The month of January dies, and I write this to you from the innocent past. Blog readers, I hope the month of January has treated you better than I would choose to treat any of the characters in Elinor Glyn except for Isabella Waring, who was fortunate to escape Paul as a husband but who nevertheless deserved better treatment than Paul gave her.
After months of silence, Paul finally gets a letter from the lady, in which she informs him that she has borne his son. He’s thrilled about it, and can’t believe that destiny would keep him from his son forever. I just — DESTINY is not keeping you from your son, you dumb cluck! YOUR OWN CHOICES are keeping you from your son! The kid’s mother’s OWN CHOICES are keeping you from your son! JUST MAKE BETTER CHOICES.
Regardless, she tells him that at long last they can see each other again, under a set of really byzantine circumstances with codes and special dates and secret things Paul is supposed to say and do to Dmitry and the lady’s other servant. Paul’s father, who is weirdly unperturbed by the notion that he has a grandchild in Russia being raised by at least one notably violent and terrible Russian ruler, offers to help Paul out by taxiing him out to the Mediterranean and, one must assume, funding all of his activities.
Here’s what irritates me. First of all, the lady dies. Of course. And Elinor Glyn says “And so, as ever, the woman paid the price,” which like — that would be an impactful message if this were a true story that had happened in real life. But it came out of Elinor Glyn’s brain! She chose to have the woman pay the price! She could have killed drippy Paul!
As if that’s not annoying enough, the lady doesn’t even die onscreen. When Paul shows up for the first rendezvous, her servants send him away in haste due to complications, and tell him to come back another day. He comes back, but the next thing he hears is that she’s been stabbed by her husband, who was in turn killed by her second servant, Vasili. In Russia there are apparently no consequences for bodyguards killing monarchs.
Paul is inconsolable. I am frankly inconsolable myself. At last a stabbing — that part’s good — but then nothing ever happens with Dmitry’s revolver? Why even have a revolver? Just to introduce a note of mystery? HOW DOES HE NEVER HAVE TO SHOOT THE REVOLVER? He briefly contemplates self-harm after the lady’s death, but decides against it in favor of moping for the rest of his life UNTIL he runs into a Romani widow (yes of course the book uses the slur word for Romani) and is like “wow she sucks, I don’t want to be that kind of widow,” and he finally goes to Russia and meets his kid.
The end.
Oh, Elinor Glyn. What a mess this book was, yet how happy I feel to have read one of your books at last. I pledge my troth to you here and now, upon the bloom of the least romantic-sounding flower of all time, the tuberose, which you nevertheless chose to give pride of place in this goddamn book, I shall never read another. What silliness lies in this one. How blessed am I to have consumed it.