Read Online The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anne Carson
Ads: Link
is an abstraction.
Just a meaning that we
impose upon motion. But I see
—he looked down at his watch—
what you mean.
Wouldn’t want to be late
for my own lecture would I? Let’s go.
Sunset begins early in winter, a bluntness at the edge of the light. Geryon
hurried after the yellowbeard
through dimming corridors, past students huddled in conversation who stubbed
their cigarettes underfoot
and did not look at him, to a bare brick-walled classroom with a muddle of small desks.
Empty one at the back.
It was a tight fit in his big overcoat. He couldn’t cross his knees. Presences hunched
darkly in the other desks.
Clouds of cigarette smoke moved above them, butts lay thick on the concrete floor.
Geryon disliked a room without rows.
His brain went running back and forth over the disorder of desks trying to see
straight lines. Each time finding
an odd number it jammed then restarted. Geryon tried to pay attention.
Un poco misterioso,
the yellowbeard
was saying. From the ceiling glared seventeen neon tubes.
I see the terrifying
spaces of the universe hemming me in.…
the yellowbeard quoted Pascal and then began to pile words up all around the terror
of Pascal until it could scarcely be seen—
Geryon paused in his listening and saw the slopes of time spin backwards and stop.
He was standing beside his mother
at the window on a late winter afternoon. It was the hour when snow goes blue
and streetlights come on and a hare may
pause on the tree line as still as a word in a book. In this hour he and his mother
accompanied each other. They did not
turn on the light but stood quiet and watched the night come washing up
towards them. Saw
it arrive, touch, move past them and it was gone. Her ash glowed in the dark.
By now the yellowbeard had moved
from Pascal to Leibniz and was chalking a formula on the blackboard:
[NEC] = A}B
which he articulated using the sentence “If Fabian is white Tomás is just as white.”
Why Leibniz should be concerned
with the relative pallor of Fabian and Tomás did not come clear to Geryon
although he willed himself
to attend to the flat voice. He noted the word
necesariamente
recurring four times
then five times then the examples
turned inside out and now Fabian and Tomás were challenging each other’s negritude.
If Fabian is black Tomás is just as black.
So this is skepticism, thought Geryon. White is black. Black is white. Perhaps soon
I will get some new information about red.
But the examples dried away into
la consecuencia
which got louder and louder as
the yellowbeard strode up and down
his kingdom of seriousness bordered by strong words, maintaining belief
in man’s original greatness—
or was he denying it? Geryon may have missed a negative adverb—and ended
with Aristotle who had
compared skeptic philosophers to vegetables and to monsters. So blank and
so bizarre would be
the human life that tried to live outside belief in belief. Thus Aristotle.
The lecture ended
to a murmur of
Muchas gracias
from the audience. Then someone asked a question
and the yellowbeard
began talking again. Everybody lit another cigarette and clenched down in the desks.
Geryon watched smoke swirl.
Outside the sun had set. The little barred window was black. Geryon sat wrapped
in himself. Would this day never end?
His eye traveled to the clock at the front of the room and he fell into the pool
of his favorite question.
XXX. DISTANCES
Click here for original version
“What is time made of?” is a question that had long exercised Geryon.
————
Everywhere he went he asked people. Yesterday for example at the university.
Time is an abstraction—just a
Just a meaning that we
impose upon motion. But I see
—he looked down at his watch—
what you mean.
Wouldn’t want to be late
for my own lecture would I? Let’s go.
Sunset begins early in winter, a bluntness at the edge of the light. Geryon
hurried after the yellowbeard
through dimming corridors, past students huddled in conversation who stubbed
their cigarettes underfoot
and did not look at him, to a bare brick-walled classroom with a muddle of small desks.
Empty one at the back.
It was a tight fit in his big overcoat. He couldn’t cross his knees. Presences hunched
darkly in the other desks.
Clouds of cigarette smoke moved above them, butts lay thick on the concrete floor.
Geryon disliked a room without rows.
His brain went running back and forth over the disorder of desks trying to see
straight lines. Each time finding
an odd number it jammed then restarted. Geryon tried to pay attention.
Un poco misterioso,
the yellowbeard
was saying. From the ceiling glared seventeen neon tubes.
I see the terrifying
spaces of the universe hemming me in.…
the yellowbeard quoted Pascal and then began to pile words up all around the terror
of Pascal until it could scarcely be seen—
Geryon paused in his listening and saw the slopes of time spin backwards and stop.
He was standing beside his mother
at the window on a late winter afternoon. It was the hour when snow goes blue
and streetlights come on and a hare may
pause on the tree line as still as a word in a book. In this hour he and his mother
accompanied each other. They did not
turn on the light but stood quiet and watched the night come washing up
towards them. Saw
it arrive, touch, move past them and it was gone. Her ash glowed in the dark.
By now the yellowbeard had moved
from Pascal to Leibniz and was chalking a formula on the blackboard:
[NEC] = A}B
which he articulated using the sentence “If Fabian is white Tomás is just as white.”
Why Leibniz should be concerned
with the relative pallor of Fabian and Tomás did not come clear to Geryon
although he willed himself
to attend to the flat voice. He noted the word
necesariamente
recurring four times
then five times then the examples
turned inside out and now Fabian and Tomás were challenging each other’s negritude.
If Fabian is black Tomás is just as black.
So this is skepticism, thought Geryon. White is black. Black is white. Perhaps soon
I will get some new information about red.
But the examples dried away into
la consecuencia
which got louder and louder as
the yellowbeard strode up and down
his kingdom of seriousness bordered by strong words, maintaining belief
in man’s original greatness—
or was he denying it? Geryon may have missed a negative adverb—and ended
with Aristotle who had
compared skeptic philosophers to vegetables and to monsters. So blank and
so bizarre would be
the human life that tried to live outside belief in belief. Thus Aristotle.
The lecture ended
to a murmur of
Muchas gracias
from the audience. Then someone asked a question
and the yellowbeard
began talking again. Everybody lit another cigarette and clenched down in the desks.
Geryon watched smoke swirl.
Outside the sun had set. The little barred window was black. Geryon sat wrapped
in himself. Would this day never end?
His eye traveled to the clock at the front of the room and he fell into the pool
of his favorite question.
XXX. DISTANCES
Click here for original version
“What is time made of?” is a question that had long exercised Geryon.
————
Everywhere he went he asked people. Yesterday for example at the university.
Time is an abstraction—just a
Similar Books
