The weather matches the characters' states of mind - no surprise - although this time there is no wind - slight surprise:
"Roger Kearnes...shivered a little and jammed his hands into his pockets as the raw wet cold fell over him. There was no wind, no shadow, only the late fall of snow, thick sad snow that tumbled quickly from a low sky and clung to the windowpanes and melted on the ground like tears." (p. 131)
Can snow be sad? It seems so to Kearnes - and it dissolves like tears. The immediately following sentence explicitates Kearnes' frame of mind:
"He wondered despairingly if there would ever again be a springtime." (ibid.)
Of course there will. It is mind, not the climate, that has changed. But Kearnes needs a springtime of the mind.
His psychiatric patient, Sheila Corinth, is schizophrenic but also now intelligent enough to deceive him that she is getting better. When he has left:
"The sea growled and grumbled, and snow fell thicker against the windows." (p. 134)
Sheila has just inwardly grumbled about Kearnes. How does she feel with snow pressing against the window?
"She felt as if the world were closing in on her." (ibid.)
A perfect match between outer and inner.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
As Stirling said, Anderson had a way with words.
Ad astra! Sean
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