264
PARTISAN REVIEW
many children were under Miss Strock's charge or why it was that
she was too Prussian to please Miss Pride entirely. My disappoint–
ment in my father's indifference and in the gesture he made of passing
his hand before his face
as
if
he were befogged, was converted into
anger as I realized that he did not intend to make any sort of com–
ment at all. Surely he, a grown-up man with an education so proud–
ly advertised by Mr. Brock, could select something out of that subtle
speech as a point of departure! How stupid and contrary of
him
not
to ask, at least, if Miss Pride had ever been to Germany. Why, I,
a little
girl,
could do that much!
But Miss Pride, to my astonishment, did not appear annoyed.
With a grace which obviated the need for a transition, she said,
"If
I am pleased with my shoes, I shall put you in the way of further
commissions. Surely you won't refuse."
.:
"No," he said, but with neither gratitude nor excitement in his
voice.
"If
I am nothing else, I am a workman who does his work."
She stood up. "Now when the shoes are finished, you may mail
them to me at this address." Taking a leather case from her hand–
bag, she extracted a card from it. "I must say there is something
about your shop I like.
It
strikes me as what I spoke of before: the
real thing. Nothing is so close to my heart as that, sir: the real thing.
And
if
you had known my father, you would see I came by my
passion honestly."
"I hope you will be satisfied with the shoes," said my father.
"But you must not expect too much. My hands are not as clever
as they used to be. I am no more a shoemaker, I am a shoe-fixer."
Miss Pride gave him her hand. "It's time you changed. Good-by."
He stood stupidly in the center of the room and did not open
the door for her, did not, indeed, bid her good-by. When she had gone
and the motor of her car started up, he sat down on the stool she had
just occupied and putting his hands over his face, the fingers so
tightly interlocked that their knuckles whitened, he groaned with
some profound, enigmatic misery, and I stepped softly away from
the window, perplexed that she who could cause me only happiness
had caused him only pain.
As
I went toward the house, I was gradu–
ally infected by his terrible sorrow and felt my face grow feverish,
recalling his words last rught: the child should never have been born.
In the kitchen, I ran my fingers over the cold stove. My mother
was sitting in a chair beside the sink and she drew me down to kiss
me. "Who do you love, little Sonie girl?" she said, gazing at me with
her great black eyes. And while I answered her as she desired me to,
my mind was telling me the truth: "Miss Pride, not you, Mamma."
