It was at the very beginning of Mimi’s work at Francine’s that an Austrian archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo. Austria, Serbia, Germany, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Japan—one by one they tumbled into the whirlpool of slaughter and blood and bullets. Headlines screamed and front pages were filled with stories of Belgium invaded, of the Marne and Louvain. Francine apparently was untouched except there was more work to be done now that Paris and its energies were turned to the making of guns instead of gowns. Mimi was deeply moved by the stories of scores, hundreds, thousands of deaths, but in time she scanned the headlines as she hurried home in the evenings on the subway with the calm acceptance of these horrors which long familiarity brings. Sometimes she remembered the phrase they had used in Atlanta when coloured people were subjected to indignities and injustice—“You can get used to being hung if you’re only hung often enough.” Or, at other times, she accepted the stories of slaughter with a fatalistic, a not altogether hopeless philosophy which might be summed up in the words: “Oh, well, it’s white people killing white people—the more they kill, the better the chance for coloured peoples.” But most of the time she thought of these things not at all, but centred her attentions on her work, her studies, the slow accumulation of enough money to bring Petit Jean to her.
XVIII
There was little variation to the life Mimi led. She paid occasional visits to her Aunt Sophie or Mrs. Rogers came down town for a hasty luncheon or a leisurely dinner with her. She told her aunt glowingly of the progress she was making, gave her vivid little pictures of her life at Francine’s, of the girls with whom she worked. Once or twice a year, she went to Baltimore and spent a few days with Jean. These visits cheered, saddened and comforted her. She treasured each minute spent with him, watching with eager eyes the rapid growth of the infant into a sturdy, intelligent child. He had Mimi’s reddish hair and her brown eyes. His mouth was sensitive like Carl’s but the chin was that of his maternal grandfather. The authorities gave excellent reports of him though they hinted broadly that Jean was—well, inclined strongly towards mischief. Mimi’s passionate sadness on leaving him was tempered always with the assurance he was being cared for as well as could be hoped for in such surroundings and she always returned to New York filled with determination to work twice—three times as hard as ever until she could bring Jean back with her and care for him properly. She was reaching the point where she could take care of his immediate wants from her earnings. But she knew it was best she let him remain there until she could more nearly assure that he could be taken care of even if she herself should get sick or die.
Of social relations she had none. Sylvia invited her frequently to go to Coney Island, to the movies, to dances, but these Mimi always declined. She liked Sylvia very much as an individual but she was always afraid she would not like the young men and women of Sylvia’s set. Having been all her life unsuccessful at dissembling or pretence, Mimi was certain Sylvia would detect any dislike of Sylvia’s friends and she did not want this possible breach between them.
But this was not the deeper reason for Mimi’s refusal nor was even she aware of the cause of her abstention from all relations other than those of her work and school. As a girl Mimi had had a fragile, flowerlike beauty. The hardships she had undergone—the agonies of flesh and spirit—had not coarsened or embittered her. Instead they had given her an air of hard brilliancy like the glistening surface of porcelain, beautiful, alluring but chilling to the touch—and as impenetrable. Men instinctively turned and looked at her again as they passed her on the street. She was, of course, not unaware of these attentions nor did they altogether displease her. But her experiences with men, the disastrous one with Carl, the unpleasant ones in Germantown and New York, had made her frankly sceptical of men and their motives. She was frankly repelled by the contacts she had had with men and she had definitely vowed that she would concentrate on her work and Jean’s future to the exclusion of everything else. She was strengthened in this vow by the realization that she would never be able to give up Jean and that his existence with the necessity of explanation of his existence would mean almost inevitably the rupture of any friendship other than a most casual one which she might form.
So year after year Mimi went ploddingly along the way she had laid out for herself. One
