Excerpt from Vigil by George Saunders, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

And here he was.

A tiny, crimped fellow in an immense mahogany bed.

I was not too late.

Neither was I too early.

His wife, exhausted by care, slept fully dressed on a love seat near the bed. Her slippers lay on the floor, turned in toward each other as if being worn by some invisible pigeon-¬toed individual.

But she was not my concern.

My charge's sleeping clothes were of silk, his initials monogrammed above the heart.

Moving closer, I entered the orb of his thoughts.

Within him abided a formidable stubbornness. A steady flow of satisfaction, even triumph, coursed through him, regarding all he had managed to do, see, cause, and create, especially given his humble origins.

I scanned for doubts regarding things he had done or left undone; things he might have said but had not; mistakes to which he had not yet fully admitted, any of which might keep him from attaining that state of total peace so to be desired at this juncture.

And found nothing, or nearly nothing.

He was as sure of himself as ever a charge of mine had been.

Even now, as the terrible illness overtook him.

I felt again the old, familiar, generalized fondness:

Before me lay a person who had not willed himself into this world and was now being taken out of it by force, the many subsystems within him that had always given him so much satisfaction shutting down agonizingly. Soon it would come, accompanied by disbelief and panic, and he would find himself on the wrong side of a rapidly closing door, everything he had ever known and loved out of reach, over there, beyond it.

At such moments, I especially cherished my task.

I could comfort.

I could.

I moved to the window to energize and activate that part of myself from which I comforted, by glimpsing out indulgently at the glory of all-¬that-¬is.

To my surprise, down below, near the statue of the golden dog, stood one of our ilk, looking up.

He must be one of us, for he seemed able to see me.

And began beseeching me, by way of a complicated series of gestures, to indulge him, by exiting the home and floating down for a quick word, if I would be so kind.

I passed out through the wall, the stale quiet of the death room giving way to the smell of the humid air without and the lovely nighttime sound of cicadas, all my clothes now properly affixed and permanent, a happy development, since I must now greet this new acquaintance.

The fellow appeared exhausted, as if he had traveled a great distance to be here. Wearing the rough garb of a mechanic or railway engineer, he struggled under the weight of a tremendous stack of papers, the top of which was invisible among the low-¬hanging midsummer clouds. Its great height causing the stack to exist in a continual state of sway, he must, to Pprevent it from toppling, continuously be adjusting his posture.

He was indeed one of us.

For I could see, through his body, the trunk of an oak across the street.

He implored me, in fluent but accented English: Might I allow him up into that room, briefly, as a courtesy? Est-¬il possible? He understood that this might represent an inconvenient interruption of my work. Which, perhaps, had not yet begun in earnest? He possessed certain information he felt would prove beneficial. To my charge. Also, if he was being entirely transparent—-

You are, I said. Entirely.

We shared a laugh.

If I am being entirely frank, he restated, it would benefit me as well. I would be most grateful. I assure you I will do no harm: Je vous promets.

His forlorn appearance engaged my compassion. His clothing was in tatters, he was filthy with the dust of the road, his shoes mere flaps of leather, his feet blistered and bloody.

And, if possible, he said, I would prefer to go up alone.

Alone, I said.

Excerpted from Vigil by George Saunders. Copyright © 2026 by George Saunders. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.