ELIZABETH BOWEN
1119
characters, though not the most interesting. He is spared the con–
tempt usually heaped upon the men, perhaps because he is not a
person at all but a captivated spirit, enchained by the wicked Mme.
Fisher. Of course Karen will not marry him; he is neither free nor
real enough to marry anyone; he is .an appealing, romantic threat,
an
image
that excites and haunts a young girl's mind on the eve of her
marriage to the Right Man. The book has the suggestiveness and im–
probability of a dream.
The most striking thing about Miss Bowen's novels is that the
attitudes .and generalities which establish the tone, the more weighty
reflections on status and character, either contradict or have nothing
to do with the action. This author, as Mme. de Sevigne said of her–
self, is often very far from being entirely of her own opinion. Her
typical heroines (Karen in
The House in Pans,
Emmeline in
To the
North,
Stella in
The Heat of the Day)
are described as well-bred,
calm, honest and attractive; they represent class and family virtue,
and yet we can understand their actions only in telms of bohemia,
that land no parent, relative or property owner ever enterQ The .
girls are unconventional and daring, not in the manner of artists or
intellectuals, but in the more starchy, unprogrammatic way of in–
dependent, competent business women. In love they lack caution and,
to some degree, conscience; with fanatical doggedness they deceive
their parents and friends, have illegitimate children, open affairs with
men they know little about, and even commit murder, or at least that
is the way I interpret the cnding of
To the N01·th.
All of the neat,
loving domestic purity of the heroine's background does not keep her
away from the sordid scenery of weekend cottages and hotel rooms.
And it is almost always the heroine who passes beyond the expected
and discreet in love; indeed, the man's "betrayal" is simply his em–
barrassment, his disabling reasonableness, his unwillingness ' to "live
on the top of the Alps."
The main characteristic of the heroines is incuriosity. We can
sympathize with the traitor Robert Kelway ' when he tells Stella he
thought she knew of his secret activities. "How could she not have
suspected
something?"
he and the reader wonder. Markie in
To the
North
tells Emmeline, as they take off for a weekend in Paris, that
he doesn't wish to marry her, but for some reason she discounts his
frank admission; Eddie in
The Death of the Heart
is understandably
