ATDTDA (21): Not all that hard to prove, 588-594

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Yashmeen seems to attract men in pairs:  Nigel/Neville, Gottlob/Humfried, Reef/Cyprian.  Perhaps she acts as a type of Iceland spar, splitting single men into two alter egos.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>

>
>If Yashmeen replaced Gottlob/Humfried in the bier-house, so do they replace
>her in Kit's room (593). It seems they are inseparable. Gottlob wants to
>know where Yashmeen is, but the talk immediately passes to mathematics. The
>appearance of G/H, and information that they are "seldom noted apart"
>reminds us of the two Ns in Cambridge, and indeed Neville's infatuation with
>Yashmeen (489). However, the narration quickly renders her, so to speak,
>'invisible' by focusing on mathematics as a means to differentiate Gottlob
>(Felix Klein etc) from Humfried (Latin etc). Narration introduces Kronecker;
>Gottlob and Kit immediately pursue that topic.
>
>By the end of the section Kit is confined to seeing Yashmeen from a
>distance, "now and then, usually across the smoke-clouded depths of some
>disreputable Kneipe by the river. But seldom to talk to" (594). Cf. his
>relationship of sorts with Pleiade: "Kit continued to catch sight of Pleiade
>Lafrisee now and then ..." etc (560). Or even, further back, with Dally
>aboard the Stupendica: "It had begun to seem as if she and Kit were on
>separate vessels ..." etc (514).
>