Free Ida a Novel by Gertrude Stein, Logan Esdale Page A

him, Andrew, not loudly, just Andrew and she did not call him she just said Andrew. Nobody had just said Andrew to Andrew.
    Andrew never looked around when Ida called him but she really never called him. She did not see him but she was with him and she called Andrew just like that. That was what did im- press him.
    Ida liked it to be dark because if it was dark she could light a light. And if she lighted a light then she could see and if she saw she saw Andrew and she said to him. Here you are.
    Andrew was there, and it was not very long, it was long but not very long before Ida often saw Andrew and Andrew saw her. He even came to see her. He came to see her whether she was there or whether she was not there.
    Ida gradually was always there when he came and Andrew always came.
    He came all the same.
    Kindly consider that I am capable of deciding when and why I am coming. This is what Andrew said to Ida with some hesitation.
    And now Ida was not only Ida she was Andrew’s Ida and being Andrew’s Ida Ida was more than Ida she was Ida itself.
    For this there was a change, everybody changed, Ida even changed and even changed Andrew. Andrew had changed Ida to be more Ida and Ida changed Andrew to be less Andrew and they were both always together.

 
Second Half
Part One
    The road is awfully wide
    With the snow on either side.
    She was walking along the road made wide with snow. The moonlight was bright. She had a white dog and the dog looked gray in the moonlight and on the snow. Oh she said to herself that is what they mean when they say in the night all cats are gray.
    When there was no snow and no moonlight her dog had always looked white at night.
    When she turned her back on the moon the light suddenly was so bright it looked like another kind of light, and if she could have been easily frightened it would have frightened her but you get used to anything but really she never did get used to this thing.
    She said to herself what am I doing, I have my genius and I am looking for my Andrew and she went on looking.
    It was cold and when she went home the fire was out and there was no more wood. There was a little girl servant, she knew that the servant had made a fire for herself with all that wood and that her fire was going. She knew it. She knocked at her door and walked in. The servant was not there but the fire was. She was furious. She took every bit of lighted wood and carried it into her room. She sat down and looked at the fire and she knew she had her genius and she might just as well go and look for her Andrew. She went to bed then but she did not sleep very well. She found out next day that Andrew came to town every Sunday. She never saw him. Andrew was very good looking like his name. Ida often said to herself she never had met an Andrew and so she did not want to see him. She liked to hear about him.
    She would if it had not been so early in the morning gone to be a nurse. As a nurse she might seek an Andrew but to be a nurse you have to get up early in the morning. You have to get up early in the morning to be a nun and so although if she had been a nun she could have thought every day about Andrew she never became a nun nor did she become a nurse. She just stayed at home.
    It is easy to stay at home not at night-time but in the morning and even at noon and in the afternoon. At night-time it is not so easy to stay at home.
    For which reason, Andrew’s name changed to Ida and eight changed to four and sixteen changed to twenty-five and they all sat down.
    For which all day she sat down. As I said she had that habit the habit of sitting down and only once every day she went out walking and she always talked about that. That made Ida listen. She knew how to listen.
    This is what she said.
    She did not say Ida knew how to listen but she talked as if she knew that Ida knew how to listen.
    Every day she talked the same way and every day she took a walk and every day Ida was there and every day she talked about his