Lincoln in the Bardo(58)
XCIV.
His boy was gone; his boy was no more.
hans vollman
His boy was nowhere; his boy was everywhere.
roger bevins iii
There was nothing here for him now.
hans vollman
His boy was no more here than anyplace else, that is. There was nothing special, anymore, about this place.
roger bevins iii
His continued presence here was wrong; was wallowing.
hans vollman
His having come here at all a detour and a weakness.
roger bevins iii
His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.
hans vollman
All were in sorrow, or had been, or soon would be.
roger bevins iii
It was the nature of things.
hans vollman
Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true.
roger bevins iii
At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end.
hans vollman
We must try to see one another in this way.
roger bevins iii
As suffering, limited beings— hans vollman
Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.
roger bevins iii
His sympathy extended to all in this instant, blundering, in its strict logic, across all divides.
hans vollman
He was leaving here broken, awed, humbled, diminished.
roger bevins iii
Ready to believe anything of this world.
hans vollman
Made less rigidly himself through this loss.
roger bevins iii
Therefore quite powerful.
hans vollman
Reduced, ruined, remade.
roger bevins iii
Merciful, patient, dazzled.
hans vollman
And yet.
roger bevins iii
And yet.
He was in a fight. Although those he fought were also suffering, limited beings, he must— hans vollman
Obliterate them.
roger bevins iii
Kill them and deny them their livelihood and force them back into the fold.
hans vollman
He must (we must, we felt) do all we could, in light of the many soldiers lying dead and wounded, in open fields, all across the land, weeds violating their torsos, eyeballs pecked out or dissolving, lips hideously retracted, rain-soaked/blood-soaked/snow-crusted letters scattered about them, to ensure that we did not, as we trod that difficult path we were now well upon, blunder, blunder further (we had blundered so badly already) and, in so blundering, ruin more, more of these boys, each of whom was once dear to someone.
Ruinmore, ruinmore, we felt, must endeavor not to ruinmore.
Our grief must be defeated; it must not become our master, and make us ineffective, and put us even deeper into the ditch.
roger bevins iii
We must, to do the maximum good, bring the thing to its swiftest halt and— hans vollman
Kill.
roger bevins iii
Kill more efficiently.
hans vollman
Hold nothing back.
roger bevins iii
Make the blood flow.
hans vollman
Bleed and bleed the enemy until his good sense be reborn.
roger bevins iii
The swiftest halt to the thing (therefore the greatest mercy) might be the bloodiest.
hans vollman
Must end suffering by causing more suffering.
roger bevins iii
We were low, lost, an object of ridicule, had almost nothing left, were failing, must take some action to halt our fall, and restore ourselves to ourselves.
hans vollman
Must win. Must win the thing.
roger bevins iii
His heart dropped at the thought of the killing.
hans vollman
Did the thing merit it. Merit the killing. On the surface it was a technicality (mere Union) but seen deeper, it was something more. How should men live? How could men live? Now he recalled the boy he had been (hiding from Father to read Bunyan; raising rabbits to gain a few coins; standing in town as the gaunt daily parade drawled out the hard talk hunger made; having to reel back when one of those more fortunate passed merrily by in a carriage), feeling strange and odd (smart too, superior), long-legged, always knocking things over, called names (Ape Lincoln, Spider, Ape-a-ham, Monstrous-Tall), but also thinking, quietly, there inside himself, that he might someday get something for himself. And then, going out to get it, he had found the way clear—his wit was quick, people liked him for his bumbling and his ferocity of purpose, and the peach orchards and haystacks and young girls and ancient wild meadows drove him nearly mad with their beauty, and strange animals moved in lazy mobs along muddy rivers, rivers crossable only with the aid of some old rowing hermit who spoke a language barely English, and all of it, all of that bounty, was for everyone, for everyone to use, seemingly put here to teach a man to be free, to teach that a man could be free, that any man, any free white man, could come from as low a place as he had (a rutting sound coming from the Cane cabin, he had looked in through the open door and seen two pairs of still-socked feet and a baby toddling past, steadying herself by grasping one of the rutters’ feet), and even a young fellow who had seen that, and lived among those, might rise, here, as high as he was inclined to go.