"An Aspidistra in Babylon."
A reminiscence of a girl's loss of innocence, drawing its title from her description of herself at eighteen as "dull as one of the aspidistras that cluttered up...our little boarding house" and her mother's characterization of the life of soldiers in their garrison town as "Babylon." Bates masterfully captures the girl's seduction by an officer, her several months of blissful first-love, and a near-disastrous experiment with theft that left her considerably wiser. The story is enlivened by the colorful Batesian stalwart, a pleasure-loving chambermaid experienced in the ways of the world. Vannatta (117) finds the piece flawed by the "smug superiority" of the narrator looking back on her foolish youth, thereby providing an interpretation of the events rather than allowing the reader to form his or her own assessment. Baldwin (203) conversely finds it the most successful in the collection of the same name: "There is neither sentimentality nor cynicism in the presentation: everything is ordinary and unspectacular. Yet a life has been wasted by trusting and loving too much, and the resulting tragedy is genuine." However, it is not obvious that the respectably-married narrator was in any way ruined by the experience, but simply made aware of the existence of corruption in the world. The story was adapted for the television series "ITV Play of the Week" and first aired in 1965, and for the television series "Country Matters" in February 1973. In Woman's Own (July 11, 1959), An Aspidistra in Babylon/The Grapes of Paradise (1960), The Grapes of Paradise (1974).