CHAPTER SIX

THE EPISTOLARY MOSAIC

If in chapter 5 we approached the epistolary work as process, we shall now examine it as product. This final chapter offers an approach to the work's composition through analysis of the arrangement or patterning of its constituent parts distribution of letters among the various correspondents, order ing and juxtaposition of letters, narrative continuity and disconti nuity from letter to letterall of which are a function of the letter's dual status as unity and as narrative unit. ' As we turn from what is particular to epistolary communication to what is particu lar to configurations of letters, we move from the plane of internal writer-addressee to that of external author-reader. Awareness of the arrangement of letters within a narrative work involves consciousness of the hand that arrangesthat of the fictional "editor/' or of the epistolary novelist.
THE LETTER AS UNIT AND THE LETTER AS UNITY

Within the epistolary work the letter has both a dependent and an independent status. Like tesserae, each individual letter enters into the composition of the whole without losing its identity as a separate entity with recognizable borders. Each letter is defined by the blank space that surrounds it; each has its characteristic shape and coloration. The letter retains its own unity while remaining a unit within a larger configuration. Montesquieu's Lettres persanes richly illustrates the letter's viability as a self-contained entity. Each of the philosophical

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Numerous in particular are the English novels whose correspon dents, following Pamela's example, write letters in journalistic sequence to keep their confidant abreast of events; the very titling of these letters in the text ("Evelina in continuation") reflects the cult of narrative continuity. This particular technique is largely limited to novels dominated by a single correspondent; yet a similar effect is often produced in multicorrespondent works. In fact, at times when a single plot line begins to dominate an epistolary work, we may observeeven in a multicorrespondent novel like Clarissa or Delphinethat narrative continuity fre quently overrides epistolary discontinuity. Thus in Delphine there are long sections where Delphine, Mme de Lebensei, and Louise assume narrative responsibility in turn, and where the plot is more important than who is doing the narrating. In Clarissa (or Grandison) we note the same kind of distribution of narrative responsibility. As Clarissa, then Lovelace, and finally Belford successively assume the role of narrator we often find that we are simply following a continuous story through the eyes of the most omniscient observer at the time. On the other hand, discontinuity is maximized when none of the above rules is obeyed, that is, in narrative with the following characteristics: 1. Multiple plots 2. Disruption of the temporal line by nonchronological order ing of letters 3. Multiple correspondents, with each writer and addressee giving his characteristic coloration to the letter 4. Lacunae: the letters punctuate the story rather than consti tuting the entire action. Intervals between the letters loom large and contribute to the shape of the narrative. The fourth characteristic requires elaboration. A simple illustra tive work is Crbillon's Lettres de la marquise, where the letters allude to an action that is going on in the intervals and that we as readers must guess. Thus the seduction scene is never narrated, as it is in Dorat's Les Malheurs de l'inconstance or in Les Liaisons, where one character keeps his correspondent up to date on his activities. The moment of seduction must instead be inferred from

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a change in tone from one letter to the next. In such instances the blank space between letters is as responsible for shaping the narrative as the letter itself. Often two or more factors of discontinuity reinforce each other, as at the end of Lettres d'une Pruvienne, when in the interval between two letters a meeting between the long-separated lovers Aza and Zilia has occurred. For the first time in Mme de Graffigny's novel, Zilia writes to a person other than Aza, penning her first lines to her French friend and admirer Dterville. The sudden switch in addressee reinforces the blank space of nonnarrated action between letters, producing a shock comparable to the shock Zilia has had in the intervalthe discovery that Aza no longer loves her. The dislocation that the film medium might produce by a blackout is accomplished in Lettres d'une Pruvienne by a switch in addressee that emphasizes a narrative lacuna. More often than not, the discontinuity inherent in the form is played off against an illusion of continuity. Thus the division of Pamela into dated letters draws more attention to skipped days than would a simple first-person narration. The events them selves are no more discontinuous than they would be in a memoir novel, but the interruption of the narration creates a different effectbe it apprehension or simply the heightened awareness that we are tuning in on the heroine only every few days. Even when the time interval between letters is abnormally long, the very proximity of the letters on the printed page can nonethe less create a contrapuntal illusion of temporal continuity. For example, in part 3 of La Nouvelle Hlose, letters 5 through 17 probably span one year but occupy only twenty-five pages in the Pliade edition. This grouping produces a distorted effect, since it seems as if one blow (Julie's marriage) too quickly follows another (Mme d'Etange's death and Saint-Preux's sacrifice of Julie). Such a telescoping of time accentuates the shock of the blows inflicted on Saint-Preux by presenting them in rapid staccato succession. Likewise, although the harem sequence at the end of Lettres persanes spans many years, the illusion of a rapid continuous succession of peripeteia is created by grouping all of the letters together. Zilia, in Lettres d'une Pruvienne, explains the illusion of continuity that a letter sequence creates. After a long period of

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silence she writes, "Combien de temps effac de ma vie, mon cher Aza! Le Soleil a fait la moiti de son cours depuis la dernire fois que j'ai joui du bonheur artificiel que je me faisais en croyant m'entretenir avec toi" (L. 18). Waxing even more philosophical in another letter, she offers an interesting description of the letter writer's temporal experience: "le temps ainsi que l'espace n'est connu que par ses limites. Nos ides et notre vue se perdent galement par la constante uniformit de l'une et de l'autre, si les objets marquent les bornes de l'espace, il me semble que nos esprances marquent celles du temps, et que si elles nous aban donnent ou qu'elles ne soient pas sensiblement marques, nous n'apercevons pas plus la dure du temps que l'air qui remplit l'espace" (L. 9). The letter is thus the marker of duration; when there are no letters, there is no experienced time. For the outside reader, and even for Zilia, the only durational sequence is the letter sequence; the illusion of a continuous narrative is created by what are actually discrete events. The unfolding of the epistolary work thus depends on both the disjuncture inherent in a work composed of discrete units and the compensatory sense of continuity created by the author and perceived by the reader. A typical technique for connecting letters, for instance, is that of following an enigmatic statement in one letter with an explanation in the next. Thus Julie's mysterious dream, described by her in part 3, letter 13 of La Nouvelle Hlose, is explained by Claire in letter 14. Lydia's curious dream (Humphry Clinker, 10 June) is never explained to her, but the letter from Jery that follows Lydia's clears up the enigma for the external reader. In fact, the more fragmented and disconnected the narrative appears, the more actively the outside reader seeks to discover the connections. The first five letters of Humphry Clinker are a kaleidoscope of changing names, places, and events that are incomprehensible to the external reader because each of the five correspondents is writing to a friend who does not share the eavesdropper's need for exposition. Not only can the external reader not comprehend the contents of any letter by itself, but it is not immediately clear to him why the letters of these particular correspondents are grouped together in the same collection. Certain constants appear, however; certain names and incidents are repeated from letter to letter, and before long the reader finds

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himself collating the various letters to discover the relationships between characters and how they all relate to the incidents described. One constant that runs through all the first letters is the Lydia-Wilson incident; in fact, this well-emphasized affair will be the only narrative thread continued throughout the work. As readers of epistolary narrative we are often called upon to act as detective-collators, to perceive continuity from one letter to the next because the image of the first persists in our mind. At the beginning of Les Liaisons, Laclos winks briefly at his reader when he follows Merteuil's letter to Valmont describing the "gauche" Ccile with a letter from Ccile describing an unknown woman whom she has overheard at a soire: "Ce qui m'inquitait le plus tait de ne pas savoir ce qu'on pensait sur mon compte. Je crois avoir entendu pourtant deux ou trois fois le mot de jolie; mais j'ai entendu bien distinctement celui de gauche, et il faut que cela soit bien vrai, car la femme qui le disait est parente et amie de ma mre" (L. 3). The marquise is immediately identifiable to the reader, though not to Ccile, by her language, which he has just heard in the previous letter. Already Laclos has lured the reader to the level of complicitous superiority that will be his vantage point for the rest of the novel. Smollett counts on the reader's persistence of vision (retention of image from one letter to the next) to create a narrative continuity that is actually lacking in verisimilitude. Because his five travelers are making the same voyage, witnessing the same incidents, yet writing to different friends, Smollett must choose constantly between redundancy and lack of verisimilitude. Theoretically, each important event should be narrated five times. Occasionally Smollett does present correspondents' con flicting versions of the same incident, but if overused, this technique would become tiresome. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, Smollett opts more frequently to avoid redundancy. The result, however, is that his correspondents often allude to events as if they had already described them, when in actuality it is another letter writer who had reported them to his friend. Jery, for example, refers in passing to "the ball" in his letter of 10 May, when he has never mentioned it before. The most extreme case in point is Win's allegorical letter of 14 June describing Clinker's imprisonment, which the outside readerwho has just heard

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Bramble's straightforward versionfinds hilarious but which Win's friend Mary Jones must find incomprehensible, since she has heard very little of Clinker from Win. Smollett creates narrative continuity for his outside reader by sacrificing continui ty for the internal readers. Smollett has thus moved a long way from the technique of the opening letters, which were unintelligi ble to the external reader precisely because they made sense to the internal addressees. By the time we reach Win's letter it is clear that the complicity of author-reader is overriding that of the internal writer-addressee, in the interest of a more linear, less redundant narrative. As any reader of Smollett knows, however, the narrative thread (adventures of the five travelers, romances of the three women) is subordinate to the multiple visions of reality that Smollett creates by refracting each event through the eyes of different observers. Humphry Clinker never produces the sense of unbroken narra tive that occurs in certain sections of Delphine (e.g., 3:48-4:13), where we forget the narrator to follow the events narrated by whoever is the most privileged witness, and the narrative tech nique approximates that of omniscient third-person narration. In Smollett's work, even where the narrative thread is the most continuous, that is, when the various correspondents seem to continue one another's reporting of events in chronological sequence, each writer's reporting is so lacking in omniscience, so colored by his character, that we cannot fail to be conscious of his letter as a separate fragment. Smollett exploits both continuity and discontinuity, asking his reader to perceive both coherence and fragmentation simultaneously.
DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS AMONG CORRESPONDENTS

The discussion of Humphry Clinker has led us necessarily to consider one of the most salient aspects of epistolary structure: the choice of correspondents and the distribution of letters among them. Montesquieu, Smollett, and Laclos choose particularly diverse characters and construct their novels as patterns of the perspectives particular to each correspondent. These novelists explore to the fullest the possibilities of epistolary language as a means of depicting personality. Smollett, as a matter of fact, discovers a possibility unique to the letterthat of characteriza

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tion by orthography. Win's letters are full of spelling errors, which convey not only her dialect (as would the same language in a play) but also her illiteracy; these errors make her advice to Mary Jones all the more amusing: "mind your vriting and your spilling; for, craving your pardon, Molly, it made me suet to disseyfer your last scrabble" (3 June). Correspondents are characterized not only by their styles in these novels but also by the topics on which they write. Thus during the Clinker group's travels through Great Britain, the elderly head of the household. Squire Bramble, chooses to discourse upon the economy, architecture, government, and layout of the cities they visit, whereas his young nephew Jery, a recent university graduate, is more interested in food, entertain ment, and girls. Moreover, whereas Bramble is introspective, indulging in self-analysis, homesickness, and health worries, Jery is more oriented toward the exterior world. It is he who is responsible for almost all the portraits of secondary characters and who observes others in order to report anecdotes. We see Bramble in Jery's letters but rarely see Jery in Bramble's. Because Jery is more interested in what surrounds him than in his interior being, his perspective is kaleidoscopic: "for my part, I am continually shifting the scene, and surrounded with new objects" (17 May). If Bramble's letters are marked by the repetition of the themes of noise, filth, and healthconcerns and repetitions that are natural to an elderly manJery's are marked by the absence of this sort of obsession, in keeping with his open-minded youth. Interestingly, the two principal correspondents of Humphry Clinker resemble their counterparts in Lettres persanes. Bramble and Usbek, the older men responsible for governing a social unit, write about serious topics, wax homesick, and worry about their health, whereas Jery and Rica write in an anecdotal style about less weighty matters (e.g., social life) and adapt more easily to new environments. Smollett and Montesquieu develop within their novels a thematics of characterization that would make each letter's author recognizable even without the signature. Distribu tion of letters among correspondents in their work is thus distribution of styles and topics of concern. Smollett transforms this thematics of characterization into a major principle of novelistic construction. Whereas Montes

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quieu's Persians usually write about different aspects of occiden tal life, Smollett's characters often describe the same milieu. Their letters focus on the same phenomena, although they interpret them differently. Thus a frequent sequence in Humphry Clinker is the description of a city by Bramble, followed by Lydia's or Jery's version, in which the same elements are mentioned, radically transformed by the change in point of view. Bramble's letter on Bath"this place is become the very center of racket and dissipation. here we have nothing but noise, tumult, and hurry" (23 April)is followed by Lydia's: "Bath is to me a new worldAll is gayety, good-humour, and diversion. The eye is continually entertained with the splendour of dress and equipage; and the ear with the sound of coaches, chaises, chairs, and other carriages. We have music in the Pumproom every morn ing" (26 April). The same sounds are described by Bramble and Lydia, but it is in the coloration of the description that all the interest lies. What is "noise" for one is "music" to the other. The division of narrative among various correspondents in Smollett produces a fragmentation and deformation of reality that em phasize the role of the deforming agent. Each letter in Humphry Clinkerlike the component units of those cubist paintings that present the same face from various anglesis a fragment juxta posed with another to produce a total picture. Multiple versions of the same reality are a common occurrence in epistolary narrative with multiple correspondents. Clarissa and Lovelace offer contrasting accounts of the dinner and rape episodes; Saint-Preux and Julie describe their first meeting after seven years in quite different terms. Henry James constructs both of his epistolary short stories, "A Bundle of Letters" and "The Point of View," entirely around incompatible descriptions of the same phenomena. In both stories the travelogue technique used by Montesquieu and Smollett serves a Jamesian themethe confrontation of American and European cultures. A Parisian boardinghouse that harbors American, British, German, and French travelers is the setting from which "A Bundle of Letters" are mailed; as we might expect in James, the boarders offer divergent views of each other as well as of Paris. In "The Point of View" James crosses the ocean, as American exiles return home with French and British tourists to comment upon their own and

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each other's cultures. The same national stereotypes are seen in a different light by each observer. When Laclos's characters offer contrasting accounts of the same phenomena, the result is different, however. If we examine, for instance, the three views of Ccile's seduction-rape (Valmont, Ccile, Mme de Volanges), or Valmont's and the prsidente's conflicting accounts of the "charity" scene, or Merteuil's two versions of the Prvan episode (one told to Valmont, the other to Volanges), we recognize that in Laclos one version is always more enlightened, or enlightening, than the other. Whereas in Smollett or James different points of view serve a relativistic theme, emphasizing the varieties of existence and the extent to which reality depends on the observer, in Les Liaisons dangereuses they are part of Laclos's mythology of intelligence. The doubling of accounts is one example of the interplay between naive puppet and omniscient puppeteer that characterizes the novel in general. Thus far we have been speaking of the variety of ways in which shifts from letter to letter in style, formal organization, subject matter, and perspective produce gestalts of both the writer and the reality he records. In letter narratives characters are created less by what they do than by what, and how, they write. The gestalts we form, however, are also a function of distribution of activity among correspondents. Even when novelists do not use multiple or particularly diverse correspondents, their choice of who writes, and with what frequency, is a determinant structure. The fact that a character is merely written about but is not a correspondent himself affects reader response. In Balzac's Lettres de deux jeunes maries, for example, Louise's first and second husbands are presented by two different techniques. The man who will be her first spouse, Felipe, is introduced before Louise has met him, through letters that the exiled Felipe exchanges with his brother in Spain and that appear early in the novel. Such independent presentation of Felipe establishes him as a corre spondent in his own right. Because he in his own letter, as well as Louise in her subsequent ones, describes his background and current situation, we sympathize more with him than with the widowed Louise's second husband, Gaston, whom we see only through Louise's letters, after we have learned to doubt her romanticized portraits. Of Felipe's character we are certain.

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having met him through his own letter before Louise even knows him. With Gaston, however, when Louise begins to suspect his fidelity, the reader has no more privileged view of him than she and must await the denouement to discover that he has not betrayed her. The fact that d'Ossery is not a correspondent in Mme Riccobo ni's Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby is likewise significant. Juliette writes about him to her friend Henriette, but not to him, and the difficulty that she has in establishing a correspondence with d'Ossery ("qu'il m'est difficile de lui crire" [L. 31]) is a reflection of the difficulty that the two have in renewing their former relationship. Rejecting d'Ossery's overtures, Juliette writes to Henriette rather than replying to him. Her latent love and her unconscious desire for a reconciliation, however, are revealed by the fact that in the middle of a letter to Henriette she addresses d'Ossery (L. 29). The resumption of epistolary com munication with him in letter 37 heralds the reestablishment of their former relationship; the Juliette-d'Ossery marriage that concludes the novel follows almost immediately. Furthermore, as we have noted in the preceding chapter, Juliette's reunion with d'Ossery is textually marked and celebrated in epistolary fashion by a rapid extension of the circle of correspondents at the novel's close. In Clarissa a sudden proliferation of correspondents conveys a different message. If we examine the distribution of letters in Richardson's novel, we observe that at several points Clarissa interrupts her regular correspondence with Anna Howe to send out a series of letters to all her friends and relatives. These rounds of letters are written at points of tension in the narrativewhen Clarissa is locked up at her father's, after her abduction, after the rape, after her final escapeat times when the heroine is particu larly helpless and isolated. Each round of letters is a new set of cries for help; the responses, however, are always negative. From the prison of her room (at her father's, in the house where Lovelace confines her, or in the rooming house where she lives out her waning existence), Clarissa sends out feelers in all directions, only to discover how strong are the walls of her confinement. Careful analysis of the pattern formed by the distribution of letters among the various correspondents of an epistolary work is

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a basic step in interpretation. Answers to such simple questions as who writes and who is silent, who receives messages and who does not, underlie Jean Rousset's sensitive reading of La Nouvelle Hlose: "La premire Partie, qui est le temps du dlire, de l'abandon la passion, est presque uniquement compose de lettres des deux amants; c'est un long duo, exclusif de tout ce qui n'est pas lui. vers la fin seulement s'intercalent quelques lettres de tiers ou des tiers, qui interviennent prcisment pour rompre ce dangereux tte--tte."5 Distribution of epistolary activity is only one of the essential ways in which meaning is generated in epistolary narrative. In the next section we shall review the influence of the environmental context of each letter.
ORDER AND JUXTAPOSITION OF LETTERS

Constructed as a composite of discrete units, epistolary narra tive lends itself to interplay between contiguous letters. Juxtapo sition of letters of similar or contrasting tones is a frequent ornamental or emphatic device. Even in a sequence of two letters from the same writer to the same addressee, there may be a radical change in key. Thus Valmont ebulliently writes Merteuil on 2 October (L. 99) that he is on the eve of conquering Tourvel; so certain of victory is the vicomte that he is already anticipating his reward from Merteuil. If Valmont's letter closes emphasizing his "joie," the one immediately following opens with, "Mon amie, je suis jou, trahi, perdu; je suis au dsespoir: Mme de Tourvel est partie" (L. 100). The distance between inflation and deflation is only that of a blank space. The letters of Crbillon's marquise to her lover regularly offer abrupt contrasts. In letter 25 the marquise coldly dismisses the count, closing on a flippant note wishing him "prosprit et bon voyage." In the following letter, however, her amorous effusion takes over from the very first sentence: "Quelle est donc la puissance de l'amour!" The epistolary form is an apt instrument for transcribing the sudden switches and ironic inconsistencies that characterize a love affair. In Rousseau's hands juxtaposition of letters from different writers serves to reveal how kindred are the souls of Julie and Saint-Preux. In letter 26 of part 1 (Saint-Preux to Julie), just as Saint-Preux finishes describing his state of passion, he receives

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Julie's letter 25, where she describes herself in similar terms; he finds in this coincidence "un frappant exemple de ce que vous me disiez de l'accord de nos mes dans les lieux loigns!" In Smollett, on the other hand, juxtaposition highlights contrast in characters. Bramble's first letter, which reveals his generosity toward the poor, is followed immediately by a letter from Tabitha in which she expresses her distrust and stinginess toward servants (LI. 1,2). Such antiphony becomes a major principle of construction in Les Liaisons. Laclos builds an entire section (LI. 146-50) around alternation between the frivolous flirtations of Danceny and Merteuil (146, 148, 150) and the grave communications of Mme de Volanges and Rosemonde concerning the dying prsidente (147, 149).6 If the contrast between the two correspondences were not already ironic enough, Laclos sets up a subtle contrast in Volanges's letter 149 and Danceny's 150 that emblemizes and deepens the irony. In letter 149 Volanges reports an event that is actually the most immediate cause of the prsidente's death: the mere sight of a letter from Valmont triggers Tourvel's final convulsions. In letter 150 Danceny also has a reaction to unread letters, which he expresses at length to his new mistress, Merteuil: "Enfin, quel que soit le temps, on finit par se sparer, et, puis, on est si seul! C'est alors qu'une Lettre est si prcieuse; si on ne la lit pas, du moins on la regarde. Ah! sans doute, on peut regarder une Lettre sans la lire, comme il me semble que la nuit j'aurais encore quelque plaisir toucher ton portrait." Danceny's entire letter, which is a naive defense of his epistolary pleasures, appears all the more ironic, following so hard upon Volanges's exposure of the letteras the most lethal of weapons. Laclos is, of course, the master of ironic juxtaposition. Val mont's serialized account of his staged act of "charity" is inter rupted by the prsidente's gullible view of it (L1.21 -23). Tourvel's anticipation of what will happen when the "converted" Valmont comes to return her letters to her (L. 124) clashes head-on with Valmont's announcement "La voil donc vaincue, cette femme superbe " (L. 125). Valmont's letter in turn transforms the following one, wherein Rosemonde congratulates Tourvel on her courageous resistance, into an exercise in pure irony. Laclos's geometric patterning of letters is celebrated. Yet even

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in lesser-known works we find curious and revelatory arrange ments. A sequence of letters near the end of Lettres de la marquise, for instance, constitutes a reproduction in miniature of the letters comprising the body of the narrative. The marquise is actually seduced twice in Crbillon's novel. The first seduction is long, psychologically complex, full of delicate changes of senti ment. After her betrayal by the count, the marquise is reseduced in letters 59 to 63; this much shorter sequence of letters is marked by repetition of many of the same techniques on the part of the count and the same reactions on the part of the marquise as during the first seduction. Prayers and protests are frequently verbatim the same as earlier ones (cf. LI. 60 and 25); the same justification for writing is offered (cf. LI. 62 and 40). The count in turn uses the same devices to maintain contact: a husband's intercession and a feigned illness. The parallels between this se quence and the earlier long one make the accelerated reseduction an ironic mirror of the first, as the marquise succumbs a second time to the same ploys. In Lettres persanes Montesquieu judiciously positions the harem letters in order to shed a certain light on the philosophical letters and vice versa. The Troglodyte story is framed by two letters from the chief eunuch lamenting his condition (LI. 9 and 15). Such a placement emphasizes the injustice of the eunuch's condition and the harem society by opposing them implicitly to the just rule of the Troglodyte society. The final grouping of ha rem letters is the most often discussed product of Montesquieu's arranging hand. In this artificially accelerated section devoted exclusively to the harem plot, Montesquieu offers a parallel to the immediately preceding letters on French life. Both the French letters and the harem sequence describe the growing disorder in a community whose absolutist leader is absent: Usbek's absence from the seraglio wreaks the same havoc as Louis XIV's death in France. The juxtaposition of such parallel sequences is further evidence of the "chane secrte" that has inspired so many articles on Lettres persanes in recent years. It is not within the scope of this chapter to exhaust the possibilities of analysis but rather to expose the ramifications of a simple principle underlying any analysis of epistolary form.

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That principle is the basic consideration with which we began our chapterthe particular status of the letter as both unity and narrative unit; in epistolary narrative the letter serves simultane ously as a text within itself and as a context informing the letters contiguous to it. Working with these particular qualities, the epistolary novelist creates patterns of implication, through juxta position, order, and distribution of letters among correspon dents. The blank space between letters shapes his narrative as well as the letters themselves, making the question of ellipsis in epistolary writing a much more complex one than in other narrative forms. The question of ellipsis in narration (unnarrated time) has usually been dealt with by both novelists and theoreticians as "dead time."7 The particular ellipsis that is built into letter novels (leaps between letters), however, is anything but negligible and has to be dealt with differently from the more common type of ellipsis (which we would find within letters, for example) for at least two reasons. First of all, temporal ellipsis in a novel where a primary narrator has charge of narration is quite different from ellipsis in a novel where there is no reified voice assuming responsibility for the narrative as a whole. In the former case, the assumed reliability of the overall narrator (at least insofar as selection of important events is concerned) typically precludes any investigation into the nonnarrated time. That is, the first- or third-person narrators who write "two years later" elide more smoothly than the epistolary novelist; even at the zero degree of epistolary elision in which Pamela or Fanny Burney's Evelina writes letters "in continuation'' the epistolary novelist must leave a hiatus between letters that is interruptive if not disruptive. Second, the interval between any two letters always represents simultaneously at least four kinds of ellipsis, each with its own implications: (1) a certain interval during which the correspon dent does not write, (2) intervening events that have been omitted from the narrative, (3) the interval during which the internal reader awaits the letter, which differs temporally and psychologi cally from (4) the interval during which the external reader anticipates the following letter (cf. the difference in suspense experiences discussed earlier apropos of La Vie de Marianne or the illusion of accelerated peripeteia produced in La Nouvelle

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Hlose). The letter's status as both a discrete entity produced by an internal writer for an internal reader and a unit within the larger epistolary novel thus makes ellipsis in epistolary writing correspondingly more complex. The very discreteness of the letter as a building block makes it theoretically impossible for the letter to enter seamlessly into a continuous narrative. Yet we have noted a strong impulse toward continuity, particularly in novels like Pamela, Clarissa, Delphine, and Fanny Burney's Evelina, where correspondents fulfill their journalistic vocation as reporters, and a switch in witnesses only serves to keep us closer to the hot line of events. On the one hand, narrative continuity in epistolary works is as illusionistically possible as pictorial continuity in pointillist paintings; on the other hand, the narrative discontinuity inherent in the epistolary form affords interesting possibilities for elliptical, allusive writ ing, the creation of suspense, and juxtaposition of contrasting views or episodes. In fact, just as we distinguished in chapter 2 between two basic writing styles in epistolary literature (confiden tiality, coquetry), we can speak of two fundamental editorial styles, seamless and disjunctive, according to whether the novelist chooses to minimize or accentuate gaps. But whatever the editorial style, what always distinguishes epistolary fictions from nonfictional letters is the space of structured interplay they leave between letters. This space is the trace of the "editor," ofthat very editor who typically claims elsewhere to have played a minimal role. The epistolary novelist who effaces himself from the title page thus reappears in the text; but his most compelling voice is not the one that speaks to us in editorial prefaces and footnotes. The creator of the epistolary novel who disclaims authorship reclaims it elsewherein the very joint work that structures the epistolary mosaic as art.

1. As a narrative unit, the letter bears some resemblance to the chapter, whose role in structuring prose narrative has been discussed by Philip Stevick in The Chapter in Fiction. Because the epistolary form multiplies these units considera bly, and because each letter may differ radically from the next in tone, narrator, and addressee, the letter must, however, be treated differently from the chapter. 2. In his often-quoted preface, "Quelques rflexions sur les Lettres persanes," which appeared in the supplement to the 1754 edition.

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3. Solim'sand Narsit'scontradictory viewsoftheharem'souting(L1.151 and 152), for instance, offer as striking a contrast as Mme de Volanges's and Ccile's interpretations of the night of Ccile's rape, or the prsidente's and Valmont's accounts of the vicomte's "charity." 4. Compare Clarissa's similar, although much more prolonged, epistolary blackout after her rape, when the traumatized heroine is unable to write of her experience. What is not narrated here is more important than what is narrated; the ellipsis looms larger than the narrative line. 5. See Forme et significtion, pp. 89-93, for the continuation of Rousset's illuminating analysis, one of the few to deal with Rousseau's novel in terms of narrative, rather than philosophical, strategies. 6. The framing of this section by the Merteuil-Valmont exchange concerning the marquise's arrival in Paris (LI. 144,151) is yet another example ofthat sense of geometric arrangement that is so typical of Laclos. 7. See Grard Genette, Figures ///(Paris: Seuil, 1972), pp. 139-41, for a clear summary of this position.