MD3PAD 88-90

[Toby G Levy]

        Mason jumps out a window after hearing a pounding on the door.
Jet rushes into the room expecting to find Mason but only finding her
mother.

        Pynchon gives a tiny beetle in a cage a name: Elytra.  It has
been brought from the Kalahari desert and has never known rain, but the
rain is coming and Pynchon suggests the feeling is similar to the way
humans feel about God.

        The rainstorm lasts days and strands people away from their
homes. Dixon is stuck in a Malay establishment for the duration. Mason
is stuck inside the Vroom house. Slaves take advantage of the storm to
do the laundry of the household.

vw#27: lixiviated -  washed or percolated the soluble matter from.

        Els convinces Mason to come outside in the rain and chase her
around.  When he gets back to the Vroom house to find the door is
locked.  He finds a ladder in the back of the house and climbs up to the
balcony. He tries the windows on the balcony but they will not open. He
looks down to see Jet removing the ladder. The bolts holding the balcony
to the house slip out from the rainstorm and Mason is sent crashing to
the ground but is not hurt. He lays in the rain until he feels glowworms
crawling around on his face. He later learns that the arrival of
glowworms signal the beginning of the rainy season.

        Mason and Dixon grumble over the lack of clear nights they can
use to fix their latitude and longitude before the transit begins.  They
wish they had been allowed to go to Skanderoon, and they sing a little
song in praise of the Turkish seaport.

        Pynchon writes "Rain rules now, and shall until October." But
the transit is in June.

        Mason and Dixon press on, going to an observatory set up on the
slopes of a nearby mountain. The girls decide to accompany them, with
Austra along to advise them on how to stay safe from the African men.

Toby