"No," Gabriele said, "The refrigerator is full." She was quickly becoming serious. She saw sharp little stones in the hands of the eldest one. Even a child was a brutal force or, at any rate, immolated in play the brutality of life on the planet. She sighed and took away their instruments of war. She wanted to scold them but there was no way to scold all humanity of the past, present, and future. Only a crazed individual would not be cognizant of their limitations. "Damned if she done takenway the lizzardknife," said the second one in disbelief. To the luck of all concerned Gabriele didn't hear them and wasn't even aware that one of them tried to spit at her from behind as she was walking toward the house. She climbed up the stairs to where she and Betty were living. She hoped that Betty would not be there. She needed some time alone to be in that harmony within and to probe the endless fathoms of her probity and intelligence without the intrusions of the outside world. Even in childhood, Gabriele thought, she had projected an aloof quality of a stereotypical German. A sotto voce current in her brain called "conscience" when in fact it was nothing but a less dominant or minority opinion that was disgruntled at being such chastised her for her "bitchiness" (an indifference that both barked and bit). Still, she told herself, it did not matter. How was a self an extension of others? When she was born did she bring them into existence, and when she died would the human race cease to exist? People came and went as they should and friendship was merely for those of feeble ideas needing to be reinforced by the herd. For her whose ideas were such steady companions and was real within herself without needing to be reflected in her associations with others what need had she of the Betties of the world. She had never met a German whose example confuted the stereotype. She remembered the few times that her father took her to a beach along the East Coast and the myriad times when he took her to the beaches in Turkey. She always wandered to one side of the beach, culling certain miscellaneous seashells to examine as her father sojourned away from her with pensive and hard expressions, sunk in his own mind. The expressions told her that he savored the idea of being alone in his own cold, watery depth. Despite the fact that he had taken her to the execution, she loved him most as far as people were concerned.