NET Playhouse Biography; Colette: My Mother's House

I have you on the screen. Yeah. I'm gonna be late for the next part. Okay. Come on. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sunday Showcase, made possible by a public service grant from the National Endowment

for the Arts and Bristol Myers Company in association with its divisions. If you see, my mother's house was large, topped by a lofty garrow, a solemn house, mother forbidding with its shrill bell and its carriage entrance like an ancient dungeon. A typical burga's house in an old village, but its dignity upset a trifle by the steepness of the street. The stone steps being lopsided, ten on one side and only six on the other. It would happen sometimes, long ago, when this house and garden harbour the family, that

a book lying open on the path, a skipping rope twisted like a snake revealed the presence of children, but such evidence was hardly ever accompanied by laughter. In my home, the warm and full, bore an odd resemblance to those houses which once the holidays have come to an end are suddenly emptied of joy. The silence, muted breeze, the pages of the book turned only by invisible fingers all seem to be asking, where are the children? Where indeed, nowhere, as she ill, me nayshari, leo, where are they? Juliet! Oh, it is like having a brood of cats they come and go like shadows, where do those children ever go?

How do you better answer? Oh, she'll, I think she's closer than you said. See, the tops of the grass are shaking. That's lovely. That's only old Mr. Shabble, he ain't going to water his garden, speaks after leo. But how long can we stay here? I mean, really, really, really, how long? Oh, hours, maybe days even. I shield my elder brother was always the leader, and I admired him in norms. Who died today? No one important. That's a relief, 16 funerals in a week, especially those high state affairs you've taken such a fancy duke and wear a fellow gown. Well, the week's not over yet, you know. How many ends in lamented? I told you one is in heavenly land. Juliet, my elder sister, my breed forever in the silent shadow of the walnut tree, with never a pause unless it was to criticize or a man. Yes, does there are three, not four in memoriam? Oh, damn.

It'll have to do all the heavenly lambs in memoriam all over. I wish you hadn't told me, Juliet. Children, I hear you. I know you are out there. Oh, where are those children? Just see, she is nearby, looking for us. I suppose she will have to find us. Yes, I am by. Where are they? Four o'clock, and they haven't come in for tea. Where are the children? It was then that my father would make his appearance. That quick stack of his like a crow's hop, hoisting the old soldier to my mother's side. Mr. Colette, where are the children I ask you? Six o'clock, will they even come home for dinner? Tomorrow, I shall lock all of you up, all of you here, every single one of you. Tomorrow, that lovely voice, how I should weep for joy if I could hear it now.

Where are the children? Where do those children ever grow? Two are at rest, mama. Others grow older day by day. But if there be a place of waiting after this life, then surely she who so often watched and waiting for us is waiting still invisible, tormented only by her inability to watch over us enough. Where are the children? Where are the children? There is nothing for dinner tonight.

Lairnoy hasn't killed yet this morning. So I shall have to go to the butcher's just as I am. Why should one have to eat? And what shall we have to eat this evening? Raw tomatoes with plenty of pepper and parsley. Red cabbage and vinegar, mama. And you, a sheel, would be a doctor, operate on a soulful food poisoning, I suppose. I know, a big bowl of chocolate. Yes, and fried potato. And well, that's cheese. I do not think that raw tomatoes, fried potatoes, chocolate, and red cabbage constitute a dinner.

You forgot the walnuts and cheese. Do not constitute a dinner. Oh, fly, mama. Oh, you mustn't bother your mother, Meney Sherry. She's absorbed in her greatest problem, the care and feeding of the blue. A pure animal response. She has inherited from some earlier ancestral link, Madame Panfer. Where has she gone to anyway? Only to lay an oars for the dinner. Lay an oar. Well, let's finish off the mid-morning nicely. Now those old women love to gossip. I must speak to your mother about that imperfection in her character. Remind me, will you, Meney Sherry? I listened to that firm, regular rhythm of two sticks and a single foot, which has served me all of my childhood. It seemed strange to me now that I knew him so little. My attention was all for my mother, she do. And only fitfully straight from it.

It was just the same with my father, it seemed. I'm not back yet. Perhaps you could go and look for her. But do not trouble to tell her that I am concerned because I'm not really. Now you hear me, child, go and look. It is cool and melancholy where I wait for my mother's return. And when at last I hear the sound of her footsteps, how happy it makes me feel. Ma'am, not now, let me pass down here. Get the door for me. I don't get this leg of mutton to all react, to roast it once we shall dine off shoelider. Where is your father? I do not know now. Not experimenting in the wine cellar again here, am I yet? In the library.

So my dear wife, you have decided to come back to us after all. Come back. Are you trying to be funny, Colette? I have simply been there and come straight back. Back, back, back, back from where? Lea Norse, I presume, is still across the square. Of course not. I had to go to Sholes and to Cornoles. Ah, for his sheep's eyes, I suppose. And did you notice, Mrs. Sholes, is beginning to lose his hair? I think you use yourself, I'm beginning to lose your mind. Mineshary, no strawberry tartlets before dinner for it, down this. What are you chewing, anyway? Sealing wax? One of these days you're going to swallow something like that, and you shall burst your appendix. Then your poor paparazzi shall not have the pleasure of seeing you elected president of France, and we can simply kiss the whole world good-bye. Well, Mama, people don't believe in things like that anymore. They don't. I do. And spare me any lectures on human enlightenment if you please. I have no time for them.

Mama, will you ever look at me? I see you very well, my child, and I will tell you there is charcoal on your nose. Here, your mother. Go wash the face. And without much stamping about, please. I don't know where we could have found such a child. She certainly doesn't take after my side of the family. To my knowledge, all of my predecessors were intensely graceful people. Grace of his people indeed. Italians, knife-throwers. And now can we presume a small lecture on genealogy, dealing with their artistic spirit and the freedom of will? What the devil are you talking about, woman? Too much wine. I say so every meal time, but obviously only I can be gotten around. Heaven knows how you do it. A pinch, a compliment, a smile. I'm flattered that you're still concerned.

And I thought you far too busy making eyes at the popping jays across the square to notice all at Mabela's two sons. Oh, this is too, too much. Making eyes at Mabela's side. Upon my word, I don't know how you dare. I swear to you, I never turn my head in the direction of their place. And the proof of that. Me, Sherry, what are you doing? Nothing at all, Papa. That is precisely the point, go and find something and do it, please. Papa! Yours is a personal matter between your mother and myself. Papa! Do as he says, darling. There's no point in arguing with the old man when he's in this room. Oh, yes, he's jealous, but don't smile. I smile at their quarrels because I'm only 12. And I've not yet divine the ferocity of love beneath my father's veteran bra. The blushers of adolescence upon my mother's fading cheeks. Sunday and my mother's house.

A smell of crushed grass hangs over the unmoan lawn where the new blades are trod in all directions by the children's games. But the children do not play there on this day. Oh, I'm so bored. My name is that you're making all that noise out here. Desist it once before you wake in your Papa. What ails you anyway? I have nothing to do. Mama, for heaven's sakes, what will I do this whole day? Change your hair ribbon for a start, put on the pale blue. I don't suppose we're going to church. Certainly not. I always say, if you have God in your heart all week long, I see no point in his having you on your knees all Sunday morning. Then why change clothes? Well, that is a matter of respect, an entirely different province. Change into a clean pinnacle while you're about it.

I iron some for you earlier and me nay. Try not to darkle. Not dawdling, Mama. But I don't see why I can't. Oh, there's never anything else to do on Sundays. Ah, yes. Precisely the way the Lord put it, my daughter, after the creation. I wish. I wish I were 35 years old, with curly short hair, and I lived in Paris. And nobody could tell me what to do, ever, ever, again. What are you doing, miniseries? Nothing, reading fairy tales. You put down that book this instant. I'm just looking at the pictures. Those are the organs of the body. Now, don't touch. Not touching, but how pretty they are. All cut up so you can just open them out as wide as you please. Like a bell, time said you ain't had.

I will give you something you won't forget. You don't put that book down this minute. I won't. I just love these pictures. Just see how cunning they are. That dear little baby lion outside. What's the baby doing there, anyway? Me nay, Sherry. Mama. Oh, as she'll leave her alone, she won't hurt anything. You don't understand, Mama. She is playing with my volumes on the reproductive system. On the sabre. Me nay, that is too much. Why can't you play like other children do innocently? But I didn't touch this nasty reproductive system. Whatever do you mean, Mama, about innocence? Mean? Well, how should I know what I meant? Am I expected to give a reasonable explanation for every silly word I utter like a politician? What are you doing now?

What does it look as if I were doing? Garden. On Sunday. And nothing is coming up. And what do you know about it? Is it for you to decide? Here now, read these labels for me. This one is... Read what it says there, baby. I haven't got my glasses. Blue, looping? Ah, of course. And these are... Now, scissors. And sweeping. No, no, no. This one really worries me. I can't remember whether I planted a family of crocus bulbs there or the crystals of an emperor moth. No, no, no. The crystals, it will die the moment the air touches. And if it's the crocuses, we shall have to start all over again. Are you taking in what I'm saying? You are not too tamper. No, I won't.

Must I cross my heart for anyone to believe me? No. You don't understand lucky, Mineshari. The enormity of being responsible. There will be a wrinkle right there one day when you do. You are nothing but a twelve-year-old murderous. Or is it ten? Who doesn't yet understand that some things need to live. In my mother's house, there was one untouchable possession. The great faded leather album of photographs. It's brass, design, tarnished with age like some ancient hieroglyphic gamma cover. Sometimes, when I was sick, my mother would ask me what would make me feel easier and I always asked for the family album. Who was this, Mama?

That was your great Aunt Lewis. Was she really so ugly? She was a Marlotto, but very beautiful. She was married five times each time in a white dress as if it were the first. And this, who was this? That was your uncle Claudeau-Fons who died when he was only three of typhus. And this, this was my first husband. Before Papa, your husband before him? My how handsome he looked. You know what they called him in eh? This will make you laugh. They called him a savage. A savage? Did you love him very much, Mama? The savage? More than your love, Papa? Who knows what love is at eighteen? Did I? Mama, you haven't answered me. Haven't I, my foolish darling? Mama, where has he gone? Where is his romantic-looking savage gone? Where they have all gone, my darling, with my youth, it seems.

She was only eighteen when he carried her off, you know. Carried her off? How do you know that, Juliet? There's my papa, wasn't he? I guess you would certainly take the trouble to find out all the details concerning your troupe about you and me. Juliet, do you remember him at all? Do you remember even the tiniest littleist thing about him? A savage. How could I? Didn't she leave him when I was only three months old? I shall never forgive her for that, I think, for giving up the rights and titles. It was not fair to her, she alone me. Not fair at all. I left without a soul, she'd say proudly, proud about a foolish thing like that. And his estate was large. Very large. The savage. They only called him that because he was independent. I loved to ride and hunt alone, without even a dog along.

My papa never needed anyone. Not even my mom? Who is arrogant? And tall, and all together, a god of a man. Just look in the mirror, me naysay. I have his eyes. He was confused and selfish. And like all selfish men, slightly pitiable. Is that why you ran away from him alone? No, I ran away because I was young and full of life, and slowly dying for companionship and laughter. There was no one for me to talk to in his house. There were the servants. Servants, cautious farmers and gamekeepers, wreaking a wine and the smell of the blood of hairs, who when they shook hands with you left behind the smell of wolves. You see, little one, I was not happy in his world. And so I left it.

You rotten half. You owed his children their rightful inheritance. I have tried to give his children a measure of contentment, Juliet. That is, I think, something better by far than family silver engraved with a rampant goat. And did you never see or hear from him again? One hears, little one, without even wanting to know. Lawyers make you aware and notary spell there, spill their unwanted secrets with their ceiling wax. I heard of my servant's life and of his end as well. Died? When you were so far away, what did you feel there, Mama? Then, with your brother leo down with the colic, I hadn't time to feel or think of anything. Only later. Oh, so much later, as I sorry for all the unhappiness

that poor man could never show. You know me, Ne. I haven't thought of this in years, but when I was first married, and I had filled that grey, empty house with flowers until no more flowers grew and scrubbed and polished to my fingers were too numb to touch or feel. I broke down. I cried for a whole week. Not for any reason, really, except that I was weary with longing for my first child. And the savage, realizing, but not understanding why I was unhappy just ran out of the house and rolled away, silly foolish man, for he wasn't a savage truly, you know. He trotted on horseback for 40 miles to the nearest town, swooped down on its shops, and returned the following night with ease.

Your mortar. Of rarest marble. And this cashmishaw. Feel it darling. It's as soft as the day that he laid it against the face that tear-stained face of that poor girl. It was soft. I remembered as the finest, softest material I'd ever done. I can still make almond paste in the now cracked and yellowed mortar, but I shall always reproach myself for having cut up the cherry colored shoulder making cushions when I was a bride. Well, you see, the savage who had never learned how to give did bring me this. Held them in his arms as proud and clumsy as a big dog with a small slipper in its mouth. Not just mortar and shell, but presence. Rare and costly things that he had gone a long way to find. It was his first unselfish act, and his last horse song.

It was muse and comfort, a lonely exile who was beaten. I think of thee, I see thee, I adore thee. At every moment, everywhere. Before that child is sleeping. Not yet. Nine o'clock, summer. My sister practices the piano. In the failing like cleaning against my mother's name, I close my useless eyes and smell the night above us. The linen frock under my cheek is strong with a scent of households. The wax that is used to polish the iron and of violence. The flood of scents flows over us like an unbroken wave. The white tobacco plants, the cool bitter smell of little worm-eaten walnuts that have fallen on the grass below.

Here's Madame Bruno come to chat with my mother. Ah, Madame Bruno. Oh, thank you, Captain. When the fair queen her crown forgot all for the love of a comely page. Husband has a lovely voice, he does. Perfectly lovely, Tom. The captain's voice would really grace any theater. If they would put his mind into it, he is very talented my husband. I mean, it is after nine. Yes, Madame. Every time I hear the captain decree, I feel sad. You can have no idea, Sido, what it means to lead such a life as mine. To grow old beside a husband like my husband. To tell myself that I shall die without ever having known love. You mustn't talk like that, Bianca. You'll be sorry later.

Tom, have a sip of blackberry wine. It's not full enough to drown my sorrow, Sido. Never? Never too of known love? Mm-hmm. Oh, you're a lucky woman, Sido. Narrow sense. To have put two husbands in the grave and watch a third preparing mine. It's too much. Some women don't know how lucky they are. Lucky. That's the way it goes. Some have the love. Some don't. Madame B. Yes, Captain. You must know that my offer still holds good. I can't. I'm thinking you are. And before your wife? Oh, Sido. He's a wicked, wicked man. Drink your wine, Bianca. It goes to my hand. Does he always stare at my friends?

Six francs in the packet of tobacco. I repeat, six francs in the packet of tobacco. Six francs and a day's smoke for teaching you the meaning of love. Oh, that would be still Bianca. You mustn't pay attention to him. He's drunk. Drunk I am not. Hungry I am, Madame. Think it over. Six francs. That will do, Colette. The child. When the fair queen had crowned for God, all for the love of a calmly page. But the next day, and in the days that followed, no matter how carefully Madame Bruno tried to avoid her enemy and her idol, he would not allow her to escape. But would challenge her lighthearted and attractive as she passed. Ah, good morning, Madame Bruno. Captain? What brings you here?

Plainly, I am waiting for you, Madame. Oh, you're not at all. You think I can't see Sido through my villa shop window? Plainly, you're waiting here to carry on her parcels. Waiting for you, Madame. You must not say it anymore, Captain. Say what? Six francs and a packet of tobacco for heaven's sake? You must not. You know. Not six francs. Captain, the price is too high. Too high for me, I have to pay. Surely not six francs. Too high. There are some souls with an infinite capacity for hiding their suffering and their trembling response to the lure of sin. Madame Bruno was one of these. As long as she could, she bore with my father's scandalous suggestions, pretending to laugh at them. Then one fine day, without warning,

deserting her little house and removing her furniture and her ludicrous husband. She departed to live far away from us, up in the hills at Delay. I'm really going to miss Bianca. Oh, she was foolish, I know. But I will miss her. Did you say something, Colette? No, my dear, I did not. It's silly, of course. But you know, I think she was growing fond of usual Joseph. Oh, nothing serious, you understand, but fond. It's probably the most innocent sort of feeling. Colette, are you asleep?

My father was not, but from that moment on, he never again spoke of six francs and a packet of tobacco. My, my. And what did he do when he was alive at a stunning francophone cup of yours? He was a town cryer. But in heart, he was a great musician. All frustration. That's why Drankin used to beat his wife. Then why have you put a good husband and a good father on his epitaph? Because that's what you always put when people are married. Who else died since yesterday? Madam Ego Mimi Puyse. Who is she, Madam Ego Mimi? Ego Mimi, with a Y at the end. Just a lady who always dressed in black.

She had a mustache too, in case you're interested. By the way, be ready, ten o'clock tomorrow morning. There's a service you won't want to miss. What service? A special high mass. For the repose of the solves La Gusto Tru Tru Mc. The father of the sub. The father. Passed over from crew last night. Can't the service be in the afternoon, Leo? At ten o'clock, I shall be in school. You know that. You know so much the words for you, then, old girl. But a service is a service, you know. Paul Spongebob would be quiet out of the question. Now, let me allow me, Deshary. I must think of a terribly suitable ending for my epitaph on Madam Ego Mimi Puyse. What do you think of this first start? Oh, the model of Christian spouses. Ref from us at the age of eighteen. Already four times a mother. The lamentations of weeping children. Have not availed to keep thee with them. Thy business is in jeopardy.

And thy husband, Van Lee, seeks oblivion. That's as far as I've got. It's a good beginning. Did you really have four children before she was eighteen? Haven't I told you so, God, in heaven? Now, what is this? It's my graveyard, Mama. A morgue. In my garden. How delightful. You take after your father, who's also given to sacrilege. A new minnay, Sherry. Honorary Paul Bear, I suppose. Yes, Mama. Is it beautiful? Oh, perhaps this boy will end his days in a criminal cell. Oh, this is sadism, delirium. It is, really it is. Oh, I don't know what it is. What does one do with such children? I ask you, what does one do? Leo, you will be pleased to get me the rake at once. And minnay, I will thank you to stand back out of the way. Bring me the rake, Leo. And so, before our eyes were swept away, the lovely tombstones.

My brother endured it all without protest. Left in contemplation of the empty lawn, with freshly raked earth, he called to me to witness with a poet's melancholy. Don't you think it looks sad? A garden without graves? Sit down, my dear. Sit down. Guess what has happened? You'll never believe this when I tell it to you. Oh, my God, what a climb. I'm quite out of breath. Ran every step of the way. No, listen carefully. But with this corset on, I'll never have breath to repeat a single word. Well, they say, Ronsar's wife is gone, you know. And this time, with the schoolmaster. Our neighbour, Madame Sardal Bonds, and Eccles Drungwords were like a weather forecast, announcing tomorrow's adultery next week's ruin,

or another newly discovered incurable disease. So there's no hope at all. Isn't that the way it always goes? Fourteen doctors, an acre of stitches cut from here to there. And then, no hope. Sit down, Adrian and I shall give you a glass of my red currency. As you see, I am very busy tying up my grape, are they? You'll forget about your grape ivy. When you hear all, I've come to tell you. It was curiously always the same story that Madame Sardal Bonds had to tell. The second bonus your girl is getting married. Four and a half months gone already. A belly like a provolced villa out to hear my dear. And now, the satire of a simple church wedding. You see, Denise, you're not listening. I am, I am. They say the poor parents had to pay the brute compound interest to marry her. The second bonus your girl.

The one with the weak leg and the squinty eyes. Well, one can well imagine some wires having to be pulled for that alliance. But then, the lives of those poor unattractive girls has been empty enough to ring one's heart. Bordam is intensely depraved. Bordam, is that what they call it now? If you start spouting morality, Lord knows where we shall end, Sydney. Well, I mean if the shoe were on the other foot and your own daughter were involved, would you be so ethical? Speculation, of course. Usually at gross prettier every day. Everyone notices it. An absolute beauty you produce, really, a beauty. She must take after your first husband for the little one, is so plain. I was saying that just this morning you met Andrew. Oh, my childhood was blighted by those words. The little one is so plain. My sister's skin was white as letter paper. On her cheeks was a rosy blush,

the born-out trace of rules. Mine were yellow, was china wax. What are you doing now, Mene Show? Go away. I'm pinching myself to get a good complexion. Why is it now the fashion to be black and blue in the face? Why don't you leave well in her? Enough alone. You're not so bad to look at. And your type improves as one goes older. I think you're ever so much better looking now than you were as a baby. And if you get my hair pins for me, I will fix your hair in a new way. I've just thought for you. Oh, this poor hair of yours. Really, I can't think of a worse thing to have inherited from your father. He's been in my room again. I can tell it that dreadful pipe smell. Don't pull away, it makes snows. He was just looking for his paper. Why doesn't he ask for them for goodness' sex instead of prowling about my things? Your father never remembers that I am not his own child that he can do with as he pleases.

And to my mother, she would complain bitterly. Your husband, Mama, you simply will have to say something to him this time. He goes more impossible by the day. Olders and dictums are directives. As if I were a child of his own. His very own child. It is degrading for him to treat Ashile and me as if we were his property. Part of his property. Part of his brood and chattel to be done with as he pleases. No, no, no, I simply won't have it. I mean it. I absolutely forbid you to speak of the captain in that tone. I absolutely forbid it. As long as you are under his roof, I never want to hear you say those things again. Juliet, you hear me? I hear you, but you can't make him into my father. No, you're right. He is not that. But are you so truly stupid and self-indulgent to believe that the accidental passion of a drunken brute over and a moment and quickly forgotten makes a father? If you do believe it, I'm sorry. Not for you, but for the captain.

I'm paying for every wasted moment of affection that he spent on you because you were not worth it. Are you through? Quite through. From that moment on, it seemed as if underclared war had been tacitly accepted on both sides. My sister and mother spoke, but only those amenities necessary for coexistence. And laughter and gaiety, like unwanted tenants, left the house on the roofless streets. You know, tell your sister the dressmaker is waiting for her. My mother, since I have no intention of leaving the house, I won't be needing the cherry velvet capelet tailored to have it made over for you. It's more your color than mine anyhow. Juliet, my mom wants to know if you'll eat normal for supper. Hello, no. What will you eat then?

Glass of lemonade, perhaps. Or a cup of chocolate. But nothing at all doesn't really matter. What are you reading, Juliet? Do tell me what you were reading. Your sharp trills, department, could you really care? Is it romantic? I think I lack romance as best now. Is it romantic, Julie? It is unhappy in the ending, if that's what you mean. Is something vaguely attractive about unhappy endings, I think. Juliet, when will you come downstairs again? Did you say something I was reading? I only asked. Never. Are you satisfied? Now go down and tell your mother her horror and daughter's answer. Go on. That's what you came for, isn't it? No use to deny it. Better to thread one's way through the sea of books, saying nothing at all. It was like a fortress, my sister's room.

Novels were stuffed among the cushions, wedged in the work basket, piled in great, fantastic barriers before the bed where the princess languished in her banishment. Did she eat anything? No. There was a riding apple on her tray. Did she say anything today? Nothing today. When my mother lost her temper and confiscated the candles, my sister caught a cold, demanded a night light in order to prepare infusions and read by the night light's glim. After the night light there were boxes of matches and finally the moonlight. Reading by the cool light of the moon and exhaustive by romantic insomnia. She became feverish, and her fever refused to yield to either compresses or Henriette's pergative drafts. Ah, she is Juliette very sick.

You must tell me at once. I will tell you what I know, Mama. It is a kind of sickness surely, but not the kind of sickness doctors like me can cure by recommending a physical. I should have called you soon. You know how she hates the captain. I don't understand how she can hate a man like that. A sheel. You don't hate him, too. Hate the captain, God forbid. Mama, you mustn't let's do this upset you like this. See how your hands are trembling? This is our Juliette. Don't we know her? Hasn't she always been the same? Stayed in her room for three days when she was ten without heating. Remember that? And why? Because she couldn't go to the circus in Paris with me. She got over that, she will get over this. It's her face. Nothing but her face. Perhaps, perhaps. But she's so pale, so worn. I met her in the hall last week.

I had barely knew her. And you know how she acted as she? She nodded to me. As if she was surprised that we were still in the same house. It is the fever. They were always the same. My sister's fever lasted a month. Their war temporarily abated my mother sat watching the girl on the bed, touching her lips with lemon water when they grew parched and dry with the fever. Holding her hand sometimes so tightly that the delirious patient would snatch it away from her in pain. I still, darling. I still... You got you? I told you not to come. This is not the time. Not the time at all. You may share it, go downstairs and get a cold towel for ahead. It is the sickness speaking. Don't let her touch me, keep away. I'll get you. Keep my wretched family away from me. I'm not darling. Stay away from me. I hate me.

I hate you. He's not my father. You hate me. He will never be my father. Never, never, never. No, go downstairs. But we'll get away from this wretched house. I'll get to him. He will never be my father. Oh no. Though half my life has passed since that moment, it seems that I shall never forget my mother holding my struggling sister in her arms. Staring in horror at this stranger who, in her delirium, called only for an unknown person. Come, Nick. Come, Nick. Get you. Hurry. Before my sister fully recovered, before her health truly came back, she left my mother's house to marry a true horse. Juliet, is this way to live? Juliet, you're not listening to me. Who is this boy?

Where does he come from? Haven't we the right to know these things? Well, your parents who love you and want only the best for you, but surely you must know that. Juliet, if this house whom you want, I will not stand in your way, but this is not the way. Stop packing for a moment and listen to me, Juliet. The tool is waiting for me, my mother. Besides, there's nothing you could say. They would change my mind. But this is not the way as if there was something to hide. This is a small village. What will people say if you lead like this? That is more your problem than mine, since I never cared what people said about me. I'm in the shore of you, please. What will I say? Say, I'm pregnant. At least it will be before Madam Santa bar has time to say it. Married?

Juliet? She does precious Juliet married like that. Well, I always say it's the quiet ones who must watch. Married, so they are truly married. I suppose it's better to have the babies when you are married than when you are unmarried if there is any choice in these matters. A little bit more fat on the joint, if you please lay an oar. A domestic tragedy in a great city can run its course discreetly, and its heroes can slaughter each other in silence. But a village that vegetates all year long in peace and in a nation is without compassion. The Grey House, with the wrought ironworks, stood like a phantom shadow across the Regulus piece by sister's house that we were never to enter. And got you the brother-in-law I never knew came sometimes to our house at night, but it was always for the same reason. Papers to be signed, documents to be reexamined. Provident guardianship. It's graceful business, really.

The inexcusable mismanagement of my wife's estate. My dear captain, I'm not making any accusations, but it will take better legal minds than yours and mine to disentangle your step-daughter's affairs just from the look of things. Juliet was never in want, sir. Never needed for anything. I could afford to give her or her brother. She tell you she was deprived of anything. My wife would prefer to conduct this through our lawyers. If you please. Good evening to you, sir. And my sister yielding to the persuasions of her husband and her in-law. No longer saw any of us. Yine, I think she's going to have a baby. Who? Your sister Juliet? Who told you that?

No one. Sometimes one doesn't need to be told these things. Sometimes one just knows us. Out of your blood, so to speak. So there will be another heir. That is bad news for me. More papers to sign, I suppose. Is she really told you have a baby? And why not for the love of God? Isn't it time? And even after time. 13 months to the day. I never forget a date. I'll strange that during my sister's waiting period, I cease to think about it. Nor did I attach any special significance to the fact that just at that time, my mother began to have attacks of nausea and palpitations. I only remember that the sight of my sister filled me with embarrassment and disgust. Why do you look at me like that? It is your nephew I'm carrying. You make it sound like a kangaroo or something.

I'm sorry Juliet, I must hurry to the store for my mother. Yine Sherry, why don't you come over some afternoon and see all the baby things I've been making? Wouldn't you like that? No, thank you all the same. No, I really must be going. My mother will be waiting. That's all right. I won't keep you. Yine Sherry, does she miss me very badly? With me this way. Because sometimes think about my mother. Because sometimes we're shy. No, I don't think she misses you at all. Not one little bit. I've got to go. Goodbye Juliet. Goodbye Mini. Birth, like death I've discovered, comes without incident, without warning. A neighbor's random whisper in my mother's ear, and there it is. What is it, Sido? What's the matter?

Over there. Things have started with her. What can you do? Nothing. Nothing for me to do. Go to bed. You're tired? Mini, Sherry, you. Isn't that funny? I've forgotten what I was going to say. Go to sleep, my dear. I think I'll just wait up for a while. After putting out the lamp, I sat at the window for a long time, looking down into the garden across the lawn to the house where Juliet lived. I listened with beating heart in the darkness. No sound but the bark of a dog in the soft sighing of the wind. Then, under the cold light of the moon, I saw a shadowy form enter the garden.

My mother, her face up turned, she listened and waited. A thin cry long drawn up, muffled by distance, and the intervening walls reached us at the same time, and she clasped her hands convulsively to her breast. A second cry pitched on the same note, almost like the opening of a melody floated toward us. And a third, then I saw my mother grip her own lawns with desperate hands, spin around and stamp on the ground as she began to assist and share by the clasping of her unwanted arms, and by all her maternal anguish and strength, the anguish and strength of the ungrateful daughter who so near to her and yet so far away was bringing a child into the world. There's another child.

That's all. Go to sleep. It was nothing at all, my baby. Just another child. Good night, shootin' at them. What are you thinkin' about, bellgasm? Nothing, mother. Nothing. You sit quietly in your chair and watch the silent child before you, for you, putting your life together,

stitch by stitch in an embroidery. What did you say you were thinking about? Nothing, mama. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. You look as if you don't hear a word I say. Do you? But you don't look as though you did. Now, what did you say you were thinking about? Nothing, mother. I don't believe you. You know, daughter, you have a really stupid expression on your face. Close your mouth. Breathe through your nose. Mama. Where are you going? Just for a walk. Alone at this hour at twilight. Minute. Is there a boy? Car snap, mama. Ah, well, go ahead then. But do stand up straight.

I want you to show them what I can produce. Minne. Mama. Just a second. I want to take a look at you. You're growing up. I'll keep forgetting that. Where I wonder has the child come? Where? Where has it all gone? Well, you guys, who? Time to come to bed. Now, do not cry. And do not suck your finger. Oh, do as mother says, and she will tell you a story. Something that happened long, long ago. Captain, you must color not to ask that question again. Why, mama? Why, man, not go to church if I want to? Your mother is an unbeliever. Only for myself, Colette. I'm not one of those converters who feel they must push everyone they meet in and out of their religion, like a revolving door. If the child is to be religious, she'll make up her own mind. She's only 12.

When she is 13, if she still wants to go to church, I will not stop her. I am 13. You are. My god, Colette, how fast they grow. Where does the time go, I ask you? Then may I go to church on Sunday? On Sunday. So soon, without even time for a few family discussions beforehand, I think it's a rash decision, man, eh? Rash, for heaven's sake, she has thought of it for a year, at least. And what harm can you see in it? It is just the catechism, after all. Just the catechism, didn't we almost lose lair with the awful cheerly, took sitting on his knees all the time, those ten commandments who ever translated them into such gibberish, I ask you. Oh, my, my. I do not like to see this book in a child's hand. It's full of such unsuitable and complicated sorts of things. Since you feel so strongly, Sido,

perhaps you might suggest a few changes in the Holy Scriptures. Perhaps I shall do just that. It's a perfectly awful idea. This system of revealing and confessing and reconfesting every pulp one commits. You're quite right, Captain, about suggesting revisions. I shall stop around to the curry right this minute and give them a piece of my mind about the whole business. And before my father's and my horror struck eyes, my mother threw her best black, embroidered bellies round her shoulders, and firmly clapping her bonnet, trimmed with bunches of lila, gone her head, set out from Monsieur Le Cuehé's door. We could hear from our house the sad, crystalline tinkle of his bell. My mind uncomfortably visualized the dramatic encounter between my mother and the parish priest. Well? Well, why? Well, you were gone a long time. Did you accomplish your mission?

I told you, frankly. See, Meenay Sherry and I were worried. Why, if I haven't said? I have got it, you see? Got who, Le Cuehé? Of course not. The pelagony I'm cutting that he has been guarding so preciously. You know the one with the two deep purple petals in the three pink buns. Here he is. Adrian Saint-Hobain will never forgive me. She has had her eye on it for months. Out of my way, Meenay Sherry, I am going to park him at once. Did you dress him down about the child? About the what? Oh, the child? I certainly not. What an idea. You have absolutely no sense of tact. A man who has not only given me the pelagony but has promised me his Spanish honey suckle as well. The one that we can smell from here when there's a west deli wind. Cedo, did you say anything at all to the Cuehé? You know, he's really quite charming. A really charming man when you get to know him. So unzealous.

That really is so refreshing in a man of the cloth. Cedo, collect. What did you decide to do? Answer this instant. But what could I do? I said I would go to mass with her on Sunday. And so my mother became a regular church girl. She seldom, if ever, missed a mass. In winter, she would take her footwear. In summer, her parasol. In all seasons, a large black prayer book and her dog, Domino. Who by turns was a black and white fox terrier, a spit, a yellow-water spaniel, and the mongrel. Madam Colette, dear lady, you will forgive me if I remind you that your dog, Domino, has given fleas to all the cushions in your pew. No, I will not forgive you for saying it, Miss Cuehé, because it is not true. I scrub him with balsam, soap, every Sunday morning

in order to avoid any such occurrence. Just smell his fur, how clean it is. If you will think about it, I'm sure that you will admit that there are many parishioners far less clean. That is hardly the point, Madam. What then is the point? Well, I mean, really, a dog in church. It is an irreverence that must be corrected. I'm afraid I shall have to insist on our next Sunday. You'll refrain from... Refrain! Do I understand you, Miss Cuehé la Corée, to say that you are turning my innocent little dog out of your church? What for mercy's sake are you afraid he might learn that? It's not a question. My sweet dog, who is the mother of the portman, a dog who gets up and sits down in unison with the congregation. Oh, that is true, Madam. But you cannot deny that on last Sunday he growled during the elevation. But, of course, he growled during the elevation. I should have been very much surprised if he hadn't growled. And I trained myself to be a watchdog and a bark whenever he hears the bell.

Madam Colette, dispensations cannot be so lightly bestowed. And another thing, your prayers. And what are them now? I distinctly hear you singing through them, Sunday after Sunday. Now, there are certain obligations, you must certainly be aware of from your catechism that you are not observing. Triples. And how may I ask? Do you know whether I am praying or not, Monsieur, if you are truly attending to your business up there? Madam, you go too far. Don't be so sensitive. We are friends, aren't we? I don't mind if you're mind-waters, why should you, if mind does? That's true. I don't know the pattern, Master, but it doesn't take very long to learn. Or to forget either for life matter. But during Mass, when you have us remain on anise, I get a few quiet moments to think over my problems. You will laugh, but practically the only ones I have during the entire week. I say to myself, Cedar, the little one isn't looking very fit.

And I think I will get up a bottle of chateau La Rose from the cellar, just to put a little color back in a chair. And then I notice that those unhappy pluvias are having yet another baby without swaddling clothes or even divers, unless I lend a helping hand. Tomorrow is wash day. A matter of time. And I guess you are right. I do not pray. Madam, it shall all be counted to you as prayer. How can you be sure? Leave me a few prerogatives with God. If you will, Madam, it shall be counted. There are no guarantees, I suppose. Only the blessed kingdom of heaven afterward. Good day to you, Madam. When I was 14 or 15, I was not socially inclined. As she was the medical student, it taught me

his quiet unsociability. A ring at the front door was enough to project me with a silent leap into the garden. Where are you going, nominationary? Oh, give it a share. Wait, wait. Go and let the door. Venetary, see who is here. Don't you hear your mother calling you? Oh, wait, for someone else to open it. Wait, Mark, quietly. I have a lemon cake in the oven if you please. Oh, a velvet rings three times without being answered as a bad sign. Oh, there is the fourth. Now that takes the curse off it. Answer the door. Be quiet on the edge. She is going. What? A she is going is always the house on fire or the world simply coming to an end. See which way the wind is blowing. That could be important. Wind from the east is money from an unknown source. And wind from the west means a handsome stranger. It must be the west.

Let me look too. Oh, Venetary, you're perfectly right. West wind and such a handsome young stranger. Who is he? I don't know and I don't care. Well, if he's a friend of our shield, that is a good sign. I can't rightly say, but I feel this is a good sign. Hear me, Venet. Take this apple peeling. Turn three times and throw it over your shoulder. If it forms an initial, it would be the one that belongs to the man you will marry. Don't laugh at me, Venet. It is stray out of my dream, but the one I spent to Paris were for seven francs. Turn three times. And throw it over your shoulder. Has it worked for you, Henriette? Yes. It is said that I shall marry a man with the initial X. X, perhaps you should chop in the apple pair. Turn three times and throw it over your shoulder. You've only turned twice.

See, it does not work. You must help it if you can. I think, looking carefully, that that might be a W, you know. But I don't know anyone who's initial is W. Well, maybe it's not a W after look upside down. It's an M. But I don't know an M either. Well, are you 58 years old? Perhaps you will sooner or later. No, I won't, because I do not intend to marry at all. I want to live with my mom, pop forever, and never, never mad. That will change. But you are wrong. It won't. I'll be another something and go live in a convict or be a missionary. You don't believe me. I believe you. I believe you. But we will see what we will see. Now, W or M, did I say?

Say something to Maurice Minet. Like this, with my hair matted with nettles and dirty fingers and fingernails, and a stalking falling down. I'm so pleased you can come and stay with us. Well, I'm glad you are, because I'm pleased much more than you could ever know. You know, I've hardly ever been out of Paris for more than a day in my life. And that was too a funeral. So you can't rightly count that, can you? Oh, Paris. I could never live in a city like Paris, unless I had a beautiful garden. And even a Parisian garden, I can't imagine that there I could pick my admins. Oh, my mom, I'm sure Maurice couldn't care at all about those things. We think so much of in the country. Couldn't it? Maurice, can you tell a hard winter is coming on by the skin of an onion? Been here could tell you about it if she isn't too light in the head. Oh, I'm used. How could you be so terrible? I can't at all.

At least I've forgotten, if I ever knew. Remember, try, teach me. I want so much to know about everything. What's the name of this plant? Bagonia, don't you really know? And this? Fox Club. And this is. Narcissus. No, you're wrong. It's bloodroot. Don't touch it. It drips scarlet. All of your hands, if you do. Bloodroot. Isn't it a terrible name? Sometimes, my mom calls it loves tormentor, which is ever so much more romantic. Do you know what they say? They say it got its name from a beautiful young girl who desperately loved this man, who didn't love her back. And once she died, it just grew wild all over her grave. They say if you're a man and you touch it, the red stain never comes off, not even if you wash and wash. Do you believe that?

Well, I don't know. Should we try it and see? No, no. I wonder if one can date and name the moment when love begins. For I can not. When did it happen then, with Maurice, when I would make his bed in the morning and linger over the spell of his hair or on the pillow, or when I poured over his things, the illustrated papers, the Turkish cigarettes, the pencil that I pilfered from his bureau top because it bore the marks of his teeth. Is it the act of acquisition that brings love in its wake, guy, one? May I have your matchboxes, the empty ones? You don't smoke now, do you? Whatever do you want them for? Why do I know? To keep. Because they were his. Decorated with pictures of actresses,

I did not know. I kept them in my pocket all day. Slept with them under my pillow at night to the self-refumes and fused my dreams. Dale, civil sanders of fun sun. They belonged to an unknown, enviable race of women with huge eyes and black clashes, one bare shoulder and the other bare by a whisper tune, and hair curled in a fringe on the far end. Would you like me better with my hair in a fringe? I like you just as you are now. Don't both stop changing things, Menae Sherry. I thought I might sky up just to see. A person has to change after all. Yes, well, don't you? Not for a while, anyway. I'm accustomed to you quite as you are. Maurice, have you been in love often? Often enough. Now?

Why do you ask me that way? As a shield, I've been filling your head with more of his great stories about me. A shield? No, nothing you could say could make me out. Do you think I'm in love? Yes. Well, who knows, perhaps you're right. There is a girl, someone I've met recently, but who knows if it's love? I think a person knows. Do you? You really think I know, too, don't you? Why are you so determined to be certain this afternoon? All right. I am in love. Now that I've said it, does it please you? So you are in love, Maurice. Do you want to marry, too? I don't know what I want. Well, doesn't everyone eventually want to marry? She must be very pretty.

What is she? Do you have a photograph over her? Well, it's not a good one. I mean, it's all bent for my wallet and stained. I mean, her eyes are her best feature, and you can't seem to see them at all. Her hair is cut in a fringe. Is it? You don't approve of my taste in girls, do you? Yes, I do. She's so tall and queenly. I think that's very nice. What will you do after? How do you mean after I should be a lawyer, you know that? I mean, when you're married. Well, you're being a lawyer. What will your wife do? Will she just cut her hair in a fringe and wear other frocks with little frills? Well, she'll look after our house

and receive our guests. Are you laughing at me? You know, perfectly well how one lives when one is married. No, I don't. Tell me. Will it be very different from the way we've lived these past six weeks? You, Ashil and I? Will you be happier than you were last night or this morning? Maybe you weren't happy at all. Maybe I just thought you were. How can you say that to me? You know how perfectly happy I've been. How fun I've become. But if you're married. I don't suppose you'll be able to come here anymore for the holidays. I'd go for long rambles with my brother and me. Study nature. Well, no, I suppose not.

But that goes without saying, I guess. Maurice's hand. He had pulled with the wildflowers to stop the swinging motion of the hammock without looking. His hand. I shall never forget its scarlet color in the sunlight. And blood. He turned and left me without another word. For the first time in my life, they're mingled with the big childish sorrow I felt at losing Maurice. The faintly melancholy savor of a trine that was more mature. Hello? Hello? Mama?

Is this not anybody home? Ah, is it you? Oh, fuck. We do not often get the opportunity of seeing you these days. I mean to come, but very really I do. But I'm so busy. You'd never believe what an endless business it can be, the rehearsals and the fittings, the tours of the provinces are never over before it's started all over again. But who am I to complain? That's the theater after all. You are a paler, I think. Yes, you are certainly a paler and older looking. But a terrible thing to say. I'm dieting to fit a new costume, that's all. You do not ever write. You certainly could send us a letter of me, Naeshary. I really don't care for myself, but your poor mother waits for the post every morning, like sad old domino waits for his morning bowl of milk and biscuits. It is not fair to disappoint her. I know.

I mean to round. I sit down every night and nothing I can say will come from my pen. She must not be disappointed in both her daughters, that I will not allow. Juliet might just as well be dead. It is you she depends on. I shouldn't have to tell you that. I know. I will try, Papa. Just you see how I will try. But did I? In the years after I left home and married, and almost as quickly divorced, did I try again? I can't remember if I did. If one could change the past, I would change that. I would put my arms around my mother and hold her, until she loved and loved. Not so tight, Naeshary. Not so tight. I remember my cause at my 17-were bones. Papa, are you asleep there?

Yes, my dear. I am. Hennessey and dead, which may be possible, is one of these days if you're not careful to watch closely. Take that paper off your face. It's time to take the new drops at a shield brought around for you at noon. I'm tired. The drops can wait. They will not surely make me young again, so they can wait. Impossible, man. Shall I get them for you? No, no, no, no. You see? I am up. Now, where is the blasted stuff? Sometimes I think it is better to die than take all these horrid tasting concoctions. What? Just you try and die first. I shall do my very best, dear heart. Isn't that just like you? You've got all the selfishness of the funnels in the colettes combined. Oh, why, I wonder, did I ever marry you? Because, my dear, I threatened to blow out your brains if you didn't.

You see, even in those days, thinking only of yourself. And now, here you are, talking of nothing less than dying before me. All I can say is, just let me see you try. He did try and succeeded at the first attempt. He died in his 74th year holding the hands of his beloved. He was given the handsomeest of village funnels. A coffin of yellow pear would cover only by an old tunic riddled with holes. The tunic he had worn as a captain in the first two hours. My mother accompanied him steadily to the grave's edge, very resolute beneath her widow's wings, and murmuring under her breath words that only he must hear. Italian, knife-throwing, I will miss you. You were so human.

Always put out your hand to see if it were raining. Well, it is rain. You're not threatening yourself, my mother. I think I will join him if I do. There's less chance of that than you think. I'm only a woman. Past a certain age, old women hardly ever die of their long free will besides. I have got you. Another spring, the beak of a sickle, goes clicking down the rose-bordered path. Another clicks an answer from the orchard. The stiff twigs of the acricot trees keep their little flames of flower alike before they die, and the answering bees see to it that none is wasted.

Oh, everything rushes onward, and I stay where I am. In a while you're standing there looking out the window. Do you have a lover out there who's afraid to face me? No, mother. And for heaven's sake, what are you doing? Just thinking, mother. What are you thinking about? Nothing. Nothing at all. What has happened to the walnut tree? Weevils. After all these years, too. Would you believe it? It's like a shell of itself rotting away from the inside. You had the gate taken away. Well, it had been broken for so long. The old iron monger who made it died wasn't anything else to do. You'll get used to it in time. Will I?

And the new wallpaper in my room. That is mine no longer. But only an impersonal room for guests who never arrived. Minne! Minne, Sherry! What time is it? 11 o'clock already, didn't I say so? You'll be here any minute. Give me my order, Colonel. And the rough towel. And give me my small bottle of violet scent. Violet scent, did I say? They don't make any real violet scent these days. They make it all with oris root. Or do they even use that? Time was, when a really refined woman never used any scent but violet. There. That stuff you drench yourself with isn't respectable. You just use it to put people off the scent. Yes, that's it, exactly.

Just to put them on the wrong scent. Your short hair. The blue you put on your eyelids. The eccentricities you indulge in on the stage. Like your perfume, really. Just to put people on the wrong scent. Minne, don't think you put anything over on your old mother. Oh, I know. Here, undo my two braids, if you will. I did them very tightly last night so I should have a wave today. How lifeless my hair is. It is so difficult, after a certain age, to maintain the characteristics of one sex. You know what I look like? An elderly, indigent poet, that's why. Don't even bother to deny it, I know. I tell you, Minne, in my decline, two things distress me. That I can no longer wash my little blue saucepan

for boiling milk and the sight of my own hand on the sheet. You will understand later that one forgets old age right up to the brink of the grave. Even illness can't force one to remember. Every hour I say to myself, I have no appetite. The digitalist goes to my head and makes me dizzy. I'm going to die, tonight, tomorrow, no matter where. But I'm not always thinking of the way in which age has altered me. And then I see my hand and I realize the church. I am astonished not to see under my eyes my little hand as it was when I was 20. Isn't that the funniest thing? No, there goes my comb again. Oh, I know that you children will miss me.

Who will you write to twice a week poor Minne, Sherry? Oh, but not so bad for you, after all. You have already left me and gone and built a little nest for yourself far away from me. But what about your older brother? When he has to go past my little house and no longer finds his glass of red-current syrup and the rose to carry off in his buttonhole. Oh, yes, I know you love me. But you are a girl. A female creature, one of my own species. My rival. And in his heart, I never had any rival. It's my hero, right? It's nearly 12 o'clock. Now, if no one has held him up, your brother is less than two miles away by now.

Oh, let the cat in too. She knows it's nearly 12 o'clock. Every day after a morning walk, she comes back here, afraid of finding me well again. Oh, yes, to sleep. Night and day on my bed. Oh, yes. What an earthly paradise for her. Oh, yes, sweetie. Yeah. You know, Ashia, have you visit a sick boy in San Adri? Is that gone, boy? 12 miles out of his way, poor boy. I follow his round, you know. I know. What else is there for an old woman to do? Yes. Is that his trap at the head of the hill already? Oh, see him in there.

Don't tell your brother that I had three attacks during the night. First, because I forbid it. And if you don't tell him, I will give you the bracelet with the three turbos. Now, don't give me any of your reasons. They bore me. It has nothing to do with honesty. And in any case, I know better than you do what honesty is. At my age, there is only one virtue. And that is not to make people unhappy. But now, second pillow behind my back. So I'm sitting up when it comes in. And the roses. They're in the glass. Doesn't smell like a stuffy old woman in here, does it? Am I flashed? You think I'm not so well as I was yesterday? Oh, I know. I know. I've talked too much. Close the shutters just a little. And then, mini, lend me your powder puff. My mother died of tasting the forbidden fruits for her.

They were the billhook, the over-heavy bucket and the spade. All the accomplices of her old existence that now assume the appearance and position of adversaries. As she demanded, she followed his prescription of rest and quiet. But who could prevail against such a vital energy? So youthful and mischievous that it can try to tempt and lead astray a body half-fettered by death? My brother, returning before sunrise from attending a distant patient caught my mother in the most wanton of her crimes. Soaring wood. Dressed in a nightgun, but wearing gardener's boots. My mother, rejuvenated by guilty enjoyment and in defiance of all her promises, was soaring wood. Mama, when you were little. Yes, my bell goes. Was it all different than from the way it is now? Was the world the same?

The world? The shadow of the walnut tree, you mean my darling? The house. And the stable. And the courtyard where you used to play. And the blue glass window. And the door where you proposed, got your niches for you. Was it all different or is it the same? Could I still climb the trellis of the twin furthest dream, Mama? Well, the house and gardener living still, I know. Oh, but what is that, Galgazoo, if the magic is deserted? If the secret is lost, that opened me a whole world. Light, sense, birds. The murmur of human voices now silent forever. The world of which I long ceased to be worthy. Me no, Sherry. Walk straight, huh? But do not kick all your mother's big onus as you do, you hear me? You hear it? I'll see you. Look after the child, will you? I'll dirt you off. Mama will never forgive me for not watching you.

I just see you got a tear in your violent silk pinnacle. Now I will have to mend it for you. How naughty that is. Don't cry, me, Sherry. Nobody wanted you to cry, you know. Nobody ever wanted that. Who made you cry? Me, Sherry. Leo. Juliet. Where are they? I see you, my boy. Where are the children? They've gone to sleep, Mama. There's no ground silent to sleep. I see you, my boy.

I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .

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