“And yet we manage to earn our living. We have at least managed that.”
“Yes, that is true: we have managed that as well as anyone else.”
“And from time to time we even manage to talk.”
“Yes, even if it makes us unhappy afterwards.”
“Everything, no matter what, makes one unhappy. Sometimes even eating.”
“You mean eating after one has been hungry for too long?”
“Yes, just that.”
The child started to whimper. The girl looked at him as though for the first time.
“I do have to go,” she said.
She turned again to the child.
“Just for once,” she said to it gently, “just for once you must be good.”
And she turned again to the man.
“And so I will say goodbye.”
“Goodbye. Perhaps we will meet again at the dance hall.”
“Perhaps. You do not know yet if you will go there?”
The man made an effort to reply.
“Not yet, no.”
“How strange that is.”
“If you only knew what a coward I am.”
“But you mustn’t let going to the dance hall depend on your cowardice.”
The man made a further effort to reply.
“It is very difficult for me to know yet whether I will go. I cannot, no I cannot know now whether I will or not.”
“But you do go dancing from time to time?”
“Yes, without knowing anyone.”
It was the girl’s turn to smile.
“But just for the fun of it, that is all you must think of. And you will see how well I dance.”
“Believe me, if I went it would be for fun.”
The girl smiled even more. But it was a smile the man could ill support.
“I thought, if I understood you correctly, that you reproached me for allowing too little place for pleasure in my life?”
“It was true, yes.”
“You said I should be less suspicious of it than I am.”
“You know so little about it, if you only knew how little!”
“You must excuse me for saying this, but I have the feeling that perhaps you know less about it than you imagine. I was talking of the pleasure of dancing of course.”
“Yes, of dancing with you.”
The child started whimpering again.
“We are going,” the girl said to him, and to the man: “I must say goodbye. Perhaps then we shall meet again this coming Saturday?”
“Perhaps, yes, perhaps. Goodbye.”
The girl turned and went off rapidly with the child. The man watched her going, watched her as long as he could. She did not turn back.
The Garden Square Page 8
