Re: Psuedocyesis (Lithuania/Poland, part 1a/8)
anonymous
March 1 2010, 00:01:59 UTC
The book is in French, Lithuania notes, as he opens it up and squints at it. Adam is always giving him books. Sometimes he enjoys them, sometimes he want to throw them across the room, but they all make him think, which he thinks is the point. "An understandable conclusion, from the mess we've made of civilization," he says.
He didn't mean to sound that bitter. He didn't.
He covers it up as best he can, turns his voice thoughtful to ask, "What do you think? Do you agree?"
Adam touches his shoulder; it feels like there's strength flowing into him from the touch. It's an illusion, but it's a pleasant one. He owes the Familia so much, he knows. They fight to hold the Commonwealth together, when it seems as if all others have thrown up their hands in depair and sit in their country houses waiting to be conquered. "I think, Pan Rzeczpospolita, that you should not be so swift to give up hope," Adam says, his voice gentle, the voice of a worried friend. "You are still a great nation, beloved of your people. You'll weather this war, if it comes near."
He is a man; what can he know of the cares of nations? All the worries that Lithuania has not spoken of come rising unbidden in his throat, and he swallows them all down before they can emerge. The world feared me, once. Now my army is falling apart, my kings a series of disinterested incompetents, my Seym a murder of squabbling crows pecking at the corpse of our dreams, and all that remains are the poets, who sing of what beauty is left in my fields and forests and who but make it harder to have a care for politics and conquest. I miss the gods I forsook for the sake of one who loves me, but who will not learn, who does not even see the ways that she has made me over to resemble her. I even think in Polish, now, when I am in the cities. And I love her, regardless.
My wife has been pregnant for ten years, and every day I pray for her to miscarry. Nations do not have children; we have sucessors.
Some of this Lithuania need not speak of; Adam knows it. Some of this, he cannot speak. So he puts on his smiling face and asks if there will be room for him at dinner. There always is.
He didn't mean to sound that bitter. He didn't.
He covers it up as best he can, turns his voice thoughtful to ask, "What do you think? Do you agree?"
Adam touches his shoulder; it feels like there's strength flowing into him from the touch. It's an illusion, but it's a pleasant one. He owes the Familia so much, he knows. They fight to hold the Commonwealth together, when it seems as if all others have thrown up their hands in depair and sit in their country houses waiting to be conquered. "I think, Pan Rzeczpospolita, that you should not be so swift to give up hope," Adam says, his voice gentle, the voice of a worried friend. "You are still a great nation, beloved of your people. You'll weather this war, if it comes near."
He is a man; what can he know of the cares of nations? All the worries that Lithuania has not spoken of come rising unbidden in his throat, and he swallows them all down before they can emerge. The world feared me, once. Now my army is falling apart, my kings a series of disinterested incompetents, my Seym a murder of squabbling crows pecking at the corpse of our dreams, and all that remains are the poets, who sing of what beauty is left in my fields and forests and who but make it harder to have a care for politics and conquest. I miss the gods I forsook for the sake of one who loves me, but who will not learn, who does not even see the ways that she has made me over to resemble her. I even think in Polish, now, when I am in the cities. And I love her, regardless.
My wife has been pregnant for ten years, and every day I pray for her to miscarry. Nations do not have children; we have sucessors.
Some of this Lithuania need not speak of; Adam knows it. Some of this, he cannot speak. So he puts on his smiling face and asks if there will be room for him at dinner. There always is.
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