Ursula K. Le Guin

by Ursula K. Le Guin

“We have written him, every post,” Laura put in. “I despise that Polana province, why did he have to go there?”

  “—the nethermost pole of the Earth. But knowing how faithful your letters are I think with comfortable anticipation of finding a whole bundle of them when I get back to Krasnoy.

  “I have not much to tell you beyond what I wrote in my last. Please tell me if the Bellerofon is coming. The two boys in charge of circulation by post are very green, and when I left Krasnoy they were in a fine muddle. If it’s still not coming regularly and you are interested in it, I shall see to it myself that your copy gets on the Diligence. Karantay is beginning a new story in the December number. He says, and I incline to believe him, that it will not be as good as The Young Man Liyve. One can’t ask for such a work as that again, so soon, even from such a man. There is no going back, or doing things over, I think.

  “My dear mother and father, my dear sister, my heart is with you now as always. My loving duty to uncle and aunt, to Count Orlant, to them all by the lake. If this letter should be the last to reach you before Christmas may it bear my affectionate wishes for the new year and always. Your loving son, Itale Sorde.”

  As Piera read the last paragraph her eyes began to prickle and burn. She read the words over, the moment passed.

  “His hand has changed a little,” she said.

  “It’s probably a bad pen.”

  “He signs differently. Less of a flourish with the S.”

  “He doesn’t sound very flourishing,” Laura said wistfully. “The letter doesn’t really say anything at all. Except that he’s homesick.”

  “It doesn’t say that,” Piera replied, firmly.

  “Of course it does. Oh dear! Mama’s been worried about him for weeks, and this isn’t going to cheer her up, one page and no news. Is it because of the censors, I wonder, or because he’s trying not to sound unhappy when he really is?”

  Piera bowed her head as if rereading part of the letter. “What did he say,” she asked at last, “what did he write, I mean, after he was in Aisnar, last April?”

  “Why, I told you, didn’t I? He couldn’t say much, because you’d asked him not to mention your betrothal—you explained that later. I know I wrote you that he wrote that you looked very tall and very pretty. Is that what you wanted to hear again?”

  “No. I was just thinking . . . It shouldn’t have been me that got to see him. It should have been you or your mother. Things work out so stupidly! . . .”

  “So long as one of us saw him.”

  “But it was such a stupid conversation. I never told you. We didn’t know what to say. And he looked so different, not changed, really, but completely different, a man, you know, and he was just a boy when we were all here. And he said we’d probably never meet again, that if we did it wouldn’t mean anything, it would just be like people who don’t know anything about each other meeting and parting, and neither of us, he or I, would ever really go home again. And—” But her voice, which had been getting strained and faint, choked off in a sob. “This is so ridiculous!” she gasped, “please don’t pay any attention, Laura, I’ve been doing this ever since I got home—it goes away in a minute—”

  Laura, at a loss, stroked her hand; Piera got control of herself very promptly, and stood up to greet Emanuel with a smile as he came in.

  Seeing, from Laura’s face rather than Piera’s, that something was amiss, he went on upstairs at once, after one question: “Anything from Itale?”

  “Yes, here, the letter’s weeks old, he was still in Rákava.”

  “I’ll read it in a minute.”

  When he heard his wife talking with the girls he judged Piera’s fit was over. What would be wrong with the child? Waiting for marriage, no doubt, this fashion of long betrothals was detestable. He came downstairs. “Where’s dinner, women?”

  “Ten more minutes, Emanuel.”

  “Three women, a cook, and no dinner ready. Su! You’re nearly as inefficient as we are at the Magistrature. Well, let’s see what was new in Rákava six weeks ago.”

  When he had read Itale’s letter, Laura showed him the second one: “Which of you is it for, uncle?”

  “Why, for Guide. I’m not of Val Malafrena.”

  “But then it says Portacheyka.”

  “They knew the post coach stopped here.”

  “But why don’t you open it. If it is for you, someone would have to ride back with it, and if it’s estate business father will consult you about it anyhow.”

  “Practical woman,” Emanuel said. “Very well.” And carefully, reluctantly, he opened the cover and began to read.

  Piera was watching him, curious about the letter as the others were, but she noticed nothing; it was the wife who said quietly, “What is it, Emanuel?”

  He looked at her for a moment, blank-faced. “Let me finish it, my dear,” he said as quietly. They waited in silence. He finished reading the letter, folded and unfolded it, sat down in the chair by the window. “It’s rather bad news,” he said. “Itale. He’s all right. It would appear he has been arrested. They don’t actually know very much.”

  “Read the letter,” Perneta said, standing still, as did Laura and Piera.

  “It is intended for Guide,” Emanuel said, and then looking up into their faces opened the letter again and read: “Sir, I must take the liberty of introducing myself as a friend of your son Itale Sorde, in order to ask you to have the very great kindness to write me whether you have received any word from your son since the middle of November last, or to tell me if you have any news which confirms or, God willing, disproves the report we have received here of his arrest, together with the young man who was with him, by the Provincial Government of the Polana, in November. The first such report we received appeared unsubstantial, but we now have heard a more circumstantial report from an apparently reliable person, coming to Krasnoy from Rákava, stating that both men were tried on the charge of inciting activities prejudicial to the public order, convicted, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. If this is true they are presumably in the St Lazar Prison in Rákava, as State prisoners. We have heard nothing from Mr Sorde since November sixth, but are now aware that mail both in and out of the east is under supervision and liable to be read and stopped, or read and resealed, without notice. To the best of our knowledge the posts in the center and west are not tampered with as a general rule, but this rule may be changed of course at any time. As you know your son has many friends here all of whom earnestly desire to be of use to him and to support him against this monstrous injustice, but at this time and until we are certain of the facts, we are following the advice of a man very familiar with the political situation of the eastern provinces, who counsels us all to wait, since an attempt at direct intervention or personal appeal could at this time do more harm than good. I beg you to write me if you have better, or more certain, news of him, and I pray God to uphold a just and candid man, my friend and your son, in the knowledge of his own integrity and of our steadfast affection and loyalty. I am, Sir, your servant, Tomas Brelavay. Krasnoy, 2 January 1828.”

  Emanuel folded the letter. His face appeared thoughtful, still a little blank. “This Brelavay sounds like an honest fellow,” he said at last. “Itale’s mentioned him often, I think.”

  “They were in Solariy together,” Laura said. “He runs the journal’s finances.” She spoke calmly. It was Perneta who, shaking her clenched fists in front of her breast in a jerky, quickly-repeated, strange motion, said in a loud, high voice, “I never had, I never had any son but him!”

  “Come, Perneta!” Emanuel said roughly, and went and stood at the window while Laura comforted his wife. She had never broken down on him before, never once. It was as if something in his own body broke at the sound of her voice crying out, as if the strength went out of his backbone; he could not look at her.

  Piera came over to him and took his hand. He looked down at the girl, her pale face and clear eyes. “If we’re going out to the lake,” she said,
“I should go tell Gavrey not to wait for Laura and me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’ll still be at the mill. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  She left, moving light and fast. In the depths of his confusion and distress Emanuel considered her and Laura with wonder: both of them calm, efficient. Yet he knew what this news was to Laura, and as for Piera she had been weeping about something or other not a quarter of an hour ago. They were all nerves till you came to the test, and then, my God, they were sword-steel. And here were he and Perneta no better than two blocks of wood, wringing their hands, struck dumb. He sat down and reread both letters to give himself the countenance of doing something. But the two girls did and decided everything, until the moment when he was on his own again, alone with his brother in the library of the house by the lake. “Well, what’s up, Emanuel?”

  “Itale’s letter—”

  “That’s not what brought you out in the middle of the day.”

  “No. It appears that, a few days after he wrote that letter, he was arrested.”

  Guide waited. Emanuel cleared his throat. “It’s not certain,” he said. “Here’s all we know.” He gave Guide Brelavay’s letter, and watched him read it. Guide read it through attentively; his expression did not change. At the end he lifted his head a little and said after a pause, without expression, “What am I to do?”

  “Do? —How should I know? No doubt the fellow’s right and there’s nothing we can do, nothing at all. But is this a time to say I told you so, is your self-righteousness—” He stopped short. Guide was not looking at him.

  “Arrested him,” Guide said softly, as if trying out the words. “What right have they to judge him—to touch him—” His face contorted into a strange frown. “What have they done to him?” he said aloud.

  He turned away and was silent.

  Emanuel sat down at the table, rubbing his hand over his forehead. He had misjudged his brother utterly. He had forgotten how ignorant Guide was, how, in this sense, innocent. Guide had been furious with Itale for debasing himself, but it had never entered his head that any human power could debase Itale. Evil to him was personal vice, greed or avarice or cruelty, envy, pride: a man fought such evil within himself and in other men, and with God’s help prevailed. That injustice could be institutionalised under the name of law, that inhumanity could embody and perpetuate itself in the form of armed men and locked doors, this he knew but did not believe, had not believed, until now. He did not separate himself from Itale, had never done so, even in his anger. What they did to his son they did to him; this letter was his sentence. He was 58, and this was the first hold that human evil had taken hold on his hard, uncompromising soul; this was the first time he had ever been humiliated. He had held himself apart, kept himself clean, and now, very late, he must pay the cost of cleanness.

  “Guide, if this is true, which we do not know—but if it is true, then we have got to look at it squarely. It’s very bad but it could be worse. They haven’t sent him to jail in Austria, they haven’t given him a life sentence. Five years— Five years is—”

  Emanuel had been a law student in Solariy. He had visited the provincial prison there several times, in a deliberate self-discipline. It was because he knew what prison was like that he had refused to qualify himself to be a judge, and, when offered the judgeship of the county court, had thrice declined the honor.

  “One can wait five years,” Guide said.

  “Listen, Guide. I have excused myself, since Itale left, for having encouraged him to go— I thought it his right, his choice, I still do, but I was responsible, partly responsible— I have no excuse, I never looked to see what danger, it was my fault much more than his, he was very young!”

  “No matter,” Guide said. “That’s all past. Does Laura know about this?”

  “She was there when I read the letter. She got Perneta over the shock of it. And Piera did the same for me. They’re with Eleonora now. I left it to them. They’re better at this than we are, Guide.”

  “Aye. This is their world. Their time, not mine. I’ve known that since he left.”

  Another silence. Guide sat down across the broad table from his brother.

  “I used to wonder if he’d not marry Piera,” Guide said. “Forty years ago there’d have been no question. A good match, a good pair. They’d have married. He’d never have run off.”

  “Our father left, you know. Is it the times or the man?”

  “He came back, though.”

  “So will Itale!”

  “He sat there where you’re sitting now, when he told me he meant to go. I was angry, I called him a fool and worse.”

  “For God’s sake, Guide, are you going to blame yourself? Of course you were hard on him, do you think you’ve ever been soft? He’s not soft either. He’s your son, God knows!”

  “I was not blaming myself. Or Itale. The time for all that’s long past. I blame the men who dared judge him. I would give my life—” But he did not go on. There was no vengeance to which he could give his life, and no redress. There was nothing at all he could do.

  IV

  Count Orlant was overwhelmed by Piera’s news. She had hoped for comfort from him; instead, to her surprise, she found that she must and could be the one to offer comfort. She knew of course that her father was fond of Itale and had been deeply distressed by what he, too, called his “running off”; she knew that he tried to read Novesma Verba and to understand politics, and that it always left him puzzled and depressed. He was unworldly, as Piera had learned, or as he himself put it, he hadn’t a head for these things. That had led her to assume that he would not be too much dismayed at her tidings. After all, what did he know about state offenses, trials, accusations, prisons? Less even than she. But his ignorance instead of protecting him left him open to the blow. “In prison? They put him in prison—Guide’s son?” he said over and over. “Why, that’s absurd. It must be a mistake. What would Itale ever do to make them put him in prison? He’s a gentleman, he’s a gentleman’s son, he’s not the sort of fellow they lock up in jails!” Then as he began to believe her and his imagination grasped the event, his protests ceased; he fell silent, and soon said in a humble voice, “I think I’ll lie down for a while, my dear. I feel a little tired.”

  She went upstairs with him and built up the fire in his hearth, for he said he felt the chill. He looked old as he lay there on the leather couch, old, patient, quiet. Why must this, too, hurt him? the girl thought with outrage, kneeling at the hearth. Orlant Valtorskar had never wished harm to any creature, and for all good that had come to him he had been grateful. Now he was old, not well, Piera would leave him soon, after his death his estate would be sold. Everything he knew, everything he had, was slipping away from him. It was as if he had written his name on the wind. Why then must he suffer the ills of other men?

  “I suppose they’ll let the boy have letters from his people, at least,” he said, moving his head restlessly.

  “Emanuel thinks the man in Krasnoy is right, they shouldn’t do anything at all just at first, not even write. So the people who had him arrested will forget about him.”

  “You mean they’re to behave as if no one cared what became of him? But how will that make him feel?”

  “Emanuel thinks they wouldn’t let him see the letters anyway.”

  “Not let him see letters from his own people? What harm can it do, when he’s locked in jail? I don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of it.”

  “Perhaps they will let him get letters. And of course Emanuel plans to make an appeal if he has to. But it’s really all so unsure, now; where he is, even.”

  Count Orlant was silent for a minute. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Do you remember when he came over here to say goodbye, in the storm, that night? It seems no time at all since then.”

  It seemed a long time to Piera since that night, but she said only, gently, “Don’t talk as if he was dead, papa. He isn’t. He’ll come b
ack. Laura says so too.”

  And Count Orlant accepted, at least for the moment, the weighty judgment of Laura and Piera.

  When she left her father Piera put on her coat and went outside into the early dark, the cold and starlight of winter night. She could not stay shut in the warmth indoors. The sky was hard and the stars bright, small, multitudinous. The lake lay black. There was the queer snapping silence of frost, and the air bit throat and lungs as if instead of breathing one were drinking ice-cold water. Piera walked down to the shore and stood there under the pines looking out to the lake and the height of the winter sky. Orion hung there, the belt and sword of stars, the bright dog at heel. Piera stood still, her bare hands thrust deep into the sleeves of her coat, shivering now and then from head to foot, and in that hour she came into her inheritance. She knew the great hour as it passed. She accepted without reservation what it brought her: the passion of her generation; the end of her childhood.

  If this was her world, she was strong enough to live in it. She was a woman, not trained for any public act, not trained to defiance, brought up to the woman’s part: waiting. So she would wait. For any act done consciously may be defiant, may be independent, may change life utterly.

  But one can act thus only if one knows there is no safety. So she thought, that Epiphany night, looking up at Orion and the other stars. One must wait outside. There is no hiding away from storm, waste, injustice, death. There is no shelter, no stopping, only a pretense, a mean, stupid pretense of being safe and letting time and evil pass by outside. But we are all outside, Piera thought, and all defenseless. There is no safe house but death. Nothing of our own building will protect us, not the jails, nor the palaces, nor the comfortable houses. But the grandeur of knowing that, the pride and grandeur of being on one’s own at last, alone, under the enormous and indifferent sky, unhoused and unprotected! To be nothing, a girl, confused, grieved, frightened, foolish, shivering in the January frost, all that, yes, but also to learn at last the stature of her spirit: to come into her inheritance.