The Story Of A Widow - Opening

PROLOGUE

AKBAR AHMAD WAS FELLED by a stroke one year before his retirement from the finance ministry and three days after being diagnosed with high cholesterol. He was fifty-nine years old. His wife and daughters blamed his untimely demise on excessive eating, his only acknowledged vice. The family remembered him in all other respects as a model of righteousness.

For my mother

Tanveer Fatima Farooqi

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Copyright 2008 Musharraf Ali Farooqi

Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks

First edition

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Phaedo - Closing

Such was the end of our comrade, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wises and the most upright.

Phaedo - P:114

Simmias, one must make every effort to share in virtue and wisdom in one's life, for the reward is beautiful and the hope is great.

Phaedo - P:105

Answer me then, he sais, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living? -- A soul.

And is that always so? --Of course.

Whatever the soul occupies, it always brings life to it? -- It does.

Is there, or is there not, an opposite to life? -- There is.

What is it? -- Death.

So the soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along, as we agree from what has been said?

Most certainly, said Cebes.

Well, and what do we call that which does not admit the form of the even? -- The uneven.

What do we call that which will not admit the just and that which will not admit the musical?

The unmusical, and the other the unjust.

Very well, what do we call that which does not admit death?

The deathless, he said.

Now the soul does not admit death? -- No.

So the soul is deathless? -- It is.

Very well, he said. Shall we say that this has been proved, do you think?

Quite adequately proved, Socrates.

Phaedo - P:99

Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. It is what the majority appear to do, like people groping in the dark; they call it a cause, thus giving it a name that does not belong to it.

Phaedo - P:91

We must proceed, he said, and first remind me of what you said if I do not appear to remember it. Simmias, as I believe, is in doubt and fear that the soul, though it is more divine and beautiful than the body, yet predeceases it, being a kind of harmony. Cebes, I thought, agrees with me that the soul lasts much longer than the body, but that no one knows whether the soul often wears out many bodies and then, on leaving its last body, is now itself destroyed. This then is death, the destruction of the soul, since the body is always being destroyed.

Symposium - Opening

APOLLODORUS: In fact, your question does not find me unprepared. Just the other day, as it happens, I was walking to the city from my home in Phaleron when a man I know, who was making his way behind me, saw me and called from a distance:

"The gentleman from Phaleron!" he yelled, trying to be funny. "Hey, Apollodorus, wait!"

So I stopped and waited.

Phaedo - P:90

You know how those in particular who spend their time studying contradiction in the end believe themselves to have become very wise and that they alone have understood that there is no soundness or reliability in any object or in any argument, but that all that exists simply fluctuates up, and down as if it were in the Eurious and does not remain in the same place for any time at all.

Voss - pg. 109

Coplonel Fetherstonhaugh did say many other things. Indeed, when a space had been cleared, he made a speech, about God, and soil, and flag, and Our Young, Illustrious Queen, as had been prepared for him. The numerous grave and appreciative persons who were surrounding the colonel lent weight to his appropriate words. There were, for instance, at least three members of the Legislative Council, a bishop, a judge, officers in the Army, besides patrons of the expedition, and citizens whose wealth had begun to make them acceptable, in spite of their unfortunate past and persistent clumsiness with knife and fork. Important heads were bared, stiff necks were bent into attitudes that suggested humble attention. It was a brave sight, and suddenly also moving. For all those figures of cloth and linen, or worthy British flesh and blood, and the souls tied to them, temporarily, like tentative balloons, by the precious grace of life, might, of that sudden, have been cardboard or little wooden things, as their importance in the scene receded, and there predominated the great tongue of blue water, the brooding, indigenous trees, and sky clutching at all.

Voss - pg. 102

"It is not of great use," she said, and not of exceptional beauty. I no longer give it much thought, except to bring it. From habit,, you know. In the beginning it pleased me beacuse it was something unusual, and foreign. I liked to think I might visit foreign places, such as the one from which my present had come. I would dream about the Indies. Mauritius, Zanzibar. Names should be charms, Mr. Palfreyman. I used to hope that, by saying some of them often enough, I might evoke reality."

Voss - pg. 95

"I am always about to act positively," Le Mesurier answered wryly. "There is some purpose in me, if only I can hit upon it. But my whole life has been an investigation, shall we say, of ways. For that reason I will not give you my history. It is too fragmentary; you would be made dizzy. And this colony is fatal to anyone of any bent. There are such prospects. How can I make a fortune from merino sheep, when at the same time there is a dream of gold, of some inland sea floating with tropical birds? Then, sometimes, it seems that all these faults and hesitations, all the worst evil in me is gathering itself together into a solid core, and that I shall bring forth something of great beauty. This I call my oyster delusion."

Voss - pg. 86

"We were unwise," he said, "to flounder into each other's being private beings."

Voss - pg. 67

Ah, miss, said Jack Slipper, you have come out for a breather, well, the breeze has got up, can you hear it in the leaves? Whatever the source of the friction of the bamboos, it usually sounded cooler in their thicket. But in summer there were also the murmurous voices of insects, and often of men and women, which would create a breathlessness in that corner of the garden. Full moonlight failed to illuminate its secrets. There was a hot, black smell of rotting. The silver flags, breaking, and flying on high, almost escaping from their lacquered masts, were brought back continually by the mysterious ganglion of dark roots.

Phaedo - P:82

No one may join the company of the gods who has not practiced philosophy and is not completely pure when he departs from life, no one but the lover of learning. It is for this reason, my friends Simmias and Cebes, that those who practice philosophy in the right way keep away from all bodily passions, master them and do not surrender themselves to them; it is not at all for fear of wasting their substance and of poverty, which the majority and the money-lovers fear, nor for fear of dishonor and ill repute, like the ambitious and lovers of honors, that they keep away from them.

Phaedo - P:81

Will the soul, the invisible art which makes its way to a region of the same kind, noble and pure and invisible, to Hades in fact, to the good and wise god whither, god willing, my soul must soon be going -- will the soul, being of this kind and nature, be scattered and destroyed on leaving the body, as the majority of men say? Far from it, my dear Cebes and Simmias, but what happens is much more like this: if it is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, as it had no willing association with the body in life, but avoided it and gathered itself together by itself and always practised this, which is no other than practising philosophy in the right way, in fact, training to die easily. Or is this not training for death?

It surely is.

A soul in this state makes its way to the invisible, which is like itself, the divine and immortal and wise, and arriving there it can be happy, having rid itself of confusion, ignorance, fear, violent desires and the other human ills and, as is said of the initiates, truly spend the rest of time with the gods. Shall we say this, Cebes, or something different?

This, by Zeus, said Cebes.

But I think that if the soul is polluted and impure when it leaves the body, having always been associated with it and served it, bewitched by physical desires and pleasures to the point at which nothing seems to exist for it but the physical, which one can touch and see or eat and drink or make use of for sexual enjoyment, and if that soul is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid that which is dim and invisible to the eyes but intelligible and to be grasped by philosophy -- do you think such a soul will escape pure and by itself?

Impossible, he said.

It is no doubt permeated by the physical, which constant intercourse and association with the body, as well as considerable practice, has caused to become ingrained in it?

Quite so.

We must believe, my friend, that this bodily element is heavy, ponderous, earthy and visible. Through it, such a soul has become heavy and is dragged back to the visible region in fear of the unseen and of Hades. It wanders, as we are told, around graves and monuments, where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen, souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are therefore seen.

That is likely Socrates.

Phaedo - Opening

ECHECRATES: Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo. on the day when he drank the poison in prison, or did someone else tell you about it?

PHAEDO: I was there myself, Echecrates.

JR - Closing

---- for all these here letters and offers I been getting because I mean like remember this here book that time where they wanted me to write about success and like free enterprise and all hey? And like remember where I read you on the train that time where there was this big groundswell about leading this here parade and entering public life and all? So I mean listen I got this neat idea hey, you listening? Hey? You listening ... ?

JR - pg. 684

Stressing the vital necessity of expanded capital formation unimpeded by government restraints, Senator Broos' impassioned plea for a restoration of faith on the part of the common man in the free enterprise system as the cornerstone of those son of a bitches who still think winning's what it's all about give them a string of high p e ratio and a rising market it's all free enterprise all they howl about's government restraints interference double taxation, all free enterprise till they wreck the whole thing they're the first ones up there with a tin cup whining for the government to bail them out with a loan guarantee so they can do it all over again ...

JR - pg. 663

hear it I mean I bet it's as good as this thing you just made me ... hey? even if I don't hear exactly if I don't hear exactly what I'm suppose to ...? the wind came down, lost any voice but its own till it seized the clash of branches tossed bare over ruts leading into more ruts and the remnants of pavement, the rusted length of a car's muffler and the sodden heap of a mattress, torn pennants of paper swirled in the leaves and then the sudden iron nakedness of a piano frame still strung pounced shaping in the mud as though to fossilize a bedspring fused at this lonely height of passionate deformity caught now in a glance of lights where the ruts broke off on darkness spread glistening beyond, lights sweeping in with maritime disdain to stop and add a burst of flashlight reduced to the jarring cadence of a man on foot.

JR - pg. 652

... he came down brushing crumbs from the tattered magazine page. -- A quiet, soft voiced rather modest man who looks out from a calm impassive face and beetling brows, with deep set eyes that have such a startling clarity which makes them seem almost hit, hypnotic. They have a blue steel chill about them that suggests an austere, indrawn indwellingness. But they can sparkle with an engaging warmth and the bulldog set of his jaw breaks in a boyish grin when asked about his youth ... he hunched closer to blow at an icinged crumb

,

JR - pg. 645

-- Inside what, I ...

-- Like inside the company and all that's why they call it this insider suit see where you're this here ...

-- Inside? that's, how could I be inside there inside there isn't any inside! How could anybody believe the, the only inside's the one inside your head like these statements you make, these tapes you play over the phone to these newspapers virgin minerals gas discoveries the health plan of tomorrow travel of the future some reporter even found me out there he said he understood we were freezing sound now what kind of a ...

JR - pg. 620

-- Tom what the hell do you expect, kid like that she lives in a scene where hallucination is confused with vision all she ...

Principles Of Human Knowledge - Closing

For after all, what deserves the first place in our studies, is the consideration of God, and our duty ; which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual, if by what I have said I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the presence of God : and having shewn the falseness or vanity of those barren speculations, which make the chief employment of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practise is the highest performance of human nature.

Principles Of Human Knowledge - pg. 143

The best key for the aforesaid analogy, or natural science, will be easily acknowledged to be a certain celebrated treatise of mechanics: in the entrance of which justly admired treatise, time, space and motion, are distinguished into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and vulgar : which distinction, as it is at large explained by the author, doth suppose those quantities to have an existence without the mind : and that they are ordinarily conceived with relation to sensible things, to which nevertheless in their own nature, they bear no relation at all.

Principles Of Human Knowledge - pg. 141

But we should proceed warily in such things: for we are apt to lay too great a stress on analogies, and to the prejudice of truth, humour that eagerness of the mind, whereby it is carried to extend its knowledge into general theorems. For example, gravitation, or mutual attraction, because it appears in many instances, some are straightway for pronouncing universal; and that to attract, and be attracted by every other body, is an essential quality inherent in all bodies whatsoever. Whereas it appears the fixed stars have no such tendency towards each other : and so far is that gravitation, from being essential to bodies, that, in some instances a quite contrary principle seems to shew it self : as in the perpendicular growth of plants, and the elasticity of the air. There is nothing necessary or essential in the case, but it depends entirely on the will of the governing spirit, who causes certain bodies to cleave together, or tend towards each other, according to various laws, whilst he keeps others at a fixed distance ; and to some he gives a quite contrary tendency to fly asunder, just as he sees convenient.

Principles Of Human Knowledge - pg. 136

For as we have shewn the doctrine of matter or corporeal substance, to have been the main pillar and support of scepticism, so likewise upon the same foundation have been raised all the impious schemes of atheism and irreligion. Nay so great a difficulty hath it been thought, to conceive matter produced out of nothing, that the most celebrated among the ancient philosophers, even of these who maintained the being of a God, have thought matter to be uncreated and coeternal with him. How great a friend material substance hath been to atheists in all ages, were needless to relate. All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a dependence on it, that when this corner-stone is once removed the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground ; insomuch that it is no longer worth while, to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of every wretched sect of atheists.

Principles Of Human Knowledge - pg. 132

Some there are who think, that though the arguments for the real existence of bodies, which are drawn from reason, be allowed not to amount to demonstration, yet the Holy Scriptures are so clear in the point, as will sufficiently convince every good Christian, that bodies do really exist, and are something more than mere ideas ; there being in Holy Writ innumerable facts related, which evidently suppose the reality of timber, and stone, mountains, and rivers, and cities, and human bodies. To which I answer, that no sort of writing whatever, sacred or profane, which use those and the like words in the vulgar acceptation, or so as to have a meaning in them, are in danger of having their truth called in question by our doctrine. That all those things do really exist, that there are bodies, even corporeal substances, when taken in the vulgar sense, has been shown to be agreeable to our principles : and the difference betwixt things and ideas, realities and chimeras, has been distinctly explained. And I do not think, that either what philosophers call matter, or the existence of objects without the mind, is any where mentioned in Scripture.

Principles of Human Knowledge - pg. 129

If we follow the light of reason, we shall, from the constant uniform method of our sensations, collect the goodness and wisdom of the spirit who excites them in our minds. But this is all that I can see reasonably concluded from thence. To me, I say, it is evident that the being of a spirit infinitely wise, good, and powerful is abundantly sufficient to explain all the appearances of Nature. But as for inert senseless matter, nothing that I perceive has any the least connexion with it, or leads to the thoughts of it. And I would fain see any one explain any the meanest phenomenon in probability, that he can have for its existence; or even make any tolerable sense or meaning of that supposition. For as to its being an occasion, we have, I think, evidently shewn that with regard to us it is no occasion : it remains therefore that it must be, if at all, the occasion to God of exciting ideas in us ; and what this amounts to, we have just now seen.

Electra - STROPHE III

Pay them with punishment put in their path

poinima pathea pathein poroi

Electra - Opening

PROLOGUE

TUTOR: Son of Agamemnon,

commander once of our forces at Troy,

now you can look out with your own eyes

over all that you have so craved to see.

There lies Argos,

that ancient city for which you pined,

and the arena from which the gadfly drove poor Ino

daughter of Inachus.

Over there, Orestes,

is the Lycean marketplace of the wolf-killing god,

and left of it, the famous temple of Hera.

Just tell yourself we've actually arrived,

can see Mycenae -- so laden with gold --

and the palace of the Sons of Atreus -- so laden with death!

Helen - V:490

MENELAUS

What is this? Have there not been enough

troubles? Now on top of my old woes

I'm hearing of a brand new wretchedness.

I brought my wife here, taking her from Troy,

stowed her for safety in a cave nearby.

But there's another one, with the same name,

living in this house at the same time,

and Zeus' daughter was the porter's claim.

Can it be Zeus is a common name

in Egypt? No, there' one Zeus -- in the sky.

And where else in the world could Sparta be

except along Eurotas' reedy stream?

Could two men bear Tyndraeus' name?

Can any place exist synonymous

with Sparta or with Troy! I'm at a loss.

Yet is it so astounding, after all?

The world is big; therefore, identical

names for women, cities, men should be

common.

Helen - V:120

HELEN

Helen, you wretch, the Trojans died for you!

Helen - V:40

Leaving his mountain mangers, Paris came

to Sparta, where he thought that he could claim

his prize -- my bed. But Hera, whose defeat

enraged her, had contrived a trick to cheat

the prince, bestowing on him in my place

a breathing phantom shaped from nothingness.

Paris was sure he was embracing me;

it was an empty image, sheerest vanity.

Helen - Opening

HELEN

This is the river Nile, whose waters flow --

fed not by rain but gleaming melted snow --

through Egypt, where King Proteus held sway,

living on Pharos island. Psamatha,

one of the daughters of the Sea, he wed

after she left Aeacus' marriage bed.

Suppliant Women - Closing

THESEUS

Athena, queen,I'll do as you direct me.

You steady me, keep me from going awry.

This man I'll blind with an oath. I only ask now:

Keep me on course. Look favorably on our city.

And then we'll manage safely for all time.

CHORUS

So, Adrastus, let's leave, having made our vow

to this man and his town. Those who've done so much

deserve our respect and compliance.

Suppliant Women - V:620

HALF-CHORUS A

I wish words won the day. If not, the dead

in fields of blood! Beating of breasts! And city-wide

the sounds of grief! I'll be to blame! What bitter words

will shrill their guilt and rage in my ear?

Suppliant Women - V:420

THESEUS

You're off to a bad start stranger. A slur, I take it,

when you talk of "monarch" here. Our city's free.

There's no one person rules it. The city itself

is its own ruler, with all taking part in annual

rotation, so that no rich man gets to hog

more than his share. The poor have a say as well.

THEBAN HERALD

Aha! That gives me a leg up in the game.

Now take the city I come from: one man,

and I mean one man is in charge, not just some mob.

No rabble-rouser full of hot-air can twist,

for private gain, our policy every which way,

charming, no doubt, at the moment, making friends,

though there's hell to pay as a consequence. Smear tactics

conceal the scandals and your crook goes free.

Besides, unless the speaker level with them,

how can your people know enough to manage?

Weighing things soberly gives a better perspective

than snap decisions. For example, your poor father --

just assuming he's not a lunkhead -- has no time,

with all of that heavy lifting, to think politics.

It's nauseating for the abler citizens when some no-goodnick scrabbles his way to the top

by his gift of gab -- to the top! a former nobody!

Suppliant Women - V:210

My homage goes to the god who out of chaos

and brutishness plotted the orderly world we live in,

first giving us thought, then a tongue that turned that thought

into airy words that the ears could catch and fathom.

Next, gave us fruit and grain; for its cultivation

sent falling rain from heaven for thirsty earth

and its thirsty people. Besides, gave means of warmth

against the winter, protection from summer's heat.

Then taught us to ply the sea with oar and sail

in commerce, exchanging our surplus for our dearth.

For what's mysterious, past our understanding,

we've prophets to read the riddles: they study flames,

pore over twisted entrails, watch the birds.

Then aren't they finicky folk who cry "Too little!"

given all that providence has supplied us with?

But we, ion our arrogant drive to be more than gods

arrive at so heady a pitch of self-conceit

that we tell ourselves we're wiser than heaven itself.

Suupliant Women - Opening

CHORUS

Strophe

At your feet now, O revered one,

as we kneel here, who are old too,

supplicating you: secure

the release of our dead children's remains

that are left scattered in limb-slackening death

by the wicked, as obscene food for the wild beasts of the hills.

Hippolytus - V:1490

CHORUS

Down on the city

strokes without warning:

all's desolation.

Rain down, O flowing

tears of our mourning.

Death of a great one

wails among nations.

(Curtain.)

Hippolytus - V:1460

Now, son of Aegeus, enfold him, your dear child,

close in your arms. Though you killed him, you're guiltless.

Terrible deeds that the gods may accomplish,

using you: no man's responsible for them.

Hippolytus - V:1360

ARTEMIS

Your deeds have been dreadful;

but it is also possible we will forgive you.

Cypris has willed all these vile actions

spitefully. Gods have the following custom:

No god dares interfere with the actions

taken by others among the immortals.

All stand aside when a plot's undertaken.

You maybe sure, Had I not feared dread Zeus,

never would I have endured such shame: the

death of him dearest to me among mortals.

Agony, forced to look on and do nothing!

So you were ignorant. That may excuse you.

It was impossible for you to test her,

and you believed. How troublesome death is!

So you have suffered ... but I grieve also.

Death of the innocent brings no pleasure

to the immortals; we only delight in

wrecking the wicked, their houses, their children.

Electra - Closing

CHORUS

Farewell. The mortal life that does well,

that never meets misfortune,

is a life most truly blessed.

Electra - Opening

PEASANT

Ah, old Argos ... Once, King Agamemnon

sailed from these streams of Inachus,

his thousand galleys bound for Troy.

And when he had slain their king Priam

and sacked that glorious Ilian city, he

returned to Argos and filled its lofty shrines

with countless Barbarian treasures.

Voss - pg. 58

Laura Trevelyan was at that moment tracing with her toe the long, ribbony track of some sea-worm, as if it were important. In the rapt afternoon all things were all-important, the inquiring mouths of blunt anemones, the twisted roots of driftwood returning and departing in the shallows, mauve scum of little bubbles the sand was sucking down, and the sun, the sun that was hitting them over the heads. She was too hot, of course, in the thick dress that she had put on for a colder day, with the result that all words became great round weights. She did not raise her head for those the German spoke, but heard them fall, and loved their shape.

Voss - pg. 48

But whatever duties were alloted to him, Jack Slipper had always found time to loiter in the yard, under the lazy pepper trees, scratching his armpits, and c hewing a quid of tobacco on the quiet. So Laura would remember, and again see him spit a shiny stream into the molten laurels. He used to wear his sleeves cut back for greater freedom, tight to the shoulder, so that in his thin but sinewy arms the swollen veins were visible. He was all stains, and patches of shade, and spots of sunlight, if ever Laura was compelled to cross the yard, as, indeed, sometimes she was. It must be admitted he had always acknowledged her presence, though in such an insolent and familiar manner that invariably she would turn the other way on confirming that the man was there.

Voss - pg. 44

During the days that followed, the German thought somewhat surreptitiously about the will of God. The nurture of faith, on the whole, he felt, was an occupation for women, between the preserving pan and the linen press. There was that niece of the Bonner's, he remembered, a formal, and probably snobbish girl, who would wear her faith cut to the usual feminine pattern. Perhaps with a colder elegance that most. Then, there were the few men who assumed humility without shame. It could well be that, in the surrender to selflessness, such individuals enjoyed a kind of voluptuous transport. Voss would sometimes feel embittered at what he had not experienced, even though he was proud not to have done so. How they merge themselves with the concept of their God, he considered almost with disgust. These were the feminine men. Yet he remembered with longing the eyes of Palfreyman, and that old Muller, from both of whom he must always hold himself aloof, to whom he would remain coldly unwedded.

Voss - pg. 31

"That remains to be seen. Every man has a genius, though it is not always discoverable. Least of all when choked by the trivialities of daily existence. But in this disturbing country, so far as I have become acquainted with it already, it is possible more easily to discard the inessential and to attempt the infinite. You will be burnt up most likely, you will have the flesh torn from your bones, you will be tortured probably in many horrible and primitive ways, but you will realize that genius of which you sometimes suspect you are possessed, and of which you will not tell me you are afraid."

Book Cycle

• Voss
• Meditations
• Hume
• Berkeley
• Divine Comedy

Voss - pg. 7

With rough persistence he accused her of the superficiality which she herself suspected. At times she could hear her own voice. She was also afraid of the country which, for lack of any other, she supposed was hers. But this fear, like certain dreams, was something to which she would never have admitted.

Voss - Opening

Chapter 1

"THERE is a man here, miss, asking for your uncle," said Rose.

And stood breathing.

"What man?" asked the young woman, who was engaged upon some embroidery of a difficult nature, at which she was nor forced to look more closely, holding the little frame to the light. "Or is it perhaps a gentleman?"

For

Marie d'Estournelles de Constant

Copyright 1957 by Patrick White

All rights reserved

First published in 1957 by The Viking Press, Inc.

625 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022

Published simultaneously in Canada by

The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited

SBN 670-74807-2

Library of Congress catalog card number: 57-9493

Printed in U.S.A

Blood Meridian Illustration project by Zack Smith