158
PARTISAN REVIEW
top, he wavered a little and let out an exclamation of fright, but he
regained his balance and stooped down to receive the torch. He was
just tall enough to reach the puffy white tent of caterpillars in a high
crotch of the tree. The doctor watched, sickened, saw yellow flames
shoot up as the fat tumor caught fire. Freddie had not thought ahead.
A worm fell upon his upturned face and he screamed with revulsion
and let the torch drop to the ground where it went on burning and
sending up black smoke. The work, though, was done and while
his
father beat the caterpillars to death with the back of a shovel where
they had fallen in the grass, the boy came down the ladder and went
towards the cottage, wiping hi<> face with both hands as though it
never would be clean again. Mr. Horvath laughed at
him
and went
on killing the pests. Mrs. Horvath came to the screen door and hooted
at her son, "Ha! Ha!" she laughed. "You keep the mouth open next
time and see what comes in." Restored to his normal spirits, Freddie
hooted back, "Yeah, like fun I will! Yeah, in a pig's valise I will!"
There was a miaow at the doctor's door. He drew down the
windowblind sharply, shuddering at what he had just seen. There
was something primeval in those people; their communal enjoyment
of the annihilation of the caterpillars was so stupid and so brutish that
the doctor actually retched. Then he let
in
the refined, soft-moving
cat.
"I-yi-yi-yi !" he said stooping to pick Milenka up. "I-yi-yi-yi,
my bad puss, my bad boy." Milenka stretched his head forward and
rubbed the top of it against Dr. Pakheiser's chin, purring loudly.
"lvii–
lenka," murmured the man, "Ah, my good friend, my dearest one."
He poured the cream into the cereal bowl, fetched a quart of Irish ale
from the windowsill and, sitting down, said to his companion, "Gut'
Mahlzeit."
When they had both finic;hed and the doctor had put away the
food, he settled once more in thel rocking chair with the brandy de–
canter at his elbow. He opened the journal that had come that day
and began methodically with the first article, one. on the use of sulfa
drugs in the treatment of sinusitis. He had read only a few sentences
when Milenka leaped to his lap. Dr. Pakheiser ran his fingers under
the jaw and around the ears, laid his whole hand on the little grey
belly to feel the vibration and read on, at last in repose now that his
house was complete. But there was an uneasiness stirring at the back
of his mind and although he concentrated and extracted the full
meaning from all he read that night, he observed when he rose at
twelve to put Milenka out that he had drunk three times as much
brandy as was his custom and had made a great inroad into the pack-
