V2nd, C3

[Ian Livingston]

Section vi: Porpentine plays the voyeur as Goodfellow cams the furrow.
Once again, though, it is Girgis who is the compelling figure, and his
discovery is that his profession as a deceiver of others has run its
course, as politicians have taken over the vocation. Note the
comparability of Girgis' customers (85) with Benny's friends (38).
Finally, though, he understands that his true reward is not pecuniary,
but "a response from the children; buffoon's treasure."

And Porpentine sheds (The Mummy?), falls performing a V on the corner
of the building, falls again performing a line hanging from a tree.
His statement leaves me guessing though at its meaning when he says,
"you haven't got me quite yet. They are up there, on my bed...." Why
should Goodfellow's avocation for breaking little girls' hearts belay
an expected action on B-S's part? And why is it important that "she is
still faceless, still expendable"?

Section vii: Hanne the dupe. She is absolutely lovable in her "vast
cowlike calm"

(Nut, anyone? http://archaeological-art-writing.suite101.com/article.cfm/images_of_the_egyptian_goddess_nut
;
http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/nut.html )

I have no idea how I made the leap from Fahoda to Taiwan, but I did.
For my twisted mind, I apologize.

The Fashoda Incident:
http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/scramble/fashoda.htm
;
http://www.victoria.tc.ca/history/etext/fashoda.affair.html

Establishes the time for this narrative at or about the end of summer
1898, just about 2 years before Nietzshe's and Victoria's deaths.
Nietzsche the proponent of turning away from the fascination with the
past in order to engage in the business of directly influencing
evolution through progressive psychological development (a little mad,
at that--or was he? Committed for the sin of taking the side of an
abused animal, weeping for its suffering--Not politically correct at
the time.)

So, Hanne, the sky goddess, deceived by her lover, Lepsius, so
sensitive to light he had to wear tinted glasses. She is a German
girl, more German even than the Bavarian brunette, according to her
boss. She nurses the besotted with beer. She understands that men get
off on politics as women do on the idea of having a man commit to
them. The Germans at the bierhalle are all altered by the talk of
Fashoda (why? it is not really a German--or Austrian--question; the
English and the French have been at war before), or is she paranoid?

Also my "loose end" the Coptic babe, Zenobia gets tied in (91) as the
insider to information from the British Embassy. (I really must read
more carefully before I blab!)

Is it Victoria's appearance at the bierhalle that gets Porpentine
his--uhm,--enlightenment in section viii? She is no longer faceless,
expendable?

And is the spy vs. spy story about protecting Sir Alastair's identity
as a spy for Germany? Is Porpentine about to blow cover?

A bit of foreshadowing: "...[M]en can get killed, don't you see, for
'understanding' someone....Is your whole family daft? Will they be
content with nothing less than the heart, lights and liver?" "She had
only the desire to remove [Lepsius'] spectacles, snap and crush them,
and watch him suffer."

Regarding the opera, Manon Lescault:
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=211
it was very current. The first performance (in Italy) was 1893 (Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Lescaut_%28Puccini%29 ).





-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."