It was when, at night, she went back to Fillmore Street—­when she thought of the monotony, yes, and the sordidness of home, when she let herself in at the door and climbed the dark and narrow stairway, that her feet grew leaden.  In spite of the fact that Hannah was a good housekeeper and prided herself on cleanliness, the tiny flat reeked with the smell of cooking, and Janet, from the upper hall, had a glimpse of a thin, angular woman with a scrawny neck, with scant grey hair tightly drawn into a knot, in a gingham apron covering an old dress bending over the kitchen stove.  And occasionally, despite a resentment that fate should have dealt thus inconsiderately with the family, Janet felt pity welling within her.  After supper, when Lise had departed with her best young man, Hannah would occasionally, though grudgingly, permit Janet to help her with the dishes.

“You work all day, you have a right to rest.”

“But I don’t want to rest,” Janet would declare, and rub the dishes the harder.  With the spirit underlying this protest, Hannah sympathized.  Mother and daughter were alike in that both were inarticulate, but Janet had a secret contempt for Hannah’s uncomplaining stoicism.  She loved her mother, in a way, especially at certain times,—­though she often wondered why she was unable to realize more fully the filial affection of tradition; but in moments of softening, such as these, she was filled with rage at the thought of any woman endowed with energy permitting herself to be overtaken and overwhelmed by such a fate as Hannah’s:  divorce, desertion, anything, she thought, would have been better—­anything but to be cheated out of life.  Feeling the fires of rebellion burning hotly within her,—­rebellion against environment and driving necessity she would glance at her mother and ask herself whether it were possible that Hannah had ever known longings, had ever been wrung by inexpressible desires,—­desires in which the undiscovered spiritual was so alarmingly compounded with the undiscovered physical.  She would have died rather than speak to Hannah of these unfulfilled experiences, and the mere thought of confiding them to any person appalled her.  Even if there existed some wonderful, understanding being to whom she might be able thus to empty her soul, the thought of the ecstasy of that kenosis was too troubling to be dwelt upon.

She had tried reading, with unfortunate results,—­perhaps because no Virgil had as yet appeared to guide her through the mysteries of that realm.  Her schooling had failed to instil into her a discriminating taste for literature; and when, on occasions, she had entered the Public Library opposite the Common it had been to stare hopelessly at rows of books whose authors and titles offered no clue to their contents.  Her few choices had not been happy, they had failed to interest and thrill...

Of the Bumpus family Lise alone found refuge, distraction, and excitement in the vulgar modern world by which they were surrounded, and of whose heedlessness and remorselessness they were the victims.  Lise went out into it, became a part of it, returning only to sleep and eat,—­a tendency Hannah found unaccountable, and against which even her stoicism was not wholly proof.  Scarce an evening went by without an expression of uneasiness from Hannah.