Sublime

Quite a strange man, thought James, watching him go – but what a relief to discover he still contained the capacity to be taken by surprise.

paradox of identity that Du Bois had made famous among Negro intellectuals more than forty years earlier: “One ever feels his twoness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings…”

Standing by the window, he was aware of the street below and the darkness of it, thick with vengeance and violence.

All around her spreads one single male whose genetically identical trunks cover more than a hundred acres. The thing is outlandish, beyond her ability to wrap her head around. But

In many classic short stories, the real action occurs in the silences.