathered in its arms the startled Marquise,
And snatching up a handkerchief she turned
To leave the room, then heard her mother’s voice.
‘Why, Julietta! How stupid we have been!’
The Count knelt at her feet. Confusion grew.
Her mother urged him to stand up. The Marquise, pale,
Retreated to the sofa. Her mother said,
‘Go to her. Let us all be reconciled.’
The Count again knelt, but the Marquise stood
And called out, ‘Go away. Go away.
I was prepared to meet a vicious man
But not a devil.’

The enigmatic wedding was announced.

The Count was not allowed to join the wedding group
Until they reached the entrance to the church.
During the ceremony the Marquise stared
Quite rigidly at altar images
And did not grant one fleeting glance at him
With whom she was exchanging vows. Afterwards
The Count offered her his arm but at the door
The Countess bowed and took her leave of him.

Her father asked if they might hope to have
The honour of his company from time to time
In the apartments of his daughter — whereupon
The Count said something unintelligible
And raised his hat to all the company — and disappeared.

The Marquise took his arm only as far
As necessary to proceed as man and wife
Along the aisle, then at the vestry door
She bowed and took her leave. Her father said
He hoped the Count might, on occasions, dine
With them and be received in those apartments
Where the Countess would reside with them.
The Count, too, bowed and raised his hat and turned
And disappeared. He took a house at M-
And did not see his wife for several months.
His quite exemplary conduct in regard
To contact with the Marquise led at last
To an invitation to the christening
Of his new-born son.

The Countess, still confined, sat in her bed.
Her guests congratulated her and, from the rear,
The Count discreetly greeted her. He left
Amongst the other offerings two scrolls:
The first turned out to be a deed of gift
Conferring 20,000 roubles on his son;

The second was a will by which his wife
And mother of his son was made sole heir
To all the Count’s estates.

From that day on, her mother had resolved
The Countess should be visited by him
As frequently as possible. And soon
Each evening the Count was made a guest.
His instinct told him that, considering
The imperfection of the ordered world
He could assume he was forgiven. Thus
Began a second wooing of his wife.
And when a year had passed he’d won from her
A second, now less compromised, consent.
A second wedding happier than the first
Then led to all that happy family
Returning to the country house at V-.

A series of young Russians now ensued
After the first. Great happiness prevailed
And, once, the Count enquired of his wife
Why on that dreadful third day of the month
She’d fled from him as from a devil’s gaze.
And with her arms thrown round his neck she sighed
And answered that she could not possibly
Have ever seen a devil in him then
Had he not seemed an angel when they’d met.

From the final day:

An old joke tells of a Russian gentleman who has difficulties with English. He is speaking of his wife and their surprise that she is ‘expecting’ since they had thought her (searching for the right word) ‘impregnable’ (then correcting himself) ‘inconceivable’ (and then) ‘unbearable.’

The speaker apologised for this indulgence while clearly pleased by it. I passed a note to Phoebe: ‘Next we’ll be offered the equally appropriate old riddle, “What three words does the bride think of as she enters the church? (Aisle, altar, hymn)”.’

Francesca, if you are still reading, greetings! (And if you are not, ‘greetings!’)

In the queue to the urn we heard a woman say she ‘had the same experience as the Marquise.’(!) We assumed she meant a pregnancy apparently uncaused, we pressed forward, eager for details. How frustrating in the jostle and noise at the urn to hear no more.

The introduction to the Kleist translations suggests that the theme of a woman advertising to find the identity of the father of her child is common in folklore. They cite Montaigne’s account of ‘a widow country-woman reputed very chaste and honest’ who asks the parish priest to publish in the church the same request as the Marquise makes. A swain admits to taking advantage of her ‘very tippled with wine’ and asleep. The two are married ‘and both live together at this day’.

I remember how much you approved Kleist’s last sentence, ‘Throwing her arms round his neck, she answered that she would not have seen a devil in him then if she had not seen an angel in him at their first meeting’ — and, now that you are sailing somewhere down the Nile or up the Amazon, we are pleased to send this sentence, amplified somewhat, ballooning into a spinnaker to propel you, we hope, (in the fullness of time) back to us.

— Bronwyn,

Phoebe.