NASA Image of the Day

Friday, March 9, 2012

Max was the only one who never judged Madame. It was unspoken. Despite the fact that she was, as a woman, completely alien - almost freakish - to his understanding of her traditional role as a woman - even beyond the understanding or capacity of her own family, removed as she often was from them, in various ways - he adored her, understood her within the confines of professionalism, and, in a world which did not either respect or give recognition to, her efforts, brave as they were, he knew, offered her the unquestionable loyalty which her sacrifices, deep as they had been, demanded, and deserved.

There was no else he trusted more than her, and the man who questioned her, he did not trust. It was a fierce love, born of life and death, trial and tremble, ache and agony, and in it he placed all of his ardency. Her expectation was nothing but implicit trust, without question - and, he knew, she got it, for reasons he could never explain. He thought of his beautiful daughter, destroyed by a bomb, who, Madame had said, she "just could not get to in time, dammit", and smiled, softly, to himself. That it was a sacred, fiercely protective, no gossip, fierce-to-death circle of knowingness, he also knew well. He could never explain why. Some things were beyond the simple fact that they were what they were....and that was all.

That this was beyond money, or self, some people would never understand. But there were a very gentle, very quiet, very loved few, who still would, forever. And those, she loved beyond compare.....