High Beam Quotes

I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people…Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me.

I privately say to you, old friend... please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses: (((()))).

I don't really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of the writers he loves, but it's always nice, I'll grant you, if he has one.

Give me a story that just makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.

The connection was so bad, and I couldn’t talk at all during most of the call. How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person at the other end shouts back ‘What?

I live alone (but catless, I'd like everybody to know)....

Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion.

She worries over the way her love for me comes and goes, appears and disappears. She doubts its reality simply because it isn't as steadily pleasurable as a kitten. God knows it is sad. The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on earth.

I have so much I want to tell you, and nowhere to begin.

Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he ever wrong?

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason…Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.

Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

During the Vietnam War... every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.

oh, this happiness is strong stuff. It's marvelously liberating.

I’m not going to bed after all. Somebody around here hath murdered sleep. Good for him.

We are sometimes dragged into a pit of unhappiness by someone else’s opinion that we do not look happy.

John Keats / John Keats / John / Please put your scarf on.

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.

But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you.

If there is an amateur reader still left in the world—or anybody who just reads and runs—I ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.

If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined.

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.

Zooey said... It would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody good-bye in the morning thinking they were your own family.

There was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon. The same moon that silently floated over fields of pampas grass, the moon that rose--a gleaming, round saucer--over the calm surface of lakes, that tranquilly beamed down on the rooftops of fast-asleep houses. The same moon that brought the high tide to shore, that softly shone on the fur of animals and enveloped and protected travelers at night. The moon that, as a crescent, shaved slivers from the soul--or, as a new moon, silently bathed the earth in its own loneliness. THAT moon.

Amazing. You were so attached to it, and it still disappeared for you." “Attached! I was whocking that cloud with everything I had! Fireballs, laser beams, vacuum cleaner a block high...” “Negative attachments, Richard. If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production out of it, you just relax and remove it from your thinking. That’s all there is to it.

Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)

You must be Sara." Lucas extended his hand. Sara slipped her hand into Lucas's. "That's me. And you are?" "Lucas Parker, Kylie's boyfriend." Boyfriend? Kylie's breath caught. The water slipping down her throat went down the wrong pipe. She started coughing so hard, the sound bounced around the high beams of the dining hall. If that wasn't bad enough, her mom, who'd been sipping on a diet soda, did the same thing. Crap! If there was one person in the dining hall who hadn't already stared at them, they did now.

I feel overwhelmingly grateful to them, but I don't know what to do with their invisible gifts.

Velvet looks horrified. “If you are fool enough to address King R’jan, you will do it thus and in no other manner! ‘My King, Liege, Lord, and Master, your servant begs you grant it leave to speak.’” “Wow. Totally delusionary there.” “Good luck with that,” Ryodan says. “She doesn't beg to speak, or do anything else. You can lock her up, down, and sideways and it’s never going to happen.” I beam at him. I had no idea he thought so highly of me.

However contradictory the coroner's report — whether he pronounces Consumption or Loneliness or Suicide to be the cause of death — isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies? I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience.

Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker." "What are you going to motivate people to do?" Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational ... stuff.

If or when I do start going to an analyst, I hope to God he has the foresight to let a dermatologist sit in on the consultation. A hand specialist. I have scars on my hands from touching certain people... Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me. Other things, too. Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand. Oh God, if I'm anything by a clincal name, I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

Surely, he was all real things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience, our supercargo and our one full poet.

As Patron-Sponser, I am charged with..."-he pasued and consulted the notes-"adding a sense of royal cachet to proceedings today." He waited while a ripple of conversation ran around the room. Nobody was quite sure what adding a sense of royal cachet really meant. But everyone agreed that it sounded impressive indeed. Lady Pauline's mouth twitched in a smile and she looked down at the table. Halt found something of vast interest in the ceiling beams high above. Duncan continued. My second duty is..."-again he consulted his notes to make sure he had the wording correct-"to provide an extremly expensive present to the bride and groom..." Lady Pualine's head jerked at that. She leaned forward and turned to make eye contact with Lord Anthony. The Chamberlain met her gaze, his face completely devoid of expression. Then, very slowly, one eyelid slid down in a wink. He liked Lady Pauline and Halt a great deal and he'd added that duty without consulting them.

Franny has the measles, for one thing. Incidentally, did you hear her last week? She went on at beautiful length about how she used to fly all around the apartment when she was four and no one was home. The new announcer is worse than Grant - if possible, even worse than Sullivan in the old days. He said she surely dreamt that she was able to fly. The baby stood her ground like an angel. She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the light bulbs.

All the idylls of youth: beauty manifest in lakes, mountains, people; richness in experience, conversation, friendships. Nights during a full moon, the light flooded the wilderness, so it was possible to hike without a headlamp. We would hit the trail at two A.M., summiting the nearest peak, Mount Tallac, just before sunrise, the clear, starry night reflected in the flat, still lakes spread below us. Snuggled together in sleeping bags at the peak, nearly ten thousand feet up, we weathered frigid blasts of wind with coffee someone had been thoughtful enough to bring. And then we would sit and watch as the first hint of sunlight, a light tinge of day blue, would leak out of the eastern horizon, slowly erasing the stars. The day sky would spread wide and high, until the first ray of the sun made an appearance. The morning commuters began to animate the distant South Lake Tahoe roads. But craning your head back, you could see the day’s blue darken halfway across the sky, and to the west, the night remained yet unconquered—pitch-black, stars in full glimmer, the full moon still pinned in the sky. To the east, the full light of day beamed toward you; to the west, night reigned with no hint of surrender. No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, “Let there be light!” You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid the grandeur.

The full moon, well risen in a cloudless eastern sky, covered the high solitude with its light. We are not conscious of daylight as that which displaces darkness. Daylight, even when the sun is clear of clouds, seems to us simply the natural condition of the earth and air. When we think of the downs, we think of the downs in daylight, as with think of a rabbit with its fur on. Stubbs may have envisaged the skeleton inside the horse, but most of us do not: and we do not usually envisage the downs without daylight, even though the light is not a part of the down itself as the hide is part of the horse itself. We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again. Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight and to that extent it us utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp, between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse's mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and matted that event the wind does not move it, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it. We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity---so much lower than that of daylight---makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.

I have scars on my hand from touching certain people. Once, in the park, when Frannie was still in the carriage, I put my hand on the downy pate of her head and left it there too long. Another time, at Loew's Seventy-second Street, with Zooey during a spooky movie. He was about six or seven, and he went under the seat to avoid watching a scary scene. I put my hand on his head. Certain heads, certain colors and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me. Other things, too. Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand.

Fifty bucks says the Inquisitor develops a high-tech robot arm that shoots laser beams,” said Kit. Everyone looked at him. “It always happens in movies,” he explained. “We’re Shadowhunters,” said Julian. “We’re not high-tech.

I privately say to you old friend (unto you, really, I'm afraid), please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parenthesis: (((( )))). I suppose, most unflorally, I truly mean them to be taken, first off as bow-legged--buckle-legged--omens of my state of mind and body at this writing.

...my atoms, moreover, are arranged to make me constitutionally inclined to believe that where there's smoke there's usually strawberry Jello, seldom fire...

I asked him what, if anything, got him down about teaching. He said he didn't think that anything about it got him exactly down, but there was one thing, he thought, that frightened him: reading the pencilled notations in the margins of books in the college library.

But fishing, as we know, in libraries or anywhere else, is a tricky business, with never a certainty of who's going to catch whom.

I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own human conscience.

Undoubtedly, though, what I'm really getting at is this: Since the bridegroom's permanent retirement from the scene, I haven't been able to think of anybody whom I'd care to send out to look for horses in his stead.

Will you please refrain from shining your high beams at my retinas. You've blinded me.

You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.

Clocks with hands and sophisticated wheels have more art than a digital clock. Right? … Kusha beams when Rashad Gaumont praises her cars.

When I'd originally loaded the car and held the door open for him, I'd had a passing impulse to pick him up bodily and insert him gently through the open window.

I do very emphatically believe there is an enormous amount of the androgynous in any all-or-nothing prose writer, or even a would-be one.

I've met the girl. She's a zero in my opinion but terrific-looking. I don't actually know that she's a zero. I mean she hardly said two words the night I met her. Just sat and smiled and smoked, so it isn't fair to say.

The boy and the girl had both known loss, and their grief did not leave them. Sometimes he would find her standing by a window, fingers playing in the beams of sunlight that streamed through the glass, or sitting on the front steps of the orphanage, staring at the stump of the oak next to the drive. Then he would go to her, draw her close, and lead her to the shores of Trivka's pond, where the insects buzzed and the grass grew high and sweet, where old wounds might be forgotten. She saw sadness in the boy too. Though the woods still welcomed him, he was separate from them now, the bond born into his bones burned away in the same moment that he'd given up his life for her.

Zooey was in dreamy top form. The announcer had them off on the subject of housing developments, and the little Burke girl said she hated houses that all look alike-meaning a long row of identical 'development' houses. Zooey said they were 'nice.' He said it would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody goodbye in the morning thinking they were your own family. He said he even wished everybody in the world looked exactly alike. He said you'd keep thinking everybody you met was your wife or your mother or father, and people would always be throwing their arms around each other wherever they went, and it would look 'very nice.

Oh, God, if I'm anything by a clinical name, I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I think people are plotting to make me happy.

How I worship her simplicity, her terrible honesty. How I rely on it. Как боготворя нейната непосредственост, нейната невероятна честност! Как разчитам на тази честност!

My lips were quivering slightly, like two fools. Устните ми потрепваха като двама глупаци.

When they argue, there can be no danger of a permanent rift, because they're Mother and Daughter. A terrible and beautiful phenomenon to watch.

Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine—some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone—but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him.

I believe I essentially remain what I have always been—a narrator, but one with extremely pressing personal needs. I want to introduce, I want to describe, I want to distribute mementos, amulets, I want to break out my wallet and pass around snapshots, I want to follow my nose. In this mood I don't dare go anywhere near the short story form. It eats up little fat undetached writers like me.

Round and round the questions flew, until finally I found myself standing at the open door of a bookshop. It’s natural in times of great perplexity, I think, to seek out the familiar, and the high shelves and long rows of neatly lined-up spines were immensely reassuring. Amid the smell of ink and binding, the dusty motes in beams of strained sunlight, the embrace of warm, tranquil air, I felt that I could breathe more easily.

An instant later, a silk hat materialised in the air beside me, considerably down and to the left, and my special, only technically unassigned cohort grinned up at me - for a moment, I rather thought he was going to slip his hand into mine.

In the mirror I stand, an injured deer in headlights, or maybe high beams, judging by the way my eyes water. I measure my wrists with my fingers, and I clutch at my rib cage, fingering it languidly, tracing the rise and fall of sharp bones until my heartbeat slows, and I dream of a faraway ocean.

Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand.

It's the sort of absurd notion, though, that I wouldn't mind taking out for a good academic run someday.

Don’t hate me.” “Does anybody?” “Kevin’s old high school girlfriend.” “Because she’s a slut.” Jenny beamed. “I didn’t realize you knew Candy.

We are required only to keep looking.

[Y]ou’re someone who took up birds in the first place because they fired your imagination; they fascinated you because ‘they seemed of all created beings the nearest to pure spirit- those little creatures with a normal temperature of 125°.

She's an irritating, opinionated woman, a type Buddy can't stand. I don't think he could see her for what she is. A person, deprived, for life, of any understanding or taste for the main current of poetry that flows through things, all things.

Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king’s head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. ‘Look, Sam!’ he cried, startled into speech. ‘Look! The king has got a crown again!’ “The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed. “‘They cannot conquer for ever!’ said Frodo.

This is too grand to be said (so I’m just the man to say it), but I can’t be my brother’s brother for nothing, and I know – not always, but I know – there is no single thing I do that is more important than going into that awful Room 307. There isn’t one girl in there, including the Terrible Miss Zabel, who is not as much my sister as Boo Boo or Franny. They may shine with the misinformation of the ages, but they shine. This thought manages to stun me: There’s no place I’d really rather got right now than into Room 307. Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong? Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

I remember a little dispersed band of unfamiliar faces that surreptitiously turned around, now and then, to see who was coughing.

Horrible, but right. An honest Medusa’s Head.

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quite horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact. I spent the whole night necking with a terrible phony named Anne Louise Sherman. Sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't.

When I’d checked into the bathroom with Seymour’s diary under my arm, and had carefully secured the door behind me, I spotted a message almost immediately. It was not, however, in Seymour’s handwriting but, unmistakably, in my sister Boo Boo’s. With or without soap, her handwriting was always almost indecipherably minute, and she had easily managed to post the following message up on the mirror; 'Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man. Love, Irving Sappho, formerly under contract to Elysium Studios Ltd. Please be happy happy happy with your beautiful Muriel. This is an order. I outrank everybody on this block.

We got passes, till midnight after the parade. I met Muriel at the Biltmore at seven. Two drinks, two drugstore tuna-fish sandwiches, then a movie she wanted to see, something with Greer Garson in it. I looked at her several times in the dark when Greer Garson’s son’s plane was missing in action. Her mouth was opened. Absorbed, worried. The identification with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tragedy complete. I felt awe and happiness. How I love and need her undiscriminating heart. She looked over at me when the children in the picture brought in the kitten to show to their mother. M. loved the kitten and wanted me to love it. Even in the dark, I could sense that she felt the usual estrangement from me when I don’t automatically love what she loves. Later, when we were having a drink at the station, she asked me if I didn’t think that kitten was ‘rather nice.’ She doesn’t use the word ‘cute’ any more. When did I ever frighten her out of her normal vocabulary? Bore that I am, I mentioned R. H. Blyth’s definition of sentimentality: that we are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it. I said (sententiously?) that God undoubtedly loves kittens, but not, in all probability, with Technicolor bootees on their paws. He leaves that creative touch to script writers. M. thought this over, seemed to agree with me, but the ‘knowledge’ wasn’t too very welcome. She sat stirring her drink and feeling unclose to me. She worries over the way her love for me comes and goes, appears and disappears. She doubts its reality simply because it isn’t as steadily pleasurable as a kitten. God knows it is sad. The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on earth.

One of the thousand reasons I quit going to the theater when I was about twenty was that I resented like hell filing out of the theater just because some playwright was forever slamming down his silly curtain. (What ever became of that stalwart Fortinbras? Who eventually fixed his wagon?) Nonetheless, I’m done here… Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong? Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny or even Mme. Boo Boo (who was only two years younger than myself, and often entirely the Lady), to take off his or her galoshes on coming into the apartment, each and all of them knew he mostly meant that the floor would get tracked up if they didn't and that Bessie would have to get out the mop. When I told them to take off their galoshes, they knew I mostly meant that people who didn't were slobs. It was bound to make no small difference in the way they kidded or ragged us separately.

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams. I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams. I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes; At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes. I hear you when the billows rise on high, With murmur deep. To tread the silent grove where wander I, When all's asleep.

Dim as the borrowed beams of moons and stars To lonely, weary, wandering travelers, Is Reason to the soul; and, as on high Those rolling fires discover but the sky, Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering ray Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, But guide us upward to a better day.

She will not sit down after, when we all collapse on the mats, our sweaty limbs crisscrossing. She will not sit down, will not let the steel slip from between her shoulders. She has so much pride that, even if I’m weary of her, of her fighting ways, her gauntlet-tossing, I can’t say there isn’t something else that beams in me. An old ember licked to fresh fire again. Beth, the old Beth, before high school, before Ben Trammel, all the boys and self-sorrow, the divorce and the adderall and the suspensions.

Once, at one of the very rare and savory moments when my own teammates grudgingly allowed me to take the ball around one of the ends, Seymour, playing for the opposite side, disconcerted me by looking overjoyed to see me as I charged in his direction, as though it were an unexpected, an enormously providential chance encounter. I stopped almost dead short, and someone, of course, brought me down, in neighborhood talk, like a ton of bricks.

When by my solitary hearth I sit, And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom; When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit, And the bare heath of life presents no bloom; Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head. Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night, Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray, Should sad Despondency my musings fright, And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away, Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof, And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof. Should Disappointment, parent of Despair, Strive for her son to seize my careless heart; When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air, Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart: Chace him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright, And fright him as the morning frightens night! Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow, O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer; Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow: Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head! Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain, From cruel parents, or relentless fair; O let me think it is not quite in vain To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air! Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed. And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head! In the long vista of the years to roll, Let me not see our country's honour fade: O let me see our land retain her soul, Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade. From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed-- Beneath thy pinions canopy my head! Let me not see the patriot's high bequest, Great Liberty! how great in plain attire! With the base purple of a court oppress'd, Bowing her head, and ready to expire: But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings That fill the skies with silver glitterings! And as, in sparkling majesty, a star Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud; Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar: So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud, Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed, Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head. - To Hope

She beamed at me, nestled into me, perched on my lap, peppered me with kisses. I wish I’d been able to unlock this level sooner. I wish I’d met her years ago. High school. Grade school. A previous life. It all felt like lost time.

He said he ate his food out of our big refrigerators, drove our eight-cylinder American cars, un-hesitatingly used our medicines when he was sick, and relied on the U.S. Army to protect his parents and sisters from Hitler's Germany, and nothing, not one single thing in all his poems, reflected these realities.

When Seymour and I were five and three, Les and Bessie played on the same bill for a couple of weeks with Joe Jackson -- the redoubtable Joe Jackson of the nickel-plated trick bicycle that shone like something better than platinum to the very last row of the theater. A good many years later, not long after the outbreak of the Second World War, when Seymour and I had just recently moved into a small New York apartment of our own, our father -- Les, as he'll be called hereafter -- dropped in on us one evening on his way home from a pinochle game. He quite apparently had held very bad cards all afternoon. He came in, at any rate, rigidly predisposed to keep his overcoat on. He sat. He scowled at the furnishings. He turned my hand over to check for cigarette-tar stains on my fingers, then asked Seymour how many cigarettes he smoked a day. He thought he found a fly in his highball. At length, when the conversation -- in my view, at least -- was going straight to hell, he got up abruptly and went over to look at a photograph of himself and Bessie that had been newly tacked up on the wall. He glowered at it for a full minute, or more, then turned around, with a brusqueness no one in the family would have found unusual, and asked Seymour if he remembered the time Joe Jackson had given him, Seymour, a ride on the handle bars of his bicycle, all over the stage, around and around. Seymour, sitting in an old corduroy armchair across the room, a cigarette going, wearing a blue shirt, gray slacks, moccasins with the counters broken down, a shaving cut on the side of his face that I could see, replied gravely and at once, and in the special way he always answered questions from Les -- as if they were the questions, above all others, he preferred to be asked in his life. He said he wasn't sure he had ever got off Joe Jackson's beautiful bicycle.

...my life itself couldn't very conceivably be less Zenful than it is, and what little I've been able to apprehend - I pick that verb with care - of the Zen experience has been a by-result of following my own rather natural path of extreme Zenlessness.

Now the day is done, Now the shepherd sun Drives his white flocks from the sky; Now the flowers rest On their mother's breast, Hushed by her low lullaby. Now the glowworms glance, Now the fireflies dance, Under fern-boughs green and high; And the western breeze To the forest trees Chants a tuneful lullaby. Now 'mid shadows deep Falls blessed sleep, Like dew from the summer sky; And the whole earth dreams, In the moon's soft beams, While night breathes a lullaby. Now, birdlings, rest, In your wind-rocked nest, Unscared by the owl's shrill cry; For with folded wings Little Brier swings, And singeth your lullaby.

...but I do very emphatically believe there is an enormous amount of the androgynous in any all-or-nothing prose writer, or even a would-be one. I think that if he titters at male writers who wear invisible skirts he does so at his eternal peril. I'll say no more on the subject. This is precisely the sort of confidence that can be easily and juicily Abused.

I am not exactly wallowing in guilt at the moment, but guilt is guilt.It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified.

Дланите ми се потят, червата ми се бунтуват. Хармоничната личност никаква я няма. The hands are sweating, the bowels churning. The Integrated Man is simply not at home.

Струва ми се, че към мен я влече едновременно и майчинско, и чисто женско чувство.

He's the only soul alive who knew the deceased intimately.

Si el sentimiento, en última instancia, no vuelve mentirosa a alguna gente, los abominables recuerdos seguro que sí

No me atrevo acercarme a la forma del cuento corto. A los pequeños escritores gordos y subjetivos como yo, se los come vivos.

Some people wish they were as happy as or happy like some people think they are.

...винаги съм готов да препоръчам на родителите и на по-големите братя на десетмесечни пеленачета да им четат за умиряване хубава проза...

Придворната пак ме зачеса: — За ваше сведение, аз зная също, че брат ви съвсем не е специалист по лекуване на мазоли. Не се правете на толкова хитър.

A person deprived, for life, of any understanding or taste for the main current of poetry that flows through things, all things.

Неведнъж са ми ставали необикновено симпатични хора, които не обичат да прекаляват в извиненията си.

По онова време пишех на една недоизлекувана, да не кажа неуравновесена, германска машина. I was using a very poorly rehabilitated, not to say unbalanced, German typewriter at the time.

High, I think, like someone you love coming up on the porch, grinning, grinning, after three hard sets of tennis, victorious tennis, to ask you if you saw the last shot he made. Yes. Oui.

What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked. She looked nervously down at the papers in her hand even though I knew for a fact she had memorized every word. “When I was eleven I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when the recruiters came to see me. They showed me brochures and told me they were impressed by my test scores and asked if I was ready to be challenged. And I said yes. Because that was what a Gallagher Girl was to me then, a student at the toughest school in the world.” She took a deep breath and talked on. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked again. “When I was thirteen I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when Dr. Fibs allowed me to start doing my own experiments in the lab. I could go anywhere—make anything. Do anything my mind could dream up. Because I was a Gallagher Girl. And, to me, that meant I was the future.” Liz took another deep breath. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” This time, when Liz asked it, her voice cracked. “When I was seventeen I stood on a dark street in Washington, D.C., and watched one Gallagher Girl literally jump in front of a bullet to save the life of another. I saw a group of women gather around a girl whom they had never met, telling the world that if any harm was to come to their sister, it had to go through them first.” Liz straightened. She no longer had to look down at her paper as she said, “What is a Gallagher Girl? I’m eighteen now, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t really know the answer to that question. Maybe she is destined to be our first international graduate and take her rightful place among Her Majesty’s Secret Service with MI6.” I glanced to my right and, call me crazy, but I could have sworn Rebecca Baxter was crying. “Maybe she is someone who chooses to give back, to serve her life protecting others just as someone once protected her.” Macey smirked but didn’t cry. I got the feeling that Macey McHenry might never cry again. “Who knows?” Liz asked. “Maybe she’s an undercover journalist.” I glanced at Tina Walters. “An FBI agent.” Eva Alvarez beamed. “A code breaker.” Kim Lee smiled. “A queen.” I thought of little Amirah and knew somehow that she’d be okay. “Maybe she’s even a college student.” Liz looked right at me. “Or maybe she’s so much more.” Then Liz went quiet for a moment. She too looked up at the place where the mansion used to stand. “You know, there was a time when I thought that the Gallagher Academy was made of stone and wood, Grand Halls and high-tech labs. When I thought it was bulletproof, hack-proof, and…yes…fireproof. And I stand before you today happy for the reminder that none of those things are true. Yes, I really am. Because I know now that a Gallagher Girl is not someone who draws her power from that building. I know now with scientific certainty that it is the other way around.” A hushed awe descended over the already quiet crowd as she said this. Maybe it was the gravity of her words and what they meant, but for me personally, I like to think it was Gilly looking down, smiling at us all. “What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked one final time. “She’s a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: A Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.” Thunderous, raucous applause filled the student section. Liz smiled and wiped her eyes. She leaned close to the microphone. “And, most of all, she is my sister.

At any rate, this was the weekend that things started to change, that the dark gaps between the street lamps begin to grow smaller and smaller, and farther apart, the first sign that one's train is approaching familiar territory, and will soon be passing through the well-known, well-lighted streets of town. The house was their trump card, their fondest treasure, and that weekend they revealed it to me slyly, by degrees – the dizzy little turret rooms, the high-beamed attic, the old sleigh in the cellar, big enough to be pulled by four horses, astring with bells.

Those industry-designed latest models, which hover in the air, are nothing compared to the story these cars have—Rashad, her adoptive father, encourages her. So what it’ll be slower? So what if it’ll soon rust? So what if machines age faster? Clocks with hands and sophisticated wheels have more art than a digital clock. Right? … Kusha beams when Rashad Gaumont praises her cars.

For the faithful, the patient, the hermetically pure, all the important things in this world - not life and death, perhaps, which are merely words, but the important things - work out rather beautifully.

Would you like to know how Charlotte got those nine stitches?" I asked suddenly, in a tone of voice that sounded perfectly normal to me. "We were up at the Lake. Seymour had written to Charlotte, inviting her to come up and visit us, and her mother finally let her. What happened was, she sat down in the middle of our driveway one morning to pet Boo Boo's cat, and Seymour threw a stone at her. He was twelve. That's all there was to it. He threw it at her because she looked so beautiful sitting there in the middle of the driveway with Boo Boo's cat. Everybody knew that for God's sake-me, Charlotte, Boo Boo, Waker, Walt, the whole family." I stared at the pewter ashtray on the coffee table. "Charlotte never said a word to him about it. Not a word." I looked up at my guest, rather expecting him to dispute me, to call me a liar. I am a liar, of course. Charlotte never did understand why Seymour threw that stone at her. My guest didn't dispute me though.

Did you know that the average life span of the hairy-nosed wombat is ten to twelve years?” Apparently, Sloane had decided that when I said I was fine, I was lying. The more coffee my roommate ingested, the lower her threshold for keeping random statistics to herself—especially if she thought someone needed a distraction. “The longest-living wombat in captivity lived thirty-four years,” Sloane continued, propping herself up on her elbows to look at me. Given that we shared a bedroom, I probably should have objected more strenuously to cup of coffee number two. Tonight, though, I found Sloane’s high-speed statistical babbling to be strangely soothing. Profiling Sterling hadn’t kept me from thinking about Locke. Maybe this would. “Tell me more about wombats,” I said. With the look of a small child awaking to a miracle on Christmas morning, Sloane beamed at me and complied.

When he got work my father worked as a steel worker, high up on tall buildings, walking on beams like those Mohawk Indians. It was dangerous work. People were always falling to their death. He worked on the building of the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia and on the few high-rise buildings they could afford to build in the Depression.

You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion. Never. I'm a little over-excited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won't be asked. You won't be asked if you were working on a wonderful moving piece of writing when you died. You won't be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won't be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won't even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished--I think only poor Soren K. will get asked that. I'm so sure you'll get asked only two questions.' Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. If only you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won't even underline that. It's too important to be underlined. Oh, dare to do it, Buddy ! Trust your heart. You're a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you.

The connection was so bad, and I couldn't talk at all during most of the call. How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person at the other end shouts back 'What?' I've been reading a miscellany of Vedanta all [358] day. Marriage partners are to serve each other. Elevate, help, teach, strengthen each other, but above all, serve. Raise their children honorably, lovingly, and with detachment. A child is a guest in the house, to be loved and respected-never possessed, since he belongs to God. How wonderful, how sane, how beautifully difficult, and therefore true. The joy of responsibility for the first time in my life.

He didn't disagree with me, but he seemed to feel that I have a perfection complex of some kind. Much talk from him, and quite intelligent, on the virtues of living the imperfect life, of accepting one's own and others' weaknesses. I agree with him, but only in theory. I'll champion indiscrimination till doomsday, on the grounds that it leads to health and a kind of very real, enviable happiness. Followed purely it's the way of the Tao, and undoubtedly the highest way. But for a discriminating man to achieve this, it would mean that he would have to dispossess himself of poetry, go beyond poetry. That is, he couldn't possibly learn or drive himself to like bad poetry in the abstract, let alone equate it with good poetry. He would have to drop poetry altogether. I said it would be no easy thing to do. Dr Sims said I was putting it too stringently – putting it, he said, as only a perfectionist would.

Не, беше само голяма палавница. Но пееше не по-лошо, отколкото сега. И ни беше чудесна морална подкрепа. Винаги сядаше до брат ми Сиймор пред масата с микрофоните и щом ѝ харесваше някоя негова реплика, настъпваше го по крака. Един вид ръкостискане, само че с крак.

It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams yet illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I arose, I reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with it in sight of the sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but the grayness touched not my heart. It carried its rose-hue within; for now I could love without needing to be loved again.

My mom’s smile is genuine, A lilac beaming In the presence of her Sun. Indentions in the sand prove Time’s linear progression, Her hair yet unblighted, Carrying midnight’s consistency. Clear tracks fading as the Movement slips further In the past. Cheekbones High, soft, In summer’s hue, Hopeful. Each step’s unknown impact, A future looking back. My father’s strength: One whose Life is in his arms. Squinting past the camera, He rests upon a rock Like caramel corn half eaten, Just to the left Of man-made concrete convention Daylight’s eraser Removing color to his right. Dustin sits In my father’s lap, Open mouth of a drooling Big mouth bass; Muscle tone Of a well exercised Jelly fish, He looks at me Half aware; His wheelchair Perched at the edge Of parking lot gravel grafted Like a scar on nature’s beach, Opening to the ironic splendor Of a bitter tasting lake. I took the picture. Age 11. Capturing the pinnacle arc Of a son To my lilac Who Outlived him and weeps, Still. Their sky has staple holes – Maybe that’s how the Light Leaked out.

Walt, at about eleven, had a routine of looking at Seymour's wrists and telling him to take off his sweater. "Take off your sweater, hey, Seymour. Go ahead, hey. It's warm in here." S. would beam back at him, shine back at him. He loved that kind of horseplay from any of the kids. I did, too, but only off and on. He did invariably. He thrived, too, waxed strong, on all tactless or underconsidered remarks directed at him by family minors. In 1959, in fact, when on occasion I hear rather nettling news of the doings of my youngest brother and sister, I think on the quantities of joy they brought S. I remember Franny, at about four, sitting on his lap, facing him, and saying, with immense admiration, "Seymour, your teeth are so nice and yellow!" He literally staggered over to me to ask if I'd heard what she said.

Питам се до каква степен на човек му е позволено да се възхищава от ръцете на брат си, без това да накара няколко модерни психоаналитични вежди да се повдигнат. To what extent, I wonder, may one be allowed to admire one's brother's hands without raising a few modern eyebrows?

In this entre-nous spirit, then, old confidant before we join the others, the grounded everywhere, including, I’m sure, the middle-aged hot-rodders who insist on zooming us to the moon, the Dharma Bums, the makers of cigarette filters for thinking men, the Beat and the Sloppy and the Petulant, the chosen cultists, all the lofty experts who know so well what we should or shouldn’t do with our poor little sex organs, all the bearded, proud, unlettered young men and unskilled guitarists and Zen-killers and incorporated aesthetic Teddy boys who look down their thoroughly unenlightened noses at this splendid planet where (please don’t shut me up) Kilroy, Christ, and Shakespeare all stopped – before we join these others, I privately say to you, old friend (unto you, really, I’m afraid), please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses: (((()))).

Този ден — бог е свидетел на това — беше забележителен не само с най-неочаквани знамения и поличби, но и с широко използване на писмената реч като средство за предаване на мисли. Скачаш в препълнена кола и ето че съдбата по своите неведоми пътища се погрижва у теб да се намерят тефтерче и молив, в случай че някой от спътниците ти се окаже глухоням. Промъкваш се в банята и нещо те накарва да се огледаш над мивката, да видиш няма ли там някакви откровения.

As they were making their way out, they went through a narrow passage and Mather suddenly warned, “Stoop! Stoop!” Franklin, not understanding the exhortation, bumped his head on a low beam. As was his wont, Mather turned it into a homily: “Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high. Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you’ll miss many hard thumps.” As Franklin later recalled to Mather’s son, “This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me, and I often think of it when I see pride mortified and misfortunes brought upon people by carrying their heads too high.

Тъщите винаги са ми били симпатични все пак, включително стереотипните тъщи от хумористичните вестници. И освен това нищо няма да загубя, ако отида на психоаналитик. Още повече че в армията това е безплатно. Мюриъл ме обича, но не ме ли ремонтират малко, тя никога не ще се почувства интимна с мен, свободна, безгрижна.

And then we would sit and watch as the first hint of sunlight, a light tinge of day blue, would leak out of the eastern horizon, slowly erasing the stars. The day sky would spread wide and high, until the first ray of the sun made an appearance. The morning commuters began to animate the distant South Lake Tahoe roads. But craning your head back, you could see the day’s blue darken halfway across the sky, and to the west, the night remained yet unconquered—pitch-black, stars in full glimmer, the full moon still pinned in the sky. To the east, the full light of day beamed toward you; to the west, night reigned with no hint of surrender. No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, “Let there be light!” You.

…he is invariably a kind of super-size but unmistakably ‘classical’ neurotic, an aberrant who only occasionally, and never deeply, wishes to surrender his aberration; or, in English, a Sick Man who not at all seldom, though he’s reported to childishly deny it, gives out terrible cries of pain, as if he would wholeheartedly let go of both his art and soul to experience what passes in other people for wellness, and yet (the rumor continues) when his unsalutary-looking little room is broken into and someone - not infrequently, at that, someone who actually loves him - passionately asks him where the pain is, he either declines or seems unable to discuss it an any constructive critical length, and in the morning, when even great poets and painters presumably feel a bit more chipper than usual, he looks more perversely determined than ever to see his sickness run its course, as though by the light of another, presumably working day he had remembered that all men, the healthy ones included, eventually die, but that he, lucky man, is at least being done in by the most stimulating companion, disease or no, he has ever known.

Не можеш да спориш с човек, който вярва или поне силно подозира, че задачата на поета не е да пише каквото му диктува вътрешният подтик, а каквото би написал, ако, следвайки вътрешния си подтик, възприеме стил, който да е разбираем за колкото е възможно по-голям брой от познатите му библиотекарки. Сякаш това е въпрос на живот и смърт.

May I be a pillar on which upon you stand, a leaning post for young ones, my lover and my friend. May I be a beam of light that you bestow upon your hopes, your dreams, your wisdom, so we may carry on. May I be a beacon, a tree with roots so strong, treetop spreading high and wide, a trunk so wide and long. May I be your music a flute for you to play whatever you desire with each forthcoming day. May I lose myself to find you, support all those who need my love, my core, my laughter, permeate my every deed.

You are to me,” he said frankly, his tone void of emotion. “And I’m not a whore.” “I’m well aware. I’m not buying you, Luna. I’m merely making a point.” “What is the point?” “That once you’re with me, you won’t be able to touch anyone else. Want anyone else. Feel for anyone else.” I already know that, you fool. I took a deep breath, leaning forward and snatching one half of the lemon. It was cut precisely in the middle. He always played fair. Knight took his lemon. Our eyes met, and we shared an identical beam.

Coriolanus moved back to his seat - she knew where to find him now - to listen and to savor their actual reunion, which was only a song away. His eyes teared up when she began the song from the zoo. "Down in the valley, valley so low, Late in the evening, hear the train blow. The train, love, hear the train blow. Late in the evening, hear the train blow." Coriolanus felt an elbow nudge his ribs and looked over to see Sejanus beaming at him. It was nice, after all, to have someone else who knew the significance of the song. Someone who knew what they'd been through. "Go build me a mansion, build it so high, So I can see my true love go by. See him go by, love, see him go by. So I can see my true love go by." That's me, Coriolanus wanted to tell people around him. I'm her true love. And I saved her life. "Go write me a letter, send it by mail. Bake it and stamp it to the Capitol jail. Capitol jail, love, to the Capitol jail. Bake it and stamp it to the Capitol jail." Should he say hello first? Or just kiss her? "Roses are red, love; violets are blue. Birds in the heavens know I love you." Kiss her. Definitely, just kiss her. "Know I love you, oh, know I love you, Birds in the heavens know I love you. "Good night, everybody. Hope we see you next week, and until then, keep singing your song," said Lucy Gray, and the whole Covey took one final blow.

I think it should be done over, Buddy. …Please make peace with your wit. It's not going to go away, Buddy. To dump it on your own advice would be as bad and unnatural as dumping your adjectives and your adverbs because Prof. B. wants you to. What does he know about it? What do you really know about your own wit? I've been sitting here tearing up notes to you. I keep starting to say things like 'This one is wonderfully constructed,' and 'The conversation between the two cops is terrific.' So I'm hedging. I'm not sure why. I started to get a little nervous right after you began to read. It sounded like the beginning of something your arch-enemy Bob B. calls a rattling good story. Don't you think he would call this a step in the right direction? Doesn't that worry you? Even what is funny about the woman on the back of the truck doesn't sound like something you think is funny. It sounds much more like something that you think is universally considered funny. I feel gypped. Does that make you mad? You can say our relatedness spoils my judgement. It worries me enough. But I'm also just a reader. Are you a writer or just a writer of rattling good stories. I mind getting a rattling good story from you.

Спомням си, че докато тримата — придворната, мъжът й и мисис Силзбърн — не сваляха поглед от мен, следейки как кашлям, самият аз поглеждах към дребничкото старче отзад. То все така гледаше неотклонно право пред себе си. Забелязах, едва ли не с чувство на благодарност, че краката му не стигаха до пода. Те ми се сториха като стари, добри приятели.

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams. I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams. I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes; At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes. I hear you when the blows rise on high, with murmur deep. To tread the silent grove where wander I, When all's asleep.

Но на двадесет и три години аз бях от онзи тип младежи, които, каквато и рана да получат пред хорски поглед (освен счупена глава), само се разсмиват с глух неестествен смях. But at twenty-three I was the sort of young man who responds to all public injury of his person, short of a fractured skull, by giving out a hollow, subnormal-sounding laugh.

В деня, в който се самоуби, Сиймор беше написал върху попивателната в хотелската си стая една строфа в чист, класически стил хайку. Тя е написана на японски, а моят превод ми се струва твърде буквален, но във всеки случай става дума за едно момиченце, което пътува в самолет и държи до себе си кукла, и по едно време извръща глава, за да погледне поета.

He said he wasn't sure he had ever got off Joe Jackson's beautiful bicycle.

By far the majority of the hundred and eighty-finer poems are immeasurably not light- but high-hearted, and can be read by anyone, anywhere, even aloud in rather progressive orphanages on stormy nights, but I wouldn't unreservedly recommend the last thirty or thirty-five poems to any living soul who hasn't died at least twice in his lifetime, preferably slowly.

Each day, the moon’s gravitational field tugs at the earth as it rotates underneath. At CERN, this tiny stress caused the total length of the LEP tunnel to stretch and contract by about a millimeter (one-twenty-fifth of an inch) every day. Not such a big deal in a seventeen-mile-long beam pipe, but enough to cause a tiny fluctuation in the energy of the electrons and positrons—one that was easily detectable by the high-precision instruments. After some initial puzzlement at the daily energy variations, the CERN physicists quickly figured out what was going on.

Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the last to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every breath that stirs.

Сигурен съм, че само възрастта ми, униформата и онова зеленикавожълто сияние на несъмнена услужливост, което се излъчваше от мен, са разсеяли всякакви съмнения, че може да ми се възложи ролята на портиер. It strikes me that it was solely my age, uniform, and the unmistakably serviceable, olivedrab aura about me that had left no doubt concerning my eligibility to fill in as doorman.

Sometimes he would find her standing by a window, fingers playing in the beams of sunlight that streamed through the glass, or sitting on the front steps of the orphanage, staring at the stump of the oak next to the drive. Then he would go to her, draw her close, and lead her to the shores of Trivka’s pond, where the insects buzzed and the grass grew high and sweet, where old wounds might be forgotten.

Just as it was in Kempe’s time, the rate of removals today has less to do with the literal rate of physical abuse or neglect and more to do with a fickle public intermittently enraged by what they hear on the news. When kids die at the hands of their parents, headlines put child protection agencies under intense and sudden scrutiny. Investigators increase their removals, hoping to avoid another high-profile fatality.

Нещо повече, макар вече да разтръбих, че съм щастлив писател, готов съм да се закълна, че не съм и никога не съм бил весел писател; квотата от невесели мисли, обичайни за професията, милостиво е отпусната и на мен. Furthermore, though I am, as I've already conspicuously posted, a happy writer, I'll take my oath I'm not now and never have been a merry one; I've mercifully been allowed the usual professional quota of unmerry thoughts.

ازم پرسید :« می شود اینقدر نشانه گیری نکنی؟ اگر با نشانه گیری بزنیش, فقط شانس آورده ای.» جواب دادم:«چطور شانسی می برم وقتی نشانه بگیرم؟» لحظه ای چیزی نگفت, همانطور بر لبه ی جدول ایستاد و, آنطوری که من فهمیدم, با عشق و محبت به من نگاه کرد. گفت: «چون که شانسی است. اگر تیله ی او را بزنی خوشحال می شوی, نه؟ خوشحال نمی شوی؟ و اگر از زدنِ تیله ی کسی خوشحال بشوی, یعنی پیش خودت انتظار نداشتی این کار را بکنی. پس حتما شانس هم در کار است,حتما مقدار زیادیش تصادف است.»

On Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way, Down this still stream we took our meadowy way, A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray Doth faintly shine on Concord's twilight day. Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high, Shining more brightly as the day goes by, Most travellers cannot at first descry, But eyes that wont to range the evening sky, And know celestial lights, do plainly see, And gladly hail them, numbering two or three; For lore that's deep must deeply studied be, As from deep wells men read star-poetry. These stars are never pal'd, though out of sight, But like the sun they shine forever bright; Aye, they are suns, though earth must in its flight Put out its eyes that it may see their light. Who would neglect the least celestial sound, Or faintest light that falls on earthly ground, If he could know it one day would be found That star in Cygnus whither we are bound, And pale our sun with heavenly radiance round?

В погледа ѝ имаше нещо заплашително. Имах чувството, че в нея е въплътена цяла тълпа жени и че в друго време тя би могла да седи с плетката си пред гилотината и да се наслаждава на гледката. А аз цял живот съм изпитвал панически страх от всякакви тълпи. There was something distinctly intimidating about her stare. It seemed to come from a one-woman mob, separated only by time and chance from her knitting bag and a splendid view of the guillotine. I've been terrified of mobs, of any kind, all my life.

The Gauls’ own ships were built and rigged in a different manner from ours. They were made with much flatter bottoms, to help them to ride shallow water caused by shoals or ebb-tides. Exceptionally high bows and sterns fitted them for use in heavy seas and violent gales, and the hulls were made entirely of oak, to enable them to stand any amount of shocks and rough usage. The cross-timbers, which consisted of beams a foot wide, were fastened with iron bolts as thick as a man’s thumb. The anchors were secured with iron chains instead of ropes. They used sails made of raw hides or thin leather, either because they had no flax and were ignorant of its use, or more probably because they thought that ordinary sails would not stand the violent storms and squalls of the Atlantic and were not suitable for such heavy vessels. In meeting them the only advantage our ships possessed was that they were faster and could be propelled by oars; in other respects the enemy’s were much better adapted for sailing such treacherous and stormy waters. We could not injure them by ramming because they were so solidly built, and their height made it difficult to reach them with missiles or board them with grappling-irons. Moreover, when it began to blow hard and they were running before the wind, they weathered the storm more easily; they could bring in to shallow water with greater safety, and when left aground by the tide had nothing to fear from reefs or pointed rocks – whereas to our ships all these risks were formidable.

Години наред ние, седемте деца в нашето семейство, разполагащо само с една баня, имахме малко досадния, но полезен навик да си пишем бележки с парченца сапун върху огледалцето на аптечката. Обикновено тези бележки съдържаха изключително строги наставления, а понякога — и нескрити заплахи: „Бу Бу прибирай си кесето след къпане! Не го захвърляй на пода! Много целувки. Сиймор.“; „Уолт, днес е твой ред да изведеш Ф. и З. из парка. Вчера ги извеждах аз. Познай кой.“; „В сряда е годишнината от сватбата им. Не ходи на кино, не се мотай в радиото след предаването, за да не се набуташ в шамарите! Това се отнася и за теб, Бъди!“; „Мама се оплаква, че Зуи едва не изгълтал разхлабителното. Не оставяй разни вредни неща на мивката, че той може да ги достигне и изгълта!

Възпроизведох тази приказка не само защото винаги съм готов да препоръчам на родителите и на по-големите братя на десетмесечни пеленачета да им четат за умиряване хубава проза, но и по съвсем друга причина. Сега ще ви опиша една сватба, която се състоя през 1942 година. Според мен това е напълно завършен разказ — с начало и край, дори с предчувствие за смърт. Но тъй като са ми известни по-нататъшните факти, чувствам се задължен да отбележа, че сега, в 1955 година, младоженецът не е вече между живите. Той се самоуби през 1948 година, когато беше на курорт с жена си във Флорида. Всъщност най-същественото, което искам да кажа, е следното: откакто младоженецът слезе завинаги от сцената, аз не мога да намеря на негово място друг, комуто да се доверя в избора на кон.

Homer's Hymn to the Moon Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818. Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody, Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth, From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth, Far light is scattered—boundless glory springs; Where'er she spreads her many-beaming wings The lampless air glows round her golden crown. But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone Under the sea, her beams within abide, Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean's tide, Clothing her form in garments glittering far, And having yoked to her immortal car The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky A western Crescent, borne impetuously. Then is made full the circle of her light, And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then, A wonder and a sign to mortal men. The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power Mingled in love and sleep—to whom she bore Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are. Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity, Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee My song beginning, by its music sweet Shall make immortal many a glorious feat Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.

When an object impacts the Moon at high speed, it sets the Moon slightly wobbling. Eventually the vibrations die down but not in so short a period as eight hundred years. Such a quivering can be studied by laser reflection techniques. The Apollo astronauts emplaced in several locales on the Moon special mirrors called laser retroreflectors. When a laser beam from Earth strikes the mirror and bounces back, the round-trip travel time can be measured with remarkable precision. This time multiplied by the speed of light gives us the distance to the Moon at that moment to equally remarkable precision. Such measurements, performed over a period of years, reveal the Moon to be librating, or quivering with a period (about three years) and amplitude (about three meters), consistent with the idea that the crater Giordano Bruno was gouged out less than a thousand years ago.

Тогава защо още седях в колата? Защо не скочих от нея, да речем, когато тя спираше при червена светлина на светофара? И най-важното — защо въобще се бях качил в тази кола? Може да се дадат десетки отговори на тези въпроси и всички те, макар и не изчерпателни, ще бъдат що-годе задоволителни. Но смятам да отговоря на всички изведнъж, като припомня, че това бе 1942 година, че аз бях двадесет и три годишен новобранец, у когото тъкмо бяха развили стадното чувство, и най-важното — че се чувствах много самотен. В такива случаи, изглежда, човек просто скача в пълна с хора кола и си остава в нея.

To fill the days up of his dateless year Flame from Queen Helen to Queen Guenevere? For first of all the sphery signs whereby Love severs light from darkness, and most high, In the white front of January there glows The rose-red sign of Helen like a rose: And gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterless Whereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness, A storm-star that the seafarers of love Strain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of, Shoots keen through February's grey frost and damp The lamplike star of Hero for a lamp; The star that Marlowe sang into our skies With mouth of gold, and morning in his eyes; And in clear March across the rough blue sea The signal sapphire of Alcyone Makes bright the blown bross of the wind-foot year; And shining like a sunbeam-smitten tear Full ere it fall, the fair next sign in sight Burns opal-wise with April-coloured light When air is quick with song and rain and flame, My birth-month star that in love's heaven hath name Iseult, a light of blossom and beam and shower, My singing sign that makes the song-tree flower; Next like a pale and burning pearl beyond The rose-white sphere of flower-named Rosamond Signs the sweet head of Maytime; and for June Flares like an angered and storm-reddening moon Her signal sphere, whose Carthaginian pyre Shadowed her traitor's flying sail with fire; Next, glittering as the wine-bright jacinth-stone, A star south-risen that first to music shone, The keen girl-star of golden Juliet bears Light northward to the month whose forehead wears Her name for flower upon it, and his trees Mix their deep English song with Veronese; And like an awful sovereign chrysolite Burning, the supreme fire that blinds the night, The hot gold head of Venus kissed by Mars, A sun-flower among small sphered flowers of stars, The light of Cleopatra fills and burns The hollow of heaven whence ardent August yearns; And fixed and shining as the sister-shed Sweet tears for Phaethon disorbed and dead, The pale bright autumn's amber-coloured sphere, That through September sees the saddening year As love sees change through sorrow, hath to name Francesca's; and the star that watches flame The embers of the harvest overgone Is Thisbe's, slain of love in Babylon, Set in the golden girdle of sweet signs A blood-bright ruby; last save one light shines An eastern wonder of sphery chrysopras, The star that made men mad, Angelica's; And latest named and lordliest, with a sound Of swords and harps in heaven that ring it round, Last love-light and last love-song of the year's, Gleams like a glorious emerald Guenevere's.

One," said the recording secretary. "Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly. There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him. "Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause. Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids." Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip. "Three," called the secretary hurriedly. Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years. "Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins." Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap. "Four." The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Still that silence. "Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover. "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay. Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny." I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it. "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him. Toward the door some one tittered. "Seven," called the secretary hastily. Leon glanced around the room. "But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself. "Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief. Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess. "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her. Laddie would thrash him for that. Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" More than one giggled that time. "Ten!" came almost sharply. Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." "Eleven." Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!" Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook. "Twelve." Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning. "Thirteen." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.

I may love the great outdoors in winter, but even I draw the line at sunset. When November comes, I have no desire to leave the house after dark. My instinct is to hibernate the evenings away. I hate those strange walks along the high street, lit only by street lamps and the glow of shop windows, the cold seeping up your coat sleeves. I don’t like the way that 4 o’clock can feel so desolate, the air damp without the corrective force of the sun./ The very thought of driving seems nightmarish – those impenetrable roads their edges uncertain; the dance you have to perform with the full beam, flicking it on and off, on and off. Far better to stay at home.

In South Texas I saw three interesting things. The first was a tiny girl, maybe ten years old, driving in a 1965 Cadillac. She wasn't going very fast, because I passed her, but still she was cruising right along, with her head tilted back and her mouth open and her little hands gripping the wheel. Then I saw an old man walking up the median strip pulling a wooden cross behind him. It was mounted on something like a golf cart with two spoked wheels. I slowed down to read the hand-lettered sign on his chest. JACKSONVILLE FLA OR BUST I had never been to Jacksonville but I knew it was the home of the Gator Bowl and I had heard it was a boom town, taking in an entire county or some such thing. It seemed an odd destination for a religious pilgrim. Penance maybe for some terrible sin, or some bargain he had worked out with God, or maybe just a crazed hiker. I waved and called out to him, wishing him luck, but he was intent on his marching and had no time for idle greetings. His step was brisk and I was convinced he wouldn't bust. The third interesting thing was a convoy of stake-bed trucks all piled high with loose watermelons and cantaloupes. I was amazed. I couldn't believe that the bottom ones weren't crushed under all that weight, exploding and spraying hazardous melon juice onto the highway. One of nature's tricks with curved surfaces. Topology! I had never made it that far in mathematics and engineering studies, and I knew now that I never would, just as I knew that I would never be a navy pilot or a Treasury agent. I made a B in Statics but I was failing in Dynamics when I withdrew from the field. The course I liked best was one called Strength of Materials. Everybody else hated it because of all the tables we had to memorize but I loved it, the sheared beam. I had once tried to explain to Dupree how things fell apart from being pulled and compressed and twisted and bent and sheared but he wouldn't listen. Whenever that kind of thing came up, he would always say - boast, the way those people do - that he had no head for figures and couldn't do things with his hands, slyly suggesting the presence of finer qualities.

At length, when the conversation-in my view, at least -was going straight to hell, he got up abruptly and went over to look at a photograph of himself and Bessie that had been newly tacked up on the wall. He glowered at it for a full minute, or more, then turned around, with a brusqueness no one in the family would have found unusual, and asked Seymour if he remembered the time Joe Jackson had given him, Seymour, a ride on the handle bars of his bicycle, all over the stage, around and around. Seymour, sitting in an old corduroy armchair across the room, a cigarette going, wearing a blue shirt, gray slacks, moccasins with the counters broken down, a shaving cut on the side of his face that I could see, replied gravely and at on cc, and in the special way he always answered questions from Les - as if they were the questions, above all others, he preferred to be asked in his life. He said he wasn't sure he had ever got off Joe Jackson's beautiful bicycle. And aside from its enormous sentimental value to my father personally, this answer, in a great many ways, was true, true, true.

Silence. Then, “What does. This. Sound like?” “What does what sound like?” “Io is a sulfur-rich, iron-cored moon in a circular orbit around Jupiter. What does this. Sound like? Tidal forces from Jupiter and Ganymede pull and squeeze Io sufficiently to melt Tartarus, its sub-surface sulfur ocean. Tartarus vents its excess energy with sulfur and sulfur dioxide volcanoes. What does. This sound like? Io’s metallic core generates a magnetic field that punches a hole in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, and also creates a high-energy ion flux tube connecting its own poles with the north and south poles of Jupiter. What. Does this sound like? Io sweeps up and absorbs all the electrons in the million-volt range. Its volcanoes pump out sulfur dioxide; its magnetic field breaks down a percentage of that into sulfur and oxygen ions; and these ions are pumped into the hole punched in the magnetosphere, creating a rotating field commonly called the Io torus. What does this sound like? Torus. Flux tube. Magnetosphere. Volcanoes. Sulfur ions. Molten ocean. Tidal heating. Circular orbit. What does this sound like?” Against her will, Martha had found herself first listening, then intrigued, and finally involved. It was like a riddle or a word-puzzle. There was a right answer to the question. Burton or Hols would have gotten it immediately. Martha had to think it through. There was the faint hum of the radio’s carrier beam. A patient, waiting noise. At last, she cautiously said, “It sounds like a machine.

In summer, waiting for night, we’d pose against the afterglow on corners, watching traffic cruise through the neighborhood. Sometimes, a car would go by without its headlights on and we’d all yell, “Lights!” “Lights!” we’d keep on yelling until the beams flashed on. It was usually immediate - the driver honking back thanks, or flinching embarrassed behind the steering wheel, or gunning past, and we’d see his red taillights blink on. But there were times - who knows why? - when drunk or high, stubborn, or simply lost in that glide to somewhere else, the driver just kept driving in the dark, and all down the block we’d hear yelling from doorways and storefronts, front steps, and other corners, voices winking on like fireflies: “Lights! Your lights! Hey, lights!

Thy soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. The night—tho' clear—shall frown— And the stars shall not look down From their high thrones in the Heaven, With light like Hope to mortals given— But their red orbs, without beam, To thy weariness shall seem As a burning and a fever Which would cling to thee forever. Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish— Now are visions ne'er to vanish— From thy spirit shall they pass No more—like dew-drops from the grass. The breeze—the breath of God—is still—

LIGHTS By Stuart Dybek “In summer, waiting for night, we’d pose against the afterglow on corners, watching traffic cruise through the neighborhood. Sometimes, a car would go by without its headlights on and we’d all yell, “Lights!” “Lights!” we’d keep on yelling until the beams flashed on. It was usually immediate - the driver honking back thanks, or flinching embarrassed behind the steering wheel, or gunning past, and we’d see his red taillights blink on. But there were times - who knows why? - when drunk or high, stubborn, or simply lost in that glide to somewhere else, the driver just kept driving in the dark, and all down the block we’d hear yelling from doorways and storefronts, front steps, and other corners, voices winking on like fireflies: “Lights! Your lights! Hey, lights!

Виж какво, седнеш ли да пишеш, винаги гледай да се сещаш, че преди да станеш писател, дълго време си бил читател. Запечатал веднъж това в главата си, сядаш спокойно и се запитваш каква творба би се харесала най-много на Бъди Глас като читател, ако трябва да избира по сърце. Следващата стъпка, решителната, е толкова проста, че чак не е за вярване. Сядаш и без да ти мигне окото, написваш сам творбата. Дори не подчертавам това. То е толкова важно, че не се нуждае от подчертаване. О, Бъди, имай тази смелост. Довери се на сърцето си. Ти си достоен художник и то няма да ти изневери. If only you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won't even underline that. It's too important to be underlined. Oh, dare to do it, Buddy ! Trust your heart. You're a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you.

می‌دانی به چه لبخند می‌زدم؟ در فرم نوشتی که حرفه‌ات نویسندگی است. به نظرم قشنگ‌ترین حسن تعبیری بود که به عمرم شنیده بودم. از کی تا حالا نوشتن حرفه‌ی تو شده؟ نوشتن هیچ‌چیز نبوده جز مذهب تو. هیچ‌چیز. حالا کمی بیش‌ازحد هیجان‌زده‌ام. ازآنجاکه این مذهب توست, می‌دانی وقتی بمیری ازت چه سؤالی می‌کنند؟ نه, اول بگذارم بگویم ازت چه نمی‌پرسند. ازت نمی‌پرسند که دمِ مرگ داشتی یک قطعه‌ی معرکه و تأثیرگذار می‌نوشتی یا نه. ازت نمی‌پرسند که آن قطعه کوتاه بود یا بلند, غم‌انگیز بود یا خنده‌دار, چاپ شد یا نشد. ازت نمی‌پرسند که موقع کار کردن روی آن سرحال بودی یا نه. حتی ازت نمی‌پرسند که اگر می‌دانستی وقتت سر آماده بازهم بر روی این قطعه کار می‌کردی یا روی چیزی دیگر - فکر کنم این را فقط از سورِن ک. بیچاره بپرسند.. ولی مطمئنم از تو فقط دو چیز می‌پرسند. بیش‌تر ستاره‌هایت در آسمان بودند؟ آیا داشتی می‌نوشتی که دلت را کنار بگذاری؟

Hey, Hiro," the black-and-white guy says, "you want to try some Snow Crash?" A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. You ignore them. But this gets Hiro's attention. Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. But people have ways of getting that information. It's probably nothing. The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. But this is the Metaverse. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse, because you can't get high by looking at something. The third: The name of the drug. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year, and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names. But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. It means a system crash -- a bug -- at such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls the electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the screen, turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. Hiro has seen it happen a million times. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug. The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. He has an utterly calm, stolid presence. It's like talking to an asteroid. Which would be okay if he were doing something that made the tiniest little bit of sense. Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face, but the closer he looks, the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering, hardedged pixels. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. It makes his teeth hurt. "Excuse me," Hiro says. "What did you say?

Казах, че хич не ми пука какво дрънка мисис Федър за Сиймор. И какво мислят разни професионални дилетантки или любителки и тям подобни кучки. Казах, че още от десетгодишна възраст Сиймор е бил обсъждан от какви ли не — от дипломирани философи до интелигентни прислужници в мъжките клозети. И че те биха имали право, ако Сиймор беше някой, който се фука с високата си интелигентност. Но той мразеше да се показва. За предаванията в сряда тръгваше, сякаш предстоеше собственото му погребение. Седи до теб в автобуса или метрото и през целия път зъб не обелва, ей богу! Казах, че всички тези проклетници — разни евтини критици и драскачи — знаеха само да го потупват по гърба, но нито един от тях не разбра какво всъщност представлява той. А той е поет, бога ми! Истински поет, разбирате ли? И въпреки че още не е написал и един стих, може всички да сложи в джоба си, стига да иска.

Sevro, swarmed by his daughters, makes faces at them as they eat. But when the air cracks with a sonic boom, he bolts upright, looks at the sky, and runs off into the house, urging his children to stay put. He returns a whole half an hour later arm in arm with his wife, hair a mess, two jacket buttons missing, touching a white napkin to a bloodied, split lip. My old friend Victra, immaculate in a high-collared green jacket threaded with gemstones, beams devilishly across the patio at me. She’s seven months pregnant with their fourth daughter. “Well, if it isn’t the Reaper in the leathery flesh. Apologies, my goodman. I’m dreadfully late.” Her long legs cover the distance in three strides. I greet her with a hug. She squeezes my butt hard enough to make me jump. She kisses Mustang on the head and slides into a chair, dominating the table. “Hello, gloomy one,” she says to Electra.

Накрая, когато разговорът съвсем се запъна, скочи изведнъж и отиде да погледне една снимка — той с Беси, — която току-що бяхме заболи на стената. Гледа я навъсен цяла минута или повече, после се обърна с рязкост, която не би учудила никого в семейството, и попита Сиймор дали си спомня как Джо Джаксън си е играл с него, как го е возил по сцената на кормилото на колелото. Със синя риза, сиви дочени панталони, подпетени мокасини, запалена цигара и порязана от самобръсначката буза, Сиймор седеше в старото плюшено кресло в дъното на стаята. Той отговори сериозно и незабавно, по онзи особен начин, по който винаги отговаряше на въпросите на Лес — сякаш това са въпроси, които той цял живот е чакал да му бъдат зададени. Струва ми се, каза, че никога не съм слизал от вълшебното колело на Джо Джаксън. Освен че трогна баща ми до сълзи, този отговор беше в хиляди отношения верен, верен, верен.

Stop or I’ll kill him!” Sophia shouted at the angels as she tore out a fistful of arrows and leaped on Cam. Straddling him, she raised the silver shafts above his head. His dark hair was matted and greasy. His hands were pale and trembling. Miss Sophia studied these details with a smirk. “I do so love to see an angel die.” She cackled, holding the starshots high. “And such an arrogant one to kill.” She looked back down at Cam. “His death will be a beautiful thing to behold.” “Go ahead.” Cam’s voice came for the first time, low and even. Luce nearly cried out when she heard him mutter: “I never asked for a happy ending.” Luce had watched Sophia kill Penn with her bare hands and no remorse. It would not happen again. “No!” Luce shouted, struggling to break free from Daniel’s grip and dragging him with her into the chapel. Slowly Miss Sophia craned her body around toward Luce and Daniel, clutching her fistful of starshots. Her eyes gleamed silver and her thin lips curled in a ghastly smile as Luce tugged Daniel forward, pulling against his relentless grip. “We have to stop her, Daniel!” “No, Luce, it’s too dangerous.” “Oh, there you are, dear.” Miss Sophia beamed. “And Daniel Grigori! How nice. I’ve been waiting for you.” Then she winked and whipped the starshots over her head in a dense cluster aimed straight at Daniel and Luce.

Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing an entire book is closer to manual labor. It doesn’t involve heavy lifting, running fast, or leaping high. Most people, though, only see the surface reality of writing and think of writers as involved in quiet, intellectual work done in their study. If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, they figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn’t as peaceful a job as it seems. The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you.

Реалистично погледнато, той наистина беше нездрав тип и в най-тежките си вечери и нощи не само виеше от болка, но и викаше за помощ и когато елементарната помощ пристигаше, наистина отказваше да обясни на разбираем език какво го боли. Въпреки това аз открито се заяждам с обявените специалисти по тези въпроси — с учените, биографите и най-вече със сегашната управляваща интелектуална аристокрация, получила образованието си в едно или друго от елитните училища за психоанализа — и най-злобно ги заяждам за следното: те не се вслушват във виковете на болния. Защото не са в състояние да ги чуят. Те са съсловие на глухи. С такъв неподходящ апарат, с такива уши как можеш да проследиш болката само по звука и да откриеш причинителя ѝ? С такъв жалък апарат най-многото да доловиш или установиш няколко блуждаещи, слаби обертонове — не особено хармонични, — които идват от едно мъчно детство или разстроено либидо. Но откъде идва голямата, огромната болка, която и цяла линейка не може побра?

Of course, I should have known the kids would pop out in the atmosphere of Roberta's office. That's what they do when Alice is under stress. They see a gap in the space-time continuum and slip through like beams of light through a prism changing form and direction. We had got into the habit in recent weeks of starting our sessions with that marble and stick game called Ker-Plunk, which Billy liked. There were times when I caught myself entering the office with a teddy that Samuel had taken from the toy cupboard outside. Roberta told me that on a couple of occasions I had shot her with the plastic gun and once, as Samuel, I had climbed down from the high-tech chairs, rolled into a ball in the corner and just cried. 'This is embarrassing,' I admitted. 'It doesn't have to be.' 'It doesn't have to be, but it is,' I said. The thing is. I never knew when the 'others' were going to come out. I only discovered that one had been out when I lost time or found myself in the midst of some wacky occupation — finger-painting like a five-year-old, cutting my arms, wandering from shops with unwanted, unpaid-for clutter. In her reserved way, Roberta described the kids as an elaborate defence mechanism. As a child, I had blocked out my memories in order not to dwell on anything painful or uncertain. Even as a teenager, I had allowed the bizarre and terrifying to seem normal because the alternative would have upset the fiction of my loving little nuclear family. I made a mental note to look up defence mechanisms, something we had touched on in psychology.

I'm profoundly attracted to classical Zen literature, I have the gall to lecture on it and the literature of Mahayana Buddhism one night a week at college, but my life itself couldn't very conceivably be less Zenful than it is, and what little I've been able to apprehend - I pick that verb with care - of the Zen experience has been a by-result of following my own rather natural path of extreme Zenlessness. Largely because Seymour himself literally begged me to do so, and I never knew him to be wrong in these matters.) Happily for me, and probably for everybody, I don't believe it's really necessary to bring Zen into this. The method of marble-shooting that Seymour, by sheer intuition, was recommending to me can be related, I'd say, legitimately and un-Easternly, to the fine art of snapping a cigarette end into a small wastebasket from across a room. An art, I believe, of which most male smokers are true masters only when either they don't care a hoot whether or not the butt goes into the basket or the room has been cleared of eyewitnesses, including, quite so to speak, the cigarette snapper himself. I'm going to try hard not to chew on that illustration, delectable as I find it, but I do think it proper to append - to revert momentarily to curb marbles - that after Seymour himself shot a marble, he would be all smiles when he heard a responsive click of glass striking glass, but it never appeared to be clear to him whose winning click it was. And it's also a fact that someone almost invariably had to pick up the marble he'd won and hand it to him.

И ако предпочитам да не сравнявам съветите на Сиймор за играта на топчета със зен-стрелбата (с лък), то е, защото не съм нито зен-стрелец, нито зен-будист, а още по-малко познавач на зен. (Нали няма да е нередно, ако кажа, че Сийморовите и моите корени в източната философия — колебая се дали трябва да ги нарека „корени“ — водят началото си от новия и стария завет, от адвайта веданта и класическия даоизъм? Склонен съм да смятам себе си — ако изобщо мога да използвам звучните източни названия — за карма-йога, може би с щипка тжнана-йога, за да стане по пикантна гозбата. Дълбоко съм привързан към класическата зен-литература и дори имам дързостта да чета веднъж седмично лекции върху тази литература и литературата на махаяна, но начина ми на живот няма нищо общо със зен, а малкото, което съм успял да схвана от това учение — подбрах глагола много внимателно — е страничен резултат от това, че следвам своя собствен, почти естествен път на пълна беззеност. Главно, защото самият Сиймор буквално ме молеше да сторя това, а по тези въпроси той винаги беше прав.)

Wilbury, my dear,” Caroline said, “would you mind taking the children and keeping them occupied for a bit?” "Twould be the high point of my golden years, my lady,” he replied with frigid politeness. “The culmination of a lifelong dream I had nearly abandoned in favour of waiting peacefully for the Grim Reaper to come and relieve me of my earthly duties.” Immune to his sarcasm, Caroline beamed fondly at him. “Thank you, Wilbury. I thought that’s what you would say.” Shuffling toward the hearth, the butler muttered under his breath, “I just love children, you know. I simply dote upon the overindulged little darlings with their grasping little hands and their sticky little fingers that foul up every freshly polished surface in the house”. As he leaned toward the hearth, the twins paused in play to gape at him. Baring his pointed yellowing teeth in a grimace of a smile, he rasped, “Come now, lads. I’ll take you to the kitchen for some nice hot chocolate.” Eyes widening in terror, the two boys leapt to their feet and ran shrieking from the room. Wilbury straightened as much as his hunched back would allow, rolling his eyes. “Wilbuwy!” Eloisa crowed, scrambling from her mother’s lap and toddling across the room. Wrapping her arms around one of the butler’s scrawny legs, she looked up and batted her long eyelashes at him. “Me want cocoa!” With a long-suffering sigh, he scooped the plump child into his arms, every one of his ancient bones creaking in protest. She joyfully tugged at his misshapen ears as he carried her toward the door. His curdled expression never varied, but as he passed Portia he gave her a nearly imperceptible wink.

per hour. Handbrake knew that he could keep up with the best of them. Ambassadors might look old-fashioned and slow, but the latest models had Japanese engines. But he soon learned to keep it under seventy. Time and again, as his competitors raced up behind him and made their impatience known by the use of their horns and flashing high beams, he grudgingly gave way, pulling into the slow lane among the trucks, tractors and bullock carts. Soon, the lush mustard and sugarcane fields of Haryana gave way to the scrub and desert of Rajasthan. Four hours later, they reached the rocky hills surrounding the Pink City, passing in the shadow of the Amber Fort with its soaring ramparts and towering gatehouse. The road led past the Jal Mahal palace, beached on a sandy lake bed, into Jaipur’s ancient quarter. It was almost noon and the bazaars along the city’s crenellated walls were stirring into life. Beneath faded, dusty awnings, cobblers crouched, sewing sequins and gold thread onto leather slippers with curled-up toes. Spice merchants sat surrounded by heaps of lal mirch, haldi and ground jeera, their colours as clean and sharp as new watercolor paints. Sweets sellers lit the gas under blackened woks of oil and prepared sticky jalebis. Lassi vendors chipped away at great blocks of ice delivered by camel cart. In front of a few of the shops, small boys, who by law should have been at school, swept the pavements, sprinkling them with water to keep down the dust. One dragged a doormat into the road where the wheels of passing vehicles ran over it, doing the job of carpet beaters. Handbrake honked his way through the light traffic as they neared the Ajmeri Gate, watching the faces that passed by his window: skinny bicycle rickshaw drivers, straining against the weight of fat aunties; wild-eyed Rajasthani men with long handlebar moustaches and sun-baked faces almost as bright as their turbans; sinewy peasant women wearing gold nose rings and red glass bangles on their arms; a couple of pink-faced goras straining under their backpacks; a naked sadhu, his body half covered in ash like a caveman. Handbrake turned into the old British Civil Lines, where the roads were wide and straight and the houses and gardens were set well apart. Ajay Kasliwal’s residence was number

Той обичаше тези грубовати шеги на хлапетата. И аз ги обичах, само че от време на време. А той – неизменно. Той цъфтеше и избуяваше под дъжда на всички нетактични и необмислени подмятания, отправени от по-малките. Сега, през 1959 г., когато се случи да чуя някоя огорчаваща ме новина за това, какви ги вършат по-малките ми братя и сестри, се сещам каква огромна радост доставяха те на Сиймор. Помня как четиригодишната Франи, седнала в скута му, се обърна към него и възкликна с безмерно възхищение: "Сиймор, зъбките ти са толкова хубави, толкова жълти!" Той направо падна от стола и веднага ме попита дали съм я чул какво казва. He loved that kind of horseplay from any of the kids. I did, too, but only off and on. He thrived, too, waxed strong, on all tactless or underconsidered remarks directed at him by family minors. In 1959, in fact, when on occasion I hear rather nettling news of the doings of my youngest brother and sister, I think on the quantities of joy they brought S. I remember Franny, at about four, sitting on his lap, facing him, and saying, with immense admiration, 'Seymour, your teeth arc so nice and yellow!' He literally staggered over to me to ask if I'd heard.

Тук си заслужава да отбележа — не само от добри чувства към брат ми, — че за него съм писал и преди. Всъщност, ако ме попридумате, може и да си призная, че много редки са периодите, в които не съм писал за него. И ако примерно под дулото на пистолет утре ме заставят да напиша разказ за динозавъра, не се съмнявам, че съвсем несъзнателно ще припиша на тази животинка някои черти, напомнящи за Сиймор — по какъв неповторим начин прегризва върха на някой столетен бор, да речем, или колко мило върти чудовищната си опашка. Някои хора — не близки приятели — са ме питали дали главният герой на една моя новела не носи повечето от чертите на Сиймор. Всъщност повечето от тези хора не питаха, те ми казваха. Изприщвам се, когато изобщо трябва да говоря на тази тема, но ще подчертая, че нито един от тези, които познаваха добре брат ми, не ме е питал и не ми е казвал нищо от този род — за което съм благодарен и което в известен смисъл ми е направило впечатление, тъй като не един и двама от моите герои говорят свободно манхатънски жаргон, имат еднаквия стремеж да се хвърлят там, където глупаците не смеят да припарят, и са преследвани от едно Същество, което предпочитам да нарека Стареца от планината.

Already it is twilight down in the Laredito. Bats fly forth from their roostings in courthouse and tower and circle the quarter. The air is full of the smell of burning charcoal. Children and dogs squat by the mud stoops and gamecocks flap and settle in the branches of the fruit trees. They go afoot, these comrades, down along a bare adobe wall. Band music carries dimly from the square. They pass a watercart in the street and they pass a hole in the wall where by the light of a small forgefire an old man beats out shapes of metal. They pass in a doorway a young girl whose beauty becomes the flowers about. They arrive at last before a wooden door. It is hinged into a larger door or gate and all must step over the foot-high sill where a thousand boots have scuffled away the wood, where fools in their hundreds have tripped or fallen or tottered drunkenly into the street. They pass along a ramada in a courtyard by an old grape arbor where small fowl nod in the dusk among the gnarled and barren vines and they enter a cantina where the lamps are lit and they cross stooping under a low beam to a bar and belly up one two three. There is an old disordered Mennonite in this place and he turns to study them. A thin man in a leather weskit, a black and straightbrim hat set square on his head, a thin rim of whiskers. The recruits order glasses of whiskey and drink them down and order more. There are monte games at tables by the wall and there are whores at another table who look the recruits over. The recruits stand sideways along the bar with their thumbs in their belts and watch the room. They talk among themselves of the expedition in loud voices and the old Mennonite shakes a rueful head and sips his drink and mutters. They'll stop you at the river, he says. The second corporal looks past his comrades. Are you talking to me? At the river. Be told. They'll jail you to a man. Who will? The United States Army. General Worth. They hell they will. Pray that they will. He looks at his comrades. He leans toward the Mennonite. What does that mean, old man? Do ye cross that river with yon filibuster armed ye'll not cross it back. Don't aim to cross it back. We goin to Sonora. What's it to you, old man? The Mennonite watches the enshadowed dark before them as it is reflected to him in the mirror over the bar. He turns to them. His eyes are wet, he speaks slowly. The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman's making into a foreign land. Ye'll wake more than the dogs. But they berated the old man and swore at him until he moved off down the bar muttering, and how else could it be? How these things end. In confusion and curses and blood. They drank on and the wind blew in the streets and the stars that had been overhead lay low in the west and these young men fell afoul of others and words were said that could not be put right again and in the dawn the kid and the second corporal knelt over the boy from Missouri who had been named Earl and they spoke his name but he never spoke back. He lay on his side in the dust of the courtyard. The men were gone, the whores were gone. An old man swept the clay floor within the cantina. The boy lay with his skull broken in a pool of blood, none knew by whom. A third one came to be with them in the courtyard. It was the Mennonite. A warm wind was blowing and the east held a gray light. The fowls roosting among the grapevines had begun to stir and call. There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto, said the Mennonite. He had been holding his hat in his hands and now he set it upon his head again and turned and went out the gate.

Той беше много ценен и обичан от много и много хора, а за нас, неговите братя и сестри от наднорменото ни семейство, беше всичко. Да, наистина всичко: нашият еднорог, нашата двойна запалителна леща, нашият гениален консултант, нашата портативна съвест, нашият едничък истински поет и неизбежно — не само защото имаше развързан език, а и защото близо седем години от детството си беше звездата на една детска национална програма, тъй че почти всичко, което имаше да каже, тъй или инак се разнасяше из ефира — и неизбежно, струва ми се, той беше нашият бележит „мистик“ и „неуравновесен тип“. И понеже вече подхванах тази тема, ще уточня още — ако е възможно едновременно да уточняваш и да крещиш, — че въпреки червея на самоубийството, загнездил се в главата му, той беше единственият човек, с когото естествено съм си допадал и щурувал и който в повечето случаи отговаряше на класическата представа, както аз я разбирам, за мукта — наивна високопросветена личност, богопомазан. Във всеки случай неговият характер не се поддава на нито едно от познатите ми правила за стегнат стил и аз не мога да си представя някой — а още по-малко себе си, — който би се наел да го обрисува с един замах или в поредица от сеанси, дори ако той позира цял месец или цяла година.

Perhaps I don't know enough yet to find the right words for it, but I think I can describe it. It happened again just a moment ago. I don't know how to put it except by saying that I see things in two different ways-everything, ideas included. If I make an effort to find any difference in them, each of them is the same today as it was yesterday, but as soon as I shut my eyes they're suddenly transformed, in a different light. Perhaps I went wrong about the imaginary numbers. If I get to them by going straight along inside mathematics, so to speak, they seem quite natural. It's only if I look at them directly, in all their strangeness, that they seem impossible. But of course I may be all wrong about this, I know too little about it. But I wasn't wrong about Basini. I wasn't wrong when I couldn't turn my ear away from the faint trickling sound in the high wall or my eye from the silent, swirling dust going up in the beam of light from a lamp. No, I wasn't wrong when I talked about things having a second, secret life that nobody takes any notice of! I-I don't mean it literally-it's not that things are alive, it's not that Basini seemed to have two faces-it was more as if I had a sort of second sight and saw all this not with the eyes of reason. Just as I can feel an idea coming to life in my mind, in the same way I feel something alive in me when I look at things and stop thinking. There's something dark in me, deep under all my thoughts, something I can't measure out with thoughts, a sort of life that can't be expressed in words and which is my life, all the same. “That silent life oppressed me, harassed me. Something kept on making me stare at it. I was tormented by the fear that our whole life might be like that and that I was only finding it out here and there, in bits and pieces. . . . Oh, I was dreadfully afraid! I was out of my mind.. .” These words and these figures of speech, which were far beyond what was appropriate to Törless's age, flowed easily and naturally from his lips in this state of vast excitement he was in, in this moment of almost poetic inspiration. Then he lowered his voice and, as though moved by his own suffering, he added: “Now it's all over. I know now I was wrong after all. I'm not afraid of anything any more. I know that things are just things and will probably always be so. And I shall probably go on for ever seeing them sometimes this way and sometimes that, sometimes with the eyes of reason, and sometimes with those other eyes. . . . And I shan't ever try again to compare one with the other. .

Deacon met my glare with an impish grin. “Anyway, did you celebrate Valentine’s Day when you were slumming with the mortals?” I blinked. “Not really. Why?” Aiden snorted and then disappeared into one of the rooms. “Follow me,” Deacon said. “You’re going to love this. I just know it.” I followed him down the dimly-lit corridor that was sparsely decorated. We passed several closed doors and a spiral staircase. Deacon went through an archway and stopped, reaching along the wall. Light flooded the room. It was a typical sunroom, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, wicker furniture, and colorful plants. Deacon stopped by a small potted plant sitting on a ceramic coffee table. It looked like a miniature pine tree that was missing several limbs. Half the needles were scattered in and around the pot. One red Christmas bulb hung from the very top branch, causing the tree to tilt to the right. “What do you think?” Deacon asked. “Um… well, that’s a really different Christmas tree, but I’m not sure what that has to do with Valentine’s Day.” “It’s sad,” Aiden said, strolling into the room. “It’s actually embarrassing to look at. What kind of tree is it, Deacon?” He beamed. “It’s called a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Deacon digs this thing out every year. The pine isn’t even real. And he leaves it up from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Which thank the gods is the day after tomorrow. That means he’ll be taking it down.” I ran my fingers over the plastic needles. “I’ve seen the cartoon.” Deacon sprayed something from an aerosol can. “It’s my MHT tree.” “MHT tree?” I questioned. “Mortal Holiday Tree,” Deacon explained, and smiled. “It covers the three major holidays. During Thanksgiving it gets a brown bulb, a green one for Christmas, and a red one for Valentine’s Day.” “What about New Year’s Eve?” He lowered his chin. “Now, is that really a holiday?” “The mortals think so.” I folded my arms. “But they’re wrong. The New Year is during the summer solstice,” Deacon said. “Their math is completely off, like most of their customs. For example, did you know that Valentine’s Day wasn’t actually about love until Geoffrey Chaucer did his whole courtly love thing in the High Middle Ages?” “You guys are so weird.” I grinned at the brothers. “That we are,” Aiden replied. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” “Hey Alex,” Deacon called. “We’re making cookies tomorrow, since it’s Valentine’s Eve.” Making cookies on Valentine’s Eve? I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as Valentine’s Eve. I laughed as I followed Aiden out of the room. “You two really are opposites.” “I’m cooler!” Deacon yelled from his Mortal Holiday Tree room

I'm in the unique position of being able to call my brother, straight out, a non-stop talker - which is a pretty vile thing to call somebody, I think - and yet at the same time to sit back, rather, I'm afraid, like a type with both sleeves full of aces, and effortlessly remember a whole legion of mitigating factors (and 'mitigating' is hardly the word for it). I can condense them all into one: By the time Seymour was in mid-adolescence - sixteen, seventeen - he not only had learned to control his native vernacular, his many, many less than elite New York speech mannerisms, but had by then already cone into his own true, bull's-eye, poet's vocabulary. His non-stop talks, his monologues, his nearharangues then came as close to pleasing from start to finish - for a good many of as, anyway -as, say, the bulk of Beethoven's output after lie ceased being encumbered with a sense of hearing, and maybe I'm thinking especially, though it seems a trifle picky, of the B-flat-major and C-sharp-minor quartets. Still, we were a family of seven children, originally. And, as it happened, none of us was in the least tongue-tied. It's an exceedingly weighty matter when six naturally profuse verbalizers and expounders have an undefeatable champion talker in the house. True, he never sought the title. And he passionately yearned to see one or another of us outpoint or simply outlast him in a conversation or an argument. Аз съм стигнал до завидното положение да мога направо да нарека брат си кречетало — което не е много ласкателно — и същевременно да седя спокойно, сякаш съм пълен господар на положението, и без усилие да си припомням цяла редица смекчаващи вината обстоятелства (при все че „смекчаващи вината“ едва ли е най-подходящият израз в случая). Мога да ги обобщя в едно: по времето, когато Сиймор бе достигнал средата на юношеската си възраст — на шестнайсет-седемнайсет години, — той не само владееше до съвършенство родния си език с всичките му тънкости, но си беше създал и собствен, много точен поетически речник. Неговата говорливост, неговите монолози, неговите едва ли не прокламации звучеха почти толкова приятно — поне за мнозина от нас, — колкото, да речем, повечето от творбите на Бетховен, създадени, след като се е освободил от бремето на слуха; макар и да звучи претенциозно, тук имам предвид по-специално квартетите в си бемол мажор и до диез миньор. В нашето семейство бяхме седем деца. И нито едно от тях не беше лишено в ни най-малка степен от дар слово. Е, не е ли голямо тегло, когато шестима словоохотливци и тълкуватели имат в къщата си един непобедим шампион по речовитост? Вярно, той никога не се е стремил към тази титла. Дори жадуваше някой от нас да го надмине ако не по красноречие, то поне до дългоречие в някой спор или прост разговор.

Gallic walls are always built more or less on the following plan. Balks of timber are laid on the ground at regular intervals of two feet along the whole line on which the wall is to be built, at right angles to it. These are made fast to one another by long beams running across them at their centre points, and are covered with a quantity of rubble; and the two-foot intervals between them are faced with large stones fitted tightly in. When this first course has been placed in position and fastened together, another course is laid on top. The same interval of two feet is kept between the balks of the second course, but they are not in contact with those of the first course, being separated from them by a course of stones two feet high; thus every balk is separated from each of its neighbours by one large stone, and so held firmly in position. By the addition of further courses the fabric is raised to the required height. This style of building presents a diversified appearance that is not unsightly, with its alternation of balks and stones each preserving their own straight lines. It is also very serviceable and well adapted for defending a town: the masonry protects it from fire, the timber from destruction by the battering-ram, which cannot either pierce or knock to pieces a structure braced internally by beams running generally to a length of forty feet in one piece.

Lord Gareth?" He froze. It was she, staring out at him with an expression of astounded disbelief on her lovely face. Gareth was caught totally unprepared. He knew he must look like an arse because he certainly felt like one. But the comic ridiculousness of the situation suddenly hit him, and his lips began twitching uncontrollably. He gazed up at her with perfect innocence. "Hello, Juliet." A chorus of out-of-tune voices came up from below. "Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?" Gareth flung his crop down at their heads. Cokeham let out a yelp, then fell to laughing. The girl's smooth, high brow pleated in a frown as she took in the scene. Perry down there with the horses. The other Den of Debauchery members all gathered below, beaming stupidly up at her. And Gareth, grinning, sprawled full-length along a tree branch just outside her window. "Just what on earth are you doing, Lord Gareth?" The way she said it made his cheeks warm with embarrassment. So he was a pillock. Who cared? Instead, he gave her his most devastating grin and said with cheerful earnestness, "Why, I have come to rescue you, of course." "Rescue me?" "Surely you didn't think I'd allow Lucien to banish you into obscurity, now, did you?" "Well, I —  The duke didn't ban—"  She gave a disbelieving little laugh and leaned out the window, grasping the blanket tightly at her breasts. Her hair, caught in a long, dark braid, swung tantalizingly out over her bosom. "Really, Lord Gareth. This is ... highly irregular!" "Yes, but the hour is late, and as it took me all day to find you, I was feeling rather impatient. I do hope you'll forgive me for resorting to such desperate measures. May I come in and talk?" "Of course not! I — I cannot have a man in my bedroom!" "Why not, my sweet?" He pushed aside a small, leafy twig in order to see her better and grinned cajolingly up at her. "I had you in mine." She shook her head, torn between what she wanted to do — and what she ought to do. "Really, Lord Gareth ... your brother will never approve of this. You should go home. After all, you're the son of a duke and I'm just a — " " — beautiful young woman with nowhere else to go. A beautiful young woman who should be a part of my family. Now, do collect Charlotte and your things, Miss Paige — I fear we must make haste, if we are to marry before Lucien catches up to us." "Marry?!" she cried, forgetting to whisper. He gazed at her in blank, perfect innocence. "Well, yes, of course," he said, clinging to the branch as it dropped another few inches. "Surely you don't think I'd be hanging out of a tree for anything less, do you?" "But —" "Come now."  He smiled disarmingly. "Surely, you must see there is really no other option for you. And I won't have my niece growing up without a father. What kind of a man do you think I am? Now, gather up Charlotte and get your things, my dear Miss Paige, and come outside. I am growing most uncomfortable." Juliet

When we were done, we stripped the gloves off and high fived, grinning wickedly. “I can't wait to see his face,” Tory said and I nodded excitedly. A glint caught my eye and I glanced over Tory's shoulder, spotting Geraldine rubbing glitter into the crotch of Caleb's shorts. “Geraldine!” I gasped. “That's genius.” She beamed, folding the shorts away and zipping up the bag. “Those nincompoops won't know what hit them.” “Hurricane Geraldine hit them,” I said and she fell into frantic laughter, snorting intermittently. “Blazing ballerinas, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard.” She snorted again and I couldn't help but join in with her laughter. “We’d better get out of here,” Tory said with a smirk and we headed after her. (darcy)

It seems to me indisputably true that a good many people, the wide world over, of varying ages, cultures, natural endowments, respond with a special impetus, a zing, even, in some cases, to artists and poets who as well as having a reputation for producing great or fine art have something garishly Wrong with them as persons: a spectacular flaw in character or citizenship, a construably romantic affliction or addiction-extreme self-centredness, marital infidelity, stone-deafness, stone-blindness, a terrible thirst, a mortally bad cough, a soft spot for prostitutes, a partiality for grand-scale adultery or incest, a certified or uncertified weakness for opium or sodomy, and so on, God have mercy on the lonely bastards. If suicide isn't at the top of the list of compelling infirmities for creative men, the suicide poet or artist, one can't help noticing, has always been given a very considerable amount of avid attention, not seldom on sentimental grounds almost exclusively, as if he were (to put it much more horribly than I really want to) the floppy-eared runt of the litter. It's a thought, anyway, finally said, that I've lost sleep over many times, and possibly will again. Според мен много и много хора по широкия свят, хора на различна възраст, с различна култура и различни заложби гледат с особен възторг и дори понякога величаят онези художници и поети, които освен дето са си спечелили име с голямото си или добро изкуство имат нещо шантаво в себе си: нетърпими недостатъци в характера или в гражданското поведение, любовна страст или скръб, изключителен егоцентризъм, извънбрачна връзка, глухота, слепота, неутолима жажда, смъртоносна кашлица, слабост към проститутки, склонност към чудовищни прелюбодеяния или кръвосмешение, документирана или недокументирана страст към опиума или содомията и прочее — пази боже, самотните копелета. Макар самоубийството да не стои на първо място в списъка на задължителните за твореца недостатъци, не можем да не забележим, че самоубилият се поет или художник винаги се радва на много голямо, завидно внимание, нерядко само по чисто сантиментални причини, сякаш е (ще се изразя по-ужасно, отколкото ми се ще) клепоухото недорасло кутре от кучилото. Тази мисъл — това е последно — много пъти не ми е давала мира по цели нощи и сигурно пак ще върши същото.

Yeah, Jules!" Chelsea said in a voice thick with envy. "Go away, you're making the rest of us look bad." She winked at Jule's date wickedly. "I bet you just want to eat her up, don't ya?" He stared at Chelsea with bewilderment and glanced back at Jules for help. "Just ignore her," Jules explained over the noise from the sound system. "She doesn't get out much." Chelsea tried to look hurt by Jule's words, but she couldn't quite pull it off. "I'm just sayin', Jules, he'd better watch his back tonight, or I might be trying to take you away from him." Chelsea loved to play the potentially bi-curious card, even though everyone knew she liked boys far too much to go to bat for the other team. "Gross!" cried Claire, who wasn't pretending at all. Claire hated it when the conversation deviated too far off her straight and narrow path. The operative word being straight. "Don't worry, Claire-bear," Chelsea soothed condescendingly. "I'm not going to hook up with Jules." She wrapped her arm around Claire's waist and then said suggestively in he ear, "I'm much more likely to make a move on you." "Eww!" Claire shrieked, shoving Chelsea away. "Get away from me!" "Leave her alone, Chels," Jules interrupted. "Or you're gonna make her start her 'It's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' speech. And sorry, Claire, but none of us really want to hear that." Jay pulled Violet close to him as they listened to the familiar, playful bantering. He slid his arm around her waist from behind, and let his lips gently tease her earlobe while no one was paying attention to the two of them. Violet wanted to turn around right there, in his arms, and forget this whole dance thing altogether. "Hey!" Chelsea's voice interrupted them, and Violet jumped a little, realizing that everyone was staring at them. "Did you hear me?" Violet leaned forward on her crutches and away from Jay, still feeling bemused by the close and intimate contact. "What?" she asked, trying to focus on what had been said. "I said, 'I gotta pee.' Let's go to the bathroom," Chelsea repeated as if Violet were some sort of imbecile, incapable of understanding normal human speech. "Keep it up, Chels, and none of us is gonna want to hook up with you tonight," Violet promised jokingly. Chelsea grinned at Violet. "I like the way you think, Violet Ambrose. Maybe you'll be the lucky girl I choose.' And then she turned to Jay. "Don't worry, I've got her from here," Chelsea announced. Jules and Claire followed. Violet laughed and glanced back at him. "I'll only be a few." Jay gave her a skeptical look that no one else would have even noticed, as he assessed the three girls who would be escorting Violet. And then he finally nodded. "Okay, I'm gonna show these guys my car." He was beaming again. "I'll be right outside, but I won't be long." Violet did her best to keep up with the trio ahead of her, but it was hard on one high heel and two crutches. Finally she yelled at them exasperatedly, "If you guys don't wait, I'm not going!" They all three stopped and turned around. Chelsea tapped her lovely silver shoe impatiently. "Hurry up, Violet, or I swear I'll take you off my list.

Спомням си, че докато тримата — придворната, мъжът ѝ и мисис Силзбърн — не сваляха поглед от мен, следейки как кашлям, самият аз поглеждах към дребничкото старче отзад. То все така гледаше неотклонно право пред себе си. Забелязах, едва ли не с чувство на благодарност, че краката му не стигаха до пода. Те ми се сториха като стари, добри приятели. — С какво се занимава въобще този човек? — попита ме придворната, след като се окопитих от втория пристъп на кашлицата. — За Сиймор ли става дума? — казах аз. Тонът ѝ ме накара да си помисля в първия момент, че тя го подозира в нещо крайно подло. Но после чисто интуитивно реших, че е събрала тайно разни биографични данни за него, тоест всички онези незначителни, но за съжаление, биещи на очи факти, които според мен дават съвсем погрешна представа за Сиймор. Например, че като дете в течение на шест години той е бил знаменитост от радиото. Или, да речем, че е постъпил в Колумбийския университет едва петнадесетгодишен. — Да, за Сиймор — отвърна придворната. — С какво се е занимавал той, преди да постъпи в армията. И отново в мен проблесна чисто интуитивно усещане, че тя знаеше за него много неща, но по някаква причина не искаше да ги разкрие. Изглежда много добре ѝ беше известно, че преди влизането си в армията Сиймор е преподавал английски език, че е бил преподавател в колеж. Да, преподавател. Поглеждайки я, за миг ми мина и такава неприятна мисъл а дали тя не знае, че съм брат на Сиймор? Но не си струваше да разсъждавам върху това. Аз само я погледнах изпод вежди и отговорих: — Неговата специалност е лекуване на мазоли.

At a certain period of his life (usually, grievous to say, a successful period), a man may suddenly feel it Within His Power to confess that he cheated on his final exams at college, he may even choose to reveal that between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-four he was sexually impotent, but these gallant confessions in themselves are no guarantee that we’ll find out whether he once got piqued at his pet hamster and stepped on its head. I’m sorry to go on about this, but it seems to me I have a legitimate worry here. I’m writing about the only person I’ve ever known whom, on my own terms, I considered really large, and the only person of any considerable dimensions I’ve ever known who never gave me a moment’s suspicion that he kept, on the sky, a whole closetful of naughty, tiresome little vanities.

Somewhat overly legibly, I wrote on a sheet of paper, "We're held up indefinitely by the parade. We're going to find a phone and have a cold drink somewhere. Will you join us?" I folded the paper once, then handed it to the Matron of Honor, who opened it, read it, and then handed it to the tiny old man. He read it, grinning, and then looked at me and wagged his head up and down several times vehemently. I thought for an instant that this was the full and perfectly eloquent extent of his reply, but he suddenly motioned to me with his hand, and I gathered that he wanted me to pass him my pad and pencil, I did so- without looking over at the Matron of Honor, from whom great waves of impatience were rising. The old man adjusted the pad and pencil on his lap with the greatest care, then sat for a moment, pencil poised, in obvious concentration, his grin diminished only a very trifle. Then the pencil began, very unsteadily, to move. An "i" was dotted. And then both pad and pencil were returned personally to me, with a marvellously cordial extra added wag of the head. He had written, in letters that had not quite jelled yet, the single word "Delighted." The Matron of Honor, reading over my shoulder, gave a sound faintly like a snort, but I quickly looked over at the great writer and tried to show by my expression that all of us in the car knew a poem when we saw one, and were grateful. На едно листче — някак прекалено четливо — написах: „Парадът ще ни задържи неопределено време. Искаме да потърсим телефон и да пием нещо разхладително. Ще дойдете ли с нас?“ После сгънах листчето на две и го подадох на придворната, която го прочете и предаде на дребничкия старец. Той го прочете ухилен, погледна ме и усилено закима с глава. Реших, че това е изчерпателен и напълно красноречив отговор, но той махна с ръка към мен и разбрах, че иска да му подам тефтерчето и молива. Подадох му ги, без да поглеждам придворната, която на вълни, на вълни излъчваше нетърпение. Старчето намести много внимателно тефтерчето и молива на коленете си, застина така, явно събирайки мислите си, после, почти все със същата усмивка, вдигна молива. Много неуверено моливът започна да се движи. Накрая бе сложена акуратна точка. След това с изключително сърдечно кимане тефтерчето и моливът ми бяха върнати. Още пресните букви гласяха: „С удоволствие.“ Придворната погледна през рамото ми бележката и издаде звук, подобен на пръхтене, но аз веднага обърнах лице към великия писател и се постарах да покажа с изражението си, че всички ние веднага можем да различим една истинска поема и сме му много благодарни.

Това е един от малко известните епизоди в биографията ми, но от мен да мине, ще го разкажа. На около девет години нечувано ме блазнеше мисълта, че съм най-бързият бегач в света. Това, нека добавя, е едно странно, невключено в учебната програма самомнение, което трудно умира, и дори сега, на свръхзаседналите си четирийсет години, аз се виждам как префучавам — с градски дрехи — покрай тумби от бележити, но запъхтени олимпийци и им махам приятелски, без помен от високомерие. И тъй, една прекрасна пролетна вечер — все още живеехме на Ривърсайд Драйв — Беси ме прати да купя сладолед. Излязох от къщи в същия вълшебен час, за който стана дума преди няколко страници. Не по-малко фатален за изграждането на този анекдот е фактът, че бях с гуменки, които за всеки най-бърз бегач в света са същото или почти същото, каквото са червените обувки за малкото момиченце на Ханс Кристиан Андерсен. Откъснал се веднъж от къщи, превърнах се в самия Меркурий и ударих в страхотен спринт по дългата отсечка до Бродуей. Завоя на Бродуей взех на едно колело и продължих нататък, постигайки невъзможното: увеличение на скоростта. Дрогерията, в която продаваха сладолед „Луис Шери“, неизменният избор на Беси, отстоеше на още три преки на север. Някъде по средата на тази отсечка профучах край книжарницата, от която обикновено си купувахме вестници и списания, но профучах слепешката, без да забележа наоколо някакви познати или роднини. Изведнъж, при следващата пряка, долових шум от преследване зад себе си, което явно се извършваше на крака. Първата ми, може би типична за нюйоркчанина мисъл, беше, че ме гони полицията — най-вероятно заради нарушаване на пределната скорост в извънучилищна зона. Напрегнах се, за да изстискам още малко скорост от тялото си, но напразно. Нечия ръка ме сграбчи за пуловера, и то точно на мястото, където би трябвало да раздават номерата на победителите, и аз, здравата уплашен, понамалих, понамалих и спрях тромаво като чернокрак албатрос. Преследвачът, разбира се, беше Сиймор, който изглеждаше не по-малко уплашен от мен. „Какво става? Какво става?“, заповтаря като обезумял. Все още ме държеше за пуловера. Освободих се с рязко движение от ръката му и го осведомих на уличен мръснишки жаргон, който няма да възпроизвеждам дословно, че нищо не става, нищо не се е случило, аз просто тичам и няма защо да се крещи. „Боже, как ме уплаши! — възкликна той с огромно облекчение. — Ама как тичаш! Едвам те настигнах.“ После тръгнахме заедно за сладоледа. Това може да е чудно, може и да не е, но духът на миналия на второ място най-бърз бегач в света не беше много забележимо понижен. Преди всичко, беше ме надбягал не друг, а Сиймор. Освен това вниманието ми беше привлечено от неговото тежко дишане. То ми действаше някак успокоително.

Flower Beds by Maisie Aletha Smikle Flower beds in a row Like tic toc toe Spread the mulch Pluck the weeds and mow Water the flower beds And flowers will bud Colorful blooms All season long Welcome the sunshine From heaven’s furnace Anchored far up in the sky Gentle rays beam from up above A round ball of fire way up in the sky Always suspended in the anchored sky Shines its radiant beams from way up high Warming the sprouting flower beds Sunlight Moonlight Starlight Warm gentle and bright Make the flower beds bright Glowing softly in the night Thanks for the moon Thanks for the stars Thanks for the sun Thanks for the soft radiant beams of light That make the flower beds beautiful and bright In colorful shades of red Yellow orange black pink Purple green and white In the blooming flower bed Sat a rabbit called Skip Watching the horizon as the circle of fire slowly dip Diving slowly into the ocean deep

So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head. . . but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz. . . not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-​night diner down around Rockaway Beach. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip. Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out. . . thirty-​five, forty-​five. . . then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these. . . and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything. . . then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-​five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board. Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly -- zaaapppp -- going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea. The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil-​slick. . . instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-​inch notices in the paper the next day: “An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway I.” Indeed. . . but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-​burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes. But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right. . . and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it. . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica. . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge. . . The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

Instead, I gave them the only salute I could think of. Two middle fingers. Held high for emphasis. The six fiery orbs winked out at once. Hopefully, they’d died from affront. Ben eyed me sideways as he maneuvered from shore. “What in the world are you doing?” “Those red-eyed jerks were on the cliff,” I spat, then immediately felt silly. “All I could think of.” Ben made an odd huffing sound I couldn’t interpret. For a shocked second, I thought he was furious with me. “Nice work, Victoria.” Ben couldn’t hold the laughter inside. “That oughta do it!” I flinched, surprised by his reaction. Ben, cracking up at a time like this? He had such a full, honest laugh—I wished I heard it more. Infectious, too. I couldn’t help joining in, though mine came out in a low Beavis and Butthead cackle. Which made Ben howl even more. In an instant, we were both in stitches at the absurdity of my one-finger salutes. At the insanity of the evening. At everything. Tears wet my eyes as Sewee bobbed over the surf, circling the southeast corner of the island. It was a release I desperately needed. Ben ran a hand through his hair, then sighed deeply. “I love it,” he snickered, steering Sewee through the breakers, keeping our speed to a crawl so the engine made less noise. “I love you, sometimes.” Abruptly, his good humor cut off like a guillotine. Ben’s body went rigid. I felt a wave of panic roll from him, as if he’d accidently triggered a nuclear bomb. I experienced a parallel stab of distress. My stomach lurched into my throat, and not because of the rolling ocean swells. Did he just . . . what did he mean when . . . Oh crap. Ben’s eyes darted to me, then shot back to open water. Even in the semidarkness, I saw a flush of red steal up his neck and into his cheeks. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Shifted again. Debated going over the side. Did he really mean to say he . . . loved me? Like, for real? The awkward moment stretched longer than any event in human history. He said “sometimes,” which is a definite qualifier. I love Chinese food “sometimes.” Mouth opened as I searched for words that might defuse the tension. Came up with nothing. I felt trapped in a nightmare. Balanced on a beam a hundred feet off the ground. Sinking underwater in a sealed car with no idea how to get out. Ben’s lips parted, then worked soundlessly, as if he, too, sought to break the horrible awkwardness. A verbal retreat, or some way to reverse time. Is that what I want? For Ben to walk it back? A part of me was astounded by the chaos a single four-word utterance could create. Ben gulped a breath, seemed to reach a decision. As his mouth opened a second time, all the adrenaline in creation poured into my system. “I . . . I was just saying that . . .” He trailed off, then smacked the steering wheel with his palm. Ben squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head sharply as if disgusted by the effort. Ben turned. Blasted me with his full attention. “I mean it. I’m not going to act—

I go into the high-ceilinged stacks and wander among the shelves, searching for a book that looks interesting. Magnificent thick beams run across the ceiling of the room, and gentle early-summer sunlight is shining through the open window, the chatter of birds in the garden filtering in. The books in the shelves in front of me, sure enough, are just like Oshima said, mainly books of Japanese poetry. Tanka and haiku, essays on poetry, biographies of various poets. There are also a lot of books on local history. A shelf farther back contains general humanities―collections of Japanese literature, world literature, and individual writers, classics, philosophy, drama, art history, sociology, history, biography, geography.... When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages―a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.

What, I wonder, does the reader know of large families? More important, how much can he stand hearing on the subject, from me? I must say at least this much: If you're an older brother in a large family (particularly where, as with Seymour and Franny, there's an age difference of roughly eighteen years), and you either cast yourself or just not very advertently become cast in the role of local tutor or mentor, it's almost impossible not to turn into a monitor, too. But even monitors come in individual shapes, sizes, and colors. For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny, or even Mme Boo Boo (who was only two years younger than myself, and often entirely the Lady), to take off his or her rubbers on coming into the apartment, each and all of them knew he mostly meant that the floor would get tracked up if they didn't and that Bessie would have to get out the mop. When I told them to take off their rubbers, they knew I mostly meant that people who didn't were slobs. It was bound to make no small difference in the way they kidded or ragged us separately. Но, питам се, какво знае читателят за многочислените семейства? И което е по-важното, ще изтърпи ли не друг, а аз да му обясня този въпрос? Мога да кажа поне следното: ако си по-голям брат в многочислено семейство (в което разликата между Сиймор и Франи е горе-долу осемнайсет години) и сам си поел или някой е имал непредпазливостта да ти възложи ролята на наставник и опекун, почти невъзможно е да не се превърнеш и в надзирател. Но дори надзирателите се произвеждат в различни форми, размери и цветове. Така например, когато Сиймор кажеше на близнаците, на Зуи или Франи или дори на мадам Бу Бу (която е само две години по-малка от мен) да си събуват галошите, преди да влязат в апартамента, всеки от тях възприемаше думите му така: не се ли събуете, ще оставите стъпки по пода и после Беси ще трябва да се трепе с парцала. А когато аз им кажех да си събуят галошите, те го приемаха като обида: който не се събува е палачор. Оттук произтичаше и разликата в начина, по който те се шегуваха с него и с мен.

В едно-две поддаващи се на описание отношения очите му приличаха на моите и на очите на Лес и Бу Бу, защото (а) цветът на очите на тези типове може да бъде определен скромно като много тъмна супа от волска опашка или като еврейско тъжнокафяво, и (б) защото всички ние имахме кръгове под очите, а в два случая — направо торби. С това обаче се изчерпват всички интрасемейни сравнения. Може би ще бъде малко некавалерско спрямо дамите от групата, но ако трябва да се гласува за най-хубавите очи в семейството, ще дам гласа си за Сиймор и Зуи. Въпреки че техните очи бяха съвсем различни, и не само по цвят. Преди няколко години публикувах един изключително досаден, запомнящ се, неприятно спорен и напълно безуспешен разказ за даровито момченце, което пътува с презокеански параход, и някъде в този разказ имаше подробно описание на очите на момчето. По едно щастливо съвпадение разполагам със същия разказ, който в момента е забоден с вкус на ревера, на банския ми халат. Цитирам: „Очите му, светлокафяви на цвят и не много големи, леко бягаха — лявото повече от дясното. Но не бягаха дотам, че да изглежда кривоглед или да се забелязва това от пръв поглед. Бягаха точно толкова, колкото да се отбележи този факт, и то само с уговорката, че човек би трябвало много дълго и сериозно да се замисли, преди да си каже, че повече биха му харесали, ако бяха по-прави, по-дълбоки, по-кафяви или по-раздалечени.“ (Дали да не спра за секунда, че да си поемем дъх?) Истината е (не се шегувам), че това изобщо не са очите на Сиймор. Неговите очи бяха тъмни, много големи и съразмерно разположени, да не говорим, че в тях нямаше и помен от кривогледство. Въпреки това най-малко двама от членовете на нашето семейство бяха убедени и го казваха, че с това описание съм се бил домогвал до очите на Сиймор; и дори намираха, че в известен смисъл съм се справил нелошо. В действителност над неговите очи се спускаше свръхефирен воал и се получаваше нещо като тук съм, няма ме — само дето нямаше никакъв воал и точно там е цялата мъчнотия. Друг един палав писател — Шопенхауер, се опитва в една от веселяшките си творби да опише подобни очи и забърква каша, която, драго ми е да го отбележа, по нищо не се различава от моята.

(from Lady of the Lake) The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o’er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar’s plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o’er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, The brier-rose fell in streamers green, And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west-wind’s summer sighs. Boon nature scattered, free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain’s child. Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft, the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist’ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer’s eye could barely view The summer heaven’s delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream. Onward, amid the copse ’gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck’s brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. The shaggy mounds no longer stood, Emerging from entangled wood, But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, Like castle girdled with its moat; Yet broader floods extending still Divide them from their parent hill, Till each, retiring, claims to be An islet in an inland sea. And now, to issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer’s ken, Unless he climb, with footing nice A far projecting precipice. The broom’s tough roots his ladder made, The hazel saplings lent their aid; And thus an airy point he won, Where, gleaming with the setting sun, One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled, In all her length far winding lay, With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, empurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light, And mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land. High on the south, huge Benvenue Down to the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mountains, confusedly hurled, The fragments of an earlier world; A wildering forest feathered o’er His ruined sides and summit hoar, While on the north, through middle air, Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad shouted a FORCE battle cry and charged through the dust storm to intercept the Shrike before it covered the final thirty meters to where Sol Weintraub crouched next to Brawne Lamia. The Shrike paused, its head swiveling frictionlessly, red eyes gleaming. Kassad armed his assault rifle and moved down the slope with reckless speed. The Shrike shifted. Kassad saw its movement through time as a slow blur, noting even as he watched the Shrike that movement in the valley had ceased, sand hung motionless in the air, and the light from the glowing Tombs had taken on a thick, amberish quality. Kassad’s skinsuit was somehow shifting with the Shrike, following it through its movements through time. The creature’s head snapped up, attentive now, and its four arms extended like blades from a knife, fingers snapping open in sharp greeting. Kassad skidded to a halt ten meters from the thing and activated the assault rifle, slagging the sand beneath the Shrike in a full-power wide-beam burst. The Shrike glowed as its carapace and steel-sculpture legs reflected the hellish light beneath and around it. Then the three meters of monster began to sink as the sand bubbled into a lake of molten glass beneath it. Kassad shouted in triumph as he stepped closer, playing the widebeam on the Shrike and ground the way he had sprayed his friends with stolen irrigation hoses in the Tharsis slums as a boy. The Shrike sank. Its arms splayed at the sand and rock, trying to find purchase. Sparks flew. It shifted, time running backward like a reversed holie, but Kassad shifted with it, realizing that Moneta was helping him, her suit slaved to his but guiding him through time, and then he was spraying the creature again with concentrated heat greater than the surface of a sun, melting sand beneath it, and watching the rocks around it burst into flame. Sinking in this cauldron of flame and molten rock, the Shrike threw back its head, opened its wide crevasse of a mouth, and bellowed. Kassad almost stopped firing in his shock at hearing noise from the thing. The Shrike’s scream resounded like a dragon’s roar mixed with the blast of a fusion rocket. The screech set Kassad’s teeth on edge, vibrated from the cliff walls, and tumbled suspended dust to the ground. Kassad switched to high-velocity solid shot and fired ten thousand microfléchettes at the creature’s face.

Ione I. AH, yes, 't is sweet still to remember, Though 't were less painful to forget; For while my heart glows like an ember, Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet, And, oh, my heart is aching yet. It is a law of mortal pain That old wounds, long accounted well, Beneath the memory's potent spell, Will wake to life and bleed again. So 't is with me; it might be better If I should turn no look behind, — If I could curb my heart, and fetter From reminiscent gaze my mind, Or let my soul go blind — go blind! But would I do it if I could? Nay! ease at such a price were spurned; For, since my love was once returned, All that I suffer seemeth good. I know, I know it is the fashion, When love has left some heart distressed, To weight the air with wordful passion; But I am glad that in my breast I ever held so dear a guest. Love does not come at every nod, Or every voice that calleth 'hasten;' He seeketh out some heart to chasten, And whips it, wailing, up to God! Love is no random road wayfarer Who Where he may must sip his glass. Love is the King, the Purple-Wearer, Whose guard recks not of tree or grass To blaze the way that he may pass. What if my heart be in the blast That heralds his triumphant way; Shall I repine, shall I not say: 'Rejoice, my heart, the King has passed!' In life, each heart holds some sad story — The saddest ones are never told. I, too, have dreamed of fame and glory, And viewed the future bright with gold; But that is as a tale long told. Mine eyes have lost their youthful flash, My cunning hand has lost its art; I am not old, but in my heart The ember lies beneath the ash. I loved! Why not? My heart was youthful, My mind was filled with healthy thought. He doubts not whose own self is truthful, Doubt by dishonesty is taught; So loved! boldly, fearing naught. I did not walk this lowly earth; Mine was a newer, higher sphere, Where youth was long and life was dear, And all save love was little worth. Her likeness! Would that I might limn it, As Love did, with enduring art; Nor dust of days nor death may dim it, Where it lies graven on my heart, Of this sad fabric of my life a part. I would that I might paint her now As I beheld her in that day, Ere her first bloom had passed away, And left the lines upon her brow. A face serene that, beaming brightly, Disarmed the hot sun's glances bold. A foot that kissed the ground so lightly, He frowned in wrath and deemed her cold, But loved her still though he was old. A form where every maiden grace Bloomed to perfection's richest flower, — The statued pose of conscious power, Like lithe-limbed Dian's of the chase. Beneath a brow too fair for frowning, Like moon-lit deeps that glass the skies Till all the hosts above seem drowning, Looked forth her steadfast hazel eyes, With gaze serene and purely wise. And over all, her tresses rare, Which, when, with his desire grown weak, The Night bent down to kiss her cheek, Entrapped and held him captive there. This was Ione; a spirit finer Ne'er burned to ash its house of clay; A soul instinct with fire diviner Ne'er fled athwart the face of day, And tempted Time with earthly stay. Her loveliness was not alone Of face and form and tresses' hue; For aye a pure, high soul shone through Her every act: this was Ione.

The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists

A long time ago, I collected the flower petals stained with my first blood; I thought there was something significant about that, there was importance in all the little moments of experience, because when you live forever, the first times matter. The first time you bleed, first time you cry — I don’t remember that — first time you see your wings, because new things defile you, purity chips away. your purity. nestled flowers in your belly, waiting to be picked. do you want innocence back? small and young smiles that make your eyes squint and cheeks flare the feeling of your face dripping down onto the grass, the painted walls you tore down, the roads you chipped away, they’ll eat away at you, the lingering feelings of a warm hand on your waist, the taps of your feet as you dance, the beats of your timbrel.’ ‘and now you are like Gods, sparkling brilliant with jewelry that worships you, and you’re splitting in order to create.’ ‘The tosses of your wet hair, the rushes of chariots speeding past, the holy, holy, holy lord god of hosts, the sweetness of a strawberry, knocks against the window by your head, the little tunes of your pipes, the cuts sliced into your fingers by uptight cacti fruits, the brisk scent of a sea crashing into the rocks, the sweat of wrestling, onions, cumin, parsley in a metal jug, mud clinging to your skin, a friendly mouth on your cheeks and forehead, chimes, chirps of chatter in the bazaar, amen, amen, amen, the plump fish rushing to take the bread you toss, scraping of a carpenter, the hiss of chalk, the wisps of clouds cradling you as you nap, the splashes of water in a hot pool, the picnic in a meadow, the pounding of feet that are chasing you, the velvet of petals rustling you awake, a giant water lily beneath you, the innocent kiss, the sprawl of the universe reflected in your eyes for the first time, the bloody wings that shred out of your back, the apples in orchards, a basket of stained flowers, excited chants of a colosseum audience, the heat of spinning and bouncing to drums and claps, the love braided into your hair, the trickles of a piano, smell of myrrh, the scratches of a spoon in a cup, the coarseness of a carpet, the stringed instruments and trumpets, the serene smile of not knowing, the sleeping angel, the delight of a creator, the amusement of gossip and rumors, the rumbling laughter between shy singing, the tangling of legs, squash, celery, carrot, and chayote, the swirled face paint, the warmth of honey in your tea, the timid face in the mirror, mahogany beams, the embrace of a bed of flowers, the taste of a grape as its fed to you, the lip smacks of an angel as you feed him a raspberry, the first dizziness of alcohol, the cool water and scent of natron and the scratch of the rock you beat your dirty clothes against, the strain of your arms, the columns of an entrance, the high ceilings of a dark cathedral, the boiling surface of bubbling stew, the burn of stained-glass, the little joyous jump you do seeing bread rise, the silky taste of olive oil, the lap of an angel humming as he embroiders a little fox into his tunic, the softness of browned feathers lulling you to sleep, the weight of a dozen blankets and pillows on your small bed, the proud smile on the other side of a window in a newly-finished building, the myrtle trees only you two know about, the palm of god as he fashions you from threads of copper, his praises, his love, his kiss to your hair, your father.

NOTE: The character of Aoleon is deaf. This conversation takes place in the book via sign language... “Feeling a certain kind of way Aoleon?” She snapped-to and quickly became defensive. “What in the name of the Goddess are you on about?” Shades of anger and annoyance. The old Aoleon coming out. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t poke at you like that. It’s okay you know. There’s nothing wrong about the way you feel.” As if suddenly caught up in a lie, Aoleon cleared her throat and ran her fingers absentmindedly over her ear and started to fidget with one of the brass accents in her snowy hair. A very common nervous reaction. “No…I mean…well I was…uh...” “Aoleon, I know about you and Arjana.” he admitted outrightly as he pointed at the drawing. She coughed, stuttered, smiled, but could bring herself to fully say nothing. Words escaped her as she looked about the room for answers. “My sight is Dįvįnë, lest we forget. I knew you were growing close.” “Yes. Well…she’s…something else.” “Indeed?” he responded. Images flashed briefly in Aoleon’s head of her father’s old friend. Verging on her fiftieth decade of life. She was a fierce woman by all accounts. One who’d just as soon cut you with words as she would a blade. Yet, she was darling and caring towards those she held close to her. Lovely to a fault; in a wild sort of way. Dark skin, the colour of walnut stained wood. Thick, kinky hair fashioned into black locs that faded into reddish-brown tips that were dyed with Assamian henna; the sides of her head shaved bare in an undercut fashion. Tattoos and gauged ears. Very comfortable with her sexuality. Dwalli by blood, but a native of the Link by birth although she wasn’t a Magi. Magick was her mother’s gift. “I heard her say something very much the same about you once Aoleon.” “Really?” Aoleon perked up right away. “Did she?” “Yes. After she first met you in fact. Nearly exactly.” Aoleon’s smile widened and she beamed happiness. She sat up assertively and gave a curt nod. “Well, of course she did.” “She’s held such a torch for you for so long that I was starting to wonder if anything would actually come of it.” “Yeah. Both you and Prince Asshole.” Aoleon exclaimed with a certainty that was absolute as she once again tightened up with defensiveness. Samahdemn walked his statement back. “Peace daughter. I didn't know your brother had been giving you a row about her. Then again, he is your brother. So anything is possible.” Aoleon sighed and nodded. “Not so much problems as he’s been giving me the silent treatment over it. Na’Kwanza. It’s always Na’ Kwanza.” Samahdemn nodded knowingly and waived a dismissive hand. “He’s just jealous. He always has been.” “So I’ve noticed.” “Why would you hide it? Why not tell me?” “I don’t know.” she said; shrugging her shoulders. “I didn’t know how you’d take it I suppose.” “Seriously? You were afraid of rejection? From me? Love, have I ever held your individuality against you? Have I ever not supported you or your siblings?” She shook her head; a bit embarrassed that she hadn't trusted him. "No, I suppose not." -Reflections on the Dįvonësë War: The Dįvįnë Will Bear Witness to Fate