Fiction 2, This story is filled with figurative language. Identify at least five metaphors and similes. What qualities do they have in common? How do they reflect the ethnic culture and life-style of the characters? 3. What elements of the story appear fantastic or magical? How do they contribute to the mood of the story? How do they effect the story's outcome? 4, Whavis Grandfather Nanapush’s reaction to Margaret's having her head shaven? What does this reveal about his personality? How! does he respond to this event? 5. What are the figurative and literal “snares” that are described or implied in the story? How do they relate to the story’s theme? ‘William Faulkner , i A ROSE.FOR EMILY: When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house} which no one save an old manservant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years. twas a big, squarish frame house that had once been white; decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house ‘was left, lifting its stubborn and, coquettish: decay ‘above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august nameé where they lay in! the cedat-bemiused cemetery among the ranked and anonytious graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson. i Alive, Miss Emily had been a:tradition, a duty, and a care;’a ‘sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from. that day:in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor—he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron—remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss. Emily’s father had loaned money to'the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this\way of repaying. Only a man of Colonél Sartoris’ generation and thought'could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it. When the next generation, with its more moder ideas, became mayors sand alder men,ethis arrangement created some litle dissatisfaction, On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice, February came, and there was no reply, ‘They'wrote her @ Scanned with CamScanner‘Women & Men formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriffs office at her convenience. A. week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no loniger went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment. They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited!upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor: It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sunray. On a tamished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily’s father. ‘They rose when she entered—a small, fat wortan in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and yanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tamished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; pethaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump ‘of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errarid. She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly. until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain. Her voice was dry and cold. “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me, Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves.” “But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice froin the sheriff, signed by him?” “received a paper, yes,” Miss Emily said, “Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff + Thave no taxes in Jefferson.” “But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see, We must go by the-=" “See Goloitel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.” “But, Miss Emily “See Colonel Sartoris.” (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) “I have no taxes in Jefferson, Tobe!” The Negro appeared. “Show these gentlemen out.” I So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their.fathers thirty years before about the smell. That was.two years after her father’s death ‘and a short time afier her sweetheart—the one we believed would marry her—had deserted her. ‘Afier her father’s death she went out very little; aftet her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at al. A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man—a young man then— going in and out with a market basket. Scanned with CamScannervs a0) Fiction | Saaz ‘Just as if a man—any man—could keep a kitchen properly,” the ladies sai; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons. A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old. “But what will you have me do about it, madam?” he said. “Why, send her word to stop it,” the woman said, “Isn't there a law?” “P’m sure that won'tibe necessary,” Judge Stevens said. “It’s probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it.” ‘The next day he received two more complaints; one from a man who came in Aiffdent deprecation. “We really must do something about it, Judge. Pd be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, ‘but we've got to doisomething.” That night the Board of Aldermen met—three graybeards and one younger many a member of the rising generation. | , “Te’s simple enough,” he said. “Send her word to have het plate cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if'she don't...” “Dammit, sir,” Judge Stevens said, “will' you accuse a lady to her face of smell- ing bad?” So the next night, after midnight, fout men crosied Miss Emily’s lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base-of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke opén the cellar door dnd sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it the light behind her, and her uprightitorso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into.the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away. ‘That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at lat, believed that the Griersons held themselves litle too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such, We liad long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and élutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. Sorwhen she got to be thirty and was still single, we.were not pleased exactly, but vindiéated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have tamed down ll of her chancesif they had really ‘materialized. When her father died it got about thatthe house was ‘allthat wai lef to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a Pauper, she had become humanized. Now shé too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less. The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and.offer condolence and aid, asis our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers ¢alling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly, Scanned with CamScannerWe did not say she was crazy then, We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she ‘would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will. mm She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows—sort of tragic and serene, ‘The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in'the surnmer after her father’s death they began the work. The construction company came with niggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee—a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the niggers, and the niggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the ‘group. Presently we began to sec him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-whecled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable, ‘At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest; because the ladies all said. “Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Nertherner, alday laborer.” But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief eould not cause a real lady to forget noblesse obige—without calling it nobles oblige. They just said, “Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her.” She had some kin in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of old lady Wyatt; the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families. They had not even been represented at the funeral. And as soon as the old people said, “Poor Emily,” the whispering began. “Do you suppose it’s really 50?” they said to one another. “Of-course it is. What else could ” This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed lupon the sun-of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team. passed: “Poor Emily.” She carried her head high enough—even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of hér dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that toucli of earthiness to reaffirm /her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic, ‘That was over a year after they had begun to say “Poor Emily,” and while the two female cousins were visiting her. “want some poison,” she said to the'druggist. She was over thirty then, still slight ‘woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of Which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine @ lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look, “I want some poison,” she said. “Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? 'd recom—” “I want the best you have. I don’t care what kind.” ‘The druggist named several. “They kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is” “Arsenic,” Miss Emily said, “Is that a good one?” Scanned with CamScannerFiction {221 “Is... . arsenic? Yes, ma'am, But what you want—” “J want arsenic.” ‘The druggist looked down at her. She looked biick at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. “Why, of course,” the druggist said. “Ifthat’s what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for.” ‘Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the packag¢; the druggist didn’t come back. When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: “For rats.” IV So the next day we al said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing. ‘When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, “She will marry him.” Then we said, “She will persuade him yet,” because Homer himself had re- marked—he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club—that he was not a marrying man, Later we said, “Poor Emily” behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy; Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove. Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist ministerMiss Emily's people were Episcopal—to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day the minister’s wife wrote to Miss Emily’s relations in Alabama. So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch developments. At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jewelér’s and ordered a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piéce, Two days later:we learned that she ‘had bought a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt, and we said, “They are married.” We were really glad. We were glad becauise the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been, So we were not surprised when Homer Barron—the streets had been finished some time since—was gone, We were a litle disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily’s coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily’s allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed, And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town, A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. ‘And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron, And of Miss Emily for some time: ‘The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained dlosed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that Scanned with CamScanner$f 222 8 women & Men night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear of the streets, Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many times had been too | virulent and too furious to die. When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray, During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer unti it attained an evel pepper- and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased tuning. Up to the day of her death at séventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man. 7 From that time on her front door remained closed, ave for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lesons in china-painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaugh- ters of Colonel Sartors’ contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were ent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent vice for the collection plate. Meanwhile her taxes had been remitted. bax Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town and. the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of olor and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies’ magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them. ‘ Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket, Each December we sent her a tax notice, which ‘would be returned by the post office a week later unclaimed. Now and then we would sce her in one of the downstairs windows—she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house—like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which: Thus she passed from generation to generaion dea, inescap- able, impervious, tranquil, and perverse: ‘And 30 she died Fell iin the house fled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to 10’ one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse. She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sutilight. v ‘The Negro met the fist ofthe ladies atthe front door‘and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the-house and out the back and was not seen again. ! ‘Thie two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant‘and macabre; and the very old men—some in their brushed Confederate uniforms—on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if'she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with Scanned with CamScannerFiction its mathematical progression, as the old’do;:to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the inost recent decade of years. Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it. The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fil this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, tipon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man’s toilet things backed with tarnished ‘silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram ‘was obscured: Among them lay a collat and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the’ surface a palé ‘crescent in the'dust. Upon a chair hung the stit, carefully folded; beneath it the'two mute shoes and the discarded socks ‘The man himself lay iri'the bed. For allong while we just Stood there, looking down at’ ie profound and fleshléss grin, ‘The body had apparently oric¢ lain in the attitude Ofin embrace, but tow the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love; had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted berieathi what was left of the nightshirt; had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and'upon ‘hin and upon the pillow beside bi Tay that even coating of the patient and biding dust. ‘Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from ‘it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iroi-gray hair. QUESTIONS | In the first line of the story, Emily is referred to as a “fallén’ mionument.” Ti'what sense is she a monument? What) if anything; in Faulkner's description suggests this image? ‘Miss Emily’s father has a prominent place in her home as well as in the story. What is his significance both when he is'alive and after he has died? * . Who is found dead at the end of the story? Why was he murdered? What suggestions of or references to death occur before the end of the story? 4. How do the people in the town look upon Emily? What isthe cause oftheir atitude ‘toward her? » Scanned with CamScannerAlice Walker ROSELILY Dearly Beloved, She dreams; dragging herself across the world. A small gil in her mother’s white robe and veil, knee raised waist high through a bowl of quicksand soup. The man who stands beside her is against this standing on the front porch of her house, being married to the sound of cars whizzing by on highway 61. awe are gathered here Like cotton to be weighed. Her fingers atthe last minute busily removing dry leaves and twigs. Aware it s a superficial sweep. She knows he blames Mississippi for the respectful way the men turn their heads up in the yard, the women stand waiting and knowledge- able, their children held from mischief by téachings from the wrong God: He glares beyond them to the occupants of the cars, white faces glued to promises beyond a country wedding, noses thrust forward like dogs on-a'track. For him they usurp the wedding: in the sight of God Yes, open house, That is what country black folks like. She dreams she does not already have three children. A squeeze around the flowers in her hands chokes off three and four and five years of breath. Instantly she is ashamed and frightened in her superstition. She looks for the first time at the preacher, forces humility into her eyes, as if she believes he infact a man of God. She can imagine God, a small lack boy, imidly paling the preacher's coattail. to join this man and this woman She thinks of ropes, chains, handcuff hs religion. His place of worship. Where she will be required to sit apart with covered head. In Chicago, a word she hears when thinking of smoke, from his description of what a cinder was, which they never had in Panther Burn, She sees hovering over the heads of the clean neighbors in her front yard black specks falling, clinging, from the sky. But in Chicago. Respect, a chance to build. Her children at last from underneath the detrimental wheel, A chance to be on top. What a relief, she thinks. What a vision, a view, from up so high. in holy matrimony. Her fourth child she gave away to the child’s father who had some money. Certainly a good job, Had gone to Harvard. Was a good man but weak because good language Scanned with CamScanner‘meant so much to him he could not live with Roselily. Could not abide TV in the living room, five beds in three rooms, no Bach except from four to six on Sunday afternoons. No chess at all. She does not forget to worry about her son among his father’s people. She wonders if the New England climate will agree with him. Ifhe will ever come down to Mississippi, as his father did, to try'to right the country’s wrongs. She wonders if he will be stronger than his father, His father cried off and on througtioit her pregnancy. Went to skin and bones. Suffered nightmares, retching and falling out of bed. Tried to Kill himself. Later told his wife he found the right baby through friends. Vouched for the sterling qualities that would make up his character. It is not her nature to blame. Stil, she is not entirely thankful: She supposes New England, the North, to be quite different from what she knows. It seems right somehow to her that people who miove there to live return home! completely changed, She thinks of the air, the smoke, the cirders. Imagines cinders big as hailstones; heavy; weighing onthe people, Wonder how this presireindsits way int the vei roping the springs of laughter. ‘ if there's anybody here that knows a reason why) 2. 8) ow 7 But of course they know no reason why beyond what they daily have come to know. She thinks of the man who will be her husband, feels shut away from hit because of the stiff severity of his plain black suit, His religion. A lifetime of black and white. Of veils. Covered headItis as if her children are’ already gone fori her. Not dead, bist exalted ona pedestal, stalk that has no roots. Shé wonders how. tolmake-new roots. Itis beyond her! She wonders whiat oie does with memories in a brand-new life! This had seemed:easyy/until she thought of it. “The reasons why :.. «the people who"? . she thinks, and does riot wonder where the thought is'froni wi se sl bie She thinks.of her mother, who is dead: Dead, but sil-her mother. Joined. This is confusing: Of her father. A gray old man who sold wild mink, rabbit, fox skins to Sears, Roebuck. He stands in the yard, like a man waiting for a train, Her young sisters stand behind her in smooth green dresses, with flowers in their Hands and hair. They gigele, she feels, at the absurdity of the wedding. They are ready for something new. She thinks the man beside her should marry one of them, She feels old. Yoked. An arm seems to reach out from behind her and snatch her backward, She thinks of cemeteries and the long sleep of grandparents mingling in the dirt, She believes that she believes in ghosts. In the soil giving back what it takes. 1 Anger, In the ity. He sees her in-a new way. This she knows, and is grateful. But is it new ‘enough? She cannot always be'a bride and virgin, wearing robes and veil: Even now her body itches to be free of satin and voile, organdy and lily of the valley Memories crash against her. Memories of being bare to the sun, She wonders what it will be like. Scanned with CamScannerNot to have to go to a job. Not to work in a sewing plant. Not to worry about learning to sew straight seams in workingmen’s overalls, jeans, and dress pants. Her place will be in the home, he has said, repeatedly, promising her rest she had prayed for. But now she wonders. When she is rested, what will she do? They will make babies—she thinks practically about her fine brown body, his strong black one. They will be inevitable, Her hands will be full. Full of what? Babies. She is not comforted. let him speak She wishes she had asked him to explain more of what he meant. But she was impatient, Impatient to be done with sewing. With doing everything for three children, alone, Impatient to leave the girls she had known since childhood, their children growing up, their husbands hanging around her, already old, seedy. Nothing about them that she wanted, or needed. The fathers of her children driving by, waving, not waving; remind. rs of times she would just as soon forget. Impatient to see the South Side, where they ‘would live and build and be respectable and respected and free, Her husband would free her. A romantic hush, Proposal. Promises. A new life! Respectable, reclaimed, renewed. Free! In robe and veil. a freer hold She does not even know if she loves him. She loves his sobriety. His refusal to sing just because he knows the tune. She loves his pride. His blackness and his gray car. She loves his understanding of her cmditon. She thinks she loves theveffort he will make to redo her into what he truly wants. His love of her makes her completely conscious of how unloved she was before. This is something; though it makes her unbearably sad, Melancholy, She blinks her eyes. Remembers she is finally being married, like other girls. Like other girls, women? Something strains upward behind her eyes. She thinks of the something as a rat trapped, cornered, scurrying to and fro in her head, peering through the windows of her eyes. She wants to live for once. But doesn’t know quite what that means. Wonders if she has ever done’it. If she ever will, The preacher is odious to her. She wants to strike him out of the way, out-of her light, with the back of her hand, It seems to her he has always been standing in front of her, barring her way. his peace ‘The rest she does not hear. She feels a kiss, passionate, rousing, within the general pandemonium, Cars drive up blowing their horns. Firecrackers go off. Dogs come from under the house and begin to yelp and bark. Her husband’s hand is like the clasp of an iron gate. People congratulate, Her children press against her. They look with awe and distaste mixed with hope at their new father. He stands curiously apart, in spite of the people crowding about to grasp his free hand. He smiles at them all but his eyes are as if turned inward. He knows they cannot understand that he is not a Christian, He will not explain himself, He feels different, he looks it: The old women thought he was like Scanned with CamScannerFiction one of their sons except that he had somehow got away from them. Still a son, not a son, Changed. She thinks how it will be later in the night in the silvery gray car. How they will spin through the darkness of Mississippi and in the morning be in Chicago, Ilinois. She thinks of Lincoln, the president. That is all she knows about the place. She feels ignorant, orong, backward. She presses her worried fingers into his palm. He is standing in front of her. In the crush of well-wishing people, he does not look back. QUESTIONS . What is the effect of dividing the story between the italicized words of thé ministet and the “inner thoughts” of Roselily? How does each complement the other? What attitudes and'emotions does Roselily seém to display toward her hiisband-to- be? What seems to be her main motivation in marrying him? Compare and contrast Rotel and her future husband in terms oftheir values temperament, attitude, and demeanor, How would you characterize the story’s diction? What does it reveal about Roselily’s social class and family background? 5. Alice Walker is noted for her particular sensitivity tothe struggles of black women in America, How does this story bear this out? © s > Scanned with CamScannerCaste & Class 3. Where in the story is the suicide foreshadowed? How does Bontemps hint at the purpose of the trip? 4. How would you characterize Jeff Patton's personality? How would you characterize Jennie’? Nadine Gordimer THE TRAIN FROM RHODESIA ‘The train came out of the red horizon and bore down toward them over the single straight track, ‘The stationmaster came out of his litte brick station with its pointed chalet roof, feeling the creases in is serge uniform in his legs as well. A stir of preparedness rippled through the squatting native vendors waiting in the dust; the face of a carved wooden animal, eternally surprised, stuck out ofa sack. The stationmaster’s barefoot children wandered over. From the gray mud huts with the untidy heads that stood within a decorated mud wall, chickens, and dogs with their skin stretched like parchment over their bones, followed the piccanins down to the track. ‘The flushed and.perspiring west cast a reflection, faint, without heat, upon the station, upon the tin shed marked “Goods,” ‘upon the walled kraal, upon the gray tin house of the stationmaster and upon the sand, that lapped all around, from sky to sky, cas litle rhythmical cups of shadow, so that the sand became the sea, and closed over the children’s black feet softly and without imprint. ‘The stationmaster’s wife sat behind the mesh ofther verandah. Above her head the hunk of a sheep’s carcass moved slightly, dangling in a current of air. ‘They waited. ‘The train called out, along the sky, but there was no answer; and the cry hung on: T'm coming . .. 'm coming, ... ‘The engine flared out now, big, whisking a dwindling body behind it; the track flared out to let it in, Greaking, jerking, josting, gasping, the train filled the station. Here, let me see that one—the young woman curved her body further out of the corridor window. Missus? smiled the old boy, looking at the creatures he held in his hand. From a piece of string on his gray finger hung a tiny woven basket; he lifted it, questioning. No, no, she urged, leaning down toward him, across the height ofthe train, toward the man in the piece of old rug; that one, that one, her hand commanded, It was a lion, carved out of soft dry wood that looked like spongecake; heraldic, black and Scanned with CamScannery t a (o} Si white, with impressionistic detail burnt in. The old man held it up to her still smiling, not from the heart, but at the customer, Between its Vandyke teeth, in the mouth ‘opened in an endless roar too terrible to be heard, it had a black tongue. Look, said the young husband, if you don’t mind! And round the neck of the thing, a piece of fur (rat? rabbit? meerkat?); a real mane, majestic, telling you somehow that the artist had delight in the lion All up and down the length of the train in the dust the artists sprang, walking bent, like performing animals, the better to exhibit the fantasy held toward the faces on the train. Buck, startled and stiff, staring with round black and white eyes. More lions, standing erect, grappling with strange, thin, elongated warriors who clutched spears and showed no fear in their slits of eyes. How much, they asked from the train, how much? Give me penny, said the little ones with nothing to sell The dogs went and sat, quite still, under the dining car, where the train breathed out the smell of meat, cooking with onion. A man passed beneath the.arch of reaching arms meeting gray-black and white in the exchange of money for the staring wooden eyes, the stiff wooden legs sticking up in the air; went along under the voices and the bargaining, interrogating the wheels. Past the dogs; glancing up at the dining car where he could stare at the faces, behind glass, drinking beer, two by two, on either side of a uniform railway vase with its pale dead flower. Right to the end, to the guard’s van, where the stationmaster’s children had just collected their mother’s two loaves of bread; to the engine itself, where the stationmaster and the driver stood talking against the steaming complaint of the resting beast. ‘The man called out to them, something loud and joking. They turned to laugh, in twirl ofsteam. The two children careered over the sand, clutching the bread, and burst through the iron gate and up the path through the garden in which nothing grew. Passengers drew themselves in atithe corridor windows and turned into compart- ments to fetch money, to call someone to look. Those sitting inside looked up: sud- denly different, caged faces, boxed in, cut off, after the contact of outside. There was an orange a piccanin would like. ... What about that chocolate? It wasn’t very ‘A young girl had collected a handful of the hard kind, that no one liked; out of the chocolate box, and was throwing them to the dogs, over atthe dining car. But the hens darted in, and swallowed the chocolates, incredibly quick and accurate, before they had even dropped in the dust, and the dogs, a little bewildered, looked up with their brown eyes, not expecting anything. No, leave it, said the girl, don’t take it... Too expensive, too much, she shook her head and raised her voice to the old boy, giving up the lion. He held it up where she had handed it to him. No, she said, shaking her head. ‘Three-and-six? insisted her husband, loudly. Yes baas! laughed the boy. ‘Three-and-six?—the young man was incredulous. Oh leave it—she said. The young man stopped. Don’t you want it? he said, keeping his face closed to the boy. No, never mind, she said, leave it: The old native kept his head on one side, looking at them sideways, holding the lion. ‘Three-and-six, he murmured, as old people repeat things to them- selves, ‘The young woman drew her head in, She went into the coupé and sat down, Out Scanned with CamScannerCaste & Class of the window, on the other side, there was nothing; sand and bush; a thorn tree. Back through the open doorway, past the figure of her husband in the corridor, there was the station, the voices, wooden animals waving, running feet. Her eye followed the fanny litde valance of scrolled wood that outlined the chalet roof of the station; she thought of the'lion and smiled. That bit of fur round the neck. But the wooden buck, the hippos, the elephants, the baskets that already bulked out of their brown paper under the seat and on the luggage rack! How will they look at home? Where will you put them? What will they mean away from the places you found them? Away from the unreality of the last few weeks? The man outside, But he is not part ofthe unreality; he is for good now, Odd... somewhere there was an idea that he, that living with him, was part of the holiday, the strange places. ‘Outside, a bell rang. The stationmaster was leaning against the end of the train, green flag rolled in readiness. A few men who had got down to stretch their legs sprang onto the train, clinging to the observation platforms, or perhaps merely standing on the iron step, holding the rails but on the train, safe from the one dusty platform, the one tin house, the empty sand, ‘There was a grunt. The train jerked, ‘Through the glass the beer drinkers looked out, as if they could not see beyond it. Behind the fly-screen, the stationmaster’s wife sat facing back at'them beneath the darkening hunk of meat: “There was a shout. The flag droped out. Joints not yet coordinated, the segmented body of the train heaved and bumped back against itself It began to move; slowly the scrolled chalet moved past it, the yells of the natives, running alongside, jetted up into the air, ell back at different levels. Staring wooden faces waved drunkenly, there, then ‘gone, questioning for the last time at the windows. Here, one-and-six baas!—As one automatically opens @ hand to catch a thrown ball, a man fumbled wildly down his pocket, brought up the shilling and sixpence and threw'them out; the old native, gasping, his skinny toes splaying the sand, flung the lion. The piccanins were waving, the dogs stood, tails uncertain, watching the train go: past the mud huts, where a woman turned to look, up from the smoke of the fire, her hand pausing on her hip. The stationmaster went slowly in under the chalet. The old native stood, breath blowing out the skin between his ribs, feet tense, balanced in the sand, smiling and shaking his head. In his openedipalm, held in the attitude of receiving, was the retrieved shilling and sixpence. ‘The blind end of the train was being pulled helplessly out of'the station. ‘The young man swung in from the corridor, breathless. He was shaking his head with laughter and triumph. Here! he said. And waggled the lion at het. One-and-six! What? she said. He laughed. I was arguing with him for fun, bargaining—when the train had pulled ‘out already, he came tearing after. . .. One-and-six Baas! So there's your lion. She was holding it away from her, the head with the open jaws, the pointed teeth, the black tongue, the wonderful ruff of fur facing her. She was looking at it with an expression of not seeing, of seeing something different. Her face was drawn up, wrylys like the face of a discomforted child. Her imouth lifted nervously at the comer. Very Scanned with CamScannerslowly, cautious, she lifted her finger and touched the mane, where it was joined to the wood, But how could you, she said. He was shocked by the dismay of er fice. Good Lord, he said, what's the matter? If you wanted the thing, she’ said, her voice rising and breaking with the shrill impotence of anger, why didn’t you buy it in the firs place? Ifyou wanted it, why didn’t you pay for it? Why didn’t you take it decently, when he offered it? Why did you have to wait for him to run after the train with it, and give him one-and-six? One-and-six! She was pushing it at him, trying to force him to take it. He stood astonished, his hands hanging at his sides. But you wanted it! You liked it so much?.. It's a beautiful piece of work, she said fiercely, as ito protect it from him. You liked it so much! You said yourself it was too expensive— ‘Oh you—she said, hopeless and furious. You... . She threw the lion on to the seat. He stood looking at her. She sat down again in the corner and, her face slumped in her hand, stared out of the window. Everything was turning round inside her. Oné-and-six. One-and-six: ‘One-and-six for the wood arid the carving and the sinews of the legs arid the Switch of the tail. The mouth open like that and the teeth, ‘The black tongue, rolling; like a wave. ‘The mane round the neck. To give one-and-six for that! The heat of shame mounted through her legs and body and sounded in her ears like the sound of sand pouring. Pouring, pouring. She sat there, sick. A weariness tastlessness, the discovery ofa void made her hands slacken their grip, atrophy emptily, as ifthe hour was not worth their ‘grasp. She was feeling like this again, She had thought it was something to do with singleness, with being alone and belonging too much to, dnékelf She sat there not wanting to move or speak, or to look at anything, even; so that the ‘mood should be associated with nothing, no object, word or ight that might recur and so recall.the feeling again. ... . Smuts blew in grittil; settled on’ her hanids. Her back remained at exactly the same angle, tuned against the young man sitting with his hands drooping between his sprawled legs) atid the lion, fallen on its side in the,corner. ‘The train had cast the station like a’skin, It called out torthe sky, I'm coming, Tm coming; and again, there was no answer, f QUESTIONS, f soit mat ow 0 1. What type ieee does Gordimer se to describe the tain isl? What does this imagery suggest about the train? svt 2. How do the people on the train contrast with the people who live in the town? How do the people from the town modify their behavior when in the presence of those on the train? What political and social statements is Gordimer making by showing us this contrast? Does the author seem to favor one group over the other? Ifso, why? 3. The man with the carved wooden animal is referred to as an ‘old boy” in the story, Why? Scanned with CamScanneras IS Caste & Class 4. What is the source of the conflict the young woman feels after the young may purchases the carved animal? Why and how has her attitude changed toward the animal during the course of the stony? 5. Nadine Gordimer has been an outspoken critic of her governinent’s policy of apan. hieid. What implicit criticisms of this cruel system exist in the story? Bharati Mukherjee” HINDUS.” Tran into Pat at Sotheby day morning two years ago. Derek and I had gone to view the Fraser Collection of Islamic miniatures at the YorkAvenue galleries. I bothered Derek that I knew so little about my heritage. Islam is nothing more than a marauders faith to me, but the Mogul emperors stayed along time in the green dela of the Ganges, flattening and reflatening a fort in the village where Iwas born, and forcing my priestly ancestors to prove themselves brave. Evidenice on that score is sil inconclusive. That village is now in Bangladesh, Derek was a filmmaker, lightly employed at that time, We had been married three hundred and thirty-one days. ‘ “So,” Pat sid, in is ashy phmmy,cravrot intonation, “you ily made ft the States!” Tewas one of thee ety November rorings when the woodey smell oveeaed bodies in cloth coats clogged the public stairwels, Everywhere around ine I détected the plaintive signs of over-preparediness. “Whatever are you doing here?” He eigulfed me in a swit of Liberty scarf and cashmere lapels. “Trying to get the woman there to sell me the right catalog.” I said. The woman, a very young thing with slippery skin, ate‘ lusty Granny ‘Smith apple and ignored the dark, hesitant miniature-lovers hanging about like bats in daytime. “They have more class in London,” Pat said. “[ wouldn't know. I haven't been back since that unfortunate year af Roedean.” “twas always New York you wanted,” Pat laughed. “Don't say I didn’ war you. ‘The world is full of empty promises.” T did't remember his having warned me about life and the inevitably of grief I was entirely possible that he had-—he had always been given to clowning pronownce- ‘ments—but I had not seen him in nine years and in Calcutta he had riever really broken through the fortifications of my shyness. “Come have a drink with me,” Pat said. Ii was my turn to laugh. “You must meet Derek,” I'said. Derek haul Jeamed a great deal about India, He could reel off statistics of Panchayat Scanned with CamScannerEdgar Allan Poe THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH ‘The “Red Death” has long devastated the country, No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood, ‘There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution, The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his domin- ions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand liale and light- hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of'one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric» yet august taste: A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to Jeave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the ‘meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.” 1 Tt was toward the close ofthe fifili or sixth’ month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thou- sand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. Itwas a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But frst let me tell ofthe rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on cither hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizare. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each tur anovel effect. To the right and lef in the middle of each wall;a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevail- ing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes.were purple, The third was green throughout, and so were the casements, The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The Scanned with CamScannerVi {496 }S Caste & class seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung allover, ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet ofthe same material ng hhue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with hy decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood color, Now in no one of iy. seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of, ‘omaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers! But inthe corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tr bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaring illumined the room, And thus were produced a multitude of gatudy and fantage appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-lght thy streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly inthe extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all! Tt was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic lock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy; monotonous clang and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the elock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation, But when the echoes had fully ceased, alight laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and stiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the othier, that the next chiming ofthe clock should produce in them rio similar emotion; and’then, after the lapse of sity minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six huindred seconds of the: Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the elock, and then were the same disconcer and tremulousness and meditation as before. But, in spite of these things, itswas a gay and magnificent revel.The tastes of the duke were peculiar, He hada fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the devora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his coriceptions glowed with barbaric lust. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not. He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fie; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they. were grotesque. ‘There were much glare and glitter’ and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Her nani,” There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There wert dclitious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the woman, much of the bizare, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, it fact, a multitude of dreams, And these—the dreams—writhed in and about, taking hut Scanned with CamScannerFiction pete. (a) ast" from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands inthe hal ofthe velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voiee of the clock. The dreams are stiff-rozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endtired buit an instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depatt: And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the Sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches tir ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments. But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an'uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the lock; and thus it happened, perhaps; that more of thought crept, with more of time; into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who‘revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, thete arose at length from the whole company a bu223 or murthut; expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of Horror, and of disgust. In an assembly of phantasmhs such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no'ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in questién had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum: There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costuime and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety’existed. The figure was tall'and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave, The mask which concealed the visage was made S0:nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror. When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its rd, stalked to and fro arnong the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. Scanned with CamScannerCaste & Class “Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him—*y, dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask ‘him—that may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!” Tt was in the easter or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero a uttered these words, They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly—fr prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the ating of his hand. : Te was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by ky side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, wig deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a cenaiy nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whe party; there were found none who put forth hand to seize him: so that, unimpeded be passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterup., cedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green— through the grcen to the orange—througlt this again to the white—and even thene to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was thea, however, that the Prince Prospero, macidening with rage and the shame of bis om momentary cowardice, rushed huurivy through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly. terror that had seized upon all. He bore: aloft a draw: dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetwosity, to within three or four feet ofthe retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartinen, tured suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry——and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards fell prostate in death the Prince Prospero, Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, athron, of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the eboay clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpselike mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. ‘And now was acknowledged the presence ofthe Red Death. He had come like thief in the night: And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of thet revel, and died each in the despairing posture of hs fll. And the life of the ebony clock ‘went out with that of the last of the gay, And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held ilimitable dominion over all. QUESTIONS 1, How does Poe's syntax and word choice determine the diction of the story? How ‘would you characterize the diction? How does it help create the atmosphere ofthe story? / ear re 2 The author spend lt of time describing the physical details of the Prince's domain. What do they suggest about the Prince’s life-style and personality? What is the quality of his surroundings? Scanned with CamScannerFiction 43, Poe describes the clock in great detail. What might the clock symbolize and fore shadow? 4. At what point in the story does the tone sl once the mummer in red reveals himself? How does the author create tension James Thurber THE CATBIRD SEAT Mr. Martin bought the pack of Camels on Monday night in the most crowded cigar store on Broadway. It was theater time and seven or eight men were buying cigarettes. ‘The clerk didn’t even glance at Mr. Martin, who put the pack in his overcoat pocket and went out. If any of the staff'at F & S had seen him buy the cigarettes, they would have been astonished, for it was generally known that Mr. Martin did not smoke, and never had. No one saw him. Tt was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows. The term ‘rub out” pleased him because it suggested nothing more than the correction of an error—in this case an error of Mr. Fitweiler, Mr. Martin had spent each night of the past week working out his plan and examining it. As he walked home now he went over it again. For the hundredth time he resented the element of itmpreci- sion, the margin of guesswork that entered into the business. The project as he had worked it out was casual and bold, the risks were considerable. Something might go ‘wrong anywhere along the line. And therein lay the cunning of his scheme. No one would ever see in it the cautious, painstaking hand of Erwin Martin, head of the filing department at F & S, of whom Mr. Fitweiler had once said, “Man is fallible but Martin, isn't” No one would see his hand, that is, unless it were caught in the act, Sitting in his apartment, drinking a glass of milk, Mr. Martin reviewed his case against Mrs. Ulgine Barrows, as he had every night for seven nights. He began at the beginning. Her quacking voice and braying laugh had first profaned the halls of F & S on March 7, 1941 (Mr. Martin had a head for dates). Old Roberts, the personnel chief, had introduced her as the newly appointed special adviser to the president of the firm, Mr. Fitweiler, The woman had appalled Mr. Martin instantly, but he hadn't shown it. He had given her his dry hand, a look of studious concentration, and a faint smile, “Well,” she had said, looking at the papers on his desk, “are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch?” As Mr. Martin recalled that moment, over his milk, he squirmed slightly. He must keep his mind on her crimes as a special adviser, not on her peccadillos as a personality. This he found difficult to do, inspite of entering an objection and sustaining it: The faults of the woman as a woman kept chattering on in his mind like an unruly witness, She had, for almost two years now, baited him. In the halls, in the elevator, even in his own office, into which she romped now and then like a circus horse, she was constantly shouting these silly questions at him. “Are you lifting the oxcart out of the Scanned with CamScanner