I stood there immovable. I felt like a slave who was to be burned as an offering by some savages. It seemed as if I were turning to stone. There was a vague ringing in my ears, and then, as Miss St. Denis had foretold, I forgot that class. I did not see it. I was back in Hochelaga, and Charles was dragging me along on a sleigh. The snow was thick on our clothes. Mama was brushing it off. Charles was pulling off his mittens, and I heard him say to mama—as, oh! he had said a hundred years ago, it seemed—“Mama, I’ll never take that Marion with me again. When we pass the Catholic store with all those images of saints, she makes me so ashamed. She will stop to look at the naked Jesuses. I couldn’t make her come away.”
“Rest! Rest!”
The voice of the monitor! I awoke. Mechanically I pulled the wrapper over me. Somebody said:
“The model is crying.”
I walked behind the screen. My head still swam, and I still saw dim visions of my home. I seemed to have been there only five seconds—it was five minutes—when again came the command:
“Pose!”
Now I felt angry. I stepped on that stage again, and once more I threw off the wrapper. Somebody said:
“Put the left foot further back.”
My anger was mounting. The dream had all vanished and I was conscious only of a vague fury. I know not why, but, oh! I hated all of those men. They were looking at me, I thought, like cruel tormentors. I wanted to hurt them all, as they were hurting me. Their intent looks, some with their eyes narrowed to see better, others measuring me with a plumb string, seemed to be mocking at my pain. Somebody said:
“She looks cross.”