Saturday, April 4, 2015

The Night Circus- Part Two (Illumination): Chapter Twenty-Three (Atmosphere) - Watching Him Watching Her

This chapter begins with Celia being antisocial, sitting backstage while the other performers live their lives.

Tsukiko comes along, suggesting that Celia accompany her to a "social engagement", a Circus Dinner. 

I'm not exactly sure what Morgenstern is saying here, but I'll do my best.

"'See that they set an additional place for dinner,' Chandresh says to Marco, before taking her on a spin around the took to make sure she had met everyone."

I don't know if it's Chandresh or Marco that doesn't remember whatever it is they're not remembering. I choose to believe that it's Marco, pretending not to remember Celia to avoid her suspicion.

There's some extraneous waxing about who is there, and their babble about "atmosphere". It may seem lazy of me to skip all this, but really, it's not worth it.

She slips out into the hall when she sees some movement. It's Hector, of course, who can't for the life of him leave her alone.

He continues to fume, all (paraphrasing here): "Don't trust anyone. Stop fraternizing. Nyeh." 

After she tells him to leave her alone, Marco catches her attention from the doorway, as hr has arrived to tell her that dinner is beginning.

They have a little snippet of conversation about libraries libraries, during which Celia sees Marco smile for the first time. 

Celia spends the dinner observing the relationships between people, which is pretty low on the creepy scale considering Marco.

They start talking about...corsets...and Marco ends up having to take notes on it. 

"'Miss Bowen's corset is duly noted, sir,' Marco replies, and the laughter bubbles over the table again."

Oh, I'm sure it is.
He then smiles at her before retreating.

There's something about Tara that reminds Celia of her dead mother. I say dead only because I had to remember that after forming theories.

After things wrap up, Celia thanks Tsukiko for the invitation, and Tsukiko responds with a quote that has been highlighted 2,839 times.

"The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones,"

I can't say I necessarily agree. I mean, I can think of some unexpected things that are pleasurable for one party that are both illegal and immoral...

Anyway, Marco and Chandresh talk afterwards about Celia, and Marco has to dodge around admitting that he thinks she's beautiful before Chandresh leaves. 

Then, he watches the place she was standing. Not even her, just where she was. He's getting really desperate now.

This chapter ends with Hector watching Marco watch where Celia was

Shatter Me Chapter Eleven will be up before midnight and next chapters of both will be up tomorrow.

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