"Old Broodviol smoothed his face, and said, 'This perhaps will not be so difficult. I will explain the marvel. Every man and woman among us is a walking murderer. If a male, he has struggled with and killed the female who was born in the same body with him - if a female, she has killed the male. But in this child the struggle is still continuing.'
"'How shall we end it?' asked my mother.
"'Let the child direct its will to the scene of the combat, and it will be of whichever sex it pleases.'
"'You want, of course, to be a man, don't you?' said my mother to me earnestly.
"'Then I shall be slaying your daughter, and that would be a crime.'
"Something in my tone attracted Broodviol's notice.
"'That was spoken, not selfishly, but magnanimously. Therefore the male must have spoken it, and you need not trouble further. Before you arrive home, the child will be a boy.'
"My father walked away out of sight. My mother bent very low before Broodviol for about ten minutes, and he remained all that time looking kindly at her.
"I heard that shortly afterward Alppain came into that land for a few hours daily. Broodviol grew melancholy, and died.
"His prophecy came true - before we reached home, I knew the meaning of shame. But I have often pondered over his words since, in later years, when trying to understand my own nature; and I have come to the conclusion that, wisest of men as he was, he still did not see quite straight on this occasion. Between me and my twin sister, enclosed in one body, there never was any struggle, but instinctive reverence for life withheld both of us from fighting for existence.