(urth) The eyes of a clone

[James Wynn]

Roy said
>You have the sequence of events a little
>out of order. The two pieces of text you conflated above are what Silk was
>thinking as he was brought up from Blood's cellar by Potto and Sand and
>pushed into the room at the top of the cellar stairs. That room was "full
>of lounging soldiers and armored men." Silk had yet to lay eyes on Chenille
>that day, didn't even know she was in the house. Potto then pushed him into
>another room, the room where the meeting with Marble, Blood, Loris and the
>others was to take place, the room where Blood was killed.

I've been trying to figure out how you have divided the room "full of
lounging soldiers and armored men" from the room with Chenille, Marble,
Blood, etc. I've read the scene over and over and it is pretty clear that
they are one in the same. Perhaps it is different in your edition?

+++++++++++++
"This way," Potto told him, and pushed him through a door and into a
gorgeous room full of lounging soldiers..."
[...]
"The calde's carved countenance rose again before his mind's eye..."
[...]
Blood and Maytera Marble were sitting side-by-side when Potto shoved Silk
into the room; he was so surprised to see her for a moment he failed to
notice Chenille, Xiphias, and a drooping augur lined up against the wall.
~ Epiphany of the Long Sun (Calde) pg 286
+++++++++++++++++++

There is *no* description of a third room.

None. The obvious implication from the totality of the scene is that when
Silk enters the room he sees Chenille but does not "notice" her. But he does
see her and so the "calde's carved countenance rose before his mind's eye".

>Maybe it's irrelevant to your point, but that is "the precise reading of
>the text".

I think it probably is irrelevant to both my point and yours. So I don't
know why you brought it up. But I've clarified it in case it proves useful.

>Earlier I wrote:
>"There is no way to determine the color of the complexion of the face
>represented on the bust, no way to distinguish it from the rest of the
>wood."
>
>Have you an answer for that? If you don't, then any conclusions drawn about
>the color of any of the features of the bust are meaningless, because it's
>all the same color.

I don't see why are having so much difficulty in this. There are three
"faces" in this and the near-death scene. "The calde", the sculpture
(red-brown), and Chenille (with her powder covering her flaws two days
before and with a red-brown sunburned face now).

Silk enters a room with Chenille's sunburned face and recalls "calde's
carved countenance". I'm not confabulating anything. Wolfe did. At the same
moment, he speculates that he has seen the calde' himself only days before
(when seeing Chenille). So on this same page, Wolfe confabulates Chenille's
face with the sculpture's face and then Chenille's face with the calde's. In
his near-death experience Wolfe confabulates the face of the calde with that
of the sculpture.

The obvious implication...almost flatly stated in fact...is that when
looking at the face of Chenille, one is *somehow* looking at the face of the
calde. The only reason no one has made much of in IMO is that accepting it
requires pretty wild speculating.

So it is not necessary for the sculpture to have Chenille's facial "flaws".
At that time (and the "precise reading of the text" is clear about this)
Chenille's face was being confabulated with the calde's.

I