Lunchtime read: Helena

Helena stands by her man and watches as he starts to live a different life from her indulging himself with a mistress and taking part in a religious cult. They don’t meet that often and their relationship seems to exist through their son.

Finally after years of waiting he is made a Caesar to step into the shoes of men who have been optimistic and then killed on a regular basis. He tells Helena his news and then in the next breath informs her is remarrying and that she is not to see more of her son, who will now begin his political education.

She is forced to live alone and has lost the red shine of her hair and has grown old being a faithful wife at the side of a man who seems to have been only motivated by power.

Still suffering from some language problems with phrases like “beastly” creeping in making it all seem to be like a scene from 1930s Britain on occasions.

More tomorrow…