In Which Agathe Dismisses the Purpose

February 4, 1205

"Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I thought your translation was wrong but... I don't know." Agathe sighed. She did not doubt Eldona. In moments when she might have, she'd scanned passages of the original diary for common words, and they matched well enough to what she guessed to be their translated counterparts from what she could tell. "It's not what I was expecting, I suppose--not that I know what I was expecting."

"It's fine. Really, I don't know what I was expecting it to be either, but I thought it might have been more than that. Or less than that, perhaps."

"Less?" Agathe frowned. She didn't know her sister-in-law well enough to guess about her inner workings, but Eldona certainly said some odd things every now and then. "What could be less than that? Every page either devolves into nonsense or was nonsense to begin with."

"I don't disagree, but you must admit--some of the imagery is quite striking, and very specific. It's even clearer in the original Greek, if you'll take my word for it. It's madness, yes, but... madness with a purpose."

"What purpose could madness have? You know what my mother was like. You know her madness treated Searle. Surely there wasn't any purpose in that."

"I know--and believe me, I'll never find her actions toward him any less than downright repulsive." And if truth could truly spark in the eye, then Agathe saw it in Eldona's, but there was something else as well. Curiosity, maybe. Sympathy for the devil, perhaps. Some enlightened understanding that even villains could bleed. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to study the original text a while longer."

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