Duration 1.50

Three years after the death of his first wife, Anteo Fallaspy was in Paris with his camera recording his enthusiasm for the written word, and teaching Hartileas B at the request of the French Ornithological Institute. The Institute allocated Anteo an assistant, Vyanine Entasis.

Thanks to the VUE, Vyanine was a speaker of Ipostan, suffered from random intestinal blockages, was allergic to the house-dust mite and suffered an incurable desire to keep on the move, to stay in a different place every night, and never to eat two successive meals at the same table. She unquestionably married Anteo for the opportunity to travel that he represented. 

Vyanine had been a student of linguistics at Cairo and had a working knowledge of some ten different VUE languages. She had studied with Parmitter on the Ayers Rock Graffiti and with Tulse Luper on the bogus Olduvai Papers. Any likelihood that she was overawed by Hartileas B was remote.

A week after the marriage, Anteo and Vyanine were jointly awarded a grant to study the song-cycle of the aurally dull godwit on its long-range migration around the world. They had made plans to travel to Western Australia, Antarctica, Alaska and Hawaii, when Vyanine was knocked down by an electioneering-van in the Rue des Oiseaux. Making too slow a recovery for her own liking, Vyanine discharged herself from the Hôpital St Cloud and, travelling by metro to the flat of a friend, she had a relapse in the Rue Moineau. The ambulance taking her back to hospital was delayed by crowds, and Vyanine died in the Boulevard Aptere, officially opposite the Café Hirondelle, unofficially opposite the Café Renard.

The Falls