Atdtda28: Not yet, 802-804

[Paul Nightingale]

And so to Yashmeen, another character the Event has allowed us to catch up
with. Now "working in a dress-shop" in Vienna, she might be said to be
marking time, as are Dally (797-799), Cyprian (799-801) and Reef (801-802).
In relation to "the greater market of the World" (803), the shop's designs
are "not yet quite discovered" (802), "not yet dispersed" (803); and as we
await the future, Noellyn arrives, both transformed ("grown less aethereal
than the scholarly beauty of old ..." etc, 803) and also a reminder of
Yashmeen's past: "... the possibility remained that Noellyn was here at the
behest of the T.W.I.T.").

There is ambiguity throughout. Locally, whatever that means, the dress-shop
has achieved "some celebrity" (802). We can infer this might have something
to do with the Silent Frock: "... it's quite caught on" (803). But has it
"caught on" in Paris? Noellyn's appearance is inseparable from that of the
Frock: her entrance ("I didn't hear you") interrupts Yashmeen, as indeed the
"saucy one" (who might or might not be Noellyn, the blondes are
interchangeable) had earlier interrupted her thoughts on Riemann/Gottingen,
with "Girton increasingly tiresome" (498).

By the end of the section, as the Event is signalled ("... it was, or should
have been, well after dark", 804), "the two young women [have] passed a
pleasant evening together ..." etc. Yashmeen takes the initiative here,
returning their relationship to Girton as Noellyn insists, if not with
conviction, that this development has been unplanned: she is the one who has
changed, and she is the one who wonders ("... it can't be this early still")
if time has indeed (been) paused. As though suggesting the past hours have
not taken place? Cf. Yashmeen musing, after the Earl's Court Wheel in 36.12:
"The cycle ... might only seem reversible, for once to the top and down
again, one would be changed 'forever'. Wouldn't one" (503).

If Gabika subverts the predatory male figure offered by Dally's
"disagreeable gent" (797), Theign (800) and Reef (802), he is nonetheless a
voyeur of sorts; and he does facilitate Yashmeen's seduction of Noellyn (if
it be that, perhaps Noellyn has been allowed to seduce Yashmeen). His
appearance reminds Noellyn of Cyprian (803), and it is here that the
narrative records Yashmeen's suspicions regarding the T.W.I.T.: "She had
grown, she supposed, overcautious ..." etc. As with the description of
Noellyn ("grown less aethereal ..." etc), the insertion of "she supposed"
emphasises Yashmeen's perspective, her reflectiveness, a distancing of
herself from the immediate action. Noellyn is at first dismissive of Gabika,
and then, perhaps, uses him to make Yashmeen jealous: her half-hearted
approval ("I wish I were interested enough ." etc) is somewhat provocative,
and she suggests he is "[a] house-pet" before describing her own status as
(Proustian?) "captive boy" (804).