Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross
No. No. No, don’t… don’t say that.
He should be surprised.
He isn’t.
In everything that has happened, Orestes still has a very firm grasp on fate. There is a part of him that expects a lifetime of punishment for his lifetimes of failures. There is a part of him that understands he will forever bear the burdens of Atlas—
if only Atlas were a man.
Orestes steps back and does not meet her eyes, this harbinger of his, this beloved and forgotten piece of his life. He understands but doesn’t. He knows but doesn’t. At last he says, “I can’t take it back. I’m sorry. I wish I could.” And, at that, at the idea I wish I could, Orestes’s voice strikes like a flint.
At last Orestes raises his eyes. It is what he has been preparing to say for a year; it is the one thing he had hoped he would never have to say, because it isn’t enough. “I’m what’s left of him, anyway—and… I’m sorry.” Orestes’s voice cracks on the apology. He says, in a voice ravaged with everything he cannot express, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
