[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Can I watch?" said Plikt.
Novinha took the waterglass from beside her chair and flung the water at Plikt
and screamed at her. "No more of you!" she cried. "He's mine now, not yours!"
Plikt, dripping with water, was too astonished to find an answer.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"It isn't Plikt who's taking him away," said Valentine softly.
"She's just like all the rest of them, reaching out for a piece of him, tearing
bits of him away and devouring him, they're all cannibals."
"What," said Plikt nastily, angrily. "What, you wanted to feast on him yourself?
Well, there was too much of him for you. What's worse, cannibals who nibble here
and there, or a cannibal who keeps the whole man for herself when there's far
more than she can ever absorb?"
"This is the most disgusting conversation I think I've ever heard," said
Valentine.
"She hangs around for months, watching him like a vulture," said Novinha.
"Hanging on, loitering in his life, never saying six words all at once. And now
she finally speaks and listen to the poison that comes out of her."
"All I did was spit your own bile back at you," said Plikt. "You're nothing but
a greedy, hateful woman and you used him and used him and never gave anything to
him and the only reason he's dying now is to get away from you."
Novinha did not answer, had no words, because in her secret heart she knew at
once that what Plikt had said was true.
But Valentine strode around the bed, walked to the door, and slapped Plikt
mightily across the face. Plikt staggered under the blow, sank down against the
doorframe until she was sitting on the floor, holding her stinging cheek, tears
flowing down her face. Valentine towered over her. "You will never speak his
death, do you understand me? A woman who would tell a lie like that, just to
cause pain, just to lash out at someone that you envy -- you're no speaker for
the dead. I'm ashamed I ever let you teach my children. What if some of the lie
inside you got in them? You make me sick!"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"No," said Novinha. "No, don't be angry at her. It's true, it's true."
"It feels true to you," said Valentine, "because you always want to believe the
worst about yourself. But it's not true. Ender loved you freely and you stole
nothing from him and the only reason that he's still alive on that bed is
because of his love for you. That's the only reason he can't leave this used-up
life and help lead Jane into a place where she can stay alive."
"No, no, Plikt is right, I consume the people that I love."
"No!" cried Plikt, weeping on the floor. "I was lying to you! I love him so much
and I'm so jealous of you because you had him and you didn't even want him."
"I have never stopped loving him," said Novinha.
"You left him. You came in here without him."
"I left because I couldn't ..."
Valentine completed her sentence for her when she faded out. "Because you
couldn't bear to let him leave you. You felt it, didn't you. You felt him fading
even then. You knew that he needed to go away, to end this life, and you
couldn't bear to let another man leave you so you left him first."
"Maybe," said Novinha wearily. "It's all just fictions anyway. We do what we do
and then we make up reasons for it afterward but they're never the true reasons,
the truth is always just out of reach."
"So listen to this fiction, then," said Valentine. "What if, just this once,
instead of someone that you love betraying you and sneaking off and dying
against your will and without your permission -- what if just this once you wake
him up and tell him he can live, bid him farewell properly and let him go with
your consent. Just this once?"
Novinha wept again, standing there in utter weariness. "I want it all to stop,"
she said. "I want to die."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"That's why he has to stay," said Valentine. "For his sake, can't you choose to
live and let him go? Stay in Milagre and be the mother of your children and
grandmother of your children's children, tell them stories of Os Venerados and
of Pipo and Libo and of Ender Wiggin, who came to heal your family and stayed to
be your husband for many, many years before he died. Not some speaking for the
dead, not some funeral oration, not some public picking over the corpse like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • thierry.pev.pl

    •