Passing

by Nella Larsen

It was as if the woman sitting on the other side of the table, a girl that she had known, who had done this rather dangerous and, to Irene Redfield, abhorrent thing successfully and had announced herself well satisfied, had for her a fascination, strange and compelling.

I nearly died of terror the whole nine months before Margery was born for fear that she might be dark.

They don’t know like we do, how it might go way back, and turn out dark no matter what colour the father and mother are.”

“No,” she went on, “no more for me either. Not even a girl. It’s awful the way it skips generations and then pops out. Why, he actually said he didn’t care what colour it turned out, if I would only stop worrying about it. But, of course, nobody wants a dark child.”

Irene, who was struggling with a flood of feelings, resentment, anger, and contempt, was, however, still able to answer as coolly as if she had not that sense of not belonging to and of despising the company in which she found herself drinking iced tea from tall amber glasses on that hot August afternoon.

Clare began to talk, steering carefully away from anything that might lead towards race or other thorny subjects.

“Yes,” Gertrude answered, laughing with a dutiful eagerness.

When we were first married, she was as white as—as—well as white as a lily. But I declare she’s gettin’ darker and darker. I tell her if she don’t look out, she’ll wake up one of these days and find she’s turned into a nigger.”

She had a leaping desire to shout at the man beside her: “And you’re sitting here surrounded by three black devils, drinking tea.”

Why, in the face of Bellew’s ignorant hate and aversion, had she concealed her own origin? Why had she allowed him to make his assertions and express his misconceptions undisputed? Why, simply because of Clare Kendry, who had exposed her to such torment, had she failed to take up the defence of the race to which she belonged?

No, Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it.

I’m really not such an idiot that I don’t realize that if a man calls me a nigger, it’s his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”

Anyway, they always do. Besides,” he corrected, “the man, her husband, didn’t call you a nigger. There’s a difference, you know.” “No, certainly he didn’t. Not actually. He couldn’t, not very well, since he didn’t know. But he would have. It amounts to the same thing. And I’m sure it was just as unpleasant.”

“But wouldn’t you think that having got the thing, or things, they were after, and at such risk, they’d be satisfied? Or afraid?” “Yes,” Brian agreed, “you certainly would think so. But, the fact remains, they aren’t. Not satisfied, I mean. I think they’re scared enough most of the time, when they give way to the urge and slip back. Not scared enough to stop them, though. Why, the good God only knows.”

She’d never forgive you. You may be used to risks, but this is one you mustn’t take, Clare. It’s a selfish whim, an unnecessary and—

But Clare—she had remained almost what she had always been, an attractive, somewhat lonely child—selfish, wilful, and disturbing.

“And the men? You don’t subscribe to the general opinion about their reason for coming up here. Purely predatory. Or, do you?”

Never since his faintly derisive surprise at Irene’s information that she was to go with them the night of the dance, had he shown any disapproval of Clare’s presence.

“No, honestly. Maybe I’m fussy. I s’pose she’d be an unusually good-looking white woman. I like my ladies darker. Beside an A-number-one sheba, she simply hasn’t got ’em.”

“Oh, but you have, you have. It’s just that I haven’t any proper morals or sense of duty, as you have, that makes me act as I do.”

Plainly he was startled. “D’you mean that you think Clare is stupid?” he asked, regarding her with lifted eyebrows, which emphasized the disbelief of his voice.

And he fell for such pish-posh! And all because Clare had a trick of sliding down ivory lids over astonishing black eyes and then lifting them suddenly and turning on a caressing smile. Men like Dave Freeland fell for it. And Brian.

How would it affect her and the boys? The boys! She had a surge of relief. It ebbed, vanished. A feeling of absolute unimportance followed. Actually, she didn’t count. She was, to him, only the mother of his sons. That was all. Alone she was nothing. Worse. An obstacle.

keep him from knowing that she knew. She could, she would bear it. She’d have to. There were the boys. Her whole body went taut. In that second she saw that she could bear anything, but only if no one knew that she had anything to bear. It hurt. It frightened her, but she could bear

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn’t matter, if no one knew. If everything could go on as before. If the boys were safe. It did hurt. But it didn’t matter.

nothing more concrete than an idea that had leapt into her mind because he had told her that he had invited a friend, a friend of hers, to a party in his own house.

She wanted to feel nothing, to think nothing; simply to believe that it was all silly invention on her part. Yet she could not. Not quite.

Brian, too, had withdrawn. The house contained his outward self and his belongings. He came and went with his usual noiseless irregularity. He sat across from her at table. He slept in his room next to hers at night.1 But he was remote and inaccessible. No use pretending that he was happy, that things were the same as they had always been. He wasn’t and they weren’t. However, she assured herself, it needn’t necessarily be because of anything that involved Clare.

Why couldn’t she get free of it? Why should it include Clare? Clare, who’d shown little enough consideration for her, and hers. What she felt was not so much resentment as a dull despair because she could not change herself in this respect,

Irene was conscious of a feeling of relieved thankfulness at the thought that she was probably rid of Clare, and without having lifted a finger or uttered one word.

Clare would soon be there. She must hurry or she would be late again, and those two would wait for her downstairs together, as they had done so often since that first time, which now seemed so long ago. Had it been really

The first time that she had allowed herself to admit to herself that everything had happened, had not forced herself to believe, to hope, that nothing irrevocable had been consummated! Well, it had happened. She knew it, and knew that she knew

Better, far better, to share him than to lose him completely.

They would never know from her that he was on his way to suspecting the truth about his wife. And she would do anything, risk anything, to prevent him from finding out that truth. How fortunate that she had obeyed her instinct and omitted to recognize Bellew! —

In a quick furtive glance she saw Clare clinging to Brian’s other arm. She was looking at him with that provocative upward glance of hers, and his eyes were fastened on her face with what seemed to Irene an expression of wistful eagerness.

“It’s impossible, I tell you! Absolutely impossible!” It was Brian who spoke in that frenzied hoarse voice, which Irene had never heard before. Her knees quaked under her.