an almost vindictive sense of violation sat heavily at the edge of the bed, just where it was turned down, next the plumped pillows. He turned the chair and sat with her knee to knee.
“Something I’ve got to tell you,” he said.
She looked at him and waited.
“You remember what Cousin Patty was like? When she lost George?”
“Not very well. I wasn’t more than five or six.”
“Well, I do. She ran around like a chicken with its head off.’Oh, why does it have to be me? What did I ever do that it happened to me?’Banging her head against the furniture, trying to stab herself with her scissors, yelling like a stuck pig: you could hear her in the next block.”
Her eyes became cold. “You needn’t worry,” she said.
“I don’t, because you’re not a fool. But you’d better, and that’s what I want to warn you about.”
She kept looking at him.
“See here, Poll,” he said. “It’s bad enough right now, but it’s going to take a while to sink in. When it really sinks in it’s going to be any amount worse. It’ll be so much worse you’ll think it’s more than you can bear. Or any other human being. And worse than that, you’ll have to go through it alone, because there isn’t a thing on earth any of us can do to help, beyond blind animal sympathy.”
She was gazing slantwise towards the floor in some kind of coldly patient irony; he felt sick to death of himself.
“Look at me, Poll,” he said. She looked at him. “That’s when you’re going to need every ounce of common sense you’ve got,” he said. “Just spunk won’t be enough; you’ve got to have gumption. You’ve got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You’ve got to keep your mind off pitying
