A visit to an elderly woman feels less like comfort than like being trapped. The speaker and companions enter through a heavy, ornamental iron gate and find her in a stifling house, dressed in purple, her skin papery. She speaks as if from another era, offering the truths her long life has taught, but she seems too far gone for pity and too rigid to embrace. The younger visitors’ discomfort is the real subject. They privately reassure themselves that they will never become so strange if they grow old; they think only of getting back through the gate. Darkness gathers outside, while inside time drags, so that the clock seems to consume their patience. The mood is claustrophobic and quietly eerie, mixing awe with dread and a guilty urge to escape.
Paying Respects — Summary
The iron garden-gate was hard and wondrous to open. Ornamentation dated it.
Up the walkway then, into her stifling house, where she sat in her purple dress and parchment skin, saying what she thought her whole life had taught. She was too old to pity, too austere to embrace. The voice seemed to come from years ago.
Our minds assured us we would never grow that weird if we ever grew that old. Our minds were confident we could open the gate again, get away. The gate stood out there in advanced darkness. Inside, the seconds of her clock ate the minutes of our patience.