Regina Ullman: The Country Road

That was what her fate had decided for her. Unspeakably harsh and yet mild, denying and refusing and yet giving, indeed, casting all of this upon her. For such understanding is a great gift. Of course, as her thoughts wandered into the gray cloth she wove, they often turned to the single street of that small market town, and the bench, yes, the bench. And the old man and the house. But she wove without impatience, in the course of the slow growth of time itself, until the street finally became a street, the bench let her pass by unscathed, and her child’s cloister waved to her from this pious embroidery. She had the good fortune that after these years had gone by, the two poor women who had rented her house grew old, and had to find new quarters elsewhere. So she could move in without any trouble. But first she rang the prefect’s bell to claim her child. She knew this girl. It was just as she had imagined. The way that she stood there with her little suitcase, grown and yet still a child. But a pure, uncompromising child, whose weakness had been transformed into her strength. She had no need to bid a formal farewell to the prefect, for at the moment her departure was only a transition from one cloister to another. And there was no kiss for the reunited mother and daughter, in its place was a mutual reverence. A kiss is something that belongs at the end of life.