Sexing the Cherry Read Online Free

hidden in its lines...
    I pooh-poohed this, for the earth is surely a manageable place made of blood and stone and entirely flat. I believe I could walk from one side to the other, had I the inclination. And if a great body of us had the inclination there would be no part of the earth left untouched. What then of journeys folded in on themselves like a concertina?
    But Jordan believed him, and when Tradescant left Jordan and I went home, he skipping ahead and carrying his ship and I a few steps behind. I watched his thin body and black hair and wondered how long it would be before he made his ships too big to carry, and then one of them would carry him and leave me behind for ever.
    How hideous am I?
    My nose is flat, my eyebrows are heavy. I have only a few teeth and those are a poor show, being black and broken. I had smallpox when I was a girl and the caves in my face are home enough for fleas. But I have fine blue eyes that see in the dark. As for my size, I know only that before Jordan was found a travelling circus came through Cheapside, and in that circus was an elephant. We were all pleased to see the elephant, a huge beast with a wandering nose. Its trick was to sit itself in a seat like any well-bred gentleman, and wear an eyeglass. There was a seat on its opposite side, and a guessing game was to offer up a certain number of persons to climb on to the other seat, top syturvy, as best they could, and outweigh Samson, as the elephant was named. No one had succeeded, though the prize was a vat of ale.
    One night, pushing along with a ribbon in my hair, 1 thought to try and outweigh Samson myself. I had taken a look at him and he seemed none too big to me. So I got hold of the man who was bawling and jeering at the crowd to pit themselves against a mere beast and said I would take the seat.
    'But, madam,' screeched the little bit of vermin, 'I see you weigh no more than an angel.'
    'You know nothing of the Scriptures,' said I. Tor nowhere in that Holy Book is there anything to be said about the weight of an angel.'
    His eyebrows shot up to Heaven, the only part of him ever likely to get there, and he started banging his drum and bellowing like one at a funeral, saying here was a sight and gather round and gather round. Soon I could hardly breathe for the heat coming off the bodies, and the elephant itself had to be revived with a bucket of cold water.
    'Let me lead you to the chair,' said the knock-kneed knave, the bells on his hat winking and tinkling.
    I am gracious by nature and I allowed myself to be led.
    'I will have to search you,' said the creature, rolling his eyes at the crowd. 'I must be sure that you are free of lead weights and any other advantages.'
    Touch me you won't,' I cried.'I'll show you what there is.' And I lifted up my dress over my head. I was wearing no underclothes in respect of the heat.
    There was a great swooning amongst the crowd, and I heard a voice compare me to a mountain range. However, it silenced my Lord Fool, who made no more remarks about a search and simply showed me the chair.
    I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with air, and threw myself at the seat with all my might. There was a roar from round about me. I opened my eyes and looked towards Samson.
    He had vanished. His chair swung empty like a summer-house seat, his eyeglass lay in the bottom. I looked higher, following the gaze of the people. Far above us, far far away like a black star in a white sky, was Samson.
    It is a responsibility for a woman to have forced an elephant into the sky. What it says of my size I cannot tell, for an elephant looks big, but how am I to know what it weighs? A balloon looks big and weighs nothing.
    I know that people are afraid of me, either for the yapping of my dogs or because I stand taller than any of them. When I was a child my father swung me up on to his knees to tell me a story and I broke both his legs. He never touched me again, except with the point of the whip he used for the