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t-2 = the lapse of time or the series of temporal states occurring from the departure of the Elder to his death (the evening of the 24th and the following day, the 25th);
t-1 = August 26, when the Younger receives fresh news about what happened.
The moment in which P1 shifts out to the time of the fabula (t-3) is marked by the passage from present to the imperfect tense (erat Miseni . . . regebat). The narrative mood is also stressed by the insertion of chrononyms (Nonum kal. Septembres) and by the introduction of individuals belonging to a former temporal state (the uncle, the motherthe former as the implicit subject of erat and by the attribution of some functional properties as regat classem). All these grammatical devices mark clearly the passage between the introductory part, where the Younger speaks as P1, and the second one, where the explicit or implicit Ego is P2.
One should notice in the diagram (figure 8.1) that the third box, embedded in the second one, does not necessarily represent the level of the fabula as opposed to the level of discourse. As a matter of fact, the fabula of P2 is still told in a discursive form and must be extrapolated from the discourse by the cooperative reader.
What the reader extrapolates are different states of the same narrative sequence, that is, different states of the same narrative world. According to the definitions proposed in Eco 1979a (8.6), passing from one state to another the individuals of such a world change some of
23167-0130a.GIF
Figure 8.1

 
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