Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle Read Free Book Online Page B

it’s so terribly exciting! Did you know that some scientists think that the world and the sun and the planets and lots of the other stars are all part of a great big explosion? A huge enormous star exploded somewhere and we’re all just fragments of that explosion getting farther and farther apart as we fly out into space.”
    â€œDon’t,” Luisa said. “That’s scary.”
    â€œI think it’s thrilling,” I said. “You’d think it would be the religious people who’d want to find out about it all, wouldn’t you? But most of them don’t. What do you want to be, Luisa?”
    â€œA doctor,” Luisa said. “Either a psychiatrist or a surgeon. I’d like to be a psychiatrist because I’d like to know what makes people throw things at each other and hate each other and love each other at the same time; and drink too much; and cry all night long. And I’d like to be a surgeon because it would be a lot of really complicated problems, much harder than algebra or geometry, and I’m not a bit afraid of blood and gore and I think lots of doctors cut up an awful lot more of people than needs to be cut up. And it would be terriblyexciting to be a surgeon, too, don’t you think, Camilla?”
    â€œYes,” I said, “I guess it would,” and in my mind’s ear I could hear Luisa being talked about as “that brilliant woman surgeon, Luisa Rowan,” and I could see her walking into the operating room and putting rubber gloves on her long bony fingers with quick decisive gestures and then afterward looking terribly white and exhausted and at the same time terribly pleased . . .
    â€œAnd it’s nice,” Luisa said, “our both wanting to be scientists. Do let’s always be friends, Camilla, even when you’re a famous astronomer and I’m a famous doctor. Maybe neither of us will ever get married and then we’ll need to be friends more than ever. I don’t think I’ll ever get married. I’m ugly and I’m flat-chested and I’m darned if I’ll buy any of those little rubber things you stick in your bra. And I don’t like men anyhow. Frank always goes around brooding and Bill is horrible to Mona even if I do like him better. I don’t like women, either, I guess. Maybe I’m a misogynist. Is that what I mean? Or is it misanthrope? Anyhow, I don’t think I’ll ever get married unless I find a doctor who’s a misogynist too. And you’ll have your career to think of. You’ll probably have lots of violent love affairs but a marriage might interfere with your work. Scientists should be single-minded. I really agree with Mona and Bill when they say that marriage is outmoded.”
    â€œWell, I’d like—” I started, but she didn’t even hear me.
    â€œSo we’ll just have to go on being friends more than ever. And if you get ill or have any horrible accidents or anything I’ll take care of you and save your life. Or maybe I could psychoanalyze you. Golly, Camilla, maybe it would be good if I psychoanalyzed you right now!”
    Fortunately, the bell for the end of recess rang then andwe crammed the rest of our cookies into our mouths and went back to the classroom.
    I don’t know what I’d have done without Luisa when Jacques started coming to see Mother. But knowing Luisa and having met Mona and Bill had somehow blunted the first edge of shock, though nothing could really prepare me for the fact that something like Jacques could happen to my own parents. It was like accidents in newspapers that always happen to someone else and then all of a sudden someone else is you.
    On Thursday—the afternoon of the day after I saw Jacques and my mother kissing and I knew that I could no longer pretend that Jacques really wasn’t important—I came straight home from school after all because Luisa was going to the movies with