The Claw of the Conciliator: Chapter XXII

Personifications

We’re reunited once more with Dr Talos, Baldanders, with Dorcas. A reunification that Severian never intended, at least where Dr Talos and Baldanders are concerned.

So let us linger here a moment, because this is where Severian lingers first.

Dr Talos gives everyone roles, personifications to inhabit. In a book where reality is so twisty, where the ground beneath your feet seems so unstable, this may, in fact, be meaningful beyond the current moment, the current scene.

What we see with Dr Talos is his clever consideration. He recognizes that Dorcas fears the water. Why would such a thing be significant?

Well, let us remember, if you’re able, where Dorcas came from: Severian lifted her from the lake of the dead, a corpse, that then breathed and spoke and not walks with Severian.

Baldanders, curiously, does not remember Severian. He seems quite dim. Lethargic and confused. Where Dr Talos seems to observe everything, Baldanders seems to see nothing. And Severian fears a version of Baldanders with more energy, with more thought behind those big cowish eyes.

This may be related to what I just said about Dr Talos as well.

We wear masks. We present one face, one person, while obscuring the person beneath.

And later Dorcas wonders if Dr Talos is Baldanders’ son.

What a curious thought?

Signs and presentiments! Masks and personifications.

Even Severian, who wears Death’s mantle, who will one day be Autarch. The Autarch, who we just met, who is Vodalus’ spy, who is the owner of a brothel where the whores mimic noble lads and ladies.

The House Absolute has the public house and the Second House.

What is the meaning of all this?

Perhaps we should pay special attention to chapters like this that seem almost empty of plot and movement. Severian is reuniting with people he barely knows, who he never intended to see again, but also with Dorcas, the woman he loves.

Dorcas.

Such innocence. Such simplicity. The dead woman dragged into life by Severian, accidentally. Such accidents. The world twists around our bumbling steps, our floundering hands.

There is a real love story here with Dorcas. Perhaps she could save him. Perhaps she can be the Sonja to his Raskolnikov.

Would be a shame for this love story to be undercut, to be mutilated, by our torturer.

Death and innocence go walking hand in hand across the land with a weaver of tales, a magician of masks, with a great giant, and a woman cast in the shape of man’s desire. And all of them set to perform again for the crowds of the lands around the House Absolute.

How strange this all is structurally. We’re nearing the end of this second novel and we’ve spent the entirety of it without Dorcas until now. We spent a great deal of it with Jonas, who is now gone, disappeared through Father Inire’s mirrors.

And once again, always, we must ask: why is Severian telling the tale in this way?