Chapter 11

Interview with the two Sibyls

In my moment of weakness when I let those two women tempt me with a look at my past, present, and future, I could not have imagined that I was giving them all the time they needed to prepare for me a lifetime of torment. But the die was cast. I went to tell them what I’d seen, the effect these visions had produced within my soul, and asked them what curative charms they might employ for me. They promised they would consult their magics and rid me of these apparitions, but my restoration was not their chief concern: they were more interested in prolonging and increasing my suffering. It would not take me long to see their duplicity. Earlier, when I had been considering ending my life, they gave me false hopes and destroyed my resolution by reminding me of all the promises we so-called friends had made each other. I gave thanks to providence for this clarity. 

My time in the countryside let me focus only on my future, distancing my thoughts from escaping from my persecutors. Of course, I wanted to reduce my suffering, to whatever degree that was possible. Perhaps by moving away from my home, their power over me would weaken, and they would go on to use their art on some other unhappy soul, but I could not escape their watch. I traveled some fifteen miles away, but the power of those two villains reached far beyond what I ever thought possible, and any hopes of lessening my pain became pointless.