O Genteel Lady!/Chapter 15
There had been a girl once, with black silk hair and a high, passionate heart. Where was she now, that the years pass by? The black silk was on the children's heads, and the passion—oh, it was burned in the Franklin stove—four stories had been enough to hold it all.
There had been a girl once...
Now a woman rocked a child in her arms, holding it cautiously lest it disturb the next younger growing within her body.
There had been a girl once...
But not contented as this woman was contented. A desperate, driven thing that could drink of the cup Anthony Jones offered and wipe her mouth. Break her heart and forget.
'It is through my children I will now see life,' she thought, and felt the unutterable solitude of the human heart that sees only the vast stretch of centuries behind and the burden of time beyond. From her, in all directions, stretched time and space, and she, the least important of all things, stood for a second in the centre of the universe.
'The Romans lived and fought,' she thought, 'so that I might have history to read in school, and the only result of the Napoleonic wars is that once in a long time I think carelessly what a vulgar, little, short fat man Napoleon was. The stars, all the stars, are held up in the heavens so that I may have something to look at just after I've turned out the light and before I get into bed. Christ came and lived beautifully—and died terribly...Christ on his cross...to give my soul a few minutes of pity and wonder. And they who lie in the churchyard, what are they but names for me to read on days when I am too lazy to walk far and have no book with me!'
She the centre of it all, and so soon to be but one more name cut in slate for the lazy to ponder over. 'Lanice Ripley.'
What clothes she had had as a girl, and lovers enough—perhaps too many! She shut her eyes and saw herself in brown velvet that looked like a Spanish portrait, and coral earrings to her shoulders. Could see herself wipe her mouth like a greedy child, shake her earrings, and fall asleep, deep in the furs of the Russian sleigh.
'I have loved to live,' she thought, and prayed with sudden passion, 'O God, let my children be happy, too, and their children, and their children's children, forever and ever, Amen!'
The end