Knowledge Is Power
I know you all.
I am not the naive girl I was. I have watched you for seven years with the cold eyes of an outsider, and I know you very well. I have learned.
I know you, your jealous hearts, your small souls. I call some of you friends, I call some of you sisters, and I watch you watching me out of the corners of your eyes, waiting for me to crack. You will wait a long time.
I know you, how you love your power over these people. Oh, you tell yourself very pretty stories and you think yourself righteous; but I know. I have seen your face, when you look into my cold eyes and realize that you can't cow me. That I answer to God, not to you. I am not afraid of you, and so you hate me.
I know you, maman. You love me, but you envy my youth, you fear my cold eyes and the things I say, and you hate me because you can't control me. Even while you planned to marry me away, you wanted me to be still the biddable child. But she was lost to you, seven years ago.
I know you, m'amie, very well indeed. You, who love me best and most truly of all in this forsaken place, who comfort me, who dry my secret tears. I can trust you -- in private; but you, even you, will only trust me so far.
And I know you, your sullen looks, your half-spoken suggestions, the arrogance you feign and the vicious streak that you hide. God help me, a naive girl admired you once, your strength and self-sufficiency, and the kindness you showed her, such kindness as you understood. And yes, even, a woman has watched you sometimes, and wondered... But I have learned; I know you now. You don't love me. You want me. You need me in order to prove whatever it is you have to prove.
I know that fire in your eyes, and it frightens me half to death.
But you will not break me, none of you; not with fear, or guilt, or kindness. I don't have the courage to leave, nor to tell you what I think of you, but you will not break me. I am strong enough for that.
I know you all; but you don't know me.