Abigail

by Magda Szabó

Life undoubtedly calls for dignity and self-discipline, and for a person to be able to react to things in an adult way it was necessary to distinguish between what was merely unpleasant and what was truly bad, especially in wartime, when all over the world people were dying in their tens and hundreds of thousands. A badly cut lock of hair was an utterly trivial matter.

All my life I have been a wild thing, Gina reflected. I am impatient and impulsive, and I have never learned to love people who annoy me or try to hurt me. Now I shall try to learn these virtues, and I shall do so for the sake of my father: for him I shall seek to be gentle and patient.

This world of black and white, with all its severity, was a universe away from that outer world of deceit and betrayal, of base conduct, danger and death.

In her mature years Gina often thought back to that last evening, not only because it marked the beginning of her freedom but because her adult awareness allowed her clearly and finally to see the two contrasting sides of the occasion—the gaiety and laughter, the flow of high spirits inside the massive walls, and the darkness outside,