JANKO POLlC KAMOV
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them all what I know, what I am capable of. .. ? This one is not worthy
of declaiming. He is not worthy of the importance and respect granted
him."
Now I wanted something like that. They were looking at this one too,
and I envied him for it: he too was giving a poor performance: he hadn't
shed a single tear. "I would act qui te differently," I thought, "if my father
was to die. I'd weep and pull my hair. And if they tried to carry me out,
I'd hit them with my feet, bite them and yell like our neighbor Kata did
when her husband died. If my father would die! Or my brother! Or even
my sister! .. .It would be quite different, my lad, you who are looking at
us mutely as if it was our father who had died... and yet you flatter your–
self, you think you are important....No, you did not deserve your father's
death!"
And when I saw the funeral, and walking behind the coffin the same
gentleman in black hiding his eyes with a handkerchief, and two others
squeezing his hands to comfort him, while women were keening in the
house-I perceived it all with the same awe I felt towards the priests bury–
ing Jesus Christ on Good Friday.
How different it all was four years ago!
And now I cannot even weep! And my sister dead! It is a beautiful,
sunny day. I can hear the murmur of people talking, of the women gig–
gling. Only my mother is biting her lips and the tears keep falling from her
cheeks onto her breasts. There, in the corner of the big room, I can still
see my poor sister's back, her wet undershirt and her left ear, white as a
waxen angel's....Yes, the candle is burning. But the priest still isn't here.
The maid ran into town to fetch him an hour ago. Is this death? Is this how
we die?
My mother is looking at me. If she could see me now! But maybe she
has already noticed that I'm not weeping. ...What will she think of me? I
am ashamed, I am a cad, I am a sinner; God will punish me....1 am not
sorry for my sister, I am not even weeping, let alone banging my head
against a stone or pulling my hair.
My mother sits up. It seemed that my sister had moved. I cannot see
anything. Mother is kissing her. ...Mother is embracing her. Mother is
weeping. Mother is laughing. Mother is crazy.
I don't know. I should do likewise, throw myself to the ground,
embrace her, weep, carry on....Do I envy my mother or my sister?
Mother loved my sister more than I did; Mother loved my sister more than
me.
Oh, God! Oh, God!
Mother lifts me up. Her gaze is hazy and wet. As if she is saying: you
are a cad-or an idiot; either you won't weep or you can't.
