316
PARTISAN REVIEW
the table and looks at me with sympathy-in other words, she knows how
to pretend when she wants to.
"Are you afraid?"
Until now I was not afraid of anything; I never even thought of fear.
She reminded me. How malicious! She says "thou" to me although
Mother has warned her several times not to do it. She said that she does it
because she is used to it and because she loves me! Now she is unusually
gentle with me.
"Come downstairs with me, baby. ..." She comes close and strokes
my hair.
"Let go. I am not a baby and I am not afraid."
Actually, I am now afraid to be alone. My voice trembles. I'm afraid
I'll begin to cry any minute now. Her tenderness has either touched me or
made me angry. I don't know which. I know it irritated me.
Downstairs with her. ..what would I do there? Why is she stroking
my hair now? Everyone is downstairs, they left me all alone. They are talk–
ing about all kinds of things, about my sister, about illness, about death,
about love...
.I
know that my sister "had somebody" whom she called
"silly," who looked at her from the road down there when she was at the
window, and from the church door when she was by the main altar....Even
Milan's friends flirted with her, although she laughed in their faces ....And
Professor Jaric, who has never been in our house and who doesn't talk to
my family asked me a month ago: "And how is your esteemed sister?" See?
I could talk about all kinds of things too. But they leave me alone, they
despise and humiliate me, they think I am nothing! ...1 have no one but
this ugly, skinny, angry and malicious woman, the only one who now treats
me nicely, warmly and gently.
Why isn't she more beautiful?
Downstairs with her? ...The other day a friend of Milan's was here.
When Red Pepper walked by, he asked Milan: "Did you do her?" And
Milan smiled but he didn't say anything. He just nodded towards me and
his friend looked at me with pity and ridicule. Like, that's not for me, I
don't understand... .But I know he didn't mean kissing, because they could
talk about that in front of me. Why does she never stroke Milan's hair, for
instance? Why is she not more beautiful and why am I not older? . ..1
would show them all. I am so unhappy.
A lady enters; it's my godmother. The room is filled with her perfume.
For some time she has been using a different perfume, stronger and more
pleasant than my mother's....My godmother's dress rustles when she
moves. My mother's does too, when she goes calling. But this rustle is
totally different now. I am blushing, I am embarrassed. Red Pepper says:
"They left him all alone, poor thing." I don't hear anything else. The room
