Atdtda36: Gentlemen, 1032-1033

[Paul Nightingale]

Above the section break, 'with all the girls aboard, the wind had shifted':
there is some kind of connection offered there. Then, following the
'incalculable expanse of lights', the new section describes what can be seen
below: cf the approach to Chicago in Ch2 (10). However, the new female
companions are now absent, the narrative returning to Lindsay/Darby
bickering (1033): cf the situation immediately preceding the appearance of
'the Sodality of Aetheronauts' on 1030: 'Afterward none of the boys could
remember where it happened. During which toxic descent, amid what clamor of
bickering by now grown routine ...' etc, as though the action of that
section has been imagined. From, above the section break, 'the corroded
splendour of the late sky deepening as they stood' (1032) to, down the page,
concluding the passage that recalls Ch2, 'some final conquest, a triumph
over night'. (And one might also consider 'with all the girls aboard, the
wind had shifted' to be acknowledgement of another 'triumph' over nature.)

LA has already been introduced at the end of the previous section. However,
the exchange between Heartsease and Chick, with Randolph and Viridian
absent, has broken the spell introduced by the pairing initiated by Chick's
response to Viridian (top of 1031 - and cf the hint offered, down the page,
by 'the most problematical, or off-and-on-again, of the five pairings').
Chick's closing observation ('That's sort of the problem ...' etc, 1032) is
picked up by the Lindsay/Darby dispute over political economy, not least
Lindsay's 'the hardly negligible fraction of our capital invested
therewithin' (1033), a reference back to the earlier description of revenue
1021-1022). 

One can see that, throughout this section, the narrative takes us back
beyond the action of the previous section, or even the current chapter, if
we think of where we left Frank and Stray, on 1017, escaping the Ludlow
searchlights. Here, there is an opening observation that 'night-time
terrains' have been 'much more infected with light' (1032), followed by '...
as if advanced parties of the working-day were progressively invading and
settling the unarmed hinterlands of night', followed by, top of 1033,
Randolph's speculation about 'extra work-shifts ... increasingly scheduled
... beyond the hours of daylight'.