The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Lives, by Gertrude Stein

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Title: Three Lives
Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena

Author: Gertrude Stein

Release Date: March 18, 2005 [EBook #15408]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Three Lives

_Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena_

GERTRUDE STEIN

_Donc je suis malheureux et ce n'est ni ma faute ni celle de
la vie._[1]

Jules Laforgue

[Footnote 1: Therefore I am unhappy and it is neither my fault
nor that of life.]

Contents

page

The Good Anna 1
Melanctha 47
The Gentle Lena 142

THE GOOD ANNA

Part I

The tradesmen of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of "Miss
Mathilda", for with that name the good Anna always conquered.

The strictest of the one price stores found that they could give
things for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that "Miss
Mathilda" could not pay so much and that she could buy it cheaper "by
Lindheims."

Lindheims was Anna's favorite store, for there they had bargain days,
when flour and sugar were sold for a quarter of a cent less for a
pound, and there the heads of the departments were all her friends and
always managed to give her the bargain prices, even on other days.

Anna led an arduous and troubled life.

Anna managed the whole little house for Miss Mathilda. It was a funny
little house, one of a whole row of all the same kind that made a
close pile like a row of dominoes that a child knocks over, for they
were built along a street which at this point came down a steep hill.
They were funny little houses, two stories high, with red brick fronts
and long white steps.

This one little house was always very full with Miss Mathilda, an
under servant, stray dogs and cats and Anna's voice that scolded,
managed, grumbled all day long.

"Sallie! can't I leave you alone a minute but you must run to the door
to see the butcher boy come down