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was fallen mightily in love with her. And now I'll tell you such a thing you never heard the like in your born Days, and may'nt chance to hear of such another while you breathe, tho' you were to live as long as Sarnah." "Say Sarah," cry'd Don Quixote, who hated to hear him blunder thus. "The Sarna, or the Itch, (for that's all one with us, quoth Peter) lives long enough too; but if you go on thus, and make me break off my Tale at every Word, we an't like to have done this Twelve-month."
These interruptions become less and less frequent.
This method of linking the inset story with the novel itself by constantly reminding the reader of the presence of the leading characters of the main plot is often employed by Cervantes.
In Tristram Shandy, the speech about the Inquisition, drawn out by the author, is interrupted by Trim's emotional outbursts. Or else in other places the author interrupts himself by alluding to other motifs: either knots and buttonholes or Jenny or else he reminds the reader of the existence of the novel by resorting to repetition (i.e., by repeating the very phrase with which he had broken off his narrative in the first place). But of this I shall have more to say in my analysis of Sterne.
In Cervantes the story is linked with the main plot of Don Quixote in the following ways:
1) A principal character of the novel interrupts the action of the inset story. Using precisely this technique, Don Quixote interrupts the confused, tangled web of tales of the second volume with a speech comparing the fate of the student with the fate of the soldier. Even more typical is his interruption not by word or speech but by action. So, for example, Don Quixote's battle with the wineskins repeatedly interrupts the drawn-out story called "The Novel of the Curious Impertinent" (incorporated into the novel in accordance with the principle of the "found manuscript"):
The Novel was come near a conclusion, when Sancho Panza came running out of Don Quixote's Chamber in a terrible Fright and crying out, "Help, Help, good People, Help my Master, he's just now at it, Tooth and Nail, with that same giant, the Princess Micomicona's Foe: I ne'er saw a more dreadful battle in my born-days. He has lent him such a Sliver, that whip, off went the Giant's head, as round as a Turnip." (part 1, chap. 35)
2) The leading characters of the story participate in the action of the main plot. This takes its most sophisticated form in the participation by Dorothea (the heroine of the most powerful inset tale in Don Quixote) in the hoax perpetrated on Don Quixote, where she is passed off as Princess Micomicona.
... and then turning to Cardenio and Dorothea, he informed 'em of the Design which he and the Barber had laid in order to his Cure, or at least to get him home to his House. Dorothea, whose Mind was much eas'd with the Prospect of better Fortune, kindly undertook to act the distressed Lady herself, which she said she thought wou'd become her better than the Barber, having a Dress very proper for that Purpose; besides she had read many Books of Chivalry, and knew how the
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distress'd Ladies us'd to express themselves when they came to beg some Knight-Errant's Assistance, (part 1, chap. 29)
This is presented in a more naive form by Cervantes in the two episodes in which Don Quixote gets involved in a fight with the leading characters of the respective inset tales.
At last, after he had stood thus a considerable while, he rais'd his Head, and suddenly breaking Silence, "I am positively convinc'd," cry'd he, "nor shall any Man in the World ever perswade me to the contrary; and he's a Blockhead who says, that great Villain Mr. Elisabat, never lay with Queen Madasima."
" 'Tis false," cry'd Don Quixote, in a mighty Heat; "by all the Powers above, 'tis all Scandal and base Detraction to say this of Queen Madasima. She was a most noble and virtuous Lady; nor is to be presum'd that so great a Princess would ever debase her self so far as to fall in Love with a Quack. Whoever dares to say she did, lyes like an arrant Villain; and I'll make him acknowledge it either a-Foot or a-Horseback, arm'd or unarm'd, by Night or by Day, or how he pleases." Cardenio very earnestly fix'd his Eyes on Don Quixote, while he was thus defying him, and taking Queen Madasima's Part, as if she had been his true and lawful Princess; and being provok'd by these Abuses into one of his mad Fits, he took up a great Stone that lay by him, and hit Don Quixote such a Blow on his Breast with it, that it beat him down backwards, (part 1, chap. 24)
In precisely this way the relationship with the main novel is renewed in one of the pastoral episodes, in which the shepherd tells the story of the soldier who had captivated the proud shepherdess Leandra with his fancy attire.
The commentaries that Cervantes interpolates into the body of the story are most curious:
The Goat-herd's Story was mightily lik'd by the whole Company, especially by the Canon, who particularly minded the manner of his relating it, that had more of a Scholar and a Gentleman, than of a rude Goat-herd; which made him conclude the Curate had reason to say, that even the Mountains bred Scholars and Men of Sense, (part 1, chap. 52)
Here the author directly alludes to the bookishness of his story.
There is one extremely odd tale in Cervantes' oeuvre. It was written, if I am not mistaken, around 1613, during the interval between the publication of parts 1 and 2 of Don Quixote. Its title is "A Conversation between Two Dogs."
The structure of this story is quite banal, taking on the form of a newspaper article. The protagonists, two dogs, are, however, unusual, or more correctly, one of the two dogs, Berganza, since the other dog Scipion serves only as an audience for the former's life story. As is common in novels of the "thread" type, this work is sewn out of a whole series of episodes, at times existing only in outline form. They are linked to each other only by the fact that they occur to one and the same unemployed dog which changes hands from one day to the next.
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This novella may be seen as a canine version of Lazarillo and Gil Bias. It is worth noting that the device of a job hunt has served as a motivating link between episodes to the present day. This is the structural pattern in Octave Mirbeau's Diary of a Chambermaid and of Maksim Gorky's In the World.
In his wanderings, the dog works for a time for a slaughterhouse, then for shepherds, for the police, for soldiers, for gypsies, for a Moor, for a poet, in the theater, and finally, in a hospital. Each new job of Berganza's is accompanied by a corresponding new tale. Still, on occasion a new job serves only as a motivation for a brief description of customs and mores.
Let us look, for instance, at what the dog saw in the world of the shepherds. Above all, Berganza was struck by the discrepancy between the real life shepherds lived and what she had learned about them from recitations by her first owner's mistress. Reality did not in the least correspond to the portrayal of shepherds in books. Shepherds did not play flutes or oboes and they never beat their sticks or pieces of pottery except when singing very simple country tunes. They spent their days not in dreaming about shepherdesses but in repairing their footwear and gathering insects. They called each other not Amorisa or Filida or Galathea or Lozarda or Hyacinthia, but Antonio, Dominique, Paul and Florentia. It would be worth comparing this realistically "grumbling" picture with how Cervantes described shepherds before and after his writing of "A Conversation between Two Dogs." Here, for purposes of comparison, is the conclusion of the story about Leandra (see above):
"There is not a hollow Place of a Rock, a bank of a Brook, or a shady Grove, where there is not some or other of these amorous Shepherds telling their doleful Stories to the Air and winds. Echo has learnt to repeat the Name of Leandra, Leandra all the Hills resound, the Brooks murmur Leandra, and 'tis Leandra that holds us all Inchanted, hoping without Hope, and fearing without knowing what we fear. Of all these foolish People, the person who shews the least, and yet has the most Sense, is my Rival Anselmo, who forgetting all other Causes of Complaint, complains only of her Absence; and to his Lute, which he touches to Admiration, he joins his Voice in Verses of his own composing, which declare the Greatness of his Genius. For my part, I take another Course, I think a better, I'm sure an easier, which is to say all the ill things I can of Women's Levity, Inconstancy, their broken Vows and vain deceitful Promises, their fondness of Show and Disregard of Merit. This, Gentlemen, was the Occasion of those Words, which, at my coming hither, I addrest to this Goat: for being a she, I hate her, tho' she is the best of my Herd. This is the Story which I promis'd to tell you; if you have thought it too long, I shall endeavor to requite your Patience in any thing I can serve you. Hard by is my Cottage, where I have some good fresh Milk and excellent Cheese, with several sorts of Fruits, which I hope you will find agreeable both to the Sight and Taste." (part 1, chap. 51)
The Leandra story is very naively introduced: the shepherd simply walks up to the stopping-place where Don Quixote was being deceitfully led away home by certain people and relates to them his tale. Let us, however, turn our attention to the way in which the story is interpolated into the novel.
This Cervantes does by resorting to the "fight" type (i.e., just as in the Cardenio episode). Don Quixote takes offense at the shepherd, who has mistaken him for a madman:
With that, snatching up a Loaf that was near him, he struck the Goat-herd so furious a Blow with it, that he almost level'd his Nose with his Face. T'other, not ac-custom'd to such Salutations, no sooner perceiv'd how scurvily he was treated, but without any Respect to the Table-cloth, Napkins, or to those who were eating, he leap'd furiously on Don Quixote, and grasping him by the Throat with both his Hands, had certainly strangl'd him, had not Sancho Panza come in that very nick of Time, and griping him fast behind, pull'd him backwards on the Table, bruising Dishes, breaking Glasses, spilling and overturning all that lay upon it. Don Quixote seeing himself freed, fell violently again upon the Goat-herd, who, all besmear'd with Blood, and trampl'd to pieces under Sancho's Feet, grop'd here and there for some Knife or Fork to take a fatal Revenge; but the Canon and Curate took care to prevent his Purpose, and in the mean while, by the Barber's Contrivance, the Goat-herd got Don Quixote under him, on whom he let fall such a Tempest of Blows, as caus'd as great a Shower of Blood to pour from the poor Knight's Face as he had stream'd from his own. (part 1, chap. 52)
Such is the second mode of reinforcing the relationship between the novel itself and the subordinate story set within it.
A few more words concerning this. Freeing himself from the shepherd's grip, Don Quixote launches immediately upon a new adventure without even bothering to wipe the blood from his face. This is the episode of the Penitents. He is beaten once again.
I am not surprised by this streak of coarseness in the novel. Still, these rows and battles belong to the world of the circus and fairy tale. Even the tears we shed for our hero are more artificial than real.
Now let's take up a more fundamental issue, that of the technical means by which Cervantes interpolates these stories into the main body of the novel.
As we have already noted, the Marcella episode is introduced by means of a story. The first part of the Cardenio-Lucinda-Dorothea-Don Fernando tale is similarly introduced. At first it is related by Cardenio to Don Quixote with an interruption occasioned by a fight. It is then told by Cardenio to the barber and the curate. Then everyone hears out Dorothea, too. Both Cardenio and Dorothea captivate the other members of the company with their singing:
While they quietly refresh'd themselves in that delightful Place, where they agreed to stay till Sancho's Return, they heard a Voice, which though unattended with any Instrument, ravish'd their Ears with its melodious Sound: And what increase their Surprize, and their Admiration, was to hear such artful Notes, and such delicate Musick, in so unfrequented and wild a Place, where scarce any Rusticks ever straggl'd, much less such skilful Songsters, as the Person whom they heard unquestionably was; for though the Poets are pleas'd to fill the Fields and Woods with Swains and Shepherdesses, that sing with all the Sweetness and Delicacy
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imaginable, yet 'tis well enough known that those Gentlemen deal more in Fiction than in Truth, and love to embellish the Descriptions they make, with Things that have no Existence but in their own Brain. Nor could our two list'ning Travellers think it the Voice of a Peasant, when they began to distinguish the Words of the song, for they seem'd to relish more of a courtly Style than a rural Composition. These were the Verses, (part 1, chap. 27)
These lines of verse give way to the following discourse:
The Time, the Hour, the Solitariness of the Place, the Voice and agreeable Manner with which the unseen Musician sung, so fill'd the Hearers Minds with Wonder and Delight, that they were all Attention; and when the Voice was silent, they continu'd so too a pretty while, watching with list'ning Ears to catch the expected Sounds, expressing their Satisfaction best by that dumb Applause. At last, concluding the Person would sing no more, they resolv'd to find out the charming Songster; but as they were going so to do, they heard the wish'd-for Voice began another Air, which fix'd 'em where they stood till it had sung the following Sonnet:
a sonnet
O Sacred Friendship, Heaven's Delight, Which tir'd with Man's unequal Mind, Took to thy native Skies thy Flight, While scarce thy Shadow's left behind!
From thee, diffusive Good, below,
Peace and her Train of Joys we trace; But Falsehood with dissembl'd Show
Too oft usurps thy sacred Face.
Bless'd Genius then resume thy Seat! Destroy Imposture and Deceit,
Which in thy Dress confound the Ball! Harmonious Peace and Truth renew, Shew the false Friendship from the true,
Or Nature must to Chaos fall.
This Sonnet concluded with a deep Sigh, and such doleful Throbs, that the Curate and the Barber now out of Pity, as well as Curiosity before, resolv'd instantly to find out who this mournful Songster was.
In just this way the second leading character of this story (i.e., Dorothea) is introduced:
We told you that as the Curate was preparing to give Cardenio some seasonable Consolation, he was prevented by a Voice, whose doleful Complaints reach'd his Ears. "O Heavens," cry'd the unseen Mourner, "is it possible I have at last found out a Place that will afford a private Grave to this miserable body, whose Load I so repine to bear? Yes, if the Silence and Solitute of these Desarts do not deceive me, here I may die conceal'd from Human Eyes. Ah me! Ah wretched Creature! to what Extremity has Affliction driven me, reduc'd to think these hideous Woods and Rocks a kind Retreat! 'Tis true indeed, I may here freely complain to Heaven, and beg for that relief which I might ask in vain of false Mankind: For 'tis vain, I find to seek below either Counsel, Ease, or Remedy." (part 1, chap. 28)
At this juncture, necessity compels me to share with the reader the story line of that tale which Cervantes introduced into his novel, and which I am now introducing into my work.
Cardenio, an aristocrat, introduces his friend Don Fernando, the younger son of a certain Spanish grandee, to his fiancee Lucinda. Don Fernando falls in love with her and sends Cardenio away through chicanery. He then proceeds to woo Cardenio's fiancee himself. She notifies her beloved, who rushes to her defense. Arriving just in time for the wedding ceremony, Cardenio hears Lucinda say (mistakenly) "yes" to Fernando at the altar, whereupon he goes mad and flees to the mountains.
Meanwhile, Don Fernando has a fiancee himself, the rich and beautiful peasant girl Dorothea, whom he dumps for Lucinda. Grief-stricken, Dorothea flees to the mountains too. There she lands in Cervantes' novel. Subsequently, both Cardenio and Dorothea arrive at the inn, the same one in which Sancho was once tossed on a blanket.
This is indeed a remarkable inn. It was set up by Cervantes in accordance with a patent that was evidently issued with strictly literary purposes in mind. Dozens of tales and recognitions cross paths within its confines. This place constitutes the geometric center of the individual crisscrossing lines of the novel. To this "compositional" inn come Don Fernando and Lucinda. We see here a new mode of introducing stories by means of a "meeting." Here Dorothea recognizes Fernando, and Cardenio recognizes Lucinda. It turns out that when Lucinda fainted during the wedding ceremony, Don Fernando discovered a letter resting on Lucinda's breast. In this letter, written by Lucinda, she speaks of herself as Cardenio's wife. Lucinda enters a convent, from which Don Fernando abducts her. On the way, though, they meet Cardenio. Dorothea challenges him with a speech in which she proves point by point that he is under obligation to love her. This speech recalls the "suosaria" (or speeches of persuasion), examples of which we find in Ovid:
"I am that poor and humble Villager, whom your generous Bounty, I dare not say your Love, did condescend to raise to the Honour of calling you her own: I am she, who, once conftn'd to peaceful Innocence, led a contented Life, till your Importunity, your Shew of Honour, and deluding Words, charm'd me from my Retreat, and made me resign my Freedom to your Power. How I am recompens'd, may be guess'd by my Grief, and my being found here in this strange Place, whither I was led, not through any Dishonourable Ends, but purely by Despair and Grief to be forsaken of You. 'Twas at your Desire I was bound to you by the strictest Tie, and whatever you do, you can never cease to be mine. Consider, my dear Lord, that my matchless Love may balance the Beauty and Nobility of the Person for whom You would forsake me; she cannot share your Love, for 'tis only mine: and Cardenio's Interest in her will not admit a Partner. 'Tis easier far, my Lord, to recall your wandring Desires, and fix them upon her that adores you, than to draw Her to love who hates you. Remember how you did sollicit my humble State, and conscious of my Meanness, yet paid a Veneration to my Innocence, which join'd with the honourable condition of my yielding to your Desires, pronounce me free from ill Design or
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Dishonour. Consider these undeniable Truths: have some Regard to your Honour! Remember you're a Christian! Why should you then make her Life end so miserably, whose Beginning your Favour made so happy? If I must not expect the Usage and Respect of a Wife, let me but serve you as a Slave; So I belong to you, tho' in the meanest Rank, I never shall complain: Let me not be expos'd to the slandring Reflections of the Censorious World by so cruel a Separation from my Lord: Afflict not the declining Years of my poor Parents, whose faithful Services to You and Yours have merited a more suitable Return. If you imagine the Current of your noble Blood should be defil'd by mixing with mine, consider how many noble Houses have run in such a Channel; besides the woman's Side is not essentially requisite to enoble Descent: But chiefly think on this, that Virtue is the truest Nobility, which if you stain by basely wronging me, you bring a greater blot upon your Family than Marrying me could cause. In fine, my Lord, you cannot, must not disown me for your Wife: To attest which Truth, I call your own Words, which must be true, if you prize yourself for Honour, and that Nobility, whose want you so despise in Me; witness your Oaths and Vows, witness that Heaven which you so often invok'd to ratify your Promises; and if all these should fail, I make my last Appeal to your own Conscience, whose Sting will always represent my Wrongs fresh to your thoughts, and disturb your Joys amidst your greatest Pleasures."
These, with many such Arguments, did the mournful Dorothea urge, appearing so lovely in her Sorrow, that Don Ferdinand's Friends, as well as all the rest sympa-thiz'd with her, Lucinda particularly, as much admiring her Wit and Beauty, as mov'd by the Tears, the piercing Sighs and Moans that follow'd her Intreaties; and she wou'd have gone nearer to have comforted her, had not Ferdinand's Arms, that still held her, prevented it. He stood full of Confusion, with his eyes fix'd attentively on Dorothea a great while; at last, opening his Arms, he quitted Lucinda, "Thou has Conquered," cry'd he, "charming Dorothea, thou hast Conquer'd me, 'tis impossible to resist so many united Truths and Charms." (part 1, chap. 36)
While this interminable tale unfolds at a snail's pace, another story entitled "The Novel of the Curious Impertinent" is incorporated into the text. This second story, about eight manuscript pages in length (by Cervantes' own calculation), is incorporated into Don Quixote in the capacity of "a found manuscript" (i.e., it is read by the principal characters of the novel as an unknown manuscript which was found by them). The curate's remark is interesting at this point, since he is a sworn critic of the novel. (See the episode with Don Quixote's library, the conversation with the innkeeper, etc.) He says:
"I like this Novel well enough," said the Curate; "yet, after all, I cannot persuade myself, that there's any thing of Truth in it; and if it be purely Invention, the Author was in the wrong; for 'tis not to be imagin'd there cou'd ever be a Husband so foolish, as to venture on so dangerous an Experiment. Had he made his Husband and Wife, a Gallant and a Mistress, the Fable had appear'd more probable; but, as it is, 'tis next to impossible. However, I must confess, I have nothing to object against his manner of telling it." (part 1, chap. 35)
This comment recalls another maxim uttered by the selfsame curate concerning the style of another inset story, which I have already touched upon.
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It seems to me that we may perceive here an "expressive" orientation, so typical in art. The writer himself comments on the various parts of his novel, first, as individual phenomena (the style of this particular story), and secondly, as literary phenomena in general (e.g., "the pastoral style is a good one").
The technique of introducing inset stories in accordance with the principle of the "found manuscript" became subsequently very popular. This was widely used by Sterne. The speeches of Yorick in Tristram Shandy represent such a "found manuscript," as does one episode in his Sentimental Journey. The same device was utilized by Dickens in Pickwick Papers, a work which was, generally speaking, written in accordance with the principle of the framing novel ("Diary of a Madman") along with an admixture of elements derived from the "threading" device. This is the source for the Pickwick type. The Cervantes connection serves as a basis, in all probability, for the Samuel Weller type, who, like Panza, also weaves many proverbs like a thread. But Sancho's sayings represent a different type than those of Samuel. The proverbs of Pickwick's servant are consciously enstranged. Their humor lies in the inappropriateness, in the discrepancy between their use and the situation at hand. Perhaps Dickens has here revealed in general one of the essential guidelines in the use of examples: a sense of irony should inform their use. Let me illustrate with two proverbs by Samuel:
"There is nothin' so refreshin' as sleep, sir, as the servant-girl said afore she drank the egg-cupful o' laudanum." (chap. 16)
"Poverty and oysters always seem to go together." (chap. 22)*
But I am already beginning to feel the influence of this novel: I'm allowing myself to be sidetracked by episode after episode, forgetting the main thrust of the essay. What did Cervantes do under similar circumstances? Why, he interrupted the action, reminding the reader of the protagonist of the novel by bringing on one of the knight's usual acts of madness. So, "The Novel of the Curious Impertinent," along with the Cardenio story in which it is implanted, is interrupted by Don Quixote's famous battle with the wineskins. As I have already said before, this episode is taken in all probability from Miletus through Apuleius' Golden Ass.
The inn where Cardenio meets Fernando and Lucinda later plays the role of a hovel in Shakespeare's King Lear. This is the crossroads for all of the leading characters in the novel, whose actions are therefore connected to each other only by the fact that they all take place in this inn at one and the same time. However, while in Shakespeare the principal characters belong
*After much searching, I was still unable to locate the Dickens original for Shklovsky's second quote, which reads something like this: " 'We all have to go sometime,' said the thrush, as the cat dragged him away by his tail." I have therefore substituted for it another of Samuel's innumerable sayings. [Trans, note]
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to one complex of events, in Cervantes they are related only by their common locale and by the author's desire to introduce them into his novel. The relationship obtaining among them is limited to the fact that they are either surprised or enraptured by each other. In this they recall rather the linkage of the type represented by A Thousand and One Nights with the difference that in Cervantes' novel these characters coexist, as it were, while in/1 Thousand and One Nights they are co-narrated. But this is not a fundamental distinction, since the element of the storyteller's "yarn" does in fact exist in Cervantes, though perhaps only because the whole novel is incorporated within the feebly perceived framework of the "found manuscript" of one Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab storyteller.
Into this literary tavern walks a man of around forty years of age with a beautiful Moslem woman. After Don Quixote's introductory speech, the captive relates the story of his life and his adventures. This is the common type (or what later became a common type) of escape through the help of a beautiful native woman. In this story Cervantes expresses his strategic judgment concerning Fort Gol. One of the captive's comrades turns out to be the brother of Don Fernando, a faint allusion to its connection with the main plot. At this very moment, his brother's sonnets are being brought in. The reading of the sonnets is followed by the history of this captive, which is told in full detail. It occupies, at most, about five chapters.
A literary assessment, so characteristic in general of Cervantes, follows immediately on the heels of this inset tale. I don't know whether I have already told you that these inset lines of verse, for example, are always evaluated on the spot by one of the guests. So also now:
"Truly, Captain, the wonderful and surprizing turns of your Fortune are not only entertaining, but the pleasing and graceful manner of your Relation is as extraordinary as the Adventures themselves: We are all bound to pay you our Acknowledgments and I believe we could be delighted with a second Recital, though 'twere to last till to Morrow, provided it were made by You." (part 1, chap. 42)
The literary inn, however, continues to overflow with guests, as Cervantes introduces more and more leading characters, who in turn bring with them new stories into the world of the novel. A state prosecutor enters the inn with his beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter. However, the story's interpolation into the novel by gathering the protagonists under one roof is not the only device employed by Cervantes. Another new device, though new only in a relative sense, is introduced: The state prosecutor turns out to be the brother of the captive storyteller (he's one of three brothers—a traditional fairy-tale number—as is the motif of the father partitioning the family estate among three sons, each of whom chooses a different path: one chooses a career in the academy, another in the military, a third in commerce). The next chapter (part 1, chap. 43) introduces a new episode by means of the same old technique of a meeting. This is "The Pleasant Story of the Young Muleteer with Other Strange Adventures That Happen'd in the Inn."
A young man bursts in, dressed like a mule driver. This is Don Louis, who is in love with Clara, the daughter of the state prosecutor. He sings a song in her honor. But here Cervantes brings in Don Quixote once again. This is the episode in which the servants of the inn mock and scorn the Knight of the Woeful Figure, as they bind him by his hands to the grating of the dormer window. Then follows the conclusion of the Don Louis episode, and, at last, the action returns once more to the main plot.
The point is that the barber from whom Don Quixote had once taken the shaving basin (mistaking it for Mambrino's helmet as Sancho Panza was busy removing the harness from his mule) has also arrived at the inn, the magnetic qualities of which we have already explained. Well, it so happens that the barber recognizes his basin.
A curious argument breaks out in the tavern in which all the guests present take the side of Don Quixote, assuring him that the basin is indeed a helmet. This curious hoax is far from being the only hoax in the novel. The episodes in the early part of the novel are explained by the delusions of Don Quixote, who takes a strumpet for a princess, a merchant who is torturing Andre for a gallant knight, and his stick for a lance. But towards the end of the first part, the motivation of the episodes changes. Don Quixote is no longer deluded so much as he is a victim of hoaxes. The whole episode in the duke's palace with its magical wooden leg and with the exorcism from Dulcinea's spell is an example of such a grandiose hoax.
A series of hoaxes now begins, not to mention the innkeeper's hilarious consecration of Don Quixote into knighthood (here the innkeeper is not the author of the hoax, but merely supports the delusions of our hero). This series begins with the "helmet" episode and with the fictitious enchantment, by means of which Don Quixote is taken home in a cage. Along the way Don Quixote is let out of the cage on his word of honor, whereupon he enters into an argument with a canon concerning books on chivalry. The conversation between the canon and the curate constitutes a whole critical survey of the literature of chivalry, the introduction of which at the beginning of the novel was so well-motivated by the examination of Don Quixote's library before it was put to the flames. It is also related to the conversation on the same subject between the curate and the innkeeper. And it also resembles the answer given by the curate upon examining Don Quixote's library. In response to the passionate tirade by the innkeeper and his daughter concerning the entertaining and edifying attributes of books on chivalry, he counters with the following:
"1 shall do as well with the Books," said the Barber, "'for I can find the Way to the Back-yard, or the Chimney, there's a good Fire that will do their Business." "Business!" said the Inn-keeper, "I hope you wou'd not burn my Books." "Only two of them," said the Curate, "this same Don Cirongilio and his Friend Felix-marte." "I hope. Sir," said the Host, "'they are neither Hereticks nor Flegmaticks." "Schismaticks you mean," said the Barber; "I mean so," said the Inn-keeper; "and if you must burn any, let it be this of Goncalo Hernandez and Diego Garcia, for you
■1
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should sooner burn one of my Children than the others." "These Books, honest Friend," said the Curate, "that you appear so concern'd for, are senseless Rhapsodies of Falsehoods and Folly; and this which you so despise is a true History, and contains a true Account of two celebrated Men; the first by his Bravery and Courage purchas'd immortal Fame, and the Name of the great General, by the universal Consent of Mankind. The other, Diego Garcia de Paredes, was of Noble Extraction, and born in Truxillo, a Town of Estremadura, and was a Man of singular Courage, and such mighty Strength, that with one of his Hands he could stop a Mill-wheel in its most rapid Motion; and with his single Force defended the Passage of a Bridge against a great Army. Several other great Actions are related in the Memoirs of his Life, but all with so much Modesty and unbiass'd Truth, that they easily pronounce him his own Historiographer; and had they been written by any one else, with Freedom and Impartiality, they might have eclips'd your Hectors, Achilles's, and Orlando's, with all their Heroick Exploits." (part 1, chap. 32)
We see the same in this conversation with the canon:
The Curate was very attentive, and believ'd him a Man of a sound Judgment, and much in the right in all he had urg'd; and therefore told him, That being of the same Opinion, and an Enemy to Books of Knight-Errantry, he had burnt all that belong'd to Don Quixote, which were a considerable Number. Then he recounted to him the Scrutiny he had made among them, what he had condemn'd to the flames, and what spar'd. (part 1, chap. 47)
These reminders serve like internal braces to bind episodes of the same type within the framework of Don Quixote.
The canon, however, is not satisfied with discussing novels of chivalry and begins talking about art in general, especially about drama. This is followed by Don Quixote's speech which I've already touched upon briefly during my analysis of his speeches.
The first part of the novel concludes with an inset episode on stray sheep and with Don Quixote's attack on a religious procession.
I do not intend to analyze the second part of Don Quixote with the same degree of consistency with which I have tried to follow the course of the first part. I only wish to point out what's new in the structure of the second part.
I've already had occasion several times before to say that the second parts of novels, or, rather, their sequels, often reveal changes in their structures. The novel, breaking off suddenly, exists now only conditionally as it sets off along new paths. So, we find towards the end of Rabelais's novel a transition to a type of picaresque novel, where the individual island allegories are connected by the wanderings of the heroes. Structurally speaking, the concluding parts of Gargantua and Pantagruel anticipate, so to speak, the finale of Gulliver's Travels. Towards the end of Swift's novel, though, the satirical material begins to supplant the material devoted to adventure (this was noted by my pupil L. Lunts).
What distinguishes chiefly the second part of Don Quixote is its abundance of small inset anecdotes introduced into the novel from without. Another feature which distinguishes it is the fact that we are witness here to
The Making of Don Quixote 93
a deceived Don Quixote who is now everywhere the object of a hoax. The family of the duke with its retainers amuses itself at the expense of the poor knight, and Sancho Panza's tenure as governor is nothing but an out-and-out hoax. Furthermore the Bachelor dismisses the knight out of his house as a hoax, and his battles with the Knight of Mirrors and then with the Knight of the Moon also constitute a hoax. Don Quixote is also the butt of a practical joke in Barcelona, where an inscription bearing a nickname is attached to his cloak. So, too, in restoring Falstaff to the stage (by order of the queen, they say), Shakespeare had to make Falstaff an object of a hoax in his Merry Wives of Windsor.
It's worth noting that in part 2 of Cervantes' novel, Don Quixote shows that he is fully cognizant of the existence of part 1 by polemicizing against the spurious anonymous version of part 2 (circulating in Spain even before Cervantes' version). A curious situation emerges. The leading character of the novel feels himself to be real as such but does not come across as a living human being. This is motivated by the fact that Don Quixote considers his illegitimate twin to be crude and trivial, so that he seems to take offense at him not as Don Quixote, the literary character, but as Don Quixote the living human being;
"Then without Dispute," said Don Quixote, "you are the same Don Alvaro Tarfe, whose Name fills a Place in the second Part of Don Quixote de la Mancha's History, that was lately publish'd by a new Author?" "The very Man," answer'd the Knight; "and that very Don Quixote, who is the principal Subject of that book, was my intimate Acquaintance; I am the Person that intic'd him from his Habitation so far at least, that he had never seen the Tournament at Saragosa, had it not been through My Persuasions, and in My Company; and indeed, as it happen'd, I prov'd the best Friend he had, and did him a singular Piece of Service; for had I not stood by him, his intolerable Impudence had brought him to some shameful Punishment." "But pray, Sir," said Don Quixote, "be pleas'd to tell me one Thing; Am I any thing like that Don Quixote of yours?" "The farthest from it in the World, Sir," reply'd the other. "And had he," said our Knight, "one Sancho Panca for his Squire?" "Yes," said Don Alvaro, "but I was the most deceiv'd in him that could be; for by common Report that same Squire was a comical, witty Fellow, but I found him a very great Blockhead." (part 2, chap. 72)
What ensues is an appeal to the sojourners to certify in writing that they have seen the real Don Quixote.
It seems to me that we are dealing here with an emphasis, expressed in a rather low key, on the theatrical dimension, the conventionality and manip-ulativeness of art. To this type belongs King Lear's address to his daughters when they inform him that a retinue of fifty knights or even less should be more than adequate for his needs. King Lear turns to an elegantly dressed lady in the audience and asks:
Thou art a lady; If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, Which scarcely keeps thee warm. (2.4.262-65)
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The Making of Don Quixote 95
In Gogol, a governor of a town likewise destroys the fourth invisible wall of the theater, which makes the audience, as it were, invisible to the characters on stage, by uttering the words that are now known to everyone: "Whom are you laughing at? For God's sake, can't you see that you are laughing at nobody but yourselves?"
Meanwhile, in Ostrovsky's A Family Affair, Rispolozhensky rushes to the footlights of the stage, where he shows the worn-out soles of his shoes to the audience.
In Tieck and in Hoffmann (Princess Brambila) the principal characters are at times aware of the fact that they are the leading characters of a story or capriccio "which is at this very moment being written." This device is canonical for vaudeville with its racy topical verse addressed to the public.
As far as the theater is concerned, the illusion presented on the stage ought to have a "flickering" quality to it (i.e., it should alternate with the other, more realistic element in the play). As for the spectator, he must experience within himself a shift in his perception of the action onstage from the "contrived" to the "realistic" and back. The awareness of a flickering illusion serves as a basis for Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and for Schnitzler's Green Cockatoo. The action on the stage is perceived either as play or as life.
But it's time for us now to return to Don Quixote. In his conversation with the Bachelor, Sancho Panza tells how his donkeys were stolen. This detail was neglected in the first part:
"Now," quoth he, "as to what Master Sampson wanted to know; that is, when, where, and by whom my Ass was stol'n: I answer, That the very Night that we march'd off to the Sierra Morena, to avoid the Hue and Cry of the Holy Brotherhood, after the rueful Adventure of the Galley Slaves, and that of the dead Body that was carrying to Segovia, my Master and I slunk into a Wood; where he leaning on his Lance and I, without alighting from Dapple, both sadly bruis'd and tir'd with our late Skirmishes, fell fast asleep, and slept as soundly as if we had had Four Feather-beds under us; but I especially was as serious at it as any Dormouse; so that the Thief, whoever he was, had Leisure enough to clap four Stakes under the four Corners of the Pack-Saddle, and then leading away the Ass from between my Legs, without being perceiv'd by me in the least, there he fairly left me mounted." "This is no new thing," said Don Quixote, "nor is it difficult to be done: With the same Stratagem Sacripante had his Steed stol'n from under him by that notorious Thief Brunelo at the Siege of Albraca." (part 2, chap. 4)
Here we see that Cervantes has made use in his novel of a nomadic plot. This phenomenon is common enough even in the most recent literature. For example, quite distinct "historical words" and actions make their way into the text for the most part by being anonymously ascribed to the hero of the novel. This device is common, for example, in the works of Alexandre Dumas. We encounter it, with a parodistic tinge, also in Leo Tolstoi (War and Peace: the conversation between Petruska, Andrei Balkonsky's aide, and Napoleon). We see the same thing in Gogol's Dead Souls. Recounting
the prank played by the contrabandists, who had transported Brabant lace underneath sheepskins placed over their sheep, Gogol says at first: "We heard that..." And then, retelling the anecdote, he adds: "There's not a single Jew in the world who could have pulled this off without Chichikov." That is, Gogol adopts and assimilates a definite roving anecdote into his novel. I have already spoken in my chapter concerning plot deployment about and analogous phenomenon in Apuleius' The Golden Ass and in Lazarillo ofTormes.
In the following chapter (chap. 5), Cervantes puts into the words of Sancho such highly complex sentences that he himself considers them apocryphal "... because it introduces Sancho speaking in another Style than could be expected from his slender Capacity, and saying things of so refin'd a Nature, that it seems impossible he cou'd do it."
After his speech on glory, Don Quixote goes on the road, where Sancho Panza plays a hoax on him by passing off a peasant passerby as Dulicinea Toboso. Episodes featuring Don Quixote's meeting with itinerant actors, another battle motivated by a hoax, and an encounter with a forest knight bring us to the famous battle in which the Knight of the Woeful Figure takes on the lions. This episode interrupts a long series of deliberations which Don Quixote carries on with a certain member of the gentry of La Mancha. In the opening of chapter 19, we find ourselves in an inset pastoral on cunning, with the aid of which a shepherd had wrested a fiancee from her rich peasant. This pastoral includes a description of the allegorical play performed at the wedding. As always in Cervantes, this play is immediately subjected to a literary assessment by those present:
When all was over, Don Quixote ask'd one of the Nymphs, who it was that compos'd the Entertainment? She answer'd, that it was a certain Clergyman who liv'd in their Town, that had a rare Talent that way. "I dare lay a Wager," said Don Quixote, "he was more a Friend to Basil than to Camacho, and knows better what belongs to a' Play than a Prayer-Book: He has express'd Basil's Parts and Camacho's Estate very naturally in the Design of your Dance."
We shall not follow in the footsteps of Don Quixote. Let us instead move on to the set episodes. In chapter 24 we find an anecdote about a page who was walking along the road without his pants on in order not to soil them, while in chapters 25 through 27 we come across an anecdote concerning two villagers quarreling over the fact that one of them had teased the other by mimicking a donkey's bray. This little story is connected with the novel only by the fact that its leading characters end up beating Don Quixote. Later on, the novel turns into a fairy ballet given at the home of the duke. Analogous to the "donkey's bray" type of anecdote, we find interpolated into the novel an episode in which two young people discuss whether it is necessary to learn the art of fencing and how to equalize the weight of two fat men who are intent on competing in a race.
Sancho Panza's governorship is a complex inset episode of major scope.
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The Making of Don Quixote 97
Its origin is sufficiently understood. In "framing novels" it is common to select material in accordance with a unifying principle, at times of a very superficial nature. For example, in A Thousand and One Nights the stories are often selected because of the identical injury entailed by their denouements. This is the basis for the story about the three imperial beggars (each having lost an eye for a different reason). Often, on the other hand, these stories are selected because of their identical denouements, as, for example, where an enemy among the sheiks is converted by blood-redeeming stories like those early in A Thousand and One Nights. This type of character did not so much endure as insistently burst upon the scene. We see this in the eighteenth-century Georgian Book of Wisdom and Lies. The tales in Boccaccio's Decameron are partially arranged in this way. This was the same device that Voltaire made use of in Candide (chap. 26), where we see a fortuitous gathering of six retired monarchs in the same inn:
All the servants having disappeared, the six foreigners, Candide, and Martin remained in deep silence. Finally Candide broke it:
"Gentlemen," he said, "this is a singular jest. Why are you all kings? For myself, I admit that neither Martin nor I am."
Cacambo's master then spoke up gravely and said in Italian:
"I am not jesting, my name is Ahmed III. 1 was Grand Sultan for several years; I dethroned my brother; my nephew dethroned me; my viziers had their heads cut off; I am ending my days in the old seraglio. My nephew, the Grand Sultan Mahmud, allows me to travel sometimes for my health, and I have come to spend the Carnival in Venice."
A young man who was next to Ahmed spoke after him and said: "My name is Ivan; I was Emperor of all the Russias; I was dethroned in my cradle; my father and mother were locked up; I was brought up in prison; I sometimes have permission to travel, accompanied by those who guard me, and I have come to spend the Carnival in Venice." The third said:
"I am Charles Edward, King of England; my father ceded me his rights to the kingdom. I fought to maintain them; they tore the hearts out of eight hundred of my supporters and dashed them in their faces. I was put in prison; I am going to Rome to pay a visit to the King my father, who is dethroned like my grandfather and me; and I have come to spend the Carnival in Venice."
The fourth then took the floor and said:
"I am King of the Poles; the fortunes of war have deprived me of my hereditary states; my father underwent the same reverses; I resign myself to Providence like Sultan Ahmed, Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward, whom God give long life; and I have come to spend the Carnival in Venice."
The fifth said:
"I too am King of the Poles; I have lost my kingdom twice; but Providence has given me another state, in which I have done more good than all the kings of the Sarmatians together have ever been able to do on the banks of the Vistula; I too resign myself to Providence; and I have come to spend the Carnival in Venice."
It remained for the sixth monarch to speak.
"Gentlemen, I am not as great a lord as you; but even so I have been a King like anyone else. I am Theodore; I was elected King of Corsica; I have been called Your Majesty, and at present I am hardly called Sir. I have coined money, and I do not have a penny; I have had two secretaries of state, and I have scarcely a valet. I was once on a throne, and I was in prison for a long time in London, on the straw. I am much afraid I shall be treated the same way here, although I have come, like Your Majesties, to spend the Carnival in Venice."
The five other Kings listened to this speech with noble compassion. Each of them gave King Theodore twenty sequins to get clothes and shirts; and Candide presented him with a diamond worth two thousand sequins.
"Who is this man," said the five Kings, "who is in a position to give a hundred times as much as each of us, and who gives it? Are you a King too, sir?"
"No, gentlemen, and I have no desire to be."
At the moment when they were leaving the table, there arrived in the same hotel four Most Serene Highnesses, who had also lost their states by the fortunes of war, and who were coming to spend the rest of the Carnival in Venice. But Candide did not even take note of these newcomers; he was preoccupied only with going to find his dear CunSgonde in Constantinople.
chapter 27
The faithful Cacambo had already obtained an agreement with the Turkish captain who was about to take Sultan Ahmed back to Constantinople that he would take Candide and Martin on his ship. Both came on board after having prostrated themselves before his miserable Highness. On the way, Candide said to Martin:
"But those were six dethroned Kings that we had supper with, and besides, among those six Kings there was one to whom I gave alms. Maybe there are many other princes still more unfortunate. As for me, I have lost only a hundred sheep, and I am flying to Cun6gonde's arms. My dear Martin, once again, Pangloss was right, all is well."
"I hope so," said Martin.
"But," said Candide, "that was a most implausible adventure we had in Venice. No one ever saw or heard of six dethroned Kings having supper together in an inn." (Frame translation)
What we see here may be less a motivation for the device than an attempt to interpret it or at the very least to specify it. It would be interesting to point to one passage from Conan Doyle as an analogous attempt to motivate another "technical convention," that is, the convention of the adventure novel with its favorable confluence of circumstances:
"For this is pure coincidence Holmes, fate itself smiles upon you!"
"My dear Watson, I view this in an entirely different light. Any man who pursues something with stubbornness, whose thoughts are fixed on one and only one thing, and whose desire is urgently directed to bring this about come what may, involuntarily furthers his cause in everything that he undertakes. Call this hypnosis, the inflexible force of the will, but that's the way it is! Precisely the way that a magnet attracts to itself iron and steel filings from everywhere, so does this will power bend all of the petty affairs and circumstances in its path into a chain which must lead to a
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revelation of the crime."*
The principle of selecting material in accordance with some external criterion is widely applied in the novel. Sometimes, especially in a more limited novel, the inset parts interact in a definite way. For example, they represent a parallel structure. Panza's governorship represents a summary of folkloric episodes concerning the trials of wisdom. Here we also hear an echo of the trials of Solomon and of the Talmud (the episode with the money in the cane). Sancho himself points out the important nature of this wisdom:
All the Spectators were amaz'd, and began to look on their Governor as a second Solomon. They ask'd him how he could conjecture that the ten Crowns were in the Cane? He told 'em, that having observ'd how the Defendant gave it to the Plaintiff to hold while he took his Oath, and then swore he had truly return'd him the Money in his own Hands, after which he took his Cane again from the Plaintiff; this considers, it came into his Head, that the Money was lodg'd within the Reed. From whence may be learn'd, that though sometimes those that govern are destitute of Sense, yet it often pleases God to direct 'em in their Judgments. Besides, he had heard the Curate of his Parish tell of such another Business; and he had so special a Memory, that were it not that he was so unlucky as to forget all he had a mind to remember, there could not have been a better in the whole Island, (part 2, chap. 45)
The other episodes, for instance, the episode with the woman who had falsely accused the swineherd of rape, have many parallels elsewhere in accordance with the laws of plot formation.
Certain episodes from Sancho's governorship include picaresque proverbs and fables incorporated into the novel.
Apart from this type of interpolated episode and the different "tasks" of folkloric type, Cervantes introduces into his description of Sancho's governorship (as he had done earlier in Don Quixote's speeches) various administrative considerations of his own. Sometimes, these speeches of Sancho differ radically from what we have become accustomed to hear from Don Quixote's armor-bearer. In that case, Cervantes himself points out the incongruity and thereby lays bare the device:
"Now," said he, "do I find in good earnest that Judges and Governors must be made of Brass, or ought to be made of Brass, that they may be proof against the Importunities of those that pretend Business, who at all Hours, and at all Seasons would be heard and dispatch'd, without any Regard to any body but themselves, let what will come of the rest, so their turn is serv'd. Now if a poor Judge does not hear and dispatch them presently, either because he is otherways busy and cannot, or because they don't come at a proper Season, then do they grumble, and give him their Blessing backwards, rake up the Ashes of his Forefathers, and would gnaw his very Bones. But with your Leave, good Mr. Busy-Body, with all your Business you are too hasty, pray have a little Patience, and wait a fit Time to make your Application. Don't come at Dinner-time, or when a Man is going to sleep, for we
*From "The Dancer's Knife," not by Conan Doyle but a pastiche of uncertain origin. [Trans, note]
The Making of Don Quixote 99
Judges are Flesh and Blood, and must allow Nature what she naturally requires; unless it be poor I, who am not to allow mine any food. Thanks to my Friend, Master Doctor Pedro Rezio Tirteafuera here present, who is for starving me to Death, and then swears 'tis for the preservation of my Life. Heaven grant him such a Life, I pray, and all the Gang of such Physickmongers as he is; for the good Physicians deserve Palms and Laurels."
All that knew Sancho wonder'd to hear him talk so sensibly, and began to think that Offices and Places of Trust inspir'd some Men with Understanding, as they stupify'd and confounded others, (part 2, chap. 49)
In the description of Sancho's governorship, Cervantes has inserted a short story, poorly executed, about a woman who had run away from her parents' home dressed in a man's outfit.
All of these episodes are integrated in one compact and motley kaleidoscope, which is more than just an accumulation of episodes delivered by Sancho upon his renunciation of the governorship. What is evident here is a new interpretation of old material. This is already a step forward in the direction of a new novel. The writer is conscious at this point of his option of presenting his hero not merely as a victim of a variety of jokes and pranks but also as a man who had felt them to the quick.
The humanity of the novel is introduced (for example, in Cervantes' condemnation of the mockery heaped on Don Quixote by the duke and duchess) as material for new structures.
Here the effect consists of a change in Don Quixote's two masks and in a reinterpretation of old material.
On the way from the island of Barataria, Sancho Panza meets his friend and neighbor Ricote the Moor, who, under the guise of a pilgrim, has been making his way home, where he had once buried a treasure (chap. 54). After a brief chat, the friends part. This episode has no independent significance but is introduced into the novel in order to connect the story about the Mauritanian woman more firmly to the novel (chap. 63). In this chapter we discover that during their assault, the Mauritanian galleys take into custody a young Moor, who turns out later to be a Christian woman and the daughter of Ricote. By sheer coincidence, Ricote himself appears on the scene. The fact is that we have met this Ricote earlier, though Sancho draws the inset tale somehow closer to the main plot. The description of Don Quixote's meeting with Roque, the bandits' ringleader, represents a separate story, or rather a story within a story. In the picturesque description of the noble highwayman, Cervantes has inserted a tale about a senselessly jealous woman by the name of Claudia Geronima, who had killed her suitor on false grounds of suspicion. These stories are connected to the novel only by the fact that Don Quixote is present at their telling. This is an almost perfect type of threading. In order to include episodes in this manner, it has always been especially appropriate to have the characters go on a journey. This journey has served as a motivation for bringing about contact between them and the hero.
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The hero integrates these episodes in exactly the-same way that an observer integrates the pictures of an art gallery in his mind.
To this type belong also the examination of houses by Don Cleophaus and Asmodeus (Le Sage's Devil on Two Sticks) by raising their roofs. Asmodeus's remarks, accompanying as they do his inspection of the paintings, play a role analogous to the hero's attitude towards the episodes strung together on his journey or to the astonishment shown by the princesses at the tales related to them in A Thousand and One Nights.
Sometimes we encounter in stories of the framing type not anecdotes but collections of scientific knowledge. In this way, arithmetic problems have been incorporated into the Georgian Book of Wisdom and Lies, while in the novels of Jules Verne we discover reference books on scientific matters and lists of geographical discoveries. The poem called The Dove Book, drawing entirely upon a body of learning considered scientific in its own time, is incorporated into a story about "the heavenly book."* Similarly, Aeschylus introduces into his tragedy a description of an optical telegraph.
I have already noted on innumerable occasions the interspersing of this type of material in Cervantes. Don Quixote's encounter in chapter 58 of part 2 with the people carrying the statues of the saints immediately after delivering his famous speech on freedom is a case in point.
In similar fashion, Cervantes interpolates into the novel the description of the talking head, with details galore concerning its structure. This happens in chapter 62, in which is related the "Adventure of the Inchanted Head with Other Impertinences Not to Be Omitted."
Elsewhere, during a conversation on the baselessness of omens, which includes parallels from ancient history and an explanation of the battle cry of the Spanish and so on, Don Quixote unexpectedly notes that he had become entangled in a net made of silk. It turns out that close by several young men and women have decided to create their own Arcadia. This game of shepherds and shepherdesses is in fact the source for all of the pastoral scenes in the novel. Cervantes himself wrote pastoral novels in this same conventional spirit. Pastoral scenes are numerous throughout Don Quixote and at times we are led to believe that the whole novel is about to take off on a new tangent that will turn into a pastoral. In fact, after his defeat at the hand of the Knight of the White Moon, Don Quixote goes home, intent upon becoming a shepherd.
But approaching death removes from Don Quixote, the Knight of the Woeful Figure, the mask of madness. In its place, he puts on the new mask of the meek Christian, Alonso the Brave.
*My thanks to Prof. Oinas of Indiana University for his explanation of the strange name: Originally called the Book of Depths {Glubokaya Kniga), it became known in time as the Blue Book {Golubaya Kniga) and, more importantly, the Dove Book (Golubinaya Kniga), symbolizing, of course, the Holy Ghost. [Trans, note]
Chapter 5
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story
1) A story may be told in such a way that the reader sees the unfolding of events, how one event follows another. In such a case, such a narration commonly adheres to a temporal sequence without any significant omissions. We may take as an example of this type of narration Tolstoi's War and Peace.
2) A story may also be told in such a way that what is happening is incomprehensible to the reader. The "mysteries" taking place in the story are only later resolved.
As an example of the latter type of narration let me mention "Knock! Knock! Knock!" by Turgenev, the novels of Dickens and detective stories, of which I shall have more to say.
Characteristic of this second type of narration is temporal transposition. As a matter of fact, a single temporal transposition such as the omission of a particular incident and its appearance after the consequences of this incident have already been revealed is often quite sufficient to create such a mystery. The mysterious appearance of Svidrigailov at the bedside of the ailing Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment is a case in point, though, admittedly, it had already been prepared for by Dostoevsky, who had pointed out in passing that a certain man had been eavesdropping at the time the address was given. Still, the mystery is renewed by Raskolnikov's dream. By the mere omission of the fact that Svidrigailov had found out the address, the author achieves a mystery in the second meeting.
In an adventure novel built on several parallel lines of narration, the effects of surprise are achieved by the fact that while one plot line progresses, the other one may proceed at the same or even quicker tempo, during which we cross over to another narrative line, preserving all the while the time of the first line; that is, we find ourselves among consequences whose causes are unknown to us.
Thus does Don Quixote come upon Sancho in a mountain gorge.
This device seems perfectly natural, but it is in fact a definite accomplishment, utterly unknown to the Greek epic. Zelinsky has demonstrated that simultaneity of action is not admissible in the Odyssey. Although parallel narrative lines do exist in the story line (Odysseus and Telemachus), yet the events unfold alternately in each line. Transposition in time, as we see, may serve as a basis for a "mystery." However, we ought not to think that the
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Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story 103
mystery is in the transposition itself. For example, Chichikov's childhood, related after he had already been introduced by the author, would have ordinarily been found in the opening part of a classic adventure novel, and yet even in its transposed form it cannot make our hero mysterious.
The late works of Leo Tolstoi are frequently constructed without special resort to this device. That is, this device is presented in such a way that the center of gravity shifts from the temporal transposition to the denouement.
In The Kreutzer Sonata we find the following:
"Yes, no doubt, married life is filled with crises," the attorney said, wishing to put an end to the indecently passionate conversation.
"I see that you have found out who I am," silently and calmly said a grey-haired gentleman.
"No, I have not had that pleasure."
"It's a small pleasure. My name is Pozdnishev, the man who has gone through this crisis that you have just alluded to, the crisis which ended when he killed his wife," he said glancing quickly at each and every one of us.
In Hadji-Murad a cossack shows Butler the hacked-off head of Hadji-Murad, whereupon the drunken officers look it straight in the eye and kiss it. Later we are present at the scene of the last battle of Hadji-Murad. Apart from this, the destiny of Hadji-Murad, his entire history, is given in the image of the broken, crushed burdock, which nevertheless yearns stubbornly to live.
"The Death of Ivan Ilych" begins in the following way:
In a large building attached to the institutes of jurisprudence, during the intermission between the sessions concerning the Melovinsky case, the prosecutor and a member of the court gather in the study of Ivan Yegorovich Shchebek. A conversation had started concerning the famous Krasinsky case ... Pyotr Ivanovich, on the other hand, who had kept silent throughout the proceedings, was examining the documents that had just been submitted.
In the examples above taken from The Kreutzer Sonata, Hadji-Murad and "The Death of Ivan Ilych" we witness a struggle with the story line rather than a complication of it.
Apparently, Tolstoi found it necessary to eliminate the plot interest of his novels. In its stead, he laid great stress on analysis, on the "details," as he used to say.
We know the death date of Ivan Ilych and the fate of Pozdnishev's wife, even the result of his trial. We know the fate of Hadji-Murad and we even know how people will judge him.
Curiosity concerning this aspect of a literary work is thereby removed.
What Tolstoi needed here was a new understanding of what a literary work is, a change in the usual categories of thought. And so he renounced plot, assigning to it a merely perfunctory role.
I have tried in this digression to show the difference between temporal transposition, which may, in certain cases, be used as a basis for the
H Bf*
construction of "mysteries," and the mystery itself as a definite plot device.
I believe that even the most careless reader of adventure novels can cite the number of mysteries that figure in it.
Titles with the word "mystery" are exceedingly common in literature, as in, for example, The Mystery of Madrid Court, The Mysterious Island, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, etc.
Mysteries are usually introduced into adventure novels or stories for the purpose of heightening the reader's interest in the action, thereby making possible an ambiguous interpretation of the action.
Detective novels, a subspecies of the "crime novel," have come to overshadow the "cops and robbers novel" in importance. This is due, most probably, to the very convenience afforded by the mystery motivation. At first, the crime is presented as a riddle. Then, a detective appears on the scene as a professional riddle-solver.
Crime and Punishment similarly makes broad use of the device represented by Raskolnikov's preparations (the ax's noose, the change of hat and so on are described before we learn their purpose). The motives for the crime in this novel are revealed after the crime, which serves as its effect.
In novels of the Arséne Lupin type the main hero is not a detective but a "gentleman criminal." Still, there is a detective, a "discloser" of the mystery, whose presentation is motivated only by a lapse in time. Yet even Arséne Lupin often works as a detective.
To illustrate this story built on a mystery let us look closely at one of the stories by Conan Doyle devoted to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
For my analysis I have selected the story entitled "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." I shall point out parallels from time to time, taken, for the most part, from the Collected Works of Conan Doyle (St. Petersburg: Sojkin, 1909-11), vol. 4. My purpose in doing so is to make it easier for the reader, if he should choose to do so, to follow my analysis with the book in his hands.
Conan Doyle's stories begin on a rather monotonous note. A Sherlock Holmes story will often begin with Watson's enumeration of the famous detective's adventures and exploits. After this, Watson selects a story for the occasion.
Meanwhile, hints are dropped concerning certain little-known matters, with some details thrown in for good measure.
More commonly, a story will begin with the appearance of a "client." The situation that serves as the basis for his or her appearance is quite prosaic. For example:
He had risen from his chair, and was standing between the parted blinds, gazing down into the dull, neutral-tinted London street. Looking over his shoulder I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa around her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while
104    Theory of Prose
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story 105
her body oscillated backwards and forwards, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell.
"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire du coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts." ("A Case of Identity")
Here is another example:
"Holmes," said I, as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, "here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone."
My friend rose lazily from his arm-chair, and stood with his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. It was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun. Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of the footpaths it still lay as white as when it fell. The grey pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but was still dangerously slippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual. Indeed, from the direction of the Metropolitan station no one was coming save the single gentleman whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention.
He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet his actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon his legs. As he ran he jerked his hands up and down, waggled his head, and writhed his face into the most extraordinary contortions. ("The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet")
As you can see, there is precious little variety in these excerpts. And let's not forget that both passages come from the same volume.
Before reproaching Conan Doyle, however, let us devote a little time to the question: what does Doyle need Dr. Watson for?
Dr. Watson plays a dual role.
First, as the narrator, Watson tells us about Sherlock Holmes and conveys to us his expectation of the latter's decision, while he himself is not privy to the detective's mental process. Only from time to time does Sherlock Holmes share some of his tentative decisions with his friend.
In this way, Watson serves to retard the action while at the same time directing the flow of events into separate channels. He could have been replaced in this case by a special arrangement of the story in the form of chapters.
Secondly, Watson is necessary as the "eternal fool" (this term is, of
course, rather crude, and I do not insist on making it a permanent part of the theory of prose). In this respect, he shares the fate of Inspector Lestrade, about whom more later.
Watson misconstrues the meaning of the evidence presented to him by Sherlock Holmes, allowing the latter to correct him.
Watson also serves as a motivation for a false resolution.
In addition, Watson carries on a dialogue with Holmes, answers the latter's queries, etc., that is, he plays the role of a servant boy who picks up after his master.
When a client pays a visit to Sherlock Holmes, he or she usually relates to him, in great detail, the full circumstances of the case. However, when such a storyteller is absent, that is, when, for example, Holmes is out on a call, then Holmes himself relates the details of the case to Watson.
Holmes loves to dumbfound his visitors (and Watson too) with his omniscience.
Holmes's devices of analysis hardly ever vary: in three out of the twelve stories under consideration, Sherlock Holmes singles out the sleeve:
"There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver." ("The Adventure of the Speckled Band")
Elsewhere Holmes adds:
"My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face, and observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to surprise her." ("A Case of Identity")
In another story, "The Red-Headed League," Holmes astounds his client by pointing out that he, the client, had been doing a lot of writing recently:
"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"
"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk."
This monotonous technique is explained, most likely, by the fact that these stories appeared in print in succession. The author could not clearly remember, apparently, that he had already used this device before. Yet, we must state as a generalization that self-repetition is far more common in literature than is commonly supposed.
70(5    Theory of Prose
The mystery device is sometimes implanted in the body of a novel in the way leading characters express themselves and in the author's comments on them. I will endeavor to demonstrate this in Dickens.
Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes expresses himself mysteriously on occasion. This mysteriousness is sometimes achieved by obliqueness (i.e., by a simple indirection).
The Inspector asks Holmes whether he plans to visit the scene of the crime:
"It was very nice and complimentary of you," Holmes answered. "It is entirely a question of barometric pressure."
Lestrade looked startled. "I do not quite follow," he said. ("The Boscombe Valley Mystery")
This indirection means: "If it doesn't rain."
Conan Doyle thought this passage important enough to be included in the story, even though it has no significance in the unfolding plot. Yet, in order to make use of this device, the author leaves Sherlock Holmes in the hotel. Holmes, therefore, has even more reasons than before to feel angry:" 'Oh, how simple it would all have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo, and wallowed all over it' " (ibid.).
Apart from Doyle's desire to show off Sherlock Holmes's wit and to demonstrate his prudence, the awkward delay in the hotel also enables the author to introduce certain analytical conversations into his story.
In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" the story is told in two parts. The first part tells of the cause of the crime. This is, so to speak, a summary. In the second part we are given the crime itself, and in great detail, at that.
I shall now tell the beginning of this story in excerpts. This is the story of the death of a woman as told by her sister. Since I am not writing a mystery story myself in these pages, I shall provide a preface to the deposition.
In the excerpts below you will find certain clues, whose purpose in each case is clearly to create a false resolution. Other instructions are given not directly but in passing (i.e., in subordinate clauses, on which the storyteller does not dwell, but which are nonetheless of major importance). And so a word of caution.
Excerpt 1: Material for a false resolution.
Excerpt 2: A vague clue as to the method used by the culprit to commit the crime.
Excerpt 3: The beginning of this passage includes an important clue concerning the circumstances of the crime. This clue is intentionally placed in the oblique form of a subordinate clause.
Excerpt 4: Details of the murder.
Excerpt 5: Same.
Excerpt 6: The words of the deceased are given in such a way as to support a false resolution (as if the woman were killed by gypsies). In the opening of the story we discover certain pieces of information
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story 107
pointing, it seems, to the stepfather as the culprit. This part is fully motivated.
(1) "He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end."
(2) "He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds, and are feared by the villagers almost as much as their master."
(3-4) "The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time, chatting about her approaching wedding. At eleven o'clock she rose to leave me but she paused at the door and looked back.
" 'Tell me, Helen,' said she, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle in the dead of night?'
" 'Never,' said I.
" 'I suppose that you could not possibly whistle yourself in your sleep?' " 'Certainly not. But why?'
" 'Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in the morning, heard a low clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from—perhaps from the next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would just ask you whether you had heard it.'
" 'No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the plantation.' "
(5) "As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen."
(6) "At first I thought that she had not recognized me, but as I bent over her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, 'Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!'... It is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met her end. Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon her."
The point is that in English the word "band" is a homonym (i.e., it has two meanings: a "ribbon" and a "gang"). The existence of two possible interpretations of this word are evident from the subsequent dialogue.
"Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band—a speckled band?"
"Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people, perhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation. I do not know whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear over their heads might have suggested the strange adjective which she used."
Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied.
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This use of a homonym is common in Conan Doyle. The following passage from "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" is built on the same principle:
"The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before he died? "Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some allusion to a rat...."
Holmes suggests quite a different meaning for this word: "What of the rat, then?"
Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it out on the table. "This is a map of the Colony of Victoria," he said. "I wired to Bristol for it last night." He put his hand over part of the map. "What do you read?" he asked.
"ARAT," I read.
"And now?" He raised his hand.
"BALLARAT."
"Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son only caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter the name of his murderer. So-and-so of Ballarat."
It would be easy to cite several such examples from Conan Doyle alone. The device is common enough. Jules Verne makes use of the semantic differences between languages in Children of Captain Grant. A mysterious document, hidden in a bottle and partially effaced by the water, is interpreted in several very different ways, depending upon the meaning that is assigned to the words jotted down by the traveler in his native tongue. The correct resolution of this puzzle is complicated by the fact that this traveler refers to the sight of the shipwreck by a geographic synonym (the island of Tabor).
Those of you who care to can easily find parallels elsewhere.
As you can see, it all comes down to this: Is it possible to lower two perpendiculars from one point onto the same line?
The writer looks for a case where two incongruous things overlap, at least in one respect. Of course, even in detective stories this coincidence often takes the form of something quite other than a word. In The Innocence of Father Brown, Chesterton employs as a device the coincidence of a gentleman's dress coat with the uniform of a valet.
But I digress.
Such hints, warning of a possible resolution and investing it with greater verisimilitude when it does take place, are quite common in mystery novels. In Conan Doyle's "The Man with the Twisted Lip," a man dons the attire of a beggar in order to collect alms. A series of none-too-complicated coincidences leads to St. Clair's arrest in his professional disguise. The beggar is charged with his own murder.
Sherlock Holmes investigates the case but comes up with a false resolution. The point is that St. Clair has been declared missing, while in the canal not far from the site of the alleged murder, a dress coat is found, whose pockets are crammed with coins.
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story 109
M Sherlock Holmes constructs a new hypothesis:
"No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed. What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike *""" him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments. He would seize the coat then, and
be in the act of throwing it out when it would occur to him that it would swim and not sink. He has little time, for he had heard the scuffle downstairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street. There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he Can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. He throws it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the police appeared."
This is a false resolution.
Meanwhile, the identity of St. Clair and Boone is alluded to in the following manner: During their search of Boone's apartment, the police discover traces of blood on the windowsill as well as on the wooden floor. At the sight I      of blood Mrs. St. Clair faints, and the police send her home in a cab, since her presence is of no help in the investigation. Inspector Barton searches the 4      premises thoroughly and finds nothing. He has made a mistake in not arresting Boone on the spot, thereby giving him the opportunity to talk the matter I s     over with the Malaysian. Remembering their error in time, the police rectify If      it by arresting Boone and searching him. However, no incriminating evidence is found on his person. True, they find bloodstains on the right t       sleeve of his shirt, but he shows them a finger sporting a prominent cut. In all probability, he explains, those bloodstains on the windowsill came from this |:     cut. After all he was walking towards the window when his finger started to bleed.
We see that the cut on Boone's finger is established indirectly. The main focus is on the windowsill with its bloodstains. On the other hand, Mrs. St. Clair, speaking of her deep feelings for her ?§      husband, says:
fj;      "There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if evil came upon him. HOn the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the l|; ;    dining-room rushed upstairs instantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened."
If; The author lays stress on the fact that Mrs. St. Clair sensed that her husband had injured himself rather than on the injury itself. Meanwhile, a motive for identifying St. Clair with Boone is established, since both have cuts on their fingers.
These elements of coincidence, however, are given in incongruous forms. Here the author's purpose is not so much to supply a "recognition" as to give it verisimilitude after the fact: Chekhov says that if a story tells us that
110    Theory of Prose
there is a gun on the wall, then subsequently that gun ought to shoot.
This motif, presented forcefully, changes over into what is called "inevitability" (Ibsen). This principle in its usual form corresponds in reality to the general principle of art. In a mystery novel, however, the gun that hangs on the wall does not fire. Another gun shoots instead.
It is very curious to observe the artist as he gradually prepares his material for just such a denouement. Let us take a distant example: In Crime and Punishment, Svidrigailov listens in on Raskolnikov's confession but does not inform on him. Svidrigailov represents a threat of a different nature.
However, it is quite uncomfortable for me to speak of Dostoevsky as a footnote to a chapter on Conan Doyle.
Before digressing, I had observed that the word "band" (by virtue of its dual meaning) as well as the reference to the gypsies prepare us for a false denouement. Sherlock Holmes says:
"When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an interest in preventing his stepdaughter's marriage, the dying allusion to a band, and finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those metal bars which secured the shutters falling back into their place, I think that there is good ground to think that the mystery may be cleared along those lines."
Obviously, the person responsible for this particular "false resolution" is Sherlock Holmes himself. This is explained by the fact that an official detective who usually constructs the false resolution is absent from "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" (precisely in this way Watson invariably misconstrues the evidence). Since this is so, it falls to Sherlock Holmes himself to commit the blunder.
The same holds for "The Man with the Twisted Lip."
One critic has explained the perennial failure on the part of the state investigator and the eternal victory of Conan Doyle's private detective by the confrontation existing between private capital and the public state.
I do not know whether Conan Doyle had any basis for pitting the English state against the English bourgeoisie. Yet I believe that if these stories were written by a writer living in a proletarian state, then, though himself a proletarian writer, he would still make use of an unsuccessful detective. Most likely, it is the state detective who would be victorious in such a case, while the private detective would no doubt be floundering in vain. In such a hypothetical story Sherlock Holmes would no doubt be working for the state while Lestrade would be engaged in private practice, but the structure of the story (the issue at hand) would not change. Let us now return to it.
Sherlock Holmes and his friend Watson, having traveled to the scene of the alleged crime, inspect the house.
They inspect the room of the deceased, where her sister, frightened for her life, now resides.
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Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story 111
"Where does that bell communicate with?" he asked at last, pointing to a thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the tassle actually lying upon the pillow. "It goes to the housekeeper's room." "It looks newer than the other things?" "Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago." "Your sister asked for it, I suppose?"
"No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we wanted for ourselves."
"Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there. You will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to this floor." He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand, and crawled swiftly backwards and forwards, examining minutely the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with the woodwork with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he walked over to the bed, and spent some time in staring at it, and in running his eye up and down the wall. Finally he took the bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug.
"Why, it's a dummy," said he.
"Won't it ring?"
"No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting. You can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little opening of the ventilator is." "How very absurd! I never noticed that before."
"Very strange!" muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. "There are one or two very singular points about this room. For example, what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!"
"That is also quite modern," said the lady.
"Done about the same time as the bell-rope," remarked Holmes.
"Yes, there were several little changes carried out about that time."
"They seem to have been of a most interesting character—dummy bell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate."
We have three objects before us: (1) the bell, (2) the floor, (3) the ventilator. I would like to point out that Sherlock Holmes is speaking here only of a one in three chance, and the third one appears more in the form of a hint. See the first story concerning the crime, that is, the subordinate clause of the first point.
There follows an examination of the adjacent room belonging to the doctor.
Sherlock Holmes examines the room and asks, pointing to the safe that has survived the fire:
"There isn't a cat in it, for example?" "No. What a strange idea!"
"Well, look at this! "He took up a small saucer of milk which stood on the top of it.
"No; we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon."
"Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I daresay. There is one point which I should wish to determine." He squatted down in front of the wooden chair, and examined the seat of it with the greatest attention.
"Thank you. That is quite settled," said he, rising and putting his lens in his pocket.
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As you can see, Holmes's findings are not made known. He then examines the bed.
The results of this examination are also not immediately revealed, while our attention is first drawn to a plinth: "The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on one corner of the bed."
Sherlock Holmes's conversation with Watson follows.
Sherlock Holmes brings out the as-yet-unemphasized details concerning the ventilator and says what he had not said earlier, that is, that the bed is screwed down.
"I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope [says Watson], and what purpose that could answer I confess is more than I can imagine." "You saw the ventilator, too?"
"Yes, but I do not think it is such a very unusual thing to have a small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a rat could hardly pass through." "I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to Stoke Moran." "My dear Holmes!"
"Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course that suggests at once that there must be a communication between the two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been remarked upon at the coroner's inquiry. I deduced a ventilator."
"But what harm can there be in that?"
"Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A ventilator is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the bed dies. Does not that strike you?" "I cannot as yet see any connection." "Did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed?" "No."
"It was clamped to the floor. Did you ever see a bed fastened like that before?" "I cannot say that I have." .
"The lady could not move her bed. It must always be in the same relative position to the ventilator and to the rope—for so we may call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull."
In this way, the new detail is first suggested and then connected to the other details of the story.
Ventilator, bell, bed. What remains unknown is what Holmes saw on the table and what is the significance of the rope.
Watson, as usual slow on the uptake, still does not understand. Holmes tells him nothing and consequently, tells us, who are separated from him by the narrator, nothing.
Sherlock Holmes in general does not bother to explain. He simply ends the matter with a flourish. But this flourish is preceded by our anticipation.
The detective and his friend are sitting in a room where a crime is anticipated. They have been waiting for a long time.
How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters
f
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story 113
cut off the least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness. From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at our very window a long drawn, catlike whine, which told us that the cheetah was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve o'clock, and one, and two, and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.
Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction of the ventilator...
I don't want to criticize Conan Doyle. However, I must point out his custom of repeating not only plot schemata but also elements of their execution.
Let me adduce a parallel from "The Red-Headed League":
What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position, yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin sighing note of the bank director. From my position I could look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.
In both cases the waiting (an obvious case of the use of the device of retardation of action) ends with the commission of the crime.
The criminal lets loose a snake. The snake crawls along the string from the ventilator. Holmes strikes at the snake, and shortly afterwards a scream is heard. Holmes and his assistants run into the adjacent room:
It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a dark lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott, clad in a long grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. Across his lap lay the short stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day. His chin was cocked upwards, and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion.
"The band! the speckled band!" whispered Holmes.
The pieces all begin to fall into place: the band on the face and finally the lash improvised from the loop that had been used. Here is Holmes's analysis:
"I had," said he, "come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of the word 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain the appearance which she had caught a horrid glimpse of by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered my position when, however, it
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became clear to me that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the door. My attention was speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the bed. The discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole, and coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the Doctor was furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I was probably on the right track. The idea of using a form of poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity with which such a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be an advantage. It would be a sharp-eyed coroner indeed who could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the whistle. Of course, he must recall the snake before the morning light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned. He would put it through the ventilator at the hour that he thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the rope, and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner or later she must fall a victim.
"I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his room. An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of standing on it, which, of course, would be necessary in order that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her father hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant."
Of course all these devices are masked to one degree or another. Every novel assures us of its reality. It is a common practice for every writer to compare his story with "literature."
In Pushkin's Ruslan and Lyudmila, Lyudmila not only eats the fruits in Chernomor's garden, but she eats them while violating literary tradition: "She thought about it and began eating."
All the more so is this applicable to a detective novel, which tries to pass itself off as a document.
Watson says:
I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so constantly from the fiction to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room, and gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day. ("The Boscombe Valley Mystery")
To this device of "make-believe" also belong (a) an allusion to other matters not ordinarily part of fiction and (b) suggestions that the publication of a given novel has been made possible due to the death of a certain woman.
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The range of types in Conan Doyle is very limited. Of course, if we are to judge by the author's world renown, then perhaps he had no need for such diversity. From the standpoint of technique, the devices employed by Conan Doyle in his stories are, of course, simpler than the devices we find in other English mystery novels. On the other hand, they show greater concentration.
Crime and its consequences all but dominate the detective novel, while in Radcliffe and Dickens we always find descriptions of nature, psychological analyses, and so on. Conan Doyle rarely gives us a landscape and, when he does offer it, it is usually to remind us that nature is good while man is evil.
The general schema of Conan Doyle's stories is as follows:
1. Anticipation, conversation concerning previous cases, analysis.
2. The appearance of the client. The business part of the story.
3. Clues introduced into the story. The most important clues take the form of secondary facts, which are presented in such a way that the reader does not notice them. In addition, the author supplies us with material for a false resolution.
4. Watson misinterprets these clues.
5. A trip to the site of the crime, which very frequently has not even been committed yet. By this device, the story attains narrative vigor. The crime story is thereby incorporated into the detective novel. Evidence gathered at the scene of the crime.
6. The official detective offers a false resolution. If there is no official detective, then the false resolution is furnished by a newspaper, by a victim, or by Sherlock Holmes himself.
7. The interval is filled in by the reflections of Watson, who has no idea what is going on. Sherlock Holmes is smoking or else listening to music. Sometimes he classifies the facts by groups without hazarding a definitive conclusion.
8. The denouement is for the most part unexpected. For the denouement, Doyle makes frequent use of an attempted crime.
9. Analysis of the facts made by Sherlock Holmes.
This schema was not created by Conan Doyle, although it was not stolen by him, either. It is called forth by the very essence of the story. Let us compare it briefly with "The Gold Bug" by Edgar Allan Poe. (I assume this work is well known. If one of you readers does not know of it, then I congratulate you on the prospect of reading another good story.) I myself shall analyze this story so as not to miss out on the pleasure:
1. Exposition: a description of a friend.
2. A chance discovery of a document. The friend calls the protagonist's attention to its reverse side. (A common enough device even for Sherlock Holmes.)
3. Mysterious actions committed by friends, related by a Negro (Watson).
4. A search for the treasure. Failure due to an error on the part of the
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Negro. (The usual device of braking the pace of the action. Compare the false resolution.)
5. The discovery of the treasure.
6. The friend's story with an analysis of the facts.
Everyone intent on studying the role of plot structures in Russian literature should pay close attention to Conan Doyle's use of clues and to the way the denouement emerges out of them.
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Chapter 6
Dickens and the Mystery Novel
Everyone who has ever worked on riddles has probably had occasion to notice that a riddle usually allows not one but several solutions.
A riddle is not merely a parallelism, one part of which has been omitted. Rather, it plays with the possibility of establishing a number ofparallel structures.
This is especially noticeable in erotic riddles.
In erotic riddles, play is evident in the displacement of an indecent image by a decent one. In this process, the first image is not eliminated but simply repressed.
D. Savodnikov makes the following observation concerning his riddle number 102:
Nearly all of the riddles having to do with a lock and a key are very ambiguous, and certain ones could not be admitted into this anthology. The number of such riddles is quite large, and we may boldly state that they are among those that are most widely known. Children tell these riddles without inhibitions. Young lads tell them with laughter, women and girls tell them in a whisper only. The latter case, however, is rare except for the kind of riddle where everything is called by its own name but from which, as in a song, the word has not been discarded. Instead, the storyteller warns his audience that the riddle is poorly told. The foundation for many of those riddles is most likely formed by mythic concepts and parallels, which have lost today their significance and meaning.
I'm in total disagreement with the latter assertion. At any rate, the necessity for such a hypothesis is not evident from the examples above.
A special type of riddle is represented by a riddle with a single solution of the Samson type: "From a poisonous thing emerges poison and from the strong emerges a sweet thing."
In these riddles the solution is usually provided by a single object known only to the storyteller. In fairy tales such a riddle, being the most difficult, is usually posed as the third in a series, or else it serves as an antiphonai riddle. At times it is resolved not by a verbal response but with a showing of the object. In Andersen for example, the queen's first question as to "what am I thinking about" is answered by the suitor when he shows her the chopped-off head of a troll.
Sometimes the riddle process begins with just such a riddle. Ivan the Fool poses the following riddle:
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"I was riding on my father, sitting on my mother, directing my brother, and chasing my sister." The solution to the riddle: "My father gave me a horse, and so I rode my father. The saddle was paid for with my mother's money and the bridle was paid with my brother's money, and the riding crop was paid for with my sister's money." (Belozero Tales, no. 78)
A similar type of story about a single episode is presented by the riddle of Solomon's wife: "I'm sitting on the emperor but looking at the king."
In the well-known nomadic plot "The Emperor and the Abbot," the king asks the third question, "What am I thinking about?" to which the respondent (a teacher, worker, or psalm-reader) says: "You think you're addressing someone, but in reality you are talking to some thing." Of the three tasks, the third has a single solution (false substitution).
Such a riddle, by its very essence, does not admit a solution. There's no way to guess at its meaning. There is no false riddle in it. It is interpreted against the background of the usual riddle.
One riddle of this type is already known to us. This is the riddle about the horse that was bought with papa's money.
Let me offer a second riddle:
Well, after spending the night at home, Ivan resolved to tell riddles again. Before doing so, Ivan, son of a peasant, washed himself with the sweat of a horse, dried himself with the mane of a horse and went off to meet her. She asks: "So why did you come, to tell riddles or to solve them?" "To tell riddles," said Ivan: "I sat on a horse, washed myself but not with the dew nor with water, and then dried myself but not with silk nor with a piece of cloth." Martha the queen was at a loss for words.
The second part follows with riddles of a totally different nature.
I would like to call your attention to the unique character of the first part of the riddle above. It is not to be found in riddle books. Such riddles remind us of Armenian riddles, which also do not admit of a solution and which have survived in the contemporary oral tradition. These riddles are understood against the background of the conventional riddle with a solution.
Story Based on Error
As I've already said, the simplest form of plot construction is based on a progressive or step-by-step development. In such a development, each succeeding step is distinguished from the preceding one both in quality and quantity. Step-by-step construction usually results in a circular structure.
Let us take, for example, Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. Built on degrees of adventure, it is a circular story involving an error of one day lost when crossing the international date line.
In adventure novels the circular story is very often built on recognition.
In Gil Bias, one of the stories serves as a denouement. It is not distinguished in its structure from the others. Rather, the sense of the end is
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achieved in this novel by the change in the writer's attitude towards his hero. At the end of the novel we see Gil Bias (as was true of Lazarillo in the earlier picaresque novel Lazarillo of Tormes) married, settled, and evidently deceived. The author introduces a note of irony into his relationship with his hero.
Much more frequently, an error, such as the one at the heart of Jules Verne's novel above, becomes the basis for a framing story. For the sake of simplicity, let us first examine the "error" in the story, and then the "error" in the novel.
A great number of stories are built on "errors."
Let us take an example from the story of Chekhov:
Given: Both priests and socialists wear their hair long.
Task: Confuse their identities.
Motivation: The bathhouse.
In Maupassant, genuine precious stones become mixed up with counterfeit ones. Two possibilities arise:
(1) The counterfeit jewelry is mistaken for genuine. This is the story of "The Necklace." A young woman borrows a necklace from her female friend only to lose it. She purchases a similar necklace on credit and returns it. She then squanders her youth in an attempt to pay off the debt. It turns out that the necklace that she had borrowed from her friend was counterfeit.
(2) The genuine precious stones are mistaken for counterfeit ones. This is the case of "Jewels." A man and his wife are living happily. The wife suffers from one defect: a love for costume jewelry. The wife dies. Needing them, the husband decides to sell the jewelry for a song. They turn out to be the real thing. She was paid for her infidelities with them.
In folklore we often find that a son mistakes his mother and father, whom he has found in his bed, for his wife and her lover. He then kills them (the legend of Julian). In Chekhov, a husband lands in someone else's room and mistakes the sleeping residents for his wife and her lover.
Elsewhere, a brother, a son, or a husband are taken for lovers.
In love one seeks to conquer while another resists. The same holds for the battlefield, from which we get the usual image of the battle of the sexes:
Oh staircase! You shall be the path, Along which my Romeo, handsome and fair. Intends to walk in the night to our marriage bed. Give me counsel! How am I to win this battle. In which I must lose my chastity.
This very same motif appears in Lucretius' De rerum natura and in Apuleius' The Golden Ass.
A reverse metaphor is common in folk poetry: the battlefield is compared to love or to a wedding (see The Song of Igor's Campaign).
People quarrel whether in love or war. It is possible to create parallels. In Maupassant, a parallel is given as a mistake. This is the short story "The
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Crime of Good Uncle Bonnard." The old man mistakes the quarreling newlyweds for murderers.
A woman might find herself asleep with her own children. This is the basis for the following case of non-recognition:
He arrives at his dwelling. He looks through the little windows located at the edge of the piece of land. A woman is sleeping with two young ones by her side next to a friend. He takes out a sword and is intent on cutting their heads off. "Threaten all you want but do not strike me." He raises his hand threateningly but without striking and enters his dwelling. He wakes up his wife and son, but she does not recognize him. He says: "Honey-dove, how many husbands do you have?" She says, "These are my sons." (from the same Onchukov 155, "Ivan the Unfortunate One")
Coming home to his wife, the husband sees her asleep with some young man. It is his own son.
In this way, the stories founded on error are similar to stories founded on puns. A pun is built on the customary meaning of a word, to which is added a new meaning and a justification for jumbling them up.
The motivation for both consists in the presence of a verbal sign that is shared by two distinct concepts.
In the story based on error the confusion of two given concepts is motivated by an external resemblance in circumstance that involves an ambiguous interpretation.
At bottom this is a mystery story and is therefore to be distinguished from the story based on parallelism.
The latter variety is typical, as I've already said, of Maupassant.
Story Based on Parallelism
In a story built on parallel structure, we are dealing with a comparison of two objects.
For example, the destiny of a woman is compared with the destiny of a female dog or with the destiny of a doe that's been beaten, etc. This comparison is usually developed in two segments, in two independent stories, as it were, united often only by the presence of a single narrator or by the place of action.
There is no need for examples. Nearly the entire body of Maupassant's shorter fiction clearly illustrates this principle of construction.
In the mystery story and mystery novel, on the other hand, we're dealing not with a comparison of objects but with the displacement of one object by another.
When a story is expanded into a novel, the moment of denouement increasingly loses its meaning. Parallel structure holds dominance over the structure built on intersecting plot lines.
The possibility of extending the denouement while sustaining the mystery
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has led to the fact that mystery stories, in contrast to stories built on puns, are often chosen as a framing device.
In the history of the mystery novel, the denouement has gradually lost its significance, becoming awkward, hardly noticed and superfluous.
This technique of the mystery novel is opposed by the novel based on a purely parallel structure, where the author does not resort to the device of entanglement.
While Dostoevsky had recourse in his plots to the technique of the mystery novel, Tolstoi preferred pure parallelism.
Even in choosing a framing story, Tolstoi adopted a parallel structure based on a paradoxical correlation between one member of a parallelism and another. For example, let us look at Hadji-Murad.
The tale begins with a description of a field. The narrator is gathering flowers for a bouquet. The tempo is leisurely on purpose:
I had gathered a large bouquet of flowers of all sorts and was now walking home when I noticed a wonderful crimson burdock in full bloom at the bottom of a ditch. It belonged to the species called amongst us the Tartar, which people go to great pains to cut down. When it is inadvertently cut down, it is thrown out of the hay wagon by the mowers lest they prick their fingers on it. Well, it occurred to me that I might want to pick this flower and place it in the very center of my bouquet. I lowered myself into the ditch and chased away a furry bumblebee which had fallen into a sweet and sluggish sleep within the arms of a flower. I then set out to get at the flower. However, this wasn't easy. As if it weren't enough that the stalk pricked and stabbed my hand on all sides after I had wrapped it in a handkerchief—it was so incredibly strong that even after five whole minutes and many a filament ripped off, I was still struggling with it. When I had finally managed to pluck the flower, the stalk was literally in pieces, and the flower no longer seemed that fresh and beautiful. Besides, on account of its coarse and disfigured state, it was no longer suitable for a bouquet of delicate flowers. I felt sorry that I had unjustly destroyed this flower which had looked so handsome in its place, so I threw it away. "And yet, what energy, what sheer tenacity," I thought to myself, as I recalled the efforts which I had expended in plucking this flower. How fiercely it defended itself, how dearly it made me pay for its life.
The narrator sees the shrub once again on his way home.
When I approached nearer, I recognized in the little shrub that same Tartar whose flower I had so unjustly plucked and abandoned. The Tartar shrub consisted of three shoots. One had been torn off, with the disabled bough protruding from its base like an arm whose hand has been hacked off. One lonely flower remained standing on each of the other shoots. These flowers had once been red and were now black. One stalk, broken, drooped towards the ground, and the soiled flower hanging on its tip bent along with it. The third stalk, although smeared with rich black mud, still managed to protrude upward. You could see that the whole shrub had been run over by a wheel and had afterwards risen up and, for that reason, was presently lying twisted on its side. And yet it stood—as if a piece of its body had been ripped out of it, as if its insides had been ripped open, as if its hand had been cut off, as if its eyes had been gouged. And still it stands, refusing to surrender to the human being who had snuffed out the life of its siblings all around him.