At Play in the Fields of the Lord

Boronai himself had given up the struggle and accepted death, and this quiet resignation of the flesh was instantly apparent to his fellows; from that moment on, the headman was no longer sick but dead, and was so referred to. “He is dead” meant “he is finished, he has given up.” By this criterion, Moon reflected, half the people he had known in li

How easily, in the absence of children, the whole experience of life became abstracted, a pattern of words and daydreams. Because the life in Billy was so fresh and immediate, he had served as a reminder of reality.

The numerals of the watch face, reading five-fifteen, glowed with chinks of light, as if time burning had been forced into the casing; its metal swelled and shimmered with constraint. At this, his chest began to tighten, and his breathing hurt the cold wound in his heart; he removed the watch, and holding it by one end of the strap, rapped it sharp

He glimpsed a hard light lucid region of his mind like a lone comet, wandering far out across the long night of the universe.

Disregarding this, Padre Xantes said, “Is it true that Moon is still alive? Amazing! Do you know, I was certain that this man must die even before he disappeared”—he puckered his thin mouth, musing—“because he makes bold to fly into the sun, into the face of God, one might almost say! What a fellow!” He laughed with admiration. “His friend, the mag

“I’ll tell you something else. I was naked, and I wasn’t ashamed. Am I a sinner, Martin? Am I a sinner then?” More quietly she said, “Maybe it was because he was naked too, because he belonged there where he was, with the fish and leaves and sun, with that emerald bird. For the first time the jungle seemed like paradise, bugs, heat, mud, and all, a

Quarrier raised his eyebrows, as if to try them out. When Moon lifted his head, a near smile came to his lips; he actually gave a bubbly cough of laughter. “Martin Quarrier, evangelist,” he said, “martyred by savages in the service of the Lord.” He looked pleadingly at Moon. “Yes,” Moon said, turning his head away.

The weakest and most opportunistic people in a wild tribe were those who prospered under the white man—a fact no less true because Lewis Moon, in their conversation that night in Madre de Dios, had made this point.

Quite apart from her grief, Hazel was torn in half by loyalty to her marriage vows on the one hand, and by a vengeful resentment, a lack of respect for him, on the other; she would leave him if she had the courage, if she didn’t feel that search for happiness on earth must be immoral. He would leave her too, as perhaps Andy might leave Leslie, but