et and wrings her barren hands and invokes
misery, love, grief, as if the sacred words were for the whole world.
Thou, God whom she implores, Thou knowest well the reason of her
trouble, a simple reason, brutal, elementary. Why dost Thou let her hunt
for others?

I threw myself back because I both wanted and feared that my face might
betray me.

The Midi was beginning, the first olive trees were rounding off the
landscape, the night sky was already smiling in the rosy light of dawn.

* * * * *

In our times no woman has the right to live under the shelter of a
man's labor. The woman who dares to accept such shelter should abdicate
and commit her dignity to the hands that are productive. She should
consent to her dethronement and take the condescending love that is fed
to the weaker without complaining.

Men begin--the women know it well--by adoring this weakness. "My wife,"
that piece of fragility, those useless days, those little arms which
don't know how to do anything, the jewels he brings home, the great
astonished eyes, the mincing steps, everything that is touching and
contrasts with the struggle of his existence. Then he comes to extract
pride from this relation. "It is I who protect, sustain, feed her. It is
I...." He mounts a few steps higher and sees her a little lower,
incapable, infantile, unequal to battle, unequal to his power. Each day
inevitably finds them a little farther apart, and she in approaching him
is bound to raise her eyes while he condescends. If his love lasts it
takes the very form of contempt, though neither is conscious of it.
Which is just and proper.

A woman supported by her husband has no right to protest. If she is not
_earning_ her living, she should have some work to do, should use her
arms, her idle strength, her health. Merely bringing children into the
world is not enough.

The fat lady starts up from her entrenchment of cushions. "We are almost
there. We must get ready."

Bags pulled open emit the animal odor of leather and give out nickel
glints as they are snapped shut again. Then the fire of the rings
disappears under the gloves. "We are there!" They are now quite free to
stare at me.

What a metamorphosis. She has resumed her former appearance of a lady.
She is scarcely pretty. In the glimmer of the night-lamp she seems
sharp-featured and masked by a ghastly pallor, as if the generous sun
had abjured her forever.

Each turn of the