With men, as you know,
this is otherwise. They, too, love, by Nature's law, but always
behind there is something greater than love, although often they
do not understand what that may be. To be powerful, therefore, a
woman must be one who does not love too much. If she cannot love
at all, then she is hated and has no power, but she must not love
too much.
"Once I thought that I had found such a woman; she was named
Mameena, whom all men worshipped and who played with all men, as
I played with her. But what was the end of it? Just as things
were going very well she learned to love too much some man of
strange notions, who would have thwarted me and brought
everything to nothing, and therefore I had to kill her, for which
I was sorry."
Here he paused to take some more snuff, watching me over the
spoon as he drew it up his great nostrils, but as I said nothing,
went on--
"Now after Mameena was dead I bethought me that I would rear up a
woman who could still love but should never love a man and
therefore never become mad or foolish, because I believed that it
was only man who in taking her heart from woman, would take her
wits also. This child, Nombe, came to my hand, and as I thought,
so I did. Never mind how I did it, by medicine perhaps, by magic
perhaps, by watering her pride and making it grow tall perhaps,
or by all three. At least it was done, and this I know of Nombe,
she will never care for any man except as a woman may care for a
brother.
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