AP Success - AP English Literature: The Birthday Party

They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married.

They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The

man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in

a big hat.

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There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until

the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an Occasion—in

fact, the husband’s birthday, and the wife had planned a little surprise for him.

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It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle

burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and

meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wife

beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the

restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help

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was needed, because the husband was not pleased. Instead, he was hotly embarrassed,

and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.

You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, “Oh, now, don’t be like

that!” But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table,

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and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted

from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath—some

punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman then, so

I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was

still crying when I finally glanced over there again. Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and

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hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.