Free Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

charms and attractions on him. But after he has smiled at them with his uneven smile, he frowns. He doesn’t pay much attention to them, they are only silly young girls and not the reason he is here.
    I am the reason. So he does not wish our talk to be interrupted.On the first two days there was not much talk to interrupt. I kept my head down, I did not look at him, I worked away at my quilt blocks, for the quilt I am making for the Governor’s wife, there are only five blocks left to be finished. I watched my needle go in and out, although I believe I could sew in my sleep, I’ve been doing it since I was four years old, small stitches as if made by mice. You need to start very young to be able to do that, otherwise you can never get the hang of it. The main colours are a double-pink print with a branch and flower in the lighter pink, and an indigo with white doves and grapes.
    Or else I looked over the top of Dr. Jordan’s head, at the wall behind him. There’s a framed picture there, flowers in a vase, fruits in a bowl, in cross-stitch, done by the Governor’s wife, clumsily too as the apples and peaches look square and hard, as if they’re carved out of wood. Not one of her best efforts, which must be why she’s hung it in here and not in a spare bedchamber. I could do better myself with my eyes closed.
    It was difficult to begin talking. I had not talked very much for the past fifteen years, not really talking the way I once talked with Mary Whitney, and Jeremiah the peddler, and with Jamie Walsh too before he became so treacherous towards me; and in a way I had forgotten how. I told Dr. Jordan that I did not know what he wanted me to say. He said it wasn’t what he wanted me to say, but what I wanted to say myself, that was of interest to him. I said I had no wants of that kind, as it was not my place to want to say anything.
    Now Grace, he said, you must do better than that, we made a bargain.
    Yes Sir, I said. But I cannot think of anything.
    Then let us discuss the weather, he said; you must have some observations to make on it, since that is the way everyone else begins.
    I smiled at that, but I was just as shy. I was not used to having my opinions asked, even about the weather and especially by a man with a notebook. The only men of that kind I ever encountered were Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie, Esq., the lawyer, and I was afraid of him; and those in the courtroom at the trial, and in the jail; and they were from the newspapers, and made up lies about me.
    Since I could not talk at first, Dr. Jordan talked himself. He told me about how they were building railroads everywhere now, and how they laid down the tracks, and how the engines worked, with the boiler and the steam. This had the effect of setting me more at my ease, and I said I would like to ride in a railway train like that; and he said that perhaps someday I would. I said I did not think so, being sentenced to be here for life, but then you never can tell what time will have in store for you.
    Then he told me about the town where he lives, which is called Loomisville, in the United States of America, and he said it was a mill town although not as prosperous as before the cheap cloth from India came in. He said his father once owned a mill, and the girls who worked in it came from the country, and were kept very tidy and lived in boarding houses provided, with respectable and sober landladies and no drink allowed and sometimes a parlour piano, and only twelve hours of work per day and Sunday mornings off for church; and by the moist and reminiscing look in his eye, I would not be surprised to learn that he once had a sweetheart among them.
    Then he said these girls were taught to read, and had their own magazine which they published, with literary offerings. And I said what did he mean by literary offerings, and he said they wrote stories and poems which they put into it, and I said under their own names? He said yes, which I said was bold of them, and