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510
JONATHAN BAUMBACH
1
she is tall, imposes herself in the doorway. You can't leave, she screams,
until you finish your soup.
Meanwhile, a woodcutter chancing through the neighborhood hears
the woman's screams.
"What's the trouble, madam?" he asks, brea king down the door
with his axe.
"This baby," the woman says, pointing, " has just been horrible
and won' t finish his soup."
The woodman, moved by the lady's tale, raises his axe over the
baby's head as if to split him in half.
"I beg of you , woodman," says the lady, "spare that baby's life."
She throws herself on her knees and weeps on the woodcutter's shoes,
which makes it slippery for him. "Please. Please. Please."
The woodcutter is a simple man , he says, unused to pleas of mercy.
Once his axe is raised it is harder to withdraw than to strike the
necessary blow.
The lady offers her hand in marriage to the woodman in exchange
r
for the life of the child. The woodman say he will think about the
lady's offer and return in one day with his decision.
.
"Are you grateful ?" the lady asks the baby when the woodcutter
is gone. She kisses his face a hundred times. The baby says that he'd
like to continue his journey.
"All I want is a little show of gratitude," the lady says, weeping
at the humiliation of her position, "a nd then, all things being equal,
you can go."
The baby shows gratitude - he will do anything for his freedom -
t
at which time the lady reneges on her promise. What good is gratitude,
she asks herself, without the continuing presence of him who is grateful.
She proposes to put the baby's gratitude on display in the kitchen
window so that the casua l passerby can see what kind of woman she is.
The baby takes back his gratitude; the lady screams ; the woodman
returns with his axe, making a striking appearance.
"I've brought you my decision ," the woodman says. Baby doesn't
wait to find out what it is but runs through the woodman's legs and
out the door and out into the street. He will not be persuaded, he
thinks, to stop for another bowl of soup. Then he thinks what
will
happen to the lady in his absence. She will bawl her heart out, no
question , the poor lady. One day he will return with an axe of his
own and make her proud.
In the course of his travels, the baby falls into despair, and missing
the people he has left behind, considers abo rting his journey. People
are either the same everywhere , he decides, or not the same anywhere,
merely seem the same to one whose eyes are inexperienced with dis·
tinctions.
