Imperium in Imperio

Bernard’s relationship with Viola Martin continues, and he has come to love her and wants to marry her. He explains to her that all his accomplishments mean nothing if she will not take him as her husband. However, Viola screams and faints. She tells Bernard that she loves him but cannot ever marry him because of something outside of their control. She asks him to leave and to return the next day for an explanation.

That night, Viola writes three letters—one to her father, one to her mother, and one to Bernard. She sadly plays the piano that night, music which makes “those who [pause] to hear her sing [pass] on feeling sad at heart” (60). She kisses each of her parents twice before going to bed, then goes to her bedroom, where she turns on her lamp’s gas jet and goes to sleep, dying by suicide.

The next day when Bernard arrives at Viola’s home, he and Mrs. Martin find Viola dead in her room. In both letters to her parents, Viola asks them to “take Bernard for your son and love him as you did me” (61). To Bernard, she explains that, two years before meeting Bernard, at the age of 18, she read a book called White Supremacy and Negro Subordination.