Chapter 11

We are not easy with each other this day, Linda and I. The offense I have given hangs between us as thick as the furs that once hung at the entrance of my hearth.

I have not the words to explain my actions, and I think they cannot be explained in a way that will excuse them. When one makes shame the shame is lasting. And my shame is greater because I realize a thing that I did not understand before.

It is that I desire this woman greatly.

Before yesterday I had not had such feeling in me, or I did not recognize it. She is thin, she has little strength of body, she does not look as did the women of my people, full in body and strong, and I saw her only in those ways.

But when I look today I see differently. She is thin but all is in proportion and so it now seems to me right that she is as she is. Her weakness is not a failing, she has such strength as she needs in the way of her life, even as was so among us. Her movements are as graceful as those of a deer, a bird, a flower swaying as the air moves over it. The features of her face are regular and strong and have beauty. Her smile, when she gives it, lights all around her. Her voice is soft and smooth.

And her mind seems to me glorious. She is finest teacher I ever know, she places knowing before me and allows me to take from it as I will so I may learn quickly in my way. She makes no sport of me for my ignorance of all that is ordinary to her, but only seeks to show me and help me. Her kindness, her generosity in forgiving my offense are beyond what I can under­stand.

I desire her more than ever in my life I have felt so. I have known her only few days, but I feel that I have waited for her all of my life.

Perhaps it is what happens yesterday that awakens me to this feeling, that for a moment I believed she, too, had desire for me. I know now that this is not so. I know more, that because of what I do I may have no hope more that it may ever become so. There is a strange form of humor that the same thing that makes me know my desire is the thing that makes this desire never possible.

I must put these thoughts from my mind. I must give all attention to the teaching she gives me, to learning the way of her speech and of the living of this time.

As the day goes on this becomes easier. I know I can never put aside the feelings that are in me. But there is joy, too, in simply being in her company, in learning from her. I think perhaps she sees some of this in me, for as the day passes she becomes more easy with me.