Maudlin; Or, The Magdalen’s Tears

If faith is a tree that sorrow grows and women, repentant or not, are swamps, a man who comes for solace here will be up to his knees and slow getting out. A name can turn on anyone. But say that a woman washes the dust from a stranger’s feet and sits quite dry-eyed in front of her mirror at night. The candle flame moves with her breath, as does the hand of the painter, who sees in the flame his chance for virtuosity. She lets him leave her shoulder bare. Bedlam’s distilled from a Mary too, St. Mary’s of Bethlehem, shelter for all the afflicted and weak of mind. The donors conceived of as magi no doubt. The mad and the newborn serve equally well for show. A whore with a heart, the rich with a conscience, the keepers of language and hospitals badly embarrassed at times by their charge. The mirror refuses the candle, you see. And tears on another’s behalf are not the mirrors he’s pleased to regard. Who loves his ironies buxom and grave must hate the foolish water of her eyes.