The Evening of Greuze
John Ashbery, 8 March 2001
“... As a group we were somewhat vulnerable and are so today. My brother-in-law has fixed me a tower in the mill, from whose oriel I can see the bluebottles who nag heaven with their unimportance. But what are they expected to do? Raise families? Become deacons? If so my calculations collapse into bric-a-brac, my equations are undone. Across the road they are building a cement house ... ”