Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle LenaStein, Gertrude
General
Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena
Stein, Gertrude
Working class women -- Fiction
It was very hard for Jeff Campbell to make all this way of doing,
right, inside him. If Jeff Campbell could not be straight out, and
real honest, he never could be very strong inside him. Now Melanctha,
with her making him feel, always, how good she was and how very much
she suffered in him, made him always go so fast then, he could not be
strong then, to feel things out straight then inside him. Always now
when he was with her, he was being more, than he could already yet,
be feeling for her. Always now, with her, he had something inside him
always holding in him, always now, with her, he was far ahead of his
own feeling.
Jeff Campbell never knew very well these days what it was that was
going on inside him. All he knew was, he was uneasy now always to be
with Melanctha. All he knew was, that he was always uneasy when he
was with Melanctha, not the way he used to be from just not being very
understanding, but now, because he never could be honest with her,
because he was now always feeling her strong suffering, in her,
because he knew now he was having a straight, good feeling with her,
but she went so fast, and he was so slow to her; Jeff knew his right
feeling never got a chance to show itself as strong, to her.
All this was always getting harder for Jeff Campbell. He was very
proud to hold himself to be strong, was Jeff Campbell. He was very
tender not to hurt Melanctha, when he knew she would be sure to feel
it badly in her head a long time after, he hated that he could not now
be honest with her, he wanted to stay away to work it out all alone,
without her, he was afraid she would feel it to suffer, if he kept
away now from her. He was uneasy always, with her, he was uneasy when
he thought about her, he knew now he had a good, straight, strong
feeling of right loving for her, and yet now he never could use it to
be good and honest with her.
Jeff Campbell did not know, these days, anything he could do to
make it better for her. He did not know anything he could do, to set
himself really right in his acting and his thinking toward her. She
pulled him so fast with her, and he did not dare to hurt her, and he
could not come right, so fast, the way she always needed he should be
doing it now, for her.
These days were not very joyful ones now any more, to Jeff Campbell,
with Melanctha. He did not think it out to himself now, in words,
about her. He did not know enough, what was his real trouble, with
her.
Sometimes now and again with them, and with all this trouble for a
little while well forgotten by him, Jeff, and Melanctha with him,
would be very happy in a strong, sweet loving. Sometimes then,
Jeff would find himself to be soaring very high in his true loving.
Sometimes Jeff would find them, in his loving, his soul swelling out
full inside him. Always Jeff felt now in himself, deep feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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