Chapter 15
“Reflection”
We seem to be at somewhat of an impasse, having left Godric back at his camp with his arm bleeding. The three sisters have vanished, presumably back into the lake, Raissa has disappeared for the nonce (I have always wanted to say that); Philip is sleeping soundly in the old oak, Aspen, the horse, is sound asleep as well, close to the tree.
However, before we attend to our heroic Prince and his bleeding arm, we need to consider briefly the mirror, the door out of the tower in the beginning, the way in which Godric first saw the lovely Princess, Elesandra. The imp (of the perverse?) that lives in my machine insists that that is how you spell her name. I thought it was Elisandra but who am I to argue with the imp (of the perverse?). In either case our Prince met her through the looking glass, to use a familiar term, not quite accurate here, but close.
The problem is in the nature of the thing, the tall mirror, for what does a mirror really do? It reflects our own image, our self. So, does that mean that everything that happens to a character who steps into or through a mirror is in some sense stepping into a world that reflects his own desires and concerns? I would suggest that it certainly might. I’m not certain about the protagonist in George MacDonald’s Lilith (delightful story), but here that is true. Godric, in a sense, is in a world that reflects his own desires and abilities, and that is especially true about the Princess. Godric knows nothing about her, except that she is very beautiful and has a strict and somewhat severe father. Godric’s wish was simply to be a suitor. Does that mean that Elisandra/Elesandra is not real? Not necessarily! Godric has an image of a woman in his imagination; the mirror reflects his image and off he goes. The Other, of course, at this point is merely a reflection. She has no substance about which to speak.
(I hate ending sentences with prepositions: “to speak of.”)
A real woman has two selves, so to speak. There is the reality that makes her who she is in all her messy, complicated femininity, her thereness, or “thisness”: basically, she can be loving, kind, loves dogs, has a terrible temper, but she’s prudent, loves growing flowers almost as much as she loves dogs, enjoys classical music, especially Mozart; she likes to eat, steak, for example, pizza, pasta, etc., drinks coffee with one sugar, likes beer, doesn’t like desserts; wants children, preferably girls but boys would be fine too. The list could go on. She’s an interesting, complicated person. Let’s for the moment call her Raissa.
Then, however, there’s the other self, the woman she was meant to be, the woman, Raissa, who exists in the mind of God, the woman she ought to be. That reality always is present too, and she’s either growing towards that reality, or falling away from it. She knows the goodness; the lover sees it in her. It’s what Dante sees in Beatrice when he meets her on the streets of Florence (Firenze); absolute goodness shining through her; the presence of God’s grace, walking the streets of medieval Italy; it’s also the dilemma Troilus encounters when he sees Cressida in the Greek camp, being unfaithful with Diomedes: “ This is and is not Cressida,” he says. Cressida betrayed the vision Troilus had of her, her reflected goodness (is), and had also to face her fallen, sinful betrayal (is not). Both are true about her, about everyone, men and women, or so it seems to me.
Now, back to Godric, on his blanket, bleeding from the demon-inflicted wound. First, he attended to the wound, finding some antiseptic in his well-stocked knapsack, well it was when he and Philip set out, though I can’t quite remember where he got it. He cleaned the wound and wrapped his arm in a strip of clean, thin white cloth. He had tape to mend the leather jacket, and when he finished with it, he carefully and gingerly slipped it on. He looked out into the moonlit night, seeing the rippling moonlight reflected in the lake water disturbed by a slight breeze. He acted as if he expected to find the woman beside him, but she was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to him that she was more real than the Princess he had set out to find and serve. Where could she be, he wondered, stretching out on the blanket and pulling the shorter blanket over him. Even though treated, the wound was beginning to burn and was making him feverish. He closed his eyes and immediately fell into a deeply troubled sleep.
He and Raissa were swimming in the cool waters of the nearby lake. The sunlight glanced off the water and reflected off her shoulders. They were swimming to shore when he saw the head of a large mottled, black and yellow snake swimming towards them. He cut in front of the woman just as the water snake struck at her shoulder. It sank its fangs into Godric, withdrew them quickly and rippled its way across the surface. Godric could feel the fire in his shoulder and a certain paralysis take hold of his legs and arms. His chest constricted, he had trouble breathing and started to slip under the water. Raissa put her arm around him, over his chest, trying to hold him above water and take him to shore. It was no use. He slid out from under her arm and slipped beneath the surface.
Godric was walking in a dark woods, looking for the green-eyed, dark haired woman. He called her name and saw her duck behind a distant tree farther into the woods. He started to run towards her, tripped over a large root growing across the forest path. He fell, striking his head on a rock beside the path. Just as he saw her start back towards him, he felt a sharp pain in his right arm. He looked to the side of the path in time to see the tail of a serpent disappearing into the underbrush. Raissa knelt down beside him as all turned dark within.
Godric and the girl were walking on a cliff above the shore of a blue lake. They were holding hands, looking at one another, as well as out over the beautiful calm lake from moment to moment. The bright sunlight danced over the rippled surface of the water and reflected up towards them. Godric saw a patch of yellow flowers growing near the edge of the cliff. He thought to pick one for Raissa, thinking how lovely it would be in her dark hair. He let go of her hand and stepped to the side of the cliff. He looked down at the water below him; a large, Bald Eagle skimmed the surface of the water, extended its claws, bringing a good-seized rainbow trout out of the water. Godric looked back at the yellow flower, started to put his hand on the stem when a burning pain in his arm caused him to lurch forward, lose his balance, and tumble off the cliff. He heard Raissa scream as once again his world turned dark.
Image: two selves has the woman, both lovely and bright, one as God sees her, the other not quite. Not quite Raissa either, but close. All right. This woman is an actress in a TV series, Inspector Manera. Her name is Roberta Giarrusso. The image on the right (long hair) is from her character in those episodes, Lara. She left during the second season. Alas!
