The Confessions of Nat Turner

Part 2 begins with a memory of Nat’s boyhood. At the beginning of spring, a red-faced northerner stops to dine with his then-owner, Samuel Turner. Nat remembers the man’s description of spring in Virginia as “like the embrace of a mother’s arms” (117). Nat remembers listening to the clock, the sound of voices at the table, and looking out over the pastoral scene.

Outside the window, in the distance, a man driving a cart reaches “in vain for the source of an intolerable itch.” (119) When he stands and scrapes his back “cowlike up and down against the sidepost of the cart,” Nat finds it “wonderfully amusing” (119) and giggles to himself. As he admires the beauty outside, Nat feels “excitement” as his “limbs stretch and quiver with a lazy thrill” (120).

His mistress, Miss Nell, interrupts the reverie, ordering Nat to serve cider to the dinner party. As the guest notices him, Miss Nell asks Nat to show his skills in spelling. The guest challenges Nat to spell “columbine,” which he does “without effort and instantly but in a pounding fury of embarrassment” (121). After this show, Mr. Turner explains his belief that “the more religiously and intellectually enlightened a Negro is made, the better for himself, his master, and the commonweal” (122).