The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Author:Alice Walker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780156028356
Publisher: Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, 2003.
Published: 2003-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

Nettie

This whole year, after Easter, has been difficult. Since Corrine's illness, all her work has fallen on me, and I must nurse her as well, which she resents.

One day when I was changing her as she lay in bed, she gave me a long, mean, but somehow pitiful look. Why do my children look like you? she asked.

Do you really think they look so much like me? I said.

You could have spit them out, she said.

Maybe just living together, loving people makes them look like you, I said. You know how much some old married people look alike.

Even these women saw the resemblance the first day we came, she said.

And that's worried you all this time? I tried to laugh it off.

But she just looked at me.

When did you first meet my husband? she wanted to know.

And that was when I knew what she thought. She 178 thinks Adam and Olivia are my children, and that Samuel is their father!

Oh, Celie, this thing has been gnawing away at her all these years!

I met Samuel the same day I met you, Corrine, I said. (I still haven't got the hang of saying "Sister" all the time.) As God is my witness, that's the truth.

Bring the bible, she said.

I brought the bible, and placed my hand on it, and swore.

You've never known me to lie, Corrine, I said. Please believe I am not lying now.

Then she called Samuel, and made him swear that the day she met me was the day he met me also.

He said: I apologize for this, Sister Nettie, please forgive us.

As soon as Samuel left the room she made me raise my dress and she sat up in her sickbed to examine my stomach.

I felt so sorry for her, and so humiliated, Celie. And the way she treats the children is the hardest part. She doesn't want them near her, which they don't understand. How could they? They don't even know they were adopted.

The village is due to be planted in rubber trees this coming season. The Olinka hunting territory has already been destroyed, and die men must go farther and farther away to find game. The women spend all their time in the fields, tending their crops and praying.

They sing to the earth and to the sky and to their cassava and groundnuts. Songs of love and farewell.

We are all sad, here, Celie. I hope life is happier for you.

Your sister,

Guess what? Samuel thought the children were mine too! That is why he urged me to come to Africa with them. When I showed up at their house he thought I was following my children, and, soft-hearted as he is, didn't have the heart to turn me away.

If they are not yours, be said, whose are they?

But I had some questions for him, first.

Where did you get them? I asked. And Celie, he told me a story that made my hah- stand on end. I hope you, poor thing, are ready for it.

Once upon a time, there was a well-to-do farmer who owned his own property near town.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.