The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (15 page)

     The only one who had a feeling that Martha was really pleasing was her husband and she was just right for him. He only heard what she said to him in anything that she had been concerned in and so he never came to any feeling that she was not a strong woman to win out in the things she always loved to be beginning. He never could know that she was not strong in winning. She always did, to herself, whatever it was right for her to do, to her feeling when she met with the beginning of a losing she would not stop herself from winning, she would not know that she was then losing, she only dropped out of that working and made for herself a new beginning. She was not a strong woman as her mother had been. Mostly she was not pleasing for she was not strong in winning nor beginning and she had nothing appealing to make her attractive to men or women and so she was not very pleasing, but she was a good enough woman to become a friend of the Hissen men and women, to be satisfying to old Mr. Hissen and to have her brother David Hersland let her choose a wife for him to content him. She was good in doing whatever it was right for her to do, to her feeling. She was fond of doing, good at making a beginning, almost strong enough to keep on going. It was always all right for her when there was not any strong person resisting, for then she was always strong enough to keep on going, and then, though mostly not altogether winning, she would come near enough to winning to keep in her her important feeling. She would not end in any kind of winning if any one kept up any resisting, then Martha would not know she was losing, she would begin with some other beginning, and so she never would lose any important feeling.
     To her husband she was altogether pleasing. He had much very soggy passion in him and he had always inside him sentimental feeling so that he wanted a wife, not to be domineering but to hold him so that his passion could have a solid thing to bring it together in him, so that his wife should always be equal to him. He did not want a wife to appeal to him. It was his sentimental feeling that made him not want his wife to be appealing, he wanted to make of her an ideal to him. He was a man to be master in his living and so he never would have a wife to domineer over him, he wanted a wife to be equal to him so that she could harden for him the muddy passion in him, he wanted a wife to be an ideal to him to satisfy his sentimental feeling.
     Martha was to him always pleasing. Her husband listened to her talking, he knew what she did from her telling, she was not strong to be domineering, she was strong enough not to be appealing, she was always attractive to him, she filled up his sentimental feeling, she was an ideal to him, with no power to disturb him. She was always pleasing to him.
     It is easy to see how to the Hissen men and women Martha was always a little common.
     Between the eldest of the Hissen women and Martha there was more of an equal feeling. Martha always did what was right to her feeling. Martha had in her a feeling that it was right to do things in religion. Not that she had in her any feeling in religion. Religion was in her a sentimental kind of feeling. In her what was important to her feeling was the right way to do in the business of living, what was the right way for her to be doing so that she would do what was right to do to her feeling. She had a strong respect for the eldest daughter's important feeling. She had a strong respect for her important feeling in religion. It was alright for both of them. Martha had her important feeling and it was not in religion and each of these two women had much respect in them for the other ones way of feeling and right way of doing.
     To all the other Hissen men and women Martha was a good woman, and she was a good friend to them but she was not really pleasing.
     To her brother she was not really pleasing but she was a good enough woman for him to choose a wife for him to content him.
     Soon now then Fanny Hissen was married to David Hersland and went out to Gossols with him, and now together they were to begin their living, to make children who perhaps would come to have in them a really important feeling of themselves inside them.
     David Hersland who was to be the father of them, of the three children who were not yet come into the world through them, had always in him an important feeling, not inside him for it was all of him, everything was of him and he was it and there was not any difference for him between himself and everything existing.
     The mother who was to bear the three children, she perhaps would come to an important feeling, she did not have it as a natural thing to have really an important feeling. With her it must come from a, to her, not natural way of living, and it first had its beginning with her friendship with the Shilling women. Then it came to be stronger with the living in Gossols in the ten acre place in the part of Gossols where no other rich people were living, where she was cut off from the rich living which was for her the natural way of being.
     Mrs. Fanny Hersland had always had in her the beginning of an almost important feeling which she had from being like her mother in her nature, the mother who had had, in her sad trickling arising of itself inside her, an almost important feeling. This beginning of an almost important feeling, had never in Fanny Hissen been very real inside her while she was living in Bridgepoint, for then the strongest thing in her was the family way of being and that always would have been just so strong in her and it never would have come to her to have any realler feeling of being important to herself inside her if she had not gone to Gossols and left the family way of being behind her. It was only when she left the family way of living, when she went out to Gossols where she was to have none of the being always a part of the well to do living, that it came to her to begin to have this almost important feeling. It was not marrying that gave her such a feeling. Marrying would never have changed her from her family way of being, it was going to Gossols and leaving the family being and having a for her unnatural way of living that awoke in her a sense inside her of the almost important feeling that was to come to be inside in her.
     It had its beginning with her knowing, in the hotel where the Herslands were living before they settled down in the ten acre place, it had its beginning with her knowing old Mrs. Shilling and her daughter Sophie Shilling and her other daughter Pauline Shilling. With them there began inside her a sense of individual being, not that it was different in her to her feeling, it was only different in her being. Now she had no longer in her as the strongest thing inside her the Hissen way of being that was then all her and was the natural way of being to her. Later it grew stronger in her, this being, that never was different to her in her feeling that she knew inside her, but later it grew stronger in her, a very little by her husband and the power over him she had in her, but mostly with the living that came soon to be all the being there was of her, the living with her servants and governesses and dependents and the for her poor queer kind of people who lived near her, and the way she had of being a power, of being of them, with them, and always above them, and the feeling they had in them; and all this gave to her the real being of an almost important feeling.
     When one just met with them, old heavy flabby Mrs. Shilling and her daughter the fat Sophie Shilling and the other daughter the thinner Pauline Shilling, they were at first meeting and even after longer knowing like many other ordinary women. Yet always one had a little uncertain feeling that perhaps each one of them had something queer in her. One could never be very certain with them whether this possible queerness of them was because of something queer inside in all them or that they were queer because something had been left out in each one of them in the making of them or that they had lost something out of them that should have been inside in them, that something had dropped out of each one of them and they had been indolent of stupid or staring each one of them then and they had not noticed such a dropping out of them. Each one of them had perhaps a hole then somewhere inside in them and this may have been that which gave to each one of them the queerness that it was never certain was ever really there in any one of them. One never was certain with them that there was anything queer about them. Mostly they were just ordinary stupid enough women like millions of them.
     The mother was one of those fat heavy women who are all straight down the whole front of them when they are sitting. When they are walking they are always slowly waddling with heavy breathing.
     Many such heavy fat flabby waddling women have something queer about them. These have big doughy empty heads on top of them. These heads on them give to one a kind of feeling such as a baby's head gives to one in the first months of its being living, that the head is not well fastened to them, that it will fall off them if one does not hold it together on them. This kind of a head on them is what gives these fat flabby women the queerness about them that makes strange things of them. They have been living, working, cooking, directing, they have been chosen by a man to content him, they have had children come into the world through them, sometimes strong men and women have been born from inside them, they have made marriages for their children and managed people around them, they have lived and suffered and some of them have had power in them, and they are flabby now with big doughy heads that wobble on them.
     It is a queer feeling that one has in them and perhaps it is, that they have something queer in them something that gives to one a strange uncertain feeling with them for their heads are on them as puling babies heads are always on them and it gives to one a queer uncertain feeling to see heads on big women that look loose and wobbly on them.
     Old Mrs. Shilling was such a one. It was uncertain always even after a long knowing of her whether the wobbly head on her was all that made a strange thing of her or whether there was something queer inside in her, different from the others of them, different from all of them who always give to one a strange uncertain feeling, all the many fat ones who are made just like her. Perhaps that was all that was queer in her, that which is always queer in all the many fat ones who are made just like her.
     The fat daughter Sophie Shilling in the ways one mostly felt her has many millions who are made just like her. The fat daughter Sophie Shilling was a little like her mother but her head was not yet wobbly on her. Sometimes there was something about her that perhaps came from something queer inside her. Mostly she was just an ordinary rather fat young woman and there are many millions made just like her.
     As one knew her with her mother and her sister she was an amiable enough good sister and daughter. Mostly one felt that she was a very good sister and a very good daughter. Not that it was a family of women that as far as one could know them were very trying to one another. They seemed to have enough money to live comfortably in the hotel together. They had a poodle dog who was company for the mother. They never quarreled with each other. They did not have any troubles there at the hotel where they were comfortably living together.
     Sophie Shilling and Pauline Shilling were sisterly with one another. Sophie Shilling like most fat sisters was afraid of the thinner. Sometimes it is the thinner who is afraid of the fatter when two daughters are sisterly together but most often it is the fat sister who is afraid of the thinner. It is not so much being older or younger that makes sisters afraid of one another, it is a kind of power that always one has over the other, mostly it is the fat one who is afraid of the other because it would hurt more if pins were stuck into her, not that the thinner is always in any way meaner, sometimes it is the fat one who is afraid who is the meaner, but there is so much more of her, there is so much more unprotected surface to her, somehow, it is that which makes her afraid of the thinner even when the thin one is really never nasty to her. This was true of the sisters Sophie Shilling and Pauline Shilling, the fat one always had fear in her but the thin one never in any way was ever mean or nasty to her. It is this fear that the fat one has in her that often makes the people who know her and see the mother and the sister with her feel that the thin one has mean ways in her. Not that the fat one complains of her but there is a fear in her, and often it is only a fear from there being so much of her, but when others feel the fear in her they are sure it must come from the mean things the thinner one does to her. So it was with Sophie Shilling and they were very sisterly together.
     It was a month or so after the Herslands had come to the hotel that Mrs. Hersland began to know Sophie Shilling. She had met her going about in the hotel and sometimes when she was out she met with her and they came in together. They soon were a good deal together. They soon began to call on each other. Mrs. Hersland began to know the mother and the sister Pauline Shilling. Pauline did not take much interest in her. Mostly she and Sophie did not have friends together. The way in which Sophie was afraid of her sister made any one who knew her have an awe of Pauline Shilling, made them have a kind of feeling about her so that they could never be easy with her. Always in them must be a suspicious feeling that there was danger for them in her and they must not be too free when being with her or talking to her. It was the fear in the fat sister that gave to all who knew her a restraint when they were with Pauline Shilling. Not that Sophie ever complained of her, not that Sophie ever knew that she had such a fear in her. It was always there though and affected all who knew her although from their own knowing of her they could see that Pauline Shilling had no mean ways in her. Of course there were people who first knew the thin sister and they never had any such feeling about her. But all who first knew Sophie Shilling never could come to be easy with her sister. Mrs. Hersland first knew Sophie Shilling. It is easy to see how the knowing Sophie Shilling and her mother and the sister Pauline Shilling would awaken in her the always possible almost important feeling that was quiet until then inside her.
     Sophie Shilling never meant very much to her. They were very much together and Fanny Hersland always felt for her. She had no affection for her and after she moved away from the hotel she did not very often see her.