Gypsies and lesbian desire: Vita Sackville-West, Violet Trefusis, and Virginia Woolf

Twentieth Century Literature, Summer, 2004 by Kirstie Blair

      "I've never outgrown the love of gipsies that lurks in every boy.
      Have you?" His eyes were actually sparkling as he asked the
      question, and I was overcome by a feeling of guilt. Often I had
      thought this man a prig. (44)

Malory's love of gypsies is perceived as a redeeming quality, a sign of his affinity to the narrator as well as to the gypsies themselves. He recognizes, however, that he is set apart from the gypsies by class and by his fastidiousness, noting, "I was loving the camp self-consciously, almost voluntarily, aware that I was loving it and rather pleased with myself for doing so" (44). Malory senses that there will always be something of the poseur in his fascination for gypsies: like Trefusis and Sackville-West, he can maintain his illusions about gypsies without having to face the realities of poverty, dirt, and social exclusion. Directly after coming upon the encampment, he and Ruth see Rawdon with a gypsy woman, suggesting the link between gypsies and unregulated sexuality. Shortly after this Malory ironically acknowledges his romantic view of Ruth's heritage when he buys her a colored scarf and some earrings: "for I had a fancy to see her tricked out as a gipsy" (55). "Tricked out," though, suggests that Malory wants to see his gifts simply as dressing up. He fails to recognize his own investment in Ruth's gypsy blood or the significance of his gifts for her, particularly given that in gypsy culture the gift of a scarf or handkerchief signifies a marriage proposal. (10) Indeed, this scene marks Ruth's realization of her love for Malory, a love associated with his interest in her heritage. When Rawdon enters and sees Ruth dressed up in gypsy garb, he is furious, perhaps because this masquerade seems to taunt him in the implication that Ruth is flaunting her sexuality for Malory (the clothes awaken what Malory describes as a "latent instinct" [55] of gypsy behavior) and in providing a mocking reference to his encounter with the gypsy woman.

The gypsy in Heritage represents instinctual passion--Malory sees Ruth and Rawdon, the young descendants of Conchita, as an inevitable pairing because they are "two bohemian creatures" (79), sensual and natural where he is refined and civilized. Yet gypsies also haunt the novel in less easily categorizable ways. Malory feels a sense of the uncanny in his stay with the Pennistans, where he is haunted by an "unseen presence," "the sensation that I was in the midst of some foreign encampment" (21)--a description that associates these sensations with his visit to the gypsy camp. Later, the narrator is similarly unsettled by something lurking behind the Englishness of this farm. Witnessing a violent confrontation between Ruth and Rawdon, he has an intense vision of Malory:

      I felt Malory's presence in the garden, waiting like me, and, like
      me, entirely passive.... Then a little scent floated out to me,
      and I wondered vaguely what it was, and what were the memories it
      awakened.... A narrow street, yoked bullocks and the clamour of a
      Latin city.... (111)