Ophelia
Authors: Lisa Klein
Ophelia
a novel
LISA KLEIN
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
A Conversation with Lisa Klein
Reading Group Guide Questions for Discussion
Awards and Acclaim for Ophelia
To my parents,
Jerry and Mary Klein
St. Emilion, France
November 1601
My lady:
I pray this letter finds you in a place of safety. I write in brief, for few words are best when they can bring only pain.
The royal court of Denmark is in ruins. The final fruits of evil have spilled their deadly seeds. At last, King Claudius is dead, justly served his own poison. Hamlet slew him with a sword envenomed by the king himself. Queen Gertrude lies cold, poisoned by a cup the king intended for Hamlet. It was the sight of his dying mother that spurred Hamlet's revenge at last.
But the greatest grief is this: Your brother, Laertes, and Prince Hamlet have slain each other with poisoned swords. I have failed in the task you set me. Now Fortinbras of Norway rules in our conquered land.
Forgive Hamlet, I beg you. With his dying words he charged me to clear his wounded name. Believe me, before the lust for revenge seized his mind, he loved you deeply.
Also forgive, but do not forget,
Your faithful friend and seeker,
Horatio
The letter leaves me stunned, dazed with fresh pain so that I cannot even rise from my bed.
I dream of Elsinore Castle, a vast stone labyrinth. At its center, the great banquet hall, warmed by leaping fires, where courtiers passed like lifeblood through a heart, where King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude reigned, the mind and soul that held the whole body together. Now all fire and all flesh are but cold ashes.
I dream of my beloved, the witty, dark-haired Prince Hamlet, before he was taken from me by madness and death.
In my mind's eye the green orchards of Elsinore appear, ripe with sweet pears and apples that bent the branches and offered themselves to our hands. The garden where we first kissed, fragrant then with sharp rosemary and soothing lavender, now lies blasted and all withered.
Through my dream gurgles the fateful brook where I swam as a child and where the willow boughs skimmed the water's surface. There I met my watery end and began life anew.
I see myself and Hamlet on the mist-shrouded battlements, where an unseen ghost witnessed our embracing, then turned Hamlet's mind from love to vengeance. I see the fearsome face of Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, who murdered his father and married his mother, my dear queen Gertrude, whom he poisoned.
Alas, my Hamlet is dead! And with him all of Elsinore ruined, like Eden after man's fall.
I, Ophelia, played a part in this tragedy. I served the queen. I sought to steer the prince's course. I discovered dangerous secrets and fell afoul of the tyrant Claudius. But how did it come to this end, the death of all my world? Guilt consumes me, that I should live while all are lost. That I could not divert the fated course.
I cannot rest while this history remains untold. There is no peace for me while this pain presses upon my soul. Though I have lived only sixteen years, I have known a lifetime of sorrow. Like the pale moon, I wane, weary of seeing the world's grief, and I wax again, burdened with life. But like the sun, I will dispel the darkness about me and cast a light upon the truth. So I take up my pen and write.
Here is my story.
Elsinore, Denmark
1585-1601
I have always been a motherless girl. The lady Frowendel died giving birth to me, depriving also my brother, Laertes, and my father, Polonius, of her care. I had not so much as a scrap of lace or a remembered scent of her. Nothing. Yet by the miniature framed portrait my father carried, I saw that I was the living image of my mother.
I was often sad, thinking I had caused her to die and therefore my father could not love me. I tried not to vex or trouble him further, but he never gave me the attention I desired. Nor did he dote on Laertes, his only son. He cast his gaze everywhere but on our faces, for he was ambitious to be the king's most valued and secret informant.
We lived in the village of Elsinore in a fine house, timber-framed with mullioned windows. Laertes and I played in the garden my mother had kept, the beds growing wild after her death. I often hid among tall rosemary bushes, and all day I would carry the pungent scent about me. On hot days we swam in Elsinore's river where it meandered through a nearby wood, and we captured frogs and salamanders on its grassy banks. When we were hungry we stole apples and plums from the marketplace and darted away like rabbits when the vendors shouted after us. At night we slept in a loft beneath the eaves, where on cold nights the smoke from the kitchen fires rose and hovered beneath the rafters, warming us.