Page 12 - GALIET BEING´S FLEUR: Eldrich IV

... (As if any man really knew aught my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of
my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirect-
tions
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)2
(5-10)
However much Nanapush and Pauline fail to represent Fleur with their “indirections,” and however much we treasure Whitman’s advise, we discover that Fleur does not entertain us with her own “few diffused faint clews,” for she, by not attempting to “trace” herself, becomes the free spirit, the dancing gypsy, the mystic that haunts us with her fleeting and faint perfumed mysteries. And however much we think we might “know” Fleur, we shall discover our own delusions, for she is represented through the fragile distorted perceptions of both narrators.
Nanapush, himself, is deeply aware of the unstability of language when he tells Lulu, his granddaughter, of how rumors begin to spread around Fleur, her mother:
“...some have ideas. You know how old chickens scratch and gabble. That’s how the tales started, all the gossip ... all the things people said without knowing and then believed, since they heard it with their own ears, from their own lips, each word.” (Erdrich 9)
2 Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York: Random House, 1993. 9.
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