“And you make people nervous, young man,” my mother said – most equably, for her. “You either take to somebody or you don’t. If you do, then you do all the talking and nobody can even get a word in edgewise. If you don’t like somebody — which is most of the time – then you just sit around like death itself and let the person talk themself into a hole. I’ve seen you do it.”

I turned full around to look at my mother. I turned around and looked at her, in this instance, in precisely the same way that, at one time or another, everyone had always turned around and looked at her. Not just with objective wonder at the rising of a truth, fragmentary or not, up through what often seemed to be an impenetrable mass of prejudices, clichés, and bromides. But with admiration, affection, and, not least, gratitude. And, oddly or no, my mother invariably took this “tribute,” when it came, in beautiful stride. She would look back with grace and modesty at the son or daughter who had given her the look. She now presented this gracious and modest countenance to me. “You do,” she said, without accusation in her voice. “You don’t know how to talk to people you don’t like.” She thought it over. “Don’t love, really,” she amended. And I continued to stand gazing at her, not shaving. “It’s not right,” she said gravely, sadly. “Even your father’s noticed it. If you don’t like somebody in two minutes, you’re done with them forever.”