The Long Loneliness

Peter Maurin is having trouble forming complex thoughts. He is mostly silent for the last five years of his life: “He could longer discuss with others, give others in a brilliant overflow of talk his keen analysis of what was going on in the world; he could no longer make what he called his synthesis of cult, culture and cultivation” (275). God has taken his mind. Day thinks it is possible that this stems from a stroke Maurin might have had in his sleep. Fortunately, he does feel like he has finished his work. Eventually, Maurin passes away at night, coughing as he tries to sleep. He dies as people pray around him. There is an enormous funeral for him on Mott Street in Little Italy. Maurin wanted to make a better society and a new social order, one founded on an agrarian way of life. 

After Maurin dies, the House of Cavalry, who owns the Mott Street house, says they are selling it to pay for a new cancer hospital wing. Though Day understands the importance of constructing a new hospital wing, she is sad to leave the Italian neighborhood that she loves, as many Italians are also anarchists who take care of their own.