Malade - Free Audiobook

MONOLOGUE OF A MOTHER

THIS is the last of all, this is the last!
     I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire,
     I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,
     Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past
     Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire
     Where the ash on the dying coals grows swiftly, like
         heavy moss.

     Strange he is, my son, whom I have awaited like a
         lover,
     Strange to me like a captive in a foreign country,
         haunting
     The confines and gazing out on the land where the
         wind is free;
     White and gaunt, with wistful eyes that hover
     Always on the distance, as if his soul were chaunting
     The monotonous weird of departure away from me.

     Like a strange white bird blown out of the frozen
         seas,
     Like a bird from the far north blown with a broken
         wing
     Into our sooty garden, he drags and beats
     From place to place perpetually, seeking release
     From me, from the hand of my love which creeps up,
         needing
     His happiness, whilst he in displeasure retreats.

     I must look away from him, for my faded eyes
     Like a cringing dog at his heels offend him now,
     Like a toothless hound pursuing him with my will,
     Till he chafes at my crouching persistence, and a
         sharp spark flies
     In my soul from under the sudden frown of his brow,
     As he blenches and turns away, and my heart stands
         still.

     This is the last, it will not be any more.
     All my life I have borne the burden of myself,
     All the long years of sitting in my husband's house,
     Never have I said to myself as he closed the door:
     "Now I am caught!—You are hopelessly lost, O
         Self,
     You are frightened with joy, my heart, like a
         frightened mouse."

     Three times have I offered myself, three times rejected.
     It will not be any more. No more, my son, my son!
     Never to know the glad freedom of obedience, since
         long ago
     The angel of childhood kissed me and went. I expected
     Another would take me,—and now, my son, O my son,
     I must sit awhile and wait, and never know
     The loss of myself, till death comes, who cannot fail.

     Death, in whose service is nothing of gladness, takes
         me;
     For the lips and the eyes of God are behind a veil.
     And the thought of the lipless voice of the Father
         shakes me
     With fear, and fills my eyes with the tears of desire,
     And my heart rebels with anguish as night draws
         nigher,