Conrad and Masculinity

152 Conrad and Masculinity
that—that—inspired, yes, inspired penetration, this true light of femininity’.
‘You don’t object to being understood...?’ (213), he asks
(precisely what Razumov would object to, of course). In fact, Madame
de S—, a hysterical spiritualist, is the least likely of anyone in Geneva
to perceive the truth. There is the shadow here of the classic duality in
the representation of women: the beautiful, charming, sincere, idealistic
Natalia counterpoised to Madame de S—, a symbol of falsity and
physically repulsive, like ‘a corpse galvanized into harsh speech and
glittering stare by the force of murderous hate’ (222) (a description
strongly suggestive of the Freudian uncanny). 16 A conventional
misogynist paradigm lurks in the background (the beautiful virgin and
the ugly witch), but reworked within a complex ironic structure.
If we consider the triangle of desire and knowledge formed by
Razumov, Natalia and the language-teacher, we can observe an unsettling
of the paradigm which I outlined in relation to ‘Heart of
Darkness’. The paradigm is clearly present, at least in the situation as
perceived by the language-teacher (and to an extent by Natalia). The
teacher sees her as admirable but innocent in the ways of the world,
as the ‘ignorant young girl’ specified by Irigaray as the approved mediator
between men. At the same time his idealization of Natalia hints
at an association of her (in his mind) with metaphysical or ultimate
truth. This view of her is neatly encapsulated in his description of her
as ‘so true, so honest, but so dangerously inexperienced!’ (142): in his
view she is ‘true’ (trustworthy, honest, full of integrity) but she cannot
know the truth (being inexperienced). Natalia also describes herself (to
Razumov) as ignorant but trustworthy (181). The teacher is clearly
aware, with the voyeurism and vicarious excitement identified by
Cave, of some sort of transaction between himself and Razumov,
involving him passing Natalia over to the younger man:
In my fear of seeing the girl surrender to the influence of the
Château Borel revolutionary feminism, I was more than willing to
put my trust in that friend of the late Victor Haldin.
(164–5)
He imagines their growing intimacy with an evident mixture of pleasurable
identification with the young man and suppressed jealousy
(see 170–6).
However, as the reader knows, and as the language-teacher himself
knows by the time that he writes his narrative, his idea of Razumov is
mistaken. Like the students in St Petersburg, he takes taciturnity as a