Free The Cat's Pajamas by Ray Bradbury Page B

roseate below, and warm. The neighborhood, poised like a squalorous avalanche on the brink of a cliff, took on tones of the rose and a sunset.
    She looked through a yellow pane. And the world was the sun, all bright and luminous and fresh.
    She looked through a purple glass. The world was covered with cloud, the world was infected and sick, and people moving in that world were leprous, lost, and abandoned. The houses were black and monstrous. Everything seemed bruised.
    She returned to the yellow pane. The sun was back. The smallest dog looked clever and bright. The dirtiest child looked washed. The rusty houses were seemingly painted afresh.
    She looked down the stairs at where William was dialing the phone, quietly, no expression on his face. And then she looked at the colored panes again and knew what he meant. You had a choice of panes to look through. The dark one or the light one.
    She felt quite lost. She felt it was too late. Even when it isn’t too late, sometimes you feel it is. To say something, to speak a word. One word. But she wasn’t ready. The whole idea was too new to her. She couldn’t speak now and fully mean it. It would have to seep into her. She could feel the first faint excitement, but then smothered with fear and hatred of herself. And then quick little thrusts of hate at the house and William, because they had made her hate herself. But finally it resolved into simple irritation, and only at her own blindness.
    William was phoning below. His voice came up the bright stairwell. He was calling the real estate agent.
    â€œMr. Woolf? About that house you sold me last week. Look, do you think I could sell it? With maybe a little profit?”
    There was a silence. She heard her heart beating swiftly.
    William lay the phone down. He did not look up at her.
    â€œHe can sell it,” William said. “For a little profit.”
    â€œFor a little profit,” said the Listener at the top of the house.
    Â 
    T HEY WERE HAVING A SILENT LUNCHEON when somebody banged on the front door. William, with a silence unusual to him, went to answer.
    â€œThe darn doorbell doesn’t work!” cried a woman’s voice in the hall.
    â€œBess!” cried William.
    â€œBill, you old son of a—hey, this is a swell place!”
    â€œDo you like it?”
    â€œDo I like it? Tie a bandanna on my hairdo and hand me a mop!”
    They jabbered on. Maggie, in the kitchen, put down her butter knife and listened, cold and apprehensive.
    â€œGod, what I wouldn’t give for a place like this!” cried Bess Alderdice, stamping about the house. “Look at the hand-carved banister. Hey-soose; as the Spanish say; look at that crystal chandelier! Who’d you hit over the head, Bill?”
    â€œWe were lucky it was for sale,” said Bill, in the hall.
    â€œI’ve had my eye on this place for years! And you, you lucky bun-of-a-sitch, you grab it out from under sweet Bess Alderdice’s grimy little claws.”
    â€œBring your grimy little claws out into the kitchen and have some lunch.”
    â€œLunch, hell, when do we work? I want a hand in this!”
    Maggie appeared in the hall.
    â€œMaggie!” Bess Alderdice in her tailored gabardines and flat-heeled shoes and wild black hair shouted at her. “How I envy you!”
    â€œHello, Bess.”
    â€œGirl, you look tired, or something,” cried Bess. “Look, you sit down and I’ll help Bill. I’ve got muscles from eating Wheaties!”
    â€œWe’re not going to stay here,” said Bill quietly.
    â€œYou’re what?” Bess looked at him as if he was insane. “In again out again, what’s your name? Finnegan? Well, sell it to mama, mama wants it.”
    â€œWe’re going to try to find a small cottage somewhere,” said Bill, falsely hearty.
    â€œYou know what you can do with cottages,” said Bess, snorting. “Well, look here, since I’m going to buy