Camilla Read Online Free PDF

study, where he sometimes works after he’s come home from the office and where he usually goes to read his paper. The light in my mother’s room was on and she was still on the chaise longue, but she was sound asleep with her hair falling over the pillow and one hand drooping over the side so that it almost touched the floor; she looked as lovely and innocent and helpless as the princess in
The Sleeping Beauty
.
    â€œI’m going to do some homework now and go to bed,” I whispered to my father, standing just on the threshold of the room where my mother lay so exquisitely asleep. “Good night, Father.”
    â€œGood night, Camilla,” he whispered back, but he did not look at me. He kept on looking at my mother.

    I did homework until I was sleepy and then I got ready for bed. I did everything rather numbly, because I didn’t want to let myself think. I had just opened the window and turned out the light when there was a soft knock and the door opened and my mother stood there outlined in the light from the hall.
    â€œAre you asleep, darling?” she whispered.
    â€œNo.”
    She came in and sat down beside me on the bed and began stroking my forehead gently, the way she used to sometimes when I was very small and was in bed with a fever.
    â€œDid you have a nice dinner with your father?”
    â€œYes, thank you.”
    â€œDid he—what did you talk about?”
    â€œOh—I don’t know—the dinner.”
    â€œDid he ask you—was there— Did he mention Jacques?”
    â€œHe asked me if I liked the doll.”
    My mother kept on stroking my forehead and suddenly she bent down and leaned over me as though she were trying to protect me from something, and whispered, “Oh, Camilla, oh, my darling baby, I do love you so much.”
    â€œI love you, too, Mother,” I said. “I love you terribly.” And suddenly I wanted to cry, but I knew that I must not.
    My mother sat up again and continued her stroking of my forehead. When I was a small child, the soothing repetitive motion used to lull me to sleep, but now it seemed to make me wide-awake and tense, and it was my mother’s voice as she spoke that sounded sleepy.
    â€œMost people don’t realize that love can be killed,” she said in a soft drowsy voice. “When someone tells you he lovesyou, you don’t expect him to reject it when you offer him your love in return.”
    I lay rigid in bed and the cold air from the open window blew against my hot cheeks and my mother in her rose velvet gown shivered. “You really do love me, darling, you really do?” she asked.
    â€œI love you, Mother,” I said, and I had to close my eyelids down very tightly to keep the tears inside.
    â€œI wish—” she said softly, “I wish Mama were alive. I wish I had somebody to talk to. Tod, or even Jen.” Uncle Tod and Aunt Jen were her brother and sister, who lived far away from New York. “I wish— Mama used to worry about me. She always thought I was a fool in a—in a nice sort of way.” Then she let out a long shivering sigh. “Are you happy, darling?” she asked me. “Is everything all right? Are you happy at school?”
    â€œYes, Mother,” I said.
    â€œAre you sleepy?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’re not—you’re not worried about anything?”
    â€œNo, Mother.”
    â€œThat’s all right, then. I thought you seemed—I thought maybe something had happened to make you upset at school.”
    â€œNo. Everything’s fine at school,” I said.

2
    T HURSDAY MORNING I had not quite finished getting dressed when the telephone rang and it was Luisa saying, “Camilla, let’s have breakfast together at a drugstore,
please
?” Her voice quivered with urgency.
    â€œOkay, where?” I asked, and I was glad that she had called. My mother usually has breakfast in bed, but my