here. He’s John whenever we are out of your hearing.
John
. The General John Bell Hood, leader of men, stung and maimed by men, abandoned by men. That was the General when I met him.
He makes much of that first ball. He tried to dance with my cousin’s friend, but he slipped just as they were to turn and pass. He caught himself with the cane he had hung over his arm, paused, and escorted the girl, a flitting little bird, back to her seat with my cousin. He bowed low to her and said nothing. He carried the war with him like a ratty coat that invokes both pity and silence. The silence, I think, drove him crazy. I suppose he thought that after all that he had done, all that he had suffered, that he would be thanked, at least forgiven his strangeness and his deformities. It took him some time to understand that he would never be thanked in the way he hoped, with genuine love, and that deformity would be pitied but not forgiven. No one thanks the executioner, they wish he would stay out of sight. The cripples too.
He knew this, but who can resist a dance? A ball is a great pretending, an imagined thing. All ladies are beautiful, all men are gracious and handsome, all flowers are fresh and all music is perfect. It is a beastly lie. A ball is a fantasy dreamed up and populated by humans, and humans are hard even when they pretend they aren’t. They spin and glide and tell themselves wonderful stories, but their feet don’t ever leave the ground. I’ve looked.
Mother would have said that the man was lost, meaning lost to
us,
not to himself, what he thought of himself was of little importance. He was not dead, he had merely never been born, and anyway, I was not raised to cavort (that would have been her word for it) with men so rough and so awkward. I was to concern myself only with men of possibility, who understood the subtle ways of the Creole world and who knew how to dress themselves and pick out flowers and avoid death at duel. I’m sure such men bored her as much as they bored me, and certainly my father was no such man.
But your father was the exception, he was a different sort of
américain
. He was too large and grand for the Creoles, but he was a man of consequence. He was grand! And yes he was rough, but he could be trained! Remember that. The training he took!
She and I were very much alike, though she would not admit it.
I think I haven’t described John as I saw him, only as the others saw him, and as Mother would have seen him. But I saw him, too, and I watched closely. I saw a man who went off to sit by himself and watch us dance, shunned from the conversation, and who seemed to accept that fate. He was used to it, he accepted it, and yet there was more to it than that. He watched the bodies twirling by, the flying blooms of purple and yellow brushing the floor, and he seemed to take pleasure in our happiness and in our beauty, even if he seemed to possess none of his own. He smiled slightly and drew his shoulders in humbly and looked up at us. I stopped dancing and stood near my cousin, whose billowing dress hid me while I spied on him. He tapped his cane to the music, a fiddled quadrille, and made himself small. He moved to the dark corner of the settee in the foyer where few could see him. He watched and he watched. Later he told me that a reviled man could not take for granted the moments of otherwise forbidden beauties, and so he didn’t think of himself as ill-treated, but mostly blessed. Sad and blessed. Someday you will know people like that, the sad and the blessed, and they will be saints or they will be thieves. Possibly some of both.
That night I left my cousin to her talk of chivalry and rare blue African fabrics and walked over to John. It was a dream, I didn’t know I was walking until I was halfway there. I heard my cousin call out to me but I knew that if I turned or stopped I would never make it, I would turn back and end my life old and draped in black lace, nattering on with my
John
. The General John Bell Hood, leader of men, stung and maimed by men, abandoned by men. That was the General when I met him.
He makes much of that first ball. He tried to dance with my cousin’s friend, but he slipped just as they were to turn and pass. He caught himself with the cane he had hung over his arm, paused, and escorted the girl, a flitting little bird, back to her seat with my cousin. He bowed low to her and said nothing. He carried the war with him like a ratty coat that invokes both pity and silence. The silence, I think, drove him crazy. I suppose he thought that after all that he had done, all that he had suffered, that he would be thanked, at least forgiven his strangeness and his deformities. It took him some time to understand that he would never be thanked in the way he hoped, with genuine love, and that deformity would be pitied but not forgiven. No one thanks the executioner, they wish he would stay out of sight. The cripples too.
He knew this, but who can resist a dance? A ball is a great pretending, an imagined thing. All ladies are beautiful, all men are gracious and handsome, all flowers are fresh and all music is perfect. It is a beastly lie. A ball is a fantasy dreamed up and populated by humans, and humans are hard even when they pretend they aren’t. They spin and glide and tell themselves wonderful stories, but their feet don’t ever leave the ground. I’ve looked.
Mother would have said that the man was lost, meaning lost to
us,
not to himself, what he thought of himself was of little importance. He was not dead, he had merely never been born, and anyway, I was not raised to cavort (that would have been her word for it) with men so rough and so awkward. I was to concern myself only with men of possibility, who understood the subtle ways of the Creole world and who knew how to dress themselves and pick out flowers and avoid death at duel. I’m sure such men bored her as much as they bored me, and certainly my father was no such man.
But your father was the exception, he was a different sort of
américain
. He was too large and grand for the Creoles, but he was a man of consequence. He was grand! And yes he was rough, but he could be trained! Remember that. The training he took!
She and I were very much alike, though she would not admit it.
I think I haven’t described John as I saw him, only as the others saw him, and as Mother would have seen him. But I saw him, too, and I watched closely. I saw a man who went off to sit by himself and watch us dance, shunned from the conversation, and who seemed to accept that fate. He was used to it, he accepted it, and yet there was more to it than that. He watched the bodies twirling by, the flying blooms of purple and yellow brushing the floor, and he seemed to take pleasure in our happiness and in our beauty, even if he seemed to possess none of his own. He smiled slightly and drew his shoulders in humbly and looked up at us. I stopped dancing and stood near my cousin, whose billowing dress hid me while I spied on him. He tapped his cane to the music, a fiddled quadrille, and made himself small. He moved to the dark corner of the settee in the foyer where few could see him. He watched and he watched. Later he told me that a reviled man could not take for granted the moments of otherwise forbidden beauties, and so he didn’t think of himself as ill-treated, but mostly blessed. Sad and blessed. Someday you will know people like that, the sad and the blessed, and they will be saints or they will be thieves. Possibly some of both.
That night I left my cousin to her talk of chivalry and rare blue African fabrics and walked over to John. It was a dream, I didn’t know I was walking until I was halfway there. I heard my cousin call out to me but I knew that if I turned or stopped I would never make it, I would turn back and end my life old and draped in black lace, nattering on with my
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