Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

She was constitutionally unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself,

Suddenly she was in his arms, her wet cheek against the starched ruffle of his shirt, her beating hands stilled against him. His hands caressed her tumbled hair gently, soothingly, and his voice was gentle too. So gentle, so quiet, so devoid of mockery, it did not seem Rhett Butler’s voice at all but the voice of some kind strong stranger who smelled of brandy and tobacco and horses, comforting smells because they reminded her of Gerald. “There, there, darling,” he said softly. “Don’t cry. You shall go home, my brave little girl. You shall go home. Don’t cry.”

When such thoughts came she did not pray hastily to God, telling Him she did not mean it. God did not frighten her any more.

How much do I love you? So much that a moment ago I would have outraged the hospitality of the house which has sheltered me and my family, forgotten the best wife any man ever had—enough to take you here in the mud like a—”

He thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that 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.

She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile. Of the sweetness and courage and unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and refused to look them in the face.

(Oh, lazy days and warm still country twilights! The high soft laughter from the quarters! The golden warmth life had then and the comforting knowledge of what all tomorrows would bring! How can I deny you?)

She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her.

You’re so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip.”