700: “Then I surprised . . .”
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 26 begins
“THEN I SURPRISED MYSELF again,” she said. “There isn’t any way around this—it sounds so square to say this, but I remembered that it wasn’t right. It was shameful, it was—”
“—flagitious—”
“—just wrong, and I couldn’t see myself going along with it.”
“Good for you,” I said. I raised my glass to her.
“I don’t know where that attitude came from. It didn’t come from my parents. They were hardworking, and in their way, basically honest. That is, they would keep their word. And they gave some simple instructions to us about stealing and such. But my parents would have stolen anything that they thought they could walk away with unseen. My father would have jumped at the offer Guy was making, and although I hate to say this against her, so would my mother. I must be wrong about that. Surely I am wrong about that. No, I don’t think I am. I’ve thought about it often, and I wonder what makes me so sure that they would steal if the opportunity presented itself. Why do I slander them this way when they’re dead and unable to defend themselves? I think it’s because I never saw my parents exhibit anything like a moral conviction. They had rules, many rules, but I never had a sense of those rules as founded on moral principles. They were just rules to keep the household running and rules for their convenience and rules to maintain their power over the household. That’s all. They were rules about government and control, not about morality. So, I think I’ve decided that they made no distinction between control and morality, and that people who make no distinction between control and morality see no distinction between control and morality, and that people who see no distinction between control and morality have no morality. What do you think?”
“I think we’ve both had enough scotch,” I said.
“Oh, shut up.”
“But maybe it was the notion of your parents’ leaping at the offer that made you reject it.”
“Could be. Could be. I can just see them signing on as apprentices in Guy’s ring of thieves. I can imagine them scuttling around the resort—not Sunrise Cove, but Our Own Place—like a couple of peasants. Dad would have made a good gardener, or, of course, a boatman. And Mom would have been the laundress, naturally. They would have to be dressed in homespun to make them really look right, ideally something like the burlap sacks that my father used to use to hold the clams he dug. And they would have to go around half bent like a couple of hunchbacks, with that staggering, rocking step that both of them had. And mumbling, and being humble, and humiliated.”
She brought her hand to her eyes.
“Oh, shit,” she said. “It’s not funny.”
SHE LAUGHED and brought her hand to her eyes. Guy gripped her arm.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“The whole idea.”
“I don’t think it’s any sort of laughing matter.”
“Oh, it is, Guy. It’s nonsense. First of all, I’ve just discovered that I don’t approve of stealing. I have to admit that I’m surprised to find that out. I haven’t ever thought of myself as—well—as a good person, to tell the truth. But—maybe I am.” She shrugged.
“Oh, sure,” said Guy.
“Well, it does sound strange, but it might be. Anyway there’s more to it than that.”
“Like what?”
“It’s so stupid.”
“Stupid?”
“Yes. It’s a dumb idea. I mean, you’re trying to put together the down payment on a motel—”
“A resort motel.”
“Oh, Jesus, what a farce! A resort motel. You’re trying to buy a resort motel by stealing a pair of earrings now and then, taking a dollar out of the cash register, adding an extra dessert to somebody’s dinner check? God, it’s like my mother buying her vacuum cleaner on time by putting quarters in the handle.” She laughed again. “It’s not—becoming,” she said. She smoothed his hair. “It makes you look cheap. It makes you look like a jerk.”
[to be continued]
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