I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

And now, racked with sobs, I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.

I felt as if this pain would never be appeased, that it had me in its grip for ever, that it would prevent me from devoting myself to anything else, and that I was allowing it to do so.

It was certain that I would die untouched, and I wanted to satisfy my curiosity at least.

They’d wanted something all their lives, but now they had it, they didn’t recognise it.

I sensed I was being invited to participate in the life of the past, in that world they spoke of together and which I now saw they no longer intended to exclude me from, even though I already knew that I’d never be able to enter it.