Atdtda33: Kit Traverse, meanwhile, 908-909

[Paul Nightingale]

Dally is in Szeged because Clive has set her up; Kit is in Szeged because
his train is running late. Dally is here because Clive has had to choose
between the new Europe, represented here by "what some were beginning to
call Istanbul", and "unreconstructed elements of the old Turkey ..." etc.
Kit is here because of "mysterious revolutionary activities on the line ..."
etc (909).

The opening paragraph is organised round Clive's plotting as the new chapter
begins with continuity from the previous pages. On 906, Clive tells Dally:
"I may have to go to Constantinople for a while ...". A couple of pages
later, "[t]he idea in [his] mind of shopping [her] into a harem" (908) has
gone the way of the city's old name; revenge ("not as sweet as profit") must
be a means to a profitable end, rather than an end in itself, and his
relationship with Dally must acknowledge a broader economy of interest. We
should note, moreover, that "all vestiges of the sultanic" are associated
with Turkey's Imperial past and proposed name-changes (the paragraph ends
with "what finally turned out to be Hungary") signify modernity and
nationalism. As Imi and Erno remind us, Dally's proposed fate brings one
anonymity (that of the harem) up against another (that of celebrity).

Kit returns here for the first time since 791 and his departure from
Fleetwood Vibe, "as if taken by the wind". After that appearance, Kit
reappears, so to speak, when Reef recalls him (851, 857); and also when
Dally is discovered "still moping around" on 797. On that latter occasion,
the narrative notes that she "ha[s] gone on maturing into an even more
desirable young package, negotiable on the Venetian market as a Circassian
slave in old Araby". Her marketability, with a reference to physical
appearance, looks ahead to London celebrity and the image that Imi/Erno have
in mind.