“Governor Pyncheon” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (The House of the Seven Gables, Chapter XVIII: 1851)
“What is the hour? Ah! The watch has at least ceased to tick; for the Judge’s forgetful fingers neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten o’clock, being half-an-hour, or so, before his ordinary bed-time;-and it has run down, for the first time in five years. But the great world-clock of Time still keeps its beat.”
I’m definitely cheating on this one. Hawthorne has a bunch of great short stories (which I’ll certainly get around to before this quarantine is over), but I love this chapter enough to read it on its own from time to time. It does not require much context, beyond the obvious: Judge Pyncheon is dead. His sins have caught up with him. And yet the narrator of the novel spends the entire chapter trying to rouse him, describing each of the activities he was supposed to engage in during the day he is missing – from the mundane (shopping for a new horse) to the ironic (going to the doctor) to the culminating event of his life (being selected by his party to run for Governor, as the title of the chapter hints). But for all the urging of the narrator, Judge Pyncheon does not move or rouse. Despite his eminent importance, the world barely notices his absence. I admire this passage for its audacious approach (only Hawthorne could spend an entire chapter of a book describing the things a dead man is not doing), but also for the deft attacks Hawthorne makes on his character’s hypocrisy, selfishness, and blindness to the world around him. In doing so he humanizes his novel’s villain, drives home his villainy, and makes a powerful statement about mortality – all in one efficient, imaginative, and memorable little chapter.