B1The Plank WalkChapter I · The WaterThe opening image of the book and the one that pays off fifty-four years later. Nobody in it is frightened; they are inconvenienced and interested.B2Nine DaysChapter I · The WaterThe first of the two water images, and the one the last chapter of the book rhymes with exactly. She is good at it because she can see which person in a line is about to drop something, and she is always standing next to that one.1·01Nine Miles Short and Standing StillChapter I · The WaterTwo hundred and ninety-nine years after a wet valley road, and it has become a joke they can both operate.2·01Portland Was Under the River and Open for BusinessChapter I · The WaterA grocer had moved his entire stock up a floor and hung a sign out the window saying so.2·02They Are Marking it While it is Still RisingChapter I · The WaterAn object image. A painted line and a date on wet brick with the water still against it.
A1The Good TableChapter II · Cousins by MarriageVal has been standing in front of that table for rather longer than four minutes and is not going to say why. Fourteen years later she will buy it off a dead woman’s son for nine dollars rather than let it go.v2A1The Good TableChapter II · Cousins by MarriageVal has been standing in front of that table for rather longer than four minutes and is not going to say why. Fourteen years later she will buy it off a dead woman’s son for nine dollars rather than let it go.v3A1The Good TableChapter II · Cousins by MarriageVal has been standing in front of that table for rather longer than four minutes and is not going to say why. Fourteen years later she will buy it off a dead woman’s son for nine dollars rather than let it go.B3CousinsChapter II · Cousins by MarriageKyra does not react in any way a man with a printed form would notice, which is a skill she has been practicing since before the Thirty Years’ War. The whole image is her not reacting.1·02By MarriageChapter II · Cousins by MarriageAnd Kyra laughed, up out of the middle of her, and went on up the stairs, and they had both been doing exactly this since a stone house in Maribor.
A2Nothing from New BedfordChapter III · New BedfordThe private phrase is born twice in one chapter — once as a joke over the post, and once here, where Val uses it to ask for something. The image is the second of half a second: Kyra with the plates still in her hands, having understood.v2A2Nothing from New BedfordChapter III · New BedfordThe private phrase is born twice in one chapter — once as a joke over the post, and once here, where Val uses it to ask for something. The image is the second of half a second: Kyra with the plates still in her hands, having understood.v3A2Nothing from New BedfordChapter III · New BedfordThe private phrase is born twice in one chapter — once as a joke over the post, and once here, where Val uses it to ask for something. The image is the second of half a second: Kyra with the plates still in her hands, having understood.B4The Rack Behind the CounterChapter III · New BedfordThe friendship that breaks a two-hundred-and-ninety-year rule begins with a woman selling Val the correct ledger, a worse ledger she recommends against, and a London quarterly that arrives four months late.2·03Do You Keep BooksChapter III · New BedfordVal went in for a ledger and came out forty minutes later having been sold the correct ledger, a worse ledger at half the price which the woman had recommended against, and a subscription to a scientific quarterly out of London.
A3Six, Sometimes SevenChapter IV · What It Looked LikeThe light comes up at the wrists while Val is not answering a question. It is the first time in this book that it shows in daylight, and neither woman remarks on it. Use the traits block.v2A3Six, Sometimes SevenChapter IV · What It Looked LikeThe light comes up at the wrists while Val is not answering a question. It is the first time in this book that it shows in daylight, and neither woman remarks on it. Use the traits block.v3A3Six, Sometimes SevenChapter IV · What It Looked LikeThe light comes up at the wrists while Val is not answering a question. It is the first time in this book that it shows in daylight, and neither woman remarks on it. Use the traits block.1·03Six Sometimes SevenChapter IV · What It Looked LikeKyra moved her knees without being asked so that Val could sit down at the end of the sofa, and then put her feet back where they had been, which was in Val's lap. Val put her hand flat on an ankle, warming it, which was how that had started about eighty years ago.
A4I Wasn’t CountingChapter V · The AccountThe account asked for and, after a considerable pause, given — four words long and with no numbers in it, from the most exact woman on two planets. The scene is entirely the two faces and the ceiling. Use the traits block.v2A4I Wasn’t CountingChapter V · The AccountThe account asked for and, after a considerable pause, given — four words long and with no numbers in it, from the most exact woman on two planets. The scene is entirely the two faces and the ceiling. Use the traits block.v3A4I Wasn’t CountingChapter V · The AccountThe account asked for and, after a considerable pause, given — four words long and with no numbers in it, from the most exact woman on two planets. The scene is entirely the two faces and the ceiling. Use the traits block.A5To a Chest of DrawersChapter V · The AccountNo touching. For two hundred and ninety years she has decided in advance and carried it under an ordinary face; this is the morning she notices she did not, and reports it to the furniture. Kyra has known since the night before and has spent the whole of it deciding not to say so.v2A5To a Chest of DrawersChapter V · The AccountNo touching. For two hundred and ninety years she has decided in advance and carried it under an ordinary face; this is the morning she notices she did not, and reports it to the furniture. Kyra has known since the night before and has spent the whole of it deciding not to say so.v3A5To a Chest of DrawersChapter V · The AccountNo touching. For two hundred and ninety years she has decided in advance and carried it under an ordinary face; this is the morning she notices she did not, and reports it to the furniture. Kyra has known since the night before and has spent the whole of it deciding not to say so.1·04Give Me the AccountChapter V · The AccountThe loosening begins here and the prose dates it. Kyra propped herself up on one elbow so that she could see her properly, and the light came up another degree when she did, which Val could not do anything about and which both of them noted.
B5A DashChapter VI · Month and YearThe first of four doorsteps in this book. He is entirely without malice, which is what makes it worse. The image is the second before the dash.2·04Twenty Eight ColumnsChapter VI · Month and YearA woman who is thirty-one in one schedule and fifty-one in the next twenty years later is a woman nobody ever looks at twice. And in the summer of nineteen hundred Martha Miller is seventy-one.2·28The Rule About PaperChapter VI · Month and YearI didn't believe you had, Kyra said.
A6Two and Five-EighthsChapter VII · The TinThe funniest chapter in the book and one of the tenderest. Everything is in the tin on the table and in the fact that the accounts have been turned face down.v2A6Two and Five-EighthsChapter VII · The TinThe funniest chapter in the book and one of the tenderest. Everything is in the tin on the table and in the fact that the accounts have been turned face down.v3A6Two and Five-EighthsChapter VII · The TinThe funniest chapter in the book and one of the tenderest. Everything is in the tin on the table and in the fact that the accounts have been turned face down.1·05Two and Five EighthsChapter VII · The TinRender the kitchen and the tin, not the conversation's subject. Val puts the pencil down flat, which she does when she is choosing to be in a conversation rather than found by one.
A7One ChairChapter VIII · The SubtractionAfter the worst of it. Two women wedged into one chair that was not built for it, extremely uncomfortable, not moving.v2A7One ChairChapter VIII · The SubtractionAfter the worst of it. Two women wedged into one chair that was not built for it, extremely uncomfortable, not moving.v3A7One ChairChapter VIII · The SubtractionAfter the worst of it. Two women wedged into one chair that was not built for it, extremely uncomfortable, not moving.1·06Now You Have to StartChapter VIII · The SubtractionBecause I was going to read them to you, and that is not a conversation, that is a delivery. They set a day aside for it, which neither of them had done for anything in four hundred years.
B6Behind the GlassChapter IX · The Artificial MothersA stranger with a big healthy baby on her shoulder says imagine leaving them, meaning something else entirely, and there is no version of the afternoon in which anybody explains it to her.1·07Val Read Every Card Kyra Did Not Read AnythingChapter IX · The Artificial MothersNo contact, and the entire image is what each of them is doing with her eyes.2·05Artificial MothersChapter IX · The Artificial MothersThe quarter paid for the doctors and the nurses and the milk, and the parents were charged nothing at all, which was the part Val could not put down once she had picked it up.2·06Imagine Leaving ThemChapter IX · The Artificial MothersShe did not mean anything by it — and that is the whole of the image.
A8A Shut NotebookChapter X · Four Hundred and SixNo touching. Val sat on that step until it was too dark to have written in the notebook anyway, and every sentence she constructed was in the wrong tense. Kyra watched the whole of it from the kitchen window and did not go out.v2A8A Shut NotebookChapter X · Four Hundred and SixNo touching. Val sat on that step until it was too dark to have written in the notebook anyway, and every sentence she constructed was in the wrong tense. Kyra watched the whole of it from the kitchen window and did not go out.v3A8A Shut NotebookChapter X · Four Hundred and SixNo touching. Val sat on that step until it was too dark to have written in the notebook anyway, and every sentence she constructed was in the wrong tense. Kyra watched the whole of it from the kitchen window and did not go out.1·08My Father is Four Hundred and Six This YearChapter X · Four Hundred and SixThe change, stated flatly, with her thumb keeping a column. In any of the three centuries before it she would have carried it until it was over and mentioned it in November as a completed fact.2·07Four Hundred and SixChapter X · Four Hundred and SixAnd I am going to mark it anyway, and I want you to understand that I am doing something I would fail anybody else for doing, with my eyes open, on purpose.
B7Nine DollarsChapter XI · The BoarderVal bought a dead woman’s entire kitchen because her son would not break it up, sold the rest to a man on Belmont for seven, and entered the two-dollar loss under a heading she will not read aloud. This is the end of a rule made in Boston in 1725.1·09There is Only One PocketChapter XI · The BoarderA rent book will be the most ordinary object in the building, and if anybody ever asks either of us what we are to each other there will be a book with figures in it that answers before we have to.2·27A Woman Who Lets a RoomChapter XI · The BoarderAn object image. Two dollars and seventy-five cents a week, entered every week for years.
B8The Watch ChainChapter XII · Sisters on HawthorneHe took Val’s fare through the boarder year and through the year after, and he is the only person in the state of Oregon who has seen both of them at two addresses under two arrangements and two surnames and has noticed nothing whatever.1·10That OneChapter XII · Sisters on HawthorneKyra found the house, which had not happened in four hundred years. And Val, who had a method and could have produced four objections before the end of the street, looked at the side of her face and did not produce any of them.1·11So I StopChapter XII · Sisters on HawthorneNo contact. A woman closing a city directory and giving up a name she has worn for sixty years.2·29Sisters Have One SurnameChapter XII · Sisters on HawthorneKyra waited, because she had learned what it looked like when that woman had already done the work and was walking herself up to the answer out loud for the courtesy of it.2·29Sisters Have One SurnameChapter XII · Sisters on HawthorneKyra waited, because she had learned what it looked like when that woman had already done the work and was walking herself up to the answer out loud for the courtesy of it.
1·12Forty Seven Years Forty EightChapter XIII · ShorterVal said the rest of them, because she had them, because she has always had everything. Kyra came and sat down opposite her and put both hands on the table.2·30He Buys a Box of Nibs a FortnightChapter XIII · ShorterJo Selby at the Sunday table, putting her fork down.2·30He Buys a Box of Nibs a FortnightChapter XIII · ShorterJo Selby at the Sunday table, putting her fork down.
A9The Blind DownChapter XIV · SixtyThe act itself is not the image and must not be attempted. This is the room, the water, the good scissors and two faces — and a fly that got in around the blind and cost them about ninety seconds.v2A9The Blind DownChapter XIV · SixtyThe act itself is not the image and must not be attempted. This is the room, the water, the good scissors and two faces — and a fly that got in around the blind and cost them about ninety seconds.v3A9The Blind DownChapter XIV · SixtyThe act itself is not the image and must not be attempted. This is the room, the water, the good scissors and two faces — and a fly that got in around the blind and cost them about ninety seconds.A10Same Day Next YearChapter XIV · SixtyThe last exchange of the chapter and the quietest. Kyra says four words that are not a question; Val, who has had the answer since Wednesday, gives it in the flat procedural voice she keeps for things already decided. Use the traits block.v2A10Same Day Next YearChapter XIV · SixtyThe last exchange of the chapter and the quietest. Kyra says four words that are not a question; Val, who has had the answer since Wednesday, gives it in the flat procedural voice she keeps for things already decided. Use the traits block.v3A10Same Day Next YearChapter XIV · SixtyThe last exchange of the chapter and the quietest. Kyra says four words that are not a question; Val, who has had the answer since Wednesday, gives it in the flat procedural voice she keeps for things already decided. Use the traits block.1·13What TimeChapter XIV · SixtyAnd that was the whole of the concession, and Val took it exactly as offered and did not say one word about having won anything, because she had not won anything.1·14Two Bars the Color of the Inside of an ApricotChapter XIV · SixtyAn object image, and the most important one in the file. Any word from New Bedford? — Not a thing. — Shame.1·15I Dont Get to See You Like This OftenChapter XIV · SixtyRender the face and the hair and the light, and nothing below the frame edge. It went slowly and it was not solemn, which was the single best decision either of them made that afternoon.1·16Its Doing itChapter XIV · SixtyNobody else will ever see that. Extreme close, small area of skin only, nothing else in frame.2·08Four TimesChapter XIV · SixtyTwenty-five years, and they need a man with a box to tell them it happened.
B9Every Light in the HouseChapter XV · Every Light in the HouseNo touching, and it is the most important image in Set B. She did the front room four times, and by the fourth she understood exactly what she was doing and went on doing it. Kyra worked out about a third of it standing in that doorway and never once asked.1·17Every Fixture in the HouseChapter XV · Every Light in the HouseFor three hundred and three years on this planet she had put out a light before she was seen by it. A flame is a decision. She had done the front room four times and had not been able to make herself stop.
1·18Every One of Them Came out of Your MouthChapter XVI · The Twenty-NinthThat is the whole record. There is no other source. Three hundred and eight years of a column with nothing in it but figures.
B10Ten MinutesChapter XVII · The Fever HospitalThe third of the five remaining askings, and the reason for it: everything in that hall is different at four in the morning from how it was at ten, and there is exactly one thing on the planet that comes out the same every time it is asked for. Use the traits block.2·09A Line Drawn Through Every DateChapter XVII · The Fever HospitalAn object image and the best one in Set 2. The word is never legible.2·10A Hundred Beds in a Building Built for SingersChapter XVII · The Fever HospitalNo faces and no bodies. Render the room: a concert hall with a hundred iron beds in rows on the floor of it, and flowers.2·11If Either of Us is Any Good at itChapter XVII · The Fever HospitalForty minutes at a table, with Val doing most of the talking and Kyra putting the holes in it.
2·12He Did Not Lift His Head OnceChapter XVIII · EnumeratedThe central joke of the whole book, played straight.2·13The Danger is Mrs OstranderChapter XVIII · EnumeratedVal sat down on the stairs with the cold still coming off her. Kyra sat down on the step above her.
B11Seven Column InchesChapter XIX · Nine Hundred ThousandA man in California has measured the distance to the smudge she has had a bearing on since 1789, and what it takes from her is not the possibility of going back, which she gave up in 1607. It is the possibility of ever being sent anything.1·19Nine Hundred ThousandChapter XIX · Nine Hundred ThousandSeven column inches on an inside page, under a headline about the size of the universe, next to an advertisement for a hat.2·14Seven Column Inches Next to an Advertisement for a HatChapter XIX · Nine Hundred ThousandAn object image, and the whole of the series' cosmology arriving in a newspaper.
B12The Underlying FeelingChapter XX · The ThirtiethThirty times the fortnight has cost them nothing, because thirty times they have spent it in a house or a field or a wagon. Val starts moving on the word underlying.2·15He Crossed the StreetChapter XX · The ThirtiethThis is the only image of that whole business in the file: one man, one street, and nothing else. No robes, no hoods, no rally, no crosses, no fire.
A11The StepsChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnNo touching. Val is holding a receipt for a number that cannot be handed back, and has just said on a public step, rather than at home where she would have arranged it, that this is the last name either of them will ever have.v2A11The StepsChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnNo touching. Val is holding a receipt for a number that cannot be handed back, and has just said on a public step, rather than at home where she would have arranged it, that this is the last name either of them will ever have.v3A11The StepsChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnNo touching. Val is holding a receipt for a number that cannot be handed back, and has just said on a public step, rather than at home where she would have arranged it, that this is the last name either of them will ever have.B13The QueueChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnEvery record either woman has ever left has been an orphan with nothing on either side of it. This one is designed to lead away, and is not reissued, and is not repeated, and no other person on the continent will ever have it.2·16Everybody but This HouseChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnFifty-six and fifty-three on paper, and a new question about a radio which is the only one either of them enjoys.2·17You Said MarchChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnShe kept it going by selling less of everything and by carrying about nine accounts she had no reasonable expectation of collecting. Render Jo in her sixties, visibly.2·18A Number is a Thing Designed to Lead AwayChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnShe read every line of the Act, which almost nobody did, out of a bound copy in the reading room over two afternoons.2·18A Number is a Thing Designed to Lead AwayChapter XXI · A Number of Her OwnShe read every line of the Act, which almost nobody did, out of a bound copy in the reading room over two afternoons.
2·19You Are on a LineChapter XXII · Where You Lived in Thirty-FiveShe gave the social security number from memory without any hesitation at all, having decided in the queue in thirty-six that hesitating over it once would be worse than saying it a thousand times.
B14The RailChapter XXIII · Memorial DayFive hours in water to the middle of her, passing people along a line, with four photographers on the embankment above — and she knew where all of them were the whole time and stayed in the line.B15Counting BoatsChapter XXIII · Memorial DayFour hours on an embankment with two hundred other people. She did not shout and did not ask anybody anything and did not once put her hand on the arm of any man going past, because every one of those would have been a thing somebody remembered about a woman on the dike. What she did was count.v2B15Counting BoatsChapter XXIII · Memorial DayFour hours on an embankment with two hundred other people. She did not shout and did not ask anybody anything and did not once put her hand on the arm of any man going past, because every one of those would have been a thing somebody remembered about a woman on the dike. What she did was count.2·20Not to Get ExcitedChapter XXIII · Memorial DayAn object image. A half-sheet of mimeographed paper held in a hand on a doorstep at nine in the morning, with a borrowed cup of coffee.2·21A Railway Rather Than a WallChapter XXIII · Memorial DayRender the gap, not the water on people.2·22There Were BoatsChapter XXIII · Memorial DayNo bodies. Render the ordinary competence of it: a rowboat, a porch rail, a line of people.
A12Nine SecondsChapter XXIV · The MorgueThe repair, which has no words in it and takes about nine seconds. Kyra puts both hands on her shoulders from behind; Val puts a hand up and holds one of them. That is the whole of it, in both directions.v2A12Nine SecondsChapter XXIV · The MorgueThe repair, which has no words in it and takes about nine seconds. Kyra puts both hands on her shoulders from behind; Val puts a hand up and holds one of them. That is the whole of it, in both directions.v3A12Nine SecondsChapter XXIV · The MorgueThe repair, which has no words in it and takes about nine seconds. Kyra puts both hands on her shoulders from behind; Val puts a hand up and holds one of them. That is the whole of it, in both directions.1·20Put the Thirty Second Down as FinishedChapter XXIV · The MorgueThe closing image of the book. The pale of her hair coming down, the accounts open, a cup gone cold at her elbow.2·23A Woman of About Twenty TwoChapter XXIV · The MorgueThe last image of the book, and it is a press photograph. Render it as a photograph: grainy, badly printed, a second-row figure not the subject of it.2·24ListsChapter XXIV · The MorgueNeither of them ever once remarked on the building, and both of them knew exactly what the other was not saying.2·25You Are in Three of TheseChapter XXIV · The MorgueI want to get them. — No.2·25You Are in Three of TheseChapter XXIV · The MorgueI want to get them. — No.2·26You Are Proposing to Go Through the RecordChapter XXIV · The MorgueAnd the frames with my — Val stopped.2·26You Are Proposing to Go Through the RecordChapter XXIV · The MorgueAnd the frames with my — Val stopped.
