Final Roll Call

Now, a few nights later, he and the soldiers he got were crowded into a chapel for the memorial service, which ended with something called the Final Roll Call.

"Sergeant Jubinville," a sergeant called out.

"Here, First Sergeant," Jubinville called back.

"PFC Devine," the sergeant called out.

"Here, First Sergeant," Devine called back.

"PFC Harrelson," the sergeant called out.

The chapel was silent.

"PFC James Harrelson," he called out.

The chapel remained silent.

"PFC James Jacob Harrelson," he called out.

And the silence continued, unbearably, until it was interrupted by the sharp slap of gunfire.

Bang, pause, bang, pause, bang.

—David Finkel, The Good Soldiers (2009)

Two times two is five is sometimes also a most charming little thing.

But man is a frivolous and unseemly being, and perhaps, similar to a chess player, likes only the process of achieving the goal, but not the goal itself. And who knows (one cannot vouch for it), perhaps the whole goal mankind strives for on earth consists just in this ceaselessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially in the goal, which, of course, is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four--that is, a formula; and two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death. At least man has always somehow feared this two times two is four, and I fear it even now. Suppose all man ever does is search for this two times two is four; he crosses oceans, he sacrifices his life in the search; but to search it out, actually to find it--by God, he's somehow afraid. For he senses that once he finds it, there will be nothing to search for. Workers, when they're done working, at least get their pay, go to a pot-house, then wind up with the police--so it keeps them busy for a week. But where is man to go? Something awkward, at any rate, can be noticed in him each time he achieves some such goal. Achieving he likes, but having achieved he does not quite like, and that, of course, is terribly funny. In short, man is comically arranged, there is apparently a joke in all this. But still, two times two is four is a most obnoxious thing. Two times two is four--why, in my opinion, it's sheer impudence, sirs. Two times two is four has a cocky look; it stands across your path, arms akimbo, and spits. I agree that two times two is four is an excellent thing; but if we're going to start praising everything, then two times two is five is sometimes also a most charming little thing.

--Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky), Notes from Underground (1864) 

It's a wish for God to be here, on earth, visible

"You seem upset," he says to me.  

"I am but I don't know why." 

"Those planes." 

"No, I was before." 

"I think I know why," he says.  

"Why." 

"You don't like thinking I have - had - ordinary feelings." 

"I do like it." 

"No, all of you lay people hate it. It makes you anxious, and angry at me. You would rather imagine me as uncontaminated, pure, innocent, whatnot." 

"I do like thinking that one person I know lived without violence," I admit. 

"It's bigger than that," Tom says. "It's existential. It's a wish for God to be here, on earth, visible." 

The war planes seem abandoned. The site they occupy is absolutely without a sign of human life. But the sound of one buzzing in the faraway cut in the air like the shape of a dog. "Don't worry. I won't tell you anything personal," Tom says and speeds up the car. "Give me that water."

-- Fanny Howe, Indivisible (2000)

'snap and bite at every trifle'

And at this period she was absorbed in becoming a young lady. She was intelligent enough, but not interested in learning. At first, she thought all the girls at school very ladylike and wonderful, and she wanted to be like them. She came to a speedy disillusion: they galled and maddened her, they were petty and mean. After the loose, generous atmosphere of her home, where little things did not count, she was always uneasy in the world, that would snap and bite at every trifle.

—D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow (1915)

To Arrive Where We Started

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

—T. S. Eliot, "The Little Gidding" (1942)