"When the Emperor Was Divine" - Quotation Collection - The Woman

[Robin Nourie]

The woman asks the boy, "Did I leave the porch light on or off" and "Did I remember to turn off the stove...Did we even have a stove?" These are signs of both the disorientating effects of internment as well as her feeling more and more disconnected from her past.  Later when the boy assures her that of course they had a stove. She remembers that she was "quite the cook, once."  Here again she is feeling separated from her past self, as if she is no longer the same woman.

[A. Leonard P. Rittler]

"Or maybe," she said, "it's just gone. Sometimes things disappear and there's no getting them back. That's just how it is."

[M Buckmire]

Most days she did not leave the room at all. She sat by the stove for hours, not talking. In her lap lay a half-finished letter. An unopened book.

pg 93

[M Buckmire]

His mother no longer wanted to know. She had stopped keeping track of the days. She had no longer read the paper or listened to the bullitens on the radio. "Tell me when it's over," she said.

pg 93

[Jeremy Berman]

She wore a shapeless black dress, sensible shoes, no lipstick.  In a large brown shopping bag she carried an assortment of brushes and rags.     P.136

[A. Leonard P. Rittler]

That evening she had lit a bonfire in the yard and burned all the letters from Kagoshima... p 75

[jtho...@gfsnet.org]

The door to the girl's room was closed. Above the doorknob was a note that had not been there the day before. It said DO NOT DISTURB. The woman did not open the door

pg. 7

[jtho...@gfsnet.org]

The boy stopped. He bit down hard into the thick skin of the orange and the juice ran down his chin. "Not like that," said his mother. She took the orange and began to peel it slowly in one continuous motion.

[livi pinover]

His mother said it aged you. The sun. She said it made you grow old. Every night before she went to bed she daubed cream on her face. She rationed it out as though it were butter. Or sugar.  It was Pond's. She'd bought a large jar at the pharmacy the day before they had left Berkeley. "Got to make it last," she said. But already she had almost used it all up.  "I should have bought two."

[livi pinover]

The key had become part of her. It was always there, a small, dark shape, dangling-visibly and sometimes invisibly, depending on the light and what she was wearing, and even, at times, it seemed, on her mood-just beneath the surface of her clothes. If she took it off, surely terrible things would happen. (107)

[J Thompson]

As we sat down in our chairs she reminded us to eat slowly, with our mouths closed and our heads held high above our plates. "Don't shovel," she said. p. 113

[Jeremy Berman]

She pulled on her white silk gloves and began to walk east on Ashby.

P. 4

[Jeremy Berman]

She pulled off her gloves and looked at them.  They were no longer white.  She dropped them into the hole and picked up the shovel again.

P. 12

[M Buckmire]

She pointed to a wrinkle by her mouth. "See this?" He nodded. "A recent development. Your father won't know who I am." "I'll remind him."

[M Buckmire]

The girl turned around and looked at her mother's face. There were little lines around her eyes that she had not noticed before. "When did you stop wearing lipstick?" "Two weeks ago. I used it all up."

[livi pinover]

The woman pulled out a gray hair and let it hit the floor. “I’ll sweep it up in the morning.”

Mostly though they waited. For the mail. For the news. For the bells. For breakfast and lunch and dinner. For one day to be over and the next day to begin. (54)