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The Sturdy Oak by Samuel Merwin

S >> Samuel Merwin >> The Sturdy Oak




He dictated in a formal and distant manner, pausing in the midst of the
last letter to spell out the word "analysis," which he must have known
would enrage her further. Then, quite casually, he wished to be told if
she might know the local habitat of Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith and a certain
Cousin Emelene. His manner was arid.

Miss Sheridan chanced to know that the ladies were sheltered in the
exclusive boarding-house of one Mrs. Gallup, out on Erie Street, and
informed him to this effect in the fewest possible words. Mr. Evans
whistled absently a moment, then formally announced that he should be
absent from the office for perhaps an hour. Hat, gloves and stick in hand,
he was about to nod punctiliously to the back of Miss Sheridan's head when
the door opened to admit none other than our hero, George Remington. George
wore the look of one who is uplifted and who yet has found occasion to be
thoughtful about it. Penfield Evans grasped his hand and shook it warmly.

"Fine, George, old boy--simply corking! Honestly, I didn't believe you had
it in you. You covered the ground and you did it in a big way. It took
nerve, all right! Of course you probably know that every woman in town is
speaking of your young wife as 'poor Genevieve,' but you've had the courage
of your convictions. It's great!"

"Thanks, old man! I've spoken for the right as I saw it, let come what may.
By the way, has Uncle Martin been in this morning, or telephoned, or sent
any word?"

Miss Sheridan coldly signified that none of these things had occurred,
whereupon George sighed in an interesting manner and entered his own room.

Mr. Evans had uttered his congratulations in clear, ringing tones and
Miss Sheridan, even as she wrote, contrived with her trained shoulders to
exhibit to his lingering eye an overwhelming contempt for his opinions and
his double-dealing.

In spite of which he went out whistling, and dosed the door in a defiant
manner.




CHAPTER III

BY FANNIE HURST


Destiny, busybody that she is, has her thousand irons in her perpetual
fires, turning, testing and wielding them.

While Miss Betty Sheridan, for another scornful time, was rereading the
well-thumbed copy of the _Sentinel_, her fine back arched like a prize
cat's, George Remington in his small mahogany office adjoining, neck low
and heels high, was codifying, over and over again, the small planks of his
platform, stuffing the knot holes which afforded peeps to the opposite side
of the issue with anti-putty, and planning a bombardment of his pattest
phrases for the complete capitulation of his Uncle Jaffry.

While Genevieve Remington in her snug library, so eager in her wifeliness
to clamber up to her husband's small planks, and if need be, spread her
prettily flounced skirts over the rotting places, was memorizing, with
more pride than understanding, extracts from the controversial article
for quotation at the Woman's Club meeting, Mr. Penfield Evans, with
a determination which considerably expanded his considerable chest
measurement, ran two at a bound up the white stone steps of Mrs. Gallup's
private boarding-house and pulled out the white china knob of a bell that
gave no evidence of having sounded within, and left him uncertain to ring
again.

A cast-iron deer, with lichen growing along its antlers, stood poised for
instant flight in Mrs. Gallup's front yard.

While Mr. Evans waited he regarded its cast-iron flanks, but not seeingly.
His rather the expression of one who stares into the future and smiles at
what he sees.

Erie Street, shaded by a double row of showy chestnuts, lay in summer calm.
A garden hose with a patent attachment spun spray over an adjoining
lawn and sent up a greeny smell. Out from under the striped awning of
Hassebrock's Ice Cream Parlor, cat-a-corner, Percival Pauncefort Sheridan,
in rubber-heeled canvas shoes and white trousers, cuffed high, emerged
and turned down Huron Street, making frequent forays into a bulging rear
pocket.

Miss Lydia Chipley, vice-president of the Busy Bee Sewing and Civic Club,
cool, starchy and unhatted, clicked past on slim, trim heels, all radiated
by the reflection from a pink parasol, gay embroidery bag dangling.

"Hello, Lyd!"

"Hello, Pen!"

"What's your hurry?"

"It's my middle name."

"Why hurry, when the future is always waiting?"

"Why aren't you holding your partner's head since he committed political
suicide in the _Sentinel_?"

"I'd rather hold your head, Lyd, any day in the week."

"Gaul," said Miss Chipley, passing on, her sharply etched little face
glowing in the pink reflection of the parasol, "is bounded on the north by
Mrs. Gallup's boarding-house, and on the south by----"

"By the Frigid Zone!"

Then the door from behind swung open. Mr. Penfield Evans stepped into Mrs.
Gallup's cool, exclusive parlor of better days, and delivering his card to
a moist-fingered maid, sat himself among the shrouded furniture to await
Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith and Miss Emelene Brand.

Mrs. Gallup's boarding-house was finishing its noonday meal. Boiled odors
lay upon a parlor that was otherwise redolent of the more opulent days of
the Gallups. A not too ostentatious clatter of dishes came through the
closed folding-doors.

Almost immediately Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith, her favorite Concentrated
Breath of the Lily always in advance, rustled into the darkened parlor, her
stride hitting vigorously into her black taffeta skirts. Even as she shook
hands with Mr. Evans, she jerked the window shade to its height, so that
her smoothness and coloring shone out above her weeds.

In the shadow of her and at her life job of bringing up the rear, with a
large Maltese cat padding beside her, entered Miss Brand on rubber heels.
She was the color of long twilight.

Mr. Evans rose to his six-feet-in-his-stockings and extended them each a
hand, Miss Emelene drawing the left.

Mrs. Smith threw up a dainty gesture, black lace ruffles falling back from
arms all the whiter because of them.

"Well, Penny Evans!"

"None other, Mrs. Smith, than the villain himself."

"Be seated, Penfield."

"Thanks, Miss Emelene."

They drew up in a triangle beside the window overlooking the cast-iron
deer. The cat sprang up, curling in the crotch of Miss Emelene's arm.

"Nice ittie kittie, say how-do to big Penny-field-Evans. Say how-do to big
man. Say how-do, muvver's ittie kittie." Miss Emelene extended the somewhat
reluctant Maltese paw, five hook-shaped claws slightly in evidence.

"Say how-do to Hanna, Penfield. Hanna, say how-do to big man." "How-do,
Hanna," said Mr. Evans, reddening slightly beneath his tan. Then hitched
his chair closer.

"To what," he began, flashing his white smile from one to the other of
them, and with a strong veer to the facetious, "are we indebted for the
honor of this visit? Are those the unspoken words, ladies?"

"Nothing wrong at home, Penfield? Nobody ailing or--"

"No, no, Miss Emelene, never better. As a matter of fact, it's a piece of
political business that has prompted me to--"

At that Mrs. Smith jangled her bracelets, leaning forward on her knees.

"If it's got anything to do with your partner and my cousin George
Remington having the courage to go in for the district attorneyship without
the support of the vote-hunting, vote-eating women of this town, I'm here
to tell you that I'm with him heart and soul. He can have my support and--"

"Mine too. And if I've got anything to say my two nephews will vote for
him; and I think I have, with my two heirs."

"Ladies, it fills my heart with joy to--"

"Votes! Why what would the powder-puffing, short-skirted, bridge-playing
women of this town do with the vote if they had it? Wear it around their
necks on a gold chain?"

"Well spoken, Mrs. Smith, if--"

"I know the direction you lean, Penfield Evans, letting--"

"But, Miss Emelene, I--"

"Letting that shameless Betty Sheridan, a girl that had as sweet and
womanly a mother as Whitewater ever boasted, lead you around by the nose on
her suffrage string. A girl with her raising and both of her grandmothers
women that lived and died genteel, to go traipsing around in her low heels
in men's offices and addressing hoi polloi from soap boxes! Why, between
her and that female chauffeur, Mrs. Herrington, another woman whose mother
was of too fine feelings even to join the Delsarte class, the women of this
town are being influenced to making disgraceful--dis--oh, what shall I say,
Alys?"

Here Mrs. Smith broke in, thumping a soft fist into a soft palm.

"It's the most pernicious movement, Mr. Evans, that has ever got hold of
this community and we need a man like my cousin George Remington to--"

"But, Mrs. Smith, that's just what I--"

"To stamp it out! Stamp it out! It's eating into the homes of Whitewater,
trying to make breadwinners out of the creatures God intended for the
bread-eaters--I mean bread-bakers."

"But, Mrs. Smith, I--"

"Woman's place has been the home since home was a cave, and it will be the
home so long as women will remember that womanliness is their greatest
asset. As poor dear Mr. Smith was so fond of saying, he--I can't bring
myself to talk of him, Mr. Evans, but--but as he used to say, I--I--"

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Smith, I understa--"

"But as my cousin says in his article, which in my mind should be spread
broadcast, what higher mission for woman than--than--just what are his
words, Emelene?"

Miss Brand leaned forward, her gaze boring into space.

"What higher mission," she quoted, as if talking in a chapel, "for woman
than that she sit enthroned in the home, wielding her invisible but mighty
scepter from that throne, while man, kissing the hand that so lovingly
commands him, shall bear her gifts and do her bidding. That is the
strongest vote in the world. That is the universal suffrage which chivalry
grants to woman. The unpolled vote! Long may it reign!"

Round spots of color had come out on Miss Emelene's long cheeks.

"A man who can think like that has the true--the true--what shall I say,
Alys?"

"But, ladies, I protest that I'm not--"

"Has the true chivalry of spirit, Emelene, that the women are too stark
raving mad to appreciate. You can't come here, Mr. Evans, to two women to
whom womanliness and love of home, thank God, are still uppermost and try
to convert us to--"

Here Mr. Evans executed a triple gyration, to the annoyance of Hanna, who
withdrew from the gesture, and raised his voice to a shout that was not
without a note of command.

"Convert you! Why women alive, what I've been bursting a blood vessel
trying to say during the length of this interview is that I'd as soon dip
my soul in boiling oil as try to convert you away from the cause. _My_
cause! _Our_ cause!"

"Why--"

"I'm here to tell you that I'm with my partner head-over-heels on the plank
he has taken."

"But we thought--"

"We thought you and Betty Sheridan--why, my cousin Genevieve Remington told
me that--"

"Yes, yes, Miss Emelene. But not even the wiles of a pretty woman can hold
out indefinitely against Truth! A broad-minded man has got to keep the door
of his mind open to conviction, or it decays of mildew. I confess that
finally I am convinced that if there is one platform more than another
upon which George Remington deserves his election it is on the brave and
chivalrous principles he has so courageously come out with in the current
_Sentinel_. Whatever may have been between Betty Sheridan and--"

"Mr. Evans, you don't mean to tell me that you and Betty Sheridan have
quarreled! Such a desirable match from every point of view, family and all!
It goes to show what a rattle-pated bunch of women they are! Any really
clever girl with an eye to her future, anti or pro, could shift her
politics when it came to a question of matri--"

"Mrs. Smith, there comes a time in every modern man's life when he's got to
keep his politics and his pretty girls separate, or suffrage will get him
if he don't watch out!"

"Yes, and Mr. Evans, if what I hear is true, a good-looking woman can talk
you out of your safety deposit key!"

"That's where you're wrong, Mrs. Smith, and I'll prove it to you. Despite
any wavering I may have exhibited, I now stand, as George puts it in his
article, 'ready to conserve the threatened flower of womanhood by also
endeavoring to conserve her unpolled vote!' If you women want prohibition,
it is in your power to sway man's vote to prohibition. If you women want
the moon, let man cast your proxy vote for it! In my mind, that is the true
chivalry. To quote again, 'Woman is man's rarest heritage, his beautiful
responsibility, and at all times his co-operation, support and protection
are due her. His support and protection.'"

Miss Emelene closed her eyes. The red had spread in her cheeks and she
laid her head back against the chair, rocking softly and stroking the
thick-napped cat.

"The flower of womanhood," she repeated. "'His support and his protection.'
If ever a man deserved high office because of high principles, it's my
cousin George Remington! My cousin Genevieve Livingston Remington is the
luckiest girl in the world, and not one of us Brands but what is willing to
admit it. My two nephews, too, if their Aunt Emelene has anything to say,
and I think she has--"

"Why, there isn't a stone in the world I wouldn't turn to see that boy in
office," Mrs. Smith interrupted.

At that Mr. Evans rose.

"You mean that, Mrs. Smith?"

Miss Emelene rose with him, the cat pouring from her lap.

"Of course she means it, Penfield. What self-respecting woman wouldn't!"

Mr. Evans sat down again suddenly, Miss Emelene with him, and leaning
violently forward, thrust his eager, sun-tanned face between the two women.

"Well, then, ladies, here's your chance to prove it! That's what brings me
today. As two of the self-respecting, idealistic and womanly women of this
community, I have come to urge you both to--"

"Oh, Mr. Evans!"

"Penfield, you are the flatterer!"

"To induce two such representative women as yourselves to help my partner
to the election he so well deserves."

"Us?" "It is in your power, ladies, to demonstrate to Whitewater that
George Remington's chivalry is not only on paper, but in his soul."

"But--how?"

"By throwing yourselves upon his generosity and hospitality, at least
during the campaign. You have it in your power, ladies, to strengthen the
only uncertain plank upon which George Remington stands today."

A clock ticked roundly into a silence tinged with eloquence. The Maltese
leaped back into Miss Emelene's lap, purring there.

"You mean, Penfield, for us to go visit George--er--er--"

"Just that! Bag and baggage. As two relatives and two unattached women, it
is your privilege, nay, your right."

"But--"

"He hasn't come out in words with it, but he has intimated that such an
act from the representative antis of this town would more than anything
strengthen his theories into facts. As unattached women, particularly as
women of his own family, his support and protection, as he puts it, are due
you, _due_ you!"

Mrs. Smith clasped her plentifully ringed fingers, and regarded him with
her prominent eyes widening.

"Why, I--unprotected widow that I am, Mr. Evans, am not the one to force
myself even upon my cousin if--"

"Nor I, Penfield. It would be a pleasant enough change, heaven knows, from
the boarding-house. But you can ask your mother, Penfield, if there ever
was a prouder girl in all Whitewater than Emmy Brand. I--"

"But I tell you, ladies, the obligation is all on George's part. It's just
as if you were polling votes for him. What is probably the oldest adage in
the language, states that actions speak louder than words. Give him his
chance to spread broadcast to your sex his protection, his support. That,
ladies, is all I--we--ask."

"But I--Genevieve--the housekeeping, Penfield. Genevieve isn't much on
management when it comes to--" "Housekeeping! Why, I have it from your fair
cousin herself, Miss Emelene, that her idea of their new little home is the
Open House."

"Yes, but--as Emelene says, Mr. Evans, it's an imposition to--"

"Why do you think, Mrs. Smith, Martin Jaffry spends all his evenings up at
Remingtons' since they're back from their honeymoon? Why, he was telling
me only last night it's for the joy of seeing that new little niece of his
lording it over her well-oiled little household, where a few extra dropping
in makes not one whit of difference."

At this remark, embedded like a diamond in a rock, a shade of faintest
color swam across Mrs. Smith's face and she swung him her profile and
twirled at her rings.

"And where Genevieve Remington's husband's interests are involved, ladies,
need I go further in emphasizing your welcome into that little home?"

"Heaven knows it would be a change from the boarding-house, Alys. The
lunches here are beginning to go right against me! That sago pudding
today--and Gallup knowing how I hate starchy desserts!"

"For the sake of the cause, Miss Emelene, too!"

"Gallup would have to hold our rooms at half rate."

"Of course, Mrs. Smith. I'll arrange all that."

"I--I can't go over until evening, with three trunks to pack."

"Just fine, Mrs. Smith. You'll be there just in time to greet George at
dinner."

Miss Emelene fell to stroking the cat, again curled like a sardelle in her
lap.

"Kitti-kitti-kitti--, does muvver's ittsie Hanna want to go on visit to
Tousin George in fine new ittie house? To fine Tousin Georgie what give
ittsie Hanna big saucer milk evvy day? Big fine George what like ladies and
lady kitties!"

"Emelene, it's out of the question to take Hanna. You know how George
Remington hates cats! You remember at the Sunday School Bazaar when--"
A grimness descended like a mask over Miss Brand's features. Her mouth
thinned.

"Very well, then. Without Hanna you can count me out, Penfield. If--"

"No, no! Why nonsense, Miss Emelene! George doesn't--"

"This cat has the feelings and sensibilities of a human being."

"Why of course," cried Penfield Evans, reaching for his hat. "Just you
bring Hanna right along, Miss Emelene. That's only a pet pose of George's
when he wants to tease his relatives, Mrs. Smith. I remember from
college--why I've seen George _kiss_ a cat!"

Miss Emelene huddled the object of controversy up in her chin, talking down
into the warm gray fur.

"Was 'em tryin' to 'buse muvver's ittsie bittsie kittsie? Muvver's ittsie
bittsie kittsie!"

They were in the front hall now, Mr. Evans tugging at the door.

"I'll run around now and arrange to have your trunks called for at five. My
congratulations and thanks, ladies, for helping the right man toward the
right cause."

"You're _sure_, Penfield, we'll be welcome?"

"Welcome as the sun that shines!"

"If I thought, Penfield, that Hanna wouldn't be welcome I wouldn't budge a
step."

"Of course she's welcome, Miss Emelene. Isn't she of the gentler sex?
There'll be a cab around for you and Mrs. Smith and Hanna about five. So
long, Mrs. Smith, and many thanks. Miss Emelene, Hanna."

On the outer steps they stood for a moment in a dapple of sunshine and
shadow from chestnut trees.

"Good-by, Mr. Evans, until evening."

"Good-by, Mrs. Smith." He paused on the walk, lifting his hat and flashing
his smile a third time.

"Good-by, Miss Emelene."

From the steps Miss Brand executed a rotary motion with the left paw of the
dangling Maltese.

"Tell nice gentleman by-by. Tum now, Hanna, get washed and new ribbon to
go by-by. Her go to big Cousin George and piddy Cousin Genevieve. By-by!
By-by!"

The door swung shut, enclosing them. Down the quiet, tree-shaped sidewalk,
Mr. Penfield Evans strode into the somnolent afternoon, turning down Huron
Street. At the remote end of the block and before her large frame mansion
of a thousand angles and wooden lace work, Mrs. Harvey Herrington's low car
sidled to her curb-stone, racy-looking as a hound. That lady herself, large
and modish, was in the act of stepping up and in.

"Well, Pen Evans! 'Tis writ in the book our paths should cross."

"Who more pleased than I?"

"Which way are you bound?"

"Jenkins' Transfer and Cab Service."

"Jump in."

"No sooner said than done."

Mrs. Herrington threw her clutch and let out a cough of steam. They
jerked and leaped forward. From the rear of the car an orange and black
pennant--_Votes for Women_--stiffened out like a semaphore against the
breeze.




CHAPTER IV

BY DOROTHY CANFIELD


Genevieve Remington sat in her pretty drawing-room and watched the hour
hand of the clock slowly approach five. Five was a sacred hour in her day.
At five George left his office, turned off the business-current with a
click and turned on, full-voltage, the domestic-affectionate.

Genevieve often told her girl friends that she only began really to live
after five, when George was restored to her. She assured them the psychical
connection between George and herself was so close that, sitting alone in
her drawing-room, she could feel a tingling thrill all over when the clock
struck five and George emerged from his office downtown.

On the afternoon in question she received her five o'clock electric thrill
promptly on time, although history does not record whether or not George
walked out from his office at that moment. With all due respect for the
world-shaking importance of Mr. Remington's movements, it must be stated
that history had, on that afternoon, other more important events to
chronicle.

As the clock struck five, the front doorbell rang. Marie, the maid, went
to open the door. Genevieve adjusted the down-sweeping, golden-brown tress
over her right eye, brushed an invisible speck from the piano, straightened
a rose in a vase, and after these traditionally bridal preparations, waited
with a bride's optimistic smile the advent of a caller. But it was Marie
who appeared at the door, with a stricken face of horror.

"Mrs. Remington! Mrs. Remington!" she whispered loudly. "They've come to
stay. The men are getting their trunks down from the wagon."

"_Who_ has come to stay? _Where?_" queried the startled bride.

"The two ladies who came to call yesterday!"

"_Oh!_" said the relieved Genevieve. "There's some mistake, of course. If
it's Cousin Emelene and Mrs.----"

She advanced into the hall and was confronted by two burly men with a very
large trunk between them.

"Which room?" said one of them in a bored and insolent voice.

"Oh, you must have come to the wrong house," Genevieve assured them with
her pretty, friendly smile.

She was so happy and so convinced of the essential rightness of a world
which had produced George Remington that she had a friendly smile for every
one, even for unshaven men who kept their battered derby hats on their
heads, had viciously smelling cigars in their mouths, and penetrated to her
sacred front hall with trunks which belonged somewhere else.

"Isn't this G. L. Remington's house?" inquired one of the men, dropping his
end of the trunk and consulting a dirty slip of paper.

"Yes, it is," admitted Genevieve, thrilling at the thought that it was also
hers. "This is the place all right, then," said the man. He heaved up his
end of the trunk again, and said once more, "Which room?"

The repetition fell a little ominously on Genevieve's ear. What on earth
could be the matter?

She heard voices outside and craning her soft white neck, she saw Cousin
Emelene, with her gray kitten under one arm and a large suitcase in her
other hand, coming up the steps. There was a beatific expression in her
gentle, faded eyes, and her lips were quivering uncertainly. When she
caught sight of Genevieve's sweet face back of the bored expressmen, she
gave a little cry, ran forward, set down her suitcase and clasped her young
cousin in her arms.

"Oh Genevieve dear, that noble wonderful husband of yours! What have you
done to deserve such a man... out of this Age of Gold!"

This was a sentiment after Genevieve's own heart, but she found it rather
too vague to meet the present somewhat tense situation.

Cousin Emelene went on, clasping her at intervals, and talking very fast.
"I can hardly believe it! Now that my time of trial is all over I don't
mind telling you that I was growing embittered and cynical. All those
phrases my dear mother had brought me to believe, the sanctity of the home,
the chivalrous protection of men, the wicked folly of women who leave the
home to engage in fierce industrial struggle." ... At about this point the
expressmen set the trunk down, put their hands on their hips, cocked their
hats at a new angle and waited in gloomy ennui for the conversation to
stop. Cousin Emelene flowed on, her voice unsteady with a very real
emotion.

"See, dear, you must not blame me for my lack of faith ... but see how it
looked to me. There I was, as womanly a woman as ever breathed, and yet
_I_ had no home to be sanctified, _I_ had never had a bit of chivalrous
protection from any man. And with the New Haven stocks shrinking from one
day to the next, the way they do, it looked as though I would either have
to starve or engage in the wicked, unwomanly folly of earning my own
living. Do you know, dear Genevieve, I had almost come to the point--you
know how the suffragists do keep banging away at their points--I almost
wondered if perhaps they were right and if men really mean those things
about protection and support in place of the vote.... And then George's
splendid, noble-spirited article appeared, and a kind friend interpreted
it for me and told what it really meant, for _me_! Oh, Genevieve." ... The
tears rose to her mild eyes, her gentle, flat voice faltered, she took out
a handkerchief hastily. "It seemed too good to be true," she said brokenly
into its folds. "I've longed all my life to be protected, and now I'm going
to be!"

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Theatre review: Three Women / Jermyn Street, London
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We do not know the women's names, but their voices are quite distinct. All are pregnant. But while the first woman awaits the birth of her baby with a moon-like serenity, the other two are not so lucky. One, whose previous pregnancies have failed to go to term, is experiencing a heartbreaking late miscarriage; the other is a young student whose accidental pregnancy will end in her child being put up for adoption.

Sylvia Plath's only play was never intended for the stage, being broadcast instead on BBC radio in August 1962. Less than six months later, Plath killed herself, but not before the burst of astonishing creative energy that produced her extraordinary, terrifying Ariel poems.

Anyone who knows Plath's poetry will see the connection between Three Women and Plath's subsequent poems, particularly in the way she talks about the agony of childbirth, the rush of love for this tiny alien being, and both the wonder and wounded rawness of motherhood. It is a beautiful piece, full of startling imagery that draws you in through the sheer intensity of its femaleness, and because it so precisely articulates the emotions that are often thought but seldom voiced by women - certainly not in the early 1960s - about men, motherhood and our relationship to our bodies.

It's been 20 years since there has been an attempt at a professional stage version and - in a theatre world that happily accepts the poetic offerings of Sarah Kane and Debbie Tucker Green, or the staged possibilities of The Waves, one of Plath's own inspirations for the piece, I see no reason why it shouldn't be brought to life. Sadly, it doesn't breathe here, in a production by Robert Shaw that is clearly a labour of love, but which never finds a way to give the internal a physical reality. Plath's poetry, like most babies, is more robust than it appears - and won't break if treated with a little less reverence and considerably more grit.

Instead, what we are offered is tinkling piano music, mournful mood lighting, an innocuous pale setting, as well as three perfectly good but indisputably ladylike performances that capture none of the wounded redness of Plath's poetry, and do her the disservice of making her sound bleached and somewhat prissy. It's a pity. What might have been a wonder ends up a mere curiosity.

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