Free Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

restrained ourselves,” Jeff philosophically suggested when we were alone. “They’ve given us a room—with no great possibility of escape—and personal liberty—heavily chaperoned. It’s better than we’d have been likely to get in a man-country.”
    “Man-Country! Do you really believe there are no men here, you innocent? Don’t you know there must be?” demanded Terry.
    “Ye—es,” Jeff agreed. “Of course—and yet—”
    “And yet—what! Come, you obdurate sentimentalist—what are you thinking about?”
    “They may have some peculiar division of labor we’ve never heard of,” I suggested. “The men may live in separate towns, orthey may have subdued them—somehow—and keep them shut up. But there must be some.”
    “That last suggestion of yours is a nice one, Van,” Terry protested. “Same as they’ve got us subdued and shut up! You make me shiver.”
    “Well, figure it out for yourself, anyway you please. We saw plenty of kids, the first day, and we’ve seen those girls—”
    “Real girls!” Terry agreed, in immense relief. “Glad you mentioned ’em. I declare, if I thought there was nothing in the country but those grenadiers I’d jump out the window.”
    “Speaking of windows,” I suggested, “let’s examine ours.”
    We looked out of all the windows. The blinds opened easily enough, and there were no bars, but the prospect was not reassuring.
    This was not the pink-walled town we had so rashly entered the day before. Our chamber was high up, in a projecting wing of a sort of castle, built out on a steep spur of rock. Immediately below us were gardens, fruitful and fragrant, but their high walls followed the edge of the cliff which dropped sheer down, we could not see how far. The distant sound of water suggested a river at the foot.
    We could look out east, west, and south. To the southeastward stretched the open country, lying bright and fair in the morning light, but on either side, and evidently behind, rose great mountains.
    “This thing is a regular fortress—and no women built it, I can tell you that,” said Terry. We nodded agreeingly. “It’s right up among the hills—they must have brought us a long way.”
    “We saw some kind of swift-moving vehicles the first day,” Jeff reminded us. “If they’ve got motors, they
are
civilized.”
    “Civilized or not, we’ve got our work cut out for us to get away from here. I don’t propose to make a rope of bedclothes and try those walls till I’m sure there is no better way.”
    We all concurred on this point, and returned to our discussion as to the women.
    Jeff continued thoughtful. “All the same, there’s something funny about it,” he urged. “It isn’t just that we don’t see any men—but we don’t see any signs of them. The—the—reaction of these women is different from any that I’ve ever met.”
    “There is something in what you say, Jeff,” I agreed. “There is a different—atmosphere.”
    “They don’t seem to notice our being men,” he went on. “They treat us—well—just as they do one another. It’s as if our being men was a minor incident.”
    I nodded. I’d noticed it myself. But Terry broke in rudely.
    “Fiddlesticks!” he said. “It’s because of their advanced age. They’re all grandmas, I tell you—or ought to be. Great aunts, anyhow. Those girls were girls all right, weren’t they?”
    “Yes—” Jeff agreed, still slowly. “But they weren’t afraid—they flew up that tree and hid, like schoolboys caught out of bounds—not like shy girls.”
    “And they ran like marathon winners—you’ll admit that, Terry,” he added.
    Terry was moody as the days passed. He seemed to mind our confinement more than Jeff or I did; and he harped on Alima, and how near he’d come to catching her. “If I had—” he would say, rather savagely, “we’d have had a hostage and could have made terms.”
    But Jeff was getting on excellent terms with his tutor, and even his