10
PARTISAN REVIEW
time with me as spectator. My brother wept and screamed. My mother
remained silent and impassive this time too. Then she asked me if I
remembered the effect it had had on me three years before, and she
was very surprised to learn that I remembered it all distinctly and that
I still could not understand how she, who was always so kind and
affectionate to me, could have brought herself to deceive me like that.
"But I had to start feeding you on other things!" she tried to
explain.
"Did you really have to?" I objected.
"Did you really have to?"
(Translated from the Italian by Eric Mosbacher)
