VV (19) Let's get this thing started

[jbor]

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>From: "Samuel Moyer" <smoyer at satx.rr.com>
>

> V. and Sydney were both in Florence in April 1898... that is more than nine
> months prior to the beginning of 1901.  Perhaps someone can point me in the
> right direction... do we know what Sydney in V. were doing a year later?  Is
> it safe to assume that V. is Herbert Stencil's Mother?

Both Sidney and Victoria are left behind in Florence after just about
everyone else has fled the city amidst the riot. (211) Victoria is standing
in a daze, entranced by the balletic-yet-futile violence she is witnessing:
old Stencil is lighting his pipe in a doorway and being very wry and British
about the unhappy and unexpected turn of events re. "The Situation". We
leave the two of them there just as their paths might be about to cross, a
Merchant-Ivory type "cute meet" potentially looms. It is thus conceivable
that the affair between them, if indeed there was one, extended into 1900.
Like much else in this novel, however, the "real" identity of Stencil's mum
remains deliberately indeterminate.

best