The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress

by Gertrude Stein

  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.

  He was all full up inside in him and he was a big man and so there was very much in him and of him. He was all full up inside him, there was not much of any way that anything could enter into him.

  There was in him the kind of loving that he had for the wife he had chosen to content him and the children who awoke in him a different kind of feeling for each one of them and who were to win through him each one of the three of them a different kind of important feeling each one of them to have inside in them to content them.

  The loving David Hersland had in him for his wife was that in some ways she was a flower to him, in some ways just a woman to him. He needed a woman to content him.

  The power she had in her sometimes over him was not important to him, that was only a joke to him, what was real in her to him was that sometimes she was a flower to him and mostly she was just a woman to content him.

  Often she was not important to him and this will come out in him, in her living there with him in the ten acre place away from the living that was her natural way of being.

  David Hersland had his way of needing a woman to content him. Each man has in some ways his own need in a woman to content him, there are many kinds of men and women and each one of them is himself inside him. David Hersland had his way of needing a woman to content him, Henry Dehning had his woman and she filled up his need in him, and then they will come to be old men and it will be easier to see in them then how they need a woman to content them.

  There are not so very many kinds of men nor so many kinds of women to content them. One can see this clearer in them when the men are young men, or very old ones, then it comes to be clearer in them that they need a woman to content them a woman to be a certain thing to them and that there are not so many different kinds of them, neither of the men, nor of the women who content them. There are though, all the same, a fair amount of different kinds of them and here we begin with one kind of them, with David Hersland and the kind of man he was inside him and the kind of woman he could find to be contenting to him.

  David Hersland and Herman Dehning and the man who was married to David's sister Martha who made his marriage for him were all three of them strong men and all
three of them needed women to content them and all three of them were very different each one of them from the others of them.

  Now to begin again with David Hersland and the nature he had in him. As I was saying David Hersland was a big man and a man who was all full up inside him and who was very uneven inside him uneven as the world that was all him. He was a big man and there was very much in him and of him. He was all full up inside him. There was not much of any way that anything could enter into him.

  A woman had to be a part of the inside in him to content him. She had to have a power in her, to give to him a feeling, or she had to be appealing and so to be a part of the feeling he had inside him. There was not much of any way that anything outside him could enter into him.

  A woman to content him could never be outside him, she could never be an ideal to him, she could never have in her a real power for him With men, outside him, there was for him a need in him to fight with them. A woman could never be for him anything outside him, unless as one who could in a practical way be useful to him as his sister Martha had always been and now she had been useful to him and made a marriage for him, had found a wife for him who was pleasing to him, who had come out with him to Gossols to content him. Such a woman as his sister was for him, was like any other object in the world around him, a thing useful to him or not existing for him, like a chair in his house to sit in or the engine that drew the train the direction in which he needed just then to be going. Such a woman as his sister Martha, as a woman could never be interesting to him, nor any other woman who remained outside him, either when she could be to him an ideal for him or a power in any way over him, not that some women with power in them were not attractive to him, but with such a kind of woman, and he met them often in his living and they had power with him, such a woman always did it for him by entering into him by brilliant seductive managing and so she was a part of him, even though she was apart from him, and so she had power with him. Such a one until he would be an old man and the strength in him was weakening and the things he had in him did not make inside him a completely tight filling and so things outside him could a little more enter into him, until he would come to be an old man and the need in him would come to be more a senile feeling, an old man's need of something to complete him, such a one could never come to be a wife to him, could never be a woman to be his wife and content him. He needed such a woman as his sister Martha had found for him, a woman who was to him, inside him and appealing, whose power over him was never more than a joke to him, who sometimes when a sense for beauty stirred in him was a flower to him, whom he often could forget that she was existing, who never in any big way was resisting, and so she never needed fighting, was always to himself a part of him and inside in him, and so in every kind of way she was contenting to him.

  Men outside him awoke in him, a need almost always in him, to fight with them. Women could never give him any such feeling to have inside him. If they had a power in them, he would brush them away from around him, sometimes with men outside him he would in the same way brush them away from before him, but they often then would be stubborn things around him, he could not brush them away from him; but all women to him, if he needed to brush them away from around him, he could so always rid himself of them. If a woman held her power in him it was because of brilliant seductive managing, and so there would not be aroused in him any desire of fighting nor of brushing her away from him. His wife was different to him, she was appealing there inside him like a tender feeling he had in him. Often she was not important to him, often she was not even existing to him. Sometimes, and this was the rarest thing in him, she filled for him a need to have a sense of beauty in him, then she was like a flower to him, but this did not happen so very often in him more often she had a kind of power over him that was only a joke to him, mostly in their daily living the power she had in her with him did not to himself touch him, it was her managing to have things for the children, to have her way in small things, sometimes in a big one, but these things never were important to him, and he never knew she felt a power in them, the only power he knew she felt over him was only a joke to him, it could never have any other meaning to him, and that was all there was of the effect she had upon him. Mostly she was pleasing to him, she was a wife who was suited to him, his sister Martha had been right to choose her for him to be married to him, to bear children for him, to go to Gossols with him, to be always, all the years she would be living with him, to be a woman to content him.

  He did not need now when he was still a vigorous man and strong in his living, he did not need to have a woman to complete him, he needed a woman only to be pleasing, he needed a woman only to content him. This perhaps would come to be different in him when he would be an old man and weakening, then perhaps a woman who had power in her for him, a power to hold him by seductive managing, such a woman could then fill up in him empty places made by old age and his weakening and his shrinking away from the outside of him, and he would feel it good to him then to be filled up once more inside him; to feel warm with a full feeling; and so such a woman then could have power with him, he would need such a one then to complete him. Now he was a strong man and vigorous in his living and such a woman could arouse him but he would not need to have her in him and he would, when she was too much with him, for he met her often enough in his living, he would brush her away from before him. His wife Fanny Hersland was the woman for him, the wife who was almost always pleasing to him, the one he wanted to content him, she was for him mostly like a tender feeling in him, she was a good woman to him, and useful to do the daily living with him, with the people around them, and with their three children, she was a good woman in his daily living, the little power she had in her for him was a pleasant joke always to him, the power she had in managing to do things for the children he never noticed as a power she had with him, mostly she was always pleasing to him, sometimes, and this was the rarest thing in him, she filled for him a need in him for pure beauty and then she would be like a flower to him but this came to be more and more rare in him as he grew older and was more filled up with his impatient feeling, then she was hardly enough to content him, always she was like a tender feeling in him but more and more as he was full of impatient feeling, she would be lost to him, mostly she would not then be existing for him, the power which was always a pleasant joke to him then had no more existence for him, a little yet sometimes then she might be a flower to him, always when he felt her then she would be inside him like a tender feeling but mostly then she had no existence for him, she was not enough then to content him, and then she died away and left him, and then the tender feeling was a pain in him, and then she was never any longer an existing thing inside him. More and more he was getting older then and weakening, and shrinking away from the outside of him and more and more then he had not enough even of impatient feeling to completely fill him, and so more and more then be needed to be filled up inside him and she was not then enough to fill him, she had, too, died away and left him, and soon she was not in him any more, not any more as a tender feeling in him, she had soon then not any more any existence in him, soon he needed much more than she had ever been, to fill him up inside in him.

  All this will come to be clear in him in his later living, and now there is the beginning, the three children, the ten acre place where they were living, this father and this mother of them and the dependents and the people living there around them.

  They were living, the father and the mother and the three children, there had been two other children but they had died in the beginning, they were living then the five of them and the servants and governesses and dependents they had with them, in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Here they lived a life that was not the natural way of being for them here they had around them only, for them, poor queer kind of people and these came to be for them all the people they had in their daily living. More and more there was no visiting for them with the richer people who w
ere the natural people for them to have as friends around them. The father spent his days with rich men for he had his business with them, he was making his great fortune among them, but more and more his wife lived with the poorer people who were living right around them, more and more his wife in her daily living had all of her being in her relation to the servants seamstresses governesses with whom she was living and she was always of them and always was above them and in the same way she was with them the poor, for her, queer people around them. She was with them and with her husband and her children and these were every day the whole of her daily being, sometimes as I have said, she went visiting with her children dressed in her rich simple clothing, but the children were awkward with the richer living in houses and people different from their daily living and more and more then there was not for any of them any visiting to the part of Gossols where the richer people were living.