Two or Three Things I Know About Her
I do not imagine her as a child. Instead I think of her as a bit older, and still unmarried, still parthenos, because she was crippled, deformed, blind, or grotesque. Taught by her condition to be resigned, disciplined, obedient; and also assured by it of her specialness – so that her special fate did not surprise her. After all, wasn't the world turned upside down at that moment? Why should not all its values be inverted?
She saw a lot of the world for a woman of her time. She visits her cousin, and the city of her husband's ancestors, and Egypt. All this before the story is really underway. Later on, we see her far from home again, when she was certainly no child, to be present at the end of what started in her.
She
only carried the torch for a moment, really. She accepted it when it
was passed to her and handed it over when her moment was past. All
the rest of her life she was ordinary. And that was possibly the
greater burden, as it is for all those of us never called to such
distinction; to live an ordinary life which has come so near to
brilliance.
