Schadenfreude

Chaïm Soutine , The Table, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris (ca. 1923)

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

“Because it is bitter,

“And because it is my heart.”

—Stephen Crane, “In the Desert”

There’s no word for Schadenfreude in English,

That feeling with which obsequious sigh

I thank the Fates it’s you—But who knows why!

Not me, that's skewered on the carving dish.

Maybe it's too frank for us Anglophones,

Much as we sense it in our Saxon bones,

Who likewise are reluctant to agree

That murder's suicide—with the wrong ID.

November 8-10, 2024