"As long as there's men and women in the world, the men 'ull be top and the women bottom."
"Why?" asked Naomi.
"Because it wur meant so. If we'd bin meant fur masters d'you think we'd have bin made so liddle and dentical like?"
"But we're a sight smarter than men."
"Yes—that makes up to us a bit, but it döan't do us any real good ... only helps us git round a man sometimes when we can't git over him."
"Then it does us some good after all. A sad state we'd be in if the men always had their own way."
"You take it from me that it's much better when a man has his own way than when he hasn't. Then he's pleased wud you and makes life warm and easy for you. It's women as are always going against men wot are unhappy. Please men and they'll be good to you and you'll be happy, döan't please them and they'll be bad to you and you'll be miserable. But women who're for ever grumbling, and making a fuss about doing wot they've got to do whether they like it or not, and are cross-grained wives, and unwilling mothers ..." and so on, and so on.
Yet Mrs. Backfield did not, any more than Naomi, understand Reuben's great ambition.
§ 10.
That autumn Naomi entered on a time of black depression—an utter gloom and weariness of body and mind. It was no mere dull staggering under blows, merciful in its blindness and lack of acute feeling—it was a clear-eyed misery, in which every object was as distinct as it was dark, like one of those sudden clearings of a stormy landscape, when trees, hedges, meadows, loom under the frowning sky, outstanding and black in detail, more vivid than in sunshine.