Read The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress Online
Authors: Gertrude Stein
DAVID HERSLAND
I do ask some, I would ask every one, I do not ask some because I am quite certain that they would not like me to ask it, I do ask some if they would mind it if they found out that they did have the name they had then and had been having been born not in the family living they are then living in, if they had been born illegitimate. I ask some and I would ask every one only I am quite certain very many would not like to have me ask it if they would like it, if they would very much dislike it, if they would make a tragedy of it, if they would make a joke of it, if they found they had in them blood of some kind of a being that was a low kind to them. I would like to know how every one can be feeling about such a thing, if they have any feeling about any such thing. David Hersland was the younger son of Mr. David Hersland and Mrs. Hersland. In his younger living he never thought about any such thing as that about which I have just been telling. In his later living he liked thinking about feeling such things, thinking such things being in men and women. Some when they are quite young ones are thinking then about such things. He was never at all when he was a young one thinking about any such thing. This is to be now a history of him.
What am I believing about living. I am believing that I am not certain when I am saying something from being one being then being loving that I am meaning anything by what I am then saying, I am not certain that I am not then having being in being one being loving that is being that is having the meaning as being of what I am then saying. I am believing that I am not certain about being being in one meaning what one being in being loving is saying. I am believing that I am not certain being being loving in one is in one then meaning what that one is then saying. I am believing that I am not certain that being is not in one meaning what that one being then being loving is saying. What is it I am knowing about living, I certainly am not knowing that I am not knowing everything about being in living. I am not certain that I am knowing everything about being living. I am not certain that I am not knowing everything about being living. I am not certain that I am knowing everything about being living.
I know that I am not certain about what I would do for some one what I would not do for some one. Not any one is certain so that acting by them shows it to any one what they would do for some one, what they would not do for some one. Each one then would do something for some one, would not do something for some one, would do something for any one would not do something for any one. Some are quite certain about themselves in this thing. Some are quite not certain about themselves in this thing. Not any one is rightly certain about themselves about this thing. Perhaps not any one is really certain about themselves about this thing. Perhaps one is certain about that one about this thing. I know I am not certain about what I would do for some one, what I would not do for some one.
Some one having some one who was with them become a dead one could be saying, when some one was saying something, that one does not know he is a dead one, he will never know that thing. He does not know he is a dead one, some one said of some one who was a dead one. Some one could be certain that some one who is a dead one would not know he was a dead one, some one could not know that some other one who was a dead one would not know that that one was a dead one. Some one then has been quite certain that some one who was with them when that one was a dead one did not know then that that one was a dead one. Some have been certain that every one who is a dead one does not then know that that one is a dead one.
It is a surprising thing sometimes to be learning which ones of some one has been knowing are quite certain and say the thing then as a very simple thing that anybody can be knowing that some one who has been with them being a dead one is not knowing that that one is a dead one.
It is certainly something that some are saying when some one who was with them is a dead one that that one is not knowing then that that one is a dead one. Some like very well to be hearing some one say this thing that some one is a dead one and is certainly then not knowing this thing. Some like very well hearing this thing. Some are not wanting ever to be hearing any thing about any one ever being a dead one. This will soon now be the beginning of a description of living that David Hersland did before he came to be a dead one.
Some are satisfied with having been living when they are come to be a dead one with not having had in them any very sick feeling, any very bad thing to be doing, any very hard work for them in them, not any queer feeling of not having had their head quite right inside them. Some are satisfied then with having been living ones when they have come to be a dead one, some are not satisfied then with having come to be then a dead one. Some are satisfied, some are not satisfied with having been one being living. Some are quite satisfied with having been one having living in them, some are not satisfied at all with this thing. Some are very well satisfied with having come to be a dead one, some are not at all satisfied with this thing.
Some one gives to another one a stubborn feeling when that one could be convincing that other one if that other one would then continue listening. Some are certain that sometimes they can be convinced by some one. Some are certain they are sometimes convinced by some one. Some are certain that they could be conceived sometimes by some one but that they will not be letting themselves ever have any such a thing happen to them. Some like being convinced of some things by some, by some one.
Some one and I certainly never did think that one ever could do such a thing has it to be so strongly repeating the facts that one is remembering that almost always I am always convinced that I have been wrong in my feeling. I certainly am not certain whether I ever can be certain whether I ever am when I am feeling something justified from my way of feeling anything in having such a feeling when this one is repeating the way that one is remembering everything. Some one said about some one who was saying something that seemed a very foolish thing to some one about how some one did something, but that one was not saying foolish things, she was judging from the feeling of being convenienced and inconvenienced that she would be having and that was all that concerned her in her judging. It was not a foolish thing then that that one had been saying. No, there are many ways of not being a foolish one in being living. There are certainly lots and lots of them of ways of not being a foolish one in being in living. So then some certainly could be convincing me of many things if I go on listening. I am quite certain that this is certain.
David Hersland was a dead one before he was a middle aged one. He was then never in his living an old one. He was dead before he came to the middle of his middle living.
I am coming to know some whom I have known as middle aged ones, as young ones. This is a pleasing thing.
David Hersland was a dead one before he was a middle aged one. He was then never in his living a middle aged one. He was dead before he came to the middle of his middle living.
I have come to know some as being young whom I have been knowing as middle aged ones as coming to be old ones, I know now what ones being young ones will come to be middle aged ones like some I have been knowing as middle aged ones. This seems an easy thing. It is a very difficult thing.
It is hard to be certain to one's feeling that some one one has been knowing is a dead one, will not be a growing older one. Some one was saying that his grandfather had been a dead one before his grandfather was finished being a young one. That is a queer thing that a grandfather was never in his own middle living.
I am coming to know now more and more of a group of them in men and women what kind they are when they are young ones, when they are middle aged ones, when they are old ones. To-night I came to be certain about one group of them what kind they are when they are young men when they are young women. I am not yet certain about some groups of them what they are when they are old ones, I am not certain about some groups of them what they are when they are middle aged ones, I am not certain about some groups of them what they are when they are young men when they are young women, I am not certain about some groups of them what they are when they are young ones younger than young women and young men. I am certain I am not yet knowing all the kinds there are in men and women.
David Hersland was come to being one not being living before he could come to be a middle aged one. He was not even then an older one, an old one, a middle aged one. He came to be a dead one after a considerable beginning of his middle living.
I know now how quite a number of groups that there are of men and women are ones existing when they are young ones, that is young women and young men, that is just ending their beginning living, just beginning their middle living. I am beginning to know of some groups in men and women, what they have as hands and faces and ears and bodies to them and being in them, and ways of acting in them when they are young men and young women, older young men and young women, middle aged men and women, old men and women. I do not know yet very much about what any group of them are when they are young children. I am slowly spreading very slowly spreading to them, I have not yet spread to them, not at all reached to them yet in spreading out in knowing being in groups of men and women.
As I was saying David Hersland was a dead one before he was a middle aged one. He was dead before he came to the middle of his middle living. He was then never a middle aged one, he was then never an old one. He was one of a kind in men and women. Certainly each one is one of a kind in men and women. I am knowing more about being in each group of them when every one of a group of them is a young one, and an older one, an old one. I am knowing then being in some groups of men and women as it is in them when they are young men or women, older men or women, old men or women.
No one will listen while I am talking. Some have very much such a trouble in being one being living. Some have not at all any of such trouble in them. Some will listen when I am talking. Some will not listen when I am talking. Some will listen while they are fat ones, they do not listen when after dieting they have become thin ones. These then listen to other ones and some of these other ones could not get any listening from them before the dieting that made these come to be thin ones from having been fat ones. Some are listening to me now and before they were always listening every evening to another one. They are listening to me now, I like them to be listening. Some who are young men and young women are listening to me now very often. Some who are now young men are listening to me now very of ten, they listen to me and I am talking very much now quite often to them. Some are very faithful in being ones listening and these are not listening very often. I know very well one such a one. Some quite older ones are listening but then really I am not talking very much when they are listening. Some have it to be certain that not any one ever is listening when they are talking. Some of these are mistaken, some of these are not mistaken. Some of these come to know it in them that they are not listening being so certain in them that there can not ever be conversation in any living for them. This will be soon a description of being in David Hersland and how men and how women listened to him, how some listened to him, how others listened to him, how some heard him doing talking but never listened to him, how some did not ever hear him doing any talking, how some forgot about him, how some remembered him, how some talked to him, how some said they would prefer not having ever to talk to him, how some had to talk to him, how some stopped talking with him, how some being with him liked what they were then doing, how some being with him sometimes did not at all like that thing, how some told him everything that they could think of telling and how some were sorry they had told him and how some were not sorry they had told him and how some wanted to go on telling him more and how some forgot they had told him anything. This is then to be a description of David Hersland of being and listening and talking and being liked and disliked and remembered and forgotten and going on being living and dying and being a dead one.
Some are listening to me and I tell them then the being they have in them. I tell them what they have what they have not in them, how it comes together, how it does not come together in them, how the being they have in them is important to them, how it is not important to them, how it can be active in them, how it can be not active in them, why they like having their being in them, why they do not like having their being in them. Mostly every one has listened some when I have been telling them about being in them. Some have listened and I have thought that they were believing what I was telling them and then many years after they have been telling that they were certain then that I was telling them then what I had not any reason to believe was true of them. And sometimes then later when they tell me such a thing they find it that I am not certain that I was not then doing this thing. Some make of themselves a new one by my telling them about the being in them and to very many then they are quite a new one and to some then they are not at all a new one, they are quite an old one. Some like listening and later then they have a frightened feeling that I will influence them to be another one, they do not like very well some of them what they are in living, they do like some of them what they are in living, they are quite certain they do not want me to be influencing them. Some are listening and I am talking and I am talking and then they ask a question and then I say to myself that words can have a meaning to some one and a meaning to some other one and that I was talking and that that one was intelligently listening and that that one has then asked this question. I have told so many so much about the being in them. I will tell I am quite certain some more about the being in them. This will be now much history of talking and listening. I talk one way and listen one way and talk other ways and listen other ways and so probably does every one. This is to be now very much description of talking and listening, of a number of young men and young women talking and of a number of older men and older women talking and of each one of them the young men and young women and the older men and the older women listening.