Status Updates From Flowering Judas and Other S...

She is almost thin except for the incomprehensible fullness of her breasts, like a nursing mother’s, and Braggioni, who considers himself a judge of women, speculates again on the puzzle of her notorious virginity, and takes the liberty of speech which she permits without a sign of modesty, indeed, without any sort of sign, which is disconcerting.

Nobody touches her, but all praise her grey eyes, and the soft, round under lip which promises gaiety, yet is always grave, nearly always firmly closed: and they cannot understand why she is in Mexico.

She borrows money from the Romanian agitator to give to his mortal enemy the Polish agitator. [...] The Polish agitator talks love to her over café tables, hoping to exploit what he believes is her secret sentimental preference for him,.... The Romanian is more adroit. He is generous with his money in all good cause, and lies to her with an air of ingenious candor, as if he were her good friend and confidant.

She spends part of her days in Xochimilco, near by, teaching Indian children to say in English, ‘The cat is on the mat.’ When she appears in the classroom they crowd around her with smiles on their wise, innocent, clay-colored faces, crying, ‘Good morning, my ticher!’ in immaculate voices, and they make of her desk a fresh garden of flowers every day.

Nobody dares to smile at him. Braggioni is cruel to everyone, with a kind of specialized insolence, but he is so vain of his talents, and so sensitive to slights, it would require a cruelty and a vanity greater than his own to lay a finger on the vast cureless wound of his self-esteem.