Still, Marcellus is alive to beauty: he notes that the fingerprints schoolchildren leave on the glass of his tank are as “intricate as a moonsnail.” And as much as he’d like to deny it, he’s sensitive to these humans who have made him their prisoner, and he’s deeply aware of Tova’s pain, in particular. He sees that she’s lost something, and he’s right. Her only child died years ago, and she still wonders if she’s somehow responsible for his death. She’s also facing a bewildering choice: before her husband died, he signed the two of them up for a space in a retirement community. For decades, she’s been living in an enviably cozy log cabin built by her father. Faced with the uncertainty of aging, she wonders if it’s time to leave her home behind, though we can see she doesn’t want to.
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