Pauline's Passion and Punishment by Louisa May Alcott

Pauline's Passion and Punishment

When Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper offered a one hundred dollar prize for a story, Louisa May Alcott anonymously submitted, and won the contest with her story Pauline's Passion and Punishment.  Originally published one hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1863, this was the first of Louisa May Alcott's "blood-and-thunder" tales to be printed. 

Pauline Valary is a scorned woman who has just received a rejection letter from her lover, Gilbert Redmond.  Securing the assistance of Manuel, a young man devoted to her, she vows to take her revenge on Gilbert, and privately plots a path to his destruction.  She shares her plans with Manuel: 

If you think that this loss has broken my heart, undeceive yourself, for such as I live years in an hour and show no sign.  I have shed no tears, uttered no cry, asked no comfort; yet, since I read that letter, I have suffered more than many suffer in a lifetime.  I am not one to lament long over any hopeless sorrow.  A single paroxysm, sharp and short, and it is over.  Contempt has killed my love, I have buried it, and no power can make it live again, except as a pale ghost that will not rest till Gilbert shall pass through an hour as bitter as the last.

And when Manuel suggests that he should seek out and kill her false lover, she responds:

Why should you?  Such revenge is brief and paltry, fit only for mock tragedies or poor souls who have neither the will to devise nor the will to execute a better.  There are fates more terrible than death; weapons more keen than poniards, more noiseless than pistols.  Women use such, and work out a subtler vengeance than men can conceive.  Leave Gilbert to remorse - and me.

A character-driven story, this is a psychological thriller, although the plot becomes more central as the story develops. Pauline has an understanding of human nature and uses it to her advantage.  She dons a mask behind which she can conceal her true motives and feelings, revealing only what she wants other to see.  To Manuel, she admits: "I see a future full of interest, a stage whereon I could play a stirring part.  I long for it intensely..." and like so many of Louisa May Alcott's protagonists, she plays her part well.  The ambiguity in the title is reflected in the story's message - is the punishment of the title what Pauline exacts, or is it what she brings on to herself?  But Louisa May Alcott leaves us to form our own conclusions.

Free download of Pauline's Passion and Punishment from Gutenberg.

I found this story in my copy of Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (Madeleine Stern, ed.)

Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power by Louisa May Alcott

Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power

Into the peaceful and affluent household of the Coventry family comes a nineteen-year old governess to oversee the education of the sixteen-year old daughter Bella.  Jean Muir is a poor, pale, black-cloaked little Jane Eyre without friend or family.  She ingratiates herself into the family by her gentle manner, her kindness, her gift for entertaining and performing with music and story, and through her humble servitude.  Although there are some hints that all may not be exactly as it seems, it is not until she retires to the privacy of her own room that we see the full extent of her deception.

Still sitting on the floor she unbound and removed the long abundant braids from her head, wiped the pink from her face, took out several pearly teeth, and slipping off her dress appeared herself indeed, a haggard, worn, and moody woman of thirty at least.  The metamorphosis was wonderful, but the disguise was more in the expression she assumed than in any art of costume or false adornment.  Now she was alone, and her mobile features settled into their natural expression, weary, hard, bitter.  She had been lovely once, happy, innocent, and tender; but nothing of all this remained to the gloomy woman who leaned there brooding over some wrong, or loss, or disappointment which had darkened all her life.  For an hour she sat so, sometimes playing absently with the scanty locks that hung about her face, sometimes lifting the glass to her lips as if the fiery draught warmed her cold blood; and once she half uncovered her breast to eye with a terrible glance the scar of a newly healed wound. 1.

The comparisons with Charlotte Bronte's creation are striking, and go far beyond the protagonists themselves.  Jean Muir is adept at playing the part of Jane Eyre, for she is a consummate actress with an eye on the prize... Mr. Rochester!  While Jane Eyre ("air") is ethereal and spiritual, Jean Muir ("moor") is earthy and practical in her worldliness.  Jean Muir has both feet firmly planted in the here and now, and unlike Jane Eyre who strives only to do the right thing without thought of personal gain, Jean Muir is the living embodiment of ruthless ambition.

Louisa May Alcott, as the author, never judges Jean Muir's actions and the conclusion of the story lends support to the argument that her actions were justified because society offered so few solutions to women to live independently.  The choices available to Jean Muir were marriage, servitude and poverty, or death.  She uses all her powers, and embraces her inner "Madwoman in the Attic," clothes her in the appearance of an "Angel in the House" and serves tea with humility and grace, soothes the agitation of each family member, entertains and knows her place as governess while at the same time scheming a diabolical plan to capture status and wealth using only her quick wit and cunning.  As the madwoman, she goes after what she wants with a single-minded passion.  She is a witch who casts her spell on all the men she encounters.

The full text of the novella can be found at the University of Virginia's site here.
A full guide to Louisa May Alcott research can be found here.

I found "Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power" in these editions from my shelves:

1.  I remember my father singing a little ditty when I was a girl - a parody of an old song called "After the Ball" in which Katie (here, Jenny) is déshabillé in the same manner as the protagonist of the story.

After the Ball (Dismantled Bride)

After the ball was over
Jenny took out her glass eye.
Stood her false leg in the corner,
Corked up her bottle of dye.
Put her false teeth in the tumbler;
Hung her false hair on the wall.
All the rest went to the bye-bye,
After the ball.

This is the original version of the song "After the Ball," sung by the writer, Charles K. Harris, here.
and the parody here.

The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott

I was introduced to the "unknown thrillers" of Louisa May Alcott during a women writers course in university, and was captivated by the "blood and thunder tales" written by this author who was revered for her gentle, moral tales such as Little Women and Eight Cousins, and was known as "The Children's Friend."  She produced these "potboilers" anonymously, and pseudonymously as A. M. Barnard, out of economic necessity: at times her family struggled with poverty, and like Jo Marsh wrote to sustain her family. She wrote these dark, lurid Gothic tales of deceit, violence and revenge with a subtle feminist twist, and although less likely than her sweet tales to engender devoted fans, these thrillers have shed light on the complex life of the writer.

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I found this quote from the Introduction of Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott (Madeleine Stern, editor) fascinating:

I think my natural ambition is for the lurid style.  I indulge in gorgeous fancies and wish that I dared inscribe them upon my pages and set them before the public... How should I dare to interfere with the proper grayness of old Concord?  The dear old town has never known a startling hue since the redcoats were there.  Far be it from me to inject an inharmonious color into the neutral tint.  And my favourite characters!  Suppose they went to cavorting at their own sweet will, to the infinite horror of dear Mr. Emerson, who never imagined a Concord person as walking off a plumb line stretched between two pearly clouds in the empyrean.  To have had Mr. Emerson for an intellectual god all one's life is to be invested with a chain armour of propriety...  And what would my own good father think of me...  if I set folks to doing the things that I have a longing to see my people do?  No, my dear, I shall always be a wretched victim to the respectable traditions of Concord.

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The introductory segment of the documentary "Louisa May Alcott: the Woman Behind Little Women" can be found here.  (Did you know that Louisa May Alcott was a runner?  She ran up to 20 miles at a time!  Without wicking fibres and seamless socks).

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I have decided to work my way through the three volumes of stories I have on my shelf; I plan to read a new story every couple of weeks.  I believe there have been at least thirty stories now discovered to have been anonymously or pseudonymously published.  I have access to twelve of these, some more aptly described as novellas.  I would love to have some company reading these if you are interested to see this darker side of Louisa May Alcott's writing.

The collections I have are:

Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Madeleine Stern, Morrow, 1975.

• Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power e-text
• Pauline's Passion and Punishment e-text
• The Mysterious Key and What It Opened e-text
• The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation e-text
  

Modern Magic: Five Stories by Louisa May Alcott, edited by Madeleine Stern, Modern Library, 1995.

• A Pair of Eyes; or, Modern Magic
• The Fate of the Forrests
• Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power
• Perilous Play
• My Mysterious Mademoiselle

A Marble Woman: Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Madeleine Stern, Avon, 1976

• V. V.: or, Plots and Counterplots
• A Marble Woman: or, The Mysterious Model
• The Skeleton in the Closet
• A Whisper in the Dark
• Perilous Play