408
PARTISAN REVIEW
President of the board; another, h er bea ten rival , was mop ing over her
defeat. He liked the rival and left Eul a lie for a moment to go plant a
kiss on her coo l forehead. When he got bac k to the podium he thought
he heard the noise of the machines filt ering through gaps in the musi c
and recalled Eulalie's resemblance
to
a spy. In any case, his eyes feas ted
greedi ly on the various dolls tha t night. But the next day he woke up
exhausted and toward evening he had dark thoughts of dea th. He
dreaded not knowing when he would di e, or what part of his body
would go first.
It
was harder for him every day to be a lone. The dolls
were no company, but seemed to say: " Don 't count on us-we' re just
dolls. " Sometimes he whi stl ed , but soon felt the thread of sound
thinning out till he lost track of it. Other times, he talked to himself
a loud, stupidly commenting on what he was doing: "Now I'm going to
the study for the inkwell. " Or he described his actions as if he were
watching someone else: "The poor idiot-there he is , opening a
drawer; uncovering the inkwell. For al l the good it does him. " Finally,
frightened, he went out.
The next day he received a box from Frank. He had it pri ed open:
it was full of loose arms and legs. He remembered his reques t and
hoped the box didn 't include any loose heads . Then he had it ca rri ed in
to the glass case where he kept the dolls waiting to be assigned their
rol es. He call ed the boys on the phone to expl a in how he wanted the
arms and legs
to
take part in the scenes. But the first trial was a disas ter
and angered him. The moment he drew the curtain, he saw a doll
dressed in mourning, seated at the foot of what looked li ke some
church steps . She was staring stra ight ahead, with an incredibl e
number of legs - at leas t ten or twelve-sticking o ut from under her
skirt. On each step above her was an arm with the hand turned up.
"Clumsy fools-couldn't think o f anything better than to use a ll the
arms and legs at once," he thought; and without trying to figure out
the meaning of the scene, he opened the drawer with the ca ption s and
read: "This is a poor widow who spends her time wandering around
looking for somethin g to eat. The hands a re like traps snapping up
alms." "What si ll y nonsense," he kept thinking. He went up to bed in
a bad mood; and on the point of falling as leep, he saw the widow
walking with a ll her legs, like a spider.
After this failure Horace felt very disappointed in the boys, the
dolls and even Eu la li e. But, a few days later, Frank took him out for a
drive . Suddenly , going up the highway , Frank said:
"See that littl e two-storey house by the river? That's where tha t old
guy lives -the shy little man who has your blonde's sister: your-uh–
sister-in-law... " He slapped Horace on the leg and they both laughed .
"He comes on ly at night. Afraid his mo ther wi ll find out."
