Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T00:50:22.081Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Secrets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2023

Eva Hoffmann
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Alexis B. Smith
Affiliation:
Hanover College, Indiana
Get access

Summary

Bertha came home from boarding school. Her parents lived on the second floor. Every time she went up the stairs after five o’clock, Max, the high school student, came down from the third floor. He had locks of hair like a poet and looked very manly.

At first, they had both blushed. He had greeted her.

The typical schoolboy, she thought, looking crossly at him.

But the next day, he was holding a small letter, which suddenly slipped into her hands. She liked that. There was something so secretive, so forbidden about it.

A love letter. God, that would have been nice!

Maybe even a poem: bust—lust, heart—falling apart!

Something stirred inside her to throw that thing away.—

She almost floated up the stairs. It was as though she had gained new, stronger muscles.

At the top, she rang the doorbell. The maid opened the door. Her Mama happened to come out as well.

“What’s the matter, you look so strange?”

“Me? Oh, nothing at all,” she said in a half-brash, half-dismissive tone. Finally, she was somebody, she thought to herself, since she had received a letter from a “gentleman.”

Her mother looked her in the eyes and brushed her hair back: “Don’t you have something to say to me, my child?”

Suddenly the little one lost her nerve: to lie to her Mommy! How could she! But then the rebellious spite of childhood came over her: “Why are they always after me, to torture me, to spy on me, as though I wanted to do something bad. Just as well! Have it your way, now I’ll really do it.”

“All right, my girl, you don’t know yet that even the thief finds exceptions and excuses for himself.”

She replied to her Mama: “I don’t know what you mean, it is nothing.”

Then she went to a special place, the only one where she was left alone, and read: “Glowing desire—impulses on fire, sunlight—delight.”

It was absolutely beautiful! She shivered with joyful excitement.

He asked for a rendezvous. Goodness! Where? Her parents never left her alone.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Secrets
  • Elsa Asenijeff
  • Edited by Eva Hoffmann, University of Oregon, Alexis B. Smith, Hanover College, Indiana
  • Book: Elsa Asenijeff’s <i>Is that love?</i> and <i>Innocence</i>
  • Online publication: 12 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800106772.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Secrets
  • Elsa Asenijeff
  • Edited by Eva Hoffmann, University of Oregon, Alexis B. Smith, Hanover College, Indiana
  • Book: Elsa Asenijeff’s <i>Is that love?</i> and <i>Innocence</i>
  • Online publication: 12 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800106772.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Secrets
  • Elsa Asenijeff
  • Edited by Eva Hoffmann, University of Oregon, Alexis B. Smith, Hanover College, Indiana
  • Book: Elsa Asenijeff’s <i>Is that love?</i> and <i>Innocence</i>
  • Online publication: 12 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800106772.014
Available formats
×