The Real Diane Williams Has Captured the Whole of Freud

My son Eric Williams told me how he’d jump over or he’d jump on top of a car that was going to run him down, rather than go under the car. We were riding in our car then. I was the driver when he told me.

My errand was to get my new nightgown to fit—the silky, soft, shiny, creamy, slinky nightgown that did not fit me when I bought it, that has more flowers than I’d care to count all over it. I was taking my gown to the woman tailor whose husband invited Eric to his boy’s surprise party by calling me up on the telephone to tell me about the party.

The two times I have been to the tailor it was very bad weather. This was one of those times. Sleet slopped on the windshield. Pointing to the windshield, Eric said, “If there was nothing there—if you stopped suddenly—I could go right through it and I wouldn’t get hurt!” He meant if there were no glass. I knew what he meant.

“That’s the way to think!” I said, “and there’s no reason why no windshield would not work except for bad weather,” and then I was thinking about my begin­nings.

I undressed for the tailor and for Eric, too, so they could both see me naked. I could not figure out why. It wasn’t required.

At the tail end of her decadent sofa, I stopped, so I did not have to go into her dressing room. I took off my clothing, throwing it all down on the sofa, and then put on the shimmering gown.

She had me stand up on a pedestal from where I admired in the mirror the gown shimmering and shin­ing on me, and I admired her nimbly squatting to put pins into my hem, and she kept both of her knees up off of the floor, which surely was a feat!

Even Eric was jolly—we all were smiling when her husband emerged out of nowhere. My clothing was all back on then, so all of us were wearing all of our clothing, the hell with that!

When her husband held on to his belt with two hands, she crossed in front of him to go to the cash register with my money, which is when I admired her shoes. I was looking down. When I saw her belt, I was looking up, and when I saw her smiling—I was looking up even higher into the middle region which was my warning signal to stop looking.

I determined that her husband is sly on this basis—I’ve determined this on this basis more times than I can count about so many sly people—that a person is sly if the person seems to insist upon keeping a smile on his or her face. I would not smile—that’s not fear!—if I had to say what he had to say about me in front of his wife!—but maybe it will make her happy.

The clear plastic cover for the gown on the hanger that she gave me was far more brilliant than my gown is. It’s scintillating. The clear plastic cover was also longer than the gown and it’s lethal for a tiny tot whose desire is to put it over his head and with it smother himself, as we all know.

When I piled the gown onto the backseat of my car, I had no opinion of the gown except that it was prac­tically a weightless gown.

When I was with her husband, and when her hus­band saw me walking toward him, and when he said, “God, look at yourself in the mirror! Will you go look at yourself!” I refused to go look at my white skinlike covering.

In conclusion, human beings—my worrying about them—it’s over, it’s over, and it’s merrier!