Charles Reznikoff

Before the break of day the minister was awakened by the sound of hatchets breaking open the door and windows. He ran towards the door: about twenty Indians with painted faces were coming into the house howling. Three Indians took hold of him, and bound him as he stood in his night-shirt, and began to rifle the house going into every room. As he lay, bound and helpless, he thought of his wife and children— his wife had given birth only a few weeks before— and he remembered the passage in Isaiah: “I shall go to the gates of the grave deprived of the rest of my years. . .” The Indians had taken two of his children to the door and killed them, as well as the Negro woman who helped take care of them; keeping him bound with the cord about one arm, they let him put on his clothes with the other; and let his wife dress herself, too, as well as their children left alive. When the sun was an hour high all were led out of the house for the journey of three hundred miles to Quebec— snow up to their knees. Many of the houses were now on fire; and, as they left the town, he saw his house and barn burning. At first the minister was not allowed to speak to any of his fellow captives as they marched, but on the second day he had another Indian to watch him and was allowed to speak with his wife when he overtook her and could walk with her and help her along. She told him that she was losing her strength and they must expect to part and she hoped that God would keep him alive and their children still among the living— but not a word of complaint saying that it was the will of God. When they came to a small river the captives had to wade it; the water knee-deep and the current swift. After that they had to climb a hill, almost a mountain, and the minister’s strength was almost gone when he came to the top; but he was not allowed to sit down and even unburdened of his pack. He begged the Indian in charge of him to let him go down and help his wife but the man would not let him; and he asked each of the captives as they passed about her; and heard at last that in going through the river she fell and plunged headfirst into the water; and, after that, at the foot of the hill the Indian who held her captive killed her with one stroke of his hatchet and left the body as meat for the fowls and beasts.

The bread has become moldy and the dates blown down by the wind; the iron has slipped from the helve. The wool was to by dyed red but the dyer dyed it black. The dead woman has forgotten her comb and tube of eye-paint; the dead cobbler has forgotten his knife, the dead butcher his chopper, and the dead carpenter his adze. A goat can be driven off with a shout. But where is the man to shout? The bricks pile up, the laths are trimmed, and the beams are ready. Where is the builder? To be buried in a linen shroud or in a matting of reeds— but where are the dead of the Flood and where the dead of Nebuchadnezzar?

I It is not to be bought for a penny in the candy store, nor picked from the bushes in the park. It may be found, perhaps, in the ashes on the distant lots, among the rusting cans and Jimpson weeds. If you wish to eat fish freely, cucumbers and melons, you should have stayed in Egypt. II I am alone— and glad to be alone; I do not like people who walk about so late; who walk slowly after midnight through the leaves fallen on the sidewalks. I do not like my own face in the little mirrors of the slot-machines before the closed stores. III Walking along the highway, I smell the yellow flowers of a shrub, watch the starlings on a lawn, perhaps— but why are all these speeding away in automobiles, where are they off to in such a hurry? They must be going to hear wise men and to look at beautiful women, and I am just a fool to be loitering here alone. IV I like the sound of the street— but I, apart and alone, beside an open window and behind a closed door. V Winter is here indeed; the leaves have long been swept from the winding walks; trees and ground are brown— all is in order. Only the lamps now flourish in the park. We walk about and talk; but the troubles of the unsuccessful middle-aged are so uninteresting! VI Now it is cold: where the snow was melting the walk crackles with black ice beneath my careful steps; and the snow is old and pitted, here grey with ashes and there yellow with sand. The walks lie in the cold shadow of houses; pigeons and sparrows are in a hollow for cold, out of the wind; but here, where the sunshine pours through a narrow street upon a little tree, black and naked of every leaf, the sparrows are in the sun, thick upon the twigs. Those who in their lives braved the anger of their fellows, bronze statues now, with outstretched arm or sword brave only the weather. I find myself talking aloud as I walk; that is bad. Only Don Juan would believe I am in conversation with the snow-covered statues; only St. Francis that I am talking to the sparrows in the naked bushes, to the pigeons in the snow. VII The ropes in the wind slapping the flag-pole (the flag has been hauled down); behind the bare tree-tops the lights of an aeroplane moving away slowly. A star or two shining between factory chimneys; the street dark and still because the street-lamp has been broken and it is cold and late. VIII Bright upon the table for your birthday, the burning candles will dissolve in rays and lumps of wax. Unlike a skull, they say politely, This is you! IX I am afraid because of the foolishness I have spoken. I must diet on silence; strengthen myself with quiet. Where is the wisdom with which I may be medicined? I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind. X I do not believe that David killed Goliath. It must have been— you will find the name in the list of David’s captains. But, whoever it was, he was no fool when he took off the helmet and put down the sword and the spear and the shield and said, The weapons you have given me are good, but they are not mine: I will fight in my own way with a couple of pebbles and a sling. XI “Shall I go there?” “As you like— it will not matter; you are not at all important.” The words stuck to me like burrs. The path was hidden under the fallen leaves; and here and there the stream was choked. Where it forced a way the ripples flashed a second. She spoke unkindly but it was the truth: I shared the sunshine like a leaf, a ripple; thinking of this, sunned myself and, for the moment, was content. XII There is nobody in the street of those who crowded about David to watch me as I dance before the Lord: alone in my unimportance to do as I like. XIII Your angry words—each false name sinks into me, and is added to the heap beneath. I am still the same: they are no part of me, which I keep; but the way I go, and over which I flow. XIV The Bridge In a cloud bones of steel. XV God and Messenger This pavement barren as the mountain on which God spoke to Moses— suddenly in the street shining against my legs the bumper of a motor car. XVI A beggar stretches out his hand to touch a fur collar, and strokes it unseen, stealing its warmth for his finger tips. XVII The elevator man, working long hours for little—whose work is dull and trivial— must also greet each passenger pleasantly: to be so heroic he wears a uniform. XVIII This subway station with its electric lights, pillars of steel, arches of cement, and trains— quite an improvement on the caves of the cave-men; but, look! on this wall a primitive drawing. XIX Subway People moving, people standing still, crowds and more crowds; a thousand and ten thousand iron girders as pillars; escape! But how, shut up in the moving train? And upstairs, in the street, the sun is shining as it shines in June. XX Poet with Whiskey Bottle and Sailor There is anguish there, certainly, and a commotion in the next room; shouts of words and phrases that do not make sentences and sentences that do not make sense. I open the door: ah, the hallway is crowded— descendants of the three wise men, now male and female, come again to worship in a stable. XXI The white cat on the lawn, lying in the sun against the hedge, lovely to look at— but this stout gentleman, who needs a shave badly, leaning in an arbor hung with purple grapes, purple grapes all about him, is unpleasant. Am I becoming misanthropic? An atheist? Why, this might be the god Bacchus! XXII The bearded rag-picker seated among heaps of rags in a basement sings: It was born that way; that is the way it was born— the way it came out of some body to stink: nothing will change it— neither pity nor kindness.