NP; Good as Gold

[Mike Jing]

So here "credulous" is used in the usual sense, right?

2. Too ready or willing to believe; inclined to believe on weak or
insufficient grounds. (Now the usual sense.)

On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 10:29 PM Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that's what Heller intended: that you are puzzled. He's a great
> puzzler.
>
> (In nearly any other context I'd say you're right: incredulously goes with
> the grain.)
>
> Am Sa., 5. Jan. 2019 um 03:47 Uhr schrieb Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>
>> I'm puzzled by the word "credulously" in the following passage:
>>
>> Several questions rose simultaneously in Gold’s mind and broke into pieces
>> against each other in the burbling struggle to get out. “Together? Found
>> out? How? How together? Are? What do you mean found out? What do you mean
>> together? How are we together?”
>> “Like this. He knows all about us.”
>> “Knows all about us? How did he find out?”
>> “From the children.”
>> “From the children? How do the children know?”
>> “I told them.”
>> Gold looked at her steadily with a troubled eye. “You told them? You told
>> your children? What did you tell your children?”
>> “That we’re lovers.”
>> “Lovers?”
>> “You keep repeating everything I say.”
>> Gold was lacking the necessary equilibrium for timely repartee. “Is that
>> what we are, lovers?” he asked credulously.
>> “Of course, darling,” answered Linda with a smile. “I’m your lover and
>> you’re mine. What did you think we were?”
>> Gold did not hesitate long to give the answer that first sprang to mind.
>> “Fuckers.”
>> “Lover is so much sweeter,” said Linda Book with the ethereal sensitivity
>> of a poetess, “so much richer in meaning and value, don’t you think?”
>> “Don’t you have to be very seriously in love to be a lover?” asked Gold.
>> “Oh, no,” she corrected him. “All you have to be is a fucker.”
>>
>> I can't quite make sense of it. Shouldn't it be "incredulously" instead?
>> --
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>>
>