Yes, x.mehrdad, I agree with you. He is talking about his PRIDE. He is just making a parallel with virginity, using words connected with virginity to talk about his pride, as the two are intertwined (his sister's virginity and his pride).

About the first part of your sentence: I didn't mean to say Faulkner had made a spelling mistake. I was just tyring to find a synonym for "quantity". Probably this definition of quantity (Webster) could help: any person, thing, or factor taken into consideration.

Hello, x.mehrdad,

Since I haven’t read Absalom, Absalom (which I now promise to do), I had to get some idea about the story and found a summery online. So I guess your question refers to Henry (brother), Judith (sister) and Charles Bon (husband to-be). I’ll use this presumption to comment on sentence two.

I decided to use a device that has often helped me – drawing diagrams and links – and connect the three with arrows. I first realised that Judith (probably) loves Charles Bon and that Henry loves (as a friend) Charles Bon. But then I thought, where is the incest, how are Henry and Judith connected in this diagram? And then it struck me that Henry loves his sister through Charles Bon and Judith loves her brother through Charles Bon:
loves
Henry -----> Charles Bon = Judith (Henry identifies Judith with Charles Bon)
loves
Judith -----> Charles Bon = Henry (Judith identifies Henry with Charles Bon)

I do not mean to say that sister and brother did not love each other before Charles Bon. But with Charles Bon’s appearance their love is elevated to a state where it touches the physical, yet remains “pure and perfect”. Their love passes through Charles Bon. It is pure love, yet it is incest, as the medium is “the lover, the husband”, the “despoiler”.


This may be speculative but this is how I read the passage. Hope this helps!

Hi, x.mehrdad,

“Which is the main motivation (for him to go through such a painful dual feeling of being the lover and the mistress), his love for his sister or the need and desire of proximity to the source of his pride?”

It is his attachment to his own pride. The whole excerpt is about his pride. Yet his pride has a lot to do with his post-Charles-Bon love for his sister (and his love for Charles Bon). So his pride merges, becomes one, with the (pure and perfect) incest.

He definitely was