GO SET A WATCHMAN

Maxim Gorky: HER LOVER (audio recording) (YouTube)

I might feel like crying at the sorrowful plight of a VERY POOR girl/woman BUT if the girl/woman is a VERY RICH ex Tsarina ex Queen ex princess consort of "God"/Satan/Peter and very illegally a billionaire or trillionaire pretending to be poor and sucking the blood of the poor, I would shed CROCODILE tears. - G

Kishalay Sinha [G]

GO SET A WATCHMAN

That week, for three nights, Jem, Dill, and she [Jean Louise] had sat in the children's section of the Church and listened to the messages of the Reverend James Edward Moorehead, a renowned speaker. At least that is what they were told; they understood little of what he said except his observations on hell. Hell was and would always be as far as she was concerned, a lake of fire exactly the size of Maycomb, Alabama, surrounded by a brick wall two hundred feet high. Sinners were pitchforked over this wall by Satan, and they simmered throughout eternity in a sort of broth of liquid sulfur.

Reverend Moorehead was a tall sad man with a stoop and a tendency to give his sermons startling titles. (Would You Speak to Jesus If You Met Him on the Street? Reverend Moorehead doubted that you could even if you wanted to, because Jesus probably spoke Aramaic.) The second night he preached, his topic was The Wages of Sin. At that time the local movie house was featuring a film of the same title (persons under sixteen not admitted): Maycomb thought Reverend Moorehead was going to preach on the movie, and the whole town turned out to hear him. Reverend Moorehead did nothing of the kind. He split hairs for three-quarters of an hour on the grammatical accuracy of his text. (Which was correct -- the wages of sin IS death or the wages of sin ARE death?)

***

She was in the sixth grade. That year the small group of town children were swamped temporarily by a collection of elderly pupils shipped in from Old Sarum because somebody had set fire to the school there. The oldest boy in Miss Blunt's sixth grade was nearly nineteen, and he had three contemporaries. There were several girls of sixteen, voluptuous, happy creatures who thought school something of a holiday from chopping cotton and feeding livestock.

Jean Louise took to the Old Sarum newcomers immediately...

With rough gentleness the big boys taught her... The big girls giggled behind their hands most of the time and whispered among themselves a great deal.

***

Ada Belle Stevens laughed and made room for her on the long cement bench. "Why ain'tcha playin'?" she asked.

"Don't wanta," said Jean Louise.

Ada Belle's eyes narrowed and her white brows twitched. "I bet I know what's the matter with you."

"What?"

"You've got the Curse."

"The what?"

"The Curse. Curse o' Eve. If Eve hadn't et the apple we wouldn't have it. You feel bad?"

"No," said Jean Louise, silently cursing Eve.

"You'll get used to it."

"I'll never get used to it."

Her companions were the lazier of the Old Sarum boys, the laziest of whom was one Albert Coningham, a slow thinker to whom Jean Louise had rendered invaluable service during six-weeks' tests.

One day, Albert said, "Wait a minute, Jean Louise."

She waited. When they were alone, Albert said, "I want you to know I made a C-minus this time in geography."

"That's real good, Albert," she said.

"I just wanted to thank you."

"You're welcome, Albert."

Albert blushed to his hairline, caught her to him, and kissed her. She felt his wet, warm tongue on her lips, and she drew back. She had never been kissed like that before. Albert let her go and shuffled toward the school building. Jean Louise followed, faintly annoyed.

She only suffered a kinsman to kiss her on the cheek and then she secretly wiped it off; Atticus kissed her vaguely wherever he happened to land; Jem kissed her not at all.

One morning, arriving late to the scene, she found the girls giggling more surreptitiously than usual and she demanded to know the reason.

"It's Francine Owen," one said.

"Francine Owen? She's been absent a couple of days," said Jean Louise.

"Know why?" said Ada Belle.

"Nope."

Jean Louise nudged Ada Belle, who made room for her on the bench.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's pregnant, and you know who did it? Her daddy."

Jean Louise said, "What's pregnant?"

A groan went up from the circle of girls. "Gonna have a baby, stupid," said one.

Jean Louise assimilated the definition and said, "But what's her daddy got to do with it?"

Ada Belle sighed, "Her daddy's the daddy."

Jean Louise laughed. "Come on, Ada Belle --"

"That's a fact, Jean Louise. I bet he did it with both of 'em."

"Did what?" Jean Louise was now totally confused.

The girls shrieked. Ada Belle said, "You don't know one thing, Jean Louise Finch. First of all you -- [menstruate] then if you do it after that, after you start [menstruating], you'll have a solid baby."

"Do what, Ada Belle?"

Ada Belle glanced up at the circle and winked. "Well, first of all it takes a boy. Then he hugs you tight and breathes real hard and then he French-kisses you. That's when he kisses you and opens his mouth and sticks his tongue in your mouth --"

A ringing noise in her ears obliterated Ada Belle's narrative. She felt the blood leave her face. Her palms grew sweaty and she tried to swallow. She would not leave. If she left they would know it. She stood up, trying to smile, but her lips were trembling. She clamped her mouth shut and clenched her teeth.

"-- an' that's all there is to it. What's the matter, Jean Louise? Ain't scared'ja, have I?" Ada Belle smirked.

"No," said Jean Louise. "Think I'll go inside."

She prayed they would not see her knees shaking as she walked across the schoolyard. Inside the girls' bathroom she leaned over a washbasin and vomited.

There was no mistaking it, Albert had stuck out his tongue at her. She was pregnant.

- Harper Lee: "GO SET A WATCHMAN"