In the Skin of a Lion

The scene is the Kingston Penitentiary. Three prisoners, among them Patrick and Caravaggio (a thief who first appeared in the novel as a laborer on the viaduct in Chapter 2), are painting the roof blue—the same shade as the sky. (Patrick has been jailed for his arson attack on the Muskoka Hotel.) The third prisoner is named Buck. Although Patrick appears in this chapter, he is not the viewpoint character; the entire chapter is narrated from Caravaggio’s perspective. Patrick and Buck help Caravaggio escape by painting his entire body blue (including clothes and hair) so that he is camouflaged against the roof and the sky.

As a professional thief, Caravaggio is most comfortable under the dark of night with only “a sliver of new moon […] A thief’s moon” (180). This is a crucial example of the novel’s motif of freedom in darkness. Caravaggio struggles to find a way to remove the blue paint from his body and hair, knowing that news of an escaped prisoner painted blue will have spread throughout the region. He meets a boy named Alfred and convinces him to bring him turpentine. He tells the boy his name is Caravaggio, “the painter” (182).