Dear List,

There is always a surprise in store when re-reading Ada. Today I realized the reference to Argus/Penelope/Faithfulness and our Greek homecoming Ulysses. When Van and Ada prepare for their last encounter ( the "balcony scene at the Three Swans"), after which they will no longer separete, they almost don´t make it because " Ada´s Argus had not yet been delivered" ( Ada was not ready?) and she invited to depart to Greece instead. And added emphasis about faithful/unfaithful comes with the repeated reference to "saw off" ( C. husband´s antlers and a good-bye )

I promise to get in touch with you in a day or two, and then we’ll go on a cruise to Greece with the Baynards — they have a yacht and three adorable daughters who still swim in the tan, okay?’(...) veterinaries had had to saw off her husband’s antlers (...) Ada’s Argus had not yet been delivered. The gloomy black gloss of the hackney Yak (...) He saw her off — and ascended, like a Cartesian glassman, like spectral Time standing at attention, back to his desolate fifth floor.

other references to Argus:

1. "Neither of them could imagine the partings that her professional existence ‘on location’ might necessitate, and neither could imagine their traveling together to Argus-eyed destinations and living together in Hollywood, U.S.A., or Ivydell, England(...)

2. Today is Monday, July 14, 1922, five-thirteen p.m. by my wrist watch, eleven fifty-two by my car’s built-in clock, four-ten by all the timepieces in town (...)He started working his way west in a dark-blue Argus, dearer to him than sapphires and morphos because she happened to have ordered an exactly similar one to be ready for her in Geneva.

Jansy Mello