What exactly did Nicholas do to Maggie in that ritual? Isn't a Black Mass supposed to involve human sacrifice? Or anyway, sacrifice of the centerpiece, human or otherwise? Well, maybe Maggie was indeed sacrificed in a way, since she lost her Maggie-niceness. That brings me back to a question I believe I asked a while back: what is it that Nicholas liked about Maggie? Because whatever it was, it was surely gone when she was insisting on providing the life force for the Experiment.
I looked up the poem about motherless Eve to which Julia referred: Eve, by Ralph Hodgson. It's sort of long to put in here, I think. It suggested that if only Eve had had a mother to advise her, she would have known better than to listen to that nasty snake. I don't think it's relevant to this Eve, but if one is aware of the poem, perhaps one can't help thinking about it when one has got an Eve on one's hands. It surprises me, however, that Julia is aware of the poem. It was written in 1913, and I imagine Julia would have had to read it for school, probably in the 1930s, and the poem stuck in her mind - but it's surprising to me.
Bye, bye Nicholas. I hate seeing him begging like that. I suppose it's intended to be incredibly satisfying - but I liked him too much for that. I would prefer to have seen him defiant to the end.
