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He drew aside the window-curtain and suffered the light of nature day to fall into the room and rest
upon her cheek. At the same time, he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his
servant Aminadab’s expression of delight.
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No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came
forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick--on account of the dampness of the
catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I
plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a
century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!
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But he was a crony of mine back in my teens—one of those rash friendships that crop up again and
again to embarrass you later in life. Well, I might as well say it straight out: we’re on a first-name basis.
And that tactless fool makes no effort at all to hide it in front of others. Quite the contrary—he think
that entitles him to take a familiar air around me.
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You loved me the way a wife ought to love her husband. It’s simply the means that you couldn't judge.
But you think I love you any less for not knowing how to handle your affairs? No, no—just lean on me;
I’ll guide you and teach you. I wouldn’t be a man if this feminine helplessness didn’t make you twice as
attractive to me. You mustn’t mind those sharp words I said—that was all in the first confusion of
thinking my world had collapsed.
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Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
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Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
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These words, so ordinary, for some reason moved Gurov to indignation, and struck him as
degrading and unclean. What savage manners, what people! What senseless nights, what
uninteresting, uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the
continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations always about the
same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end
there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting
away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.
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If I am going to be drowned – if I am going to be drowned – if I am going to be drowned, why in the
name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate land
and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I wa about to nibble the
sacred cheese of life?
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As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stood listening for a moment. All was
still. He must be gone. I tried the knob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a
charm; he indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I was almost sorry
for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the door mat for the key, which Bartleby was to have
left there for me, when accidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoning
sound, and in response a voice came to me from within - "Not yet; I am occupied."
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The official got into his sledge and was driving away, but turned suddenly and shouted:
"Dmitri Dmitritch!"
"What?"
"You were right this evening: the sturgeon was a bit too strong!"
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“Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially. And I remember laughing to
myself all that evening at the idea that you were waiting around there in the dark, dodging out of
sight, listening for every sound, trying to get in—of course I was upset when I heard you were so ill
afterward."
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Into the cage they put a young panther. Even the most insensitive felt it refreshing to see this wild
creature leaping around the cage that had so long been dreary. The panther was all right. The food
he liked was brought to him without hesitation by the attendants; he seemed not even to miss his
freedom; his noble body, furnished almost to the bursting point with all that it needed, seemed to
carry freedom around with it too; somewhere in his jaws it seemed to lurk; and the joy of life
streamed with such ardent passion from his throat that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand
the shock of it. But they braced themselves, crowded around the cage, and did not ever want to
move away.
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His father had not spoken again. He did not speak again. He did not even look at her. He just stood
stiff in the center of the rug, in his hat, the shaggy iron-gray brows twitching slightly above the
pebble-colored eyes as he appeared to examine the house with brief deliberation. Then with the
same deliberation he turned; the boy watched him pivot on the good leg and saw the stiff foot drag
round the arc of the turning, leaving a final long and fading smear. His father never looked at it, he
never once looked down at the rug. The Negro held the door. It closed behind them, upon the
hysteric and indistinguishable woman-wail.
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"I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though
thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the
temples and about the eye sockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look. "I want
some poison," she said.
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The third day of the illness was critical: they were waiting for a change. The boy, with his rather
long, curly hair, was tossing ceaselessly on the pillow. He neither slept nor regained consciousness,
and his eyes were like blue stones. His mother sat, feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a
stone.
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The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glasses
on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They
were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
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“Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The M----- continued, "and He shouldn't have
done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but
throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the
few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or
doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become
almost a snarl.”
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The girl gave him a contemptuous look and putting both hands on the ladder, she climbed it while
he stood below, apparently awestruck. She pulled herself expertly through the opening and then
looked down on him and said, "Well, come on if you're coming," and he began to climb the ladder,
awkwardly bringing the suitcase with him.
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There was nothing more important than a person’s name and the name of his clan, tribe, city,
religion and country. By the social rules of his tribe, William should have reciprocated and officially
identified himself. He should have been polite and generous. He was expected to live by so many
rules, he sometimes felt like he was living inside an indigenous version of an Edith Wharton novel.
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Only the Sheikh’s widow had some reason for feeling grateful, because although her husband was
dead she had regained her sight, so that it was possible for her to spend her last days gazing once
more upon the beauties of the valley of Kashmir.
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Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
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Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
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‘Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
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The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare
occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear
corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is
hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it
hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words,
and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours.
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“I can’t give it up,” he screamed. Then quietly, in a confidential tone, “Boys, I really can’t give it up.”
It landed hard against his head. And in the blank moment they had it away from him, completely
now. He fought them trying to pull him from the stage as he watched the wheel spin slowly to a
stop. Without surprise he saw it rest at double-zero.
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In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
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Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
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But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
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He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
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What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
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It was Apollo, friends, Apollo,
That brought this bitterness, my sorrows to completion.
But the hand that struck me
was none but my own.
Why should I see
Whose vision showed me nothing sweet to see?
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Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 280
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, 285
'That can denote me truly.
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"Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
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Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
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Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
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Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
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Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
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The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
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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.
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There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.
There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and
women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or
a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of
illumination.
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Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow
O'er this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
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I promised to get you that sum, on certain conditions. You were so involved in your husband’s illness,
and so eager to finance your trip, that I guess you didn’t think out all the details. It might just be a good
idea to remind you. I promised you money on the strength of a note I drew up.
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Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
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No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
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70
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
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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?
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And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two-The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
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Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
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Then I warn you faithfully to keep
The letter of your proclamation and
from this day forth to speak no word of greeting
to these nor me, you are the land’s pollution.
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Not where he eats, but where ‘a is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.
Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table. That's the end.
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