of theirs a poor thing. A shabby
delineation of poverty and evasive
opportunity. Defeats on a Photo–
maton picture, staring at the piti–
less camera under the hard lights.
One feels stripped, in the cruel
depression which is the gift of oc–
casions such as these. And no one
wants to be judged naked! That
exposure without the subterfuge
and adornment which make us ac–
ceptable to ourselves and others
cannot be borne! Who can stand
facing the world like that, telling
about our failures, sagging here,
one shoulder lower than the other?
The scar that was there before one
knew it, the rough skin at the
knees? Only clothing and deliber–
ate forgetting permit us to con–
template perfection and feel that
we approach it. All our lives we
delude ourselves with the future,
not
the past. In childhood with its
braces we look to youth for fulfill–
ment of our demands, and youth
with its awkwardness throws us
fearfully into maturity, where we
search frantically for the satisfac–
tion
which is supposed to be here!
and which most of us never find,
except in the swift passage, in
which we dream we are loved,
through the inscrutable heart of
another.
Therefore, when one has pushed
the defects in here and there, cov–
ered a cut with a bow, explained
everything to oneself, it is too cruel
to ask one to undress all over again
and be judged. This is what I am
559
now~
one wants to say. I want to
be honest and I am. I value hon–
esty. Ask me the truth now and I
will tell it to you.
I wish to forget the past. Like
all guilty dreamers, I want to be
newly judged every day.
Bernice Bergstrom
.........................
Young writer-teacher
contributor of fiction and criticism to
Kenyon, Sewanee and other quarterlies,
wants col/ege or university job beginning
autumn, 1949. Has taught creative writ–
ing in widely-known University writing
program, modern European and American
literature. Box 20. Partisan Review, 1545
Broadway, New York City 19.
.........................
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