366
PARTISAN REVIEW
"I'll steal the money if I have to," said Seymour, his eyes bulging
with anger.
It turned out that instead of placing Ruth in a private room,
she had been put
in
a room with two other patients. The hospital,
endowed by charity, had different visiting hours for patients and
only the ones in private rooms were able to have visitors at any
time during the afternoon. Jasper had been wrongly instructed about
the visiting hours and he was unable to visit his grandmother.
"But she is all right now," said Rebecca, "it was just another
of those attacks."
Seymour paced up and down, as if he were at a ball game,
betting. The other visitors regarded the scene with curiosity, for
Seymour had shouted and Rebecca had shouted back at him. She
explained to Jasper that there was just no money to pay for a private
room.
"I will pay my share,' she explained, "but Seymour has no
money now."
"I told you," said Seymour, "I will borrow it."
"Anyway,'~
said Rebecca to Jasper, "she is feeling much better
and she would be all right at home where I could take care of her.
But Jasper, that night when I sat up with her because we could not
find any hospital that would take us, that night I wished she would
die, she was suffering so much."
Seymour departed to borrow money so that his mother might
have a private room, and Jasper conversed with his aunt about his
grandmother, hearing how afraid she had become because she had
supposed, such was the severity of the attack, that she was about
to die.
"She gets scared," said Rebecca, "and that is worse for her
than anything else, she gets so panicky."
It was too late to change Ruth's room now, a nurse explained
to aunt and nephew, who decided to go back to Rebecca's apartment
and wait until the evening when patients in semiprivate wards were
permitted visitors. They returned in a streetcar, although Jasper wanted
to take a taxi, and when they were at the apartment, Jasper was given
lunch. He had not wanted to eat at noon because of fear that his grand–
mother was going to die. And as Jasper ate and as his aunt conversed
with him and as the afternoon waned, Jasper heard again from his aunt
the long story of the family. Each such recital
broug~t
back incidents
Jasper had not known about and he felt the glare of discovery, the un–
derstanding of events and relationships he had long misunderstood
