Till We Have Faces: Part 1: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

There is only one small, high window in the room where Psyche is held. She sits on a bed with a lamp, and Orual throws herself upon her. Psyche comforts Orual and worries about her injuries. This strikes Orual as painfully different from their usual relationship. Psyche knows what she’s thinking and calls her “Maia,” the name she called Orual when she was little. Orual says she wishes she could take Psyche’s place. Psyche forces Orual to tell what the King did to her, though Orual says the King is nothing to them.

Psyche smiles and sits tall, frightening Orual. Psyche reminds her sister that the Fox always told them to pity the bad people around them who do not know good from bad. Orual doesn’t want her to talk that way. Psyche wants her to promise not to kill herself, for the Fox’s sake. Though Psyche feels the King is a stranger to her, she asks Orual to give him whatever message would be polite and proper. Orual urges her to curse Redival, but Psyche pities her instead, telling Orual to give her any of Psyche’s jewelry that Orual doesn’t care about.

Orual weeps in Psyche’s lap, wishing Psyche would cry in hers instead. Psyche says that because they have divine blood, they must be brave. She admits that the only thing she fears is that there might be no god of the Mountain or Shadowbrute, and she might just die of exposure. This thought makes her cry, and Orual feels better being able to be miserable with her.

When Psyche calms down, she says that the Priest of Ungit has visited her. She wonders if the Fox’s view of the world might be faulty. He calls the world a city, but Psyche wonders what must be outside the city, providing nourishment and danger. Orual says the gods are ruining their lives, but agrees that the Fox is wrong. He thinks that there aren’t gods, or that they’re superior to humans, but in fact they are real and horrible. Psyche suggests that the gods’ actions might not be what they seem, and she wonders how she will marry a god.

Even though Orual would die for Psyche, she feels angry with her for being so calm and seeming not to mind saying goodbye to Orual. Orual insists that Psyche is being murdered. As narrator, Orual recognizes that she should have encouraged Psyche to imagine she would wed a god, rather than be eaten by a Brute, but she can’t help raising the worst possibilities. Psyche says she does realize she’ll probably die, but being eaten and marrying the god might somehow be the same thing. There’s so much unknown. Orual doesn’t think marrying the Brute would be any better than being eaten by it. Psyche insists they shouldn’t fear death, and there might even be an afterlife.

Desperately, Orual asks whether Psyche even cares that she’s leaving Orual behind, and wonders if she ever loved her. Psyche insists that Orual and the Fox were the only people she’s been able to love. Orual will follow Psyche into death soon enough, Psyche says; besides, even if Psyche could live, she would only have been married to a king, perhaps one like their father, and so dying and being married are, in fact, similar. Every change in life is like a death, and this might be the best way to go. The happiest time of her life is already over, she says.

Psyche admits, to Orual’s dismay, that she has always almost wanted death. Orual thinks this means that she has not made Psyche happy, but Psyche insists that she wanted death most when she was most happy, looking at the Grey Mountain with Orual and the Fox. Everything seemed to be calling to her to go somewhere else, but she didn’t know where. Orual feels that she has been losing Psyche for a long time. Psyche’s perspective is comforting to her, but Orual doesn’t quite want Psyche to be comforted. She admits this is a sin.

Psyche points out that she’s going to the Mountain, where she always dreamed of a palace. The gods have chosen her for their sacrifice, and she has been preparing for it her whole life, longing to go to the Mountain and find the source of beauty. Although Orual calls her cruel for saying such things, Psyche says she feels like she’s going home to her lover, the god of the Mountain. She asks Orual to wish her well, but instead Orual says that Psyche has never loved her, and she has become as cruel as the gods. Just as Psyche begins to cry, Bardia knocks. To spare the feelings of those who have had similar experiences, Orual does not write of their last embrace.