WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.420 align:middle line:84% I may have had in mind, then, as I 00:00:03.420 --> 00:00:09.240 align:middle line:84% wrote about the supine lady, this beautiful opium lady who 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:11.310 align:middle line:84% was a kind of figure like the White 00:00:11.310 --> 00:00:18.840 align:middle line:84% Goddess, a source of dreams, images, symbolic love and power 00:00:18.840 --> 00:00:22.440 align:middle line:84% to all her friends, including Thornton Wilder, who 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:25.800 align:middle line:90% was a frequent bedside caller. 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:32.040 align:middle line:84% And I think of her as a kind of something more than human, 00:00:32.040 --> 00:00:34.560 align:middle line:84% like a goddess living in two worlds. 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:38.700 align:middle line:84% When she died, we could scarcely mourn for her 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:43.410 align:middle line:84% because she had always been so much a part of the other world. 00:00:43.410 --> 00:00:47.070 align:middle line:84% She was like someone who lived in heaven now, 00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:49.110 align:middle line:84% and I'm sure that I must have had 00:00:49.110 --> 00:00:53.190 align:middle line:90% in mind this beautiful lady. 00:00:53.190 --> 00:00:59.520 align:middle line:84% Now, I don't have with me a copy of Angel of the Forest, 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.240 align:middle line:84% but there are themes and relationships 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:09.480 align:middle line:84% to these poems in that book in one way, and in another way, 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:15.150 align:middle line:84% they come again in Miss MacIntosh, My Darling. 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:19.680 align:middle line:84% Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is a bus journey. 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:23.880 align:middle line:84% I was writing it when John Steinbeck's The Wayward 00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:27.660 align:middle line:84% Bus came out, and that, I suppose, 00:01:27.660 --> 00:01:29.880 align:middle line:84% might have intimidated many people. 00:01:29.880 --> 00:01:32.490 align:middle line:84% Oh, the bus journey has been done now. 00:01:32.490 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:84% But at least I went ahead with my bus journey, a longer 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:39.690 align:middle line:90% one than his, I'm afraid. 00:01:39.690 --> 00:01:45.810 align:middle line:84% This is a story of an archetypal poor little rich girl in flight 00:01:45.810 --> 00:01:49.410 align:middle line:84% from a New England fabulous household, 00:01:49.410 --> 00:01:53.410 align:middle line:84% where her mother has been an opium addict. 00:01:53.410 --> 00:01:57.100 align:middle line:84% And she has been away from home for some time 00:01:57.100 --> 00:02:01.780 align:middle line:84% but recalls the one sane, sensible person she ever 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:08.020 align:middle line:84% knew in life, Miss MacIntosh, her darling, a red headed 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:11.620 align:middle line:84% nursemaid from What Cheer, Iowa, who 00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:15.880 align:middle line:84% has told her continually of the good life in the Middle West 00:02:15.880 --> 00:02:21.610 align:middle line:84% where all people are middlebrow, of the middle way, 00:02:21.610 --> 00:02:25.990 align:middle line:84% sane, sensible, normal, average, down to Earth, 00:02:25.990 --> 00:02:30.040 align:middle line:84% do not entertain phantoms and dreams. 00:02:30.040 --> 00:02:32.020 align:middle line:84% Certainly, Miss MacIntosh, my darling, 00:02:32.020 --> 00:02:33.640 align:middle line:84% never would-- she said, if ever she 00:02:33.640 --> 00:02:37.750 align:middle line:84% met with the phantom Emperor Constantine 00:02:37.750 --> 00:02:40.330 align:middle line:84% in the fog along that New England seacoast-- 00:02:40.330 --> 00:02:43.510 align:middle line:84% he is one of the opium layd's favorite phantoms-- 00:02:43.510 --> 00:02:46.460 align:middle line:84% she would give him a whack with her black umbrella. 00:02:46.460 --> 00:02:49.420 align:middle line:84% She would certainly tell him what she thought of him 00:02:49.420 --> 00:02:53.710 align:middle line:84% and ask him why he changed the calendar, because she believes 00:02:53.710 --> 00:02:58.720 align:middle line:84% that we're all off on the wrong day of the week, which we are. 00:02:58.720 --> 00:03:04.180 align:middle line:84% And the trouble with Miss MacIntosh, 00:03:04.180 --> 00:03:07.120 align:middle line:84% as you will find out I think on page 6, 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.010 align:middle line:90% is that she committed suicide. 00:03:09.010 --> 00:03:11.830 align:middle line:84% She's dead before the book starts. 00:03:11.830 --> 00:03:16.780 align:middle line:84% And the whole book, in a way, is an inquiry-- 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:21.340 align:middle line:84% why did this sane, sensible woman 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:25.780 align:middle line:84% commit suicide and all these mad people live? 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:27.730 align:middle line:90% Why do they flourish? 00:03:27.730 --> 00:03:29.500 align:middle line:84% Why do they even enjoy their madness? 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:31.360 align:middle line:90% They have a marvelous time. 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.650 align:middle line:84% They are more involved with Mark Twain than existentialism. 00:03:35.650 --> 00:03:38.830 align:middle line:84% In fact, they were written before Sartre came along 00:03:38.830 --> 00:03:41.330 align:middle line:90% with his pessimistic attitudes. 00:03:41.330 --> 00:03:45.060 align:middle line:84% And I could never accept them being a Mark Twain, 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:49.240 align:middle line:84% the Middle Westerner, just like Miss MacIntosh, my darling, 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:50.350 align:middle line:90% I suppose. 00:03:50.350 --> 00:03:53.230 align:middle line:84% Why did she die and the others lived? 00:03:53.230 --> 00:03:57.800 align:middle line:84% There are many, many answers to this question. 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:00.190 align:middle line:84% And you know when the book starts 00:04:00.190 --> 00:04:04.420 align:middle line:84% that the quest is doomed, that life is not 00:04:04.420 --> 00:04:09.790 align:middle line:84% going to be all that she said it would be in the Middle West. 00:04:09.790 --> 00:04:12.520 align:middle line:84% In fact, when she gets to this tiny town 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.790 align:middle line:84% on the banks of the Wabash, it's the same town 00:04:15.790 --> 00:04:19.000 align:middle line:84% in which my utopias occurred, but I have only one little clue 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.300 align:middle line:90% for a careful reader. 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:26.620 align:middle line:84% And I don't mention utopia anywhere else. 00:04:26.620 --> 00:04:30.910 align:middle line:84% Everyone there is more involved with whirlpool, illusion, 00:04:30.910 --> 00:04:34.780 align:middle line:84% maelstrom, nightmare, and dream than anything the opium 00:04:34.780 --> 00:04:37.450 align:middle line:84% lady could possibly have dreamed of because, 00:04:37.450 --> 00:04:41.080 align:middle line:84% after all, if you take opium, you 00:04:41.080 --> 00:04:44.620 align:middle line:84% are protected from reality and even 00:04:44.620 --> 00:04:47.900 align:middle line:84% from the ultimate consequences of dreams. 00:04:47.900 --> 00:04:50.530 align:middle line:84% But when you walk around in this world, 00:04:50.530 --> 00:04:54.700 align:middle line:90% then you really are exposed. 00:04:54.700 --> 00:04:58.240 align:middle line:84% So that when this young girl has finally 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:02.020 align:middle line:84% lived through all the possible ways of approaching 00:05:02.020 --> 00:05:04.990 align:middle line:84% the problem of reality and dream, 00:05:04.990 --> 00:05:06.760 align:middle line:84% when she has exhausted these, she 00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:09.640 align:middle line:90% is ready for her own adult life. 00:05:09.640 --> 00:05:12.850 align:middle line:90% And she marries on the-- 00:05:12.850 --> 00:05:16.240 align:middle line:84% 20 pages, I believe it is, before the end of the book, she 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:17.680 align:middle line:90% meets her true love. 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:20.710 align:middle line:84% And my editor at Scribner's, Mr. Mitchell, 00:05:20.710 --> 00:05:24.490 align:middle line:84% says, the thing about this book, Marguerite, 00:05:24.490 --> 00:05:28.840 align:middle line:84% it's really a girl-meets-boy book. 00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:31.030 align:middle line:84% And he said, I think it's marvelous 00:05:31.030 --> 00:05:33.610 align:middle line:84% the way you pull it off in the last 20 pages. 00:05:33.610 --> 00:05:36.010 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:36.010 --> 00:05:39.790 align:middle line:84% So she meets her love and marries 00:05:39.790 --> 00:05:44.590 align:middle line:84% and I'm sure lives happily ever after, as happily as one 00:05:44.590 --> 00:05:47.770 align:middle line:90% can live. 00:05:47.770 --> 00:05:52.210 align:middle line:84% She marries a man who is deaf, and there 00:05:52.210 --> 00:05:54.640 align:middle line:84% is a certain happiness in that fact. 00:05:54.640 --> 00:06:02.020 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] If you've ever known a deaf man, as I have, 00:06:02.020 --> 00:06:04.630 align:middle line:84% you know that they are the most-- 00:06:04.630 --> 00:06:10.030 align:middle line:84% I think most inclined to be very beautiful and often very happy 00:06:10.030 --> 00:06:13.120 align:middle line:84% people, like my landlady in New York. 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:14.050 align:middle line:90% She has earphones. 00:06:14.050 --> 00:06:15.430 align:middle line:90% She keeps them off. 00:06:15.430 --> 00:06:17.770 align:middle line:84% I finally got her to put the bottom one down. 00:06:17.770 --> 00:06:20.330 align:middle line:84% I said, President Kennedy has been killed. 00:06:20.330 --> 00:06:21.580 align:middle line:90% She instantly turned them off. 00:06:21.580 --> 00:06:24.250 align:middle line:84% She said, you see why I keep them off? 00:06:24.250 --> 00:06:26.480 align:middle line:84% I don't want to hear the bad news. 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.350 align:middle line:84% So she's just like the opium lady 00:06:29.350 --> 00:06:36.130 align:middle line:84% in that she wears hoop skirts and lives in a world of dreams. 00:06:36.130 --> 00:06:39.700 align:middle line:84% I didn't know this when I moved into the house. 00:06:39.700 --> 00:06:42.040 align:middle line:90% I found a character right there. 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:44.830 align:middle line:84% You can't escape your characters, either. 00:06:44.830 --> 00:06:48.190 align:middle line:84% Don't ever write about anything unless you want 00:06:48.190 --> 00:06:50.560 align:middle line:90% to meet with it shortly after. 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:54.700 align:middle line:90% 00:06:54.700 --> 00:06:57.160 align:middle line:84% I wrote about a mad shoplifter coming 00:06:57.160 --> 00:07:01.420 align:middle line:84% to the opium lady's house, a big fat lady coming there. 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:06.010 align:middle line:84% And two or three days later, I met a big fat shoplifter 00:07:06.010 --> 00:07:09.160 align:middle line:84% coming into a great mansion, country mansion where 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:12.080 align:middle line:84% I was staying, walking in right straight into the front door. 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:16.360 align:middle line:90% She said, it was a literary-- 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:17.680 align:middle line:90% home of a literary person. 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:21.470 align:middle line:90% She said, is James Farrell here? 00:07:21.470 --> 00:07:24.310 align:middle line:84% It turned out that she hadn't seen him for 20 years, 00:07:24.310 --> 00:07:29.500 align:middle line:84% but she was looking for him with her big net bag. 00:07:29.500 --> 00:07:33.290 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether she found him or not. 00:07:33.290 --> 00:07:39.550 align:middle line:84% Well, this novel has a great many comic aspects, 00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:42.110 align:middle line:90% although it's written seriously. 00:07:42.110 --> 00:07:45.880 align:middle line:84% And it is written as a poet writes. 00:07:45.880 --> 00:07:52.090 align:middle line:84% And all these images are supposed 00:07:52.090 --> 00:08:00.730 align:middle line:84% to be enjoyed at a sensual level, like painting and music. 00:08:00.730 --> 00:08:03.400 align:middle line:90% The beauty of the word-- 00:08:03.400 --> 00:08:06.670 align:middle line:84% I don't care for the plain school of leaving 00:08:06.670 --> 00:08:09.370 align:middle line:90% all those images out. 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:11.920 align:middle line:84% I've had a few writers tell me that they leave them 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:14.440 align:middle line:84% in the wastebasket, and I always say-- 00:08:14.440 --> 00:08:16.690 align:middle line:84% I don't tell them this, of course, 00:08:16.690 --> 00:08:18.190 align:middle line:84% and they're now in New York, and I'm 00:08:18.190 --> 00:08:20.273 align:middle line:84% sure they're not going to hear that I would rather 00:08:20.273 --> 00:08:25.420 align:middle line:84% read what they left in the wastebasket than the plain "cat 00:08:25.420 --> 00:08:29.110 align:middle line:84% chased dog" or "dog chased cat" school of prose. 00:08:29.110 --> 00:08:33.330 align:middle line:90% That doesn't interest me at all. 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:35.260 align:middle line:84% I've always said, I thought they should be-- 00:08:35.260 --> 00:08:36.950 align:middle line:84% I think they should be bricklayers, 00:08:36.950 --> 00:08:38.240 align:middle line:90% except for one thing-- 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:40.159 align:middle line:84% I wouldn't want to live in the houses 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:43.669 align:middle line:84% they built because the bricks would soon fall on your head 00:08:43.669 --> 00:08:46.400 align:middle line:84% because they don't lay their bricks very well. 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:48.890 align:middle line:84% Well, I suppose I might read just 00:08:48.890 --> 00:08:54.980 align:middle line:84% a paragraph or two from the opening scene 00:08:54.980 --> 00:08:58.760 align:middle line:90% as to the opium lady herself. 00:08:58.760 --> 00:09:05.180 align:middle line:84% Now, someone might say, oh, you have a marvelous imagination, 00:09:05.180 --> 00:09:09.260 align:middle line:84% but I can assure you that the opium lady I knew 00:09:09.260 --> 00:09:13.980 align:middle line:84% was exactly like this, even to the pearls 00:09:13.980 --> 00:09:15.870 align:middle line:90% that she used to count. 00:09:15.870 --> 00:09:19.080 align:middle line:84% And she had an imaginary chauffeur named James. 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:23.950 align:middle line:84% She used to say, "home, James," every once in a while-- 00:09:23.950 --> 00:09:24.990 align:middle line:90% "home, James." 00:09:24.990 --> 00:09:27.180 align:middle line:84% And I'll never forget-- one time I 00:09:27.180 --> 00:09:31.500 align:middle line:84% was talking to Truman Capote, who had read this, 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:33.420 align:middle line:90% and he was in the hospital. 00:09:33.420 --> 00:09:37.890 align:middle line:84% And he said that he was just coming out from the ether, 00:09:37.890 --> 00:09:42.150 align:middle line:84% and he heard this lady say, "oh, James-- 00:09:42.150 --> 00:09:46.320 align:middle line:84% isn't that-- isn't that Henry James walking along 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:47.100 align:middle line:90% the street there? 00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:49.050 align:middle line:90% Well, how do you do, Mr. James? 00:09:49.050 --> 00:09:51.030 align:middle line:90% Aren't you coming to tea?" 00:09:51.030 --> 00:09:52.140 align:middle line:90% and so forth. 00:09:52.140 --> 00:09:54.360 align:middle line:90% And he said, "where am I?" 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:56.430 align:middle line:90% He started screaming, "Nurse! 00:09:56.430 --> 00:09:57.270 align:middle line:90% Nurse! 00:09:57.270 --> 00:09:58.920 align:middle line:90% Get me out of here! 00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:00.780 align:middle line:90% Get me out of here!" 00:10:00.780 --> 00:10:02.100 align:middle line:90% He said, "who is that?" 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:04.140 align:middle line:90% It was Mrs. Astor, who waa-- 00:10:04.140 --> 00:10:06.960 align:middle line:84% a Mrs. Astor was dying, and she thought 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:10.770 align:middle line:84% she was out riding in Newport, bowing to Henry 00:10:10.770 --> 00:10:12.360 align:middle line:90% James and other friends. 00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:15.450 align:middle line:84% And Truman said, "I can't afford to be in this wing. 00:10:15.450 --> 00:10:17.610 align:middle line:84% Get me into the poor man's ward." 00:10:17.610 --> 00:10:19.200 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:24.180 align:middle line:84% So these things happen every day if you're a close observer, 00:10:24.180 --> 00:10:25.770 align:middle line:90% you see? 00:10:25.770 --> 00:10:26.610 align:middle line:90% They really do. 00:10:26.610 --> 00:10:29.790 align:middle line:90% 00:10:29.790 --> 00:10:31.910 align:middle line:90% "Home, James." 00:10:31.910 --> 00:10:35.510 align:middle line:84% You know, I'll never forget the time I heard it in reality, 00:10:35.510 --> 00:10:37.130 align:middle line:84% and there was actually a James there. 00:10:37.130 --> 00:10:40.580 align:middle line:84% That was more shocking to me than old ladies 00:10:40.580 --> 00:10:44.530 align:middle line:84% imagining they're going out riding when they're not. 00:10:44.530 --> 00:10:48.510 align:middle line:84% Well, I'm not going to be able to get to James in this, 00:10:48.510 --> 00:10:52.590 align:middle line:84% but that will be something to, oh, inspire you 00:10:52.590 --> 00:10:57.030 align:middle line:84% all to go and buy Miss MacIntosh and find out about James. 00:10:57.030 --> 00:11:00.500 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:11:00.500 --> 00:11:01.370 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 00:11:01.370 --> 00:11:02.780 align:middle line:90% I'll just read a paragraph. 00:11:02.780 --> 00:11:04.730 align:middle line:84% You know, I'd really rather not read it all, 00:11:04.730 --> 00:11:09.560 align:middle line:84% except that I'm confronted with an educated audience. 00:11:09.560 --> 00:11:14.050 align:middle line:84% They're all used to hearing a reading. 00:11:14.050 --> 00:11:20.320 align:middle line:84% My mother was oblivious to the realities of flesh and blood, 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:23.050 align:middle line:90% those creatures of chance. 00:11:23.050 --> 00:11:27.880 align:middle line:84% Apparently, even to Miss Macintosh, loud-mouthed 00:11:27.880 --> 00:11:32.890 align:middle line:84% though she was, unimaginative, no possible rival 00:11:32.890 --> 00:11:35.530 align:middle line:84% in the world of invisible dreams, 00:11:35.530 --> 00:11:40.900 align:middle line:84% the prosaic, fusty, busty old nursemaid 00:11:40.900 --> 00:11:45.550 align:middle line:84% with reddening cheeks, her red-marcelled hair 00:11:45.550 --> 00:11:49.540 align:middle line:84% gleaming like the sand, streaked with sunset, when 00:11:49.540 --> 00:11:53.050 align:middle line:84% the sandpipers wade in the glassy surf 00:11:53.050 --> 00:11:57.340 align:middle line:84% as the last light fades, her footsteps 00:11:57.340 --> 00:12:03.280 align:middle line:84% always certain, the last person who would ever disappear, 00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:09.430 align:middle line:84% the moral guide to the pale, rejected child whose eyes 00:12:09.430 --> 00:12:12.400 align:middle line:90% had not craved reality. 00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:15.760 align:middle line:84% My mother trusted no one, nor was she 00:12:15.760 --> 00:12:21.070 align:middle line:84% ever to be surprised, it seemed, by unusual transformations 00:12:21.070 --> 00:12:28.310 align:middle line:84% or transport, shiftings of form by anything that might ever 00:12:28.310 --> 00:12:36.240 align:middle line:84% transpire, by anything protean, for the opium dreams 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:41.040 align:middle line:84% surrounding her had provided no pillar of strength, 00:12:41.040 --> 00:12:44.700 align:middle line:84% no rose which did not eventually fade, 00:12:44.700 --> 00:12:47.520 align:middle line:90% no voice which did not fail. 00:12:47.520 --> 00:12:51.600 align:middle line:84% She presumed always that things were not 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:56.970 align:middle line:84% what they seemed, that all forms must change their shapes, 00:12:56.970 --> 00:13:00.300 align:middle line:84% that all characters must bear, even 00:13:00.300 --> 00:13:03.510 align:middle line:84% to those most familiar with them, 00:13:03.510 --> 00:13:08.880 align:middle line:84% an element of cold surprise, even of horror, 00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:13.020 align:middle line:84% that her life was this play of illusion, 00:13:13.020 --> 00:13:17.490 align:middle line:84% that there should be nothing certain but uncertainty, 00:13:17.490 --> 00:13:23.580 align:middle line:84% no pavement more secure than the glassy surface of the evening 00:13:23.580 --> 00:13:28.050 align:middle line:90% tide and the far wash of waves. 00:13:28.050 --> 00:13:33.840 align:middle line:84% All her days were her night, and all her nights were her day, 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:36.390 align:middle line:84% and there was an eternal twilight, 00:13:36.390 --> 00:13:41.970 align:middle line:84% an obfuscation of faces, a crucial bewilderment. 00:13:41.970 --> 00:13:46.140 align:middle line:84% If servants were known as she was known, would not 00:13:46.140 --> 00:13:50.220 align:middle line:84% their lives appear more monstrous than hers 00:13:50.220 --> 00:13:56.340 align:middle line:84% and terribly extrahuman, so she would ask, talking half 00:13:56.340 --> 00:14:01.320 align:middle line:84% in her enchanted sleep, often when there was no one present 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:05.400 align:middle line:90% but the dream of who was not. 00:14:05.400 --> 00:14:09.360 align:middle line:84% Heavily laden with jewels as a Greek corpse, 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:14.580 align:middle line:84% my mother, she who had retired from the brutal world, whose 00:14:14.580 --> 00:14:18.210 align:middle line:84% eyes were shielded against the vulgar sunlight, 00:14:18.210 --> 00:14:23.310 align:middle line:84% slept for tideless years which were her vast excitement, 00:14:23.310 --> 00:14:26.650 align:middle line:84% surrounding herself with a world of dreams, 00:14:26.650 --> 00:14:31.440 align:middle line:84% visions, phantoms, her bedroom as filled with visitors 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:36.630 align:middle line:84% as the Grand Central Station, some from the shores of Hades, 00:14:36.630 --> 00:14:41.970 align:middle line:84% voices of the dead, faded movie stars of the silent flicker 00:14:41.970 --> 00:14:46.560 align:middle line:84% films, imaginary telephone operators plugging 00:14:46.560 --> 00:14:53.730 align:middle line:84% in an imaginary switchboards, spirits like long-nosed bird 00:14:53.730 --> 00:15:01.320 align:middle line:84% dogs, drowned pearl divers, old kings, old queens, figures 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:07.200 align:middle line:84% older than Oedipus or Troy, New England spinsters with faces 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:11.940 align:middle line:84% checkered like chessboards, jockeys riding the skeletons 00:15:11.940 --> 00:15:16.260 align:middle line:90% of dead horses, angelic birds. 00:15:16.260 --> 00:15:20.190 align:middle line:84% Her sleep was a form of watchful, wide-eyed 00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:21.780 align:middle line:90% wakefulness. 00:15:21.780 --> 00:15:25.170 align:middle line:84% Her wakefulness was a form of sleep. 00:15:25.170 --> 00:15:27.750 align:middle line:84% Nothing would have amazed her so much 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:32.340 align:middle line:84% as nothing, the complete deprivation, the absence 00:15:32.340 --> 00:15:36.090 align:middle line:84% of being, for that was something, too, 00:15:36.090 --> 00:15:42.120 align:middle line:84% and always present in her eyes, as familiar to her as human 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:43.890 align:middle line:90% frailty. 00:15:43.890 --> 00:15:48.450 align:middle line:84% She hovered for years between life and suspended death, 00:15:48.450 --> 00:15:53.160 align:middle line:84% enjoying both, her eyes refulgently shining, 00:15:53.160 --> 00:15:57.390 align:middle line:84% her eyes opened at times when she profoundly slept, 00:15:57.390 --> 00:16:02.940 align:middle line:84% one cheek always toward the shadow, her dark hair arranged 00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:07.890 align:middle line:84% in such a way that this cheek was always concealed. 00:16:07.890 --> 00:16:10.740 align:middle line:84% It was because of this shadowed cheek 00:16:10.740 --> 00:16:13.900 align:middle line:84% that she had gone to bed in the first place 00:16:13.900 --> 00:16:17.460 align:middle line:84% so many years ago, because of a blemish, 00:16:17.460 --> 00:16:22.290 align:middle line:84% a stain, a birthmark which was invisible to others 00:16:22.290 --> 00:16:27.570 align:middle line:84% and which, besides, was always covered with fine white rice 00:16:27.570 --> 00:16:32.610 align:middle line:84% powder, shadowed even then, she standing 00:16:32.610 --> 00:16:36.600 align:middle line:90% only for the shadow fell. 00:16:36.600 --> 00:16:40.230 align:middle line:84% Now that she was always apparently in the bloom of some 00:16:40.230 --> 00:16:44.430 align:middle line:84% strange extension of health, though she was yet the eternal 00:16:44.430 --> 00:16:50.550 align:middle line:84% invalid, the horizontal person, one whose heart, 00:16:50.550 --> 00:16:55.080 align:middle line:84% as she believed, was not centralized but scattered 00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:59.070 align:middle line:84% through every nerve cell, shining like sourcless 00:16:59.070 --> 00:17:03.510 align:middle line:84% starlight, lying still in a sumptuous bed, 00:17:03.510 --> 00:17:09.599 align:middle line:84% carved with faceless dolphins and cherubim and kingly faces 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:15.480 align:middle line:84% and heraldic devices, a box of sweets always within her reach, 00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:19.770 align:middle line:84% numberless pearls running through her ivory-colored 00:17:19.770 --> 00:17:24.839 align:middle line:84% fingers, a white satin coverlet covering her to the waist, 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:29.700 align:middle line:84% her shoulders swathed in gauze and velvet and delicate 00:17:29.700 --> 00:17:34.850 align:middle line:84% cascades of ancient lace, she believed that she had died 00:17:34.850 --> 00:17:40.130 align:middle line:84% in her youth and was yet alive, that there were two selves-- 00:17:40.130 --> 00:17:42.230 align:middle line:90% the dead, the living-- 00:17:42.230 --> 00:17:47.450 align:middle line:84% that though she lay still this beautiful corpse, or effigy, 00:17:47.450 --> 00:17:52.550 align:middle line:84% upon a marble sarcophagus, this was the living being, 00:17:52.550 --> 00:17:55.640 align:middle line:84% this with the bright luminous eyes, 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:59.180 align:middle line:84% the distracting visions, the endless stream 00:17:59.180 --> 00:18:04.550 align:middle line:84% of imaginary company, of fawns crowned with flowers, 00:18:04.550 --> 00:18:09.740 align:middle line:84% men who were birds, women whose heads were turrets, 00:18:09.740 --> 00:18:15.140 align:middle line:84% that the one who was dead was walking, walking by the sea, 00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:20.320 align:middle line:84% or riding a white horse through endless surf.