I Often Wish That For One Brief Moment I Might Remove The Lid Of
Jane's Brain And Examine Her Mental Processes.
She would not
exasperate me so deeply if I could be certain of her springs of
action.
Is she old, is she rheumatic, is she lazy, is she hungry?
Sometimes I think she means well, and is only ignorant and dull; but
this hypothesis grows less and less tenable as I know her better.
Sometimes I conclude that she does not understand me; that the
difference in nationality may trouble her. If an Englishman cannot
understand an American woman all at once, why should an English
donkey? Perhaps it takes an American donkey to comprehend an
American woman. Yet I cannot bring myself to drive any other
donkey; I am always hoping to impress myself on her imagination, and
conquer her will through her fancy. Meanwhile, I like to feel
myself in the grasp of a nature stronger than my own, and so I hold
to Jane, and buy a photograph of St. Bridget's Well!
Chapter XXII. Comfort Cottage.
It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and I suddenly heard a
strange sound, that of our fowl cackling. Yesterday I heard her
tell-tale note about noon, and the day before just as I was eating
my breakfast. I knew that it would be so! The serpent has entered
Eden. That fowl has laid before eight in the morning for three
weeks without interruption, and she has now entered upon a career of
wild and reckless uncertainty which compels me to eat eggs from
twelve to twenty-four hours old, just as if I were in London.
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