To Be Read at Dusk
is a rare thing indeed; an enigmatic tale by Charles Dickens. Yes,
Charles Dickens, who
ties his ends up so neatly, and on whom you can rely to explain what
happens to everyone, however small their role in a story, has written a tale which makes his
readers scratch their heads as to what it all means. Or alternatively, if you like, you can read this
one as an enjoyable ghost story. Or two
ghost stories in fact, as it is a portmanteau story, so
popular in the 19th century; a story within a story, Or, wait a minute, is it three? Isn’t the framing
story also a ghost story? And there the arguments begin.
To Be Read at Dusk
is of course, an excellent title. A time when the world seems to fade
and blur, when nothing is clear. A time between light and dark, when everything is muted and
hushed. An unsettling transition time, when dreams seem more real, and things recede—or
perhaps emerge—from the shadows.
The story was first published in
“The Keepsake”
literary annual, for the Christmas of 1852.
This annual of short fiction, poems and essays, ran from 1828 to 1857, and was a luxurious book,
designed to appeal particularly to young ladies. The binding was lavish scarlet silk, and the
engraved illustrations were very fine. Often, “literary” annuals of this type often contained second
rate literature, but
“The Keepsake”
was a cut above the rest. The 1829 edition for instance,
included contributors by such well-known classic authors as Mary Shelley, Sir Walter Scott,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William
Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Southey.
Fashionable well bred young ladies of this time delighted in reading thrilling fiction; the
more spine-tingling the better. For almost a century gothic novels had been their secret passion,
and
“horrid”
novels were much in vogue. Jane Austen had famously parodied this several decades
earlier, in
“Northanger Abbey”
. Even now such young ladies were still confined and constrained in
their behaviour; rarely having their horizons broadened. Exciting reading remained their only
solace.
Charles Dickens has written a very superior story indeed. It includes some of his favourite
inexplicable supernatural phenomenons, such as premonitions, hauntings and phantoms, allied
with psychology and what we now might call parapsychology. We have telepathy, doppelgängers
and dualism, repression and guilt, the idea of fate, and psychological influences on one’s personal
identity. It is all there—but then we can just sit back and enjoy a spooky tale, if we prefer.
The story begins with the narrator, whom
we are soon told is a writer, idly watching and
listening to a group of couriers. They are chatting outside the monastery on the summit of the
Great St. Bernard mountain, in Switzerland. We assume that the eavesdropper must be Charles
Dickens himself, as he had ascended the pass to get to the monastery while living in Switzerland in
1846. It provided inspiration for this story, as well as parts of
“Little Dorrit”
and
“David
Copperfield”
. Charles Dickens actually lived for five months in a villa in Lausanne with his wife
and family (and four servants) and wrote
“Dombey and Son”
there. The narrator has been driven
outside because of a conversation between two American businessmen, whose constant talk of
accumulating dollars, he finds unbearable. This seems further proof that he has included himself
in the tale, as at the time Charles Dickens was a little anti-American.
“One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them.”
Nothing to
worry about there; this is a sensible, reliable narrator. We have a Swiss, a
German, two Italians: a Neapolitan and a Genoese, and … but I must have
missed one, haven’t I?
And when we think of Switzerland, don’t we think of cute little chalets and glistening
sunshine on snow covered mountains? And what do we get? An ominous introduction indeed, with
overtones of blood:
“the remote heights stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been
broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow”
followed by an
image of submerged corpses.
This seems chilling, perhaps even subversive. Why should Charles Dickens think of
something so grisly. Is this a subliminal threat? Will the corpses emerge? Or are other things than
bodies hidden here—or to be hidden. Interestingly Charles Dickens attributed this poetic bit of
description about the setting sun to one of the couriers, not himself. He stands apart right from the
start, observing.
The couriers are talking about ghosts and supernatural experiences, and are arguing about
what might be supernatural, and what is merely coincidence. The German courier in particularly,
is sceptical. We are about to hear two tall tales—or perhaps one or two faithful accounts—
depending on what you choose to believe. The Genoese courier begins.
Interestingly, the name Clara means “bright” or “clear” and
“Dellombra”
means “of the
shadow”. But as a story, and not merely a metaphor, we are left with many questions. What has
happened to the young bride? And why did she experience these dark premonitions? Why did the
husband try to persuade his wife to
accept his guest, when she was clearly so terrified of him. Did
he have an ulterior motive? Or is it the young wife who is dissembling, and has she had an earlier
liaison with the “stranger”?
Is there any significance to to the old woman with the spindle? “Spinning a yarn”, perhaps?
Or a reference to the Three Fates of Classical Mythology? Are we being told that all this is “Fate”?
The German courier scoffs:
“What do you call that?’ said the German courier, triumphantly. ‘Ghosts! There are no
ghosts there! What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts! There are no ghosts
here!”
He now tells a tale, which he asserts is not a ghost story but his experience, in real life.
(view
spoiler)
So ends the German courier’s story, and so too, within a few sentences, abruptly ends
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