Work Text:
There is a certain time of year when the forest itself becomes a church, light slanting through leaves as though through narrow windows. There is a strict order to be followed, prayers and tasks each at their appointed hour, but it cannot be wrong to walk outside a little, the soil soft and rich underfoot, the fleeting sun gentle and the forest almost quiet. Surely God’s work should be admired in all its forms? Surely the forest, which is God’s, is a more fit subject for contemplation, more suited as a place for meditation, than the work of man, however much skill and wealth went into the building, however much it is dedicated to the glory of God.
§
We should seek out God in every place: for this reason we value our library, and desire always to learn. If a church, measured out and created by the mastery of man, is pleasing to god, if it is a means to bring us closer to him, is that not as true of every other carefully created thing? Are logic and mathematics and science not as carefully built and full of awe as a cathedral? Is a poem or a story or a song not as carefully constructed and as full of the love of beauty as pierced stone or carved wood?
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All my life I have followed order, searching out rules to live by. I was a filial daughter, a wife who desired only her husband’s happiness; so too I intend to guard and serve my nuns. I have never tried the role of friend, but surely it can be no harder, and perhaps it is sweeter, than daughter or wife or teacher. But in this you must instruct me.
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I walked in the woods again today. I tell myself that it is allowed, even praiseworthy. If I were less familiar with the ways of nature, if I had not desire to study and observe them, you yourself would not be here, or rather there, with you husband, who would still be sunk in despair. So it is right to study all things, the world and the writings of the ancients, and the patterns of our own hearts. A ready mind can find excuses for anything, and so I take a little time from every day to be neither teacher nor wife, neither servant of god nor leader, but just I myself, walking in a wood. Sometimes I think of you, and how I should tell you my thoughts so that you will understand them.
§
Today it rained and I did not walk in the woods, but stayed in the little chapel, which you will remember well, since it is where we first met. Even now, with a fine church and abbey surrounding it, this simple, small place remains dear to me. Indeed, however fine the buildings that surround it, their beauty really belongs to it, for without it they would not exist.
I had your latest letter with me, and I read it there, where we first spoke, and it was almost as though we were again together, although not quite, for though I prize your written words, I miss the music of your speech. But memory and fancy are useful handmaidens, and I could very nearly believe I heard the soft tones of your voice as truly as my heart heard your thoughts.
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Sometimes I imagine not only your voice but your presence. Perhaps you are lying still asleep in the chapel, about to wake, and waking smile at me, as you did not smile then but surely would now. Perhaps you are sitting sweet and serious listening to the preacher speak. Perhaps you too wander awhile in the woods, bare feet sinking into the soil. Perhaps you too run and dance when there is no one to see you. It rained again yesterday, and I sat once more in the chapel. Without a letter to bear me your voice, I imagined you there with me, slipping in the door, clothes wet, eyes wild and happy, free to come and go as you please.
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The duties that once were mine are now yours. I find I share them gladly, though not as gladly as I would share my present duties. The trees are bare now, all things are bare, the truth stark and without disguise. Will you not come to me?
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What strength do I have to endure it, to remain patient, waiting like the stones of the chapel for your return? Each joy, each delight of the senses is so much the less, without someone to share it. Never before did I truly want something, solely for myself, and not because it was my duty only. And so never before have I tasted misery.
It is as though your beauty and your goodness have laid chains upon my heart, so grateful am I that you are here (or there, with Eliduc), and alive, and that the world should have a flower of such beauty; this burden of gratitude is such that I can never be free of it, can never wish to be free of it, but must long always to make it heavier yet, to have that much more for which I owe gratitude, by seeing again your face, you figure, the way your mouth shapes its words.
My spirit languishes in your absence; your presence would be sweeter than honeycomb. What in this world can be pleasing to me without your presence?
§
And thereafter Guildeluëc received Guilliadun, welcoming her as a sister, and both of them prayed for Eliduc, and wrote frequently to him, although they never again met him in this life. And the Britons of that time made of the tale a lay, that it might not be forgotten, although that which lay between Guildeluëc and Guilliadun was largely omitted as unimportant, and it was not until many years had passed, and all three were long since dead, that Guildeluëc's letters were discovered and the whole matter brought to light.