ATDTDA 705

[Michael Bailey]

The end of a conversation between Cyprian and Theign;
making Cyprian aware that Theign's organization has
not only "rolled up" the Colonel's network, but was confident
enough of its superiority that even before doing so, they had
kept the Colonel informed of Cyprian's whereabouts.

Cyprian's forced to adjust his viewpoint -
having simply sought refuge with Ratty, he now realizes
that rather than a simple "British consulate assists
traveler to return home" situation, he's enmeshed in
an organization.

705 14 "Foreign Section were using him as unquestionably as any
of his former clients had."  ie the Colonel, but this reference seems
to indicate that Cyprian was indeed selling himself in Vienna. (I wasn't
so sure, because of the wallpaper fortune and the recurring "remittance men"
in Pynchon books)
Also, the conflation of "working for an organization" and "selling
one's body" is typical of Cyprian, but not unwarranted given the
flirting that Theign's been doing.

705 16 "...why not just join the Navy..."
ie, rum, sodomy and the lash?  This isn't a realistic notion
for Cyprian, is it?  More of a reductio.

705 20 "Metropole" - this hotel was the Gestapo HQ in Vienna from 1938

705 24 "...certain charged silences" - this seems to indicate
that flirting is all, so far...

705 26 "ormolu" bronze covered with gilt (the process involved
mercury and killed workers young - there's a gilt/guilt pun there...)
Fancy-schmancy.

705 29 "It was an index of how far Cyprian's insouciance
had lapsed that he never thought of simply asking his
field supervisor what was afoot."
his insouciance lapsing is a similar affect-effect to
his "boredom coefficients" swooning off the scale on p 699
--- an insouciant, carefree person would simply haul off
and ask, whereas he's beginning to assume that he'll be
told what he needs to know when he needs to know it (as in line 6 & 7)

705 37 "the Prophet's own still waiting their terrible moment"
this seems overwrought, doesn't it?  Islamic unity was at a low
ebb by 1900, and territorial expansion the last priority?
-- but it's the type of thing Derrick would say...

705 38 "the protection of Christ's own" - a taste of irony there,
but I guess he's referring to the way Russia and Vienna beat
back the last advances of the Ottoman Empire in the 1800s.
His "temporal bandwidth" reaches back further than one might
expect in a spy (though he's talking to - and trying to
impress - Cyprian, who may have been reading history
at Cambridge (cf the question on his little-go p 713)



-- 
"...there are not only landmarks, but also anti-landmarks - for every
beacon, an episode of intentional blindness." (Professor Svegli, p248)