Twin Vs. Twin

It surprises me how indifferent my little girls seem to each other’s distress. So much for the preternatural empathy that twins are supposed to have for each other. Either that empathy is (1) just a myth, (2) something they acquire only once they are conscious and civilized enough to develop a relationship, or (3) this particular set of twins simply has not come equipped with it. Indeed, I tend to discern between them more signs of antipathy than empathy. Yesterday, their mother took them to the doctor in the morning, and although they got their latest shots, one on each thigh, they were quite docile when they returned. After feeding them, I put one – the slighter and younger (by a minute) – in a swing chair and she fell asleep before long. The other was mostly awake in a bouncy chair but quiet, self-amused – which pleased me, since self-amusement is a capacity I appreciate in myself and tend to pity others for lacking. But when her sister awoke, it was in pain from the shots and I could do little to stop her from crying. Even the bottle did not pacify her: although she was hungry enough to feed, she would so only in fits and starts, crying in between. As convulsive as her crying became at times, I noticed – and was thankful for it at the time – that the sturdier sister remained placid in her chair, unaffected by either the shots or the other’s pain. In fact, as if selfishly reveling in her own good fortune, she was in a solidly good mood, not even crying for food although I was making her wait unusually long for it. It was almost as if, the worse matters got for her sister, the better they seemed to her: rarely have I seen her more obviously contented. It was only when suffering one, exhausted, fell back asleep in the swing chair that she began to act up, not exactly crying but clamoring, demanding, in her seemingly assertive, angry-Englishman, I-will-brook-no-excuses way. I was able to recover her good mood by paying attention to her and distracting her with some of the toys the babies’ got for Christmas, which she looked at as if they were living creatures. When I began throwing one of those stuffed toys up in the air, it made her smile, and when I let it drop to the floor I was delighted to hear her laugh – the first genuine laugh I’d heard coming from her. I tried it again, and there was that laugh again after the toy hit the floor, a rapid heh-heh-heh-heh. It happened each time I let the purple little stuffed creature fall to the floor, a dry, hard , rapid little laugh that began to strike me as less delightful. Could it not be a sadist’s laugh? Were the toy creature’s mishaps compensating her for the fact that her sister had fallen asleep and ceased amusing her with her suffering? Does this not mean that cruelty is more innate in us than compassion, which has to be taught, nurtured?