Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

when I was Edith, I was coarse, and ugly, and thoughtless. I used to laugh very loudly. I used to accept people at their face value; when someone said to me, ‘Edith, you ought to take more of an interest in yourself,’ I was ready to believe them. It sounds incredible to
you,
doesn’t it? But that was Edith, not Verna.”
    â€œWhy didn’t Arthur want to change his name?”
    Verna shrugged violently. “Little beast,” she said. “He likes being the same as he always was.
Now
he doesn’t dare, but he thinks the same all right.” She laughed softly, what was clearly her Verna laugh. “Little Natalie, never rest until you have uncovered your essential self. Remember that. Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts, is a clean pure being made of radiant colors.”
    This was so much like the things that Natalie sometimes suspected about herself that she turned to Verna, swept by a rush of warm feeling, and said incoherently, “Verna, how do you ever know?”
    Verna smiled sadly. “I know, little one,” she said. Her eyes fixed somewhere over Natalie’s head, she said softly,
“From too much love of living. From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving . . .”
    â€œ
There
you are,” said Mr. Waite heartily. He handed Verna her drink, and Verna was unexpectedly quiet as she drank.
    â€œMy dear,” said Mr. Waite to Natalie, “I didn’t bring you a drink.”
    Natalie was surprised. Although her father had made a great point of her being allowed to drink and smoke when she was sixteen, in the year since he had never before offered her a drink. She had learned to smoke, with some amused assistance from her mother, who gave her a cigarette case, but the furtive terrors hidden in alcohol were as yet only vaguely glimpsed by Natalie; she thought now with some shame of a secret passage in her most secret diary (It began: “I hardly think that the taking of cocktails and such is a vice which I shall ever indulge in more than very mildly, since it seems to me that any woman interested in an artistic career dulls the fine, keen edge of her understanding by an indulgence in any stimulant other than her work.” This diary was written for ultimate publication, but Natalie of course intended to go over it very carefully first.), and said shyly to her father, “I’d like to try, sometime.”
    â€œHelp yourself,” he said genially.
    â€œWine is a splendid thing,” said Verna encouragingly. “Little Natalie and I,” she said to Mr. Waite, “were discussing our souls when you came.”
    â€œIndeed?” said Mr. Waite. He turned and looked at his daughter. “Natalie?” he said.
    â€œThis is a child of great talent,” Verna said, putting her hand on his arm to attract his attention. “This is a chosen child.” She handed him her empty glass and said, “I am going to think a great deal of this little Natalie.”
    *   *   *
    â€œDo you suppose she’ll
ever
go?” Mrs. Waite whispered to Natalie; they were standing together in the doorway. Mr. Waite and Verna were conversing politely on the lawn, and far away, at the end of the garden, they could see Arthur, lost in earnest contemplation of what seemed at this distance to be a dandelion. “I really think she’s crazy,” Mrs. Waite said.
    Natalie was pretending to be a young girl standing in the doorway of her own house next to her mother. If she tried to look as much as possible as though she were seventeen, innocent, protected by her parents, beloved, sheltered here in this house, then perhaps . . .
    There was a slight movement in the hall behind her; Natalie, her eyes fixed on Arthur, stood, seemingly unconcerned.
    â€œShe’ll keep your father out there all afternoon,” Mrs. Waite whispered