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The man owned the property, and the woman managed
it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.
Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?
“Cheer up,” he said, as she tied the bonnet strings. “You can come to my hanging and it will make you feel lots better. It’ll even up all your old scores with me—even this one. And I’ll mention you in my will.” “Thank you, but they may not hang you till it’s too late to pay the taxes,”
“Yes, because you are getting ready to touch me for a loan. Oh, I know all the approaches. And I’ll lend it to you—without, my dear Mrs. Kennedy, that charming collateral you offered me a short while ago. Unless, of course, you insist.” “You are the coarsest—” “Not at all.
Well, let’s get back to business. How much and what for?” “I don’t know quite how much I’ll need,” she said sulkily. “But I want to buy a sawmill—and I think I can get it cheap. And I’ll need two wagons and two mules. I want good mules, too. And a horse and buggy for my own use.” “A sawmill?” “Yes, and if you’ll lend me the money, I’ll give you a half-interest in it.” “Whatever would I do with a sawmill?” “Make money! We can make loads of money. Or I’ll pay you interest on the loan—let’s see, what is good interest?” “Fifty per cent is considered very fine.” “Fifty—oh, but you are joking! Stop
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I was remembering the first time I ever saw you, at the barbecue at the Wilkes’. You had on a green dress and little green slippers, and you were knee deep in men and quite full of yourself. I’ll wager you didn’t know then how many pennies were in a dollar.
but it was still worse for a woman to show publicly that she could do mathematics like that.
Rhett’s eight months’ service with the Confederacy was known only to Scarlett, for Rhett had begged her, with mock fear, not to reveal his “shame” to anyone.
As I’ve told you before, that is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!
“But you miss the point, my pet.
“You forget Mrs. Wilkes,” said Rhett and his eyes gleamed maliciously. “She has always approved of you up to the hilt. I daresay she’d approve of anything you did, short of murder.” Scarlett thought grimly: “She’s even approved of murder,” and she laughed contemptuously. “Oh, Melly!” she said, and then, ruefully: “It’s certainly not to my credit that Melly is the only woman who approves of me, for she hasn’t the sense of a guinea hen.
“I wonder what our grandchildren will be like!” “Are you suggesting by that ‘our’ that you and I will have mutual grandchildren? Fie, Mrs. Kennedy!”
“Don’t be a fool,” he said quietly. “And you are a fool, if you are crying for shame. Come, Scarlett, don’t be a child. Surely you must know that, not being blind, I knew you were pregnant.” She said “Oh” in a stunned voice and tightened her fingers over her crimson face. The word itself horrified her. Frank always referred to her pregnancy embarrassedly as “your condition,” Gerald had been wont to say delicately “in the family way,” when he had to mention such matters, and ladies genteelly referred to pregnancy as being “in a fix.”
“What! You change the subject when I am baring a loving but lacerated heart?
Of course, there were unfortunate women who drank, to the eternal disgrace of their families, just as there were women who were insane or divorced or who believed, with Miss Susan B. Anthony, that women should have the vote.
“I’ll think of these things tomorrow when I can stand them better.”
The whole world can’t lick us but we can lick ourselves by longing too hard for things we haven’t got any more—and by
remembering too much.
She listened with flesh crawling as Melanie told tales of Tara, making Scarlett a heroine as she faced the invaders and saved Charles’ sword, bragging how Scarlett had put out the fire.
“You never see anything that isn’t written in letters a foot high and then shoved under your nose, do you?
His face glowed with relief at once more having someone to tell him what to do.
Don’t drink alone, Scarlett. People always find it out and it ruins the reputation.
they were so much alike.
I’m going away tomorrow for a long time and I fear that if I wait till I return you’ll have married some one else with a little money. So I thought, why not me and my money? Really, Scarlett, I can’t go all my life, waiting to catch you between husbands.”
You knew there’d be talk if you married a villain like me. If I were a low-bred, poverty-stricken villain, people wouldn’t be so mad. But a rich, flourishing villain—of course, that’s unforgivable.” “I wish you’d be serious sometimes!”
Cheer up, Scarlett, didn’t you tell me once that the main reason you wanted a lot of money was so you could tell everybody to go to hell? Now’s your chance.” “But you were the main one I wanted to tell to go to hell,” said Scarlett, and laughed. “Do you still want to tell me to go to hell?” “Well, not as often as I used to.”
There was the way he looked at her sometimes, when he thought she was unaware. Turning quickly she frequently caught him watching her, an alert, eager, waiting look in his eyes. “Why do you look at me like that?” she once asked irritably. “Like a cat at a mouse hole!” But his face had changed swiftly and he only laughed.
Frequently when she lay drowsily in Rhett’s arms with the moonlight streaming over the bed, she thought how perfect life would be if it were only Ashley’s arms which held her so closely, if it were only Ashley who drew her black hair across his face and wrapped it about his throat.
“Oh, Rhett, it’s awful to be hungry.” “It must be awful to dream of starvation after a seven-course dinner including that enormous crawfish.” He smiled but his eyes were kind.
“Oh, no, Rhett. Not anything old fashioned like these New Orleans houses. I know just what I want. It’s the newest thing because I saw a picture of it in—let me see—it was in that Harper’s Weekly I was looking at. It was modeled after a Swiss chalet.” “A Swiss what?” “A chalet.” “Spell it.” She complied. “Oh,” he said and stroked his mustache.
I’m ill bred enough to be proud of having a smart wife.
For instance when she decided to change the name of “Kennedy’s General Store” to something more edifying, she asked him to think of a title that would include the word “emporium.” Rhett suggested “Caveat Emptorium,” assuring her that it would be a title most in keeping with the type of goods sold in the store. She thought it had an imposing sound and even went so far as to have the sign painted, when Ashley Wilkes, embarrassed, translated the real meaning. And Rhett had roared at her rage.
There was never any knowing when he would remark affably, over a punch cup: “Ralph, if I’d had any sense I’d have made my money selling gold-mine stocks to widows and orphans, like you, instead of blockading. It’s so much safer.” “Well, Bill, I see you have a new span of horses. Been selling a few thousand more bonds for nonexistent railroads? Good work, boy!” “Congratulations, Amos, on landing that state contract. Too bad you had to grease so many palms to get it.”
Wade loved his mother very much, almost as much as he feared her, and the thought of her being carried away
in a black hearse behind black horses with plumes on their bridles made his small chest ache so that he could hardly breathe.
“Now, why should I want a boy when I’ve already got one?” “You have?” cried Wade, his mouth falling open at this information. “Where is he?” “Right here,” answered Rhett and, picking the child up, drew him to his knee. “You are boy enough for me, son.” For a moment, the security and happiness of being wanted was so great that Wade almost cried again. His throat worked and he ducked his head against Rhett’s waistcoat. “You are my boy, aren’t you?” “Can you be—well, two men’s boy?” questioned Wade, loyalty to the father he had never known struggling with love for the man who held him so
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“Nothing but your petticoat! I don’t believe it. You sound like a peck of dried leaves rubbing together. Let me see. Pull up your skirt.” “Mist’ Rhett, you is bad! Yeah-O, Lawd!” Mammy gave a little shriek and retreated and from a distance of a yard, modestly elevated her dress a few inches and showed the ruffle of a red taffeta petticoat. “You took long enough about wearing it,” grumbled Rhett but his black eyes laughed and danced. “Yassuh, too long.”
He buttonholed people on the street and related details of his child’s miraculous progress without even prefacing his remarks with the hypocritical but polite: “I know everyone thinks their own child is smart but—”
man to love his child but she felt there was something unmanly in the display of such love. He should be offhand and careless, as other men were. “You are making a fool of yourself,” she said irritably, “and I don’t see why.” “No? Well, you wouldn’t. The reason is that she’s the first person who’s ever belonged utterly to me.” “She belongs to me, too.” “No, you have two other children. She’s mine.” “Great balls of fire!” said Scarlett. “I had the baby, didn’t I? Besides honey, I belong to you.” Rhett looked at her over the black head of the child and smiled oddly. “Do you, my dear?”
“I bet,” said Wade, his face shining. “Did you get wounded, Uncle Rhett?” Rhett hesitated. “Tell him about your dysentery,” jeered Scarlett.
they were riding roughshod over the powerless but still protesting minority.
sound just like Rhett. He’s always harping on things like that and something he calls the survival of the fitting till I’m so bored I could scream.”
“I like these days better,” she said. But she did not meet his eyes as she spoke. “There’s always something exciting happening now, parties and so on. Everything’s got a glitter to it. The old days were so dull.” (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?)
“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.”
Oh, Ashley will die of shame and hate me for bringing this on him. Suddenly her tears stopped short as a deadly fear went through her heart. What of Rhett? What would he do? Perhaps he’d never know. What was that old saying, that cynical saying? “The husband is always the last to find out.”
Perhaps no one would tell him. It would take a brave man to break such news to Rhett, for Rhett had the reputation for shooting first and asking questions afterwards.
After a long time, he knocked on her door and she said, trying to control her voice: “Come in.” “Am I actually being invited into the sanctuary?”
She didn’t care what they thought. Only Melanie—only Melanie.
Tomorrow—well, tomorrow was another day.
