MDMD(5): Chapter 7 - Summary (2)

[Michel Ryckx]

Their conversation, mixing Metaphysical Subjects and down-to-Earth Ones
ends up in drinking.  While looking for the potion among the Malay
slaves, the Cape Boundaries become visible once more. From (67.33) till
(69.9) follows a depiction of the colony, settlers and slaves, all
bound, --but also divided-- 'via the Company's merciless Priesthoods and
many-Volum'd codes' (68.35-69.1), even in death: whites and slaves alike
commit suicide 'at a frightening rate' (69.3).  The surveyors,
discussing this situation, end up drinking --a most humane reaction;
remember all those European novels with a colonial setting in which
drinking plays a big role.  Are they both, in their own way,  falling
into the same 'cataleptick' (70.5) state as the settlers?

This town, Mason's being revealed in a dream, is 'one of the Colonies of
Hell' (71.13).  One may not be surprised of the phlegmatic Mason being
haunted by some violent nightmares.  'Both Houses' (70.30), Zeemanns and
Vrooms alike, have Austra sent him to Toko, a Senoi --Senoi 'live their
dreams' (71.3).  Mason and Dixon then decide to share their dreams.
Mason dreams of Death, a 'tall Figure with the wavy Blade' (71.27), this
Alpdrücken --couldn't resist this one-- ending with the offering of a
Krees,  a Malay Dagger clearly been used more than once.

Of  course they discuss all this; their opinions vary: Dixon, the
pragmatic one, sets out the 'Datum-line of Sanity', while Mason, well, I
do not what to think of his mystic, perhaps, attitude. Boundaries are
not clear at all, on second sight.

Manipulation: are they being manipulated by the V.O.C., by the Vrooms,
by the Royal Society in London, by the (British) East India Company?  A
parenthesis at 74.20 till the end of the page with some nice Anachronous
Joaks indicate that the politics of the Royal Society are quite
complicated.  The surveyors, not being able to understand  their
situation wholly, agree on this, the Dream Motive once again popping up:

'[. . .] . . . And yet, d'ye not feel sometimes that ev'rything since
the Fight at sea has been, --not a Dream, yet . . ."
"Aye. As if we're Lodgers inside someone else's Fate, [. . .]" '
(75.11-14)

Not being able to understand their situation, they 'remain'd', according
to the Reverend, 'innocent' (75.20); which sets us back in Philadelphia,
at the end of this marvellous chapter.  He adds, that, if they wouldn't
have been that way, they ought to have been doing better (do I get the
verbs right in this phrase?).  Innocence, it is implied, is a handicap.

A comment: 'History is the Dance of our Hunt for Christ, and how we
far'd' (75.30), expressing the traditional puritan view of
predestination in the phrase, 'design'd and will'd to occur' (76.2);
opinion opposed by Ethelmer, who admits  to be '[t]emporarily out of
touch with [his] brain' (76.11); unlike William Pynchon who did express
the same views but did not give in.

Which brings me to the 'secular Consequences' (76.1) in next posts.

Welcome to the Cape.

Michel.