MDDM Ch. 4 "Poohpooh! Adieu!"

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> I think that Pynchon hints at various reasons why the captain and crew of
> *l'Grand* decided to engage the *Seahorse* in battle in the first place
> only to refrain from finishing her off when they obviously could have.

SNIP

 Contained within this
> perception is the imagined (stereotyped, in English) conversation of the
> Post-Captain and his Commandant. (39.27) It too is framed in the grammar of
> possibility, indeterminacy ("What conversation may have passed ... " and,
> "Had the Frenchman really signalled ... ")

SNIP 

Excellent comments here, thank you very much. 

Just want to pick up on one of the possibilities, the conversation that
MAY have passed MD39.

The Post-Captain notes that the  French Captain wore the Order of the
Holy Ghost, the WHite Dove plainly visable...did the Frenchman really
signal "France is not at war with the sciences? 

One such science would be Medicine. 

In the preceding paragraph we read, 

"After the last of the Gun-Fire, Oak Beams shuddering with the Chase
(recall that the Ships are described as sentient beings and  here the
word Chase, as so often in P's texts, could mean hunt, even carry sexual
connotation), the Lazarette is crowded and piled with bloody Men..." 

Lazarette: A hospital treating contagious diseases. 2. A building or
ship used as a quarantine station. 3. Often lazaret. Nautical. A storage
space between the decks of a ship. [Italian lazzaretto : lazzaro, lazar
(from Late Latin Lazarus). 
Popular name for a hospital maintained in Venice by the Church of Santa
Maria di Nazaret.

And the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Medical order. Lazarus?
Ressurection? Baptism? Insurance? Fear death by water? Maybe that LED's
fear of water is UNreasonable? 

What day do this guys sail on? A Friday, yes, Venus day, cruxifiction
day, but could it be that a baptism or a resurrection is on the
calendar?