Master Tyndall happened to be in the company of a learned man and in communing and disputing with him drove him to that issue, that the learned man said: ‘We were better be without God’s law than the Pope’s.’ Master Tyndall, hearing that, answered him: ‘I defy the Pope and all his laws’; and said: ‘If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.’

To pursue his intention of translating the Bible, he offered himself to the Bishop of London, Tunstall, with an example of his skill as a translator from Greek in his hand — a speech of Isocrates. Tunstall, thoush a friend of Erasmus’s, rebuffed him. Realising he could not translate the Bible in England, Tyndale accepted the financial help of a London cloth-merchant and sailed for Hamburg in 1524. He never returned to England. He lived a hand-to-mouth existence, dodging the Roman Catholic authorities. In the autumn of 1525, he and his amanuensis moved to Cologne and began printing the New Testament. He was betrayed and fled up the Rhine to Worms. Here he started printing again, and the first complete New Testament in English appeared towards the end of February 1526. Copies began to arrive in England about a month later. In October, Tunstall began to have all the copies he could trace gathered and burned at St Paul’s Cross. Still they circulated. Tunstall arranged to buy them before they left the continent, so that they could be burned in bulk. Tyndale used the money for further translation and revision. He began the Old Testament, apparently in Antwerp: Foxe tells how, sailing to Hamburg to print Deuteronomy, he was shipwrecked and lost everything, ‘both money, his copies, and time’, and (Foxe says, with Coverdale) started all over again, completing the Pentateuch between Easter and December. 

Back in Antwerp, Tyndale printed it in early January 1530. Copies were in England by the summer. In 1531 he translated Jonah; in 1531 a revised Genesis; in 1534 his completely revised New Testament — very slightly revised again in 1535. the same year, the fanatical Englishman Henry Phillips betrayed him to the Antwerp authorities and had him kidnapped. He was imprisoned in Vilvorde, near Brussels, for sixteen months. A letter from him, in Latin, has survived:

I suffer greatly from cold in the head, and am afflicted by a perpetual catarrh, which is much increased in this cell… My overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also worn out… And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening: it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark. But most of all I beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary, that he will kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may pass the time in study.

Even Thomas Cromwell, the most powerful man next to King Henry VIII, moved to get him released; but Phillips in Belgium, acting for the papal authorities, blocked all the moves. On the morning of 6 October 1536, now in the hands of the secular forces, he was taken to the place of execution, tied to the sake, strangled and burned.

(David Daniell)

Actually, I have only rule for you. Oh, Melancholy—have you ever wondered how silly this all is? When I think about how much I love you… It’s not a contest, Melancholy. Just because you hurt me first, and you did, you hurt me a lot, when you ran away and didn’t call or let me know what happened. Five days, Melancholy! You disappeared for five days!  Did you ever think about what I might be going through? You didn’t have to talk to me, if you were mad at me, you could’ve just let Harry know you were ok. Melancholy, I thought you were run over by a car, or murdered, or kidnapped, or — I don’t know — that maybe, that maybe you had done what you promised me you would never do, what I made you promise when I agreed to move in.

What did you prove, Melancholy? Just because you hurt me first, what did that prove? That you win? What did you win, Melancholy? 

Here’s the rule: When a girl tells you she’s had a nice time after a date, and she tells you she hopes she can see you again soon, call her the next day, Melancholy. Call her, if not the next day, then the next week. It’s not a good idea to ignore her for three months, and then suddenly, one day, out of the blue, when she’s gotten over feeling hurt and wondering what she did wrong, to ask her to dinner.

Did you expect me to say yes, Melancholy?

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Already the morning had been different from his usual routine, more hopeful. He had even enjoyed talking to his therapist.

“I’m going to have to cancel today’s appointment. I’m feeling sick.”

“I require at least 24 hours notice to issue a refund. You know that. You will owe the full fee for our missed session.”

“I understand.”

“You certainly don’t sound sick. Are you trying to pull something?”

“No, no, no. It’s food poisoning. I can’t…”

“I’m going to call your father.”

“Please. I’ll mail the check today. Full session fee. Two hundred and fifty dollars.”

Normally, Juror Ten would have let his therapist’s threat to call his father wreck his day, but the prospect of meeting the mystery woman had made him insensible to the world, confident, invincible. On the subway, he even met a woman, a stunning piece of work, and he had escaped the encounter without damage. She had not been able to wound him, unlike the others.

***

Aphrodite, you bitch. It was you, wasn’t it? Of course it was.

I was minding my own business, taking a walk up Fifth Avenue in Midtown, there I was, enjoying the brisk morning air and the sight of the women fashionably dressed for spring in their spring skirts, we were on the corner of Fifth and Forty-Eighth, I was minding my own business, waiting to cross the intersection, then something caught my eye, a flash of gold, and I turned my head and there you were. My God. Right next to me.

I saw the golden hair, the pale and flawless skin, the impeccably tailored pencil skirt. Right away, I recognized it was you. You looked at me too, only for a second, but so close, we were so close, I could have run my fingers through your hair, we were so close, it was only for a second, then your green eyes darted down to my tie, the orange one with little daisys, and you smiled.

My God.

As fast as I could, I crossed the intersection. A van with Jersey plates, one of those ugly cars driven by one of those ugly people who pollute our city and make us so unhappy, that van almost ran me over, and Jersey yelled at me, but I didn’t care. I had to escape.

But the crowds, my God—they were everywhere, the elderly couples taking pictures of Saint Patrick’s, the German teens with their Abercrombie bags, the dumpy inbreds and their waistband packs and white sneakers, worn in earnest, they slowed me down, and then — how did you find me? — you glided next to me, taking long strides, now you were ahead of me, your golden hair swishing to and fro, your image, like the song of the sirens, luring me onward toward danger.

You were ahead of me, following my pace, if I slowed down, you slowed down, when I quickened my pace to pass you, you quickened your pace so I could not pass, and I realized I had transformed. I was no longer myself. I was Nick Carraway.

I was Nick Carraway, stalking you on Fifth Avenue, imagining the life we could have together, our first date, our honeymoon, our third child. I was Nick Carraway, would be bond man, cousin of Daisy Buchanan, only friend of Jay Gatsby.  I was Nick Carraway and I was living in Fitzgerald’s nightmare. I had dinner last night at the Yale Club, Nick was right, he was right about everything, it was a depressing place, full of lonely bachelors and unfaithful husbands, all drinking too much Scotch and reading the newspaper.

I beg you. Please. Not again.

***

The woman on the subway recalled the famous picture of Hercolani.

Jack Kennedy, who followed my work, once rolled down the car window at the Everglades Club in Palm Beach and asked me, ‘Slim, that shot of the Hercolani princess in Rome, is she really that good-looking?’

‘Better!’ I told him.”  

She had taken the seat across from him in the empty subway car.  For six stops, as the train rumbled downtown, she kept looking at him. Their eyes briefly met. 

At Fifty-Ninth Street, she got up to leave the train, and he watched her closely as she smoothed out the folds of her scarf to rewrap around her neck. Its yellow color reminded him of the story of the young Vogue editor who called on Matisse, in the heady days after the war. The painter was near the end of his life, confined to a wheelchair and nursed by a former model, a Russian girl named Lydia, as his marriage had not survived the ominous early warning signs — Matisse had told his wife at the beginning of their courtship, “I love you, but I will always love painting more” — and in response to a lifetime of being misunderstood, he had taken to wearing tweed, fully buttoned up, for encounters with nosy foreigners, so the editor received, instead of a discussion of painting or a studio tour or a life story, fashion advice. Juror Ten liked to imagine that Matisse had been both ironic and sincere, when he suggested the young woman wear a yellow scarf to match her orange Balenciaga coat, for the young woman followed his advice, and, lo, that season in Paris she had her first great social success.   

Hercolani stopped by the open subway door. There was no pretense now—she stared right at him, and he looked, without fear, into her blue eyes.  She was holding the door open with a bare hand, and they remained in this pose for a moment.  Then, she turned, gathered her tweed skirt in her other hand, stepped briskly onto the platform, her blond hair falling to and fro, and disappeared from his life forever.

When he later thought back on his encounter with Hercolani, amazed that he had escaped unscathed, Juror Ten concluded it was his suit, as well as the prospect of meeting the mystery woman, that had protected him. But mostly the suit. He had been well armored for battle.

Good readers approach books with their entire being — to devour a book, Juror Ten believed it was literally true, that engaged reading was a physical activity, requiring participation of the entire body — perhaps she was a good reader? He angled himself left and leaned forward, slowing down his breathing, so he wouldn’t disturb her hair with his breath, or somehow tickle her neck, as much as he was tempted, and he noticed a good sign. She was pressing the tips of her slim, white fingers against the pages to mark her place on the line. A very good sign. She didn’t want to miss a word. 

“Do you think we’re going to start soon, mate?” asked the juror to his right.  

One could tell a lot about a woman from her taste in books. What was she reading? He couldn’t quite make out the title.

“I say, do you think…”

“I don’t know.”

After a moment’s pause, for dramatic effect, he added,

“Don’t touch me.”

His seat-mate quickly removed his hand from Juror Ten’s shoulder. He didn’t sound Australian, or look it, Juror Ten thought. Mate had a very intense look, with the obligatory intellectual’s goatee. What was with the fake, breezy cheeriness?

“Sorry, mate. But don’t you think it’s funny how lawyers don’t value our time as much as their own?” 

Juror Two laughed.

Maybe Mate had his eye on Juror Two? 

“What do you charge for your time, Ten?” She turned around in her seat. “Wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

***

Two hundred dollars an hour.

“You must understand, I’m not an escort. Not Full Service. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“When you arrive, you must first call me. Then I will tell you how to come to my room. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“What will you be wearing?”

“What will I be wearing?” Juror Ten looked quizzically at his phone, as though this mystery woman from the advertisement could see him. “Isn’t that a question I should be asking you?”

“Look, Funny Guy. Don’t mess with me, ok? What will you be wearing?”

“A grey overcoat and plaid scarf. Ferragamo shoes, if…”

“I’ll see you in one hour. Don’t be late. This hotel is very strict. We must be careful. You must not be late. Do you understand?”

Then, she hung up before he could respond.

Lips to kiss the snowflake
(Unreliable forecast)
Wake to lonely daybreak

Soulevons la paille
Regardons la neige
Écrivons des lettres
Attendons des ordres

Fumons la pipe
En songeant à l’amour
Les gabions sont là
Regardons la rose

La fontaine n’a pas tari
Pas plus que l’or de la paille ne s’est terni
Regardons l’abeille
Et ne songeons pas à l’avenir

Regardons nos mains
Qui sont la neige
La rose et l’abeille
Ainsi que l’avenir

Let’s lift up the straw
And look at the snow
And write some letters
Let’s wait for orders

We’ll smoke our pipes
And dream of love
The gabions are there
Let’s gaze at the rose

The fountain hasn’t dried up
Any more than the straw’s gold has dulled
Let’s look at the bee
But we’ll not dream of the future

Let’s stare at our hands
For they are the snow
The rose and the bee
As well as the future