Les souterrains

[Image source: https://sibeliusone.com/music-for-the-theatre/pelleas-et-melisande/ . Photo: The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (SLS). It shows a still from the 1905 production of Pelléas och Mélisande at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki (translation by Bertel Gripenberg with incidental music by Sibelius). Mélisande was played by Gabrielle Tavastjerna and Pelléas by Gunnar Wingård.]

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Scene 3: The vaults of the castle

Scène 3: Les souterrains du château

Enter GOLAUD and PÉLLÉAS.

Entrent GOLAUD et PÉLLÉAS.

GOLAUD.

Take care; this way, this way.—You have never penetrated into these vaults?

 Prenez garde ; par ici, par ici. – Vous n’avez jamais pénétré dans ces souterrains ?

PÉLLÉAS.

Yes; once, of old; but it was long ago….

 Si, une fois, dans le temps ; mais il y a longtemps…

GOLAUD.

They are prodigious great; it is a succession of enormous crypts that end, God knows where. The whole castle is builded on these crypts. Do you smell the deathly odor that reigns here?—That is what I wished to show you. In my opinion, it comes from the little underground lake I am going to have you see. Take care; walk before me, in the light of my lantern. I will warn you when we are there. (They continue to walk in silence.) Hey! hey! Pélléas! stop! stop!— (He seizes him by the arm.) For God's sake!… Do you not see?—One step more, and you had been in the gulf!…

 Ils sont prodigieusement grands; c’est une suite de grottes énormes qui aboutissent, Dieu sait où. Tout le château est bâti sur ces grottes. Sentez-vous l’odeur mortelle qui règne ici ? – C’est ce que je voulais vous faire remarquer. Selon moi, elle provient du petit lac souterrain que je vais vous faire voir. Prenez garde; marchez devant moi, dans la clarté de ma lanterne. Je vous avertirai lorsque nous y serons. (Ils continuent à marcher en silence.) Hé ! Hé ! Pelléas ! arrêtez ! arrêtez ! (Il le saisit par le bras.) Pour Dieu !… Mais ne voyez-vous pas ? – Un pas de plus et vous étiez dans le gouffre !…

PÉLLÉAS

But I did not see it!… The lantern no longer lighted me….

 Mais je n’y voyais pas !… La lanterne ne m’éclairait plus…

GOLAUD.

I made a misstep…. but if I had not held you by the arm…. Well, this is the stagnant water that I spoke of to you…. Do you perceive the smell of death that rises?—Let us go to the end of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a little. It will strike you in the face.

 J’ai fait un faux pas… mais si je ne vous avais pas retenu le bras… Eh bien, voici l’eau stagnante dont je vous parlais… Sentez-vous l’odeur de mort qui monte ? – Allons jusqu’au bout de ce rocher qui surplombe et penchez-vous un peu. Elle viendra vous frapper au visage.

 

PÉLLÉAS.

I smell it already;… you would say a smell of the tomb.

 Je la sens déjà… On dirait une odeur de tombeau. 

GOLAUD.

Further, further…. It is this that on certain days has poisoned the castle. The King will not believe it comes from here.—The crypt should be walled up in which this standing water is found. It is time, besides, to examine these vaults a little. Have you noticed those lizards on the walls and pillars of the vaults?—There is a labor hidden here you would not suspect; and the whole castle will be swallowed up one of these nights, if it is not looked out for. But what will you have? nobody likes to come down this far…. There are strange lizards in many of the walls…. Oh! here … do you perceive the smell of death that rises?

Plus loin, plus loin… C’est elle qui, certains jours, empoisonne le château. Le roi ne veut pas croire qu’elle vient d’ici. – il faudrait faire murer la grotte où se trouve cette eau morte. Il serait temps d’ailleurs d’examiner ces souterrains. Avez-vous remarqué ces lézardes dans les murs et les piliers de voûtes ? – Il y a ici un travail caché qu’on ne soupçonne pas ; et tout le château s’engloutira une de ces nuits, si l’on n’y prend pas garde. Mais que voulez-vous ? personne n’aime à descendre jusqu’ici… Il y a d’étranges lézardes dans bien des murs… Oh ! voici… sentez-vous l’odeur de mort qui s’élève? 

PÉLLÉAS.

Yes; there is a smell of death rising about us….

Oui, il y a une odeur de mort qui monte autour de nous…

GOLAUD.

Lean over; have no fear…. I will hold you … give me … no, no, not your hand … it might slip … your arm, your arm!… Do you see the gulf? (Moved.)—Pélléas? Pélléas?…

 Penchez-vous ; n’ayez pas peur… Je vous tiendrai… donnez-moi… non, non, pas la main… elle pourrait glisser… le bras, le bras… Voyez-vous le gouffre ? (Troublé.) – Pelléas ? Pelléas ?…

PÉLLÉAS.

Yes; I think I see the bottom of the gulf…. Is it the light that trembles so?… You … (He straightens up, turns, and looks at GOLAUD.)

Oui ; je crois que je vois le fond du gouffre… Est-ce la lumière qui tremble ainsi?… Vous… (Il se redresse, se retourne et regarde GOLAUD.)

GOLAUD (with a trembling voice).

Yes; it is the lantern…. See, I shook it to lighten the walls….

(d’une voix tremblante).  Oui ; c’est la lanterne… Voyez, je l’agitais pour éclairer les parois…

PÉLLÉAS.

I stifle here;… let us go out….

 J’étouffe ici… sortons…

GOLAUD.

Yes; let us go out….

Oui, sortons...

                                                      [Exeunt in silence.    [Ils sortent en silence.

 

(Act III Scene 3 of Maurice Maeterlinck's Pélléas et Mélisande (1892). English translation by Richard Hovey.

Being more familiar with older plays I couldn't help being reminded of the scene in The Changeling where Deflores takes Alonzo for a tour of the "full strength" of the castle in Alicante. 

Unlike Alonzo, Pelléas gets out alive. Golaud has just run across his half-brother messing around with Golaud's young wife Mélisande in a way that thoroughly disturbs him, but he isn't sure. 

During the visit to the vaults Golaud tries to behave as the protective elder brother who talks seriously about serious things, with an underlying message to Pelléas about the need to grow up -- which means, taking care ("si l’on n’y prend pas garde") --, but his own feelings aren't entirely in control, and he twice feints at causing a fatal accident. Golaud is trying out what it would be like to kill him. When Pelléas seems about to confront the signs of Golaud's inner disturbance (with the single word "Vous.."), Golaud goes into retreat, and allows Pelléas to lead them out of the vaults. 

The half-brothers are doubles to some extent, their actions often shadowing each other. It's Pelléas who keeps saying "Prenez garde" in the ring scene, and it's he who acts as guide to the underworld in the grotto scene. When Golaud drags Mélisande around by the hair, we remember Pelléas playfully tying her hair to the willow. 

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Mélisande, 1895-98 painting by Marianne Stokes.

[Image source: Wikipedia . The painting is in the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki. Marianne Stokes (1855 - 1927) was an Austrian by birth, married to fellow artist Adrian Scott Stokes. ]

The names are broadly medieval and suggestive of a Franco-German location (e.g. Allemond, the kingdom).

Pelléas or Pellès was one of the names of the fisher king (Amfortas in Wagner's Parsival). Another Pellias was a knight of the round table in the post-Vulgate cycle and in Malory. 

Mélisande was an Old French name with Germanic roots (it became Millicent in English). E.g. Melisende the Queen of Jerusalem from 1131 to 1143. In Maeterlinck's 1899 play Ariane and Bluebeard (turned into an opera by Paul Dukas), the names of Bluebeard's other wives are taken from earlier Maeterlinck plays, and they include Mélisande: at the end of the play these wives (unlike Ariane) choose to remain with Bluebeard. (You would have to be extremely literal-minded to describe Ariane and Bluebeard as a "prequel" or to infer that at the start of Pelléas and Mélisande she has just escaped from Bluebeard -- who certainly didn't give his wives crowns to wear!)

Golaud is Golo in German. Golo was also the name of the villainous majordomo in the legend of Genevieve of Brabant (modern readers will most likely have encountered it via the opening pages of Proust). The (ultimately medieval) legend was apparently a popular subject for performance by puppet companies in the 18th century, which might be relevant to Maeterlink wanting his plays to be performed by marionettes.

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Links to online texts (I cannot vouch for their accuracy, but they'll give you an idea) and a simplified account of their relationship. 

Pélléas et Mélisande (1892)

First published edition (1892). 

Mélisande's song at the start of Act III Sc 2  is "Mes longs cheveux". 

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1527481x/f15.item

(Easier to view with a laptop!)

English translation of this version, by Richard Hovey (1896):

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13329/pg13329-images.html

German translation of this version, by George Stockhausen (1897):

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b393111&seq=9

Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

This was Maeterlinck's second revision since the original 1892 text. 

Most significantly, Mélisande's song at the start of Act III Sc 2  is now "Les trois sœurs aveugles" (as it had been ever since the 1893 stage premier). (This song formed part of the play's English, German, Swedish and Finnish acting texts; hence Fauré's incidental music for an English production in 1898 -- translation by J.W. Mackail --, and Sibelius' incidental music for a Swedish-language production in 1905. -- translation by Bertel Gripenberg.)

Note that the first "e" in "Pelléas" no longer has an accent.

https://libretheatre.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/pelleasetmelisande_Maeterlinck_LT.pdf  [PDF]

Pelléas et Mélisande (1907)

The French text as used in Debussy's opera, drafted in 1893-1895, with full orchestral score in 1898 and first performance on 30 April 1902. 

He basically composed direct from Maeterlinck's 1892 text (no librettist), but he omitted four scenes entirely: As originally numbered, they were Act I Sc 1 (at the castle gate), Act II Sc 4 (Pelléas once more conceding to Arkël's wish for him to stay), Act III Sc 1 (Mélisande spins from her distaff; Pelléas, Yniold), and Act V Sc 1 (The servants).  There are also cuts from the other scenes, e.g. from Golaud's letter, Arkël's subsequent dialogue with Pelléas, the brothers' visit to the castle vaults and their emergence, Golaud's scene with his son, Yniold's scene at the rock... 

Mélisande's song is "Mes longs cheveux". (As in the original 1892 edition, but not in any stage performances.) Maeterlinck complained bitterly, but rather unreasonably, about Debussy's failure to incorporate his later revisions. 

https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Pell%C3%A9as_et_M%C3%A9lisande

(For more detail on Debussy's libretto see David Grayson's talk: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/debussy-text-ideas-reflections-on-new-edition-pellas .)

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[Image source: https://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/01/31_morelockb_pelleas-melisande/ . From a 1904 French production. Mélisande was played by Mrs Patrick Campbell and Pelléas by Sarah Bernhardt. This is Act III Scene 1, but there's nothing in Maeterlinck's text about Pelléas reading a book.]

Other material I came across:

Maeterlinck's play was very successfully produced by Max Rheinhardt in Berlin in 1903-04 (there were 57 performances). The incidental music was by Friedrich Bermann; apparently it does not survive. I can't find out anything about Friedrich Bermann, except that he wrote music for several of Rheinhardt's productions. 

Eija Kurki's very informative article on Sibelius's incidental music and on Scandinavian performances of Maeterlinck's play. 

https://sibeliusone.com/music-for-the-theatre/pelleas-et-melisande/

Sibelius' well-known suite contains a few differences from the original music, as well as changing the sequence. 

There is a fine performance of the original version of Sibelius' incidental music by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxzMOaadUrk&t=0s

 "De trenne blinda systrar" (The Three Blind Sisters) was originally a song, sung here by Anna-Lisa Jakobsson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxzMOaadUrk&t=805s

There was also a prelude to Act IV scene 2 (The scene that begins with Arkel sympathising with Mélisande, and ends with Golaud dragging her around by her hair.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxzMOaadUrk&t=1235s

A fine production by Benjamin Lazar of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Malmö Opera Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Maxime Pascal. English subtitles. (Pelléas: Marc Mauillon. Mélisande: Jenny Daviet. Golaud: Laurent Alvaro. 

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Golaud and Mélisande

[Image source: https://www.theatre-odeon.eu/en/pelleas-et-melisandre . From a 2020 production of Maeterlink's play by Julie Duclos for the Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe. Golaud was played by Vincent Dissez and Mélisande by Alix Riemer. Photo by Simon Gosselin.]

Some poems from Harry Martinson's Natur (1934)

 

[Image source: https://turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar/es/article/breve-historia-de-la-carne-argentina .]

Argentinska slätter

Natten river smattrande sin mantel längs pampas.
Mörkrets oväder blir en dagstorm in mot Anderna.
Solen stiger ur jorden, 

ser ned på en flyende boskapshjord som 

         rusar in i horisonterna mot Tucumana.
        Gräsmarkerna åska under den uppskrämda hjorden, 

           flykten dånar som en stad: 

        en virvlande stad som jagats åt norr 

                 av Eldslandets vindar. 

Argentine plains

Night scrapes its cloak rattling across the pampas.
The tumult of darkness becomes a day storm over by the Andes.

The sun rises from the earth, 

looks down upon a fleeing herd of cattle that 

        rush into the horizons Tucumán way.
        The grasslands thunder beneath the frightened herd, 

            their flight roars like a city, 

        a flailing city harried northwards 

                 by the winds of Tierra del Fuego.

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Harry Martinson visited Argentina and other S. American countries during his time as a sailor (1920 - 1927). 

The pampas is known for intense thunderstorms and severe hail. 

Tucumán province, in NW Argentina. 

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La Pampa

Bakom Don Morjas estancia

började boskapshjorden med några smärre vikar,

sträckte sig sedan åt nordväst

med ett hav av oxar

och en havsbukt av kalvar.

Oceanen av muande nöt gick ända till Corrientes.

Don  Morjas blåste i fagott

på sin marmorveranda,

såg på sitt behornade hav med mätta och trötta ögon:

   "Undras om inte nordöstra viken

   räknat från brokiga kalven här framme

   snart kunde drivas mot Pasamadas' fjärran på bete?

                 Västra grenen till slakt."

La Pampa

Behind Don Morias' estancia

the herd of cattle began with a few minor inlets,

then stretched northwest

with a sea of ​​oxen

and a sea-bay of calves.

The ocean of bellowing cattle went all the way to Corrientes.

Don Morias blew his bassoon

on his marble veranda,

looked at his horned sea with replete and weary eyes:

    "I wonder if the northeastern arm

    counting from the piebald calf here

    can soon be driven towards the distant Pasamadas to pasture?

                   The western branch to slaughter."

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La Pampa: province in central Argentina.

Morjas: i.e. Morias in Spanish, but it is not a common surname. (An occasional variant of Moraes or Morais, common Portuguese surnames.) 

Corrientes: province in the north of Argentina (not near La Pampa). 

Pasamadas: name unknown. 

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Fattig trakt

På sommaren stodo Vendes fältkanoner

och hostade i gräset --

manöveråskorna rullade mot hembyn

och pigorna sjöngo.

Det var som om molnen rämnat

och nakna adonisynglingar regnat ned.

Nymodigheten uppslök en fattig trakt.

Barn plockade gula soldatknappar: maskros på åkern,

                                                    och togo hem --

dörrarna smällde igen för dem: -- Asch, sånt gulstrunt!

                                                    åt helsike ungar!

Pigor svängde dukar på kullarna:

Hallå, hallåååå! artillerigossar!

Poor district

In the summer, Vendes' field guns stood

and coughed in the grass --

the thunder of manoeuvres rolled towards their home village

and the maids sang.

It was as if the clouds had split

and naked Adonis children had rained down.

The novelty swallowed up a poor district.

Children picked yellow soldier buttons: dandelions in the field,

                                                        and took them home --

the doors slammed shut on them: -- Ugh, such yellow trash!

                                                        Go to hell, children!

Maids waved tablecloths on the hills:

Hello, hellooooo! artillery boys!

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Vendes' field guns : referring to the Wendes Artillery Regiment (Wendes artilleriregemente), a longstanding regiment in the Swedish army (disbanded in 2000). They were garrisoned in Kristianstad (Skåne), about 40km from Jämshög (Blekinge) where Harry Martinson was born and where as a parish orphan he was placed in various farmsteads

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Pigor

          Minnes barndomens pigor;

          tilldels själar

          med ödsliga, sensuella ögon;

tilldels höga brösts och mäktiga länders varma

arvsmonument från forna vadmalsland. 

Slagfärdiga munnars rop i slåttern;

samsångens pigpsalm i ladugård;

drömmar på knä ibland rovor;

surmjölk i stenkrus på renen. 

Det buttra mumlet om Olga

faren i väg till Idaho.

Många tomma pigor sutto

med hängande själar;

men många sutto där stolta: undersamt barnkära

                                                 kvinnor

          med buttert melodiska röster

          mumlande liksom ur myter.

Där fanns pigor med jungfrudunkel,

    med legenden i schalen

    och digra frågor i hindklara ögon.

    Maria gick

    med vit andedräkt

    över världens höstkalla scen.

Där fanns gitarrens klagande himlapiga.

Den slarviga dansbanelängterskan fanns

och den obstinata flottistpigan

-- fetischdyrkare inför matrosuniformer.

Men underligast höstskymningarnas

trollska längterska,

separatorns vemodiga, tunga prästinna

som bugade och drog, bugade och drog

        den mjölkrytande Alfa-lavalen,

               med spiselden speglad

               i undrande ögon.

        Då sjöng det urtrollska bondska i sinnet

               som en tung malm.

               Buttra talade rösterna.

               Barnet låg undrande i vaggan,

               jakthunden såg upp från sin korg.

               Var det inte som sången om eviga bönder_

               Som malmen av givande jord?

Maids

          Remembering the maids of childhood;

          some of them souls

          with desolate, sensual eyes;

some of them high breasts and powerful loins

warm historic monuments from the ancient land of vadmal.

The cries of ready-made mouths in the haystack;

the singing of the young man's hymn in the barn;

dreams on his knees among turnips;

sour milk in stone jugs on the reindeer.

The sullen murmur of Olga

the father on his way to Idaho.

Many empty maids sat

with drooping souls;

but many sat there proud: strangely childlike

                                                  women

      with sullenly melodic voices

      mumbling as if from myths.

There were maids with virgin darkness,

      with the legend in their shawls

      and huge questions in their clear eyes.

      Maria walked

      with white breath

      over the world's autumn-cold stage.

There was the plaintive heavenly maiden of the guitar.

There was the careless dance-floor-longing girl 

and the obstinate navy maid

-- fetish worshipper of sailor uniforms.

But strangest of all was the

magical longing girl of the autumn twilights,

the melancholy, heavy priestess of the separator

who bowed and pulled, bowed and pulled

     the milk-roaring Alfa Laval,

            with the stove-fire reflected

            in her wondering eyes.

     Then sang the primordial peasantry in the mind

            like a heavy ore.

            The voices spoke sullenly.

            The child lay wondering in the cradle,

            the hunting dog looked up from its basket.

            Wasn't it like the song of eternal farmers?

            Like the ore of yielding earth?

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Vadmal: a woollen fabric used for outerwear, durable and waterproof like tweed, but felted so the weave pattern is obscured. 

Alfa Laval: the company started in 1883, originally making dairy centrifuges to separate cream from milk (as in the poem), subsequently diversifying to other specialized plant in heavy industry.

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Some poems by Harry Martinson from the "Grassland" section of his 1934 collection Natur.  

Nature normally takes the definite article in Swedish, i.e. naturen, literally "the Nature". So Martinson's title is a slight unmooring. 

According to his Swedish Wikipedia entry this "expressionist-tinged collection" met with a cool reception (compared with the success of its 1931 predecessor Nomad) and this led him to concentrate on prose for the next eleven years, e.g. Nässlorna blomma  (The nettles flower, 1935), about his broken childhood. 

Sarah Orne Jewett: The Tory Lover (1901)

[Image source: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51537/pg51537-images.html#the-parting-feast . Illustration by Charles Herbert Woodbury for the 1901 book edition of The Tory Lover.]

Just before nightfall, that same day, two travel-worn men came riding along a country road toward Old Passage, the ancient ferrying-place where travelers from the south and west of England might cross over into Wales. From an immemorial stream of travel and the wear of weather, the road-bed was worn, like a swift stream's channel, deep below the level of the country. One of the riders kept glancing timidly at the bushy banks above his head, as if he feared to see a soldier in the thicket peering down; his companion sat straight in his saddle, and took no notice of anything but his horse and the slippery road. It had been showery all the afternoon, and they were both spattered with mud from cap to stirrup.

As they came northward, side by side, to the top of a little hill, the anxious rider gave a sigh of relief, and his horse, which limped badly and bore the marks of having been on his knees, whinnied as if in sympathy. The wide gray waters of the Severn were spread to east and west; the headland before them fell off like a cliff. Below, to the westward, the land was edged by a long line of dike which walled the sea floods away from some low meadows that stretched far along the coast. Over the water were drifting low clouds of fog and rain, but there was a dull gleam of red on the western sky like a winter sunset, and the wind was blowing. At the road's end, just before them, was a group of gray stone buildings perched on the high headland above the Severn, like a monastery or place of military defense.

As the travelers rode up to the Passage Inn, the inn yard, with all its stables and outhouses, looked deserted; the sunset gust struck a last whip of rain at the tired men. The taller of the two called impatiently for a hostler before he got stiffly to the ground, and stamped his feet as he stood by his horse. It was a poor tired country nag, with a kind eye, that began to seek some fondling from her rider, as if she harbored no ill will in spite of hardships. The young man patted and stroked the poor creature, which presently dropped her head low, and steamed, as if it were winter weather, high into the cool air.

(From The Tory Lover, Ch 42)

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I didn't mean to say so much without saying more, now I have touched you with cold water when I only meant just lightly & kindly to sprinkle you as for a new baptism -- that is a re-dedication to altars but briefly, I trust, forsaken. Go back to the dear Country of the Pointed Firs, come back to the palpable present intimate that throbs responsive, & that wants, misses, needs you, God knows, & that suffers woefully in your absence.

Thus wrote Henry James to Sarah Orne Jewett on 5 October 1901, concluding his onslaught on historical fiction with a touch of compunction. 

Well, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), lightly fictionalized vignettes of Maine provincial life, -- this description hardly prepares you for what a wonderful book it is. But The Tory Lover, the book James deplored, is rather wonderful too, in its way. (It helps if you relish historical novels; James was clearly allergic to them.)

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I must admit I do. I enjoy the most conventional aspects of Jewett's transatlantic romance as much as all the rest. I can idle away a whole morning on the Ranger (e.g. Ch 12), for instance  -- there is a complaining sailor called Starbuck on Paul Jones' ship -- so I read about the Starbuck surname and its Nantucket connections and how it came to be attached to the overpriced coffee chain where I spend too much time (but usually drinking tea... I wonder yet again why Starbucks doesn't offer a cortado...) or -- Paul Jones decides to dole out a ration of grog to the crew -- so I go off and read about the history of the naval rum ration. At the same time I'm thinking of how intimately Jewett understood sailing and boats and ships, both from her Maine background and from her constant travels; she and Annie Adams Fields had crossed the Atlantic eight times. 

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NB for British readers: in the context of the American War of Independence, a "Tory" was a term applied to a Loyalist, i.e. an American who still supported British sovereignty; in contrast to the Patriot majority who fought for Independence. 

Evidently their opponents saw the loyalists as vaguely resembling the English Tories of a century earlier who had supported the Stuart monarchy. (See the carefully circuitous conversation between Master Sullivan and Mary Hamilton in Ch 17.) At the time of the American Revolution, however, the British monarch was a Hanoverian, and his government was predominantly Whiggish. 

*

Reading Jewett's books often produces that kind of conviction: that she knows what she's talking about, that she had lived every paragraph that she wrote. Especially of course in her Maine writings. And yet it wasn't always that simple. 

After we returned to the parlor Mr. James took occasion to tell Sarah how deeply and sincerely he appreciates her work; how he re-reads it with increasing admiration. "It is foolish to ask, I know," he said, "but were you in just such a place as you describe in the 'Pointed Firs'? --" "No," she said, "not precisely; the book was chiefly written before I visited the locality itself --" "And such an island?" he continued. "Not exactly," she said again. "Ah! I thought so," he said musingly; "and the language -- It is so absolutely true -- not a word overdone -- such elegance and exactness."

[from Annie Fields' diary, 12 September 1898.]

Jewett was in fact a master at making readers believe that she possessed local knowledge even when she didn't; just like Kipling, who greatly admired her writings.

The Tory Lover begins in Maine, but later the scene shifts to England, and it was then that I had my own moment of conviction, while I was reading the scene in which our heroine Mary Hamilton accompanies the elderly Mr Davis on a ride from Bristol to Bath along the Avon valley, countryside that I know very well. 

The fields and hedges, the bright foxglove and green ivy, the larks and blackbirds and quiet robins, the soft air against her cheeks, .....   this hazy landscape along the Avon... "You may see Bath now, there in the valley," said Mr. Davis, pointing with his big hand and the hunting crop. "'T is as fine a ride from Bristol to Bath as any you may have in England." They stopped their horses, a little short of breath, and looked down the rich wooded country to the bright town below.

(From The Tory Lover, Ch 35)

She must have been there! I found myself thinking. It was not because of the presence of any unusual fact, it was somehow the understanding of the topography and its proportions, the hazy Avon, the mild climate, Bath gleaming in its rather steep valley; things you can't easily convey in a guidebook, but instantly grasp when you go there. 

I didn't know much about Jewett's European travels at that point. Later, I did some research (see below); and sure enough, in July 1892 she had indeed spent a few days in Bristol, or rather Westbury on Trym (still just about separate). The Egyptologist Amelia Edwards had lived at "The Larches" until her recent death. Jewett had become friends with Miss Edwards and her assistant Kate Bradbury during their 1889 lecture tour. Now Kate was trying to sort out what to do about the contents of Miss Edwards' house, in particular the important library. 

Kate was very busy, but Jewett was an energetic sightseer. She would certainly have taken herself up to nearby Clifton Down and from there down to Bristol cathedral (the setting for an important scene in The Tory Lover). She could conceivably have taken a trip to Bath .... but then I thought of something. She must have arrived by train from Paddington, so she would already have passed through Bath and the Avon valley on her way to Bristol. Pleasant as it is to imagine Sarah Orne Jewett traversing this July landscape on horseback like her heroine, it's most likely that she just looked out of the train window. Her glance could take in everything, and then bring it forth eight years later when she needed it for her historical romance. 

She wasn't planning The Tory Lover then, as far as we know.  But by the time she returned to Europe in 1898, she certainly was. And a pattern emerges. In the novel, Paul Jones and Lieutenant Wallingford travel from Nantes via Vitré to Paris. Jewett herself, researching the locations, was staying in Paris; it was from here that she visited both Vitré and Nantes, in each case by train. So Jewett (unlike her model Sir Walter Scott, eighty years earlier) was using modern transportation methods -- train and passenger ship -- to whiz around France and England. Her life, once away from provincial South Berwick, assumed the hub-and-spoke shape that still characterizes the travels of the wealthy (the hubs being e.g. London or Paris). But in her imagined world of  1778, there was no rail network and her characters are shown travelling arduously cross-country between her endpoints -- by horse power (e.g. Nantes to Vitré,  Bristol to Plymouth). This single alteration, you might say, went a long way towards creating the conditions of historical romance.

*

But what then of the Old Passage Inn, scene of the novel's denouement? The building still exists (it's now a private house) and Jewett's topography is remarkably accurate, as Graham Frater commented (in Terry Heller's edition, linked below). Charles Woodbury's splendid illustration, however, romanticized the contours of a landscape that is really rather flat (compare my photo at the end of this post).

There was indeed a dike or sea-wall running south from Old Passage (Mary Hamilton and Mr Davis will later arrive by that route). The headland does indeed end in a cliff (Aust cliff); this is where the Severn Bridge was constructed in the 1960s.

Could Jewett have gone there in 1892? Well, it's possible. She was very interested in rivers and from Westbury on Trym she might have been tempted down to the shores of the Severn; she was also interested in neglected harbours, but it was about a ten mile walk to Old Passage. More likely she would have taken a carriage. Still, it doesn't seem a very probable destination when you are only in Bristol for a few days. 

The most obvious reason that a tourist would go to Old Passage would have been to take a ferry across the Severn. But after the Severn rail tunnel came into operation in 1886, the ferry service at Old Passage no longer ran. In 1892 the inn must have been disused or nearly so. (And anyway though Jewett travelled widely in Ireland and England, as well as staying in Edinburgh twice, there's no record of her ever visiting the other side of the Severn.)

If she didn't see the Old Passage Inn with her own eyes, what's the alternative? How could she know so much about its setting, how did she know (for instance) about the Welsh drovers who used the ferry and stayed at the inn? She might have seen accounts in earlier literature, but I haven't found any with that level of detail. Most likely, the information came from someone she knew, perhaps one of her many English friends. 

*

There's another strange thing about the Old Passage scenes in The Tory Lover. They had to some extent been anticipated by  "A Dark Night", a story she wrote in 1895 for Bacheller, Johnson and Bacheller (a publishing syndicate): it appeared in the Philadelphia Press. 

Compare this paragraph from "A Dark Night" with the first one quoted above. 

As night was falling two mounted messengers, spattered with mud from cap to stirrup, were riding wearily along a deep, worn country lane. They were in the north part of the county of Somerset, near the waters of the Severn. The lane itself, deserted enough that night, was a great thoroughfare for those who came from the south and west to cross over into Wales. By this immemorial stream of travel and the wearing of the weather it had been worn like a swift stream's channel, deep below the level of the country. One of the riders kept glancing fearfully at the bushy banks above him, as if he expected to see a head in the thicket peering down. The other man rode straight and stern in his saddle, and took no notice of anything but his horse and the slippery road.

(from "A Dark Night", Ch 1)

In "A Dark Night" the location is obfuscated and contradictory. The two riders, explicitly said to be "riding northward", are travelling towards Bristol from an unamed town in the West of England. This is consistent with them being on the Somerset coast; that is, on the Bristol Channel. But the historic county of Somerset didn't extend to the Severn: the boundary with Gloucestershire lay further south, at the Avon. 

Nevertheless, the travellers in "A Dark Night" reach the banks of the Severn, even though this would mean that they've already gone beyond Bristol. And it's apparent from the topography that the "old Black Eagle Inn", where they shortly arrive, is based on the Old Passage Inn. Here is the headland, the dike, the cliff and the Severn. The mistress of the inn tells the new arrivals that "She had ceased to keep the tavern since the travel had all gone, or been stolen away to the lower ferry"; a remark that makes perfect sense if this is the Old Passage at Aust, the "lower ferry" being the New Passage at Pilning. 

[This would suggest that "A Dark Night" is set in the late 18th-early 19th century, a period when the New Passage had gained the upper hand. The Old Passage recovered its primacy in the late 1820s, with two steamboats financed by the Duke of Beaufort, then gradually lost trade as the railway network spread; and in 1863 it reached New Passage. (Much later, there would be a resurrection of the Old Passage: a car ferry would ply between Aust and Beachey. It operated from 1926 until 1966.)]

The obfuscation, I suppose, seemed necessary because "A Dark  Night" (unlike The Tory Lover) portrayed the inn as a den of thieves. For the two stories, after similar openings, take very different courses. Nevertheless, both are founded on a common image, comprising e.g. the two travel-stained horsemen, the rainy weather, nightfall, the sunken lane, the Severn scenery of Old Passage, the unfriendly-looking inn, stabling the horses, the fishing-boat by the shore, and various other details.

I feel it's right to understand this as a pre-existent image, because in both stories Jewett sought to preserve elements that were not strictly necessary. In  "A Dark Night", as we've seen, Jewett retained the scenery of Old Passage even though the story purports to take place elsewhere. Likewise in The Tory Lover she preserved the second rider (the anxious one) who accompanies the straight-backed hero, though Hammet (in The Tory Lover) has no such important role as his predecessor Rogers. She also preserved the red sunset and the steaming horse, details natural to the winter setting of "A Dark Night" but which are tagged as "like winter" in The Tory Lover, where it's in fact late summer. 

All the same, I feel a stubborn conviction that bad weather in late summer was the "true" context of the image. But maybe that's just another testament to Jewett's skill. (And maybe I'm influenced by knowing that she never saw the west of England in winter; a very different thing from winter in Maine.)

The buildings at Old Passage, Aust

[Image source: https://collections.bristolmuseums.org.uk/collections/2c1f3640-9461-3962-b253-0056c7eddd41/ . Drawing by Hugh O'Neill (1784 - 1824). (c)Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives.]

From A New and Accurate Description of All the Direct and Principal Cross Roads in England and Wales, and Part of the Roads of Scotland by Lieutenant-Colonel [Daniel] Paterson, 1811. It's on Google Books .

*

If you just want to read The Tory Lover, the simplest and best way is on Project Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51537/pg51537-images.html

But if you want to dive a little deeper, or even a lot deeper, you'll be delighted and instructed by the annotated edition lovingly put together by Terry Heller in 2023 (downloadable as three PDFs):

Part 1:

https://www.sarahornejewett.org/soj/1-jewettpress/e-Tory%20Lover%20--%20part%201.pdf

Part 2:

https://www.sarahornejewett.org/soj/1-jewettpress/e-tory%20lover%20--%20Part%202.pdf

Part 3:

https://www.sarahornejewett.org/soj/1-jewettpress/e-tory%20lover%20--%20Part%203.pdf

More or less all the information in this post comes either from there or (as regards their travels to Europe) from Sarah Orne Jewett's correspondence and Annie Field's diary: 

https://www.sarahornejewett.org/soj/let/Corresp/1-correspondence.html

*

Sarah Orne Jewett's travels to Europe. 

(Locations relevant to The Tory Lover are in bold.)

Sarah Orne Jewett [SOJ] and Annie Fields [AF] travelled to Europe in 1882, 1892, 1898 and 1900. 

1882 

(May-Oct)

Cork, Glengarriff, Enniskillen, Dublin, London, Isle of Wight, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Dawlish, Clovelly, Exeter, Lynton, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, Hull (then by ship to Norway, visiting the Ole Bulls), back to Edinburgh and London, then Antwerp, Amsterdam, down the Rhine, Interlaken, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Genoa, Paris, London.

1892

27 Feb - c. 4 Oct

SOJ and AF sailed to Genoa, a rough crossing. In Italy until June, then France, arriving England in mid (?) July. The details of their first days in England are relatively poorly documented, but it seems they came to London, had some days at Bristol, perhaps back to London and then to Ilkley in late July. 

----- We had some days near Bristol at Miss Edwards's house with Katie Bradbury -- it was like a visit to a ghost by which I have no idea of saying that it was altogether sad -- on the contrary! and her library is a room you would like dearly. One always felt that she must be coming into it next minute. I shall tell you much more than this about the Larches some day.

Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Wyman Whitman - Letter from Ilkley, 30 July 1892.

["Miss Edwards" was the Egyptologist Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831- 15 April 1892). Miss Edwards died while Jewett and Annie Fields were in Italy. Her home since 1864, was "The Larches" in Westbury-on-Trym. Kate Bradbury was Edwards' companion in her final years (accompanying her on her American lecture tour in 1889-90).]

SOJ and AF then visited Ilkley (Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale, Haworth), then travelled via Lincoln, Boston, Ely and Cambridge to London with visits to Warwickshire (Mrs Dugdale) via Oxford, Aldworth House (the Tennysons; at Blackdown, technically just in West Sussex but understandably described as Surrey by both SOJ and AF), Tring (Mrs Humphrey Ward), Cobham (Mrs Arnold), Canterbury, then left London and went to York, Whitby (George du Maurier), Edinburgh, Lake District, and Riversvale Hall (Kate Bradbury; Ashton-under-Lyme). Sailed from Liverpool 22nd Sept.

1898

SOJ and AF arrived by ship in Plymouth on April 18 1898, travelled swiftly through Devon and Somerset, apparently reaching London the following day (presumably by train, e.g. Exeter Taunton Westbury Reading Paddington). Then France: Paris, Provence, Paris, Meaux and Rheims, Paris, and Brittany (Vitré, Mont St Michel, St Malo, Dinan, Tréguier, Quimper, Quiberon, Carnac and Nantes), Paris, Loire valley and Tours, and back to Paris. Crossed the channel in August: London (briefly), Cambridge, Ilkley, Edinburgh (via Carlisle), Riversvale Hall (Kate Bradbury, now Griffith) at Ashton-under-Lyme, Stratford-upon-Avon, London: visits to the Humphrey Wards at Stocks House near Tring (Herts), Totteridge, to Henry James at Rye where they had a trip to Hastings, Eversley (Hampshire), Windsor, to the Kiplings at Rottingdean,  to the Hallam Tennysons at Haslemere (Surrey); then Ashton-under-Lyme again, and so to their return ship at Liverpool. 

AF's diary, July 11: We took the train for Nantes which Sarah wished to see because Paul Jones sailed away from there and if she writes his story as she hopes to do she will like to have seen the Loire before it sinks into the sea.

1900 

(28 Feb to c. June 1). SOJ, AF and Mary Garrett visited Greece, Turkey ("Constantinople"), Italy and France (including Paris); they did not visit Britain on this trip. 

*

Alison Easton, "Nation making and fiction making: Sarah Orne Jewett, The Tory Lover, and Walter Scott, Waverley" [PDF]. Published in 2002, I think. 

https://www.manchesterhive.com/downloadpdf/display/9781526137654/9781526137654.00012.pdf

Argues that The Tory Lover asserts a distinctively nuanced view of the American Revolution that shows the influence of Scott novels such as Waverley in its critique of simple political binaries and its appeal to the practical virtues of compromise. Jewett certainly admired Scott the man, i.e. as seen in Lockhart and in Scott's own journal, letters and essays. 

"Along the Dike." Approaching the buildings on the headland from the dike, as Mary Hamilton and Mr Davis do in Ch 43.  Aust Old Passage, 27 February 2025.

Some poetry by Mary Rolls

I was reading about Westmorland, the historic county. I had never been quite sure where the borders lay. Essentially it's Kirby Stephen, Appleby, Kendal, Windermere, Ambleside, and Grasmere: it included some of the western Pennines, all of the Howgills, and the SE part of the Lakeland fells. Helvellyn marked the border with Cumberland. 

Westmorland was one of England's least populated counties, but I came across the name of a poet, Mary Rolls née Hillary (1775-1835), who was born in Westmorland to a Quaker family. In 1815 she married a curate and moved south, eventually to Aldwincle Rectory, Northants. She published as Mrs Henry Rolls. I can't see that any of her poems have been published online as text, so here's a sample of what I could find. 

ADDRESS TO LORD BYRON  (Published as a pamphlet in 1816)

Is this the boon of partial Heaven!

Is misery still to Genius given!

Does vengeance still prepare the blow!

Must poverty still lay it low!

Must scorn and grief its steps pursue,

And cold contempt her taunts renew!

Or, when slow sinking to the grave,

Is no kind arm outstretch'd to save!

When those who rise, by noble birth,

Above the wants of vulgar earth—

Receive within the cultur'd breast,

The Muses' sacred seal imprest,—

And pour from the enraptur'd lyre

The song of pure poetic fire;—

Must they too feel each varying pain,—

The maddening pulse— the fever'd brain,—

Each varying form of heart-felt woe,—

The lingering pang—the sudden throe—

And all the stings, that breast must prove,

That mourns the lot of blighted love;—

Till apathy each thought o'ercomes,

And every finer sense benumbs!

Or,—if the harp's deep notes still flow—

Speak but of scenes of guilt or woe—

Of victims none have power to save,

Or the dark slumbers of the grave!

BYRON ! is this thy genuine tale?

No!-- let thy friend remove the veil;—

Shew to thy heart its real state,—

And kindly warn thee ere too late;—

Rend the deep cloud that shrouds thy mind—

The richest—brightest—of its kind!

Why dost thou, the cold Sceptic's slave,

Renounce the Almighty's aid, who gave

That choicest gift—a soul refin'd—

Thy almost more than human mind?

To some, one feeble spark is sent;

To thee the Poet's sun is lent!

Others may catch a transient ray;

On thee, its beams unclouded play!

But, were those glories given to shine—

For thee alone, a wreath to twine?

To bid thee point a gloomy road,—

And steal the listener's heart from God?—

To prove us pilgrims of an hour—

Deny his everlasting power?—

And shew—'midst darkness, doubt, and gloom—

The lasting slumbers of the tomb?

To rend the bands of home-felt joy,

And life's sweet charities destroy?—

To raise the crowd's base censures wild,

And from the Sire divide the Child?

I am thy friend! ---none more admires

Thy genuine, true, poetic fires!

None hears, with purer joys, thy lays;

None, with more pleasure, speaks thy praise;

And none more truly can lament

Those rich, best gifts, so basely spent;—

And on thy tale of private woe,

None can a tenderer thought bestow!

Then be it mine the path to shew,

Where the rich fruits of grief may grow!

Bow thy proud heart beneath His rod,

And own the chastening hand of God!

Then happier, nobler, purer rise,

Fresh from thy grateful sacrifice!

Then fill thy lofty proper sphere,

And, whilst applauding senates hear,

Assert thy Country's sacred cause, 

Maintain her rights, protect her laws!

Stand the supporter of the Throne,

And make thy Sovereign's cause thy own!

Oh! let that choicest gift of heaven,—

To favor'd mortals only given—

Thy rich enchanting stream of song—

Be pour'd pure Virtue's course along!

Proclaim the triumphs of the brave,

Who fought their Country's rights to save;—

And their more mournful glories tell,

In Victory's field who nobly fell!

Or bid those beauteous scenes arise,

That ne'er must bless these wishful eyes!

Tell the proud tale of Greece once more;

Her long-lost lyre, to life restore!

And let thy purer notes proclaim

How sunk 'mid shades of Vice her name!

Ah! let the pure, the moral tale,

O'er every feeling heart prevail;

And, as the tears of Beauty flow,

Spread through her bosom Virtue's glow!

But there is still a higher theme,

Bright as the Poet's brightest dream!—

To sing the praise of Him, whose love

Descended from the realms above,—

From Sin's dark chains, the mind to save,---

And captive lead the vanquish'd grave!

Oh! worthy of thy lyre such strain! 

To sing Jehovah's endless reign;

To pint in raptured strains the road,

And lead the wandering heart to God!

Then shalt thou own a saving power,

Descending in this mournful hour;—

Then shall thy swelling sorrows cease;—

Thy life be joy—thy close be peace!

As sinks the slow declining sun,

When the long summer's day is done,

Yet leaves a track along the skies,

To shew he soon again shall rise;—

So calm may be thy setting day,

When life's last years are roll'd away!

Calm in the grave may'st thou repose

Till Heaven's eternal gates unclose!

Then may'st thou, with enraptur'd ears,

Drink the rich music of the spheres;

And join, with seraph hosts, the song,

Through endless ages pour'd along!

Then shalt thou own the Poet's prize—

The richest present of the skies—

In mercy to mankind was given,

To smooth the path from Earth to Heaven.

(Poem source.)

It's tempting to laugh, e.g. at the thought of Byron championing his Sovereign's cause. Still, I do like her forthrightness. The style of the poem is very much in Byron's own mode (e.g. the splendid punctuation and the speed) and Mary was evidently a genuine fan, though a deploring one, who fell for the first two Cantos of Childe Harold while plainly seeing their tendency. I suppose when she says she is Byron's friend she doesn't mean she was actually acquainted with him. Nevertheless she seems to know something about Byron's forthcoming lines on Waterloo (in Childe Harold III, published November 1816).

THE BUGLE-HORN

by Mrs Henry Rolls

The bugle-horn! How sweet the strain

   That floats along the moon-lit dale!

Oh ! It awakes a thrilling train

  Of thoughts long wrapp'd in time's dim veil:

The scenes, the hopes of  life's young morn,

When first I heard the bugle-horn!

Amidst my native mountains wild,

  When those clear notes responsive rung,

Oft have they roused the lonely child

  From dreams where fairy voices sung;

Starting, I deemed the bugle-horn

Was by some elfin huntsman borne!

Oh! then 'twas sweet at break of day

  To catch from echoing rock and scar,

Those notes which called the hunters gay

  To meet and join the sylvan war;

As those I loved at early morn

Assembled to the bugle-horn!

And it proclaimed the jocund feast,

  When seemed alive the mountain side,

As chief and peasant came; the guest

  To him, of all our race the pride,

With eye, bright as the star of morn,

And voice, clear as the bugle-horn!

But it has poured a solemn strain,

  Borne but by fancy to mine ear;

It floated o'er the sable train

  That wept around his early bier;

E'en now o'er ocean's wave seems borne

The echo of that bugle-horn!

(The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, &c, 1 November 1828)

Departed greatness claims a sigh,--

We mourn when mighty heroes die,

And tears of anguish dim the eye,

  That sees its love to earth resigned!

But, how deplore the Prince of Song,

So raised above the tuneful throng, 

But who debased, so deep, so long,

  The matchless wonders of his mind!

If strains that angels weep to know,

Are poured upon a world below,

Can bid indignant virtue glow,

  BYRON! such guilty strains were thine:

Yet thine the song could fire impart

To Slavery's chilled and drooping heart,

And bid, fair Greece, thy Patriot start,

  By all the music of the Nine!

(from "A Monody on the Death of Lord Byron", found in Choice Selections and Original Effusions; Or Pen and Ink Well Employed (1828))

I was hoping to find her longer poems, but haven't succeeded; e.g her first book Sacred Sketches from Scripture History (1815), and Moscow, a Poem (1816).

MOSCOW, a Poem; by MRS HENRY ROLLS. London, Law and Whitaker, 1816. 

The author has founded her poem on one of the most dreadful events recorded, the destruction of Moscow, and drawn a moral inference that there is an ever-watching Providence, who may suffer tyranny and oppression to prevail for a time, but will, in an unexpected moment, turn the retributive scales of justice, and hurl the bolts of vengeance on the devoted heads of his guilty victims.

The facts are taken from Labaume; and their authenticity cannot be doubted. The versification is generally good, the descriptions are often lofty, and the interest is pleasingly excited throughout. This is not inferior to her former poem, Sketches from Sacred History, which met with so favourable a reception; and we have no doubt the subject of the poem, and the author's reputation, will induce our readers to become purchasers. 

(Notice in The Ladies' Monthly Museum).

From Legends of the North; or, The Feudal Christmas: a Poem (1825):

Veil'd in a cloud of sober gray,

Arose the year's last parting day;

And as at times a shower pass'd by,

Or swept the gale with plaintive sigh,

Seem'd as though nature join'd to mourn

The hours that never can return!

As though the morrow's rising sun

Had not another year begun,

And spread its ample page sublime

Beneath the rapid pen of Time;

Like Age, which marks its fading powers,

Weeps o'er its few short languid hours,

And, though all conscious of decay,

Would yet their final close delay, --

Unmindful that the reign of death

Ends with its last departing breath,

And that the last expiring sigh

Will waft to immortality.

(Quoted in a review in The Monthly Review, for September 1825.)

Transformations of Portrait in Smoke

"Not that I remember."

"Did she ever mention any place she'd like to live . . . or go for a vacation? Anything like that?"

Collins leaned back in his chair. He opened a box of cigarettes, selected one, and lit it with an expensive silver desk lighter.  "It's been so long since she left that it's hard to remember," he said exhaling a deep breath of smoke. 

"Did she write you after she left?"

"No," he said, "there was no reason she should."

"Did she say why she was leaving?"

His eyes burned at me hotly, but his face didn't change. The phone rang and he picked it up. He gave several short answers and hung up. He paused for a moment. "She said she was leaving town and that was all," he said finally. 

That stopped me. Was this the end of the line? I tried to keep my face and voice steady. "She didn't say why?"

"No." He stopped for a moment and seemed to be listening. "Come to think of it," he said slowly, "I have a feeling it might have been New York."

"Was she a good secretary?"

"Excellent."

"Didn't she ever use you for references?"

"Never."

I turned towards the door. "Thanks for your time, Mr Collins," I said. 

His voice didn't change; his face was expressionless. 

"I'm afraid I wasn't much help," he said indifferently. His voice hung in the air for a few seconds and he reached for his pen on the desk and started signing some letters. Deliberately he laid his pen to one side and turned back toward me. "You know, April," he said, "I've often wondered what happened to Miss Allison. I hope you find her. If you do, I'd like to know."

"You would?" I asked. 

"It isn't important," he shrugged, "but I'd be glad to make it worth your time . . . just for my own curiosity." 

(from Portrait in Smoke, Ch 4 Part 1). 

You can read it in English for free, on archive.org :

https://archive.org/details/portraitinsmoket00bill

*

It isn't very well known these days, and I'm speaking from considerable ignorance, but I'll stick my neck out and suggest that Bill S. Ballinger's Portrait in Smoke (1950) is absolutely one of the great noir novels, though it makes no attempt whatever at the torqued prose of e.g. In A Lonely Place.

And I'll also claim that Krassy Almauniski's ruthless journey from the Yards to Lake Shore Drive, painfully traced ten years later by the obsessed small-time collection agent Dan April, is one of the great novels of Chicago, though with no notion of being a game-changer like Native Son.

*

Miss Krassy Almauniski, 4120½ South Hempstead, today was announced the winner of the Stockyard Weekly News beauty contest.  ... 

So begins the faded newspaper clipping from ten years before. 

South Hempstead, along with that crazy high number, hints at South Halsted: i.e. part of Halsted Street, "the backbone of Chicago", which runs north-south behind all the famous skyline. It passes by the stockyards (the area called Back of the Yards), and that's where Krassy's story begins, c. 1940, in evil-smelling slums. 

[Halsted Street, for its great length and diversity, has acquired a fabled quality, maybe from Conrad Friberg's pioneering docufilm Halsted Street (1932), which in turn inspired David E. Simpson's Halsted Street USA (1995), which you can watch here: 

https://www.folkstreams.net/films/halsted-street-usa

I also found this long article by Stanley R. Osborn (from the mid 1950s?):

https://chicagology.com/chicagostreets/halstedstreet/ ]

*

It was a great era of transformations, the noir era, when novels and movies ran alongside. You could take something excellent, turn it completely inside out and end up with something completely differently excellent. It was an insight about social existence and social presentation, I sometimes feel.

Maybe all creative eras are full of transformation, but I'm especially reminded of the age of Shakespeare: the same commercial spirit, the furious activity of re-authoring and multi-authoring and revising and filleting and recycling other people's material into other forms.  

*

And while we're on the classics, one of the first things you'll hear about Portrait in Smoke is its notable use of two alternating narratives: Dan April in the first person, Krassy in the third person. The set-up itself is strangely exciting, in a way that goes beyond the things Krassy actually does or April's tenacious ferreting out of facts (and lamentable misinterpretations). 

The way Ballinger runs it I couldn't help wondering if it was reading Bleak House that showed him the potential. 

Don't imagine that this is like the familiar method of modern genre fiction about, say, WW2 or the 1960s, where someone in the present day finds an old diary in an attic.... That's more about speaking to the interests of the aging demographic who still read fiction. One of its reassurances is that life still has a present and a future but we're quite right to think that everything that really mattered happened back then.

In Portrait in Smoke the alternating narratives aren't really that far apart in time, though far enough to make Dan's stalking difficult. Here the message is of relentless change; ride the wave if you can, but you'll never completely understand it and if you're Dan April you'll always be small-time.

The passage I began with is a great example of the double narrative line at work. Mr Collins will never know what April's after, of course. But also, April will never know why Mr Collins agreed to see him, or what was really between Collins and Miss Allison and why Collins genuinely doesn't know what happened to her and why he wouldn't mind knowing. Only the reader, blessed with the other narrative line, will be able to put it all together: some of it, anyway. Ballinger, naturally, doesn't spell things out. 

*

Krassy, though....

*

"That's rugged," said Waterbury sympathetically. 

"Not too rugged," said Krassy bravely, "fortunately my parents left me enough money . . . that I don't have to worry. But it is lonesome . . . sometimes." She looked at her watch. "It's getting late," she added. "I should be leaving."

"I'll drive you home," Waterbury suggested. "We have a car at our disposal on the tour."

"I'd love it," said Krassy. 

Waterbury went up to Krassy's apartment with her. She mixed him a drink, and seated him in Collins' favorite easy chair. Then she scrambled eggs and made coffee. They ate it off the coffee table in the living room. Waterbury stretched out his long legs, lit a cigarette, and jammed his hands in his pockets. "I like it here," he announced.

"That's nice," said Krassy.

"I wish I didn't have to leave," he said. His face was expressionless and his eyes steadily watched the ceiling. 

"I wish you didn't, either," said Krassy. "But you must, you know."

"I may have so little time . . . that I'd like to spend it all with you," he said. 

Krassy shook her head. Waterbury arose from his chair and crossed over to the lounge; he seated himself beside her and put his arms around her. He kissed her, and Krassy returned his kiss with simulated passion. 

"Don't make me leave. Not tonight!" His voice was urgent. 

Krassy gently disengaged his arms. Taking his face between her two hands, she looked directly in his eyes. "You want to make love to me, is that it?"

"Yes," Waterbury replied levelly.

"No," said Krassy. She stood behind the couch and held her arms behind her back. "I want to wait until I'm sure," she told him softly. 

"I'm sure," he said. "Aren't you?"

"I don't know . . . not really. But I'm going to wait until I am sure." No persuasion from Waterbury could change her mind. He returned to the club that night. 

One week later, on December 24, Krassy married Dana Waterbury. 

(from Portrait in Smoke, Ch 5 Part 2)

--Lo siento --se compadeció Dana Waterbury.

--No lo sientas tanto --contestó vivamente Krassy --. Afortunadamente, mis padres me dejaron algún dinero... Es decir, no tengo preocupaciones monetarias... aunque resulte a veces algo triste vivir sola. Oh, se hace tarde --concluyó, después de consultar su relojito--; debo irme.

--Te acompañaré a casa --sugirió Dana--. Tenemos un coche a nuestra disposición.

--Te le agradezco de veras.

Dana subió al apartamento de ella. Krassy le sirvió un vaso y le invitó a sentarse en el sillón favorito de Collins. Luego, batió huevos y preparó café. Comieron en la mesita del saloncito. Dana estiró sus largas piernas, encendió un cigarillo y hundió las manos en los bolsillos.

--Estoy bien aquí --declaró.

--Lo cual me halaga --sonrió Krassy.

--No quisiera marcharme nunca.

Le dijo inexpresivamente, contemplando el techo.

--También a mí me gustaría. Pero tienes que irte, lo sabes de sobras.

--Dispongo de tan poco tiempo. . . que me gustaría pasarlo contigo. 

Krassy sacudió la cabeza. Dana se levantó del sillón y atravesó la salita yendo hacia el diván. Sentóse al lado de la joven y la rodeó con los brazos. Le besó y Krassy contestó a sus caricias con fingido apasionamiento.

--No me eches..., ¡al menos, esta noche! --murmuró él. 

Krassy se deshizo lentamente de su abrazo. Sosteniéndole el rostro con ambas manos, lo miró fijamente. 

--Deseas acostarte conmigo, ¿verdad?

--Sí --asintió Dana, con voz átona.

--No. Quiero esperar hasta estar completamente segura --denegó ella suavemente.

--Yo ya lo estoy..., ¿y tú?

--No lo sé. De veras; no lo sé. Y aguardaré hasta que esté segura.

Las frases persuasivas y melosas de Dana no la conmovieron. El joven regresó de mala gana al Club aquella noche. 

Una semana después, el 24 de diciembre, Krassy se casó con Dana Waterbury. 

(from Retrato de humo, 1971 translation by Mario Montalbán.)

It might be any heart-warming story of a wartime fighter ace and a whirlwind romance during his brief return from the front, if it weren't for that one word "simulated". But to us it means something completely different because it's Krassy's story we're following, and we know a lot about her though not everything. The symbolism, if that's what it is, of seating him in what used to be Collins' favorite chair (compare the symbolism of her dyeing her hair black, a few pages before). Her fraught, mostly repulsed, feelings about intimacy. Her desperate longing to be secure: the war hero Captain Waterbury represents old money and Philadelphia and ultimate respectability. Her underlying feeling, almost invisible but it's definitely there, that despite her impeccable choreography this fairy-tale is never going to be hers... she won't be able to hang on to it; it isn't even what she wants. 

*

I first read Portrait in Smoke in a Spanish translation (originally from 1971). I might as well introduce it by quoting what the back jacket of Retrato de humo says, as well as I can render it:

Dan April's story is an obsessive quest. April is trying to track down the girl that he fell for ten years ago. For him Krassy represents everything that's beautiful and sweet and worthy of love . . . Inevitably, the reality does not match the illusions of this unhinged passion. What gradually emerges is the true nature of Krassy, an adventuress who ends up in the comfortable lap of an aging millionaire . . . .

Two parallel narratives are juxtaposed in Ballinger's novel: the ideal, as magnified by the poor April, and another, more real, in which the woman he loves is calculating and cruel, has a weakness for betting on horses and lets nothing stand in her way . . . The astonishing thing is the union of both narratives, whose marvellous resolution, strictly in line with the story and the thematic construction, shows Ballinger to be one of the most modern and powerful of crime writers. 

Anyone who goes on to read Portrait in Smoke will find things to question about this, but I think it gets us to the right kind of place for asking those questions. 

*

The 1971 Spanish translation, by Mario Montalbán, is very confidently free (as you'll have seen) and mostly pretty plain, giving little hint of Dan April's slang. 

Sabía que, de llevarlo encima, apenas duraría algunas semanas.

I knew damned good and well I'd shoot all the dough if I kept it around where I could get my hands on it. 

Yet sometimes the Spanish text goes off-piste and adds ideas of its own, too. 

And besides, who'd believe me?

But the whole thing doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. I been thinking about it and talking it over with myself. And then on top of that I get dreams. And it still doesn't add up. I can't understand why it happened. ...

Además..., ¿quién iba a creerme?

Nadie, puesto que el asunto, considerado en su conjunto, carece de sentido. No, no puede en absoluto comprenderse. Lo he examinado y estudiado desde todos los ángulos posibles, y continuamente le doy vueltas en mi cerebro. Y para que mi angustia sea aún mayor, sueño con ello. Pero todavía hay más. No entiendo cómo sucedió. ...

Or it just changes things. Fire-escapes are transformed into neon lights, thickly knotted ankles into exaggeratedly thin ankles....  the translator follows his own vision -- why not? -- and leverages ideas that were available in Spanish culture. For example, Mike Manola becomes "un valentón de taberna".

The Spanish translation is shyer of sexual content. After all Franco was still in power in 1971; maybe that had something to do with it, or maybe it was just about what the readership would tolerate. Anyway, it drops the rhythmic humping of Krassy's father and Maria, or Mike Manola's hand on Krassy's breast. Most importantly it drops Krassy's abortion; in the Spanish translation Krassy is only pretending when she informs Collins that she's pregnant. 

*

Portrait in Smoke  was the basis for the British movie Wicked As They Come (1956), starring Arlene Dahl. You can watch it on YouTube, and I think you should enjoy it without my spoilers, which will follow immediately.

The first thing you'll be struck by is the music: it's by the great Malcolm Arnold. The setting is initially New York, then London, finally Paris. The New York crowd scenes include black extras (I dare say that wasn't so unusual, but it surprised me.). Sid James, of all people, is Cathy's Noo Yawk step-father. 

You can tell that the screenwriters read Portrait in Smoke attentively. They made fearless transformations, but these transformations often highlight something that was latent in the novel. For instance the remodelled Larry Buckham, emotional and pathetic in the novel, is here prone to erupt in sudden violence. The remodelled Tim O'Bannion is developed into a powerful male lead, but along lines that the novel had already laid out before putting him aside.

(There's one unforgettable glimpse of the secretarial course and all the girls typing and swaying along to the music. A reminder that Portrait in Smoke is partly a novel about sheer hard slog. Both Krassy and her tracker are exceptionally diligent.)

The screenplay uses only parts of the book. Most drastically, there's no Dan April, and there's no Chicago. The denouement is quite different. Cathy (=Krassy) is on a ruthlessly gold-digging path, but as it turns out she kills her wealthy, elderly husband (Dowling, replacing Powers) by mistake. O'Bannion challenges Cathy to explain why she can't love anyone, and eventually discovers that in her teens Cathy had been attacked by four hoodlums (the unstated implication is that she was gang-raped). None of this was in the novel, and it turns complex hints (e.g. her spontaneous revulsion to Mike Manola's touch) into simplistic formulas, yet it feels in tune with how the novel brings us to see its heroine. The possibility of Cathy's redemption, i.e. finding true love with Tim, is cautiously hinted, but not seriously, because we're already heading for the exits. 

*

A nice little twenty-minute chat by James Ellroy's biographer Steven Powell about Portrait in Smoke, which is apparently one of James Ellroy's favourite novels:

https://venetianvase.co.uk/2024/02/18/ellroy-reads-portrait-in-smoke-by-bill-s-ballinger/