“Amour Dure” (1887)

This long story by Vernon Lee is epistolary, presented as a series of diary entries by one Spiridion Trepka, starting in August 1885. I’m calling it a Christmas story because that is when—and that is how—it climaxes, with a finish that may fairly be called stunning. Trepka is a poor young Pole, an art historian with a burgeoning enough career to be able to travel to Italy on a modest grant to pursue his studies. He’s keenly aware of his native country’s relatively lower cultural position in the scheme of things. His research leads to his discovery of a historical figure (fictional, I’m pretty sure—I hope), Medea da Carpi. Her motto, emblazoned on her jewelry: “Amour Dure – Dure Amour.” “Hard love” seems the best and most apt translation. This story is long and very slow, especially in the first two-thirds, Part I, where we are brought along as Trepka discovers this woman in the historical literature, learns details of her appalling life, and falls in love with her. Spiridion, we hardly knew ye. Medea da Carpi’s story is riveting, a notorious woman emerging slowly from the mists of history and fragments of the documents Trepka examines. There’s a good payoff for all this in Part II. I love the complications of Medea da Carpi’s life, which is full of intrigue and seduction as she pushes herself into high social position purely by the power of a ruthless will. She betrays and murders or sees murdered a series of increasingly powerful lovers. It takes place in the 16th century or so, some 300 years before Trepka reassembles the story. But one day, now getting into December in the diary entries, Trepka receives a note signed by her. He recognizes her signature and handwriting from the documents. It’s a short note—she wants to meet him late at night at a church. Trepka had seen this church in town before and thought it abandoned and unused. But he finds a gathering and a service taking place when he gets there at the appointed time late at night. If you think this is heading for some bad end, you’re probably right. Vernon Lee was the pen name of Violet Paget, a prolific essayist and feminist as well as fiction writer. As with E. Nesbit and Margaret Bowen, it’s the gender-based rage and sense of oppression that fascinates me most in Lee’s horror stories. “Slow burn” is a reasonable enough way to describe “Amour Dure.” It required a fair amount of patience. The language is relatively straightforward, but the revelations are slippery to trace, only come into focus slowly, and then the story hits very hard.

Read story online (scroll down).
Listen to story online.