George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo

hans vollman

Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true.

roger bevins iii

At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end.

hans vollman

We must try to see one another in this way.

roger bevins iii

As suffering, limited beings—

hans vollman

Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.

roger bevins iii

His sympathy extended to all in this instant, blundering, in its strict logic, across all divides.

hans vollman

He was leaving here broken, awed, humbled, diminished.

roger bevins iii

Ready to believe anything of this world.

hans vollman

Made less rigidly himself through this loss.

roger bevins iii

Therefore quite powerful.

hans vollman

Reduced, ruined, remade.

roger bevins iii

Merciful, patient, dazzled.

hans vollman

And yet.

roger bevins iii

And yet.

He was in a fight. Although those he fought were also suffering, limited beings, he must—

hans vollman

Obliterate them.

roger bevins iii

Kill them and deny them their livelihood and force them back into the fold.

hans vollman

He must ( we must, we felt) do all we could, in light of the many soldiers lying dead and wounded, in open fields, all across the land, weeds violating their torsos, eyeballs pecked out or dissolving, lips hideously retracted, rain-soaked/blood-soaked/snow-crusted letters scattered about them, to ensure that we did not, as we trod that difficult path we were now well upon, blunder, blunder further (we had blundered so badly already) and, in so blundering, ruin more, more of these boys, each of whom was once dear to someone.

Ruinmore, ruinmore, we felt, must endeavor not to ruinmore.

Our grief must be defeated; it must not become our master, and make us ineffective, and put us even deeper into the ditch.

roger bevins iii

We must, to do the maximum good, bring the thing to its swiftest halt and—

hans vollman

Kill.

roger bevins iii

Kill more efficiently.

hans vollman

Hold nothing back.

roger bevins iii

Make the blood flow.

hans vollman

Bleed and bleed the enemy until his good sense be reborn.

roger bevins iii

The swiftest halt to the thing (therefore the greatest mercy) might be the bloodiest.

hans vollman

Must end suffering by causing more suffering.

roger bevins iii

We were low, lost, an object of ridicule, had almost nothing left, were failing, must take some action to halt our fall, and restore ourselves to ourselves.

hans vollman

Must win. Must win the thing.

roger bevins iii

His heart dropped at the thought of the killing.

hans vollman

Did the thing merit it. Merit the killing. On the surface it was a technicality (mere Union) but seen deeper, it was something more. How should men live? How could men live? Now he recalled the boy he had been (hiding from Father to read Bunyan; raising rabbits to gain a few coins; standing in town as the gaunt daily parade drawled out the hard talk hunger made; having to reel back when one of those more fortunate passed merrily by in a carriage), feeling strange and odd (smart too, superior), long-legged, always knocking things over, called names (Ape Lincoln, Spider, Ape-a-ham, Monstrous-Tall), but also thinking, quietly, there inside himself, that he might someday get something for himself. And then, going out to get it, he had found the way clear — his wit was quick, people liked him for his bumbling and his ferocity of purpose, and the peach orchards and haystacks and young girls and ancient wild meadows drove him nearly mad with their beauty, and strange animals moved in lazy mobs along muddy rivers, rivers crossable only with the aid of some old rowing hermit who spoke a language barely English, and all of it, all of that bounty, was for everyone, for everyone to use, seemingly put here to teach a man to be free, to teach that a man could be free, that any man, any free white man, could come from as low a place as he had (a rutting sound coming from the Cane cabin, he had looked in through the open door and seen two pairs of still-socked feet and a baby toddling past, steadying herself by grasping one of the rutters’ feet), and even a young fellow who had seen that, and lived among those, might rise, here, as high as he was inclined to go.

And that, against this: the king-types who would snatch the apple from your hand and claim to have grown it, even though what they had, had come to them intact, or been gained unfairly (the nature of that unfairness perhaps being just that they had been born stronger, more clever, more energetic than others), and who, having seized the apple, would eat it so proudly, they seemed to think that not only had they grown it, but had invented the very idea of fruit, too, and the cost of this lie fell on the hearts of the low (Mr. Bellway rushing his children off their Sangamon porch as he and Father slumped past with that heavy bag of grain drooping between them).

Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself.

Well, the rabble could. The rabble would.

He would lead the rabble in managing.

The thing would be won.

roger bevins iii

Our Willie would not wish us hobbled in that attempt by a vain and useless grief.

hans vollman

In our mind the lad stood atop a hill, merrily waving to us, urging us to be brave and resolve the thing.

roger bevins iii

But ( we stopped ourselves short) was this not just wishful thinking? Weren’t we, in order to enable ourselves to go on, positing from our boy a blessing we could not possibly verify?

Yes.

Yes we were.

hans vollman

But we must do so, and believe it, or else we were ruined.

roger bevins iii

And we must not be ruined.

hans vollman

But must go on.

roger bevins iii

We saw all of this in the instant it took Mr. Lincoln to pass through us.

hans vollman

And then he was out the door, and into the night.

roger bevins iii

We black folks had not gone into the church with the others.

Our experience having been that white people are not especially fond of having us in their churches. Unless it is to hold a baby, or prop up or hand-fan some old one.

Then here came that tall white man out the door, right at me.

I held my ground as he passed through and got something along the lines of I will go on, I will. With God’s help. Though it seems killing must go hard against the will of God. Where might God stand on this. He has shown us. He could stop it. But has not. We must see God not as a Him (some linear rewarding fellow) but an IT, a great beast beyond our understanding, who wants something from us, and we must give it, and all we may control is the spirit in which we give it and the ultimate end which the giving serves. What end does IT wish served? I do not know. What IT wants, it seems, for now, is blood, more blood, and to alter things from what they are, to what IT wills they should be. But what that new state is, I do not know, and patiently wait to learn, even as those three thousand fallen stare foul-eyed at me, working dead hands anxiously, asking, What end might this thing yet attain, that will make our terrible sacrifice worthwh—