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Diaryrings

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2001-07-26 - 9:23 p.m.

"Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come; so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might,
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so."

--"Sonnet XC" by William Shakespeare

"I paused, straining my eyes to see his expression. He seemed a very long way away.

"I said, 'I don't expect you to believe it, Raoul, but I was fighting on your side. All the time. I've been through a very private special little hell since Tuesday night. You called it a "damnable exercise," remember? Everything conspired to accuse you, and I was half silly with unhappiness and . . . yes, and doubt, till I couldn't even trust my own senses any more . . . . Oh, I won't drag you through it all now; you've had enough, and you want to be done with this and with me, but I--I had to tell you before you go. It was simply that I couldn't take the chance, Raoul! You do see that, don't you? Say you see that!'

"He jerked the gloves in his fingers. His voice was quite flat, dull, almost. 'You were prepared to take chances--once.'

"'I had no right to take a chance on him. I didn't dare . . . . I--was all he had. Beside that, it couldn't be allowed to matter.'

"'What couldn't?'

"'That you were all I had,' I said.

"Another silence. He was standing very still now. Was it a trick of the mist or was he really a very long way away from me, a lonely figure in the queerly-lighted darkness? It came to me suddenly that this was how I would always remember him, someone standing alone, apart from the others even of his own family. And, I think for the first time, I began to see him as he really was--not any more as a projection of my young romantic longings, not any more as Prince Charming, the handsome sophisticate, the tiger I thought I preferred . . . . This was Raoul, who had been a quiet lonely little boy in a house that was 'not a house for children,' an unhappy adolescent . . . a young man fighting bitterly . . . wild, perhaps, hard, perhaps, plunging off the beaten track more than once . . . but always alone. Wrapped up in my loneliness and danger I hadn't even seen that his need was the same as my own . . . .

"A pause. He said in a very queer voice, 'I believe you do understand.'

"'I believe I do.' I swallowed. 'Even the last twenty-four hours--with the world gone mad and values shot to smithereens--I must have known, deep down, that you were you, and that was enough. Raoul, I want you to know it, then I'll go. I loved you all the time, without stopping, and I love you now.'

"Still he hadn't moved. I turned back toward the ch�teau. I said, 'I'll leave you now. Good night.'"

--"Nine Coaches Waiting" by Mary Stewart

TRQ

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