Excerpt from Jack by Marilynne Robinson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

So he said, "That sounded harsher than I meant it to. That was the wrong word. I didn't mean to be harsh at all. I just meant to say I appreciate it when you talk."

After a minute, she said, "You know what I think? I think Polonius misreads that letter, the vile phrase. I think Hamlet wrote 'beatified.' Not 'beautified.' But there's no way to know."

"True. Yes. High-minded conversation. Nothing more about socks or shirt buttons. Fraying of the cuffs. Holes in the pockets. Those three dollars."

Silence.

"Besides," he said, "Hamlet didn't write the letter. I mean, there was no letter. There's only what Polonius says it says."

"Shakespeare could have wanted the audience to know Polonius gets it wrong. He gets things wrong all the time. But I said there's no way to know."

"Yes. That isn't quite the same." That sounded cross.

Silence.

He had let himself feel concealed by the darkness, as if only a rough sketch of him, so to speak, the general outline of a presentable man, would be walking along beside her. But she knew what he was and nothing was concealed, and there was the night to get through, an ordeal now. She took her hand from his arm.

She said, "Have you ever thought of using a word like 'listening,' or 'murmuring,' in that couplet? Instead of a one-syllable word?"

"Yes," he said. "I have."

Silence. Then she said, "I offended you. I'm sorry."

These sensitivities of his. He might have said goodbye and walked away if they had not been together in a cemetery in the middle of the night. He was at least too much a gentleman to leave her there, or even to suggest that he might leave her there, or to remind her that she was indebted to his good nature in keeping her company, though the thought did occur to him. Easy enough to disappear among the headstones. The looming obelisks. T

Excerpted from Jack by Marilynne Robinson. Copyright © 2020 by Marilynne Robinson. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.