Josephina owns one unchanging dress, septic, maculate and repellent.
I have a sense of humor vivid and intriguing to myself.
Josephina has no more sense of humor than a flatiron.
I bathe foamily icily each morning.
Josephina would seem never to have had a bath. She cleans windows and floors and rugs for thirty-five cents an hour. She would regard it as a fantastic waste of time and soap to clean herself for nothing.
I own in a still flawed life one phase which is an endless treasure of beauty and power and charm and light: my love for John Keats.
The Finn woman owns about the same thing in a life which may be more still and flawed than mine: her love for strong drink.
There begins a curious line of similitude between us.
I feel oddly joyous and light of heart on a solitary veranda corner with the John-Keats poetry book open in my lap.
And Josephina has been found many a time by Butte policemen sitting alone joyous and very drunk, in dark alleys with empty pint bottles strewn all about her.