Fingersmith reading notes Part 2 (7-10)

by Sarah Waters

"The start, I think I know too well, It is the first of my mistakes." (P.187) (0816)
進入Part 2，和影集一樣是最不想看到的部份，因為Maud再也不是Sue想像的純真、無知。

"...'Girls' tears,' says Mr Huss. 'Quite colourless.' ' I think not. Truly, sir, I think not. I fancy them delicately tinged - perhaps pink, perhaps violet.' ' Perhaps,' says Mr Hawtrey, ' as depending on the emotion that has provoked them?' ' Exactly. You have hit it, Hawtrey, there. Violet tears, for a melancholy book; pink, for a gay. ...."
"... Unexpectedly, I think of Agnes. I think of Agens's mouth teasing a bead of blood from her pricked palm. ... " (P.219) (0820)

"... Then she blinks - remembers her training, I suppose - makes a hasty curtsey. .... She thinks me a fool. the idea upsets me, more than it should. I think, You have come to Briar to ruin me. I step to take her hand. Won't you colour, or tremble, or hide your eyes? ..." (P255)
可憐的Sue完全被看在眼裡呀!

"... She eats three eggs, spooning hem quickly, neatly into her mouth - not shuddering at the yieldin of the yolk, not thinking, as she swallows, of the closing of her own throat about the meat. She wipes her lips with her fingers, touches her tongue to some spot upon her knuckle; then swallows again.
You have come to Briar, I think, to swallow up me." (P259)
好強烈的字眼。蛋象徵Maud"純真、無知"，而Sue就是來Briar把看似單純的Maud一口一口吃掉、吞嚥。這段寫的太好了!!

" ... Once we talk of dancing. She rises and lifts her skirt, to show me a step. Then she pulls me to my feet, and turns and turns me; and i Feel, where she presses against me. the quickening beat of her heart - I feel it pass from her to me and become mine. " (P268)

" May a lady taste the fingers of her maid? she may, in my uncle's books. - The thought makes me colour. " (P270) (0821)

"... She has let one fall, and has not seen it; the two of hearts. I place my heel upon it, imagining one of the painted red hearts my own; and I grind it into the carpet." (P272)

"... You have been too long among your uncle's books. Girls love easily, there. That is the point of them. If they loved so in life, the books would not have to be written." (P291)
"Even my uncle's books are changed to me; and this is worse, this is worst of all. I have supposed them dead. Now the words - like the figures in the walls - start up, are filled with meaning...."(P295) (0822)
畢竟書是人寫出來的。Gentleman小看Maud & Sue了。