MD3PAD 682-684

[Toby G Levy]

        On November 5th the axmen completed the work of widening the
section of the visto done that summer so that the entire line is now the
same width. The Indians depart.  Mason's journal is quoted stating that
everyone left the company to go home except for thirteen needed to erect
markers on the way back east.

        Mo McClean conducts a big sale of items from the commissary in
order to lighten the load of things he has to carry back east.

vw#132: Vendue - A public sale; an auction.

        Wicks notes another eleven day gap - a lack of writing in
Mason's field book, and Wicks speculates on why there is so little
writing during this period. For one thing there was a lot of snow.

        Here Pynchon uses as a phrase, the title of his upcoming book
"Against the Day." Here it is used to mean something like "in spite of
all the evidence" in that Mason and Dixon are still harboring hopes of
turning back to the west to complete the line out to the Ohio river.

        Even though the snow is a foot deep, they hope to get all the
mile markers in before the ground freezes solid.

        On their way back east, Mason and Dixon stop in at the Inn named
The Rabbi of PRague to see how Timothy Tox is doing.  People there tell
them that Tox has gone crazy over words he has heard the gigantic golem
speak.

        They find Tox and he tells them that he feels like Moses come to
lead his people out of Egypt.  He quotes a few lines of his poetry and
is described as a Dithyrambist, which is not in the dictionary, but
Dithyramb is:

vw#133: Dithyramb -    1. A frenzied, impassioned choric hymn and dance
of ancient Greece in honor of Dionysus. 2. An irregular poetic
expression suggestive of the ancient Greek dithyramb. 3. A wildly
enthusiastic speech or piece of writing.

        Tox sees the Golem out the window.

Toby