THE OLD MANOR HOUSE (1794) - CHARLOTTE SMITH
Hay innumerables novelas ubicadas en la periferia de lo gótico; es decir que usan algunos de sus elementos, pero no los suficientes para considerarlas como tales.
Una de ellas es "The Old Manor House", una novela extensa en número de páginas pero pequeña y modesta en la trama, en la que los protagonistas, Monimia y Orlando, puros, humillados, hermosos, sometidos por la injusticia, unen todas las virtudes a su amor mutuo y son separados a lo largo de cientos de páginas demasiado monocordes. La mitad de la novela se gasta en describir los encuentros dificultosos y clandestinos entre Orlando y Monimia. De cualquier manera, se lee con leve interés.
Parte de la acción ocurre en una casona antiquisima, decadente, con pasillos secretos, puertas ocultas, pasadizos y criptas donde descansan los restos de los antepasados -toda la escenografía es gótica. Hay menciones a la arquitectura gótica, pero falta el dinamismo del lugar propio de la "verdadera" novela del género tal como la estudiamos aquí.
He then drew her arm within his, and pushed open the door of the chapel. When Monimia felt the cold damp that environed her as he shut it after them, and found herself in such a place without any other light than what was afforded by two gothic windows half blocked with stone work, and almost all the rest by stained glass, at midnight, in a night of September, she again shuddered, and shrunk back: but Orlando again encouraging her, and ridiculing her fears, she moved on; and passing the stone passage, he at length seated her safely by the sturdy fire, which he now replenished with wood.
Hay también menciones de lo sobrenatural; pero son solo conversaciones pequeña, no esenciales en modo alguno para la novela.
'Oh! no indeed,' sighed Monimia, 'but the chapel!' 'What of the chapel?' cried Orlando impatiently. 'It is haunted, you know, every night by the spirit of one of the Lady Raylands, who I know not how long ago died for love, and whose ghost now sits every night in the chancel, and sometimes walks round the house, and particularly along the galleries, at midnight, groaning and lamenting her fate.'
Orlando, laughing at her simplicity, cried, 'And who, my dear Monimia, who has violated thy natural good sense by teaching thee these ridiculous stories? "
Hay varios párrafos de este tenor sobre la existencia de los espiritus entre Orlando, el escéptico, y Monimia, quien antes vimos que cree ver uno; al rato los eventos sobrenaturales se explican con la presencia de unos contrabandistas ocultos en las criptas subterraneas de la casa.
Como vemos, hay una serie de temas analogos y armonicos con los de Radcliffe - se conoce la influencia importante que Charlotte Smith ejerció sobre ella- pero varia la intensidad de tratamiento: hay parrafos sobre la naturaleza que podrian haber sido escritos por la autora de Udolfo - pero son escasos y accesorios:
Just as he arrived at the water, from the deep gloom of the tall firs through which he passed, the moon appeared behind the opposite coppices, and threw her long line of trembling radiance on the water. It was a cold but clear evening, and, though early in November, the trees were not yet entirely stripped of their discoloured leaves: - a low wind sounded hollow through the firs and stone-pines over his head, and then faintly sighed among the reeds that crowded into the water: no other sound was heard, but, at distant intervals, the cry of the wild fowl concealed among them, or the dull murmur of the current, which was now low. Orlando had hardly ever felt himself so impressed with those feelings which inspire poetic effusions: - Nature appeared to pause, and to ask the turbulent and troubled heart of man, whether his silly pursuits were worth the toil he undertook for them? Peace and tranquility seemed here to have retired to a transient abode; and Orlando, as slowly he traversed the narrow path over ground made hollow by the roots of these old trees, stepped as lightly as if he feared to disturb them. Insensibly he began to compare this scene, the scenes he every day saw of rural beauty and rural content, with those into which his destiny was about to lead him - 'Oh, Monimia!' sighed he, 'why cannot I remain with thee in this my native country? How happy should I be to be allowed to cultivate one of the smallest of those farms which belong to the Rayland estate, and, comprising in thy society and that of my family all my felicity, have no wish but to live and die without reading that great book which they call the World! - Alas! shall I ever understand its language?
O en:
There is a story in one of the popular periodical publications, I believe in the Spectator, of two lovers, who agreed at a certain hour to retire, each from their respective engagements, to look at the moon; the romantic satisfaction they enjoyed in knowing that the eyes of the person beloved were, at the moment they were gazing on it, fixed on the same planet, will by this means be doubled to me; for I shall know that at such an hour on such a morning my Monimia and my Selina will be just in this place...
Este libro, menor y que no pertenece a la historia de la literatura de terror en modo alguno, nos sirve simplemente para mostrar un ejemplo entre muchísimos otros de novelas que quedan en los márgenes del extenso movimiento gótico y que influenciaron a autores más importantes, en este caso a Anne Radcliffe.
