Читать книгу Jane - Мэгги Нельсон - Страница 16

FIGMENT

When I tell my grandfather

I am writing about Jane, he says,

What will it be, a figment

of your imagination?

We are eating awful little pizzas

and my mother is into

the boxed wine. I don’t know

what to say. I wish

I could show him: between

figling (a little fig)

and figure lies

figment, from fingere, meaning

to form. As used in 1592:

The excellencie, dilicatnes, and perfection of this figment cannot be suffi[ci]entlie expressed.

But he doesn’t want to see.

Besides, that meaning

is obsolete. By 1639:

It is a sin to lie, even in God’s cause, and to defend his justice

with false tales and figments.

And by 1875:

We must not conceive that this logical figment

ever had a real existence.