Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

querulously.

Do you think I did right?” “Of course,” she said, wondering what the old fool had been talking about.

When a man got as old as Frank Kennedy he ought to have learned not to bother about things that didn’t matter. But he always was so nervous and fussy and old maidish.

Rhett had failed her but the Lord had provided Frank.

he’s nervous and timid and well meaning, and I don’t know of any more damning qualities a man can have.

Scarlett O’Hara, so high spirited and pretty, crying here in his buggy. Scarlett O’Hara, the proudest of the proud, trying to sell needlework to the Yankees. His heart burned.

Mammy understood and was silent. In Mammy, Scarlett had found a realist more uncompromising than herself.

Scarlett was her baby and what her baby wanted, even though it belonged to another, Mammy was willing to help her obtain.

Scarlett was in trouble and doing the best she could, and Scarlett was Miss Ellen’s child. Mammy rallied to her with never a moment’s hesitation.

There was never any way of knowing just how far Mammy could be bullied.

But, of course, she could do more with Frank in this sequestered alcove than in a breathless reel and she could listen fascinated to his talk and encourage him to greater flights of foolishness.

If only he were not so shy! He reminded her of a timid old brown field rabbit. If only he had the gallantry and ardor of the Tarleton boys or even the coarse impudence of Rhett Butler.

the shy, touchy vanity of a middle-aged bachelor who knows himself to be unattractive to women,

She also had a letter from Suellen, poorly spelled, violent, abusive, tear splotched, a letter so full of venom and truthful observations upon her character that she was never to forget it nor forgive the writer.

Scarlett seemed demure and sweet enough these days, but there was a pleased complacency in her eyes which annoyed people and she carried a chip on her shoulder which no one cared to disturb.

He felt there was something unbecoming about a woman understanding fractions

the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.

Scarlett was the most charming and exciting of women and he thought her perfect in all things—except that she was so headstrong.

God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it.

She sighed again. There was nowhere she could

Narcissistic rage?

It was ill bred and Yankeefied to hurry.

Ellen ended up this way because she started this way? The kids will be grown by the time Scarlett has enough.

INFJ door slam?

a tooth brush,

She really looked better than when he had seen her last.

I ain’t blamin’ you, Scarlett. That’s just your way. You warn’t never very much interested in what was in folks’ heads.

There must be something more to it than appeared on the surface, something deeper, more important, to make the mild and soft-spoken Will want to marry a complaining nagger like Suellen.

Maybe Scarlett can get with him after Rhett?

Melly's right.

Everyone knew hard times were here to stay.

I never saw a lazy Irishman yet.

Now if thar’s one thing I hates worse than a nigger or a woman, it’s a Yankee.” “Why? Had you— Did you ever know any Yankees?” “No’m. But I’d hearn tell of them. I’d hearn tell they couldn’t never mind their own bizness. I hates folks who can’t mind their own bizness. What

Frank had mentioned it that Christmas of 1864.

they looked for a long quiet moment into each other’s eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so unthinkingly shared.

Everything’s changed so much that it seems like fifty years ago. But we’re not old!” But when she looked at Ashley he was no longer young and shining.

“I was right when I said I’d never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at your heart

he said. “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.”

it was good to be in his arms, without passion, without tenseness, to be there as a loved friend.

“What a white livered, cowardly little bitch you are.”

while I may endure a trollop for a wife, I won’t endure a coward.

your ever so charming bottom

hurtingly

Tomorrow—well, tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow she would think of some excuse, some counter accusations, some way of putting Rhett in the wrong.

scotched the scandal,

She said nothing, curling her toes in the loose slippers in an effort at controlling her quivering.

She had never lacked animal courage

You think men are such fools, Scarlett. It never pays to underestimate your opponent’s strength and intelligence.

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.

Somehow, her arms were around his neck and her lips trembling beneath his and they were going up, up into the darkness again, a darkness that was soft and swirling and all enveloping.

Climax of second half? Compare to woodpile climax of first half.