We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
used to have, a little cheap thing that used to go quack-quack quack-quack when you'd wind it. Except, they'd say, that fortunately the duck would get unwound once in a while and quiet down. While I, I'd just keep on chattering away. Worse than any toy duck, or any other child, in fact."
This silly lady
She took a breath and looked at the little girl, who continued staring up at her.
"Don't you like to talk?" Ava asked then, softly.
The girl said nothing.
"Don't you like to talk to me?" Ava asked.
Still, the girl said nothing.
"Don't you like me?" Ava asked, almost pleading for an answer, " — this silly lady who comes from out of nowhere one day and says all the wrong things to you? But who likes you so much. . . . Don't you like me?"
But the little girl seemed suddenly distracted. She turned and faced the door. She was listening to something else now, to a light tramping noise that came from down the hall somewhere.
"Are those the other children, your friends?" Ava asked.
"Yes," the little girl said, speaking finally, whispering.
"And do you want to be with them?" Ava asked.
"Yes," the little girl said again.
With that, she dropped the package Ava had given her and she began to run towards the door.
She'd practically reached it when she fell, feD hard, and began to cry.
Ava rushed over to her.
"Sweetheart," she called out, "are you all right?"
She reached to pick up the little girl, but the girl resisted.
"No," she shouted, "I want to go outside, away. I want to go."
But Ava, knowing that she was hurt, seeing the deep scrape marks on her arms, paid her no mind.
She picked her up, anyway.
And she carried her over to a chair, and sat.
And she held the sobbing child close to her, rocking her, kissing her, saying softly to her, "It will go away, the hurt — Soon you won't feel it." Rocking her some more. Kissing her some more.
Until, gradually, the girl's crying lessened and lessened. And until, finally, at one point, after she'd stopped crying altogether, she lifted her little arms and took Ava's hand with both her own hands and clasped it, while with her mouth and with her eyes she began to smile a little.
"Some day," Ava asked, "soon, would you like me to come and see you again?"
The little girl nodded.
"I will come someday soon," Ava said. "The day after tomorrow, the day after ibat — no later.
"And then," she said, "in about two weeks maybe, if everything is all right, I will come one fine day and when I leave, you'll be leaving with me. And after that, forever after that, we'll be together, you and me."
She bent her head and kissed the child once more.
"Just you and me," she said.
It didn't occur to Ava at the time that she had spoken those last few sentences in English, rather than in Italian.
That the child hadn't understood these last few sentences, their meaning.
And that, perhaps, strangely, it was better that way. . . .
The American, a playboy, an old friend, phoned Ava that next night. He asked her to go out with him — "Come on," he said,
"a big night on the town." Ava could have said no. She did hesitate for a moment or two. But she ended up by saying yes.
That was the way it always was with Ava.
That was the way this night began.
It was one of those whirlpool nights, when things get rougher, tougher, crazier, more senseless as the hours progress.
Ava had had them before.
But this was the worst.
She and her friend began by having cocktails at her apartment — a rye-andbrandy concoction; a little too strong, a few too many.
They left the apartment at about ten o'clock.
Just before they got to the restaurant where they were to have dinner, Ava and her date noticed a young news photographer following them on a motorcycle.
"You like this kind of stuff?" asked the date.
"No," said Ava.
The date stopped his car, got out and flagged down the photographer. When the photographer had stopped, Ava's date grabbed him, grabbed his camera and smashed the camera against his head.
Dinner, which followed, was relatively quiet — lots of food, lots of wine.
But after dinner, things started moving again.
First, Ava and her date went to the Bat Club, a swank nightspot not far from the Coliseum. Here they drank champagne. And they danced. Here, too, after a while, while they were dancing, a stranger tried to cut in on them.
"Scat," said Ava.
"You insult one of your admirers?" asked the stranger.
"You heard the lady," said Ava's escort.
The stranger smiled. "This is a lady?" he asked.
Whereupon Ava's date slugged him and he slugged back and a general free-for-all began, with the place in an uproar and Ava and her escort getting away only minutes before the police arrived.
From the Bat Club they went to another place, where they skipped the dancing, and only drank.
Then they went to another place — with more to drink.
And another.
And another.
Finally, at five that morning, they were entering a private all-night club when Ava, stumbling a bit, spotted another photographer standing near the bar, about to take her picture.
"Stop that," she shouted. "Leave me alone with that damn thing."
The photographer ignored her.
A flashbulb popped.
"I said stop," Ava screamed, picking up a dish from a table she was standing alongside, and flinging it; then a glass, and another dish, and another glass.
This was the worst
It was one of those whirlpool nights, all right, when things get rougher, tougher, crazier, more senseless as the hours progress.
Ava had had them before.
But this was the worst.
She got back to her apartment at about six o'clock that morning.
She went straight to her bedroom.
She kicked off her shoes and was about to struggle with the buttons on her dress when the telephone rang.
She let it ring a few times, thinking at first that she wouldn't bother answering.
But then when she couldn't stand the sound of that bell, knifing its way into her head that way, into her brain, she jerked the receiver up from its hook and she
CHAFE GUARD
Ingeniously keeps skin safe from chafe— keeps you in comfort! White or pink all-acetate tricot; $1.50.