Mr. Potter Read Free

Empire was not ashamed to publicize itself, but Mr. Potter could not read, not a map, not anything else.
    All turns in the road harbor death, thought Dr. Weizenger; any turn in the road might lead to death, thought Dr. Weizenger; but the roads to death so far had been accompanied by fog. “Radiant” and then “radiance,” thought Dr. Weizenger to himself, and he thought this so deeply that he did not know that the words had crossed his mind. But he was standing in the middle of that light coming from that sun that shone from the middle of that sky, so harshly and it was even so, the middle of the day. “Radiance” and then “radiant,” thought Dr. Weizenger, only he said these two words to himself in another language, not the English that Mr. Potter could understand but not read; he said these words in a language that Mr. Potter had never heard, and when Mr. Potter heard
Dr. Weizenger speak, he thought to himself that it was as if Dr. Weizenger came from some other form of humanity, people like that—Dr. Weizenger—cannot even speak properly, so said Mr. Potter to himself. And again, “Radiant” and “radiance,” thought Dr. Weizenger, the two words now spinning around in his head; he was thinking of how beautiful light of any kind was and how brightness was better than darkness, and how light itself was the cure for the dark, everything he knew had told him so, all the things he had abandoned had told him that the light was the enemy of the dark and all the things he had come to embrace had insisted that only the light was a prescription for the dark. “Radiant, so radiant,” said Dr. Weizenger loudly, but only he could hear himself say it; “and all the goodness in the world, and that goodness is small, and all the evil in the world, and that evil is enormous, is transformed by this radiance and the world then becomes, finally, not indifferent to good or evil, for one is embraced and the other is rejected, such is the power of this radiant light.” And Dr. Weizenger was saying all this to himself very loudly, so loudly and yet only he could hear himself say it. And Dr. Weizenger looked at Mr. Potter and Mr. Potter thought to himself, Now this man who cannot speak properly is angry with me, now he is pleased with me, now he is both at the same time.

    And so Dr. Weizenger looked at Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter standing in the light of the sun, the sun eternally bright, the sun the very definition of light, the sunlight to which all light bowed, light that was itself and also a metaphor for all other aspiring forms of brightness. But the light in which Mr. Potter stood was not radiant, it was only the sun shining down in its usual way, a way familiar to Mr. Potter yet so unfamiliar and then so disappointing to Dr. Weizenger. And so May said, “Well!” and she meant by this that everything was in its place and so everything should then go ahead, proceed, for there were no impediments that her authority could not subdue, and she said “Well!” and “Well!” again. And Dr. Weizenger was thinking how beautiful light of any kind was, light that did not come from a furnace, a real furnace fed by the fuel of coal or human bodies; light, real light, with its opposite being darkness, real darkness, not a metaphor for the darkness from which Mr. Potter and his ancestors had come.
    And the bright light, thought Mr. Potter, was far, far too much (but Mr. Potter’s thoughts at that time were not separate from him, Mr. Potter’s thoughts and himself were one), and he longed for some protection for his eyes, he longed for some protection for his entire being, but there was none that he had ever heard of. And Mr. Potter squeezed his high-set cheekbones and his low-set brows toward each other into that
thing called a squint, and he thought such a thing as a squint was unique to him; he did not know that other human beings might respond in that way