people, particularly those who were anxious to pity her. Blanche refused to be pitied. But at night, after two or three glasses of wine, she would feel her defences fall away, and her mood, heightened artificially by the anticipation of Bertie’s visit, would dissipate as soon as it became clear that he would not come. At such times, standing motionless in her dusky room, or pulling aside the curtain on to the dark and empty garden, she would know an inner desolation that no one must be allowed to suspect. This desolation, compounded with the relief that somehow the day had ended, would accompany her to her bed, where, the wine having fulfilled its purpose, she would usually sleep soundly. But when she did dream she would be aware, whatever the dream’s context, of the shadow of an accompanying smile, a smilethat contained both mockery and mystery, the smile of the Goddess with the Pomegranate that had once so alarmed her and had left so strong an after-image that it seemed to steal up on her in unguarded moments, even in sleep.
Therefore she asked nothing from the child or from the child’s mother. She merely thought it sad that they should have to visit the hospital; she thought too that it would be a fine thing to bring a smile to their faces, a smile of recognition, a smile of mutuality. Nothing would be asked in return, for she felt, if anything, a slight distaste for the confidences of strangers, having received so many in the course of her unaccompanied days. But perhaps a simple interest in their situation would not come amiss, placed as she was in the unintimidating position of vague benevolence conferred on her by her duties at the hospital. It was little enough, she thought, although in fact she was too frail, beneath her armour, to withstand the weight of old acquaintances, with their exaggerations of concern, and it would be of interest to her, and perhaps of some benefit, to observe so young and spirited a woman and to try to understand her connection with the little girl who did not speak, but whose manners, Blanche had noted with something like sorrow, were as punctilious as her own.
For the child in Blanche had recognized the loneliness of the little girl in the Outpatients’ Department, had recognized too that her inability to speak was not organic but deliberate, that she refused, out of some terrible strength, to come to terms with the world which she perceived as abnormal, unsatisfactory, deficient. The steadiness of the child, as opposed to the effortlessness, the weightlessness, of the mother, indicated a desire for an ordered structured universe, with a full complement of the fixed points of an ordinary, even a conventional childhood. Blanche saw, with what seemed to her to be a true insight, that she was a child who would respond to regular meals, sensible food, traditionalgames, and a respectable, even a self-effacing mother. She saw, because she knew these things in herself, a resistance to the tired and tasteless cake, of which her mother had offered her not one slice but two; she saw also, in the child’s determined manoeuvres with the teaspoon, her decision to behave well and in as sophisticated a manner as possible, not allowing the disappointments of life with so incompatible a parent to break down her dignity, and even assuming a little more dignity than was customary in the face of such disappointments.
All of this Blanche thought about intently, but without perplexity. For a recognition on two levels had come about: recognition of the mother as the embodiment of that essence that had seemed to mock her, offering its wordless smiling comment on her empty afternoons, and recognition of the child as being one like herself, refusing, at a heroic level, the role that was offered her and which she considered unsuited to her desires. What those desires might be Blanche did not know, could not see. But she perceived the heroism in the stance, and she required, almost painfully, to see it at
Therefore she asked nothing from the child or from the child’s mother. She merely thought it sad that they should have to visit the hospital; she thought too that it would be a fine thing to bring a smile to their faces, a smile of recognition, a smile of mutuality. Nothing would be asked in return, for she felt, if anything, a slight distaste for the confidences of strangers, having received so many in the course of her unaccompanied days. But perhaps a simple interest in their situation would not come amiss, placed as she was in the unintimidating position of vague benevolence conferred on her by her duties at the hospital. It was little enough, she thought, although in fact she was too frail, beneath her armour, to withstand the weight of old acquaintances, with their exaggerations of concern, and it would be of interest to her, and perhaps of some benefit, to observe so young and spirited a woman and to try to understand her connection with the little girl who did not speak, but whose manners, Blanche had noted with something like sorrow, were as punctilious as her own.
For the child in Blanche had recognized the loneliness of the little girl in the Outpatients’ Department, had recognized too that her inability to speak was not organic but deliberate, that she refused, out of some terrible strength, to come to terms with the world which she perceived as abnormal, unsatisfactory, deficient. The steadiness of the child, as opposed to the effortlessness, the weightlessness, of the mother, indicated a desire for an ordered structured universe, with a full complement of the fixed points of an ordinary, even a conventional childhood. Blanche saw, with what seemed to her to be a true insight, that she was a child who would respond to regular meals, sensible food, traditionalgames, and a respectable, even a self-effacing mother. She saw, because she knew these things in herself, a resistance to the tired and tasteless cake, of which her mother had offered her not one slice but two; she saw also, in the child’s determined manoeuvres with the teaspoon, her decision to behave well and in as sophisticated a manner as possible, not allowing the disappointments of life with so incompatible a parent to break down her dignity, and even assuming a little more dignity than was customary in the face of such disappointments.
All of this Blanche thought about intently, but without perplexity. For a recognition on two levels had come about: recognition of the mother as the embodiment of that essence that had seemed to mock her, offering its wordless smiling comment on her empty afternoons, and recognition of the child as being one like herself, refusing, at a heroic level, the role that was offered her and which she considered unsuited to her desires. What those desires might be Blanche did not know, could not see. But she perceived the heroism in the stance, and she required, almost painfully, to see it at
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