This story won a prize of three thousand dollars, and the commentators said: "It contains the finest and most pow-erful analysis of the human soul."

How precious are the memories of childhood... and how happy are those who have sweet memories... As for me, I remember nothing but hatred and fear... a small girl, unwanted... and my mother a terri-fying shadow, led by a shadow more terrifying still — my grandmother... her mother.

My grandmother hated all little children... and she hated me most of all — me, her only granddaughter...

I was obedient, and yet I was always punished... thrown into a dark corner and forgotten for hours... I would huddle on the floor, dying of terror at the darkness, then swear to myself that I would never anger my grandmother again... Even years after my grandmother died, I would scream in my sleep in a panic: "Please don't shut me up in that dark corner!"

My mother was differ-ent from her... I would have been ready to love her, had she listened to me... but she always kept a gulf between us... She worked in a sewing shop and I seldom saw her at home, and so my grand-mother was the ruler... She had, as I pictured it, the strength of the very earth, so I never dared confess to my mother about the dark corner and my deadly terror...

I tried it once, when my mother came home

one evening and I stood at the door of my room, the whole room between her and me, and I whispered... Oh, Mother, kiss me... She looked at me in surprise and said: Don't be silly — you're a big girl... Say your prayers and ask God to make you a good daughter, then go to sleep.

I turned six and was put in school, but I could not win the affection of my schoolmates... I said to myself: if only I had candy to offer to whoever would like me... but my grandmother never gave me a single piaster... and I dared not ask.

Then my chance came, for my grand-mother once forgot her black money-purse on the kitchen table, and my heart began pounding vio-lently at the idea — but I took. And everything I took turned into candy — sugared almonds, choco-late, and other things red and green and white — and I handed it out to my schoolmates, handed it out until I had kept only two pieces for myself... And my grandmother never noticed.

I did not touch the purse after that for a long time, but at school we agreed that each of us would treat the others in turn, and after some weeks my turn came. Every Saturday my grandmother went to a religious meeting... but would she leave her purse in the empty sugar tin in the cupboard? I went and set a chair and climbed up on it — and there was the purse... I took it down and opened it and reached in my hand — and her voice rang out like thunder: You

thief! I looked, and there she stood, like a mountain in height and breadth... her eyes like two coals of fire... And I stood there, all six years of me, trembling from the hair of my head to the tips of my feet... She said: Go to your room, and you shall see.

She ignored me the whole day... no food, not a sip of water... I knew that stealing was a sin — one of God's command-ments says so... that I deserved punishment. But why would she not punish me and put an end to my terror?

After five, in the dark, my mother came home, and my panic grew. Oh, if only they would punish me with the harshest punishment and end it all. I heard my grandmother in the next room say to my mother... She is Dan Morris's daughter — I warned you; do as you please!

And my mother whipped me and whipped... For the first time her usually frozen eyes blazed. She whipped me, crying out: You will not be like him... like him...

In the depths of my terror I understood that she meant my father — but my father was dead. The last thing I remem-bered was my grand-mother's voice pounding on the door and shouting to my mother: Open up before you kill her.

For weeks the two of them treated me like a thief... Neither of them asked me why I had taken the money; rather they believed that something evil inside me had done it.

The wounds of my

body healed, but my heart stayed bitter. I went on avoiding their glances, and I felt that my mother had begun to hate me as my grandmother hated me... Ah, the helpless, resourceless child in the world of grown-ups!!

I reached thirteen before I had a companion. My grandmother had died a year before, and I felt free — but though at home we had become a mother and her daughter, we remained far apart. And though I had for-gotten the terrible punish-ment, I did not steal again until after I met Grace.

Grace was fat — so fat that we nicknamed her "the Cube"... but she was my first friend. How happy my heart was when we walked with her arm in mine, or when she whis-pered, laughing: Listen, Sandy, I have something to tell you: "Misery needs a companion" — and no one was more miserable than I.

Grace stole from the stores, even though her family bought her every-thing — so why...? The other girls had the good graces of the other sex; we had none... Were we trying to satisfy ourselves in that direction... or to avenge ourselves...?

So we went on stealing together... And whenever my mother was away from the house I would bring out my precious collection of stolen things...

A pair of earrings... cheap bracelets... beads... a can opener... picture cards, and more... Why did I keep all of these, put them in a little box that I would open and gaze at, then shut and put