Nella Larsen by Passing

was not too frankly curious, if not actually impertinent.
    As if aware of her desire and her hesitation, Clare remarked, thoughtfully: “You know, ’Rene, I’ve often wondered why more coloured girls, girls like you and Margaret Hammer and Esther Dawson and—oh, lots of others—never ‘passed’ over. It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve.”
    â€œWhat about background? Family, I mean. Surely you can’t just drop down on people from nowhere and expect them to receive you with open arms, can you?”
    â€œAlmost,” Clare asserted. “You’d be surprised, ’Rene, how much easier that is with white people than with us. Maybe because there are so many more of them, or maybe because they are secure and so don’t have to bother. I’ve never quite decided.”
    Irene was inclined to be incredulous. “You mean that you didn’t have to explain where you came from? It seems impossible.”
    Clare cast a glance of repressed amusement across the table at her. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t. Though I suppose under any other circumstances I might have had to provide some plausible tale to account for myself. I’ve a good imagination, so I’m sure I could have done it quite creditably, and credibly. But it wasn’t necessary. There were my aunts, you see, respectable and authentic enough for anything or anybody.”
    â€œI see. They were ‘passing’ too.”
    â€œNo. They weren’t. They were white.”
    â€œOh!” And in the next instant it came back to Irene that she had heard this mentioned before; by her father, or, more likely, her mother. They were Bob Kendry’s aunts. He had been a son of their brother’s, on the left hand. A wild oat.
    â€œThey were nice old ladies,” Clare explained, “very religious and as poor as church mice. That adored brother of theirs, my grandfather, got through every penny they had after he’d finished his own little bit.”
    Clare paused in her narrative to light another cigarette. Her smile, her expression, Irene noticed, was faintly resentful.
    â€œBeing good Christians,” she continued, “when dad came to his tipsy end, they did their duty and gave me a home of sorts. I was, it was true, expected to earn my keep by doing all the housework and most of the washing. But do you realize, ’Rene, that if it hadn’t been for them, I shouldn’t have had a home in the world?”
    Irene’s nod and little murmur were comprehensive, understanding.
    Clare made a small mischievous grimace and proceeded. “Besides, to their notion, hard labour was good for me. I had Negro blood 5 and they belonged to the generation that had written and read long articles headed: ‘Will the Blacks Work?’ Too, they weren’t quite sure that the good God hadn’t intended the sons and daughters of Ham 6 to sweat because he had poked fun at old man Noah once when he had taken a drop too much. I remember the aunts telling me that that old drunkard had cursed Ham and his sons for all time.”
    Irene laughed. But Clare remained quite serious.
    â€œIt was more than a joke, I assure you, ’Rene. It was a hard life for a girl of sixteen. Still, I had a roof over my head, and food, and clothes—such as they were. And there were the Scriptures, and talks on morals and thrift and industry and the loving-kindness of the good Lord.”
    â€œHave you ever stopped to think, Clare,” Irene demanded, “how much unhappiness and downright cruelty are laid to the loving-kindness of the Lord? And always by His most ardent followers, it seems.”
    â€œHave I?” Clare exclaimed. “It, they, made me what I am today. For, of course, I was determined to get away, to be a person and not a charity or a problem, or even a daughter of the indiscreet Ham. Then, too, I