D’Aurévilly
The Crimson Curtain II
1. 38-43 What happens at the table on the day after the Vicomte passes her a message ? What do her eyes seem to be saying to him once again? How does he react to this return to the status quo? Why does he begin “to tramp up and down the six feet of clear space in my room” and why does he compare himself to “a caged lioness that smells raw meat? Why did d’Aurévilly chose to give the Vicomte an empire ‘bed . . . with a sphinx at each corner, and lion’s paws for the feet” and an empire writing-table whose drawer has “a lion’s head with a ring in its mouth, by which ring you pulled the drawer open”?
2. 44-48 Who was in control the night Alberte entered the young Vicomte’s room and all the nights she visited him for the next six months? How does the Vicomte see her when she enters the room the first time? What contradictory emotions are he and she feeling as they make love? 46-47 What is the significance for our understanding of Alberte of his comparing her parents’ heads to Medusa’s heads? [In mythology, Medusa turned to stone all who looked at her] What does it say about Alberte’s relation to their rules and to her own sexual desires? Why do you think she gives him “sensations which I do not think that I have experienced since”? In other words, what is it he desires so much in her?
3. 49-55 What happens one night and how does this relate to her division between her parents’ rules and her sexual passion? What does he dread and how does he feel about having this dread at such a dangerous moment for him? Who does he think might be responsible for her death? What has happened to his priorities now that he is obsessed with saving his honor, his pride in having society’s respect?
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4. 55-56 The Vicomte says that because he always despised public opinion, it was only his deadly fear that kept him from going back to the town, but what was he so afraid of? What in him risked “dying” symbolically if the parents found out what he had done? How do his story and its outcome relate to the Dandy, seducer, and rebel against discipline that he has become? In other words, what seems to have caused him to become the man he is? Why has he not liberated himself from his deadly fear? What does he refuse to see and accept in himself? What does the window with the crimson curtain represent in this story?
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