By ten in the morning half a dozen native women and their children were sitting under the trees. If she disliked native men, she loathed the women. She hated the exposed fleshiness of them, their soft brown bodies and soft bashful faces that were also insolent and inquisitive, and their chattering voices that held a brazen fleshy undertone. She could not bear to see them sitting there on the grass, their legs tucked under them in that traditional timeless pose, as peaceful and uncaring as if it did not matter whether the store was opened, or whether it remained shut all day and they would have to return tomorrow. Above all, she hated the way they suckled their babies, with their breasts
hanging down for everyone to see; there was something in their calm
satisfied maternity that made her blood boil. ‘Their babies hanging on to
them like leeches,’ she said to herself shuddering, for she thought with
horror of suckling a child. The idea of a child’s lips on her breasts made
her feel quite sick; at the thought of it she would involuntarily clasp her
hands over her breasts, as if protecting them from a violation. And since
so many white women act like her, turning with relief to the bottle, she was in good company, and did not think of herself, but rather of these black women, as strange; they were alien and primitive creatures with ugly desires she could not bear to think about
Sayfa 90Kitabı okuyacak
The Raven (1845)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing
