The Big Midget and a Lady (William Saroyan)
The Big Midget and A Lady
Boulevardier, August 1928
When there was nothing to do but sit, Herman sat, but not still. He squirmed and felt very much like getting up and walking around just to be doing something.
"You seem restless - very restless," the lady near him said.
The lady near him was the lady he had married. She was always near him. He did not love her. What an abominable thing it was to be near a lady one did not love.
"Will you leave me alone, please?" Herman said.
The lady lifted a lash and made a face. She liked to torture him. She liked to tell him when he was restless. She liked to be very much at ease when he was very perturbed. It made her remember how superior she could be.
"Does it not occur to you that all this talk is the result of my leaving you alone?" she said very perfectly and with a touch of unnecessary politeness.
Herman looked at her. How he hated her. A thousand times he had observed that impish head. That terrific smile that made him go mad whenever it laughed at him. Those peaceful eyes that could be so malicious. Ald that perfectly haughty nose. What was this woman so damnably perfect? Even her nose was just so. Most people had noses that were out of line, but hers was the only thing that would make her perfect.
Herman hated her too much to admire her beauty.
That is, if she had beauty.
It was unlikely. She was perfect but not beautiful. She was made like a goddess but the mind that had been given her was a devilish mind. She tortured him with her mind. Herman was her first husband. Her twentieth man. Possibly her twenty-fifth. She tortured them all. One had threatened to commit suicide because he could not understand how he loved and hated her so much at the same time. He took a trip, however.
"What do you mean?" Herman asked. He tried to be very cool. It was a vain attempt. It would have been almost satisfactory had not his lips twitched. He was excited. There was no way out of it.
"I asked," said the lady, "if it did not occur to you that you have been complaining all this time that I do not pay enough attention to you. That I ignore you. Forget you. And now you ask me to leave you alone - please!"
She laughed and it was not affected. She actually did enjoy the pitiable condition of her husband. He was such a little fool. A big man but such a little fool. A very big and strong-looking man, but so small in some things. So small, for instance, in being big. Always letting himself shrink. Always forcing himself into a midget because he hadn't the mind to see the way midgets did not see them.
"Herman lit a cigarette. He intended to be nonchalant. His hands shook and it took three matches. He said damn, besides. His lady lit one without saying a word. He noticed this.
"You are smoking," he said.
"So I notice," remarked the lady. "and you, too. Strange? Is it not?"
Why was she torturing him. Strange, is it not? Why had she asked him that? Did she mean that it was strange - it didn't matter what she meant, so long as she worried him.
"Oh, go to hell," said Herman, dragging on his cigarette. "You are not to be spoken to. You are unbearable."
His wife smoked her cigarette with as much an air as her husband, though the things often made her dizzy. She didn't like them much. It was not a habit. It was only a modern requirement. Cigarettes for the ladies had not done much for them, except make their mouths taste bitter. But that was all it had done for the men. Equality must be. The men smoked, so the women smoked too. Was there anything a man could do, some women could not do, also? Who cared?
"You have sworn at me," said Sylvia, the lady, "and it is impolite!"
Herman blew his nose and the noise he made broke the silence wonderfully. He grew very confident and prepared himself for a splendid reply. He observed that it was a good idea to blow the nose when in need of a little time in which to think up a good retort.
"My dear," he drawled, "it is more impolite for a lady to smoke a cigarette than it is for a man to swear."
"Who said so?" asked the lady.
Herman had never heard anyone say so.
"I said so," he replied.
She laughed very softly. It was a whisper deadlier than a guffaw.
You must quote from more authority," she demanded.
Herman blew his nose again and stubbed out his cigarette. The lady was not yet finished. She took several more long puffs. Herman lit a cigar. He watched her as he did so. What a grand thing that he could light a cigar and she could not. He dragged on it with a splendid self-assurance. How he had tricked her that time. How small she must feel now.
The lady watched her man. He was an idiot. A big over-grown baby. He was not even a boy. Only a baby. He smoked a cigar to spite her. He was a poor fool. Such a pity that a man of his size and weight should be such a strange fool.
The lady took a few steps to the table. She took a cigar from the box. and tapped it on the table lightly. She looked at the man with a particularly frightening intention in her eyes.
Herman shuddered, but hid it.
The lady took the foil off the cigar very slowly and remained silent, except for her eyes which were continually speaking. She lifted the cigar to her nose and smelled it. The odor was nauseating. The cigar must have been at least a twenty-five cent one. It must have been very mild. Her man could not stand anything by a mild cigar.
She bit the proper end off the cigar and wet it with her mouth before biting it. That was the way she had observed the thing done by very experienced smokers. She scratched a match with a very lazy motion, let it throw off its gasses and smoke, and gently touched it to the tip of her cigar.
There was some perspiration on Herman's brow.
His lady, the most perfect, yet most cruel, animal he had yet observed was smoking a cigar before his very eyes. She held the thing in her mouth very aristocratically. She reminded Herman of Joe Frisco, though he was not enjoying the similarity.
"How long have you been smoking cigars?" he asked, glancing into the box to see if there were too many missing.
The cigar was not much different from the cigarette, the lady thought. It tasted healthier, in fact. Not as high-strung and excited as the cigarette.
"Cigars, I have preferred, always," she said with the same smile that drove her husband out of his mind every now and then.
There was nothing for Herman to say. They smoked together for some time in silence. The man sat in an over-stuffed chair. The lady was on the table, showing her knees. She was closer to him than he liked.
"You are my wife," said Herman.
"Well?" asked the wife.
"It does not become the wife of a husband to smoke in his presence," he said.
"Who said so>?" asked the lady.
Herman blew his nose.
"I said so."
The lady laughed again in a whisper. She did not say anything, though the words she had said in reply to her man before repeated themselves very correctly to him. He would have to quote from more authority. He was not authority enough to say things himself. His wife demanded authority.
He blew his nose. She was such a demon, and his nose was running so.
The lady was getting tired of the cigar before she had smoked half an inch of it. She wanted to throw it into the fire, but she dared not. She smoked it a little more leisurely, allowing about a minute between each drag. It was getting her a little dizzy, to be sure. How funny that would be. She had the honesty to imagine how she would appear seeking comfort from her husband for having smoked a cigar. She laughed at the thought in silence.
Herman said, "I am afraid it will make you dizzy."
How did he know?
"Does it make you dizzy? asked his wife.
"Yes," said Herman, "I can't stand the things."
The lady was surprised. For the first time in two months the man had not lied. She became almost proud of him.
"Then why do you smoke?" she asked.
Herman said he smoked because it was a habit.
He did not know why he was telling the truth. He did not know why he was letting himself go under. Why was he letting his own wife make a miserable fool of him.
He hated his own wife, though she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen for some time. Or was he prejudiced?
Or did he hate her? Was it love that made him imagine he hated her? If he actually hated her, why didn't he slap her head when she was deserving of it. Who could slap the head of so pretty a lady? Who would dare?
It was even a crime to think of such a thing.
"Why do you smoke?" asked Herman not maliciously.
"Oh, it's a habit, I guess," said his wife. "And then again it may be just for spite. I cannot be sure. I don't like the stuff at all."
Herman was amazed. The pretty lady was being honest. He wanted to tell her she was his wife so she wouldn't forget but he was afraid such a thing would make her angry. He said nothing and did not even blow his nose which seemed a bit improved after continued blowing.
They smoked their cigars very slowly and Herman was not much quicker with his puffs than his wife.
Then the telephone rang, but it was the wrong number.
The lady hoped it would have been her father and her husband hoped it would have been one of the boys. Wrong number was all it was though.
When the matter of the wrong number was quite over Herman again sat where he had been. His wife had moved to the chair and was sitting on one of the arms. It was folly for him to sit beneath such a clever lady, yet he could not bear to show that he was afraid.
He sat in the chair and he touched her with his head.
"Strange," said the lady, "that whenever the phone rings it's the wrong number."
"Yes, you are right." said Herman, "it is very strange."
The lady understood. He did not wish to argue any further. He was feeling very sorry now for having made such a midget of himself by weeping about her not paying enough attention to him. For not being good to him. For ignoring him. She would touch his hair to make him happy.
She put her fingers into his hair and mussed it all up very gently.
Her husband was not angered with this. It only made him feel very sorry for having been a midget. The idea occurred to him, too. The word was on his mind, though it never spelled itself.
The lady had thrown away the cigar, but not before her husband had. She was glad, though, that he could not stand the things. She hated them. How happy she was that she did not have to smoke the whole thing. How sick she would have become.
She ruffled the hair of her man.
She did not say "I love you" to him. He was a midget, of course, and he was a big man for a midget and yet she was married to him. She did not hate him, though she liked to tease him into being a little bigger than he might otherwise be.
She touched his cheek. Patted it. Pulled his nose playfully.
Herman did not laugh. He liked to be touched by his lady. She had such soft, white fingers. He forgot the sting of her tongue. He forgot the menace of her laughter. She was laughing now, so he forgot her laughter.
Finally, he blurted out. "I love you Sylvia."
There is nothing more to say.
The lady continued living with the man, but they did not live happily ever after.
How could a big midget live happily with a lady? He must be a little midget at least.