[Herland by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman]@TWC D-Link bookHerland CHAPTER 11 8/26
We, having no special learnings, had long since qualified as assistants.
We had to do something, if only to pass the time, and it had to be work--we couldn't be playing forever. This kept us out of doors with those dear girls, and more or less together--too much together sometimes. These people had, it now became clear to us, the highest, keenest, most delicate sense of personal privacy, but not the faintest idea of that SOLITUDE A DEUX we are so fond of.
They had, every one of them, the "two rooms and a bath" theory realized.
From earliest childhood each had a separate bedroom with toilet conveniences, and one of the marks of coming of age was the addition of an outer room in which to receive friends. Long since we had been given our own two rooms apiece, and as being of a different sex and race, these were in a separate house.
It seemed to be recognized that we should breathe easier if able to free our minds in real seclusion. For food we either went to any convenient eating-house, ordered a meal brought in, or took it with us to the woods, always and equally good. All this we had become used to and enjoyed--in our courting days. After marriage there arose in us a somewhat unexpected urge of feeling that called for a separate house; but this feeling found no response in the hearts of those fair ladies. "We ARE alone, dear," Ellador explained to me with gentle patience. "We are alone in these great forests; we may go and eat in any little summer-house--just we two, or have a separate table anywhere--or even have a separate meal in our own rooms.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|