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PARTISAN REVIEW
tion. For Margaret's extorted and resentful gaze had reminded her
of how they had wilfully, ruthlessly put a wall of silence between them
twenty years ago, a wall of silence erected decisively and in unacknowl–
edged agreement by each of them after their last meeting, when they
had talked with no lessening of affection of arranging a weekend visit
to Margaret's home; erected when they had never written, either of
them, to arrange the visit, when the.y had never again communicated
with each other, but had withdrawn simultaneously behind that
malevolent silence. And Sally folded her hands, secretly rejoicing in
her success in still irritating Margaret. Yet she hesitated over her joy;
for what she really wanted, she thought, was to brush aside everything
from the past in order to ... weep? perhaps to laugh? She laughed
now nervously, saying, "Oh, letters ... " scorning letters, and went on,
rushing into words without meaning in order to begin somewhere,
anywhere, as long as she left her treacherous rancor behind. "So we'll
have to explain now. I," she bobbed her head, "teach school, as you
might have expected. But don't be alarmed, I'm no sad, dreary
schoolteacher with dust in my hair. I'm to be assistant superintendent
next term, very important, won on merit. . . . " This tone was dis–
astrous; she could see it plainly, Margaret was already looking weary '
-but it was too early, too unprepared for, to plunge to the deeper
level of the irony in her being promoted only because she was so much
superior to any one else in the. school that she had no business being
there at all; and she added abruptly, "The students hate me. But I
don't care. It's good for their souls." And this was no better, it was
clear Margaret found the words repellent; yet she could not allow
herself to unfold the idea they contained, to describe the strange
g~
to herself to have realized out of the students' dislike an increased
sense of self and place-even though she knew Margaret would infal–
libly recognize the dignity that lay in this hard unpleasantness, even
though it was for this kind of understanding from Margaret that she
longed.
"I'm sure it is," Margaret said, smiling to eke out the inadequacy
of this reply, amused and at the same time violently agitated
to
find
Sally dominating her still, having the same effect on her she had had
as girl, leaving her dumb. Where, she asked herself in real astonish–
ment, had the assurance she had finally won disappeared to before
Sally? Where was the confidence she had secured from having been
loved, admired, respected, from having been at ease with very famous
people? Where, in short, was herself, Margaret, now that Sally's arti–
ficiality again dominated her own candor by making candor slightly
laughable?
