Selected Works II. [antikvár]

dedicated to my son On the floor beneath the window of a small, dusky room lay my father, remarkably long and all dressed in white; the toes of his bare feet were strangely widespread, and the fingers of his gentle hands, now quietly crossed on his breast, were likewise distorted. The dark discs of copper coins closed his laughing eyes, his kind face had become livid, and I was terrified by the glint of his set teeth. My mother, in a red skirt but little else, was kneeling beside him, combing back his soft hair with the black comb I had used as a saw to eut through the rind of watermelons. She kept muttering some-thing in a deep, hoarse voice; her grey eyes were swollen and seemed melting into large tears. My hand was being held by my grandmother—a roundish woman with a large head, enormous eyes, and a funny, fleshy nose. She was all soft and dark and fascinating. She too was weeping, but in a peculiar way that förmed a pleasant accompaniment to my mother. She trembled all over and kept pushing me towards my father, but I hung back, hiding behind her skirts. I was afraid and uncom-fortable. I had never before seen grownups cry and did not understand the words my grandmother kept saying to me: Go take your leave of your daddy. You'll never see him again. He's died, my darling, before his time, before his hour---- I had just recovered from a serious illness, during which my father—I remember that very well—had come and played with me merrily. But suddenly he disappeared and his place was taken by this strange woman who was my grandmother. Did you have to walk far to get here? I asked her.