THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein
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It is a queer feeling that one has in them and perhaps it is, that they have something queer in them something that gives to one a strange uncertain feeling with them for their heads are on them as puling babies heads are always on them and it gives to one a queer uncertain feeling to see heads on big women that look loose and wobbly on them.
Old Mrs. Shilling was such a one. It was uncertain always even after a long knowing of her whether the wobbly head on her was all that made a strange thing of her or whether there was something queer inside in her, different from the others of them, different from all of them who always give to one a strange uncertain feeling, all the many fat ones who are made just like her. Perhaps that was all that was queer in her, that which is always queer in all the many fat ones who are made just like her.
The fat daughter Sophie Shilling in the ways one mostly felt her has many millions who are made just like her. The fat daughter Sophie Shilling was a little like her mother but her head was not yet wobbly on her. Sometimes there was something about her that perhaps came from something queer inside her. Mostly she was just an ordinary rather fat young woman and there are many millions made just like her.
As one knew her with her mother and her sister she was an amiable enough good sister and daughter. Mostly one felt that she was a very good sister and a very good daughter. Not that it was a family of women that as far as one could know them were very trying to one another. They seemed to have enough money to live comfortably in the hotel together. They had a poodle dog who was company for the mother. They never quarreled with each other. They did not have any troubles there at the hotel where they were comfortably living together.
Sophie Shilling and Pauline Shilling were sisterly with one another. Sophie Shilling like most fat sisters was afraid of the thinner. Sometimes it is the thinner who is afraid of the fatter when two daughters are sisterly together but most often it is the fat sister who is afraid of the thinner. It is not so much being older or younger that makes sisters afraid of one another, it is a kind of power that always one has over the other, mostly it is the fat one who is afraid of the other because it would hurt more if pins were stuck into her, not that the thinner is always in any way meaner, sometimes it is the fat one who is afraid who is the meaner, but there is so much more of her, there is so much more unprotected surface to her, somehow, it is that which makes her afraid of the thinner even when the thin one is really never nasty to her. This was true of the sisters Sophie Shilling and Pauline Shilling, the fat one always had fear in her but the thin one never in any way was ever mean or nasty to her. It is this fear that the fat one has in her that often makes the people who know her and see the mother and the sister with her feel that the thin one has mean ways in her. Not that the fat one complains of her but there is a fear in her, and often it is only a fear from there being so much of her, but when others feel the fear in her they are sure it must come from the mean things the thinner one does to her. So it was with Sophie Shilling and they were very sisterly together.
It was a month or so after the Herslands had come to the hotel that Mrs. Hersland began to know Sophie Shilling. She had met her going about in the hotel and sometimes when she was out she met with her and they came in together. They soon were a good deal together. They soon began to call on each other. Mrs. Hersland began to know the mother and the sister Pauline Shilling. Pauline did not take much interest in her. Mostly she and Sophie did not have friends together. The way in which Sophie was afraid of her sister made any one who knew her have an awe of Pauline Shilling, made them have a kind of feeling about her so that they could never be easy with her. Always in them must be a suspicious feeling that there was danger for them in her and they must not be too free when being with her or talking to her. It was the fear in the fat sister that gave to all who knew her a restraint when they were with Pauline Shilling. Not that Sophie ever complained of her, not that Sophie ever knew that she had such a fear in her. It was always there though and affected all who knew her although from their own knowing of her they could see that Pauline Shilling had no mean ways in her. Of course there were people who first knew the thin sister and they never had any such feeling about her. But all who first knew Sophie Shilling never could come to be easy with her sister. Mrs. Hersland first knew Sophie Shilling. It is easy to see how the knowing Sophie Shilling and her mother and the sister Pauline Shilling would awaken in her the always possible almost important feeling that was quiet until then inside her.
Sophie Shilling never meant very much to her. They were very much together and Fanny Hersland always felt for her. She had no affection for her and after she moved away from the hotel she did not very often see her.
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