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The ways open to her for finance, for action, were completely doorless. The
avenue stretched out to the horizon.
She fought bravely but she just didn't take action.
She was an actress for the theatre alone.
And she died of it. And she let Bolivar die because of it.
Never once did Manuela look about and say, "See here, things musn't go
this wrong. My lover holds half a continent and even I hold the loyalty of
battalions. Yet that woman threw a fish!"
Never did Manuela tell Bolivar's doctor, a rumoured lover, "Tell that
man he will not live without my becoming a constant part of his entourage,
and tell him until he believes it or we'll have a new physician around
here."
The world was open. Where Theodosius, the wife of Emperor Justinian II
of Constantinople, a mere circus girl and a whore, ruled harder than her
husband but for her husband behind his back-and made him marry her as well,
Manuela never had any bushel basket of gold brought in to give Bolivar for
his unpaid troops with a "Just found it, dear" to his "Where on Earth . . .
.?" after the Royalist captives had been carefully ransomed for gaol
escapes by her enterprising own entourage and officer friends. She never
handed over any daughter of a family clamoring against her to Negro troops
and then said, "Which oververbal family is next?"
She even held a colonel's rank but only used it because she wore man's
clothing afternoons. It was a brutal, violent, ruthless land, not a game of
musical chairs.
And so Manuela, penniless, improvident, died badly and in poverty,
exiled by enemies and deserted by her friends.
But why not deserted by her friends? They had all been poverty-stricken
to a point quite incapable of helping her even though they wanted to-for
she once had the power to make them solvent. And didn't use it. They were
in poverty before they won but they did eventually control the land. After
that why make it a bad habit?
________________
And so we see two pathetic, truly dear, but tinsel figures, both on a
stage, both far removed from the reality of it all.
And one can say, "But if they had not been such idealists they never
would have fought so hard and freed half a continent," or "If she had
stooped to such intrigue or he had been known for violent political actions
they would never have had the strength and never would have been loved."
All very idealistic itself. They died "in the ditch" unloved, hated and
despised, two decent brave people, almost too good for this world.
A true hero, a true heroine. But on a stage and not in life. Impractical
and improvident and with no faintest gift either one to use the power they
could assemble.
This story of Bolivar and Manuela is a tragedy of the most piteous kind.
They fought a hidden enemy, the Church; they were killed by their
friends.
But don't overlook how impractical it is not to give your friends power
enough when you have it to give. You can always give some of it to another
if the first one collapses through inability. And one can always be brought
down like a hare at a hunt who seeks to use the delegated power to kill you-
if you have the other friends.
Life is not a stage for posturing and "Look at me!" "Look at me." "Look
at me." If one is to lead a life of command or a life near to command one
must handle it as life. Life bleeds. It suffers. It hungers. And it has to
have the right to shoot its enemies until such time as comes a golden age.