After a hasty breakfast, of which she remembered thing but that she had eaten it, Susanna recovered herself connected the thoroughfare car bound for college.
She had so been dimly alert of the states done which she had passed up to the clip of her beingness successful the car; had known that getting retired of furniture felt acold and premature; that bathing felt pleasurably hot; that her hairsbreadth fixed itself becomingly this morning, and that she looked good successful the reflector implicit the dressing table. But her lone afloat conscious moments, erstwhile thoughts and sensations met successful focused attention, were those spent earlier that different reflector situated successful the recesses of the close manus country of her dressing-room which a shaft of light, penetrating from the bedroom, struck, and partially illumined.
For successful this reflector Susanna abruptly became beautiful. But it was not due to the fact that she became beauteous that Susanna contemplated herself with crisp attention, it was due to the fact that unhappily she suspected that successful beautifying her this enchanted reflector had coincidently transformed her into immoderate 1 wholly dissimilar herself.
She suspected—: she was not certain; successful spite of her eighteen years of life, and the precise pronounced involvement she took successful her appearance, she had successful information lone the faintest thought of what “she looked like.” And successful critically illumined moments she knew that she did not cognize however she truly looked, and it disturbed her deeply.— It adjacent disconcerted her to retrieve what had occurred not agelong ago, 1 evening, erstwhile she was sitting retired a creation with Mr. Whitney, who admired her, and whose admiration, flowing from truthful hard a source, flattered her.
To this root of admiration, then, reputedly tally adust done years of wasted sentimental experience, she had à propos of immoderate compliment boldly remarked: “Oh, I cognize that my look isn’t regular; it’s lone interesting.”
“But you’re rather mistaken, Miss Susanna,” the oldish livedout-to-the-point-of-being-devoid-of-tact Mr. Whitney, aged thirty-three, had replied, with a flicker successful his fishy eye; “your features are rather perfectly regular, and your countenance is wholly charming, but not, arsenic yet, unusually interesting.”
Indeed, whenever Susanna recalled this conversational occurrence, or, much accurately put, whenever this occurrence recalled itself to Susanna, arsenic it did with unpleasant persistency, and preferably astatine this mirror, bringing a blush on with it posthumously arsenic it were,—Susanna wondered whether she had deserved to person this upsetting liberty taken by Mr. Whitney. Deserved it for having been truthful precise idiosyncratic herself. . . . For, successful accordance with what were mostly held to beryllium purely-social-intercoursemanners, she had of people transgressed; she had not, of course, conformed to the standards implicit successful conversations ending abruptly with “oh, if you are going to beryllium personal, we had amended alteration the subject.” But, successful accordance with her ain feelings it was rather arsenic earthy and rather arsenic fascinating to leap into a idiosyncratic speech arsenic for a kid to play with fire. . . . And successful respect to the resultant burn, Susanna felt doubtful whether she would person known it to beryllium an unpleasant symptom if she had not truthful insistently been told so,—because, really, successful feeling, it was alternatively a pleasant pain.
Thus, gazing into the reflector situated successful the shadows, successful which she became truthful dramatically beauteous a carnal successful the benignant of a chiaroscuro photograph, Susanna’s thoughts, feelings and sensations fused successful a infinitesimal of afloat and analyzable consciousness. It contained not lone her unhappy suspicion that she was decidedly little goodlooking than this unusual simulacrum,—it contained not lone the frustrated privation to cognize conscionable however goodlooking she truly was, and however goodlooking a, b, and c thought her, but it crystallized yet into a crisp interest lest her looks and her quality did not sufficiently lucifer 1 another. . . . She abruptly feared that this carnal benignant of hers, which she recovered truthful hard to realize, mightiness someway restrict her spiritual improvement wrong its ain limits, arsenic a framework limits and delimits its picture.
And how—Susanna reflected uneasily—could she oregon anyone other recognize and specify a benignant which from the beforehand presumption was one, and from the broadside presumption another. . . . As now, for instance, she viewed herself successful this mirror, she saw an oval the colour of airy ivory, an aureole of shining copper hair, wide unfastened superior grey eyes with consecutive brows that roseate a small astatine the interior ends, bowshaped, afloat but compressed lips, an mean consecutive nose;—in operation an even, regular, astir classical face, a look a small similar a passport face, she thought,—but she thought it precise low, truthful to say, due to the fact that she instinctively disliked the unusual self-face to overhear these captious thoughts that had a mode of obtruding themselves without her permission. . . . On the different hand—she reflected—looked astatine from the side, this baffling but beloved look was wholly changed. The oval became pointed; the chemoreceptor springy and uplifted; the lips developed dimpled corners; the eyes were chiefly lashes, and the wide aerial was that of frivolity. . . . And erstwhile she smiled! . . . Oh, she gave it up, this getting a full retired of incongruous aspects! She would simply follow the afloat look and disregard the rest, which wasn’t determination anyhow unless 1 arranged the mirrors successful a definite way, an cognition that took time; and clip was her astir precious possession. . . .
And aft all, Susanna concluded for the clip being, with an look that made her afloat look lucifer her broadside look exactly, 1 happening was certain: she was goodlooking capable for each applicable purposes, and acold amended looking than astir people; and if it should crook retired that she was successful immoderate mode precise fantastic looking, truthful overmuch the better; and if it didn’t, and she wasn’t, wherefore past it was conscionable arsenic good not to cognize it now!
And arsenic for that different matter, the substance of being personal,— adjacent though it entailed immoderate embarrassment, and immoderate existent and imaginable blushes, wasn’t uncovering things retired worthy these discomforts—supposing them to beryllium discomforts and not simply an breathtaking game? Might it not so beryllium one’s work to beryllium idiosyncratic arsenic a means to knowledge?
Yes, it whitethorn beryllium my work to beryllium highly idiosyncratic and nonstop successful my dealings with my chap men, Susanna told herself, lingering connected the “may.” For she liked the temper “may”: finality was distasteful to her. Finality, she thought, decidedly closed paths and thereby ended that uncertainty whence sprang inquiry, knowledge, and freedom,—as Dewey and Descartes enactment it for her successful a much systematized portion of the mind. . . . But with “may” and its imaginativeness of infinite possibilities stretching successful each directions, her ain chances of spiritual becoming multiplied into infinity. . . .
And having smiled expectantly astatine her much constricted and stationary self, and having clasped an amber concatenation nether the chin that was circular successful the afloat presumption and pointed successful the side, she had turned herself and her thoughts from the mirror.
Susanna hung to a strap successful the crowded car, and critically surveyed the seated assemblage spreading conscionable below, from which nary 1 had separated and individualized himself by giving her a seat. Yet respective of the men were young and abdominous and perfectly fitted for the show of specified an act. They deliberation I’m a schoolgirl, Susanna observed to herself, pursing her lips into what she conceived to beryllium a subtle sarcastic sneer, and squeezing a small the Aristotle she carried nether her limb unneurotic with Kidding’s Sociology and a measurement of Morley. And feeling pleasantly misunderstood and undervalued and hence a shadiness romantic, she carried her sarcastic-feeling and naïve-looking look from 1 to the different of these unusual people, of whom but 1 happening seemed conclusively certain: that they wished to stay seated.
There were among them—she thought to see—worried tense small women, gazing into the past oregon into the future,—absent from the contiguous astatine immoderate rate; determination were apathetic stout ones, afloat occupied with conscionable sitting there; determination were aged men concealed determination backmost of beards, eyeglasses and newspapers; middle-aged clean-shaven ones whose minds were successful their offices and whose persons were travelling determination a small much slowly; and past determination were those who similar herself were young. Yet adjacent these were not alert and live to the moment, to its complexity and fulness. . . . Even they, thought Susanna, are not concrete. Yes, that is it, that is the solution of these dumb and deadish quality beings and their deficiency of expression: they are astatine present, erstwhile successful isolation and unoccupied, not truthful overmuch abstracted, arsenic truly abstract. They person the faculties of reasoning and feeling,—but latently, arsenic it were, that is to say, they are perchance individuals, but really thing idiosyncratic is happening to them, oregon successful them, oregon done their agency. Hence, actually, each is lone successful truthful acold an idiosyncratic arsenic helium partakes of the wide concept—the idea—of humanity.
Susanna was pleased, rather charmed, successful fact, with this Platonically flavoured analysis. What, she wondered, would Dr. Miller of Philosophy 4., oregon Dr. Duke person thought of it. . . . And her lips parted sweetly successful a grin of imagined satisfaction, and her eyes grew ample and agleam with a lukewarm occurrence conscionable when, successful their progressive survey, they alighted connected a distant passenger, 1 of the suitable, stout young men. And present successful the wide, welcoming and inviting grin of his effect their occurrence was instantly and decidedly extinguished.
Withdrawing her offended eyes into her head, arsenic it were, Susanna moved bodily away, arsenic acold arsenic possible, from interaction with this experience. She frowned; her lips compressed themselves; her chin lifted: indignation filled her. How dared he. . . however loathsome were these cars. . . wherefore didn’t Auntie person a centrifugal anyhow alternatively of those lazy horses, she would person to sooner oregon later—: this was each that formulated itself successful her mind, portion her feelings registered thing much definite than impatience and resentment. Yet, each of a abrupt everything had changed for her.— She present sensed a chaos of caller things—: coughs and yawns and snorts and sighs and stampings and scrapings and the clanging of the doorbell and the voices of the radical and the odor of their assorted perfumes and their assorted dampnesses. . . . She present felt the vigor and the acold of the opening and closing of the door, and the stuffiness of the air, and the interaction of the clothed bodies that brushed against her. She present felt tightly encompassed—almost smothered—by surrounding happenings.
Things were nary longer dormant oregon adjacent abstract—Susanna could deliberation nary much until she had near that car.
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From Love Days by Ettie Stettheimer. Used with support of the publisher, Mandylion Press. Copyright © 2026.
English (US) ·