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treated her vilely. She certainly deserved a little happiness. Of course her conduct was immoral and wrong, that goes without saying, but,” said my mother, deciding to look at me directly, “everyone in this world is subject to temptation and since very few people are saints, most people cannot always succeed in living as they know they should live. So Grandmama’s lapse was, in that sense, pardonable; she was guilty primarily of human frailty. However,” said my mother, finding two more red buttons, “where Grandmama made her cardinal error was that she abandoned all attempt to keep up appearances. A secret liaison conducted with discretion would have been socially acceptable. A public performance as a harlot destroyed her. Remember that, Robert. Discretion is everything. And it has nothing to do with morality. It’s a question of good taste, common sense and consideration for those you love and who love you. Have I made myself entirely clear?”
    “I—”
    “There are standards of immorality as well as standards of morality, Robert. Make sure yours are high. You may not end up a saint—I’m not at all sure I would want a son who was a saint—but at least you’ll end up with an ordered civilized private life. Oh, and of course—though it’s hardly necessary for me to add this—an ordered civilized private life doesn’t include seducing family servants and causing extreme embarrassment to the parents who love you. There are to be no more seductions beneath this roof, Robert. I draw the line. What you do elsewhere is entirely your own affair and I neither expect nor desire to know anything about it—you should ask your father for further advice on the subject, and when you do you must insist that he’s explicit with you. It is not a mother’s provenance,” said my mother, “to advise her son on subjects of a carnal nature.”
    After a pause I said, “No, of course not, Mama.”
    We looked at each other for one brief telling second in the triple glass. Finally I managed to add, “Thank you.”
    “Oh, there’s no need to thank me,” said my mother. “I’m merely clarifying what your father said—or what he would have said if he hadn’t been subject to linguistic difficulties when distressed.”
    The interview was concluded. At first I was conscious merely of an overpowering gratitude towards her for reprieving me from a lifetime of cold baths, but later my attitude became more ambivalent. I was aware that in some nameless competition which I could not begin to define she had come a highly commendable first while my father had come a most ineffectual second, and this truth which instinct urged me to deny but which my intellect forced me to acknowledge ran contrary to my most deeply entrenched beliefs not only about my parents but about the male and female sexes. In the world in which I felt most comfortable men were always first and best, heroes were always more important than heroines and the father who idolized me could do no wrong. But my mother had unwittingly opened a window onto another world, the world which Ginette had shown me when she had eloped with Kinsella, the real world which I secretly knew I had yet to master and which I secretly feared I might never master to my satisfaction. In my dread of coming second there I resented that world and above all I resented the women who had shown it to me. I still loved Ginette—but there were moments when I hated her too. I loved my mother—but there were times when I resented her so much that I could barely keep a civil tongue in my head when I addressed her.
    My mother’s understanding should have brought me closer to her but in adult life I found we were estranged. We were each faultlessly polite whenever we met but nothing of importance was ever uttered between us, and later when my considerable success had deluded me into believing I had mastered the real world, my attitude mellowed from resentment into an affectionate contempt. Poor Mama,