Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 21:15:44 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) PEACE: adultress Olivia

David DiGiacomo quoted and wrote:

>>(B) And then there's the question of Olivia's infidelities. How could Weer,
>>a boy, be aware that she was having sex with both Peacock and Macafee, and
>>Julius not be? When Weer wrote that "--when she was Mrs. Smart--repent three
>>or four times a year of her casual connection with Professor Peacock and her
>>occasional nights with Mr. Macafee", did he mean that he was present when
>>she confessed to Julius?
>
>This is saying that the repentance took place after her marriage, not the
>sex.  I don't see any evidence of infidelity in the passage.

The more graphic passage in the "Gold" section (or p. 180 in the old
Berkley edition), begins with describing how Olivia ballooned in size
during the first years of marriage, and then Weer wonders if Macafee
wondered why she had been so chaste with him while she was single, yet so
unchaste while she was married.  And whether Macafee ever connected it with
her tremendous weight-gain.

We also learn elsewhere that she was making whoopie with Peacock on those
artifact expeditions.

The fact that she is walking from Macafee's to Dubarry's would be rather
suggestive, but in the context of the text it seems starkly clear that she
was run down on the street immediately after an "afternoon delight" session
in view of the Chinese egg.

=mantis=


Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
29 copies of "Snake's-hands" until OP!
http://www.siriusfiction.com/



--