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Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber
page 321 of 415 (77%)
of Siberia. It spoke eloquently of pogroms, of massacres,
of Kiev and its sister-horror, Kishineff. You saw mean and
narrow streets, and carefully darkened windows, and, on the
other side of those windows the warm yellow glow of the
seven-branched Shabbos light. Above this there shone the
courage of a race serene in the knowledge that it cannot
die. And illuminating all, so that her pinched face,
beneath the flapping pennant, was the rapt, uplifted
countenance of the Crusader, there blazed the great glow of
hope. This woman movement, spoken of so glibly as
Suffrage, was, to the mind of this over-read, under-fed,
emotional, dreamy little Russian garment worker the glorious
means to a long hoped for end. She had idealized it, with
the imagery of her kind. She had endowed it with promise
that it would never actually hold for her, perhaps. And so
she marched on, down the great, glittering avenue, proudly
clutching her unwieldy banner, a stunted, grotesque,
magnificent figure. More than a figure. A symbol.

Fanny's eyes followed her until she passed out of sight.
She put up her hand to her cheek, and her face was wet. She
stood there, and the parade went on, endlessly, it seemed,
and she saw it through a haze. Bands. More bands.
Pennants. Floats. Women. Women. Women.

"I always cry at parades," said Fanny, to the woman who
stood next her--the woman who wanted to march, but was
scared to.
"That's all right," said the woman. "That's all right."
And she laughed, because she was crying, too. And then she
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