So strangely easily I can write the words, “I destroyed.”
Catty.
But what of Tyss’s philosophy? Is it possible I shall be condemned to repeat the destruction throughout eternity? Have I written these lines an infinite number of times before? Or is the mercy envisaged by Enfandin a reality? And what of Barbara’s expression as she bade me goodbye? Could she possibly
Editorial note by Frederick Winter Thammis: Quite recently, in the summer of 1953 to be exact, I commissioned the remodelling of my family home near York, Pennsylvania. Among the bundles of old books and papers stored in the attic was a box of personal effects, labelled “H M Backmaker.” In it was the manuscript concluding with an unfinished sentence, reproduced above.
My father used to tell me that when he was a boy there was an old man living on the farm, nominally as a hired hand, but actually as a pensioner, since he was beyond the age of useful labor. My father said the children considered him not quite right in his mind, but very entertaining, for he often repeated long, disjointed narratives of an impossible world and an impossible society which they found as fascinating as the Oz books. On looking back, he said, Old Hodge talked like an educated man, but this might simply be the impression of young, uncultivated minds.
Clearly it was in some attempt to give form and unity to his tales that the old man wrote his fable down, and then was too shy to submit it for publication. This is the only reasonable way to account for its existence. Of course he says he wrote it in 1877, when he was far from old, and disconcertingly, analysis of the paper shows it might have been written then.
Two other items should be noted. In the box of Backmaker’s belongings there was a watch of unknown manufacture and unique design. Housed in a cheap nickel case, the jeweled movement is of extraordinary precision and delicacy. The face has two dials, independently set and wound.
The second is a quotation. It can be matched by similar quotations in any of half a hundred volumes on the Civil War. I pick this only because it is handy. From W. E. Woodward’s Years of Madness, p. 202:
“ ... Union troops that night and next morning took a position on Cemetery Hill and Round Top.... The Confederates could have occupied this position but they failed to do so. It was an error with momentous consequences.”