Fade

As soon as I write about serendipitous thematic threads appearing in these pages, I get a set that seems disconnected. In today's reading, Dagmar dances with a black man, and the text suggests that she has her own kind if racism which causes her to be nicest to "jews and negroes." We also see the police watching an intersection with sub-machine guns. They stop cars, talk to the drivers then let them pass. They are looking for someone and, since this is the only intersection in the city they watch, they have specific information. We also see X climbing a dark stair case (the return of the dark hallway from earlier). He puts oil into the lock mechanism of the office door at the top of the stairs to keep the mechanism quiet so as not to alert the nightwatchman. He holds a skeleton key.

There is a thread across two pages, however. On page 26, Marianne eats only grapes (actually, on the juice from one grape) because she is sick, and tells X so. Of course, the reader immediately thinks of pregnancy, but the text suggests something else. She is aging prematurely and wearing a stained dress.

On page 28, unpaid bills are stuck into the frame of a mirror along with an insufficient funds notice. These are here so "Marianne won't forget." So we see a picture of Marianne fading, in health, in beauty, and in wealth. X's actions and her marriage to him are having profound effects on her.