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guardians_song) wrote2013-08-18 12:59 pm
guardians_song) wrote2013-08-18 12:59 pm
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Let's Read: Carmilla [Chapter 5]
Chapter 5: A Wonderful Likeness
Alternatively: In which Laura's tsundere status becomes, however briefly, very Not Funny.
A great event is occurring at the schloss, for the portrait-cleaner has arrived, carrying some old pictures Laura's father sent off to him to be restored. As he's coming from the capital, he's also good for gossip and such.
Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one after the other the old pictures, nearly all portraits, which had undergone the process of renovation, were brought to light. My mother was of an old Hungarian family, and most of these pictures, which were about to be restored to their places, had come to us through her.
It occurs to me... wait. Laura? As Carmilla's doing nothing, she's not really relevant to this description. You could have said as easily "I sat looking eagerly on" and it would have been more appropriate, since you're the narrator.
Ahem. Interesting that you consider her mere presence an important part of this description, isn't it?
Last to be revealed was a foot-and-a-half-tall square picture that was too blackened by age to even begin to make out, so Laura's father is eager to see it. And... dun dun dun... it's a portrait of a woman who looks exactly like Carmilla!
(One wonders if H.P. Lovecraft was at all inspired by this story in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Of course, any resemblance is hard to recognize, since he never included anything near romance or sexual innuendo.)
Laura is quite enthusiastic about it, calling it "beautiful" - twice - and noting that it gets every detail right down to "the little mole on her throat". Laura's father laughs but doesn't share her fascination, "to [Laura's] surprise", and goes on chatting with the portrait-cleaner...
[...] while I was more and more lost in wonder the more I looked at the picture.
So naturally she asks her father to let her hang it in her room.
I mean. Platonic best friends do that all the time, particularly when they have said friend right in the same house. Sometimes you just can't stand waiting until one in the afternoon to see her beautiful face, so you just sit on the edge of your bed and stare at it lovingly until the news comes from downstairs that she's up...
Laura? I know the Victorians were very much into deep, loving same-sex friendships, but you're pushing the limits of even those.
The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty speech, did not seem to hear it. She was leaning back in her seat, her fine eyes under their long lashes gazing on me in contemplation, and she smiled in a kind of rapture.
Also, your tsundere act has totally collapsed into the "dere dere" stage, so it's become evident to Carmilla that 'No' means 'No, absolutely not, but I wouldn't find the strength within me to resist your disturbing actions when you embrace me and stare lovingly at me and murmur sweet nothings in my ear, fiend... also, I'm ticklish about an inch down from my right ear and a little to the side, but I most certainly do not expect you to take advantage of a weakness so confided with absolute trust in your goodness and sweetness of nature, understand? No, not there, a little further to the si- aaaaah, that's nice.'
Laura further comments:
“And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the corner. It is not Marcia; it looks as if it was done in gold. The name is Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, and this is a little coronet over and underneath A.D. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was.”
If you want some idea of the current year, Carmilla was written in A.D. 1872, the narrator says that Laura perished "many years" before the present day, and the Karnsteins ended as a family line about a hundred years before the story. So you may take it as occurring between 1798-1862 or thereabouts - point being, Carmilla is at least a hundred years old.
Also, she shares Voldemort's fondness for anagrams. (In more serious, she's apparently bound by her vampiric nature to do that, but I couldn't resist the snark.)
This is also an absolute groaner of a callback to "Are we related?" - yes, in fact, you are! But only distantly, so it shouldn't impede the marriage. *snigger*
Carmilla comments that she, too, is descended from the Karnsteins - "a very long descent, very ancient" (in much the same sense that Walburga Black was, "house of [her] fathers" and all) - and asks if there are any now living. They were ruined in civil wars, alas, but the ruins of their castle are only three miles away... including that crypt I mentioned in Chapter 1.
Upon the mention of her nightly vacation-home, Carmilla changes the subject and proposes a nice stroll in the moonlight. Laura, presumably still bushwhacked by the portrait, spouts borderline-romantic dialogue without her usual repression.
“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said.
Anyone else reminded of Albus Dumbledore's 'But if you hadn't gotten kicked out of Durmstrang, we never would have met! :D'?
Encouraged, Carmilla is somewhat more blatant than usual:
She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s waist, we walked out upon the pavement.
In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful landscape opened before us.
“And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost whispered. “Are you glad I came?”
“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered.
“And you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your room,” she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder.
They sound like they're having a date on their anniversary. Though, in all fairness, I'm guessing that this is about a month from when they met, so it is an anniversary of sorts.
Okay, I take it back - maybe this chapter has more subtext than Chapter 4. ...I could excuse my earlier characterization on the grounds that Chapter 4 had more subtext. This is just text.
“How romantic you are, Carmilla,” I said. “Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance.”
...Let's just look at what was just said. Laura should believe that Carmilla hasn't had contact with anyone outside of the schloss, given that she's essentially an invalid and all other human habitations are very far off, and she hasn't so much as raised the specter of an inter-class romance. As such, the only people of her rank in this situation are Laura's father and Laura herself. We have not the least reason to believe any unusual affection between Carmilla and Laura's father.
Therefore, Laura's "sure" belief that Carmilla is having "an affair of the heart" is a Freudian slip of massive proportions. And that's leaving out that the only person with Carmilla literally "at this moment" is Laura herself.
Laura is not oblivious. She is also not having a tenth as much difficulty as she would like us to believe regarding the matter of connecting Point A to Point B. Her determined ignorance is just at the point where she's denying that she has any ability to join "Poi" to "nt B".
“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.”
How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!
...What do I even say? It's right there in the text.
Now, let's just keep going on, because I have to point something out.
Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.
Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”
She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colourless and apathetic.
“Is there a chill in the air, dear?” she said drowsily. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in.”
Yes, Carmilla, there is a chill in the air. It's radiating off the local ice queen.
Now that her closet door is no longer being assaulted with an axe, Laura displays concern for Carmilla and asks if she needs some wine. Carmilla agrees that she wants a drink - er, says "Yes, do give me a little wine" - and adds as they approach the door:
“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.”
Hm, yes, about that line...
The night of these events is when Carmilla starts up the vampirism. Before that, however, she'll offer at the start of the next chapter to go track down her "mother" and cease to give Laura's family any trouble. So I'm not sure to which this is referring.
It might (?) be that Carmilla means that she won't be available to see the moonlight with Laura, since she'll be too busy being a vampire. However, this doesn't make sense, as she only goes about her vampiric obligations after everyone goes to sleep, and I don't believe this changes once she begins feeding upon Laura. It might also be, to take the more horrific option, that she might slip up and kill Laura when she feeds upon her tonight, or that she's considering deliberately killing Laura tonight. Now, the story doesn't so much as hint that Carmilla has any concern about getting carried away while feeding on Laura, so I assume she has adequate control over the kill-or-spare threshold - and it seems radically OOC for Carmilla to even consider killing Laura, since she's shown her nothing but sweet, passionate affection. But it has been established that Carmilla loses her temper when acutely provoked, and abrupt rejection when both young women seemed to have entirely cast aside their defenses might have proved sufficient provocation. One can't dismiss that, because Carmilla has also been shown to recover almost immediately from her flashes of vicious anger. If such emotions were secretly fueling that remark, she might well have discarded her homicidal fantasy as soon as she had spoken.
It might instead be that she sincerely means her imminent offer to leave, and so she's acting so listless over the thought of never seeing Laura again. I think this should be my preferred explanation, since it's consistent and I don't like the idea of Carmilla even contemplating killing Laura. (Yes, I'm a shipper. I know that I shouldn't care all that much about Carmilla, since she IS killing all these girls off-screen, but...)
Something vaguely supporting this is Carmilla's response after Laura becomes alarmed and starts inquiring as to her health (being worried that she's come down with a case of imminent Dead):
“I’m sure [your father] is [concerned about my health]. I know how kind you all are; but, dear child, I am quite well again. There is nothing ever wrong with me, but a little weakness. People say I am languid; I am incapable of exertion; I can scarcely walk as far as a child of three years old: and every now and then the little strength I have falters, and I become as you have just seen me. But after all I am very easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectly myself. See how I have recovered.”
Were she thinking about Laura coming down with a case of Dead, she wouldn't be talking about Laura's family's kindness or addressing her as "dear child". (This, to me, is a massive Freudian slip on Carmilla's part - she and Laura are supposed to be the same age or thereabouts, and yet she's addressing her as a much older woman might kindly address a girl of Laura's years... which is accurate to the true situation.)
And a surface reading would say the "and every now and then the little strength I have falters" comment is just an excuse to cover the true nature of her "illness", but... since I'm reading in-depth, I'm wondering. Carmilla doesn't seem to actually view her vampiric nature as anything wrong with her: she's just acting according to her nature, as we saw her state in Chapter 4. Therefore, she may be speaking honestly, though not in the manner she would lead Laura to think. The "weakness" must then be something that causes her to act contrary to her vampiric nature, or at least is not part of her vampiric nature.
Furthermore, she ties it to those times when "the little strength I have falters" AND SO "I become as you have just seen me". Now, Laura herself tells us that Carmilla's wild affection for her is "unmistakably the momentary breaking out of suppressed instinct and emotion". As such, Carmilla's strength is failing her whenever she breaks into fits of passion - it no longer permits her to suppress her true instincts and emotions. Well, the poor peasant girls would attest she certainly isn't suppressing her vampiric instincts!
I would then say that these overwhelming emotions may be what remains of her human nature, for good or for ill - "for ill", I say, because that would imply that her sudden rages stem from Carmilla and not Carmilla-the-vampire. Ah, well, the Karnsteins were reputed to be nasty sorts.
As evidence, I note that both Carmilla and her "mother" (and a nameless male accomplice that will appear in a recounting of one of her previous appearances) are stated and shown to be excellent actresses, and vampires are, after all, predators. Their instinct is to feed, not to caress. Ordinarily, they can behave as charmingly as they please and be untouched by human happiness and suffering alike, but when the mask slips...
And Carmilla's affection for Laura is a weakness, certainly. It causes her to be hurt when Laura is hurt by her unwillingness to confide in her, it causes her to go out of her way for someone who would ordinarily become just another delicious meal, and I do think it went straight to her heart when Laura rebuffed her at her most emotionally vulnerable. "She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown" (emphasis mine)...
There, see? This is no longer Lesbian Twilight, this is Lesbian New Moon, and Laura, in a shocking role-reversal, has just pulled an Edward. And, astonishingly enough, an undead mass-murderer is far more sympathetic than a high-school girl whose worst actual crime is being an utter asshole.
This does a far better job of demonstrating just HOW much good writing matters for gaining the audience's sympathies than any rant on characterizations could dream of achieving.
On the subject of "dreaming", let me return to an earlier line:
have I been dreaming?
On the surface, this seems like a hilariously transparent attempt to pretend that she doesn't remember what she was just doing. But, in another sense, she may be asking 'Was I only imagining that I had any hope of carrying this off?' That is to say, has this entire romance been a dream?
Carmilla knows better than this. She's a fine actor and a vampire, and she really has no need to form bonds with humans beyond what will bring her to her next meal. But sometimes she succumbs to her "little weakness", and she becomes as Laura has just seen her. She falls prey to less practical feelings...
But it's all right, really. She is "very quickly set up again"; "in a moment," she recovers. And so, whatever she felt a moment before? That doesn't really matter. Not at all.
I admit that I may care an abnormal amount about this because I've had my own issues with emotional repression, and it's a rotten, soul-destroying way to live. Not without its uses, naturally. And emotional control is an ENTIRELY different thing, despite what many, many numbskulls would have you believe. Emotional control is a matter of clear, focused thought; emotional repression is a matter of abolishing thought. I could really go on for a while... sorry, does it show that I feel strongly about this?
So, to me, even Carmilla's talk of instantaneous recovery is painfully sympathetic, because that sounds far too much like emotional suppression - down to the emotionally-dead and then brokenly-at-peace state she briefly takes on right after Laura's jerking away. Actual emotional shifting requires... a bit more time and reasoning than that. And it really doesn't help that the story continues:
So, indeed, she had; and she and I talked a great deal, and very animated she was; and the remainder of that evening passed without any recurrence of what I called her infatuations.
Because... I mean, one can throw oneself into activities with abnormal enthusiasm to distract oneself from repressed pain...
Also, Laura dear, you just admitted that you knew damn well she's infatuated with you. That's a DAMNING slip, no matter HOW you follow it up:
I mean her crazy talk and looks, which embarrassed, and even frightened me.
'Her infatuations - I mean, her crazy talk and looks! I don't understand any of it, and it r-really makes me feel all awkward... and stuff... and it scares me!'
I suppose I should be more sympathetic to Laura. She's nineteen, she's had a very isolated upbringing, she's implied to have never had anything close to a romantic relationship before, she may not even have had any close friends before, she lives in a time when there's hardly any concept of same-sex romantic love, and now her charming, lovely best-friend-at-first-sight is saying all these strange and bizarre things to her and, when she embraces her, makes her feel some very odd sensations that, even eight years on, she cannot clearly put into words. ("I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling. ") She's been thrown into the deep end of the pool, and she cannot even dog-paddle.
Even so, I can't feel too kindly towards her. She may not understand what's going on, but she's playing harshly with a preternaturally sensitive heart - too fuzzy-feeling-dazed to put up a protest or struggle when Carmilla presses herself upon her, but too cowardly to stop pushing Carmilla away when she gets too emotionally close and start seeing where this road takes her.
I do laugh at her tsundere status, but it's a bit hard to find it funny when she's just broken Carmilla's heart.
Look, it is somewhat realistic (even if Laura's particular manner of studied obliviousness takes a spectacular amount of cognitive dissonance, and one that I don't think is quite true to life). But it's the kind of realistic that accompanies phrases like "a lifetime of regret"...
What the *bleep* am I doing getting so emotional over a vampire story? Confound it, I sound like a deranged Twihard.
AHEM. At any rate, we then have this sentence to drive us onward into the next chapter:
But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to startle even Carmilla’s languid nature into momentary energy.
But I'll stop there for now, because I've spilled out a bewildering amount of emotional gibberish about this chapter, and that's really enough to which to subject you lot. Besides, I think my discussion of the next chapter will be rather more snarky, and the tone whiplash would undermine the sincerity and attentiveness with which I was writing the above.
Okay. This was actually a rather short chapter compared to Chapter 4 - it got so much attention only because a close reading revealed its importance in the overall story arc. It's less than 1300 words long! But when I went through it line-by-line, I realized that Laura's rejection this time occurred in a rather different context than her usual tsundere routine. ...Which does affect my reading of the rest of the text, I'll admit, and makes me more sympathetic to the less savory actions which Carmilla takes from this point on. The lady was sorely provoked, and Laura has basically made it clear that she isn't oblivious so much as so deep in the closet that she's started hacking through the floorboards.
I mean, yes. The vampirism goes on without Laura's consent, and it's rather unlikely that she would give her consent if asked. I mean, sure, sometimes pigs have been found on airplanes, but not too often. But Laura proves oddly acquiescent in the whole thing. And here's the thing, though it may be jumping ahead...
For all that Laura claims to be powerless, she can and does jerk away from Carmilla if she comes on too strong. Likewise, when she comes down with a protracted case of potential Dead, she outright refuses to tell anyone she's ill, inform her father, or send for the doctor, which are all implied to be ways out. Indeed, once the doctor sends for her, the jig is up and the entire thing goes downhill from there. (Alas and damnit!) In cruder, modern terms? She safewords out whenever the scene gets too intense, and she doesn't safeword out of the vampirism.
...That definitely changes my reading of the rest of the text, because it alters my attitude from 'Pfft, do you really mind, Laura?' to '....You really don't mind, do you, Laura?'. And the shift in my view of Laura's understanding from 'Good gad you're oblivious' to 'You know damned well what's going on here, but you can't let your mind make the final connection' rather... changes my view of how she's reacting. And it alters my understanding of the book from 'comically-transparent metaphor for lesbianism dressed up as a horror story' to 'romantic tragedy with frequent moments of hilariously ridiculous obliviousness'.
(Yes, I apologize. I have given you far too much of an idea regarding the obliviousness actually being Serious Business, but well over half the time it really is the people in this book being as thick as three planks.)
At any rate, next time we will go on to Chapter 6, wherein we go back to ridiculous subtext land. See you then!
(...*under breath* Damnit! That's only recorded as for that in 1879, and this was written in 1872! ...What am I talking about? Eh heh heh... You'll see...)
Alternatively: In which Laura's tsundere status becomes, however briefly, very Not Funny.
A great event is occurring at the schloss, for the portrait-cleaner has arrived, carrying some old pictures Laura's father sent off to him to be restored. As he's coming from the capital, he's also good for gossip and such.
Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one after the other the old pictures, nearly all portraits, which had undergone the process of renovation, were brought to light. My mother was of an old Hungarian family, and most of these pictures, which were about to be restored to their places, had come to us through her.
It occurs to me... wait. Laura? As Carmilla's doing nothing, she's not really relevant to this description. You could have said as easily "I sat looking eagerly on" and it would have been more appropriate, since you're the narrator.
Ahem. Interesting that you consider her mere presence an important part of this description, isn't it?
Last to be revealed was a foot-and-a-half-tall square picture that was too blackened by age to even begin to make out, so Laura's father is eager to see it. And... dun dun dun... it's a portrait of a woman who looks exactly like Carmilla!
(One wonders if H.P. Lovecraft was at all inspired by this story in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Of course, any resemblance is hard to recognize, since he never included anything near romance or sexual innuendo.)
Laura is quite enthusiastic about it, calling it "beautiful" - twice - and noting that it gets every detail right down to "the little mole on her throat". Laura's father laughs but doesn't share her fascination, "to [Laura's] surprise", and goes on chatting with the portrait-cleaner...
[...] while I was more and more lost in wonder the more I looked at the picture.
So naturally she asks her father to let her hang it in her room.
I mean. Platonic best friends do that all the time, particularly when they have said friend right in the same house. Sometimes you just can't stand waiting until one in the afternoon to see her beautiful face, so you just sit on the edge of your bed and stare at it lovingly until the news comes from downstairs that she's up...
Laura? I know the Victorians were very much into deep, loving same-sex friendships, but you're pushing the limits of even those.
The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty speech, did not seem to hear it. She was leaning back in her seat, her fine eyes under their long lashes gazing on me in contemplation, and she smiled in a kind of rapture.
Also, your tsundere act has totally collapsed into the "dere dere" stage, so it's become evident to Carmilla that 'No' means 'No, absolutely not, but I wouldn't find the strength within me to resist your disturbing actions when you embrace me and stare lovingly at me and murmur sweet nothings in my ear, fiend... also, I'm ticklish about an inch down from my right ear and a little to the side, but I most certainly do not expect you to take advantage of a weakness so confided with absolute trust in your goodness and sweetness of nature, understand? No, not there, a little further to the si- aaaaah, that's nice.'
Laura further comments:
“And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the corner. It is not Marcia; it looks as if it was done in gold. The name is Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, and this is a little coronet over and underneath A.D. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was.”
If you want some idea of the current year, Carmilla was written in A.D. 1872, the narrator says that Laura perished "many years" before the present day, and the Karnsteins ended as a family line about a hundred years before the story. So you may take it as occurring between 1798-1862 or thereabouts - point being, Carmilla is at least a hundred years old.
Also, she shares Voldemort's fondness for anagrams. (In more serious, she's apparently bound by her vampiric nature to do that, but I couldn't resist the snark.)
This is also an absolute groaner of a callback to "Are we related?" - yes, in fact, you are! But only distantly, so it shouldn't impede the marriage. *snigger*
Carmilla comments that she, too, is descended from the Karnsteins - "a very long descent, very ancient" (in much the same sense that Walburga Black was, "house of [her] fathers" and all) - and asks if there are any now living. They were ruined in civil wars, alas, but the ruins of their castle are only three miles away... including that crypt I mentioned in Chapter 1.
Upon the mention of her nightly vacation-home, Carmilla changes the subject and proposes a nice stroll in the moonlight. Laura, presumably still bushwhacked by the portrait, spouts borderline-romantic dialogue without her usual repression.
“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said.
She sighed; smiling.
Anyone else reminded of Albus Dumbledore's 'But if you hadn't gotten kicked out of Durmstrang, we never would have met! :D'?
Encouraged, Carmilla is somewhat more blatant than usual:
She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s waist, we walked out upon the pavement.
In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful landscape opened before us.
“And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost whispered. “Are you glad I came?”
“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered.
“And you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your room,” she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder.
They sound like they're having a date on their anniversary. Though, in all fairness, I'm guessing that this is about a month from when they met, so it is an anniversary of sorts.
Okay, I take it back - maybe this chapter has more subtext than Chapter 4. ...I could excuse my earlier characterization on the grounds that Chapter 4 had more subtext. This is just text.
“How romantic you are, Carmilla,” I said. “Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance.”
She kissed me silently.
Laura, this story, titled Carmilla, IS made chiefly up of one great romance. It's been going on for a chapter or two already, in fact. Have you spotted it yet?
(And I'm sorry, but the gastronomic interpretation is not terribly compatible with Laura pointing out a possible romance and Carmilla immediately kissing her. I understand that it may be different for vampires, but I don't go around tenderly kissing my ice cream.)
...Let's just look at what was just said. Laura should believe that Carmilla hasn't had contact with anyone outside of the schloss, given that she's essentially an invalid and all other human habitations are very far off, and she hasn't so much as raised the specter of an inter-class romance. As such, the only people of her rank in this situation are Laura's father and Laura herself. We have not the least reason to believe any unusual affection between Carmilla and Laura's father.
Therefore, Laura's "sure" belief that Carmilla is having "an affair of the heart" is a Freudian slip of massive proportions. And that's leaving out that the only person with Carmilla literally "at this moment" is Laura herself.
Laura is not oblivious. She is also not having a tenth as much difficulty as she would like us to believe regarding the matter of connecting Point A to Point B. Her determined ignorance is just at the point where she's denying that she has any ability to join "Poi" to "nt B".
“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.”
How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!
...What do I even say? It's right there in the text.
Now, let's just keep going on, because I have to point something out.
Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.
Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”
I started from her.
...Yes, even at her most openly gay, Laura must flinch from going all the way. *sigh*
But that alone isn't the important part - it's that Laura doesn't describe anything about her reactions until she jolts back. She thinks nothing she puts down on the page, she says nothing, she utters not a word of protest and gives not a sign of acquiescence. And this is because Carmilla, rather than playing along with Laura's little game of talking in the pseudo-third-person, cuts straight to the chase and makes it very clear where her affections lie.
And so it's impossible for Laura to maintain this suspension-of-explicit-romance if she acts any way at all. If she shows any sign of reciprocation, Carmilla's words have just forced it out into the open as a romance rather than an unusually intimate friendship. If she explicitly spurns Carmilla, however, then the romance is over. Thoroughly over. And for all Laura's claims of disturbance/discomfort when Carmilla presses her suit, she seems to not put up a fight for it to end.
Might I add, she only seems to extricate herself when the pause in the one-way conversation would dictate that it ought to be her turn to speak. Until that point, she allows Carmilla to embrace her and shower kisses upon her to her heart's very content. (And by "her heart's content", of course, I mean Carmilla's. Whatever else would I mean?)
Indeed, even when the ebb and flow of conversation dictates that she should mentally react to Carmilla's profession of love, she ducks out by remarking on Carmilla's beauty - which, while an evasion, is reminiscent of another cliche...
Pardon me, was I the only one thinking of this?
It's also interesting to note that, for once, Carmilla looks "shy" instead of having her usual boldness - appropriate to a love confession in any usual romance. One wonders if, for all Laura's attempts to not tip her hand, she took the request to have her picture hung in Laura's room as an admission of feelings. (Laura certainly isn't helping with her weird of-course-we-aren't-talking-about-me flirting...)
"Her soft cheek was glowing against mine" is another interesting choice of words due to the ambiguity. Is Carmilla's cheek flushed and Laura merely feeling the heat radiating off of her, or does "glowing" refer to Laura's involuntary pleasure at feeling Carmilla's face pressed against hers and her own ensuing flush? Compare, say, 'his fingers were glowing against my skin as he trailed them over my face' (or, for the other interpretation, 'her cheek was glowing against my hand as I caressed her face'). Of course, it could be both. Ah, Carmilla.
She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colourless and apathetic.
“Is there a chill in the air, dear?” she said drowsily. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in.”
Yes, Carmilla, there is a chill in the air. It's radiating off the local ice queen.
Now that her closet door is no longer being assaulted with an axe, Laura displays concern for Carmilla and asks if she needs some wine. Carmilla agrees that she wants a drink - er, says "Yes, do give me a little wine" - and adds as they approach the door:
“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.”
Hm, yes, about that line...
The night of these events is when Carmilla starts up the vampirism. Before that, however, she'll offer at the start of the next chapter to go track down her "mother" and cease to give Laura's family any trouble. So I'm not sure to which this is referring.
It might (?) be that Carmilla means that she won't be available to see the moonlight with Laura, since she'll be too busy being a vampire. However, this doesn't make sense, as she only goes about her vampiric obligations after everyone goes to sleep, and I don't believe this changes once she begins feeding upon Laura. It might also be, to take the more horrific option, that she might slip up and kill Laura when she feeds upon her tonight, or that she's considering deliberately killing Laura tonight. Now, the story doesn't so much as hint that Carmilla has any concern about getting carried away while feeding on Laura, so I assume she has adequate control over the kill-or-spare threshold - and it seems radically OOC for Carmilla to even consider killing Laura, since she's shown her nothing but sweet, passionate affection. But it has been established that Carmilla loses her temper when acutely provoked, and abrupt rejection when both young women seemed to have entirely cast aside their defenses might have proved sufficient provocation. One can't dismiss that, because Carmilla has also been shown to recover almost immediately from her flashes of vicious anger. If such emotions were secretly fueling that remark, she might well have discarded her homicidal fantasy as soon as she had spoken.
It might instead be that she sincerely means her imminent offer to leave, and so she's acting so listless over the thought of never seeing Laura again. I think this should be my preferred explanation, since it's consistent and I don't like the idea of Carmilla even contemplating killing Laura. (Yes, I'm a shipper. I know that I shouldn't care all that much about Carmilla, since she IS killing all these girls off-screen, but...)
Something vaguely supporting this is Carmilla's response after Laura becomes alarmed and starts inquiring as to her health (being worried that she's come down with a case of imminent Dead):
“I’m sure [your father] is [concerned about my health]. I know how kind you all are; but, dear child, I am quite well again. There is nothing ever wrong with me, but a little weakness. People say I am languid; I am incapable of exertion; I can scarcely walk as far as a child of three years old: and every now and then the little strength I have falters, and I become as you have just seen me. But after all I am very easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectly myself. See how I have recovered.”
Were she thinking about Laura coming down with a case of Dead, she wouldn't be talking about Laura's family's kindness or addressing her as "dear child". (This, to me, is a massive Freudian slip on Carmilla's part - she and Laura are supposed to be the same age or thereabouts, and yet she's addressing her as a much older woman might kindly address a girl of Laura's years... which is accurate to the true situation.)
And a surface reading would say the "and every now and then the little strength I have falters" comment is just an excuse to cover the true nature of her "illness", but... since I'm reading in-depth, I'm wondering. Carmilla doesn't seem to actually view her vampiric nature as anything wrong with her: she's just acting according to her nature, as we saw her state in Chapter 4. Therefore, she may be speaking honestly, though not in the manner she would lead Laura to think. The "weakness" must then be something that causes her to act contrary to her vampiric nature, or at least is not part of her vampiric nature.
Furthermore, she ties it to those times when "the little strength I have falters" AND SO "I become as you have just seen me". Now, Laura herself tells us that Carmilla's wild affection for her is "unmistakably the momentary breaking out of suppressed instinct and emotion". As such, Carmilla's strength is failing her whenever she breaks into fits of passion - it no longer permits her to suppress her true instincts and emotions. Well, the poor peasant girls would attest she certainly isn't suppressing her vampiric instincts!
I would then say that these overwhelming emotions may be what remains of her human nature, for good or for ill - "for ill", I say, because that would imply that her sudden rages stem from Carmilla and not Carmilla-the-vampire. Ah, well, the Karnsteins were reputed to be nasty sorts.
As evidence, I note that both Carmilla and her "mother" (and a nameless male accomplice that will appear in a recounting of one of her previous appearances) are stated and shown to be excellent actresses, and vampires are, after all, predators. Their instinct is to feed, not to caress. Ordinarily, they can behave as charmingly as they please and be untouched by human happiness and suffering alike, but when the mask slips...
And Carmilla's affection for Laura is a weakness, certainly. It causes her to be hurt when Laura is hurt by her unwillingness to confide in her, it causes her to go out of her way for someone who would ordinarily become just another delicious meal, and I do think it went straight to her heart when Laura rebuffed her at her most emotionally vulnerable. "She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown" (emphasis mine)...
There, see? This is no longer Lesbian Twilight, this is Lesbian New Moon, and Laura, in a shocking role-reversal, has just pulled an Edward. And, astonishingly enough, an undead mass-murderer is far more sympathetic than a high-school girl whose worst actual crime is being an utter asshole.
This does a far better job of demonstrating just HOW much good writing matters for gaining the audience's sympathies than any rant on characterizations could dream of achieving.
On the subject of "dreaming", let me return to an earlier line:
have I been dreaming?
On the surface, this seems like a hilariously transparent attempt to pretend that she doesn't remember what she was just doing. But, in another sense, she may be asking 'Was I only imagining that I had any hope of carrying this off?' That is to say, has this entire romance been a dream?
Carmilla knows better than this. She's a fine actor and a vampire, and she really has no need to form bonds with humans beyond what will bring her to her next meal. But sometimes she succumbs to her "little weakness", and she becomes as Laura has just seen her. She falls prey to less practical feelings...
But it's all right, really. She is "very quickly set up again"; "in a moment," she recovers. And so, whatever she felt a moment before? That doesn't really matter. Not at all.
I admit that I may care an abnormal amount about this because I've had my own issues with emotional repression, and it's a rotten, soul-destroying way to live. Not without its uses, naturally. And emotional control is an ENTIRELY different thing, despite what many, many numbskulls would have you believe. Emotional control is a matter of clear, focused thought; emotional repression is a matter of abolishing thought. I could really go on for a while... sorry, does it show that I feel strongly about this?
So, to me, even Carmilla's talk of instantaneous recovery is painfully sympathetic, because that sounds far too much like emotional suppression - down to the emotionally-dead and then brokenly-at-peace state she briefly takes on right after Laura's jerking away. Actual emotional shifting requires... a bit more time and reasoning than that. And it really doesn't help that the story continues:
So, indeed, she had; and she and I talked a great deal, and very animated she was; and the remainder of that evening passed without any recurrence of what I called her infatuations.
Because... I mean, one can throw oneself into activities with abnormal enthusiasm to distract oneself from repressed pain...
Also, Laura dear, you just admitted that you knew damn well she's infatuated with you. That's a DAMNING slip, no matter HOW you follow it up:
I mean her crazy talk and looks, which embarrassed, and even frightened me.
'Her infatuations - I mean, her crazy talk and looks! I don't understand any of it, and it r-really makes me feel all awkward... and stuff... and it scares me!'
I suppose I should be more sympathetic to Laura. She's nineteen, she's had a very isolated upbringing, she's implied to have never had anything close to a romantic relationship before, she may not even have had any close friends before, she lives in a time when there's hardly any concept of same-sex romantic love, and now her charming, lovely best-friend-at-first-sight is saying all these strange and bizarre things to her and, when she embraces her, makes her feel some very odd sensations that, even eight years on, she cannot clearly put into words. ("I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling. ") She's been thrown into the deep end of the pool, and she cannot even dog-paddle.
Even so, I can't feel too kindly towards her. She may not understand what's going on, but she's playing harshly with a preternaturally sensitive heart - too fuzzy-feeling-dazed to put up a protest or struggle when Carmilla presses herself upon her, but too cowardly to stop pushing Carmilla away when she gets too emotionally close and start seeing where this road takes her.
I do laugh at her tsundere status, but it's a bit hard to find it funny when she's just broken Carmilla's heart.
Look, it is somewhat realistic (even if Laura's particular manner of studied obliviousness takes a spectacular amount of cognitive dissonance, and one that I don't think is quite true to life). But it's the kind of realistic that accompanies phrases like "a lifetime of regret"...
What the *bleep* am I doing getting so emotional over a vampire story? Confound it, I sound like a deranged Twihard.
AHEM. At any rate, we then have this sentence to drive us onward into the next chapter:
But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to startle even Carmilla’s languid nature into momentary energy.
But I'll stop there for now, because I've spilled out a bewildering amount of emotional gibberish about this chapter, and that's really enough to which to subject you lot. Besides, I think my discussion of the next chapter will be rather more snarky, and the tone whiplash would undermine the sincerity and attentiveness with which I was writing the above.
Okay. This was actually a rather short chapter compared to Chapter 4 - it got so much attention only because a close reading revealed its importance in the overall story arc. It's less than 1300 words long! But when I went through it line-by-line, I realized that Laura's rejection this time occurred in a rather different context than her usual tsundere routine. ...Which does affect my reading of the rest of the text, I'll admit, and makes me more sympathetic to the less savory actions which Carmilla takes from this point on. The lady was sorely provoked, and Laura has basically made it clear that she isn't oblivious so much as so deep in the closet that she's started hacking through the floorboards.
I mean, yes. The vampirism goes on without Laura's consent, and it's rather unlikely that she would give her consent if asked. I mean, sure, sometimes pigs have been found on airplanes, but not too often. But Laura proves oddly acquiescent in the whole thing. And here's the thing, though it may be jumping ahead...
For all that Laura claims to be powerless, she can and does jerk away from Carmilla if she comes on too strong. Likewise, when she comes down with a protracted case of potential Dead, she outright refuses to tell anyone she's ill, inform her father, or send for the doctor, which are all implied to be ways out. Indeed, once the doctor sends for her, the jig is up and the entire thing goes downhill from there. (Alas and damnit!) In cruder, modern terms? She safewords out whenever the scene gets too intense, and she doesn't safeword out of the vampirism.
...That definitely changes my reading of the rest of the text, because it alters my attitude from 'Pfft, do you really mind, Laura?' to '....You really don't mind, do you, Laura?'. And the shift in my view of Laura's understanding from 'Good gad you're oblivious' to 'You know damned well what's going on here, but you can't let your mind make the final connection' rather... changes my view of how she's reacting. And it alters my understanding of the book from 'comically-transparent metaphor for lesbianism dressed up as a horror story' to 'romantic tragedy with frequent moments of hilariously ridiculous obliviousness'.
(Yes, I apologize. I have given you far too much of an idea regarding the obliviousness actually being Serious Business, but well over half the time it really is the people in this book being as thick as three planks.)
At any rate, next time we will go on to Chapter 6, wherein we go back to ridiculous subtext land. See you then!
(...*under breath* Damnit! That's only recorded as for that in 1879, and this was written in 1872! ...What am I talking about? Eh heh heh... You'll see...)