Quicksand
“Why, she gives parties for white and colored people together. And she goes to white people‘s parties. It‘s worse than disgusting, it‘s positively obscene.“
”Oh, come, Anne, you haven‘t been to any of the parties, I know, so how can you be so positive about the matter?“
”No, but I‘ve heard about them. I know people who‘ve been.“
”Friends of yours, Anne?”
Anne admitted that they were, some of them.
“Well, then, they can‘t be so bad. I mean, if your friends sometimes go, can they? Just what goes on that‘s so terrible?“
”Why, they drink, for one thing. Quantities, they say.“
”So do we, at the parties here in Harlem,” Helga responded. An idiotic impulse seized her to leave the place, Anne‘s presence, then, forever. But of course she couldn‘t. It would be foolish, and so ugly.
134
