432
PARTISAN REVIEW
up to ident.ify poverty not so much with evil as with unimportance, to
feel that she, the daughter of a wealthy man is worlds apart from
those who live in low distinction, drably, in. ill furnished flats, without
servants, who wear inferior clothing and have so little pride as to be
debtors. She prefers her mother's people. Her cousins have auto·
mobiles and summer homes. I am in no way a credit to her.
In spite of our antagonism I had until lately tried to influence the
girl, sending her books and, on her birthday, record
albUIIJ~s.
I knew
I could have little effeot on her. But when she was twelve I undertook
to tutor her in French as a mean!ll of broaching other subjects. (Her
father, naturally, wanted her to be accomplished.) I was unsuccessful.
My missionary eagerness betrayed itself too soon, before I had her
confidence. She told her mother that I w.as teaching h:er "ha,d
things". And how was I to explain to Dolly that I was trying to
"save" Etta? It would have been insulting. Etta hated the lessons,
by simple extension she hated me, and
if
I had not given her an
excuse for
di~ontJinuing
them she would soon have found one.
Etta is a vain girl. I am sure she spends a great many hours
before the mirror. I am sure, also, that she must
he
aware of the
resemblance she bears to me. It goes beyond the obvious similarities
pointed out by the family. Our eyes are exactly alike and so are our
mouths and even the shape of our ears, sharp and small-Dolly's are
altogether different. And there are others, less easily definable, which
she cannoti help recognizing and which-our enmity being what it is-–
must be painful to her.
At dinner the talk, in which I scarcely took part at first, was of
the hardships of rationing. Dolly and Amos are coffee drinkers but,
as patriots, they tempered their complaints wirth resignation. They
turned next to shoes and clothing. Dolly's brother Loren who repre·
sents a large Eastern shoe firm had warned them that the government
intended to limit the sale of leather goods.
. "We couldn't get along on four pairs a year," said Dolly.
But that was unpatriotic, wasn't it? The contradiction was too
plain to be unnoticed.
"You have to take into account what people are accustomed
to," said Amos, "their standard of living. The government overlooks
that. Why, even charities don't give the same amounts to any two
families. It would cause too much hardship." "Yes, that's what I
meant," !laid Dolly. "You couldn't call it hoarding." "No," I replied.
She had addressed herself to me. "Later on there'll be a run on
clothes, too," asserted Amos. "That's the way the consumer market
is
when people are earning." "Of course, Joseph WIOn't have to worry.
The Army will take care of him. But we poor civilians...."
"Joseph would be indifferent anyway," saJid Iva. "It woulrln't
affect him. He never buys more than one pair of shoes a year."
