THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein

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СКАЧАТЬ the rest of her feeling herself important to herself inside her had to do with her dependents and the struggles she had with them and they had among themselves and so to feel her.

      No she never felt it ever to be very important to her the relation of other rich people of her kind toward her. She had left Bridgepoint and friends and family feeling all behind her. Here in Gossols it was only the house and the ten acre place and those inside it that concerned her.

      She knew the value of herself, and their well to do way of living, of her husband, and her nice children, and the simple expensive clothing they wore when they went out visiting to that part of Gossols where the other rich people were living. She could know the value of them and the way other people must feel toward them but these things gave her no strong feeling of being important to them, the other people, who did not come close to her in her daily living. With them it was only a continuing of her well to do living which was the only kind of living it was right to her for anybody to be having. That was there. To have it gave her no important feeling. It was right to have a well to do good husband and nice children and all in simple and expensive clothing, but in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living she was cut off from a lively feeling of this right kind of living. Here it was she herself who was important to her feeling, here she was not only a right part of a right way of living, as it had been for her in Bridgepoint in her family in the way the Hissens had always done their living, but she had an individual feeling, not with her children they were completely of her and apart from her as was the right well to do middle class living, it was always there so were her children but they were not important to her feeling. The things that made her important to herself in her feeling was the sometimes controlling her husband by her little temper when it arose to be fierce inside her and the stubborn way it sometimes gave her in acting, and in being mistress and deciding and being above them and yet in their daily living and so interfering with the seamstresses and governesses and servants and all the people they ever had working for them. Being cut off from the simple rich ordinary way of living never gave her any feeling. It was not being cut off with any sense of losing, it was always there existing, in her and for her, this kind of living and it was not important to her feeling. It was as if one could ever be thinking about the different kinds of air in different parts of the world where one happened to be living, the atmosphere of well to do living was to her as the air she was breathing, it was always there she could not feel it important in her feeling or her thinking, breathing was there, one did not know it as important to one's feeling until one was in some way sick and it stopped or made hard one's breathing, but so long as one was strong and living one went on like everybody else with one's breathing. And so it was with Mrs. Hersland and well to do living, she could not feel it to be important in her feeling whether it was in the rich part of Gossols that they were living, or in Bridgepoint, or in the part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Always she was of well to do being, with a good rich husband and nice children and when she wanted to have it simple and expensive clothing. The sense of belonging to this kind of living could never give her any kind of important feeling. Her husband David Hersland with the queer nature of him might have an important feeling coming to him from just breathing, that feeling could come to him from the singular nature of him, from his being as big as all the world in his beginning, but to an ordinary gentle little mother woman there could never come such a feeling, this well to do living could only come to be important to her in her feeling if she could ever come to it through a losing, by their money going or by their losing position by some wrong doing, and such a kind of losing it could never come to Mrs. Hersland to ever think of as coming to them. And so visiting and being, well to do living and her children, these never gave her a strong feeling of being important inside her through them, it was only through her husband and the governess and seamstresses and servants and dependents that she could ever have an individual kind of feeling. It was queer that her children were to her like well to do living, not important to her feeling. As I was saying David Hersland had made a decent fortune even before he had left Bridgepoint. He had made enough money to give his wife and children a good position. And so when they first came to Gossols where he was to make for himself a great fortune they could afford to live in as good a hotel as was then there existing.

      Things began very well in their far western living. Martha and Alfred were then very young children. David the youngest had not yet been born to them. Here Mrs. Hersland had been at first a little lonesome.

      Mrs. Hersland had left friends and family feeling behind her. Here in Gossols it would have been natural for her to find other people to continue with her the well to do living which was the only right way of being to her.

      They lived for a year in that part of Gossols where all the rich people were living. Here she had her first important feeling. Here she met a Miss Sophie Shilling and her sister Pauline Shilling and their mother old Mrs. Shilling.

      Always Mrs. David Hersland had been a right part of a right kind of living. Not that she had not often had strong feeling, not that she did not have dignity in herself and in her family in her feeling, sometimes she had an angry stubborn feeling, sometimes with her sisters or her mother and later when they came together sometimes with Mr. David Hersland who was to be married to her. Sometimes it was a hurt feeling that made her sad not angry when any bad thing happened to her, sometimes it was a hurt feeling that made her a little bitter. All this had been important feeling to her, sometimes it had made a power of her but it did not give to her an important feeling to herself inside her. It was not apart in her from the feeling of herself to her as of the right well to do living that had made her and which was the only right way of being for her.

      Old Mrs. Shilling and her daughter Sophie Shilling and her other daughter Pauline Shilling, first gave to her the feeling of being important to herself inside her, important, apart in her, from right being, right acting, and the dignity of decent family living with good eating being the mother of nice children the wife of a good well to do man, and all in simple and expensive clothing. This family of old Mrs. Shilling and the two daughters with her gave to Mrs. Hersland and the gentle dignity she always had inside her as part of the family she belonged to, gave to her a sense of a new power that was apart in her from the dignity of right being that she had always had around her. It was apart in her this sense of a new kind of power that she had with Mrs. Shilling and the fat daughter Sophie Shilling and the thin pretty dull queer always getting into trouble Pauline Shilling, it was apart in her from the dignity of right living that she had always had inside her. It was the fat daughter Sophie Shilling who was the new kind of friend to her, that gave her the sense of being important to herself inside her. Sophie Shilling made a new kind of friendship for her and it was a new sense that Mrs. Hersland had then inside her, different from all that she had always had in her, different from the right living that had made her.

      All the Hissen people had it strongly inside them, the family way of good living. They were all in their natural way of family thinking gentle cheerful little men and women. They lived in their natural way of being, without any strong ambition. It was enough for them to hold to their tradition, the dignity and beauty of right living and right thinking, they never needed to go out to find ambition or excitement in their living, they had excitement and dignity inside them from their family and the gentle pride that made them; that, sometimes, came in sparkling, sometimes in angry flashes from them but mostly they were hurt not angry when any bad thing happened to them. They lived in their natural way of being without any strong ambition or excitement, they were each in their little circle joyful in the present, they lived and died in mildness and contentment.

      They had never any one of them an important feeling of themselves inside, them to arise of itself from within them. Such a kind of important feeling would not be in them in the way of living it was natural to any one of them to be having. Mrs. Fanny Hersland never would have had such a feeling if she had lived on in Bridgepoint, going on always with the right kind of being, she would often have had an angry feeling, sometimes with her family, or her husband, or for them when things happened to them to worry them, and sometimes it would be a hurt feeling that would lead to bitter biting talking, sometimes it would be a hurt feeling that would make her sad not angry when any bad thing happened to them and always it СКАЧАТЬ