Lesson 1 How Others See Me

glass. And then the bottle didn‘t seem too small for the baby any more because now the
baby‘s shrunken body was completely confined. The bottle fully contained it.
Mr. Libre fully noticed too that his wife had changed. In the beginning she was no
different at all, although at times she did not fall into brooding. Then slowly for no
apparent reason she grew quiet and kept to herself, and that was when the baby in the
bottle took a strange hold on her. He tried to understand her and be patient with her.
She did not want to be the way she was, he told himself, to live in a small cramped
world of her own, to look at the baby, make up daydreams about it all day, to want to
touch it, hold it in her hands. She could not help any of it, he knew, and he did not stop
her, and day by day he got used to her being that way. But still he felt sorry for her.
III
The blinds on the west window had been lowered and he knew it was getting
late. He shook himself from his thoughts and worked faster because he wanted to finish
the last batch of receipts for the day. It would hardly make any difference because he
would be back the next day anyhow and there would always be more receipts, but there
were things one should do and finishing the day‘s work was one of them. He took
everything as it came and he found it possible to lose himself in his work. He wished he
could do even more and he felt he owed that much to his wife.
It was almost five-twenty when Mr. Libre got up, locked his papers under his desk
and shuffled out of the office. Almost everyone had gone by then except some of the
typists and a secretary doing overtime. He did not look at them as he went out. He left
quietly and alone.
Out in the street he hoped the crowd would not hold him up for long. Heavy traffic
snarled the afternoon rush and cars and buses and people on the sidewalks hardly
moved at all. On the pedestrian lanes as he waited for the go signal, it became stickily
hot; no wind stirred the inert air, thick with gasoline exhaust fumes. But Mr. Libre did not
mind the heat. As he crossed the street he clenched and unclenched his fists and he
tried to walk as fast as the crowd would let him. He was getting impatient. He wished he
were home that very minute.
He pushed the old narrow door of their room open and sat down on the first chair
he saw. He felt very tired btu the chair was hard and rigid and it did not help him any; it
arched his back. His shoulders felt heavy and he was breathing hard but did not rest
long. His wife was in the other room. He stood up and stretched behind the cardboard
wall.
His wife sat on a cat staring at the baby in the bottle. She sat in half darkness a
few feet away from the table where the bottle was. From where he stood he could see
sharply the hollows of her eyes and thin bloodless lips. Her face was totally without
expression. Hew hands were on her lap and she sat unmoving but when he came in
and she saw him, she turned slowly to him and her face broke out in a clumsy uncertain
smile. It was a slow half-silly smile that twisted the corners of her mouth upwards and
nothing else; her eyes remained sad and empty. He has never seen her that way
before. He was afraid she did not recognize him.
Grade 7 English Learning Package 65