Month: August 2015

You’re in love with her. It’s probably the hopeless ferocity of your love that impels you to stand firm, to refuse her refusal–she who has, on the one hand, succeeded spectacularly and, on the other, consented to what must be, at best, a chilly and brutal marriage. You can’t simply relent and walk back out of the room. You can’t bring yourself to be so debased.

According to rumor, he was abused by his father, the last King. But that’s the story people always tell, isn’t it, when they want to explain inexplicable behavior?

According to rumor, he was abused by his father, the last King. But that’s the story people always tell, isn’t it, when they want to explain inexplicable behavior?

The miller, poor, foolish, doting father that he is, never expected his daughter to be locked into a room full of straw and commanded to spin it all into gold by morning, any more than most fathers expect their daughters to be unsought after by boys, or rejected by colleges, or abused by the men they eventually marry. Such notions rarely appear on the spectrum of paternal possibility.

The miller, poor, foolish, doting father that he is, never expected his daughter to be locked into a room full of straw and commanded to spin it all into gold by morning, any more than most fathers expect their daughters to be unsought after by boys, or rejected by colleges, or abused by the men they eventually marry. Such notions rarely appear on the spectrum of paternal possibility.