THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein
There were many families of them. There was one family of them that was a family of women then, there was a father to them and he was not dead then or living away from them but mostly then it was as far as one could know them a family of women, a mother and there were three daughters then Anna and Cora and Bertha. There was a father of them, there was a husband to the mother of them, he was regularly with them in his eating and sleeping then, one saw him but somehow he was not really existing, he went every day to his working but that never made him any more of a real being. He went every day to his working, he came home to his eating and sleeping, he was regular in his living, he was regular in his working, he was not very real in existing. Many men and sometimes there is a woman and sometimes there are children of them, have such a way in them, they have such an uncertain feeling coming out from them, they are not real in existing.
The man then, the father of the three of them the husband of the woman then, was not existing for them, he used the little house with them for eating sleeping and washing, he went every day to his working. He was not existing for any of them, he was not existing for the Hersland family who were living in the ten acre place then near them neither for Mrs. Hersland and the three children then nor for the governesses and servants of them. With the father David Hersland, there was in him a little more of real existing, there was in him then that he was a man to feel it in him when another man spoke to him, when another man spoke as a master to him or as just a man to know him; there was then in him a feeling of being a male thing then when Mr. Hersland met him. There would be a greeting between them when this one met with him, when Mr. Hersland came home from his day in the part of Gossols where the richer people were living, when he met him walking, when he met him coming home carrying something he had just been buying, there was in the man the being that made him speak to another man when he met him, there was in him a being that made the meeting with another man give to him almost a real existence in him, there was in him just such a little being so that he could give to another man a greeting, could so get into him a real being from the meeting he had then with a man in giving him a greeting; there was in him, in such a kind of man and there are very many of them and they need men to give to them a feeling of existence in them, there was in this man just enough of a kind of being in him that always could make it certain that he was an object real in being, an object called man not woman the world around him then, and there are many of them and as far as any one can know such a one then that is all then that there is of him, perhaps there is more to him to the woman who is a wife to him or to his children who live in the house where he is living, perhaps there is a real existing to him but to all of those around him, to the Hersland family and the others who lived with them there was never in him any real existing, there was for all of them in the house where this man was living only a family of women, a mother and three daughters of them. There was nothing wrong about him, anybody could see in him that he was a man and there are many of them made just like him, there is nothing wrong inside them, there is nothing very strong of existence in them, there is nothing wrong inside them, it is only that there is not very much of existence in them, there is a little in them, they are men when other men are with them, they are men when they are alone then, only then it is not very strong inside them, they are men then, they are alone then, existence is not very strong in them then, there is just enough of such existence in them then that one can know them that they are men then when one thinks of them, one does not then when they are alone then ever think about them ever feel any existence in them.
With other men around them, existence in them gets to be a little stronger inside them, they come almost to feel themselves to be inside in them, there gets to be almost enough inside them of existence to make them then have other men feel that they really do exist then, but mostly in them there is not enough of existence to them to make women and children feel that they are really men inside them, men and having real existence in them, it is only when other men meet with them that the existence gets to be strong enough in them so that any one can know them and they can feel it in them that they are men and one with all the men around them, when they are alone with women or with children they have never in them anything of such a feeling, they have then nothing of real being, they go every day to their working, they come home to their eating and their sleeping, there is nothing wrong inside them, there is only nothing in them of real existence to them, it takes other men around them, it needs other men inside them, it takes other men to greet them, it takes other men around them to make of them a real being to be inside them and so it was with this one and there are many made just like him, and so this family then, it was to almost all who knew them a family of women then, the mother and three daughters of them Anna and Cora and Bertha then.
The mother's face was old now and a little wooden. She did dressmaking. She sometimes worked for the rich family near them, for Mrs. Hersland and her children. She was getting old now and a little wooden.
She was a foreign woman. No one knew it about him the husband who lived in the house with them whether he was or was not a foreign man. She was a foreign woman and she was a little old now and her face was a little wooden. She was a hard-working woman, she did dress-making, she earned a good enough living, they were doing very well with their living all of them then. The mother was a foreign woman, she had it in her to be really existing. She was existing for all five of them the Hersland family who knew her then, she was existing for her children, she was existing for all of them who lived in the houses near them, for all the people who ever came to know them, she was not important to them but she had in her a character for them.
The mother had existence in her in this she was different from the man who was a husband to her. She had existence in her, there was real existence to her, more than just enough to know she was a woman creature, she had existence in her, she had a character to her but she had nothing that was important in her, she was not important to any one around her she was not important to the three daughters who were then with her, in a way she was not important to the man who was a husband to her.
There was no past or present in her, there was existence in her, there was a character to her but there was nothing important inside her, there was nothing past or present or in the future that would be connected to her, but she had existence enough to make of her a really existent thing inside her, existence was strong in her in every moment in her, strong enough to make it to be real inside her, she did not need others around her to make existence inside her.
There was nothing connected in her with a past or present or future, there was existence in her, there was a character to her, she had no importance then to any one around her, she had the existence of the useful things around her, it was active in her this existence inside her, it was active in her and this gave a character to her, it was active in her and this was real existence inside her, this made every one who knew her know there was real existence to her, she had real existence in her but she had no importance inside her, there was nothing in her to connect her to a past a present or a future, there was real existence to her, she did not need others around her to make for her the existence she had inside her, they did not make it any stronger others who were around her the existence she had inside her, that was real in her, that was the character in her, that was all that there was of her, there was not in her anything to connect her with the past or present or future, there was real existence to her, that was the whole of her, she had no importance in her to any one of all who knew her.
As I was saying of her she was getting older now and her face and the body of her gave a wooden look to her.
There was nothing in her to connect her with the past the present or the future, there was not any history of her. They were three daughters to her and they then lived altogether, the mother the man who was a husband to her and the three girls Anna, Cora and Bertha. The only thing that could ever give to any one who knew her the mother of the three of them Anna, Cora and Bertha, the only thing that could ever give to any one who knew her a history of her was as they would see it in the history of each one of the three girls who had been once inside her, not of her then, though they were then inside her. The history of each one of them would never make a history for her, the three of them and each one of them made it that one could know about her the history of her. The history they each one of them went through before her as they went through their living and they were the daughters of her, was the history of her who had once had them inside her, once she must have gone through the changes that each one of them went through as they