things,
and he could have met his death no other way than by saving the country that he
loved. It is not nonsense – and so I could bear it.
But
this, Breena, this ! It is the very nonsense that pains me so. You and I
are in love – we are each other's intended – the universe wills us to be bound
in each other's arms, our limbs intertwined like vines on the bower. To think
back upon all the struggles we have gone through together, to remember each
trial we passed through together, running the gauntlet of our love, and to
think that it means nothing – that it ends in silence. Now that is unbearable!
I could stand it if we died together, I think. I could stand it if I died for
you, and if our love ended with us at one – in this tragedy from which it seems
there is no real end. But not this. Not this silence – this I cannot bear!
For in your silence I can hear only chaos. The ancient magic that once sang its
haunting melodies all around us is absent – there is no magic in this silence.
There is no meaning in it.
There
is only chaos. There is only silence.
I
thought I knew madness before, when I raged with desire for you. But that was
no madness. For madness is not what occurs when one's desire is out of one's
reach. Madness is what occurs when the very underpinnings of existence – my
love for you, my understanding of you as my-beloved and myself as
he-who-loves-her – begin to fall apart, when the world ceases to have any
meaning at all.
They
say in your religion the world before its creation was a formless void. That
formless void has surrounded me, is overtaking me. Language means nothing.
Words are gibberish. Nothing is anything – for the only thing that was ever real for me, my darling Breena, was you.
Letter 16
My Dearest
Breena,
Tell
me I am mistaken! I beg of you – tell me that I am wrong. Tell me it is all a
lie, a trick, a joke! I will forgive you – I swear it. I will cast aside my
anger and my pain and take you in my arms, and bear you no rancor for this trickery.
I will love you no less (Breena, don't you understand – every day that passes I
love you more !) nor will I bear you any grudge. Tell me it is a
political ploy, designed to cast off suspicion from your love for me – that you
have no intention of going through with it! Tell me that it is a vicious gossip
concocted by your enemies – tell me anything, Breena, but what is true! (Even a
lie, Breena, would cool the fires of my heart, and allow me to overcome this
agony! I want you to lie to me!)
Tell
me you will not marry him.
It
was last night that I heard the news (not news! No – last night I heard “that
vicious lie.” That is the only thing I can bear to write). I was sitting at
dinner with my mother and my sister – Shasta pale and wan with the absence of her
own love, and still refusing to speak to my mother in anything besides those
curt words of “Yes” and “No” at her thwarted love for Rodney (how much happier
she is, still, than I). And a messenger entered from the Summer Court, his eyes
full of fear. His terror was so great that I thought at first that he was
preparing to deliver the worst missive of all – that you had died and left me
to mourn you.
“What
is it, lad?” I bade him come closer.
He
bowed heavily, trembling so quickly that the letter he held fell from his
fingers.
Dead!
I thought. You must be dead – why else would his fear be so great? What else
could he possibly convey to me that would make him think my response would be
one of such great anger – such great rage? And yet you could not be dead! I was
sure that if something had happened to you, I would have felt it, for your
bones are my bones. Your blood is my blood. Your life is my life, and I felt
sure in my heart that at the moment your life gave out, my knees would have
collapsed beneath me and I would have died too. (How naïve I was, Breena, to
think that we had that connection! How foolish! There I was, wrapped
and he could have met his death no other way than by saving the country that he
loved. It is not nonsense – and so I could bear it.
But
this, Breena, this ! It is the very nonsense that pains me so. You and I
are in love – we are each other's intended – the universe wills us to be bound
in each other's arms, our limbs intertwined like vines on the bower. To think
back upon all the struggles we have gone through together, to remember each
trial we passed through together, running the gauntlet of our love, and to
think that it means nothing – that it ends in silence. Now that is unbearable!
I could stand it if we died together, I think. I could stand it if I died for
you, and if our love ended with us at one – in this tragedy from which it seems
there is no real end. But not this. Not this silence – this I cannot bear!
For in your silence I can hear only chaos. The ancient magic that once sang its
haunting melodies all around us is absent – there is no magic in this silence.
There is no meaning in it.
There
is only chaos. There is only silence.
I
thought I knew madness before, when I raged with desire for you. But that was
no madness. For madness is not what occurs when one's desire is out of one's
reach. Madness is what occurs when the very underpinnings of existence – my
love for you, my understanding of you as my-beloved and myself as
he-who-loves-her – begin to fall apart, when the world ceases to have any
meaning at all.
They
say in your religion the world before its creation was a formless void. That
formless void has surrounded me, is overtaking me. Language means nothing.
Words are gibberish. Nothing is anything – for the only thing that was ever real for me, my darling Breena, was you.
Letter 16
My Dearest
Breena,
Tell
me I am mistaken! I beg of you – tell me that I am wrong. Tell me it is all a
lie, a trick, a joke! I will forgive you – I swear it. I will cast aside my
anger and my pain and take you in my arms, and bear you no rancor for this trickery.
I will love you no less (Breena, don't you understand – every day that passes I
love you more !) nor will I bear you any grudge. Tell me it is a
political ploy, designed to cast off suspicion from your love for me – that you
have no intention of going through with it! Tell me that it is a vicious gossip
concocted by your enemies – tell me anything, Breena, but what is true! (Even a
lie, Breena, would cool the fires of my heart, and allow me to overcome this
agony! I want you to lie to me!)
Tell
me you will not marry him.
It
was last night that I heard the news (not news! No – last night I heard “that
vicious lie.” That is the only thing I can bear to write). I was sitting at
dinner with my mother and my sister – Shasta pale and wan with the absence of her
own love, and still refusing to speak to my mother in anything besides those
curt words of “Yes” and “No” at her thwarted love for Rodney (how much happier
she is, still, than I). And a messenger entered from the Summer Court, his eyes
full of fear. His terror was so great that I thought at first that he was
preparing to deliver the worst missive of all – that you had died and left me
to mourn you.
“What
is it, lad?” I bade him come closer.
He
bowed heavily, trembling so quickly that the letter he held fell from his
fingers.
Dead!
I thought. You must be dead – why else would his fear be so great? What else
could he possibly convey to me that would make him think my response would be
one of such great anger – such great rage? And yet you could not be dead! I was
sure that if something had happened to you, I would have felt it, for your
bones are my bones. Your blood is my blood. Your life is my life, and I felt
sure in my heart that at the moment your life gave out, my knees would have
collapsed beneath me and I would have died too. (How naïve I was, Breena, to
think that we had that connection! How foolish! There I was, wrapped
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