Flight by Walter White

Author:Walter White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

Mimi was not greatly surprised when she received a message that she would no longer be expected on Thursdays at the Germantown home. At first it amused her. Had she resorted to tears or pleading for release or any of the usual methods of damsels in defence of their virtue, she reflected, the curt note of dismissal would not have been sent. Man is a peculiar creature. So long as by implication or any other means he is allowed to imagine himself the superior being, whether that superiority came through brute strength or intellect or wealth or any other means, he is manageable and easily gulled. But when he is made ridiculous and the little bubble of his conceit is pricked by a woman’s obvious contempt, he becomes a vengeful and ridiculous person.

Mimi was sustained by her elation at the ease with which she had escaped an unpleasant and possibly dangerous situation. She was glad she had retained her poise. She felt angry only when she remembered the nasty way in which he had implied and later definitely stated that in his opinion she should have been happy, being coloured, to have attracted his notice. For the first time she saw the reasons for Jean’s apprehension in those talks which seemed to have taken place so many years ago. Life for any woman who was unprotected and who sought to live up to certain ideals was hard. But when that woman was coloured she was more than ever at the mercy of those who were her constant pursuers. She found her old race-consciousness surging up again. Bitterness against the husband of her former employer welled in her not so much because he had assumed she would be amenable to his suggestions but more because he had so readily assumed that she, being coloured, would offer no objections whatever.

But when her joy in her victory and her bitterness at the vanquished had passed, she found that the revenue lost in this manner was seriously affecting her. She found other jobs but none of them were as regular nor did they pay as well. Every dollar counted, every fraction of a dollar earned or expended made a difference. Once or twice she had been a few days late in paying the rent for the small room in which she and Petit Jean lived. The lessened cordiality with which her landlady greeted her pleas for more time for payment made this an ordeal she avoided even when it meant, as it frequently did, the forgoing of meals for herself.

Petit Jean thrived and grew, singularly free from the maladies of childhood. With what to Mimi seemed amazing speed, his monthly birthdays sped by and accumulated—the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth. As long as he was well and clothed and fed, Mimi’s own difficulties seemed of little more than passing moment. Nothing greatly matters, she comforted herself, when seen in perspective—it is only when a thing is happening that it frightens and pains one.

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