Nel waited on the porch of 7 Carpenter’s Road while Sula ran into the house to go to the toilet. They decided to go down by the river where the boys sometimes swam. In that mercury mood in July, Sula and Nel wandered about the Bottom barefoot looking for mischief. It was in that summer, the summer of their twelfth year, the summer of the beautiful black boys, that they became skittish, frightened and bold - all at the same time. Even their footsteps left a smell of smoke behind. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Excerpts selected by the Nobel Library of the Swedish Academy.
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