The crowds beat on: the day was going to dim. As the sun went high, these atoms of shadow hording against sun would win. For a day. Till the next morning. Fanny felt that her feet were dark and that they walked on brightness. --Only my feet. Because they are so tired. I am not black, I am white. In this surge of shadow, Fanny felt wanly white. Her head was dizzy, unpropped by the warm crowds hording against cold sun. --And yet I am so small. How changed and grown from the white girl?... The door to the loft factory stood a steel barrier to the day. Within: musty heat air full of the stale traceries of wistful hands sewing at steel machines. She went in.... * * * * * Above the whirr of Fanny’s work there was a voice speaking. Under the blanket of Fanny’s sleep there was a voice speaking. Across her words in meeting men and women, across the words of men and women meeting her, there was a voice speaking. It was one, and it was Fanny. She knew at times. At times she did not hear it. She would emerge from the thick inattention ... sleep or fever or work or even fun ... and she would know it had spoken. It ran through the heavy years that were now hers like a thin Light moving along the bottom of a Sea that had no sun, moon, star.... --Girl. Perfect girl! I am not tall, but my body is tight. And my mind is taller than all these minds about me. It reaches higher than yours, slow brother, yours, Annie, yours, Delia. It is faster too. It moves very fast, it can skip ahead of your thoughts, it can turn about and wait and squat there grinning, till your thoughts catch up. And it is white and clean. I am fearless. I think that is purity ... don’t you, Jesus up there? You weren’t afraid and that is why you were pure. My mind is white and sound like my body leaping, skipping where it wills, over low stones, over low mud. What have I to fear? I am I.... --I walk the street under magnolia blooms between the proud old houses.... That’s Fanny Dirk: queer girl! I am simply myself. When Annie begins to squint at me I know what she’s thinking about, I know what’s troubled her last night. I can feel sorry for you, Annie. My figure is rather roundish, but the men are just where I want them. I have eyes and lips and a mind to spit them on. This mouse-blue frock is lovely even so, as I walk dangling my parasol through the sun-splotched magnolia way. This cream-dim ruching at my neck shows the olive note of my skin. And _that_ means there is blood flowing very close.... And the white stockings are sharp between the bias skirt and the black slippers.... I walk fearless. I’ll do what I will.... I am surrounded by children.