(no subject)
At those words, the lady's face twitched with something like emotion, and once again she seated herself upon the bench in the corner. She drew her knees up and rested her chained feet before her. Her plain white chemise formed a complicated series of folds around her toes. She rested her arms on her knees and her chin on her arms.
"I have no intention of debating with you the existence of God," my father said. I resented him for filling the silence.
"Nor do I," said the lady. "It is not my place. But I do think it fortunate that your son so resembles you."
I felt my face go hot and my head go light. "Yes," my father said. "It is fortunate."
"Why did you bring me here?" I interrupted, and at once had two pairs of sharp eyes on me. I should not have asked it; but the words flew out unbidden, dark birds spreading sinister wings, flexing their spectral feathers. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, the longest moment I had heretofore experienced.
"I brought you here," said my father, finally, "because one day this will be your responsibility."
The lady did not speak, only blinked her wide black eyes. The motion was impossibly drawn out. It was an event.
The silence as I glanced back and forth between the two of them was a real thing, immense and substantial. "What do you mean?" I asked finally, and the words fell flat against the stone at my feet.
"This." My father gestured toward the woman, still hugging her knees on the bench with a golden chain dropping from her foot to the floor, shining like a waterfall.
"'This,'" she repeated softly. "I am not even a woman to you."
For half a moment, my father's face grew hard, and I thought he would strike her. Just as quickly it passed, but he did not answer her statement. "What you choose to do is your business," he told me, "and I do not presume to tell you which path to take. But it will be you--not Isaac Newton--who decides her fate."
An involuntary chill shot through my body, and apparently the woman felt a similar sensation. She trembled then, and strangely it was in this unconscious expression of fear that I saw in her how regal she must have once been.
"I still don't understand."
"Why don't you tell him?" said the lady. "Tell him everything."
Even as a child, I understood that there was some subtext here, some unspoken communication that elicited something similar to the discomfort I had felt when Newton had offered me schooling. Anything else in the air might have been lost on me, but I knew at least that.
"I have no intention of debating with you the existence of God," my father said. I resented him for filling the silence.
"Nor do I," said the lady. "It is not my place. But I do think it fortunate that your son so resembles you."
I felt my face go hot and my head go light. "Yes," my father said. "It is fortunate."
"Why did you bring me here?" I interrupted, and at once had two pairs of sharp eyes on me. I should not have asked it; but the words flew out unbidden, dark birds spreading sinister wings, flexing their spectral feathers. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, the longest moment I had heretofore experienced.
"I brought you here," said my father, finally, "because one day this will be your responsibility."
The lady did not speak, only blinked her wide black eyes. The motion was impossibly drawn out. It was an event.
The silence as I glanced back and forth between the two of them was a real thing, immense and substantial. "What do you mean?" I asked finally, and the words fell flat against the stone at my feet.
"This." My father gestured toward the woman, still hugging her knees on the bench with a golden chain dropping from her foot to the floor, shining like a waterfall.
"'This,'" she repeated softly. "I am not even a woman to you."
For half a moment, my father's face grew hard, and I thought he would strike her. Just as quickly it passed, but he did not answer her statement. "What you choose to do is your business," he told me, "and I do not presume to tell you which path to take. But it will be you--not Isaac Newton--who decides her fate."
An involuntary chill shot through my body, and apparently the woman felt a similar sensation. She trembled then, and strangely it was in this unconscious expression of fear that I saw in her how regal she must have once been.
"I still don't understand."
"Why don't you tell him?" said the lady. "Tell him everything."
Even as a child, I understood that there was some subtext here, some unspoken communication that elicited something similar to the discomfort I had felt when Newton had offered me schooling. Anything else in the air might have been lost on me, but I knew at least that.