THÔNG TIN TÀI LIỆU
Lovelace's Dream 57 chariot with a dowager's arms upon the doors, and in it a grave matronly lady (not unlike Mother H in the face; but in her heart, O how unlike!) stopped at a grocer's shop about ten doors on the other side of the way and methought Dorcas, having been out to see if the coast was clear for her lady's flight, and if a coach were to be got near the place, espied this chariot and this matronly lady" (248) Dorcas, he goes on, runs to the older woman and begs her to save her mistress, who, she says, has been kidnapped by a "wicked man" who is plotting to ruin her that night Like a fairy godmother, the old dowager comes to Clarissa's rescue, saying "my house shall be her sanctuary" until Clarissa is able to contact her "rich and powerful friends" (249) Together Clarissa and the matronly lady drive to a "sumptuous dwelling" in Lincoln's Inn Fields (Lovelace, the dreamer, follows this flight from an inexplicable, unseen shifting vantage point: the effect is not unlike a tracking shot in film, with Lovelace as the invisible, moving "camera eye.") This house, oddly enough, is filled with "damsels, who wrought curiously in muslins, cambrics, and fine linen, and in every good work that industrious damsels love to be employed about" (249) Over dinner Clarissa tells her story, while the sympathetic old lady weeps and calls Lovelace a "plotting villain" and an "unchained Beezlebub." Suddenly, says Lovelace, "a strange metamorphosis" takes place The kindly old lady is changed—in a moment, in a diabolical twinkling of an eye—into "Mother H.," the same Mother H mentioned before, who we now learn is a brothel-keeper like Mrs Sinclair and a crony of Lovelace's This Mother H is mysteriously "prevailed upon," Lovelace observes, "to assist me in my plot upon the young lady." She invites Clarissa, who is unaware of any change, to share her bed for the night and there continue telling her story They remove to the bed, but Mother H has a sudden colic and gets up for a "cordial," knocking over the candle in the process The room is plunged into darkness, and when Mother H returns to bed, Clarissa—to her "astonishment, grief, and surprise"—finds the old woman transformed into Lovelace himself "What unaccountable things are dreams!" interjects Lovelace At this point Lovelace ceases to be merely a beholder of the action Instead, with this bizarre piece of gender exchange, he is absorbed into the dreamscape "A strange promiscuous huddle of adventures" ensues, he tells Belford, and his descriptive terms change accordingly, becoming auditory and tactile, as the action itself becomes more intimate: "Nothing heard from the lady but sighs, groans, exclamations, faintings, dyings, and from the gentleman, vows, promises, protestations, disclaimers of purposes pursued, and all the gentle and ungentle pressures of the lover's warfare" (250) With a final abrupt lurch, suggesting through ellipsis a jump in time, the dream switches to a scene of happy, if perverse domesticity: Clarissa has given birth to Lovelace's son, and together with Anna Howe (who has given birth to his daughter) the three live in a blissful menage a trois The two little babies, half-brother and half-sister, grow up and marry each other incestuously, for
Ngày đăng: 25/10/2022, 11:23
Xem thêm: