Occasions of Sin by Elena Graf

Author:Elena Graf [Graf, Elena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780983696018
Google: osfVMgEACAAJ
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Publisher: Purple Hand Press
Published: 2012-10-15T03:00:00+00:00

My beloved Mathilde,

The sun has just begun to set. The great flaming ball floating in a sea of rose and violet is so beautiful that it actually makes my heart ache. The pain is all the greater because you cannot be here to see it. Whenever I see something beautiful, I think of you. You are the very meaning of beauty to me, the very inspiration which leads me to the contemplation of the Divine Mind of God…

Clearly they leaned toward Neo-Platonism. Even more clearly, theirs was an incandescent love—sensuous and passionate. I began to write down the German translation, rapidly filling page after page of foolscap. But as I read further, I became increasingly aware of significant gaps that now seemed too odd to fit my aunt’s explanations. If wars or pregnancies had interrupted the flow of correspondence, which was otherwise as regular as clockwork, why was there no mention of them?

Some hours later, when I laid down my pen, I realized that I had completely neglected my daughter. I found her in the common room where she was playing bridge with the elderly ladies with whom we shared the guesthouse. Obberoth provided a hostel for pious women, mostly widows and elderly noblewomen, who came to Obberoth to find spiritual refreshment. The conversation of the current guests was limited to discussing their physical ills. I dared not reveal my profession for fear of being asked advice. Ultimately, my fears went unrealized. They provided more than sufficient advice of their own. During lunch, I created a state of mental deafness, while I ate my meal of bread and thick vegetable soup.

Liesel decided to pass the afternoon playing German Whist with the ladies. Thus freed of the obligation to entertain her, I decided to walk up to the convent to call on my aunt.

She smiled affectionately. “Come in, my dear. I was hoping that you would call this afternoon.” She sent her secretary for a pitcher of lemonade. As usual, she studied me to gauge my mood before speaking. “I hear from Sister Hildegard that you requested the original letters of Mathilde von Obberoth and Margarethe von Raithschau.” Of course, the librarian, being a dutiful nun, had felt obliged to report my outrageous request to her superior.

“I intend to translate them into German so that Liesel might read them.”

“Why not encourage your daughter to better her Latin so that she might read them in the original?”

“She’s not the scholar I was, and to be perfectly honest, it’s really for myself that I wish to translate them. I need a project to occupy my mind, and this one benefits others—students of medieval history, the lay sisters who lack the facility with Latin, as well as my daughter.”

“How can I argue with that tidy bit of rhetoric?” asked my aunt, with one of her shrewd, little smiles. By then the lemonade had arrived, and she poured a glass for me. “Why can’t you make do with a copy?”

“I’m not convinced the copies are accurate or complete.

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