GERTRUDE STEIN Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Essays & Memoirs. Gertrude Stein

to him, often she was not even existing to him. Sometimes, and this was the rarest thing in him, she filled for him a need to have a sense of beauty in him, then she was like a flower to him, but this did not happen so very often in him more often she had a kind of power over him that was only a joke to him, mostly in their daily living the power she had in her with him did not to himself touch him, it was her managing to have things for the children, to have her way in small things, sometimes in a big one, but these things never were important to him, and he never knew she felt a power in them, the only power he knew she felt over him was only a joke to him, it could never have any other meaning to him, and that was all there was of the effect she had upon him. Mostly she was pleasing to him, she was a wife who was suited to him, his sister Martha had been right to choose her for him to be married to him, to bear children for him, to go to Gossols with him, to be always, all the years she would be living with him, to be a woman to content him. He did not need now when he was still a vigorous man and strong in his living, he did not need to have a woman to complete him, he needed a woman only to be pleasing, he needed a woman only to content him. This perhaps would come to be different in him when he would be an old man and weakening, then perhaps a woman who had power in her for him, a power to hold him by seductive managing, such a woman could then fill up in him empty places made by old age and his weakening and his shrinking away from the outside of him, and he would feel it good to him then to be filled up once more inside him; to feel warm with a full feeling; and so such a woman then could have power with him, he would need such a one then to complete him. Now he was a strong man and vigorous in his living and such a woman could arouse him but he would not need to have her in him and he would, when she was too much with him, for he met her often enough in his living, he would brush her away from before him. His wife Fanny Hersland was the woman for him, the wife who was almost always pleasing to him, the one he wanted to content him, she was for him mostly like a tender feeling in him, she was a good woman to him, and useful to do the daily living with him, with the people around them, and with their three children, she was a good woman in his daily living, the little power she had in her for him was a pleasant joke always to him, the power she had in managing to do things for the children he never noticed as a power she had with him, mostly she was always pleasing to him, sometimes, and this was the rarest thing in him, she filled for him a need in him for pure beauty and then she would be like a flower to him but this came to be more and more rare in him as he grew older and was more filled up with his impatient feeling, then she was hardly enough to content him, always she was like a tender feeling in him but more and more as he was full of impatient feeling, she would be lost to him, mostly she would not then be existing for him, the power which was always a pleasant joke to him then had no more existence for him, a little yet sometimes then she might be a flower to him, always when he felt her then she would be inside him like a tender feeling but mostly then she had no existence for him, she was not enough then to content him, and then she died away and left him, and then the tender feeling was a pain in him, and then she was never any longer an existing thing inside him. More and more he was getting older then and weakening, and shrinking away from the outside of him and more and more then he had not enough even of impatient feeling to completely fill him, and so more and more then be needed to be filled up inside him and she was not then enough to fill him, she had, too, died away and left him, and soon she was not in him any more, not any more as a tender feeling in him, she had soon then not any more any existence in him, soon he needed much more than she had ever been, to fill him up inside in him. All this will come to be clear in him in his later living, and now there is the beginning, the three children, the ten acre place where they were living, this father and this mother of them and the dependents and the people living there around them.

      They were living, the father and the mother and the three children, there had been two other children but they had died in the beginning, they were living then the five of them and the servants and governesses and dependents they had with them, in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Here they lived a life that was not the natural way of being for them here they had around them only, for them, poor queer kind of people and these came to be for them all the people they had in their daily living. More and more there was no visiting for them with the richer people who were the natural people for them to have as friends around them. The father spent his days with rich men for he had his business with them, he was making his great fortune among them, but more and more his wife lived with the poorer people who were living right around them, more and more his wife in her daily living had all of her being in her relation to the servants seamstresses governesses with whom she was living and she was always of them and always was above them and in the same way she was with them the poor, for her, queer people around them. She was with them and with her husband and her children and these were every day the whole of her daily being, sometimes as I have said, she went visiting with her children dressed in her rich simple clothing, but the children were awkward with the richer living in houses and people different from their daily living and more and more then there was not for any of them any visiting to the part of Gossols where the richer people were living.

      Living in this ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living was very joyous for all five of them in the beginning. There was much pleasure in this living by themselves with all the freedom that ten acres could give them, all the freedom that was natural with the living with only, for them, poor queer kind of people around them. There was freedom in such a living, there was an important feeling in it for the mother of them, it was a life to develop in the three children anything of an important feeling that it was possible they could ever come to have inside in them. This with the father's way of educating all three of them made for them, each one of them, an important feeling inside in them that they never could lose in their later living. This education that he gave them came from the feeling he had that education was all there was of living for them, it came to be queer for them because there was in him such a strong way of beginning, because he had strong beliefs in him and often these were changing, because he was like the world which was in his feeling all him he was full up inside in him he was uneven inside in him, because he was already then very full of impatient feeling and more and more in his living he became more full of impatient feeling until when troubles began with him before there was the weakening of old age in him he was all full up with impatient feeling, then that was nearly all that there was in him, that was the end of him before old age began in him and this is the history of him.

      It was very joyous for all of them the days of the beginning of their living in the ten acre place which was for many years to be a home to them in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. The sun was always shining for them, for years after to all three of the children, Sunday meant sunshine and pleasant lying on the grass with a gentle wind blowing and the grass and flowers smelling, it meant good eating, and pleasant walking, it meant freedom and the joy of mere existing, it meant the pungent smell of cooking, it meant the full satisfied sense of being stuffed up with eating, it meant sunshine and joking, it meant laughing and fooling, it meant warm evenings and running, and in the winter that had its joys too of indoor living and outside the wind would be blowing and the owls in the walls scaring you with their tumbling.

      There was freedom and pleasure in this living for all five of them in the beginning, in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living, where there were around them only, for them, poor, queer kind of people for all of them to have in their daily living. There were then the three children, Martha, Alfred and David, there was the father of them and they all three of them more and more had a fear in them of him and all of them more and more mostly were in opposition to him. There was the mother of them and she was never very important to any one of them, she was not as important to any one of them as she was to the father of them for the little power she had in her was always a pleasant joke to him. Then there were the servants, the governesses and the dependents and the people who lived near them, who soon were all that the three of them had as people to be in their daily living.

      The occasional visiting to the part of Gossols where the richer people were living had never much of reality to them. It was a kind of a dream world to them between waking and sleeping as one often has it in them when one is not certain whether something has really happened then. Such an inbetween existing which is not waking or sleeping was all that such richer living was for the three of them. It never was such an unreal thing for the mother