Atdtda31: A slowly drowning palazzo, 879-880

[Paul Nightingale]

>From the privacy of Cyprian/Yashmeen to a more public world, the action
eventually picking out Cyprian with the Prince and Princess. Citing
tradition that puts him centre-stage, the Prince insists nothing has changed
in a hundred years, including the soundtrack of "lunatics screaming". And
then state-of-the-art modernity: "The light ahead was a soiled electrical
yellow ..." etc (880). The "steam launch" carrying them to "the doomed
palazzo", phrasing that echoes the earlier "a slowly drowning palazzo".

This public world is one of masked theatre, "a masked imperative, all hold
on verbatim identities loosening"; yet the staging of privilege is
foregrounded. Hence, top of the page: "On one of the outer islands in the
Lagoon, which had belonged to the Spongiatosta family for centuries ..."
etc. And then, bottom of the page: "Servants with torches ..." etc, the
torches perhaps doing their best to compete with electricity. Cf the ending
of the previous section: Yashmeen's "the world to come" versus "the dying"
(879).

And then: "as in espionage, or some revolutionary project, the Mask's desire
was to be invisible, unthreatening, transparent yet mercilessly deceptive"
(880). That is, "... a world in which masks were the real, everyday faces
..." etc. The Mask--like the devil, perhaps--convincing us that it doesn't
exist? From Mask--that which cannot be represented--to mask, associated
with, well, the faking it of all representation.