By Zona Gale

About the author: Zona Gale (1874-1938) was born in Portage, Wisconsin. After she graduated from the University of Wisconsin, she spent five years working as a newspaper reporter in Milwaukee and New York City. In 1904, she returned to her hometown and soon attracted attention as a fiction writer with her early stories of small-town life.

Gale's best-known work, a novel called Miss Lulu Brett, gives a' realistic view of life in the Midwestern United States in the early twentieth century. The version of Miss Lulu Brett that was performed on stage won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, In many of her novels, short stories, and plays, Gale explores the relationships between men and women, as you will see when you read " The Woman."

Walking one day in a suburb, Bellard, wearing clothes in the extreme of the fashion, was torn by the look of a house on whose mean little porch near the street sat a shabby man of sixty, without a coat, and reading a newspaper. The man's fate seemed terrible: the unpainted house, the disordered hall, and the glimpse of a woman in an apron. But the man looked up, and smiled at Bellard as brightly as if he himself had been young.

Bellard meant to be a financier. Instead, he shortly endured his father's bankruptcy, left college, found uncongenial employment, observed the trick of a girl's eyes, married her and lived in a little flat.

But this girl had the quality of a flower. Bellard could not explain it, but she was silent and fragrant, and hopeful like a flower. Once in April when he saw a pot of lilies of the valley blooming on the pavement, he thought: " They're like Lucile. They're all doing their utmost." In her presence it was impossible to be discouraged. He would go home from work hating his office, his routine, his fellows, and his street; but as soon as he entered the flat, there would be some breath of that air for which he saw other men dying. Her welcome, her abstraction, 1 her silence, her confidences were all really heavenly. Bellard wondered at her, did not comprehend her, and adored her. He worked hard, and went home on the subway with a sense of happiness.

He longed to give her beautiful things, but she said: " How do people get like that, my dear- to want expensive things and to have people look up to them? Isn't it foolish? " He wondered how she knew that, and he wished that he knew it himself.

Their two children were like all agreeable children, and Bellard and Lucile went through the reverence, anxiety, and joy of their upbringing. And whether the moment yielded a torn frock or a hurt knee, croup or a moral crisis, Lucile seemed to put the event in its place and not to be overwhelmed by it. " She has a genius for being alive, " Bellard thought.

As she grew older, she was not so beautiful, and he saw many women both beautiful and young. But when they chattered, pouted and coquetted, 2 when they were cynica l, 3 bored, critical, or hilarious, 4 he thought about Lucile and her silences, her fragrance, her hope. Hope of what? She knew that they would in all probability never have any more than they had now. When he asked her wistfully what kept her so happy she replied with an air of wonder: " You."

One day he overheard her talking about him with a friend. Lucile was saying: " Other men live in things and events and emotions and the future. But he seems to know that living is something else …" " What else? " this friend interrupted curiously. And he heard Lucile say: " Well, of course every one knows, really. But he lives it too." " I'm not good enough for her, " Bellard thought, and tried his best to prove that he was.

They went on like this for years; the children grew up, married, came home and patronized them. Then Bellard, who had established a little business, failed. His son tried to straighten things out, found it impossible, and assumed control, frankly berating his father. His daughter came home with her three children, and filled the flat with clamor and turbulence. This woman said: " Mother, sometimes I think it's your fault. You're so patient with him." " I'm glad he's out of that business, " Lucile said absently. " He never liked it." Her exasperated daughter cried: " But what are you going to live on? " Bellard heard her say: " Your father was responsible for three of us for a quarter of a century, you know, dear." At this Bellard rose on strong wings and felt himself still able to breast the morning and the night.5

Lucile and Bellard moved to a suburb. There they rented a little house and Bellard went into a real estate office. All day he showed land and houses to men who wanted something better for less money. At night he went home and there was Lucile - less like a flower, but still silent, fragrant, hopeful. He said to her: " You'll never have anything more than you have now, Lucile, do you realize that? " She replied: " I don't want anything more to dust and take care of! " Once he said: " When you were a girl you dreamed that you'd have things different, didn't you, Lucile? " She said:

" My dear, all that poor girl knew how to dream was just about having things! " He cried: " What do you want most of anything in this world? " She considered and answered: " I want you to be as happy as I am."

He thought of his own early dream of being a great financier, and said: " I'm the happy one, you know." He thought: " This is what the world is dying for."

One day, when he was sixty, he was sitting on his mean little porch near the street. The house was small and unpainted, the hall was disordered with house cleaning, Lucile in an apron was in the doorway. Bellard, without a coat and reading a newspaper, lifted his eyes, and saw walking by the house, and wearing clothes in the extreme of the fashion, a youth who looked up at him with an excess of visible compassion.

On this youth Bellard looked down and smiled, a luminous smile, a smile as bright as if he himself had been young.