Lee, Tanith - The Reason for Not Going to the Ball

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TANITH LEE - The reason for not going to the ball

MADAM:

The girl will have brought you this, the one you trust. Before you tear it into pieces,

remember, never before has she done you a disservice. Rather she has helped you.

And, I must tell you now, she has been a friend also to me. This is not to make you hate

her. It is to make you pause for a moment. To ponder that, if I have sent her to you, and

she has aided you, can I have tried to aid you! Please, therefore, read a little further.

Perhaps, say to yourself, you will read until I am cruel or insult you, or ask you for

something. That is fair, I think. Of course, you suppose, as how should you not, that I

have given you only evil. Your world is colored now by trouble, which seemed to begin, I

would imagine, with me. But, beautiful Princess, let me have a little time. I promise, I will

at least invite your thoughts. And if you read here a word of mine against you -- throw this

letter in your fire.

Where to begin then, conscious you may lose patience. Shall I provoke your pity? No, for

how could you pity me, the wicked step-mother who thrust you from your adoring Father,

raised her two ugly daughters over you, exiled you to the dungeon of the kitchens to

sweep up the dirt. And finally, worse -- withheld you from the famous ball. But then, you

went to the ball, despite my efforts. Consider that. Consider what that glorious night has

brought you, and read on.

When I was thirteen, my father, a gambler, sold me to a man who offered to pay all the

debts. I was very beautiful -- so I can speak of she I was, for she was another and not I.

The rich man wed me in a modest clandestine service, and then, for a month, he set

about me. You know of rape. Naturally you do. I knew nothing. I was terrified. And before

I had even grasped what he had done to me, I was with child. When I grew big he was

encouraged. He thought I carried a son. But no, it was two daughters. Four days it took

me, it took them, to free ourselves from each other. I almost died, and so did they.

Probably from this cause they were so ugly. Or else, it was from their father, a hideous

man like a gigantic goblin. But they did not have his nature. No, they were in

temperament like my own mother. Sweet and gentle, full of laughter. And loving.

Well, you already think me a criminal. Why dissemble? I poisoned the goblin wretch in

my twenty-seventh year. He had begun to beat me by then, as he beat his servants.

When I could not hide them, he beat his -- my -- daughters. There was a clever groom.

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Lee, Tanith - The Reason for Not Going to the Ball

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