Slept poorly all this week. I have given some consideration to becoming nocturnal. The nights though still cold are merely bracing rather than truly frigid, at least to one whose blood was early thickened by Pennsylvania winters and a father’s parsimony in matters of hearth-fuel, and I find the nocturnal company at least as enjoyable as any available during the day — increasingly so as the weather warms, for each year about this time the tree frogs emerge from hibernation. The first half-teaspoonful of spring awakens their amphibian yearnings, as I suppose it would have mine in earlier decades, and they spend the quickening nights chirping lustily at one another. Read on

I was going to write something utterly brilliant this past weekend, but I caught some sort of walking flu and wasn’t up to the task. Great-Uncle William will have to speak for me.

Mrs. Jacobs next door has learned of my illness — how, I cannot imagine, for I told no one except the department secretary whom I instructed to cancel my classes. But my neighbor seems to know all of little consequence that occurs within ten minutes’ brisk walk; were there profit in front-porch chatter and back-fence whispers she would be renting rooms to the Dukes. So prolific is she in the casual exchange of the commonplace that she must take inspiration from one of those lesser muses the Greeks never mentioned but of whose existence I am nonetheless certain: Phluaronia, perhaps, who having arrived late to the table of creativity found the feast already ravished by her more famous sisters and so can spur her victims only to bubble continually with nonsense. Her statues, had any been made, were fountains spewing water from their mouths into a pool which their feet, submerged therein, drank up anew as if from sparkling subterranean springs. A kind woman, Mrs. Jacobs, but — Good God.

At nine-thirty this morning she knocked upon my door and when I answered, unwashed, unshaven and unshod, she said with a mother bird’s sympathy and a schoolmarm’s assessing eye, “Oh Mister Warmkessel, I understand you have taken ill.” Read on

The Olsens had me to Thanksgiving dinner, an unsurprisingly sorry affair that I preferred only to dining alone or braving the faculty lounge. The talk was all of politics, Olsen expressing poignant regret that with Roosevelt’s election our best hope for socialist ascendency has passed; I, trying to console him (for his grief really was quite touching — and his adherence to principle admirable if faintly ludicrous — to say even now that “things must get worse before they get better”…!) pointed out that there was as yet no firm evidence, indeed no ready and apparent reason to expect, that “things” would improve in the near future, or indeed ever, and Olsen, well as I know him, took some comfort in that knowledge, but another of Olsen’s guests, a sociologist from Chapel Hill who until today I knew only by repute, took my repartee for genuine interest and buttonholed me to ask my opinion of the President-elect’s plans. When, to the contrary, all I wanted was a good fire, a good drink, and a decent meal, of which I had one, and that a somewhat resinous and smokey one, Olsen having given his servant the day off and being himself unschooled in the manly art of firewood selection. Read on

The king of Ustreasia was a wealthy man, wealthy beyond compare. His kingdom was peaceful and lovely, and his people were hardworking and kind and ethical, for the most part. But for all the riches of his kingdom the king’s true pride was his herd of elephants. And what elephants! Bulls all, with slashing tusks and stamping feet and trumpeting calls that echoed throughout the capital. For generations the royal trainers had taught the elephants to march in procession, to carry the king and queen upon their backs. They passed the knowledge of their profession on to their children and were respected with soldiers and priests. The people watched the royal parades and felt pride, and visiting rulers smiled in appreciation of such well-kept animals. Read on

Christmas when Sanders was six his parents took him to New York. They admired the tree in Rockefeller Center; they gaped at the lights and the toy store windows; they ice-skated in Central Park. They saw the Rockettes, Joan Sanders’ dream since her own childhood. In half-embarrassed whispers she had shared memories of seeing the Rockettes on television, of wanting to be a Rockette, herself, when she grew up. Young Bunchanan didn’t see what was the big deal, but he understood that it was a big deal, and he, the dutiful son, listened politely, recognizing even at his tender age that his mother, all things being equal, would rather have had a daughter. “You probably don’t understand,” she said, laughing it off, and he shrugged and smiled to indicate that he sort of did, maybe, that at least he wished he did.

But the Rockettes scared him. He couldn’t have said why, but sitting in the darkened theater he began to cry. When it became clear that he couldn’t or wouldn’t stop, his father offered to take him outside, and Joan — Buchanan would never forget her face at that moment — Joan nodded in agreement, smiled at her son to tell him it was all right, but he saw the sadness in her eyes. He saw the disappointment of someone who, convinced that what she has is really too good to be true, is almost relieved to have it taken from her. And — for an instant — a flash of anger at her husband, as if he had planned his escape from the beginning, coaching the boy to cry and practicing his look of patient regret in the mirror, while shaving. Then she turned back to the show, and Paul Sanders led his sniveling son down the row of people who turned their knees to let them pass but arched their necks to keep their eyes on the action. They found the spectacle cheery and Christmas-y and not a bit frightening; little Buchanan Sanders sobbed all the harder in embarrassment. Read on