ATDTDA (20): Slung nonchalently over one shoulder, 561-564

[Paul Nightingale]

Kit again thinks that Piet Woevre is trying to kill him, initiating a series
of misunderstandings that feature as a chain reaction, "till well after
dark": hence, the reference to "[s]tage productions that attempted to record
this as truthfully as possible", as well as Kit's "compulsive promenade".
Again, as in the mayonnaise works (547), "[h]e [is] rescued by Pino and
Rocco" (561), which leads to his departure, eventually, although not in the
way he might have anticipated, "torpedoing away down the canal towards
Bruges" (562).

On 563 Woevre is waiting for him, and Kit finds himself ambushed (even
though, "[s]omehow they had taken a wrong turn ..." etc, 562). Kit insists
Piet is "[s]hootin at the wrong fella" (563), to which Woevre responds:
"You'll do." Back on 529 he denied he was, in Eugenie's words, "an American
gunslinger"; so Kit seems to spend his time either passively "tagg[ing]
along" (557) or resisting the identity thrust upon him.

Here, mid-563, the narrative pov shifts from Kit to Woevre, "feeling an
exultation beyond anything he could remember ..." etc. At the start of this
section Kit glimpses Woevre and sets off the "four-door farce" that has
brought him to Bruges; there is, briefly, an indication of Woevre's pov (he
"would rather have been working at night ..." etc, 561), but this is
suppressed when Kit goes "running off into the hotel's labyrinth of back
stairways and passages". And now, taking shots at Kit, Woevre "[stands]
unprotected in the nocturnal light" (563), his role as would-be assassin
undermined by this note of vulnerability.

It seems Woevre is haunted by "the flying ship" on which he intends to use
the mysterious weapon he bought in Brussels; but, one flash of light later
he is being helped to his feet by "the American" (564), who at this point
cannot be named.

Kit is named as the narrative returns to his pov upon Woevre's departure,
indicating that the purpose of the section has been to transfer the weapon
from one to the other.