Read Online The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories by Nella Larsen, Charles Larson, Marita Golden - Free Book Online

would have their first meal after five hours of work and so-called education. Discipline, it was called.
    There came a light knocking on her door.
    “Come in,” invited Helga unenthusiastically. The door opened to admit Margaret Creighton, another teacher in the English department and to Helga the most congenial member of the whole Naxos faculty. Margaret, she felt, appreciated her.
    Seeing Helga still in nightrobe seated on the bedside in a mass of cushions, idly dangling a mule across bare toes like one with all the time in the world before her, she exclaimed in dismay: “Helga Crane, do you know what time it is? Why, it’s long after half past seven. The students—”
    “Yes, I know,” said Helga defiantly, “the students are coming out from breakfast. Well, let them. I, for one, wish that there was some way that they could forever stay out from the poisonous stuff thrown at them, literally thrown at them, Margaret Creighton, for food. Poor things.”
    Margaret laughed. “That’s just ridiculous sentiment, Helga, and you know it. But you haven’t had any breakfast yourself. Jim Vayle asked if you were sick. Of course nobody knew. You never tell anybody anything about yourself. I said I’d look in on you.”
    “Thanks awfully,” Helga responded indifferently. She was watching the sunlight dissolve from thick orange into pale yellow. Slowly it crept across the room, wiping out in its path the morning shadows. She wasn’t interested in what the other was saying.
    “If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late to your first class. Can I helpyou?” Margaret offered uncertainly. She was a little afraid of Helga. Nearly everyone was.
    “No. Thanks all the same.” Then quickly in another, warmer tone: “I do mean it. Thanks, a thousand times, Margaret. I’m really awfully grateful, but—you see, it’s like this, I’m not going to be late to my class. I’m not going to be there at all.”
    The visiting girl, standing in relief, like old walnut against the buff-colored wall, darted a quick glance at Helga. Plainly she was curious. But she only said formally: “Oh, then you
are
sick.” For something there was about Helga which discouraged questionings.
    No, Helga wasn’t sick. Not physically. She was merely disgusted. Fed up with Naxos. If that could be called sickness. The truth was that she had made up her mind to leave. That very day. She could no longer abide being connected with a place of shame, lies, hypocrisy, cruelty, servility, and snobbishness. “It ought,” she concluded, “to be shut down by law.”
    “But, Helga, you can’t go now. Not in the middle of the term.” The kindly Margaret was distressed.
    “But I can. And I am. Today.”
    “They’ll never let you,” prophesied Margaret.
    “They
can’t stop me. Trains leave here for civilization every day. All that’s needed is money,” Helga pointed out.
    “Yes, of course. Everybody knows that. What I mean is that you’ll only hurt yourself in your profession. They won’t give you a reference if you jump up and leave like this now. At this time of the year. You’ll be put on the blacklist. And you’ll find it hard to get another teaching job. Naxos has enormous influence in the South. Better wait till school closes.”
    “Heaven forbid,” answered Helga fervently, “that I should ever again want work anywhere in the South! I hate it.” And fell silent, wondering for the hundredth time just what form of vanity it was that had induced an intelligent girl like Margaret Creighton to turn what was probably nice live crinkly hair, perfectly suited to her smooth dark skin and agreeable round features, into a dead straight, greasy, ugly mass.
    Looking up from her watch, Margaret said: “Well, I’ve really got to run, or I’ll be late myself. And since I’m staying … Better think it over, Helga. There’s no place like Naxos, you know. Pretty good salaries, decent rooms, plenty of men, and all that. Ta-ta.” The door slid to behind