While the tears of wrath streamed down my cheeks, and the fire mounted in me, Jeanne was caressing me, imploring my forgiveness. Suddenly I broke loose.

"No, let me go!" I screamed. "I despise you. I never want to look at you again. You think you are a man and as good as a man. But you are not. You can love like a man, but can you fight like a man? Let me go, Jeanne D'arc. You are only a woman after all and can do nothing but knit and pray. I want a man that will fight for his King and for me... "All this I said in my rage. I wish my tongue had been carried away by the vultures before I had spoken those words.

For Jeanne put me gently from her, and firmly. Her head was high.

"I can fight like a man, Hauviette Massenet, and I will do it. You shall see that I will do it!"

The next morning when I awoke, her place beside me was empty. I never saw her again. From then on she became a legend, a myth. From afar I heard of her, and I had to comfort her weeping mother. But we never saw Jeanne again. We heard how she had gone boldly to the famous De Metz and through him gained her way to the Dauphin of all France. How, with some outrageous story, about which I smiled inwardly, she had persuaded them to give her an army, and how she led that army to victory.

And then, one 30th of May, Madame and Monsieur D'arc made a pilgrimage. They went to see their daugher Jeanne, their famous daughter whom the world called The Maid of Orleans, tied to a stake and burned until her ashes were lifted with the wind.

I sat in my room at home... but I was not generously treated... I could not die.

I MISSED YOU

I missed you once a thousand years ago.

And through the ages-

Along an underground pipeline,

A corrugated tunnel

I miss you still.

Miss you, want you, yearn for that cool damp warmth―

The thoughts, the words of minor chording,

The black and white of gray today.

And yet, I'll miss you still

A thousand years from now.

JOYCE FELD

15