The hours that follow are so long they seem to contain the same incidents over and over. Back in the house, Janice and her mother merge1 and re?merge in soft little conversations that take them from room to room. They seem to be worrying what Janice will wear. The two of them go upstairs and in half an hour Janice comes down in a pinned?in black dress of her mother's that makes her look like her mother. "Harry2. Does it look all right?"
"What in hell do you think this is going to be? A fashion show?" He adds regretfully, "You look fine," but the damage is done. Janice emits a long startled whimper and goes upstairs and collapses3 into her mother. Mrs. Springer revokes4 the small measure of pardon she had extended him. The house again fills with the unspoken thought that he is a murderer. He accepts the thought gratefully; it's true, he is, he is, and hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, and the rigidity5 of hatred6 makes a kind of shelter for him.
It becomes one o'clock. Mrs. Springer comes into the room where he is sitting and asks, "Do you want a sandwich?"
"Thanks, I can't eat anything."
"You better have something." He finds this insistence7 so strange he goes into the kitchen to see what is there. Nelson is having soup and raw carrots and a Lebanon baloney sandwich by himself at the table. He seems uncertain if he should smile at his father or not. Mrs. Springer keeps her back turned.
Harry asks, "Has the kid had a nap?"
"You might take him up," she says, without turning. Upstairs in the room with the one?eyed teddy bear Harry reads the boy a Little Golden Book about a little choo?choo who was afraid of tunnels. By the time the choo?choo has proved he is no longer afraid Nelson has fallen asleep under his father's arm. Harry goes downstairs again. Janice is having a rest in her room and the sound of Mrs. Springer's sewing machine, as it adjusts the dress for Janice to wear, spins out into the birdsong and murmur8 of the early afternoon.
The front door slams and Springer comes into the living room. None of the shades has been pulled up and he starts at seeing Harry in a chair. "Harry! Hello!"
"Hello."
"Harry, I've been down at Town Hall talking to Al Horst. He's the coroner. Al looked the little body over and he's satisfied. No marks. Accidental drowning. He promised there won't be a manslaughter charge. He's been talking to just about everybody and wants to talk to you sometime. Unofficially."
"O.K." Springer hangs there, expecting some kind of congratulation. "Why don't they just lock me up?" Harry adds.
"Harry, that's a very negative way to think. The question I always ask myself in a bad situation is, How do we cut the losses from here on in?"
"You're right. I'm sorry." It disgusts him to feel the net of law slither from him. They just won't do it for you, they just won't take you off the hook.
Springer trots9 upstairs to his women. Footfalls pad above. Fancy dishes in the glass?fronted cupboard behind Harry vibrate. It's not yet two o'clock, he sees by the little silver?faced clock on the mantel of the fake fireplace.
He wonders if the pain in his stomach comes from eating so little in the last two days and goes out to the kitchen and eats two crackers10. He can feel each bite hit a scraped floor inside. The pain increases. The bright porcelain11 fixtures12 and metal surfaces seem charged with a negative magnetism13 that pushes against him and makes him extremely thin. He goes into the shadowy living room and pulls the shade and at the front window watches two teenage girls in snug14 shorts shuffle15 by on the sunny sidewalk. Their bodies are already there but their faces are still this side of being good. Funny about girls about fourteen, their faces have this kind of eager bunchy business. Too much candy, sours their skin. They walk as slowly as time to the funeral passes, as if if they go slow enough some magic transformation16 will meet them at the corner. Daughters, these are daughters, would June ?? He chokes the thought. The two girls passing, with their perky butts17 and twopointed T?shirts, seem distasteful morsels18. He himself; watching them behind the window, seems a smudge on the glass. He wonders why the universe doesn't just erase19 a thing so dirty and small. He looks at his hands and they seem ugly, worse than claws.
He goes upstairs and with intense care washes his hands and face and neck. He doesn't dare use one of their fancy towels. Coming out with wet hands he meets Springer in the muted hallway and says, "I don't have a clean shirt." Springer whispers "Wait" and brings him a shirt and black cufflinks. Harry dresses in the room where Nelson sleeps. Sunlight creeps under the drawn20 shades, which flap softly back and forth21 almost in time to the boy's heavy breathing. Though he spaces the stages of dressing22 carefully, and fumbles23 for minutes with the unaccustomed cufflinks, it takes less time to dress than he hoped it would. The wool suit is uncomfortably hot, and doesn't fit as well as he remembered. But he refuses to take off the coat, refuses to give somebody, he doesn't know who, the satisfaction. He tiptoes downstairs and sits, immaculately dressed, the shirt too tight, in the living room looking at the tropical plants on the glass table, moving his head so that now this leaf eclipses that, now that this, and wondering if he is going to throw up. His insides are a clenched24 mass of dread25, a tough bubble that can't be pricked26. The clock says only 2:25.
Of the things he dreads27, seeing his parents is foremost. He hasn't had the courage to call them or see them since it happened; Mrs. Springer called Mom Monday night and asked her to the funeral. The silence from his home since then has frightened him. It's one thing to get hell from other people and another from your own parents. Ever since he came back from the Army Pop had been nibbling28 at a grudge29 because he wouldn't go to work in the print shop and in a way had nibbled30 himself right into nothing in Harry's heart. All the mildness and kindness the old man had ever shown him had faded into nothing. But his mother was something else; she was still alive and still attached to his life by some cord. If she comes in and gives him hell he thinks he'll die rather than take it. And of course what else is there to give him? Whatever Mrs. Springer says he can slip away from because in the end she has to stick with him and anyway he feels somehow she wants to like him but with his mother there's no question of liking31 him they're not even in a way separate people he began in her stomach and if she gave him life she can take it away and if he feels that withdrawal32 it will be the grave itself. Of all the people in the world he wants to see her least. Sitting there by himself he comes to the conclusion that either he or his mother must die. It is a weird33 conclusion, but he keeps coming to it, again and again, until the sounds of stirring above him, of the Springers getting dressed, lift his mind out of himself a little.
He wonders if he should go up but he doesn't want to surprise anyone undressed and one by one they come down, dressed, Mr. Springer in a spiffy graphite?gray drip?and?dry and Nelson in a corduroy sissy suit with straps34 and Mrs. in a black felt hat with a veil and a stiff stem of artificial berries and Janice looking lost and shapeless in the pinned and tucked dress of her mother's. "You look fine," he tells her again.
"Whez big black cah?" Nelson asks in a loud voice.
There is something undignified about waiting and as they mill around in the living room watching the minutes ebb35 in the silverfaced clock they become uncomfortably costumed children nervous for the party to begin. They all press around the window when the undertaker's Cadillac stops out front, though by the time the man has come up the walk and rings the doorbell they have scattered36 to the corners of the room as if a bomb of contagion37 has been dropped among them.
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1
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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collapses
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| 折叠( collapse的第三人称单数 )； 倒塌； 崩溃； （尤指工作劳累后）坐下 | |
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revokes
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| v.撤销，取消，废除( revoke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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trots
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| 小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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fixtures
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| （房屋等的）固定装置( fixture的名词复数 )； 如（浴盆、抽水马桶）； 固定在某位置的人或物； （定期定点举行的）体育活动 | |
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magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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15
shuffle
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| n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走 | |
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transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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morsels
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| n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑 | |
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erase
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| v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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23
fumbles
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| 摸索，笨拙的处理( fumble的名词复数 ) | |
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24
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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nibbling
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的现在分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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