28
PARTISAN REVIEW
"I didn't marry you off," Mrs. O'Flaherty said in sudden dud-
geon.
"Why, mother, you did too. Every good mother marries off her
daughter," said Lizz.
"Glory be, to hear what that one is saying," Mrs. O'Flaherty
said.
"Why Mother, you know you did. And you should have mar-
ried her off," said Lizz.
"And tell me, what decent man would have her, her with her
cigarette smoking, and all of her high-lifing about late at night, and
the tramps and high-lifers she has for her friends. Tell me,· in the
name of God, what decent man would have her?"
"She never could have gotten a decent man like my Jim," Lizz
said.
"Indeed, she couldn't!" Mrs. O'Flaherty added aggressively.
"Mother, the decent men in this world want decent women for
their wives," Lizz said.
"Indeed they do!"
"If you make yourself cheap and easy, Mother, cheap and easy
to get like she did, all you can get is a dirty stinking rotter the likes
of Robinson. And then when he gets tired of you, he throws you
overboard, and doesn't care if you sink or swim. But if you don't
make yourself cheap and easy, you get a good, hard-working, depend-
able man like my Jim, who doesn't throw you overboard," Lizz said.
"Ah that I was a girl again. The man isn't alive that would do
to me what that Protestant devil did to my Peg. That married man!"
the J;llothersaid.
"Me too, Mother. Say, if my Jim as much as looked at a girl,
I'd close the door in his face when he came home. So help me God,
Mother, I would," Lizz said.
"Lizz, don't the times change. Sure, in the old country, such
going-ons was never even heard tell of," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"Mother, it~s the work of the evil one himself. The devil is
powerful, powerful if you don't fight him with holy water and the
grace of God Almighty. It's Satan, Mother, who's behind it. Men like
Robinson, they are limbs of Satan. That's what they are, Mother,"
Lizz said.
"You say the truth, Lizz," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"The least he could have done, if he was a decent man, was to
give her five or ten thousand dollars when he threw her overboard,"
Lizz said.
"I wouldn't spit on his money. It's money that comes out of the
mouth of Hell," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"Mother, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
