THE CRUMBS OF FATE
ACCIDENT, you might say, when the bright-young-thing In the restaurant flicks the crumb and misses Her target-lover,. hitting the bald man’s head To everybody's amusement; but you are wrong As second thoughts reveal: there are no kisses To waste upon the bald man, only bread. . And nothing is accidental in his case: Looking the part, so eager to oblige, What else could happen to him but be butt Of almost amy joke that comes to face His stubborn innocence? He would not rape At the most insidious insult, offer hurt; But, sweetly smiling, don his bowler hat, Raise the umbrella, somehow unaware Nothing he does could freeze the giddy laughter. The very cut of his coat is a kind of fateEither too short ot too long-that he will bear From habit, not protection against weather. Cruelty in his case is mbt intended: __ He makes then cruel although the young so Blindly when groping with their fateful eyes F Across the props and crockery in their blended Dream and unlikely world: they really know SO, ee ee e
te ald man nas no right to look surprised.
Louis
Johnson
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1049, 2 October 1959, Page 8
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192THE CRUMBS OF FATE New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1049, 2 October 1959, Page 8
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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