The Bad Novel
This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip—I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel.
After You Left
story from Flaubert
You wanted me to tell you everything I did after we left each other.
Well, I was very sad; it had been so lovely. When I saw your back disappear into the train compartment, I went up on the bridge to watch your train pass under me. That was all I saw; you were inside it! I looked after it as long as I could, and I listened to it. In the other direction, towards Rouen, the sky was red and striped with broad bands of purple. The sky would be long dark by the time I reached Rouen and you reached Paris. I lit another cigar. For a while I paced back and forth. Then, because I felt so numb and tired, I went into a café across the street and drank a glass of kirsch.
My train came into the station, heading in the opposite direction from yours. In the compartment, I met a man I knew from my schooldays. We talked for a long time, almost all the way back to Rouen.
When I arrived, Louis was there to meet me, as we had planned, but my mother hadn’t sent the carriage to take us home. We waited for a while, and then, by moonlight, we walked across the bridge and through the port. In that part of town there are two places where we could hire a hackney cab.
At the second place, the people live in an old church. It was dark. We knocked and woke the woman, who came to the door in her nightcap. Imagine the scene, in the middle of the night, with the interior of that old church behind her—her jaws gaping in a yawn; a candle burning; the lace shawl she wore hanging down below her hips. The horse had to be harnessed, of course. The breeching band had broken, and we waited while they mended it with a piece of rope.
On the way home, I told Louis about my old school friend, who is his old school friend, too. I told him how you and I had spent our time together. Out the window, the moon was shining on the river. I remembered another journey home late at night by moonlight. I described it to Louis: There was deep snow on the ground. I was in a sleigh, wearing my red wool hat and wrapped in my fur cloak. I had lost my boots that day, on my way to see an exhibition of savages from Africa. All the windows were open, and I was smoking my pipe. The river was dark. The trees were dark. The moon shone on the fields of snow: they looked as smooth as satin. The snow-covered houses looked like little white bears curled up asleep. I imagined that I was in the Russian steppe. I thought I could hear reindeer snorting in the mist, I thought I could see a pack of wolves leaping up at the back of the sleigh. The eyes of the wolves were shining like coals on both sides of the road.
When at last we reached home, it was one in the morning. I wanted to organize my work table before I went to bed. Out my study window, the moon was still shining—on the water, on the towpath, and, close to the house, on the tulip tree by my window. When I was done, Louis went off to his room and I went off to mine.
The Bodyguard
He goes with me wherever I go. He has fair hair. He is young and strong. His arms and legs are round and muscular. He is my bodyguard. But he never opens his eyes, and never leaves his armchair. Lying deep in the chair, he is carried from place to place, attended, in turn, by his own caregivers.
dream
The Child
She is bending over her child. She can’t leave her. The child is laid out in state on a table. She wants to take one more photograph of the child, probably the last. In life, the child would never sit still for a photograph. She says to herself, “I’m going to get the camera,” as if saying to the child, “Don’t move.”
dream
The Churchyard
I have the key to the churchyard and unlock the gate. The church is in the city, and it has a large enclosure. Now that the gate is open, many people come in and sit on the grass to enjoy the sun.
Meanwhile, girls at the street corner are raising money for their mother-in-law, who is called “La Bella.”
I have offended or disappointed two women, but I am cradling Jesus (who is alive) amid a cozy pile of people.
dream
My Sister and the Queen of England
For fifty years now, nag nag nag and harp harp harp. No matter what my sister did, it wasn’t good enough for my mother, or for my father either. She moved to England to get away, and married an Englishman, and when he died, she married another Englishman, but that wasn’t enough.
Then she was awarded the Order of the British Empire. My parents flew over to England and watched from across the ballroom floor as my sister walked out there alone and stood and talked to the Queen of England. They were impressed. My mother told me in a letter that no one else receiving honors that day talked to the Queen as long as my sister did. I wasn’t surprised, because my sister has always been a great talker, no matter what the occasion. But when I asked my mother later what my sister was wearing, she didn’t remember very well—white gloves and some kind of a tent, she said.
Four Lords of Parliament had mentioned my sister in their maiden speeches, because she had done so much for the disabled, and she treated the disabled, my mother said, like anyone else. She talked to her drivers the same way she talked to the Lords, and she talked to the Lords the same way she talked to the disabled. Everyone loved her, and no one minded that her house was a little untidy. My mother said the house was still untidy, and my sister was still letting her figure go, she invited too many people into her home, and she left the butter out all day, she told too much of her private business to her friend the Indian grocer on the corner, and she wouldn’t stop talking, but my mother and father felt they had to keep quiet because how could they say anything against her now, she had done so much good and was so admired.
I’m proud of my sister, and I’m happy for her because of the award, but I’m also happy that my mother and father have finally been silenced for a while, and will let her alone for a while, though I don’t think it will be for long, and I’m sorry it took the Queen of England to do it.
The Visit to the Dentist
story from Flaubert
Last week I went to the dentist, thinking he was going to pull my tooth. He said it would be better to wait and see if the pain subsided.
Well, the pain did not subside—I was in agony and running a fever. So yesterday I went to have it pulled. On my way to see him, I had to cross the old marketplace where they used to execute people, not so long ago. I remembered that when I was only six or seven years old, returning home from school one day, I crossed the square after an execution had taken place. The guillotine was there. I saw fresh blood on the paving stones. They were carrying away the basket.
Last night I thought about how I had entered the square on my way to the dentist dreading what was about to happen to me, and how, in the same way, those people condemned to death also used to enter that square dreading what was about to happen to them—though it was worse for them.
When I fell asleep, I dreamed about the guillotine; the strange thing was that my little niece, who sleeps downstairs, also dreamed about a guillotine, though I hadn’t said anything to her about it. I wonder if thoughts are fluid, and flow downward, from one person to another, within the same house.
Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer
Dear Frozen Peas Manufacturer,
We are writing to you because we feel that the peas illustrated on your package of frozen peas are a most unattractive color. We are referring to the 16 oz. plastic package that shows three or four pods, one of them split open, with peas rolling out near them. The peas are a dull yellow green, more the color of pea soup than fresh peas and nothing like the actual color of your peas, which are a nice bright dark green. The depicted peas are, moreover, about three times the size of the actual peas inside the package, which, together with their dull color, makes them even less appealing—they appear to be past their maturity and mealy in texture. Additionally, the color of your illustrated peas contrasts poorly with the color of the lettering and other decoration on your package, which is an almost harsh neon green. We have compared your depiction of peas to that of other frozen peas packages and yours is by far the least appealing. Most food manufacturers depict food on their packaging that is more attractive than the food inside and therefore deceptive. You are doing the opposite: you are falsely representing your peas as less attractive than they actually are. We enjoy your peas and do not want your business to suffer. Please reconsider your art.
Yours sincerely.
The Cornmeal
This morning, the bowl of hot cooked cornmeal, set under a transparent plate and left there, has covered the underside of the plate with droplets of condensation: it, too, is taking action in its own little way.