ATDTDA (19): We just grow more and more invisible, 548-550

[Paul Nightingale]

Ch38

1 (548-556)

The Chums arrive in Brussels, but quickly move on to "ground leave at
Ostend". Boulanger and the convoluted plot introduced (one paragraph, two
winding sentences) at the top of the chapter are, apparently,  left behind
with no more than a retrospective judgement: "melancholy".

They wonder if any of the mathematicians will remember them from Candlebrow,
immediately raising the issue of their (the Chums') being. The chapter has
opened with orders to go to Brussels, and there is no suggestion that
attendance at the service for Boulanger is undertaken with enthusiasm. Of
course, once in Brussels, they can "put in for ground leave"; and "to
everyone's surprise" they are allowed to stop off at Ostend, where
coincidentally they discover "the convention of Quaternionists-in-exile".
Then, top of 549, Randolph speaks "with a long-accustomed melancholy": the
Chums are alienated from Quaternionists (who won't remember them) and also
"crowds . stream[ing] back to hotels, high teas, assignations, naps". The
former share with the Chums a state of alienation (as well as Piet Woevre's
keen interest, further down the page); the latter are caught up in a daily
routine, albeit one temporary, in a world that doesn't contain the Chums.
Hence: "Once ... they would have all been stopped in their tracks,
rubbernecking up at us in wonder."

Such nostalgia underscores the contrast with the novel's opening, of course,
the optimism that attended the departure to Chicago: that too marked an
anniversary. Going back to the opening paragraph here (548), one might note
the juxtaposition of Euro-nationalism (here, France vs Germany) to the CoC
as a pan-nationalist organisation (with reference here to "the French
chapters"). The shift from memorial to "timbres fictifs" makes problematic
Boulanger-as-signifier by introducing the possibility that Boulangism might
better serve the interests of Germany.

Randolph's "long-accustomed melancholy" is given an airing because "we just
grow more and more invisible". As Pleiade (542), or the absent shift-workers
in the Mayonnaise works (546)? We haven't been told why "[t]he Brussels
visit proved so melancholy" (548): this isn't the first time the Chums have
received orders from puppeteers-on-high. One can infer that attending
General Boulanger's memorial service was a stratagem designed to get them to
Ostend: after all, "many international chess tournaments are held [there]"
(543). Hence, one can suppose that their presence in Ostend would always
bring them to the attention of de Decker and Piet Woevre. Perversely, given
Randolph's complaint that "[n]owadays we just grow more and more invisible"
(549), Woevre always knows where they are, even if he cannot see the
airship.