#very different from champavert/putiphar

[lafcadiosadventures]

The excitement of reading a new borel book +knowing you’ll have to wait for someone to read it to be able to scream about it to someone

[lafcadiosadventures]

Madame Putiphar Readalong. Book One, Chapter Ten:

Were it not for the open ending this chapter could have been a short story like those in Champavert. A young woman is stabbed by her father’s henchman who thinks he’s murdering her lover instead (as commanded by her father) Once the mistake is discovered, the father is distraught, not because he has much love for his daughter but because it frustrates his negotiations to marry her off.

Romeo and Juliet Act Five Header illustrated by Kenny Meadows, engraved by John Orrin Smith. From the Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive

We begin with more Cockermouth characterization which allows Borel to explain us the different ways in which English domain of Ireland was exerted. The autonomous since 1690 Irish Parliament was now under English control (whatever the intervened parliament decided had to be approved by the English Crown)

Both the Irish clergy and the rebels are fervently against Cockermouth (Cockermouth is so extreme and baroque in his power abuse that he had proposed to implement mandatory castration of catholic priests)(and the rebels that had fallen in his power during the Kerry uprisings had been treated with the utmost cruelty)(Cockermouth is here to rip the country’s culture off and obliterate its morale via gruesome violence)(Borel tells us this castration ordeal had been implemented before, and Cockermouth was merely trying to bring it back in 1723)(all I could find was this: “In 1719 a law was put forward which included the penalty of castration for unregistered priests. It was rejected by the British authorities. A 1723 bill was to require all Catholic bishops and clergy who were members of orders to leave the country, along with secular priests who did not take an oath of abjuration.”-> source )

But after that intro about exerting and holding power in colonies, the narrative violently swerves and we dive into the preparations for Cockermouth’s birthday party.

The only people adhering to the celebrations are the paupers (earlier the local workers payed their compulsory respects to their lord), who come expressly to their lands to pay liege homage to the kitchen. The description of the charity by the ladies of the castle is vaguely idealized. Anne and Deborah are like the good fairies feeding and dressing the mendicants. We are told they are dressed elegantly but are humble and kind and generous. The people are naturally grateful and happy at being fed and treated kindly. A full fledged popular party breaks out, bagpipes are implemented, the minstrels sing traditional songs and improvise some new ones in their hostesses honor. There is no irony in the treatment of charity by Borel. He makes that comment on the women’s elegance among the smoky surroundings and the dirtiness/raggedness/nudity of their guests, but calls it a beautiful example. However, this paragraph comes right after the one about Cockermouth violence so we cannot help but put them in contrast. How do the local poor people felt at being forced to get their food at the house of an infamous torturer, (who also usurped their land of its resources) willingly entering his house to beg for food because its a celebration day. It is very revealing of their desperation, even if Borel doesn’t highlight and has only positive words for Debby and Anne.

By nightfall, the comme il faut guests start arriving to the Castle. They are received by the Lord and Lady. She, “(...) of an interesting beauty even through a forest of fandangle (...) ” (translation -and footnotes- here!! ) I like Borel dismissing luxury as being in detriment of beauty (takes us back to his proclaimed love of poverty in the prologue for the Rhapsodies) So of course Debby, who is Petrus’ ideal wears no fussy jewels -but she has other reasons besides aesthetic ones to avoid attention. As soon as she can, she tries to get lost into the crowd.

But she is forced to abandon her hiding place to meet her husband to-be. She keeps her lips tightly shut in a smile, curtseying to her suitor, making herself into a pleasant doll, a nodding Coppelia, playing her part hoping it would make it all pass as quickly as possible.

And we hear about her suitor. Through him Borel sketches his own prototypical libertine in an 18 th c novel, but there is no glamour, no appeal to the figure. He is a man of leisure who is a professional rapist (the peasant girls he thinks himself so irresistible to, flee on his sight like Daphne from Apollo) He is also ridden with venereal diseases (the peasant girls run away from him like from the Plague, he is the masculine version of the prostitutes in Félicien Rops’ paintings, a skeleton hiding behind a grinning mask, but in his case even the mask is blood-curdling). His family is trying to prevent any grave scandal by marrying him off (by giving him Deborah) but of course he has no intention of changing his ways and is merely glad that his future wife is good looking and that her money would enable him future conquests because “Money is the sinews of war.” 

Deborah was aware of his reputation, but even if she hadn’t been she would have been instinctively repelled because his demeanour made him as repelling to women as poison.

As once as his disgusting attentions were over, she fled.

Leaving lights in her window when leaving her room to make it seem occupied, she ran to meet Patrick. We return to Cockermouth who is not enjoying himself, he is too anxious checking his watch, thinking of his plot to have any fun. At nine he meets Chris at the courtyard (and the next scene between them is once again a theatrical dialogue)

Thinking Debby was still in her room, they lock the gate expecting to keep her trapped inside. Chris complains about the lack of stars, the visibility is very low and he can’t see ahead. Low visibility notwithstanding, they still station themselves in a turret and Chris aims and shoots at a figure walking by bellow. They descend, and Cockermouth watches as Chris humiliates his victim.

Chris makes sure to bring up that one time Patrick refused to drink with him, and jokes on how he wouldn’t drink with him whom is now disembowelling him. To which lord Cockermouth feels compelled to add the disembowelling is done on his behalf. (to which Chris adds, rather insolently, on half his behalf) Cockermouth grows impatient at his henchman’s childish sadism (he is compared to Harlequin, we already discussed this but they are farce and commedia coded). As he would never be able to murder him by hitting him with the butt of his rifle only, the Lord hands him the feudal sword to make the task swifter. (and I bet Chris would have been extremely pleased by being bestowed that honor, touching the blade of his beloved Lord, but he is having too much fun stabbing away to remark on that fact. Cockermouth asks for his sword to be cleaned before it being returned to him)

After the carnage, Cockermouth nonchalantly returns to the banquet. He invites his guests to follow him to the dining room. They all seat for the feast. Deborah’s fiancé misses her, and asks over and over for her. Lord Cockermouth angrily sends Chris to find her, bring her back and scold her for her rudeness. When Chris returns, he reports that Deborah was nowhere to be found. However, her rooms were locked from within and the lights were still burning. Cockermouth extended arm fell inertly on the table, all the guests noticed his distress and his pallor...