Eleanor Clark
33
HURRY, HURRY
NOONE WAS THERE
when the house began to fall. It was a beau-
tiful June day, warmer than it had been. I remember that people had
been particularly expansive that morning as after a thunder storm.
They had gathered on the porch steps at mail-time, exclaiming over
and over on the warmth of the sun and the color of the tiger-lilies
that had just sprung out all over town. One of the ladies, receiving
a long-awaited letter from her nephew, had suddenly become very
witty and had kissed everyone in the store, and this could never have
happened on an ordinary day. Naturally it occurred to no one that a
disasterwas about to take place.
The only creature that might have given some warning was the
French poodle, de Maupassant, who had been locked in the house
and should have sensed that everything was not quite right, but he
gaveno sign of life until the end. Probably my mother had spoiled
him too much by that time. Certainly she loved the dog, especially
sincethe accident that paralyzed one of his paws, so that it was hard
for her to deny him anything. People laughed at her for this, and she
laughed at herself, but she could always find something in him to
excuseher behavior. She loved the aristocracy of him, the way he
tossedhis luxurious black mane-Louis Quatorze she called it--or
drewhis shoulders a little together and pointed up his slender glossy
snout. In the evening he snuggled at her feet, and then, though in
thedaytime her profile was too sharp and her green-flecked eyes leapt
tooquickly to the defense, there was something a:lmost of a madonna
inmy mother's face. But she had spoiled the dog. In the end he was
incapableof serious thought and must have played or slept through
the whole catastrophe. The servant spent most of his time writing
loveletters to the village saxophonist.
I too was of no use, partly because I was walking on the hill
abouthalf a mile from the house. The other reason is simply that I
wasnot interested. Later when I sawall my mother's property tum-
blingto ruin I did try to concentrate on the tragedy of it: shook
myself,rubbed my arms and legs, even kicked my shins and jumped
up and down as if my feet were asleep, but with no effect. I spent
theentire time-two or three hours it must have been-t,mder a maple
tree,and rescued nothing but one silver-backed hand mirror which
