The Sharp Hook of Love Read Online Free PDF

Abelard said, to succeed as an abbess.
    â€œLet us write as though we were lovers,” he had said, slanting his eyes at me. “Then I shall discern how much you are learning from Ovid.”
    But all the books in the world could not begin to teach what I was already learning from this man.
    To her heart’s love, more sweetly scented than any spice, I wrote to him, from she who is his in heart and body: the freshness of eternal happiness as the flowers fade of your youth.
    â€œHere,” he said, tapping with his stylus the tablet on which I had written my first letter, “you have wished me ‘the freshness of eternal happiness as the flowers fade of your youth.’ ” He smiled but his eyes held a dazed expression, as if staring into a too-bright sun.
    â€œDo you approve of the greeting?” I thought it quite elegant and waited for his praise.
    â€œAs the flowers fade of my youth?” His smile slipped nearly off his face. “In your eyes, I am an old man.”
    I blinked, uncomprehending. What philosopher had ever concerned himself with such things? Who had heeded the wisdom of Socrates before that great thinker grew his beard? Christ himself had not taught until he was nearly Abelard’s age.
    â€œI had thought that, for a philosopher, youth would be a burden,” I said.
    â€œNot if youth is preferred by the woman he admires.”
    A song began to play inside me. I closed my eyes, which always revealed too much. My uncle had flown into ragesbecause of my eyes. “ Chienne! I know what you are thinking,” he would snarl, lifting his hand against me. At Argenteuil, the abbess had read my sullen thoughts and wielded the cane herself, panting, her hand trembling as she’d lifted my skirt to deliver the blows.
    â€œHeloise,” Abelard had said. “Look at me.”
    When I lifted my gaze so shyly to his face, did he behold the girl dancing inside me? Could he hear the music playing so sweetly? At night, alone in the study of my uncle’s house, reading the Porphyry assigned to me and writing my arguments, I would hear that tune begin quietly, as if played by a distant piper, then increase until it had filled me to overflowing and drowned out all thoughts but those of Abelard. How intently he gazed into my eyes as I spoke, pouring out my very soul to him in our long talks. Who had ever listened to anything that I said? Who had ever responded with smiles and compliments? With him, I became utterly myself as never before—and, to my astonishment, when I looked into his eyes like mirrors reflecting myself back to me, I admired the person I beheld there. Thinking of him, bathed in that sweet music, I would take up a new tablet and write verses to accompany that tune—words not of feigned love, as in our letters, but of the elation that had seized me on the day we met, and which aroused my spirit more with every moment I spent in his presence.
    For him, I’d told myself, our letters made up an elaborate game of elocution, and no more. Every teacher played similarly with his scholars, writing letters as an exercise, an amusement. Love? What had a philosopher to do with love?
    To one who is sweeter from day to day, is loved now as much as possible and is always to be loved more than anything. Standing in the cathedral, reading these words, I felt a fullness in my chest, as though my heart expanded. Who had ever loved me?
    In the next instant, I berated myself. Abelard had written as a master to his scholar, from the mind and not from the heart.
    Now I feared I would miss my chance to speak with him today at Bernard’s sermon. Perhaps he stood in the processional outside the cathedral doors. I slipped the tablet into my pouch and turned my head to see—and heard his deep, rich laughter, already so dear. My pulse skipped a beat. There he stood, not far from me, also in the nobles’ section, with a woman whose braids, shining from under a