Page twenty-seven

“the plural is unavoidable”

meesheesonoda:

“This plan is so vast that each individual contribution to it is infinitesimal.” (22)

- From Tlön, Uqbar, Prbis Tertius in Ficcones, Jorge Luis Borge

that is all, that is all.

meesheebabee:

“So on a summer’s day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying “that is all” more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, That is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, commuting its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking.”

- Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself by Robert Montgomery Bird

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… right, which was led by such unprincipled men; there was corruption at the heart of the whole body; the party consisted of rogues who were gaping after the loaves and fishes; their honest was a song—their patriotism a farce. In a word, I found I had joined the wrong party, and I resolved to go over to the other, sincerely repenting of wrong and deception. 

But fortune willed otherwise, I had arrived at the crisis of my fate; and before I could put my purpose into execution, I was suddenly involved in that tissue of adventure, which, I had no doubt, will be considered the most remarkable that ever befell a human being.

8

A description of the Owl-roost, with Mr. Jumble’s ideas in relation to Captain Kid’s money.

For five mortal days I remained at home, chewing the bone of reflection; and a hard bone it was. On the sixth there came a villanous constable with a—the reader may suppose what. I struck a bargain with him, and he took his leave, and Julius Cesar also, saddle, bridle, and all; whereby I escaped an introduction to the nearest justice of the peace. The next visit, I had good reason to apprehend, would be from the sheriff; for, having failed to pay up the interest on the mortgage, the mortgage had discoursed, and that in no very mysterious strain, on the virtues of a writ of Venditioni Exponas, or some other absurd and scoundrelly invention of the lawyers. I was at my wits’ end, and I wished that I was a dog; in which case I should have gone made, and bitten the new postmaster and all his friends.

“Very well,” said I to myself; “the forty-acre is no longer…

No-No Boy by John Okada

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…arrogant, puzzled him. “He has suffered, but I make no apologies for him or for myself. If he had given his life for Japan, I could not be prouder.”

“Ma,” he said, wanting to object but not knowing why except that her comments seemed out of place.

Ignoring him, she continued, not looking at the man but at his wife, who now sat with head bowed, her eyes emptily regarding the floral pattern of the carpet, “A mother’s lot is not an easy one. To sleep with a man and bear a son is nothing. To raise the child into a man one can be proud fo is not play. Some of use succeed. Some, of course, must fail. It is too bad, but that is the way of life.”

“Yes, yes, Yamada-san,” said the man impatiently. Then, smiling, he turned to Ichiro: “I suppose you’ll be going back to the university?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” he replied, wishing that his father was like this man who made him want to out the turbulence in his soul.

“He will go when the new term begins. I have impressed upon him the importance of a good education. With a college education, one can go far in Japan.” His mother smiled knowingly.

“Ah,” said the man as if he had not heard her speak, “Bobbie wanted to go to the university and study medicine. He would have made a fine doctor. Always studying and reading, is that not so, Ichiro?”

He nodded, remembering the quiet son of the Kumasakas, who never played football with the rest of the kids ont he street or appeared at dances, but could talk for hours on end about chemistry and zoology and physics and other courses which he hungered after in high school.

“Sure, Bob always was pretty studious.” He knew, somehow, that it was not the right thing to say, but he added: “Where is Bob?”

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

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youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Ever since the morning carriages with six horses had been coming and going continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova’s big house on the Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow. the countess herself and her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing-room with the visitors who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in relays.

The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin oriental type of face, evidently worn out with child-bearing—she had had twelve. A languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskaka, who as a member of the household was also seated in the drawing-room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young people were in one of the  inner rooms, not considering it necessary to take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw them off, inviting them all to dinner. 

“I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher,’ or ‘ma chere’,—he called everyone with exception and without the slightest variation in his tone, ‘my dear’, whether they were above or below him in rank—‘I thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name-day we are keeping, But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended, ma chere! On behalf of the whole family i be you to come, mon cher!’ These words he repated to everyone without exception or variation, and with the same expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same firm pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon as he had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were still in the drawing-room, drew a chair towards him or her, and jauntily spreading out his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air of a man who enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and fro with dignity, offered surmises about the weather, or touched on questions of health, sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but self-confident French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in the fulfilment of duty, he rose to see some visitor off, and stroking his scanty grey hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner. Sometimes on his way back from the ante-room he would pass through the conservatory and pantry into the large marble dining-hall, where tables were being set out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who were bringing in silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask table-linen, he would call Dmitri Vasilevich, a man of good family and the manager of all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the enormous table would say: ‘Well, Dmitri, you’ll see that things are all as they should be? That’s right! The great thing is the serving, that’s it.’ And with a complacent sigh he would return to the drawing-room.

‘Marya Lvovna Karagina and her daughter!’ announced the countess’s gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing-room. The countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold snuff-box with her husband’s portrait on it.

‘I’m quite worn out by these callers. However, I’ll see her and no more. She is so affected. Ask her in,’ she said to the footman in a sad voice, as if saying: ‘Very well, finish me off.’

A tall, stout, proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.

‘Dear Countess, what an age… she has been laid up, poor child…at  the Rozumovski’s ball…and Countess Apraksina…I was so delighted…”, came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dressing and the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began..

translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

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…would storm out of her guest house on being shown my room. She informed me that a double room at the front was available, though I was welcome to it for the price of a single.

I was then brought up to this room, in which, at that point of the day, the sun was lighting up the floral patterns of the wallpaper quite agreeably. There were twin beds and a pair of good-sized windows overlooking the street. On inquiring where the bathroom was, the woman told me in a timid voice that although it was the door facing mine, there would be no hot water available until after supper. I asked her to bring me up a pot of tea, and when she had gone, inspected the room further. The beds were perfectly clean and had been well made. The basin the corner was also very clean. On looking out of the windows, one saw on the opposite side of the street a bakery displaying a variety of pastries, a chemist’s shop and a barber’s. Further along, one could see where the street passed over a round-backed bridge and on into more rural surroundings. I refreshed my face and hands with cold water at the basin, then seated myself on a hard-backed chair left near one of the windows to await my tea.

I would suppose it was shortly after four o’clock that I left the guest house and ventured out into the streets of Salisbury. The wide, airy nature of the streets here give the city a marvellously spacious feel, so that I found it most easy to spend some hours just strolling in the gently warm sunshine. Moreover, I discovered the city to be one of many charms; time and again, I found myself wandering past delightful rows of old timber-fronted houses, or crossing some little stone footbridge over one of the many streams that flow through the city. And of course, I did not fail to visit the fine cathedral, much praised by Mrs Symons in her volume. The august building was hardly difficult for me to locate, its looming spire being ever-visible wherever one goes in Salisbury. Indeed, as I was making my way back to…

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

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…that young man on the seat had given her quite a turn. Something was up, she knew.)

Horror! horror! she wanted to cry. (She had left her people; they had warned her what would happen.) 

Why hadn’t she stayed at home? she cried, twisting the knob of the iron railing.

That girl, thought Mrs. Dempster (who saved crusts for the squirrels and often ate her lunch in Regent’s Park), don’t know a thing yet; and really it seemed to her better to be a little stout, a little slack, a little moderate in one’s expectations. Percy drank. Well, better to have a son, thought Mrs. Dempster. Get married, she thought, and then you’ll know. Oh, the cooks, and so on. Every man has his ways. But whether I’d have chosen quite like that if I could have known, thought Mrs. Dempster, and could not help wishing to whisper a word to Maisie Johnson; to feel on the creased pouch of her worn old face the kiss of pity. For it’s been a hard life, thought Mrs. Dempster. What hadn’t she given to it? Roses; figure; her feet too. (She drew the knobbed lumps beneath her skirt.)

Roses, she thought sardonically. All trash, m’dear. For really, what with eating, drinking, and mating, the bad days and good, life had been no mere matter of roses, and what was more, let me tell you, Carrie Dempster had no wish to change her lot with any woman’s in Kentish Town! But, she implored, pity. Pity, for the loss of roses. Pity she asked of Maisie Johnson, standing by the hyacinth beds.

Ah, but that aeroplane! Hadn’t Mrs. Dempster always longed to see foreign parts? She had a nephew, a missionary. It soared and shot. She always went on the sea at Margate, not out o’sight of land, but she had no patience with women who were afraid of water. It swept…