We waited, neglected.
That we could be kept in this way, and as long as others wished, became clear to us.
Who were these men, that they could treat us in such fashion?
What could we be to them?
We had not even been permitted to look upon them. I was afraid to learn what they looked like, but I wanted to know. I did not think they were animals. I thought they were human. I wondered if they were fully human. Why did they not permit us to look upon them? Could they, for some reason or another, be so terrible to look upon? Who were they? Or, what were they? They seemed men, to be sure, but they did not seem men in the sense, or in the ways, in which I had grown accustomed to think of men. In some senses they seemed quite different. Who, or what, were they? I wanted to know, desperately. But, too, I was afraid to learn.
We knelt there, learning our unimportance, understanding more and more clearly our vulnerability and helplessness, and experiencing sensations, unusual and troubling sensations, sensations which were very deep and profound.
Then the men were amongst us again, and one stood quite close to me, a bit to the left, before me.
He was perhaps a yard from me.
The chain on my neck extended to the collar in front of me. I could feel its weight, and I could feel, at the back of the collar I wore, the weight of the chain there, leading back to the collar behind me.
I could see the heavy bootlike sandals.
He was to the left of the chain before me, almost at the shoulder of the preceding item on the chain.
My head was down. I dared not look up.
I began to tremble.
But I held position as well as I could.
He was close!
In whose power were we?
I heard voices before me, down the line, in order, approaching, and heard, shortly thereafter, one after the other, gasps, and soft cries.
I kept my head down.
I was terribly frightened, and terribly aware of the presence of the man before me.
“You may lift your heads,” I heard. “You may look upon us.”
I lifted my head and gasped. I cried out, softly, in inarticulate, unrestrainable sound, one of incredible relief, even of joy, one consequent upon the release of incredible tension, one consequent upon the discharge of an almost unbearable emotion.
He was human!
He smiled and put his finger to his lips, a gesture that warned me that I was not to speak, a gesture with which I was familiar, from my own cultural background. I did not know if it were native to him as well.
I heard the voices continuing behind me, and, down the line, more gasps, and cries.
I looked up at the man near me. He was not now looking at me, but, rather, looking back, behind me, down the line.
Perhaps I was not important enough to be looked at.
But I looked at him, wildly, drinking in all that I could. He was strikingly handsome. It took my breath away, to look upon him. But this handsomeness, you must understand, was one of strong, powerful features. It was not the mild, pleasant configuration which in some localities, such as those with which I was more familiar, those more germane to my own antecedents, was often mistaken for the quality. There was a ruggedness in the features. He was handsome undoubtedly, even strikingly so, as I have indicated, but this was in a simple, direct, very masculine way. He had seemed kind. He had smiled, he had put his finger to his lips, warning me to silence. He was a large, strong, supple man. He had large hands. He had sturdy legs. The legs disturbed me, for they were strong, and, in the tunic, brief, course, and brown, much revealed. He wore the heavy bootlike sandals that I had noted before. These, with their heavy thongs, or cords, came high on the calf. This footwear somehow frightened me. Its seemed to have a look of menace or brutality.
I was unutterably relieved that he was not looking at me.
I had never seen such a man!
I had not known such a man could exist!
I did not know what I could do, or would do, if he so much as looked at me. I wondered, though I attempted to prevent the thought from occurring, sensing its immediate and inevitable appearance, what it might be to be in his arms. I tried to put such a thought from me, but I could not do so. It was more powerful then i. It was irresistible. I shuddered. I knew that, in his arms, I would be utterly helpless. Indeed, if he had even so much as looked upon me, I feared I might have begun to whimper, beggingly. Could this be I? What was I? What had been done to me? How was it that I could be so transformed, and so helpless, given merely the sight of such a man?
But then, frightened, I looked wildly ahead, and about. So, too, it seemed, were the others. I looked at the other men. Again I gasped, startled. Again I was shocked. Again I could not believe what I saw. The fellow before me was not unusual, it seemed, though, given my previous acquaintance with men, surely I would have thought him quite unusual, if not unique. The other men, too, in their way, were strong, handsome fellows, and that, too, in an almost indefinable, powerful masculine way. This much disturbed me. They were dressed similarly to the fellow near me. They, too, wore tunics, some of them sleeveless, and, invariably, the same sort of sandals, sandals which might have withstood marches. Where was I, I wondered, that such men could exist?
Again I looked up at the man near me.
Then, suddenly, he looked down at me.
I averted my eyes, in terror.
Never before anything had I felt myself so much what, irreducibly, now undeniably, I was.
I trembled.
It might have been not a man, but a beast or a god, or an animal, a cougar, or a lion, in human form.
The only relation in which I could stand to such a thing was clear to me.
Some other men passed by me, going to one part of the line or another. Some of them carried leather quirts. Others carried whips.
Then they began, along the line, and behind me, to talk to us. They did so quietly, soothingly.
The fellow near me crouched down beside me. He turned my head, gently, to face him. I looked into his eyes. He put his left hand behind the back of my neck, over the metal collar, and the fingers of his right hand lightly over my lips. I was not to speak.
“You have no name,” he informed me.
I did not understand this, but his fingers were lightly over my lips.
He then stood up, and looked down at me. My eyes were lifted to his.
“Do you wish to be fed?” he asked.
I looked up at him, frightened.
“You may speak,” he said.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Do you wish to live?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Then he looked at me, frankly, appraisingly, unabashedly. I had never been looked at like that in my life.
It seemed he would regard every inch of me.
I could not even understand such a look.
Or did something in my understand it only too well?
Suddenly, piteously, I rose up from my heels, and, still kneeling, of course, lifted my hands to him. Tears coursed from my eyes. I wept. I could not control myself. I could scarcely speak. But he seemed kind. He must understand. I knelt before him, in helpless petition. “Mercy,” I wept. “I pray you for mercy!” I clasped my hands together, praying him for mercy. I lifted my hands to him thusly clasped, in desperate prayer, piteously. “Please!” I wept. “Please!”
He looked down at me.
“Please, I beg you,’ I wept. “Mercy! I beg mercy! Show me mercy! I beg it! I beg it!”
His expression did not change.
Then I felt unutterably stupid. I put down my hands, and my head. I sank back to my heels, my hands, in their metal wristlets, on my thighs.
I looked up at him, and then put down my head again.
“I am not to be shown mercy, am I?” I whispered.
“Not in the sense I suspect you have in mind,” he said. “On the other hand, if you prove superb, truly superb, you might eventually be shown a certain mercy, at least in the sense of being permitted to live.”