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- 'All of us here know what it is to suffer for real need. That is a great injustice. But there is one injustice bitterer even than that -- to be denied the right to work according to one's ability. To labor a lifetime uselessly. To be denied the chance to serve. It is far better for the profits of our purse to be taken from us than to be robbed of the riches of our minds and souls. - Some of you young people here this morning may feel the need to be teachers or nurses or leaders of your race. But most of you will be denied. You will have to sell yourselves for a useless purpose in order to keep alive. You will be thrust back and defeated. The young chemist picks cotton. The young writer is unable to learn to read. The teacher is held in useless slavery at some ironing board. We have no representation in government. We have no vote. In all of this great country we are the most oppressed of all people. We cannot lift up our voices. Our tongues rot in our mouths from lack of use. Our hearts grow empty and lose strength for our purpose.'
- He felt as though he had swelled up to the size of a giant. The love in him made his chest a dynamo, and he wanted to shout so that his voice could be heard throughout the town...
- 'We will save ourselves. But not by prayers of mourning. Not by indolence or strong drink. Not by the pleasures of the body or by ignorance. Not by submission and humbleness. But by pride. By dignity. By becoming hard and strong. We must build strength for our real true purpose.'
- The joy made him feel like a drunken man. To teach and exhort and explain to his people -- and to have them understand. That was the best of all. To speak the truth and be attended.
- After the festivity the rooms had a bare, ruined look. The house was cold. Portia was washing the cups in the kitchen. The silver snow on the Christmas tree had been tracked over the floors and two of the ornaments were broken.
- Most of his joy was gone in the bright, cool noonday sun. The diseases of his patients lay scattered in his mind. An abscessed kidney. Spinal meningitis. Port's disease.
- How much that he had said today was understood? How much would be of any value? He recalled the words he had used, and they seemed to fade and lose their strength. The words left unsaid were heavier on his heart. They rolled up to his lips and fretted them. The faces of his suffering people moved in a swelling mass before his eyes. And as he steered the automobile slowly down the street his heart turned with this angry, restless love.
- The winter afternoons glowed with a hazy lemon light and shadows were a delicate blue. A thin coat of ice crusted in the puddles in the streets, and it was said on the day after Christmas that only ten miles to the north there was a light fall of snow. (198)
- In many eyes there was a look of somber loneliness. Now that people were forced to be idle, a certain restlessness could be felt. There was a fervid outbreak of new beliefs. A young man who had worked at the dye vats in a mill claimed suddenly that a great holy power had come in him. He said it was his duty to deliver a new set of commandments from the Lord. (198)
- Singer walked through the scattered odorous parts of town where the Negroes crowded together. There was more gaiety and violence here. Often the fine, sharp smell of gin lingered in the alleys. Warm, sleepy firelight colored the windows. Meetings were held in the churches almost every night. Comfortable little houses set off in plots of brown grass -- Singer walked in these parts also. Here the children were huskier and more friendly to strangers. (...) There was no part of the town that Singer did not know. He watched the yellow squares of light reflect from a thousand windows. The winter nights were beautiful. The sky was a cold azure and the stars were very bright. (199)
- He came to be known all through the town. He walked with his shoulders very straight and kept his hands always stuffed down into his pockets. His gray eyes seemed to take in everything around him, and in his face there was still the look of peace that is seen most often in those who are very wise or very sorrowful. He was always glad to stop with anyone wishing his company. For after all he was only walking and going nowhere. (199-200)
- So the rumors about the mute were rich and varied. (200)
- Antonapoulos! Within Singer there was always the memory of his friend. At night when he closed his eyes the Greek's face was there in the darkness -- round and oily, with a wise and gentle smile. (200)
- The mute's name was Carl. He was a sallow young man who worked in one of the mills. His eyes were pale yellow and his teeth so brittle and transparent that they seemed pale and yellow also. In his blue overalls that hung limp over his skinny little body he was like a blue-and-yellow rag doll. (201)
- The air was warm and rich with sweet smells. (201)
- It was a pale winter evening, and their breath clouded in the cold air as they walked with their arms interlocked down the street. (202)
- Carl huddled in a chair, nursing his bony knees, fascinated and bewildered by the grimaces of the big Greek. His face was flushed and he swallowed timidly. (202-3)
- Those ugly memories wove through his thoughts during the first months like bad threads through a carpet. (203)
- You see, Mister Singer? I got this music in me all the time. I got to be a real musician. Maybe I don't know anything now, but I will when I'm twenty. See, Mister Singer? And then I mean to travel in a foreign country where there's snow. (-) Let's finish up the bottle. I want a small one. For we were thinking of freedom. That's the word like a worm in my brain. Yes? No? How much? How little? The word is a signal for piracy and theft and cunning. We'll be free and the smartest will then be able to enslave the others. But! But there is another meaning to the word. Of all words this one is the most dangerous. We who know must be wary. The word makes us feel good -- in fact the word is a great ideal. But it's with this ideal that the spiders spin their ugliest webs for us. (204-5)
- In those days being near any stranger was better than thinking alone about the cigarettes and beer and meat that he wanted. (205)
- His hands were a torment to him. They would not rest. They twitched in his sleep, and sometimes he awoke to find them shaping the words in his dreams before his face. He did not like to look at his hands or to think about them. They were slender and brown and very strong. In the years before he had always tended them with care. In the winter he used oil to prevent chapping, and he kept the cuticles pushed down and his nails always filed to the shape of his finger-tips. He had loved to wash and tend his hands. But now he only scrubbed them roughly with a brush two times a day and stuffed them back into his pockets. (206)
- Then when he realized he was like a man caught talking aloud to himself, it was almost as though he had done some moral wrong. The shame and the sorrow mixed together and he doubled his hands and put them behind him. But they would not let him rest. (206)
- Singer stood in the street before the house where he and Antonapoulos had lived. The late afternoon was smoky and gray. In the west there were streaks of cold yellow and rose. A ragged winter sparrow flew in patterns against the smoky sky and at last came to light on a gable of the house. The street was deserted. (206)
- Through the lighted window he watched a woman move back and forth across the room. She was large and vague against the light and she wore an apron. (207)
- It was Saturday night. The main street was thick with people. Shivering Negroes in overalls loitered before the windows of the ten-cent store. Families stood in line before the ticket box of the movie and young boys and girls stared at the posters on display outside. The traffic from the automobiles was so dangerous that he had to wait a long time before crossing the street. (-) He passed the fruit store. The fruits were beautiful inside the windows -- bananas, oranges, alligator pears, bright little kumquats, and even a few pineapples. (208)
- The big automatic popcorn popper was near the door. A clerk shoved in a measure of kernels and the corn whirled inside the case like giant flakes of snow. The smell from the store was warm and familiar. Peanut hulls were trampled on the floor. (208-9)
- The neon advertisements cast an orange glow on the faces of the crowd. (209)
- Singer walked along the main street for about an hour. In all the crowd he seemed the only one alone. (209)
- She seemed to listen all over to what she heard. She sat there the whole afternoon, and when she grinned at him once her eyes were wet and she rubbed them with her fists. She asked him if she could come in and listen sometimes when he was at work and he nodded yes. So for the next few days whenever he opened the door he found her by the radio. Her hand raked through her short rumpled hair and there was a look in her face he had never seen before. (210)
- In a vague way he had expected this to be the end of something. (210)
- His hands worked nervously as though they were pulling things unseen from the air and binding them together. (210-1)
- Doctor Copeland moved his tongue precisely as though he clipped out his words with scissors. (211)
- Each person addressed his words mainly to the mute. Their thoughts seemed to converge in him as the spokes of a wheel lead to the center hub. (211)
- The night was sharp and frosty. The moon was full and rimmed with a golden light. The rooftops were black against the starlit sky. As he walked he thought of ways to begin his letter, but he had already reached the store before the first sentence was in his mind. (213)
- I stood before our home the other day. Other people live in it now. Do you remember the big oak tree in front? The branches were cut back so as not to interfere with the telephone wires and the tree died. The limbs are rotten and there is a hollow place in the truth. Also, the cat here at the store (the one you used to stroke and fondle) ate something poisonous and died. It was very sad. (214)
- Then he stood up and lighted himself a cigarette. The room was cold and the air had a sour stale odor -- the mixed smells of kerosene and silver polish and tobacco. (214)
- They are all very busy people. In fact they are so busy that it will be hard for you to picture them. I do not mean that they work at their jobs all day and night but that they have much business in their minds always that does not let them rest. (214)
- He thinks he and I have a secret together but I do not know what it is. (215)
- Singer put his head down on the bench and rested. The smell and the feel of the slick wood against his cheek reminded him of his schooldays. His eyes closed and he felt sick. (216)
- I think of us always and remember everything. (216)
- ...But that is nothing. The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear. (...) I am not meant to be alone and without you who understand. (217)
- Out of the blackness of sleep a dream formed. There were dull yellow lanterns lighting up a dark flight of stone steps. (217)
- His skin was a pale yellow color, his eyes very dreamy and dark. His black hair was touched at the temples with silver. He was knitting. His fat fingers worked with the long ivory needles very slowly. At first he did not see his friend. Then when Singer stood before him he smiled serenely, without surprise, and held out his jeweled hand. (219)
- The splendor of his friend's raiment startled him. On various occasions he had sent him each article of the outfit, but he had not imagined how they would look when all combined. Antonapoulos was more enormous than he had remembered. The great pulpy folds of his abdomen showed beneath his silk pajamas. His head was immense against the white pillow. The placid composure of his face was so profound that he seemed hardly to be aware that Singer was with him. (220)
- The eyes of his friend were moist and dark, and in them he saw the little rectangled pictures of himself that he had watched a thousand times. The warm blood flowed back to his face and his hands quickened. (220)
- In his haste the signs sometimes became blurred and he had to shake his hands and begin all over. Antonapoulos watched him with dark, drowsy eyes. Sitting motionless in his bright, rich garments he seemed like some wise king from a legend. (222-3)
- The rich through that he was rich and the poor considered him a poor man like themselves. And as there was no way to disprove these rumors they grew marvelous and very real. Each man described the mute as he wished him to be. (223)
sep 6 2020 ∞
sep 6 2020 +
sep 6 2020 +