The Mother by Pearl S. Buck

Now from her youth up this woman had been ever a creature of deep still heats. She was not as some women are, quick to look at this young man and that and appraising any man who passed. No, she was a woman of a very deep heart, shy to the depths of it, and until she was properly wed even when she was alone her thoughts had not turned to men for their own sake, and if strange longings rose from within her deeply she never looked at them to see what they were or why they came, but she went on steadfastly to some task she had to do, and bore her longing patiently and in a waiting silence. Only when she was wed and had known a man for all he was did some clearness come to her, some distillation of that deep dumb longing, so that even while she scolded her man sometimes and was angry with him, she knew she could not live without him. That thick, impatient longing in her could even heap itself like thunderous clouds into a causeless anger against the man she loved until it resolved itself and they clung each to each, and she was satisfied in the old and simple way and so was made tranquil again.

Yet the man was never enough. In himself he was never enough. She must conceive by him and feel a child take life and shape within her. Then was the act complete and while the child moved and grew she went in a daze of happiness, being fulfilled. Yes, even when she bawled her little angers at her children when they were under her feet and when they cried and whimpered for this and that and were wilful as children must be, yet she never saw the signs of new birth upon herself without a sweet content of body, as though she were fed and rested and had slept so that her body wanted nothing more.