Neither of them had realized the gift their isolation and struggle had
been, or how much more complicated love becomes when lives are
sheltered, and hearts confronted by a baffling array of choices.
Perhaps that was why, as Smith had remarked to Kalus, the well-off never
seemed to be much in love, but only to play at life. His love with
Sylviana had been simple and direct, a beautiful and necessary outgrowth
of their world. Now their reality had been altered, and something
precious lost.
It should also be said that in dealing with a dark, embittered soul like
William's (and to a lesser degree, her own), Sylviana was every bit
as naive as she had been about the primal, life and death existence of
the Valley. Had she known for one minute the vicious hatred that he
held for her, or the imminent danger of the course she was now pursuing,
she would have fled from him and never looked back.
Because to William she had become a symbol of all the protected,
thoughtless sheep whose blind acceptance of personal comfort and
political ruthlessness had made the destruction of the Earth and the
murder of his love possible, even inevitable. He would listen as she
spoke of her days at Ithaca, and of her soft and sheltered childhood,
with apparent interest and appreciation, all the while choking back his
passion, and plotting her destruction.
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