About the author: Zona Gale (1874-1938) was born in Portage, Wisconsin.
After she graduated
from the University of Wisconsin, she spent five years working as a newspaper reporter in
Milwaukee and New York City. In 1904, she returned to her hometown and soon attracted
attention as a fiction writer with her early stories of small-town life.
Gale's best-known work, a novel called Miss Lulu Brett, gives a' realistic view of life in the
Midwestern United States in the early twentieth century. The version of Miss Lulu Brett that was
performed on stage won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, In many of her novels, short stories, and
plays, Gale explores the relationships between men and women, as you will see when you read
"The Woman."
Walking one day in a suburb, Bellard, wearing clothes in the extreme of the fashion, was torn by
the look of a house on whose mean little porch near the street sat a shabby man of sixty, without
a coat, and reading a newspaper. The man's fate seemed terrible: the unpainted house, the
disordered hall, and the glimpse of a woman in an apron. But the man looked up, and smiled at
Bellard as brightly as if he himself had been young.
Bellard meant to be a financier. Instead, he shortly endured his father's bankruptcy, left college,
found uncongenial employment, observed the trick of a girl's eyes, married her and lived in a
little flat.
But this girl had the quality of a flower. Bellard could not explain it, but she was silent and
fragrant, and hopeful like a flower. Once in April when he saw a pot of lilies of the valley
blooming on the pavement, he thought: "They're like Lucile. They're all doing their utmost." In
her presence it was impossible to be discouraged. He would go home from work hating his
office, his routine, his fellows, and his street; but as soon as he entered the flat, there would be
some breath of that air for which he saw other men dying. Her welcome, her abstraction,1 her
silence, her confidences were all really heavenly. Bellard wondered at her, did not comprehend
her, and adored her. He worked hard, and went home on the subway with a sense of happiness.
He longed to give her beautiful things, but she said: "How do people get like that, my dear-
to want expensive things and to have people look up to them? Isn't it foolish?" He
wondered how she knew that, and he wished that he knew it himself.
Their two children were like all agreeable children, and Bellard and Lucile went through the
reverence, anxiety, and joy of their upbringing. And whether the moment yielded a torn frock or
a hurt knee, croup or a moral crisis, Lucile seemed to put the event in its place and not to be
overwhelmed by it. "She has a genius for being alive," Bellard thought.
As she grew older, she was not so beautiful, and he saw many women both beautiful and young.
But when they chattered, pouted and coquetted,2 when they were cynical,3 bored, critical, or
hilarious,4 he thought about Lucile and her silences, her fragrance, her hope. Hope of what? She
knew that they would in all probability never have any more than they had now. When he asked
her wistfully what kept her so happy she replied with an air of wonder: "You."
One day he overheard her talking about him with a friend. Lucile was saying: "Other men live
in things and events and emotions and the future. But he seems to know that living is something
else …" "What else?" this friend interrupted curiously. And he heard Lucile say:
"Well, of course every one knows, really. But he lives it too." "I'm not good enough for her,"
Bellard thought, and tried his best to prove that he was.
They went on like this for years; the children grew up, married, came home and patronized them.
Then Bellard, who had established a little business, failed. His son tried to straighten things out,
found it impossible, and assumed control, frankly berating his father. His daughter came home
with her three children, and filled the flat with clamor and turbulence. This woman said:
1
abstraction: disinterest in worldly things.
2
coquetted: flirted.
3
cynical: doubting the worth oflife; sneering and critical.
4
hilarious: extremely gay and noisy.
"Mother, sometimes I think it's your fault. You're so patient with him." "I'm glad he's out of that
business," Lucile said absently. "He never liked it." Her exasperated daughter cried: "But what
are you going to live on?" Bellard heard her say: "Your father was responsible for three of us for
a quarter of a century, you know, dear." At this Bellard rose on strong wings and felt himself still
able to breast the morning and the night.5
Lucile and Bellard moved to a suburb. There they rented a little house and Bellard went into a
real estate office. All day he showed land and houses to men who wanted something better for
less money. At night he went home and there was Lucile - less like a flower, but still silent,
fragrant, hopeful. He said to her: "You'll never have anything more than you have now, Lucile,
do you realize that?" She replied: "I don't want anything more to dust and take care of!" Once he
said: "When you were a girl you dreamed that you'd have things different, didn't you, Lucile?"
She said:
"My dear, all that poor girl knew how to dream was just about having things!" He cried: "What
do you want most of anything in this world?" She considered and answered: "I want you to be as
happy as I am."
He thought of his own early dream of being a great financier, and said: "I'm the happy one, you
know." He thought: "This is what the world is dying for."
One day, when he was sixty, he was sitting on his mean little porch near the street. The house
was small and unpainted, the hall was disordered with house cleaning, Lucile in an apron was in
the doorway. Bellard, without a coat and reading a newspaper, lifted his eyes, and saw walking
by the house, and wearing clothes in the extreme of the fashion, a youth who looked up at him
with an excess of visible compassion.
On this youth Bellard looked down and smiled, a luminous smile, a smile as bright as if he
himself had been young.
What do you think?
1. What does Lucile mean for Bellard?
2.”Other men live in things and events and emotions and the future. But he seems to know that
living is something else…” What else? What did Lucile mean?
3. Why after years Lucile was “less than a flower”?
4. Why things do not matter so much when you become older?
5. “…..wearing clothes in the extreme of the fashion ….a youth who looked up at him with an
excess of visible compassion”. Why is this sentence included at the beginning of the text and I
the end? What did the author want to say by it?
6. Comment on the title of the text.
12 “The Mirror”
By Judith Kay
About the Author: Judith Kay (1950) was born in New York City and lived there until she got
married. She has been a teacher, a textbook author, and a short-story writer. She received her
M.A. in TESOL at Hunter College in New York and has been teaching most of her adult life.
After teaching English as a Second Language at Marymount Manhattan College for a number of
years, she moved to Florida, where she is currently teaching at Broward Community College.
Elena had always been called a beauty. When she was a little girl, people often stopped her
mother to say, '' What a beautiful little girl!" Often, strangers would bend over and say to Elena,
"You're as pretty as a picture!" Elena had learned to smile and accept 10 their compliments.
Elena's mother had taught her to respond with a prompt "Thank you very much." By the time she
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breast the morning and the night: confront challenges energetically and optimistically.
