The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (16 page)

     The year that they both lived in the hotel they were a great deal together but Sophie did not impress her, she never became really important to her, Mrs. Hersland had not realty any affection for her. Mrs. Hersland never came to feel any nearer to the mother, and the sister Pauline Shilling.
     Knowing Sophie Shilling and her mother and her sister was really very important to her. They were a problem to her.
     Always she had a feeling for Sophie Shilling. Sophie never complained to her and the sister Pauline was always a puzzle to her. She never came to really know inside her that the feeling she had about Pauline Shilling was because of the fear that was always in the fatter sister, a fear that she felt always to be inside Sophie Shilling. Sophie never complained of her sister. She never knew she had such a fear in her. At first Fanny Hersland always felt for her, then slowly she felt that Pauline had no mean ways in her. Pauline was always very pleasant to her, she was always very decent to her mother and her sister Sophie. Perhaps later Mrs. Hersland would have liked it better if she had not first known the sister Sophie but that never really came to be a feeling inside her, even to the end of her knowing her she always felt for her, but, more and more it came to her that she was not sure of what she felt about her or about the mother or the sister Pauline Shilling and so it came to be that there commenced inside her, from the not being certain of the judgment which was natural to her, there came to be inside her a beginning of an almost individual feeling.
     The thinner sister Pauline Shilling has not so many millions who are made just like her. There have been always many millions made just like the mother and the fatter sister Sophie Shilling but there have never been so many millions made altogether like the thinner sister Pauline Shilling.
     There have been always many millions made just like the mother and the fatter sister Sophie Shilling. That is, there have been always many millions made just like them if they really have nothing queer inside them. Perhaps they have something queer inside them that makes them different from the many millions who have been made just like them.
     There have been many millions made just like the mother and the fatter sister Sophie Shilling. That is there are many millions who have been made just like them all excepting the something queer inside them which perhaps made them different inside them from the many millions who have always been made just like them.
     Perhaps there was nothing that was really queer inside them. Perhaps it was only from the three of them living together and not meaning much to one another and not meaning very much to any other and so making all together a queer feeling when one felt them together which lasted over to the knowing each one of them. And so one had a feeling that there was something really queer inside them. This was most likely all that they had of queerness in them. They, did not have much meaning and the three of them being together and not having much meaning for each other gave one a sense of them that they had something queer inside them. Very likely that was all there was of queerness in them.
     The thinner sister Pauline Shilling seemed perhaps to have more of individual being in her. Perhaps that was only because there are not so many millions made just like her as there are many millions made like her mother and her fatter sister. Perhaps that was all the individual being that she had in her.
     Perhaps really the queerness of them came from there not being enough in each one of them to fill out the inside in them and so they did not have much meaning or any power or any sense of appealing.
     The thinner one had not really any more meaning than the fatter one or than the mother who had born them. She had a more individual seeming because she was a thin one and she was one of them who have not quite so many millions made just like them. But even as a thin one she had not enough inside her to really fill her, to really make her important, not inside her, but to any one who came to be about her, she was not filled out enough inside her to give her any power or make any appeal to any one who came near her. The emptiness in her was different from the emptiness that was inside her fatter sister or her mother.
     Pauline Shilling had not any fear in her of any one such as her sister had of her. The fatter sister had this fear in her because she was not all filled up inside her and that gave to her all the unprotected surface that she always had had on her and that made her have a fear in her, not from anything that was ever done to her, but from all the unprotected surface there was of her. She never knew at any time that she had such a fear always inside her and that made it the more deceiving in her, for one always felt it with her but one never really knew it about her.
     The thinner sister had not any such a fear in her as the fatter sister had of her and always inside her. This is perhaps why one has a feeling that they are not so many millions made just like her. Perhaps there are as many millions made just like the thinner sister as there are millions made like the fatter sister or the mother.
     The many millions made just like the fatter sister or the mother, each one fills up so much more space than a thinner that one gets the feeling that they are commoner, that there are many more millions of them made fatter than there are millions made thinner, and that these the fatter are made more just alike to one another. It is the unprotected surface of these who are made like the fatter sister, that make them seem more completely just like one another than when they are thinner. It is the uncertain head on the many millions made just like the mother that make them seem to be exactly like each other, a great deal more like one another than any of the thinner, alike as these may be to each other.
     The vague fear the fatter one almost always has inside her gives a more common quality to her than any other kind of fear she could have in her. The vague fear that comes from all that unprotected surface of her makes it easier to see in her that she is just like all the other millions who have been made just like her all the other millions who have the same kind of fear that she has in her. This fear makes it easier to see a likeness to her than any other kind of fear that she might have had inside her.
     The thinner sister Pauline Shilling had a fear in her, she had a fear in her and all the many millions who have been made just like her have the same kind of fear as she has in her, but it is not from the unprotected surface of her, one does not always feel it when one is with her, it has not then the common feeling that can make it so apparent that there are so many made just like her as the fear in her sister makes it to every one that knows her.
     The fear the thinner sister had always in her also came from there being not enough inside to fill her, came not from the unprotected surface of the outside of her but from her not being filled out well inside her and so she had the fear in her that always trying to fill up a hole in her without enough to fill it from the being in her without making some other hole inside her, was certain to give to her. This made her without any power, or appeal to any one who was near her.
     She was always busy inside in her filling up the hole in her from the rest of her and so making another, for there was not enough inside her ever to entirely fill her. Always she was filling up a hole in her and always she was keeping anything from touching her, everything from coming close to her lest it should push an outside hole into her. She could never feel a power in any other, she could not believe in any other, she could not concern herself with any other, she could never let any other come close to her, she was always there, not filled up inside her, and that was the whole of her, that always gave a fear to her to be inside her, but a kind of fear that did not make a common person of her, as the fear inside her did with the fatter sister Sophie Shilling. It did not make an individual of her because there was never there a whole of her. She did not know that there was not a whole one of her. This incompleteness of her only made a self-defensive instinct in her, and that was all there was to her, comfort and keeping out of danger was all there was of living to her, and so she had no power in her for she had no power of attacking in her, for she was not all together, and it gave her no appeal to any one who came near her because they never could really come close to her, she could not let them touch her lest they should push a hole into her. She could not come near to any other, or believe in any other, and always she must be concerned with herself and the defense of her lest any one should touch her and make a hole into her.
     That was all there was of queerness in her and there are many millions who have been made just like her.
     Always one was not certain in their judgement of her because she was a good enough woman and always decent to her mother and her sister and pleasant and good enough to every one who came near her. Always there was in her that she would never let any one come very close to her. It was a fear in her. It never came to any one to know it about her for it was always self defensive in her. One felt that they never came close to her and so she was a puzzle to all who knew her, and sometimes they were suspicious of her and sometimes sorry for her. So it was with Fanny Hersland and she never came to know any more about her.
     The mother of them was too empty to have any kind of a fear inside her. Her head was like a baby's, wobbly on her. She never could have an abiding fear inside her with such a head on top of her. She was without any fear in her either such a one as her fatter daughter had of another or as her thinner daughter Pauline Shilling had it, lest anything might touch her, that something might make her feel anything inside her.
     This was very likely all of queerness that this family of women had in them and it came to be about each one of them because they were three together who had in each of them such an emptiness inside them.
     It made a queerness, there being three of them, that every body felt who knew them. Always it was a puzzle to every one, for they were pleasant enough women as one knew them together and each one of them, they never quarreled with each other, they lived very comfortably there in the hotel together. One never learnt anything about them or against them, nobody gossiped about them, they were plenty of people who knew them and came to see them. Each one of them had their own friends and they always got along very nicely with them, only somehow there was always there this emptiness they had in them. It was a hole that each one had inside in her. It will never be known about them whether they had been made so from the beginning, whether something had been left out in each one of them in the making of them or whether they had lost something out of them that should have been inside in them, something that had perhaps dropped out of each one of them and they had been indolent or fearful or stupid or staring then, each one of them, and they had not noticed such a dropping out of them.
     And so one could not come to any certain judgment of them, one could never be sure about them, that they had something queer inside them, or that they were all three of them just like the many millions who have been made just like them.
     It is easy to see how this puzzling quality of them would awaken in Mrs. Hersland who was almost always now with them, the always possible almost important feeling that was quiet until then inside her. She always had a feeling for Sophie Shilling but she had no affection for her, Sophie was not in any way important to her, Mrs. Hersland never came to feel any nearer to the mother and the sister Pauline Shilling. She never came to feel certain about them inside her and this not being certain of the kind of judgment which was natural to her, made a beginning inside her of an almost individual feeling, different in her, but not different to her, from the family way of being which had always until then been all there was of living to her.
     The only important feeling Mrs. Hersland had in this time of beginning her new living was with the Shillings as I have been saying. After leaving the hotel she never saw much of them. Occasionally she would call on them to show her children. All the Shilling women were always good to them but they were never important to them, there came to be soon very little visiting between them and then very soon there was none. This was the end of the beginning in Mrs. Hersland of the possible almost important feeling.
     Always now it kept on growing, a little from her husband and making him do things through her compelling, but mostly from her dependents, the governesses seamstresses servants and the others, the for her poor queer people who soon came to be always around her.
     They had lived more than a year in the hotel. David Hersland who was always strong in his beginning commenced then to find the way to his great fortune. Soon he bought the place that was to be for a long time a home to them, in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. His children were then very little things or just beginning, his wife had just begun to know some people of the kind it was natural for her to have as friends in her daily living.
     Because of the living in the part of Gossols where no other rich people were living she saw them soon only on occasional formal visiting, the children did not then learn to be accustomed to rich well to do kind of people and their living, the mother lost the habit of going to visit with them, she never at all lost the sense of well to do living, she just lost the habit of normal visiting, of being with them the people who were the natural people to have as friends in her daily living. She lived with her husband and her children and her dependents and the for her queer poor people who lived around them in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living.
     Big as all the world in his beginning how could David Hersland have a weak place in him then. The way he did the educating of his three children will make the nature in him become clear to them, will make it clear too to any one who will come to know the nature of them and the education that he gave them.
     There were three of them and they all three of them came to have inside them their own kind of important feeling. That came through their being of him and from the education he gave to them which made them uneven in them, being of him and mixed up with the wife who bore them, made them uneven as he was always before them, uneven like the whole world together that he had in him and so it came that he was uneven as the whole world inside him and around him and so it was that there were weak places in him as there are in the big world which was all him. He was all full up inside him but it was not all the same all through him.