smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully,
so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the
water for Michael s bath and carrying him to it on her back.
I won t go to bed, he had shouted, like one who still believed that
he had the last word on the subject, I won t, I won t. Nana, it isn t
six o clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan t love you any more, Nana. I
tell you I won t be bathed, I won t, I won t!
Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She had
dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown,
with the necklace George had given her. She was wearing Wendy s
bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy loved to
lend her bracelet to her mother.
She had found her two older children playing at being herself and
father on the occasion of Wendy s birth, and John was saying:
I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother, in
just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real
occasion.
Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have
done.
Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the
birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also,
but John said brutally that they did not want any more.
Michael had nearly cried. Nobody wants me, he said, and of course the
lady in the evening-dress could not stand that.
I do, she said, I so want a third child.
Boy or girl? asked Michael, not too hopefully.
Boy.
Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs.
Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be
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