(urth) Seeing the signs...

[Lee Berman]

>David Stockhoff- Does anyone have any interpretations of this description? 
 
At the risk of becoming a repetitive bore (whoops, too late!), this is a classic gnostic
Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy. Matachin is male, rigid, synthetic, solid, highly regimented
socially also. Witches tower is female, disorganized, based on natural construction, with crazy
social stuff going on. Nothing more Dionysian than woods, witches and wild dancing.
 
>but for a moment she had glanced at me, and her face, like the face of the young-old woman who 
>had brought me to her, has of course remained graven in my mind.

Naturally I think of the young woman/old crone optical illusion shapeshifting image. Another 
opposites-in-one reference?
 
>Gnostic designs in white, green, and purple had been chalked on the walls
 
I'll have to guess it is Autarch Severian who recognizes the designs as "gnostic" not apprentice
Severian. The colors have mystified me for years. The Contessa does yell at her maid for bringing
her poorly matched purple and green clothing. Hard to see a connection unless Contessa=Catherine=Witch.
 
In Eastern religion, the seven chakras each have an associated color so purple and green could represent 
head and heart http://krsnahealing.com/images/chakras/7chakra.jpg . White, of course, represents all colors.
I lean in this direction for explanation.
 
 
>An old woman who sat in the only chair I had yet seen there, staring through a glass tabletop at what 
>appeared to be an artificial landscape inhabited by hairless, crippled animals.
 
 
Another stumper. It it a terrarium? Is there a connection to Thecla's Antechamber memory of Chatelaine 
Leila's hairless rats (inspired by Hethor)? 
 
If the Cumaean can be seen as a female aspect of Father Inire I could see the artificial landscape as sort
of a war-games map of the Commonwealth with the creatures as 3-D-image game pieces of the people he/she
is manipulating in his/her Urthly chess game.