LITTLE MISS GREENLANE

1. Miss Greenlane was sitting in a corner of the gymnasium, hugging her knees and peering out, from behind spiteful and vindictive eyes, at the girls playing netball, while her heart said: “Let me play”. But the others did not want her with them, for she was too silly.
   
   
   

2. She was pretty but very shy, and boys laughed at her, saying she was ugly. She would run away and bury her face in her hands and weep.
   
   
   

3. She would spend her time bent over books, reading, studying, finding out and using different formulas for everything.
   Her mother complained to her, saying: “You don't give your feelings enough chance to come out.” To which Miss replied: “What do you know about my feelings?”
   
   
   

4. When she started work, she was asked by the personnel manager what her ambition was. She answered quite coldly: “To be the most efficient secretary in the firm.”
   
   
   

5. We see her sitting at her typewriter, her fingers flashing calmly across the keys. Twenty-seven years have passed. She knows she is mocked at by almost everyone. She knows they call her Miss Robot behind her back. She knows they dislike her for her peevishness and pride. But still, what does it matter? They are not like her, dedicated to the office that has become for her a baby. It does not matter also to her that she has starved herself all these years of almost all the music and joy of life, to become what she is now, a perfectly stable machine, capable of any human function except real love, real life.
   
   
   

6. But now we see her looking very puzzled for no apparent reason. She shakes her head, gets up and starts pacing round her office, oblivious of a small group of typists watching her through a half-opened door. They laugh at her as she turns this way and that, shaking her head from side to side in a thoroughly disturbed way. She collapses onto her chair, snatches her spectacles from her nose and buries her face in her hands. What is going on inside her mind is not important now, compared with the little smile forming on her lips and the sweet twinkle in her moistened eyes, simple signs that her sleeping heart is finally awakening.

QUESTIONS AND STUDY

1. Miss Greenlane has obviously suffered during her life.

   What has been her greatest sadness, in your opinion?

1. Her not marrying?

2. Beeing mocked at?

3. Knowing she was more a machine than a woman?

4. Not beeing able to understand herself?

5. Having a heart without a home?

6. Being too intelligent?

7. Being alone?

Write a few lines on her greatest sadness. Justify your choice.

2. In what way will Miss Greenlane's scrupulousness aid her?
   
   
   

3. What role in life would you give Miss Greenlane, considering her change of heart?