Willa Sibert Cather

“ After all the others had gathered round the card tables, and young Duval had been warned by Prudence, Marguerite descended the staircase with Varville; such a cloak, such a fan, such jewels—and her face! One knew at a glance how it was with her. When Armand, with the terrible words, "Look, all of you, I owe this woman nothing!" flung the gold and bank-notes at the half-swooning Marguerite, Lena cowered beside me and covered her face with her hands.
The curtain rose on the bedroom scene. By this time there was n't a nerve in me that had n't been twisted. Nanine alone could have made me cry. ”

“ Cleric's doctor advised against his going back to New England, and except for a few weeks in Colorado, he, too, was in Lincoln all that summer. We played tennis, read, and took long walks together. I shall always look back on that time of mental awakening as one of the happiest in my life. Gaston Cleric introduced me to the world of ideas; when one first enters that world everything else fades for a time, and all that went before is as if it had not been. ”

“ A couple of jack-rabbits, run in off the prairie, could not have been more innocent of what awaited them than were Lena and I.
Our excitement began with the rise of the curtain, when the moody Varville, seated before the fire, interrogated Nanine. Decidedly, there was a new tang about this dialogue. I had never heard in the theater lines that were alive, that presupposed and took for granted, like those which passed between Varville and Marguerite in the brief encounter before her friends entered. ”

“ Again, he would sit until nearly midnight, talking about Latin and English poetry, or telling me about his long stay in Italy.
I can give no idea of the peculiar charm and vividness of his talk. In a crowd he was nearly always silent. Even for his classroom he had no platitudes, no stock of professorial anecdotes. When he was tired his lectures were clouded, obscure, elliptical; but when he was interested they were wonderful. I believe that Gaston Cleric narrowly missed being a great poet, and I have sometimes thought that his bursts of imaginative talk were fatal to his poetic gift. ”

“ Lena had brought them all back to me. It came over me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry. ”

“ I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody."
"But you'll be lonesome. You'll get tired of this sort of life, and you'll want a family."
"Not me. I like to be lonesome. When I went to work for Mrs. Thomas I was nineteen years old, and I had never slept a night in my life when there were n't three in the bed. I never had a minute to myself except when I was off with the cattle."
Usually, when Lena referred to her life in the country at all, she dismissed it with a single remark, humorous or mildly cynical. But to-night her mind seemed to dwell on those early years. ”

“ Ordinsky. A girl who makes her own living can ask a college boy to supper without being talked about. We take some things for granted."
"Then I have misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,"—he bowed gravely. "Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"—he watched me narrowly.
Lena returned with the vest. "Come in and let us look at you as you go out, Mr. Ordinsky. ”

“ Lena was never so pretty as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the world every day, and her eyes had a deeper color then, like the blue flowers that are never so blue as when they first open. I could sit idle all through a Sunday morning and look at her. Ole Benson's behavior was now no mystery to me.
"There was never any harm in Ole," she said once. "People need n't have troubled themselves. He just liked to come over and sit on the draw-side and forget about his bad luck. I liked to have him. Any company's welcome when you're off with cattle all the time." ”

“ The noblest qualities are ridiculed. Grinning college boys, ignorant and conceited, what do they know of delicacy!"
I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously.
"If you mean me, Mr. Ordinsky, I have known Miss Lingard a long time, and I think I appreciate her kindness. We come from the same town, and we grew up together."
His gaze traveled slowly down from the ceiling and rested on me. "Am I to understand that you have this young woman's interests at heart? That you do not wish to compromise her?" ”

“ It makes them feel important to think they're in love with somebody."
"The Colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some old fellow; not even a rich one."
Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me in surprise. "Why, I'm not going to marry anybody. Did n't you know that?"
"Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Every handsome girl like you marries, of course." ”

“ Lena laughed. "Well, it's mainly because I don't want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. ”

“ LENA LINGARD
I AT the University I had the good fortune to come immediately under the influence of a brilliant and inspiring young scholar. Gaston Cleric had arrived in Lincoln only a few weeks earlier than I, to begin his work as head of the Latin Department. He came West at the suggestion of his physicians, his health having been enfeebled by a long illness in Italy. ”

“ On the table beside her there was a basket of early summer flowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He always managed to know what went on in Lena's apartment.
Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients, when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket.
"This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena."
"Oh, he has—often!" she murmured.
"What! After you've refused him?"
"He does n't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Old men are like that, you know. ”

“ Lena's face dimpled. "Some of us could tell her things, but it would n't do any good. She'd always believe him. That's Ántonia's failing, you know; if she once likes people, she won't hear anything against them."
"I think I'd better go home and look after Ántonia," I said.
"I think you had." Lena looked up at me in frank amusement. "It's a good thing the Harlings are friendly with her again. Larry's afraid of them. They ship so much grain, they have influence with the railroad people. What are you studying?" ”

“ I guess I've always been a little foolish about you. I don't know what first put it into my head, unless it was Ántonia, always telling me I must n't be up to any of my nonsense with you. I let you alone for a long while, though, did n't I? ”

“ You do go to the theater sometimes, though, for I've seen you there. Don't you just love a good play, Jim? I can't stay at home in the evening if there's one in town. I'd be willing to work like a slave, it seems to me, to live in a place where there are theaters. ”

“ I led her toward Cleric's chair, the only comfortable one I had, questioning her confusedly.
She was not disconcerted by my embarrassment. She looked about her with the naïve curiosity I remembered so well. "You are quite comfortable here, are n't you? I live in Lincoln now, too, Jim. I'm in business for myself. I have a dressmaking shop in the Raleigh Block, out on O Street. I've made a real good start."
"But, Lena, when did you come?" ”

“ Next summer I'll take her down new furniture and carpets, so she'll have something to look forward to all winter."
I watched Lena sitting there so smooth and sunny and well cared-for, and thought of how she used to run barefoot over the prairie until after the snow began to fly, and how Crazy Mary chased her round and round the cornfields. It seemed to me wonderful that she should have got on so well in the world. Certainly she had no one but herself to thank for it.
"You must feel proud of yourself, Lena," I said heartily. "Look at me ”

“ She's always so afraid some one will run off with you!" Lena slipped her silk sleeves into the jacket I held for her, smoothed it over her person, and buttoned it slowly. I walked with her to the door. "Come and see me sometimes when you're lonesome. But maybe you have all the friends you want. ”

“ IV HOW well I remember the stiff little parlor where I used to wait for Lena: the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the long mirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a moment I was sure to find threads and bits of colored silk clinging to my clothes after I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so easy-going; had none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business. She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. ”

“ You won't do anything here now. You should either quit school and go to work, or change your college and begin again in earnest. You won't recover yourself while you are playing about with this handsome Norwegian. ”