To begin at the very beginning: I am the elder brother by two years. My birthday is in the spring, under the sign of Mars, and on that day, while I was at home, I was always accustomed to see my mother fill the vases with tulips like stiff fairy lights.
My brother was born in the dead of winter. I remember my mother telling us about the exceptional severity of that winter and how the fountain in the square opposite our home spouted glittering sprays of ice instead of water, and the sparrows were found in dozens frozen to death. I remember particularly how she told us that somebody (I think it was one of the doctors at the hospital where she was confined), suddenly opening a door into the street, felt something crunch under his boot and discovered a little pile of dead birds which must have fluttered into the doorway for shelter before they became numbed.
The thought of those small, crushed, rigid bodies, which I picture as finches, is associated with early memories of my brother.
My brother. Ah, now I really grasp the difficulty of what I have undertaken. When it comes to the point of describing him my thoughts falter and turn aside. It's not that I don't remember him clearly, so much too clearly. But the act of concentration is like something unlawful. It's as if I were profanely trying to exhume his actual buried corpse. It's as if my brain cells themselves rejected a forbidden task. I begin to hesitate; I find myself listening attentively to the sea as if those never quite audible voices out there might be about to give me a message. But however closely I pay attention to the sea noise I can't distinguish anything definite: only the subdued, interminable clamour which now sounds to me like a high wind in the trees near the house where we used to live.
My brother. Slowly, slowly, his likeness comes in front of my eyes. Yet it isn't a distinct image of him even now. It isn't one picture so much as a series of pictures, taken at different ages and in different places, dissolving into one another and correspondingly vague. A white skin, red cheeks, chestnut hair. His skin was so white that you might have thought it a gift from the ice flowers on the window that witnessed his birth. People used to tease him by saying that such a beautiful white skin was wasted on a boy and should have belonged to a girl. He was big and strong though, not in the least girlish, and that was the reason, I suppose, that he didn't mind the teasing; that, and the gay, good-natured way that he had. It's his hair that I can remember most clearly; a wonderful head of rich red-brown curls with a lovely golden sheen, as glossy and fine as silk. If I'd been a girl I think I would have loved to run my fingers through his hair and unwind the curls which would, I'm sure, have briskly sprung back as soon as I let them go. I never did touch my brother's hair: and somehow this seems a sad thing to me. I think I could bear remembrance more easily if, even if only once, I had put my hand on his head.
My mother sometimes used to caress him in this way; but not frequently: not, at any rate, when I was present. Sometimes when we were all together in the evening I would notice her eyes turning fondly to his head bowed over a book. And I had the impression that she would have reached out to stroke his hair which shone so handsomely under the lamp if she had not been afraid of making me jealous or of hurting my feelings.
Poor mother. How she must have regretted the difference between her two sons. Even in the circumstances of our births we were totally different, and all her suffering and anxiety were on my account.
My brother came into the world easily in the glow of a frosty sunrise. From babyhood he was healthy and lovable and never caused a moment's alarm. Whereas I, dragged bloodily through a long and difficult birth, for years swung between life and death, the victim of an endless sequence of illnesses and accidents. All through my unlucky childhood my hold on life was precarious, and it was not until I was fully grown that my body appeared to reconcile itself more or less to the earth.
I have read the psychologists’ theory that children bom in springtime are liable to a lack of robustness because of the tension accumulating in the natural world during their term of embryonic development. But at the time when I was growing up children bom in spring and summer were generally supposed to possess the pleasant characteristics of those seasons. Friends used to express surprise that I, with my auspicious birthday, was continually ailing, while my brother, who should have been handicapped by his freezing introduction to life, was a perfect model of mental and physical health.
Naturally, I could not fail to be aware of the comparisons which were made between the two of us, of course always in my disfavour. My brother was tail, well-developed and fine to look at with his vivid colouring; kind, friendly, intelligent. I was puny, weak, incapable of tying my own shoelace without gasping for breath, my complexion was sallow, my hair stringy and dull, my manner lifeless or boorish and petulant.
When my brother brought friends to the house I would hide unsociably in my room. Or, worse, I would sit among them like a malicious goblin, damping their high spirits with my sneers and silences and bitter remarks.
In this way, as time went on, a gradual alienation took place for which I was entirely to blame. Up to the very end my brother was always considerate, gentle, eager to make friends with me. My heart sinks with shame and remorse now when I remember how often when he came back from his work in the business part of the town he would sit at home, trying to coax me into a good mood with his amusing talk, instead of spending the evening with his companions. How patient he was, and how little response he got from me. As likely as not I would try to pick a quarrel with him for his pains. But he would never be goaded into hostility, and if he saw that I was determined to stick to my bad temper, he would simply sigh and go out of the room; not reproachfully, but with such a sad, disappointed look that my heart almost breaks when I recall it.
And my mother. I see that I have hardly written anything about her as yet, although she was so much the centre of both our lives. Our father died when I was only a few years old and I have no recollection of him at all. My first memories are all of my mother, bending over me, stroking me with cool hands, holding a cup to my lips, soothing me through the mazy fevers of interminable nights, taking me for precious outings during my rare spells of comparative health. She was gay and pretty in those early days, smiling often, and singing, and with a quaint humour distinctively hers. That is the way I like to remember her. As a girl she must have been charming, with my brother's bright hair and complexion. I used to hear people say when we were children how much he resembled her.
It hurts me to think that it was the strain of looking after me which dimmed her brightness prematurely. Her devotion to me was extraordinary. At the time I took it for granted, never having known what it was to be left without her care for a single day. But now I realize that there was something fanatical, almost abnormal, in her determination to keep me alive and to shield me from every blow. There was even — how can I convey what I mean? — a touch of perversity in her protectiveness. I hardly know how to express it except by saying that her will for my welfare exceeded the natural bounds of maternal love and assumed a masochistic quality.
For my sake, although she was still a young and attractive woman, she sacrificed all social amusements. Because I was an invalid and could seldom go out, and then only for short periods, we lived a life of almost complete seclusion. When my brother started to earn his living and to bring his friends to the house I noticed a brief revival of her vitality. She looked younger, and began to speak again in the old humorous way that she had abandoned. Even her hair seemed to become more alive although its colour had. faded.