Until the second half of the 20th century, it was not easy to publish literature in English that described sex in detailed or explicit terms. In England, literature was censored according to the Obscene Publications Act 1857; and in the U.S. according to the Comstock laws. These laws, prosecuted by private organizations like the National Vigilance Association in England, and the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, made it necessary for mainstream writers like Conrad to approach sex obliquely, using implication, ellipsis, allusion and symbolism in place of explicit description.
This code relied on a common understanding between writers and readers of what was permissible to say and what could plausibly be read into the gaps. But sixty years after R. v. Penguin Books Ltd and Roth v. United States it can be hard to accurately reconstruct what the original audience would have understood from a work, and easy to miss some implications and read too much into others.
Conrad’s ‘The Duel’ is a fictional account of a real rivalry between two cavalry officers in Napoleonic France. ‘Feraud’ represents François Fournier-Sarlovèze, known as ‘Napoleon’s Devil’ and ‘the worst subject of the Grande Armée’ for his duelling, fraud, political conspiracy, dishonesty and other crimes. ‘D’Hubert’ represents Pierre Dupont de l'Étang, whose only brush with the law seems to have been his court-martial for surrendering at Bailén in 1808. Thus, rape might be in character for Feraud, but not for D’Hubert.
‘The Duel’ was published in 1908. Based on comparable passages in contemporary works (see below for details), readers of mainstream fiction in this period would not have been expected to deduce a rape or attempted rape merely from the hint of “manifesting his gratitude in an aggressive way”. It seems more likely that a less serious sexual assault, such as a kiss, is intended.
The maid is not alone in the house: there is a landlady and at least one more servant, a gardener (who is deaf, but D’Hubert would not know that):
“And if you want any witnesses, I’ll send word to the old girl to put her head out of a window at the back. Stay! There’s the gardener. He’ll do. He’s as deaf as a post, but he has two eyes in his head.”
A subsequent interaction with the maid suggests that she is scared of Feraud but not of D’Hubert:
The pretty maid had opened the door. Lieut. Feraud brushed past her brusquely, and she raised her scared and questioning eyes to Lieut. D’Hubert, who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders slightly as he followed with marked reluctance.
Compare the brief clause “which at first was repulsed violently” with the detailed description of the maid’s behaviour after the first duel, when she mistakenly believes that D’Hubert intends to kill the wounded Feraud:
The affair was ugly enough as it stood, and Lieut. D’Hubert addressed himself at once to the task of stopping the bleeding. In this task it was his fate to be ridiculously impeded by the pretty maid. Rending the air with screams of horror, she attacked him from behind and, twining her fingers in his hair, tugged back at his head. Why she should choose to hinder him at this precise moment he could not in the least understand. He did not try. It was all like a very wicked and harassing dream. Twice to save himself from being pulled over he had to rise and fling her off. He did this stoically, without a word, kneeling down again at once to go on with his work. But the third time, his work being done, he seized her and held her arms pinned to her body. Her cap was half off, her face was red, her eyes blazed with crazy boldness. He looked mildly into them while she called him a wretch, a traitor, and a murderer many times in succession.
If the reader were expected to believe that D’Hubert raped the maid, then surely Conrad would have written a description more like this one.
The first part of ‘The Duel’ is set in Strasbourg in “a short interval of peace”. A cavalry officer might be reckless about rape in enemy territory during wartime, but it was a different matter in a city in pea