Análisis de riesgos

back from the dead in just the way Archer is in this novella. There is a commitment here to a queer Realism about the physical facts which constitute psychological states. This bears some relation to Eliot's down to earth fiction, but the idea is only slightly worked, and as it has little intrinsic interest, it will not detain us long. Similarly, there is a distinctly Realist and, it will emerge, unattractive notion about the nature of the future implicit in the lifting of the veil which hides the future. We are to believe that Latimer has a strange gift which enables him to glimpse things that have not yet happened. To take this seriously, we not only have to suspend our disbelief in Latimer's strange powers, we also have to entertain a highly Realist idea of the future. We have to accept that 'the future', under certain unnatural circumstances, can be seen. This seems to demand that we think of the future as something already present, although it is of course, in natural circumstances, hidden behind a veil.

That conception does have some intrinsic interest, but it too will concern me less than the idea which lies behind the most important element of fantasy in this novel. As well as seeing visions of the future, Latimer also sees into the minds of other people. How this strange ability is conceived by George Eliot is extremely significant. First, the philosophy of mind which it betrays is so natural and pervasive as virtually to amount to the 'common sense' position. Second, as the next chapter will argue, this conception has deep

philosophical consequences and difficulties. Third, this conception is absolutely central to her depiction of character in Middlemarch.

* * *

Section H: A strong ‘Physicalist’ Realism

The supernatural element which to my mind is least engaging is the momentary lifting of the veil of death. Very briefly, in an incident which occupies only the final few pages of the novella, Bertha's maid. Archer, is brought back to life by a strange experiment

carried out by the physician Meunier. The veil is lifted only long enough to reveal to us her state of mind at the moment of death. This is Latimer's account.

"The dead woman’s eyes were wide open, and met hers in full recognition- the recognition of hate. With a sudden strong effort, the hand that Bertha had thought for ever still was pointed towards her, and the haggard face moved. The gasping eager voice said-

"You mean to poison your husband...the poison is in the black

cabinet...! got it for you...you laughed at me, and told lies about me behind my back, to make me disgusting...because you were jealous...are you sorry...now?"

The lips continued to murmur, but the sounds were no longer distinct. Soon there was no sound-only a slight movement: the flame had leaped out, and was being extinguished the faster. The wretched woman’s heart­ strings had been set to hatred and vengeance', the spirit of life had swept the chords for an instant, and was gone again for ever. Great God! Is this what it is to live again...to wake up with our unstilled thirst upon us, with our unuttered curses rising to our lips, with our muscles ready to act out their half-committed sins?" (my italics) (P. 6 5 f

In order to be tempted to find this fantastical happening horrible, rather than simply puzzling, we have to take the thought about the 'set' of Archer's 'heart-strings’ seriously. In real life there is no such thing as reactivating a dead body, but within the fiction of the novella, it is not impossible that life could have been restored by the transfusion of Meunier's own blood. But to believe that the success of this strange experiment would have revealed the set of Archer's heart-strings, and so reveal her dying thoughts and emotions, we have to conceive of thoughts and emotions in an extremely curious way: we have to conceive of life as a spirit which could 'sweep the chords' of our physical frames. If the spirit of life is unnaturally reintroduced, the timbre to which the heart-strings were set, in the moment of death, will be revealed. One is reminded of Will Ladislaw's idea of the Aeolian harp. He says of Dorothea,

"It would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly and ingenuously.

Will uses the notion as a metaphor, of course, but in The Lifted Veil the idea that we literally embody our feelings and emotions has to be given more than metaphorical meaning

1 All page references, unless otherwise specified, are to The Lifted Veil, by George Eliot. Virago Modem Classics edition.

34