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Henri’s Mother
Formerly a rich Venetian woman, the woman with slimed-green hair finds all her possessions appropriated by Napoleon Bonaparte after the French army conquers Venice in 1797. The woman goes into internal exile in the secret inner canals of Venice wearing her old curtains. At some point, phosphorescent slime occupies her hair, turning it green. Villanelle first encounters the woman with slimed-green hair as a teenager exploring Venice’s canals by boat. When she returns to Venice with Henri years later, she takes him to visit the woman with slimed-green hair, who warns him to “beware of old enemies in new disguises”—foreshadowing the French army cook’s reappearance as Villanelle’s abusive husband.
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The Woman with Slimed-Green Hair Character Timeline in The Passion
The timeline below shows where the character The Woman with Slimed-Green Hair appears in The Passion. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2: The Queen of Spades
...is where she sees various exiles, Jewish communities, and packs of violent orphans. One exiled woman with slimed-green hair , toothless and dressed in old curtains, asks Villanelle’s name. When Villanelle shares it, the...
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...Grand Canal. Villanelle boats around the secret waterways of the inner city. She passes the woman with slimed-green hair , wearing a crown made of dead rats, and makes her way to the house...
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Part 3: The Zero Winter
...past exiles created by French conquest and unaccompanied children. Villanelle takes Henri to see the woman with slimed-green hair , who prophesies that Villanelle is in danger but won’t leave Venice again. To Henri...
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After Henri and Villanelle leave, he asks her who the woman with slimed-green hair was. Villanelle says she’s an exile who used to live in one of the formerly...
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...not to worry about it—but that night, he has nightmares about the warning of the woman with slimed-green hair , “Beware of old enemies in new disguises.”
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