Five Gothic Tales

After only reading five instalments, I have quickly to return Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen to the local library. What tales they were! Gloomy and grotesque, limpid and long-winded. My favourite tale of hers is "The Monkey", in which the best laid plans of a scheming Virgin Prioress of Closter Seven "gang aft agley", although she seems to secure a nominal triumph in the end.

Given my limited range of expression, I feel that the quality of the writing can only be expressed by direct quotation:

"'I suppose,' she then said, 'that even in your country you have parties, balls, and conversazioni?'

'Yes,' he said, 'we have those.'

'Then you will know,' she went on slowly, 'that the part of a guest is different from that of a host or hostess, and that people do not want or expect the same things in the two different capacities?'

'I think you are right,' said Augustus.

'Now God,' she said, 'when he created Adam and Eve, arranged it so that man takes, in these matters, the part of a guest, and woman that of a hostess. Therefore man takes love lightly, for the honour and dignity of his house is not involved therein. And you can also, surely, be a guest to many people to whom you would never want to be a host. Now, tell me, Count, what does a guest want?'

'I believe,' said Augustus when he had thought for a moment, 'that if we do, as I think we ought to here, leave out the crude guest, who comes to be regaled, takes what he can get and goes away, a guest wants first of all to be diverted, to get out of his daily monotony or worry. Secondly the decent guest wants to shine, to expan himself and impress his own personality upon his surroundings. And thirdly, perhaps, he wants to find some justification for his existence altogether. But since you put it so charmingly, Signora, please tell me now: What does a hostess want?'

'The hostess,' said the young lady, 'wants to be thanked.'

Here loud voices outside put an end to their conversation."

"I have always thought it unfair to woman that she has never been alone in the world. Adam had a time, whether long or short, when he could wander about on a fresh and peaceful earth, among the beasts, in full possession of his soul, and most men are born with a memory of that period. But poor Eve found him there, with all his claims upon her, the moment she looked into the world. That is a grudge that woman has always had against the Creator: she feels that she is entitled to have that epoch of paradise back for herself."

"Boris, in the meantime, had been looking at Athena, and had let a fantasy take hold of his mind. He thought that she must have a lovely, an exquisitely beautiful skeleton. She would lie in the ground like a piece of matchless lace, a work of art in ivory, and in a hundred years might be dug up and turn the heads of old archaeologists. Every bone was in place, as finely finished as a violin. Less frivolous than the traditional old libertine who in his thoughts undresses the women with whom he sups Boris liberated the maiden of her strong and fresh flesh together with her clothes, and imagined that he might be very happy with her, that he might even fall in love with her, could he have her in her beautiful bones alone. He fancied her thus, creating a sensation on horseback, or trailing her long dresses through the halls and galleries at Court, with the famous tiara of her family, now in Poland, upon her polished skull. Many human relations, he thought, would be infinitely easier if they could be carried out in the bones only."