Death In The Family, A - James Agee [64]
“All right, Mary.”
“Good, Poll,” her father said. They all sat down again.
“And Andrew, if you’ll get it for me, I think I’d like some more whiskey.”
“Of course I will.” He had brought the bottle in; he took her glass to the table.
“Not quite so strong as last time, please. Pretty strong, but not so strong as that.”
“This all right?”
“A little more whiskey, please.”
“Certainly.”
“That looks all right.”
“You all right, Poll?” her father asked. “Isn’t going to your head too much?”
“It isn’t going anywhere so far as I can tell.”
“Good enough.”
“I think perhaps it would be best if we didn’t—prolong the discussion any further tonight,” Catherine said, in her most genteel manner; and she patted Mary’s knee.
They looked at her with astonishment and suddenly Mary and then Andrew began to laugh, and then Hannah began to laugh, and Joel said, “What’s up? What’s all the hee-hawing about?”
“It’s Mama,” Andrew shouted joyfully, and he and Hannah explained how she had suggested, in her most ladylike way, that they adjourn the discussion for the evening when all they were discussing was how much whiskey Mary could stand, and it was as if she meant that Mary was much too thirsty to wait out any more of it; and Joel gave a snort of amusement and then was caught into the contagion of this somewhat hysterical laughter, and they all roared, laughing their heads off, while Catherine sat there watching them, disapproving such levity at such a time, and unhappily suspecting that for some reason they were laughing at her; but in courtesy and reproof, and an expectation of hearing the joke, smiling and lifting her trumpet. But they paid no attention to her; they scarcely seemed to know she was there. They would quiet down now and then and moan and breathe deeply, and dry their eyes; then Mary would remember, and mimic, precisely the way her mother had patted her knee with her ringed hand, or Andrew would mimic her precise intonation as she said “prolong,” or any of the four of them would roll over silently upon the tongue of the mind some particularly ticklish blend of the absurdity and horror and cruelty and relief, or would merely glance at Catherine with her smile and her trumpet, and would suddenly begin to bubble and then to spout with laughter, and another would be caught into the machinery, and then they would start all over again. Some of the time they deliberately strained for more laughter, or to prolong it, or to revive it if it had died; some of the time they tried just as hard to stop laughing or, having stopped, not to laugh any more. They found that on the whole they laughed even harder if they tried hard not to, so they came to favor that technique. They laughed until they were weak and their bellies ached. Then they were able to realize a little more clearly what a poor joke they had all been laughing at, and the very feebleness of the material and outrageous disproportion of their laughter started them whooping again; but finally they quieted down, because they had no strength for any more, and into this nervous and somewhat aborted silence Catherine spoke, “Well, I have never in my life been so thoroughly shocked and astonished,” and it began all over again.
But by now they were really worn out with laughter; moreover, images of the dead body beside the capsized automobile began to dart in their minds, and then to become cold, immense, and immovable; and they began fully to realize, as well, how shamefully they had treated the deaf woman.
“Oh, Mama,” Andrew and Mary cried out together, and Mary embraced her and Andrew kissed her on the forehead and on the mouth. “It was awful of us,” he said. “You’ve just got to try to forgive us. We’re all just a little bit hysterical, that’s all.”
“Better tell her, Andrew,” his father said.
“Yes, poor thing,” Hannah said; and he tried as gently as he could to explain it to her, and that they weren’t really laughing at her expense, or even really at the joke, such as it was, because it wasn’t really very funny, he must admit, but it had simply been a Godsend to