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TORTOISES
He does not even trouble to answer: "Woman,
what have I to do with thee?"
He wearily looks the other way,
And she even more wearily looks another way
still,
Each with the utmost apathy,
Incognizant,
Unaware,
Nothing.
As for papa,
He snaps when I offer him his offspring,
Just as he snaps when I poke a bit of stick at him,
Because he is irascible this morning, an irascible
tortoise
Being touched with love, and devoid of fatherli-
ness.
Father and mother,
And three little brothers,
And all rambling aimless, like little perambulat-
ing pebbles scattered in the garden,
Not knowing each other from bits of earth or old
tins.
[24]
