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12 WWW. UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ГРУДЕНЬ 2012 there is a barely discernible change, and then it begins all over again: “Take pity on an unfort u- nate woman, and God will repay you!” My entire body, from head t o my toes, is assaulted by that howling. I try not to pay atte n- tion to it, to turn a deaf ear. It is no use! “Take pity on an unfortunate woman, and God will repay you!” The howling has taken root within me, it sticks fast to me, and I listen to it atte ntively, nervously, indeed, with an avidity bordering on madness. “Wonderful! Wonderful!” my lips whisper with an indescribable sarcasm. “Wonderful!” And, irritated to the quick, I fling my pen on the table. Perhaps she will finally stop! I listen with bated breath for one minute, two, three, and then I hear: “Take pity on an u n- fortunate woman, and God will repay you!” It is enough to drive a person mad! I rush up to the window to take a look at her. It is as if something is forcing me to look at her. There she is! She is sitting in front of the little bridge that leads to the market, and she is howling. “No, let people say what they will,” I think, “but it truly is an act of sheer kindness that begging has been forbidden. This curse still exists in small towns, even though there is help for the poor there as well. But I'll put an end to this. I'll fling some money at her to silence her, or to make her leave, or to make her at least beg in a beggar's tone, or to... or to... Oh! May you be struck dumb! ” “Take pity on an unfortunate woman, and God will repay you!” I fly into a rage... and smile malevolently. Grabbing my hat, I fly towards her. She is sitting with her profile turned in the direction from which I am approaching. As soon as she hears my footsteps, she falls silent. Her emaciated, hunched body — with her head lowered to her chest and her hand outstretched — instantly tenses. I slow my pace, wanting to get a good look at her. Her face, seen in profile, is wasted and yellow as wax, but young and exceptionally sy m- metrical. It is buried in her chest, and I still am not able to see the upper part of it well; the lower part is marked by a deep pain that has long since become numb... Now she raises her head to me. It seems to me that she raises it much too high, and I see — she is blind, totally blind. Long, silky, dark ey e- lashes cover her eyes... Staring at her with horror, with shocked dismay, I hastily place my money in her small, sunburned hand. Her bloodless, closed lips twist sorrowfu l- ly, as if in a smile. “May God bless you, my dear young man! May God bless you a thousand times! I've been sitting here since the first rays of the sunrise which I can't see, and will never see, and you're the first to take pity on me. May God bless you!” I ree l with an ineffable feeling of shame. Engl ish translation by Roma Franko; edited by Sonia Morris Reprinted with permission from But...The Lord I s Silent: Selected Prose Fiction by Olha Kobylianska and Yevhe - niya Yaroshynska . (Women's Voices in Ukrainian Liter a- ture, Vol. IV) Saskatoon, SK, Canada: Language Lanterns Publications , 1999 . Pp. 4 - 6. The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~ Anaïs Nin I woul d hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all. ~ Richard Wright, American Hunger , 1977 The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. ~ Norbet Platt Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~ William Wordsworth The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. ~ Jules Renard, "Diary," February 1895 Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we? ~ Terri Guillemets
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