Timshel and the Big Toe

Dear Juliet

I was going to write more about Glenfinnan today as I felt I'd already said as much as I should say. I was also slightly unsure why I was feeling so relaxed and even unemotional about it all...

Then I remembered one of the original philosophical bases of Drusilla's Roses, itself reaching back to the time I'd first read about it ca. 1980 and before that to 1952, when it first appeared in print.

In John Steinbeck's East of Eden.

In it, Lee (the Trasks' Chinese cook, housekeeper and scholar) queries the translation and meaning of God's order banishing Cain from Eden for killing Abel:

In different versions of the Bible, it appeared that God either promised or ordered Cain to conquer sin. The exact meaning was unclear, so Lee went to the Lee family HQ in San Francisco and asked the great scholars there to try and extract the definitive meaning from the original Hebrew in order to work out exactly what God said to Cain.

And what they came up with was this:

Timshel.

Thou mayest.

"Thou mayest rule over sin."

In other words, God gave Cain and humanity choice. The choice whether or not to conquer sin. In essence, the free will to which I previously referred in Let Me Help by saying "whatever you wish, my lady."

The precise meaning of this is so important it's not true. You absolutely have the right to make whatever choice you wish, and I cannot interfere with your free will.

However, after all these years I will admit I don't want you to burn your big toe off...

In Drusilla's Roses, Dru makes the choice to change and embrace goodness on Gibson beach:

"As the sun edged over the horizon, a chuckle had escaped Dru’s lips, rapidly followed by a full-throated belly laugh. A sense of humour was a sign of sanity, and with some sanity restored, she'd run for a cave near the shore, giggling and throwing her gently smoking body onto shadowed sand, rolling onto her side and laughing as she listened to the breakers crashing on the shore.

And very far away, in time with the rhythm of the waves, Dru thought she heard a young girl’s voice, singing sweetly.

Miss Edith, she thought. Is that you?

But the voice just went on, reciting an old Victorian rhyme.

That’s not Miss Edith singing, Dru slowly realised. That’s me.

Why had it had taken her so long to work that out?

Because the sweet child she once was could not cope with her transformation into a demon. The only way for some of her original personality to survive was for it to hide behind the persona of a doll; and there Drusilla the novice nun had stayed for over a century while Drusilla the vampire killed and tortured innocents.

Now, for the first time in many a long year, the vampire regarded the novice and found the strength to compare the gentle girl she had been with the monster she had become.

It was almost impossible to reconcile the two, but she found that sweet voice very soothing. It was like clear river water running through her head, and she did not want to lose it.

She had watched the ocean from the dark all that day, trying to heal her mind, striving to make the tumbling images which had jumbled her brain for so long sharpen and coalesce.

But the madness was still with her and the devil remained resolutely on her back. She sobbed and raved and searched for a way to hold on to that sweet voice of hers, but it was an uneven battle, fought out between a demon and a woman already dead. Late in the afternoon, she even tried mouthing some words from her old Latin rosary.

Halfway through the Lord’s Prayer, it did occur to her that as a creature of evil, she was taking a hell of a risk. She had heard of other vamps who’d tried it combusting on the spot.

That struck her as funny all over again and she’d giggled over her Latin verbs.

Dru, old girl, how else are you going to try and get yourself killed today? Find a nutty Christian cult, tell them you’re the essence of evil, hand them all stakes and suggest they have a poke?

She had laughed until she hiccupped, but that sweet little voice had strengthened. The young girl’s high voice merged with the older, deeper cadence of the demon, and in a husky contralto, they had whispered to her that they were one.

I am Drusilla, she thought, human and vampire, little girl and wizened whore, young novice and old killer. I am myself again.

(Roses, p. 27)

She had felt the balance of power shift from evil towards good as Willow activated every potential; and even as the demon possessing her recoiled in horror from this, the voice of sweet Drusilla the novice strengthened still more, and she found herself smiling.

Is this what it was like for you, my William? she thought. Making the choice, loving the good?

Could it be this way for me?

What a strange, delicious thought!"

(Roses, p. 28)

“ 'You’re a better man than I, Xander Harris,' said Giles.

'You’re embarrassing me so badly I want to barf, Giles,' Xander grinned. 'Why are you okay with helping Dru, by the way?

'Because I’ve come to care for her too, I suppose. What she’s doing also reminded me of the story of Cain and Abel. God counselled Cain that sin lay at his door, and either promised or ordered that Cain would conquer sin. Different translations of the original Hebrew gave the quote different meanings, but I believe what God actually said to Cain was ‘thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin,’ which gave Cain and all Mankind free will. The freedom to choose between good and evil.'

'You’re losing me a bit, Giles, but Dru said vampires had a choice, didn’t she?'

'Yes. When you defended her to us, you reminded me of that. And you were right. Even in her depravity and degradation she, like Cain, has free will and she is trying to choose. Drusilla is evil, Xander, but I’ve gained great respect for her because she’s clawing her way out of hell to rule over her sins.' "

(Roses, p. 68)

Steinbeck blended fiction and reality, I adapted it and set it in Point Lobos and Candlewood Drive.

And that's how it was. I was always a little unimpressed that no Buffy/literary scholar ever commented on Dru's connection to Steinbeck, but the architecture of that connection endures, immutable, eternal and inviolate. They did consider closing Gibson beach but recently reopened it, and Point Lobos and the Carmelite Monastery will doubtless endure well beyond our brief spell of days.

So, no hurry, no worry.

But please don't burn your big toe off!

Love,

James