SCENE FIVE
The Rock Garden
Thinking with a gnawing sense of misery that he existed only to repay debts, he smiled when he heard his mother say words he had come to expect and which recurred in their conversations, words intended to hurt him, but which failed to do so. At the end of every altercation, she would tell him he was selfish and thought only of himself.
But then an old woman entered his life.
She was a buxom woman, domineering, every glance and gesture conveying self-assurance, and she appeared on holidays and birthdays. When he was little, he used to cry as if he had been punished, thinking she had brought something for him but not given it to him. His parents spent a lot of time assuring him that was not the case and that everybody loved him, and at bedtime would give him a
