"He sometimes thought you must be——"
"Crazy! Did he say crazy?" She was eager to have that lesser sentence passed on herself.
"He did say crazy, but you know, Martha, how we say it. Not meaning literally crazy."
"No, but I was crazy. Look at the mess I got you into, mother. What would we ever have done with that——"
"We don't need to talk about that now. Don't mention it."
"Yes, we do need to talk about it. I AM a woman. I WILL think about it. It isn't fair! It's cruel!"
And on she raved, groaning out the old old groanings. Emily sat overwhelmed and yearning, trying from time to time to ease her hurt with the words of her happier experience. Her arguments were less threadbare, having been used from the first only by women who felt themselves tenderly loved.
"It is hard luck to be a woman, if you're unlucky, Martha. But if you're lucky, it's not women you're sorry for, but men."
"How can you say that?"
"Well, they haven't children; they can't have children; they miss that, the realest joy. After all, children do belong to women. You belong to me more than to your father."