Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 42

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Popular Culture Review

against "pale, swollen, ague-shaken” denizens of the Maremma in
midsummer 'like life beside death" (455).
As the story opens the elderly Joconda is traveling on foot to sell
her linen in Grosseto. Fifty years before, she went against the wishes
of her Alpine family and married a trader from the Maremma; but
he, her three children, and grandson all died long ago. The trader is
the first of the "lost" fathers in the novel, while Joconda is a partial
portrait of long-suffering Mrs. Ram#: both women are essentially
prudent but have committed one devastating "error" out of passionate
love. Too proud to return home, Joconda has eked out a living by
spinning and herb-gathering in the coastal village of Santa Tarsilla.
Known for her charity, St. Tarsilla or Tharsilla (Dec. 24) was the
virgin aunt of Pope Gregory the Great; in a vision she was visited by
her great-grandfather Pope St. Felix and given a glimpse of heaven.
The choice of this patron saint fits in with Ouida's ideal of the
caring, virginal woman and the exalted, remote father.
In Grosseto, all attention is fixed upon the local brigand,
Satumino Mastama, who has been captured by government troops. Of
massive proportions, he has "sombre and terrible" black eyes,
"straight and handsome" features, "rich and red" lips, and long "dark
locks" (460): "nostro Satumino," a kind of hero to the downtrodden
townspeople. Years before he had found Joconda's missing grandchild
and she alone now gives him refreshment. He begs her to save his
baby daughter, abandoned after the ambush in his mountain hideout.
Her mother Serapia was "half a captive" and "half a willing
mistress," a "second Proserpine" (474) to Satumino's Pluto; she died
either by fever or at the hands of Satumino himself in a jealous fit.
Joconda goes into the mountains and saves the child. Within the
Family Romance, Ouida has removed the child's rival for the father
by splitting the mother image. There is Serapia: Mrs. Ram# as
daring wife of the mysterious stranger, punished by death. And there
is her replacement, a foster-mother, Joconda: Mrs. Ram# as practicalminded mother. (Joconda's own youthful choice of a love-match
shows Ouida's reluctance to rob the mother image of its assertion of
freedom and sexuality.) The child will grow up to become a second
Persephone (625, 653), Serapia's replacement in the role of queen and
consort. Satumino is imprisoned on the island of Gorgona, named for
the mythical figure who, at once beautiful and hideous, turns men to