426
PARTISAN REVIEW
there, for it was the only place in the garden where I was not haunted
by my mother's ghost and by the slumbrous fragrance of my father's
offerings to her. One day I had marked with brilliant blue paint the
diamonds patterned on the floor by the sunlight coming through the
lattice work. Now my marks, made with an enamel advertised as
indelible, were gone.
We sat down on the circular bench, my father gazing out the
doorway in the direction of the gravestone, a slab of marble beneath
whose ivory surface a clouded rosiness showed through. He spoke al–
most to himself, "No, of course you wouldn't remember John Stuart."
I did not contradict him, though I perfectly recalled his gaunt and
sentimental friend who had come, fifteen years before, at the time my
mother's skeleton was transferred from the graveyard to the garden.
Evening after evening, I heard their low voices behind the closed door
of the library. One night, they walked along the terrace below my
windows and I heard John Stuart say, "What a saint you are!" And
once, when, at my father's request, I had set out before them glasses
and a decanter of brandy, he said, "She is the image of her mother."
There was a precise moment of silence, and then my father said,
"I am thinking of hiring a tutor. Her Latin is very bad." His voice
was even and remote with distaste.
"I noticed this evening at dinner," he said, "that your hair seems
a little darker." I did not miss the satisfaction in his words. Anything
that made me unlike my mother called forth his secret admiration.
As always before, I blushed and quickly diverted his attention from
my appearance. "Your new floor is handsome," I said.
"Oh, yes," he said starting. "Yes, it will do very well."
As
he
bent over to look at it, a large black bug scuttled across the floor and
stopped near his foot. I saw him shudder and lift his foot to crush it,
but he did not. "A spider," he said. "We have a great many of them
at this time of year. Some are poisonous." He continued to gaze at it
and in a moment slowly lifted his foot again and brought it down
lightly, "Not to make a mess," he whispered. I heard a brittle cracking
and my father said, "Oh, what a pity. It wasn't a spider, only a
harmless beetle."
He had not killed it. The creature struggled with a frenzied
energy and worked itself onto its back, then tossed and labored to
right itself, waving weary legs, straightening and flexing them, paus–
ing and wildly fluttering them again. It gained a little and lay upon
its side, shuttered a mangled wing, and helplessly rolled over on
its back.
"It's not dead," I said. "Hadn't you better kill it?"
