Of the Farm

It is possible that I could have retained her, as mistress, as long as her beauty lasted, while remaining married to Joan. But I was prey to jealous fantasies and felt the world to be full of resolute men who, if they once glimpsed her long legs groping with half-bared thighs from a taxi-cab, would carry her off forever.

Here on my farm every week is different, every day is a surprise. New faces in the fields, the birds say different things, and nothing repeats. Nature never repeats; this August evening has never been before and it will never be again.

That’s an idea you have, that women like to suffer. I don’t know where you got it, not from me; they don’t. But they get less sympathy than men because they have babies, and whenever a woman screams there’s the thought, even in her own mind, that she’s going to have a baby, so it’s all right. Why a baby should make it all right I have no idea.