Prose Passage #1

“Fevvers, watching the fish boil, grunted she was glad somebody was happy. Her fractured wing, broken again in her last attempt to fly, was now securely strapped up with the Maestro’s fishing-lines, and Lizzie firmly prescribed, for the moment, rest, nourishment and more rest. She was utterly indifferent to her foster-daughter’s protestations that they must set off forthwith to rescue the young American from the clutches of the tribespeople.

     'He looked as though he'd made himself at home. Gone native in his garments, I noticed.' 'But it's not a week since we all parted company! You can't go native in a week!' 'I don't know if it is only a week since we lost him,' said Lizzie. 'Did you see the long beard he had?' 'I saw his beard,' assented Fevvers uncertainly. 'What do you mean you don't know if it is only a week. . .' Lizzie turned on the other woman a face solemn enough to have impressed even the Shaman.

'Something's going on. Something we wot not of, my dear. Remember we have lost our clock; remember Father Time has many children and I think it was his bastard offspring inherited this region for, by the length of Mr. Walser's beard and the skill with which he rode his reindeer, time has passed- or else is passing- marvellous swiftly for these woodland folk.

     'Perhaps,' she mused, 'their time is running out.'

     Fevvers was not impressed by these speculations. She spooned fish broth, tasted, grimaced, poked in the Maestro's cupboard and found no salt. The last straw. Lots of grub, but nothing fit to eat. Had she not been so proud, she would have broken down.

      Her misery was exacerbated by the knowledge that the young American to whom she'd taken such a fancy was so near to her and yet so far away. Exacerbated, but not caused. Her gloom had other causes. Did the speed with which she was losing her looks dismay her? Was it that? She was ashamed to admit it; all the same, she felt as though her heart was breaking when she looked in the mirror and saw her brilliant colours withering away. But there was more to it than that. She knew she had truly mislaid some vital something of herself along the road that brought her to this place. When she lost her weapon to the Grand Duke in his frozen palace, she had lost some sense of her own magnificence which had previously sustained her trajectory. As soon as her feeling of invulnerability was gone, what happened? Why, she broke her wing. Now she was a crippled wonder. Put on as brave a face as she might, that was the long and short of it.

     The Cockney Venus! she thought bitterly. Now she looks more like one of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit. Helen, formerly of the High-wire, now permanently grounded. Pity the New Woman if she turns out to be as easily demolished as me.

(Carter 272-273)