S. reveals that he is becoming tired by the routine of being an assassin. The repeated writing, planning, killing, escaping, rowing shows his growing exhaustion in a task that was handed to him. There is also the constant threat of being murdered himself by one of Vévoda’s Agents whether it be by knife, gun, garrote, ice-pick or, most likely, defenestration. Defenestration would be most fitting to accompany S.’s feeling that he fell in his prior memories.

S. also begins to narrate in the voice of Maelstrom, saying “it’s the constant churn, the need to keep moving keep doing keep risking and there innt no rest f’the damned, there jus’ inn.” Here he not only shows how exhausted he is, but how is now one of the crew on the ship in both his language and his outlook that he’s one of the damned.

Footnote 9 suggests that the use of an ice-pick as a murder weapon may be a refe
rence to Trotsky’s murder. While Straka admired him, it is unknown if they ever met. Trotsky was a “Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founding leader of the Red Army.” In Mexico in 1940, he was assassinated by Ramón Mercader but was not killed immediately by the blow. He lived for another day in the hospital and demanded that Mercader be questioned. Mercader was sent by Stalin, in a second attempt on his life. He was killed for resisting Stalin and leading the Red Army.

In the margins, Jen and Eric first discuss the monotony of life and then in the next set of notes, discuss lack of sleep. They then follow up in the last set of notes and it is clear that life has begun to settle down for them in Prague where they can sleep in, enjoy coffee at noon at Thé Café and eat kolaches.