(urth) Sev's Silence about Catherine

[Jeff Wilson]

b sharp wrote:
> Brunians says: 
> 
>> I don't find any of this speculation about the woman in the torturer's elevation ceremony 
>> at all convincing.
> 
> I have to agree. I thought I was going out on a limb to suggest the remote possibility that
> Severian had sex with Catherine and this is the reason for his silence regarding this and
> other family ties.
> 
> But the text doesn't seem very ambiguous in this Elevation scene. Severian says the sword
> is a wooden batten. He calls it a "false blade" as he describes the downstroke. It meets 
> resistance because it hits the "ingenious mechanism" that elevates a wax head.  The wax 
> head and real head coveredin fuligin cloth trick is described in detail. And Catherine would 
> have to have tremendous healing powers to be able to take her severed head, place it back 
> on her neck and have it instantly as good as new.  Only Severian, as Conciliator, is able to do
>  anything close to that and he is limited to restoring withered arms and removing giant tumors. 
> Well, I guess he cures the sick girl in the jacal also but nothing as dramatic as instantly healing 
> and restoring a severed head.

Stitching a freshly severed head back on is much less impressive than 
returning days-dead Zama to life, or generating an entire new body for 
himself on The Ship.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >