Remorse — is Memory — awake —

Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all astir —
A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —

Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch —

Remorse is cureless — the Disease
Not even God — can heal —
For 'tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —

        -FR781, J744, Fascicle 37, 1863


This might have been written by Lady Macbeth just before she killed herself, burning with remorse for her part in killing King Duncan. It’s that dark.

Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all astir —

Who are these Parties? Parties to what? Parties to some terrible act?  “Parties” here is short for “Participants” so it seems to imply that the fault was shared. Or maybe the memories themselves are being personified as Parties, and these memories are all astir. The mind is being stirred up, going crazy.

A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —

The idea of a presence of an absence, and, conversely, an absence of a presence, is one I’ve seen before in Dickinson, though I can’t quite recall where. The word departed leads one to wonder if perhaps the remorse here is because some beloved has departed over a disagreement, or a slight. And in that "Door," the one through which the lover “departed,” there is now a stoppage. It’s like the one who was left behind is now trapped in the house and cannot, themselves, leave.

Note that the word “Acts” here could be read as both a noun and a verb. The idea of the Presence of the Departed acting at the door and window has a ghostly quality to it.

Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch —

The Match, first and foremost, is helping (facilitating) the remorseful in going over (perusing) the fault. But there is more than just light coming from the Match, there is also heat. That Match may be helping us to “read” the cause of our sin, but it is also starting a fire. There is a burning quality to remorse. And this becomes reified with the mention of Hell in the following stanza. Remorse is the spark that starts the fire of Hell in which we burn. In that burning we can "see." 

Also, there is another possible connotation to Match. If we are going with the remorse here being over the departure of a loved one, then the Match also alludes to what was lost, the Match between two souls.

What does it mean that this remorse “helps belief to stretch?” Does that mean it “stretches belief?” In other words, that it makes it hard to believe? Or does it mean that it helps us believe, it helps us stretch toward belief. So tricky with her syntax that Emily D!

The next stanza does not help resolve this conundrum.

Remorse is cureless—the Disease
Not even God—can heal—

Christian “Belief” would point to a cure, which would be forgiveness of sins through Christ’s sacrifice. But Dickinson isn’t accepting that. “Not even God—can heal—” It’s also tricky what Dickinson does with syntax here. It seems at first like she is saying God is impotent in the face of remorse, but the next line puts a twist on it:

For 'tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —

God can’t heal, because remorse is from God. I think this is pointing to the idea that we must live with remorse, with our sins, because that’s how we can learn from them. If we were merely forgiven, how then would remorse work on us? It is hell, and therefore it is adequate for the situation. We need to burn to learn.

Like Shakespeare does with his treatment of Macbeth, Dickinson doesn’t let herself, or us, off the hook with easy Grace. Rather, she is saying, we should face the hell we create.



        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Ugolino by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

Notes

1. David Preest points out, “This is a definition poem of an abstract idea, like poems FR775 and FR782. Indeed all three poems come from the same fascicle, and their opening lines are syntactically similar.” This is a great insight. The other two poems begin, “Suspense is hostiler than death” and the one directly following this one in the fascicle, “Renunciation is a piercing virtue.” Preest also points out that Remorse, like the continual resurgences of Suspense in the earlier poem, will never end.

2.  Dickinson provides “Complement” as an alternative word for “Adequate.” Remorse is the complement of hell. She also provides, “Of its condensed despatch” as an alternative for “And help Belief to stretch.” Remorse as a condensed dispatch from God is quite a thought!

3. I like what writer Jamison Dove has to say, 

"The second stanza is a beautiful act of self-examination. “Its Past—set down before the Soul / And lighted with a Match—” is powerful reverb, or we could say an echo of how our “Soul” can transmute the “Past” into a more useful form. Implied by Dickinson is the process of self-examination leading to our growth of a better self. The “Match” acting as a spark towards “Belief” in a better self.

“His institution” is a marker of our folly, which reminds me of the lines from Homer’s Odyssey:

This is absurd,
that mortals blame the gods! They say we cause
their suffering, but they themselves increase it
by folly.

-Book 1, Lines 32-35, Emily Wilson translation