I
Abelard’s classrooms hummed with insight, he introduced logic seductively, and illumined charges of revision.
Walking the sodden streets, virgin thoughts bounded beside him. Devoted to the altar of God and son, renewed, he undid the racky syllabus grown musty.
Heloise, niece of a lord restraining her thoughts, whispered to her classmates wanting changes.
She released will o`the wisp from papers of antiquated hubris and looked for a guide, a teacher, who espoused possibility in all, any willing man, woman immortal , entire.
Only a solitary saint testing women's waters witnessed her abrupt conversion in his lecture, when, at the podium, she saw the half of herself she thought she'd never find, fast in his eyes.
Clarity spoke to both; beyond breath, they forsook all to sigh's effusion, love streamed agua pura freshets lucid as words that hold their own rain.
II
they embraced often out of view of Fulbert, her uncle, who had appointed Abelard her tutor. As an irascible pedant, Abelard kept interlopers away from their lessons, filled with classic books and brimful hearts. Last to know, Fulbert, dark, forbidding fortress, caught them in flagrante delecto, and pronounced the shameful affair over and done.
Abelard learned of her pregnancy and proposed marriage to reassure her. she said no, she’d remain a free woman, and not disrupt his career. Disguised as a nun, she went to his sister’s. Fulbert was stunnerd; Abelard pkeade the force of love, infuruiating hime more.
Heloise was put off by “Sweet chains,” his sure monotony at seeing her every day; she didn’t want that prison of love. Fulbert’s threat was too grave, To a convent, to take the habit, but not the veil, so she could easily come out again. Abelards staff betrayed him,opened his door to Fulbert’s thugs, who castrated him, his screaming alerted the neighbors, scholors howled misfortune, his agonized screaming alerting the neighbors. Scholars howled misfortune, women there showed him profound tenderness.
They both shared shared shame and sorrow; shame, not conviction, turned Abelard to the monastery. Abelard began to teach again, loose of any temptations. Through Bishop Troies, Heloise became the first abbess of the Paraclete Abbey; became child, sister, mother, in the world for the rest of her days. She could not, end all contact with him, as letters show. Theological snipers followed Abelard, unsuccessfully. In his last retirement, he encountered great kindness, no jealousy for his learning. He died in 1142;
Heloise lived another twenty years, and continued her studies.
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