A DANGLING MAN
437
I? You can listen to this. Beggars can't be choosers!" She uttered
this with such triumph that I could see she had prepared it long in
advance. "You're a little animal," I said. "As rotten and spoiled
as they come. What you need is
a.
whipping. "Oh!" she gasped,
"You dirty . . . dirty no account. You crook!" I caught her WTist
and wrenched her toward me. "Damn you, Joseph, let go! Let me go!"
The album went crashing. With the fingers of her free hand she
sought to reach my face. Seizing her by the hair fiercely, I snapped
her head back; her outcry never left her throat; her nails narrowly
missed me. Her eyes shut tightly, in horror. "Here's something from
a beggar you won't forget in a hurry," I muttered. I dragged her to
the piano bench, still gripping her hair. "Don't!" she M:reamed,
recovering her voice. "Joseph! You bastard!" I pulled her over
my knee, trapping both her legs in mine. I could hear the others
running upstairs as the first blows descended and I hurried my task,
determined that she should be punished in spite of everything, in
spite of the consequences; no, more severely because of the conse·
quenoes. "Don't you struggle," I cried, pressing down the nape of
her neck. "Or curse me.
It
won't help you!"
Amos pounded up
the
last
fli~ht
of stairs and burst in. Behind,
breathless, came Dolly and Iva. "Joseph," Amos panted, "let her go;
let the girl go!" I did not relinquish her at once. She no longer
fought against me hut with her long hair reaching nearly to the floor
and her round, nubile thighs hare, lay in In;y lap. Whether this was
meant to be an admission of complicity and an attempt to lighten my
guilt or whether she wished them to see and savor it fully I did not
know at first. "Stand up, Etta," Dolly said curtly. "Straighten your
skirt." Slowly she got to her feet. I wonder whether any of them
was capable of observing how alike we looked at that moment. "And
now,
if
you can, Joseph," said Dolly turning her dilated eyes on me,
"explain what you think you were doing." "Mother," Etta suddenly
began to sob. "I didn't do anything to him. He attacked me."
"Wiwt!
In the name of God, what are you talking about!" I ex–
claimed. "I spanked you because you had a spanking coming."
What unspeakable inference or accusation was that in Dolly's
widened eves. I returned her look steadily. "Nobody has ever laid
a hand on-Etta for any reason whatsoever, Joseph." "Whatsoever! Is
calling her uncle a beggar a sufficient 'whatsoever'? There's something
ambiguous in your mind. Why don't you speak out?" She turned
to Amos as though to say, "Your brother is going insane. Now he's
springing at me." "I put her over my knee and gave het: a hiding,
and it wasn't half of what she deserves. She swore at me like a pool
room bum. A mighty fine job you've done wi'th her." "He pulled
me by the hair, that's what he did,'' Etta cried. "He nearly twisted
my head off."
