Against the Day, Chapter Two: Cyprian and Yashmeen, Together again for the First Time!

Yeah, this part of the book I truly, truly have trouble comprehending, and I can't quite tell whether that's Pynchon's issue or mine. But we will do our best. Even if that's not good enough. We DO learn--or maybe we would've known this earlier if I were quicker on the uptake--that Cyprian's erstwhile Colonel was actually Max Khäutsch, Lew's partner in archduke-protection. So there!

Anyway, he's back in Vienna. We're looking forward to "a hateful future nearly at hand and inescapable" (712) So that's fun. Here's a quote from somebody Cyprian's talking to, it's not clear who: "That is, we may regard the history of civilization as distinguished by the asymptotic approach of industrial production tolerances, with time, to some mythical, never-attained Zero." Yes, okay. But what happens when you get...beyond the zero? Dramatic music.

There's this thing, I don't even know with vampirism, which is now popular because of Dracula; you may not be a vampire per se, but still what's referred to as a "haematophage." I'm sort of surprised by the number of times vampirism has popped up in this book: first with Zoltan the biker, then Pugnax, now this. What shall I think?

What else happens here? Well, Cyprian is still observing and still--apparently--cruising for rough trade, although also, he's starting to question his desires, as "his Prater-longings began to eb," and now he's looking amongst the working class "not so much seeking exotic flirtation as to be absorbed into a mobility, a bath of language he did not speak, as he had once sought in carnal submission an escape route from what it seemed of the world he was being asked to bear." Also, quelle surprise, "the police were out in large numbers, with head-assault high on their list of activities" (715). Plus ça change.

So he runs into Yashmeen by random chance. She has an unspecified job at a dressmaker's shop, but she thinks she's being monitored by the T.W.I.T. and she's generally kind of freaked out. They go to see Ratty for help. As for the politics of the thing--of the possibility of her being monitored by Russians--Ratty opines thusly:

For or against the Tsar I mean, it does make a difference. Obviously there's the Anglo-Russian Entente, but the other lot, though technically Russians I suppose, are also the most evil sort of bomb-chucking Socialistic dregs aren't they, more than happy to see all Romanoffs obliterated, and no hesitation to make deals with anyone, including Germany, that might hasten the day."  Cyprian, revealing a certain radicalism, opines that "some would say they're the only hope Russia has." (718).

T.W.I.T. people hanging around--Lionel Swome, Madame Eskimoff--feeling demoralized and grim. I seriously don't even know what to say about these things. I feel that this blog is getting more useless, but I don't know what to do about it.

ANYWAY. The climax, as it were, of the chapter: Yashmeen and Cyrpian sitting in a cafe. She gives him an under-the-table footjob. Does sexuality work like this? I can't deny I'm having trouble figuring out their relationship here. Which I suppose is the point. Anyway, Theign is pissed off about this, which is putatively for professional-compromise reasons, but you've gotta think has a certain amount of jealousy behind it. And I HOPE--though not with a great deal of it--that I have escaped this chapter intact.

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