SLSL Under the Rose - Goodfellow

[Samuel Moyer]

Goodfellow - wearing a dress suit and a pith helmet - blonde and jovial -
always with a lady....  Agent 006?  Goodfellow and Porpentine are
opposites - which goes along with the veteran spy bit earlier.  Times are
changing...

The girl is what Goodfellow wants to talk about.  It is his opening line,
and after a change of conversation by Porpentine, Goodfellow quickly answers
and then "about the girl..." switches right back.

The girl is Victoria Wren.  Her father Sir Alastair Wren, FRCO and sister,
Mildred, are traveling with her.
FRCO = Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

Des Grieux, a character in Manon Lescaut (opera) is covered in the Pamona
Link  http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/slowlearner/rose.html

I will add this...  It was first presented in Milan in 1893, Paris in 1884.
The scene in Paris and vicinity, second half of the 18th century.  Briefly,
the story, Manon is a young girl, Lescaut is her older brother.  He is
taking her off to the convent where she is to complete her education.  On
the way she meets Des Grieux - and they elope - the brother is off talking
with friends he meets on the way.  Manon is apparently not crazy about going
to school!  Geronte, a man with some wealth, had wanted Manon... and he will
get her when she tires of Des Grieux who is poor.  But wealth doesn't bring
happiness and so she leaves Geronte and again runs away with Des Grieux.
Geronte is upset over this and reports her to the police as an abandoned
woman - she is arrested and condemned to be deported to Louisinana.  Des
Grieux and Lescaut can't talk the officials out of it, so Des Grieux go
along vowing to protect her to the ends of the earth.  She ends up dying in
a desert near New Orleans (des Grieux was off fetching water and only makes
it back in time to hold her as she dies.)

Sam