{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/662", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 662, "subject": "The lady in pink", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-05-25T16:14:34+00:00", "last": "1998-05-26T05:13:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-05-25T16:14:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The lady in pink", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's time I finished my long-running genealogical investigation of Sainte\nCroix's House of Wolfe, as depicted in GW's masterwork THE FIFTH HEAD OF\nCERBERUS. \n\nHaving in previous posts attempted to link Phaedria to the House of Wolfe\nas Number Five's long lost sister (a contention I now have much additional\nevidence for), I'd like to expand now on David, Number Five's known\nhalf-brother. Specifically, I hope to determine who his mother might be.\n\nAs Aunt Jeannine surmises to Number Five in regards to David's maternity,\nMaitre \"must have used one of my girls.\" She must then be or have been a\nprostitute.\n\nWe also have David's eye color: blue. Because Maitre's eyes are brown, his\nmother must therefore have blue eyes. I've written on this at length in an\nearlier post (v.9), but again would like to emphasize this point: in FIFTH\nHEAD eye color is of signal importance. In fact, if you look at only the\ncharacters whose eye color is listed in the entire novel, you will glean\nthat except for two women each listee is _explicitly_ related to another\nmajor character. Other characters are given other identifying\ncharacteristics, but never eye color, and several of these play substantial\nroles in the narrative. The maid Nerissa is chief among these, appearing in\na number of scenes, but I also include Urania, Marydol and Mme. Duclose. \n\nAnother potent clue, I believe, is relayed to us by Number Five, who\ndiscusses a mysterious \"lady in pink,\" who is mentioned not once, but\nthricely, if always in the same context. She is the pretty woman he meets\nin his father's library at a very young age, and who tells him Maitre has\nwritten many of the books present. Later, we learn the presence of any\nwoman in his father's library is extremely unusual. As Number Five notes\non re-encountering Dr. Marsch in the library, \"I was surprised to see him,\nand even more surprised to see one of the girl's in my father's library.\"\nClearly, this indicates the lady in pink is someone special.\n\nThere is also another telling clue, I believe, when in a single earlier\nparagraph, Number Five not only brings up the lady in pink again, but also\nhimself, David, Mr. Million and a spiraling walkway he denotes as a\n\"helix.\" Barry Scheck notwithstanding, I warrant this links all four\nfigures genetically.\n\nThese then provided me with the clues I hoped to use in determining David's\nmaternity. His mother would have to be a blue-eyed prostitute dressed in\npink.\n\nI found her in VRT, the third novella in FHofC.\n\nShe lives in the same boarding house as Marsch/VRT and she is the woman\nidentified as Celestine Etienne.\n\nHow do we know she is or was a prostitute? Wolfe describes her exactly as\nhe describes the demimondaines of the Maison du Chien. I.e., she is\n\"exceedingly tall, her legs stiltlike in their elongation.\" Compare this\nwith Number Five's description of the whores who come to see his play, with\n\"their elongate shadows\" or the prostitute he sees leaving the library,\nwhose legs are \"grotesquely long.\" \n\nWe also have an image of vulgarity associated with her. Marsch/VRT, coming\nhome late from an evening at the Maison du Chien, imagines her masturbating\nwith a candle (Marsch, of course, being the son of a prostitute, and having\nkilled at least one girlfriend, is anything but a simple misogynist).\n\nIt's also later revealed by the junior officer assigned to decide Marsch's\nfate that CE is spying for the government and that Maitre himself is a\n\"GSPB Class AA Correspondent Espion.\" (Shades of Crane-Hyacinth!) Surely,\nit would not be unusal for a spymaster to recruit fellow spys from among\nthe whores he employs, and maybe it is even a step up from simple\nprositution, something he might have wanted to do for Celestine, especially\nif he had any affection, latent or otherwise, for her.\n\nAs for Celestine Etienne's eye color, it is blue-purple.\n\nNot only is this consistent with her being the mother of David, but also\nthe mother of Phaedria, whose eyes are violet. (Remember my stating only\ntwo characters with listed eye colors did not seem to be explicitly related\nto major figures? They are Celestine and Phaedria). Moreover, I believe it\nwould be entirely consonant with the novel's themes for us to suppose that\nDavid and Phaedria may even have been twins. (Lest one think this is an\nexample of geminus-ex-machina, keep in mind that FHofC is replete with\ntwins/doubles, from real {Sandwalker/Eastwind} to clonal {Maitre/#5} to\nvirtual {Marsch/VRT} to nomenclatural {2 Robert Culots} to planetary\n{Ste.Croix/Ste.Anne} to animal {2 crippled monkeys}). Perhaps having an\noutcrossed son to work with, Maitre was perfectly comfortable selling\nPhaedria, or feared she may become like the earlier outcrossed daughter,\nhis \"sister\" Jeannine (both Phaedria and Jeannine share the same avarice).\n\nOther possible links are etymological. If Etienne=Stephen='a crown,' and\nAubrey (Jeannine's alter-ego)='elf +ruler,' this might be one indication.\nCelestine, I believe, refers to her eye color, but for all I know there may\nbe a passage in Samuel where David is called \"the anointed son of Heaven\"\nor something similar.\n\nThe final, if not conclusive, clue?\n\nWhen Celestine Etienne first comes to visit Marsch/VRT in prison, she's\nwearing a pink dress.\n\n\nRobert Borski (who has now begun to distill all of his thoughts and\ntheories about FHofC--and I have plenty--into a monograph tentatively\nentitled Cave Canum--watch for future announcements)\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-05-26T05:13:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The lady in pink", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski,\n\nYou =better= write something!\n\nTo help you in that direction, I'd like to be the first to remind you\nthat the mysterious, maybe-prostitute \"lady in pink\" is a =very=\nProustian detail that I didn't notice before (guess I should re-read\n5HC soon).\n\nIn Proust's work (REMEMBERANCE OF THINGS PAST, aka IN SEARCH OF LOST\nTIME), the \"lady in pink\" is connected with Marcel's Uncle Adolphe.\nOn a surprise visit to his uncle, young Marcel blunders into their\nstill-decorous meeting and is invited to stay and chat a while--they\nmove into uncle's study (SWANN'S WAY, ch. \"Combray,\" starting from p.\n81 in my edition).\n\nMarcel later figures out that she is none other than Odette (a very\nmajor character--she tortures Swan with jealousy and then he marries\nher; their daughter Gilberte is \"the little red-haired girl\" much\nbeloved by Marcel [pre-Albertine] before she [Gilberte] was wooed by\nCharlie Brown of \"Peanuts\"--er, Robert Saint-Loup [Marcel's best\nfriend]).\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }