Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman (ebook and pdf reader TXT) đ
- Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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Terry dashed about like a madman; he would cheerfully have killed themâ âhe told me that, himselfâ âbut he couldnât. When he swung a chair over his head one sprang in the air and caught it, two threw themselves bodily upon him and forced him to the floor; it was only the work of a few moments to have him tied hand and foot, and then, in sheer pity for his futile rage, to anesthetize him.
Alima was in a cold fury. She wanted him killedâ âactually.
There was a trial before the local Over Mother, and this woman, who did not enjoy being mastered, stated her case.
In a court in our country he would have been held quite âwithin his rights,â of course. But this was not our country; it was theirs. They seemed to measure the enormity of the offense by its effect upon a possible fatherhood, and he scorned even to reply to this way of putting it.
He did let himself go once, and explained in definite terms that they were incapable of understanding a manâs needs, a manâs desires, a manâs point of view. He called them neuters, epicenes, bloodless, sexless creatures. He said they could of course kill himâ âas so many insects couldâ âbut that he despised them nonetheless.
And all those stern grave mothers did not seem to mind his despising them, not in the least.
It was a long trial, and many interesting points were brought out as to their views of our habits, and after a while Terry had his sentence. He waited, grim and defiant. The sentence was: âYou must go home!â
XII ExpelledWe had all meant to go home again. Indeed we had not meantâ ânot by any meansâ âto stay as long as we had. But when it came to being turned out, dismissed, sent away for bad conduct, we none of us really liked it.
Terry said he did. He professed great scorn of the penalty and the trial, as well as all the other characteristics of âthis miserable half-country.â But he knew, and we knew, that in any âwholeâ country we should never have been as forgivingly treated as we had been here.
âIf the people had come after us according to the directions we left, thereâd have been quite a different story!â said Terry. We found out later why no reserve party had arrived. All our careful directions had been destroyed in a fire. We might have all died there and no one at home have ever known our whereabouts.
Terry was under guard now, all the time, known as unsafe, convicted of what was to them an unpardonable sin.
He laughed at their chill horror. âParcel of old maids!â he called them. âTheyâre all old maidsâ âchildren or not. They donât know the first thing about Sex.â
When Terry said âSex,â âsexâ with a very large S, he meant the male sex, naturally; its special values, its profound conviction of being âthe life force,â its cheerful ignoring of the true life process, and its interpretation of the other sex solely from its own point of view.
I had learned to see these things very differently since living with Ellador; and as for Jeff, he was so thoroughly Herlandized that he wasnât fair to Terry, who fretted sharply in his new restraint.
Moadine, grave and strong, as sadly patient as a mother with a degenerate child, kept steady watch on him, with enough other women close at hand to prevent an outbreak. He had no weapons, and well knew that all his strength was of small avail against those grim, quiet women.
We were allowed to visit him freely, but he had only his room, and a small high-walled garden to walk in, while the preparations for our departure were under way.
Three of us were to go: Terry, because he must; I, because two were safer for our flyer, and the long boat trip to the coast; Ellador, because she would not let me go without her.
If Jeff had elected to return, Celis would have gone tooâ âthey were the most absorbed of lovers; but Jeff had no desire that way.
âWhy should I want to go back to all our noise and dirt, our vice and crime, our disease and degeneracy?â he demanded of me privately. We never spoke like that before the women. âI wouldnât take Celis there for anything on earth!â he protested. âSheâd die! Sheâd die of horror and shame to see our slums and hospitals. How can you risk it with Ellador? Youâd better break it to her gently before she really makes up her mind.â
Jeff was right. I ought to have told her more fully than I did, of all the things we had to be ashamed of. But it is very hard to bridge the gulf of as deep a difference as existed between our life and theirs. I tried to.
âLook here, my dear,â I said to her. âIf you are really going to my country with me, youâve got to be prepared for a good many shocks. Itâs not as beautiful as thisâ âthe cities, I mean, the civilized partsâ âof course the wild country is.â
âI shall enjoy it all,â she said, her eyes starry with hope. âI understand itâs not like ours. I can see how monotonous our quiet life must seem to you, how much more stirring yours must be. It must be like the biological change you told me about when the second sex was introducedâ âa far greater movement, constant change, with new possibilities of growth.â
I had told her of the later biological theories of sex, and she was deeply convinced of the superior advantages of having two, the superiority of a world with men in it.
âWe have done what we could alone; perhaps we have some things better in a quiet way, but you have the whole worldâ âall the people of the
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