— It is so beautiful in there, she said, and smiled, as one foretelling death by falling pillars, death at sea.
Zealous, importunate, he pressed her. — But here? he recovered.
— She has always been just here, but just here, Stan-ley, she said to him; and then lowered her eyes and turned her face away. — But now they are going to send her away.
— When? he asked quickly.
— Yesterday, or today, so soon. She looked at him, in an instant looked about to cry.
— Where? Stanley asked her; but she looked at him. — Wait, he said, and started to speak rapidly. — You, you see you can come with me, yes, can't you, you can come with me. He took her wrist, and she looked at him. — You see because. . yes and then everything, then you'll be save. . safe I mean, you'll be safe. . Now. . wait, first. . He pressed the pain in his jaw, as though to communicate its urgency. — This, I have to take care of this first, I have to go to a dentist but then I'll come back and we, and you'll be… all right. You see I… we're going away. . The question lay only in his eyes, searching the large still pupils of hers.
After that he moved with compulsive certainty. And only on going through the pales outside, pressing his jaw but carrying his head up, and passing the delegation which had forestalled his intended visit, he remembered that he had not asked for his glasses and then, that he had not lit a candle.
— Arny-parney-tiddly-marney, he passed quickly, — stand up! What ever made you try and telephone your wife, even if the line was busy?
The telephone was still ringing when Maude got in. She'd heard it from the hall, and almost broke her key trying to fit it in upside-down.
— Yes, what? she said breathlessly into it, — I? Me?… As she spoke her eyes rose slowly to meet those of the figure gently swinging in the bedroom door. — But you. . why did you choose me? she brought out finally. — But no, no… no, she cried, and even with the last word the telephone was back silent where she'd got it, and she stood with her weight on it staring and still, as though supported by those eyes which held her across the room. It was only in wilting, as the energy which the telephone, so long silent, had flooded her with, ebbed away, and she came to rest in her spinal support with a twinge, that the bond of their eyes broke, and she ducked round the suspended figure, into the bedroom to take off her coat. And the baby hung there, sitting silent in a sort of breeches buoy which she had made from a pair of Amy's shorts and some cord, a breeches buoy pulling neither to ship nor shore, moving gently, never more than enough to intensify the repose of its occupant whose only activity was to fix Maude and hold her with clear blue eyes.
In the bedroom she stood looking vacantly at the thing curled on the dresser top: only that morning, trying to find her bank in the telephone directory, she had come helplessly upon the Guarantee Truss Company, thrown the book down, and never called to find what remained of her tiny bank balance. And here the thing lay, a circle of swathed steel tapered, to broaden an end in a cushion which rose just enough from the top of the chest to liken it to an open hood, and the whole tensely coiled length a cobra in devious wait: and she hurried past it jabbing a hand to the light switch.
The kitchen sink was stacked with dishes. On her way in there with the baby, she tripped over a pair of Arny's shoes which she kept out, empty, in the middle of the floor.
— The most popular hostess of the week. .! she said in a faint tone as she washed, first a dish, then a tiny foot, then a cup. — They telephoned me to ask me if I would like to g-give a luncheon for my. . and they would bring everything and do all the work and afterward s-serve. . s-sell their lunchware to my. . my. . And I asked them how they picked me and she said we blindfolded a girl, and found your name in a telephone book, it's a great. . a great honor to be… to be chosen the most. .
The eyes did not move from her. The baby's head was not conical nor, looking at it, did one have that impression; but immediately upon looking away such an image formed in the mind, and no amount of looking back, of studying it from strategic angles, served to temper the placid image which remained. When most of the dishes were done she had reached the neck, and suddenly she applied both thumbs at the base of the baby's head. — It should go in more here, she whispered, then applied the heel of a hand there, and finally stepped back and turned away from the fixed gaze as though breaking fetters. She left the baby there in the sink with what dishes remained and went into the living room, where she turned the radio on, tripped again over the empty shoes, and stood thoughtfully for a moment before she picked up the telephone and dialed, reading the number of the druggist written on a bottle in her hand.
— Friends, the time to sell your diamonds is now…
— Hello? Could I buy some morphine from you? What? No, I mean just some plain morphine. .?
It was a long struggle, as though the image itself were holding him back in the chair while the dentist worked. And there was time for the agony of remorse, since Stanley had simply got off the cross-town bus and gone to the first dentist whose sign he saw, up a flight, someone he had never heard of and who had, surely, never heard of him. They strained and tugged at one another, Stanley at the chair, Doctor Weisgail at Stanley, and the longer it went on the more alarmed Stanley became, for the dentist seemed in an unsettled state himself. He had heavy arms, was in need of a shave, and perspired freely in his white coat. And then, while Stanley still lay back, gripping the arms of the chair in a rigidity of concentrated terror, he heard a voice and opened his eyes to see the thing held before him in a pair of heavy pincers. — Is it out? he tried to say, — Is that it? But he could not control that side of his mouth. Nonetheless he asked for it when he left, to take with him wrapped in gauze and a piece of newspaper. Out on the street, the dead side of his tongue nudged the numb hollow on his jaw, and he stopped to spit blood in the gutter. Passers-by glanced at him with distaste, the contempt bred of Fourteenth Street's familiarity with such exhibitions, for he made a bad job of it, a stream blown against his chin, hung dripping from the uncontrollable side of his mouth, for he had no handkerchief.
In the window above, Doctor Weisgail watched him stagger, collide with a trashbin, a child, another staggering figure who tried to embrace him as a companion in arms, and finally disappear from sight. Then he took off his white coat and stood there rubbing his chin for a minute. Then as though he had put off for long enough some alien, fortuitous, but no less constraining duty, he picked up the letter he had received that morning, opened it, and stared at its pages as he called the police to report this anonymous persecution:
Dear Doctor Weisgail.
The I, what does it stand for? your first name, what is it? The book I am going to write will be called Flowers of Friendship, because do you remember Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded, well that is what my book will be about.
We are the great refusal, doctor. Why do they love us and trust us for all the wrong reasons, reasons often we know nothing about and then they are disappointed. They are always disappointed. Sometimes I want to just stop, just stop everything and thank everyone. What they do, they free us when they betray us. Is that too easy, doctor? Is it because we can share a part of Ourself with each one we know, the part he demands for the rest we do not offer because he would not recognize the rest and more important even would not believe it is us, so we think better perhaps to simply put it away and do not bother him with it. Then see him, with all his might and main and all of his necessity he builds a whole Us out of his fragment, an Us we may have trouble to recognize too but respond kindly to it but better fearsomely, better beware and afraid for one day he will face us with it and then who can say, This is not us at all, why he has depended upon that Us he made with such loving care did he not? Oh surprised he is and disappointed! How we failed how we failed! He is angry and deeply hurt, betrayed! Betrayed! Do not trust Us, flowers of friendship. All the while we search beyond him for what he thinks he has offered so honest, so honest is he, so honest. Finding in him and everywhere some where where we may share a part but no more, is there anyone you can share nothing with? Is there then who you can share everything with? No no no no— but they do not understand. There were too many of them, doctor. There, there, you see? Your kindness is hypocrisy. They gave you everything, he shared everything he had with you. Did you ask him? No, he gave it so honest is he and so sincere. And some day he finds, you never did accept from inside do you understand? Only outside like a handshake you accepted. He is angry and reduced, not for you now but of you then who pretended to share, and did not share but gave, and gave in the giving only a fragment in exchange you see. How little of us ever meets how little of another. As one day he recalls his confidence to you as weakness, and to cast it out he will cast you away because you did accept it from him, so you served him well, and he is older now, and better unfriendship and weakness so cauterized than friendship which remembers.