Showing posts with label virginity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label virginity. Show all posts

31 Mar 2022

Notes on 'The Ladybird' (Pt. 2)

If I were a little ladybird
And had four little wings
I'd fly to thee -
 
 
This post is a continuation of Notes on 'The Ladybird' (Pt.1): click here. 
 
 
V. 
 
And speaking of secret knowledge ... The Count, it turns out, subscribes to occultism and is a member of a secret society. One of his beliefs concerns the true (invisible) nature of fire and the blackness of the sun. As I have discussed this in a previous post, I won't go into details here [g]
 
Essentially, the Count's point is that, like fire, true love isn't white and ideal; it may look that way on the surface, but underneath it's dark; "a throbbing together in darkness" [180]. Daphne is unconvinced. Nevertheless, she could see the darkness in his eyes and perceived the "invisible, cat-like fire stirring deep inside them [...] coming towards her" [181]. And so she turns and hurries away. 
 
During the summer, she rather forgets about Count Dionys and remembers she has a husband; one who was shortly to return. Nevertheless, the Count's words have penetrated her unconscious: "So it was that in her own way she thought often enough of the Count's world inside-out." [181] And so it was she shivered when thinking of Basil, whose love had made her nerve-worn
 
She determined not to think of the Count and the secret love he offered: he was not merely an "impudent little fellow" [182], but a madman. Better off with Basil; "an adorable, tall, well-bred Englishman" [182] with a penchant for silk underwear. He might get on her nerves, but better that than the Count and his foreign unreality
 
"But still she used the Count's thimble." [183] Until, that is, she loses it (down the back of the sofa, as we shall see).
 
 
VI. 
 
In late Autumn, Daphne decides to visit the Count once more. She finds him collecting chestnuts and thinking to himself that "'the same power which put up the mountains could pull them down again'" [186], a thought that makes him happy. In other words, the Count has found his god at last: and he's a god of destruction who tears down the world of man as well as the mountains. 
 
Daphne thinks him foolish as well as perverse. He calls her a plucked white lily and tells her that he cares only about her invisible root - that's what he wishes to discover, though not with kisses, but with the hammer that beats in his heart. She again bids him farewell and takes her leave. "And henceforth she thought only of her husband, of Basil. She made the Count die out of her." [189] 
 
But when Basil returns to England and she hears his terribly cultured voice - "like cold blue steel" [190] - on the telephone, her heart "contracted with fear" [189] (which is never a great sign). When he arrives home, within moments he is on his knees and kissing her feet in amorous worship. Again, I have commented elsewhere on this scene, so won't discuss it here in any detail [h]
 
Needless to say, Daphne is a little frightened - almost horrified - but she was also "thrilled deep down to her soul" [193] and a little giddy with the sense of her own pale power: "She really felt she could glow white and fill the universe [...]" [193] 
 
While Daphne is semi-enjoying her new goddess status, Basil plonks himself on the sofa and pushes his hands "between the deep upholstery of the back and the seat" [193]. And lo and behold, he pulls out a plum - or, rather, Daphne's lost thimble, which seems to fascinate him almost as much as it does her. He questions her about it and is told the tale of Count Dionys. 
 
Then Basil returns to worshipping his wife - this time admiring her sacred white hands and wonderful Prosperine fingers [i], begging her to accept the sacrifice of himself (which sounds suspiciously like a euphemism and it's probably la petite mort that he desires, rather than actual death) [j]
 
Placed back on a pedestal and subject to Basil's adoration-lust, Daphne is soon feeling ill again. For alas, she was not the goddess he thought her. And of course she starts to dream about Count Dionys and "to yearn wistfully for him" [196]. So she decides, shortly before Christmas, to go visit him again - though this time accompanied by Basil. 
 
 
VII. 
 
Perhaps wishing to seem mysterious and full of the darkness that Count Dionys so loves, Daphne wears black furs and a black lace veil for her visit. She is worried, however, that he will still find her too modern in her beauty and effective loveliness
 
Uncertain whether the Count is mocking her with his compliments and flattering remarks, Daphne is sure of one thing - he doesn't like Basil: "Nay more, she could feel that the presence of her tall, gaunt, idealistic husband was hateful to the little swarthy man" [199], despite his polite manner. 
 
Strangely, however, Basil is fascinated by the Count. And before long Daphne is ignored by both men, as they exchange their philosophies of life: "She might just as well have been an ugly little nobody, for all the notice that was taken of her." [200] Nevertheless, she follows the argument between Basil and the Count - sympathetic to the latter, but agreeing with the former, whose words she believed to be true. 
 
In brief: Basil argues for love and the Count says there is something else; something unnameable beyond love (we know, of course, as readers of Lawrence, what this is: it's power and the so-called sacred responsibility of power as exercised by natural aristocrats). 
 
Daphne is not impressed by the Count's arguments, even though Basil finds what the latter says terribly amusing. And curiously enough, "it was now Basil who was attracted by the Count, and Daphne who was repelled" [204]. But if she now almost hates the Count, her grudge against her "white-faced, spiritually intense husband was sharp as vinegar" [205]. In all honesty, she feels let down by the pair of them - men!
 
What next? A gay romance? A queer threesome? No - that's not quite Lawrence's style. But Basil does invite the Count to stay with him and Daphne, at his in-laws mansion, for a fortnight before being shipped back to Austria. Of course, this was rather naively inviting trouble ... 
 
 
VIII. 
 
Whilst staying at her parents place, the house in which she was born, Daphne thinks with fondness of the working-people and regrets the fact that, ultimately, her consciousness "seemed to make a great gulf between her and the lower classes" [211]. She accepted this as a form of fate - even as her doom: "She could never meet in real contact anyone but a super-conscious finished being like herself: or like her husband [...]" [211] 
 
That said, there was the Count: he had something that was hot and invisible; "a dark flame of life that might warm the cold white fire of her own blood" [211]. However, whilst he stays at her home, she mostly avoids contact with him. In fact, all three - Daphne, Basil, and their queer guest - avoided one another as much as possible. And the days slipped by ... 
 
At night, when alone in his room and alone in his soul, the Count likes to sing "the old songs of his childhood" [212], in a small, high-pitched voice: "It was a curious noise: the sound of a man who is alone in his own blood: almost the sound of a man who is going to be executed." [212] 
 
One night, Daphne hears this strange "bat-like sound of the Count's singing to himself" [212]. And, even though unable to understand a word, the crooning made her forget everything. And so, after that first night, she listens out for the sound of his voice. Indeed, it became "almost an obsession with her" [212]; she had to hear him - and she had to respond to this call from the beyond that promised to transport her out of herself and out of her world. 
 
When the singing stopped, Daphne went to sleep; "a queer, light, bewitched sleep" [213]. This enchantment continues into the daytime: "She felt strange and light, as if pressure had been removed from around her [...] her feet felt so light, and her breathing delicate and exquisite" [213]
 
One night, the Count doesn't sing and Daphne is terrified lest the spell be broken and she is thrown back into her old life. She waits like one doomed throughout the following day. Happily, that night the singing resumes - and Daphne can resist no longer; she goes to his room, answering his peculiar call.
 
Whilst sitting outside his room and trying to find the courage to enter, a new song begins; the most terrible song of all, a kind of inhuman serenade: "It began with a rather dreary, slow, horrible sound, like death." [214] Still, this does the trick and Daphne knocks desperately on his door and pushes her way past the astonished figure of the Count when he answers, into the darkness of his room. 
 
There's an awkward silence as they sit together in the dark. If she remained more or less spellbound, he was genuinely a little embarrassed by her presence in his room and unsure what to do: 
 
"Then suddenly, without knowing, he went across in the dark [...] And he sat beside her on the couch. But he did not touch her. Neither did she move. The darkness flowed about them thick like blood, and time seemed dissolved in it. They sat with the small, invisible distance between them, motionless, speechless, thoughtless." [215] 
 
Lawrence continues, in his own unique manner: 
 
"Then suddenly he felt her fingertips touch on his arm, and a flame went over him that left him no more a man. He was something seated in flame [...] like an Egyptian king-god [...]" [216] 
 
Daphne slides to the floor and presses her face against his feet, her hair against ankles, and there she clung, crying, whilst he sat erect and motionless. Unable to offer her much of a future in this world, he promises that she will be his in the next life: 
 
"'In the dark you are mine. And when you die you are mine. But in the day, you are not mine, because I have no power in the day. In the night, in the dark, and in death, you are mine. [...] So don't forget - you are the night-wife of the ladybird [...]" [216-17] 
 
Is that really likely to satisfy a woman? I mean, it's nice to know you have someone waiting who wants you in the afterlife for all eternity. But that doesn't pay the bills and mostly it just seems an elaborate way for him to take his leave of her whilst, at the same time, making her feel - as Madonna would say - like a virgin / touched for the very first time [k]
 
 
IX.
 
After this, Daphne's face takes on a delicate stillness and purity, which even Basil notices. And this new innocence negates his ecstatic desire for her: "She was so still, like a virgin girl. And it was this quiet, intact quality of virginity in her which puzzled him most, puzzled his emotions and his ideas. He became suddenly ashamed to make love to her." [217-18] 
 
They decide to live more as brother and sister than man and wife from this point on. This suits Daphne, who has decided she belongs to the Count, but it also suits Basil: "The excitement of desire had left him, and now he seemed to see clear and feel true for the first time in his life." [218] 
 
The Count leaves, but not without giving another esoteric pep talk to Daphne: 
 
"'Don't forget me. Always remember me. I leave my soul in your hands and your womb. Nothing can ever separate us, unless we betray one another. [...] And never fail to believe in me. Because even on the other side of death I shall be watching for you. I shall be king in Hades when I am dead. And you will be at my side [...] since you are the wife of the ladybird." [220] 
 
One can't help wondering how many other women the Count has said this to ...? It seems a well-rehearsed speech to me.
 
And one can't help thinking that it's the kind of poisonous sweet nonsense which male cult leaders whisper into the ears of their female followers; one could easily imagine Charles Manson, for example, saying this to one of his devoted hippie girls. No wonder when he abandons Daphne, the Count laughs to himself. 
 
 
Notes
 
[g] Readers who are interested should see 'On the Scintillation of Being' (9 Jan 2018): click here
 
[h] Readers who are interested should see 'On the Transsexual Consummation of Foot Fetishism' (25 July 2013): click here
 
[i] For my thoughts on hand partialism, see the post of 27 Dec 2012: click here
 
[j] In many ways, Basil is similar to the character of Everard in Lawrence's novel Mr Noon: both men have a sensual nature which they disguise with their idealism; both like to kiss the feet of the woman they adore as a white goddess; and both are prepared to sacrifice themselves, if only they might receive their gratification first. See Mr Noon, ed. Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 191-92.
 
[k] Madonna, 'Like a Virgin', single release (31 Oct 1984) from the album of the same title (Sire Records, 1984), written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. Click here to watch the official video, dir. Mary Lambert, on YouTube.


4 Jun 2014

Like a Virgin: Madame B. and Lady C.

Illustration of Gustave Flaubert and Mme. Bovary
from online arts and culture magazine Salon

According to Andrea Dworkin, the modern era of rebellious married women who seek freedom via adultery and sexually transgressive acts begins with Madame Bovary (1856): she is the first in a long line of female characters for whom heroism consists in taking a lover and experiencing a genuine orgasm; i.e. in being fucked and fucked good.

But, somewhat paradoxically, Emma Bovary also redefines virginity as well as heroic rebellion. For according to Flaubert, a woman who has not been overwhelmed by sexual passion, not broken the law in order to be carnal - who has been fucked by a husband, but never been truly touched or transformed by her experiences in the marital bedroom - remains essentially a virgin and a type of slave who leads an unfulfilled life of domestic boredom and impoverished fantasy.

Of course, poor Emma's story ends tragically; she mistakes illicit romance for action in the real and wider social world and fucking becomes for her a "suicidal substitute for freedom", as Dworkin rightly notes. This, however, has not prevented a long line of writers finding inspiration in her sorry tale and inventing their own virgin wives whose only hope lies in what Lawrence describes as a phallic hunting out and which involves anal as well as vaginal penetration by the male.

In fact, it might be argued that Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover is the ultimate example of this phallocentric and phallocratic fantasy in which a woman, if she is to be liberated, must be repeatedly stripped and penetrated (or pierced, as Lawrence writes - as if it were a knife or sword rather than a penis forcefully entering and occupying her body). 

Connie risks her life, but she is happy to die a poignant, marvellous death just so long as she is fucked; the one thing she really wants regardless of consequences and despite the fact that during her night of sensual passion she is almost unwilling, a little frightened, and obliged to be but a passive thing

It's over eighty-five years since Lawrence wrote his last and most notorious novel, but the model of female sexuality based upon a metaphysical virginity which he helped shape is one which continues to grip the pornographic imagination and continues to exercise a real effect over the lives of real women as an obscene form of categorical imperative.

As Dworkin writes: "no matter how much [women] have fucked ... no matter with what intensity or obsession or commitment or conviction (believing that sex is freedom) or passion or promiscuous abandon", it's never enough; these dumb bitches never learn! And so they must keep consenting to penetration, being desirable, looking hot (the pressure to do so being exerted across an ever greater age-range; from pre-pubescent girls to post-menopausal grandmothers).

Surely it's time to notice that whilst more girls and women are freer than ever to get fucked, they are still unable to share "a whole range of feelings, express a whole range of ideas, address [their] own experience with an honesty that is not pleasing to men, ask questions that discomfit and antagonize men in their dominance".      

And surely it's time to admit - without denying the great beauty and brilliance of their work - that dead male novelists, poets, and philosophers might not be best placed to help us all move forward into a world after the orgy.


Notes

See Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, (Basic Books, 2007). The lines quoted are on pp. 140, 151 and in the 1995 Preface, pp. xxxiii-iv.

See also D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), chapter sixteen. The italicized words are Lawrence's own.