“Am I pretty?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Am I beautiful?” she asked.
“That would be a judgment,” said I, “best made by masters.” And then I added, maliciously, “-when you are stripped on a slave block.”
“Am I beautiful?’ she pressed.
“I would think so, yes,” I said.
She put her hands to the throat of her robes, closing them more tightly. “Do you think I might,” she asked, “be beautiful enough to be-to be a-a slave?”
“Shame,” cried I, “free woman,” scandalized.
“Please!” she begged.
“I would suppose so,” I said. “I do not know.”
She drew her robes yet more closely about her. She put her head down, trembling.
“Finish your food,” I suggested.
She again addressed herself to her light repast.
“I thought of stealing some of your food,” I said, “but I did not do so.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“The diet here has doubtless slimmed you,” I said, “but I do not think they are planning on selling you. I think they are waiting for your ransom.”
She kept her head down, eating.
It seemed as though she might have wished to raise her head, to speak, but she did not do so.
I knelt down, across from her.
I was sure she wished to speak to me, but she refrained from doing so.
In a bit she had finished the modest collation I had set before her. She pushed back the empty dish, the drained goblet. It had held only water.
“Doubtless,” I said, “it is not what you were hitherto accustomed to.”
“I am grateful to be fed,” she said.
That seemed to me insightful on her part.
“Is this that on which you are fed?” she asked.
“It is better,” I said. “Often we have only slave pellets and slave gruel.”
“I am sorry,” she said.
“We are slaves,” I said.
I picked up the plate and goblet. I stood up.
“The provender of slaves,” I said, “is designed to keep us healthy, trim, and vital, as the masters want us. It would be the same with other animals.”
“Animals!” she breathed.
“Of course,” I said. “But we get other things, too. The masters may feed us by hand, from their own plates, as we kneel by their tables, or throw us scraps, such things. Occasionally we may be given a candy, a pastry, such things. It depends on the master.”
She nodded, frightened.
I turned to go.
“Please!” she said.
I turned back to face her.
“Slaves are exercised, are they not?” she asked.
“We must exercise, yes,” I said. Such is important for muscle tone, improvement of the figure, responsiveness, and such. We are not permitted to neglect such matters. Masters would not permit it.”
“You are very clean,” she said.
“We are not free women,” I said. “We must wash frequently. We must keep ourselves pleasing, in so far as we can, for masters.”
“I am miserable,” she said.
I looked at her, puzzled.
“I have been cramped in for so long,” she said.
“This cell is large,” I said.
“I feel dirty,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Look at me!” she said.
I regarded her.
“I’m filthy,” she said.
“Yes,” I admitted.
Her clothing, perhaps the very garments in which she had been originally captured, had, in her continual wearing of it, in her sleeping in it, in its contract with the floors of cages and cells, and such, become much soiled. It was thickly begrimed with weeks of wear and filth. Too, it was wrinkled, and faded, and torn. She was, in these things, a sorry sight.
How different was her appearance now, I thought, from what it must have been when she had long ago entered the fateful shop in Besnit.
“I must smell,” she said.
“I am a slave,” I said. “It would not be wise for me to notice.”
“I must smell,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” I admitted.
She looked down, miserable.
“Do not be afraid,” I said. “It is not as though you were a slave. You are a free woman. It is not as though you must, under discipline, groom yourself, attend to your appearance, keep your body clean, such things. Have no fear. Your neglect of such things, as you are a free woman, will not be punished.”
“Perhaps,” she said, softly, to herself, “I would that I were such that I might be punished for the neglect of such things.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing!” she said. She shrank back, putting her finger tips to her lips, as though she might have chided them for what they, sweet, unwary guards, had permitted to pass their portal.
I stood there for a moment. I thought she might have wished to speak further. But she said nothing.
I then turned about, and went to the door of the cell.
“Janice!” she called.
I turned about again, and once more faced her.
“May I call you ‘Janice’?”
“It is my name,” I said.
“This morning,” she said, falteringly, “you licked-and kissed-the feet of a man.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I have never licked and kissed the feet of a man,” she said.
“You are a free woman,” I said.
She regarded me.
“It is a not uncommon act for a slave,” I said.
“It is surely very symbolic,” she said.
“There are many symbolisms involved,” I said. “It is not merely that it is a way in which a given woman makes clear her relation to a given man, that she is his slave, that he is her master. It is far more than this. It is, for example, a way in which our femininity avails itself of an opportunity to express, in the particular act with a particular master, something far broader and more profound, its deference toward, and its submission to, the very principal of masculinity. In this way its significance extens far beyond a particular couple. It has to do with men and women, and masculinity and femininity, and the order of nature itself.”
I saw her tremble. I did not understand her agitation.
“Janice!” she cried.
But she did not speak.
“Janice,” she then whispered.
“Yes,” I said.
I saw that this would not be what she might first have thought to say. To be sure, it would perhaps be related.
“I fear a guard is coming!” I suddenly exclaimed. “Quickly hide your face!”
She looked at me.
“Quickly, quickly!” I said.
Hurriedly she muffled her features in the veil, holding it in place with both small hands.
“No!” I said, suddenly. “He has gone another way! But I fear I must get back, quickly. I must return the key to the pit master.”
She lowered her hands, and the veil.
“You were slow to veil yourself,” I said. “He might have seen.”
“Perhaps I should have let him see,” she said.
“Do not be shameless!” I said.
“You are not veiled,” she said.
“Nor should I be,” I said. “I am naught but a slave.”
“Do not go yet!” she begged.
“Stay on your knees,” I said.
She remained on her knees.
“Janice!” she called.
“Yes?” I said.
“I would be exercised!” she said.
“It is difficult to exercise in the robes of concealment,” I said.
“Perhaps something else might be devised,” she said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“You must wash somewhere,” she said.
“There is a cistern,” I said.
“Might I not, too, be permitted to was there,”
“Slaves wash there,” I said. “Animals.”
“I do not mind!” she said.
“Perhaps I cold take you there when it is not being used,” I said. “I would have to speak to the pit master.”
“Please, please do!” she begged.
“Very well,” I said.
“Janice!”
“Yes?”
“I want to be your friend!”
“There can be no friendship between us,” I said. “You are free. I am a slave.”
“I am not so different from you!” she said.
“I am far from free!” I laughed.
“That is not what I meant,” she whispered.