Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/228

 black mud in a pig's yard have to do with these? I am a handful of rich black mud—a fool-woman, fool's mud.

All on earth that I need to do is to lie still in the hot sun and feel the pig rolling and floundering and slushing about. It were folly to waste my mud nerves in wondering. Be quiet, fool-woman, let things be. Your soul is a fool's-mud soul and is governed by the pig; your heart is a fool's-mud heart, and wants nothing beyond the pig; your life is a fool's-mud life, and is the pig's life.

Something within me shrieks now, but I do not know what it is—nor why it shrieks.

It groans and moans.

There is no satisfaction in being a fool—no satisfaction at all.