30
PARTISAN REVIEW
sufferings were her favorite topic of conversation with Mrs. Mechi–
ta, whose freckled fingers now lacked their former dexterity with
crochet needles; but she showed an increasing interest in listening
to other people's woes.
Once Adela told her son, as if Mrs. Mechita had said it, what
she herself thought: "Mrs. Mechita, who loves you so much because
she's known you almost since you were born, said it seems to her
you're wasting your life, that you ought to have some fun, take a
vacation this summer, for instance. She said you have to do some–
thing about this sleeping all the time. You're bewitched, she says,
she believes in those things .. . ."
Sebastian blew up. After screaming at her for a while, he
lowered his voice and said: "What makes me most angry is that you
tell me these things as if Mrs. Mechita had said them. Why don 't
you come out and tell me what you think? I don 't want this to
happen again, mama. I'm happy to work and support you, because I
love you . But I will not allow anybody, not even you, to interfere
with my life .
It
hurts me enough that I can't remember anything at
all . No matter how hard I try, my happiness stays hidden behind
the door when I wake up . Sometimes I think I ought to drop
everything, risk starving to death if necessary, to have time to sleep
on and on and on-until the door opens. I'm afraid life is too short .
So if I don't have the right to sleep in my time off from work, then
it's not worth it to me to go on living. "
"Your life isn't worth living, doing what you do!" Adela
answered, and left the room , slamming the door behind her. She
locked herself in but wailed very loud so that Sebastian couldn't
help hearing her .
Sebastian reflected that trying to explain things to his mother
was useless. It was useless to explain anything to anybody. All this
was bigger than himself or other people. He was being dragged
toward an unknown end with such force that it uprooted him, and,
isolating him, made it impossible for him to communicate with
others . That he could not remember his happiness caused him
increasing anguish . Before, when he was a child, he would sleep
just for fun, like someone who had found a slightly mysterious toy,
but still a toy and therefore harmless . In those days, he slept because
he enjoyed it, or when he had time, or simply when he felt like it.
