Theory of Slavery | Hamilton

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Now I am ready to admit that I was coming to him not because of the boring books or sweet tea; I was coming because of him.

He was a true middle-aged rough-neck insofar as that, though he could be lively and engaging when it suited him, he became insufferably dull and wearisome as soon as ever the need for being lively and engaging had passed. His trivial imagination always assumed a foolish, unnatural vein, for the reason that it was compounded of trite, hackneyed forms. Although he believed that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he attended all the symphonic and jazz concerts. He didn't write books nor poems, and his taste in literature was akin to that of an old essayist. He could not endure solitude and was always craving for amusement. One had always to repeat to him some anecdote, and every day a new one. In other words, I saw him as the most boring person alive.

However, there was something in those evenings that I positively liked. He spoke to me in a friendly voice, asked me questions, and listened to my answers. He allowed me to make jokes, and sometimes even laughed at them. His intentions remained a mystery: I hadn't forgotten about the incident and reminded myself of it every day before going to him. But could have possibly been the point in that? Hamilton did not show any symptoms of his illness for a week, and I had to accept that perhaps he had simply drunk himself out of his senses and confused me with a woman. I tried not to think about the forbidden pornography that I found in the library.

He, too, knew it all in some curious way; the thought that I was fully conscious of his inaccessibility and of the absurdity of the situation, afforded him, I am certain, the keenest possible pleasure. Otherwise, is it likely that he, the cautious and calculating man that he was, would have indulged in this familiarity and openness with a slave? Hitherto (I concluded) he had looked upon me in the same light that the old Empress did upon her servant—the Empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself before her slave, since she did not account a slave a man. (Yes, he must have taken me for something less than a man, even if he was pretending) .

I glanced up and saw altogether near me the dark, uncanny eyes. He scrutinized me intently, squinting. From time to time, in between conversations, he would start inspecting me from head to feet, as though through an imaginary lorgnette; directing over me a distracted glance which said nothing. I do not know where this habit of his came from. I could always point it out but my manners would not allow me. I was feeling upon myself, upon my face, upon my entire body, this intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch my face and tickle it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub against a tire. All of a sudden I felt as if something bit me and I went red.

"Ah... Eh, what are you reading?" I asked coarsely and clumsily.

Hamilton came to his senses and glanced at the book which lay on his lap.

"Works and Days," he answered absently. "Vox populi vox Dei, or something of the sort." 

"Sounds interesting".  

He looked at me in confusion.

"Why, you have read it before."    

"Me? When?"    

"Well, I don't know. You have told me that you read it in your teens. We just discussed it, did we not?"

The realization struck me; I got caught in a lie.

"Ah, right, Heysod..."

"Hesiod." 

I had begun my sage discourse partly to make an effect before him and was certainly somewhat mortified. I never read Hesiod and knew nothing of his poems.