“for the doing of nothing can be taught in a certain way that
makes the not-doing in itself an unnerving occurrence.”
“on the most exclusive ridge of the city, our pure white
house was set, pristine as a cake in the window of a bakery shop. High on
sloped and snowy grounds, it was unshadowed yet by trees. The roof, gables,
porch, all chiseled and bored in fantastic shapes, were frosted with an overnight
fall of gleaming snow. Clipped in cones and cubes, the shrubs were coated with
the same lacquer, as was the fountain, frozen, and the white cast-iron lacework
of the benches and the tea tables in the yard. The white deer at the gate,
dusted with a sugar powder, pawed delicately at its pedestal and nosed the
glittering air. The sun was high, small, its brilliance concentrated on this
patch of royal blankness, which is why I imagine her arrival from an outside
vantage, although I was within.
I see her walking up the pale drive constructed for the
approach of a carriage (but what would she know of formal conveyance?). I see
the negative of her as she stooped to her dark bundle, the image of a question
mark set on a page, alone. Or like a keyhole, you could say, sunk into a door
locked and painted shut, the deep black figure layered in shawls was more an
absence, a slot for a coin, an invitation for the curious, than a woman come to
plead for menial work.”
“they had this house of chimneys whose bricks contained the
blood of pigs and calves so that a greasy sadness drifted in the festive rooms.
They had this house of tears of lace constructed of a million tiny knots of
useless knowledge. This house of windows hung with the desperation of dark
virgins. They had this house of stacked sandstone colored the richest clay-red
and lavender hue. Once this stone had formed the live heart of sacred islands.
Now its was a fashionable backdrop to their ambitions. They had this house of
crushed hands and horses dropping in padded collars and this house of the shame
of miss polly gheen's inability to sexually attract the architect and the
architect's obsession with doorways curving in and curving out and how to get
them just so, eminently right. They had this house of railroad and then lumber
money and the sucking grind of eastern mills. This house under which there
might as well have been a child sacrificed, to lie underneath the corner beam's
sunk sill, for money that remained unpaid for years to masons and to drivers
was simple as food snatched outright. In fact, there is no question that a
number of people of all ages lost their lives on account of this house.
That is the case, always, with great buildings and large
doings. Placide knew this better than her husband, but both were nonplussed,
and felt it simply was their fate to have this house of german silver sinks and
a botanical nursery, of palm leaf moldings and foyers that led into foyers of
pale, stained glass, this house of bathrooms floored with quiet marble, gray
and finely veined. This house of lead plumbing that eroded minds. This house of
beeswaxed mantels and carved paneling, of wooden benches set into the entryway
wall and cornices and scrolls and heavy doors hung skillfully to swing shut
without a sound – all this made of wood, fine-grained, very old-grown,
quartersawn oak that still in its season and for many years after would exude
beads of thin sap – as though recalling growth and life on the land belonging
to fleur pillager and the shores of matchimanito, beyond.”
No comments:
Post a Comment