Post by etm solmerano on May 1, 2010 0:20:01 GMT -5
The Valiant Woman
By J.F. Powers
They had come to the dessert in a dinner that was a shambles. “Well ,John,” Father Nulty said, turning away from Mrs. Stoner and to father Firman, long gone silent at his own table. “You’ve got the bishop coming for confirmation next week”.
“Yes” Mrs. Stoner cut in, “and for dinner. And if he don’t eat any more than he did last year-“
Father Firman, in a rare moment, faced it. “Mrs.Stoner, the bishop is not well. You know that”.
“And after I fixed that dinner and all”. Mrs. Stoner pouted in Father Nulty’s direction.
“I wouldn’t feel bad about it”, Mrs. Stoner,” Father Nulty said. “He never eats much anywhere.”
“It’s funny. And the new Mrs. Allers said he ate just fine when he was there,” Mrs. Stoner argued, and then spit out, “But he’s a damned liar!”
Father Nulty, unsettled but trying not to show it, said,” Who’s Mrs. Allers?”
“She’s at Holy Cross,” Mrs. Stoner said.
“She’s the housekeeper,” Father Firman added, thinking Mrs. Stoner made it sound as though Mrs. Allers were the pastor there.
“I swear I don’t know what to do about the dinner this year,” Mrs. Stoner said.
Father Firman moaned. “Just do as you always done, Mrs. Stoner.”
“Huh! And have it all throw out! Is that any way to do?”
“Is there any dessert?” Father Firman asked coldly.
Mrs. Stoner leaped from the table and bolted into the kitchen, mumbling. She came back with the birthday cake. She plunged into the center of the table. She found a big wooden match in her apron pocket and thrust it at Father Firman.
“I don’t like this bishop,” she said. “I never did. And the way he went and cut poor Ellen Kennedy out of Father Doolin’s will!”
She went back into the kitchen.
“Didn’t they talk a lot of filth about Doolin and the housekeeper?” Father Nulty asked.
“I should think they did,” Father Firman said. “All because he took her to the movies on Sunday night. After he died and the Bishop cut her out of the will, though I hear he gives her pension privately, they talked about the bishop.”
“I don’t like this bishop at all,” Mrs. Stoner said, appearing with the cake knife. “Bishop Doran- there was a man!”
“We know,” Father Firman said. “All men and all priests.”
“He did know the real estate,” Father Nulty said.
Father Firman struck the match.
“Not on the chair!” Mrs. Stoner cried, too late.
Father Firman set the candle burning- it was suspiciously large and yellow, like blessed one, but he could not be sure. They watched the flattering the flame.
“I’m forgetting the lights!” Mrs. Stoner said and got up to turn them off. She went into the kitchen again.
The priest had a moment of silence in the candlelight.
“Happy birthday, John,” Father Nulty said softly. “Is it fifty-nine you are?”
“As if you didn’t know, Frank,” Father Firman said. “And you the same but one.”
Father Nulty smiled, the old gold of his incisors shining in the flickering light, his collar whiter in the dark, and raised his glass of water, which would have been wine or better in the bygone days, and toasted Father Firman.
“Many of ‘em John.”
“Blow it out, “Mrs. Stoner said, returning to the room. She waited by the candle light for Father Firman to blow out the candle.
Mrs. Stoner, who ate no dessert, began to clear the dishes into the kitchen, and the priest, finishing their cake and coffee in a hurry, went to sit in the study.
Father Nulty offered a cigar.
“John?”
“My ulcer, Frank.”
“Ah well, you’re better off.” Father lit the cigar and crossed his long black legs. “Fish Frawley has got him a Filipino, John. Did you hear?”
Father Firman leaned forward, interested. “He got rid of the women he had?”
“He did. It seemed she snooped.”
“Snooped, eh?”
“She did. And gossiped. Fish introduces into two town boys to her, said: ‘Would you think these boys were my nephews?’ That’s all, and the next week the paper had it that his two nephews were visiting him from Erie. After that, he let her believe he was going to East to see his parents, though both are dead. The paper carried the story. Fish returned and made a sermon out of it. Then he got the Filipino.”
Father Firman squirmed with pleasure in his chair. “That’s like Fish, Frank. He can do that.” He stared at the tip of his fingers bleakly.” You could never get a Filipino to come to place like this.”
“Probably not,” Father Nulty said. “Fish is pretty close to Minneapolis. Ah, say, do you remember the trick he played on us in Marmion Hall!”
“That I’ll not forget!” Father Firman’s eyes remembered. “Getting up New Year’s morning and finding the toilet seats all painted!”
“HAPPY CIRCUMCISION! Hah!” Father Nulty had coughing a fit.
When he had got himself again, a mosquito came and sat on his wrist. He watched it a moment before bringing down his heavy down. He raised his hand slowly, viewed the dead mosquito, and sent it spinning with a plunk of his middle finger.
“Only the female bites,” he said.
“I didn’t know that,” Father Firman said.
“Ah, yes…”
Mrs. Stoner entered the study and sat down with some sewing- Father Firman’s black socks.
She smiled pleasantly at Father Nulty.” And what do you think of the atom bomb, Father?”
“Not much,” Father Nulty said.
Mrs. Stoner had stopped smiling. Father Firman yawned.
Mrs. Stoner served up another: “Did you read about this communist convert, Father?”
“He’s been in the Church before,” Father Nulty said and so it’s not conversion, Mrs. Stoner.”
“No? Well, I already got him down on my list of Monsignor’s converts.”
“It’s better than a conversion, Mrs. Stoner, for there is more rejoicing in heaven over the return of… uh, he that was lost, Mrs. Stoner, is found.”
“And the congresswoman, Father?”
“Yes, a convert – she.”
“And Henry Ford’s grandson, Father. I got him down.”
“Yes, to be sure.”
Father Firman yawned, this time audibly, and held his jaw.
“But his one only by marriage, Father,” Mrs. Stoner said. “I always say you got to watch that kind.”
“Indeed you do, but a convert nonetheless, Mrs. Stoner. Remember, the Cardinal Newman himself is one.”
Mrs. Stoner is unimpressed. “I see where Henry ford’s making steering-wheels out of soybeans, Father.”
“I didn’t see that.”
“I read it in Reader’s Digest or some place.”
“Yes well…” Father Nulty rose and held his hand out to Father Firman.” John,” he said. “It’s been good.”
“I heard Hirohito’s next,” Mrs. Stoner said, returning to converts.
“Let’s wait and see, Mrs.Stoner,” Father Nulty said.
The priest walked to the door.
“You know where I live, John”
“Yes. Come again. Frank. Good night.”
Father Firman watched Father Nulty go down the walk to his car at the curb. He hooked the screen door and turned off the porch light. He hesitated at the foot of the stairs, suddenly moved to go to bed. But he went back into the study.
“Phew!” Mrs. Stoner said. “I thought he’d never go. Here it is after eight o’clock.”
Father Firman sat down on his rocking chair.” I don’t see him often,” he said.
“I give up!” Mrs. Stoner exclaimed, flinging the holey socks upon the horsehair sofa. “I’d swear you had a nail in your shoe.”
“I told I looked.”
“Well you ought to look again. And cut your toenails, why don’t you? Haven’t I got enough to do?”
Father Firman scratched in his coat pocket for a pill, found one, and swallowed it. He let his head sink back against the chair and closed his eyes. He could hear moving about the room, making the preparations; and how he knew them- the fumbling in the drawer for a pencil with a point, the rip of the page from his daily calendar, and finally the leg of the card table sliding up against his leg.
He opened hi eyes. She yanked the floor lamp alongside the table, setting the bead fringe tinkling on the shade, and pulled up her chair on the other side. She sat down and smiled at him for the first time that day. Now she was happy.
She swept up the cards and began to shuffle with abandoned virtuosity of an old river-boat gambler, standing them on end. Fanning them out, whirling them through her fingers, dancing them half-way up her arms, cracking the whip over them. At last they lay before him tamed into a neat deck.
“Cut?”
“Go ahead,” he said. She liked to go first.
She gave him her faint, avenging smile and drew a card; cast it aside for another which he thought must be an ace from the way she clutched it face down.
She was getting all the cards, as usual, and would have been invincible if she had possessed his restraint and if her cunning had been of a higher order. He knew a few things about leading and lying back that she would never learn. Her strategy was attack, forever attack, with one baffling departure: she might sacrificed certain tricks as expandable if only she could have it the last ones, the heartbreaking ones, if she could slap them down one after another, shatteringly.
She played for the blood, no bones about it, but for her there was no other way; it was her nature, as it was the lion’s, and for this reasons he found her ferocity pardonable, more a defect of the flesh, venial, while his own trouble was all in the will, mortal. He did not sweat and pray over each card as she must, but he did keep an eye out for reneging and demanded a cut now and then just aggravate her, and he was always secret5ly hoping for aces.
With one card left in her hand, the telltale trick coming next she delayed playing it, showing first smile, the preview of defeat. She laid on the table-so! She held one more trump than he had reasoned possible. Had she palmed from somewhere? No, she would not go that far; that would not be fair, was worse than reneging, which so easily and often happen accidentally, and she believed in being fair. Besides he had been watching her.
God smote the vines from hail, the sycamore trees with frost, and offered up the flocks to the lightning- but Mrs. Stoner! What across Father Firman had from the god in Mrs. Stoner! There was other housekeeper as bad, no doubt, walking the rectories of the world, yes, but …yes. He could name one and maybe two priest who were worse off.; One, maybe two. Cronin. His craggy blonde of sixty- take her, with her ever lasting banging on the grand piano, the gift of the pastor; her proud talk about the goiter operation at the Mayo Brothers’, also a gift; her honking the parish Buick at passing strange priest because they were all in the game together. She was worse. She was something to keep the home fires burning. Yes sir. And Cronin said she was not a bad person really, but what was he? He was quite a freak himself.
For that matter, could anyone say that Mrs. Stoner was a bad person? No. He could not say himself, and he was freak. She had her points, Mrs. Stoner. She was clean. And though she cooked poorly, could not play the organ would not take up the collection in an emergency, and went card-parties, and told all even- so, she was clean. She washed everything. Sometimes her underwear hung down beneath her dress like a Para trooper’s pants, but it and everything she touched was clean. She washed constantly. She was clean.
She had her other points, to be sure- her faults, you might say. She snooped- no mistake about it- but it was not snooping’s sake; she had reason. She did other things, always with reason. She overcharged with rosaries and prayer books, but that was for the sake of the poor. She censored the pamphlet rack, but that was to prevent scandal. She pried into the baptismal and matrimonial records, but there is no there way if Father is out, and in this way she once had uncovered a bastard and flushed him out of the rectory, but that was the perverted decency of the times. She held her nose over the bad marriages in the presence of the victims, but that was her sorrow and came from having her husband buried in a mine. And he head caught her telling a bewildered young couple that three was only one good reason for their wanting to enter into mixed marriage- the child to have a name, and that- was that?
She hid his books, kept him from smoking, picked his friends (usually the pastor of her colleagues), bawled out people for calling after dark, had no humor, except at cards and then it was grim, and sat hatched-face every morning at the Mass. But she went to Mass, which was all that kept the church from being empty some mornings. She did annoying things all day long. She said annoying things at night. She said she had given him the best years of her life. Had she? Perhaps- for the miner only had her for a year. It was too bad, sinfully bad, when he thought of it like that. But all talks of best years and life were nonsense. He had to consider the heart of the matter, the essence. The essence was that housekeepers was hard to get, harder to get the ushers, than willing workers, than organists, than secretaries- yes, harder to get assistants and vocations.
And she was saver-saved money, save electricity, saved strings, bags, sugar, saved-him. That’s what he did. That’s what she said she did, and she was right, in a way. In a way, she was usually right. In fact, she was always right- in way.
And you could never get a Filipino to come away out here and live. Not a young one anyway, and he had never seen an old one. Not a Filipino. They liked to dress up and live.
Should he let it drop about Fish having one, just to throw a scare into her, let her know he was doing some thinking? No. It would be perfect cue for the one about a man needing a woman to look after him. He was not up to it again not tonight.
Now she was doing what she liked most of all. She was making a grand slam, playing it out card for card, though it was in the bag, prolonging what would have been cut short out mercy in gentle company. Father Firman knew the agony of losing.
She slashed down the card, a miserable deuce tramp, and did in the hapless king of hearts he had been saving.
“Skunked you!”
She was in awful in victory. Here was the bitter end of their long day together, the final murderous hour in which all they wanted to say- all he wouldn’t and all she couldn’t- came out in the cards. Whoever won at the honey moon won the day, Slept on the other’s scalp, and God alone had to help the loser.
“We’ve been at it long enough, Mrs. Stoner,” he said, seeing her assembling the cards for another round.
“Had long enough, huh!”
Father Firman grumbled something.
“No?”
“Yes.”
She pulled the table away and left it against the wall for the next time. She went out of the study carrying the socks, content and clucking. He closed his eyes after and began to get under way in the rocking-chair, the nightly trip to nowhere. He could hear her brewing a cup of tea in the kitchen and conversing with the cat. She made her way up to the stairs, carrying the tea, followed by the cat, purring.
He waited, rocking out the sea, until she would be sure to be through in the bathroom. Then he got up and locked the front door (she looked after the back door) and loosened his collar going upstairs.
In the bathroom he mixed a glass of antiseptic, always afraid of pyorrhea, and gargled to ward off pharyngitis.
When he turned on the light in his room, the moths’ and beetles began to batter against the screens, the lighter insects humming….
Yes. And she had the guest room. How did she come to get that? Why wasn’t she in the back room, in her proper place?
He knew, if he cared top remember. The screen in the back room- it let in the mosquitoes, and if it didn’t do that she’d love to sleep back there, Father, looking out at the steeple and the blessed cross on top, Father, if it just weren’t for the screen, Father. Very well, Mrs. Stoner, I’ll get it fixed or fix it myself. Oh, could you now, Father? I could, Mrs. Stoner, and I will. In the meantime you take the guest room. Yes, father, and thank you, Father, the house ringing with the amenities then. Years ago, all that. She was a pie-faced girl then, not really a girl perhaps, but too old to marry again. But she never had. In fact, he could not remember that she had even tried for a husband since coming to the rectory, but, of course, he could be wrong, not knowing how they went about it. God! God save us! Had she got her wires crossed and mistaken him all these years for that? that! Him! Suffering God! No. That was going too far. That was getting morbid. No. He must not think of that again, ever again. No.
But just the same she had got the guest room and she had it yet. Well, did it matter? Nobody ever came to see him any more, nobody to stay overnight, nobody tom stay very long… not anymore. He knew how they laugh at him. He had heard Frank humming all right- before he saw how serious and sad the situation was and took pity- humming “Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine.” But then they’d always laughed at him for something- for not being an athlete, for wearing glasses, for having kidney trouble… and mail coming addressed to Rev. and Mrs. Stoner.
Removing his shirt he bent over the table to read the volume left upon from last night. He read, translating easily: “Eisdem licet cum illis… Clerics are allowed to reside only with women about whom there can be no suspicion, either because of the natural bond (as mother, sister, and aunt) or advance of age, combined in both cases with good repute.”
Last night he had read it, and much night before, each time as tough this time to find what was missing to find what obviously was not in the paragraph, his problem considered, a way out. She was not mother, not sister, not aunt, and advance age was a relative term (why, she was younger than he was) and so, eureka, she did not meet the letter of the law- but alas, how she fulfilled the spirit! And besides it would be a slimy way of handling it after all her years of service. He could not afford to pension her off, either.
He slammed the book shut. He slapped himself fiercely on the back, missing the wily mosquito; and whirled to find it. He took the magazine and folded it into swatter. Then he saw it- oh, the preternatural cunning of it! - poised it in the beard of St. Joseph on the book-case. He could not hit it there. He teased it away, wanting it to light the wall, but it knew his thoughts and flew high away. He swung wildly, hoping to stun it, missed, swung back, and catching St. Joseph across the neck. The statue fell to the floor and broke.
Mrs. Stoner was panting in the hall outside his door.
“What is it?”
“Mosquitoes!”
“What is it, Father? Are you hurt?”
“Mosquitoes-damn it! And only the females bites!”
Mrs. Stoner, after a moment, said: “Shame on you, Father. She needs the blood for her eggs.”
He dropped the magazine and lunged at the mosquito with his bare hands.
She went to her room, saying: “Pshaw, I thought it was burglars murdering you in the bed.”
He lunged again.
Short Story Analysis Test
1. The geographical setting of “The Valiant Woman” is:
a. a French village
b. a big American city
c. a town in the American Midwest
d. a farm in England
2. The particular place setting is Fr. Firman’s:
a. church
b. convent
c. rectory
d. apartment
3. The time setting is:
a. ancient
b. medieval
c. baroque
d. modern
4. The external conflict is that between Fr. Firman and:
a. Fr. Nulty
b. Mrs. Stoner
c. himself
d. all of the above
5. Mrs. Stoner is portrayed as being:
a. domineering, bossy
b. lively, sociable
c. irritable, hard to please
d. benevolent, kind
6. Fr. Firman is shown to be:
a. weak but fair
b. unjust and forceful
c. cowardly and unfair
d. nonchalant
7. As a conversationalist, Mrs. Stoner:
a. lacks a sense of continuity, going from one topic to another
b. is witty and charming
c. is full of knowledge about various subjects
d. is a bimbo
8. Every night, the priest and his housekeeper play a card game ironically called:
a. poker
b. bridge
c. honeymoon
d. baccarat
9. As a card player, Mrs. Stoner is shown to be:
a. a cheat
b. a good sport
c. a hustler
d. a shabby card player
10. The card game reveals Mrs. Stoner and Fr. Firman’s:
a. dishonesty, their tendency to cheat
b. hostility toward each other
c. sense of fair play
d. inability to play decently, correctly
11. The internal conflict is found within:
a. Fr. Nulty
b. Fr. Firman
c. Mrs. Stoner
d. all of the above
12. This internal conflict revolves around the question of:
a. how to win at cards
b. how to run the household efficiently
c. what to do about Mrs. Stoner
d. how to seduce Mrs. Stoner
13. One complication is that Fr. Firman:
a. cannot easily find a replacement for the housekeeper
b. has no valid ground for firing Mrs. Stoner
c. really wants to retain Mrs. Stoner
d. had grown accustomed with Mrs. Stoner
14. At stake in this conflict is Fr. Firman’s:
a. job
b. reputation
c. peace of mind
d. faith in God
15. At the end of the story, is he able to solve his problem about his housekeeper?
a. yes
b. no
c. perhaps
d. not mentioned in the story
16. Fr. Firman’s name:
a. has no significance in the story whatsoever
b. is appropriate
c. is paradoxical
d. is ironic
17. In the last part of the story, Fr. Firman lunges at the mosquito with fury because:
a. it irritates or annoys him
b. it bites him
c. he identifies it with Mrs. Stoner
d. all of the above
18. The mosquito in this story becomes a symbol of:
a. life’s hardships
b. everyday concerns
c. female tyranny
d. scourge or pestilence to mankind
19. The reader’s reaction to Fr. Firman is one of:
a. dislike
b. sympathy and amusement
c. indifference
d. pity
20. Mrs. Stoner is a fine example of ___________ character.
a. static
b. developing
c. round
d. dynamic
21. The method of characterization used in this story is mainly:
a. dramatic
b. direct
c. ineffective
d. casual
22. Does this story have unity of time?
a. yes
b. no
c. perhaps
d. both a and b
23. With respect to point of view, the story is presented mainly through the eyes and consciousness of:
a. a first person narrator
b. Mrs. Stoner
c. Fr. Firman
d. a concealed narrator
24. The tone of the story:
a. is quite objective
b. rather serious
c. humorous with an undercurrent of pathos
d. is ridiculous or absurd
25.The essential value of this story, as art, lies in that it:
a. conveys a moral
b. reveals something about human nature
c. expresses the writer’s belief
d. gives aesthetic pleasure
e. all of the above
By J.F. Powers
They had come to the dessert in a dinner that was a shambles. “Well ,John,” Father Nulty said, turning away from Mrs. Stoner and to father Firman, long gone silent at his own table. “You’ve got the bishop coming for confirmation next week”.
“Yes” Mrs. Stoner cut in, “and for dinner. And if he don’t eat any more than he did last year-“
Father Firman, in a rare moment, faced it. “Mrs.Stoner, the bishop is not well. You know that”.
“And after I fixed that dinner and all”. Mrs. Stoner pouted in Father Nulty’s direction.
“I wouldn’t feel bad about it”, Mrs. Stoner,” Father Nulty said. “He never eats much anywhere.”
“It’s funny. And the new Mrs. Allers said he ate just fine when he was there,” Mrs. Stoner argued, and then spit out, “But he’s a damned liar!”
Father Nulty, unsettled but trying not to show it, said,” Who’s Mrs. Allers?”
“She’s at Holy Cross,” Mrs. Stoner said.
“She’s the housekeeper,” Father Firman added, thinking Mrs. Stoner made it sound as though Mrs. Allers were the pastor there.
“I swear I don’t know what to do about the dinner this year,” Mrs. Stoner said.
Father Firman moaned. “Just do as you always done, Mrs. Stoner.”
“Huh! And have it all throw out! Is that any way to do?”
“Is there any dessert?” Father Firman asked coldly.
Mrs. Stoner leaped from the table and bolted into the kitchen, mumbling. She came back with the birthday cake. She plunged into the center of the table. She found a big wooden match in her apron pocket and thrust it at Father Firman.
“I don’t like this bishop,” she said. “I never did. And the way he went and cut poor Ellen Kennedy out of Father Doolin’s will!”
She went back into the kitchen.
“Didn’t they talk a lot of filth about Doolin and the housekeeper?” Father Nulty asked.
“I should think they did,” Father Firman said. “All because he took her to the movies on Sunday night. After he died and the Bishop cut her out of the will, though I hear he gives her pension privately, they talked about the bishop.”
“I don’t like this bishop at all,” Mrs. Stoner said, appearing with the cake knife. “Bishop Doran- there was a man!”
“We know,” Father Firman said. “All men and all priests.”
“He did know the real estate,” Father Nulty said.
Father Firman struck the match.
“Not on the chair!” Mrs. Stoner cried, too late.
Father Firman set the candle burning- it was suspiciously large and yellow, like blessed one, but he could not be sure. They watched the flattering the flame.
“I’m forgetting the lights!” Mrs. Stoner said and got up to turn them off. She went into the kitchen again.
The priest had a moment of silence in the candlelight.
“Happy birthday, John,” Father Nulty said softly. “Is it fifty-nine you are?”
“As if you didn’t know, Frank,” Father Firman said. “And you the same but one.”
Father Nulty smiled, the old gold of his incisors shining in the flickering light, his collar whiter in the dark, and raised his glass of water, which would have been wine or better in the bygone days, and toasted Father Firman.
“Many of ‘em John.”
“Blow it out, “Mrs. Stoner said, returning to the room. She waited by the candle light for Father Firman to blow out the candle.
Mrs. Stoner, who ate no dessert, began to clear the dishes into the kitchen, and the priest, finishing their cake and coffee in a hurry, went to sit in the study.
Father Nulty offered a cigar.
“John?”
“My ulcer, Frank.”
“Ah well, you’re better off.” Father lit the cigar and crossed his long black legs. “Fish Frawley has got him a Filipino, John. Did you hear?”
Father Firman leaned forward, interested. “He got rid of the women he had?”
“He did. It seemed she snooped.”
“Snooped, eh?”
“She did. And gossiped. Fish introduces into two town boys to her, said: ‘Would you think these boys were my nephews?’ That’s all, and the next week the paper had it that his two nephews were visiting him from Erie. After that, he let her believe he was going to East to see his parents, though both are dead. The paper carried the story. Fish returned and made a sermon out of it. Then he got the Filipino.”
Father Firman squirmed with pleasure in his chair. “That’s like Fish, Frank. He can do that.” He stared at the tip of his fingers bleakly.” You could never get a Filipino to come to place like this.”
“Probably not,” Father Nulty said. “Fish is pretty close to Minneapolis. Ah, say, do you remember the trick he played on us in Marmion Hall!”
“That I’ll not forget!” Father Firman’s eyes remembered. “Getting up New Year’s morning and finding the toilet seats all painted!”
“HAPPY CIRCUMCISION! Hah!” Father Nulty had coughing a fit.
When he had got himself again, a mosquito came and sat on his wrist. He watched it a moment before bringing down his heavy down. He raised his hand slowly, viewed the dead mosquito, and sent it spinning with a plunk of his middle finger.
“Only the female bites,” he said.
“I didn’t know that,” Father Firman said.
“Ah, yes…”
Mrs. Stoner entered the study and sat down with some sewing- Father Firman’s black socks.
She smiled pleasantly at Father Nulty.” And what do you think of the atom bomb, Father?”
“Not much,” Father Nulty said.
Mrs. Stoner had stopped smiling. Father Firman yawned.
Mrs. Stoner served up another: “Did you read about this communist convert, Father?”
“He’s been in the Church before,” Father Nulty said and so it’s not conversion, Mrs. Stoner.”
“No? Well, I already got him down on my list of Monsignor’s converts.”
“It’s better than a conversion, Mrs. Stoner, for there is more rejoicing in heaven over the return of… uh, he that was lost, Mrs. Stoner, is found.”
“And the congresswoman, Father?”
“Yes, a convert – she.”
“And Henry Ford’s grandson, Father. I got him down.”
“Yes, to be sure.”
Father Firman yawned, this time audibly, and held his jaw.
“But his one only by marriage, Father,” Mrs. Stoner said. “I always say you got to watch that kind.”
“Indeed you do, but a convert nonetheless, Mrs. Stoner. Remember, the Cardinal Newman himself is one.”
Mrs. Stoner is unimpressed. “I see where Henry ford’s making steering-wheels out of soybeans, Father.”
“I didn’t see that.”
“I read it in Reader’s Digest or some place.”
“Yes well…” Father Nulty rose and held his hand out to Father Firman.” John,” he said. “It’s been good.”
“I heard Hirohito’s next,” Mrs. Stoner said, returning to converts.
“Let’s wait and see, Mrs.Stoner,” Father Nulty said.
The priest walked to the door.
“You know where I live, John”
“Yes. Come again. Frank. Good night.”
Father Firman watched Father Nulty go down the walk to his car at the curb. He hooked the screen door and turned off the porch light. He hesitated at the foot of the stairs, suddenly moved to go to bed. But he went back into the study.
“Phew!” Mrs. Stoner said. “I thought he’d never go. Here it is after eight o’clock.”
Father Firman sat down on his rocking chair.” I don’t see him often,” he said.
“I give up!” Mrs. Stoner exclaimed, flinging the holey socks upon the horsehair sofa. “I’d swear you had a nail in your shoe.”
“I told I looked.”
“Well you ought to look again. And cut your toenails, why don’t you? Haven’t I got enough to do?”
Father Firman scratched in his coat pocket for a pill, found one, and swallowed it. He let his head sink back against the chair and closed his eyes. He could hear moving about the room, making the preparations; and how he knew them- the fumbling in the drawer for a pencil with a point, the rip of the page from his daily calendar, and finally the leg of the card table sliding up against his leg.
He opened hi eyes. She yanked the floor lamp alongside the table, setting the bead fringe tinkling on the shade, and pulled up her chair on the other side. She sat down and smiled at him for the first time that day. Now she was happy.
She swept up the cards and began to shuffle with abandoned virtuosity of an old river-boat gambler, standing them on end. Fanning them out, whirling them through her fingers, dancing them half-way up her arms, cracking the whip over them. At last they lay before him tamed into a neat deck.
“Cut?”
“Go ahead,” he said. She liked to go first.
She gave him her faint, avenging smile and drew a card; cast it aside for another which he thought must be an ace from the way she clutched it face down.
She was getting all the cards, as usual, and would have been invincible if she had possessed his restraint and if her cunning had been of a higher order. He knew a few things about leading and lying back that she would never learn. Her strategy was attack, forever attack, with one baffling departure: she might sacrificed certain tricks as expandable if only she could have it the last ones, the heartbreaking ones, if she could slap them down one after another, shatteringly.
She played for the blood, no bones about it, but for her there was no other way; it was her nature, as it was the lion’s, and for this reasons he found her ferocity pardonable, more a defect of the flesh, venial, while his own trouble was all in the will, mortal. He did not sweat and pray over each card as she must, but he did keep an eye out for reneging and demanded a cut now and then just aggravate her, and he was always secret5ly hoping for aces.
With one card left in her hand, the telltale trick coming next she delayed playing it, showing first smile, the preview of defeat. She laid on the table-so! She held one more trump than he had reasoned possible. Had she palmed from somewhere? No, she would not go that far; that would not be fair, was worse than reneging, which so easily and often happen accidentally, and she believed in being fair. Besides he had been watching her.
God smote the vines from hail, the sycamore trees with frost, and offered up the flocks to the lightning- but Mrs. Stoner! What across Father Firman had from the god in Mrs. Stoner! There was other housekeeper as bad, no doubt, walking the rectories of the world, yes, but …yes. He could name one and maybe two priest who were worse off.; One, maybe two. Cronin. His craggy blonde of sixty- take her, with her ever lasting banging on the grand piano, the gift of the pastor; her proud talk about the goiter operation at the Mayo Brothers’, also a gift; her honking the parish Buick at passing strange priest because they were all in the game together. She was worse. She was something to keep the home fires burning. Yes sir. And Cronin said she was not a bad person really, but what was he? He was quite a freak himself.
For that matter, could anyone say that Mrs. Stoner was a bad person? No. He could not say himself, and he was freak. She had her points, Mrs. Stoner. She was clean. And though she cooked poorly, could not play the organ would not take up the collection in an emergency, and went card-parties, and told all even- so, she was clean. She washed everything. Sometimes her underwear hung down beneath her dress like a Para trooper’s pants, but it and everything she touched was clean. She washed constantly. She was clean.
She had her other points, to be sure- her faults, you might say. She snooped- no mistake about it- but it was not snooping’s sake; she had reason. She did other things, always with reason. She overcharged with rosaries and prayer books, but that was for the sake of the poor. She censored the pamphlet rack, but that was to prevent scandal. She pried into the baptismal and matrimonial records, but there is no there way if Father is out, and in this way she once had uncovered a bastard and flushed him out of the rectory, but that was the perverted decency of the times. She held her nose over the bad marriages in the presence of the victims, but that was her sorrow and came from having her husband buried in a mine. And he head caught her telling a bewildered young couple that three was only one good reason for their wanting to enter into mixed marriage- the child to have a name, and that- was that?
She hid his books, kept him from smoking, picked his friends (usually the pastor of her colleagues), bawled out people for calling after dark, had no humor, except at cards and then it was grim, and sat hatched-face every morning at the Mass. But she went to Mass, which was all that kept the church from being empty some mornings. She did annoying things all day long. She said annoying things at night. She said she had given him the best years of her life. Had she? Perhaps- for the miner only had her for a year. It was too bad, sinfully bad, when he thought of it like that. But all talks of best years and life were nonsense. He had to consider the heart of the matter, the essence. The essence was that housekeepers was hard to get, harder to get the ushers, than willing workers, than organists, than secretaries- yes, harder to get assistants and vocations.
And she was saver-saved money, save electricity, saved strings, bags, sugar, saved-him. That’s what he did. That’s what she said she did, and she was right, in a way. In a way, she was usually right. In fact, she was always right- in way.
And you could never get a Filipino to come away out here and live. Not a young one anyway, and he had never seen an old one. Not a Filipino. They liked to dress up and live.
Should he let it drop about Fish having one, just to throw a scare into her, let her know he was doing some thinking? No. It would be perfect cue for the one about a man needing a woman to look after him. He was not up to it again not tonight.
Now she was doing what she liked most of all. She was making a grand slam, playing it out card for card, though it was in the bag, prolonging what would have been cut short out mercy in gentle company. Father Firman knew the agony of losing.
She slashed down the card, a miserable deuce tramp, and did in the hapless king of hearts he had been saving.
“Skunked you!”
She was in awful in victory. Here was the bitter end of their long day together, the final murderous hour in which all they wanted to say- all he wouldn’t and all she couldn’t- came out in the cards. Whoever won at the honey moon won the day, Slept on the other’s scalp, and God alone had to help the loser.
“We’ve been at it long enough, Mrs. Stoner,” he said, seeing her assembling the cards for another round.
“Had long enough, huh!”
Father Firman grumbled something.
“No?”
“Yes.”
She pulled the table away and left it against the wall for the next time. She went out of the study carrying the socks, content and clucking. He closed his eyes after and began to get under way in the rocking-chair, the nightly trip to nowhere. He could hear her brewing a cup of tea in the kitchen and conversing with the cat. She made her way up to the stairs, carrying the tea, followed by the cat, purring.
He waited, rocking out the sea, until she would be sure to be through in the bathroom. Then he got up and locked the front door (she looked after the back door) and loosened his collar going upstairs.
In the bathroom he mixed a glass of antiseptic, always afraid of pyorrhea, and gargled to ward off pharyngitis.
When he turned on the light in his room, the moths’ and beetles began to batter against the screens, the lighter insects humming….
Yes. And she had the guest room. How did she come to get that? Why wasn’t she in the back room, in her proper place?
He knew, if he cared top remember. The screen in the back room- it let in the mosquitoes, and if it didn’t do that she’d love to sleep back there, Father, looking out at the steeple and the blessed cross on top, Father, if it just weren’t for the screen, Father. Very well, Mrs. Stoner, I’ll get it fixed or fix it myself. Oh, could you now, Father? I could, Mrs. Stoner, and I will. In the meantime you take the guest room. Yes, father, and thank you, Father, the house ringing with the amenities then. Years ago, all that. She was a pie-faced girl then, not really a girl perhaps, but too old to marry again. But she never had. In fact, he could not remember that she had even tried for a husband since coming to the rectory, but, of course, he could be wrong, not knowing how they went about it. God! God save us! Had she got her wires crossed and mistaken him all these years for that? that! Him! Suffering God! No. That was going too far. That was getting morbid. No. He must not think of that again, ever again. No.
But just the same she had got the guest room and she had it yet. Well, did it matter? Nobody ever came to see him any more, nobody to stay overnight, nobody tom stay very long… not anymore. He knew how they laugh at him. He had heard Frank humming all right- before he saw how serious and sad the situation was and took pity- humming “Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine.” But then they’d always laughed at him for something- for not being an athlete, for wearing glasses, for having kidney trouble… and mail coming addressed to Rev. and Mrs. Stoner.
Removing his shirt he bent over the table to read the volume left upon from last night. He read, translating easily: “Eisdem licet cum illis… Clerics are allowed to reside only with women about whom there can be no suspicion, either because of the natural bond (as mother, sister, and aunt) or advance of age, combined in both cases with good repute.”
Last night he had read it, and much night before, each time as tough this time to find what was missing to find what obviously was not in the paragraph, his problem considered, a way out. She was not mother, not sister, not aunt, and advance age was a relative term (why, she was younger than he was) and so, eureka, she did not meet the letter of the law- but alas, how she fulfilled the spirit! And besides it would be a slimy way of handling it after all her years of service. He could not afford to pension her off, either.
He slammed the book shut. He slapped himself fiercely on the back, missing the wily mosquito; and whirled to find it. He took the magazine and folded it into swatter. Then he saw it- oh, the preternatural cunning of it! - poised it in the beard of St. Joseph on the book-case. He could not hit it there. He teased it away, wanting it to light the wall, but it knew his thoughts and flew high away. He swung wildly, hoping to stun it, missed, swung back, and catching St. Joseph across the neck. The statue fell to the floor and broke.
Mrs. Stoner was panting in the hall outside his door.
“What is it?”
“Mosquitoes!”
“What is it, Father? Are you hurt?”
“Mosquitoes-damn it! And only the females bites!”
Mrs. Stoner, after a moment, said: “Shame on you, Father. She needs the blood for her eggs.”
He dropped the magazine and lunged at the mosquito with his bare hands.
She went to her room, saying: “Pshaw, I thought it was burglars murdering you in the bed.”
He lunged again.
Short Story Analysis Test
1. The geographical setting of “The Valiant Woman” is:
a. a French village
b. a big American city
c. a town in the American Midwest
d. a farm in England
2. The particular place setting is Fr. Firman’s:
a. church
b. convent
c. rectory
d. apartment
3. The time setting is:
a. ancient
b. medieval
c. baroque
d. modern
4. The external conflict is that between Fr. Firman and:
a. Fr. Nulty
b. Mrs. Stoner
c. himself
d. all of the above
5. Mrs. Stoner is portrayed as being:
a. domineering, bossy
b. lively, sociable
c. irritable, hard to please
d. benevolent, kind
6. Fr. Firman is shown to be:
a. weak but fair
b. unjust and forceful
c. cowardly and unfair
d. nonchalant
7. As a conversationalist, Mrs. Stoner:
a. lacks a sense of continuity, going from one topic to another
b. is witty and charming
c. is full of knowledge about various subjects
d. is a bimbo
8. Every night, the priest and his housekeeper play a card game ironically called:
a. poker
b. bridge
c. honeymoon
d. baccarat
9. As a card player, Mrs. Stoner is shown to be:
a. a cheat
b. a good sport
c. a hustler
d. a shabby card player
10. The card game reveals Mrs. Stoner and Fr. Firman’s:
a. dishonesty, their tendency to cheat
b. hostility toward each other
c. sense of fair play
d. inability to play decently, correctly
11. The internal conflict is found within:
a. Fr. Nulty
b. Fr. Firman
c. Mrs. Stoner
d. all of the above
12. This internal conflict revolves around the question of:
a. how to win at cards
b. how to run the household efficiently
c. what to do about Mrs. Stoner
d. how to seduce Mrs. Stoner
13. One complication is that Fr. Firman:
a. cannot easily find a replacement for the housekeeper
b. has no valid ground for firing Mrs. Stoner
c. really wants to retain Mrs. Stoner
d. had grown accustomed with Mrs. Stoner
14. At stake in this conflict is Fr. Firman’s:
a. job
b. reputation
c. peace of mind
d. faith in God
15. At the end of the story, is he able to solve his problem about his housekeeper?
a. yes
b. no
c. perhaps
d. not mentioned in the story
16. Fr. Firman’s name:
a. has no significance in the story whatsoever
b. is appropriate
c. is paradoxical
d. is ironic
17. In the last part of the story, Fr. Firman lunges at the mosquito with fury because:
a. it irritates or annoys him
b. it bites him
c. he identifies it with Mrs. Stoner
d. all of the above
18. The mosquito in this story becomes a symbol of:
a. life’s hardships
b. everyday concerns
c. female tyranny
d. scourge or pestilence to mankind
19. The reader’s reaction to Fr. Firman is one of:
a. dislike
b. sympathy and amusement
c. indifference
d. pity
20. Mrs. Stoner is a fine example of ___________ character.
a. static
b. developing
c. round
d. dynamic
21. The method of characterization used in this story is mainly:
a. dramatic
b. direct
c. ineffective
d. casual
22. Does this story have unity of time?
a. yes
b. no
c. perhaps
d. both a and b
23. With respect to point of view, the story is presented mainly through the eyes and consciousness of:
a. a first person narrator
b. Mrs. Stoner
c. Fr. Firman
d. a concealed narrator
24. The tone of the story:
a. is quite objective
b. rather serious
c. humorous with an undercurrent of pathos
d. is ridiculous or absurd
25.The essential value of this story, as art, lies in that it:
a. conveys a moral
b. reveals something about human nature
c. expresses the writer’s belief
d. gives aesthetic pleasure
e. all of the above