“Well, it certainly made me shiver,” she said. “One of Oppendorf’s friends took me down to see it, and I’ve never had such a dreadful time in my life. It was all about a colored man marrying a white girl. It ended up with the colored boy killing his wife and then committing suicide—think of it!—and I was just gripping the sides of my seat all the time.”
“Were you afraid it might have some connection with us?” he asked, gravely.
“No, no, of course not,” she answered, as she clutched his hand. “D’you think I’m silly enough to let some prejudiced man tell me whether I’m going to be happy or not? No, Eric, it wasn’t that, but I did feel angry and upset, and, we-ell ... it set me to wondering. Why do all these writers now always insist that colored and white people weren’t meant to get along with each other—oh, why do they?”
“Mister Shakespeare revived it with his Othello and it’s been going strong ever since,” he replied, with a contention of forlorn and contemptuous inflections in his voice. “It can’t be argued about. Most of them are perfectly sincere, and they really believe that people of different races always hate and fear each other at the bottom. You could get yourself blue in the face telling them exceptional men and women aren’t included in this rule, but it wouldn’t make the slightest impression.”
“But why are they so stubborn about it?” she asked.
“That’s easy,” he answered, wearily. “They don’t want to admit that there’s the smallest possibility of the races ever coming together. It’s a deep, blind pride, and they simply can’t get rid of it. They’re hardly ever conscious of it, Blanche, but it’s there just the same. Why, even Vanderin isn’t free from it. Take that latest book of his—Black Paradise—and what do you find? What? He’s just a bystander trying to be indulgent and sympathetic. It’s the old story. Negroes are primitive and sa-avage at the bottom, and white people aren’t ... white people like your brother, I suppose.”
He had been unable to restrain the sarcasm of his last words because his wounds had cried out for a childish relief. She had listened to him with a fascination that was near to worship ... what a dear, wise, eloquent boy he was! When he talked, even the ghosts of her former specters fled from her heart. Let the world call him a nigger—what did it matter? They didn’t care whether he was beautiful or not—all they wanted was to “keep him in his place,” these in-tel-li-gent people, just because he happened to have a mixture of blood within him.
“Oh, let’s not talk any more about it,” she said. “We’re in love with each other, Eric, boysie, and ... ’f other people don’ like it they can stand on their heads, for all I care!”
He fondled her shoulder, gratefully, and an uproar was in his heart.
“Blanche, what’s the use of waiting and waiting?” he asked at last. “We’re only suffering and denying ourselves when there’s no reason for it. Let’s run off to-morrow and marry each other. If we wait too long we’ll feel too helpless about it—it’ll grow to be a habit with us. I can’t exist any longer without you, Blanche—it’s just impossible ... impossible. I’ll draw out the thousand I have in the bank and we’ll hop a train for Chicago to-morrow afternoon. Don’t you see it’s useless to keep postponing it, Blanche?”