In the novel The Thirteenth Tale was it Adeline or Emmeline who died in the house fire?

Answer 1

Emmeline died in the fire.

Adeline was saved and immediately went into a catatonic state, just like she did the previous time she was separated from Emmeline, who had learned to survive on her own.

Adeline freaked out when she saw Aurelius because she had caused Emmeline's death for naught.

Vida cared for Adeline because she could not bare to face the TRUTH that she had saved the wrong twin. She would convince herself that she had saved Emmeline because the alternative was too agonizing to bear.

However, deep down she knew the truth as at the beginning, after stating "I was 16. There was a fire. I lost everything. She then cried "Oh, Emmeline!" in sorrow, because she was already lost (dead). Emmeline was her everything. And when the old twin died at the end, Vida was quite calm and collected compared to that outburst. Her eyes merely wet.

Also implying that she cared for Adeline because she was the twin and Vida could not abandon her after letting Emmeline die. She was the CLOSEST Vida would ever get.

Furthermore, Vida never went to retrieve Aurelius, as her plan was to live with him and Emmeline. Not Adeline, the one who was saved.

Also the twins were quite indistinguishable physically as Adeline had fattened up, discovering her appetite when Emmeline became pregnant. So whereas it was Emmeline that was FIRST pulled out of the fire, after she ran back in (bound to her sister), in the smoke it was Adeline that Vida pulled out.

If the one saved were Emmeline, she would not be made to live apart from Vida and locked away in such a fashion. If Emmeline were alive, even catatonic, Vida would have her by her side as her love would transcend even that.

Then when Vida dies she says she will carry Margaret's message to her sister. She only need do this if she believed the person who Margaret gave the message to initially would not deliver it. Adeline would not deliver it.

And finally, my personal opinion not supported from in-story fact. Vida's story was UTTERLY unhappy. The author filled her tale with pain and sorrow. Saving the wrong twin is simply the perfect completion to such a tale. The perfect unhappy ending. If Vida had saved the correct twin, that would have been some consolation. This story did not have room for such.