Summary

Chapters 64 – 66: In response to Abraham Lincoln’s second visit, more inhabitants of the bardo gather around Willie’s mausoleum, and they all begin to shout their stories, confessions, plans, and regrets. Eddie and Betsy Baron appear once again, followed this time by several African-Americans who inhabit the same pauper’s grave as the Barons. Elson Farwell, an educated black man who was a slave to a wealthy Washington family, begins to tell his story. In highly baroque language, he tells the story of his life and death, and he rails against slavery and the systems of oppression used against black people in America. He is followed by a slave named Thomas Havens, who responds by saying that he rather enjoyed his life. He says he trained himself to ignore his own desires and treasure what little freedom he was granted, although it becomes apparent...