9th Grade Textbook PDF

9th Grade Literature Textbook
Table of Contents
The Odyssey, Part One by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald ............................................... 3
Calypso, The Sweet Nymph .................................................................................................. 4
I am Laertes’ Son. . . .” .......................................................................................................... 6
The Lotus Eaters ................................................................................................................... 8
The Cyclops .......................................................................................................................... 9
The Witch Circe .................................................................................................................. 18
The Land of the Dead .......................................................................................................... 19
The Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis ........................................................................................ 21
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe ..................................................................... 30
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1916 - 1965) .............................................................................. 35
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe ............................................................................................ 43
“The Minister's Black Veil A Parable” By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864 ............................... 49
Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin .................................................................................................... 62
Genesis 1 .................................................................................................................................... 68
Creation............................................................................................................................... 68
The Flood ............................................................................................................................ 73
The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI The Story of the Flood .............................................................. 78
An Iroquois Legend ..................................................................................................................... 84
Prometheus and Pandora ........................................................................................................... 85
The Popol Vuh............................................................................................................................. 87
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant .......................................................................................... 91
The Yellow Wallpaper (1899) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ...................................................... 101
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. .................................................................................. 116
Excerpt: 'The Other Wes Moore' by Wes Moore....................................................................... 124
Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof ............................................................................................ 127
On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner ......................................................................................... 139
“House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar ...................................................................................... 159
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What Redburn Saw in Launcelott's-Hey: Excerpt from Redburn by Herman Melville ................ 154
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The Testimony of Michael J. Fox ............................................................................................... 151
“Living in Two Worlds” by Marcus Mabry Newsweek on Campus, April 1988 .......................... 164
Mrs. Flowers from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou ................................... 167
Eleven By Sandra Cisneros ........................................................................................................ 171
Recitatif by Toni Morrison ........................................................................................................ 174
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry .............................................................................................. 200
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote .................................................................................. 205
The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst ................................................................................................. 215
Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? Delivered 1851 Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio........... 219
Poetry ....................................................................................................................................... 220
I'm nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson ................................................................ 220
I felt a funeral in my brain by Emily Dickinson ................................................................. 220
Success is counted sweetest by Emily Dickinson .............................................................. 220
Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson .......................................................... 220
A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes ............................................................................ 222
Day in the Barrio by -Judith Ortiz Cofer ........................................................................... 223
“Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906).......................................................... 224
“Cross” by Langston Hughes............................................................................................. 225
“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) ........................................... 225
Sonnet 116 By William Shakespeare ................................................................................. 226
Fire and Ice by Robert Frost .............................................................................................. 226
After Apple Picking By Robert Frost ................................................................................ 227
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost ................................................ 228
There Came a Wind Like a Bugle By Emily Dickinson..................................................... 229
Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas, 1914 – 1953 .............................. 230
Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ...................................................................... 231
Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson........................................................................ 232
Women by Alice Walker ................................................................................................... 233
The Courage That My Mother Had by Edna St. Vincent Millay ........................................ 233
"Strange Fruit" Billie Holiday ........................................................................................... 235
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Art............................................................................................................................................. 236
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Legal Alien by Pat Mora .................................................................................................... 234
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Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
He saw the townlands
and learned the minds of many distant men,
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
But not by will nor valor could he save them,
for their own recklessness destroyed them all—
children and fools, they killed and feasted on
the cattle of Lord Helios, the Sun,
and he who moves all day through heaven
took from their eyes the dawn of their return.
Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
tell us in our time, lift the great song again.
Begin when all the rest who left behind them
headlong death in battle or at sea
had long ago returned, while he alone still hungered
for home and wife. Her ladyship Calypso
clung to him in her sea-hollowed caves—
a nymph, immortal and most beautiful,
who craved him for her own.
And when long years and seasons
wheeling brought around that point of time
ordained for him to make his passage homeward,
trials and dangers, even so, attended him
even in Ithaca, near those he loved.
Yet all the gods had pitied Lord Odysseus,
all but Poseidon, raging cold and rough
against the brave king till he came ashore
at last on his own land. . . .
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The Odyssey, Part One by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
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No words were lost on Hermes the Wayfinder
who bent to tie his beautiful sandals on,
ambrosial, golden, that carry him over water
or over endless land in a swish of the wind,
and took the wand with which he charms asleep—
or when he wills, awake—the eyes of men.
So wand in hand he paced into the air,
shot from Pieria down, down to sea level,
and veered to skim the swell. A gull patrolling
between the wave crests of the desolate sea
will dip to catch a fish, and douse his wings;
no higher above the whitecaps Hermes flew
until the distant island lay ahead,
then rising shoreward from the violet ocean
he stepped up to the cave. Divine Calypso,
the mistress of the isle, was now at home.
Upon her hearthstone a great fire blazing
scented the farthest shores with cedar smoke
and smoke of thyme, and singing high and low
in her sweet voice, before her loom aweaving,
she passed her golden shuttle to and fro.
A deep wood grew outside, with summer leaves
of alder and black poplar, pungent cypress.
Ornate birds here rested their stretched wings—
horned owls, falcons, cormorants—long-tongued
beachcombing birds, and followers of the sea.
Around the smooth-walled cave a crooking vine
held purple clusters under ply of green;
and four springs, bubbling up near one another
shallow and clear, took channels here and there
through beds of violets and tender parsley.
Even a god who found this place
would gaze, and feel his heart beat with delight:
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(from Book
1)________________________________________
Calypso, The Sweet Nymph
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so Hermes did; but when he had gazed his fill
he entered the wide cave. Now face-to-face
the magical Calypso recognized him,
as all immortal gods know one another
on sight—though seeming strangers, far from home.
But he saw nothing of the great Odysseus,
who sat apart, as a thousand times before,
and racked his own heart groaning, with eyes wet
scanning the bare horizon of the sea. . . .
The strong god glittering left her as he spoke,
and now her ladyship, having given heed
to Zeus’s mandate, went to find Odysseus
in his stone seat to seaward—tear on tear
brimming his eyes. The sweet days of his lifetime
were running out in anguish over his exile,
for long ago the nymph had ceased to please.
Though he fought shy of her and her desire,
he lay with her each night, for she compelled him.
But when day came he sat on the rocky shore
and broke his own heart groaning, with eyes wet
scanning the bare horizon of the sea.
Now she stood near him in her beauty, saying:
“O forlorn man, be still.
Here you need grieve no more; you need not feel
your life consumed here; I have pondered it,
and I shall help you go. . . .”
Swiftly she turned and led him to her cave,
and they went in, the mortal and immortal.
He took the chair left empty now by Hermes,
where the divine Calypso placed before him
victuals and drink of men; then she sat down
facing Odysseus, while her serving maids
brought nectar and ambrosia to her side.
Then each one’s hands went out on each one’s feast
until they had had their pleasure; and she said:
“Son of Laertes, versatile Odysseus,
after these years with me, you still desire
your old home? Even so, I wish you well.
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(from Book 5)
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I am Laertes’ Son. . . .”
Now this was the reply Odysseus made: . . .
“I am Laertes’ son, Odysseus.
Men hold me
formidable for guile in peace and war:
this fame has gone abroad to the sky’s rim.
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My home is on the peaked seamark of Ithaca
under Mount Neion’s windblown robe of leaves,
in sight of other islands—Doulikhion,
Same, wooded Zakynthos—Ithaca
being most lofty in that coastal sea,
135 and northwest, while the rest lie east and south.
A rocky isle, but good for a boy’s training;
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If you could see it all, before you go—
all the adversity you face at sea—
you would stay here, and guard this house, and be
immortal—though you wanted her forever,
that bride for whom you pine each day.
Can I be less desirable than she is?
Less interesting? Less beautiful? Can mortals
compare with goddesses in grace and form?”
To this the strategist Odysseus answered:“
My lady goddess, there is no cause for anger.
My quiet Penelope—how well I know—
would seem a shade before your majesty,
death and old age being unknown to you,
while she must die. Yet, it is true, each day
I long for home, long for the sight of home. . . .”
A man in a distant field, no hearth fires near,
will hide a fresh brand in his bed of embers
to keep a spark alive for the next day;
so in the leaves Odysseus hid himself,
while over him Athena showered sleep
that his distress should end, and soon, soon.
In quiet sleep she sealed his cherished eyes.
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I shall not see on earth a place more dear,
though I have been detained long by Calypso,
loveliest among goddesses, who held me
in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight,
as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress,
desired me, and detained me in her hall.
But in my heart I never gave consent.
Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass
his own home and his parents? In far lands
he shall not, though he find a house of gold.
What of my sailing, then, from Troy?
What of those years
of rough adventure, weathered under Zeus?
The wind that carried west from Ilion
brought me to Ismaros, on the far shore,
a strongpoint on the coast of the Cicones.
I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.
Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,
to make division, equal shares to all—
but on the spot I told them: ‘Back, and quickly!
Out to sea again!’ My men were mutinous,
fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep
they butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle,
feasting—while fugitives went inland, running
to call to arms the main force of Cicones.
This was an army, trained to fight on horseback
or, where the ground required, on foot. They came
with dawn over that terrain like the leaves
and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,
dark word of Zeus for us, our evil days.
My men stood up and made a fight of it—
backed on the ships, with lances kept in play,
from bright morning through the blaze of noon
holding our beach, although so far outnumbered;
but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,
then the Achaeans, one by one, gave way.
Six benches were left empty in every ship
that evening when we pulled away from death.
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“Upon the tenth
we came to the coastline of the Lotus Eaters,
who live upon that flower. We landed there
200 to take on water. All ships’ companies
mustered alongside for the midday meal.
Then I sent out two picked men and a runner
to learn what race of men that land sustained.
They fell in, soon enough, with Lotus Eaters,
205 who showed no will to do us harm, only
offering the sweet Lotus to our friends—
but those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotus,
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And this new grief we bore with us to sea:
175 our precious lives we had, but not our friends.
No ship made sail next day until some shipmate
had raised a cry, three times, for each poor ghost
unfleshed by the Cicones on that field.
Now Zeus the lord of cloud roused in the north
180 a storm against the ships, and driving veils
of squall moved down like night on land and sea.
The bows went plunging at the gust; sails
cracked and lashed out strips in the big wind.
We saw death in that fury, dropped the yards,
185 unshipped the oars, and pulled for the nearest lee:
then two long days and nights we lay offshore
worn out and sick at heart, tasting our grief,
until a third Dawn came with ringlets shining.
Then we put up our masts, hauled sail, and rested,
190 letting the steersmen and the breeze take over.
I might have made it safely home, that time,
but as I came round Malea the current
took me out to sea, and from the north
a fresh gale drove me on, past Cythera.
195 Nine days I drifted on the teeming sea
before dangerous high winds.”
(from Book 9)
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The Lotus Eaters
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“We lit a fire, burnt an offering,
and took some cheese to eat; then sat in silence
around the embers, waiting. When he came
he had a load of dry boughs on his shoulder
to stoke his fire at suppertime. He dumped it
with a great crash into that hollow cave,
and we all scattered fast to the far wall.
Then over the broad cavern floor he ushered
the ewes he meant to milk. He left his rams
and he-goats in the yard outside, and swung
high overhead a slab of solid rock
to close the cave. Two dozen four-wheeled wagons,
with heaving wagon teams, could not have stirred
the tonnage of that rock from where he wedged it
over the doorsill. Next he took his seat
and milked his bleating ewes. A practiced job
he made of it, giving each ewe her suckling;
thickened his milk, then, into curds and whey,
sieved out the curds to drip in withy baskets,
and poured the whey to stand in bowls
cooling until he drank it for his supper.
When all these chores were done, he poked the fire,
heaping on brushwood. In the glare he saw us.
‘Strangers,’ he said, ‘who are you? And where from?
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never cared to report, nor to return:
they longed to stay forever, browsing on
210 that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.
I drove them, all three wailing, to the ships,
tied them down under their rowing benches,
and called the rest: ‘All hands aboard;
come, clear the beach and no one taste
215 the Lotus, or you lose your hope of home.’
Filing in to their places by the rowlocks
my oarsmen dipped their long oars in the surf,
and we moved out again on our seafaring. . . .”
(from Book 9)
The Cyclops
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What brings you here by seaways—a fair traffic?
Or are you wandering rogues, who cast your lives
like dice, and ravage other folk by sea?’
We felt a pressure on our hearts, in dread
of that deep rumble and that mighty man.
But all the same I spoke up in reply:
‘We are from Troy, Achaeans, blown off course
by shifting gales on the Great South Sea;
homeward bound, but taking routes and ways
uncommon; so the will of Zeus would have it.
We served under Agamemnon, son of Atreus—
the whole world knows what city
he laid waste, what armies he destroyed.
It was our luck to come here; here we stand,
beholden for your help, or any gifts
you give—as custom is to honor strangers.
We would entreat you, great Sir, have a care
for the gods’ courtesy; Zeus will avenge
the unoffending guest.’
He answered this
from his brute chest, unmoved:
‘You are a ninny,
or else you come from the other end of nowhere,
telling me, mind the gods! We Cyclopes
care not a whistle for your thundering Zeus
or all the gods in bliss; we have more force by far.
I would not let you go for fear of Zeus—
you or your friends—unless I had a whim to.
Tell me, where was it, now, you left your ship—
around the point, or down the shore, I wonder?’
He thought he’d find out, but I saw through this,
and answered with a ready lie:
‘My ship?
Poseidon Lord, who sets the earth atremble,
broke it up on the rocks at your land’s end.
A wind from seaward served him, drove us there.
We are survivors, these good men and I.’
Neither reply nor pity came from him,
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but in one stride he clutched at my companions
and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies
to beat their brains out, spattering the floor.
Then he dismembered them and made his meal,
gaping and crunching like a mountain lion—
everything: innards, flesh, and marrow bones.
We cried aloud, lifting our hands to Zeus,
powerless, looking on at this, appalled;
but Cyclops went on filling up his belly
with manflesh and great gulps of whey,
then lay down like a mast among his sheep.
My heart beat high now at the chance of action,
and drawing the sharp sword from my hip I went
along his flank to stab him where the midriff
holds the liver. I had touched the spot
when sudden fear stayed me: if I killed him
we perished there as well, for we could never
move his ponderous doorway slab aside.
So we were left to groan and wait for morning.
When the young Dawn with fingertips of rose
lit up the world, the Cyclops built a fire
and milked his handsome ewes, all in due order,
putting the sucklings to the mothers. Then,
his chores being all dispatched, he caught
another brace of men to make his breakfast,
and whisked away his great door slab
to let his sheep go through—but he, behind,
reset the stone as one would cap a quiver.
There was a din of whistling as the Cyclops
rounded his flock to higher ground, then stillness.
And now I pondered how to hurt him worst,
if but Athena granted what I prayed for.
Here are the means I thought would serve my turn:
a club, or staff, lay there along the fold—
an olive tree, felled green and left to season
for Cyclops’s hand. And it was like a mast
a lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam—
a deep-seagoing craft—might carry:
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so long, so big around, it seemed. Now I
chopped out a six-foot section of this pole
and set it down before my men, who scraped it;
and when they had it smooth, I hewed again
to make a stake with pointed end. I held this
in the fire’s heart and turned it, toughening it,
then hid it, well back in the cavern, under
one of the dung piles in profusion there.
Now came the time to toss for it: who ventured
along with me? Whose hand could bear to thrust
and grind that spike in Cyclops’s eye, when mild
sleep had mastered him? As luck would have it,
the men I would have chosen won the toss—
four strong men, and I made five as captain.
At evening came the shepherd with his flock,
his woolly flock. The rams as well, this time,
entered the cave: by some sheepherding whim—
or a god’s bidding—none were left outside.
He hefted his great boulder into place
and sat him down to milk the bleating ewes
in proper order, put the lambs to suck,
and swiftly ran through all his evening chores.
Then he caught two more men and feasted on them.
My moment was at hand, and I went forward
holding an ivy bowl of my dark drink,
looking up, saying:
‘Cyclops, try some wine.
Here’s liquor to wash down your scraps of men.
Taste it, and see the kind of drink we carried
under our planks. I meant it for an offering
if you would help us home. But you are mad,
unbearable, a bloody monster! After this,
will any other traveler come to see you?’
He seized and drained the bowl, and it went down
so fiery and smooth he called for more:
‘Give me another, thank you kindly. Tell me,
how are you called? I’ll make a gift will please you.
Even Cyclopes know the wine grapes grow
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everyone calls me Nohbdy.’
And he said:
‘Nohbdy’s my meat, then, after I eat his friends.
Others come first. There’s a noble gift, now.’
Even as he spoke, he reeled and tumbled backward,
his great head lolling to one side; and sleep
took him like any creature. Drunk, hiccuping,
he dribbled streams of liquor and bits of men.
Now, by the gods, I drove my big hand spike
deep in the embers, charring it again,
and cheered my men along with battle talk
to keep their courage up: no quitting now.
The pike of olive, green though it had been,
reddened and glowed as if about to catch.
I drew it from the coals and my four fellows
gave me a hand, lugging it near the Cyclops
as more than natural force nerved them; straight
forward they sprinted, lifted it, and rammed it
deep in his crater eye, and I leaned on it
turning it as a shipwright turns a drill
in planking, having men below to swing
the two-handled strap that spins it in the groove.
So with our brand we bored that great eye socket
while blood ran out around the red-hot bar.
Eyelid and lash were seared; the pierced ball
hissed broiling, and the roots popped.
In a smithy
one sees a white-hot axhead or an adze
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out of grassland and loam in heaven’s rain,
but here’s a bit of nectar and ambrosia!’
355 Three bowls I brought him, and he poured them down.
I saw the fuddle and flush come over him,
then I sang out in cordial tones:
‘Cyclops,
you ask my honorable name? Remember
the gift you promised me, and I shall tell you.
360 My name is Nohbdy: mother, father, and friends,
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plunged and wrung in a cold tub, screeching steam—
the way they make soft iron hale and hard—
just so that eyeball hissed around the spike.
The Cyclops bellowed and the rock roared round him,
and we fell back in fear. Clawing his face
he tugged the bloody spike out of his eye,
threw it away, and his wild hands went groping;
then he set up a howl for Cyclopes
who lived in caves on windy peaks nearby.
Some heard him; and they came by divers ways
to clump around outside and call:
‘What ails you,
Polyphemus? Why do you cry so sore
in the starry night? You will not let us sleep.
Sure no man’s driving off your flock? No man
has tricked you, ruined you?’
Out of the cave
the mammoth Polyphemus roared in answer:
‘Nohbdy, Nohbdy’s tricked me. Nohbdy’s ruined me!’
To this rough shout they made a sage reply:
‘Ah well, if nobody has played you foul
there in your lonely bed, we are no use in pain
given by great Zeus. Let it be your father,
Poseidon Lord, to whom you pray.’
So saying
they trailed away. And I was filled with laughter
to see how like a charm the name deceived them.
Now Cyclops, wheezing as the pain came on him,
fumbled to wrench away the great doorstone
and squatted in the breach with arms thrown wide
for any silly beast or man who bolted—
hoping somehow I might be such a fool.
But I kept thinking how to win the game:
death sat there huge; how could we slip away?
I drew on all my wits, and ran through tactics,
reasoning as a man will for dear life,
until a trick came—and it pleased me well.
The Cyclops’s rams were handsome, fat, with heavy
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Three abreast
I tied them silently together, twining
cords of willow from the ogre’s bed;
then slung a man under each middle one
to ride there safely, shielded left and right.
So three sheep could convey each man. I took
the woolliest ram, the choicest of the flock,
and hung myself under his kinky belly,
pulled up tight, with fingers twisted deep
in sheepskin ringlets for an iron grip.
So, breathing hard, we waited until morning.
When Dawn spread out her fingertips of rose
the rams began to stir, moving for pasture,
and peals of bleating echoed round the pens
where dams with udders full called for a milking.
Blinded, and sick with pain from his head wound,
the master stroked each ram, then let it pass,
but my men riding on the pectoral fleece
the giant’s blind hands blundering never found.
Last of them all my ram, the leader, came,
weighted by wool and me with my meditations.
The Cyclops patted him, and then he said:
‘Sweet cousin ram, why lag behind the rest
in the night cave? You never linger so,
but graze before them all, and go afar
to crop sweet grass, and take your stately way
leading along the streams, until at evening
you run to be the first one in the fold.
Why, now, so far behind? Can you be grieving
over your Master’s eye? That carrion rogue
and his accurst companions burnt it out
when he had conquered all my wits with wine.
Nohbdy will not get out alive, I swear.
Oh, had you brain and voice to tell
where he may be now, dodging all my fury!
Bashed by this hand and bashed on this rock wall
his brains would strew the floor, and I should have
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fleeces, a dark violet.
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rest from the outrage Nohbdy worked upon me.’
He sent us into the open, then. Close by,
I dropped and rolled clear of the ram’s belly,
going this way and that to untie the men.
With many glances back, we rounded up
his fat, stiff-legged sheep to take aboard,
and drove them down to where the good ship lay.
We saw, as we came near, our fellows’ faces
shining; then we saw them turn to grief
tallying those who had not fled from death.
I hushed them, jerking head and eyebrows up,
and in a low voice told them: ‘Load this herd;
move fast, and put the ship’s head toward the breakers.’
They all pitched in at loading, then embarked
and struck their oars into the sea. Far out,
as far offshore as shouted words would carry,
I sent a few back to the adversary:
‘O Cyclops! Would you feast on my companions?
Puny, am I, in a Caveman’s hands?
How do you like the beating that we gave you,
you damned cannibal? Eater of guests
under your roof! Zeus and the gods have paid you!’
The blind thing in his doubled fury broke
a hilltop in his hands and heaved it after us.
Ahead of our black prow it struck and sank
whelmed in a spuming geyser, a giantwave
that washed the ship stern foremost back to shore.
I got the longest boathook out and stood
fending us off, with furious nods to all
to put their backs into a racing stroke—
row, row or perish. So the long oars bent
kicking the foam sternward, making head
until we drew away, and twice as far.
Now when I cupped my hands I heard the crew
in low voices protesting:
‘Godsake, Captain!
Why bait the beast again? Let him alone!’
‘That tidal wave he made on the first throw
all but beached us.’
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‘O hear me, lord, blue girdler of the islands,
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‘All but stove us in!’
‘Give him our bearing with your trumpeting,
he’ll get the range and lob a boulder.’
‘Aye
He’ll smash our timbers and our heads together!’
500 I would not heed them in my glorying spirit,
but let my anger flare and yelled:
'Cyclops,
if ever mortal man inquire
how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him
Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:
505 Laertes’ son, whose home’s on Ithaca!’
At this he gave a mighty sob and rumbled:
‘Now comes the weird upon me, spoken of old.
A wizard, grand and wondrous, lived here—Telemus,
a son of Eurymus great length of days
510 he had in wizardry among the Cyclopes,
and these things he foretold for time to come:
my great eye lost, and at Odysseus’ hands.
Always I had in mind some giant, armed
in giant force, would come against me here.
515 But this, but you—small, pitiful, and twiggy—
you put me down with wine, you blinded me.
Come back, Odysseus, and I’ll treat you well,
praying the god of earthquake to befriend you—
his son I am, for he by his avowal
520 fathered me, and, if he will, he may
heal me of this black wound—he and no other
of all the happy gods or mortal men.’
Few words I shouted in reply to him:
‘If I could take your life I would and take
525 your time away, and hurl you down to hell!
The god of earthquake could not heal you there!
’At this he stretched his hands out in his darkness
toward the sky of stars, and prayed Poseidon:
545
550
555
560
Page
540
“In the wild wood they found an open glade,
around a smooth stone house—the hall of Circe—
and wolves and mountain lions lay there, mild
in her soft spell, fed on her drug of evil.
None would attack—oh, it was strange, I tell you—
but switching their long tails they faced our men
like hounds, who look up when their master comes
with tidbits for them—as he will—from table.
Humbly those wolves and lions with mighty paws
fawned on our men—who met their yellow eyes
and feared them.
In the entranceway they stayed
to listen there: inside her quiet house
they heard the goddess Circe.
Low she sang
in her beguiling voice, while on her loom
she wove ambrosial fabric sheer and bright,
by that craft known to the goddesses of heaven.
No one would speak, until Polites—most
faithful and likable of my officers—said:
‘Dear friends, no need for stealth: here’s a young weaver
singing a pretty song to set the air
atingle on these lawns and paven courts.
Goddess she is, or lady. Shall we greet her?’
So reassured, they all cried out together,
18
530 if I am thine indeed, and thou art father:
grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never
see his home: Laertes’ son, I mean,
who kept his hall on Ithaca. Should destiny
intend that he shall see his roof again
535 among his family in his fatherland,
far be that day, and dark the years between.
Let him lose all companions, and return
under strange sail to bitter days at home.’ . . .”
(from Book 9)
The Witch Circe
565
570
575
580
and she came swiftly to the shining doors
to call them in. All but Eurylochus—
who feared a snare—the innocents went after her.
On thrones she seated them, and lounging chairs,
while she prepared a meal of cheese and barley
and amber honey mixed with Pramnian wine,
adding her own vile pinch, to make them lose
desire or thought of our dear fatherland.
Scarce had they drunk when she flew after them
with her long stick and shut them in a pigsty—
bodies, voices, heads, and bristles, all
swinish now, though minds were still unchanged.
So, squealing, in they went. And Circe tossed them
acorns, mast, and cornel berries—fodder
for hogs who rut and slumber on the earth.
Down to the ship Eurylochus came running
to cry alarm, foul magic doomed his men!
But working with dry lips to speak a word
he could not, being so shaken; blinding tears
welled in his eyes; foreboding filled his heart.
When we were frantic questioning him, at last
we heard the tale: our friends were gone. . . .”
Page
“Then I addressed the blurred and breathless dead,
585 vowing to slaughter my best heifer for them
before she calved, at home in Ithaca,
and burn the choice bits on the altar fire;
as for Teiresias, I swore to sacrifice
a black lamb, handsomest of all our flock.
590 Thus to assuage the nations of the dead
I pledged these rites, then slashed the lamb and ewe,
letting their black blood stream into the well pit.
Now the souls gathered, stirring out of Erebus,
brides and young men, and men grown old in pain,
595 and tender girls whose hearts were new to grief;
many were there, too, torn by brazen lanceheads,
19
The Land of the Dead
20
Page
battle-slain, bearing still their bloody gear.
From every side they came and sought the pit
with rustling cries; and I grew sick with fear.
600 But presently I gave command to my officers
to flay those sheep the bronze cut down, and make
burnt offerings of flesh to the gods below—
to sovereign Death, to pale Persephone.
Meanwhile I crouched with my drawn sword to keep
605 the surging phantoms from the bloody pit
till I should know the presence of Teiresias. . . .
Soon from the dark that prince of Thebes came forward
bearing a golden staff; and he addressed me:
‘Son of Laertes and the gods of old,
610 Odysseus, master of landways and seaways,
why leave the blazing sun, O man of woe,
to see the cold dead and the joyless region?
Stand clear, put up your sword;
let me but taste of blood, I shall speak true.’
615 At this I stepped aside, and in the scabbard
let my long sword ring home to the pommel silver,
as he bent down to the somber blood. Then spoke
the prince of those with gift of speech:
‘Great captain,
a fair wind and the honey lights of home
620 are all you seek. But anguish lies ahead;
the god who thunders on the land prepares it,
not to be shaken from your track, implacable,
in rancor for the son whose eye you blinded.
One narrow strait may take you through his blows:
625 denial of yourself, restraint of shipmates.
When you make landfall on Thrinakia first
and quit the violet sea, dark on the land
you’ll find the grazing herds of Helios
by whom all things are seen, all speech is known.
630 Avoid those kine, hold fast to your intent,
and hard seafaring brings you all to Ithaca.
But if you raid the beeves, I see destruction
for ship and crew. Though you survive alone,
Page
“‘Listen with care
660 to this, now, and a god will arm your mind.
Square in your ship’s path are Sirens, crying
beauty to bewitch men coasting by;
woe to the innocent who hears that sound!
He will not see his lady nor his children
665 in joy, crowding about him, home from sea;
the Sirens will sing his mind away
21
bereft of all companions, lost for years,
635 under strange sail shall you come home, to find
your own house filled with trouble: insolent men
eating your livestock as they court your lady.
Aye, you shall make those men atone in blood!
But after you have dealt out death—in open
640 combat or by stealth—to all the suitors,
go overland on foot, and take an oar,
until one day you come where men have lived
with meat unsalted, never known the sea,
nor seen seagoing ships, with crimson bows
645 and oars that fledge light hulls for dipping flight.
The spot will soon be plain to you, and I
can tell you how: some passerby will say,
“What winnowing fan is that upon your shoulder?”
Halt, and implant your smooth oar in the turf
650 and make fair sacrifice to Lord Poseidon:
a ram, a bull, a great buck boar; turn back,
and carry out pure hecatombs at home
to all wide heaven’s lords, the undying gods,
to each in order. Then a seaborne death
655 soft as this hand of mist will come upon you
when you are wearied out with rich old age,
your countryfolk in blessed peace around you.
And all this shall be just as I foretell.’ . . .”
(from Book 11)
________________________________________
The Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis
680
685
690
695
700
22
675
Page
670
on their sweet meadow lolling. There are bones
of dead men rotting in a pile beside them
and flayed skins shrivel around the spot.
Steer wide;
keep well to seaward; plug your oarsmen’s ears
with beeswax kneaded soft; none of the rest
should hear that song.
But if you wish to listen,
let the men tie you in the lugger, hand
and foot, back to the mast, lashed to the mast,
so you may hear those Harpies’ thrilling voices;
shout as you will, begging to be untied,
your crew must only twist more line around you
and keep their stroke up, till the singers fade. . . .’”
“‘. . . That is the den of Scylla, where she yaps
abominably, a newborn whelp's cry,
though she is huge and monstrous. God or man,
no one could look on her in joy. Her legs—
and there are twelve—are like great tentacles,
unjointed, and upon her serpent necks
are borne six heads like nightmares of ferocity,
with triple serried rows of fangs and deep
gullets of black death. Half her length, she sways
her heads in air, outside her horrid cleft,
hunting the sea around that promontory
for dolphins, dogfish, or what bigger game
thundering Amphitrite feeds in thousands.
And no ship’s company can claim
to have passed her without loss and grief; she takes,
from every ship, one man for every gullet.
The opposite point seems more a tongue of land
you’d touch with a good bowshot, at the narrows.
A great wild fig, a shaggy mass of leaves,
grows on it, and Charybdis lurks below
to swallow down the dark sea tide. Three times
from dawn to dusk she spews it up
and sucks it down again three times, a whirling
maelstrom; if you come upon her then
715
720
725
730
735
23
710
Page
705
the god who makes earth tremble could not save you.
No, hug the cliff of Scylla, take your ship
through on a racing stroke. Better to mourn
six men than lose them all, and the ship, too. . .
Then you will coast Thrinakia, the island
where Helios’s cattle graze, fine herds, and flocks
of goodly sheep. The herds and flocks are seven,
with fifty beasts in each.
No lambs are dropped,
or calves, and these fat cattle never die. . . .
Now give those kine a wide berth, keep your thoughts
intent upon your course for home,
and hard seafaring brings you all to Ithaca.
But if you raid the beeves, I see destruction
for ship and crew. . . .’”
“The crew being now silent before me, I
addressed them, sore at heart:
‘Dear friends,
more than one man, or two, should know those things
Circe foresaw for us and shared with me,
so let me tell her forecast: then we die
with our eyes open, if we are going to die,
or know what death we baffle if we can. Sirens
weaving a haunting song over the sea
we are to shun, she said, and their green shore
all sweet with clover; yet she urged that I
alone should listen to their song. Therefore
you are to tie me up, tight as a splint,
erect along the mast, lashed to the mast,
and if I shout and beg to be untied,
take more turns of the rope to muffle me.’
I rather dwelt on this part of the forecast,
while our good ship made time, bound outward down
the wind for the strange island of Sirens.
Then all at once the wind fell, and a calm
came over all the sea, as though some power
lulled the swell.
The crew were on their feet
750
755
760
765
770
24
745
Page
740
briskly, to furl the sail, and stow it; then,
each in place, they poised the smooth oar blades
and sent the white foam scudding by. I carved
a massive cake of beeswax into bits
and rolled them in my hands until they softened—
no long task, for a burning heat came down
from Helios, lord of high noon. Going forward
I carried wax along the line, and laid it
thick on their ears. They tied me up, then, plumb
amidships, back to the mast, lashed to the mast,
and took themselves again to rowing. Soon,
as we came smartly within hailing distance,
the two Sirens, noting our fast ship
off their point, made ready, and they sang. . . .
The lovely voices in ardor appealing over the water
made me crave to listen, and I tried to say
‘Untie me!’ to the crew, jerking my brows;
but they bent steady to the oars. Then Perimedes
got to his feet, he and Eurylochus,
and passed more line about, to hold me still.
So all rowed on, until the Sirens
dropped under the sea rim, and their singing
dwindled away.
My faithful company
rested on their oars now, peeling off
the wax that I had laid thick on their ears;
then set me free.
But scarcely had that island
faded in blue air when I saw smoke
and white water, with sound of waves in tumult—
a sound the men heard, and it terrified them.
Oars flew from their hands; the blades went knocking
wild alongside till the ship lost way,
with no oar blades to drive her through the water.
Well, I walked up and down from bow to stern,
trying to put heart into them, standing over
every oarsman, saying gently,
‘Friends,
785
790
795
800
805
25
780
Page
775
have we never been in danger before this?
More fearsome, is it now, than when the Cyclops
penned us in his cave? What power he had!
Did I not keep my nerve, and use my wits
to find a way out for us?
Now I say
by hook or crook this peril too shall be
something that we remember.
Heads up, lads!
We must obey the orders as I give them.
Get the oar shafts in your hands, and lie back
hard on your benches; hit these breaking seas.
Zeus help us pull away before we founder.
You at the tiller, listen, and take in
all that I say—the rudders are your duty;
keep her out of the combers and the smoke;
steer for that headland; watch the drift, or we
fetch up in the smother, and you drown us.’
That was all, and it brought them round to action.
But as I sent them on toward Scylla, I
told them nothing, as they could do nothing.
They would have dropped their oars again, in panic,
to roll for cover under the decking. Circe’s
bidding against arms had slipped my mind,
so I tied on my cuirass and took up
two heavy spears, then made my way along
to the foredeck—thinking to see her first from there,
the monster of the gray rock, harboring
torment for my friends. I strained my eyes
upon that cliffside veiled in cloud, but nowhere
could I catch sight of her.
And all this time,
in travail, sobbing, gaining on the current,
we rowed into the strait—Scylla to port
and on our starboard beam Charybdis, dire
gorge of the salt sea tide. By heaven! when she
vomited, all the sea was like a caldron
seething over intense fire, when the mixture
suddenly heaves and rises.
820
825
She ate them as they shrieked there, in her den,
in the dire grapple, reaching still for me—
830 and deathly pity ran me through
at that sight—far the worst I ever suffered
questing the passes of the strange sea.
We rowed on.
The Rocks were now behind; Charybdis, too,
and Scylla dropped astern.
Then we were coasting
835 the noble island of the god, where grazed
those cattle with wide brows, and bounteous flocks
of Helios, lord of noon, who rides high heaven.
From the black ship, far still at sea, I heard
the lowing of the cattle winding home
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815
Page
810
The shot spume
soared to the landside heights, and fell like rain.
But when she swallowed the sea water down
we saw the funnel of the maelstrom, heard
the rock bellowing all around, and dark
sand raged on the bottom far below.
My men all blanched against the gloom, our eyes
were fixed upon that yawning mouth in fear
of being devoured.
Then Scylla made her strike,
whisking six of my best men from the ship.
I happened to glance aft at ship and oarsmen
and caught sight of their arms and legs, dangling
high overhead. Voices came down to me
in anguish, calling my name for the last time.
A man surf-casting on a point of rock
for bass or mackerel, whipping his long rod
to drop the sinker and the bait far out,
will hook a fish and rip it from the surface
to dangle wriggling through the air;
so these
were borne aloft in spasms toward the cliff.
840 and sheep bleating; and heard, too, in my heart
the words of blind Teiresias of Thebes
and Circe of Aeaea: both forbade me
the island of the world’s delight, the Sun. . . .”
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855
860
865
Page
845
“In the small hours of the third watch, when stars
that shone out in the first dusk of evening
had gone down to their setting, a giant wind
blew from heaven, and clouds driven by Zeus
shrouded land and sea in a night of storm;
so, just as Dawn with fingertips of rose
touched the windy world, we dragged our ship
to cover in a grotto, a sea cave
where nymphs had chairs of rock and sanded floors.
I mustered all the crew and said:
‘Old shipmates,
our stores are in the ship’s hold, food and drink;
the cattle here are not for our provision,
or we pay dearly for it.
Fierce the god is
who cherishes these heifers and these sheep:
Helios; and no man avoids his eye.’
To this my fighters nodded. Yes. But now
we had a month of onshore gales, blowing
day in, day out—south winds, or south by east.
As long as bread and good red wine remained
to keep the men up, and appease their craving,
they would not touch the cattle. But in the end,
when all the barley in the ship was gone,
hunger drove them to scour the wild shore
with angling hooks, for fishes and sea fowl,
whatever fell into their hands; and lean days
wore their bellies thin.
The storms continued.
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The Cattle of the Sun God
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Page
870 So one day I withdrew to the interior
to pray the gods in solitude, for hope
that one might show me some way of salvation.
Slipping away, I struck across the island
to a sheltered spot, out of the driving gale.
875 I washed my hands there, and made supplication
to the gods who own Olympus, all the gods—
but they, for answer, only closed my eyes
under slow drops of sleep.
Now on the shore Eurylochus
made his insidious plea:
‘Comrades,’ he said,
880 ‘You’ve gone through everything; listen to what I say.
All deaths are hateful to us, mortal wretches,
but famine is the most pitiful, the worst
end that a man can come to.
Will you fight it?
Come, we’ll cut out the noblest of these cattle
885 for sacrifice to the gods who own the sky;
and once at home, in the old country of Ithaca,
if ever that day comes—
we’ll build a costly temple and adorn it
with every beauty for the Lord of Noon.
890 But if he flares up over his heifers lost,
wishing our ship destroyed, and if the gods
make cause with him, why, then I say: Better
open your lungs to a big sea once for all
than waste to skin and bones on a lonely island!’
895 Thus Eurylochus; and they murmured ‘Aye!’
trooping away at once to round up heifers.
Now, that day tranquil cattle with broad brows
were grazing near, and soon the men drew up
around their chosen beasts in ceremony.
900 They plucked the leaves that shone on a tall oak—
having no barley meal—to strew the victims,
performed the prayers and ritual, knifed the kine
and flayed each carcass, cutting thighbones free
to wrap in double folds of fat. These offerings,
Page
29
905 with strips of meat, were laid upon the fire.
Then, as they had no wine, they made libation
with clear spring water, broiling the entrails first;
and when the bones were burnt and tripes shared,
they spitted the carved meat.
Just then my slumber
910 left me in a rush, my eyes opened,
and I went down the seaward path. No sooner
had I caught sight of our black hull, than savory
odors of burnt fat eddied around me;
grief took hold of me, and I cried aloud:
915 ‘O Father Zeus and gods in bliss forever,
you made me sleep away this day of mischief!
O cruel drowsing, in the evil hour!
Here they sat, and a great work they contrived.’
Lampetia in her long gown meanwhile
920h had borne swift word to the Overlord of Noon:
‘They have killed your kine.’
And the Lord Helios
burst into angry speech amid the immortals:
‘O Father Zeus and gods in bliss forever,
punish Odysseus’ men! So overweening,
925 now they have killed my peaceful kine, my joy
at morning when I climbed the sky of stars,
and evening, when I bore westward from heaven.
Restitution or penalty they shall pay—
and pay in full—or I go down forever
930 to light the dead men in the underworld.’ . . .”
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so
fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of
blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at
the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the
face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the
sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the
disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions
were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and lighthearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired
to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and
magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A
strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having
entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to
leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of
frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the
courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of
itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all
the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were
ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and
security were within. Without was the "Red Death".
Page
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in
which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however,
such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to
the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded.
Here the case was very different, as might have been expected from the duke's love
of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced
but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty
yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each
wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which
30
It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the
pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his
thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.
Page
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic
clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang;
and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be
stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and
loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that,
at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause,
momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers
perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay
company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the
giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows
as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light
laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and
smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to
the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar
emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand
and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of
31
pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose colour
varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into
which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example in blue—and
vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and
tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so
were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with
white—the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black
velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy
folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the
colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here
were scarlet—a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there
any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered
to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from
lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the
suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire,
that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room.
And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the
western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark
hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced
so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of
the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.
the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as
before.
But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the
duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the
decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed
with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers
felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he
was not.
Page
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the
heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the
sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and
the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all
32
He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers,
upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding taste which had given
character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare
and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in
"Hernani". There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments.
There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the
beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not
a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers
there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and
about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem
as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in
the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the
voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the
chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light, half-subdued
laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the
dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many
tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber
which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who
venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the
blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him
whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a
muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who
indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.
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things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the
clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time,
into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it
happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into
silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become
aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no
single individual before. And the rumour of this new presence having spread itself
whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or
murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror,
and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no
ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade
licence of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded
Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There
are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without
emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are
matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now
deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety
existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the
habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly
to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have
had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not
approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to
assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad
brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.
When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a
slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro
among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong
shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.
"Who dares,"—he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him—"who
dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him—that we
may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!"
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered
these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince
was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his
hand.
It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his
side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the
direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with
deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain
nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the
whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that,
unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and, while the vast
assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls,
he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which
had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—
through the purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through this again
to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made
to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage
and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six
chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized
upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to
within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the
extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There
was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon
which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then,
summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw
themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure
stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in
unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they
handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.
Page
34
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief
in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of
their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the
ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods
expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over
all.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1916 - 1965)
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a fullsummer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.
The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and
the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that the
lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where
there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two
hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to
allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.
The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer,
and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together
quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play. and their talk was still of
the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already
stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example,
selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie
Delacroix-- the villagers pronounced this name "Dellacroy"--eventually made a great
pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other
boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders
and rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.
Page
The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween
program--by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He
was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for
35
Soon the men began to gather. surveying their own children, speaking of planting and
rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the
corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women,
wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They
greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands.
Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the
children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin
ducked under his mother's grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones.
His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his
father and his oldest brother.
him. because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the
square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among
the villagers, and he waved and called. "Little late today, folks." The postmaster, Mr.
Graves, followed him, carrying a three- legged stool, and the stool was put in the
center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers
kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool. and when Mr.
Summers said, "Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?" there was a hesitation
before two men. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box
steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.
Page
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until
Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of
the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in
having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for
generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when
the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and
likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more
easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves
made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe
of Mr. Summers' coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it
to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one
place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year
underfoot in the post office, and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery
and left there.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery
open. There were the lists to make up--of heads of families, heads of households in
36
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box
now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the
oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about
making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was
represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made
with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed
when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the
lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject
was allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black box grew shabbier
each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one
side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.
each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper
swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one
time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by
the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly
each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so
when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the
people, but years and years ago this p3rt of the ritual had been allowed to lapse.
There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in
addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed
with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person
approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue
jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and
important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.
Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers,
Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown
over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. "Clean forgot what
day it was," she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed
softly. "Thought my old man was out back stacking wood," Mrs. Hutchinson went
on. "and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered
it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running." She dried her hands on her apron,
and Mrs. Delacroix said, "You're in time, though. They're still talking away up
there."
Page
"Well, now." Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over
with, so's we can go back to work. Anybody ain't here?"
"Dunbar." several people said. "Dunbar. Dunbar."
37
Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband
and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a
farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated goodhumoredly to let her through: two or three people said. in voices just loud enough to
be heard across the crowd, "Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson," and "Bill, she
made it after all." Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had
been waiting, said cheerfully. "Thought we were going to have to get on without you,
Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes in the
sink, now, would you, Joe?," and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people
stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson's arrival.
Page
The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions:
most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers
raised one hand high and said, "Adams." A man disengaged himself from the crowd
and came forward. "Hi. Steve." Mr. Summers said, and Mr. Adams said. "Hi. Joe."
They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached
into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he
turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd. where he stood a little apart
from his family, not looking down at his hand.
"Allen." Mr. Summers said. "Anderson.... Bentham."
"Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries any more." Mrs. Delacroix said to
Mrs. Graves in the back row.
"Seems like we got through with the last one only last week."
"Time sure goes fast.-- Mrs. Graves said.
"Clark.... Delacroix"
"There goes my old man." Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her
38
Mr. Summers consulted his list. "Clyde Dunbar." he said. "That's right. He's broke
his leg, hasn't he? Who's drawing for him?"
"Me. I guess," a woman said. and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. "Wife draws
for her husband." Mr. Summers said. "Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you,
Janey?" Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer
perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions
formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs.
Dunbar answered.
"Horace's not but sixteen yet." Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. "Guess I gotta fill in for
the old man this year."
"Right." Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he
asked, "Watson boy drawing this year?"
A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. "Here," he said. "I m drawing for my mother
and me." He blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the
crowd said things like "Good fellow, lack." and "Glad to see your mother's got a man
to do it."
"Well," Mr. Summers said, " guess that's everyone. Old Man Warner make it?"
"Here," a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the
list. "All ready?" he called. "Now, I'll read the names--heads of families first--and the
men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand
without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?"
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Page
husband went forward.
"Dunbar," Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of
the women said. "Go on. Janey," and another said, "There she goes."
"We're next." Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from
the side of the box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from
the box. By now, all through the crowd there were men holding the small folded
papers in their large hand. turning them over and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and
her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper.
"Harburt.... Hutchinson."
"Get up there, Bill," Mrs. Hutchinson said. and the people near her laughed.
"Jones."
"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that
over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."
Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young
folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go
back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. Used to be a
saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be
eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery," he added
petulantly. "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody."
"Some places have already quit lotteries." Mrs. Adams said.
"Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools."
"Martin." And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. "Overdyke.... Percy."
"I wish they'd hurry," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. "I wish they'd hurry."
"They're almost through," her son said.
"You get ready to run tell Dad," Mrs. Dunbar said.
Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a
slip from the box. Then he called, "Warner."
"Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went
through the crowd. "Seventy-seventh time."
"Watson" The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, "Don't be
nervous, Jack," and Mr. Summers said, "Take your time, son."
"Zanini."
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers. holding his
slip of paper in the air, said, "All right, fellows." For a minute no one moved, and
then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at
once, saying. "Who is it?," "Who's got it?," "Is it the Dunbars?," "Is it the Watsons?"
Then the voices began to say, "It's Hutchinson. It's Bill," "Bill Hutchinson's got it."
"Go tell your father," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.
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Page
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing
quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to
Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw
you. It wasn't fair!"
"Be a good sport, Tessie." Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us
took the same chance."
"Shut up, Tessie," Bill Hutchinson said.
"Well, everyone," Mr. Summers said, "that was done pretty fast, and now we've got
to be hurrying a little more to get done in time." He consulted his next list. "Bill," he
said, "you draw for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the
Hutchinsons?"
"There's Don and Eva," Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. "Make them take their chance!"
"Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie," Mr. Summers said gently.
"You know that as well as anyone else."
"It wasn't fair," Tessie said.
"I guess not, Joe." Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. "My daughter draws with her
husband's family; that's only fair. And I've got no other family except the kids."
"Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it's you," Mr. Summers said in
explanation, "and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that's you, too.
Right?"
"Right," Bill Hutchinson said.
"How many kids, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked formally.
"Three," Bill Hutchinson said.
"There's Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me."
"All right, then," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you got their tickets back?"
Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. "Put them in the box, then," Mr.
Summers directed. "Take Bill's and put it in."
"I think we ought to start over," Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. "I tell
you it wasn't fair. You didn't give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that."
Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box. and he dropped all the
papers but those onto the ground. where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.
"Listen, everybody," Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.
"Ready, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked. and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance
around at his wife and children. nodded.
"Remember," Mr. Summers said. "take the slips and keep them folded until each
person has taken one. Harry, you help little Dave." Mr. Graves took the hand of the
little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. "Take a paper out of the box,
Davy." Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and laughed. "Take just
41
Page
one paper." Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you hold it for him." Mr. Graves took the
child's hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little
Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.
"Nancy next," Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed
heavily as she went forward switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box
"Bill, Jr.," Mr. Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, near
knocked the box over as he got a paper out. "Tessie," Mr. Summers said. She
hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to
the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.
"Bill," Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around,
bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, "I hope it's not Nancy," and the sound of the
whisper reached the edges of the crowd.
"It's not the way it used to be." Old Man Warner said clearly. "People ain't the way
they used to be."
"All right," Mr. Summers said. "Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave's."
Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd
as he held it up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill. Jr.. opened
theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd
and holding their slips of paper above their heads.
"Tessie," Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at
Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.
"It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper. Bill."
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It
had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with
the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there
was a stir in the crowd.
"All right, folks." Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly."
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they
still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was
ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had
come out of the box Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with
both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up."
Mr. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. "I can't
run at all. You'll have to go ahead and I'll catch up with you."
The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few
pebbles.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her
Page
42
hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A
stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come
on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs.
Graves beside him.
"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Chapter SEVEN
For three years Ikemefuna lived in Okonkwo's household and the elders of Umuofia
seemed to have forgotten about him. He grew rapidly like a yam tendril in the rainy
season, and was full of the sap of life. He had become wholly absorbed into his new
family. He was like an elder brother to Nwoye, and from the very first seemed to
have kindled a new fire in the younger boy. He made him feel grown-up, and they no
longer spent the evenings in his mother's hut while she cooked, but now sat with
Okonkwo in his obi, or watched him as he tapped his palm tree for the evening wine.
Nothing pleased Nwoye now more than to be sent for by his mother or another of his
father's wives to do one of those difficult and masculine tasks in the home, like
splitting wood, or pounding food. On receiving such a message through a younger
brother or sister, Nwoye would feign annoyance and grumble aloud about women
and their troubles.
Okonkwo was inwardly pleased at his son's development, and he knew it was due to
Ikemefuna. He wanted Nwoye to grow into a tough young man capable of ruling his
father's household when he was dead and gone to join the ancestors.
Page
So Okonkwo encouraged the boys to sit with him in his obi, and he told them stories
of the land--masculine stories of violence and bloodshed. Nwoye knew that it was
right to be masculine and to be violent, but somehow he still preferred the stories that
his mother used to tell, and which she no doubt still told to her younger children-stories of the tortoise and his wily ways, and of the bird eneke-nti-oba who
challenged the whole world to a wrestling contest and was finally thrown by the cat.
He remembered the story she often told of the quarrel between Earth and Sky long
ago, and how Sky withheld rain for seven years, until crops withered and the dead
could not be buried because the hoes broke on the stony Earth. At last Vulture was
sent to plead with Sky, and to soften his heart with a song of the suffering of the sons
43
He wanted him to be a prosperous man, having enough in his barn to feed the
ancestors with regular sacrifices. And so he was always happy when he heard him
grumbling about women. That showed that in time he would be able to control his
women-folk. No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his
women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man. He was
like the man in the song who had ten and one wives and not enough soup for his foofoo.
of men. Whenever Nwoye's mother sang this song he felt carried away to the distant
scene in the sky where Vulture, Earth's emissary, sang for mercy. At last Sky was
moved to pity, and he gave to Vulture rain wrapped in leaves of coco-yam. But as he
flew home his long talon pierced the leaves and the rain fell as it had never fallen
before. And so heavily did it rain on Vulture that he did not return to deliver his
message but flew to a distant land, from where he had espied a fire. And when he got
there he found it was a man making a sacrifice. He warmed himself in the fire and ate
the entrails.
That was the kind of story that Nwoye loved. But he now knew that they were for
foolish women and children, and he knew that his father wanted him to be a man.
And so he feigned that he no longer cared for women's stories. And when he did this
he saw that his father was pleased, and no longer rebuked him or beat him. So
Nwoye and Ikemefuna would listen to Okonkwo's stories about tribal wars, or how,
years ago, he had stalked his victim, overpowered him and obtained his first human
head. And as he told them of the past they sat in darkness or the dim glow of logs,
waiting for the women to finish their cooking. When they finished, each brought her
bowl of foo-foo and bowl of soup to her husband. An oil lamp was lit and Okonkwo
tasted from each bowl, and then passed two shares to Nwoye and Ikemefuna.
In this way the moons and the seasons passed. And then the locusts came. It had not
happened for many a long year. The elders said locusts came once in a generation,
reappeared every year for seven years and then disappeared for another lifetime.
They went back to their caves in a distant land, where they were guarded by a race of
stunted men. And then after another lifetime these men opened the caves again and
the locusts came to Umuofia.
Page
Okonkwo and the two boys were working on the red outer walls of the compound.
This was one of the lighter tasks of the after-harvest season. A new cover of thick
palm branches and palm leaves was set on the walls to protect them from the next
rainy season. Okonkwo worked on the outside of the wall and the boys worked from
within. There were little holes from one side to the other in the upper levels of the
wall, and through these Okonkwo passed the rope, or tie-tie, to the boys and they
passed it round the wooden stays and then back to him,- and in this way the cover
was strengthened on the wall.
44
They came in the cold harmattan season after the harvests had been gathered, and ate
up all the wild grass in the fields.
The women had gone to the bush to collect firewood, and the little children to visit
their playmates in the neighbouring compounds. The harmattan was in the air and
seemed to distill a hazy feeling of sleep on the world. Okonkwo and the boys worked
in complete silence, which was only broken when a new palm frond was lifted on to
the wall or when a busy hen moved dry leaves about in her ceaseless search for food.
And then quite suddenly a shadow fell on the world, and the sun seemed hidden
behind a thick cloud. Okonkwo looked up from his work and wondered if it was
going to rain at such an unlikely time of the year. But almost immediately a shout of
joy broke out in all directions, and Umuofia, which had dozed in the noon-day haze,
broke into life and activity.
"Locusts are descending," was joyfully chanted everywhere, and men, women and
children left their work or their play and ran into the open to see the unfamiliar sight.
The locusts had not come for many, many years, and only the old people had seen
them before.
At first, a fairly small swarm came. They were the harbingers sent to survey the land.
And then appeared on the horizon a slowly-moving mass like a boundless sheet of
black cloud drifting towards Umuofia. Soon it covered half the sky, and the solid
mass was now broken by tiny eyes of light like shining star dust. It was a tremendous
sight, full of power and beauty.
Page
Many people went out with baskets trying to catch them, but the elders counselled
patience till nightfall. And they were right. The locusts settled in the bushes for the
night and their wings became wet with dew. Then all Umuofia turned out in spite of
the cold harmattan, and everyone filled his bags and pots with locusts. The next
morning they were roasted in clay pots and then spread in the sun until they became
dry and brittle. And for many days this rare food was eaten with solid palm-oil.
45
Everyone was now about, talking excitedly and praying that the locusts should camp
in Umuofia for the night. For although locusts had not visited Umuofia for many
years, everybody knew by instinct that they were very good to eat. And at last the
locusts did descend. They settled on every tree and on every blade of grass, they
settled on the roofs and covered the bare ground. Mighty tree branches broke away
under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth colour of the vast,
hungry swarm.
Okonkwo sat in his obi crunching happily with Ikemefuna and Nwoye, and drinking
palm-wine copiously, when Ogbuefi Ezeudu came in. Ezeudu was the oldest man in
this quarter of Umuofia. He had been a great and fearless warrior in his time, and was
now accorded great respect in all the clan. He refused to join in the meal, and asked
Okonkwo to have a word with him outside. And so they walked out together, the old
man supporting himself with his stick. When they were out of earshot, he said to
Okonkwo: "That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death." Okonkwo
was surprised, and was about to say something when the old man continued: "Yes,
Umuofia has decided to kill him. The Oracle of the Hills and the Caves has
pronounced it. They will take him outside Umuofia as is the custom, and kill him
there. But I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father."
The next day a group of elders from all the nine villages of Umuofia came to
Okonkwo's house early in the morning, and before they began to speak in low tones
Nwoye and Ikemefuna were sent out. They did not stay very long, but when they
went away Okonkwo sat still for a very long time supporting his chin in his palms.
Later in the day he called Ikemefuna and told him that he was to be taken home the
next day. Nwoye overheard it and burst into tears, whereupon his father beat him
heavily. As for Ikemefuna, he was at a loss. His own home had gradually become
very faint and distant. He still missed his mother and his sister and would be very
glad to see them. But somehow he knew he was not going to see them. He
remembered once when men had talked in low tones with his father, and it seemed
now as if it was happening all over again.
Later, Nwoye went to his mother's hut and told her that Ikemefuna was going home.
She immediately dropped her pestle with which she was grinding pepper, folded her
arms across her breast and sighed, "Poor child."
Page
46
The next day, the men returned with a pot of wine. They were all fully dressed as if
they were going to a big clan meeting or to pay a visit to a neighbouring village.
They passed their cloths under the right arm-pit, and hung their goatskin bags and
sheathed machetes over their left shoulders. Okonkwo got ready quickly and the
party set out with Ikemefuna carrying the pot of wine. A deathly silence descended
on Okonkwo's compound. Even the very little children seemed to know. Throughout
that day Nwoye sat in his mother's hut and tears stood in his eyes.
At the beginning of their journey the men of Umuofia talked and laughed about the
locusts, about their women, and about some effeminate men who had refused to
come with them. But as they drew near to the outskirts of Umuofia silence fell upon
them too.
The sun rose slowly to the centre of the sky, and the dry, sandy footway began to
throw up the heat that lay buried in it. Some birds chirruped in the forests around.
The men trod dry leaves on the sand. All else was silent. Then from the distance
came the faint beating of the ekwe. It rose and faded with the wind--a peaceful dance
from a distant clan.
"It is an ozo dance," the men said among themselves. But no one was sure where it
was coming from. Some said Ezimili, others Abame or Aninta. They argued for a
short while and fell into silence again, and the elusive dance rose and fell with the
wind. Somewhere a man was taking one of the titles of his clan, with music and
dancing and a great feast.
The footway had now become a narrow line in the heart of the forest. The short trees
and sparse undergrowth which surrounded the men's village began to give way to
giant trees and climbers which perhaps had stood from the beginning of things,
untouched by the axe and the bush-fire. The sun breaking through their leaves and
branches threw a pattern of light and shade on the sandy footway.
Ikemefuna heard a whisper close behind him and turned round sharply. The man who
had whispered now called out aloud, urging the others to hurry up.
Page
Thus the men of Umuofia pursued their way, armed with sheathed machetes, and
Ikemefuna, carrying a pot of palm-wine on his head, walked in their midst. Although
he had felt uneasy at first, he was not afraid now. Okonkwo walked behind him. He
could hardly imagine that Okonkwo was not his real father. He had never been fond
of his real father, and at the end of three years he had become very distant indeed.
But his mother and his three-year-old sister... of course she would not be three now,
but six. Would he recognise her now? She must have grown quite big. How his
mother would weep for joy, and thank Okonkwo for having looked after him so well
and for bringing him back. She would want to hear everything that had happened to
47
"We still have a long way to go," he said. Then he and another man went before
Ikemefuna and set a faster pace.
him in all these years. Could he remember them all? He would tell her about Nwoye
and his mother, and about the locusts... Then quite suddenly a thought came upon
him. His mother might be dead. He tried in vain to force the thought out of his mind.
Then he tried to settle the matter the way he used to settle such matters when he was
a little boy. He still remembered the song:
Eze elina, elina!
Sala
Eze ilikwa ya
Ikwaba akwa ogholi
Ebe Danda nechi eze Ebe
Uzuzu nete egwu Sala
He sang it in his mind, and walked to its beat. If the song ended on his right foot, his
mother was alive. If it ended on his left, she was dead. No, not dead, but ill. It ended
on the right. She was alive and well. He sang the song again, and it ended on the left.
But the second time did not count. The first voice gets to Chukwu, or God's house.
That was a favourite saying of children. Ikemefuna felt like a child once more. It
must be the thought of going home to his mother.
One of the men behind him cleared his throat. Ikemefuna looked back, and the man
growled at him to go on and not stand looking back. The way he said it sent cold fear
down Ikemefuna's back. His hands trembled vaguely on the black pot he carried.
Why had Okonkwo withdrawn to the rear? Ikemefuna felt his legs melting under
him. And he was afraid to look back.
Page
As soon as his father walked in, that night, Nwoye knew that Ikemefuna had been
killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a
tightened bow. He did not cry. He just hung limp. He had had the same kind of
feeling not long ago, during the last harvest season. Every child loved the harvest
season. Those who were big enough to carry even a few yams in a tiny basket went
with grown-ups to the farm. And if they could not help in digging up the yams, they
could gather firewood together for roasting the ones that would be eaten there on the
48
As the man who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo
looked away. He heard the blow. The pot fell and broke in the sand. He heard
Ikemefuna cry, "My father, they have killed me!" as he ran towards him. Dazed with
fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought
weak.
farm. This roasted yam soaked in red palm-oil and eaten in the open farm was
sweeter than any meal at home. It was after such a day at the farm during the last
harvest that Nwoye had felt for the first time a snapping inside him like the one he
now felt. They were returning home with baskets of yams from a distant farm across
the stream when they heard the voice of an infant crying in the thick forest. A sudden
hush had fallen on the women, who had been talking, and they had quickened their
steps. Nwoye had heard that twins were put in earthenware pots and thrown away in
the forest, but he had never yet come across them. A vague chill had descended on
him and his head had seemed to swell, like a solitary walker at night who passes an
evil spirit on the way. Then something had given way inside him. It descended on
him again, this feeling, when his father walked in that night after killing Ikemefuna.
“The Minister's Black Veil A Parable” By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864
THE SEXTON stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling busily at the
bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children,
with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in
the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at
the pretty maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on
week days. When the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to
toll the bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door. The first glimpse of
the clergyman's figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons.
"But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?" cried the sexton in
astonishment.
All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr.
Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meeting-house. With one
accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were
coming to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit.
Page
49
"Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.
"Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton. "He was to have
exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse
himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon."
The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a
gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due
clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly
dust from his Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance.
Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken
by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist
of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and
chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to
all living and inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper
walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the
ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his
parishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were
they that his greeting hardly met with a return.
"I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that piece of crape," said
the sexton.
"I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meeting-house. "He
has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face."
Page
A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper into the
meeting-house, and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from twisting
their heads towards the door; many stood upright, and turned directly about; while
several little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible
racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of
the men's feet, greatly at variance with that hushed repose which should attend the
entrance of the minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of
his people. He entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews
on each side, and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired greatgrandsire, who occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was strange to
observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious of something singular in
50
"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray, following him across the
threshold.
the appearance of his pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing
wonder, till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit,
face to face with his congregation, except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem
was never once withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath, as he gave out the
psalm; it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the
Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did
he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?
Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of
delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced
congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.
Page
At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager
to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the
moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled
closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the centre; some went
homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and profaned the
51
Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove
to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences, rather than to drive
them thither by the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now delivered was
marked by the same characteristics of style and manner as the general series of his
pulpit oratory. But there was something, either in the sentiment of the discourse
itself, or in the imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful
effort that they had ever heard from their pastor's lips. It was tinged, rather more
darkly than usual, with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament. The subject
had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest
and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting
that the Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power was breathed into his words.
Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened
breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and
discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped
hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said, at least,
no violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice, the hearers quaked.
An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of
some unwonted attribute in their minister, that they longed for a breath of wind to
blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered,
though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr. Hooper.
Sabbath day with ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads,
intimating that they could penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there
was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so weakened by the
midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After a brief interval, forth came good Mr.
Hooper also, in the rear of his flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to
another, he paid due reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle aged with kind
dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority
and love, and laid his hands on the little children's heads to bless them. Such was
always his custom on the Sabbath day. Strange and bewildered looks repaid him for
his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by their
pastor's side. Old Squire Saunders, doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory,
neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont
to bless the food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. He returned, therefore, to
the parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was observed to look back
upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile
gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth,
glimmering as he disappeared.
"How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear
on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!"
"Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's intellects," observed her
husband, the physician of the village. "But the strangest part of the affair is the effect
of this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it
covers only our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person, and makes
him ghostlike from head to foot. Do you not feel it so?"
"Truly do I," replied the lady; "and I would not be alone with him for the world. I
wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!"
Page
The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At its conclusion, the
bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and friends were assembled
in the house, and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of
the good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance
of Mr. Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem.
The clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the
52
"Men sometimes are so," said her husband.
coffin, to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, the veil
hung straight down from his forehead, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed
forever, the dead maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of
her glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? A person who watched the
interview between the dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant
when the clergyman's features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered,
rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure
of death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy. From the
coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head
of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving
prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes, that the music of a
heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed faintly to be heard among
the saddest accents of the minister. The people trembled, though they but darkly
understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and all of mortal race, might
be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should
snatch the veil from their faces. The bearers went heavily forth, and the mourners
followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before them, and Mr. Hooper in his
black veil behind.
"Why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his partner.
I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking
hand in hand."
Page
That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in wedlock.
Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness for such
occasions, which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would
have been thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition which made him
more beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited his arrival with
impatience, trusting that the strange awe, which had gathered over him throughout
the day, would now be dispelled. But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper
came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which
had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the
wedding. Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have
rolled duskily from beneath the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles. The
bridal pair stood up before the minister. But the bride's cold fingers quivered in the
53
"And so had I, at the same moment," said the other.
tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that
the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be
married. If ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one where they
tolled the wedding knell. After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass
of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple in a strain of mild
pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a cheerful
gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of his figure in the lookingglass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed
all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon
the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black
Veil.
Page
It was remarkable that of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not
one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing.
Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had
never lacked advisers, nor shown himself adverse to be guided by their judgment. If
he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust, that even the mildest
censure would lead him to consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so
well acquainted with this amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners
chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling
of dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to
shift the responsibility upon another, till at length it was found expedient to send a
deputation of the church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper about the mystery, before
it should grow into a scandal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The
minister received them with friendly courtesy, but became silent, after they were
seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden of introducing their important
business. The topic, it might be supposed, was obvious enough. There was the black
veil swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead, and concealing every feature above his
placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the glimmering of a
melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down
54
The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper's
black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion
between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open
windows. It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his guests. The
children babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered his
face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the
panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.
before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. Were the veil
but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then. Thus they sat a
considerable time, speechless, confused, and shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper's
eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible glance. Finally, the
deputies returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty
to be handled, except by a council of the churches, if, indeed, it might not require a
general synod.
But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the black
veil had impressed all beside herself. When the deputies returned without an
explanation, or even venturing to demand one, she, with the calm energy of her
character, determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be settling
round Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife, it
should be her privilege to know what the black veil concealed. At the minister's first
visit, therefore, she entered upon the subject with a direct simplicity, which made the
task easier both for him and her. After he had seated himself, she fixed her eyes
steadfastly upon the veil, but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so
overawed the multitude: it was but a double fold of crape, hanging down from his
forehead to his mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath.
"No," said she aloud, and smiling, "there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape,
except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, let
the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil: then tell me why
you put it on."
Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly.
"There is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it
not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then."
Page
"Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is
a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in
solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar
friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me
from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!"
55
"Your words are a mystery, too," returned the young lady. "Take away the veil from
them, at least."
"What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly inquired, "that you should
thus darken your eyes forever?"
"If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, perhaps, like most other
mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil."
"But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?"
urged Elizabeth. "Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you
hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office,
do away this scandal!"
The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors that were
already abroad in the village. But Mr. Hooper's mildness did not forsake him. He
even smiled again--that same sad smile, which always appeared like a faint
glimmering of light, proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil.
"If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough," he merely replied; "and if I
cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?"
And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties. At
length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few moments she appeared lost in thought,
considering, probably, what new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from
so dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom of
mental disease. Though of a firmer character than his own, the tears rolled down her
cheeks. But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes
were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its
terrors fell around her. She arose, and stood trembling before him.
"And do you feel it then, at last?" said he mournfully.
Page
"Have patience with me, Elizabeth!" cried he, passionately. "Do not desert me,
though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall
be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil--it is
56
She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned to leave the room.
He rushed forward and caught her arm.
not for eternity! O! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone
behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!"
"Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face," said she.
"Never! It cannot be!" replied Mr. Hooper.
"Then farewell!" said Elizabeth.
Page
From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper's black veil, or, by a
direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By persons who
claimed a superiority to popular prejudice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric
whim, such as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational, and
tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr.
Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of
mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him,
and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way.
The impertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his customary walk at
sunset to the burial ground; for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would
always be faces behind the gravestones, peeping at his black veil. A fable went the
rounds that the stare of the dead people drove him thence. It grieved him, to the very
depth of his kind heart, to observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking
up their merriest sports, while his melancholy figure was yet afar off. Their
instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than aught else, that a
preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of the black crape. In truth, his
own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great, that he never willingly passed
before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a still fountain, lest, in its peaceful bosom, he
should be affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility to the whispers, that
Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely
concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from beneath the black
veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which
enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was
57
She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed, pausing at the door, to
give one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the
black veil. But, even amid his grief, Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material
emblem had separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it shadowed
forth, must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers.
said that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings and
outward terrors, he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own
soul, or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless
wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside the veil.
But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he
passed by.
Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making
its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem--for there
was no other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls that were
in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to
themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to
celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed,
enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr.
Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared; though ever, as he stooped
to whisper consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such
were the terrors of the black veil, even when Death had bared his visage! Strangers
came long distances to attend service at his church, with the mere idle purpose of
gazing at his figure, because it was forbidden them to behold his face. But many were
made to quake ere they departed! Once, during Governor Belcher's administration,
Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered with his black
veil, he stood before the chief magistrate, the council, and the representatives, and
wrought so deep an impression that the legislative measures of that year were
characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway.
Page
Several persons were visible by the shaded candle-light, in the death chamber of the
old clergyman. Natural connections he had none. But there was the decorously grave,
though unmoved physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient
58
In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet
shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a
man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid
in mortal anguish. As years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable veil, he
acquired a name throughout the New England churches, and they called him Father
Hooper. Nearly all his parishioners, who were of mature age when he was settled,
had been borne away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church, and
a more crowded one in the churchyard; and having wrought so late into the evening,
and done his work so well, it was now good Father Hooper's turn to rest.
whom he could not save. There were the deacons, and other eminently pious
members of his church. There, also, was the Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a
young and zealous divine, who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the
expiring minister. There was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but one whose
calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age,
and would not perish, even at the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the
hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the black veil still
swathed about his brow, and reaching down over his face, so that each more difficult
gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung
between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and
woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it
lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him
from the sunshine of eternity.
For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully between
the past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals, into the
indistinctness of the world to come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him
from side to side, and wore away what little strength he had. But in his most
convulsive struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect, when no other
thought retained its sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black
veil should slip aside. Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a
faithful woman at his pillow, who, with averted eyes, would have covered that aged
face, which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length the deathstricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and bodily exhaustion, with an
imperceptible pulse, and breath that grew fainter and fainter, except when a long,
deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit.
The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.
"Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of your release is at hand. Are you
ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?"
Page
"Yea," said he, in faint accents, "my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil be
lifted."
59
Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head; then,
apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful, he exerted himself to
speak.
"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so given to prayer,
of such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment
may pronounce; is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his
memory, that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother,
let not this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go
to your reward. Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil
from your face!"
And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so
many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders stand aghast,
Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed
them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of Westbury
would contend with a dying man.
"Never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "On earth, never!"
"Dark old man!" exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible crime upon
your soul are you now passing to the judgment?"
Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort,
grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should
speak. He even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of
death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful at that last moment, in the
gathered terrors of a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now
seemed to glimmer from its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper's lips.
Page
While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell
back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still
60
"Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle
of pale spectators. "Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women
shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the
mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the
friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man
does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the
secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived,
and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!"
veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave.
The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial stone is
moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it
mouldered beneath the Black Veil!
Page
61
NOTE. Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York, Maine,
who died about eighty years since, made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity
that is here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had
a different import. In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend; and from
that day till the hour of his own death, he hid his face from men.
Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin
As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmonde drove over to L'Abri to see Desiree and
the baby.
It made her laugh to think of Desiree with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday that
Desiree was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in riding through the
gateway of Valmonde had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone
pillar.
The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for "Dada." That was as much as
she could do or say. Some people thought she might have strayed there of her own
accord, for she was of the toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been
purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day,
had crossed the ferry that Coton Mais kept, just below the plantation. In time
Madame Valmonde abandoned every speculation but the one that Desiree had been
sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she
was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle,
affectionate and sincere,--the idol of Valmonde.
Page
Monsieur Valmonde grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the
girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded
that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one
of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from Paris, and
contained himself with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were
married.
62
It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow
she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing
her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love,
as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he
had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his
mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the
gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives
headlong over all obstacles.
Madame Valmonde had not seen Desiree and the baby for four weeks. When she
reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad
looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress,
old Monsieur Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France, and she having
loved her own land too well ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black
like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed
house. Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their thick-leaved, far-reaching
branches shadowed it like a pall. Young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and
under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old
master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime.
The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white
muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he
had fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window
fanning herself.
Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed her, holding her an
instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the child.
"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language
spoken at Valmonde in those days.
"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Desiree, "at the way he has grown. The
little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails,--real
finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"
The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, "Mais si, Madame."
"And the way he cries," went on Desiree, "is deafening. Armand heard him the other
day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."
Page
"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she
replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?"
63
Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and
walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly,
then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the
fields.
Desiree's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.
"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a
boy, to bear his name; though he says not,--that he would have loved a girl as well.
But I know it isn't true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma," she added,
drawing Madame Valmonde's head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he
hasn't punished one of them--not one of them--since baby is born. Even Negrillon,
who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work--he only laughed,
and said Negrillon was a great scamp. oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me."
What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened
Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature greatly. This was what made the
gentle Desiree so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she
trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But
Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day
he fell in love with her.
Page
She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her
fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The
baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a
sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche's little
quadroon boys--half naked too--stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock
feathers. Desiree's eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she
was striving to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her. She
looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and
64
When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the conviction
that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to
grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks;
unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming.
Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not ask
him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old
love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there,
avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of
Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Desiree
was miserable enough to die.
over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of
having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture
gathered upon her face.
She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come, at first.
When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress was pointing to the
door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished
floor, on his bare tiptoes.
She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of
fright.
Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went to a table and
began to search among some papers which covered it.
"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was
human. But he did not notice. "Armand," she said again. Then she rose and tottered
towards him. "Armand," she panted once more, clutching his arm, "look at our child.
What does it mean? tell me."
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand
away from him. "Tell me what it means!" she cried despairingly.
"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not
white."
A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her with
unwonted courage to deny it. "It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it
is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is
fair," seizing his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand," she laughed
hysterically.
Page
When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame
Valmonde.
65
"As white as La Blanche's," he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone
with their child.
"My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For
God's sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die.
I cannot be so unhappy, and live."
The answer that came was brief:
"My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother who loves you.
Come with your child."
When the letter reached Desiree she went with it to her husband's study, and laid it
open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white,
motionless after she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.
He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp with agonized
suspense.
"Yes, go."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I want you to go."
He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt,
somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife's
soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had
brought upon his home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door,
hoping he would call her back.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.
Page
Desiree went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre gallery with it.
She took the little one from the nurse's arms with no word of explanation, and
descending the steps, walked away, under the live-oak branches.
66
He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still fields the
negroes were picking cotton.
Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her
hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden gleam from its brown
meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of
Valmonde. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender
feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the
deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.
Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L'Abri. In the centre of the
smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide
hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a
half dozen negroes the material which kept this fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre,
which had already been fed with the richness of a priceless layette. Then there were
silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too, and embroideries;
bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of rare quality.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that
Desiree had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was the remnant of
one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Desiree's; it was part
of an old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for
the blessing of her husband's love:--
Page
67
"But above all," she wrote, "night and day, I thank the good God for having so
arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores
him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery."
Page
Creation
1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness.
5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening
and the morning were the first day.
6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters.
7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the
second day.
9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one
place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters
called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit
tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the
tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was
good.
13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the
day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and
years:
15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the
earth: and it was so.
16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser
light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the
darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that
68
Genesis 1
hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the
waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his
kind: and God saw that it was good.
22: And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the
seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23: And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24: And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle,
and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25: And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and
every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth.
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male
and female created he them.
28: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon
the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing
that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for
meat: and it was so.
31: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And
the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2
Page
2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on
the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
69
1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
3: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested
from all his work which God created and made.
4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,
in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
5: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field
before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there
was not a man to till the ground.
6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8: And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man
whom he had formed.
9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to
the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the
tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted,
and became into four heads.
11: The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of
Havilah, where there is gold;
12: And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13: And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the
whole land of Ethiopia.
Page
15: And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it.
70
14: And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east
of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat:
17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make
him an help meet for him.
19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every
fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast
of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he
took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and
brought her unto the man.
23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall
be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his
wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3
Page
2: And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden:
71
1: Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God
had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every
tree of the garden?
3: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof,
and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and
they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God
amongst the trees of the garden.
9: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10: And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was
naked; and I hid myself.
11: And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree,
whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12: And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree, and I did eat.
Page
14: And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art
cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou
go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
72
13: And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And
the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
15: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16: Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee.
17: And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,
and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of
it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life;
18: Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field;
19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for
out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
20: And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21: Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and
clothed them.
22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat,
and live for ever:
23: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the
ground from whence he was taken.
24: So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden
Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree
of life.
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The Flood
1: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born unto them,
2: That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took
them wives of all which they chose.
3: And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is
flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of
God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same
became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
5: And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6: And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him
at his heart.
7: And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it
repenteth me that I have made them.
8: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
9: These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his
generations, and Noah walked with God.
10: And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11: The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
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13: And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is
filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
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12: And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth.
14: Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt
pitch it within and without with pitch.
15: And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be
three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
16: A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above;
and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third
stories shalt thou make it.
17: And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all
flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the
earth shall die.
18: But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark,
thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
19: And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the
ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
20: Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of
the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
21: And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee;
and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
22: Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
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1: And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee
have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2: Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female:
and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3: Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive
upon the face of all the earth.
4: For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty
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Genesis 7
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nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of
the earth.
5: And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.
6: And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7: And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into
the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8: Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing
that creepeth upon the earth,
9: There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as
God had commanded Noah.
10: And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the
earth.
11: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day
of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and
the windows of heaven were opened.
12: And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13: In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of
Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14: They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his
kind, every bird of every sort.
15: And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the
breath of life.
16: And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had
commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
17: And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare
up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18: And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark
went upon the face of the waters.
19: And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that
were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20: Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21: And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of
beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23: And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the
ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven;
and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that
were with him in the ark.
24: And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
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1: And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was
with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters
asswaged;
2: The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the
rain from heaven was restrained;
3: And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the
hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
4: And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month,
upon the mountains of Ararat.
5: And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on
the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
6: And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the
ark which he had made:
7: And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried
up from off the earth.
8: Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the
face of the ground;
9: But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into
the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand,
and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
10: And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the
ark;
11: And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive
leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
12: And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not
again unto him any more.
13: And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first
day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the
covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
14: And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the
earth dried.
15: And God spake unto Noah, saying,
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Genesis 8
16: Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with
thee.
17: Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of
fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they
may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
18: And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him:
19: Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon
the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.
20: And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of
every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21: And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will
not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as
I have done.
22: While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer
and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
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Gilgamesh spoke to Utanapishtim, the Faraway: "I have been looking at you, but
your appearance is not strange--you are like me! You yourself are not different--you
are like me! My mind was resolved to fight with you, (but instead?) my arm lies
useless over you. Tell me, how is it that you stand in the Assembly of the Gods, and
have found life!"
Utanapishtim spoke to Gilgamesh, saying: "I will reveal to you, Gilgamesh, a thing
that is hidden, a secret of the gods I will tell you! Shuruppak, a city that you surely
know, situated on the banks of the Euphrates, that city was very old, and there were
gods inside it. The hearts of the Great Gods moved them to inflict the Flood. Their
Father Anu uttered the oath (of secrecy), Valiant Enlil was their Adviser, Ninurta was
their Chamberlain, Ennugi was their Minister of Canals. Ea, the Clever Prince , was
under oath with them so he repeated their talk to the reed house: 'Reed house, reed
house! Wall, wall! O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu: Tear down the house and
build a boat! Abandon wealth and seek living beings! Spurn possessions and keep
alive living beings! Make all living beings go up into the boat. The boat which you
are to build, its dimensions must measure equal to each other: its length must
correspond to its width. Roof it over like the Apsu. I understood and spoke to my
lord, Ea: 'My lord, thus is the command which you have uttered I will heed and will
do it. But what shall I answer the city, the populace, and the Elders!'
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The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI The Story of the Flood
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Ea spoke, commanding me, his servant: 'You, well then, this is what you must say to
them: "It appears that Enlil is rejecting me so I cannot reside in your city , nor set
foot on Enlil's earth. I will go down to the Apsu to live with my lord, Ea, and upon
you he will rain down abundance, a profusion of fowl, myriad fishes. He will bring to
you a harvest of wealth, in the morning he will let loaves of bread shower down, and
in the evening a rain of wheat!"' Just as dawn began to glow the land assembled
around me- the carpenter carried his hatchet, the reed worker carried his (flattening)
stone, ... the men ...
The child carried the pitch, the weak brought whatever else was needed. On the fifth
day I laid out her exterior. It was a field in area, its walls were each 10 times 12
cubits in height, the sides of its top were of equal length, 10 times It cubits each. I
laid out its (interior) structure and drew a picture of it . I provided it with six decks,
thus dividing it into seven (levels). The inside of it I divided into nine
(compartments). I drove plugs (to keep out) water in its middle part. I saw to the
punting poles and laid in what was necessary. Three times 3,600 (units) of raw
bitumen I poured into the bitumen kiln, three times 3,600 (units of) pitch ...into it,
there were three times 3,600 porters of casks who carried (vegetable) oil, apart from
the 3,600 (units of) oil which they consumed and two times 3,600 (units of) oil which
the boatman stored away. I butchered oxen for the meat , and day upon day I
slaughtered sheep.
I gave the workmen ale, beer, oil, and wine, as if it were river water, so they could
make a party like the New Year's Festival. ... and I set my hand to the oiling . The
boat was finished by sunset. The launching was very difficult. They had to keep
carrying a runway of poles front to back, until two-thirds of it had gone into the water
. Whatever I had I loaded on it: whatever silver I had I loaded on it, whatever gold I
had I loaded on it. All the living beings that I had I loaded on it, I had all my kith and
kin go up into the boat, all the beasts and animals of the field and the craftsmen I had
go up.
Shamash had set a stated time: 'In the morning I will let loaves of bread shower
down, and in the evening a rain of wheat! Go inside the boat, seal the entry!' That
stated time had arrived. In the morning he let loaves of bread shower down, and in
the evening a rain of wheat. I watched the appearance of the weather-- the weather
was frightful to behold! I went into the boat and sealed the entry. For the caulking of
the boat, to Puzuramurri, the boatman, I gave the palace together with its contents.
Just as dawn began to glow there arose from the horizon a black cloud. Adad
rumbled inside of it, before him went Shullat and Hanish, heralds going over
mountain and land. Erragal pulled out the mooring poles, forth went Ninurta and
made the dikes overflow. The Anunnaki lifted up the torches, setting the land ablaze
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with their flare. Stunned shock over Adad's deeds overtook the heavens, and turned
to blackness all that had been light. The... land shattered like a... pot. All day long the
South Wind blew ..., blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water, overwhelming
the people like an attack. No one could see his fellow, they could not recognize each
other in the torrent. The gods were frightened by the Flood, and retreated, ascending
to the heaven of Anu. The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer
wall. Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth, the sweet-voiced Mistress of the
Gods wailed: 'The olden days have alas turned to clay, because I said evil things in
the Assembly of the Gods! How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods,
ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people!! No sooner have I given birth to my
dear people than they fill the sea like so many fish!' The gods--those of the
Anunnaki--were weeping with her, the gods humbly sat weeping, sobbing with grief ,
their lips burning, parched with thirst. Six days and seven nights came the wind and
flood, the storm flattening the land. When the seventh day arrived, the storm was
pounding, the flood was a war--struggling with itself like a woman writhing (in
labor).
The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped up. I looked around all
day long--quiet had set in and all the human beings had turned to clay! The terrain
was as flat as a roof. I opened a vent and fresh air (daylight!) fell upon the side of my
nose.
I fell to my knees and sat weeping, tears streaming down the side of my nose. I
looked around for coastlines in the expanse of the sea, and at twelve leagues there
emerged a region (of land). On Mt. Nimush the boat lodged firm, Mt. Nimush held
the boat, allowing no sway. One day and a second Mt. Nimush held the boat,
allowing no sway. A third day, a fourth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
A fifth day, a sixth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
When a seventh day arrived I sent forth a dove and released it. The dove went off,
but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me. I sent forth a
swallow and released it. The swallow went off, but came back to me; no perch was
visible so it circled back to me. I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went
off, and saw the waters slither back. It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle
back to me. Then I sent out everything in all directions and sacrificed (a sheep).
I offered incense in front of the mountain-ziggurat. Seven and seven cult vessels I put
in place, and (into the fire) underneath (or: into their bowls) I poured reeds, cedar,
and myrtle. The gods smelled the savor, the gods smelled the sweet savor, and
collected like flies over a (sheep) sacrifice. Just then Beletili arrived. She lifted up the
large flies (beads) which Anu had made for his enjoyment : 'You gods, as surely as I
shall not forget this lapis lazuli around my neck, may I be mindful of these days, and
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never forget them! The gods may come to the incense offering, but Enlil may not
come to the incense offering, because without considering he brought about the
Flood and consigned my people to annihilation.'
Just then Enlil arrived. He saw the boat and became furious, he was filled with rage
at the Igigi gods: 'Where did a living being escape? No man was to survive the
annihilation!' Ninurta spoke to Valiant Enlil, saying: 'Who else but Ea could devise
such a thing? It is Ea who knows every machination!' La spoke to Valiant Enlil,
saying: 'It is yours, O Valiant One, who is the Sage of the Gods. How, how could you
bring about a Flood without consideration Charge the violation to the violator, charge
the offense to the offender, but be compassionate lest (mankind) be cut off, be patient
lest they be killed. Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that a lion had
appeared to diminish the people! Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that a
wolf had appeared to diminish the people! Instead of your bringing on the Flood,
would that famine had occurred to slay the land! Instead of your bringing on the
Flood, would that (Pestilent) Erra had appeared to ravage the land! It was not I who
revealed the secret of the Great Gods, I (only) made a dream appear to Atrahasis, and
(thus) he heard the secret of the gods. Now then! The deliberation should be about
him!' Enlil went up inside the boat and, grasping my hand, made me go up. He had
my wife go up and kneel by my side. He touched our forehead and, standing between
us, he blessed us: 'Previously Utanapishtim was a human being. But now let
Utanapishtim and his wife become like us, the gods!
Let Utanapishtim reside far away, at the Mouth of the Rivers.' They took us far away
and settled us at the Mouth of the Rivers." "Now then, who will convene the gods on
your behalf, that you may find the life that you are seeking! Wait! You must not lie
down for six days and seven nights." soon as he sat down (with his head) between his
legs sleep, like a fog, blew upon him. Utanapishtim said to his wife: "Look there!
The man, the youth who wanted (eternal) life! Sleep, like a fog, blew over him." his
wife said to Utanapishtim the Faraway: "Touch him, let the man awaken. Let him
return safely by the way he came. Let him return to his land by the gate through
which he left." Utanapishtim said to his wife: "Mankind is deceptive, and will
deceive you. Come, bake loaves for him and keep setting them by his head and draw
on the wall each day that he lay down." She baked his loaves and placed them by his
head and marked on the wall the day that he lay down. The first loaf was dessicated,
the second stale, the third moist , the fourth turned white, its ..., the fifth sprouted
gray (mold), the sixth is still fresh. the seventh--suddenly he touched him and the
man awoke. Gilgamesh said to Utanapishtim: "The very moment sleep was pouring
over me you touched me and alerted me!" Utanapishtim spoke to Gilgamesh, saying:
"Look over here, Gilgamesh, count your loaves! You should be aware of what is
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marked on the wall! Your first loaf is dessicated, the second stale, the third moist,
your fourth turned white, the fifth sprouted gray (mold), the sixth is still fresh.
The seventh--at that instant you awoke!" Gilgamesh said to Utanapishtim the
Faraway: "O woe! What shall I do, Utanapishtim, where shall I go! The Snatcher has
taken hold of my flesh, in my bedroom Death dwells, and wherever I set foot there
too is Death!" Home Empty-Handed Utanapishtim said to Urshanabi, the ferryman:
"May the harbor reject you, may the ferry landing reject you! May you who used to
walk its shores be denied its shores! The man in front of whom you walk, matted hair
chains his body, animal skins have ruined his beautiful skin.
Take him away, Urshanabi, bring him to the washing place. Let him wash his matted
hair in water like ellu. Let him cast away his animal skin and have the sea carry it off,
let his body be moistened with fine oil, let the wrap around his head be made new, let
him wear royal robes worthy of him! Until he goes off to his city, until he sets off on
his way, let his royal robe not become spotted, let it be perfectly new!" Urshanabi
took him away and brought him to the washing place. He washed his matted hair
with water like ellu. He cast off his animal skin and the sea carried it oh. He
moistened his body with fine oil, and made a new wrap for his head. He put on a
royal robe worthy of him. Until he went away to his city, until he set off on his way,
his royal robe remained unspotted, it was perfectly clean. Gilgamesh and Urshanabi
bearded the boat, they cast off the magillu-boat, and sailed away. The wife of
Utanapishtim the Faraway said to him: "Gilgamesh came here exhausted and worn
out. What can you give him so that he can return to his land (with honor) !"
Then Gilgamesh raised a punting pole and drew the boat to shore. Utanapishtim
spoke to Gilgamesh, saying: "Gilgamesh, you came here exhausted and worn out.
What can I give you so you can return to your land? I will disclose to you a thing that
is hidden, Gilgamesh, a... I will tell you. There is a plant... like a boxthorn, whose
thorns will prick your hand like a rose. If your hands reach that plant you will
become a young man again." Hearing this, Gilgamesh opened a conduit (to the Apsu)
and attached heavy stones to his feet. They dragged him down, to the Apsu they
pulled him. He took the plant, though it pricked his hand, and cut the heavy stones
from his feet, letting the waves throw him onto its shores. Gilgamesh spoke to
Urshanabi, the ferryman, saying: "Urshanabi, this plant is a plant against decay by
which a man can attain his survival . I will bring it to Uruk-Haven, and have an old
man eat the plant to test it. The plant's name is 'The Old Man Becomes a Young
Man.'" Then I will eat it and return to the condition of my youth." At twenty leagues
they broke for some food, at thirty leagues they stopped for the night. Seeing a spring
and how cool its waters were, Gilgamesh went down and was bathing in the water. A
snake smelled the fragrance of the plant, silently came up and carried off the plant.
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While going back it sloughed off its casing.' At that point Gilgamesh sat down,
weeping, his tears streaming over the side of his nose. "Counsel me, O ferryman
Urshanabi! For whom have my arms labored, Urshanabi! For whom has my heart's
blood roiled! I have not secured any good deed for myself, but done a good deed for
the 'lion of the ground'!"
An Iroquois Legend
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In the beginning, the world was not as we know it now. It was a water world
inhabited only by animals and creatures of the air who could survive without land.
Up above, the Sky World was quite different. Human-type beings lived there with
infinite types of plants and animals to enjoy.
In the Sky World, there was a Tree of Life that was very special to the people of the
Sky World. They knew that it grew at the entrance to the world below and forbade
anyone to tamper with the Tree. One woman who was soon to give birth was curious
about the Tree and convinced her brother to uproot the Tree.
Beneath the Tree was a great hole. The woman peered from the edge into the hole
and suddenly fell off the edge. As she was falling she grasped at the edge and
clutched in her hand some of the earth from the Sky World. As she fell, the birds of
the world below were disturbed and alerted to her distress. The birds responded and
gathered a great many of their kind to break her fall and cradle her to the back of a
great sea turtle. The creatures of the water believed that she needed land to live on, so
they set about to collect some for her. They dove to the great depths of the world's
oceans to gather earth to make her a place to live. Many of the animals tried to gather
the earth from the ocean floor, only the muskrat was successful. With only a small bit
of earth brought onto turtle's back from his small paws, Turtle Island began to grow.
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Pandora's Box, as told by Thomas Bulfinch
Chapter II. Prometheus and Pandora.
The creation of the world is a problem naturally fitted to excite the liveliest interest
of man, its inhabitant. The ancient pagans, not having the information on the subject
which we derive from the pages of Scripture, had their own way of telling the story,
which is as follows:
Before earth and sea and heaven were created, all things wore one aspect, to which
we give the name of Chaos- a confused and shapeless mass, nothing but dead weight,
in which, however, slumbered the seeds of things. Earth, sea, and air were all mixed
up together; so the earth was not solid, the sea was not fluid, and the air was not
transparent. God and Nature at last interposed, and put an end to this discord,
separating earth from sea, and heaven from both. The fiery part, being the lightest,
sprang up, and formed the skies; the air was next in weight and place. The earth,
being heavier, sank below; and the water took the lowest place, and buoyed up the
earth.
Here some god- it is not known which- gave his good offices in arranging and
disposing the earth. He appointed rivers and bays their places, raised mountains,
scooped out valleys, distributed woods, fountains, fertile fields. and stony plains. The
air being cleared, the stars began to appear, fishes took possession of the sea, birds of
the air, and four-footed beasts of the land.
But a nobler animal was wanted, and Man was made. It is not known whether the
creator made him of divine materials, or whether in the earth, so lately separated
from heaven, there lurked still some heavenly seeds. Prometheus took some of this
earth, and kneading it up with water, made man in the image of the gods. He gave
him an upright stature, so that while all other animals turn their faces downward, and
look to the earth, he raises his to heaven, and gazes on the stars.
Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the
creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of
making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for
their preservation. Epimetheus undertook to do this, and Prometheus was to overlook
his work, when it was done. Epimetheus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the
different animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, sagacity; wings to
one, claws to another, a shelly covering to a third, etc. But when man came to be
provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so
prodigal of his resources that he had nothing left to bestow upon him. In his
perplexity he resorted to his brother Prometheus, who, with the aid of Minerva, went
up to heaven, and lighted his torch at the chariot of the sun. and brought down fire to
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Prometheus and Pandora
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man. With this gift man was more than a match for all other animals. It enabled him
to make weapons wherewith to subdue them; tools with which to cultivate the earth;
to warm his dwelling, so as to be comparatively independent of climate; and finally
to introduce the arts and to coin money, the means of trade and commerce.
Woman was not yet made. The story (absurd enough!) is that Jupiter made her, and
sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in
stealing fire from heaven; and man, for accepting the gift. The first woman was
named Pandora. She was made in heaven, every god contributing something to
perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music, etc. Thus
equipped, she was conveyed to earth, and presented to Epimetheus, who gladly
accepted her, though cautioned by his brother to beware of Jupiter and his gifts.
Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles for
which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized
with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off
the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless
man,- such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge
for his mind,- and scattered themselves far and wide. Pandora hastened to replace the
lid! but, alas! the whole contents of the jar had escaped, one thing only excepted,
which lay at the bottom, and that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are
abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount of other ills
can make us completely wretched.
The Popol Vuh
The Popol Vuh is the creation story of the Maya. Below is one part of this story that
recounts the first attempts of the creator, Heart of Sky to make humans. The story
goes on to explain that the final attempt that resulted in the "True people" was
accomplished by constructing people with maize. This is a very reasonable
explanation since, in essence, it was the cultivation of maize that gave the early Maya
culture the means to change from hunters gatherers to their highly advanced
civilization.
THE CREATION
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And so Heart-of-Sky thinks,
"Who is there to speak my name?
Who is there to praise me?
How shall I make it dawn?"
Heart-of-Sky only says the word,
"Earth,"
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Here is the story of the beginning,
when there was not one bird,
not one fish,
not one mountain.
Here is the sky, all alone.
Here is the sea, all alone.
There is nothing more
–no sound, no movement.
Only the sky and the sea.
Only Heart-of-Sky, alone.
And these are his names:
Maker and Modeler,
Kukulkan,
and Hurricane.
But there is no one to speak his names.
There is no one to praise his glory.
There is no one to nurture his greatness.
and the earth rises,
like a mist from the sea.
He only thinks of it,
and there it is.
He thinks of mountains,
and great mountains come.
He thinks of trees,
and trees grow on the land.
And so Heart-of-Sky says,
"Our work is going well."
Now Heart-of-Sky plans the creatures of the forest
-birds, deer, jaguars and snakes.
And each is given his home.
"You the deer, sleep here along the rivers.
You the birds, your nests are in the trees.
Multiply and scatter," he tells them.
Then Heart-of-Sky says to the animals,
"Speak, pray to us."
But the creatures can only squawk.
The creatures only howl.
They do not speak like humans.
They do not praise Heart-of-Sky
And so the animals are humbled.
They will serve those who will worship Heart-of-Sky.
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Here is the new creation,
made of mud and earth.
It doesn't look very good.
It keeps crumbing and softening.
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And Heart-of-Sky tries again.
Tries to make a giver of respect.
Tries to make a giver of praise.
It looks lopsided and twisted.
It only speaks nonsense.
It cannot multiply.
So Heart-of-Sky lets it dissolved away.
Now Heart-of-Sky plans again.
Our Grandfather and Our Grandmother are summoned.
They are the most wise spirits.
"Determine if we should carve people from wood,"
commands Heart-of-Sky.
They run their hands over the kernels of corn.
They run their hands over the coral seeds.
"What can we make that will speak and pray?
asks Our Grandfather.
What can we make that will nurture and provide?"
asks Our Grandmother.
They count the days,
the lots of four,
seeking an answer for Heart-of-Sky.
Now they give the answer,
"It is good to make your people with wood.
They will speak your name.
They will walk about and multiply."
"So it is," replies Heart-of-Sky.
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"This is not what I had in mind,"
says Heart-of-Sky.
89
And as the words are spoken, it is done.
The doll-people are made
with faces carved from wood.
But they have no blood, no sweat.
They have nothing in their minds.
They have no respect for Heart-of-Sky.
They are just walking about,
But they accomplish nothing.
And so it is decided to destroy
these wooden people.
Hurricane makes a great rain.
It rains all day and rains all night.
There is a terrible flood
and the earth is blackened.
The creatures of the forest
come into the homes of the doll-people.
"You have chased us from our homes
so now we will take yours,"
they growl.
And their dogs and turkeys cry out,
"You have abused us
so now we shall eat you!"
Even their pots and grinding stones speak,
"We will burn you and pound on you
just as you have done to us!"
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The wooden people scatter into the forest.
Their faces are crushed,
and they are turned into monkeys.
And this is why monkeys look like humans.
They are what is left of what came before,
an experiment in human design.
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant
The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are
born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no
expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich and
distinguished man; so she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of
Public Instruction.
She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was unhappy as if she
had really fallen from a higher station; since with women there is neither caste nor
rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth. Natural
ingenuity, instinct for what is elegant, a supple mind are their sole hierarchy, and
often make of women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.
Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all
luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the
walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which
another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and
made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework
aroused in her despairing regrets and bewildering dreams. She thought of silent
antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze candelabra, and
of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy
by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long reception halls hung with
ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities and of the little
coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o'clock with intimate
friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose
attention they all desire.
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91
When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth in use
three days, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with a
delighted air, "Ah, the good soup! I don't know anything better than that," she
thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry that peopled the walls
with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest;
and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvelous plates and of the whispered
gallantries to which you listen with a sphinxlike smile while you are eating the pink
meat of a trout or the wings of a quail.
She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. She felt made
for that. She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be
sought after.
She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she
did not like to go to see any more because she felt so sad when she came home.
But one evening her husband reached home with a triumphant air and holding a large
envelope in his hand.
"There," said he, "there is something for you."
She tore the paper quickly and drew out a printed card which bore these words:
The Minister of Public Instruction and Madame Georges Ramponneau request the
honor of M. and Madame Loisel's company at the palace of
the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.
Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she threw the invitation on the
table crossly, muttering: "What do you wish me to do with that?"
"Why, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a
fine opportunity. I had great trouble to get it. Every one wants to go; it is very select,
and they are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be
there."
She looked at him with an irritated glance and said impatiently: "And what do you
wish me to put on my back?"
He had not thought of that. He stammered: "Why, the gown you go to the theatre in.
It looks very well to me."
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"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he answered.
92
He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was weeping. Two great tears ran slowly
from the corners of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth.
By a violent effort she conquered her grief and replied in a calm voice, while she
wiped her wet cheeks: "Nothing. Only I have no gown, and, therefore, I can't go to
this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I am."
He was in despair. He resumed:
"Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable gown, which you
could use on other occasions--something very simple?"
She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum
she could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a frightened
exclamation from the economical clerk.
Finally she replied hesitating: "I don't know exactly, but I think I could manage it
with four hundred francs."
He grew a little pale, because he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and
treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre, with several
friends who went to shoot larks there of a Sunday.
But he said: "Very well. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty
gown."
The day of the ball drew near and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her
frock was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening:
"What is the matter? Come, you have seemed very queer these last three days."
And she answered: "It annoys me not to have a single piece of jewelry, not a single
ornament, nothing to put on. I shall look poverty-stricken. I would almost rather not
go at all."
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She was not convinced.
93
"You might wear natural flowers," said her husband. "They're very stylish at this
time of year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses."
"No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are
rich."
"How stupid you are!" her husband cried. "Go look up your friend, Madame
Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You're intimate enough with her to do
that."
She uttered a cry of joy:
"True! I never thought of it."
The next day she went to her friend and told her of her distress.
Madame Forestier went to a wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel box,
brought it back, opened it and said to Madame Loisel:
"Choose, my dear."
She saw first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian gold cross set
with precious stones, of admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before
the mirror, hesitated and could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them
back. She kept asking:
"Haven't you any more?"
"Why, yes. Look further; I don't know what you like."
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her
heart throbbed with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She
fastened it round her throat, outside her high-necked waist, and was lost in ecstasy at
her reflection in the mirror.
Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anxious doubt:
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"Why, yes, certainly."
94
"Will you lend me this, only this?"
She threw her arms round her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with
her treasure.
The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She was prettier
than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the
men looked at her, asked her name, sought to be introduced. All the attaches of the
Cabinet wished to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself.
She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, forgetting all in the
triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness
comprised of all this homage, admiration, these awakened desires and of that sense of
triumph which is so sweet to woman's heart.
She left the ball about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping
since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives
were enjoying the ball.
He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, the modest wraps of common
life, the poverty of which contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this
and wished to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were
enveloping themselves in costly furs.
Loisel held her back, saying: "Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will call a
cab."
But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs. When they reached the
street they could not find a carriage and began to look for one, shouting after the
cabmen passing at a distance.
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It took them to their dwelling in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they mounted the
stairs to their flat. All was ended for her. As to him, he reflected that he must be at
the ministry at ten o'clock that morning.
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They went toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the
quay one of those ancient night cabs which, as though they were ashamed to show
their shabbiness during the day, are never seen round Paris until after dark.
She removed her wraps before the glass so as to see herself once more in all her
glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her
neck!
"What is the matter with you?" demanded her husband, already half undressed.
She turned distractedly toward him.
"I have--I have--I've lost Madame Forestier's necklace," she cried.
He stood up, bewildered.
"What!--how? Impossible!"
They looked among the folds of her skirt, of her cloak, in her pockets, everywhere,
but did not find it.
"You're sure you had it on when you left the ball?" he asked.
"Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the minister's house."
"But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab."
"Yes, probably. Did you take his number?"
"No. And you--didn't you notice it?"
"No."
They looked, thunderstruck, at each other. At last Loisel put on his clothes.
"I shall go back on foot," said he, "over the whole route, to see whether I can find it."
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Her husband returned about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.
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He went out. She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to
bed, overwhelmed, without any fire, without a thought.
He went to police headquarters, to the newspaper offices to offer a reward; he went
to the cab companies--everywhere, in fact, whither he was urged by the least spark of
hope.
She waited all day, in the same condition of mad fear before this terrible calamity.
Loisel returned at night with a hollow, pale face. He had discovered nothing.
"You must write to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her
necklace and that you are having it mended. That will give us time to turn round."
She wrote at his dictation.
At the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had aged five years,
declared:
"We must consider how to replace that ornament."
The next day they took the box that had contained it and went to the jeweler whose
name was found within. He consulted his books.
"It was not I, madame, who sold that necklace; I must simply have furnished the
case."
Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a necklace like the other,
trying to recall it, both sick with chagrin and grief.
Page
So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days yet. And they made a bargain
that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand francs, in case they should find the
lost necklace before the end of February.
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They found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds that seemed to them
exactly like the one they had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could
have it for thirty-six.
Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would
borrow the rest.
He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis
here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up ruinous obligations, dealt with usurers
and all the race of lenders. He compromised all the rest of his life, risked signing a
note without even knowing whether he could meet it; and, frightened by the trouble
yet to come, by the black misery that was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of
all the physical privations and moral tortures that he was to suffer, he went to get the
new necklace, laying upon the jeweler's counter thirty-six thousand francs.
When Madame Loisel took back the necklace Madame Forestier said to her with a
chilly manner:
"You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed it."
She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had detected the
substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not
have taken Madame Loisel for a thief?
Thereafter Madame Loisel knew the horrible existence of the needy. She bore her
part, however, with sudden heroism. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay
it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret
under the roof.
She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen.
She washed the dishes, using her dainty fingers and rosy nails on greasy pots and
pans. She washed the soiled linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she dried upon
a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning and carried up the
water, stopping for breath at every landing. And dressed like a woman of the people,
she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining,
meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, sou by sou.
Every month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.
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This life lasted ten years.
98
Her husband worked evenings, making up a tradesman's accounts, and late at night
he often copied manuscript for five sous a page.
At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury
and the accumulations of the compound interest.
Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished
households--strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew and red
hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But
sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and
she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so
beautiful and so admired.
What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? who
knows? How strange and changeful is life! How small a thing is needed to make or
ruin us!
But one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysees to refresh herself
after the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a woman who was leading a
child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that
she had paid, she would tell her all about it. Why not?
She went up.
"Good-day, Jeanne."
The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not
recognize her at all and stammered:
"But--madame!--I do not know--You must have mistaken."
"No. I am Mathilde Loisel."
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"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!"
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Her friend uttered a cry.
"Yes, I have had a pretty hard life, since I last saw you, and great poverty--and that
because of you!"
"Of me! How so?"
"Do you remember that diamond necklace you lent me to wear at the ministerial
ball?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I lost it."
"What do you mean? You brought it back."
"I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us ten years to pay for it.
You can understand that it was not easy for us, for us who had nothing. At last it is
ended, and I am very glad."
Madame Forestier had stopped. "You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to
replace mine?"
"Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very similar."
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100
And she smiled with a joy that was at once proud and ingenuous.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her hands.
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste! It was worth at most only five
hundred francs!"
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It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral
halls for the summer.
A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach
the height of romantic felicity--but that would be asking too much of fate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of
superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put
down in figures.
John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course,
but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do
not get well faster.
You see he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?
If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and
relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous
depression--a slight hysterical tendency-- what is one to do?
My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same
thing.
So I take phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and
air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again.
Personally, I disagree with their ideas.
Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do
me good.
But what is one to do?
I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal--having
to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.
I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society
and stimulus--but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my
condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.
So I will let it alone and talk about the house.
The most beautiful place! It is quite alone standing well back from the road, quite
three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about,
for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses
for the gardeners and people.
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The Yellow Wallpaper (1899) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
102
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There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden--large and shady, full of
box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.
There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.
There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs;
anyhow, the place has been empty for years.
That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care--there is something
strange about the house--I can feel it.
I even said so to John one moonlight evening but he said what I felt was a
draught, and shut the window.
I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes I'm sure I never used to be so
sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.
But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to
control myself-- before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.
I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and
had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but
John would not hear of it.
He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room
for him if he took another.
He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.
I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me,
and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.
He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all
the air I could get. "Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and
your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time. ' So we
took the nursery at the top of the house.
It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and
air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I
should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and
things in the walls.
The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off--the
paper in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and
in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in
my life.
One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.
It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly
irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little
distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy
themselves in unheard of contradictions.
The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely
faded by the slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.
No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this
room long.
There comes John, and I must put this away,--he hates to have me write a word.
Page
We have been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before, since that
first day.
I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing
to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.
John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.
I am glad my case is not serious!
But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.
John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to
suffer, and that satisfies him.
Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any
way!
I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a
comparative burden already!
Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,--to dress and
entertain, and order things.
It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby!
And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.
I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wallpaper!
At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it
get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give
way to such fancies.
He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and
then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.
"You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and really, dear, I don't care to
renovate the house just for a three months' rental."
"Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms there."
Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he
would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.
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104
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But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.
It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would
not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.
I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.
Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deepshaded arbors, the
riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging
to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I
always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has
cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative
power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all
manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check
the tendency. So I try.
I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve
the press of ideas and rest me.
But I find I get pretty tired when I try.
It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work.
When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a
long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me
have those stimulating people about now.
I wish I could get well faster.
But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a
vicious influence it had!
There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two
bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.
I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and
down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere
There is one place where two breaths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down
the line, one a little higher than the other.
I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know
how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more
entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children
could find in a toy-store.
I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and
there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.
I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop
into that chair and be safe.
The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to
bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to
take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children
have made here.
The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a
brother--they must have had perseverance as well as hatred.
Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out
here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if
it had been through the wars.
But I don't mind it a bit--only the paper.
There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must
not let her find me writing.
She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I
verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!
But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows.
There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that
just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet
meadows.
This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a, different shade, a particularly
irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then.
But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so--I can see a
strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly
and conspicuous front design.
There's sister on the stairs!
Page
Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are all gone and I am tired out. John
thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and
Nellie and the children down for a week.
Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now.
But it tired me all the same.
John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.
But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and
she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!
Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.
I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm
getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.
I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.
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Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.
And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious
cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.
So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the
roses, and lie down up here a good deal.
I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps because of
the wall-paper.
It dwells in my mind so!
I lie here on this great immovable bed--it is nailed down, I believe--and follow
that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll
say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I
determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort
of a conclusion.
I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged
on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else
that I ever heard of.
It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise.
Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and
flourishes--a kind of "debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens--go waddling up
and down in isolated columns of fatuity.
But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off
in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.
The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself
in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.
They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the
confusion.
There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the
crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation
after all,--the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and
rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.
It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap I guess.
Page
I don't know why I should write this.
I don't want to.
I don't feel able. And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I
feel and think in some way--it is such a relief!
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But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.
Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much.
John says I mustn't lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of
tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.
Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a
real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would
let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.
But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not
make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished .
It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness
I suppose.
And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid
me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head.
He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care
of myself for his sake, and keep well.
He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and selfcontrol and not let any silly fancies run away with me.
There's one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this
nursery with the horrid wall-paper.
If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a fortunate escape!
Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a
room for worlds.
I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all, I can
stand it so much easier than a baby, you see.
Of course I never mention it to them any more--I am too wise,--but I keep watch
of it all the same.
There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.
Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.
It is always the same shape, only very numerous.
And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I
don't like it a bit. I wonder--I begin to think--I wish John would take me away from
here!
Page
It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because
he loves me so.
But I tried it last night.
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108
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Page
It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does.
I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one
window or another.
John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still and watched the
moonlight on that undulating wall-paper till I felt creepy.
The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get
out.
I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came
back John was awake.
"What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don't go walking about like that--you'll get cold."
I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining
here, and that I wished he would take me away.
"Why darling!" said he, "our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can't see how
to leave before.
"The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of
course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are better, dear,
whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh
and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you."
"I don't weigh a bit more," said 1, "nor as much; and my appetite may be better in
the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away!"
"Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug, "she shall be as sick as she pleases!
But now let's improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the
morning!"
"And you won't go away?" I asked gloomily.
"Why, how can 1, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice
little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are
better!"
"Better in body perhaps--" I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and
looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word.
"My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well
as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!
There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a
false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?"
So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. He
thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay there for hours trying to decide
whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately.
109
Page
On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law,
that is a constant irritant to a normal mind.
The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but
the pattern is torturing.
You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it
turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down,
and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.
The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can
imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools, budding and
sprouting in endless convolutions--why, that is something like it.
That is, sometimes!
There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice
but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes.
When the sun shoots in through the east window--I always watch for that first
long, straight ray--it changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it.
That is why I watch it always.
By moonlight--the moon shines in all night when there is a moon--I wouldn't
know it was the same paper.
At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all
by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it
is as plain as can be.
I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim
sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman.
By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It
is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour.
I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me, and to sleep all I can.
Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal.
It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't sleep.
And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm awake--O no!
The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John.
He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look.
It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis,--that perhaps it is the
paper!
I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room
suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've caught him several times looking at
the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.
She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet
voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper-she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry-- asked
me why I should frighten her so!
Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found
yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she wished we would be more
careful!
Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am
determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!
---------Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something
more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet
than I was.
John is so pleased to see me improve ! He laughed a little the other day, and said I
seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wall-paper.
I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of the
wall-paper--he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.
I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I
think that will be enough.
Page
I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting
to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime.
In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.
There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I
cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.
It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow
things I ever saw--not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.
But there is something else about that paper-- the smell! I noticed it the moment
we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have
had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is
here.
It creeps all over the house.
I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall,
lying in wait for me on the stairs.
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It gets into my hair.
Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it--there is that
smell!
Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it
smelled like.
It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I
ever met.
In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and find it hanging over
me.
It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house--to reach the
smell.
But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of
the paper! A yellow smell.
There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak
that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a
long, straight, even smooch, as if it had been rubbed over and over.
I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and
round and round--round and round and round--it makes me dizzy!
---------I really have discovered something at last.
Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.
The front pattern does move--and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!
Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only
one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.
Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just
takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.
And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through
that pattern--it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.
They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside
down, and makes their eyes white!
If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad.
Page
I think that woman gets out in the daytime!
And I'll tell you why--privately--I've seen her!
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I can see her out of every one of my windows!
It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not
creep by daylight.
I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage
comes she hides under the blackberry vines.
I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by
daylight!
I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night, for I know
John would suspect something at once.
And John is so queer now, that I don't want to irritate him. I wish he would take
another room! Besides, I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but
myself.
I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once.
But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time.
And though I always see her, she may be able to creep faster than I can turn!
I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a
cloud shadow in a high wind.
----------
Page
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112
If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it,
little by little.
I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to
trust people too much.
There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning
to notice. I don't like the look in his eyes.
And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a
very good report to give.
She said I slept a good deal in the daytime.
John knows I don't sleep very well at night, for all I'm so quiet!
He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind.
As if I couldn't see through him!
Still, I don't wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper for three months.
It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are secretly affected by it.
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Page
Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John to stay in town over night, and
won't be out until this evening.
Jennie wanted to sleep with me--the sly thing! but I told her I should undoubtedly
rest better for a night all alone.
That was clever, for really I wasn't alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and
that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.
I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled
off yards of that paper.
A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.
And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I
declared I would finish it to-day!
We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave
things as they were before.
Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of
pure spite at the vicious thing.
She laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired.
How she betrayed herself that time!
But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me,--not alive !
She tried to get me out of the room--it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet
and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could;
and not to wake me even for dinner--I would call when I woke.
So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there
is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found
on it.
We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow.
I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again.
How those children did tear about here!
This bedstead is fairly gnawed!
But I must get to work.
I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.
I don't want to go out, and I don't want to have anybody come in, till John comes.
I want to astonish him.
I've got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out,
and tries to get away, I can tie her!
But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!
This bed will not move!
I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little
piece at one corner--but it hurt my teeth.
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Page
Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks
horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and
waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!
I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window
would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.
Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is
improper and might be misconstrued.
I don't like to look out of the windows even-- there are so many of those creeping
women, and they creep so fast.
I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?
But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope--you don't get me out in
the road there !
I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that
is hard!
It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!
I don't want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me to.
For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of
yellow.
But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long
smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.
Why there's John at the door!
It is no use, young man, you can't open it!
How he does call and pound!
Now he's crying for an axe.
It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!
"John dear!" said I in the gentlest voice, "the key is down by the front steps, under
a plantain leaf!"
That silenced him for a few moments.
Then he said--very quietly indeed, "Open the door, my darling!"
"I can't," said I. "The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!"
And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often
that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in. He stopped short by
the door.
"What is the matter?" he cried. "For God's sake, what are you doing!"
I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
"I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of
the paper, so you can't put me back!"
Page
115
Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by
the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal
before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter
than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was
stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th,
and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents
of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still
drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that
the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison,
away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel
had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything
except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal,
had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all
times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the
transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking
unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but
she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a
burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
Page
"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
116
"Huh" said George.
"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really
very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were
burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that
no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something
the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers
shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his
ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George
what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer," said George.
"I'd think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds," said Hazel a
little envious. "All the things they think up."
"Um," said George.
"Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?" said Hazel. Hazel,
as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman
named Diana Moon Glampers. "If I was Diana Moon Glampers," said Hazel, "I'd
have chimes on Sunday-just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion."
"I could think, if it was just chimes," said George.
"Well-maybe make 'em real loud," said Hazel. "I think I'd make a good Handicapper
General."
"Good as anybody else," said George.
"Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?"
Page
"Right," said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who
was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
117
"Who knows better than I do what normal is?" said Hazel.
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims
of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were
holding their temples.
"All of a sudden you look so tired," said Hazel. "Why don't you stretch out on the
sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch." She was
referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked
around George's neck. "Go on and rest the bag for a little while," she said. "I don't
care if you're not equal to me for a while."
George weighed the bag with his hands. "I don't mind it," he said. "I don't notice it
any more. It's just a part of me."
"You been so tired lately-kind of wore out," said Hazel. "If there was just some way
we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them
lead balls. Just a few."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out," said
George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I
mean-you don't compete with anybody around here. You just sit around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it-and
pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing
against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
"I'd hate it," said Hazel.
"There you are," said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you
think happens to society?"
Page
"Reckon it'd fall all apart," said Hazel.
118
If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn't
have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
"What would?" said George blankly.
"Society," said Hazel uncertainly. "Wasn't that what you just said?
"Who knows?" said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn't clear
at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers,
had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high
excitement, the announcer tried to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen."
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
"That's all right-" Hazel said of the announcer, "he tried. That's the big thing. He tried
to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying
so hard."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been
extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to
see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap
bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a
woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. "Excuse me-" she
said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
"Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen," she said in a grackle squawk, "has just escaped
from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.
He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as
extremely dangerous."
Page
The rest of Harrison's appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever
born heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H-G men could
119
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen-upside down,
then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full
length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly
seven feet tall.
think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a
tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles
were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches
besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a
military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a
walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red
rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth
with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.
"If you see this boy," said the ballerina, "do not - I repeat, do not - try to reason with
him."
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The
photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though
dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have - for
many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. "My God-"
said George, "that must be Harrison!"
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile
collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A
living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Page
"I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody
must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
120
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood - in the center of the studio. The knob
of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians,
and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
"Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater
ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!"
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps
guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison's scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness.
The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against
the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the
god of thunder.
"I shall now select my Empress!" he said, looking down on the cowering people. "Let
the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!"
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical
handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
"Now-" said Harrison, taking her hand, "shall we show the people the meaning of the
word dance? Music!" he commanded.
The music began again and was much improved.
Page
The music began. It was normal at first-cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two
musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he
wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
121
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their
handicaps, too. "Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you barons and dukes
and earls."
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened gravely,
as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the
weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of
motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it.
And then, neutraling gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air
inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the
studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor
and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told
them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
Page
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out
into the kitchen for a can of beer.
122
It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up.
And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel.
"Yup," she said.
"What about?" he said.
"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television."
"What was it?" he said.
"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.
"Forget sad things," said George.
"I always do," said Hazel.
"That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in
his head.
"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.
"You can say that again," said George.
Page
123
"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."
Page
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
By Wes MoorePart I
Fathers and Angels
Wes stared back at me after I'd asked my question, letting a moment pass and a smirk
flicker across his face before responding.
"I really haven't thought too deeply about his impact on my life because, really, he
didn't have one."
Wes leaned back in his seat and threw an even stare at me.
"Come on, man," I pressed on. "You don't think about how things would have been
different if he'd been there? If he cared enough to be there?"
"No, I don't." The lower half of his face was shrouded by the long beard that he'd
grown, an outward sign of the Islamic faith he'd adopted in prison. His eyes danced
with bemusement. He was not moved by my emotional questioning. "Listen," he went
on. "Your father wasn't there because he couldn't be, my father wasn't there because
he chose not to be. We're going to mourn their absence in different ways."
This was one of our first visits. I had driven a half hour from my Baltimore home,
and into the woody hills of central Maryland to Jessup Correctional Institute to see
Wes. Immediately upon entering the building, I was sternly questioned by an armed
guard and roughly searched to ensure I wasn't bringing anything that could be
passed on to Wes. Once cleared, another guard escorted me to a large room that
reminded me of a public school cafeteria. This was the secured area where prisoners
and their visitors came together. Armed guards systematically paced around the
room. Long tables with low metal dividers separating the visitors from the visited
were the room's only furnishing. The prisoners who were marched in, shackled and
dressed in orange or blue jumpsuits, or grey sweatsuits with "DOC" emblazoned
across the chest. The uniforms reinforced the myriad other signals all around us: the
prisoners were owned by the state. Lucky inmates were allowed to sit across a
regular table from loved ones. They could exchange an initial hug and then talk faceto-face. The rest had to talk to their families and friends through bulletproof glass
using a telephone, visitor and the prisoner connected by receivers they held tight to
their ears.
Just as I was about to ask another question, Wes interrupted me.
"Let me ask you a question. You come here and ask me all these questions but you
haven't shared any of yourself up with me. So tell me, what impact did your father
not being there have on your childhood?"
124
Excerpt: 'The Other Wes Moore' by Wes Moore
August 16, 2010 2:39 PM ET
"I don't know—" I was about to say more when I realized that I didn't really have
more to say.
"Do you miss him?" he asked me.
"Every day. All the time." I replied softly. I was having trouble finding my voice. It
always amazed me how I could love someone so deeply, so intensely, that I barely
even knew.
I was taught to remember, but never question. Wes was taught himself to forget, and
never ask why. We learned our lessons well, and were showing them off to a tee. We
sat there, just a few feet from each other, both silent, pondering an absence.
"Is Daddy Coming With Us?"
-1982Nikki and I would play this game: I would sit on the living room chair while Nikki
deeply inhaled and then blew directly in my face, eliciting hysterical laughs on both
sides. This was our ritual. It always ended with me jabbing playfully at her face.
She'd run away and bait me to give chase. Most times before today I never came
close to catching her but today, I caught her and realized, like a dog chasing a car, I
had no idea what to do. So, in the spirit of three-year-old boys everywhere who've
run out of better ideas, I decided to punch her. Of course my mother walked into the
room right as I swung and connected.
The yell startled me, but her eyes are what I remember.
"Get up to your damn room," came my mother's command from the doorway. "I told
you, don't you ever put your hands on a woman!"
I looked up, confused, as she quickly closed the distance between us.
Page
I darted up the stairs still unsure about what exactly I'd done so terribly wrong. I
headed to the bedroom I shared with my baby sister, Shani. Our room was tiny,
barely big enough for my small bed and her crib. There was no place to hide. I was
125
My mother had what we called "Thomas Hands," a tag derived from her maiden
name: hands that hit so hard you only had to be hit once to know you never wanted to
be hit again. The nickname began generations ago, but each generation took on the
mantle of justifying it. Those hands were now reaching for me. Her eyes told me it
was time to get moving.
running in circles, frantic to find a way to conceal myself. And still trying to figure
why I was in so much trouble. I couldn't even figure out the meaning of half the
words she was using.
In a panic, I kicked the door shut behind me, just as her voice reached the second
floor. "And don't let me hear you slam that —" boom! I stared for a moment at the
closed door, knowing it would soon be flying open again. I sat in the middle of the
room, next to my sister's empty crib, awaiting my fate.
Then, deliverance.
"Joy, you can't get on him like that," my father's baritone voice drifted up through the
thin floor. "He's only three. He doesn't even understand what he did wrong. Do you
really think he knows what a woman beater is?"
My father was in the living room, ten feet from where the entire incident began. He
was a very slender 6'2 with a bushy mustache and a large afro. It wasn't his style to
yell. When he heard my mother's outburst he rose from his chair, his eyes widening
in confusion. My mother slowly reeled herself in. But she wasn't completely
mollified.
"Wes, he needs to learn what is acceptable and what is not!" My father agreed, but
with a gentle laugh, reminded her that cursing at a young boy wasn't the smartest way
of making a point. I was saved, for the moment.
Page
126
Excerpted from The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore.
Copyright 2010 by Wes Moore. Excerpted by permission of Spiegel & Grau, a
division of Random House Inc.
Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times Magazine August 23, 2009
The Women’s Crusade
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF and SHERYL WuDUNN
IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th
century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many
women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and
mass rape.
Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount
importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is
even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet
that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and
women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are
disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s
a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s
Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and
girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why
foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful
truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.
Page
“My sister-in-law made fun of me, saying, ‘You can’t even feed your children,’ ”
recalled Saima when Nick met her two years ago on a trip to Pakistan. “My husband
beat me up. My brother-in-law beat me up. I had an awful life.” Saima’s husband
accumulated a debt of more than $3,000, and it seemed that these loans would hang
over the family for generations. Then when Saima’s second child was born and
127
One place to observe this alchemy of gender is in the muddy back alleys of Pakistan.
In a slum outside the grand old city of Lahore, a woman named Saima Muhammad
used to dissolve into tears every evening. A round-faced woman with thick black hair
tucked into a head scarf, Saima had barely a rupee, and her deadbeat husband was
unemployed and not particularly employable. He was frustrated and angry, and he
coped by beating Saima each afternoon. Their house was falling apart, and Saima had
to send her young daughter to live with an aunt, because there wasn’t enough food to
go around.
turned out to be a girl as well, her mother-in-law, a harsh, blunt woman named
Sharifa Bibi, raised the stakes.
“She’s not going to have a son,” Sharifa told Saima’s husband, in front of her. “So
you should marry again. Take a second wife.” Saima was shattered and ran off
sobbing. Another wife would leave even less money to feed and educate the children.
And Saima herself would be marginalized in the household, cast off like an old sock.
For days Saima walked around in a daze, her eyes red; the slightest incident would
send her collapsing into hysterical tears.
It was at that point that Saima signed up with the Kashf Foundation, a Pakistani
microfinance organization that lends tiny amounts of money to poor women to start
businesses. Kashf is typical of microfinance institutions, in that it lends almost
exclusively to women, in groups of 25. The women guarantee one another’s debts
and meet every two weeks to make payments and discuss a social issue, like family
planning or schooling for girls. A Pakistani woman is often forbidden to leave the
house without her husband’s permission, but husbands tolerate these meetings
because the women return with cash and investment ideas.
Saima took out a $65 loan and used the money to buy beads and cloth, which she
transformed into beautiful embroidery that she then sold to merchants in the markets
of Lahore. She used the profit to buy more beads and cloth, and soon she had an
embroidery business and was earning a solid income — the only one in her
household to do so. Saima took her elder daughter back from the aunt and began
paying off her husband’s debt.
Page
“Now everyone comes to me to borrow money, the same ones who used to criticize
me,” Saima said, beaming in satisfaction. “And the children of those who used to
criticize me now come to my house to watch TV.”
128
When merchants requested more embroidery than Saima could produce, she paid
neighbors to assist her. Eventually 30 families were working for her, and she put her
husband to work as well — “under my direction,” she explained with a twinkle in her
eye. Saima became the tycoon of the neighborhood, and she was able to pay off her
husband’s entire debt, keep her daughters in school, renovate the house, connect
running water and buy a television.
Today, Saima is a bit plump and displays a gold nose ring as well as several other
rings and bracelets on each wrist. She exudes self-confidence as she offers a grand
tour of her home and work area, ostentatiously showing off the television and the
new plumbing. She doesn’t even pretend to be subordinate to her husband. He spends
his days mostly loafing around, occasionally helping with the work but always
having to accept orders from his wife. He has become more impressed with females
in general: Saima had a third child, also a girl, but now that’s not a problem. “Girls
are just as good as boys,” he explained.
Saima’s new prosperity has transformed the family’s educational prospects. She is
planning to send all three of her daughters through high school and maybe to college
as well. She brings in tutors to improve their schoolwork, and her oldest child,
Javaria, is ranked first in her class. We asked Javaria what she wanted to be when she
grew up, thinking she might aspire to be a doctor or lawyer. Javaria cocked her head.
“I’d like to do embroidery,” she said.
As for her husband, Saima said, “We have a good relationship now.” She explained,
“We don’t fight, and he treats me well.” And what about finding another wife who
might bear him a son? Saima chuckled at the question: “Now nobody says anything
about that.” Sharifa Bibi, the mother-in-law, looked shocked when we asked whether
she wanted her son to take a second wife to bear a son. “No, no,” she said. “Saima is
bringing so much to this house. . . . She puts a roof over our heads and food on the
table.”
Sharifa even allows that Saima is now largely exempt from beatings by her husband.
“A woman should know her limits, and if not, then it’s her husband’s right to beat
her,” Sharifa said. “But if a woman earns more than her husband, it’s difficult for
him to discipline her.”
Page
After we married in 1988, we moved to Beijing to be correspondents for The New
York Times. Seven months later we found ourselves standing on the edge of
129
WHAT SHOULD we make of stories like Saima’s? Traditionally, the status of
women was seen as a “soft” issue — worthy but marginal. We initially reflected that
view ourselves in our work as journalists. We preferred to focus instead on the
“serious” international issues, like trade disputes or arms proliferation. Our
awakening came in China.
Tiananmen Square watching troops fire their automatic weapons at prodemocracy
protesters. The massacre claimed between 400 and 800 lives and transfixed the
world; wrenching images of the killings appeared constantly on the front page and on
television screens.
Yet the following year we came across an obscure but meticulous demographic study
that outlined a human rights violation that had claimed tens of thousands more lives.
This study found that 39,000 baby girls died annually in China because parents didn’t
give them the same medical care and attention that boys received — and that was just
in the first year of life. A result is that as many infant girls died unnecessarily every
week in China as protesters died at Tiananmen Square. Those Chinese girls never
received a column inch of news coverage, and we began to wonder if our journalistic
priorities were skewed.
A similar pattern emerged in other countries. In India, a “bride burning” takes place
approximately once every two hours, to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or
to eliminate her so a man can remarry — but these rarely constitute news. When a
prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when
100,000 girls were kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn’t even consider it
news.
Page
Girls vanish partly because they don’t get the same health care and food as boys. In
India, for example, girls are less likely to be vaccinated than boys and are taken to
the hospital only when they are sicker. A result is that girls in India from 1 to 5 years
of age are 50 percent more likely to die than boys their age. In addition, ultrasound
130
Amartya Sen, the ebullient Nobel Prize-winning economist, developed a gauge of
gender inequality that is a striking reminder of the stakes involved. “More than 100
million women are missing,” Sen wrote in a classic essay in 1990 in The New York
Review of Books, spurring a new field of research. Sen noted that in normal
circumstances, women live longer than men, and so there are more females than
males in much of the world. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status,
they vanish. China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population (and
an even greater disproportion among newborns), and India has 108. The implication
of the sex ratios, Sen later found, is that about 107 million females are missing from
the globe today. Follow-up studies have calculated the number slightly differently,
deriving alternative figures for “missing women” of between 60 million and 107
million.
machines have allowed a pregnant woman to find out the sex of her fetus — and then
get an abortion if it is female.
The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It appears that more girls and
women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men
were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century. The number of
victims of this routine “gendercide” far exceeds the number of people who were
slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.
For those women who live, mistreatment is sometimes shockingly brutal. If you’re
reading this article, the phrase “gender discrimination” might conjure thoughts of
unequal pay, underfinanced sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss. In the
developing world, meanwhile, millions of women and girls are actually enslaved.
While a precise number is hard to pin down, the International Labor Organization, a
U.N. agency, estimates that at any one time there are 12.3 million people engaged in
forced labor of all kinds, including sexual servitude. In Asia alone about one million
children working in the sex trade are held in conditions indistinguishable from
slavery, according to a U.N. report. Girls and women are locked in brothels and
beaten if they resist, fed just enough to be kept alive and often sedated with drugs —
to pacify them and often to cultivate addiction. India probably has more modern
slaves than any other country.
Page
ABBAS BE, A BEAUTIFUL teenage girl in the Indian city of Hyderabad, has
chocolate skin, black hair and gleaming white teeth — and a lovely smile, which
made her all the more marketable.
131
Another huge burden for women in poor countries is maternal mortality, with one
woman dying in childbirth around the world every minute. In the West African
country Niger, a woman stands a one-in-seven chance of dying in childbirth at some
point in her life. (These statistics are all somewhat dubious, because maternal
mortality isn’t considered significant enough to require good data collection.) For all
of India’s shiny new high-rises, a woman there still has a 1-in-70 lifetime chance of
dying in childbirth. In contrast, the lifetime risk in the United States is 1 in 4,800; in
Ireland, it is 1 in 47,600. The reason for the gap is not that we don’t know how to
save lives of women in poor countries. It’s simply that poor, uneducated women in
Africa and Asia have never been a priority either in their own countries or to donor
nations.
Money was tight in her family, so when she was about 14 she arranged to take a job
as a maid in the capital, New Delhi. Instead, she was locked up in a brothel, beaten
with a cricket bat, gang-raped and told that she would have to cater to customers.
Three days after she arrived, Abbas and all 70 girls in the brothel were made to
gather round and watch as the pimps made an example of one teenage girl who had
fought customers. The troublesome girl was stripped naked, hogtied, humiliated and
mocked, beaten savagely and then stabbed in the stomach until she bled to death in
front of Abbas and the others.
Abbas was never paid for her work. Any sign of dissatisfaction led to a beating or
worse; two more times, she watched girls murdered by the brothel managers for
resisting. Eventually Abbas was freed by police and taken back to Hyderabad. She
found a home in a shelter run by Prajwala, an organization that takes in girls rescued
from brothels and teaches them new skills. Abbas is acquiring an education and has
learned to be a bookbinder; she also counsels other girls about how to avoid being
trafficked. As a skilled bookbinder, Abbas is able to earn a decent living, and she is
now helping to put her younger sisters through school as well. With an education,
they will be far less vulnerable to being trafficked. Abbas has moved from being a
slave to being a producer, contributing to India’s economic development and helping
raise her family.
Page
In East Asia, as we saw in our years of reporting there, women have already
benefited from deep social changes. In countries like South Korea and Malaysia,
China and Thailand, rural girls who previously contributed negligibly to the economy
have gone to school and received educations, giving them the autonomy to move to
the city to hold factory jobs. This hugely increased the formal labor force; when the
women then delayed childbearing, there was a demographic dividend to the country
as well. In the 1990s, by our estimations, some 80 percent of the employees on the
assembly lines in coastal China were female, and the proportion across the
manufacturing belt of East Asia was at least 70 percent.
132
Perhaps the lesson presented by both Abbas and Saima is the same: In many poor
countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the
women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the
formal economy. With education and with help starting businesses, impoverished
women can earn money and support their countries as well as their families. They
represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty.
The hours were long and the conditions wretched, just as in the sweatshops of the
Industrial Revolution in the West. But peasant women were making money, sending
it back home and sometimes becoming the breadwinners in their families. They
gained new skills that elevated their status. Westerners encounter sweatshops and see
exploitation, and indeed, many of these plants are just as bad as critics say. But it’s
sometimes said in poor countries that the only thing worse than being exploited in a
sweatshop is not being exploited in a sweatshop. Low-wage manufacturing jobs
disproportionately benefited women in countries like China because these were jobs
for which brute physical force was not necessary and women’s nimbleness gave them
an advantage over men — which was not the case with agricultural labor or
construction or other jobs typically available in poor countries. Strange as it may
seem, sweatshops in Asia had the effect of empowering women. One hundred years
ago, many women in China were still having their feet bound. Today, while
discrimination and inequality and harassment persist, the culture has been
transformed. In the major cities, we’ve found that Chinese men often do more
domestic chores than American men typically do. And urban parents are often not
only happy with an only daughter; they may even prefer one, under the belief that
daughters are better than sons at looking after aging parents.
Page
Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in
the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on
average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish
feasts as they do on educating their children (2 percent). If poor families spent only
as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would
be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones
kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way
to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of
women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes,
133
WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on
women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and
bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global
poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but
also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently,
we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want
of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net
and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings
a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.
family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and
consequently children are healthier.
In Ivory Coast, one research project examined the different crops that men and
women grow for their private kitties: men grow coffee, cocoa and pineapple, and
women grow plantains, bananas, coconuts and vegetables. Some years the “men’s
crops” have good harvests and the men are flush with cash, and other years it is the
women who prosper. Money is to some extent shared. But even so, the economist
Esther Duflo of M.I.T. found that when the men’s crops flourish, the household
spends more money on alcohol and tobacco. When the women have a good crop, the
households spend more money on food. “When women command greater power,
child health and nutrition improves,” Duflo says.
Such research has concrete implications: for example, donor countries should nudge
poor countries to adjust their laws so that when a man dies, his property is passed on
to his widow rather than to his brothers. Governments should make it easy for
women to hold property and bank accounts — 1 percent of the world’s landowners
are women — and they should make it much easier for microfinance institutions to
start banks so that women can save money.
OF COURSE, IT’S FAIR to ask: empowering women is well and good, but can one
do this effectively? Does foreign aid really work? William Easterly, an economist at
New York University, has argued powerfully that shoveling money at poor countries
accomplishes little. Some Africans, including Dambisa Moyo, author of “Dead Aid,”
have said the same thing. The critics note that there has been no correlation between
amounts of aid going to countries and their economic growth rates.
Page
In general, aid appears to work best when it is focused on health, education and
microfinance (although microfinance has been somewhat less successful in Africa
than in Asia). And in each case, crucially, aid has often been most effective when
aimed at women and girls; when policy wonks do the math, they often find that these
134
Our take is that, frankly, there is something to these criticisms. Helping people is far
harder than it looks. Aid experiments often go awry, or small successes turn out to be
difficult to replicate or scale up. Yet we’ve also seen, anecdotally and in the statistics,
evidence that some kinds of aid have been enormously effective. The delivery of
vaccinations and other kinds of health care has reduced the number of children who
die every year before they reach the age of 5 to less than 10 million today from 20
million in 1960.
investments have a net economic return. Only a small proportion of aid specifically
targets women or girls, but increasingly donors are recognizing that that is where
they often get the most bang for the buck.
Bill Gates recalls once being invited to speak in Saudi Arabia and finding himself
facing a segregated audience. Four-fifths of the listeners were men, on the left. The
remaining one-fifth were women, all covered in black cloaks and veils, on the right.
A partition separated the two groups. Toward the end, in the question-and-answer
session, a member of the audience noted that Saudi Arabia aimed to be one of the
Top 10 countries in the world in technology by 2010 and asked if that was realistic.
“Well, if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country,” Gates said, “you’re
not going to get too close to the Top 10.” The small group on the right erupted in
wild cheering.
SO WHAT WOULD an agenda for fighting poverty through helping women look
like? You might begin with the education of girls — which doesn’t just mean
building schools. There are other innovative means at our disposal. A study in Kenya
by Michael Kremer, a Harvard economist, examined six different approaches to
improving educational performance, from providing free textbooks to childsponsorship programs. The approach that raised student test scores the most was to
offer girls who had scored in the top 15 percent of their class on sixth-grade tests a
$19 scholarship for seventh and eighth grade (and the glory of recognition at an
assembly). Boys also performed better, apparently because they were pushed by the
girls or didn’t want to endure the embarrassment of being left behind.
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ONE OF THE MANY aid groups that for pragmatic reasons has increasingly focused
on women is Heifer International, a charitable organization based in Arkansas that
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Another Kenyan study found that giving girls a new $6 school uniform every 18
months significantly reduced dropout rates and pregnancy rates. Likewise, there’s
growing evidence that a cheap way to help keep high-school girls in school is to help
them manage menstruation. For fear of embarrassing leaks and stains, girls
sometimes stay home during their periods, and the absenteeism puts them behind and
eventually leads them to drop out. Aid workers are experimenting with giving
African teenage girls sanitary pads, along with access to a toilet where they can
change them. The Campaign for Female Education, an organization devoted to
getting more girls into school in Africa, helps girls with their periods, and a new
group, Sustainable Health Enterprises, is trying to do the same.
has been around for decades. The organization gives cows, goats and chickens to
farmers in poor countries. On assuming the presidency of Heifer in 1992, the activist
Jo Luck traveled to Africa, where one day she found herself sitting on the ground
with a group of young women in a Zimbabwean village. One of them was Tererai
Trent.
Tererai is a long-faced woman with high cheekbones and a medium brown
complexion; she has a high forehead and tight cornrows. Like many women around
the world, she doesn’t know when she was born and has no documentation of her
birth. As a child, Tererai didn’t get much formal education, partly because she was a
girl and was expected to do household chores. She herded cattle and looked after her
younger siblings. Her father would say, Let’s send our sons to school, because they
will be the breadwinners. Tererai’s brother, Tinashe, was forced to go to school,
where he was an indifferent student. Tererai pleaded to be allowed to attend but
wasn’t permitted to do so. Tinashe brought his books home each afternoon, and
Tererai pored over them and taught herself to read and write. Soon she was doing her
brother’s homework every evening.
The teacher grew puzzled, for Tinashe was a poor student in class but always handed
in exemplary homework. Finally, the teacher noticed that the handwriting was
different for homework and for class assignments and whipped Tinashe until he
confessed the truth. Then the teacher went to the father, told him that Tererai was a
prodigy and begged that she be allowed to attend school. After much argument, the
father allowed Tererai to attend school for a couple of terms, but then married her off
at about age 11.
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Yet when Jo Luck came and talked to Tererai and other young women in her village,
Luck kept insisting that things did not have to be this way. She kept saying that they
could achieve their goals, repeatedly using the word “achievable.” The women
caught the repetition and asked the interpreter to explain in detail what “achievable”
meant. That gave Luck a chance to push forward. “What are your hopes?” she asked
the women, through the interpreter. Tererai and the others were puzzled by the
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Tererai’s husband barred her from attending school, resented her literacy and beat her
whenever she tried to practice her reading by looking at a scrap of old newspaper.
Indeed, he beat her for plenty more as well. She hated her marriage but had no way
out. “If you’re a woman and you are not educated, what else?” she asks.
question, because they didn’t really have any hopes. But Luck pushed them to think
about their dreams, and reluctantly, they began to think about what they wanted.
Tererai timidly voiced hope of getting an education. Luck pounced and told her that
she could do it, that she should write down her goals and methodically pursue them.
After Luck and her entourage disappeared, Tererai began to study on her own, in
hiding from her husband, while raising her five children. Painstakingly, with the help
of friends, she wrote down her goals on a piece of paper: “One day I will go to the
United States of America,” she began, for Goal 1. She added that she would earn a
college degree, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. — all exquisitely absurd dreams for a
married cattle herder in Zimbabwe who had less than one year’s formal education.
But Tererai took the piece of paper and folded it inside three layers of plastic to
protect it, and then placed it in an old can. She buried the can under a rock where she
herded cattle.
Then Tererai took correspondence classes and began saving money. Her selfconfidence grew as she did brilliantly in her studies, and she became a community
organizer for Heifer. She stunned everyone with superb schoolwork, and the Heifer
aid workers encouraged her to think that she could study in America. One day in
1998, she received notice that she had been admitted to Oklahoma State University.
Some of the neighbors thought that a woman should focus on educating her children,
not herself. “I can’t talk about my children’s education when I’m not educated
myself,” Tererai responded. “If I educate myself, then I can educate my children.” So
she climbed into an airplane and flew to America.
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In Arkansas, she took a job working for Heifer — while simultaneously earning a
master’s degree part time. When she had her M.A., Tererai again returned to her
village. After embracing her mother and sister, she dug up her tin can and checked
off her next goal. Now she is working on her Ph.D. at Western Michigan University.
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At Oklahoma State, Tererai took every credit she could and worked nights to make
money. She earned her undergraduate degree, brought her five children to America
and started her master’s, then returned to her village. She dug up the tin can under the
rock and took out the paper on which she had scribbled her goals. She put check
marks beside the goals she had fulfilled and buried the tin can again.
Tererai has completed her course work and is completing a dissertation about AIDS
programs among the poor in Africa. She will become a productive economic asset for
Africa and a significant figure in the battle against AIDS. And when she has her
doctorate, Tererai will go back to her village and, after hugging her loved ones, go
out to the field and dig up her can again.
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There are many metaphors for the role of foreign assistance. For our part, we like to
think of aid as a kind of lubricant, a few drops of oil in the crankcase of the
developing world, so that gears move freely again on their own. That is what the
assistance to Tererai amounted to: a bit of help where and when it counts most,
which often means focusing on women like her. And now Tererai is gliding along
freely on her own — truly able to hold up half the sky.
On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner
Long before I began Dumpster diving I was impressed with Dumpsters, enough so
that I wrote the Merriam-Webster research service to discover what I could about the
word “Dumpster.” I learned from them that “Dumpster” is a proprietary word
belonging to the Dempsey Dumpster company.Since then I have dutifully capitalized
the word although it was lowercased in almost all of the citations Merriam-Webster
photocopied for me. Dempsey’s word is too apt. I have never heard these things
called anything but Dumpsters. I do not know anyone who knows the generic name
for these objects. From time to time, however, I hear a wino or hobo give some
corrupted credit to the original and call them Dipsy Dumpsters.
I began Dumpster diving about a year before I became homeless.
I prefer the term “scavenging” and use the word “scrounging” when I mean to be
obscure. I have heard people, evidently meaning to be polite, using the word
“foraging,” but I prefer to reserve that word for gathering nuts and berries and such
which I do also according to the season and the opportunity. “Dumpster diving”
seems to me to be a little too cute and, in my case, inaccurate, because I lack the
athletic ability to lower myself into the Dumpsters as the true divers do, much to their
increased profit.
What is safe to eat?
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I have learned much as a scavenger. I mean to put some of what I have learned down
here, beginning with the practical art of dumpster diving and proceeding to the
abstract.
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I like the frankness of the word “scavenging,” which I can hardly think of without
picturing a big black snail on an aquarium wall. I live from the refuse of others. I am
a scavenger. I think it a sound and honorable niche, although if I could I would
naturally prefer to live the comfortable consumer life, perhaps—and only perhaps—
as a slightly less wasteful consumer owing to what I have learned as a scavenger.
While my dog Lizbeth and I were still living in the house on Avenue B in Austin, as
my savings ran out, I put almost all of my sporadic income into rent. The necessities
of daily life I began to extract from Dumpsters. Yes, we ate from Dumpsters. Except
for jeans, all my clothes came from Dumpsters. Boom boxes, candles, bedding, toilet
paper, medicine, books, a typewriter, change sometimes amounting to many dollars: I
have acquired many things from the Dumpsters.
After all, the finding of objects is becoming something of an urban art. Even
respectable employed people will sometimes find something tempting sticking out of
a Dumpster or standing beside one. Quite a number of people, not all of them of the
bohemian type, are willing to brag that they found this or that piece in the trash. But
eating from Dumpsters is the thing that separates the dilettanti from the professionals.
Eating safely from the Dumpsters involves three principles: using the senses and
common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the
Dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to
answer the question, “Why was this discarded?”
Perhaps everyone who has a kitchen and a regular supply of groceries has, at one
time or another, made a sandwich and eaten half of it before discovering mold on the
bread or got a mouthful of milk before realizing the milk had turned. Nothing of the
sort is likely to happen to a Dumpster diver because he is constantly reminded that
most food is discarded for a reason. Yet a lot of perfectly good food can be found in
Dumpsters.
Canned goods, for example, turn up fairly often in the Dumpsters I frequent. All
except the most phobic people would be willing to eat from a can even if it came
from a Dumpster. Canned goods are among the safest of foods to be found in
dumpsters, but are not utterly foolproof.
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The question always makes me angry. Of course I would not offer my companion
anything I had doubts about. But more than that I wonder why he cannot evaluate the
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Although very rare with modern canning methods, botulism is a possibility. Most
other forms of food poisoning seldom do lasting harm to a healthy person. But
botulism is almost certainly fatal and often the first symptom is death. Except for
carbonated beverages, all canned goods should contain a slight vacuum and suck air
when first punctured. Bulging, rusty, dented cans and cans that spew when punctured
should be avoided, especially when the contents are not very acidic or syrupy.
Heat can break down the botulin, but this requires much more cooking than most
people do to canned goods. To the extent that botulism occurs at all, of course, it can
occur in cans on pantry shelves as well as in cans from Dumpsters. Need I say that
home-canned goods found in Dumpsters are simply too risky to be recommended.
From time to time one of my companions, aware of the source of my provisions, will
ask, “Do you think these crackers are really safe to eat?” For some reason it is most
often the crackers they ask about.
condition of the crackers for himself. I have no special knowledge and I have been
wrong before. Since he knows where the food comes from, it seems to me he ought
to assume some of the responsibility for deciding what he will put in his mouth.For
myself I have few qualms about dry foods such as crackers, cookies, cereal, chips,
and pasta if they are free of visible contaminates and still dry and crisp. Most often
such things are found in the original packaging, which is not so much a positive sign
as it is the absence of a negative one.
Raw fruits and vegetables with intact skins seem perfectly safe to me, excluding of
course the obviously rotten. Many are discarded for minor imperfections which can
be pared away. Leafy vegetables, grapes, cauliflower, broccoli, and similar things
may be contaminated by liquids and may be impractical to wash.
Candy, especially hard candy, is usually safe if it has not drawn ants. Chocolate is
often discarded only because it has become discolored as the cocoa butter deemulsified. Candying after all is one method of food preservation because pathogens
do not like very sugary substances.
All of these foods might be found in any Dumpster and can be evaluated with some
confidence largely on the basis of appearance. Beyond these are foods which cannot
be correctly evaluated without additional information.
I began scavenging by pulling pizzas out of the Dumpster behind a pizza delivery
shop. In general prepared food requires caution, but in this case I knew when the
shop closed and went to the Dumpster as soon as the last of the help left.
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I never placed a bogus order to increase the supply of pizzas and I believe no one else
was scavenging in this Dumpster. But the people in the shop became suspicious and
began to retain their garbage in the shop overnight.While it lasted I had a steady
supply of fresh, sometimes warm pizza. Because I knew the Dumpster I knew the
source of the pizza, and because I visited the Dumpster regularly I knew what was
fresh and what was yesterday’s.
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Such shops often get prank orders, called “bogus.” Because help seldom stays long at
these places pizzas are often made with the wrong topping, refused on delivery for
being cold, or baked incorrectly. The products to be discarded are boxed up because
inventory is kept by counting boxes: a boxed pizza can be written off an unboxed
pizza does not exist.
The area I frequent is inhabited by many affluent college students. I am not here by
chance; the Dumpsters in this area are very rich. Students throw out many good
things, including food. In particular they tend to throw everything out when they
move at the end of a semester, before and after breaks, and around midterm when
many of them despair of college. So I find it advantageous to keep an eye on the
academic calendar.
The students throw food away around the breaks because they do not know whether
it has spoiled or will spoil before they return. A typical discard is a half jar of peanut
butter. In fact non-organic peanut butter does not require refrigeration and is unlikely
to spoil in any reasonable time. The student does not know that, and since it is
Daddy’s money, the student decides not to take a chance.Opened containers require
caution and some attention to the question “Why was this discarded?” But in the case
of discards from student apartments, the answer may be that the item was discarded
through carelessness, ignorance, or wastefulness. This can sometimes be deduced
when the item is found with many others, including some that are obviously perfectly
good.
Some students, and others, approach defrosting a freezer by chucking out the whole
lot. Not only do the circumstances of such a find tell the story, but also the mass of
frozen goods stays cold for a long time and items may be found still frozen or freshly
thawed. Yogurt, cheese, and sour cream are items that are often thrown out while
they are still good. Occasionally I find a cheese with a spot of mold, which of course
I just pare off, and because it is obvious why such a cheese was discarded, I treat it
with less suspicion than an apparently perfect cheese found in similar circumstances.
Yogurt is often discarded, still sealed, only because the expiration date on the carton
has passed. This is one of my favorite finds because yogurt will keep for several
days, even in warm weather.
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My test for carbonated soft drinks is whether they still fizz vigorously. Many juices
or other beverages are too acid or too syrupy to cause much concern provided they
are not visibly contaminated. Liquids, however, require some care.One hot day I
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Students throw out canned goods and staples at the end of semesters and when they
give up college at midterm. Drugs, pornography, spirits, and the like are often
discarded when parents are expected—Dad’s day, for example. And spirits also turn
up after big party weekends, presumably discarded by the newly reformed. Wine and
spirits, of course, keep perfectly well even after opened.
found a large jug of Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane mix. The jug had been opened, but it
was still ice cold. I drank three large glasses before it became apparent to me that
someone had added the rum to the mix, and not a little rum. I never tasted the rum
and by the time I began to feel the effects I had already ingest-ed a very large
quantity of the beverage. Some divers would have considered this a boon, but being
suddenly and thoroughly intoxicated in a public place in the early afternoon is not my
idea of a good time.
I have heard of people maliciously contaminating discarded food and even handouts,
but mostly I have heard of this from people with vivid imaginations who have had no
experience with Dumpsters themselves. Just before the pizza shop stopped discarding
its garbage at night, jalapenos began showing up on most of the discarded pizzas. If
indeed this was meant to discourage me it was a wasted effort because I am a native
Texan.
For myself, I avoid game, poultry, pork, and egg-based foods whether I find them
raw or cooked. I seldom have the means to cook what I find, but when I do I avail
myself of plentiful supplies of beef which is often in very good condition. I suppose
fish becomes disagreeable before it becomes dangerous. The dog is happy to have
any such thing that is past its prime and, in fact, does not recognize fish as food until
it is quite strong.
Home leftovers, as opposed to surpluses from restaurants, are very often bad.
Evidently, especially among students, there is a common type of personality that
carefully wraps up even the smallest leftover and shoves it into the back of the
refrigerator for six months or so before discarding it. Characteristic of this type are
the reused jars and margarine tubs which house the remains.I avoid ethnic foods I am
unfamiliar with. If I do not know what it is supposed to look like when it is good, I
cannot be certain I will be able to tell if it is bad.
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I learned to scavenge gradually, on my own. Since then I have initiated several
companions into the trade. I have learned that there is a predictable series of stages a
person goes through in learning to scavenge.
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No matter how careful I am I still get dysentery at least once a month, oftener in
warm weather. I do not want to paint too romantic a picture. Dumpster diving has
serious drawbacks as a way of life.
At first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing. He is ashamed of
being seen and may lurk around, trying to duck behind things, or he may try to dive
at night. (In fact, most people instinctively look away from a scavenger. By skulking
around, the novice calls attention to himself and arouses suspicion. Diving at night is
ineffective and needlessly messy.)
Every grain of rice seems to be a maggot. Everything seems to stink. He can wipe the
egg yolk off the found can, but he cannot erase the stigma of eating garbage out of
his mind.
That stage passes with experience. The scavenger finds a pair of running shoes that
fit and look and smell brand new. He finds a pocket calculator in perfect working
order. He finds pristine ice cream, still frozen, more than he can eat or keep. He
begins to understand: people do throw away perfectly good stuff, a lot of perfectly
good stuff.
At this stage, Dumpster shyness begins to dissipate. The diver, after all, has the last
laugh. He is finding all manner of good things which are his for the taking. Those
who disparage his profession are the fools, not he.
He may begin to hang onto some perfectly good things for which he has neither a use
nor a market. Then he begins to take note of the things which are not perfectly good
but are nearly so. He mates a Walkman with broken earphones and one that is
missing a battery cover. He picks up things which he can repair.
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I tend to gain weight when I am scavenging. Partly this is because I always find far
more pizza and doughnuts than water-packed tuna, nonfat yogurt, and fresh
vegetables. Also I have not developed much faith in the reliability of Dumpsters as a
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At this stage he may become lost and never recover. Dumpsters are full of things of
some potential value to someone and also of things which never have much intrinsic
value but are interesting. All the Dumpster divers I have known come to the point of
trying to acquire everything they touch. Why not take it, they reason, since it is all
free.This is, of course, hopeless. Most divers come to realize that they must restrict
themselves to items of relatively immediate utility. But in some cases the diver
simply cannot control himself. I have met several of these pack-rat types. Their ideas
of the values of various pieces of junk verge on the psychotic. Every bit of glass may
be a diamond, they think, and all that glistens, gold.
food source, although it has been proven to me many times. I tend to eat as if I have
no idea where my next meal is coming from. But mostly I just hate to see food go to
waste and so I eat much more than I should. Something like this drives the obsession
to collect junk.
As for collecting objects, I usually restrict myself to collecting one kind of small
object at a time, such as pocket calculators, sun- glasses, or campaign buttons. To
live on the street I must anticipate my needs to a certain extent: I must pick up and
save warm bedding I find in August because it will not be found in Dumpsters in
November. But even if I had a home with extensive storage space I could not save
everything that might be valuable in some contingency.
I have proprietary feelings about my Dumpsters. As I have suggested, it is no
accident that I scavenge from Dumpsters where good finds are common. But my
limited experience with Dumpsters in other areas suggests to me that it is the
population of competitors rather than the affluence of the dumpers that most affects
the feasibility of survival by scavenging. The large number of competitors is what
puts me off the idea of trying to scavenge in places like Los Angeles.
Curiously, I do not mind my direct competition, other scavengers, so much as I hate
the can scroungers.
People scrounge cans because they have to have a little cash. I have tried scrounging
cans with an able-bodied companion. Afoot a can scrounger simply cannot make
more than a few dollars a day. One can extract the necessities of life from the
Dumpsters directly with far less effort than would be required to accumulate the
equivalent value in cans.
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I do not begrudge them the cans, but can scroungers tend to tear up the Dumpster,
mixing the contents and littering the area. They become so specialized that they can
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Can scroungers, then, are people who must have small amounts of cash. These are
drug addicts and winos, mostly the latter because the amounts of cash are so
small.Spirits and drugs do, like all other commodities, turn up in dumpsters and the
scavenger will from time to time have a half bottle of a rather good wine with his
dinner. But the wino cannot survive on these occasional finds; he must have his daily
dose to stave off the DTs. All the cans he can carry will buy about three bottles of
Wild Irish Rose.
see only cans. They earn my contempt by passing up change, canned goods, and
readily hock-able items.
There are precious few courtesies among scavengers. But it is a common practice to
set aside surplus items: pairs of shoes, clothing, canned goods, and such. A true
scavenger hates to see good stuff go to waste and what he cannot use he leaves in
good condition in plain sight.
Can scroungers lay waste to everything in their path and will stir so one of a pair of
good shoes to the bottom of a Dumpster, to be lost or ruined in the muck. Can
scroungers will even go through individual garbage cans, something I have never
seen a scavenger do.
Individual garbage cans are set out on the public easement only on garbage days. On
other days going through them requires trespassing close to a dwelling. Going
through individual garbage cans without scattering litter is almost impossible. Litter
is likely to reduce the public’s tolerance of scavenging. Individual garbage cans are
simply not as productive as Dumpsters; people in houses and duplexes do not move
as often and for some reason do not tend to discard as much useful material.
Moreover, the time required to go through one garbage can that serves one household
is not much less than the time required to go through a Dumpster that contains the
refuse of twenty apartments.
But likely strongest reservation about going through individual garbage cans is that
this seems to me a very personal kind of invasion to which I would object if I were a
householder. Although many things in Dumpsters are obviously meant never to come
to light, a Dumpster is somehow less personal.
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Dumpsters contain bank statements, bills, correspondence, and other documents, just
as anyone might expect. But there are also less obvious sources of information. Pill
bottles, for example. The labels on pill bottles contain the name of the patient, the
name of the doctor, and the name of the drug. AIDS drugs and antipsychotic
medicines, to name but two groups, are specific and are seldom prescribed for any
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I avoid trying to draw conclusions about the people who dump in the Dumpsters I
frequent. I think it would be unethical to do so, although I know many people will
find the idea of scavenger ethics too funny for words.
other disorders. The plastic compacts for birth control pills usually have complete
label information.
Despite all of this sensitive information, I have had only one apartment resident
object to my going through the Dumpster. In that case it turned out the resident was a
university athlete who was taking bets and was afraid I would turn up his wager slips.
Occasionally a find tells a story. Dumpster things are often sad—abandoned teddy
bears, shredded wedding books, despaired-of sales kits. I find many pets lying in
state in Dumpsters. Although I hope to get off the streets so that Lizbeth can have a
long and comfortable old age, I know this hope is not very realistic. So I suppose
when her time comes she too will go into a Dumpster. I will have no better place for
her. And after all, for most of her life her livelihood has come from the Dumpster.
When she finds something I think is safe that has been spilled into the Dumpster I let
her have it. She already knows the route around the best Dumpsters. I like to think
that if she survives me she will have a chance of evading the dog catcher and of
finding her sustenance on the route.
Silly vanities also come to rest in the Dumpsters. I am a rather accomplished
needleworker. I get a lot of materials from the Dumpsters. Evidently sorority girls,
hoping to impress someone, perhaps themselves, with their mastery of a womanly
art, buy a lot of embroider-by-number kits, work a few stitches horribly, and
eventually discard the whole mess. I pull out their stitches, turn the canvas over, and
work original designs. Do not think I refrain from chuckling as I make original gifts
from these kits.
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In the area I know best I have never discovered vermin in the Dumpster, but there are
two kinds of kitty surprise. One is alley cats which I meet as they leap, claws first,
out of Dumpsters. This is especially thrilling when I have Lizbeth in tow. The other
kind of kitty surprise is a plastic garbage bag filled with some ponderous, amorphous
mass. This always proves to be used cat litter.
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I find diaries and journals. I have often thought of compiling a book of literary found
objects. And perhaps I will one day. But what I find is hopelessly commonplace and
bad without being, even unconsciously, camp. College students also discard their
papers. I am horrified to discover the kind of paper which now merits an “A” in an
undergraduate course. I am grateful, however, for the number of good books and
magazines the students throw out.
City bees harvest doughnut glaze and this makes the Dumpster at the doughnut shop
more interesting. My faith in the instinctive wisdom of animals is always shaken
whenever I see Lizbeth attempt to catch a bee in her mouth, which she does
whenever bees are present. Evidently some birds find Dumpsters profitable, for
birdie surprise is almost as common as kitty surprise of the first kind. In hunting
season all kinds of small game turn up in Dumpsters, some of it, sadly, not entirely
dead. Curiously, summer and winter, maggots are uncommon.
The worst of the living and near-living hazards of the Dumpsters are the fire ants.
The food that they claim is not much of a loss, but they are vicious and aggressive. It
is very easy to brush against some surface of the Dumpster and pick up half a dozen
or more fire ants, usually in some sensitive area such as the underarm. One advantage
of bringing Lizbeth along as I make Dumpster rounds is that, for obvious reasons,
she is very alert to ground-based fire ants. When Lizbeth recognizes the signs of fire
ant infestation around our feet she does the Dance of the Zillion Fire Ants. I have
learned not to ignore this warning from Lizbeth, whether I perceive the tiny ants or
not, but to remove ourselves at Lizbeth’s first pas de bourrée. All the more so
because the ants are the worst in the months I wear flip-flops, if I have them.(Perhaps
someone will misunderstand the above. Lizbeth does the Dance of the Zillion Fire
Ants when she recognizes more fire ants than she cares to eat, not when she is being
bitten. Since I have learned to react promptly, she does not get bitten at all. It is the
isolated patrol of fire ants that falls in Lizbeth’s range that deserve pity. Lizbeth finds
them quite tasty.)
By far the best way to go through a Dumpster is to lower yourself into it. Most of the
good stuff tends to settle at the bottom because it is usually weightier than the
rubbish. My more athletic companions have often demonstrated to me that they can
extract much good material from a Dumpster I have already been over.
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Dumpster diving is outdoor work, often surprisingly pleasant. It is not entirely
predictable; things of interest turn up every day and some say there are finds of great
148
To those psychologically or physically unprepared to enter a Dumpster, I recommend
a stout stick, preferably with some barb or hook at one end. The hook can be used to
grab plastic garbage bags. When I find canned goods or other objects loose at the
bottom of a Dumpster I usually can roll them into a small bag that I can then hoist up.
Much Dumpster diving is a matter of experience for which nothing will do except
practice.
value. I am always very pleased when I can turn up exactly the thing I most wanted
to find. Yet in spite of the element of chance, scavenging more than most other
pursuits tends to yield returns in some proportion to the effort and intelligence
brought to bear. It is very sweet to turn up a few dollars in change from a Dumpster
that has just been gone over by a wino.
The land is now covered with cities. The cities are full of Dumpsters. I think of
scavenging as a modern form of self-reliance. In any event, after ten years of
government service, where everything is geared to the lowest common denominator,
I find work that rewards initiative and effort refreshing. Certainly I would be happy
to have a sinecure again, but I am not heartbroken not to have one anymore.
I find from the experience of scavenging two rather deep lessons. The first is to take
what I can use and let the rest go by. I have come to think that there is no value in the
abstract. A thing I cannot use or make useful, perhaps by trading, has no value
however fine or rare it may be. I mean useful in a broad sense—so, for example,
some art I would think useful and valuable, but other art might be otherwise for me.
I was shocked to realize that some things are not worth acquiring, but now I think it
is so. Some material things are white elephants that eat up the possessor’s
substance.The second lesson is of the transience of material being. This has not quite
converted me to a dualist, but it has made some headway in that direction. I do not
suppose that ideas are immortal, but certainly mental things are longer-lived than
other material things.
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Anyway, I find my desire to grab for the gaudy bauble has been largely sated. I think
this is an attitude I share with the very wealthy—we both know there is plenty more
where what we have came from. Between us are the rat-race millions who have
confounded their selves with the objects they grasp and who nightly scavenge the
cable channels looking for they know not what.
I am sorry for them.
149
Once I was the sort of person who invests material objects with sentimental value.
Now I no longer have those things, but I have the sentiments yet.
Many times in my travels I have lost everything but the clothes I was wearing and
Lizbeth. The things I find in Dumpsters, the love letters and ragdolls of so many
lives, remind me of this lesson. Now I hardly pick up a thing without envisioning the
time I will cast it away. This I think is a healthy state of mind. Almost everything I
have now has already been cast out at least once, proving that what I own is valueless
to someone.
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150
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education Hearing on Parkinson's Research and Treatment September 28, 1999
The Testimony of Michael J. Fox
Fox:
Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for inviting me to testify today about the need
for greater federal investment in Parkinson's
research. Some, or perhaps all of you, most of you,
are familiar with me from my work in film and
television. What I wish to speak to you about today
has little or nothing to do with celebrity, save for
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The one million Americans living with Parkinson's want to beat this disease. So do
the millions more Americans who have family members suffering from Parkinson's
but it won't happen until Congress adequately funds Parkinson's research.
151
this brief reference.
When I first spoke publicly about my eight years of experience as a person with
Parkinson's many were surprised, in part because of my age, although 30% of all
Parkinson's patients are under 50, 20% are under 40, and that number is growing.
I had hidden my symptoms and struggles very well, through increasing amounts of
medication, through surgery and by employing the hundreds of little tricks and
techniques a person with Parkinson's learns to mask his or her condition for as long
as possible. While the changes in my life were profound and progressive, I kept them
to myself for a number of reasons: fear, denial for sure, but I also felt that it was
important for me to just quietly "soldier on." When I did share my story the response
was overwhelming, humbling and deeply inspiring. I heard from thousands of
Americans affected by Parkinson's, writing and calling to offer encouragement and to
tell me of their experience. They spoke of pain, frustration, fear and hope. Always
hope.
What I understood very clearly is that the time for "quietly soldiering on" is through.
The war against Parkinson's is a winnable war and I have resolved to play a role in
that victory. What celebrity has given me is the opportunity to raise the visibility of
Parkinson's disease and focus attention on the desperate need for more research
dollars. While I am able for the time being to continue doing what I love best, others
are not so fortunate. These are doctors, teachers, policemen, nurses, as you had
indicated earlier, legislators, and parents who are no longer able to work to provide
for their families and live out their dreams.
For many people with Parkinson's, managing their disease is a full-time job; it is a
constant balancing act. Too little medicine causes tremors and stiffness, too much
medicine produces uncontrollable movement and slurring, and far too often
Parkinson's patients wait and wait (as I am right now) for their medicines to kick in.
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At present Parkinson's is inadequately funded, no matter how one cares to spin it.
Meager funding means a continued lack of effective treatments, slow progress in
understanding the cause of the disease and little chance that a cure will come in time.
I applaud the steps we are taking to fulfill the promise of the Udall Parkinson's
Research Act, but we must be clear we aren't there yet.
If, however, an adequate investment is made there is much to be hopeful for. We
have a tremendous opportunity to close the gap for Parkinson's. We are learning
more and more about this disease. The scientific community believes that with a
significant investment in Parkinson's research new discoveries and improved
treatment strategies are close at hand. Many have called Parkinson's the most curable
neurological disorder, and the one expected to produce a breakthrough first.
Scientists tell me that a cure is possible, some say even by the end of the next decade,
if the research dollars match the research opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, you and the members of the Subcommittee have done so much to
increase the investment in medical research in this country. I thank you for your
vision. Most people don't know just how important this research is until they or
someone in their family faces a serious illness. I know I didn't. The Parkinson's
community strongly supports your efforts to double medical research funding. At the
same time, I implore you to do more for people with Parkinson's. Take up
Parkinson's as if your life depended on it. Increase funding for Parkinson's research
by $75 million over the current levels for the coming fiscal year. Make this a down
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New investigational therapies have helped some people like me control symptoms,
but in the end we all face the same reality: the medicine stops working. For people
living with Parkinson's the status quo is not good enough. As I began to understand
what research might promise for the future I became hopeful that I would not face the
terrible suffering so many with Parkinson's endure. But I was shocked and frustrated
to learn the amount of funding for Parkinson's research is so meager. Compared with
the amount of federal funding going to other diseases, research funding for
Parkinson's lags far behind. In a country with a $15 billion investment in medical
research we can and must do better.
payment for a fully funded Parkinson's research agenda that will make Parkinson's
nothing more than a footnote in medical textbooks.
(Turning pages isn't always easy!) I would like to close on a personal note. Today
you will hear from, or have already heard from, more than a few experts, in the fields
of science, bookkeeping, other areas. I am an expert in only one: what it is like to be
a young man, husband and father, with Parkinson's disease. With the help of daily
medication and selective exertion I can still perform my job, in my case in a very
public arena. I can still help out with the daily tasks and rituals involved in home life,
but I don't kid myself; that will change.
Physical and mental exhaustion will become more and more of a factor, as will
increased rigidity, tremor and dyskinesia. I can expect in my forties to face
challenges most won't expect until their seventies or eighties, if ever. But with your
help, if we all do everything we can to eradicate this disease, in my fifties I'll be
dancing at my children's weddings. And mine will be one of millions of happy
stories. Thank you for your time and attention.
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153
Specter:
Thank you very much Mr. Fox for those very profound and moving words
What Redburn Saw in Launcelott's-Hey: Excerpt from Redburn by Herman Melville
Once, passing through this place, I heard
a feeble wail, which seemed to come out
of the earth. It was but a strip of crooked
side-walk where I stood; the dingy wall
was on every side, converting the midday into twilight; and not a soul was in
sight. I started, and could almost have
run, when I heard that dismal sound. It
seemed the low, hopeless, endless wail
of some one forever lost. At last I
advanced to an opening which
communicated downward with deep tiers
of cellars beneath a crumbling old
warehouse; and there, some fifteen feet
below the walk, crouching in nameless
squalor, with her head bowed over, was
the figure of what had been a woman.
Her blue arms folded to her livid bosom
two shrunken things like children, that
leaned toward her, one on each side. At
first, I knew not whether they were alive
or dead. They made no sign; they did not
I made a noise with my foot, which, in
the silence, echoed far and near; but
there was no response. Louder still;
when one of the children lifted its head,
and cast upward a faint glance; then
closed its eyes, and lay motionless. The
woman also, now gazed up, and
perceived me; but let fall her eye again.
They were dumb and next to dead with
want. How they had crawled into that
den, I could not tell; but there they had
crawled to die. At that moment I never
thought of relieving them; for death was
so stamped in their glazed and
unimploring eyes, that I almost regarded
them as already no more. I stood looking
down on them, while my whole soul
swelled within me; and I asked myself,
What right had any body in the wide
world to smile and be glad, when sights
like this were to be seen? It was enough
to turn the heart to gall; and make a manhater of a Howard. For who were these
ghosts that I saw? Were they not human
beings? A woman and two girls? With
eyes, and lips, and ears like any queen?
with hearts which, though they did not
bound with blood, yet beat with a dull,
dead ache that was their life.
At last, I walked on toward an open lot
in the alley, hoping to meet there some
ragged old women, whom I had daily
154
In going to our boarding-house, the sign
of the Baltimore Clipper, I generally
passed through a narrow street called
"Launcelott's-Hey," lined with dingy,
prison-like cotton warehouses. In this
street, or rather alley, you seldom sees
any one but a truck-man, or some
solitary old warehouse-keeper, haunting
his smoky den like a ghost.
move or stir; but from the vault came
that soul-sickening wail.
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The dead-house reminds me of other sad
things; for in the vicinity of the docks are
many very painful sights.
"Then she'll never die," was the
rejoinder. "She's been down there these
three days, with nothing to eat;--that I
know myself."
"She desarves it," said an old hag, who
was just placing on her crooked
shoulders her bag of pickings, and who
was turning to totter off, "that Betsy
Jennings desarves it--was she ever
married? tell me that."
Leaving Launcelott's-Hey, I turned into a
more frequented street; and soon meeting
a policeman, told him of the condition of
the woman and the girls.
"Who does then?"
"I don't know. But what business is it of
yours? Are you not a Yankee?"
"Yes," said I, "but come, I will help you
remove that woman, if you say so."
"There, now, Jack, go on board your ship
and stick to it; and leave these matters to
the town."
I accosted two more policemen, but with
no better success; they would not even
go with me to the place. The truth was, it
was out of the way, in a silent, secluded
spot; and the misery of the three
outcasts, hiding away in the ground, did
not obtrude upon any one.
Returning to them, I again stamped to
attract their attention; but this time, none
of the three looked up, or even stirred.
While I yet stood irresolute, a voice
called to me from a high, iron-shuttered
window in a loft over the way; and asked
what I was about. I beckoned to the man,
a sort of porter, to come down, which he
did; when I pointed down into the vault.
"Well," said he, "what of it?"
"Can't we get them out?" said I, "haven't
you some place in your warehouse where
155
I found them; and accosting one, I asked
if she knew of the persons I had just left.
She replied, that she did not; nor did she
want to. I then asked another, a
miserable, toothless old woman, with a
tattered strip of coarse baling stuff round
her body. Looking at me for an instant,
she resumed her raking in the rubbish,
and said that she knew who it was that I
spoke of; but that she had no time to
attend to beggars and their brats.
Accosting still another, who seemed to
know my errand, I asked if there was no
place to which the woman could be
taken.
"Yes," she replied, "to the church-yard."
I said she was alive, and not dead.
"It's none of my business, Jack," said he.
"I don't belong to that street."
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noticed groping amid foul rubbish for
little particles of dirty cotton, which they
washed out and sold for a trifle.
I then went to my boarding-house, and
told Handsome Mary of what I had seen;
asking her if she could not do something
to get the woman and girls removed; or
if she could not do that, let me have
some food for them. But though a kind
person in the main, Mary replied that she
gave away enough to beggars in her own
street (which was true enough) without
looking after the whole neighborhood.
Going into the kitchen, I accosted the
cook, a little shriveled-up old
Welshwoman, with a saucy tongue,
whom the sailors called Brandy-Nan;
and begged her to give me some cold
victuals, if she had nothing better, to take
to the vault. But she broke out in a storm
of swearing at the miserable occupants
of the vault, and refused. I then stepped
into the room where our dinner was
being spread; and waiting till the girl had
gone out, I snatched some bread and
cheese from a stand, and thrusting it into
the bosom of my frock, left the house.
Hurrying to the lane, I dropped the food
down into the vault. One of the girls
caught at it convulsively, but fell back,
apparently fainting; the sister pushed the
other's arm aside, and took the bread in
her hand; but with a weak uncertain
Seeing how it was, I ran down toward
the docks to a mean little sailor tavern,
and begged for a pitcher; but the cross
old man who kept it refused, unless I
would pay for it. But I had no money. So
as my boarding-house was some way off,
and it would be lost time to run to the
ship for my big iron pot; under the
impulse of the moment, I hurried to one
of the Boodle Hydrants, which I
remembered having seen running near
the scene of a still smoldering fire in an
old rag house; and taking off a new
tarpaulin hat, which had been loaned me
that day, filled it with water.
With this, I returned to Launcelott's-Hey;
and with considerable difficulty, like
getting down into a well, I contrived to
descend with it into the vault; where
there was hardly space enough left to let
me stand. The two girls drank out of the
hat together; looking up at me with an
unalterable, idiotic expression, that
almost made me faint. The woman spoke
not a word, and did not stir. While the
girls were breaking and eating the bread,
I tried to lift the woman's head; but,
feeble as she was, she seemed bent upon
holding it down. Observing her arms still
clasped upon her bosom, and that
156
"You're crazy, boy," said he; "do you
suppose, that Parkins and Wood want
their warehouse turned into a hospital?"
grasp like an infant's. She placed it to her
mouth; but letting it fall again,
murmuring faintly something like
"water." The woman did not stir; her
head was bowed over, just as I had first
seen her.
Page
you can put them? have you nothing for
them to eat?"
The woman refusing to speak, eat, or
drink, I asked one of the girls who they
were, and where they lived; but she only
stared vacantly, muttering something that
could not be understood.
The next day, and the next, I passed the
vault three times, and still met the same
sight. The girls leaning up against the
woman on each side, and the woman
with her arms still folding the babe, and
her head bowed.
The first evening I did not see the bread
that I had dropped down in the morning;
but the second evening, the bread I had
dropped that morning remained
untouched. On the third morning the
smell that came from the vault was such,
that I accosted the same policeman I had
accosted before, who was patrolling the
same street, and told him that the persons
I had spoken to him about were dead,
and he had better have them removed.
He looked as if he did not believe me,
and added, that it was not his street.
The air of the place was now getting too
much for me; but I stood deliberating a
moment, whether it was possible for me
to drag them out of the vault. But if I did,
what then? They would only perish in
the street, and here they were at least
protected from the rain; and more than
that, might die in seclusion.
I crawled up into the street, and looking
down upon them again, almost repented
that I had brought them any food; for it
would only tend to prolong their misery,
without hope of any permanent relief: for
die they must very soon; they were too
far gone for any medicine to help them. I
hardly know whether I ought to confess
another thing that occurred to me as I
stood there; but it was this-I felt an
almost irresistible impulse to do them the
last mercy, of in some way putting an
When I arrived at the docks on my way
to the ship, I entered the guard-house
within the walls, and asked for one of the
captains, to whom I told the story; but,
from what he said, was led to infer that
the Dock Police was distinct from that of
157
end to their horrible lives; and I should
almost have done so, I think, had I not
been deterred by thoughts of the law. For
I well knew that the law, which would let
them perish of themselves without giving
them one cup of water, would spend a
thousand pounds, if necessary, in
convicting him who should so much as
offer to relieve them from their
miserable existence.
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something seemed hidden under the rags
there, a thought crossed my mind, which
impelled me forcibly to withdraw her
hands for a moment; when I caught a
glimpse of a meager little babe--the
lower part of its body thrust into an old
bonnet. Its face was dazzlingly white,
even in its squalor; but the closed eyes
looked like balls of indigo. It must have
been dead some hours.
the town, and this was not the right place
to lodge my information.
I could do no more that morning, being
obliged to repair to the ship; but at
twelve o'clock, when I went to dinner, I
hurried into Launcelott's-Hey, when I
found that the vault was empty. In place
of the women and children, a heap of
quick-lime was glistening.
I could not learn who had taken them
away, or whither they had gone; but my
prayer was answered--they were dead,
departed, and at peace.
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158
But again I looked down into the vault,
and in fancy beheld the pale, shrunken
forms still crouching there. Ah! what are
our creeds, and how do we hope to be
saved? Tell me, oh Bible, that story of
Lazarus again, that I may find comfort in
my heart for the poor and forlorn.
Surrounded as we are by the wants and
woes of our fellowmen, and yet given to
follow our own pleasures, regardless of
their pains, are we not like people sitting
up with a corpse, and making merry in
the house of the dead?
“House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar
We liked the house because, apart from its being old and spacious (in a day when
old houses go down for a profitable auction of their construction materials), it kept
the memories of great-grandparents, our paternal grandfather, our parents and the
whole of childhood.
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But it's the house I want to talk about, the house and Irene; I'm not very important. I
wonder what Irene would have done without her knitting. One can reread a book,
but once a pullover is finished you can't do it over again, it's some kind of disgrace.
159
Irene and I got used to staying in the house by ourselves, which was crazy; eight
people could have lived in that place and not have gotten in each other's way. We
rose at seven in the morning and got the cleaning done, and about eleven I left Irene
to finish off whatever rooms and went to the kitchen. We lunched at noon precisely;
then there was nothing left to do but a few dirty plates. It was pleasant to take lunch
and commune with the great hollow, silent house, and it was enough for us just to
keep it clean. We ended up thinking, at times, that that was what had kept us from
marrying. Irene turned down two suitors for no particular reason, and Maria Esther
went and died on me before we could manage to get engaged. We were easing into
our forties with the unvoiced concept that the quiet, simple marriage of sister and
brother was the indispensable end to a line established in this house by our
grandparents. We would die here someday, obscure and distant cousins would
inherit the place, have it torn down, sell the bricks and get rich on the building plot;
or more justly and better yet, we would topple it ourselves before it was too late.
Irene never bothered anyone. Once the morning housework was finished, she spent
the rest of the day on the sofa in her bedroom, knitting. I couldn't tell you why she
knitted so much; I think women knit when they discover that it's a fat excuse to do
nothing at all. But Irene was not like that; she always knitted necessities, sweaters
for winter, socks for me, handy morning robes and bed jackets for herself.
Sometimes she would do a jacket, then unravel it the next moment because there
was something that didn't please her; it was pleasant to see a pile of tangled wool in
her knitting basket fighting a losing battle for a few hours to retain its shape.
Saturdays I went downtown to buy wool; Irene had faith in my good taste, was
pleased with the colors and never a skein had to be returned. I took advantage of
these trips to make the rounds of the bookstores, uselessly asking if they had
anything new in French literature. Nothing worthwhile had arrived in Argentina
since1939.
One day I found that the drawer at the bottom of the chiffonier, replete with
mothballs, was filled with shawls, white, green, lilac. Stacked amid a great smell of
camphor--it was like a shop; I didn’t have the nerve to ask her what she planned to
do with them. We didn’t have to earn our living, there was plenty coming in from
the farms each month, even piling up. But Irene was only interested in the knitting
and showed a wonderful dexterity, and for me the hours slipped away watching her,
her hands like silver sea-urchins, needles flashing, and one or two knitting baskets
on the floor, the balls of yarn jumping about. It was lovely.
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I'll always have a clear memory of it because it happened so simply and without
fuss. Irene was knitting in her bedroom, it was eight at night, and I suddenly
decided to put the water up for mate. I went down the corridor as far as the oak
door, which was ajar, then turned into the hall toward the kitchen, when I heard
something in the library or the dining room. The sound came through muted and
indistinct, a chair being knocked over onto the carpet or the muffled buzzing of a
conversation. At the same time, or a second later, I heard it at the end of the passage
160
How not to remember the layout of that house. The dining room, a living room
with tapestries, the library, and three large bedrooms in the section most recessed
the one that faced toward Rodriguez Pena. Only a corridor with its massive oak
door separated that part from the front wing, where there was a bath, the kitchen,
our bedrooms and the hall. One entered the house through a vestibule with
enameled tiles, and a wrought-iron gated door opened onto the living room. You
had to come in through the vestibule and open the gate to go into the living room;
the doors to our bedrooms were on either side of this, and opposite was the corridor
leading to the back section; going down the passage, one swung open the oak door
beyond which was the other part of the house; or just before the door, one could
turn to the left and go down a narrower passageway which led to the kitchen and the
bath. When the door was open, you became aware of the size of the house; when it
was closed, you had the impression of an apartment, like the ones they build today,
with barely enough room to move around in. Irene and I always lived in this part of
the house and hardly ever went beyond the oak door except to do the cleaning.
Incredible how much dust collected on the furniture. It may be Buenos Aires is a
clean city, but she owes it to her population and nothing else. There's too much dust
in the air, the slightest breeze and it's back on the marble console tops and in the
diamond patterns of the tooled-leather desk set. It's a lot of work to get it off with a
feather duster; the motes rise and hang in the air, and settle again a minute later on
the pianos and the furniture.
which led from those two rooms toward the door. I hurled myself against the door
before it was too late and shut it, leaned on it with the weight of my body; luckily,
the key was on our side; moreover, I ran the great bolt into place, just to be safe.
I went down to the kitchen, heated the kettle, and when I got back with the tray of
mate, I told Irene:
"I had to shut the door to the passage. They’ve taken over the back part."
She let her knitting fall and looked at me with her tired, serious eyes.
"You're sure?"
I nodded.
"In that case," she said, picking up her knitting again, "we'll have to live on this
side."
I sipped at the mate very carefully, but she took her time starting her work again. I
remember it was a gray vest she was knitting. I liked that vest.
The first few days were painful, since we'd both left so many things in the part that
had been taken over. My collection of French literature, for example, was still in the
library. Irene had left several folios of stationery and a pair of slippers that she used
a lot in the winter. I missed my briar pipe, and Irene, I think, regretted the loss of an
ancient bottle of Hesperidins It happened repeatedly (but only in the first few days)
that we would close some drawer or cabinet and look at one another sadly.
"It's not here."
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Since it left her more time for knitting, Irene was content. I was a little lost without
my books, but so as not to inflict myself on my sister, I set about reordering papa's
stamp collection; that killed some time. We amused ourselves sufficiently, each
with his own thing, almost always getting together in Irene's bedroom, which was
the more comfort-able. Every once in a while, Irene might say:
"Look at this pattern I just figured out, doesn't it look like clover?"
161
One thing more among the many lost on the other side of the house.
But there were advantages, too. The cleaning was so much simplified that, even
when we got up late, nine-thirty for instance, by eleven we were sitting around with
our arms folded. Irene got into the habit of coming to the kitchen with me to help
get lunch. We thought about it and decided on this: while I prepared the lunch, Irene
would cook up dishes that could be eaten cold in the evening. We were happy with
the arrangement because it was always such a bother to have to leave our bedrooms
in the evening and start to cook. Now we made do with the table in Irene's room and
platters of cold supper.
After a bit it was I, pushing a small square of paper in front of her so that she could
see the excellence of some stamp or another from Eupen-et-Malmedy. We were
fine, and little by little we stopped thinking. You can live without thinking.
(Whenever Irene talked in her sleep, I woke up immediately and stayed awake. I
never could get used to this voice from a statue or a parrot, a voice that came out of
the dreams, not from a throat. Irene said that in my sleep I flailed about erroneously
and shook the blankets off. We had the living room between us, but at night you
could hear everything in the house. We heard each other breathing, coughing, could
even feel each other reaching for the light switch when, as happened frequently,
neither of us could fall asleep.
Aside from our nocturnal rumblings, everything was quiet in the house. During the
day there were the household sounds, the metallic click of knitting needles, the
rustle of stamp-album pages turning. The oak door was massive, I think I said that.
In the kitchen or the bath, which adjoined the part that was taken over, we managed
to talk loudly, or Irene sang lullabies. In a kitchen there's always too much noise,
the plates and glasses, for there to be interruptions from other sounds. We seldom
allowed ourselves silence there, but when we went back to our rooms or to the
living room, then the house grew quiet, half-lit, we ended by stepping around more
slowly so as not to disturb one another. I think it was because of this that I woke up
irremediably and at once when Irene be-gan to talk in her sleep.)
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We didn't wait to look at one another. I took Irene's arm and forced her to run with
me to the wrought-iron door, not waiting to look back. You could hear the noises,
still muffled but louder, just behind us. I slammed the grating and we stopped in the
vestibule. Now there was nothing to be heard.
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Except for the consequences, it's nearly a matter of repeating the same scene over
again. I was thirsty that night, and before we went to sleep, I told Irene that I was
going to the kitchen for a glass of water. From the door of the bedroom (she was
knitting) I heard the noise in the kitchen; if not the kitchen, then the bath, the
passage off at that angle dulled the sound. Irene noticed how brusquely I had
paused, and came up beside me without a word. We stood listening to the noises,
growing more and more sure that they were on our side of the oak door, if not the
kitchen then the bath, or in the hall itself at the turn, almost next to us.
"They've taken over our section," Irene said. The knitting had reeled off from her
hands and the yarn ran back toward the door and disappeared under it. When she
saw that the balls of yarn were on the other side, she dropped the knitting without
looking at it.
"Did you have time to bring anything?" I asked hopelessly.
"No, Nothing.”
We had what we had on. I remembered fifteen thousand pesos in the wardrobe in
my bedroom. Too late now.
I still had my wristwatch on and saw that it was 11 P.M. I took Irene around the
waist (I think she was crying) and that was how we went into the street. Before we
left, I felt terrible; I locked the front door up tight and tossed the key down the
sewer. It wouldn't do to have some poor devil decide to go in and rob the house, at
that hour and with the house taken over.
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163
Translated by Paul Blackburn
“Living in Two Worlds” by Marcus Mabry
Newsweek on Campus, April 1988
A round, green cardboard sign hangs from a string proclaiming, “We built a proud
new feeling,” the slogan of a local supermarket. It is a souvenir from one of my
brother’s last jobs. In addition to being a bagger, he’s worked at a fast-food
restaurant, a gas station, a garage and a textile factory. Now, in the icy clutches of
the Northeastern winter, he is unemployed. He will soon be a father. He is 19 years
old.
In mid-December I was at Stanford, among the palm trees and weighty chores of
academe. And all I wanted to do was get out. I joined the rest of the undergrads in a
chorus of excitement, singing the praises of Christmas break. No classes, no
midterms, no finals . . . and no freshmen! (I’m a resident assistant.) Awesome! I
was looking forward to escaping. I never gave a thought to what I was escaping to.
Once I got home to New Jersey, reality returned. My dreaded freshmen had been
replaced by unemployed relatives; badgering professors had been replaced by hardworking single mothers, and cold classrooms by dilapidated bedrooms and kitchens.
The room in which the “proud new feeling” sign hung contained the belongings of
myself, my mom and my brother. But for these two weeks it was mine. They slept
downstairs on couches.
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Last year I lived in an on-campus apartment, with a (relatively) modern bathroom,
kitchen and two bedrooms. Using summer earnings, I added some expensive prints,
a potted palm and some other plants, making the place look like the more-thanhumble abode of a New York City Yuppie. I gave dinner parties, even a soirée
française.
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Most students who travel between the universes of poverty and affluence during
breaks experience similar conditions, as well as the guilt, the helplessness and,
sometimes, the embarrassment associated with them. Our friends are willing to
listen, but most of them are unable to imagine the pain of the impoverished lives
that we see every six months. Each time I return home I feel further away from the
realities of poverty in America and more ashamed that they are allowed to persist.
What frightens me most is not that the American socioeconomic system permits
poverty to continue, but that by participating in that system I share some of the
blame.
For my roommate, a doctor’s son, this kind of life was nothing extraordinary. But
my mom was struggling to provide a life for herself and my brother. In addition to
working 24-hour-a-day cases as a practical nurse, she was trying to ensure that my
brother would graduate from high school and have a decent life. She knew that she
had to compete for his attention with drugs and other potentially dangerous things
that can look attractive to a young man when he sees no better future.
Living in my grandmother’s house this Christmas break restored all the forgotten,
and the never acknowledged, guilt. I had gone to boarding school on a full
scholarship since the ninth grade, so being away from poverty was not new.
But my own growing affluence has increased my distance. My friends say that I
should not feel guilty: what could I do substantially for my family at this age, they
ask. Even though I know that education is the right thing to do, I can’t help but feel,
sometimes, that I have it too good. There is no reason that I deserve security and
warmth, while my brother has to cope with potential unemployment and prejudice.
I, too, encounter prejudice, but it is softened by my status as a student in an affluent
and intellectual community.
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Not very festive: This wrenching of my heart was interrupted by the 3 a.m. entry of
a relative who had been allowed to stay at the house despite rowdy behavior and
threats toward the family in the past. As he came into the house, he slammed the
door, and his heavy steps shook the second floor as he stomped into my
grandmother’s room to take his place, at the foot of her bed. There he slept, without
blankets on a bare mattress. This was the first night. Later in the vacation, a
Christmas turkey and a Christmas ham were stolen from my aunt’s refrigerator on
Christmas Eve. We think the thief was a relative. My mom and I decided not to
exchange gifts that year because it just didn’t seem festive.
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More than my sense of guilt, my sense of helplessness increases each time I return
home. As my success leads me further away for longer periods of time, poverty
becomes harder to conceptualize and feels that much more oppressive when I visit
with it. The first night of break, I lay in our bedroom, on a couch that let out into a
bed that took up the whole room, except for a space heater. It was a little hard to
sleep because the springs from the couch stuck through at inconvenient spots. But it
would have been impossible to sleep anyway because of the groans coming from
my grandmother’s room next door. Only in her early 60s, she suffers from many
chronic diseases and couldn’t help but moan, then pray aloud, then moan, then pray
aloud.
A few days after New Year’s I returned to California. The Northeast was soon hit
by a blizzard. They were there, and I was here. That was the way it had to be, for
now. I haven’t forgotten; the ache of knowing their suffering is always there. It has
to be kept deep down, or I can’t find the logic in studying and partying while
people, my people, are being killed by poverty. Ironically, success drives me away
from those I most want to help by getting an education.
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166
Somewhere in the midst of all that misery, my family has built, within me, “a proud
feeling.” As I travel between the two worlds it becomes harder to remember just
how proud I should be — not just because of where I have come from and where I
am going, but because of where they are. The fact that they survive in the world in
which they live is something to be very proud of, indeed. It inspires within me a
sense of tenacity and accomplishment that I hope every college graduate will
someday possess.
Mrs. Flowers from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the Store, the school, and the church,
like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible. Then I met, or rather got to know, the lady
who threw me my first lifeline.
Mrs. Bertha Flowers was the aristocrat of Black Stamps. She had the grace of
control to appear warm in the coldest weather, and on the Arkansas summer days it
seemed she had a private breeze which swirled around, cooling her. She was thin
without the taut look of wiry people, and her printed voile dresses and flowered hats
were as right for her as denim overalls for a farmer. She was our side’s answer to
the richest white woman in town.
Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but then
no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to ruffle her
dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn’t encourage familiarity. She wore gloves
too.
I don’t think I ever saw Mrs. Flowers laugh, but she smiled often. A slow widening
of her thin black lips to show even, small white teeth, then the slow effortless
closing. When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her. The action
was so graceful and inclusively benign.
She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained
throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be.
One summer afternoon, sweet-milk fresh in my memory, she stopped at the Store to
buy provisions. Another Negro woman of her health and age would have been
expected to carry the paper sacks home in one hand, but Momma said, “Sister
Flowers, I’ll send Bailey up to your house with these things.”
She said, without turning her head, to me, “I hear you’re doing very good
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There was a little path beside the rocky road, and Mrs. Flowers walked in front
swinging her arms and picking her way over the stones.
167
She smiled that slow dragging smile, “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I’d prefer
Marguerite, though.” My name was beautiful when she said it. “I’ve been meaning
to talk to her, anyway.” They gave each other age-group looks.
schoolwork, Marguerite, but that it’s all written. The teachers report that they have
trouble getting you to talk in class.” We passed the triangular farm on our left and
the path widened to allow us to walk together. I hung back in the separate unasked
and unanswerable questions.
“Come and walk along with me, Marguerite.” I couldn’t have refused even if I
wanted to. She pronounced my name so nicely. Or more correctly, she spoke each
word with such clarity that I was certain a foreigner who didn’t understand English
could have understood her.
“Now no one is going to make you talk—possibly no one can. But bear in mind,
language is man’s way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language
alone which separates him from the lower animals.” That was a totally new idea to
me, and I would need time to think about it.
“Your grandmother says you read a lot. Every chance you get. That’s good, but not
good enough. Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human
voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.”
I memorized the part about the human voice infusing words. It seemed so valid and
poetic.
She said she was going to give me some books and that I not only must read them, I
must read them aloud. She suggested that I try to make a sentence sound in as many
different ways as possible.
“I’ll accept no excuse if you return a book to me that has been badly handled.” My
imagination boggled at the punishment I would deserve if in fact I did abuse a book
of Mrs. Flowers’s. Death would be too kind and brief.
The odors in the house surprised me. Somehow I had never connected Mrs. Flowers
with food or eating or any other common experience of common people. There
must have been an outhouse, too, but my mind never recorded it.
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“I made tea cookies this morning. You see, I had planned to invite you for cookies
and lemonade so we could have this little chat. The lemonade is in the icebox.”
168
The sweet scent of vanilla had met us as she opened the door.
It followed that Mrs. Flowers would have ice on an ordinary day, when most
families in our town bought ice late on Saturdays only a few times during the
summer to be used in the wooden ice cream freezers.
She took the bags from me and disappeared through the kitchen door. I looked
around the room that I had never in my wildest fantasies imagined I would see.
Browned photographs leered or threatened from the walls and the white, freshly
done curtains pushed against themselves and against the wind. I wanted to gobble
up the room entire and take it to Bailey, who would help me analyze and enjoy it.
“Have a seat, Marguerite. Over there by the table.” She carried a platter covered
with a tea towel. Although she warned that she hadn’t tried her hand at baking
sweets for some time, I was certain that like everything else about her the cookies
would be perfect.
They were flat round wafers, slightly browned on the edges and butter-yellow in the
center. With the cold lemonade they were sufficient for childhood’s lifelong diet.
Remembering my manners, I took nice little ladylike bites off the edges. She said
she had made them expressly for me and that she had a few in the kitchen that I
could take home to my brother. So I jammed one whole cake in my mouth and the
rough crumbs scratched the insides of my jaws, and if I hadn’t had to swallow, it
would have been a dream come true.
As I ate she began the first of what we later called “my lessons in living.” She said
that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That
some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent
than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country
people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective
wisdom of generations.
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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . . .” Her voice slid in and curved
down through and over the words. She was nearly singing. I wanted to look at the
pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music, lined on the
pages, as in a hymn book? Her sounds began cascading gently. I knew from
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When I finished the cookies she brushed off the table and brought a thick, small
book from the bookcase. I had read A Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my
standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the
first time in my life.
listening to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the end of her reading, and I
hadn’t really heard, heard to understand, a single word.
“How do you like that?”
It occurred to me that she expected a response. The sweet vanilla flavor was still on
my tongue and her reading was a wonder in my ears. I had to speak.
I said, “Yes, ma’am.” It was the least I could do, but it was the most also.
“There’s one more thing. Take this book of poems and memorize one for me. Next
time you pay me a visit, I want you to recite.”
I have tried often to search behind the sophistication of years for the enchantment I
so easily found in those gifts. The essence escapes but its aura remains. To be
allowed, no, invited, into the private lives of strangers, and to share their joys and
fears, was a chance to exchange the Southern bitter wormwood for a cup of mead
with Beowulf or a hot cup of tea and milk with Oliver Twist. When I said aloud, “It
is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done . . .” tears of love filled my
eyes at my selflessness.
On that first day, I ran down the hill and into the road (few cars ever came along it)
and had the good sense to stop running before I reached the Store.
I was liked, and what a difference it made. I was respected not as Mrs. Henderson’s
grandchild or Bailey’s sister but for just being Marguerite Johnson.
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170
Childhood’s logic never asks to be proved (all conclusions are absolute). I didn’t
question why Mrs. Flowers had singled me out for attention, nor did it occur to me
that Momma might have asked her to give me a little talking-to. All I cared about
was that she had made tea cookies for me and read to me from her favorite book. It
was enough to prove that she liked me.
THE END
Eleven By Sandra Cisneros
What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that
when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and
five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your
eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and
everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all.
You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you
eleven.
Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s
still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because
you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when
you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay.
That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling
three.
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree
trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the
next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.
You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes
even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart
eleven, not until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is.
Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in
a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven
because if I was one hundred and two I’d have known what to say when Mrs. Price
put the red sweater on my desk. I would’ve known how to tell her it wasn’t mine
instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my
mouth.
“Whose is this?” Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all
the class to see. “Whose? It’s been sitting in the coatroom for a month.”
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“It has to belong to somebody,” Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember.
It’s an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched
171
“Not mine,” says everybody. “Not me.”
out like you could use it for a jump rope. It’s maybe a thousand years old and even
if it belonged to me I wouldn’t say so.
Maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me, that stupid Sylvia
Saldivar says, “I think it belongs to Rachel.” An ugly sweater like that, all raggedy
and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs. Price takes the sweater and puts it right
on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.
“That’s not, I don’t, you’re not . . . Not mine,” I finally say in a little voice that was
maybe me when I was four.
“Of course it’s yours,” Mrs. Price says, “I remember you wearing it once.” Because
she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.
Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two,
and math problem number four. I don’t know why but all of a sudden I’m feeling
sick inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to come out of my eyes, only I
squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember
today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when
Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.
But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater’s still
sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my
desk with my ruler. I move my pencil and books and eraser as far from it as
possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not mine.
In my head I’m thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red
sweater and throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking
meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley. Except when math
period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody, “Now, Rachel, that’s
enough,” because she sees I’ve shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of my
desk and it’s hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I don’t care.
“Rachel,” Mrs. Price says. She says it like she’s getting mad. “You put that sweater
on right now and no more nonsense.”
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“Now!” Mrs. Price says.
172
“But it’s not—“
This is when I wish I wasn’t eleven, because all the years inside of me—ten, nine,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes
when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage
cheese, and then the other arm through the other and stand there with my arms apart
like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that aren’t mine.
That’s when everything I’ve been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs.
Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I’m crying in
front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I’m not. I’m eleven and it’s my
birthday today and I’m crying like I’m three in front of everybody. I put my head
down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face all
hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can’t stop the little animal noises
from coming out of me, until there aren’t any more tears left in my eyes, and it’s
just my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like
when you drink milk too fast.
But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez,
who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is
hers! I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like
everything’s okay.
Today I’m eleven. There’s a cake Mama’s making for tonight, and when Papa
comes home from work we’ll eat it. There’ll be candles and presents and everybody
will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too late.
I’m eleven today. I’m eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and
one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven,
because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a
tiny o in the sky, so tiny-tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.
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173
From Woman Hollering Creek Copyright © 1991 by Sandra Cisneros. Reprinted by
permission of Susan Bergholtz Literary Services, New York. All rights reserved.
Recitatif by Toni Morrison
My mother danced all night and Roberta's was sick. That's why we were taken to
St. Bonny's. People want to put their arms around you when you tell them you were
in a shelter, but it really wasn't bad. No big long room with one hundred beds like
Bellevue. There were four to a room, and when Roberta and me came, there was a
shortage of state kids, so we were the only ones assigned to 406 and could go from
bed to bed if we wanted to. And we wanted to, too. We changed beds every night
and for the whole four months we were there we never picked one out as our own
permanent bed.
It didn't start out that way. The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced
us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early
in the morning-it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from
a whole other race. And Mary, that's my mother, she was right. Every now and then
she would stop dancing long enough to tell me something important and one of the
things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny.
Roberta sure did. Smell funny, I mean. So when the Big Bozo (nobody ever called
her Mrs. Itkin, just like nobody every said St. Bonaventure)-when she said, "Twyla,
this is Roberta. Roberta, this is Twyla. Make each other welcome." I said, "My
mother won't like you putting me in here."
"Good," said Bozo. "Maybe then she'll come and take you home."
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Turn around," said the Bozo. "Don't be rude. Now Twyla. Roberta. When you
hear a loudbuzzer, that's the call for dinner. Come down to the first floor. Any fights
and no movie." And then, just to make sure we knew what we would be missing,
"The Wizard of Oz.
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How's that for mean? If Roberta had laughed I would have killed her, but she
didn't. She just walked over to the window and stood with her back to us."
"Roberta must have thought I meant that my mother would be mad about my
being put in the shelter. Not about rooming with her, because as soon as Bozo left
she came over to me and said, "Is your mother sick too?"
"No," I said. "She just likes to dance all night."
"Oh," she nodded her head and I liked the way she understood things so fast. So
for the moment it didn't matter that we looked like salt and pepper standing there
and that's what the other kids called us sometimes. We were eight years old and got
F's all the time. Me because I couldn't remember what I read or what the teacher
said. And Roberta because she couldn't read at all and didn't even listen to the
teacher. She wasn't good at anything except jacks, at which she was a killer: pow
scoop pow scoop pow scoop.
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It really wasn't bad, St. Bonny's. The big girls on the second floor pushed us
around now and then. But that was all. They wore lipstick and eyebrow pencil and
wobbled their knees while they watched TV. Fifteen, sixteen, even, some of them
were. They were put-out girls, scared runaways most of them. Poor little girls who
fought their uncles off but looked tough to us, and mean. Goddid they look mean.
The staff tried to keep them separate from the younger children, but sometimes they
caught us watching them in the orchard where they played radios and danced with
each other. They'd light out after us and pull our hair or twist our arms. We were
scared of them, Roberta and me, but neither of us wanted the other one to know it.
175
We didn't like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play
with us because we weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We
were dumped. Even the New York City Puerto Ricans and the upstate Indians
ignored us. All kinds of kids were in there, black ones, white ones, even two
Koreans. The food was good, though. At least I thought so. Roberta hated it and left
whole pieces of things on her plate: Spam, Salisbury steak-even jello with fruit
cocktail in it, and she didn't care if I ate what she wouldn't. Mary's idea of supper
was popcorn and a can of Yoo-Hoo. Hot mashed potatoes and two weenies was like
Thanksgiving for me.
So we got a good list of dirty names we could shout back when we ran from them
through the orchard. I used to dream a lot and almost always the orchard was there.
Two acres, four maybe, of these little apple trees. Hundreds of them. Empty and
crooked like beggar women when I first came to St. Bonny's but fat with flowers
when I left. I don't know why I dreamt about that orchard so much. Nothing really
happened there. Nothing all that important, I mean. Just the big girls dancing and
playing the radio. Roberta and me watching. Maggie fell down there once. The
kitchen woman with legs like parentheses. And the big girls laughed at her. We
should have helped her up, I know, but we were scared of those girls with lipstick
and eyebrow pencil. Maggie couldn't talk. The kids said she had her tongue cut out,
but I think she was just born that way: mute. She was old and sandy-colored and she
worked in the kitchen. I don't know if she was nice or not. I just remember her legs
like parentheses and how she rocked when she walked. She worked from early in
the morning till two o'clock, and if she was late, if she had too much cleaning and
didn't get out till two-fifteen or so, she'd cut through the orchard so she wouldn't
miss her bus and have to wait another hour. She wore this really stupid little hat-a
kid's hat with ear flaps-and she wasn't much taller than we were. A really awful
little hat. Even for a mute, it was dumb-dressing like a kid and never saying
anything at all."
But what about if somebody tries to kill her?" I used to wonder about that. "Or
what if she wants to cry? Can she cry?"
"Sure," Roberta said. "But just tears. No sounds come out."
"She can't scream?"
"Nope. Nothing."
Page
"I guess."
176
"Can she hear?"
"Let's call her," I said. And we did.
"Dummy! Dummy!" She never turned her head
"Bow legs! Bow legs!" Nothing. She just rocked on, the chin straps of her babyboy hat swaying from side to side. I think we were wrong. I think she could hear
and didn't let on. And it shames me even now to think there was somebody in there
after all who heard us call her those names and couldn't tell on us.
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I think it was the day before Maggie fell down that we found out our mothers
were coming to visit us on the same Sunday. We had been at the shelter twentyeight days (Roberta twenty-eight and a half) and this was their first visit with us.
Our mothers would come at ten o'clock in time for chapel, then lunch with us in the
teachers' lounge. I thought if my dancing mother met her sick mother it might be
good for her. And Roberta thought her sick mother would get a big bang out of a
dancing one. We got excited about it and curled each other's hair. After breakfast
we sat on the bed watching the road from the window. Roberta's socks were still
wet. She washed them the night before and put them on the radiator to dry. They
hadn't, but she put them on anyway because their tops were so pretty- scalloped in
pink. Each of us had a purple construction-paper basket that we had made in craft
class. Mine had a yellow crayon rabbit on it. Roberta's had eggs with wiggly lines
of color. Inside were cellophane grass and just the jelly beans because I'd eaten the
two marshmallow eggs they gave us. The Big Bozo came herself to get us. Smiling
she told us we looked very nice and to come downstairs. We were so surprised by
the smile we'd never seen before, neither of us moved.
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We got along all right, Roberta and me. Changed beds every night, got F's in
civics and communication skills and gym. The Bozo was disappointed in us, she
said. Out of 130 of us statecases, 90 were under twelve. Almost all were real
orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were the only ones dumped and
the only ones with F's in three classes including gym. So we got along-what with
her leaving whole pieces of things on her plate and being nice about no tasking
questions.
"Don't you want to see your mommies?"
I stood up first and spilled the jelly beans all over the floor. Bozo's smile
disappeared while we scrambled to get the candy up off the floor and put it back in
the grass.
She escorted us downstairs to the first floor, where the other girls were lining up
to file into the chapel. A bunch of grown-ups stood to one side. Viewers mostly.
The old biddies who wanted servants and the fags who wanted company looking for
children they might want to adopt. Once in a while a grandmother. Almost never
anybody young or anybody whose face wouldn't scare you in the night. Because if
any of the real orphans had young relatives they wouldn't be real orphans. I saw
Mary right away. She had on those green slacks I hated and hated even more now
because didn't she know we were going to chapel? And that fur jacket with the
pocket linings so ripped she had to pull to get her hands out of them. But her face
was pretty-like always, and she smiled and waved like she was the little girl looking
for her mother- not me.
I walked slowly, trying not to drop the jelly beans and hoping the paper handle
would hold. I had to use my last Chiclet because by the time I finished cutting
everything out, all the Elmer's was gone. I am left-handed and the scissors never
worked for me. It didn't matter, though; I might just as well have chewed the gum.
Mary dropped to her knees and grabbed me, mashing the basket, the jelly beans,
and the grass into her ratty fur jacket.
Page
I could have killed her. Already I heard the big girls in the orchard the next time
saying, "Twyyyyyla, baby!" But I couldn't stay mad at Mary while she was smiling
and hugging me and smelling of Lady Esther dusting powder. I wanted to stay
buried in her fur all day.
178
"Twyla, baby. Twyla, baby!"
To tell the truth I forgot about Roberta. Mary and I got in line for the traipse into
chapel and I was feeling proud because she looked so beautiful even in those ugly
green slacks that made her behind stick out. A pretty mother on earth is better than a
beautiful dead one in the sky even if she did leave you all alone to go dancing.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned, and saw Roberta smiling. I smiled back, but
not too much lest somebody think this visit was the biggest thing that ever
happened in my life. Then Roberta said, "Mother, I want you to meet my roommate,
Twyla. And that's Twyla's mother."
We were supposed to have lunch in the teachers' lounge, but Mary didn't bring
Page
Mary, simple-minded as ever, grinned and tried to yank her hand out of the
pocket with the raggedy lining-to shake hands, I guess. Roberta's mother looked
down at me and then looked down at Mary too. She didn't say anything, just
grabbed Roberta with her Bible-free hand and stepped tout of line, walking quickly
to the rear of it. Mary was still grinning because she's not too swift when it comes to
what's really going on. Then this light bulb goes off in her head and she says "That
bitch!" really loud and us almost in the chapel now. Organ music whining; the
Bonny Angels singing sweetly. Everybody in the world turned around to look. And
Mary would have kept it up-kept calling names if I hadn't squeezed her hand as
hard as I could. That helped a little, but she still twitched and crossed and uncrossed
her legs all through service. Even groaned a couple of times. Why did I think she
would come there and act right? Slacks. No hat like the grandmothers and viewers,
and groaning all the while. When we stood for hymns she kept her mouth shut.
Wouldn't even look at the words on the page. She actually reached in her purse for a
mirror to check her lipstick. All I could think of was that she really needed to be
killed. The sermon lasted a year, and I knew the real orphans were looking smug
again.
179
I looked up it seemed for miles. She was big. Bigger than any man and on her
chest was the biggest cross I'd ever seen. I swear it was six inches long each way.
And in the crook of her arm was the biggest Bible ever made.
anything, so we picked fur and cellophane grass off the mashed jelly beans and ate
them. I could have killed her. I sneaked a look at Roberta. Her mother had brought
chicken legs and ham sandwiches and oranges and a whole box of chocolatecovered grahams. Roberta drank milk from a thermos while her mother read the
Bible to her.
Things are not right. The wrong food is always with the wrong people. Maybe
that's why I got into waitress work later-to match up the right people with the right
food. Roberta just let those chicken legs sit there, but she did bring a stack of
grahams up to me later when the visit was over. I think she was sorry that her
mother would not shake my mother's hand. And I liked that and I liked the fact that
she didn't say a word about Mary groaning all the way through the service and not
bringing any lunch.
Page
I was working behind the counter at the Howard Johnson's on the Thruway just
before the Kingston exit. Not a bad job. Kind of a long ride from Newburgh, but
okay once I got there. Mine was the second night shift-eleven to seven. Very light
until a Greyhound checked in for breakfast around six-thirty. At that hour the sun
was all the way clear of the hills behind the restaurant. The place looked better at
night-more like shelter- but I loved it when the sun broke in, even if it did show all
180
Roberta left in May when the apple trees were heavy and white. On her last day
we went to the orchard to watch the big girls smoke and dance by the radio. It didn't
matter that they said, "Twyyyyyla, baby." We sat on the ground and breathed. Lady
Esther. Apple blossoms. I still go soft when I smell one or the other. Roberta was
going home. The big cross and the big Bible was coming to get her and she seemed
sort of glad and sort of not. I thought I would die in that room of four beds without
her and I knew Bozo had plans to move some other dumped kid in there with me.
Roberta promised to write every day, which was really sweet of her because she
couldn't read a lick so how could she write anybody. I would have drawn pictures
and sent them to her but she never gave me her address. Little by little she faded.
Her wet socks with the pink scalloped tops and her big serious-looking eyes-that's
all I could catch when I tried to bring her to mind.
the cracks in the vinyl and the speckled floor looked dirty no matter what the mop
boy did.
It was August and a bus crowd was just unloading. They would stand around a
long while: going to the john, and looking at gifts and junk-for-sale machines,
reluctant to sit down so soon. Even to eat. I was trying to fill the coffee pots and get
them all situated on the electric burners when I saw her. She was sitting in a booth
smoking a cigarette with two guys smothered in head and facial hair. Her own hair
was so big and wild I could hardly see her face. But the eyes. I would know them
anywhere. She had on a powder-blue halter and shorts outfit and earrings the size of
bracelets. Talk about lipstick and eyebrow pencil. She made the big girls look like
nuns. I couldn't get off the counter until seven o'clock, but I kept watching the booth
in case they got up to leave before that. My replacement was on time for a change,
so I counted and stacked my receipts as fast as I could and signed off. I walked over
to the booths, smiling and wondering if she would remember me. Or even if she
wanted to remember me. Maybe she didn't want to be reminded of St. Bonny's or to
have anybody know she was ever there. I know I never talked about it to anybody.
I put my hands in my apron pockets and leaned against the back of the booth
facing them.
"Roberta? Roberta Fisk?"
She looked up. "Yeah?"
"Twyla."
She squinted for a second and then said, "Wow."
Page
"Sure. Hey. Wow."
181
"Remember me?"
"It's been a while," I said, and gave a smile to the two hairy guys.
"Yeah. Wow. You work here?"
"Yeah," I said. "I live in Newburgh."
"Newburgh? No kidding?" She laughed then a private laugh that included the
guys but only the guys, and they laughed with her. What could I do but laugh too
and wonder why I was standing there with my knees showing out from under that
uniform. Without looking I could see the blue and white triangle on my head, my
hair shapeless in a net, my ankles thick in white oxfords. Nothing could have been
less sheer than my stockings. There was this silence that came downright after I
laughed. A silence it was her turn to fill up. With introductions, maybe, to her
boyfriends or an invitation to sit down and have a Coke. Instead she lit a cigarette
off the one she'd just finished and said, "We're on our way to the Coast. He's got an
appointment with Hendrix."
She gestured casually toward the boy next to her.
"Hendrix Fantastic," I said. "Really fantastic. What's she doing now?"
Roberta coughed on her cigarette and the two guys rolled their eyes up at the
ceiling."
Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix, asshole. He's only the biggest-Oh, wow. Forget it."
"Pretty as a picture," I said and turned away. The backs of my knees were damp.
Page
"How's your mother?" I asked. Her grin cracked her whole face. She swallowed.
"Fine," she said. "How's yours?"
182
I was dismissed without anyone saying goodbye, so I thought I would do it for
her.
Howard Johnson's really was a dump in the sunlight.
Waiting in the check-out line I heard a voice say, "Twyla!"
Page
But the town they remembered had changed. Something quick was in the air.
Magnificent old houses, so ruined they had become shelter for squatters and rent
risks, were bought and renovated. Smart IBM people moved out of their suburbs
back into the city and put shutters up and herb gardens in their backyards. A
brochure came in the mail announcing the opening of a Food Emporium. Gourmet
food it said-and listed items the rich IBM crowd would want. It was located in a
new mall at the edge of town and I drove out to shop there one day-just to see. It
was late in June. After the tulips were gone and the Queen Elizabeth roses were
open everywhere. It railed my cart along the aisle tossing in smoked oysters and
Robert's sauce and things I knew would sit in my cupboard for years. Only when I
found some Klondike ice cream bars did I feel less guilty about spending James's
fireman's salary so foolishly. My father-in-law ate them with the same gusto little
Joseph did.
183
James is as comfortable as a house slipper. He liked my cooking and I liked his
big loud family. They have lived in Newburgh all of their lives and talk about it the
way people do who have always known a home. His grandmother is a porch swing
older than his father and when they talk about streets and avenues and buildings
they call them names they no longer have. They still call the A & P Rico's because
it stands on property once a mom and pop store owned by Mr. Rico. And they call
the new community college Town Hall because it once was. My mother-in-law puts
up jelly and cucumbers and buys butter wrapped in cloth from a dairy. James and
his father talk about fishing and baseball and I can see them all together on the
Hudson in a raggedy skiff. Half the population of Newburgh is on welfare now, but
to my husband's family it was still some upstate paradise of a time long past. A time
of ice houses and vegetable wagons, coal furnaces and children weeding gardens.
When our son was born my mother-in-law gave me the crib blanket that had been
hers.
The classical music piped over the aisles had affected me and the woman leaning
toward me was dressed to kill. Diamonds on her hand, a smart white summer dress.
"I'm Mrs. Benson," I said.
"Ho. Ho. The Big Bozo," she sang.
For a split second I didn't know what she was talking about. She had a bunch of
asparagus and two cartons of fancy water.
"Roberta!"
"Right."
"For heaven's sake. Roberta."
"You look great," she said.
"So do you. Where are you? Here? In Newburgh?"
"Yes. Over in Annandale."
I was opening my mouth to say more when the cashier called my attention to her
empty counter.
Page
I placed the groceries and kept myself from glancing around to check Roberta's
progress. I remembered Howard Johnson's and looking for a chance to speak only
to be greeted with a stingy "wow." But she was waiting for me and her huge hair
was sleek now, smooth around a small, nicely shaped head. Shoes, dress, everything
lovely and summery and rich. I was dying to know what happened to her, how she
got from Jimi Hendrix to Annandale, a neighborhood full of doctors and IBM
184
"Meet you outside." Roberta pointed her finger and went into the express line.
executives. Easy, I thought. Everything is so easy for them. They think they own
the world.
"How long," I asked her. "How long have you been here?"
"A year. I got married to a man who lives here. And you, you're married too,
right? Benson, you said."
"Yeah. James Benson."
"And is he nice?"
"Oh, is he nice?"
"Well, is he?" Roberta's eyes were steady as though she really meant the question
and wanted an answer."
He's wonderful, Roberta. Wonderful."
"So you're happy."
"Very."
"That's good," she said and nodded her head. "I always hoped you'd be happy.
Any kids? I know you have kids."
"One. A boy. How about you?"
She laughed. "Step kids. He's a widower."
Page
"Four?"
185
"Four."
"Oh."
"Got a minute? Let's have a coffee."
I thought about the Klondikes melting and the inconvenience of going all the way
to my car and putting the bags in the trunk. Served me right for buying all that stuff
I didn't need. Roberta was ahead of me."
Put them in my car. It's right here."
And then I saw the dark blue limousine.
"You married a Chinaman?"
"No," she laughed. "He's the driver."
Page
We both giggled. Really giggled. Suddenly, in just a pulse beat, twenty years
disappeared and all of it came rushing back. The big girls (whom we called gar
girls-Roberta's misheard word for the evil stone faces described in a civics class)
there dancing in the orchard, the ploppy mashed potatoes, the double weenies, the
Spam with pineapple. We went into the coffee shop holding onto one another and I
tried to think why we were glad to see each other this time and not before. Once,
twelve years ago, we passed like strangers. A black girl and a white girl meeting in
a Howard Johnson's on the road and having nothing to say. One in a blue and white
triangle waitresshat-the other on her way to see, Hendrix. Now we were behaving
like sisters separated for much too long. Those four short months were nothing in
time. Maybe it was the thing itself. Just being there, together. Two little girls who
knew what nobody else in the world knew-how not to ask questions. How to believe
what had to be believed. There was politeness in that reluctance and generosity as
well. Is your mother sick too? No, she dances all night. Oh--and an understanding
186
"Oh, my. If the Big Bozo could see you now."
nod.
We sat in a booth by the window and fell into recollection like veterans."
Did you ever learn to read?"
"Watch." She picked up the menu. "Special of the day. Cream of corn soup.
Entrees. Two dots and a wriggly line. Quiche. Chef salad, scallops . . .
I was laughing and applauding when the waitress came up.
"Remember the Easter baskets?"
"And how we tried to introduce them?"
"Your mother with that cross like two telephone poles."
"And yours with those tight slacks."
We laughed so loudly heads turned and made the laughter harder to suppress."
What happened to the Jimi Hendrix date?"
Roberta made a blow-out sound with her lips."
When he died I thought about you."
"Oh, you heard about him finally?"
Page
"And I was a small-town country dropout. God, were we wild. I still don't know
how I got out of there alive."
187
"Finally. Come on, I was a small-town country waitress."
"But you did."
"I did. I really did. Now I'm Mrs. Kenneth Norton."
"Sounds like a mouthful."
"It is."
"Servants and all?"
Roberta held up two fingers.
"Ow! What does he do?"
"Computers and stuff. What do I know?"
"I don't remember a hell of a lot from those days, but Lord, St. Bonny's is as clear
as daylight. Remember Maggie? The day she fell down and those gar girls laughed
at her?"
Roberta looked up from her salad and stared at me. "Maggie didn't fall," she
said."
Yes, she did. You remember."
"No, Twyla. They knocked her down. Those girls pushed her down and tore her
clothes. In the orchard."
Page
"Sure it is. In the orchard. Remember how scared we were?"
188
"I don't--that's not what happened."
"Wait a minute. I don't remember any of that."
"And Bozo was fired."
"You're crazy. She was there when I left. You left before me."
"I went back. You weren't there when they fired Bozo."
"What?"
"Twice. Once for a year when I was about ten, another for two months when I
was fourteen. That's when I ran away."
"You ran away from St. Bonny's?"
"I had to. What do you want? Me dancing in that orchard?"
"Are you sure about Maggie?"
"Of course I'm sure. You've blocked it, Twyla. It happened. Those girls had
behavior problems, you know."
"Didn't they, though. But why can't I remember the Maggie thing?"
"Believe me. It happened. And we were there."
"Who did you room with when you went back?" I asked her as if I would know
her. The Maggie thing was troubling me."
Page
My ears were itching and I wanted to go home suddenly. This was all very well
but she couldn't just comb her hair, wash her face and pretend everything was
189
Creeps. They tickled themselves in the night."
hunky-dory. After the Howard Johnson's snub. And no apology. Nothing.
"Were you on dope or what that time at Howard Johnson's?" I tried to make my
voice sound friendlier than I felt."
Maybe, a little. I never did drugs much. Why?"
"I don't know; you acted sort of like you didn't want to know me then."
"Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how
everything was."
But I didn't know. I thought it was just the opposite. Busloads of blacks and
whites came into Howard Johnson's together. They roamed together then: students,
musicians, lovers, protesters. You got to see everything at Howard Johnson's and
blacks were very friendly with whites in those days. But sitting there with nothing
on my plate but two hard tomato wedges wondering about the melting Klondikes it
seemed childish remembering the slight. We went to her car, and with the help of
the driver, got my stuff into my station wagon.
"We'll keep in touch this time," she said.
"Sure," I said. "Sure. Give me a call."
"I will," she said, and then just as I was sliding behind the wheel, she leaned into
the window. "By the way. Your mother. Did she ever stop dancing?"
I shook my head. "No. Never."
Page
"And yours? Did she ever get well?"
190
Roberta nodded.
She smiled a tiny sad smile. "No. She never did. Look, call me, okay?"
"Okay," I said, but I knew I wouldn't. Roberta had messed up my past somehow
with that business about Maggie. I wouldn't forget a thing like that. Would I?
Strife came to us that fall. At least that's what the paper called it. Strife. Racial
strife. The word made me think of a bird-a big shrieking bird out of 1,000,000,000
B.C. Flapping its wings and cawing. Its eye with no lid always bearing down on
you. All day it screeched and at night it slept on the rooftops. It woke you in the
morning and from the Today show to the eleven o'clock news it kept you an awful
company. I couldn't figure it out from one day to the next. I knew I was supposed to
feel something strong, but I didn't know what, and James wasn't any help. Joseph
was on the list of kids to be transferred from the junior high school to another one at
some far-out-of-the-way place and I thought it was a good thing until I heard it was
a bad thing. I mean I didn't know. All the schools seemed dumps tome, and the fact
that one was nicer looking didn't hold much weight. But the papers were full of it
and then the kids began to get jumpy. In August, mind you. Schools weren't even
open yet. I thought Joseph might be frightened to go over there, but he didn't seem
scared so I forgot about it, until I found myself driving along Hudson Street out
there by the school they were trying to integrate and saw a line of women marching.
And who do you suppose was in line, big as life, holding a sign in front of her
bigger than her mother s cross? MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO! it said.
I drove on, and then changed my mind. I circled the block, slowed down, and
honked my horn.
Page
Hi."
191
Roberta looked over and when she saw me she waved. I didn't wave back, but I
didn't move either. She handed her sign to another woman and came over to where I
was parked."
"What are you doing?"
"Picketing. What's it look like?"
"What for?"
"What do you mean, 'What for?' They want to take my kids and send them out of
the neighborhood. They don't want to go."
"So what if they go to another school? My boy's being bussed too, and I don't
mind. Why should you?"
"It's not about us, Twyla. Me and you. It's about our kids."
"What's more us than that?"
"Well, it is a free country."
"Not yet, but it will be."
"What the hell does that mean? I'm not doing anything to you."
"You really think that?"
"I know it."
"I wonder what made me think you were different."
Page
"Look at them," I said. "Just look. Who do they think they are? Swarming all
over the place like they own it. And now they think they can decide where my child
goes to school. Look at them, Roberta. They're Bozos."
192
"I wonder what made me think you were different."
Roberta turned around and looked at the women. Almost all of them were
standing still now, waiting. Some were even edging toward us. Roberta looked at
me out of some refrigerator behind her eyes. "No, they're not. They're just mothers."
"And what am I? Swiss cheese?"
"I used to curl your hair."
"I hated your hands in my hair."
The women were moving. Our faces looked mean to them of course and they
looked as though they could not wait to throw themselves in front of a police car, or
better yet, into my car and drag me away by my ankles. Now they surrounded my
car and gently, gently began to rock it. I swayed back and forth like a sideways yoyo. Automatically I reached for Roberta, like the old days in the orchard when they
saw us watching them and we had to get out of there, and if one of us fell the other
pulled her up and if one of us was caught the other stayed to kick and scratch, and
neither would leave the other behind. My arm shot out of the car window but no
receiving hand was there. Roberta was looking at me sway from side to side in the
car and her face was still. My purse slid from the car seat down under the
dashboard. The four policemen who had been drinking Tab in their car finally got
the message and strolled over, forcing their way through the women. Quietly, firmly
they spoke. "Okay, ladies. Back in line or off the streets."
Page
Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you're not. You're the same little state kid
who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground. You kicked a
193
Some of them went away willingly; others had to be urged away from the car
doors and the hood. Roberta didn't move. She was looking steadily at me. I was
fumbling to turn on the ignition, which wouldn't catch because the gearshift was
still in drive. The seats of the car were a mess because the swaying had thrown my
grocery coupons all over it and my purse was sprawled on the floor."
black lady and you have the nerve to call me a bigot."
The coupons were everywhere and the guts of my purse were bunched under the
dashboard. What was she saying? Black? Maggie wasn't black.
"She wasn't black," I said.
"Like hell she wasn't, and you kicked her. We both did. You kicked a black lady
who couldn't even scream."
"Liar!"
"You're the liar! Why don't you just go on home and leave us alone, huh?"
She turned away and I skidded away from the curb.
Page
Roberta didn't acknowledge my presence in any way and I got to thinking maybe
she didn't know I was there. I began to pace myself in the line, jostling people one
minute and lagging behind the next, so Roberta and I could reach the end of our
194
The next morning I went into the garage and cut the side out of the carton our
portable TV had come in. It wasn't nearly big enough, but after a while I had a
decent sign: red spray-painted letters on a white background-AND SO DO
CHILDREN****. I meant just to go down to the school and tack it up somewhere
so those cows on the picket line across the street could see it, but when I got there,
some ten or so others had already assembled- protesting the cows across the street.
Police permits and everything. I got in line and we strutted in time on our side while
Roberta's group strutted on theirs. That first day we were all dignified, pretending
the other side didn't exist. The second day there was name calling and finger
gestures. But that was about all. People changed signs from time to time, but
Roberta never did and neither did I. Actually my sign didn't make sense without
Roberta's. "And so do children what?" one of the women on my side asked me.
Have rights, I said, as though it was obvious.
respective lines at the same time and there would be a moment in our tum when we
would face each other. Still, I couldn't tell whether she saw meand knew my sign
was for her. The next day I went early before we were scheduled to assemble. I
waited until she got there before I exposed my new creation. As soon as she hoisted
her MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO I began to wave my new one, which said,
HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? I know she saw that one, but I had gotten addicted
now. My signs got crazier each day, and the women on my side decided that I was a
kook. They couldn't make heads or tails out of my brilliant screaming posters.
I brought a painted sign in queenly red with huge black letters that said, IS
YOUR MOTHER WELL? Roberta took her lunch break and didn't come back for
the rest of the day or any day after. Two days later I stopped going too and couldn't
have been missed because nobody understood my signs anyway.
Page
I couldn't help looking for Roberta when Joseph graduated from high school, but
I didn't see her. It didn't trouble me much what she had said to me in the car. I mean
195
It was a nasty six weeks. Classes were suspended and Joseph didn't go to
anybody's school until October. The children- everybody's children-soon got bored
with that extended vacation they thought was going to be so great. They looked at
TV until their eyes flattened. I spent a couple of mornings tutoring my son, as the
other mothers said we should. Twice I opened a text from last year that he had
never turned in. Twice he yawned in my face. Other mothers organized living room
sessions so the kids would keep up. None of the kids could concentrate so they
drifted back to The Price Is Right and The Brady Bunch. When the school finally
opened there were fights once or twice and some sirens roared through the streets
every once in a while. There were a lot of photographers from Albany. And just
when ABC was about to send up a news crew, the kids settled down like nothing in
the world had happened. Joseph hung my HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? sign in
his bedroom. I don't know what became of AND SO DO CHILDREN****. I think
my father-in-law cleaned some fish on it. He was always puttering around in our
garage. Each of his five children lived in Newburgh and he acted as though he had
five extra homes.
"Twyla?"
Page
We decided not to have a tree, because Christmas would be at my mother-inlaw's house, so why have a tree at both places? Joseph was at SUNY New Paltz and
we had to economize, we said. But at the last minute, I changed my mind. Nothing
could be that bad. So I rushed around town looking for a tree, something small but
wide. By the time I found a place, it was snowing and very late. I dawdled like it
was the most important purchase in the world and the tree man was fed up with me.
Finally I chose one and had it tied onto the trunk of the car. I drove away slowly
because the sand trucks were not out yet and the streets could be murder at the
beginning of a snowfall. Downtown the streets were wide and rather empty except
for a cluster of people coming out of the Newburgh Hotel. The one hotel in town
that wasn't built out of cardboard and Plexiglas. A party, probably. The men
huddled in the snow were dressed in tails and the women had on furs. Shiny things
glittered from underneath their coats. It made me tired to look at them. Tired, tired,
tired. On the next corner was a small diner with loops and loops of paper bells in
the window. I stopped the car and went in. Just for a cup of coffee and twenty
minutes of peace before I went home and tried to finish everything before
Christmas Eve.
196
the kicking part. I know I didn't do that, I couldn't do that. But I was puzzled by her
telling me Maggie was black. When I thought about it I actually couldn't be certain.
She wasn't pitch-black, I knew, or I would have remembered that. What I remember
was the kiddie hat, and the semicircle legs. I tried to reassure myself about the race
thing for a long time until it dawned on me that the truth was already there, and
Roberta knew it. I didn't kick her; I didn't join in with the gar girls and kick that
lady, but I sure did want to. We watched and never tried to help her and never
called for help. Maggie was my dancing mother. Deaf, I thought, and dumb.
Nobody inside. Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night. Nobody who
could tell you anything important that you could use. Rocking, dancing, swaying as
she walked. And when the gar girls pushed her down, and started roughhousing, I
knew she wouldn't scream, couldn't-just like me and I was glad about that.
There she was. In a silvery evening gown and dark fur coat. A man and another
woman were with her, the man fumbling for change to put in the cigarette machine.
The woman was humming and tapping on the counter with her fingernails. They all
looked a little bit drunk.
"Well. It's you."
"How are you?"
I shrugged. "Pretty good. Frazzled. Christmas and all."
"Regular?" called the woman from the counter.
"Fine," Roberta called back and then, "Wait for me in the car."
She slipped into the booth beside me. "I have to tell you something, Twyla. I
made up my mind if I ever saw you again, I'd tell you."
"I'd just as soon not hear anything, Roberta. It doesn't matter now, anyway."
"No," she said. "Not about that."
"Don't be long," said the woman. She carried two regulars to go and the man
peeled his cigarette pack as they left.
"It's about St. Bonny's and Maggie."
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"Listen to me. I really did think she was black. I didn't make that up. I really
thought so. But now I can't be sure. I just remember her as old, so old. And because
she couldn't talk- well, you know, I thought she was crazy. She'd been brought up in
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"Oh, please."
an institution like my mother was and like I thought I would be too. And you were
right. We didn't kick her. It was the gar girls. Only them. But, well, I wanted to. I
really wanted them to hurt her. I said we did it, too. You and me, but that's not true.
And I don't want you to carry that around. It was just that I wanted to do it so bad
that day-wanting to is doing it."
Her eyes were watery from the drinks she'd had, I guess. I know it's that way with
me. One glass of wine and I start bawling over the littlest thing.
"We were kids, Roberta."
"Yeah. Yeah. I know, just kids."
"Eight."
"Eight."
"And lonely."
"Scared, too."
She wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand and smiled. "Well that's all I
wanted to say."
I nodded and couldn't think of any way to fill the silence that went from the diner
past the paperbells on out into the snow. It was heavy now. I thought I'd better wait
for the sand trucks before starting home.
"Did I tell you My mother, she never did stop dancing."
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"Sure."
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"Thanks, Roberta."
"Yes. You told me. And mine, she never got well." Roberta lifted her hands from
the tabletop and covered her face with her palms. When she took them away she
really was crying. "Oh shit, Twyla. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell happened to
Maggie?"
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1983
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The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in
pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the
vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the
silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della
counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be
Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.
So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs,
sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the
second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly
beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for
the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an
electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining
thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity
when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was
shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and
reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James
Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by
the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray
backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which
to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with
this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than
she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim.
Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something
fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the
honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a
pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his
reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate
conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
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Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were
shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she
pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they
both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and
his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the
flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day
to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the
janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out
his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of
brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her.
And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute
and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and
with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the
stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One
flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly,
hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of
it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"Give it to me quick," said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor.
She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no
other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a
platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by
substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should
do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must
be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both.
Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87
cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in
any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on
account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
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When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and
reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing
the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task,
dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made
her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the
mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me,
he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could
I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove
hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of
the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair
away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a
habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she
whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious.
Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed
a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes
were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read,
and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor
any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly
with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold
because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll
grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows
awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what
a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that
patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me
without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
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"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's
Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head
were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could
ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten
seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other
direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A
mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought
valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated
later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in
the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any
less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while
at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream
of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails,
necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of
the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had
worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with
jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were
expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over
them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses
that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim
eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her
open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright
and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the
time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on
it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the
back of his head and smiled.
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"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while.
They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your
combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts
to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of
exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the
uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed
for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of
these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all
who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest.
They are the magi.
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A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than
twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town.
A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a
fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace
commenced its seasonal roar.
A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing
tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small
and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders
are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like
that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are
sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the
windowpane, “it’s fruitcake weather!”
The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something.
We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I
can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have
power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much
aware of them. We are each other’s best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of
a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880s, when
she was still a child. She is still a child.
“I knew it before I got out of bed,” she says, turning away from the window with a
purposeful excitement in her eyes. “The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear.
And there were no birds singing; they’ve gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh,
Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. We’ve thirty
cakes to bake.”
It’s always the same: A morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though
officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination
and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our
buggy. Help me find my hat.”
The hat is found, a straw cartwheel corsaged with velvet roses out-of-doors has
faded; it once belonged to a more fashionable relative. Together, we guide our
buggy, a dilapidated baby carriage, out to the garden and into a grove of pecan
trees. The buggy is mine; that is, it was bought for me when I was born. It is made
of wicker, rather unraveled, and the wheels wobble like a drunkard’s legs. But it is a
faithful object; springtimes, we take it to the woods and fill it with flowers, herbs,
wild fern for our porch pots; in the summer, we pile it with picnic paraphernalia and
sugar-cane fishing poles and roll it down to the edge of the creek; it has its winter
uses, too: as a truck for hauling firewood from the yard to the kitchen, as a warm
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bed for Queenie, our tough little orange and white rat terrier who has survived
distemper and two rattlesnake bites. Queenie is trotting beside it now.
Three hours later we are back in the kitchen hulling a heaping buggyload of
windfall pecans. Our backs hurt from gathering them: How hard they were to find
(the main crop having been shaken off the trees and sold by the orchard’s owners,
who are not us) among the concealing leaves, the frosted, deceiving grass.
Caarackle! A cheery crunch, scraps of miniature thunder sound as the shells
collapse and the golden mound of sweet, oily, ivory meat mounts in the milk-glass
bowl. Queenie begs to taste, and now and again my friend sneaks her a mite, though
insisting we deprive ourselves. “We mustn’t, Buddy. If we start, we won’t stop.
And there’s scarcely enough as there is. For thirty cakes.” The kitchen is growing
dark. Dusk turns the window into a mirror: Our reflections mingle with the rising
moon as we work by the fireside in the firelight. At last, when the moon is quite
high, we toss the final hull into the fire and, with joined sighs, watch it catch flame.
The buggy is empty; the bowl is brimful.
We eat our supper (cold biscuits, bacon, blackberry jam) and discuss tomorrow.
Tomorrow the kind of work I like best begins: buying. Cherries and citron, ginger
and vanilla and canned Hawaiian pineapple, rinds and raisins and walnuts and
whiskey and oh, so much flour, butter, so many eggs, spices, flavorings: Why, we’ll
need a pony to pull the buggy home.
But before these purchases can be made, there is the question of money. Neither of
us has any. Except for skinflint sums persons in the house occasionally provide (a
dime is considered very big money); or what we earn ourselves from various
activities: holding rummage sales, selling buckets of handpicked blackberries, jars
of homemade jam and apple jelly and peach preserves, rounding up flowers for
funerals and weddings. Once we won seventy-ninth prize, five dollars, in a national
football contest. Not that we know a fool thing about football. It’s just that we enter
any contest we hear about: At the moment our hopes are centered on the fiftythousand-dollar Grand Prize being offered to name a new brand of coffee (we
suggested “A.M.”; and, after some hesitation, for my friend thought it perhaps
sacrilegious, the slogan “A.M.! Amen!”). To tell the truth, our only really profitable
enterprise was the Fun and Freak Museum we conducted in a backyard woodshed
two summers ago. The Fun was a stereopticon with slide views of Washington and
New York lent us by a relative who had been to those places (she was furious when
she discovered why we’d borrowed it); the Freak was a three-legged biddy chicken
hatched by one of our own hens. Everybody hereabouts wanted to see that biddy:
We charged grown-ups a nickel, kids two cents. And took in a good twenty dollars
before the museum shut down due to the decease of the main attraction.
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But one way and another we do each year accumulate Christmas savings, a
Fruitcake Fund. These moneys we keep hidden in an ancient bead purse under a
loose board under the floor under a chamber pot under my friend’s bed. The purse
is seldom removed from this safe location except to make a deposit, or, as happens
every Saturday, a withdrawal; for on Saturdays I am allowed ten cents to go to the
picture show. My friend has never been to a picture show, nor does she intend to:
“I’d rather hear you tell the story, Buddy. That way I can imagine it more. Besides,
a person my age shouldn’t squander their eyes. When the Lord comes, let me see
Him clear.” In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a
restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram,
read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished
someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few
things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in
this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till
they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believe in ghosts) so tingling
they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest
japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of old-time Indian cure, including
a magical wart-remover.
Now, with supper finished, we retire to the room in a faraway part of the house
where my friend sleeps in a scrap-quilt-covered iron bed painted rose pink, her
favorite color. Silently, wallowing in the pleasures of conspiracy, we take the bead
purse from its secret place and spill its contents on the scrap quilt. Dollar bills,
tightly rolled and green as May buds. Somber fifty-cent pieces, heavy enough to
weight a dead man’s eyes. Lovely dimes, the liveliest coin, the one that really
jingles. Nickels and quarters, worn smooth as creek pebbles. But mostly a hateful
heap of bitter-odored pennies. Last summer others in the house contracted to pay us
a penny for every twenty-five flies we killed. Oh, the carnage of August: the flies
that flew to heaven! Yet it was not work in which we took pride. And, as we sit
counting pennies, it is as though we were back tabulating dead flies. Neither of us
has a head for figures; we count slowly, lose track, start again. According to her
calculations, we have $12.73. According to mine, exactly $13. “I do hope you’re
wrong, Buddy. We can’t mess around with thirteen. The cakes will fall. Or put
somebody in the cemetery. Why, I wouldn’t dream of getting out of bed on the
thirteenth.” This is true: She always spends thirteenths in bed. So, to be on the safe
side, we subtract a penny and toss it out the window.
Of the ingredients that go into our fruitcakes, whiskey is the most expensive, as
well as the hardest to obtain: State laws forbid its sale. But everybody knows you
can buy a bottle from Mr. Haha Jones. And the next day, having completed our
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more prosaic shopping, we set out for Mr. Haha’s business address, a “sinful” (to
quote public opinion) fish-fry and dancing cafe down by the river. We’ve been
there before, and on the same errand; but in previous years our dealings have been
with Haha’s wife, an iodine-dark Indian woman with brassy peroxided hair and a
dead-tired disposition. Actually, we’ve never laid eyes on her husband, though
we’ve heard that he’s an Indian too. A giant with razor scars across his cheeks.
They call him Haha because he’s so gloomy, a man who never laughs. As we
approach his cafe (a large log cabin festooned inside and out with chains of garishgay naked light bulbs and standing by the river’s muddy edge under the shade of
river trees where moss drifts through the branches like gray mist) our steps slow
down. Even Queenie stops prancing and sticks close by. People have been
murdered in Haha’s cafe. Cut to pieces. Hit on the head. There’s a case coming up
in court next month. Naturally these goings-on happen at night when the colored
lights cast crazy patterns and the Victrola wails. In the daytime Haha’s is shabby
and deserted. I knock at the door, Queenie barks, my friend calls: “Mrs. Haha,
ma’am? Anyone to home?”
Footsteps. The door opens. Our hearts overturn. It’s Mr. Haha Jones himself! And
he is a giant; he does have scars; he doesn’t smile. No, he glowers at us through
Satan-tilted eyes and demands to know: “What you want with Haha?”
For a moment we are too paralyzed to tell. Presently my friend half finds her voice,
a whispery voice at best: “If you please, Mr. Haha, we’d like a quart of your finest
whiskey.”
His eyes tilt more. Would you believe it? Haha is smiling! Laughing, too. “Which
one of you is a drinkin’ man?”
“It’s for making fruitcakes, Mr. Haha. Cooking.”
This sobers him. He frowns. “That’s no way to waste good whiskey.” Nevertheless,
he retreats into the shadowed cafe and seconds later appears carrying a bottle of
daisy-yellow unlabeled liquor. He demonstrates its sparkle in the sunlight and says:
“Two dollars.”
We pay him with nickels and dimes and pennies. Suddenly, jangling the coins in his
hand like a fistful of dice, his face softens. “Tell you what,” he proposes, pouring
the money back into our bead purse, “just send me one of them fruitcakes instead.”
“Well,” my friend remarks on our way home, “there’s a lovely man. We’ll put an
extra cup of raisins in his cake.”
The black stove, stoked with coal and firewood, glows like a lighted pumpkin.
Eggbeaters whirl, spoons spin round in bowls of butter and sugar, vanilla sweetens
the air, ginger spices it; melting, nose-tingling odors saturate the kitchen, suffuse
the house, drift out to the world on puffs of chimney smoke. In four days our work
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is done. Thirty-one cakes, dampened with whiskey, bask on window sills and
shelves.
Who are they for?
Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends: Indeed, the larger share are intended for
persons we’ve met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who’ve struck our fancy.
Like President Roosevelt. Like the Reverend and Mrs. J. C. Lucey, Baptist
missionaries to Borneo who lectured here last winter. Or the little knife grinder who
comes through town twice a year. Or Abner Packer, the driver of the six o’clock bus
from Mobile, who exchanges waves with us every day as he passes in a dust-cloud
whoosh. Or the young Wistons, a California couple whose car one afternoon broke
down outside the house and who spent a pleasant hour chatting with us on the porch
(young Mr. Wiston snapped our picture, the only one we’ve ever had taken). Is it
because my friend is shy with everyone except strangers that these strangers, and
merest acquaintances, seem to us our truest friends? I think yes. Also, the
scrapbooks we keep of thank-you’s on White House stationery, time-to-time
communications from California and Borneo, the knife grinder’s penny postcards,
make us feel connected to eventful worlds beyond the kitchen with its views of a
sky that stops.
Now a nude December fig branch grates against the window. The kitchen is empty,
the cakes are gone; yesterday we carted the last of them to the post office, where the
cost of stamps turned our purse inside out. We’re broke. That rather depresses me,
but my friend insists on celebrating—with two inches of whiskey left in Haha’s
bottle. Queenie has a spoonful in a bowl of coffee (she likes her coffee chicoryflavored and strong). The rest we divide between a pair of jelly glasses. We’re both
quite awed at the prospect of drinking straight whiskey; the taste of it brings
screwed-up expressions and sour shudders. But by and by we begin to sing, the two
of us singing different songs simultaneously. I don’t know the words to mine, just:
Come on along, come on along, to the dark-town strutters’ ball. But I can dance:
That’s what I mean to be, a tap-dancer in the movies. My dancing shadow rollicks
on the walls; our voices rock the chinaware; we giggle as if unseen hands were
tickling us. Queenie rolls on her back, her paws plow the air, something like a grin
stretches her black lips. Inside myself, I feel warm and sparky as those crumbling
logs, carefree as the wind in the chimney. My friend waltzes round the stove, the
hem of her poor calico skirt pinched between her fingers as though it were a party
dress: Show me the way to go home, she sings, her tennis shoes squeaking on the
floor. Show me the way to go home.
Enter: two relatives. Very angry. Potent with eyes that scold, tongues that scald.
Listen to what they have to say, the words tumbling together into a wrathful tune:
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“A child of seven! whiskey on his breath! are you out of your mind? feeding a child
of seven! must be loony! road to ruination! remember Cousin Kate? Uncle Charlie?
Uncle Charlie’s brother-in-law? shame! scandal! humiliation! kneel, pray, beg the
Lord!”
Queenie sneaks under the stove. My friend gazes at her shoes, her chin quivers, she
lifts her skirt and blows her nose and runs to her room. Long after the town has
gone to sleep and the house is silent except for the chimings of clocks and the
sputter of fading fires, she is weeping into a pillow already as wet as a widow’s
handkerchief.
“Don’t cry,” I say, sitting at the bottom of her bed and shivering despite my flannel
nightgown that smells of last winter’s cough syrup, “don’t cry,” I beg, teasing her
toes, tickling her feet, “you’re too old for that.”
“It’s because,” she hiccups, “I am too old. Old and funny.”
“Not funny. Fun. More fun than anybody. Listen. If you don’t stop crying you’ll be
so tired tomorrow we can’t go cut a tree.”
She straightens up. Queenie jumps on the bed (where Queenie is not allowed) to
lick her cheeks. “I know where we’ll find real pretty trees, Buddy. And holly, too.
With berries big as your eyes. It’s way off in the woods. Farther than we’ve ever
been. Papa used to bring us Christmas trees from there: carry them on his shoulder.
That’s fifty years ago. Well, now: I can’t wait for morning.”
Morning. Frozen rime lusters the grass; the sun, round as an orange and orange as
hot-weather moons, balances on the horizon, burnishes the silvered winter woods.
A wild turkey calls. A renegade hog grunts in the undergrowth. Soon, by the edge
of knee-deep, rapid-running water, we have to abandon the buggy. Queenie wades
the stream first, paddles across, barking complaints at the swiftness of the current,
the pneumonia-making coldness of it. We follow, holding our shoes and equipment
(a hatchet, a burlap sack) above our heads. A mile more: of chastising thorns, burs
and briers that catch at our clothes; of rusty pine needles brilliant with gaudy fungus
and molted feathers. Here, there, a flash, a flutter, an ecstasy of shrillings remind us
that not all the birds have flown south. Always, the path unwinds through lemony
sun pools and pitch vine tunnels. Another creek to cross: A disturbed armada11 of
speckled trout froths the water round us, and frogs the size of plates practice belly
flops; beaver workmen are building a dam. On the farther shore, Queenie shakes
herself and trembles. My friend shivers, too: not with cold but enthusiasm. One of
her hat’s ragged roses sheds a petal as she lifts her head and inhales the pine-heavy
air. “We’re almost there; can you smell it, Buddy?” she says, as though we were
approaching an ocean.
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And, indeed, it is a kind of ocean. Scented acres of holiday trees, prickly-leafed
holly. Red berries shiny as Chinese bells: Black crows swoop upon them screaming.
Having stuffed our burlap sacks with enough greenery and crimson to garland a
dozen windows, we set about choosing a tree. “It should be,” muses my friend,
“twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can’t steal the star.” The one we pick is twice as
tall as me. A brave, handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it
keels with a creaking, rending cry. Lugging it like a kill, we commence the long
trek out. Every few yards we abandon the struggle, sit down, and pant. But we have
the strength of triumphant huntsmen; that and the tree’s virile, icy perfume revive
us, goad us on. Many compliments accompany our sunset return along the red clay
road to town; but my friend is sly and noncommittal when passers-by praise the
treasure perched in our buggy: What a fine tree and where did it come from?
“Yonderways,” she murmurs vaguely. Once a car stops and the rich mill owner’s
lazy wife leans out and whines: “Giveya twobits cash for that ol tree.” Ordinarily
my friend is afraid of saying no; but on this occasion she promptly shakes her head:
“We wouldn’t take a dollar.” The mill owner’s wife persists. “A dollar, my foot!
Fifty cents. That’s my last offer. Goodness, woman, you can get another one.” In
answer, my friend gently reflects: “I doubt it. There’s never two of anything.”
Home: Queenie slumps by the fire and sleeps till tomorrow, snoring loud as a
human.
A trunk in the attic contains: a shoe box of ermine tails (off the opera cape of a
curious lady who once rented a room in the house), coils of frazzled tinsel gone
gold with age, one silver star, a brief rope of dilapidated, undoubtedly dangerous
candylike light bulbs. Excellent decorations, as far as they go, which isn’t far
enough: My friend wants our tree to blaze “like a Baptist window,” droop with
weighty snows of ornament. But we can’t afford the made-in-Japan splendors at the
five-and-dime. So we do what we’ve always done: sit for days at the kitchen table
with scissors and crayons and stacks of colored paper. I make sketches and my
friend cuts them out: lots of cats, fish too (because they’re easy to draw), some
apples, some watermelons, a few winged angels devised from saved-up sheets of
Hershey-bar tinfoil. We use safety pins to attach these creations to the tree; as a
final touch, we sprinkle the branches with shredded cotton (picked in August for
this purpose). My friend, surveying the effect, clasps her hands together. “Now
honest, Buddy. Doesn’t it look good enough to eat?” Queenie tries to eat an angel.
It’s bad enough in life to do without something you want; but confound it, what gets
my goat is not being able to give somebody something you want them to have.
After weaving and ribboning holly wreaths for all the front windows, our next
project is the fashioning of family gifts. Tie-dye scarves for the ladies, for the men a
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home-brewed lemon and licorice and aspirin syrup to be taken “at the first
Symptoms of a Cold and after Hunting.” But when it comes time for making each
other’s gift, my friend and I separate to work secretly. I would like to buy her a
pearl-handled knife, a radio, a whole pound of chocolate-covered cherries (we
tasted some once and she always swears: “I could live on them, Buddy, Lord yes I
could—and that’s not taking His name in vain”). Instead, I am building her a kite.
She would like to give me a bicycle (she’s said so on several million occasions: “If
only I could, Buddy. It’s bad enough in life to do without something you want; but
confound it, what gets my goat is not being able to give somebody something you
want them to have. Only one of these days, I will, Buddy. Locate you a bike. Don’t
ask how. Steal it, maybe”). Instead, I’m fairly certain that she is building me a
kite—the same as last year, and the year before: The year before that we exchanged
slingshots. All of which is fine by me. For we are champion kite-fliers who study
the wind like sailors; my friend, more accomplished than I, can get a kite aloft when
there isn’t enough breeze to carry clouds.
Christmas Eve afternoon we scrape together a nickel and go to the butcher’s to buy
Queenie’s traditional gift, a good gnawable beef bone. The bone, wrapped in funny
paper, is placed high in the tree near the silver star. Queenie knows it’s there. She
squats at the foot of the tree, staring up in a trance of greed: When bedtime arrives
she refuses to budge. Her excitement is equaled by my own. I kick the covers and
turn my pillow as though it were a scorching summer’s night. Somewhere a rooster
crows: falsely, for the sun is still on the other side of the world.
“Buddy, are you awake?” It is my friend, calling from her room, which is next to
mine; and an instant later she is sitting on my bed holding a candle. “Well, I can’t
sleep a hoot,” she declares. “My mind’s jumping like a jack rabbit. Buddy, do you
think Mrs. Roosevelt will serve our cake at dinner?” We huddle in the bed, and she
squeezes my hand I-love-you. “Seems like your hand used to be so much smaller. I
guess I hate to see you grow up. When you’re grown up, will we still be friends?” I
say always. “But I feel so bad, Buddy. I wanted so bad to give you a bike. I tried to
sell my cameo Papa gave me. Buddy—” she hesitates, as though embarrassed. “I
made you another kite.” Then I confess that I made her one, too; and we laugh. The
candle burns too short to hold. Out it goes, exposing the starlight, the stars spinning
at the window like a visible caroling that slowly, slowly daybreak silences. Possibly
we doze; but the beginnings of dawn splash us like cold water: We’re up, wide-eyed
and wandering while we wait for others to waken. Quite deliberately my friend
drops a kettle on the kitchen floor. I tapdance in front of closed doors. One by one
the household emerges, looking as though they’d like to kill us both; but it’s
Christmas, so they can’t. First, a gorgeous breakfast: just everything you can
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imagine—from flapjacks and fried squirrel to hominy grits and honey-in-the-comb.
Which puts everyone in a good humor except my friend and me. Frankly, we’re so
impatient to get at the presents we can’t eat a mouthful.
Well, I’m disappointed. Who wouldn’t be? With socks, a Sunday school shirt, some
handkerchiefs, a hand-me-down sweater, and a year’s subscription to a religious
magazine for children, The Little Shepherd. It makes me boil. It really does.
My friend has a better haul. A sack of satsumas, that’s her best present. She is
proudest, however, of a white wool shawl knitted by her married sister. But she says
her favorite gift is the kite I built her. And it is very beautiful; though not as
beautiful as the one she made me, which is blue and scattered with gold and green
Good Conduct stars; moreover, my name is painted on it, “Buddy.”
“Buddy, the wind is blowing.”
The wind is blowing, and nothing will do till we’ve run to a pasture below the
house where Queenie has scooted to bury her bone (and where, a winter hence,
Queenie will be buried, too). There, plunging through the healthy, waist-high grass,
we unreel our kites, feel them twitching at the string like sky fish as they swim into
the wind. Satisfied, sun-warmed, we sprawl in the grass and peel satsumas and
watch our kites cavort. Soon I forget the socks and hand-me-down sweater. I’m as
happy as if we’d already won the fifty-thousand-dollar Grand Prize in that coffeenaming contest.
I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That
things as they are”—her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and
grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone—“just what they’ve always seen,
was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.” “My,
how foolish I am!” my friend cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too
late she has biscuits in the oven. “You know what I’ve always thought?” she asks in
a tone of discovery, and smiling not at me but a point beyond. “I’ve always thought
a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined
that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored
glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don’t know it’s getting dark.
And it’s been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling.
But I’ll wager it never happens. I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord
has already shown Himself. That things as they are”—her hand circles in a gesture
that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone—
“just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world
with today in my eyes.”
This is our last Christmas together.
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214
Life separates us. Those who Know Best decide that I belong in a military school.
And so follows a miserable succession of bugle-blowing prisons, grim reveilleridden summer camps. I have a new home too. But it doesn’t count. Home is where
my friend is, and there I never go.
“Oh my, it’s fruitcake weather!” And there she remains, puttering around the
kitchen. Alone with Queenie. Then alone. (“Buddy dear,” she writes in her wild
hard-to-read script, “yesterday Jim Macy’s horse kicked Queenie bad. Be thankful
she didn’t feel much. I wrapped her in a Fine Linen sheet and rode her in the buggy
down to Simpson’s pasture where she can be with all her Bones. . . .”) For a few
Novembers she continues to bake her fruitcakes single-handed; not as many, but
some: And, of course, she always sends me “the best of the batch.” Also, in every
letter she encloses a dime wadded in toilet paper: “See a picture show and write me
the story.” But gradually in her letters she tends to confuse me with her other friend,
the Buddy who died in the 1880s; more and more, thirteenths are not the only days
she stays in bed: A morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of
winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: “Oh my, it’s fruitcake
weather!”
And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of
news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part
of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across
a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As
if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.
Page
Summer was dead, but autumn had not yet been born when the ibis came to the
bleeding tree. It's strange that all this is so clear to me, now that time has had its
way. But sometimes (like right now) I sit in the cool green parlor, and I remember
Doodle.
Doodle was about the craziest brother a boy ever had. Doodle was born when I was
seven and was, from the start, a disappointment. He seemed all head, with a tiny
body that was red and shriveled like an old man's. Everybody thought he was going
to die.
Daddy had the carpenter build a little coffin, and when he was three months old,
Mama and Daddy named him William Armstrong. Such a name sounds good only
on a tombstone.
When he crawled on the rug, he crawled backward, as if he were in reverse and
couldn't change gears. This made him look like a doodlebug, so I began calling him
'Doodle.' Renaming my brother was probably the kindest thing I ever did for him,
because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle.
Daddy built him a cart and I had to pull him around. If I so much as picked up my
hat, he'd start crying to go with me; and Mama would call from wherever she was,
"Take Doodle with you."
So I dragged him across the cotton field to share the beauty of Old Woman Swamp.
I lifted him out and sat him down in the soft grass. He began to cry.
"What's the matter?"
"It's so pretty, Brother, so pretty."
After that, Doodle and I often went down to Old Woman Swamp.
There is inside me (and with sadness I have seen it in others) a knot of cruelty borne
by the stream of love. And at times I was mean to Doodle. One time I showed him
his casket, telling him how we all believed he would die. When I made him touch
the casket, he screamed. And even when we were outside in the bright sunshine he
clung to me, crying, "Don't leave me, Brother! Don't leave me!"
Doodle was five years old when I turned 13. I was embarrassed at having a brother
of that age who couldn't walk, so I set out to teach him. We were down in Old
Woman Swamp. "I'm going to teach you to walk, Doodle," I said.
"Why?"
"So I won't have to haul you around all the time."
"I can't walk, Brother."
"Who says so?"
"Mama, the doctor–everybody."
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The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst
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"Oh, you can walk." I took him by the arms and stood him up. He collapsed on to
the grass like a half-empty flour sack. It was as if his little legs had no bones.
"Don't hurt me, Brother."
"Shut up. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to teach you to walk." I heaved him
up again, and he collapsed.
"I just can't do it."
"Oh, yes, you can, Doodle. All you got to do is try. Now come on," and I hauled
him up once more.
It seemed so hopeless that it's a miracle I didn't give up. But all of us must have
something to be proud of, and Doodle had become my something.
Finally one day he stood alone for a few seconds. When he fell, I grabbed him in
my arms and hugged him, our laughter ringing through the swamp like a bell. Now
we knew it could be done.
We decided not to tell anyone until he was actually walking. At breakfast on our
chosen day I brought Doodle to the door in the cart. I helped Doodle up; and when
he was standing alone, I let them look. There wasn't a sound as Doodle walked
slowly across the room and sat down at the table. Then Mama began to cry and ran
over to him, hugging him and kissing him. Daddy hugged him, too. Doodle told
them it was I who had taught him to walk, so they wanted to hug me, and I began to
cry.
"What are you crying for?" asked Daddy, but I couldn't answer. They didn't know
that I did it just for myself, that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of
having a crippled brother.
Within a few months, Doodle had learned to walk well. Since I had succeeded in
teaching Doodle to walk, I began to believe in my own infallibility. I decided to
teach him to run, to row, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. Now he, too, believed
in me; so, we set a deadline when Doodle could start school.
But Doodle couldn't keep up with the plan. Once, he collapsed on the ground and
began to cry.
"Aw, come on, Doodle. You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody
else when you start school?"
"Does that make any difference?"
"It certainly does. Now, come on."
And so we came to those days when summer was dead but autumn had not yet been
born. It was Saturday noon, just a few days before the start of school. Daddy,
Mama, Doodle, and I were seated at the dining room table, having lunch. Suddenly
from out in the yard came a strange croaking noise. Doodle stopped eating. "What's
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that?" He slipped out into the yard, and looked up into the bleeding tree. "It's a big
red bird!"
Mama and Daddy came out. On the topmost branch perched a bird the size of a
chicken, with scarlet feathers and long legs.
At that moment, the bird began to flutter. It tumbled down through the bleeding tree
and landed at our feet with a thud. Its graceful neck jerked twice and then
straightened out, and the bird was still. It lay on the earth like a broken vase of red
flowers, and even death could not mar its beauty.
"What is it?" Doodle asked.
"It's a scarlet ibis," Daddy said.
Sadly, we all looked at the bird. How many miles had it traveled to die like this,
in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree?
Doodle knelt beside the ibis. "I'm going to bury him."
As soon as I had finished eating, Doodle and I hurried off to Horsehead Landing. It
was time for a swimming lesson, but Doodle said he was too tired. When we
reached Horsehead landing, lightning was flashing across half the sky, and thunder
was drowning out the sound of the sea.
Doodle was both tired and frightened. He slipped on the mud and fell. I helped him
up, and he smiled at me ashamedly. He had failed and we both knew it. He would
never be like the other boys at school.
We started home, trying to beat the storm. The lightning was near now. The faster I
walked, the faster he walked, so I began to run.
The rain came, roaring through the pines. And then, like a bursting Roman candle, a
gum tree ahead of us was shattered by a bolt of lightning. When the deafening
thunder had died, I heard Doodle cry out, "Brother, Brother, don't leave me! Don't
leave me!"
The knowledge that our plans had come to nothing was bitter, and that streak of
cruelty within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind with a
wall of rain dividing us. Soon I could hear his voice no more.
I stopped and waited for Doodle. The sound of rain was everywhere, but the wind
had died and it fell straight down like ropes hanging from the sky.
I peered through the downpour, but no one came. Finally I went back and found
him huddled beneath a red nightshade bush beside the road. He was sitting on the
ground, his face buried in his arms, which were resting on drawn-up knees. "Let's
go, Doodle."
He didn't answer so I gently lifted his head. He toppled backward onto the earth. He
had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were
stained a brilliant red.
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218
"Doodle, Doodle." There was no answer but the ropy rain. I began to weep, and the
tear-blurred vision in red before me looked very familiar. "Doodle!" I screamed
above the pounding storm and threw my body to the earth above his. For a long
time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis
Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio
Page
219
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.
I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking
about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here
talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted
over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into
carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?
Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns,
and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as
much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a
woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and
when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a
woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of
audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's
rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart,
wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as
men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did
your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down
all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side
up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to
say.
Poetry
I'm nobody! Who are you? by Emily
Success is counted sweetest by Emily
Dickinson
Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
I felt a funeral in my brain by Emily
Dickinson
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And being, but an ear,
And I and Silence some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then Emily Dickinson
As he defeated--dying-On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
Page
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
220
Hope is the thing with feathers by
Emily Dickinson
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221
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
When roses cease to bloom, dear by
Emily Dickinson
When roses cease to bloom, dear
and violets are done,
When bumblebees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer's day
Will idle lie, in Auburn.-Then take my flower, pray
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
A Dream Deferred by Langston
Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
Page
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
222
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,-When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
And Cheo the Bodega man sweeps the
steps
to his store and tells the doubting
woman
At day’s end,
you scale the seven flights to an oasis
on the roof,
high above the city noise, where you
can think
to the rhymes of your own band.
Discordant notes rise
with the traffic at five, mellow to a
bolero at sundown.
Keeping company with the pigeons,
you watch the people below,
flowing in currents on the street where
you live,
each one alone in a crowd,
each one an island like you.
223
You ride it out on a wave of sound
pouring from the cinder-block jukebox
of El Building,
with stereos blasting salsas from open
windows,
where men in phosphorescent white Tshirts
hang over the sills, tossing piropos
down to the girls going somewhere in
a hurry,
fanning the sidewalk heat with their
swinging skirts,
crossing single file over the
treacherous bridge
of a wino's legs at his daily post.
with hands on her hips that green
bananas
are hard to get. Everyone knows he
skims.
Still, Cheo’s is the best place for fresh
codfish,
plantains, and gossip.
Page
Day in the Barrio by -Judith Ortiz
Cofer
“Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals —
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting —
I know why he beats his wing!
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224
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings —
I know why the caged bird sings!
“Cross” by Langston Hughes
My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?
“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
Page
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
225
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
Sonnet 116 By William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
2: impediments: obstacles,
barriers
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
5: mark: focal point
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
7:bark: ship
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
10: in the range of his
compass arrow
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
12:bears out: endures
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
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Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
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My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
8: drowsing: drifting to sleep
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
12: hoary: white crystals of ice,
very old
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
20: reddish brown
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
31: cherish: treat with love
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
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After Apple Picking By Robert Frost
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
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The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
There Came a Wind Like a Bugle By Emily Dickinson
1: bugle: trumpet
2: quivered: shook
4: ominous: threatening
7: moccasin: snake
14: tidings: news
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17: abide: accept
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There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccasin
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!
Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas, 1914 – 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
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For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
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So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
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They were women then
My mama’s generation
Husky of voice—stout of
Step
With fists as well as
Hands
How they battered down
Doors
And ironed
Starched white
Shirts
How they led
Armies
Headragged generals
Across mined
Fields
Booby-trapped
Ditches
To discover books
Desks
A place for us
How they knew what we
Must know
Without knowing a page
Of it
Themselves.
The Courage That My Mother
Had by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Women by Alice Walker
Legal Alien by Pat Mora
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Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural,
able to slip from "How's life?"
to "Me'stan volviendo loca,"
able to sit in a paneled office
drafting memos in smooth English,
able to order in fluent Spanish
at a Mexican restaurant,
American but hyphenated,
viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic,
perhaps inferior, definitely different,
viewed by Mexicans as alien,
(their eyes say, "You may speak
Spanish but you're not like me")
an American to Mexicans
a Mexican to Americans
a handy token
sliding back and forth
between the fringes of both worlds
by smiling
by masking the discomfort
of being pre-judged
Bi-laterally.
"Strange Fruit" Billie Holiday
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
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Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Art
Analyzing art can be very similar to analyzing a text. You should look for the same
things: symbols, tone, theme, purpose, audience, mood, etc. You evidence will
come from
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Colors/ shading
Focus
Facial expression/ body language
Background
Texture
Lighting/ shadow
Medium (clay, steel, oil, crayon, water color, etc.)
Details, like objects
Perspective, depth, and angles
Lines (soft, sharp, thick, thin)
Pattern
Subject
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His First Offence by Lady Dorothy Stanley
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By Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
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The Triumph of Death by Bruegel
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By Jan Vermeer
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By Jan Vermeer
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Primavera by Botticelli
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Narcissus by Caravaggio
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The Tower of Babel by Bruegel
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La Pieta by Michelangelo