NPPF Summary Line 949-II

[Otto]

Summary Line 949-II

"And all the time"

Contrary to the first, short entry on line 949 this second entry is much
longer. It follows Gradus' way from waking up at New York, moving
to New Wye on this Tuesday, July 21, 1959, after putting some concern
to the time of his arrival at New York the previous night when there had
been a big thunderstorm that had flooded the basements and subway tracks
of the city.

Kinbote goes through three of the different names he has applied to the
killer: Vinogradus, Jacques d'Argus and Jack Grey, repeating the latter
when reflecting on the rainbow-coloured reflections of the gasoline-water
mix on the streets of New York.

We're told about Gradus' strange sleeping-habits: he slept well at a
"third-class Broadway hotel" in "striped pajamas," lying on the bedclothes,
leaving his socks on.

We get something on Gradus' daily waking-up, washing & shaving routine and
his simple breakfast on what Kinbote calls "the most important day in his
life". Again Kinbote has nothing but contempt for the character he describes
so detailed, calls him a near-cretin who is even unable to be impressed by
the city of New York, relating the poor quality of the breakfast to Gradus'
"frugal youth" -- frugal, the term is used for describing a simple meal too.

After having a cup of coffee in a crowded diner he takes a walk through the
"westside alleys" of Central Park, reading the newspapers that have been
left over by their owners on the park benches. He reads about Khrushchev who
had called off a visit to Scandinavia and had visited Zembla instead. The
United States "was about to launch its first atom-driven merchant ship," in
Kinbote's opinion laid upon Gradus ("J.G.") only to annoy the Russians.

Gradus reads further something about a Newark appartment house that had been
struck by lightning and left two people injured who were watching "an
actress lost in a violent studio storm" on TV. Kinbote comments on this by
expressing his belief in ghosts that must be responsible for this incident.

An job offer from the "Rachel Jewelry Company" reminds Kinbote of Degré's
original profession as a glass-worker -- here he's using the fourth name
(French spelling) he has given to the killer. Another piece of business news
about another glass factory reminds Gradus of his own age. Then he reads in
yesterday's New York Times from another bench a message about Queen
Elisabeth of England visiting a museum in Whitehorse, where she had taken
off one of her gloves and "rubbed her forehead and one of her eyes" at the
"White Animals Room," followed by something about a "pro-Red revolt" in Iraq
and Carl Sandburg about the "Soviet exhibition at the New York Coliseum.
Further news about a book reviewer who hasn't got much to say about his own
work and a Zemblan child at a "picnic for international children."

Then Kinbote "confesses" (in my opinion) that he has looked up these
incidents at the WUL (Wordsmith University Library).

Gradus gets his shoes shined by a "dirty but pretty boy" and enjoys
"coarsely (...) a coarse meal" of "pork with sauerkraut," and Kinbote
reflects upon this meal with surprise, assuming that Gradus' lack of fantasy
about all the possible consequences the "monstrous act" he's about to commit
might have would keep his imagination at the "margin" of all thinkable
consequences, being unable to think of consequences that could be compared
to the phantom pain of an amputee or to imaginable moves outside the chess
board of a chess knight who is standing at the "border" of the board.

Gradus pays for his stay at the hotel and leaves his raincoat in a suitcase
at a station locker. He has to wait for his flight to New Wye until 2 p.m.
Going by train would take too long, going by bus would make him seasick.
Kinbote ends this paragraph with a remarkable sentence about the present
state of mind of the killer:
"Come to think of it, he was not feeling too steady anyway."

Kinbote then describes Gradus more detailed, but very unfavorable and
critical, calling his gestures chimpanzee-like, calling him a "primate," a
"half-man" and asserts that "spititually he did not exist," that he was
"half-mad."

On the flight he shares with delegates of the New Wye Linguistic Conference
Gradus gets a stomach ache which Kinbote explains with the meal Gradus had
eaten, so that after his arrival at the Campus Hotel he gets diarrhoea.

He looks for Charles Xavier aka Kinbote at the library but misses him and
meets Gerald Emerald instead who offers to take him to Dulwich Road in his
car.