Ball

Met my friend L again. I could not refrain from asking him about his landlady.

"I hear that she's mad with the ball ?"

"Quite right," my friend sighed, "She is upset because they invite her son - whom she keeps beating up."

"Although I do not agree with her, I must say I could understand her feeling." I said.

"But not her behaviour !" L became slightly excited, "She thinks that she is not invited because she's rude and hideous. And, look, her responses are, in short, making a big fuss - just to prove beyond doubt to any onlooker that she deserves being ill-treated because she is just that monstrous."

I nodded. There's much truth in his comment.

"Well, in that case, what should she have done ?" I asked after a moment of silence - knowing that the ceremony is already over.

"The simple answer is to do nothing except putting up a polite smile," my friend made a grin, "But, I think the best strategy is to go to the place with her son. That would create a delusion that she is also being invited - and, years later, may well be recorded as such in history textbooks !"

Thank goodness his landlady has not thought of this.