Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee by Suzette Haden Elgin Page A
Authors: Suzette Haden Elgin
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back to that! For now, let me only tell you that the truth is sometimes a sad and solemn burden, and that this is such a time-but I will speak it, nonetheless; and I do not fear to do so.”
He went on then, to remind them one and all of the reasons that had brought the Twelve Families from Old Earth to Ozark one thousand years ago. He talked of the air of Earth, that could not be breathed; of the water of Earth, that no one dared drink till it had been made so foul by chemicals that it burned the throat and offended the nose; of the soil of Earth, so poisoned that the food it grew was unfit for human beings to eat, that had taken in pollution till it could give back nothing else. He talked of the pollution of humankind as well, every hand set against every other; of the dank misery of the slums where the world’s poor had scrabbled from dole to dole. He spoke of the shame of the so-called holy men who threw out in their daily garbage the finest foodstuffs chemistry could produce, while billions lay swollen-bellied in the dust, dying of starvation. He talked of the politicians, that lived like great ticks upon the bodies of the citizens they had sworn to serve, bleeding them of their substance and fattening upon it till the bureaucracies were swollen to monstrous size. He spent a number of superb sentences upon the doctors, become so callous and so arrogant and so divorced from the people that they could heal nothing but their bank balances; and a few more upon the lawyers, who had lusted after the suffering of others and profited by it; and still more for those that had dared to call themselves teachers, while they spent their useless lives spreading ignorance and demanding ever more money for the pitiful job they did . . .
On and on and on . . .
Would he never stop? Responsible tried to imagine any gathering of women where such a monologue would of been tolerated past the five minutes it took to see where it was heading, and failed. No female would of sat still for the wasted time. Not a word that he said, looming there in his antiquated black suit, flickering with the straining of the comset-which was certainly poorly-standing there with a tie round his scrawny neck as a symbol of his bondage to the ancient nonsense he spoke against-not a word they hadn’t all heard a hundred dozen times. Not a turn of phrase they didn’t hear every three Sundys or so at Solemn Service . . . and he had no skill of control. He had the preacher’s skill. He could put one word after another without ever a stumble or a pause; but they sat for his mellifluous bombast out of politeness, not because they enjoyed it-and because they were men, and had no better sense.
Granny Hazelbide had said it as well as ever she’d heard anybody say it, long ago at Granny School. “Men,” she’d said, “are of but two kinds. Splendid-and pitiful. The splendid ones are rare, and if you chance on one, you’ll know it. What I tell you now has to do with the rest of ‘em-as my Granny told me, and her Granny told her before that, and so back as far as time will take you.” They’d all leaned forward, because her voice told them something important was coming, and she’d gone on. “If,” she said, “a man does something properly, that’s an accident. That’s the first thing. As for the sorry messes they make in the ordinary way of things, that’s to be expected, and not to be held against them-they can’t help it. That’s the second thing. And the third thing-and this is to be well-remembered -is that no man must ever know the first two things.”
Granny struck her cane on the floor, three times hard, to underline that. “When a man spills something, it’s your place to catch it before it touches, snatch it before it falls, and be sure certain he thinks he caught it himself. Men-all but those rare splendid ones -they’re frail creatures; they can’t bear much.”
“And a woman?” one of the little girls had asked timidly. “How
He went on then, to remind them one and all of the reasons that had brought the Twelve Families from Old Earth to Ozark one thousand years ago. He talked of the air of Earth, that could not be breathed; of the water of Earth, that no one dared drink till it had been made so foul by chemicals that it burned the throat and offended the nose; of the soil of Earth, so poisoned that the food it grew was unfit for human beings to eat, that had taken in pollution till it could give back nothing else. He talked of the pollution of humankind as well, every hand set against every other; of the dank misery of the slums where the world’s poor had scrabbled from dole to dole. He spoke of the shame of the so-called holy men who threw out in their daily garbage the finest foodstuffs chemistry could produce, while billions lay swollen-bellied in the dust, dying of starvation. He talked of the politicians, that lived like great ticks upon the bodies of the citizens they had sworn to serve, bleeding them of their substance and fattening upon it till the bureaucracies were swollen to monstrous size. He spent a number of superb sentences upon the doctors, become so callous and so arrogant and so divorced from the people that they could heal nothing but their bank balances; and a few more upon the lawyers, who had lusted after the suffering of others and profited by it; and still more for those that had dared to call themselves teachers, while they spent their useless lives spreading ignorance and demanding ever more money for the pitiful job they did . . .
On and on and on . . .
Would he never stop? Responsible tried to imagine any gathering of women where such a monologue would of been tolerated past the five minutes it took to see where it was heading, and failed. No female would of sat still for the wasted time. Not a word that he said, looming there in his antiquated black suit, flickering with the straining of the comset-which was certainly poorly-standing there with a tie round his scrawny neck as a symbol of his bondage to the ancient nonsense he spoke against-not a word they hadn’t all heard a hundred dozen times. Not a turn of phrase they didn’t hear every three Sundys or so at Solemn Service . . . and he had no skill of control. He had the preacher’s skill. He could put one word after another without ever a stumble or a pause; but they sat for his mellifluous bombast out of politeness, not because they enjoyed it-and because they were men, and had no better sense.
Granny Hazelbide had said it as well as ever she’d heard anybody say it, long ago at Granny School. “Men,” she’d said, “are of but two kinds. Splendid-and pitiful. The splendid ones are rare, and if you chance on one, you’ll know it. What I tell you now has to do with the rest of ‘em-as my Granny told me, and her Granny told her before that, and so back as far as time will take you.” They’d all leaned forward, because her voice told them something important was coming, and she’d gone on. “If,” she said, “a man does something properly, that’s an accident. That’s the first thing. As for the sorry messes they make in the ordinary way of things, that’s to be expected, and not to be held against them-they can’t help it. That’s the second thing. And the third thing-and this is to be well-remembered -is that no man must ever know the first two things.”
Granny struck her cane on the floor, three times hard, to underline that. “When a man spills something, it’s your place to catch it before it touches, snatch it before it falls, and be sure certain he thinks he caught it himself. Men-all but those rare splendid ones -they’re frail creatures; they can’t bear much.”
“And a woman?” one of the little girls had asked timidly. “How
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