Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier

stocky build. She had small, deep-set eyes, a broad nose, and wide, ruddy cheeks. The old bonnet she wore had a misshapen rim, as if someone had sat on it while it was wet with rain. She was smiling patiently; she looked tired, as if she were indulging her husband with a walk out at night rather than going because she wanted to herself. Jem had seen that look on other faces—usually women’s, sometimes without the smile, waiting while their men drank at the pub, or talked to other men in the road about the price of seed.
    â€œYou see,” Mr. Blake continued without even saying hello, for he was concentrated on making his point. “This side—the light side—and that side—the dark side—”
    â€œThere, that’s an opposite,” Maggie interrupted. “That’s what Jem and me were talkin’ about, weren’t we, Jem?”
    Mr. Blake’s face lit up. “Ah, contraries. What were you saying about them, my girl?”
    â€œWell, Jem don’t understand ’em, and I was tryin’ to explain—”
    â€œI do understand them!” Jem interrupted. “Of course bad’s the opposite of good, and girl the opposite of boy. But—” He stopped. It felt strange talking to an adult about such thoughts. He would never have such a conversation with his parents, or on the street in Piddletrenthide, or in the pub. There the talk was about whether there would be frost that night or who was next traveling to Dorchester or which field of barley was ready for harvest. Something had happened to him since coming to London.
    â€œWhat is it, my boy?” Mr. Blake was waiting for him to continue. That too was new to Jem—an adult seemed to be interested in what he thought.
    â€œWell, it be this,” he began slowly, picking his way through his thoughts like climbing a rocky path. “What’s funny about opposites be that wet and dry both has water, boy and girl be about people, Heaven and Hell be the places you go when you die. They all has something in common. So they an’t completely different from each other the way people think. Having the one don’t mean t’other be gone.” Jem felt his head ache with the effort of explaining this.
    Mr. Blake, however, nodded easily, as if he understood and, indeed, thought about such things all the time. “You’re right, my boy. Let me give you an example. What is the opposite of innocence?”
    â€œEasy,” Maggie cut in. “Knowing things.”
    â€œJust so, my girl. Experience.” Maggie beamed. “Tell me, then: Would you say you are innocent or experienced?”
    Maggie stopped smiling so suddenly it was as if she had been physically struck by Mr. Blake’s question. A wild, furtive look crossed her face that Jem recalled from the first time he met her, when she was talking about Cut-Throat Lane. She frowned at a passerby and did not answer.
    â€œYou see, that is a difficult question to answer, is it not, my girl? Here is another instead: If innocence is that bank of the river”—Mr. Blake pointed toward Westminster Abbey—“and experience that bank”—he pointed to Astley’s Amphitheatre—“what is in the middle of the river?”
    Maggie opened her mouth, but could think of no quick response.
    â€œThink on it, my children, and give me your answer another day.”
    â€œWill you answer us summat else, Mr. Blake?” Maggie asked, recovering quickly. “Why’d you draw that statue naked? You know, in the Abbey.”
    â€œMaggie!” Jem hissed, embarrassed she’d acknowledged their earlier spying. Mrs. Blake looked from Maggie to Jem to her husband with a puzzled expression.
    Mr. Blake didn’t seem bothered, however, but took seriously her question. “Ah, you see, my girl, I wasn’t drawing the statue. I can’t bear to copy from nature, though I did so for several years in the