r :"' ..~ -::_,"· ... .... ·...... : ....... · :'.·.~/-::· =~....:..~..~--,~~ . "" ,,,\_.. :: ...... ( ::: • • y.;.• .... .:, . ,. ~ ',,, 'y.. ,, ·.,• "' •.>· : . . ·: ~-.:~- .. ~.. -~ ...:.~ ·_., .• ·.·. .. .... ,.., ~ . . ....... . . ...~: ◄ ·· . :: -~"? :..\~ ·.,;·;~ ; ~ ;-.~~~ v,: ..... ~... \,.\•... ::. ......;:. -. !:' • ... ?• -·) .. ~,, ,; _.. ~~ .:.~ ;:,. .. , ' '. :·.· ·,: ... , . . .. _... , •· .... ·.:-. ~ . -~;\: ~ .:~.. .•' :.. ~ ►i.. :·_·· -~~-1 .•...., .. ...,. . ., ... '~_·:~\-~: -, .. "'~~.:.. --_:~ -'-· ..,._·:··A._ ❖,:; ,., J. ..•·-"·f~1-:' _: ;){JP:~: • ·'"=:-~/:: .. ,' ~-"·.--:,✓• • ......... ;1, ..... ,·. .'' ... ·. ~ .-;,:·~ ......:.·:. ·•,., . /;:·_;.\:, ;~ ---P. K. PAGE B. RUDDICK P.ANDERSON F. R. SCOTT A. M. KLEIN ... PREVIE~l, MONTREAL "MAY 1944 A STORY BY BRUCE RUDDICK - -'~** OLD MINKA.' S ~·vEATHEr1 *,;~* fie got off the bus and ·watched it turn round and head back to the city up the quiet and empty street lined by redundant balconied houses. And then we stood, transfers in hand waiting for the Riverside bus to come along• . nProgress is illusory," saitl Phil. "One is one, and one and one are two. And two is the square root of four and the cube root of eight and so on ad infinitum. n u~;Je are here with the result that we are about to go somewhere else," I said. The solution of one problem immediately posits a new one. Increasingly intricate. Quit, and you become static in a dynamic prooess.n Ph1·1 bowed his head. "In Dynamo Confido , " he said, We stood and waited on the corner and a cold wind came off the frozen river and spattered our faces with small hard specks of snow. And the sun came out for a moraent and then was blocked again by the rolling grey clouds. "Let's go into Anp:-y's and get warm, 11 said Phil. Inside it was dull with green \Valls and rows of tables stained and scratched, and bare brown cubicles along the sides. Through an open door in the rear we could see Andy standing by a stove and rubbing his hands on his fat aproned belly. The snell of fried eggs filled the place and we leaned on the streaked marble counter and tried to read the upside-down names of the flavours on the row of knobs. One knob was bigger than the rest and Phil pointed to it and said, "I'll bet that one's chocolate." We heard the front door open and. a driver came in, winked at us and called out to tb.e raan in the kitchen, ''How about that egg sandwich?" "Comin' hup," said .Andy and we went out and climbed into the bus. nrt was~chocolate " said. ---, I And we sat there looking out of the windows at the river stiff v.rith ice and the smolce-stained sno1·1 covering it and about midstream there \ms a hard and shining strip of dark green. And slowly over the river the great grey shadows of clouds slid like flat sle$py fish• . A young plump woman got on lifting a child by the armpits. She set him on a seat beside us ... "'.Now stay there and be good, n she said and left and -went into the restaurant., The child turned on the seat and knelt and pressed his small face against the window, his forehead flat and his nose squashed out on the pane. Re stuck out his warm red tongue and licked the glass slowly, nunhealthy habit , " said Phil. "Should we stop him? 1"1 "Might frighten him," I said, "If we told his mother she might slap him dovm." "Or worse. Threaten him. Like the mother in Guilloux's sketch--I'm going to lock you up in the hot black cupboard all day. And later: Not really though Mummyt Yes, really. When Mwnn1y'? ·wnen we get home. You aren't really though Murn.m.y are you? Yes. VJhy Mum.my? Because you are bad. Now be quiet-And the kid would sit there wetting his pants and cold and sick with a fE;ar worse than any influenza.n PAGE T~'/0 "She's on to the refinements of sadism, 0 said Phil • • "She's a bitter bitch,lT 11Spavmed by a bitter bitch out of a roaring brute.~' "Spa-wnod by the whore w·orld mother of us all," nyou know,n said Phil, "though we are less obviously cruel we have our ovm style. It is too much to ask anyone for complete understanding and control." "Oh, ours are more exquisite cruelties," I said, "refined and very terrible.a nLikc our silences sometimes.a And then the woman came back and lifted the child tenderly from the seat. She sat down and wiped his small cold -face and set him on her lap, her plump red hands gGntly locked around his chest. °Forgive us ou~ misprognosis," said Phil. "We must love one another or die," he quoted. The driver ca.me out of the restaurant, a snndwich in one hand. He climbed in, closed the door and started the bus. He drove along the icy road steering with one hand and sating the so.ndwich. And v1e sat directly behind him and looked . out tit t~e passing winter river, "'tffould be wonderful to start out there below the ra:pids, n said Phil, "and skate easily down the thousand miles to the sea." "Yeah. Do·vm past the cities and the towns and the small French villages; Sorel, Berthierville and Lavaltrie, Three Rivers and Quebec and the Gaspe down to the groat wide Gulf." The driver turned, his mouth v1et and full of bread and fried egg, and said, "Doc. , you' re nuts.. The river don't freeze that ·far down." rt Well, n said Phil, rtwe could go as far o.s it does. i: ;iNaw. You can't skate on it. It's covered with snow. And the break-up's coming. H rq,'Jell right aft.er freeze up and before the snow covers it·.~" I said. "Nah. Too thin, and anyway the vrind v1ould pile it up and block you be fore you got very far.'I! · BVery well then,a said Phil1t "we'll get o. tent 2nd camp by the river every Fall till conditions are just right. Then we'll do it,n nrfua_t' s nuts," said the driver, his little finger scraping bread from his molars. a-where's it goin' to get you. ?t "Ah you' re a realist,H said Phil• HYou think of everything don't you. ft He laughed and pulled the bus up at the asylum gates and opened the door saying, nSometimes I think you're all of a bunch up there and if you'ld ever exam ine yourselves one day, you'ld lock yourselves in." .And we all laughed, even the plump lady with the child asleep on her lap. We got down and v.imved at the plump lady as the bus pulled awc.y and we start ed up the long tree-lined road to the main building, slipping in th8 icy ruts as we walked., "Even if he didn't get the sarcasm in your last remark it was still cruel,n I said. nr guess it was,. I was defending an illusion,n 11Illusion is self and not a ®iversal. And loving with illusion is an image seen in a mirror say. 2omeone actual and alive beside you whom you .love with the mind's fallibility--illusion created out of desire, Aa you approach the mirror image you always get farther away from the real.n . "At most you can only get half way to the imago.a HSure.. And finally :lour own reflection grows and shuts out the rest and you are left there loving a cold and silvered glass and staring into your pained PAGE THREE nnd wild eyes," Phil laughed. "All I can manage is one eye at a time." "Then loving truth you must love all of it. The coming to you and the turning away_ and tho pain nnd the pity and terror as well as the rest. All of it." "And the only vm.y you can do that is to understand it and why it is the way it is." "We must understand one nnothcr or _die. 0 "All this is abstraction, mcnto.tion," said Phil. ''I think we are· all of us really mud,, H he whispered putting his arm through mine and we laughed aloud walking and sliding on the icy road. We went on till we came to men, inmates all, clec.ning the snow from the roadside and tossing it in dry blowing shovelsfull into the fields. And some of thom ,:rorked quietly, automatically, and some straightened up as we pnssed and stared at us with still faces or smiled timidly and one called out, ''Hello. Hello doctors, Hello." · And we answered him and waved end wont on with winter hard in March about us and we came to tho main building, And then we heard musi'c high and wild t-.1+"1.d the fury of it stung us and we walked around to the side of tho building till w0 ccune to tho cnged windows of the isolation rooms in the basement. And there, with thin und tattooed nrms twisted through the bars and fQce pressed close to tho cold iron was a man blowing furiously on the harmonica. He would play ·a few bars we had never hoard before, loud and fast, but without discord. And then he would repeat them, not monotonously but with a tortured inevitability• .And wo walked up to him, thor6, writ:lhing ·and playi~g in a torriblc manic excitement. "It's Minka," said Phil. And we went closer till we could see his wide blue eyes, bright and turned up to the sky. And the v1ild music poured over ne and filled me till I felt that I must weep and I looked up. And Phil said, "Mergansers in echelon." And I looked and high above were the northbound geese w'ith long outstretched necks, seven of them, flying swiftly and strongly e.nd the sky was filled with the blue of Mink:a' s oyes, And suddenly the music stopped. And suddenly, too, there was a shiny black starling crackling and teetering in a tree. And I thought I felt the snow about . me slwnp as if the anarchic and individual flakes, conceding the victory, ha~ turned back to th0 sea. And in the distance I thought I heard a booming, as of guns. And Phil said, "The riv0r," nResonating," I said, "and split like a crystal bowl," ''Minka," I aslced gently, "bist du glucklich?" "Der Fruhling, der Fruhling,'' he said. "Spring goms," and started to play again. And we turned back towards the mr1.in entrance and when we got inside Our eyes were still so filled with the light of the sun and sky nnd snow that we could see vory littte in the quiet hall. "Old Minka the manic," said Phil. ~tMinka the manic, the mouth-organ man," I embellished. "Magnificent Minka the manic, the melodious mouth-organ man." "And Minka so loved the world that he gave it his only begotten song." "O magic Minka,tt cried Phil And someone saiq., "What the hell is all the noise. Are you drunk?" And I could see very little, but I made out a white staff-cont and I lmew it was Wiley the Resident in psychiatry. And I said quietly, '':No you craz:y bastard. n He didn't hear me and said, "What?n But Phil nudged me hard in the ribs and said, "No it is Spring and we are deluded, "Grandiosely,n I said. And we moved off silently down the dim, and echoless hall. PAGE FOUR Editors' Note: Since the last issue James Wreford has become n contributing editor of Preview. He lives in Hnmilton, Ontario, where he works on the stn~f of McMaster University ns geographer, which, he tells us, is n sociologist-cumanthropologist tainted with meteorology. His work has previously appeared in the Canadian Forum, Contemporary Verse, First Stntement and the Smith Anthology. We are presenting the following poems, some of which have been published before. Q0._~fJ)E , LOOK NOT TO 'IHE_jgJ:J.i Cornrade, look not to the hill help is in your iron will, heaven affords no higher aid than experiment and spade, till the worid entirely yours imperishable from your wars shall in your soaring spirit find the larger landscape of the mind. Creator of the mental earth your help is in the common birth of high revolt and firm intent, the thirst and hunger you have sent: therefore, vro.nting, wasting, worn, let the r.ew· messiah be born the spiked hends and tho bloody brow of your faith, my friend, that now torn upon the barricade redeems my fear, too long afraid, Qnd finds beyond the final rope the electric deity of hope. These shnll slumber not nor sleep but their steady wetches keep in wha.t ocean, what fc.r lwd you take your daily, dangerous stand; these, the troubling wnnt, the will towers above the towering ill~ the human QUe~tion quarreling with, like yours, n stubborn wing-these shall see, no moon by night nor daily sun betray your flight, but shall guard and guide your vm.y and benm you to your destiny. Then faint not friend, but falterless set your needle to. redress the everlasting wrong and find your high objective in mankind; und, writing in your broken youth the last ·new testament of truth, -tireless, never turn until triumph9 in you the common will, for· God shall keep your soul 0.t last who have kept His heavens fast. J.AJviES WREFORD. _PAGE FIVE IDEN':2ITY. rrhc steep hill runs against the tree shadows are branches and the light a bunch of needles in the leaves sharpened and polished by the night. Around the corner Freud can tell the murder meets the murderer going to hell who holds the helm along the chart their longings were. His eyes no further than the bone he limns his lover and lies over lost to all but limb and lip-her limbs his image rediscover. This is himself, not what he seems, and this the darkness, not the night, the love which like a blackout screams the silver sliver of a light: the sallow·, swallow the fat cows up, supply and demand can never tally, the river shrinks, and in between her flaccid breasts there is no valley, and vet real for that ., the ribs more pant with undismayed desire, and as the blossom dies, the seed licks up her tinder in his fire; ~he skeleton their graticule measures a base-line for their hope, they through death's darkness surely walk and only where no shades are, grope. So all his geography projects on the mollweide of her hips and yet there is no map can trace tho well known frontier of those li:ps that war-torn bounctary and bridge O both their eagle is and dove . themselves on this side, but on that a greater than themselve~ they nrove and find in their platonic cave the shadow silhouette the flame upon the wall her body scrawl the sglendid profile of her narne; PAGE SIX and liko a forest whose strength is known in the stripping of its ·loaves, their love against the roaring winds is truest where it mostly grieves, swings round its pole through midnight snows to fill their eyes with tropic sight, or with a glory like to stars v.raits on the darkness for its light. THE MENTAL BUTTERFLY ........ ·-...,-·_,__ ._.., ·---- For fear of loving let us love against the teeth the iron talk of the exalted aeroplane: this mouse our happiness that hawk- this hope in that aerial view divided by the bomb sights at the crossed hairs of the 'bursting rose• that blooms on the defenceless flat with petals of eternal blood; 0 who shall count the moment, prove how high this on the beam jive joy when they have got the range of love and in Lidice, Guernica raze all our small town dreams and strip kisses apart in kissing with the skeleton beneath the lip. And yet in love the moment lives as with that hour upon the tr0! e impaling him vnth equal wrong that made of Christ, eternity: shall live beyond the hour of love virginian kisses and the glow of earth that in the inner eye perceives the summer through the snow; as when beyond the frozen field, the bare, sheeted-in-ice bleak ·bough~ the silenced stream, the clouded sky, the wooded hills denuded now, the singing heart goes through the woods as if they had not ceased to sing, and in the mind the butterfly floats on in an eternal spring, JATulES WREFORD. PAGE SEVEN FIRST DAY OF SPRlliG 1944 1. Pulled up the inner window with one scream and pressed the rusty other, dust and catch, until it forced and flew. Then we looked out from our long winter, and tli.e wings latched back against the wall. There in the ragged lane the volatile blue-air was dust in gaps, ice burned awny before the shouts of children. And novir our muslin curtains stir and swell with ballet breaking in, rustle to volley, a bell--shape in the room. W6 have given entrance to all the news that nestles in the wind and all the looks unloosed and staring out from fire-escapes and balconies. And we are moved, are strangely moved. Our winter scope immensely widened, till a noisy fear stands neighborly beside each boundless hope. 2. Dovm. on Lagauchetiere street the Chinese serve dishes like water-colours. You eat with your slender pale brown chopsticks one green stalk, another green stalk, a bean sprout, a pale slice of mushroom and dawdle your rice, and outside it is already beginning to be spring with casual quantities of green minuteness, and you drink pale tea and you eat and eat and you have dined well but soon again you4ll be a little hungry. • PAGE EIGHT 3. Easter at this point I do not lmow what this is about except that it is about festivals Just when one is beginning to live with a certain quietude of day upon day one_ comes upon the cnrnivnl and occasion and blows a day up like a blndder puts glory or even a synthetic passion into a terminntion by midnight and after, it cannot be helped, dies a little. PATRICK ANDERSON. EYES His eyes--blue--did not change, retained their laughter or the dull of sleep, turned with a glitter upon certain things, were tired more often. Not corpses stuffed them n.lthough corpses there were slid under his lovelock, worked a curious ma.n~ood: there were no hanged men high upon gnllows observnble behind the eyelash curtseys, and all the roads that run up into them pressed them open, mnybe, but left no sign. You couldn't have told nt all to what fire frontier and firework fit • those eyes rvore railro2Lded: they held no dapple of geographies, and bear11ed v,;ithout hint of o. long dangerous sea, had no snlt in them and little thought. And only on that day finals came round and fate rench0d out for him the sky being God whnt a forget-me-not or other etcetera nnd angelic blue those eyes were rotted black as though the boy came out and looked. PAi:rRICK .ANDERSON page nine MIRACLES (An extract from a story not yet finished in which an English-speaking husband and wife visit a French-Canadian village.) That evening after supper while Madame rocked on the gallery in the slowly settling darkness .Annette took us to see her friends. Lights.bl~zcd in the windo1vs as -vve walked with dust muffled steps along the village street and the .air was flooded with green as though chlorophyll lit the evening. Small groups of youths walked by, serious and stolid as moose in their pin striped suits. i'Salud", nBon soirn, --the greetings rang out as theypaassed. · Annette was proud in her acla.101rv·lodgements, walking vvi-th a. strange stiff legged self-consciousness. Wo.tci1ing ·Ghom I -rvas amazed that there were no girls with them --no girls with their heavily po11~'·dor cd f aces., extraordinary amateur curls and the stifling smell of cheap perfume. 11Thoy hn.ve no girls? 1; I asked. Annette was quick to assure TDG they had. nBut on o.n eve:ninr-; like this? :j 11 They 0.r0 on their vro.y to ca11, 11 Annette said. "But they don't go out tor.r~•cher? 11 Annette svrung ho:rrifinc: eyes to Gou at t}1c; sugges<:ion. The cure did not allow it. The cure knevv vrhat vV'.lS righ·\-:; .for them e.nd what was wrong. The cure lmevv everything and looked ·..~fter them. Tho cure so.id it wn.s wicked. Luke walked, his h~ds in his pockets, his heQd b~ck, saying nothing. At first I dr;~gged him· in to the convorsa.t ion but when Annette be gnn to ta.lk of tho . cure I forgot. Besides, I needed at my energy to ]coop up with her, to fpllow tho acrobatics of hor speech. "He is G. vory grer~t o.nd good w1.n., 11 so.id Annette and her ivo rds sounded sta.ccato on the long quiet street. "He performs mirn.cles. 11 The speed o.nd extra.va.g:J.nce of An::.!'J.otto 's lc.nguo.ge mo.de mo feel that I vvo.s in some way inside a catherine whoel. Her fuco grow long and full of wonder as she recounted her miracle. ttuntil I was twenty-ono, ·.i she so.id, 11 I -rras not liko other girls. I had not been uni.i\rell o.nd I vvn.s vory weo.k. Mammc. vras worried n.bout me. All my sisters were strong~ they wero getting mn.rriod, but I wo.s not md on.ch month we wn.ited and I wn.s not unwell. Mn.mma got the horse and cart from tho Pagot 's and we drove to the to-wn. It -vrc.ts a. long vvo..y. And it is very cxpensive to soe the doctor. Mnrn:rna had the money in her hri.nd and I ,.-ra.s o.fraid whon we arrived. It wo.s hot nnd my hoo.d vvo.s full n.nd I vro.s n.shu.mod. We waited for him to come and then we told him. He took the money McJnIDt\ ho.d in her hand and gD.Ve rn.e somr:: medicine n.nd we drove back home ~1.go.in. All tho.t ,Nay, ~11 tho.t money, etll that vva.y homo a.gain. I took the medicine ho gave and waited. Eetch month I waited. Eo.oh morning I went to early Mass and pray0d but ·nothing hQppened. And o..11 the time I got sicker o.nd si~ker. Mamma went to the cure then rmd he co.me. He s~id he would perform a mirn.cJ.e. He got a big glo.ss and a. bottle of porter and he poured the porter into the glass. Then he C1.dded two ten.spoons of mustard and he stirred a.nd stirred until it TJ"[~S frothing. He hc..nded me the glass. 11 Drink it down while it is still frothing, 11 he said. But I couldn't. I shook my head. I could not drink that drink. uDrink it dovm while it is frothing and you will be (',Urod within five minutes. ti I SQ.W the big glo.s s. MCLmmo. was crying. "Drink it dovm~ tt said Al.'l.TIImD. o..nd she held hor head in her ho.nds and ro eked from side to side. "Drink it dovvr1, Annette. n Then I didn •t co.re ~y mo re. I took the big glass and I thought or the face of the Virgin Mo.ry ~nd I mado the sign of the Cross ond prayed inside me and I drank it dovm. It was bn.d, that drink. It tasted bad. I wonted to .be sick to my stoma.ch." Annette pausGd and go.Ve a great sigh QS if sho had lived the whole experionce over again. "And it 1:rorked, 11 I asked. The story finishod An..nette nodded her head s:1gely, smugly. "Ah, yew. ,, pa.go ton It was n. mirCl.clo. A miracle in the no.me of God." "And you've been clright evor since?" Tho t ri.le shocked me. In my ovm hen.d I saw D. blackrobed cure --Mo.rnmo., groo.t fo.t Me.m:ma, shaking her head (l.!ld crying nnd Annette drinking down a dovil 's brovv vr.i.th its smoking sulphur coloured fumes that changod her from ~ child into a wonnn in five minutes. "Ever since you ho,ve b0en a.lright?" "Ah, but yes,_ it WC1.S n. mlracle." Had the curo performed other miracles, I wanted to lmow. Wh~t else hn.d he dono? 11 Annette purs·ed hor lips c.nd shrugged. 1'Ah, yos." _ "Tell me, '1 I sn.id. But we had alroa.dy arrivod n.t the Simone's. Another time she v-rould tell me. NovV' her mind wus on her friends. They were especially b0n.utiful, .Annette informed us, for they were blonde. And that was ro.re. They were tho only people in tho villnge who were blondo. On the gallery sn.t Mme. Simone, frf\.il as a Ma.rie Lo.urencin pn,inting1 her high cheek bones dotted with excited crimson, her ht\ ir permn.nonted like the fizz on ginger beer. She rocked more slowly as she greeted Annette and was introduced, insisted that we all sit down, brought forward chnirs, smiled nervously n.nd moved her white ho.nds across her apron. Noiselessly, as wherever we went, the children collected --stood in silence., po.le, uln.rmingly pale; ench with the dot of tubercular rouge; on their cheek bones, their uncurled hair smooth on their heads a.s butter, their legs and arms motionless. The ground sloped up from the house beside us --grass and apple trees with yellow apples luminous in the le~ves, lying in the gr~ss pale as the children's hair --and ev0rything tinged v.rith tho green light, wo.shed in it. While Mme. Simone o.nd Annette goEsiped I felt bathed in the blonde and green inco.ride sconce of" this fo..mily o.nd its go.rdon, and was fa.sc inuted o..nd appalled by tho st:i.11 life of the children, the shyness that held them fixed n.nd their flax _blue eyes tho.t looked o.s sho.llovr and dolica.te as petals. "Andre bas bought n. truck," Annette so.id o.nd her prido sat upon her fo.t and sleek a s mercury, be.fore it broke und sco.ttered in excited dewcription. 11It is big," she s~J.id, ·her o.rms enclosing it. "Tho whole village could ride in it, it is so big. And it is rod." "Ago.tho told me,." sa id llime" Simono. Her eyolids lifted to hoods und she pursed h0r mou-bh to judgment. nHe gets o. truck instea.d of o. wife," she so.id. It is not good.• " ttit mn.kos o.. beautiful noise, n siad .lu:mette, like a. child. She turned to us. "It mak0,s a. better noise thnn your ca.r." "'VIJhere is it'?" I ~sked. "V\lhy h n.ven't vie seen it?" "Andre ha.s gone to the city alreo.q.y," Mo.dame nodded sa.ge ly. 11 Soon Andre will live in the oity," she o.nnounoed. Luke lmocked the :::i.shes fron his pipe, blew through it o. co-uple of times o.nd put it in hi .s pocket. _ Th0 greenneos grcv.r deeper f1. S we talked --ca.me up and swamped us until it seemed ns if w,e were under the! se~. :Mne. Simone became nervous·, rocked rapidly and .suddenly her ha rsh voice oommand&J. ➔::}1 n children: nGet apples fro the English." But the children harilly moved. A slight trerao ::.' o.f incroa.sed shyness· ripples them nnd froz~ them.; Raisinb her voice to on a.+a:rming ~J-o lume the mother repented her commo.nd and they' scuttled then. uncannily groen, into the doop gr f1.ss, picking the globes o-f fruit from the ground, roaching to the lower branches of tho troos, moving with their eyes still on Luke and myself; shy, offering their harvest with white-green fingers, smiles mo..king mnsks of their smn.11 faces. I held out ITrJ hand to receive tho clustors of fruit with the leaves attached. "They aro flower apples," the mother s2.i d, c11d Annette nibbling, cxplo.i.ned that th1Jy didn ''t l o.st, but fo.d0d liko flowers in o. fow days The giant _illuminated cross on the hillsi de sharpened and brightened as the darkness f'etl. Proudly they nodded at it., Annette and Mme• Simone, · page eleven drew down the conners of their mouths, told how it burned day and night, day and night and how it was their cross, how each that light never went out. family paid for a light and In Annette's charge we left when she gave the sign. The green light was deeper now, the children behind their mother seemed no longer strange, but terrible --tiny and fair and lifeless vrhile Madame rocked unceasingly back and forth in her chair, and beside them, on the hillside, the vegetation crept in closer and closer like a. wave. Leaving, our apples still in our hands .Annette said, "Eat them. They a.re good. 11 But I shook my head, feeling the perfectly f.ormed and infected fruit against my palms --pale apple-green and deadly. "Are they not beautiful, the Simone s? 11 Annette was anxious to know, "Are they not the most beautiful people you have seen here?" "But surely, 11 I said, sick with alarm, "Surely they are ill. Consumptive?" uAh yes1 11 said Annette in easy agreement but bored. 11But Annette it is a dangerous disease. It is catching. It will spread." , "Nol II Annette's voice was incredulous. 11You joke,1' she said and laughed. I felt desperate. I wanted to convince Ann0tte. "In the city," I said., "Those people would go away for treatment. Doesn't the doctor see them, Annette?" Annette was not interested. "It is nothing, 11 she said. nThe Bouchards "'lave it and the Pagets and the ••••" she listed ·bhe family names• "It is nothing. The cure goes and he prays. Sometimes it gets bad and someone dies. Often that happens." I wanted to cry out at Annette's stupidity. I grabbed Luke's arm. "Say something to her, 11 I said. "Tell her, Luke •11 "It is a dangerous illne_ss, 11 Luke said. And the subject was finished• . But something violent and terrible was happening inside me. A:n anger I had not known before, a fury at the ignorance and pitifulness of people. I had hoped for some affirrnat ion of a similar fee ling in Luke. But his voice had been factual and indifferent. I let go his arm quickly, and when he felt for my hand in tho darkness and tried to hold it I pulled away, even knowing thn.t he too, needed affirming at that moment. We stumbled a little in the darkness on ~:be dusty road. A smell of salt bl,ew up from the river e.nd the houses were quiet as though deserted. It was as if all the i.nhabitants were dead --and the fa.ce s of the Simone children arranged themselves before my eyes, lying like wax and butter in a row of green wood coffins. · The cure goes und he prn.ys. The cure is a great o.nd good mon. The cure performs miracles. But here nre no miracles in the consumptive houses, I thought. No miracles there and I was bitter with Annette for her dreadful acceptance of den.th. Bitter with Annette and furious with Luke. P. K. Pn.ge page twelve • DENTIST The planetary motion of the blood, Also the peregrinations of routine, And the bright pendulum of dialectic, All go awry. Lose their direction and their polarhood Before the keen Weltshmerz residing in a cavity1 Sometimes, in such a.dire case, this man He of the aloe'd pellets against pain Has been to my anguish -antiseptic Hero: But now, to-day, I know him different, clumsy Caliban, Narcoticized brain, Gloating with pinoers over my dismayl The panic of his nightmare's still with me: This ogre of the hypodermic •laws, Smelling of novocaine and drugged ma.y~em, Knee on my ohest, Still runs amok among the iv~ry, Distorts Icy jaws, Still keeps my gurgled havoo unexpressed~ May thirty-two curses blight that torturer~ May his gums sortenJ May he lose his friends Turning in silence from his exhalationsJ His tinsel wreath Fall from his mouth, abscessed, with clotted gore At its forked endsJ Thirty-two curses on his thirty-two teeth£ •pity he cries? May only thirty-one Oi' those foul .nibs slip from their gummy curves, Leaving his food in lumps, uncut, urunolar'd For belly's sake And may one canine, comic and .alone, And quick with nerves, Remain -his weltshtxrz and his livelong achel A• M. Klein .. ---N O T E -- Please send all donations, literary contributions and critic~sm (of which .· we wish ehere were more) to Bruce Ruddick, 1491 Crescent st., Montreal.