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Imagery, Irony, and Transcendence in Carl Jonas Love Almqvist's The Queen's Tiara

2022; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 94; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/21638195.94.2.03

2163-8195

Mattias Pirholt,

Media, Communication, and Education

Carl Jonas Love Almqvist's Drottningens Juvelsmycke (1834; The Queen's Tiara [2001]), the fourth part of the author's magnum opus, the Gesamtkunstwerk in fourteen volumes known as Törnrosens bok (Book of the Briar Rose), is one of those rare books that seem to respond effortlessly to almost any kind of interpretational framework that a reader might want to employ. Just like its illusive and androgynous protagonist, Azouras Lazuli Tintomara, or simply Tintomara, the novel seems to adapt to—and perhaps also distort—the reader's interpretative desire. Roland Barthes would have called Almqvist's novel writable (Barthes 1970, 27–8), but the author himself already understood the open-ended character of his own creation in his day. Responding to contemporary criticism, Almqvist, under the guise of his mouthpiece Richard Furumo, one of the narrators who recurs throughout Törnrosens bok, defended his style of writing in an essay entitled “Dialog om Sättet att sluta Stycken” (Dialogue on How to End Pieces), which was published in the sixth volume of Törnrosens bok in 1835. Here, explicitly referring to The Queen's Tiara, he argues that the reader not only “läser poesi—han blir poesi; och, såsom väckt till verksamhet i sin egen inbildnings verld, är han der äfven poet (ποιητης, görare, frambringare). Efter detta skrifsätt äro författaren och hans läsare två samverkande faktorer till det arbete, som utföres” (Almqvist 1998, 178) [reads poetry—he becomes poetry; and, stirred to activity in his own imaginary world, he is also a poet (ποιητης, maker, creator). According to this way of writing, the writer and his reader are two cooperating factors of the work that is being done].Unsurprisingly, The Queen's Tiara has been subject to a plethora of readings: biographical, structuralist, semiotic, rhetorical, sociological, theological, and intermedial, as well as from gender, queer, and transgender theory perspectives. Since Almqvist's novel combines narration, historical documents, dramatic dialogue, poems, songs, and even musical scores, the intermedial approach has proven to be one of the most prolific and has rendered numerous interpretations. The novel's affinity to theater and drama is particularly striking—two-thirds of the text consists of dramatic dialogue, with or without stage directions—and it has attracted its fair share of attention (Lagerroth 1973a, 283–90; Lagerroth 2010; Mälhammar 2010; Romberg 1973, 126–33). Due to these dramatic elements, the novel has been staged several times, both as a conventional play and as an opera, and has also been cinematized, and these different adaptations have also been scrutinized by scholars (Ek 2010; Ethnersson Pontara and Tillman 2010; Lagerroth 1973b). Almqvist was a composer himself, and his relationship with music is vital to understanding his work, including The Queen's Tiara, which the author himself refers to as a fugue and whose central piece is Tintomara's song (Burman 2001, 240–2; Hedwall 2014, 235–44, 365–8; Lagerroth 1973a, 288–90; Romberg 1973, 119).The novel's visual discourse, on the other hand, has not received the amount of scholarly attention that it deserves. A written description of a work of art is known as an ekphrasis, a Greek rhetorical term that means a “speech that brings the subject matter vividly before the eyes” (Webb 2009, 1). Ekphrasis is a literary genre that, in some shape or form, usually by means of evocative narration, describes, for example, paintings, drawings, or sculptures. Some scholars also include musical and architectural works (Bruhn 2000; Clüver 1997), which makes the ekphrasis a comprehensive interart concept. However, James Heffernan's definition of ekphrasis as “the verbal representation of visual representation” (1993, 3) is widely accepted, though it has also been contested: while some (Clüver 1997; Yacobi 1998) consider the definition too narrow, arguing that it excludes a number of literary works that we intuitively would define as ekphrases (texts about, for instance, non-representational works of art or texts imitating the style of a particular artist or a particular epoch), others (Scott 1994) see it as too broad since it does not discriminate between different kinds of texts about art (between, say, literary and informational texts). However, rather than settling on one exact definition, regardless of how complex and inclusive, it is advisable to take the pragmatic attitude that Valerie Robillard (2010) has promoted.The following reading of Almqvist's novel will indeed focus on paintings, drawings, book illustrations, and other objects associated with the visual arts. However, it will, only to a very limited extent, engage with verbal representations of visual representations. Instead, the essay will analyze the functions and effects of the novel's visual discourse (ekphrases in a broader sense), a discourse that is entangled in media ideology, that is, the paragone or the battle between image and language (Mitchell 1986, 47–9). This ongoing ideological conflict—to which Lessing's Laocoon (1766) is likely the most famous contribution—cannot be summarized here, but suffice it to say that while images are construed as natural signs, that is, signs that stand in a natural relationship with what they signify and are thus associated with immediacy and presence, language is made up of conventional, arbitrary signs, which makes language a medium of absence and mediation (Mitchell 1986, 42–6). However, ekphrasis, especially its use of enargeia, a rhetorical term that denotes the ambition to vividly make what is absent present (Webb 2009; Clüver 1998), is a genre that supposedly, at least according to its advocates, is capable of transcending the difference between language and image. “The central goal of ekphrastic hope,” Mitchell summarizes, “might be called ‘the overcoming of otherness’” (Mitchell 1994, 156).Thus, what Mitchell calls ekphrastic hope is intimately associated with an idea of transcendence, a Romantic topos if there ever was one. In his book on ekphrasis, Heffernan deliberates extensively on what he calls “the romantic ideology of transcendence,” which is observable in the Romantics’ conception of the visual work of art and which “is at once articulated and challenged by the ekphrastic works” (Heffernan 1993, 93–4). Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Byron are Heffernan's examples, and their take on ekphrastic transcendence is a rather static and mundane one—one that focuses on the artwork's manifestation of a fleeting moment and its ability—or inability—to, as a physical object, withstand the test of time. “Romantic ekphrasis,” Heffernan concludes, “is the expression of a profound ambivalence toward the timelessness of visual art,” as “it simultaneously constructs and deconstructs the concept of visual art as a medium of transcendence” (1993, 133).Almqvist, in comparison, offers a much more radical interpretation of the ekphrastic hope of transcendence. This hope is not static but constitutes a movement that points beyond our world. Furthermore, in Almqvist's novel, the ekphrastic transcendence comes with an ironic twist, since it is obtained only by means of death. As this essay will show, the novel's visual elements, although undoubtedly less conspicuous than their immediately recognizable dramatic and musical counterparts, are no less important, as they add a crucial, transcendent dimension to the story. In that sense, they point beyond the incessant and complex play with illusions and identities that epitomizes the diegetic world of The Queen's Tiara to which the dramatic discourse makes a particular contribution. Whereas theater and music are primarily (though not exclusively) associated with illusion, fantasy, pleasure, and double entendres—to be sure, they are neither innocent nor innocuous—throughout the novel, pictures and sculptures are linked with disillusion, death, and despair, which ultimately allows the story to transcend the limits of the fictional world. Lars Burman has shown that writing in The Queen's Tiara is fundamentally associated with an ironic attitude and thus also with separation, power, and violence (2001). The following reading will argue that ekphrasis, too, as a mode of writing, is ironic, but in a much more radical sense than Burman suggests, since it also indicates transcendence: ekphrastic writing as absence and death points to the more profound presence of eternal life, and it is accomplished by vivifying representations in language of images of pain, suffering, and death.The operative concept here is romantic irony, which was coined by the early German Romantics and Friedrich Schlegel in particular around the year 1800. Romantic irony, together with allegory and wit (Witz),2 refers to the kind of indirect form of representation that is essential to Romantic thinking and that ultimately points to what is called the absolute, the world's unknowable foundation or telos, depending on whose version of the absolute one subscribes to.3 Allegory, which literally means to say something differently (allegoria), constitutes a trope of difference by means of which one is capable of expressing the inexpressible (Schlegel 1988, 206; de Man 1983, 207), while wit, on the other hand, is the opposite of allegory and denotes the ingenious and instantaneous unification of the ephemeral and the absolute (Schlegel 1991, 13, 23). Irony, “the form of paradox,” as Schlegel describes in one of his many fragments (Schlegel 1991, 6), is the synthesizing oscillation between allegory and wit, that is, between continuous difference and temporary unity (Frank 2007, 135). As a figure of constant transgression, by means of which “one transcends oneself” (Schlegel 1991, 13), irony is to be “continuously fluctuating between self-creation and self-destruction” (Schlegel 1991, 24; Frank 2007, 134–6). In other words, irony is never self-identical and stable but always, in an unending oscillation between opposites, its other. In the eternal struggle for the absolute, it works by means of constant spatio-temporal displacements and semantic dissociations.The Swedish Romantics were no strangers to this way of thinking, which had been introduced in Sweden in the earlier years of the nineteenth century by the controversial philosopher Benjamin Höijer in his lectures at Uppsala University. Höijer had visited Jena and Weimar during the critical period, around the year 1800 and fraternized there with Fichte and Schelling. Several members of what would eventually become the Romantic Phosphorist school in Uppsala were present in the audience (Frykenstedt 1952, 34). Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom, often considered the chief theoretician among the Uppsala Romantics, was one of them. Roland Lysell has noted that romantic self-reflection, which is the common denominator of allegory, symbol, wit, and irony, constitutes a basic element in Atterbom's work (Lysell 1997, 160). Indeed, the Swedish writer's dependence on Schelling's theory of the symbol and allegory is widely known (Fischer 1998, 34–50). His concept of irony, a trope that unites jest and severity and is necessary for artistic creativity, essentially draws on Friedrich Schlegel and Jean Paul (Båth 2017, 57–71). Unlike his German predecessors (Schlegel in particular), however, Atterbom sees a need to mitigate the destructive or satanical qualities of irony, which otherwise threaten to undermine art. A moderate form of irony, he argues, may “upplyftas inom konstens rymder och i följd av denna upphöjning tillintetgöra sin förstörande egenskap” (Atterbom's review of Julia Nyberg's poetry [1823] quoted in Båth 2017, 63) [be elevated to the sphere of the arts and, due to this elevation, annihilate its destructive qualities]. In that form, Katarina Båth concludes, irony can have a supersensible and ethical effect, since it provides man with the possibility of redemption (2017, 62).In contrast to Atterbom, Almqvist was quite skeptical of the allegorical “drömpoemer” (dream poems), which he construed to be “någonting betecknande” and which “utgöra icke verkligheter, varken i andens värld eller på jordens krets” (Almqvist 1922, 232–3) [something signifying; do not consist of realities, neither in the spiritual world, nor in the earthly realm].4 Irony, on the other hand, is viewed upon more favorably by Almqvist, although he prefers the terms humor and humorism. In “Några drag” (Some Traits—or perhaps—Some Brushstrokes), published around the same time as The Queen's Tiara but written many years earlier (Viklund 2010, XXIV–XXVI), Almqvist likens ironic humor to the sharp edge of a sword, which forces the reader to balance between two worlds: a low and a high (Almqvist 2010, 71). Contrasting these two worlds, the use of irony results in a stylistic mixture that is ultimately elevating and aims to transcend the ordinary (Almqvist 2010, 76–7; Mälhammar 2009, 80). “Humorismen,” Almqvist argues, “är derföre till hela sin själ fullkomligt subjectif, i den mening, att den hufvudsakligen endast lefver och agerar för den afmålades räkning,—är en klar stråle ur det Absoluta gjuten ned i hans individ; ej träffande någon annan” (2010, 78) [Humorism is therefore, to its core, completely subjective, in the sense that it mainly lives and acts on behalf of what is depicted—is a clear ray from the absolute poured down in his individuality, not hitting anyone else].Almqvist interprets irony and humor at least partly as a deconstructive trope. “All humor är till sin verkan disharmonisk,” he claims, “sönderbrytande det slags lugn, hvari en, före afmålningen, befinner sig. Nyttan kan ej bestridas af en sådan inre söndring, när den harmoni varit låg, den ro falsk, det lugn endast sjelfbehagligt, hvari subjectet befann sig” (Almqvist 2010, 79) [The effect of all humor is disharmonious, disrupting the kind of calm that one enjoyed before the depiction. The usefulness of such an inner division cannot be contested, when harmony has been low, calm has been false, peacefulness has only been a self-indulgence that the subject experienced]. However, unlike satire, which Almqvist construes as a low and utterly negative genre, irony does not debase or ridicule the things it represents; rather it perceives them “absolute [sic]—hon [i.e., irony] ser dem ur det lugna Evigas vackra ögo, inför hvilket ingenting sköjes annorlunda än blott för hvad det är” (Almqvist 2010, 77) [absolutely—it sees them through the beautiful eyes of eternity, before which nothing is seen differently than only for what it is]. Thus, Almqvist's definition of irony resembles Schlegel's notion of the concept in question, which aims to juxtapose negative and positive aspects (Pagrot 1962, 142, 146).5 To use Almqvist's own imagery, irony “liknar giftet, hvilket, i rätt dosis användt såsom läkemedel, med makt häfver de svåraste sjukdomar, men med ringaste tillskott gifver döden” (Almqvist 2010, 71; see also Båth 2017, 71–4) [resembles the poison that, used in the right dose as a curative, has the power to terminate the most severe illnesses, but that with the smallest addition results in death].What I would like to show in this interpretation is that the visual discourse in Almqvist's novel, that is, the use of ekphrases in the wider sense of the word, is an ironic device by means of which the text is able to transcend its fictional boundaries and thus point to the absolute, which in The Queen's Tiara may be identified with Christ. Tintomara's and other characters’ engagements with images—these images may be real or fictitious6—are essentially negative and emphasize absence, pain, suffering, and ultimately death. As a result, Tintomara may be interpreted as a Christ-like figure, whose fate resembles the sufferings of the Lord and who is thereby able to transcend the fictional world of unending reflection and deception. The novel's ekphrases, then, with their negative connotations, are ironic representations of resurrection and eternal life whose presence in the novel is only spelled out negatively, that is, as pain and death. Ultimately, Almqvist's use of ekphrasis as a figure of negation is in itself ironic: whereas ekphrasis is traditionally associated with the act of making the absent object present (enargeia), in The Queen's Tiara, the genre signifies the very opposite, namely, absence, which in turn—in the shape of an ironic oscillation between absence and presence, life and death—points to life and presence in a more profound, divine sense. To be sure, the ironic use of ekphrasis in The Queen's Tiara is the kind of curative poison to which Båth refers. However, unlike the Platonic pharmakon (Plato 2017, 274e–275a), Almqvist's poisonous irony cures only by means of death.7The link between images, absence, and death is established quite inconspicuously in the sixth book of the novel, which relates the events that take place immediately after the assassination of King Gustav III during the infamous masquerade held in the opera house in 1792, where we meet Tintomara for the first time. Throughout the chaos that follows the deed—the lockdown of the opera, the attempts by the conspirators to escape by shouting out “Elden är lös! elden är lös!” (Almqvist 2000, 74) [“Fire! Fire!” (Almqvist 2001, 77)], and the demasking of all the guests—the narrator's gaze focuses on Adolfine, one of two sisters whose fate is intertwined with the fate of Tintomara. At the masquerade, she has mistaken the king for Ferdinand, her sister's fiancé. For some reason—probably due to her connection to the man who she thinks has been shot, not realizing that it is the king—Adolfine fears the idea of being questioned by the police, and she starts to walk in the opposite direction of everyone else: not toward the exit but toward the stage, where she disappears behind a backdrop of a gazebo. Even more surprising, perhaps, she starts to climb up the stage set—Henry Olsson has pointed to inspiration from Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Olsson 1973, 146–7, 154). Almqvist here indulges in descriptions of all kinds of props, for instance, “en härlig taklist af dorisk ordning” and “ett Moln, hvars ljusgrå rand sväfvade öfver ett träd” (Almqvist 2000, 75) [“a splendid ceiling frieze of the Doric order; a cloud, whose pale grey edge floated above a tree” (Almqvist 2001, 78)].Adolfine wanders through the maze-like corridors backstage before she comes across a person who is dressed exactly the way she herself was supposed to have been dressed for the masquerade (Almqvist 2000, 79; Almqvist 2001, 81). Needless to say, the person Adolfine meets is Tintomara, whom the conspirators have used to lure the king close to the assassin Anckarström. This is one of the many illusory tricks that epitomize the scenes set in the opera house and that aptly represent the world of the theater. People's identities are repeatedly mistaken, and the consequences are lethal. Adolfine helps Tintomara change her costume—another reference to theater as illusion and deception—before the latter is called into the next room. Again, the call only emphasizes the problem of identity, or rather, gender, since Adolfine is unable to “urskilja om det skulle vara donna Zouras eller don Azouras” (80) [“Adolfine could not be sure whether it should be donna Zouras or don Azouras” (82)].8 Unaware of the assassination, the people in the adjacent room are rehearsing “en amerikansk pantomim, la Sauvage sauvée” (82) [“an American pantomime, La Sauvage Sauvée” (84)]; a play that, according to Henry Olsson, summarizes the entire story of the novel (Olsson 1937, 270; Olsson 1919, 88–93). The savage is, of course, played by Tintomara, who in the pantomime is intricately tortured: her hands and legs are tied, and she is surrounded by two boys and two girls in the shape of “den uttrycksfulla bilden af en Spaderfemma” (Almqvist 2000, 84; emphasis added) [“the expressive image of a five of spades” (Almqvist 2001, 86; trans. modified)], which the maître de ballet has produced to illustrate the scene, “ty den Vilda sjelf i midten med sina två ynglingar öfver de utsträckta händerna, och sina två flickor öfver fötterna, alltsammans ofvanpå en hvit matta utbredd under dem, gjorde i sanning en tafla som liknade detta ominösa kort” (Almqvist 2000, 84; emphasis added) [“for in truth the whole picture—the savage herself in the centre, two young men seated on her outstretched hands and the two girls at her feet, all on a white carpet spread beneath them—bore a striking resemblance to that ominous card” (Almqvist 2001, 86; trans. modified)]. This formation, Olsson shows, is repeated throughout the novel and anticipates the fatal end scene (Olsson 1973, 151–2; see also Engdahl 1986, 209).The reference to this playing card is conspicuous. The card is a recurrent motif in the novel, and it has been meticulously analyzed by scholars, who have repeatedly pointed to the visual structure of the card and how this, in turn, structures the entirety of the story (Olsson 1919, 88–93; van Reis 1992, 122–6; Kukkonen 2018). However, critics have overlooked the fact that the visual aspect is also emphasized by the description of the card as an image (bild) and the scene as a picture (tavla). As a matter of fact, this is the first reference to the word tavla in the entire novel, and although it is only mentioned in passing, it establishes a fundamental link between pain and imagery: the painful torture of Tintomara—merely acted out in this scene but transformed into reality later in the novel—is described as an image and a picture. Interestingly, the torture scene is supposed to transform into an erotic dance involving the Indian chief and the female captive, who succeeds in seducing the chief and thus delivers herself from her fate. In reality, however, Tintomara—in this scene called Tourne-rose, the turning rose, indicating the protagonist's sexual elusiveness and at the same time referring to the book project to which the novel belongs, Törnrosens bok—does everything wrong, and instead of seducing her male counterpart, she “synbart vände ansigtet ifrån honom, undvek honom och drog sig åt venster” (Almqvist 2000, 85) [“visibly averted her face from him, avoided him and moved away to her left” (Almqvist 2001, 87)]. As it turns out, this is only a very skillfully performed act of pretense. Tintomara has in fact stolen Her Majesty the Queen Mother's jewels and is planning her escape from the opera house, which, as we know, is under lockdown. As Tintomara and Adolfine escape into the next room, guards appear searching for the assassin, and as they try to force their way into the room where the two women are hiding, Tintomara helps Adolfine escape: Nu är tid! sade Tintomara, reste sig ändå högre i soffan, utsträckte handen mot en tafla, som hängde på väggen, knackade på en lummig ek, hvarvid en liten blindlucka i sjelfva taflan öppnades, och framtog derur en nyckel. Straxt gick luckan åter ihop, och ek-kronan bar sina gröna löf sammanhängande som förr. “Kom!” (Almqvist 2000, 86; emphasis added)‘Hurry!’ Tintomara said. Standing a-tiptoe on the sofa she stretched out one hand to a picture on the wall, rapped sharply on a leafy oaktree, whereupon a little secret hatch inside the picture opened, and she took out a key. The hatch snapped shut again, and again the oak's foliage seemed to hang there, as before. ‘Come!’ (Almqvist 2001, 88; emphasis added)The reference to the oak tree is important and is just one of the many instances of prefiguration that abound in the novel: a pivotal scene in the tenth book, a fatal meeting between Tintomara and her four lovers, takes place under the foliage of a linden tree (Almqvist 2000, 217; Almqvist 2001, 208), and in the last book, she will be tied to a tree (the kind is not specified) and executed (Almqvist 2000, 289; Almqvist 2001, 280). What I would like to draw attention to, however, is the picture itself, not necessarily to what it depicts but rather what it hides: a secret hatch, and behind it, a concealed space that contains a key. In Swedish, the hatch is called “blindlucka,” literally “blind hatch,” a term that not only indicates concealment9 but also man's blindness (Tintomara excluded, of course). She sees what is hidden behind the painting, which is nothing less than a key to freedom. In the long run, however, the women's escape also clears the way for the tragic story that follows, which contains murder and insanity, and thus Tintomara, too, is blind to what the oak tree really signifies: an ironic image of freedom and death.To be sure, these first references to pictures are neither conspicuous nor conclusive, at least not at first glance. In the first case, the pantomime, which is used solely as a metaphor—Hans Lund calls the use of pictures as an interpretational model “iconic projection” (Lund 1992, 73)—indicates constraint and violence, whereas in the latter case, it is indeed a real picture that seems to denote the very opposite of the metaphorical implications of the first, namely, freedom. However, if we trace the uses of and references to images and pictures as the novel unfolds, it becomes apparent that these two fleeting, indirect, and metaphorical references to pictures in the sixth book mark the beginning of an intermedial, ekphrastic crescendo that culminates in the scene in the twelfth book, where the protagonist beholds Jonas Hoffman's reredos of the dead Christ in The Church of Saint Clare in Stockholm. As will become apparent, death but also transcendence are key characteristics associated with imagery in Almqvist's novel, and they form an ironic relationship, at which the first two references to pictures hint.The next time we encounter references to images in The Queen's Tiara, the plot has thickened, and it is no longer a question of paintings sensu stricto but, for the sake of safety, of discreet miniatures. The lovers of Adolfine and her sister Amanda, Clas Henrik and Ferdinand, are, as it turns out, members of the partly unsuccessful plot against the king—Gustav III does not die immediately, which gives his allies and the enemies of the plot enough time to seek out the conspirators and arrest them—and the two men see no other option than to flee the capital and hide in the countryside. Since they are forced to leave their fiancées without any hope of ever seeing them again, they send them their pictures in the form of miniatures. The girls’ mother, the Dowager Baroness M*, receives the parcel containing the portraits and a letter: Tvenne miniaturporträtter i medaljonger? Clas Henrik och Ferdinand! Ganska väl måladt, man igenkänner dem straxt; utan tvifvel Bredas pensel. Hvad skrifva de?“Till fröknarne A. & A. I dagar af ett bättre hopp låto vi afteckna dessa drag för Er. Originalerna äro redan borta. Frågen ej hvart? ty det svaras: de komma aldrig åter. Glömmen dem, som blifvit Er ovärdige, sedan en olycklig utgång stämplat dem till brottslingar.”—Intet namn under. (Almqvist 2000, 129–30)Two miniature portraits, in medallions? Clas Henrik and Ferdinand; rather well painted, one recognizes them at once—the painter Breda's brush, without a doubt. What do they write?‘To the Misses A & A. In days of greater hope we had these features limned for you. The originals have already departed. Do you ask whither? Here is the answer: they will never come again. Forget them, who are no longer worthy of you, accused of crime by the unhappy outcome.’—No name beneath. (Almqvist 2001, 125)Adolfine and Amanda's mother, unfortunately, makes a disastrous decision: “Porträtterna skall jag lemna åt Amanda, men icke brefvet. Det är allrabäst för hennes lugn, att anse Ferdinand död” (Almqvist 2000, 130) [“The portraits I'll give to Amanda, but not the letter; it's best for her peace of mind to suppose Ferdinand dead” (Almqvist 2001, 125)]. Thus, for the two young women, the portraits become tokens not of their lovers’ temporary concealment but of their permanent absence and, allegedly, their death. In this part of the novel, the ninth book, which is set in the rural area around the bay of Bråviken, where Clas Henrik and Ferdinand are hiding in an abandoned marble quarry, and Adolfine and Amanda, accompanied by Tintomara, who is dressed as a boy, have retreated to the family's mansion—needless to say, the lovers are unaware of each other's proximity—the portraits are repeatedly referred to. As Clas Henrik wonders “huru de [Adolfine and Amanda] emottagit medaljongerna” (165) [“how did they receive the medallions” (160)], Ferdinand replies: “Som af förkastade, förlorade; utan tvifvel” (165) [“As from castaways, lost souls; no question of it” (161)]. In the chapter that follows, Adolfine reflects: “De äro nu borta begge två för alltid; medaljongerna hänga der på väggen, Amanda” (167) [“Gone for ever, both of them, Amanda, whose medallions hang over there on the wall” (162)]. Ironically, then, the theme of death and absence epitomizes the visual discourse, despite the fact that the men are very much alive and actually residing in the two women's vicinity. Unknowingly, the two couples have communicated with each other with the help of Tintomara, who, as she is roaming the woods, encounters Clas Henrik and Ferdinand. Just like their fiancées at Stafsjö mansion, they become involved in a complex double love triangle with Tintomara, whom the four lovers alternately perceive as a man and a woman. Tintomara, the object of everyone's desire but not desiring anyone herself, readily adapts to the role she is forced to play by her lovers. The ultimate corollary of these love affairs, however, is catastrophic and is intertwined with imagery, as Adolfine, Amanda, Clas Henrik, and Ferdinand consistently brood over the absence of the originals in the scenes leading up to the fatal scene that ends the tenth book.Desiring the mysterious, androgynous protagonist, the four lovers all encounter Tintomara at a crossroads, where four roads meet “så