Lydia Davis - Can't and Won't - Stories

A former servant of ours, a pathetic fellow, is now the driver of a hackney cab — you’ll probably remember how he married the daughter of that porter who was awarded a prestigious prize at the same time that his wife was being sentenced to penal servitude for theft, whereas he, the porter, was actually the thief. In any case, this unfortunate man, Tolet, our former servant, has, or thinks he has, a tapeworm inside him. He talks about it as though it were a living person who communicates with him and tells him what it wants, and when Tolet is talking to you, the word “he” always refers to this creature inside him. Sometimes Tolet has a sudden urge and attributes it to the tapeworm: “ He wants it,” he says — and right away Tolet obeys. Lately he wanted to eat some fresh white rolls; another time he had to have some white wine, but the next day he was outraged because he wasn’t given red.

The poor man has by now lowered himself, in his own eyes, to the same level as the tapeworm; they are equals waging a fierce battle for dominance. He said to my sister-in-law recently, “That creature has it in for me; it’s a battle of wills, you see; he’s forcing me to do what he likes. But I’ll have my revenge. Only one of us will be left alive.” Well, the man is the one who will be left alive, or, rather, not for long, because, in order to kill the worm and be rid of it , he recently swallowed a bottle of vitriol and is at this very moment dying. I wonder if you can see the true depths of this story.

What a strange thing it is — the human brain!

Dear Harvard Book Store Marketing Manager,

I recently telephoned your bookstore to inquire about the matter described below and was told that you would be the person to contact. My question concerns an unfortunate biographical mistake printed in your January 2002 newsletter.

I was startled to see, on the back page of this issue, that my recently published book was featured in the column titled “Spotlight: McLean Alumni.” Now, I am aware that McLean’s has a distinguished list of former patients and is among the most prestigious of institutions of this type in the country, but I have been inside its walls only once, and that was as a visitor. I stopped in to see a friend of mine from high school, and spent no more than, perhaps, one awkward hour with him, since our conversation was at best difficult.

Now, to be perfectly honest — in case this is the source of the misunderstanding — it is true that a member of my family was once incarcerated in McLean’s. My great-grandfather, of the same surname, was for a time a patient of the institution, but this was in the early part of the last century, and he was not a seriously disturbed individual, as far as I can tell from what my father has said and from the letters and other documentary evidence I have in my possession. He was apparently no more than generally restless, apathetic at his place of employment, occasionally inspired with plans for irrational enterprises, dissatisfied with domestic life, and visibly oppressed by his wife’s emphatically demanding and restrictive nature. Although he did indeed escape the institution once and was then forcibly returned to it, he was several months later judged to have been rehabilitated, and he was released. He thereafter lived a tranquil, if rather solitary, life apart from his family, with a single manservant, on a farm in Harwich, Massachusetts.

I offer this information in case it may be useful, though I can think of no reason why you would confuse me with him. However, no other explanation occurs to me for your mistaken identification, unless your buyers assumed on the basis of the contents of my book, its title, or my admittedly somewhat wild-eyed photograph that at some time in the past I was an inmate of McLean’s.

It is always nice to have some attention paid to one’s book, but embarrassing to be misidentified in this way. Could you please throw some light on the matter?

Yours sincerely.

We are sitting with our old mother in the nursing home.

“Of course I’m lonesome for you kids. But it’s not like being in a strange place, where you don’t know anyone.”

She smiles, trying to reassure us. “There are plenty of people here from good old Willy.”

She adds: “Of course, a lot of them can’t talk.” She pauses, and goes on: “A lot of them can’t see.”

She looks at us through her thick-lensed glasses. We know she can’t see anything but light and shadow.

“I’m the last of the Mohicans — as they say.”

Color these fish.

Cut them out.

Punch a hole in the top of each fish.

Put a ribbon through all the holes.

Tie these fish together.

Now read what is written on these fish:

Jesus is a friend.

Jesus gathers friends.

I am a friend of Jesus.

“You want to be a master,” he said. “Well, you’re not a master.”

That took me down a peg.

Seems I still have a lot to learn.

A young writer has hired an older, more experienced writer to improve upon his texts. However, he refuses to pay her. He keeps her, in fact, in a situation that amounts to imprisonment, on the grounds of his estate. Though his frail and elderly mother, while turning her back and walking away, as though unwilling to look at him, urges him, weakly, to pay this writer what he owes her, he does not. Instead, he holds his arm out straight towards her, his hand in a fist, while she holds her hand out under his fist, palm up, as though to receive something. He then opens his hand, and it is empty. He is doing this for revenge, she knows, because he and she were once involved in what might be called a love relationship, and she was not as kind to him as she should have been. She was sometimes rude to him, and belittled him, both in front of others and in private. She tries, over and over, to think whether she was as cruel to him then, so long ago, as he is being cruel to her now. Complicating the situation is the fact that another person is living here with her, and depending on her for support, and that is her ex-husband. He, unlike her, and unlike her bitter former lover, is cheerful and confident, not knowing, until at last she tells him, that she is not being paid. Even then, however, after a moment’s pause in which he absorbs the news, he continues to be cheerful and confident, in part, perhaps, because he does not believe her, and in part because he is distracted, having just embarked on another writing project of his own. He invites her to work with him on it. She is interested and willing, until she looks at it. She then sees that, unfortunately for her, it involves the writing of yet another person. She does not like the writing, or the character, or what she suspects is the corrupting influence, of this other person, and she does not want to be associated with her. But before she can tell him this, or, better, hide it from him, while still declining to collaborate on the writing project, another question occurs to her. Where, in all this, she wonders now, after a surprisingly long time, perhaps weeks, is her own present husband, always so helpful to her, and why does he not come to help her out of this most awkward situation?

Under all this dirt

the floor is really very clean.

story from Flaubert

Here is another story about our compassion. In a village not far from here, a young man murdered a banker and his wife, then raped the servant girl and drank all the wine in the cellar. He was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed. Well, there was such interest in seeing this peculiar fellow die on the guillotine that people came from all over the countryside the night before — more than ten thousand of them. There were such crowds that the bakeries ran out of bread. And because the inns were full, people spent the night outside: to see this man die, they slept in the snow.