Hangsaman Read Online Free PDF

“inadequate,” and so Mrs. Waite, one day a week, was allowed a length of time unmolested except for the company of her daughter. Perhaps, even, Mrs. Waite felt that in these hours that they shared the kitchen, she and Natalie were associated in some sort of mother-daughter relationship that might communicate womanly knowledge from one to the other, that might, by means of small female catchwords and feminine innuendoes, separate, at least for a time, the family into women against men. At any rate the kitchen alone with Natalie was the only place where Mrs. Waite talked at all, and probably because she talked so little elsewhere she made her conversation in the kitchen into a sort of weekly chant, a news bulletin wherein all that Mrs. Waite had thought or wanted to say or felt or surmised during the week was aired and considered, in combination with Mrs. Waite’s refrain of reminiscence and complaint. Natalie admired her mother at these times, and, although she would go to any length to avoid even the slightest conversation with her mother in the living room, she enjoyed and profited by the kitchen conversations more than even Mrs. Waite suspected.
    This morning Mrs. Waite’s initial momentum came from her Sunday casserole which, incredibly complex and delicate, would be devoured drunkenly in a few hours by inconsiderate and uncomplimentary people. When Natalie came into the kitchen her mother was leaning over the sideboard, slicing meat beautifully thin with the butcher knife. “Natalie?” she said without looking around. “Did you hear him?” she went on, without assuring herself that it
was
really Natalie and not Mr. Waite come to announce that the house was on fire. “Did you
hear
him? He’s an old fool, he really is.” She held her breath to cut daintily around a bone, and then went on. “Sometimes I think he must be an awful fool, to think people are taken in by his pretensions. Paranoid,” Mrs. Waite announced with satisfaction. “Paranoid. My father used to laugh when he came, he really did. Paranoid. Natalie, I wish Ethel would leave dishes the way I leave them. Little ones inside big ones. It’s impossible to believe that anyone can put dishes away in this sort of insane arrangement; she piles them all together without thinking of size or safety. Used to laugh. Sometimes I think he only married me because my name was Charity and it was the fashion then for people like your father to sing songs like ‘Buffalo Gals’ and dance a Virginia reel. Charity.
My
father knew what he was doing.”
    Natalie’s Sunday morning work usually began with the salad greens. She washed lettuce and carrots, tomatoes and radishes, cleaned them and set them in cold water to be made into salad at the last minute. With both hands full of lettuce leaves, now, she stood at the sink watching the waterfall of the cold water running from the faucet through the clear green of the lettuce. It was incredibly beautiful until her hands began to chill.
    â€œToo lazy to do anything for himself,” Mrs. Waite said. “Imagine a grown man taking up square-dancing in New York City. I remember my mother, a real scold
she
was. Her voice up
here
all the time, and I sometimes think your father would profit by her, although before she died she did get pretty quiet without my father. I always used to wonder how people made happy marriages and made them last all day long every day. Seemed to me my mother wasn’t happy but then of course I didn’t know. Natalie, see that your marriage is happy.” She turned and looked earnestly at Natalie, the knife resting against her palm. “See that your marriage is happy, child. Don’t ever let your husband know what you’re thinking or doing, that’s the way. My mother could have done
any
thing, anything she wanted, my father would have let her, even though probably he wouldn’t have known. Of course, by the time