324
PARTISAN REVIEW
Everything. Everything else is terrible and although the sun is very
high, I am afraid to be alone....And when I'm not afraid, I am ashamed.
At dinner Mother asked several times: "How did it go? Who came to
the funeral?" But Matija said: "I don't know, who would think of such
things at a time like this?" I saw perfectly well who was there, but I gave
her the same answer as Matija. So did Joso and Milan. Now I have doubts
about my brothers. . . .Are they answering like Matija or like me?
Did they see or didn't they?
Joso didn't cry at the funeral. He only cried twice (silently, not sobbing).
That time when Matija sobbed (and he ran to the drawing-room) . And
the time when he was alone in the same drawing-room (and ran out). Joso
is twenty-three. I am suspicious of him now; a strange thought is plaguing
me.. ..Would I cry as heartbrokenly if my brother died and if I didn't have
a godmother? And how would it be if my father died, and would it be the
same if my mother died?
I must not think. Every thought unsettles and upsets me. I have no will.
Tomorrow I'm going to school. That is a black thought. And Matija is
leaving. That too is a black thought. We will go on as before. Father will
be irritated if I don't study. (We are, after all, not in mourning anymore!)
My godmother won't stroke my hair (there is nothing to comfort me
about!) and our neighbors will not point me out. (Now I am the same as
Ferko and everybody else!)
Ugh!
And Milan won't give me cigarettes! (Now everything is the same as
before, when I didn't smoke!)
Ugh! If I heard right, we won't be allowed to sing for some time (nor
laugh, joke or fight, I suppose), like yesterday when a corpse was in the
house-only now there is none. . .
Ugh!
Mter so many days I went to school today. My friends asked me sev–
eral questions which confused me less than I am now confused with my
answers.
One of them asked: "Did your sister have a fiance?"
Another asked: "What did she die of?"
I talked and talked and couldn't bring myself to say: "Of consumption."
And this I don't understand.
It
seems to me that my friends would
respect my sister less and I would have to be ashamed of her if they found
out that she had had no fiance . For a girl who doesn't have a fiance is either
ugly or stupid....And consumption is a shameful disease,just like the very
