Read Online The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - Free Book Online Page B

celestially white kitchens of Ladies’ Day stretching into infinity. I saw avocado pear after avocado pear being stuffed with crabmeat and mayonnaise and photographed under brilliant lights. I saw the delicate, pink-mottled claw meat poking seductively through its blanket of mayonnaise and the bland yellow pear cup with its rim of alligator-green cradling the whole mess.
    Poison.
    â€œWho did tests?” I thought the doctor might have pumped somebody’s stomach and then analyzed what he found in his hotel laboratory.
    â€œThose dodos on Ladies’ Day. As soon as you all startedkeeling over like ninepins somebody called into the office and the office called across to Ladies’ Day and they did tests on everything left over from the big lunch. Ha!”
    â€œHa!” I echoed hollowly. It was good to have Doreen back.
    â€œThey sent presents,” she added. “They’re in a big carton out in the hall.”
    â€œHow did they get here so fast?”
    â€œSpecial express delivery, what do you think? They can’t afford to have the lot of you running around saying you got poisoned at Ladies’ Day. You could sue them for every penny they own if you just knew some smart law man.”
    â€œWhat are the presents?” I began to feel if it was a good enough present I wouldn’t mind about what happened, because I felt so pure as a result.
    â€œNobody’s opened the box yet, they’re all out flat. I’m supposed to be carting soup in to everybody, seeing as I’m the only one on my feet, but I brought you yours first.”
    â€œSee what the present is,” I begged. Then I remembered and said, “I’ve a present for you as well.”
    Doreen went out into the hall. I could hear her rustling around for a minute and then the sound of paper tearing. Finally she came back carrying a thick book with a glossy cover and people’s names printed all over it.
    â€œThe Thirty Best Short Stories of the Year.” She dropped the book in my lap. “There’s eleven more of them out there in that box. I suppose they thought it’d give you something to read while you were sick.” She paused. “Where’s mine?”
    I fished in my pocketbook and handed Doreen themirror with her name and the daisies on it. Doreen looked at me and I looked at her and we both burst out laughing.
    â€œYou can have my soup if you want,” she said. “They put twelve soups on the tray by mistake and Lenny and I stuffed down so many hotdogs while we were waiting for the rain to stop I couldn’t eat another mouthful.”
    â€œBring it in,” I said. “I’m starving.”

5
    At seven the next morning the telephone rang.
    Slowly I swam up from the bottom of a black sleep. I already had a telegram from Jay Cee stuck in my mirror, telling me not to bother to come in to work but to rest for a day and get completely well, and how sorry she was about the bad crabmeat, so I couldn’t imagine who would be calling.
    I reached out and hitched the receiver onto my pillow so the mouthpiece rested on my collarbone and the earpiece lay on my shoulder.
    â€œHello?”
    A man’s voice said, “Is that Miss Esther Greenwood?” I thought I detected a slight foreign accent.
    â€œIt certainly is,” I said.
    â€œThis is Constantin Something-or-Other.”
    I couldn’t make out the last name, but it was full of S’s and K’s. I didn’t know any Constantin, but I hadn’t the heart to say so.
    Then I remembered Mrs. Willard and her simultaneous interpreter.
    â€œOf course, of course!” I cried, sitting up and clutching the phone to me with both hands.
    I’d never have given Mrs. Willard credit for introducing me to a man named Constantin.
    I collected men with interesting names. I already knew a Socrates. He was tall and ugly and intellectual and the son of some big Greek movie producer in Hollywood, but