Read Online Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jamaica Kincaid
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unorderly, moving without anything and thick with something, but whatever it was thick with held no nourishment, and it was so thick and then so heavy, so overwhelming, as if it could be grace, or a blessing, or something good, anything good, but a name could not be found for it, and it was the very texture and atmosphere and reality of the sea, the sea into which Mr. Potterâs mother, Elfrida Robinson, walked when she grew tired of his existence. And Mr. Potterâs mother walked into the sea without even so much as despair, she did not have even so much as a sense of hopelessness and then going beyond that, she was made up only of what lay beyond that. See her as a small girl motherless, and see her mother before her motherless and that mother,
too, motherless, and on and on reaching back not so much into eternity as into a sentence that would begin with the year fourteen hundred and ninety-two; for eternity is the unimaginable awfulness that makes up the past and the unimaginable peace and pleasure that is to come. And where is Elfridaâs father, that man named something Robinson? And where is his father and his father before him and on and on into eternity, the eternity of what has been, not the one that is to come?
Can a human being exist in a wilderness, a world so empty of human feeling: love and justice; a world in which love and even that, justice, only exist from time to time and in small quantities, or unexpectedly, like a wild seedling of some necessary and common food (rice would do, or corn would do, or grain of any kind)? The answer is yes and yes again and the answer is no, not really, not so at all. And on that day Elfrida, Mr. Potterâs mother she was then and would always be, walked into the sea, everything was so ordinary and itself, as if ordinariness might not sometimes be worth celebrating, as if ordinariness could never be longed for, as if ordinariness could never be missed, as if ordinariness was all there was and anything else was an interruption: the light from the sun sprawled across the small island lazily now, for it had long ago fiercely driven away every shadow, it had long ago with fierceness penetrated every crevice; the sky in some places
was a thin blue, as if it had exhausted being that color, blue, as if it was at the very end of being that color, blue, and in some other places the blue of the sky was so intense, so thick was the sky with that color, blue, as if that color, blue, was only then being made, as if it was so new, as if it had never been seen before, and nothing could replace it and this blue might satisfy every known want; and the trees and vegetables grew, not carelessly and wantonly (they lived mostly in a perpetual drought), with leaves everywhere surrounding flowers and fruit and seed, but grew with a careful sadness, sometimes hovering near the ground, as if reaching up to the sky would be a mistake; and sometimes a single tree would arrange itself in this way, half of it dormant, half not, and the dormant half rested and the growing half grew sparingly; and the land itself, the land over which Elfrida Robinson walked on her way into the sea which would then swallow her up, curved and straightened out, rose up into small hills and then flattened out, and the land was not welcoming and it was not rejecting, not on purpose; it was only the land of a very small island, an island of no account, really, and she was of no account, really, only she was the mother of my father and I know I cannot make myself forget that.
And the dress she wore on that day she walked into the sea was made of blue poplin, and even the very fabric that covered her tormented skin had its
own tormented history, the very name, poplin, so innocent even in description, so humble when seen in large bolts, so humble when made into a garment worn by Elfrida in any situation, sitting down or walking toward her death being swallowed up by the sea; and the dress had a white collar made of
too, motherless, and on and on reaching back not so much into eternity as into a sentence that would begin with the year fourteen hundred and ninety-two; for eternity is the unimaginable awfulness that makes up the past and the unimaginable peace and pleasure that is to come. And where is Elfridaâs father, that man named something Robinson? And where is his father and his father before him and on and on into eternity, the eternity of what has been, not the one that is to come?
Can a human being exist in a wilderness, a world so empty of human feeling: love and justice; a world in which love and even that, justice, only exist from time to time and in small quantities, or unexpectedly, like a wild seedling of some necessary and common food (rice would do, or corn would do, or grain of any kind)? The answer is yes and yes again and the answer is no, not really, not so at all. And on that day Elfrida, Mr. Potterâs mother she was then and would always be, walked into the sea, everything was so ordinary and itself, as if ordinariness might not sometimes be worth celebrating, as if ordinariness could never be longed for, as if ordinariness could never be missed, as if ordinariness was all there was and anything else was an interruption: the light from the sun sprawled across the small island lazily now, for it had long ago fiercely driven away every shadow, it had long ago with fierceness penetrated every crevice; the sky in some places
was a thin blue, as if it had exhausted being that color, blue, as if it was at the very end of being that color, blue, and in some other places the blue of the sky was so intense, so thick was the sky with that color, blue, as if that color, blue, was only then being made, as if it was so new, as if it had never been seen before, and nothing could replace it and this blue might satisfy every known want; and the trees and vegetables grew, not carelessly and wantonly (they lived mostly in a perpetual drought), with leaves everywhere surrounding flowers and fruit and seed, but grew with a careful sadness, sometimes hovering near the ground, as if reaching up to the sky would be a mistake; and sometimes a single tree would arrange itself in this way, half of it dormant, half not, and the dormant half rested and the growing half grew sparingly; and the land itself, the land over which Elfrida Robinson walked on her way into the sea which would then swallow her up, curved and straightened out, rose up into small hills and then flattened out, and the land was not welcoming and it was not rejecting, not on purpose; it was only the land of a very small island, an island of no account, really, and she was of no account, really, only she was the mother of my father and I know I cannot make myself forget that.
And the dress she wore on that day she walked into the sea was made of blue poplin, and even the very fabric that covered her tormented skin had its
own tormented history, the very name, poplin, so innocent even in description, so humble when seen in large bolts, so humble when made into a garment worn by Elfrida in any situation, sitting down or walking toward her death being swallowed up by the sea; and the dress had a white collar made of
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