My brother’s wife did that to me the other day. When I was a bohemian slob she despised me but now that I’ve got a clean spinsterish image we’re friends. We were drinking weak coffee at the table next to the goldfish, absentmindedly devouring butter ball cookies while we dissected our friends in absentia. She paused with a cookie halfway to her mouth, her dainty pinky crooked—my brother’s wife is a devout pinky crooker—and shook her fluffy head. “Remember Sam and Carlotta? Whatever became of them?”

It’s hard. It’s hard. It was not very nice. I wanted to crawl into the pickle jug and swim sinless with light sliding on my scales. But maybe the fish envy each other and are rude. Maybe they browbeat each other and float long hours with their faces to the glass, contemplating nasty retaliations.

My life is clean now. I wash myself and the house in the mornings. I pick at the garden and am ruthless to slugs and snails. People come to my door expecting warm rooms and a flow of food and the brown sympathy of my eyes. They tell me their life stories and I tell mine. I lie. But only to make the story better. I am polite, you see. Whatever I may think behind my big soft face I will never say anything to hurt their feelings. I gossip behind their backs but since my friends do not know each other it does me no harm. I allow no one to hurt me. I announce the worst of myself so we can proceed without discomfort, so they won’t think they might discover any of my secrets, so they won’t think me a fool. I am very careful. I offer no advice. I have withdrawn from the dangers of intercourse. I do not go to lunch or dinner at other people’s houses. I allow no one to enter after nightfall. But still it’s not safe. Still sometimes I am a fool.