The Infinite Matrix | Michael Swanwick & Francisco Goya | The Sleep Of

Reason 65

06.05.03

the sleep of reason

by Michael Swanwick

with illustrations by

Francisco JosÉ de Goya y Lucientes

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Digital image © copyright

Davison Art Center,

Wesleyan University

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for any other use.

65. [Plate 34]

Grace in the Madhouse

Grace had led a life that was enough to drive anybody mad. So, Grace

being Grace, of course it did. For a time she was still able to function

as a prostitute - nobody really listens to a whore, after all. But then

one day she climbed to the top of the steps at City Hall, bared her

breasts, and preached a sermon on universal love and the brotherhood of

man. So she was slung in the madhouse.

Even making allowances for the voices in her head, the madhouse was not a

particularly good place to be. To begin with, it was filthy. The food was

terrible. The company was no worse than what she was used to, but the

jailors - they called themselves "attendants"- were unspeakable. Some

forced their charges to perform sexual acts with them. Others were in it

for the pain they could inflict. We won't go into details. The very best

of them were sarcastic little tyrants.

like swanwick?

like goya?

so do we.

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T H A N K S !

One might as well be in an old age home, one is treated so badly!

The grimmest and best-known joke Woody Allen ever made comes at the end

of Annie Hall, and goes something like this: Life is filled with pain and

misery and suffering, and then, all too soon, it's over. That's how it

was for Grace. Life in the madhouse was unbearable. But just when it

seemed things couldn't get any worse, she was released.

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This is the 65th of 80 stories by Michael Swanwick written to accompany

Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos. For a listing of the most recently

available stories, go to The Sleep of Reason.

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