264
PARTISAN REVIEW
"You know that it is only my respect for your mother and you
that makes me stand for this kind of thing. Who ever heard of a
boss ringing up
to
find out if one of the men in his employ was
coming to work?"
Rebecca pacified the boss and Samuel's mother shouted at
Samuel in the morning when he did not get up, but he merely turned
to the wall and tried to sleep some more when she shook him and
yelled at him. He knew that however she shouted at him, she would
return to the devotion and attention to him which was so much a
part of conscious being. She would let the water in the tub for his
bath, she would hand him his socks and his underwear, she would
press him to eat more at breakfast, even though he had slept too long.
During this time of great prosperity five years after the first
World War, it was easy to get jobs and Seymour did not remain
unemployed for any length of time. But he became ashamed of not
being one of those who prospered, and when friends of the family
visited the house, Seymour shut his bedroom door or moved about
the house as if he were not a part of the family. He had a native
shyness and a native bluster, but the bluster showed itself only in
the intimacy of the family circle or among the boys at the drugstore.
His mother told Seymour that he ought not to
be
like that, he
ought to come out and greet friends of the family.
"You are shy/' she said, "I know what it is. I was shy until I
was fifty years old and then I decided that it was foolish to be shy."
Yet Seymour suffered from an overwhelming curiosity about
everyone who came to the house and everyone
the
family had ever
known. No sooner had the visitors departed than Seymour came
forth from his self-chosen exile and questioned his mother and sister
like an inquisitor about what had been said and what events had
occurred in other families.
"What are you, the district attorney?" Rebecca said to him,
worn out by his tireless questions, which were often resumed the day
after, for Seymour turned over in his mind what he had been told,
and found it incomplete, inconclusive, or contradictory. He suspected
lying and dishonesty in everyone, and most of all he suspected the
distortion or the bluff.
"How can I tell you when they don't tell me," said Rebecca,
impatient that Seymour should require an account so exhaustive.
"What's the matter with you," said Seymour, "can't you answer
a civil question?"
And often Rebecca and his mother found that only by answer-
