Broken glass and other stories door Patricia Highsmith

Broken Glass and other stories from Patricia Highsmith

The first story “Something You Have to Live With” tells about Stanley Brixton, a writer and a literary critic and his wife Ginnie with their cat Cassie. They just moved from an appartment in New York to Connecticut in a house on a hill with no other houses around it for a mile. For the first time, Ginnie was alone in the house. She was tired and decided to go straight to bed and get up early in the morning. Once in bed, Ginnie heard the noise of a driving car up in front of the house. She realised she hadn’t locked the back door. She went at once to the back door and locked it. Once again upstairs, she heard a noise from inside and realised that she locked up someone in the house. She went down the stairs again and found a burglar. She saw that the phone was cut. She felt helpless.The burglar was stealing all the jewellery. When he cicked the cat Cassie, Ginnie felt very angry, picked up a kitchen stool and hit him with the edge of the seat. A voice from outside the house called for Frankie and shortly later she heard a car, driving down the drive. The burglar was dead. She knew she had to face the fact she took someone’s life. Her husband and a psychiatrist couldn’t take away her sorrows. It was something Ginnie and her husband would have to live with. In fact, she knew thad it half-ruined her marriage. But it was not a reason for divorce.

The second story: “A Curious Suicide”. Dr Stephen McCullough hated Roger Fane. Seventeen years earlier Roger Fane had married the woman he loved dearly, Margret. She died some years ago and now Dr. McCullough was going to visit Roger before joining his wife Lillian in Rome. The doctor detested Roger, seeing him with his weak face that smiled all the time, remembering how much he had suffered because of that man. He wanted Roger death. Once inside the house the way of anger flow back, he picked up the marble slab and before Roger could step back, he hit him hard in the forehead with its base. The next morning Dr. Stephen McCullough went to Rome to join his wife. There he heard about the murder of Roger Fane and the fact that the always drunken brother of the maid was suspected. Lillian knew better and suspected her husband, but she couldn’t prove anything. He decided to go back to Geneva and to confess his crime, because he couldn’t bear Lillian’s attitude. In Geneva he heard that the supposed murderer took his own life. Dr. Stephen McCullough knew that in a strange way, he had killed himself just as much as he had killed Roger Fane. He was now a dead man and he knew that one day he would have the courage for suicide.

The third story: “Broken Glass”. Andrew Cooperman and Kate Wynant lived apart in their appartment in the same building. They were both old. They were very shocked about the suicide of their neighbours, the Schroeders who couldn’t take another robbery. Their neighbourhoud became dangerous. Some Hispanic boys pushed Andrew after he bought a piece of glass and the glass broke. So Andrew had to buy another piece of glass. When he returned home, someone pushed him and knocked him. The glass was broken again and his wallet was stolen. Again Andrew bought the same piece of glass. He was almost all the way home when he saw the Hispanic boy who had mugged him. Andrew’s right hand clenched the bottom of his package firmly and pointed a corner forward and he didn’t step aside. He saw how the point of the package hit the stomach of the boy. With two or three of his chums, the boy left the scene. Once home, Andrew saw that the corner of the glass was broken. He went back to the hardware store to buy another piece of glass. Andrew walked to the big avenue when suddenly he felt a violent blow against the back of his head. He collapsed and knew immediatly he was dying. He didn’t care anymore and felt happy leaving this world.