(urth) The Nebraskan and the Nereid

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Mo Holkar" <lists at ukg.co.uk>
> At 09:16 17/04/2011, Gerry wrote:

>>My understanding is:
>>
>>The dead girl was the maid at the inn where he stayed, and to whom he made 
>>love to in the cave.  After he went back to the inn, he complained about 
>>the bed not been made.  Later the landlady must have said this to the 
>>maid.  She realised that he had not recognised her, and drowned herself.
>
> My understanding is the same, except for this last bit about how/why the 
> maid died. I think that the Nereid took her life, in exchange for 
> facilitating the experience. (Or possibly that she just drowned in the 
> treacherous waters, although that seems less likely.)
>
> On reading it back now, I realize I can't actually see any evidence for my 
> theory, but then I can't see any for yours either :-) so I guess it may 
> come down to narrative preference.

The Nereid explained her motivation.  She wanted to marry the Nebraskan 
Professor.  "You cannot imagine what village life is like for such a girl, 
who has no money, no dowry.  Then a stranger comes, and he is tall and 
strong, rich to her...".  She wanted life with him in America, not a moment 
of lust (and, realistically, she would hardly have had to bargain away her 
life to achieve that!)

Besides, I do not see the Nereid as a monster who would extract so hard a 
bargain for a small favour.  And the maid knew the ways of Nereids; we have 
a clue earlier for that.

Further evidence: Wolfe does not just say that the bed was unmade (this 
would have been enough to link the girl to the maid, if that was all that 
was intended).  He notes also that the Professor complained to the landlady. 
This is typical Wolfe IMO, dropping an important plot point in an aside. 
When the landlady in turn complained to the maid, she would have learned 
that the Professor had not recognised her, or he would have said nothing 
about the bed. (Or if he had recognised her and complained, that would have 
been worse.)  So her dreams of life with him were over, or so she thought 
anyway, though perhaps she underestimated the ability of men, especially 
professors, to not notice stuff... (Had she persevered, I suspect a happy 
outcome was still possible.)


> I do have a further question, though, which is: why did the Nereid scratch 
> the letter psi into the sand by the body? (Or is it intended to be read as 
> a trident shape denoting allegiance to Poseidon? But that seems a bit 
> clunky when earlier we've seen Poseidon explicitly symbolized by a letter 
> pi.)

I think it represents 'psyche' which means soul or butterfly.  Various 
interpretations related to this exist on the web, and I don't know their 
authenticity (I don't think anyone really knows what the ancient Greeks 
believed), but certainly the symbology of inscribing it by one who has died 
seems very plausible

- Gerry Quinn




> BTW the stories from Endangered Species are mostly quite sketchy on the 
> wiki -- if anyone would like to fill in a few interpretations, that would 
> be very welcome:
> http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=WolfeWiki.EndangeredSpecies