She had long talks holding her child in her arms....
“I must be more to him when he comes back than I was ever! I can be more!
“I accept you, Harry. I have no pride, I am humble. I challenge drink, gaming, women. I am ashamed no longer. I shall beat them. I shall crowd them out. I shall be for you what they lied seeming they could be for you. You will find me everywhere, meet me nowhere. No obstruction. You will find me risen in a great pride, in a great strength, now that my pride is gone and I have lain, prostrate naked, sucking the strength of a stranger.”
—O stranger! not a thought more for you. Not a thought. That is as you will. Harry, he made me love you.
She went into her room, stripped her clothes from her shoulders. She looked in a glass at her nakedness, feeling under her eyes her shoulders gleam like cool flames upward.
It was strange: her shoulders were untouched, her breasts had not fallen.—I am whole! Come, Harry, take me.
There had been a wind, there had been a bath for her naked shoulders. She was naked, flushed by a swift wind ... gone ... cleansed by a running water ... run away.—I am whole, I am born. Will you come, Harry, so you can see the woman who has been born?
She stood long, looking at her naked self. She was clad in a bloom. She was a hard young world in its first Spring. She found that she was laughing. She pressed her laughing fingers into her firm breasts.
“I am good,” she said, very sober. She caught up her child. Cheek upon hers she swayed, very still, very sober. “O we are good. Good, we two! Won’t you hurry, Man?” ...
“Now I see you. Clear! Never has any woman seen her love as I see you. I am a woman born. Edith dear, look at your Mother. You are a child born.... I am a woman born. I am rarer than you! I am very rare. I see you clear, you little sucking flesh. Sweet, sweet! I see him clear; wistful yearnful boy, with a soul all wrinkled and athrob like your forehead, Sweet, when you were born ... a soul open and empty and greedy like your mouth, when you were born.