Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman (ebook and pdf reader TXT) đ
- Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Book online «Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman (ebook and pdf reader TXT) đ». Author Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Here was I, with an Ideal in mind, for which I hotly longed, and here was she, deliberately obtruding in the foreground of my consciousness a Factâ âa fact which I coolly enjoyed, but which actually interfered with what I wanted. I see now clearly enough why a certain kind of man, like Sir Almroth Wright, resents the professional development of women. It gets in the way of the sex ideal; it temporarily covers and excludes femininity.
Of course, in this case, I was so fond of Ellador my friend, of Ellador my professional companion, that I necessarily enjoyed her society on any terms. Onlyâ âwhen I had had her with me in her de-feminine capacity for a sixteen-hour day, I could go to my own room and sleep without dreaming about her.
The witch! If ever anybody worked to woo and win and hold a human soul, she did, great superwoman that she was. I couldnât then half comprehend the skill of it, the wonder. But this I soon began to find: that under all our cultivated attitude of mind toward women, there is an older, deeper, more ânaturalâ feeling, the restful reverence which looks up to the Mother sex.
So we grew together in friendship and happiness, Ellador and I, and so did Jeff and Celis.
When it comes to Terryâs part of it, and Alimaâs, Iâm sorryâ âand Iâm ashamed. Of course I blame her somewhat. She wasnât as fine a psychologist as Ellador, and whatâs more, I think she had a far-descended atavistic trace of more marked femaleness, never apparent till Terry called it out. But when all is said, it doesnât excuse him. I hadnât realized to the full Terryâs characterâ âI couldnât, being a man.
The position was the same as with us, of course, only with these distinctions. Alima, a shade more alluring, and several shades less able as a practical psychologist; Terry, a hundredfold more demandingâ âand proportionately less reasonable.
Things grew strained very soon between them. I fancy at first, when they were together, in her great hope of parentage and his keen joy of conquestâ âthat Terry was inconsiderate. In fact, I know it, from things he said.
âYou neednât talk to me,â he snapped at Jeff one day, just before our weddings. âThere never was a woman yet that did not enjoy being mastered. All your pretty talk doesnât amount to a hill oâ beansâ âI know.â And Terry would hum:
âIâve taken my fun where I found it.
Iâve rogued and Iâve ranged in my time,â
and
âThe things that I learned from the yellow and black,
They âave helped me a âeap with the white.â
Jeff turned sharply and left him at the time. I was a bit disquieted myself.
Poor old Terry! The things heâd learned didnât help him a heap in Herland. His idea was to takeâ âhe thought that was the way. He thought, he honestly believed, that women like it. Not the women of Herland! Not Alima!
I can see her nowâ âone day in the very first week of their marriage, setting forth to her dayâs work with long determined strides and hard-set mouth, and sticking close to Ellador. She didnât wish to be alone with Terryâ âyou could see that.
But the more she kept away from him, the more he wanted herâ ânaturally.
He made a tremendous row about their separate establishments, tried to keep her in his rooms, tried to stay in hers. But there she drew the line sharply.
He came away one night, and stamped up and down the moonlit road, swearing under his breath. I was taking a walk that night too, but I wasnât in his state of mind. To hear him rage youâd not have believed that he loved Alima at allâ âyouâd have thought that she was some quarry he was pursuing, something to catch and conquer.
I think that, owing to all those differences I spoke of, they soon lost the common ground they had at first, and were unable to meet sanely and dispassionately. I fancy tooâ âthis is pure conjectureâ âthat he had succeeded in driving Alima beyond her best judgment, her real conscience, and that after that her own sense of shame, the reaction of the thing, made her bitter perhaps.
They quarreled, really quarreled, and after making it up once or twice, they seemed to come to a real breakâ âshe would not be alone with him at all. And perhaps she was a bit nervous, I donât know, but she got Moadine to come and stay next door to her. Also, she had a sturdy assistant detailed to accompany her in her work.
Terry had his own ideas, as Iâve tried to show. I daresay he thought he had a right to do as he did. Perhaps he even convinced himself that it would be better for her. Anyhow, he hid himself in her bedroom one nightâ ââ âŠ
The women of Herland have no fear of men. Why should they have? They are not timid in any sense. They are not weak; and they all have strong trained athletic bodies. Othello could not have extinguished Alima with a pillow, as if she were a mouse.
Terry put in practice his pet conviction that a woman loves to be mastered, and by sheer brute force, in all the pride and passion of his intense masculinity, he tried to master this woman.
It did not work. I got a pretty clear account of it later from Ellador, but what we heard at
Comments (0)