"I'm fine. I'm just sleepy from all that work in the studio."
"You go to sleep while I get rid of this stuff. I don't know how we could accumulate so much trash in one year."
Was there any truth, as Vida said, that the eyes were the mirrors of the soul? Vida was foolish anyway reading poems instead of going out with boys. Still, those poems were written by famous men. Maybe words didn't mean what one thought they meant. Could that have been love without my knowing it?
She opened her eyes a chink to let in meaning, saw Mae, and shut them again.
Perhaps I'll tell Mother in New York. She might be too upset if I tell her now and mightn't want to go. It certainly wasn't what I thought it'd be. I guess women are different from men that way. He wasn't thinking about me. Maybe I was trying so hard to feel excited that I didn't. Does this mean I'm a bad girl because I found out what boys do? Certainly is a funny way for babies to happen. Mother's so bashful. Oh! What if I have a baby!
"Lucy dear! Pussy darling! Wake up—you're having a nightmare."
"I guess it's all this excitement. I'll be glad when we're on the train. It's a shame we have to change in Chicago."
Clem walked the night-damp streets until dawn. Everything was the color of the cruel grey light.
Jesus, I should feel good! I did. But I don't. Lost my head. God, what if she's pregnant! She must know what to do. Or does she?
"You're working too hard, Clem boy," Mrs. Brush said severely, seeing him hollow-eyed, unable to touch the congealing slice of ham and glassy eggs. "You don't get out enough. All you do is paint, paint, paint. You ought to get out with young people. There are a lot of nice girls in Congress. Irene Thompson, for instance. It ain't natural for a young man not to go out with girls."
How could that calico figure at the sink have relaxed—or did she relax—long enough to conceive him and still remain so unsuspecting of his manhood? Bet she thinks I'm still a virgin.
In Paris he'd gone to a performance of Wedekind's "Awakening of Spring." The Parisian audience had laughed derisively at the intense Germanic solemnity about a function as natural as eating and breathing. Was it his midwestern Nordic heritage that made him overdramatize the importance of last night? But, dammitall, it was important. An image of Lucy lying on her deathbed in consequence
