The Dreams

Dream 55

The debate raged between a man, a woman, and her five sons about the right of the mother — who had passed her sixtieth year — to enjoy life and love.

The argument pierced the walls and became the talk of all the neighbors.

Some said it was a spurious love between an old woman and a young man the same age as her children, who was greedy for the money she’d inherited from her late husband. Others declared that a person must accept whatever they get from life — and especially, from love — even if the price be high. The affair seemed a disaster to the woman in the eyes of her five sons. They wound up murdering their wayward mother and going to the dock for it — accused of planning the crime and carrying it out together. In the investigation, arguments raged whose recurrent themes were motherhood and filial piety, honor and dignity, reputation, and respect for traditions.

I still can recall their faces and their words. Just as I remember the deceased woman when she defied the years and the wagging tongues to go her own way — so dazzlingly, seductively dressed and perfumed.