VLVL The deal

[Terrance]

 so ... but how
> has Hector been misread here?  How should he be read?
> How might he be read?  Just curious, is all ...

Who does Hector Betray? 

What happens to the betrayers in Conrad's _The Secret Agent_? 

Is every cop a criminal?  Every revolutionary a materialistic middle
class citizen? 
Is protective love too close to murderous hate? Is scientific reason in
bed with anarchistic unreason? Why is logic so imbecile? Why is sanity
so soaked in madness and despair? Grim and comic chills run up and down
the tingling spine and lacerate the mind with slashing ironies. 

Betrayal is a deadly sin in Dante, in Conrad, in Pynchon. 

Hector is one of P's best characters and a key to the novel.