Prev | Current Page 78 | Next

Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968

"Sylvia's Marriage"


And at last the courage came. "I think it is wrong," she exclaimed.
"Girls ought not to be kept so ignorant! They ought to know what
such things mean. Why, I didn't even know what marriage meant!"
"Can that be true?" I asked.
"All my life I had thought of marriage, in a way; I had been trained
to think of it with every eligible man I met--but to me it meant a
home, a place of my own to entertain people in. I pictured myself
going driving with my husband, giving dinner-parties to his friends.
I knew I'd have to let him kiss me, but beyond that--I had a vague
idea of something, but I didn't think. I had been deliberately
trained not to let myself think--to run away from every image that
came to me. And I went on dreaming of what I'd wear, and how I'd
greet my husband when he came home in the evening."
"Didn't you think about children?"
"Yes--but I thought of the CHILDREN. I thought what they'd look
like, and how they'd talk, and how I'd love them. I don't know if
many young girls shut their minds up like that."
She was speaking with agitation, and I was gazing into her eyes,
reading more than she knew I was reading. I was nearer to solving
the problem that had been baffling me.


Pages:
66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90