My Brilliant Career

When she feels most claustrophobic in the M’Swats’ hovel, Sybylla goes for walks in the evening to think. The father assumes with a leer she is meeting a lover, presumably his oldest son, who is 21. Sybylla contemptuously dismisses the idea: “Though he were a millionaire, I would think his touch contamination” (89). She apologizes—not for the sentiment but for expressing it aloud. She struggles with her unhappiness, telling herself the M’Swats are nice enough people. Nevertheless, their farm “was warping [her] very soul” (91).

By the end of summer, Sybylla’s spirits are drooping to the point the M’Swats release her from her obligation and forgives her father’s debt. In September, Sybylla gratefully heads home.

When Sybylla comes home, she is stunned by her father’s condition. Drinking too much, stoop-shouldered, and silent, he is a broken man and an embarrassment to the family. Her siblings are eager to leave the farm for the city—any city. Sybylla learns that her younger sister Gertie had been sent off to help the Beechums as they struggle without Harry. Feeling like the Biblical Job, she curses God and waits only to die.