DRIVING
By Alison Armstrong
“It is not the destination but the journey
that counts.” Leonard Woolf wrote that. I’m not a
cynical man, but I think he got it from somebody
else.
My only journeys now are to Maine. I enjoy
driving. In fact, it is right up there with fly-
fishing: mind free, and out of reach of the world.
But I let you in whenever you care to accompany me.
You know I always do. You always knew I would.
Twelve hours door to door from the West End
Avenue apartment to the quiet side of Mount Desert
Island. Bass Harbor to be accurate. And then a bit
onwards to Pretty Marsh. I like the scenic route,
going. Take the shortcut to Somesville on the
return. Bill and Clarence are up there already. At
our camp, my paradise. Well, really, a rambling
colonial house that was once in my family. We all
share it now, as a home base away from our homes.
From there, Seal Cove and Bass are our usual
fishing spots. And sometimes we row out to Gotts
Island for mussels picked fresh right off the pink
rocks at low tide. We used to dive for sea
urchins, too, when we were young, but now we are
getting on. All that gear too much of an effort for
us retired city guys. Bill’s still a banker,
Clarence a journalist, and me, Prof. Emeritus of
English and Comp. Lit., Columbia, as you well know.
Bill remains the happy bachelor. Reared on Maine
summers, as you know, with that large banking
family of his. He likes to revert to being the Down
Easter. Big bucks. Clarence, as traveling
journalist, never had much to do with his wife; we
hardly saw her socially, at any rate. Kept her off
to the side, you might say. And me with my Mary.
She stopped coming up with me years ago, when
grandkids and her volunteer work in the city seemed
to interest her more than rattling around in our
big house and cleaning whatever we caught. After I
load the Jeep I drive a couple of hours northeast
out of the city, make a pit stop around Danbury,
depending on weather and traffic. Then I augment
the food situation with things Mary will never pack
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for me. Those long sticks of spiced beef jerky,
corn chips, chocolate bars…the sort of things you
can eat with one hand while driving. And a couple
of fat cigars.
After that, I sometimes pee into a jar— the flow
of my thoughts, so to speak. That way I can pull in
right on the dot. We three make bets on my arrival
time. I phone from the apartment just as I’m making
the last trip down to the car. I like to keep to
my record of twelve hours, door to door. After
Danbury the mind is free. No stops then but for gas
at those few remaining full service stations. And
the quick stop in New Hampshire for discount booze.
They rely on me to replenish the liquor stash at
the house, you know. Glenlivet for Bill, Bushmills
for Clarence, John Jameson for me. Drive right up
to the loading dock and the boys bring out the
cases. No need to get out of the car or to break
the reverie, so to speak.
But I am so glad you are driving with me now,
Martha. Seems the only time I can really unburden
myself is when you are beside me. You don’t always
show up, you know. Now that you are safely laid to
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rest, you are with me more than ever. Or is it
only that I finally feel in control behind the
wheel again? This old Jeep and I have been together
so long we’ve exchanged molecules, like the
bicycles in The Third Policeman. As if we were one body
Good of you to turn up like this. [Keep this.]
Can’t wait to stand on the rocks at Seal.
Listen to the waves coming in, and going out. “That
long withdrawing roar….” You remember? Makes me
think of all we’ve experienced, memories washing
back in, and then withdrawing out to sea, that Sea
of Faith. Uh, here, …will you hand me that empty
jar, darlin’? There, the tall…never mind. I can
reach it— just. Soon as I get round this truck. Ha-
ha! Piece of cake. Ahhh…pissing into the wind at
seventy miles an hour, so to speak. Ahhhh. There.
Now, Martha dear, take a gander at that. Remember
this ole one-eyed snake, eh? We did have some
wonderful moments, just the three of us, eh? [THE
VOICE SEEMS DIFFERENT HERE—WHY SO COUNTRIFIED? It
is. Because he is reminiscing in the language they
used with each other. Keep this.]
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Now, then, where was I? Where am I? When we
get to Belfast I’m going to fly right by. No
sentimental stops on this trip. Not even—especially
not—that lovely little colonial with the faux
paintings around the fireplaces, wide pumpkin pine
floor boards, and that terrific attached barn at
Swan Lake we took while my Mary was down in Florida
tending her dying parents. [Keep this.] You
painted in that barn or in the field beyond, filled
with yellow flowers. That was paradise. Now the
lake is too noisy with those rowdy young people.
Swan Lake, indeed. Anyhow, you were no longer
available after that. Thanks to Bill…. [I shortened
the above lines.]
But my Mary, she’s a good little woman. I
think she never knew a thing. After I got so sick
missing you she nursed me back to some sort of
sanity. I quite lost my head there for a while. But
then there was the absence of you. [Keep this.]
[This “Absence of Presence” that was here was lit’y
theory talk of the time! The 1980s.] Our years of
weekday afternoon trysts: paradise perduto. [I
shortened as suggested]
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You asked me to lunch in midtown. Remember
how you did it? Needed to talk in the middle of the
day about something you said was important.
Remember? I could have killed you! Bill, of all
people. You said you were tired of being my “back-
street woman” (pace Fanny Hurst), that you were no
longer happy in our “illicit affair.” That’s how
you spoke. Said you wanted marriage. To Bill. My
buddy. Said you wanted someone to “build a life
with.” Damn. And so you did. For a while. Didn’t
last, though, did it!
It seems I am in love with a ghost. Not
unusual for a man my age. The ghost of our love, or
at least of my love…. No, not unusual. Friends and
loved ones drop away like the “sere and yellow
leaf” of the Bard. I too am about to drop off. To
sleep. Perchance to…. [I changed as suggested.]
Must keep both eyes on the road. Though I could
gaze upon your lovely face all day, Martha, for
that eternal moment when you smile back at me with
your two glancing eyes.
We’ll turn up that radio. Talking heads.
Interviewing David of the “Talking Heads”—would
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rather hear the music. Me, I’m a talking head, all
my life. And then there is the taking of heads….
The Celts did it, my tribal ancestors. Irish
warriors in the days of Cuchulain, who tied their
enemies’ heads to their horses’ harness, then set
them up on poles by their doors. Then there was
the Welsh Bran, the godlike giant whose talking-
head-on-a-platter traveled by boat to Ireland and
back to Wales. Better off than old John the
Baptist, eh?
And then the guillotine. They say it has been
proven the head retains consciousness after it’s
been severed from the body. [GOOD—ILLUSTRATES THE
THEME/ENHANCES THE STORY] [Thanks, yes.] Death
isn’t absolute when the head rolls along, as did
poor Mary Queen of Scots’, or bounces into a
basket. All those disembodied faces staring at each
other, mouths working, grinding their teeth in
inarticulate agonies. Still some electrical juices
left in the brain.
In an experiment I read about, two
Enlightenment philosophers agreed that when the one
lost his head he’d keep blinking, while his friend
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recorded the number of blinks and timed with his
watch. There were over twenty blinks. Augenblicken.
Moments between living and dying. To know, as a
severed head, that the situation is irreversible.
How ghastly. Or, perhaps a comfort? No more
responsibilities, at any rate. Makes one shudder to
think on it.
Is our head the seat of the soul? Might be
why some cannibals like brain best. They take on
the power and wisdom of the person. Or was it just
for the flavor? And the shrinking of heads, say,
in the Amazon. To diminish the power of the
original owners? Or for easy storage? And then
there was Willy Yeats’ “A Severed Head.” And his
notion of “dreaming back.” Ever read that late
play of his? Old father, his hated son, the
mother’s ghost in a window of a house fallen into
ruin, pacing where no floorboards remain, dreaming
back eternally over her betrayed life?
Do I bore you, my dear? I can see through
you, you know. You are transparent.
I’m full of stories, others’ stories. Yes,
stories in literature are our stories, too.
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Universals. Archetypes. Cliches. [Add this.]
Literature makes order out of the chaos of life. I
used to talk quite a lot in my classes about
Universals, what makes great literature last…. Am
I rambling, my dear? Sometimes I really seem to
[Add this.] lose my head.
Very well, perhaps I ramble. But really I am
mentally walking around. My identity. No. Beyond
that. The essence of the nature of what it is to be
human. But, when I discover or uncover that –
alethea – will there be nothing left to think about,
nothing to discuss? Nothing to recount or rehash.
Language, in its more artistic forms, to which I
have devoted my professorial life, will then have
become superfluous and there can be no “story.” And
stories are what we crave. The form of a story, the
working out of details that pull our emotions into
a shape we can contemplate. Like sculpture, or a
veil between us and utter reality. What Eliot
said: “man cannot bear very much reality.” And so
we drive through clouds of verbiage; words can
bring alive anything, anything we can imagine.
[BRILLIANT SECTION!] [Thanks. My prof. does like
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to hear himself talk, including the clichés, the
tics, playing with countrified phrases.]
Oh, well, let’s change the radio station,
then. But I am not about to drop the subject.
Clever. No. Wise of you to pick a public
place, a fancy crowded restaurant in midtown for
your pronouncement. No scene from me, anyhow. What
could I do but talk, eat, drink, talk. That’s about
all I ever did anyway. Talk and project hopeless
notions and daydreams of what might be or might
have been for us. You wanted more and had found
your chance. “A partner in life,” I think was your
phrase.
I say, will you look at that! Genuine
Airstream. Big one, too. Always fancied owning
one. Dear Mary, however, never was a fan of camping
nor of travel. She put the kibosh on that scheme.
Like Odysseus, I yearned for adventurous journeys;
metaphorically slaying enemies, sacking cities,
outwitting monsters, conversing with gods.
Actually, it appeared that he didn’t relish having
to leave home and do all that; otherwise, he
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wouldn’t have come up with that Trojan horse idea.
He just wanted to get home to Ithaca and stay
there, in his kingdom with his family. I need
another analogy.
Faithful comrades he had, though, as do I. In
the end, it’s the men who stick together. At least
nowadays. Even Bill and I.
Odysseus’ enemy was Poseidon, god of the sea.
The sea personified.
I love the sea. Boats creaking, endless music
of water, the play of light and dark. Distant
wheezing of dolphins in the evening. I am nothing
like Odysseus, except in one way. Both of us
learned, in the end, humility.
Even Bill and I, after you were gone from both
of us, reforged our comradeship in grief and the
old mutual interests. Besides, his family for a
time owned my family house at Pretty Marsh before
the three of us, taking in Clarence, formed a joint
ownership, a Rights of Survivorship agreement. Last
one standing gets it all. So to speak.
Wonder what Clarence will cook up for our
dinner, my welcome back feast. Not fish, I hope.
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Leg of lamb would be nice, with saffron and rice.
And a few bottles of Coastal Red. Recall once he
gave us seal flippers. That’s right. Pan-fried,
dredged in flour and butter. Not our seals, of
course. Got ‘em frozen by airmail from a cousin in
St. John, some Jackie Tar of a long-lost relative
who could fiddle like the devil. A fellow Acadian.
Sending coals to Newcastle. Once you cut away the
meat, there were the bones like fingers of a
severed hand on your plate. Hail and farewell, a
seal’s fate, sealed. [TERRIFIC PARAGRAPH] [Thanks
again.]
And so, my dear, you went off to marry Bill, and
I continued on with my Mary. As if nothing had
happened. She never guessed. Although I sometimes
wonder. After all, I went into a serious funk and
had to explain it away to her. How could you? Bill,
of all people, that confirmed bachelor. After a few
years, of course, he wanted a divorce. Or did you?
But I’m lapsing into fantasy. Bad habit of mine,
working on hypotheses, reacting emotionally to
unproved premises . . .
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And then when you were lost again, in that
sailing accident…. No. You survived that. Then got
so sick afterwards. I couldn’t bear it that you
were suffering so. Just a simple pressure of the
soft pillow for a little space of time. To take
away your inspiration.
Anyway, won’t you look at that roadkill?
State should set up schools to teach critters to
look both ways before crossing. Or are they
suicidal creatures, rushing from the safety of the
trees into the paths of our metal monsters?
Kamikaze raccoons, possums, deer, coyotes, dogs and
cats, groundhogs, squirrels…snakes even. You never
see a mountain lion lying dead by the side of the
road.
And so, my dear, why did you leave me? Was
Bill a convenient “out?” Before Bill, I could
always lure you back, I the skilled angler. Yet
after Bill, you never took up with me again. Said I
was too mechanical regarding sex. Said I was not
erotic or sensual. I didn’t know what the hell you
were talking about. Said you wanted passion. Well,
I needed you passionately, but you called it lust.
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Just wordplay? But actions speak. Louder than
words. And we never had…what? You wanted more but
not from me? I wanted more. Of you. But upsetting my
life, dear Mary, all our settled arrangements, was
out of the question. Would I take the chance and do
it all differently? If we could turn back the
clock? I’d have to be a different kind of man to do
that. And that is what you really wanted. A
sensuous, erotic, passionate man. Which I really
did think I was. But you said it was just
neediness, emotional greed on my part. A hedge
against old age. An illusion to keep death out of
the mirror. That you were a feather in my cap to
show off to pals and discrete colleagues. My secret
love. We: not a couple, not “legitimate,” not
enough for you. You had no spouse waiting at home,
as did I. No cushion, no complacency of sharing the
home fires with a trusted mate. No one to share
holidays and weekends. I could see your point. But
what else could I do, what else should I have done?
I had only good will toward you, always. You do
know that, don’t you? I Just couldn’t bear to see
you suffer so…. Oh yes, I, the experienced angler,
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could always reel you back in when you pulled away.
Until you swam away for good. You couldn’t bear it
anymore….
What are you doing, dear? Can’t see the road
with your head in front of mine. What, a kiss? Oh,
a kiss. So deep, as if you and I were exchanging
our very essence. You do take my breath away, more
than ever. You darling girl. You never kissed me
like this before, with open mouth.
You wanted me to understand your world, but
all I did was talk to you about mine. Except in a
few instances. I recall you describing weekends
painting alone in your studio…. You said, “As the
bow approaches the strings of its violin, so the
brush edge gently, surely attacks the line on its
canvas.” The sensuousness of making. And I wondered
how you could keep all your knowledge and abilities
in your head, the music, the painting. You said
that the painting, the music, was in your fingers,
that the body remembers….
Oh, go away so I can think in peace. Am I
thinking aloud, or am I speaking silently? Free-
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associating. Just when I get to a point of touching
on something important…. You are listening, at any
rate. Always listening and looking at me like that.
No helpful suggestions, Martha? No anecdotes to
distract me? Remember how I used to sing to you,
from that opera, “Martha?” Mar-tha, Mar-tha, I am call-
ing…do, deedee da do de daaaa. You got tired of that,
too, after a few years.
Yes, we are well on our way. Time for the
first of two forbidden cigars. From the Danbury pit
stop.
Ahhhhh…. Love that first hot spicy hit,
smoke rolling around in the mouth and out the
nostrils. Attempt a smoke ring, once it gets going.
Stinging haze. What was it Mallarme said, about his
cigarette smoking? He wanted to put a little veil
between himself and reality. Symboliste. Living in
one’s head. or mind. All anyone does, really.
And who am I in my head? A collection of
quotes? A mélange of memories? Hank. Me. Howell
Evans, Professor Emeritus. Retired. Just plain
Hank, now. Cannot know the self except in
relationship with others, the world. Who said that?
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As we cannot perceive light except as reflections
from particles in space? I like the analogy at any
rate.
Strange, feel as though I’ve quite lost my
head, my train of thought.
Seems we have all we need, now. Whiskey in the
back, more than enough snacks…where was I?
Particles in space, you and I, reflecting light….
Light of my life.
Kittery! There’s the sign: “Welcome to Maine
the Way Life Should Be.” Life.
Wonder if Clarence has started on the
brightwork. We left the deck untouched under the
tarp, and that old canvas tonneau cover hasn’t been
taken off for two years. You know we found the old
Hirschoff catboat in a barn and got it for a song.
Now comes the work. Could take the rest of our
lives. But the kayaks and canoe will be fine.
unless the mothballs evaporated in a wet spell.
Tackle boxes, waders full of mouse nests, no doubt.
Can’t wait to get there. My old home. Then his. Now
ours. But what is “mine?” What can we own except
our experiences?
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Persons in literature are called “characters,”
but they are as real as the people we’ve known in
life who are not now alive. But they are not dead,
either, while they inhabit our imaginations. Molly
and Leopold Bloom are more real to most Joyceans
than their own neighbors. These “characters” and
even the neighbors, are not ours except in the mind,
the spirit, in their effects on us and ours on
them. We cannot own them: they possess us.
Ellsworth. Tricky curves here. Won’t be long
now, dear darlin’. Past the Roadkill Café, over
the water onto Mount D, soon along Somes fjord,
through Southwest, by Seawall and Bass. Remind me
to check the clock then.
Red setting sun beyond the Causeway off to
your right. See, Martha? Sun sets late up here in
summer. Red Maine light is glowing like a halo
around and through you. My dear, you are the
light!
The sea, the sea! Now we are really where we
want to be, my dear. Look, waves crashing at Sea
Wall. Tide’ll be coming in at Bass. And at Seal.
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Should pull into Greater Downtown Pretty Marsh on
the dot and win my bet. Twelve hours door to door
with a few minutes to spare. If I can just get
through…. Got to ease up on the gas pedal, though.
Never know what might obstruct the roadway,
trailers coming out of put-ins, locals making those
unnecessarily wide slow turns, like this old coot
ahead of us in his rickety pickup full of old
lobster traps. Something could fall off onto the
road. You see? I’m looking ahead, straight ahead,
and not only into the past. When we were happy
together. Yes, we were.
Dear child. Oh, I know you were only twenty
years younger and a grown woman. So now you know my
true age! But I always saw you as an innocent, good
soul who needed my help, who needed me. Yes, and so
I tried to help, to make you somewhat dependent.
Not completely, of course. But enough so you
wouldn’t pull away.
I could have killed you for putting an end to
that happiness, that delight! And for the
humiliation I felt. I felt, Who the hell did she
think she was, eh? You knew who I was, my career, my
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reputation. Oh, yes, you had your own skills and
successes and important friends, too. But dammit,
I was a giant in my field. And a man. And you, the
little woman. Or not so little. Your life before
me, young motherhood, early widowhood, your past
pains, joys, griefs—experiences beyond my
imagination or interest. You said my “lack of
experience” was an invisible wedge between us.
Well, it was you who put it there! I was interested
in a good time, in giving you a good time,
distractions from work and cares. I wanted us to
feel young together and part of something special.
I wished you only happy thoughts and you threw them
back in my face! I could have killed you!
Nice and easy does it, Hank. Do you never stop
smiling, my dear?
Yes, I see now. We are together again and now
nothing can change it.
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Here we are. See, Bill’s fancy car’s there,
Clarence’s truck, too.
Better go, Martha, dear. But wait. Before you
do, I want you to know that I am a happy man, now.
A content man. Back in paradise. That’s right….
Be seeing you….
“There he is!” Bill is shouting from the
porch. “Hey Clarence, he’s right on time, just
before dark.”
Clarence is putting his face up to my window
and staring. He wants me to get out. “Unlock the
damn door, Hank! Come on, ole Buddy.”
My hands are frozen against the steering
wheel.
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“Hank! Get outta the goddamn car!” Now he is
yelling, steaming up the cold glass. “Hey, he’s
just sittin’ there, staring straight ahead.”
The three of them are rocking the Jeep, trying
to wake me up, they say. I don’t want to get out,
don’t want to move. So good to gaze once more at
the rhythmic heaving ocean: the Cove, our wine-dark
sea.
#
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Now Bill is striding across the lawn with a tall
drink in one hand and one of those darned cell
phones…. You’d think he’d leave that thing in the
city instead of bringing it up to our retreat.
I hear a voice and Bill is walking past me to a
car behind. Sheriff Lunt. Didn’t even notice him.
“Hey, Bill. How’re things? Hank just up here
from away, then? Saw him run a red light back at
Southwest. Couldn’t get his attention—not with
siren, nor bull horn. Recognized New York vanity
plate there, knew it was Hank, so just followed him
on out here. Strange kinda fella. Always
preoccupied, like. Seemed to be someone sittin’
there beside him, too, but neither of ‘em turned to
look and I stayed right on his tail. He just kept
on driving.”
When they break my window to get at the lock some
of those little blue-green bits of crystal fly into
my ear and down the back of my neck. Like cold
stinging sea spray.
And Sheriff Lunt, he is looking too long into my
face; he is blocking my view. “Cold and stiff as a
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mackerel, boys. He must’a been dead for a good few
hours,” says Lunt. “Well whadaya know.”
“Then how’d he get here? Hey? Bill? He just
pulled in. I saw him,” says Clarence. “And look-
ee here, receipt for the booze on the seat, dated
today, about six hours ago.”
“His pecker’s out,” says Bill.
“Well whadaya know,” says Lunt, pulling his fat
walrus face away from mine and turning to look at
Bill over his shoulder who’s trying to push him
aside to get a closer look in at me.
“Didn’t even hear him pull in,” says Bill.
“Yeah, he just pulled in real quiet like,” says
Clarence.
“Look there,” says Lunt, “he’s outa gas. In more
ways than one.”
“Well, he must’ve had other things on his mind,”
says Bill. “Still, he always was a wicked good
driver, our Hank.”
They are breaking my fingers to release my grip
on the wheel and I don’t feel a thing.
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Yes, Edwin I am ending as you suggest with the Homeric allusion which works nicely with the previous hidden reference to Sophocles embedded in Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (Sophocles too heard iton the Aegeian…that eternal note of sadness, etc. etc.) The Sea is thus heightened in importance. However I did have fun writing that last (now deleted) bit with the ref. to the Maine guys. My brief bio is at the very end, below. --AA
[EVERYTHING HIGHLIGHTED AT THE VERY END I THINK CANBE CUT OUT—WHY NOT END IT AT “WINE-DARK SEA” AN ALLUSION TO HOMER IS ALSO A BEAUTIFUL ALLUSION TO THE END OF A JOURNEY—HIS DEATH. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE SPELLED OUT. HENRY JAMES NEVER DID IN HIS GHOST STORIES, RIGHT?]
PLEASE LOOK OVER THE EDITS, AND GET BACK TO ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, AS I’D LIKE TO HAVE THE FIRST ISSUE OUT BY THE END OF THIS WEEK. I THINK THIS IS A TIGHTLY WRITTEN PIECE OF WORK, WHICH TAKES SOME UNTANGLING ON THE READER’S PART—ALL TO THE GOOD. PLEASE SEND ME A BIO AS WELL—NO MORE THAN THREE LINES, PLEASE.
BEST,EDWIN
BIO:Alison Armstrong has published short fiction, poetry, essays, art and literary criticism since the 1970s and two books, The Joyce of Cooking (1986) and a volume of textual scholarship (1993) in the
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