Can't and Won't: Stories

The Last of the Mohicans

We are sitting with our old mother in the nursing home.

“Of course I’m lonesome for you kids. But it’s not like being in a strange place, where you don’t know anyone.”

She smiles, trying to reassure us. “There are plenty of people here from good old Willy.”

She adds: “Of course, a lot of them can’t talk.” She pauses, and goes on: “A lot of them can’t see.”

She looks at us through her thick-lensed glasses. We know she can’t see anything but light and shadow.

“I’m the last of the Mohicans — as they say.”

Grade Two Assignment

Color these fish.

Cut them out.

Punch a hole in the top of each fish.

Put a ribbon through all the holes.

Tie these fish together.

Now read what is written on these fish:

Jesus is a friend.

Jesus gathers friends.

I am a friend of Jesus.

Master

“You want to be a master,” he said. “Well, you’re not a master.”

That took me down a peg.

Seems I still have a lot to learn.

An Awkward Situation

A young writer has hired an older, more experienced writer to improve upon his texts. However, he refuses to pay her. He keeps her, in fact, in a situation that amounts to imprisonment, on the grounds of his estate. Though his frail and elderly mother, while turning her back and walking away, as though unwilling to look at him, urges him, weakly, to pay this writer what he owes her, he does not. Instead, he holds his arm out straight towards her, his hand in a fist, while she holds her hand out under his fist, palm up, as though to receive something. He then opens his hand, and it is empty. He is doing this for revenge, she knows, because he and she were once involved in what might be called a love relationship, and she was not as kind to him as she should have been. She was sometimes rude to him, and belittled him, both in front of others and in private. She tries, over and over, to think whether she was as cruel to him then, so long ago, as he is being cruel to her now. Complicating the situation is the fact that another person is living here with her, and depending on her for support, and that is her ex-husband. He, unlike her, and unlike her bitter former lover, is cheerful and confident, not knowing, until at last she tells him, that she is not being paid. Even then, however, after a moment’s pause in which he absorbs the news, he continues to be cheerful and confident, in part, perhaps, because he does not believe her, and in part because he is distracted, having just embarked on another writing project of his own. He invites her to work with him on it. She is interested and willing, until she looks at it. She then sees that, unfortunately for her, it involves the writing of yet another person. She does not like the writing, or the character, or what she suspects is the corrupting influence, of this other person, and she does not want to be associated with her. But before she can tell him this, or, better, hide it from him, while still declining to collaborate on the writing project, another question occurs to her. Where, in all this, she wonders now, after a surprisingly long time, perhaps weeks, is her own present husband, always so helpful to her, and why does he not come to help her out of this most awkward situation?

Housekeeping Observation

Under all this dirt

the floor is really very clean.

The Execution

story from Flaubert

Here is another story about our compassion. In a village not far from here, a young man murdered a banker and his wife, then raped the servant girl and drank all the wine in the cellar. He was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed. Well, there was such interest in seeing this peculiar fellow die on the guillotine that people came from all over the countryside the night before — more than ten thousand of them. There were such crowds that the bakeries ran out of bread. And because the inns were full, people spent the night outside: to see this man die, they slept in the snow.

And we shake our heads over the Roman gladiators. Oh, charlatans!

A Note from the Paperboy

She tries to get her husband to look at the dog and the cat lying stretched out together companionably side by side on the floor. He is immediately annoyed with her because he is trying to concentrate on what he is doing.

Since he won’t talk to her, she then starts talking to the cat and the dog. Again he tells her to be quiet — he can’t concentrate.

What he is doing is writing a note to the paperboy. He is writing a note in answer to a note they have received from the paperboy.

The paperboy has written that when walking through their yard in the dark in the early morning, he has “met several animals”—“like skunks.” He is announcing that from now on, he would prefer to leave the paper outside the yard, “at the back gate entrance.”

Now, in response, her husband is writing to the paperboy saying No, they prefer to have the newspaper delivered as always to the back porch, and if he can’t do that, they will discontinue the paper.

In fact, according to the grammatical construction used by the paperboy in his note, it is the animals themselves who are not only walking through the yard but also delivering the paper.

In the Train Station

The train station is very crowded. People are walking in every direction at once, though some are standing still. A Tibetan Buddhist monk with shaved head and long wine-colored robe is in the crowd, looking worried. I am standing still, watching him. I have plenty of time before my train leaves, because I have just missed a train. The monk sees me watching him. He comes up to me and tells me he is looking for Track 3. I know where the tracks are. I show him the way.

dream

The Moon

I get up out of bed in the night. My room is large, and dark but for the white dog on the floor. I leave the room. The hallway is wide and long, and filled with an underwater sort of twilight. I reach the doorway of the bathroom and see that it is flooded with bright light. There is a full moon far above, overhead. Its beam is coming in through the window and falling directly on the toilet seat, as if sent by a helpful God.

Then I am back in bed. I have been lying there awake for a while. The room is lighter than it was. The moon is coming around to this side of the building, I think. But no, it is the beginning of dawn.

dream

My Footsteps

I see myself from the back, walking. There are circles of both light and shadow around each of my footsteps. I know that with each step I can now go farther and faster than ever before, so of course I want to spring forward and run. But I am told that I must pause at each step, letting my foot rest on the ground for a moment, if I want it to develop its full power and reach, before taking the next.

dream

How I Read as Quickly as Possible Through My Back Issues of the TLS

I do not want to read about the life of Jerry Lewis.

I do want to read about mammalian carnivores.

I do not want to read about a portrait of a castrato.

I do not want to read this poem:

(“… and so I stood/at the water’s edge among electrolytes…”)

I do want to read about the history of the Inca khipu.

I do not want to read about:

the history of the panda in China

a dictionary of women in Shakespeare

Do want to read about:

sow bugs

bumblebees

Do not want to read about Ronald Reagan.

Do not want to read this poem:

(“What’s the point of sitting on a bus/and fuming?”)

Do want to read about the creation of the musical South Pacific:

(“This study will contribute greatly to the still under-written history of the Broadway musical”)

Not interested in:

The Oxford Companion to Canadian Military History

Not interested in (at least not today):

Hitler

London theater productions

Interested in:

the psychology of lying

Anne Carson on the death of her brother

French writers admired by Proust

the poems of Catullus

translations from the Serbian

Not interested in:

the creation of the Statue of Liberty

Interested in:

beer

East Prussia after World War II

philosemitism

Not interested in:

the Archbishop of Canterbury

Not interested in this poem:

(“Light dazzles from the grass/over the carnal dune…”)

Not interested in:

the Anglo-Portuguese establishment

heraldic leopards

Interested in:

the lectures of Borges

Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style

dust jackets in the history of bibliography:

(“For the first time, the dust jacket has been given its due status…”)

Not interested in:

the friendship of Elgar and Schenker

the work of Alexander Pope

T. S. Eliot’s fountain pen

Not interested in:

the Audit Commission

Interested in:

the social value of altruism

the building of the Pont Neuf

the history of daguerreotypes

Not interested in:

a cultural history of the British Census:

(“It is salutary to see, from this learned book, that, mutatis mutandis, such controversies have plagued the census since its inception…”)

Not interested in:

a cultural history of the accordion in America

(“Squeeze This”)

Interested in:

the Southport Lawnmower Museum

Not interested in:

a history of British television criticism

fashion at the Academy Awards:

(“How Oscars dress etiquette has changed since the ceremony’s inception in 1928”)

Not interested in:

Anacaona: The Amazing Adventures of Cuba’s First All-Girl Band

Always (or almost always) interested in:

JC’s NB and the doings of the Basement Labyrinth

Not interested in — or, well, yes, maybe interested in:

the history of diplomacy

Laura Bush’s autobiography

Notes During Long Phone Conversation with Mother

for summer she needs

pretty dress cotton

Men

There are also men in the world. Sometimes we forget, and think there are only women — endless hills and plains of unresisting women. We make little jokes and comfort each other and our lives pass quickly. But every now and then, it is true, a man rises unexpectedly in our midst like a pine tree, and looks savagely at us, and sends us hobbling away in great floods to hide in the caves and gullies until he is gone.

Negative Emotions

A well-meaning teacher, inspired by a text he had been reading, once sent all the other teachers in his school a message about negative emotions. The message consisted entirely of advice quoted from a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.

Emotion, said the monk, is like a storm: it stays for a while and then it goes. Upon perceiving the emotion (like a coming storm), one should put oneself in a stable position. One should sit or lie down. One should focus on one’s abdomen. One should focus, specifically, on the area just below one’s navel, and practice mindful breathing. If one can identify the emotion as an emotion, it may then be easier to handle.

The other teachers were puzzled. They did not understand why their colleague had sent them a message about negative emotions. They resented the message, and they resented their colleague. They thought he was accusing them of having negative emotions and needing advice about how to handle them. Some of them were, in fact, angry.

The teachers did not choose to regard their anger as a coming storm. They did not focus on their abdomens. They did not focus on the area just below their navels. Instead, they wrote back immediately, declaring that because they did not understand why he had sent it, his message had filled them with negative emotions. They told him that it would take a lot of practice for them to get over the negative emotions caused by his message. But, they went on, they did not intend to do this practice. Far from being troubled by their negative emotions, they said, they in fact liked having negative emotions, particularly about him and his message.

I’m Pretty Comfortable, But I Could Be a Little More Comfortable

I’m tired.

The people in front of us are taking a long time choosing their ice cream.

My thumb hurts.

A man is coughing during the concert.

The shower is a little too cold.

The work I have to do this morning is difficult.

They have seated us too close to the kitchen.

There’s a long line at the shipping counter.

I’m cold sitting in the car.

The cuff of my sweater is damp.

The shower is weak.

I’m hungry.

They’re quarreling again.

This soup doesn’t have much taste.

My navel orange is a little dry.

I didn’t get two seats to myself on the train.

He is keeping me waiting.

They have gone off and left me alone at the dinner table.

She says my breathing is incorrect.

I need to go to the bathroom, but someone is in there.

I’m a little tense.

The back of my neck feels prickly.

The cat has ringworm.

The person behind me on the train is eating something very smelly.

It’s too hot in that room for me to practice the piano.

He calls me when I’m working.

I bought sour cream by mistake.

My fork is too short.

I’m so tired I won’t do well at my lesson.

This apple has brown spots on it.

I ordered a dry corn muffin, but when it came, it wasn’t dry.

He chews so loudly I have to turn on the radio.

This pesto is hard to blend.

The wart on my thumb is growing back.

I can’t have anything to eat or drink this morning because of the test.

She has parked her Mercedes across the end of my driveway.

I ordered an oat bran raisin muffin lightly toasted, but it wasn’t lightly toasted.

My tea water takes too long to boil.

The seam in the toe of my sock is twisted.

It’s too cold in that room for me to practice the piano.

He doesn’t pronounce foreign words correctly.

My tea is too milky.

I’ve been in the kitchen too long.

There’s cat saliva on my new sock.

My seat doesn’t have a back.

The blender is leaking at the bottom.

I can’t decide whether to go on reading this book.

I missed the view of the river from the train because it got dark.

The raspberries are sour.

The pepper grinder doesn’t grind very well.

The cat has peed on my telephone.

My Band-Aid is wet.

The store is out of decaf hazelnut coffee.

My sheets get all twisted in the dryer.

The carrot cake was a little stale.

When I toast the raisin bread, the raisins get very hot.

The bridge of my nose is a little dry.

I’m sleepy, but I can’t lie down.

The sound system in the examining room is playing folk music.

I don’t look forward very much to that sandwich.

They have a new weatherman on the radio.

Now that the leaves are off the trees, we can see the neighbor’s new deck.

I don’t think I like my bedspread anymore.

In the restaurant they are playing a loop of soft rock music.

My glasses frames are cold.

There is St. André cheese on the platter, but I can’t have any.

The clock is ticking very loudly.

Judgment

Into how small a space the word judgment can be compressed: it must fit inside the brain of a ladybug as she, before my eyes, makes a decision.

The Chairs

story from Flaubert

Louis has been in the church in Mantes looking at the chairs. He has been looking at them very closely. He wants to learn as much as he can about the people from looking at their chairs, he says. He started with the chair of a woman he calls Madame Fricotte. Maybe her name was written on the back of the chair. She must be very stout, he says — the seat of the chair has a deep hollow in it, and the prayer stool has been reinforced in a couple of places. Her husband may be a rich man, because the prayer stool is upholstered in red velvet with brass tacks. Or, he thinks, the woman may be the widow of a rich man, because there is no chair belonging to Monsieur Fricotte — unless he’s an atheist. In fact, perhaps Madame Fricotte, if she is a widow, is looking for another husband, since the back of her chair is heavily stained with hair dye.

My Friend’s Creation

We are in a clearing at night. Along one side, four Egyptian goddesses of immense size are positioned in profile and lit from behind. Black shapes of people come into the clearing and slip across the silhouettes. A moon is pasted against the dark sky. High up on a pole sits a cheerful, red-cheeked man who sings and plays a pipe. Now and then, he climbs down from his pole. He is my friend’s creation, and my friend asks me, “What shall he be singing?”

dream

The Piano

We are about to buy a new piano. Our old upright has a crack all the way through the sounding board, and other problems. We would like the piano shop to take it and resell it, but they tell us it is too badly damaged and cannot be resold to anyone else. They say it will have to be pushed over a cliff. This is how they will do it: Two truck drivers take it to a remote spot. One driver walks away down the lane with his back turned while the other shoves it over the cliff.

dream

The Party

A friend and I are on our way to some sort of grand festivity. I am riding in the car of someone I do not know who is vaguely familiar to me. My friend is ahead of us in a different car, a white one. We drive for what seems like hours through deserted streets, making for a hill at the edge of the city. We keep losing our way and stopping to ask directions, because the map that has been given to us is imprecise and hard to read.

At last we come to the top of a steep incline, go on up a curving driveway lit by lanterns among the trees, and come to a stop under a lofty, flood-lit, stone windmill. We leave the cars and walk across the gravel past noisy fountains. The suburbs of the city are spread out below and behind us. We enter the windmill. Inside, a small woman dressed in black and white guides us down whitewashed stairwells, along stone corridors, around several corners, and finally down one last, broader flight of stairs.

At the bottom is a vast, circular room, its raftered ceiling lost in darkness. Filling the room nearly to its edges, and dwarfing the crowd of guests who have arrived before us, is a giant carousel, motionless and crossed by powerful beams of light: white horses, four abreast, are harnessed to open carriages that rock back and forth on their bases; a ship with two figureheads rises high out of static green waves. Around the carousel, the guests shrink back from it, sipping champagne with timid smiles.

We are so surprised that we have not yet moved from the bottom of the steps. Now, though the carousel is still motionless, the calliope begins bleating and gurgling with a deafening noise and the room shudders. A woman with a handbag over her arm approaches one of the horses and stares at its bulging eye. One by one, the guests mount the carousel, not eagerly or happily, but fearfully.

dream

The Cows

Each new day, when they come out from the far side of the barn, it is like the next act, or the start of an entirely new play.

They amble into view from the far side of the barn with their rhythmic, graceful walk, and it is an occasion, like the start of a parade.

Sometimes the second and third come out in stately procession after the first has stopped and stands still, staring.

They come from behind the barn as though something is going to happen, and then nothing happens.

Or we pull back the curtain in the morning and they are already there, in the early sunlight.

They are a deep, inky black. It is a black that swallows light.

Their bodies are entirely black, but they have white on their faces. On the faces of two of them, there are large patches of white, like a mask. On the face of the third, there is only a small patch on the forehead, the size of a silver dollar.

They are motionless until they move again, one foot and then another — fore, hind, fore, hind — and stop in another place, motionless again.

So often they are standing completely still. Yet when I look up again a few minutes later, they are in another place, again standing completely still.

When they all three stand bunched together in a far corner of the field by the woods, they form one dark irregular mass, with twelve legs.

They are often crowded together in the large field. But sometimes they lie down far apart from one another, evenly spaced over the grass.

Today, two appear halfway out from behind the barn, standing still. Ten minutes go by. Now they are all the way out, standing still. Another ten minutes go by. Now the third is out and they are all three in a line, standing still.

The third comes out into the field from behind the barn when the other two have already chosen their spots, quite far apart. She can choose to join either one. She goes deliberately to the one in the far corner. Does she prefer the company of that cow, or does she prefer that corner, or is it more complicated — that that corner seems more appealing because of the presence of that cow?

Their attention is complete, as they look across the road: They are still, and face us.

Just because they are so still, their attitude seems philosophical.

I see them most often out the kitchen window over the top of a hedge. My view of them is bounded on either side by leafy trees. I am surprised that the cows are so often visible, because the portion of the hedge over which I see them is only about three feet long, and, even more puzzling, if I hold my arm straight out in front of me, the field of my vision in which they are grazing is only the length of half a finger. Yet that field of vision contains a part of their grazing field that is hundreds of square feet in area.

That one’s legs are moving, but because she is facing us directly she seems to be staying in one place. Yet she is getting bigger, so she must be coming this way.

One of them is in the foreground and two are farther back, in the middle ground between her and the woods. In my field of vision, they occupy together in the middle ground the same amount of space she occupies alone in the foreground.

Because there are three, one of them can watch what the other two are doing together.

Or, because there are three, two can worry about the third, for instance the one lying down. They worry about her even though she often lies down, even though they all often lie down. Now the two worried ones stand at angles to the other, with their noses down against her, until at last she gets up.

They are nearly the same size, and yet one is the largest, one the middle-sized, and one the smallest.

One thinks there is a reason to walk briskly to the far corner of the field, but another thinks there is no reason, and stands still where she is.

At first she stands still where she is, while the first walks away briskly, but then she changes her mind and follows.

She follows, but stops halfway there. Is it that she has forgotten why she was going there, or that she has lost interest? She and the other are standing in parallel positions. She is looking straight ahead.

How often they stand still and slowly look around as though they have never been here before.

But now, in an access of emotion, she trots a few feet.

I see only one cow, by the fence. As I walk up to the fence, I see part of a second cow: one ear sticking sideways out the door of the barn. Soon, I know, her whole face will appear, looking at me.

They are not disappointed in us, or do not remember being disappointed. If, one day, when we have nothing to offer them, they lose interest and turn away, they will have forgotten their disappointment by the next day. We know, because they look up when we first appear and don’t look away.

Sometimes they advance as a group, in little relays.

One gains courage from the one in front of her and moves forward a few steps, passing her by just a little. Now the one farthest back gains courage from the one in front and moves forward until she, in turn, is the leader. And so in this way, taking courage from one another, they advance, as a group, towards the strange thing in front of them.

In this, functioning as a single entity, they are not unlike the small flock of pigeons we sometimes see over the railway station, wheeling and turning in the sky continuously, making immediate small group decisions about where to go next.

When we come close to them, they are curious and come forward. They want to look at us and smell us. Before they smell us, they blow out forcefully, to clear their passages.

They like to lick things — a person’s hand or sleeve, or the head or shoulders or back of another cow. And they like to be licked: while she is being licked, she stands very still with her head slightly lowered and a look of deep concentration in her eyes.

One may be jealous of another being licked: she thrusts her head under the outstretched neck of the one licking, and butts upwards till the licking stops.

Two of them are standing close together: now they both move at the same moment, shifting into a different position in relation to each other, and then stand still again, as if following exactly the instructions of a choreographer.

Now they shift so that there is a head at either end and two thick clusters of legs in between.

After staying with the others in a tight clump for some time, one walks away by herself to the far corner of the field: at this moment, she does seem to have a mind of her own.

Lying down, seen from the side, her head up, feet bent in front of her, she forms a long, acute triangle.

Her head, from the side, is nearly an isosceles triangle, with a blunted corner where her nose is.

In a moment of solitary levity, as she leads the way out across the field, she bucks once and then prances.

Two of them are beginning a lively game of butt-your-head when a car goes by and they stop to look.

She bucks, stiffly rocking back and forth. This excites another one to butt heads with her. After they are done butting heads, the other one puts her nose back down to the ground and this one stands still, looking straight ahead, as though wondering what she just did.

Forms of play: head-butting; mounting, either at the back or at the front; trotting away by yourself; trotting together; going off bucking and prancing by yourself; resting your head and chest on the ground until they notice and trot towards you; circling one another; taking the position for head-butting and then not doing it.

She moos towards the wooded hills behind her, and the sound comes back. She moos again in a high falsetto. It is a very small sound to come from such a large, dark animal.

Today, they are positioned exactly one behind the next in a line, head to tail, head to tail, as though coupled like the cars of a railway train, the first looking straight forward like the headlight of the locomotive.

The shape of a black cow, seen directly head-on: a smooth black oval, larger at the top and tapering at the bottom to a very narrow extension, like a teardrop.

Standing with their back ends close together now, they face three of the four cardinal points of the compass.

Sometimes one takes the position for defecating, her tail, raised at the base, in the curved shape of a pump handle.

They seem expectant this morning, but it is a combination of two things: the strange yellow light before a storm and their alert expressions as they listen to a loud woodpecker.

Spaced out evenly over the pale yellow-green grass of late November, one, two, and three, they are so still, and their legs so thin, in comparison to their bodies, that when they stand sideways to us, sometimes their legs seem like prongs, and they seem stuck to the earth.

How flexible, and how precise, she is: she can reach one of her back hooves all the way forward, to scratch a particular spot inside her ear.

It is the lowered head that makes her seem less noble than, say, a horse, or a deer surprised in the woods. More exactly, it is her lowered head and neck. As she stands still, the top of her head is level with her back, or even a little lower, and so she seems to be hanging her head in discouragement, embarrassment, or shame. There is at least a suggestion of humility and dullness about her. But all these suggestions are false.

He says to us: They don’t really do anything.

Then he adds: But of course there is not a lot for them to do.

Their grace: as they walk, they are more graceful when seen from the side than when seen from the front. Seen from the front, as they walk, they tip just a little from side to side.

When they are walking, their forelegs are more graceful than their back legs, which appear stiffer.

The forelegs are more graceful than the back legs because they lift in a curve, whereas the back legs lift in a jagged line like a bolt of lightning.

But perhaps the back legs, while less graceful than the forelegs, are more elegant.

It is because of the way the joints in the legs work: Whereas the two lower joints of the front leg bend the same way, so that the front leg as it is raised forms a curve, the two lower joints of the back leg bend in opposite directions, so that the leg, when raised, forms two opposite angles, the lower one gentle, pointing forward, the upper one sharp, pointing back.

Now, because it is winter, they are not grazing but only standing still and staring, or, now and then, walking here and there.

It is a very cold winter morning, just above zero degrees, but sunny. Two of them stand still, head to tail, for a very long time, oriented roughly east-west. They are probably presenting their broad sides to the sun, for warmth.

If they finally move, is it because they are warm enough, or is it that they are stiff, or bored?

They are sometimes a mass of black, a lumpy black clump, against the snow, with a head at either end and many legs below.

Or the three of them, seen from the side, when they are all facing the same way, three deep, make one thick cow with three heads, two up and one lowered.

Sometimes, what we see against the snow is their bumps — bumps of ears and nose, bumps of bony hips, or the sharp bone on the top of their heads, or their shoulders.

If it snows, it snows on them the same way it snows on the trees and the field. Sometimes they are just as still as the trees or the field. The snow piles up on their backs and heads.

It has been snowing heavily for some time, and it is still snowing. When we go up to them, where they stand by the fence, we see that there is a layer of snow on their backs. There is also a layer of snow on their faces, and even a thin line of snow on each of the whiskers around their mouths. The snow on their faces is so white that now the white patches on their faces, which once looked so white against their black, are a shade of yellow.

Against the snow, in the distance, coming head-on this way, separately, spaced far apart, they are like wide black strokes of a pen.

A winter’s day: First, a boy plays in the snow in the same field as the cows. Then, outside the field, three boys throw snowballs at a fourth boy who rides past them on a bike.

Meanwhile, the three cows are standing end to end, each touching the next, like paper cutouts.

Now the boys begin to throw snowballs at the cows. A neighbor watching says: “It was only a matter of time. They were bound to do it.”

But the cows merely walk away from the boys.

They are so black on the white snow and standing so close together that I don’t know if there are three there, together, or just two — but surely there are more than eight legs in that bunch?

At a distance, one bows down into the snow; the other two watch, then begin to trot towards her, then break into a canter.

At the far edge of the field, next to the woods, they are walking from right to left, and because of where they are, their dark bodies entirely disappear against the dark woods behind them, while their legs are still visible against the snow — black sticks twinkling against the white ground.

They are often like a math problem: 2 cows lying down in the snow, plus 1 cow standing up looking at the hill, equals 3 cows.

Or: 1 cow lying down in the snow, plus 2 cows on their feet looking this way across the road, equals 3 cows.

Today, they are all three lying down.

Now, in the heart of winter, they spend a lot of time lying around in the snow.

Does she lie down because the other two have lain down before her, or are they all three lying down because they all feel it is the right time to lie down? (It is just after noon, on a chilly, early spring day, with intermittent sun and no snow on the ground.)

Is the shape of her lying down, when seen from the side, most of all like a bootjack as seen from above?

It is hard to believe a life could be so simple, but it is just this simple. It is the life of a ruminant, a protected domestic ruminant. If she were to give birth to a calf, though, her life would be more complicated.

The cows in the past, the present, and the future: They were so black against the pale yellow-green grass of late November. Then they were so black against the white snow of winter. Now they are so black against the tawny grass of early spring. Soon, they will be so black against the dark green grass of summer.

Two of them are probably pregnant, and have probably been pregnant for many months. But it is hard to be sure, because they are so massive. We won’t know until the calf is born. And after the calf is born, even though it will be quite large, the cow will seem to be just as massive as she was before.

The angles of a cow as she grazes, seen from the side: from her bony hips to her shoulders, there is a very gradual, barely perceptible slope down; then, from her shoulders to the tip of her nose, down in the grass, a very steep slope.

The position, or form, itself, of the grazing cow, when seen from the side, is graceful.

Why do they so often graze side-view on to me, rather than front- or rear-view on? Is it so that they can keep an eye on both the woods, on one side, and the road, on the other? Or does the traffic on the road, sparse though it is, right to left and left to right, influence them so that they graze parallel to it?

Or perhaps it isn’t true that they graze more often sideways on to me. Maybe I simply pay more attention to them when they are sideways on. After all, when they are perfectly sideways on, to me, the greatest surface area of their bodies is visible to me; as soon as the angle changes, I see less of them, until, when they are perfectly end-on or front-on to me, the least of them is visible.

They make slow progress here and there in the field, with only their tails moving briskly from side to side. In contrast, little flocks of birds — as black as they are — fly up and land constantly in waves behind and around them. The birds move with what looks to us like joy or exhilaration but is probably simply keenness in pursuit of their prey — the flies that in turn dart out from the cows and settle on them again.

Their tails do not exactly whip or flap, and they do not swish, since there is no swishing sound. There is a swooping or looping motion to them, with a little fillip at the end, from the tasseled part.

Her head is down, and she is grazing in a circle of darkness that is her own shadow.

Just as it is hard for us, in our garden, to stop weeding, because there is always another weed there in front of us, it may be hard for her to stop grazing, because there are always a few more shoots of fresh grass just ahead of her.

If the grass is short, she may grasp it directly between her teeth and her lip; if the grass is longer, she may capture it first with a sideways sweep of her tongue, in order to bring it into her mouth.

Their large tongues are not pink. The tongues of two of them are light gray. The tongue of the third, the darkest one, is dark gray.

One of them has given birth to a calf. But in fact her life is not much more complicated than it was before. She stands still to let him nurse. She licks him.

Only the hours of the birth itself, on that day (Palm Sunday), were much more complicated.

Today, again, the cows are positioned symmetrically in the field, but now there is a short stray line of dark in the grass among them — the calf sleeping.

There used to be three dark horizontal lumps on the field when they lay down to rest. Now there are three and another very small one.

Soon he, three days old, is grazing, too, or learning to graze, but so small, from where I stand watching him, that he is sometimes hidden by a twig.

When he stands still, a miniature, nose to the grass like his mother, because his body is so small and his legs so thin, he looks like a thick black staple.

When he runs after her, he canters like a rocking horse.

They do sometimes protest — when they have no water or can’t get into the barn. One of them, the darkest, will moo in a perfectly regular blast twenty or more times in succession. The sound echoes off the hills like a fire alarm coming from a firehouse.

At these times, she sounds authoritative. But she has no authority.

A second calf is born, to a second cow. Now one small dark lump in the grass is the older calf. Another, smaller dark lump in the grass is the newborn calf.

The third cow could not be bred because she would not get into the van to be taken to the bull. Then, after a few months, they wanted to take her to be slaughtered. But she would not get into the van to be taken to slaughter. So she is still there.

Other neighbors may be away, from time to time, but the cows are always there, in the field. Or, if they are not in the field, they are in the barn.

I know that if they are in the field, and if I go up to the fence on this side, they will, all three, sooner or later come up to the fence on the other side, to meet me.

They do not know the words person, neighbor, watch, or even cow.

At dusk, when our light is on indoors, they can’t be seen, though they are there in the field across the road. If we turn off the light and look out into the dusk, gradually they can be seen again.

They are still out there, grazing, at dusk. But as the dusk turns to dark, while the sky above the woods is still a purplish blue, it is harder and harder to see their black bodies against the darkening field. Then they can’t be seen at all, but they are still out there, grazing in the dark.

The Exhibition

story from Flaubert

Yesterday, in the deep snow, I went to an exhibition of savages that had come here from Le Havre. They were Kaffirs. The poor Negroes, and their manager too, looked as if they were dying of hunger.

You paid a few pennies to get into the exhibition. It was in a miserable smoke-filled room up several flights of stairs. It was not well attended — seven or eight fellows in work clothes sat here and there in the rows of chairs. We waited for some time. Then a sort of wild beast appeared wearing a tiger skin on his back and uttering harsh cries. A few more followed him into the room — there were four altogether. They got up on a platform and crouched around a stew pot. Hideous and splendid at the same time, they were covered with amulets and tattoos, as thin as skeletons, their skin the color of my well-seasoned old pipe; their faces were flat, their teeth white, their eyes large, their expressions desperately sad, astonished, and brutalized. The twilight outside the windows, and the snow whitening the rooftops across the street, cast a gray pall over them. I felt as though I were seeing the first men on earth — as though they had just come into existence and were creeping about with the toads and the crocodiles.

Then one of them, an old woman, noticed me and came into the audience where I was sitting — she had, it seems, taken a sudden liking to me. She said some things to me — affectionate things, as far as I could tell. Then she tried to kiss me. The audience watched in surprise. For a quarter of an hour I stayed there in my seat listening to her long declaration of love. I asked the manager several times what she was saying, but he couldn’t translate any of it.

Though he claimed they knew a little English, they didn’t seem to understand a word, because after the show at last came to an end — to my relief — I asked them a few questions and they couldn’t answer. I was glad to leave that dismal place and go back out into the snow, though I had lost my boots somewhere.

What is it that makes me so attractive to cretins, madmen, idiots, and savages? Do those poor creatures sense a kind of sympathy in me? Do they feel some sort of bond between us? It is infallible. It happened with the cretins of Valais, the madmen of Cairo, the monks of Upper Egypt — they all persecuted me with their declarations of love!

Later, I heard that after this exhibition of savages, their manager abandoned them. They had been in Rouen for nearly two months by then, first on the boulevard Beauvoisin, then in the Grande-Rue, where I saw them. When he left, they were living in a shabby little hotel in the rue de la Vicomté. Their only recourse was to take their case to the English consul — I don’t know how they made themselves understood. But the consul paid their debts—400 francs to the hotel — and then put them on the train for Paris. They had an engagement there — it was to be their Paris debut.

Letter to a Peppermint Candy Company

Dear Manufacturer of “Old Fashioned Chewy Peps,”

Last Christmas when my husband and I stopped in at an upscale country store that caters to weekenders as well as locals and has a lunchroom off to the side, and which is run by a couple who bicker constantly and snap at their help, after we had had lunch and were browsing, before we left, among the displays of packaged and freshly prepared gourmet foods, we were attracted to the festive bright red canister (what you call the “tin”) of your “Old Fashioned Chewy Peps” peppermints. I love peppermints, and when I read the ingredients list on your can and saw that these were made without preservatives or artificial flavors or colors, I decided to buy the peppermints, since it is hard to find pure candies. I did not ask the price of the can, because although I realized that in that particular store it would be expensive, I was willing to be a bit extravagant since Christmas was coming. When I went to pay, though, I was shocked at the price, which was $15 for the canister of peppermints, net weight 13 ounces (369 grams). After a moment of hesitation, I bought it anyway, partly out of embarrassment in front of the impatient and unsmiling young woman at the cash register and partly because I did not want to give up those peppermints. When we got home, I read your tongue-in-cheek warning on the can about letting the peppermint soften in one’s mouth before biting down. You said: “Your teeth will thank you!” Well, it is quite true that the peppermints appear soft but then have an iron grip when one bites down. When I did eventually eat one, I chewed cautiously and with great difficulty. The candy was quite awkward to hold in my mouth, since it kept sticking to one tooth or another. I will say right away, though, that the taste was excellent. What I am writing to you about is not the taste or the difficulty of chewing the mints but the quantity of mints in the canister. When I first opened it, before I ate any of the peppermints, I noticed that it did not seem to be very tightly packed with candies. They filled it to the top, but loosely. I looked at the ingredients list again. I saw that you reported a serving size of 6 pieces and then specified that there were “about” 12¹/₃ servings per tin. I did the math and calculated that the tin should contain “about” 74 pieces. Frankly, I did not think there were 74 pieces of candy inside. After I pointed this out to my family, we decided to place bets on how many candies there were and then count them. My bet was 64 pieces. My husband, being more trusting of your claims, bet that there were 70. My son, being a teenager and more daring, bet that there were only 50 pieces. Well, I counted them out there on the dining table and who do you think won the bet? I’m sorry to say it was my son. There were only 51 pieces in the can (or tin)! I must say, I could understand it if there were 70 or even 66 pieces, but 51 pieces is only two-thirds, approximately, of the number of pieces you claim are in the tin. I don’t really understand why you would make such a false claim. I have just now, out of curiosity, done a calculation to see if your claim as to the net weight of the peppermints is also exaggerated. You claim that each piece weighs about 5 grams, and you claim a net weight of 369 grams. Yet that would also yield 74 pieces, rounding up, and since there were not 74 pieces but 51, the net weight of the peppermints would have been closer to 255 grams. I cannot verify this estimate by weighing the candies because by now we have eaten them all. They were delicious, but we are feeling shortchanged, or should I say … cheated? Can you please explain this discrepancy?

Yours sincerely.

P.S. This also makes my purchase even more extravagant. 13 ounces at $15 would have been about $18/pound; 8 ounces at $15 is $30/pound!

Her Geography: Illinois

She knows she is in Chicago.

But she does not yet realize that she is in Illinois.