Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 49
Oiuda's Family Romance
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down to the "instinctive fatalism, the strange passivity, that are in
the Southern temper" (774). Freud writes on the repetition
compulsion that persons may give the impression "of being pursued by
a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power; but
psychoanalysis has always taken the view that their fate is for the
most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile
influences." Nor is it necessary that the person take a deliberate part
in the action: "we are much more im press^ by cases where the subject
appears to have a passive experience, over which he has no
influence, but in which he meets with a repetition of the same
fatality" (18: 21, 22). Musa demands punishment for consummating
her love because she has confused it with incestuous love; more
precisely, she desires punishment for what she has not done. In
Ouida's mind, sexuality is identified with incestuous longing, which
creates such guilt that both parties—father and daughter—must be
punished by death. Musa's punishment begins by her suffering, for
the first time, a physical weakness from the Maremma.
Este sends a messenger with money, which she refuses, and she
does not say that she is pregnant. Her son, child of another absent
father, dies shortly after birth. Discovered with the dead baby and
Joconda's coffin, Musa is imprisoned with a prostitute. Word spreads,
and the sununer-stricken townspeople accuse her of having the evil
eye (792), a sign of the uncanny, and want to execute her: she becomes
a scapegoat for all the ills inflicted by the Maremma. As her once
robust health fails her, Villamagna comes to her aid; proven
innocent, she is released and returns to the tomb. Summer passes to
autumn, news spreads of her goodness, and the people begin to think
well of her. In Ouida's myth-making, Musa is a plague goddess who
controls the seasons. One recalls that, unlike other children, Musa
was inunune to the unhealthy summers.
Mastama visits Musa to learn what had happened and, in what
Ouida calls the noblest act of his life, keeps the secret of her origins,
ostensibly not to deepen her grief. Then, followed by Musa, he leaves
for Este's palazzo in Rome to exact vengeance. In the sensational
climax she struggles with Mastama to prevent the murder and faints
from exhaustion, and Este's men have had just enough time to restrain
the intruder. She is unconscious when Mastama curses Este, cries out
that Musa is his daughter, then dies of apoplexy. Now Este knows
the secret too. The next day, discovering Este with a courtesan, Musa