Explore "The Fitting" by Edna St. Vincent Millay on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The fitter said, "Madame, vous avez maigri,"
And pinched together a handful of skirt at my hip.
"Tant mieux," I said, and looked away slowly, and took my under-lip / Softly between my teeth.
Rip-rip!
Out came the seam, and was pinned together in another place.
She knelt before me, a hardworking woman with a familiar and unknown face, / Dressed in linty black, very tight in the arm's-eye and smelling of sweat.
She rose, lifting my arm, and set her cold shears against me,-snip-snip;
Her knuckles gouged my breast. My drooped eyes lifted to my guarded eyes in the glass, and glanced away as from someone they had never met.
"Ah, que madame a maigri! " cried the vendeuse, coming in with dresses over her arm.
"C'est la chaleur," I said, looking out into the sunny tops of the horse-chestnuts-and indeed it was very warm.
I stood for a long time so, looking out into the afternoon, thinking of the evening and you. .
While they murmured busily in the distance, turning me, touching my secret body, doing what they were paid to do.