At the Chaillot Gate, immediately beyond which they can see a southern wall of the Hôtel de Langeac, Thomas Jefferson stops and turns to face Sally Hemings.
“Miss Hemings, there is something on my mind that I suspect I should keep to myself, but… Well, I can only hope that it might actually be better for you and… for both of us… if I speak….”
Sally Hemings looks down at the toes of his black boots on the yellow sand and waits for him to continue.
“… I simply want you to know that despite my unforgivable behavior several weeks ago, I have the utmost respect for you. You are a charming and very intelligent young woman, and I regret deeply that my utter foolishness might have led you to believe I had any other opinion.”
Sally Hemings allows her gaze to meet his for half an instant before she says, “Thank you.”
~ ~ ~
… I could have said no to Mr. Jefferson. Even at sixteen, when I knew so little of him, I still understood this essential fact. If I had said no, emphatically, and on every occasion when he first began to broach his intentions, he would have respected my virtue, both because he himself was ashamed of his desires, particularly when he considered the feelings of his daughters and dearest friends, and because, as ardently carnal as his nature might have been, he was ultimately less interested in sensual pleasure than in love. This was one of his greatest weaknesses. He craved adoration, not just of the people he knew but, in a very real sense, of the entire world — which was why he couldn’t stay away from politics, even though he detested political life.
But I didn’t say no—“no,” of course, being a word Negroes simply never speak to white people. That said, I could easily have conveyed my feelings without having to actually speak the word. I could have pretended, for example, to be indifferent to his small kindnesses and continual readiness to engage in conversation. Had I done so, then none of the events that now seem a poison in my soul would have come to pass. The difficult relations that followed his having come into my bedchamber would certainly have continued a while longer, but I still would have been his daughters’ maid throughout the remainder of our time in Paris and, most likely, at Monticello as well.
And what is more, even had I rejected him when his expressions of desire became more emphatic and overt, I knew that the worst I would have had to suffer would have been life as a scullery maid or a washerwoman. Mr. Jefferson would never have sold me away from my family or subjected me to any form of severe punishment. Had he done so, he would have had to face the fact that his supposed love for me was a sentimental sham and that he was as capable as the most brutal slaveholder of acting out of revenge, cruelty and spite. It was essential to Mr. Jefferson’s self-esteem that he believe himself to be nothing like the majority of his neighbors….
~ ~ ~
One morning, as Sally Hemings is walking past Thomas Jefferson’s study on her way to the kitchen, he calls out, “Mademoiselle Sally!” And when she looks in his door, he says, “I’ve been thinking….” He makes a circular gesture with his hand. “Come in! Come in!” She takes a step inside the door but goes no farther, and he does not insist. “I’ve been thinking,” he says, “that you have too good a mind to be so entirely unlettered. What’s happened with Jimmy? Has he been teaching you to read and write?”
“Not really.”
“Did you ask him?”
“I did, but he didn’t seem very interested.” She sighs. “I think he doesn’t see the point of a girl learning to read.”
Thomas Jefferson slaps his hand down on the table. “That’s absurd! Go ask him again. And if he continues to be so contrary, you must tell him that I order him to teach you reading and writing.”
Four or five times over the next several days, Thomas Jefferson asks Sally Hemings if she has commenced her reading lessons, and on each occasion her answer is the same, that her brother has agreed to teach her but that he never seems to have the time. “Nonsense!” Thomas Jefferson invariably replies. “All you need is fifteen minutes a day. He must have fifteen minutes!”
But then one day, when Sally Hemings gives him the same report, he says, “Well, I suppose I’ve got fifteen minutes. Come by the parlor after you have finished your duties, and let’s see what we can do.”
~ ~ ~
Sally Hemings finishes her labors at 9:00 P.M. and arrives at the parlor to find that Thomas Jefferson actually went out that day to buy her a primer, which he has placed open on the same table where he showed her how to write her name. There are two chairs beside the table, so close to each other that she could barely fit her fingers between them. The table is lit with a candelabra and an oil lamp.
Thomas Jefferson commences by going through the alphabet letter by letter, explaining the possible sounds that each might make. When it becomes clear that she is confused by all the variations, he assures her that it will be much clearer when she actually tries to read.
The primer consists of twenty-six rhymed couplets, each featuring a different letter of the alphabet. He begins by reading aloud several of the easier ones — those without biblical or classical names in them. First he reads the couplet and then goes through it a second time, making the sound of each letter as he passes a pen point underneath it. The sounds he makes, especially as he exaggerates them for clarity, are nothing like English, and Sally Hemings cannot help laughing. “You sound like you’re talking in your sleep!” she says.
Thomas Jefferson also laughs. “I’ll get my revenge when it’s your turn!”
And, indeed, when he asks her to read “Whales in the sea / God’s voice obey,” the only words she manages to read on her own are “in” and “God’s” and even those require a lot of help. By the time they have decoded the couplet together, she is exhausted and embarrassed.
“It takes time,” says Thomas Jefferson, smiling. “You’ll catch on after a while.”
“Maybe it would be easier if the words weren’t so silly,” she says.
His brows buckle. “My dear Miss Hemings, I am beginning to suspect you are something of an atheist.”
“A what?”
“An atheist. Someone who doesn’t believe in God.”
“Oh.” She is not entirely sure he is joking. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you have laughed at every one of the religious couplets!”
He is smiling. She smiles, too.
“That’s because they are so funny. What language does God speak to fish? Bubble language? And what does he say, ‘Thou shalt love the man with the harpoon’?”
Thomas Jefferson leans back in his chair and tugs on the bottom of his waistcoat as if he has just finished a good meal. He looks her straight in the eyes — his own coppery bright in candlelight. “So you do believe in God?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “I think so.” She is worried that she shouldn’t have spoken so freely, that she might come off as impious, but Thomas Jefferson seems pleased by her remarks.
“Do you believe that God is good?” he asks.
“Perhaps. In his heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean God wants to be good. And he tries to be good. And he is good a lot of the time. He made this beautiful world, after all. He made babies. He made sunsets and roses. But he also makes mistakes. He created diseases. Earthquakes. He made it possible for people to be cruel. People are cruel all the time.”