SEIZE THE DAY
315
"Do you know?" his father said. "You must realize, an old
fellow's memory becomes unreliable.
It
was in winter, that I'm
sure of. 1932?"
Yes, it was age. Don't make an issue of it, Wilhelm advised him–
self.
If
you were to ask the old doctor in what year he interned,
he'd tell you correctly. All the same, don't make an issue. Don't
quarrel with your own father. Have pity on an old man's failings.
"I believe the year was closer to 1934, Dad," he said.
But Dr. Adler was thinking, Why the devil can't he stand still
when we're talking. He's either hoisting his pants up and down by
the pockets or jittering with his feet. A regular mountain of tics,
he's getting to be. Wilhelm had a habit of moving his feet back and
forth as though, hurrying into a house, he had to clean his shoes
first on the door mat.
Then Wilhelm had said, "Yes, that was the beginning of the
end, wasn't it, Father?"
Wilhelm often astonished Dr. Adler. Beginning of the end?
What could he mean- what was he fishing for? Whose end? The
end of family life? The old man was puzzled but he would not give
Wilhelm an opening to introduce his complaints. He had learned
that it was better not to take up Wilhelm's strange challenges. So
he merely agreed pleasantly, for he was a master of social behavior,
and said, "It was an awful misfortune for us all."
He thought, What business has he to complain to
me
of his
mother's death?
Face to face they had stood, each declaring himself silently after
his own way. -It was-it was not, the beginning of the end–
some
end.
Unaware of anything odd in his doing it, for he did it all the
time, Wilhelm had pinched out the coal of his cigarette and dropped
the butt in his pocket, where there were many more. And as he
gazed at his father, the little finger of his right hand began to twitch
and tremble; of that he was unconscious, too.
And yet Wilhelm believed that when he put his mind to it he
could have perfect and even distinguished manners, outdoing his
father. Despite the slight thickness in his speech- it amounted almost
to a stammer when he started the same phrase over several times in
his
effort to eliminate the thick sound- he could be fluent . Other-
