"That's not very nice language, Martha."
"Language? What's language? Language isn't anything. Look at the facts. Are they nice? Look what that rotten man wrote down for people to read!"
Emily sat down, and Martha turned around and leaned her head against her mother's knee and wept. She kept trying to express her contempt for the book and its author; she felt the need of curses, but her vocabulary failed her. "That horrid, rotten person," she cried two or three times. "That nasty brutal old pig." And Emily stroked her hair and wondered whether to command her to keep still or to encourage her to talk it out. "He says——" Martha sputtered at length, crying bitterly.
"Never mind, child," Emily said quietly.
But Martha would mind. She controlled her sobs.
"He says—the filthy old rotten—idiot—that man in the book, he just went around—you know—mother—falling in love, they call it—and then he threw one woman away, mammie, because—he said—she didn't enjoy it! Oh, I could kill that man! Enjoy it, he said, mother! He said she was always afraid! My God! He hadn't anything to lose. He ran no risk! They just try to make out that women are like men, mother, so that they can get them. You'd think women would tell the truth, wouldn't you, mammie? I'd just like to see Mrs. Wharton be an old maid and try to hide that child that way! She'd learn a thing or two. It isn't fair, it's too cruel! They just try to make girls believe lies like that so they won't be afraid. I was afraid, all the time. But why wasn't I afraid enough? I must have been crazy last summer. Honestly, mother, I must have been out of my mind, to do that. It's women that are fools. It was my own fault. Does it seem possible, mother, that women can love such—such filthy, rotten messes as men? I couldn't have been in my right mind. So it couldn't have been my fault, and look what happened to me! It makes me so mad to think about it. It isn't fair! Why can't a woman just turn over and go to sleep, too? Why should she have two lives to risk, and a rotten, dirty man none at all? Mammie, you don't think I was in my right mind last summer, do you? I never would have done that if I'd had any sense. Were any of your people crazy, mammie? Were daddy's people insane? I mean, two or three generations back?"
"No, not so far as I know; not one of them. You've got sane people behind you. Don't cry so, child. It's going to be all right yet."
"There's no use saying things like that. I WAS crazy, mother. I couldn't have—— It doesn't seem possible. If I hadn't been out of my head, I never could have—loved him—a man. Didn't you ever notice anything strange about me last summer, honestly?"
"I—I couldn't understand it, but—girls do fall in love. Your father thought, though——"
"What did he think?" she urged.