GERTRUDE STEIN Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Essays & Memoirs. Gertrude Stein
that makes you do anything for somebody that loves you.” “I don’t know much about that kind of love yet Miss Melanctha. You see it’s this way with me always Miss Melanctha. I am always so busy with my thinking about my work I am doing and so I don’t have time for just fooling, and then too, you see Miss Melanctha, I really certainly don’t ever like to get excited, and that kind of loving hard does seem always to mean just getting all the time excited. That certainly is what I always think from what I see of them that have it bad Miss Melanctha, and that certainly would never suit a man like me. You see Miss Melanctha I am a very quiet kind of fellow, and I believe in a quiet life for all the colored people. No Miss Melanctha I certainly never have mixed myself up in that kind of trouble.”
“Yes I certainly do see that very clear Dr. Campbell,” said Melanctha, “I see that’s certainly what it is always made me not know right about you and that’s certainly what it is that makes you really mean what you was always saying. You certainly are just too scared Dr. Campbell to really feel things way down in you. All you are always wanting Dr. Campbell, is just to talk about being good, and to play with people just to have a good time, and yet always to certainly keep yourself out of trouble. It don’t seem to me Dr. Campbell that I admire that way to do things very much. It certainly ain’t really to me being very good. It certainly ain’t any more to me Dr. Campbell, but that you certainly are awful scared about really feeling things way down in you, and that’s certainly the only way Dr. Campbell I can see that you can mean, by what it is that you are always saying to me.”
“I don’t know about that Miss Melanctha, I certainly don’t think I can’t feel things very deep in me, though I do say I certainly do like to have things nice and quiet, but I don’t see harm in keeping out of danger Miss Melanctha, when a man knows he certainly don’t want to get killed in it, and I don’t know anything that’s more awful dangerous Miss Melanctha than being strong in love with somebody. I don’t mind sickness or real trouble Miss Melanctha, and I don’t want to be talking about what I can do in real trouble, but you know something about that Miss Melanctha, but I certainly don’t see much in mixing up just to get excited, in that awful kind of danger. No Miss Melanctha I certainly do only know just two kinds of ways of loving. One kind of loving seems to me, is like one has a good quiet feeling in a family when one does his work, and is always living good and being regular, and then the other way of loving is just like having it like any animal that’s low in the streets together, and that don’t seem to me very good Miss Melanctha, though I don’t say ever that it’s not all right when anybody likes it, and that’s all the kinds of love I know Miss Melanctha, and I certainly don’t care very much to get mixed up in that kind of a way just to be in trouble.”
Jefferson stopped and Melanctha thought a little.
“That certainly does explain to me Dr. Campbell what I been thinking about you this long time. I certainly did wonder how you could be so live, and knowing everything, and everybody, and talking so big always about everything, and everybody always liking you so much, and you always looking as if you was thinking, and yet you really was never knowing about anybody and certainly not being really very understanding. It certainly is all Dr. Campbell because you is so afraid you will be losing being good so easy, and it certainly do seem to me Dr. Campbell that it certainly don’t amount to very much that kind of goodness.”
“Perhaps you are right Miss Melanctha,” Jefferson answered. “I don’t say never, perhaps you ain’t right Miss Melanctha. Perhaps I ought to know more about such ways Miss Melanctha. Perhaps it would help me some, taking care of the colored people, Miss Melanctha. I don’t say, no, never, but perhaps I could learn a whole lot about women the right way, if I had a real good teacher.”
‘Mis’ Herbert just then stirred a little in her sleep. Melanctha went up the steps to the bed to attend her. Dr. Campbell got up too and went to help her. ‘Mis’ Herbert woke up and was a little better. Now it was morning and Dr. Campbell gave his directions to Melanctha, and then left her.
Melanctha Herbert all her life long, loved and wanted good, kind and considerate people. Jefferson Campbell was all the things that Melanctha had ever wanted. Jefferson was a strong, well built, good looking, cheery, intelligent and good mulatto. And then at first he had not cared to know Melanctha, and when he did begin to know her he had not liked her very well, and he had not thought that she would ever come to any good. And then Jefferson Campbell was so very gentle. Jefferson never did some things like other men, things that now were beginning to be ugly, for Melanctha. And then too Jefferson Campbell did not seem to know very well what it was that Melanctha really wanted, and all this was making Melanctha feel his power with her always getting stronger.
Dr. Campbell came in every day to see ‘Mis’ Herbert. ‘Mis’ Herbert, after that night they watched together, did get a little better, but ‘Mis’ Herbert was really very sick, and soon it was pretty sure that she would have to die. Melanctha certainly did everything, all the time, that any woman could. Jefferson never thought much better of Melanctha while she did it. It was not her being good, he wanted to find in her. He knew very well Jane Harden was right, when she said Melanctha was always being good to everybody but that that did not make Melanctha any better for her. Then too, ‘Mis’ Herbert never liked Melanctha any better, even on the last day of her living, and so Jefferson really never thought much of Melanctha’s always being good to her mother.
Jefferson and Melanctha now saw each other, very often. They now always liked to be with each other, and they always now had a good time when they talked to one another. They, mostly in their talking to each other, still just talked about outside things and what they were thinking. Except just in little moments, and not those very often, they never said anything about their feeling. Sometimes Melanctha would tease Jefferson a little just to show she had not forgotten, but mostly she listened to his talking, for Jefferson still always liked to talk along about the things he believed in. Melanctha was liking Jefferson Campbell better every day, and Jefferson was beginning to know that Melanctha certainly had a good mind, and he was beginning to feel a little her real sweetness. Not in her being good to ‘Mis’ Herbert, that never seemed to Jefferson to mean much in her, but there was a strong kind of sweetness in Melanctha’s nature that Jefferson began now to feel when he was with her.
‘Mis’ Herbert was now always getting sicker. One night again Dr. Campbell felt very certain that before it was morning she would surely die. Dr. Campbell said he would come back to help Melanctha watch her, and to do anything he could to make ‘Mis’ Herbert’s dying more easy for her. Dr. Campbell came back that evening, after he was through with his other patients, and then he made ‘Mis’ Herbert easy, and then he came and sat down on the steps just above where Melanctha was sitting with the lamp, and looking very tired. Dr. Campbell was pretty tired too, and they both sat there very quiet.
“You look awful tired to-night, Dr. Campbell,” Melanctha said at last, with her voice low and very gentle, “Don’t you want to go lie down and sleep a little? You’re always being much too good to everybody, Dr. Campbell. I like to have you stay here watching to-night with me, but it don’t seem right you ought to stay here when you got so much always to do for everybody. You are certainly very kind to come back, Dr. Campbell, but I can certainly get along to-night without you. I can get help next door sure if I need it. You just go ‘long home to bed, Dr. Campbell. You certainly do look as if you need it.”
Jefferson was silent for some time, and always he was looking very gently at Melanctha.
“I certainly never did think, Miss Melanctha, I would find you to be so sweet and thinking, with me.” “Dr. Campbell” said Melanctha, still more gentle, “I certainly never did think that you would ever feel it good to like me. I certainly never did think you would want to see for yourself if I had sweet ways in me.”
They both sat there very tired, very gentle, very quiet, a long time. At last Melanctha in a low, even tone began to talk to Jefferson Campbell.
“You are certainly a very good man, Dr. Campbell, I certainly do feel that more every day I see you. Dr. Campbell, I sure do want to be friends with a good man like you, now I know you. You certainly, Dr. Campbell, never do things like other men, that’s always ugly for me. Tell me true, Dr. Campbell, how you