GENERAL REVISIONText 1. CHARLIE AND MARLENE (from «My Sweet Charlie» by D. Westheimcr) An educated Northern Negro, Charlie Roberts and an almost illiterate 17 year-old Southern girl, Marlene Chambers, are driven to a common refuge through sheer necessity. They hate each other at first, and then gradually, grudgingly, they grow to trustand love each other. The passage under consideration deals with one of the episodes at the beginning of the story. When she finished frying the potatoes and draining them on paper towels from the cupboard, she divided them scrupulously and took her plate to the drainboard, as usual. «Why don’t you sit down at the table like a civilized human being?» Roberts asked. «Even if you’re not.» «I’m fine right here.» Just because I sat down with you talking don’t (sic!) mean I’m going to sit down and eat with you, she thought. «Look, Marlene,» Roberts said with a trace of a smile. «If it’s because you don’t feel you’re good enough to eat with me...» She flushed angrily. «You think you’re so smart!» He was silent a few seconds, then asked with disarming courtesy,. «Will you do me a favour?» «What kind a (sic!) favour?» she demanded suspiciously. «Eat a piece of potato for me.» «Eat a... Why?» «I want to try a scientific experiment. Don’t you like scientific experiments?» «Not ‘specially.» She shrugged and picked up a piece of fried potato. She dipped it in the pool of ketchup she had poured on her plate and ate it self-consciously under his intense scrutiny. «Didn’t you ever see nobody (sic!) eat fried potatoes before?» she demanded. «Not scientifically. Now, sit down over there.» He pointed across the table to the chair she had sat in before. Marlene hesitated. «It’s a scientific experiment,» he coaxed. «Don’t you want to help the cause of science?» Mystified and curious, she brought her plate to the table and sat down, her back unnaturally straight and her arms tense. «Now, Dr Chambers,» he said with mock solemnity, «select a potato of approximately the same proportions and degree of crispness as the specimen previously consumed.» «Huh?» «This is a very scientific experiment. We must do it scientifically.» Again he watched intently as she dipped a piece of potato in ketchup and munched it. «Now,» he said gravely, «for the most important part of the experiment. How did the first potato taste?» «Real good.» «How did the second potato taste?» «It was good, too.» «Real good?» «Yes, very good.» «I see. Would it be correct to say, then, that if the first potato tasted real good and the second potato tasted real good, one might conclude there was no difference in taste between them?» «Huh?» «In simpler terms, did they taste exactly alike?» «‘Course they did. They were cooked the same.» «Q. E. D.» He waited expectantly for her to ask him to explain. Instead she said, «I know what that means. Q. E. D. We learned it in geometry.» «What does it mean?» he asked, disappointed. «It means that proves it,» she said proudly. «Close enough.» «Proves what?» she said. «I mean, what did the experiment prove?» «It proves a French fried potato tastes the same whether eaten standing or sitting.» «Anybody knows that.» «I haven’t finished. Even if the eater happens to be sitting across from a Negro.» Marlene stared at her plate. She was aware that she had been tricked and made a fool of again, yet she was more confused than chagrined. She felt tricked not only by Roberts but by everyone who had contributed to her certainty that it was wrong, even indecent, to eat at the same table with a Negro. She had been so certain it was wrong that she had never even considered what the consequences of such an act might be because she had never dreamed she would have to face the consequences. And now she had done it and there were no consequences. Nothing. She was just sitting there, and he was just sitting there, and that was all. It wasn’t fair, she thought. It was like going to a Fourth of July picnic to see the fireworks and then, when it got dark and the time came, being told there weren’t any. «Anybody knows that doesn’t change the taste,» she said weakly. «There must be a good reason why it’s so dangerous to eat with a Negro,» Roberts persisted. «If it’s not that it makes the food taste bad, it must be something else. Maybe it has to do with digestion. How do you feel?» «I feel fine,» Marlene said peevishly. «No heartburn, nausea?..» «I told you, I feel fine,» she said. They ate in silence, Marlene completely absorbed in her food as always. Roberts did not enjoy the meal as much as he had anticipated. It rankled deeply that Marlene seemed to have already forgotten what a travesty he had made of her prejudice. Marlene finished the last of her potatoes with a sigh, her contentment slightly flawed by the fact she had not made the potatoes and the ketchup come out even. There was still a dab of ketchup left on her plate. She picked the plate up in both hands to lick it off. With her tongue out and ready to wipe the plate clean, she saw him watching her and put the plate down with the ketchup untouched. Then she stretched contentedly. «That sure was good,» she said.
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