Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale - Chapter 10 lyrics

Sometimes I sing to myself, in
My head something lugubrious, mournful
Presbyterian:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
Could save a wretch like me
Who once was lost, but now am found
Was bound, but now am free
I don't know if the words are right i can't
Remember such songs are not
Sung anymore in public
Especially the ones that use words like free
They are considered too dangerous they
Belong to outlawed sects
I feel so lonely, baby
I feel so lonely, baby
I feel so lonely I could die
This too is outlawed i know it
From an old cassettе tape
Of my mother's she had a
Scratchy and untrustworthy machinе, too
That could still play such things she


Used to put the tape on
When her friends came over and
They'd had a few drinks
I don't sing like this often
It makes my throat hurt
There isn't much music in this house
Except what we
Hear on the TV sometimes Rita will hum
While kneading or peeling: a wordless
Humming, tuneless
Unfathomable and sometimes from the
Front sitting room there will be the thin
Sound of Serena's voice, from a disc made
Long ago and played now with the volume low
So she won't be caught listening as she
Sit's in there knitting
Remembering her own former and
Now amputated glory: Hallelujah
It's warm for the time of year houses
Like this heat up in the sun
There's not enough insulation around
Me the air
Is stagnant, despite the little current
The breath coming in past
The curtains i'd like
To be able to open the window as
Wide as it could go soon we'll be
Allowed to change into the summer dresses
The summer dresses are unpacked
And hanging in
The closet, two of them, pure cotton
Which is better than synthetics like the
Cheaper ones, though even so
When it's muggy, in July and
August, you sweat inside them no
Worry about sunburn though
Said Aunt Lydia the spectacles
Women used to make
Of themselves oiling themselves
Like roast meat
On a spit, and bare backs and shoulders
On the street, in public, and legs
Not even stockings on them, no wonder
Those things used to happen things, the word
She used when whatever it stood for was
Too distasteful or filthy or horrible to
Pass her lips a successful life for
Her was one that avoided things
Excluded things such things do not
Happen to nice women
And not good for the complexion, not at all
Wrinkle you up like a
Dried apple but we weren't supposed to
Care about our complexions anymore
She'd forgotten that
In the park, said Aunt Lydia, lying on
Blankets, men and women together sometimes
And at that she began to cry, standing
Up there in front of us, in full view
I'm doing my best
She said i'm trying to give you
The best chance you can have
She blinked, the light was
Too strong for her
Her mouth trembled, around her front teeth
Teeth that stuck
Out a little and were long and yellowish
And I thought about the dead
Mice we would find
On the doorstep, when we lived in a house
All three of us, four counting our cat
Who was the one making these offerings
Aunt Lydia pressed her hand over
Her mouth of dead
Rodent after a minute she took her hand away
I wanted to cry too because
She reminded me if
Only she wouldn't eat half of them first
I said to Luke
Don't think it's easy for me either
Said Aunt Lydia

Moira, breezing into my room
Dropping her denim
Jacket on the floor got any cigs, she said
In my purse, I said no matches though
Moira rummages in my purse you should
Throw out some of this junk
She says i'm giving an underwhore party
A what? I say there's no point trying
To work, Moira won't allow it
She's like a cat that crawls onto the
Page when you're trying to read
You know, like Tupperware, only with
Underwear tarts' stuff lace crotches
Snap garters bras that push your tit's up she
Finds my lighter
Lights the cigarette she's extracted from my
Purse want one? Tosses the
Package, with great generosity
Considering they're mine thanks piles
I say sourly you're crazy where'd you
Get an idea like that?
Working my way through college
Says Moira i've got connections
Friends of my mother's it's
Big in the suburbs
Once they start getting age spots
They figure they've got to
Beat the competition the Pornomarts
And what have you
I'm laughing she always made me laugh
But here? I say who'll come? Who needs it?
You're never too young to learn
She says come on
It'll be great we'll all pee
In our pants laughing

Is that how we lived, then? But
We lived as usual everyone does, most of
The time whatever is going on is as
Usual even this is as usual, now
We lived, as usual, by ignoring ignoring
Isn't the same as ignorance
You have to work at it
Nothing changes instantaneously: in
A gradually heating
Bathtub you'd be boiled to death
Before you knew it there were stories
In the newspapers, of course
Corpses in ditches or the woods, bludgeoned
To death or mutilated, interfered with
As they used to say, but
They were about other women, and
The men who did such things were
Other men none of them were
The men we knew the newspaper stories
Were like dreams to us
Bad dreams dreamt by others how awful
We would say, and they were
But they were awful without being
Believable they were too melodramatic
They had a dimension that was not
The dimension of our lives
We were the people who were not in
The papers we lived in the
Blank white spaces at the edges of
Print it gave us more freedom
We lived in the gaps between the stories

From below, from the driveway
Comes the sound of the car being started
It's quiet in this area, there
Isn't a lot of traffic, you can hear things
Like that very clearly: car motors, lawn
Mowers, the clipping of a hedge, the
Slam of a door you could hear
A shout clearly, or a shot
If such noises were ever made here
Sometimes there are distant sirens
I go to the window and
Sit on the window seat
Which is too narrow for
Comfort there's a hard little cushion on it
With a petit point cover: FAITH
In square print, surrounded by a wreath of
Lilies fAITH is a faded blue, the
Leaves of the lilies a dingy green this
Is a cushion once used elsewhere
Worn but not enough to throw
Out somehow it's been overlooked
I can spend minutes, tens of minutes
Running my eyes over the print: FAITH it's
The only thing they've given me to read
If I were caught doing it
Would it count? I didn't put
The cushion here myself
The motor turns, and I lean forward
Pulling the white
Curtain across my face, like
A veil it's semisheer
I can see through it if I press my
Forehead against the glass and look down
I can see the back half of the
Whirlwind nobody is there
But as I watch I see Nick come around to
The back door of the car, open it
Stand stiffly beside it his cap is straight
Now and his sleeves rolled down
And buttoned i can't see his face
Because I'm looking down on him
Now the Commander is coming out i
Glimpse him only for an instant
Foreshortened, walking to the car he
Doesn't have his hat on
So it's not a formal event he's
Going to his hair is a gray silver
You might call it if you were
Being kind I don't feel like being kind
The one before this was bald
So I suppose he's an improvement
If I could spit, out the window, or
Throw something, the cushion for instance
I might be able to hit him moira and I
With paper bags filled with water water
Bombs, they were called leaning
Out my dorm window, dropping them
On the heads of the boys
Below it was Moira's idea
What were they trying to do? Climb a ladder
For something for our underwear
That dormitory had once been co-educational
There were still urinals in one of the
Washrooms on our floor but by
The time I'd got there they'd put
Things back the way they were
The Commander stoops, gets into
The car, disappears
And Nick shuts the door a
Moment later the car moves backward, down
The driveway and onto the street
And vanishes behind the hedge
I ought to feel hatred for this man
I know I ought to feel it
But it isn't what I do feel
What I feel is more complicated
Than that I don't know what to
Call it it isn't love