278
PARTISAN
REVIEW
"A story inside a story inside a story-" said Gabriel, disap–
pointed.
"That's the way it has to be because this
is
an endless story,"
said Tobias. "But I will try to get to the end of the endless story
quickly. The oil painting was on the wall as my mother told Isabel
the story and it was near enough to be seen in the slim, flickering
light of the candles. It was a sentimental painting of a barefoot boy
who played the violin, which he held in his hand, and he looked
very pathetic, cold; and unhappy. He played the violin as a way
of begging for money. When I was three, my mother would tell
me that this boy whom she had named Tony was my older brother
and he had died before I was born. This made me cry, I suppose
because I immediately thought that
if
my older brother had died
in early youth, I might die too and fairly soon. But when I cried,
my mother just called me a crybaby and told me that Tony had
never cried, he had been a very good boy, and he had never had a
pair of shoes while I had all the shoes I needed. The more I cried,
the more my mother kept telling me the story and comparing me to
Tony. He had been a good boy and I was not. He had been brave
and I was a coward. I did not know what a coward was, but I
knew that it was not what anyone would want to be. And it turned
out that my mother was right, for I was a coward for a long
time after that, for I believed what my mother said and I was
afraid that I would die, since after all my older brother Tony had
died and he had been a good boy which I was not-"
"Is that the inside story?" asked Paddles.
"It
is
an important part of the inside of the inside story," To–
bias replied, bemused. "You cannot serve God and Mama," he
added under his breath.
"Please omit the double talk," said Gabriel. "Is that the end
of the story?
If
it is, I wish you would explain to me what it means
and why you think it
is
so important."
"Gabriel," said Paddles, pained in several senses, "much as I
respect you, you sometimes talk like a complete dumb-bell."
"All right, I am a dumb-bell," said Gabriel, "lots of people are
dumb-bells. It
is
no crime to be a dumb-bell. But all I want
is
a
simple explanation of the story from one of you guys."
"I can't explain the story," said Tobias politely, "not right now.
