CHAPTER FOUR (finally the story!)
Memucan chafed under the relentless taunts that sprang from the tongue of his woman. She could work a point more deftly than his barber could wield the razor. The difference being that her thrusts were precisely calculated to draw blood, while the other took utmost care never to do so. If it had been exercised on another, perhaps he would have admired her skill. She should have worked as the Vizier’s attorney. Nothing, absolutely nothing, escaped her sharp eye. Undoubtedly, she had settled upon the fact that her divine commission in life was that of making a steady diet of his dignity. Memucan had tired of poking around for some way to be rid of this blight on an otherwise enviable life. Endurance was the highest peak to which he grappled time after miserable time. In short, the dreary conclusion was, barring direct merciful intervention from the gods, he would never be free from this implacable life force.
He was a man of renown, to be feared and revered; chamberlain and counselor to the king; one of the first ears the king sought, and first tongue to whom he gave credence.
There was no reason to live stretched and torn in the torment of this domestic rack. This had been his counsel to himself. The wiseman’s own prescription. But to move his hand to rid himself of this woman would release a torrent of gossip in the court. He had never liked being the center of any controversy; such matters were distasteful to him and frankly below a man of his stature and dignity. And, worst of all reasons, he had to admit he still held some lingering affection for her. It had long since been buried under mountains of resentment and confrontations, but like a miraculous survivor of some natural catastrophe, he knew it was still there. And he felt she was probably living the mirror image of his condition. They were two opposing outpost sentries at the wall of a demilitarized zone, eyeing each other daily, longing to fraternize, but separated by uncrossable chasms composed of uniforms, oaths, and whispered pacts understood only by the few that wielded power in far away comfort.
Memucan dreamed of a law that could solve his conjugal impasse. But he didn’t dream much, because he could conceive of no such thing. It was into the midst of this stalemate anguish, that the gods themselves rolled a golden apple.
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