...of a detente

Marianna paused for an instant in her account of the horrors of war: she had noticed at last that Roman Bogdanovich, a dignified man with a beard, wanted to put in a word, holding it in his mouth like a huge caramel. He had no luck, however, for Smurov was quicker.
“When ‘harking to the horrors of the war,’” said Smurov misquoting with a smile from a famous poem, “I feel sorry ‘neither fro the friend, nor for the friend’s mother,’ but for those who have never been to war. It is difficult to put into words the musical delight that the singing of bullets gives you… Or, when you are flying at full gallop to the attack - -“
“War is always hideous,” tersely interrupted Marianna. “I must have been brought up differently from you. A human being who takes another’s life is always a murderer, be he an executioner or a cavalry officer.”
“Personally - -“ began Smurov, but she interrupted again:
“Military gallantry is a vestige of the past. In my medical practice I have had many occasions to see people who have been crippled or had their lives wrecked by war. Nowadays humanity aspires to new ideals. There is nothing more debasing than to serve as cannon fodder. Perhaps a different upbringing - -“
“Personally - -“ said Smurov.
“A different upbringing,” she went on rapidly, “in regard to ideas of humaneness and general cultural interests, makes me look at war through different ideas than you. I have never blazed away at people or driven a bayonet into anyone. Rest assured that among my medical colleagues you will find more heroes than on the battlefield - -“
“Personally, I - -“ said Smurov.
“But enough of this,” said Marianna. “I can see neither of us is going to convince the other. The discussion is closed.”
A brief silence followed. Smurov sat calmly stirring his tea. Yes, he must be a former officer, a daredevil who liked to flirt with death, and it is only out of modesty that he says nothing about his adventures.

[The Eye, Nabokov, V.]

...of on the precipice of change

Nevertheless, I felt an odd restlessness. As I read aloud mechanically, I kept wondering who this guest might be. A new arrival from Russia? I vaguely went through the faces and voices I knew - alas, they were not many - and I stopped for some reason at a student named Ushakov. The memory of my single university year in Russia, and of my loneliness there, hoarded this Ushakov like a treasure. When, during a conversation, I would assume a knowing, faintly dreamy expression at the mention of the festive song “Gaudeamus igitur” and reckless student days, it meant I was thinking of Ushakov, even though, God knows, I had only had a couple of chats with him (about political or other trifles, I forget what). It was hardly likely, though, that he would be so mysterious over the telephone. I lost myself in conjecture, imagining now a Communist agent, now an eccentric millionaire in need of a secretary.
The doorbell. Again the boys dashed headlong into the hall. I put down my book and strolled after them. With great gusto and dexterity they drew the little steel bolt, fiddled with some gadget, and the door opened.
A strange recollection… Even now, now that many things have changed, my heart sinks when I summon up that strange recollection, like a dangerous criminal from his cell. It was then that a whole wall of my life crumbled quite noiselessly, as on a silent screen. I understood that something catastrophic was about to happen, but there was undoubtedly a smile on my face, and, if I am not mistaken, an ingratiating one; and my hand, reaching out, doomed to meet a void, and anticipating that void, nevertheless sought to complete the gesture (associated in my mind with the ring of the phrase “elementary courtesy”.

[The Eye, Nabokov, V.]

...of solitude in the woods

Marvelous opening moment in fact of the first afternoon I’m left alone in the cabin and I make up my first meal, wash my first dishes, nap, and wake up to hear the rapturous ring of silence or Heaven even within and throughout the gurgle of the creek - When you say AM ALONE and the cabin is suddenly home only because you made one meal and washed your first-meal dishes - Then nightfall, the religious vestal lighting of the beautiful kerosene lamp after careful washing of the mantle by the creek and careful drying with toilet paper, which spoils it by specking it so you again wash it in the creek this time just let the mantle drip dry in the sun, the late afternoon sun that disappears so quickly behind those giant steep canyon walls - Nightfall, the kerosene lamp casts a glow in the cabin, I go out and pick some ferns like the ferns of the Lankavatara Scripture, those hairnet ferns, ‘Look sirs,  beautiful hairnet!’ - Late afternoon fog pours in over the canyon walls, sweep, cover the sun, it gets cold, even the flies on the porch are so sad as the fog on the peaks - As daylight retreats the flies retreat like polite Emily Dickinson flies and when its dark they’re all asleep in trees or someplace - At high noon they’re in the cabin with you but edging further towards the open doorsill as the afternoon lengthens, how strangely gracious - There’s the hum of the bee drone two blocks away the racket of it you’d think it was right over the roof, when the bee drone swirls nearer and nearer (gulp again) you retreat into the cabin and wait, maybe they got a message to come and see you all two thousand of em - But getting used to the bee drone finally which seems to happen like a big party once a week - And so everything eventually marvelous.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of peeking society

‘Can it be that Ron and all these other guys, Dave and McLear or somebody, the other guys earlier are all a bunch of witches to make me go mad?’ I seriously consider this - Remembering that childhood revery I always had, which I used to ponder seriously as I walked home from St Joseph’s Parochial School or sat in the parlor of my home, that everybody is making fun of mooney me and I don’t know it because everytime I turn around to see who’s behind me they snap back into place with regular expressions, but soon’s I look away again they dart up my nape of neck and all whisper there giggling and plotting evil, silently, you can’t hear them, and when I turn to catch them they’ve already snapped back perfectly in place and are saying ‘Now the proper way to cooks eggs is’ or they’re singing Chet Baker songs looking the other way or they’re saying ‘Did I ever tell you about Jim that time?’ - But my childhood revery also included the fact that everybody in the world was making fun of me because they were all members of an eternal secret society or Heaven society that knew the secret of the world and were seriously fooling me so that I’d wake up and see the light (i.e., become enlightened, in fact) - So that I, ’Ti Jean’, was the LAST Ti Jean left in the world, the last poor holy fool, those people at my neck were the devils of the earth among whom God had cast me, and angel baby, as tho I was the last Jesus in fact! and all these people were waiting for me to realize it and wake up and catch them peeking and we’d all laugh in Heaven suddenly - But animals werent doing that behind my back, my cats were always adornments licking their paws sadly, and Jesus, he was a sad witness to this, somewhat like the animals - He wasn’t peeking down my neck - There lies the root of my belief in Jesus - So that actually the only reality in the world was Jesus and the lambs (the animals) and my brother Gerard who had instructed me - Meanwhile some of the peekers were kindly and sad, like my father, but had to go along with everybody in the same boat - But my waking up would take place and then everything would vanish except Heaven, which is God - And that was why later in life after these rather strange you must admit childhood reveries, after I had that fainting vision of the Golden Eternity and others before and after it including Samadhis during Buddhist meditations in the woods, I conceived of myself as a special solitary angel sent down as a messenger from Heaven to tell everybody or show everybody by example that their peeking society was actually the Satanic Society and they were all on the wrong track.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of a beatnik city

Billie and her gang in fact, with all that fancy rigamarole about spiritual matters I wonder if it isn’t just a big secret hustler outfit tho I also realise that I’ve noticed it before in San Francisco a kind of ephemeral hysteria that hides in the air over the rooftops among certain circles there leading always to suicide and maim - Me just an innocent lost hearted meditator and Goop among strange intense criminal agitators of the heart - It reminds me in fact of a nightmare I had just before coming out to the Coast, in the dream I’m back in San Francisco but there’s something funny going on: there’s dead silence throughout the entire city: men like printers and office executives and housepainters are all standing silently in second floor windows looking down on the empty streets of San Francisco: once in a while some beatniks walk by below, also silent: they’re being watched but not only by the authorities but by everybody: the beatniks seem to have the whole street system to themselves: but nobody’s saying anything: and in this intense silence I take a ride on a self propelled platform right downtown and out to the farms where a woman running a chicken farm invites me to join her and live with her - The little platform rolling quietly as the people are watching from windows in groups of profile like the profiles in old Van Dyck paintings, intense, suspicious, momentous - This Billie business reminding me of that but because to me the only thing that matters is the conception in my own mind, there has to be no reality anyway to what I suppose is going on - But this also an indication of the coming madness in Big Sur.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of exasperation

The meeting is not eventful, of course, both girls keep their silence and hardly look at each other so it’s all me and Dave Wain carrying on with the usual boloney and I see that Cody is really very sick and tired of me bringing gangs arbitrarily to his place, running off with his mistress, getting drunk and thrown out of family plays, hundred dollars or no hundred dollars he probably feels I’m just a fool now anyway and hopelessly lost forever but I don’t realize that myself because I’m feeling good - I want us to resume down that road singing bawdier and darker songs till we’re negotiating narrow mountain roads at the pitch of the greatest songs.
I try to ask Cody about Perry and all the other strange characters who visit Billie in the City but he just looks at me out of the corner eye and says ‘Ah, yah, hm,’ - I don’t know and I never will know what he’s up to anyway in the long run: I realize I’m just a silly stranger goofing with other strangers for no reason far away from anything that ever mattered to me whatever that was - Always an ephemeral ‘visitor’ to the Coast never really involved with anyone’s lives there because I’m already ready to fly across the country but not to any life of my own on the other end either, just a travelling stranger like Old Bull Balloon, an exemplar of the loneliness of Doren Coit actually waiting for the only real trip, to Venus, to the mountain of Mien Mo - Tho when I look out of Cody’s livingroom window just then I do see my star still shining for me as it’s done all those 38 years over crib, out ship windows, jail windows, over sleepingbags only now it’s dummier and dimmer and getting blurreder damnit as tho my own star be now fading away from concern for me as I from concern for it - In fact we’re all strangers with strange eyes sitting in a midnight livingroom for nothing - And small talk at that, like Billie saying ‘I always wanted a nice fireplace’ and I’m yelling ‘Don’t worry we got one at the cabin hey Dave? and all the wood’s chopped!’ and Evelyn:- ‘What does Monsanto think of you using his cabin all summer, weren’t you supposed to go there alone in secret?’ - ‘It’s too late now!’ I sing swigging from the bottle without which I’d only drop with shame face flat on the floor or on the gravel driveway - And Dave and Romana look a little uneasy finally so we all get up to go, zoom, and that’s the last time I see Cody or Evelyn anyway.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of a conspiratorial air

But I say ‘Dave, look, as if all this wasn’t enough’ and I point out the moon to him, there’s dead silence in the trees and also amongst us inside, there she is, vast lugubrious fullmoon that frights madmen and makes waters wave, she’s got one or two treetops silhouetted and’s got that whole side of the canyon lit up in silver - Dave just looks at the moon with his tired madness eyes (over-excited eyes, my mother’d said) and says nothing - I go out to the creek and drink water and come back and wonder about the moo and suddenly the four shadows in the cabin are all dead silent as tho they had conspired with the moon.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of respite

I’ve fallen asleep in a strange way, with my hands clasped behind my head thinking I’m just going to sit there and think, but I’m sleeping like that, and when I wake up just one short minute later I realize the two girls are both sitting behind me in absolute silence - When I’d sat down they were both sweeping, but now they were squatting behind my back, facing each other, not a word - I turn and see them there - Blessed relief has come to me from just that minute - Everything has washed away - I’m perfectly normal again - Dave Wain is down the road looking at fields and flowers - I’m sitting smiling in the sun, the birds sing again, all’s well again.
I still can’t understand it.
Most of all I can’t understand the miraculousness of the silence of the girls and the sleeping boy and the silence of Dave Wain in the fields - Just a golden wash of goodness has spread over all and over all my body and mind - All the dark torture is a memory - I know I now can get out of there, we’ll drive back to the City, I’ll take Billie home, I’ll say goodbye to her properly, she won’t commit suicide or do anything wrong, she’ll forget me, her life’ll go on, Romana’s life will go on, old Dave will manage somehow, I’ll forgive them and explain everything (as I’m doing now) - And Cody, and George Baso, and ravened McLear and perfect starry Fagan, they’ll all pass through one way or the other - I’ll stay with Monsanto at his home a few days and he’ll smile and show me how to be happy awhile, we’ll drink dry wine instead of sweet and have quiet evenings in his home - Arthur Ma will come to quietly draw pictures at my side - Monsanto will say ‘That’s all there is to it, take it easy, everything’s okay, don’t take things too serious, it’s bad enough as it is without you going the deep end over imaginary conceptions just like you always said yourself’ - I’ll get my ticket and say goodbye on a flower day and leave all San Francisco behind and go back home across autumn America and it’ll all be like it was in the beginning - Simple golden eternity blessing all - Nothing ever happened - Not even this - St Carolyn by the Sea will go on being golden one way or the other - The little boy will grow up to be a great man - There’ll be farewells and smiles - My mother’ll be waiting for me glad - The corner of the yard where Tyke is buried will be a new and fragrant shrine making my home more homelike somehow - On soft spring nights i’ll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it all will be golden and eternal just like that - There’s no need to say another word.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of inhibition

When I reach the woods, he’s there as if by appointment, and I know that this is the chance I’ve been waiting for. June’s visit gave me the self-confidence I needed, the man on the path obviously isn’t quite all there, therefore I can talk to him. Now all I need is something to say. Quickly.
“Hi,” I say. It’s as if I’m listening to a stranger’s voice.
His expression doesn’t change.
“Do you think it’s nice here?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“Yes, it’s nice here,” I say.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. He doesn’t say anything else, and I feel panic setting in, he obviously doesn’t like small talk. I’m scared he’ll disappear again if I don’t think of something interesting to say, quickly.
“What’s your name?” I ask. I can’t believe I have the courage.
With a serious expression, he mumbles something that sounds like “KGB,” and I get nervous, because that’s the sort of thing that puts you on your guard. But when I ask again, I hear him sigh “Åge B.” and I would sigh too if I was stuck with that name. I don’t have the courage to ask what the “B” stands for, in case its something embarrassing, and so I just nod encouragingly.
“That’s a good name for a man,” I say.
I’m disappointed that he doesn’t ask me what my name is, or what my favourite colour is, or which cassette tape I’d take with me to a desert island if I could choose only one. It’s so wonderful to talk, I want to talk to Åge B. about everything I talked to Epsilon about. When Epsilon came home from work, I’d ask him how his day had been and what he’d done, and he’d say his day was good and he hadn’t done much. I thanked him for this window into his world. Then he’d ask me how my day was and what I’d done, and I’d tell him some story, like about how I think I saw a baby snake shedding its skin in the bathroom floor, but instead it was just a dust bunny. “Don’t you ever get the urge to talk to someone other than me?” Epsilon would ask every now and then. “But I’ve done that,” I’d say. “Don’t you remember the time I went with you to the Christmas party?”
“Well then,” Åge B. says.
“Well then,” I say and hurry off before he does.
I walk down toward the church and feel fat. Especially around the thighs. I hear that’s a normal reaction when you get rejected by someone of the opposite sex.

[The Faster I Walk The Smaller I Am, Skomsvold, K. A.]

...of avoidance

The day I realised I could write things down was the day I first told Epsilon how I felt about him. It was the first winter after the lightning strike, we were always together, but every time I opened my mouth to say what I wanted to say, I got the unbearable urge to stick my tongue against cold metal, that way it would be attached to something at both ends, so I just kept my mouth shut.
One day Epsilon asked if I wanted to sit on the back of his sled. “Where are you going?” I asked. “Where do you want to go?” he asked. “I don’t mind,” I said. I put my arms around him, his hat smelled like wet wool. Then a girl from his class appeared, she wanted to sled with us. Surprised, Epsilon and I looked up at her. “I don’t think there’s room,” I said, but she’d already sat down. We set off, snow hit my eyes, so I closed them and nudged my face into Epsilon’s jacket. When I looked again, we were out over the ice. I asked where his friend was, she wasn’t sitting behind me on the sled anymore. We looked up the hill, but she wasn’t there either. “Maybe it’s a sign,” I said. Epsilon took my hands and helped me up, and we stood together with our wet mittens, holding hands. I wanted to tell him how much I cared about him, but instead I told him that last year seven people had been killed by sharks and fourteen by toasters. Epsilon gave me a strange look and I wanted to disappear. “I just have to…” I said, without knowing what I actually wanted. I knew what Epsilon thought I had to do, though, because he turned quickly around and left. I blushed standing there and heard his crunching steps on the ice. “I’ll make a snowball while I’m waiting,” he said loudly, as though he’d be peeking at me. I figured it couldn’t get any worse, so I began to take off my shoes. After some effort, I was done. “Come and see, “ I said. My tongue barely obeyed me. But Epsilon stood motionless, and I had to call his name again before he started toward me hesitantly, his eyes fixed on the sky. “Look down,” I said when he was close. I got anxious when he lowered his eyes and saw my scarf which now formed a heart on the ice. Withing the heart, my wet mittens and socks formed the letters: N I. I wasn’t trying to spell “nine,” as in the number of lives I had left. It was now or never. “Your real name is longer that it sounds,” I said and felt my toes turn blue.

[The Faster I Walk The Smaller I Am, Skomsvold, K. A.]

…of the status quo

During my stay in the hospital, I’d practiced what I would tell the other students, who would surely flock around me when I came back. “I’ve never experienced anything so painful,” I’d say. “The doctor said it’s a miracle I survived.” They’d all gasp and thank God I was still alive. I practiced hiding my scorched eyebrows with my hands so that it looked natural, either placing a forefinger over each of them, like the sign language for “ox” or I could pretend I was shading my face from the sun. “I’ve gotten so popular it’s really starting to wear me down,” I’d tell my mother and father, who couldn’t be more proud.
But when I got back to school, my Moses complex had disappeared, because the news on everyone’s lips was that the crown prince was back from London after the war. During first period, the teacher forgot to call my name, like always, but instead of saying “Mathea - here” to myself like I usually did, I raised my hand. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’ve returned.” The lightning had apparently given me a positively charged dose of self-confidence. The teacher lifted his eyes from the attendance list that lay in front of him on his desk, the other students turned around and stared at me where I sat in the back row, and I laid my hands over my scorched eyebrows and pretended I was shading my face from all the attention. The teacher had to think a minute, but finally he remembered me: “Oh, we thought…” Then he didn’t say anything more, and everyone turned back around towards the blackboard, and during recess I was alone counting rocks again.

[The Faster I Walk The Smaller I Am, Skomsvold, K. A.]

...of love

At first I stayed out of his way and let him work in peace, out on the balcony. He stood there in his earwarmer just measuring and angling the saw. It doesn’t look like he was making much progress, though, so I asked if I could help with sawing. He said that would be good, so that he could focus on measuring.
The day before his vaction was over Epsilon finished the box. It couldn’t have been nicer. He’d even varnished it and when I opened the lid I saw that he’d burned “To my beloved Mathea” on the bottom. Usually I only hear him say “I love you” when we’ve already gone to bed and he thinks I’m asleep, and I say “ich liebe dich von ganzem Herzen” back to him when I think he’s asleep, so I blushed when I read the words at the bottom of the box, and Epsilon blushed even more, and neither of us mentioned it again.
It’s been an eternity since Epsilon set that box next to my chair so proudly, and I ceremoniously put my knitting things inside it. I wish someone else knew about this.

[The Faster I Walk The Smaller I Am, Skomsvold, K. A.]