People who know the story from the conventional point of view have no appreciation of what life on the cloud was like. People seem to have the idea that the giant was uncouth, but Mrs. G. had only to frown with disapproval, or be about to frown, and he would immediately remember his manners and shower attention on her. It is true that the giant had a taste for boys. Perhaps it was because of this that his enthusiasm is generally mistaken for crudeness. The giant is usually thought to have been greedy, and that is why he counted and recounted his golden coins, waking the world with wanton thunder. But that wasn't it at all. For she and her husband, with their giantly knowledge, had appreciated what the Chinese did with the abacus, and using those principles the giants created with patterns of coins their own flights of higher mathematics. The hen that laid the golden eggs was the result of the giants' patient and affectionate breeding, and when they had made their commercial success with such hens they were planning to refine their breeding techniques even further and produce hens with moral qualities. As for the golden harp, of course it had cried out Master when Jack was stealing it. The harp, which the giants had created together in their early love, had been their child, their companion, and when the three of them sang together they produced what came to be known as the music of the spheres. And on the cloud Mrs. G. had had her own personal mission, to take care of the boys who visited, and she was able to save almost every one of them. For she had only to pout or be about to pout, and her husband, overcome with remorse for having neglected her for even a moment, would become solicitous and have eyes only for her. And so Mrs. G. always had as much attention as she asked for. In fact, the only person who had ever paid more attention to her, with no effort on her part, was Jack. And she remembered her fascination with Jack, and her anger.

With appropriately vengeful feelings Mrs. G. looked down once again from her shelf of cloud. And she was so gratified to see what was happening at Jack's house that she watched for a long time. The gold coins sounded flat as Jack counted them. Their talents unrealized, they were despondent as Jack spent them one by one. By the time the coins were gone, the gold standard had been replaced by the air and water standard. The golden eggs, beautiful as they were, became worthless in the conventional sense, and Jack and his girlfriend were reduced to using them for food. And the harp, so long away from expert hands, lost its tune and began to quarrel with the hen.

Against the background of this cacophony Jack and his girlfriend walked out of step with each other. And that was just fine with Mrs. G.

As she continued to look down she noticed something that Jack and his girlfriend were not aware of. She saw the beanstalk beginning to grow again from the old stump, and she decided that was how she would descend for the kill. she would wait until the beanstalk reached her cloud, for as yet Jack had shown no sign of changing. She would wait, and then step down the leaves majestically, as befit a person of her stature. She began to plan what she might wear.

Now the beanstalk, having once been so brutally felled, was shy and determined to grow very cautiously. It was not about to repeat that impetuous one-night stand that heaved the earth and Jack with it. The beanstalk really wanted to be a tree, or at least to grow as sturdy as a tree, to withstand any weapon and any man. It understood what the world had come to. So the beanstalk took its time and did what it had to do. And with a giant's patience, Mrs. G. waited.

And she began to appreciate her new life on the cloud. With the abundance of air and water she was rich according to the current standard, and furthermore the air was much sweeter now that it was no longer fouled by her husband's pipe. Now that flesh-eating had gone out of fashion, Mrs. G. was no longer embarrassed by her husband's tastes. With the remaining gold coins she invented new games of solitaire, to enjoy the golden patterns and the musical sounds, for the coins were proud of where they belonged and clinked joyfully. To this counterpoint Mrs. G. would sing, songs reminiscent of those she used to sing with her husband and their harp, but with his gruffness gone she no longer needed the sweetness of the harp for balance, and the songs became hers alone. As she sat using her golden darning egg she contemplated these pleasures. For company there were the other hens who laid whatever colours they pleased. And even before the beanstalk had quite reached the cloud, the boys she had saved, who had heard of the giant's death, climbed up to visit her. They were men now. Some came with their girlfriends or families. Some came by themselves and took their time. No longer anxious for their welfare, Mrs. G. was able to relax with the boys and enjoy the results of her accomplished mission.

Her new mission was to keep the air and water fresh and justly circulating. Scientists and politicians came to learn her methods, and stayed to learn also from the aesthetes. Aesthetes came to experience at source their refined pleasures of breathing and slaking thirst, and stayed for the further pleasure of their hostess's company. And so Ms. G., as she now called herself, who had once mourned the golden age of her married life, bloomed differently in the heavenly age she was experiencing now. As for what she could do about Jack and his girlfriend, it was much more pleasant at the moment to enumerate the virtues of procrastination than to bother about them at all.

In fact. it wasn't until the visitors stopped coming that she was curious enough to look down from the cloud once more. When she saw the mass of leaves beneath her she understood what had happened. The beanstalk had turned itself into a new species that defied classification. It produced no beans, but that was of no concern, for it had another plan for immortality. The beanstalk had grown into the tallest free-standing organism in the world, a great, tree-like thing, so strong and spread out at the top that, rather than growing back through the hole, it had lifted the entire cloud higher than anyone could climb, and certainly past the point where Ms. G. would have been able to step down.

At first she was angry. She thought, No beanstalk is going to get the better of me, I can still fall on them. But she remembered the principle that if you go so far to kill something you can never, ever, return the same. And there was no way Ms. G. was going to change anything she had or anything she was. She looked around her, seeing her cloud anew, and she noticed the intricate carpet of beanstalk leaves making her cloudpath firmer, supporting her at higher and higher altitudes, in the slow walk of her contentment, in the heaviness of her age.

Now when she looked down from her great height she could barely see the couple. But there seemed to be more animals in their yard, more people, perhaps children. The whole yard had a golden aura - were there that many eggs now? Jack and his girlfriend, going about their daily business, seemed to walk in step now, now lively, now peaceful, and Ms. G. thought she could hear the echo of their rhythms in the faint music of the golden harp. And that was fine. The beanstalk continued to lift the cloud, and the higher Ms. G. gets the less she sees and the more she seems to understand. She is much less interested in Jack now, though pleased with what he has become. He has not increased much in stature, and he does not bear much resemblance to the giant, but he has grown into a new breed of man, the kind who cook and know their folktales well.

As for his girlfriend - Ms. G. waxes eloquent here. For Jack's girlfriend has grown into the image of Ms. G. in her youth, a real beauty, though of course much less impressive in size. How purely she sings, how gracefully she bends, as she goes about her woman's work! And look - there she is now, beginning to write a woman's story.