Lectures on Literature

by Nabokov, Vladimir

  The story of Frederick is interrupted by a scene between Amelia and her tutor, the Reverend Anhalt, who has been commissioned by the baron to plead the cause of Count Cassel; but Amelia loves and is loved by Anhalt and manages, by the forward speeches to which Mary Crawford so coyly objected, to drive him to a declaration. Then hearing of Frederick's imprisonment, they both try to help him: Amelia takes food to him in his dungeon, and Anhalt procures an interview for him with the baron. In his talk with Anhalt Frederick has discovered the identity of his father, and at their meeting the secret of their relationship is revealed. All ends happily. The baron strives to atone for his youthful lapse by marrying his victim and acknowledging Frederick as his son; Count Cassel retires discomfited, and Amelia marries the diffident Anhalt. (The synopsis is mainly drawn from the account in Clara Linklater Thomson, Jane Austen, a Survey, 1929.)

  This play is selected not because Miss Austen thought it a particularly immoral one in itself but chiefly because it had an extremely convenient complex of parts to distribute among her characters. Nevertheless, it is clear that she disapproves of the Bertram circle's acting this play not only because it is concerned with bastardy, not only because it provided the opportunity for speeches and actions of more overt and frank lovemaking than was suitable for young gentlefolk, but also because the fact that Agatha—no matter how repentant—had loved illicitly and borne a bastard child made the part unsuitable for acting by an unmarried girl. These objections are never specified, but they undoubtedly play a major part in Fanny's distress when she reads the play, and at least at the start in Edmund's finding the subject and action offensive. "The first use [Fanny] made of her solitude was to take up the volume which had been left on the table, and begin to acquaint herself with the play of which she had heard so much. Her curiosity was all awake, and she ran through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of astonishment, that it could be chosen in the present instance—that it could be proposed and accepted in a private Theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home representation—the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in; and longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which Edmund would certainly make."[*] There is no reason to suppose that Jane Austen's sentiments do not parallel Fanny's. The point is, however, not that the play itself, as a play, is to be condemned as immoral but that it is suitable only for a professional theatre and actors and most improper for the Bertram circle to act.

  Now comes the distribution of the parts. Artistic fate is arranging things so that the true relations between the novel's characters are going to be revealed through the relations of the characters in the play. Henry Crawford shows a devilish cunning in steering himself and Maria into the right parts—that is, into such parts (Frederick and his mother Agatha) that will offer the opportunity of their being constantly together, constantly embracing each other. On the other hand, Yates, who is already attracted by Julia, is angry that Julia gets a minor part, which she rejects. " 'Cottager's wife!' cried Mr. Yates. 'What are you talking of? The most trivial, paltry, insignificant part; the merest common-place—not a tolerable speech in the whole. Your sister do that! It is an insult to propose it. At Ecclesford the governess was to have done it. We all agreed that it could not be offered to any body else.' " But Tom is obdurate. "No, no, Julia must not be Amelia. It is not at all the part for her. She would not like it. She would not do well. She is too tall and robust. Amelia should be a small, light, girlish, skipping figure. It is fit for Miss Crawford, and Miss Crawford only. She looks the part, and I am persuaded will do it admirably." Henry Crawford, who has prevented Julia from being offered the part of Agatha by urging Maria's suitability, tries to repair the damage by urging the part of Amelia, nevertheless, but jealous Julia is suspicious of his motives. "With hasty indignation therefore, and a tremulous voice," she reproaches him, and when Tom keeps on insisting that Miss Crawford alone is suitable, " 'Do not be afraid of my wanting the character,' cried Julia, with angry quickness;—'I am not to be Agatha, and I am sure I will do nothing else; and as to Amelia, it is of all parts in the world the most disgusting to me. I quite detest her.' ... And so saying, she walked hastily out of the room, leaving awkward feelings to more than one, but exciting small compassion in any except Fanny, who had been a quiet auditor of the whole, and who could not think of her as under the agitations of jealousy, without great pity."

  The discussion of the other parts, particularly Tom's gobbling up the comic roles, gives the reader a better picture of the young people. Rushworth, the dignified numskull, gets the part of Count Cassel, which suits him exquisitely, and he blossoms out as he had never done before in pink and blue satin clothes, proud of his forty-two speeches, which in fact he is never able to memorize. A kind of frenzy is gaining on the young people, much to Fanny's distress. The play is going to be an orgy of liberation, especially for Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford's sinful passion. A critical point is reached—who is going to play Anhalt, the young tutor-clergyman? Fate is obviously pushing Edmund, reluctant Edmund, into this part, in which he will have to be made love to by Amelia, Mary Crawford. The dizzy passion she evokes in him overcomes his scruples. He consents because he cannot endure the idea of a young outside acquaintance, Charles Maddox, being invited to play Anhalt and being made love to by Mary. He says rather lamely to Fanny that he will accept the part to restrain the publicity, to limit the exhibition, to concentrate the folly of the playacting within the family. Having reduced him to their level, his brother and sister greet him joyfully but coolly ignore his stipulations for privacy and begin to invite all of the surrounding county families to be the audience. A kind of curtain raiser is staged when Fanny, the little witness, has to listen first to Mary Crawford rehearsing her part, and then to Edmund rehearsing his. Her room is their meeting place and she is the link between them: Cinderella, polite, dainty, without hope, attending to the needs of others.

  One more part must be filled, and then the first three acts of the play can be completely rehearsed. At first Fanny positively declines to engage herself to the part of the Cottager's wife that Julia had spurned; she has no confidence in her acting ability and her instinct warns her away. Mrs. Grant accepts the part, but when on the eve of the rehearsal she cannot attend, Fanny is urged, especially by Edmund, to read the part for her. Fanny's forced consent breaks the spell. Her innocence entering the fray scatters the devils of flirtation and sinful passion. But the rehearsal never finishes. "They did begin—and being too much engaged in their own noise, to be struck by an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded some way, when the door of the room was thrown open, and Julia appearing at it, with a face ail aghast, exclaimed, 'My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment.' " So Julia gets the most important part after all, and the first volume of the novel ends.

  Under the direction of Miss Austen, two heavy fathers, two ponderous parents, meet in the billiard room—Yates in the part of the heavy Baron Wildenheim and Sir Thomas Bertram in the part of Sir Thomas Bertram. And with a bow and a charming smile, Yates relinquishes the part of the heavy father to Sir Thomas. It is all a kind of an afterplay. "To the Theatre [Tom] went, and reached it just in time to witness the first meeting of his father and his friend. Sir Thomas had been a good deal surprised to find candles burning in his room; and on casting his eye round it, to see other symptoms of recent habitation, and a general air of confusion in the furniture. Hie removal of the book-case from before the billiard-room door struck him especially, but he had scarcely more than time to feel astonished at all this, before there were sounds from the billiard-room to astonish him still further. Some one was talking there in a very loud accent—he did not know the voice—more than talking—almost hallooing. He stept to the door, rejoicing at the last moment in having the means of immediate communicati
on, and opening it, found himself on the stage of a theatre, and opposed to a ranting young man, who appeared likely to knock him down backwards. At the very moment of Yates perceiving Sir Thomas, and giving perhaps the best start he had ever given in the whole course of his rehearsals, Tom Bertram entered at the other end of the room; and never had he found greater difficulty in keeping his countenance. His father's looks of solemnity and amazement on this his first appearance on any stage, and the gradual metamorphosis of the impassioned Baron Wildenheim into the well-bred and easy Mr. Yates, making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was such an exhibition, such a piece of true acting as he would not have lost upon any account. It would be the last—in all probability the last scene on that stage; but he was sure there could not be a finer. The house would close with the greatest éclat."

  Without recriminations, Sir Thomas dismisses the scene painter and has the carpenter pull down ail that he had put up in the billiard room. "Another day or two, and Mr. Yates was gone likewise. In his departure Sir Thomas felt the chief interest; wanting to be alone with his family.... Sir Thomas had been quite indifferent to Mr. Crawford's going or staying—but his good wishes for Mr. Yates's having a pleasant journey, as he walked with him to the hall door, were given with genuine satisfaction. Mr. Yates had staid to see the destruction of every theatrical preparation at Mansfield, the removal of every thing appertaining to the play; he left the house in all the soberness of its general character; and Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of it, to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme,[*] and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence.

  "Mrs. Norris contrived to remove one article from his sight that might have distressed him. The curtain over which she had presided with such talent and such success, went off with her to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in want of green baize."

  Henry Crawford abruptly breaks off his flirtation with Maria by leaving for Bath before he becomes too deeply involved. Sir Thomas at first approves of Rushworth but is soon disillusioned and offers Maria the opportunity to dismiss the engagement if she wishes. He sees that she treats Rushworth with scorn. She declines, however: "She was in a state of mind to be glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall—that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton—that she was safe from the possibility of giving Crawford the triumph of governing her actions, and destroying her prospects; and retired in proud resolve, determined only to behave more cautiously to Mr. Rushworth in future, that her father might not be again suspecting her." In due course the marriage takes place and the young couple leave for a honeymoon in Brighton, taking Julia with them.

  Fanny meets with Sir Thomas's full approval and becomes his favorite. Taking shelter in the parsonage from a sudden rainstorm, she begins an intimacy, despite some reservations on her part, with Mary Crawford and hears Mary play Edmund's favorite piece on her harp. Her further acquaintance leads to an invitation for her and Edmund to dine at the parsonage, where she encounters Henry Crawford, just returned for a few days' visit. Then a new twist is introduced in the structure of the novel, for Henry is attracted by Fanny's growing beauty and he determines to take up residence for a fortnight and to amuse himself by making Fanny fall in love with him. Brother and sister lightheartedly discuss his project. Henry declares to Mary: "You see her every day, and therefore do not notice it, but I assure you, she is quite a different creature from what she was in the autumn. She was then merely a quiet, modest, not plain looking girl, but she is now absolutely pretty. I used to think she had neither complexion nor countenance; but in that soft skin of hers, so frequently tinged with a blush as it was yesterday, there is decided beauty; and from what I observed of her eyes and mouth, I do not despair of their being capable of expression enough when she has any thing to express. And then—her air, her manner, her tout ensemble, is so indescribably improved! She must be grown two inches, at least, since October."

  The sister rails at his fancy, although she admits that Fanny has "a sort of beauty that grows on one." Henry confesses that the challenge Fanny offers is much of the attraction. "I never was so long in company with a girl in my life—trying to entertain her—and succeed so ill! Never met with a girl who looked so grave on me! I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, 'I will not like you, I am determined not to like you,' and I say, she shall." Mary protests that she does not want Fanny harmed. "I do desire that you will not be making her really unhappy; a little love perhaps may animate and do her good, but I will not have you plunge her deep." Henry responds that it will be but a fortnight: " 'No, I will not do her any harm, dear little soul! I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall never be happy again. I want nothing more.'

  " 'Moderation itself!' said Mary. 'I can have no scruples now.' ...

  "And without attempting any further remonstrance, she left Fanny to her fate—a fate which, had not Fanny's heart been guarded in a way unsuspected by Miss Crawford, might have been a little harder than she deserved...."

  After years at sea, Fanny's brother William returns, and at Sir Thomas's invitation comes to Mansfield Park for a visit; "Sir Thomas had the pleasure of receiving, in his protégé, certainly a very different person from the one he had equipped seven years ago, but a young man of an open, pleasant countenance, and frank, unstudied, but feeling and respectful manners, and such as confirmed him his friend." Fanny is wonderfully happy with her beloved William, who, on his part, loves his sister dearly.

  Henry Crawford sees with admiration "the glow of Fanny's cheek, the brightness of her eye, the deep interest, the absorbed attention, while her brother was describing any of the imminent hazards, or terrific scenes, which such a period, at sea, must supply.

  "It was a picture which Henry Crawford had moral taste enough to value. Fanny's attractions increased—increased two-fold—for the sensibility which beautified her complexion and illumined her countenance, was an attraction in itself. He was no longer in doubt of the capabilities of her heart. She had feeling, genuine feeling. It would be something to be loved by such a girl, to excite the first ardours of her young, unsophisticated mind! She interested him more than he had foreseen. A fortnight was not enough. His stay became indefinite."

  All of the Bertrams dine at the parsonage. After dinner while their elders play whist, the younger people, with Lady Bertram, play the card game Speculation. Henry has by chance ridden by Edmund's future parsonage at Thornton Lacey and, being much impressed with the house and grounds, presses Edmund to make a number of improvements, just as he had done in the case of the Rushworth estate. It is curious how improvements of grounds go together with Henry Crawford's flirtations. Both are functions of the idea of planning, of scheming. Earlier it was Rushworth's place he was to improve, and he planned to seduce Rushworth's fiancee Maria. But now it is Edmund's future residence, and now he is planning to conquer Edmund's future wife, Fanny Price. He urges that he be allowed to rent the house so that "he might find himself continuing, improving, and perfecting that friendship and intimacy with the Mansfield Park family which was increasing in value to him every day." He is rebuffed in a friendly fashion by Sir Thomas, who explains that Edmund will not be living at Mansfield when he has taken orders, now only a few weeks away, but will be looking after his parishioners in residence at Thornton Lacey. (Henry had never conceived that Edmund would not delegate his pastoral duties.) His insistence that the house can be made not into a mere parsonage but into a gentleman's residence interests Mary Crawford. All this talk is artistically interlinked with the game of cards they are playing, Speculation, and Miss Crawford, as she bids, speculates whether or not she should marry Edmund, the clergyman. This reechoing of the game by her thoughts recalls the same interplay between fiction
and reality that had been found in the rehearsal chapter when she was playing Amelia to Edmund's Anhalt before Fanny. This theme of planning and scheming, linked up with improvements of grounds, rehearsals, card games, forms a very pretty pattern in the novel.

  The ball in chapter 26 is the next structural development. Its preparation involves various emotions and attions and thus helps to shape and develop the story. Impressed by Fanny's improved looks and anxious to give her and William pleasure, Sir Thomas plans a ball in her honor with as much zest as his son Tom had planned the play. Edmund is occupied with two events now at hand which are to fix his fate for life: ordination, which he is to receive in the course of the Christmas week, and matrimony with Mary Crawford, which is only a hope. To engage Miss Crawford early for the first two dances is one of those plans that keep the book rolling and make of the ball a structural event. The same may be said of Fanny's preparations. Miss Austen employs the same sort of connective device we have observed in the Sotherton episode and the play-rehearsal scenes. William has given Fanny the only ornament in her possession, an amber cross brought back from Sicily. But she has only a bit of ribbon to fasten it and is concerned that this will not be suitable, for wear the cross she must. There is also the question of her dress, about which she asks Miss Crawford's advice. When Miss Crawford hears of the problem of the cross, she palms off on Fanny a necklace bought for Fanny by Henry Crawford, insisting that it was an old gift to her from her brother. Despite serious doubts caused by its origin, Fanny is eventually persuaded to accept the necklace. Then she finds that Edmund has purchased a simple gold chain for the cross. She proposes to return the Crawford necklace, but Edmund, delighted by the coincidence and by this fresh evidence of Miss Crawford's kind nature, as he takes it, insists that she must retain the gift. Fanny solves the problem by wearing both at the ball when she discovers to her joy that the necklace is too large to go through the loop of the cross. The necklace theme has succeeded in linking up five people—Fanny, Edmund, Henry, Mary, and William.