Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages.

“Yes, there is something left,” he said, and the ghost of his old smile came back, the smile which mocked himself as well as her. “Something you love better than me, though you may not know it. You’ve still got Tara.” He took her limp hand and pressed the damp clay into it and closed her fingers about it.

I’ve got something that most pretty ladies haven’t got — and that’s a mind that’s made up.

he had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O’Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother’s velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.

No, she would never again be afraid of anything except poverty.

“The truth at last. Talking love and thinking money. How truly feminine!

“Let me go. I hate you.” A faint smile came back to his face at her words. “That sounds more like you. You must be feeling better.”

But just now when you offered me your — er — collateral for my money you looked as hard as nails. I’ve seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol twenty paces from me and they aren’t a pleasant sight.

She wasn’t going to sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She was going to rush into life and wrest from it what she could.

Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.

Whenever she spoke her mind everyone seemed to be shocked. Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.

Always remember this, Scarlett, I can stand anything from you but a lie — your dislike for me, your tempers, all your vixenish ways, but not a lie.

“My dear, he doesn’t even know you’ve got a mind.

Let others stew and fume and plot and plan about things they could not help. What did the past matter compared with the tense present and the dubious future? What did the ballot matter when bread, a roof and staying out of jail were the real problems?

“Pride! Pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is flaky and you put meringue on it,”

She must not count on anything or anybody but herself.

“Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!”

As I’ve told you before, that is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!

“But — you can stand alone too,” said Scarlett. “Yes, but it’s powerful uncomfortable at times.”

I mean if I go to Atlanta and take help from you again, I bury forever any hope of ever standing alone.” “Oh,” she sighed in quick relief, “if it’s only that!”

Scarlett you knuckle head

And, he added, be guessed it was a dinged sight safer to be present at the battle of Franklin than at the ladies’ meeting.

A queer little pang of jealousy jabbed at her at the thought of Rhett getting married, although why that should be she did not know. His bland eyes grew suddenly alert and he caught her gaze and held it until a little blush crept up into her cheeks. “Would it matter much to you?”

This isn’t the first time the world’s been upside down and it won’t be the last. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. And when it does happen, everyone loses everything and everyone is equal. And then they all start again at taw, with nothing at all. That is, nothing except the cunning of their brains and strength of their hands.

Sometimes she thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett.

and maybe there isn’t any hell after all.” “Oh, but there is, Rhett! You know there is!” “I know there is but it’s right here on earth. Not after we die. There’s nothing after we die, Scarlett. You are having your hell now.” “Oh, Rhett, that’s blasphemous!” “But singularly comforting. Tell me, why are you going to hell?”

Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go. I’ll stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so you’ll have to marry me to save your reputation.”

what do they know about women? What did they know about you? I know you.”

“Oh, Rhett, I just run and run and hunt and I can’t ever find what it is I’m hunting for. It’s always hidden in the mist. I know if I could find it, I’d be safe forever and ever and never be cold or hungry again.”

“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”

He doesn’t want your mind, the fool, and I don’t want your body. I can buy women cheap. But I do want your mind and your heart, and I’ll never have them, any more than you’ll ever have Ashley’s mind. And that’s why I’m sorry for you.”

For the first time in her life she had met someone, something stronger than she, someone she could neither bully nor break, someone who was bullying and breaking her.

Yet, there the truth was. He did not love her and she did not care. She did not care because she did not love him.

She had to lose them all to realize that she loved Rhett — loved him because he was strong and unscrupulous, passionate and earthy, like herself.

But this time she was not running from fear. She was running because Rhett’s arms were at the end of the street.

“but I love you!” “That’s your misfortune.”

“My dear, I don’t give a damn.”

She could get Rhett back. She knew she could. There had never been a man she couldn’t get, once she set her mind upon him. “I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”