Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (60 page)

Yes Jeff Campbell heard her, and he tried hard to believe her. He did not really doubt her but somehow it was wrong now, the way Melanctha said it. Jeff always now felt baffled with Melanctha. Something, he knew, was not right now in her. Something in her always now was making stronger the torment that was tearing every minute at the joy he once always had had with her.

Always now Jeff wondered did Melanctha love him. Always now he was wondering, was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had made all their beginning. Was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had the real responsibility for all the trouble they had and still were having now between them. If she was right, what a brute he always had been in his acting. If she was right, how good she had been to endure the pain he had made so bad so often for her. But no, surely she had made herself to bear it, for her own sake, not for his to make him happy. Surely he was not so twisted in all his long thinking. Surely he could remember right what it was had happened every day in their long loving. Surely he was not so poor a coward as Melanctha always seemed to be thinking.
Surely, surely, and then the torment would get worse every minute in him.

One night Jeff Campbell was lying in his bed with his thinking, and night after night now he could not do any sleeping for his thinking. To-night suddenly he sat up in his bed, and it all came clear to him, and he pounded his pillow with his fist, and he almost shouted out alone there to him, “I ain’t a brute the way Melanctha has been saying. It’s all wrong the way I been worried thinking. We did begin fair, each not for the other but for ourselves, what we were wanting. Melanctha Herbert did it just like I did it, because she liked it bad enough to want to stand it. It’s all wrong in me to think it any way except the way we really did it. I certainly don’t know now whether she is now real and true in her loving. I ain’t got any way ever to find out if she is real and true now always to me. All I know is I didn’t ever make her to begin to be with me. Melanctha has got to stand for her own trouble, just like I got to stand for my own trouble. Each man has got to do it for himself when he is in real trouble. Melanctha, she certainly don’t remember right when she says I made her begin and then I made her trouble. No by God, I ain’t no coward nor brute either ever to her. I been the way I felt it honest, and that certainly is all about it now between us, and everybody always has just got to stand for their own trouble. I certainly am right this time the way I see it.” And Jeff lay down now, at last in comfort, and he slept, and he was free from his long doubting torment.

“You know Melanctha,” Jeff Campbell began, the next time he was alone to talk a long time to Melanctha. “You know Melanctha, sometimes I think a whole lot about what you like to say so much about being game and never doing any hollering. Seems to me Melanctha, I certainly don’t understand right what you mean by not hollering. Seems to me it certainly ain’t only what comes right away when one is hit, that counts to be brave to be bearing, but all that comes later from your getting sick from the shock of being hurt once in a fight, and all that, and all the being taken care of for years after, and the suffering of your family, and all that, you certainly must stand and not holler, to be certainly really brave
the way I understand it.” “What you mean Jeff by your talking.” “I mean, seems to me really not to holler, is to be strong not to show you ever have been hurt. Seems to me, to get your head hurt from your trouble and to show it, ain’t certainly no braver than to say, oh, oh, how bad you hurt me, please don’t hurt me mister. It just certainly seems to me, like many people think themselves so game just to stand what we all of us always just got to be standing, and everybody stands it, and we don’t certainly none of us like it, and yet we don’t ever most of us think we are so much being game, just because we got to stand it.”

“I know what you mean now by what you are saying to me now Jeff Campbell. You make a fuss now to me, because I certainly just have stopped standing everything you like to be always doing so cruel to me. But that’s just the way always with you Jeff Campbell, if you want to know it. You ain’t got no kind of right feeling for all I always been forgiving to you.” “I said it once for fun, Melanctha, but now I certainly do mean it, you think you got a right to go where you got no business, and you say, I am so brave nothing can hurt me, and then something, like always, it happens to hurt you, and you show your hurt always so everybody can see it, and you say, I am so brave nothing did hurt me except he certainly didn’t have any right to, and see how bad I suffer, but you never hear me make a holler, though certainly anybody got any feeling, to see me suffer, would certainly never touch me except to take good care of me. Sometimes I certainly don’t rightly see Melanctha, how much more game that is than just the ordinary kind of holler.” “No, Jeff Campbell, and made the way you is you certainly ain’t likely ever to be much more understanding.” “No, Melanctha, nor you either. You think always, you are the only one who ever can do any way to really suffer.” “Well, and ain’t I certainly always been the only person knows how to bear it. No, Jeff Campbell, I certainly be glad to love anybody really worthy, but I made so, I never seem to be able in this world to find him.” “No, and your kind of way of thinking, you certainly Melanctha never going to any way be able ever to be finding of him. Can’t you understand Melanctha, ever, how no man certainly ever really can hold
your love for long times together. You certainly Melanctha, you ain’t got down deep loyal feeling, true inside you, and when you ain’t just that moment quick with feeling, then you certainly ain’t ever got anything more there to keep you. You see Melanctha, it certainly is this way with you, it is, that you ain’t ever got any way to remember right what you been doing, or anybody else that has been feeling with you. You certainly Melanctha, never can remember right, when it comes what you have done and what you think happens to you.” “It certainly is all easy for you Jeff Campbell to be talking. You remember right, because you don’t remember nothing till you get home with your thinking everything all over, but I certainly don’t think much ever of that kind of way of remembering right, Jeff Campbell. I certainly do call it remembering right Jeff Campbell, to remember right just when it happens to you, so you have a right kind of feeling not to act the way you always been doing to me, and then you go home Jeff Campbell, and you begin with your thinking, and then it certainly is very easy for you to be good and forgiving with it. No, that ain’t to me, the way of remembering Jeff Campbell, not as I can see it not to make people always suffer, waiting for you certainly to get to do it. Seems to me like Jeff Campbell, I never could feel so like a man was low and to be scorning of him, like that day in the summer, when you threw me off just because you got one of those fits of your remembering. No, Jeff Campbell, it’s real feeling every moment when it’s needed, that certainly does seem to me like real remembering. And that way, certainly, you don’t never know nothing like what should be right Jeff Campbell. No Jeff, it’s me that always certainly has had to bear it with you. It’s always me that certainly has had to suffer, while you go home to remember. No you certainly ain’t got no sense yet Jeff, what you need to make you really feeling. No, it certainly is me Jeff Campbell, that always has got to be remembering for us both, always. That’s what’s the true way with us Jeff Campbell, if you want to know what it is I am always thinking.” “You is certainly real modest Melanctha, when you do this kind of talking, you sure is Melanctha,” said Jeff Campbell laughing. “I think sometimes Melanctha I am certainly
awful conceited, when I think sometimes I am all out doors, and I think I certainly am so bright, and better than most everybody I ever got anything now to do with, but when I hear you talk this way Melanctha, I certainly do think I am a real modest kind of fellow.” “Modest!” said Melanctha, angry, “Modest, that certainly is a queer thing for you Jeff to be calling yourself even when you are laughing.” “Well it certainly does depend a whole lot what you are thinking with,” said Jeff Campbell. “I never did use to think I was so much on being real modest Melanctha, but now I know really I am, when I hear you talking. I see all the time there are many people living just as good as I am, though they are a little different to me. Now with you Melanctha if I understand you right what you are talking, you don’t think that way of no other one that you are ever knowing.” “I certainly could be real modest too, Jeff Campbell,” said Melanctha, “If I could meet somebody once I could keep right on respecting when I got so I was really knowing with them. But I certainly never met anybody like that yet, Jeff Campbell, if you want to know it.” “No, Melanctha, and with the way you got of thinking, it certainly don’t look like as if you ever will Melanctha, with your never remembering anything only what you just then are feeling in you, and you not understanding what any one else is ever feeling, if they don’t holler just the way you are doing. No Melanctha, I certainly don’t see any ways you are likely ever to meet one, so good as you are always thinking you be.” “No, Jeff Campbell, it certainly ain’t that way with me at all the way you say it. It’s because I am always knowing what it is I am wanting, when I get it. I certainly don’t never have to wait till I have it, and then throw away what I got in me, and then come back and say, that’s a mistake I just been making, it ain’t that never at all like I understood it, I want to have, bad, what I didn’t think it was I wanted. It’s that way of knowing right what I am wanting, makes me feel nobody can come right with me, when I am feeling things, Jeff Campbell. I certainly do say Jeff Campbell, I certainly don’t think much of the way you always do it, always never knowing what it is you are ever really wanting and everybody always got to suffer. No Jeff, I don’t certainly think there is
much doubting which is better and the stronger with us two, Jeff Campbell.”

“As you will, Melanctha Herbert,” cried Jeff Campbell, and he rose up, and he thundered out a black oath, and he was fierce to leave her now forever, and then with the same movement, he took her in his arms and held her.

“What a silly goose boy you are, Jeff Campbell,” Melanctha whispered to him fondly.

“Oh yes,” said Jeff, very dreary. “I never could keep really mad with anybody, not when I was a little boy and playing. I used most to cry sometimes, I couldn’t get real mad and keep on a long time with it, the way everybody always did it. It’s certainly no use to me Melanctha, I certainly can’t ever keep mad with you Melanctha, my dear one. But don’t ever be thinking it’s because I think you right in what you been just saying to me. I don’t Melanctha really think it that way, honest, though I certainly can’t get mad the way I ought to. No Melanctha, little girl, really truly, you ain’t right the way you think it. I certainly do know that Melanctha, honest. You certainly don’t do me right Melanctha, the way you say you are thinking. Good-bye Melanctha, though you certainly is my own little girl for always.” And then they were very good a little to each other, and then Jeff went away for that evening, from her.

Melanctha had begun now once more to wander. Melanctha did not yet always wander, but a little now she needed to begin to look for others. Now Melanctha Herbert began again to be with some of the better kind of black girls, and with them she sometimes wandered. Melanctha had not yet come again to need to be alone, when she wandered.

Jeff Campbell did not know that Melanctha had begun again to wander. All Jeff knew, was that now he could not be so often with her.

Jeff never knew how it had come to happen to him, but now he never thought to go to see Melanctha Herbert, until he had before, asked her if she could be going to have time then to have him with her. Then Melanctha would think a little, and then she would say to him, “Let me see Jeff, tomorrow, you was just saying to me. I certainly am awful busy
you know Jeff just now. It certainly does seem to me this week Jeff, I can’t anyways fix it. Sure I want to see you soon Jeff. I certainly Jeff got to do a little more now, I been giving so much time, when I had no business, just to be with you when you asked me. Now I guess Jeff, I certainly can’t see you no more this week Jeff, the way I got to do things.” “All right Melanctha,” Jeff would answer and he would be very angry. “I want to come only just certainly as you want me now Melanctha.” “Now Jeff you know I certainly can’t be neglecting always to be with everybody just to see you. You come see me next week Tuesday Jeff, you hear me. I don’t think Jeff I certainly be so busy, Tuesday.” Jeff Campbell would then go away and leave her, and he would be hurt and very angry, for it was hard for a man with a great pride in himself, like Jeff Campbell, to feel himself no better than a beggar. And yet he always came as she said he should, on the day she had fixed for him, and always Jeff Campbell was not sure yet that he really understood what it was Melanctha wanted. Always Melanctha said to him, yes she loved him, sure he knew that. Always Melanctha said to him, she certainly did love him just the same as always, only sure he knew now she certainly did seem to be right busy with all she certainly now had to be doing.

Jeff never knew what Melanctha had to do now, that made her always be so busy, but Jeff Campbell never cared to ask Melanctha such a question. Besides Jeff knew Melanctha Herbert would never, in such a matter, give him any kind of a real answer. Jeff did not know whether it was that Melanctha did not know how to give a simple answer. And then how could he, Jeff, know what was important to her. Jeff Campbell always felt strongly in him, he had no right to interfere with Melanctha in any practical kind of a matter. There they had always, never asked each other any kind of question. There they had felt always in each other, not any right to take care of one another. And Jeff Campbell now felt less than he had ever, any right to claim to know what Melanctha thought it right that she should do in any of her ways of living. All Jeff felt a right in himself to question, was her loving.

Jeff learned every day now, more and more, how much it
was that he could really suffer. Sometimes it hurt so in him, when he was alone, it would force some slow tears from him. But every day, now that Jeff Campbell, knew more how it could hurt him, he lost his feeling of deep awe that he once always had had for Melanctha’s feeling. Suffering was not so much after all, thought Jeff Campbell, if even he could feel it so it hurt him. It hurt him bad, just the way he knew he once had hurt Melanctha, and yet he too could have it and not make any kind of a loud holler with it.