(urth) The Land Across Discussion (Spoilers!)

[Stephen Hoy]

Piotr, Christopher, and Matthew pose interesting questions.

Let's start with the scissors. Scissors form a cross when opened. It's not unreasonable to suppose scissors in Wolfe's trans-sylvania were cast from iron.
1. "...Volitain hand on my leg, and he my scissors." Steel scissors form a steel (iron) cross when opened.

A couple more suppositions. Suppose the dessicated girl behind the mirror is Grafton's mother, who died when Grafton was six. Then suppose the first time Grafton sees "the girl with the red pen" at the cafe, Papa Zenon was trying to tell Grafton that the body he buried is that same girl. That might fit with a few other things in the story...


On Thursday, December 12, 2013 2:04 PM, Piotr Szczęsny <neternalz at gmail.com> wrote:
 
Hello,
This is my first contribution to the urth list and I'd like to thank Matthew King for encouraging me to post here.
So first off is my question, I'm not a native speaker, though my English is not bad, but you know, Wolfe use of language can be hard. So the thing that caught my attention is in this following sentences, Volitain , Martya and Grafton are looking for a cafe, they sit in one and dialogue goes like this:

"It is a place for feeling," Martya said as we trudged across the atrium. "Most quick I feel Volitain hand on my leg, and he my scissors."

(22 page in hardcover, Location 268 in Kindle edition) 

The use of scissors is what bugs me... I understood this, as the Voltain places his hand on Martya leg, she closes her legs (scissoring motion), keeping a  tight grip on his hand?
Thanks for any help with this.

And next I'm going to address Matthew question:
* Should we know what girl the hand belongs to?
Is it possible that hand belongs to the girl behind the mirror? I think so :She was curled, so missing hand could be overlooked by Grafton and he didn't get a good look at her.
She (lady ghost & the hand)likes Grafton because she knows he made her a decent burial.And the Hand tried to kill Naala... Maybe of jealousy?

Also girl with red pen is the waitress in other cafe, right? I think she is somehow connected to the girl behind the mirror, and she thanks Grafton NOT for hitting that guy at cafe, but for burial of mirror girl but this is a little farfetched, what you think?


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